HARDER

“
I
t’s hot
, I want a drink. I’m bored. When are we going home?” Lucy whined and I stiffened up in irritation.

“One more house sweetie, or I’m going to end up buying your last case of cookies,” I told her and shut off the engine of our old Toyota.

It didn’t help that it was late August and the heat of the southern town we’d recently made home was sticky and oppressive. I’d gotten it in my head that signing Lucy up for the local chapter of cookie pushers USA would be a good place for her to meet some friends her age, but all it had resulted in was me selling cookies to anyone who would make eye contact.

It wouldn’t be
that
bad if we had to keep the last case, I’m sure I could make quick work of them, not that my thighs needed it.

I clutched the box of cookies in one hand, took Lucy’s in the other and walked up the wide staircase to the double front doors of the mansion.

Of course they’d given me—the poorest of the pack—the richest area in town to try and sell our cookies.

If I had the money, I would have considered buying them all so I could avoid the humiliation of situations just like this.

But I didn’t have the money and I was trying to teach Lucy about community values and such. I obviously hadn’t thought this through; it never occurred to me that I would have to
join
her in the quest for such values.

I sighed heavily and felt Lucy tugging on my hand, impatient, hot and whiny. “I want to go home,” she said.

“So do I. After this house, I promise,” I told her. She was seven and school started a week ago. I tried to be patient with her; we’d been through so much in the past two months. I had to remember that.

I knocked on the massive wooden door and waited.

Lucy fussed next to me, even though she was tired it seemed her body wouldn’t settle into calmness.

I knocked again and waited, then noticed a large ornate doorbell on the side of the doorframe. I pushed it and heard chimes ringing through the huge house inside.

I glanced down and Lucy was gone. I hiked the box of cookies up on my hip and looked around for her.

“Hey, get off the flowers!” a gruff voice called out from the side of the house. “Get out of here!”

I dropped the box and ran. I saw her just a few feet away standing in the middle of an elaborate flower bed with her hands on her hips and her feet planted defiantly in the dirt.

“You can’t tell me what to do!” she yelled and thrust out her lower lip.

“I can tell you to get out of the damned flowers!” a man’s voice came from the shrubs near the base of the mansion.

“Lucy, come here!” I yelled and held out my hand. She bolted towards me and grabbed it, lacing her fingers in mine out of fear.

“You need to watch your kid,” the same gruff voice said. The bushes swayed and a man stepped out.

Anger rose in my chest and I blurted, “Leave her alone!”

The man stood up straight and was much taller than I’d initially thought. He was almost a foot taller than me, at least six and a half feet, and seemed to be made of solid muscle.

My eyes locked on brilliant green ones narrowed in an angry glare. His jet black hair was long enough to be tousled but short enough to be clean cut. His face was perfect, the angular plains of his cheeks stretching in between high cheekbones and a strong, straight jaw. He even had one of those chins I loved, the kind with the dimple that Lucy called a “butt chin”.

If he weren’t being so rude I might have found him incredibly attractive. And if his rudeness didn’t remind me of the man I was fleeing, I might have found him exciting.

“I will leave her alone if she stays outta the flowers,” he growled, staring down at me. He was covered in dirt and was carrying a few gardening tools.

I stared up at him and said, “If you don’t calm down I’ll tell your boss what an ass you’re being.”

He frowned and said, “Go right ahead.”

I marched back up the steps of the mansion with Lucy in tow, rang the doorbell and waited again.

There was no answer.

I looked down and saw the gardener watching me with a bemused expression. “What did my boss say?” he asked.

“I’ll come back,” I retorted. I dropped Lucy’s hand and picked up the case of cookies. I grabbed her hand again and stomped down the steps.

“I want to see the flowers,” she whined and resisted.

“That mean man doesn’t want us to see them,” I told her and opened the car door. I threw the cookies in the back and helped her into the back seat. I strapped her in and shut the door again.

“I’m not mean, I just don’t want the flowers ruined,” he said from right behind me. His voice was softer and held an edge of regret.

I jumped and turned around, my anger flashing brighter this time. He was standing on the steps watching us.

“You are very rude,” I replied, trying to keep the quiver from my voice. He was so tall and strong; he could hurt me badly if he wanted to… if he was like my ex.

Instead of acting out, he took a deep breath, ran his hand through his shaggy hair and said, “You’ve got that right.”

I didn’t bother to stick around and help him sort out his feelings, my heart was pounding and the adrenaline was rushing through my body so I jumped in my car and took off out of there.

Even though I’d left my past behind me, it seemed it would be a long time before the sound of a man raising his voice didn’t turn me into a puddle of fear and desperation.

I smiled at Lucy who seemed completely unaffected, tousled her hair and said, “Looks like we’ll be eating cookies for the next couple weeks.”

“
B
rooke
, I’ll need you to work late on Thursday. Kath can’t make it in,” Virginia informed me as I came into work. She was the owner of the diner and boss lady around here.

“I’ll ask Mrs. Rigsby,” I told her. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know.”

“Sounds good,” Virginia smiled and paused before she walked to the office. “Have you sold all those cookies yet?”

“Um no I haven’t,” I replied, doing up my apron and adjusting the collars on my uniform. It was bright pink, polyester and something you’d see in the sixties or low budget porn these days.

“Tell Lucy to bring them into the diner,” she said with a smile. “I do love those Thin Mints.”

“I will, thank you,” I said and watched her leave. She could be a bit of a hard ass at times, but underneath she was big hearted. She’d given me a chance, after all. I’d applied with no experience and no references but she’d given me the waitressing position.

I hadn’t ever really had a job. I’d gotten pregnant at eighteen and had lived under my ex’s thumb for all these years. Rolland had been a handsome and charming man most of the time, several years older and fairly well off, but terrifying when his temper took control.

“What can I get you today?” I smiled and asked the first customer I saw. A regular, an old man who had long since retired and had nothing better to do than meet his old man friends and talk about the good old days.

They were nice folks, but lousy tippers and with me earning minimum wage, I did need the tips.

“You know what I want, sweetheart,” he chuckled. “A cup of coffee and two slices of white toast, no butter.”

“I know Ray, but I like to hear you say it,” I laughed and headed back to the counter to get his toast and coffee.

I heard the bell above the door ring and I said, “I’ll be with you in a moment,” before turning around.

“That’s not necessary, where is Virgie?” a deep voice demanded.

I turned at that, holding Ray’s coffee and toast, and came face to face with the gardener from the other day. “She’s busy,” I glowered and walked to Ray’s table. I set his things down and strolled back to the counter, painfully aware of the gardener’s heavy gaze on me the entire time.

“What can I get for you?” I asked and flipped my notepad open.

“I said I want to talk to Virgie,” he said, giving me a dismissive look.

“And I said she’s busy,” I replied with a flutter of my stomach as his green eyes locked on mine.

“Virgie!” he yelled. “Get out here!”

“You really are the rudest man I’ve ever met,” I snapped and glanced behind me. “What is your problem?”

He looked at me and kept his face expressionless. “I don’t want you to serve me.”

“Why not?” I exclaimed. “You’re going to bother my boss and possibly get me fired because you’re still mad about the flowers?”

“Virgie! God dammit, get out here!” he yelled even louder.

“Jesus Christ Caleb, what is it?” Virginia bellowed from the back room. I heard her grumbling the entire time she moved towards the front of the diner.

The bell above the door jingled a couple times and I knew Ray’s old man friends would be joining him, but I didn’t go to their table. I was too caught up in the drama with the jerk sitting at the counter.
Caleb
, Virginia had called him.

“I need to place a lunch order,” he told Virginia as she hobbled out.

“You could have told Brooke here,” she said, standing across the counter from him with her arms crossed over her chest.

“I don’t want to deal with her,” he said stubbornly.

“Why are you ordering lunch anyways,” Virginia asked. “Another cook up and quit?”

“It seems that way, yes,” he grumbled.

“You need to stop treating people like shit and they’ll stick around,” Virginia replied.

“Hey, sweetheart, could I get a coffee?” Earl called from the old man table. Normally this wouldn’t bother me, but Caleb seemed to rub me the wrong way and make me more than a little irritable than usual.

“I need two BLTs, two soups, two cinnamon buns and two coffees,” Caleb replied, pointedly ignoring her advice. “And throw in a couple dinner rolls.”

“It’ll be about fifteen minutes and they’ll be cold by lunch time,” Virginia said with a sigh. “You want I should bring that around at noon or are you going to wait for it?”

“I’ll wait,” he said and glanced at me and took a table in the corner.

“Suit yourself,” Virginia said reluctantly. She took pride in the food our diner served and I could tell it vexed her that her sandwiches would be cold by the time Caleb and whoever were eating them.

“So that’s it?” I asked her as she walked past. “Seriously?”

“It’s okay,” Virginia said. “Don’t worry you’re not in trouble. It’s not you, it’s
all
him.”

“Sweetheart, I’m dying over here,” Earl barked.

“I’m coming,” I snapped and grabbed a mug, filled it with coffee and stomped over to their table. I set it down and Earl thanked me with a broad smile.

I managed to smile back and all was right in the world again between the old men and me.

The entire time I felt those green eyes follow every move I made and I could barely stand it. I felt tension in my body stringing me as tight as a bow. I hated that he could make me feel this way with just a single look.

I hated that he was such a jerk, and it would have been easier to hate a man like Caleb if he weren’t so damned good looking.

Virginia came back to the counter with his lunch packaged up and ready to go. “Caleb, it’s ready. That will be twenty three fifty please.”

He got up and crossed the restaurant in a few long strides. He reached for his wallet, pulled out a couple twenties, tossed them on the counter and said, “Thanks Virgie. Keep the change.”

Virginia bid him good day and slid the money in the cash register. After he’d gone, she pulled out fifteen dollars, handed it to me and said, “This is for putting up with that ass.”

“Thanks,” I replied, not too proud to slip the money into my apron. “So what’s his deal anyhow? He’s got a pretty shitty attitude for a gardener.”

“Oh honey, Caleb Harder ain’t no gardener. He and his daddy own half this town. You just have to learn how to ignore the bad attitude, is all.”

“That’s more than a bad attitude, that’s like a nuclear explosion of rudeness emitting a mushroom cloud of jerkdom,” I retorted, but it occurred to me that I had moved to Harder’s Mill. I supposed he was one of the Harder’s it referred to and I supposed the joke had been on me the other day. He wasn’t the gardener; he was the homeowner.

She laughed, put her hand on my shoulder and said, “You got that right. But seriously just ignore it.”

“As if there’s any way to ignore a nuclear bomb,” I replied under my breath as she walked away.