Sweet Surprises (13 page)

“You're making a lot of plans without asking me if I'm cool with them.” She stalked into the hallway, came back a moment later with a jacket in her hands and a backpack over her shoulder.

“I run two restaurants. I'm used to making quick decisions about a lot of things.”

She raised a brow, the deep red of it perfectly matching her hair. Her lashes were red, too, a lighter shade, and they made her eyes seem an even deeper blue. “So?” she demanded.

“So, are you cool with them?”

She hesitated for a moment, her gaunt face about three shades paler than he thought it should have been. “I guess I am. I'm sick of the smell of chocolate, and the thought of cleaning out one more marshmallow pan makes me want to puke.”

“How do you feel about sirloin burgers with sautéed onions and fresh greens? Maybe some steak fries to go with them?”

“I feel like I could eat a dozen. Of each.”

“Good. That's what I was planning to make for Belinda before she announced she had plans.”

“You don't mean you're going to cook for me?” She sounded appalled, but he didn't give her time to think about it. He opened the door, hurried her out into the cool, crisp night.

“Why not? I've cooked for hundreds of people in my lifetime. One more isn't going to make a difference. Besides, Angel is home tonight, and she needs meat to keep that kid growing right. You want to take one car or two?”

“Two, but—”

“You know where the church is, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“I'll meet you over there.” He climbed into the truck and closed the door, waiting while she walked to her Chrysler and got in. Her headlights went on and she pulled out of the parking lot, driving slowly through the town she must know as well as she knew the back of her hand.

That was the thing about Benevolence: you could leave it for years and come back, and it would still be the same. A few houses might be different colors, the foliage might be more mature, maybe a few of the people would have changed, but the town itself—the easy vibe of it, the slow pace and community sense of it—that didn't ever change.

As a teen, River had been too young to appreciate it. He'd been too brash to think that traditions had meaning, too caught up in his need for success and independence to ever think he'd want to be tied to a place like this.

Now?

He wasn't so sure.

He'd made a lot of plans that were going to take a lot of time to come into fruition. Freedom Ranch, as he envisioned it, would be a tourist attraction
and
a place for locals to gather. It would be that one place people remembered and returned to year after year. He could hire people to fix up the farmhouse, till and plant and harvest the land, raise the chickens, the beef, the sows. Sure, he could do that. He could bring in crews and teams and managers just like he had in his restaurants, but that was a sterile approach to something that had to be deeply meaningful. In a town like this, that was what mattered most: the meaning behind a thing, not the thing itself.

That was something to keep in mind when things got hectic. He knew they would. They always did when shakeups occurred. In Benevolence, anything different from the status quo was a shake-up, and what he was proposing was more than different. It was an entirely new way of thinking about tradition, an entirely new moneymaking avenue.

People were going to fight it.

River was going to fight back.

He was going to win.

Hopefully, when everything was said and done, the people in town would thank him for it. He had a feeling that was going to be a long, long way down the road.

They spied on Belinda and Byron for ten minutes, standing at a window outside Benevolence Baptist Church's reception hall and watching as an elderly man with a cowboy hat and a long white beard wheeled Belinda around a cake table. She looked happy. The guy looked happier.

Byron looked besotted.

Brenna could see him in the corner of the room, a cup of punch in one hand, his other hand in the pocket of one of his snazziest sports coats, 1920s vintage. She'd bought it for him two Christmases ago. When money hadn't been tight and she'd been able to afford things like clothes, house payments,
food
. Laurie was just a few inches away from him, a pretty blue dress floating around her trim figure. She looked as besotted as Byron seemed to be, her face soft with affection as she leaned down to whisper something in his ear.

From where Brenna was standing, there didn't seem to be one person in the church who didn't have somebody to stand or sit or walk around the cake table with. Interesting, because there also didn't seem to be one person under the age of sixty in the room.

A splash of rain fell on her cheek and she wiped it away, the coldness seeping through her skin and settling deep in to her bones. She'd need to dig a coat out of her suitcase. She'd been living out of her duffel bag, washing clothes every day, happy because she had a small washer and dryer of her own and didn't have to run to the Laundromat, but at some point she was going to have to face the facts: she was in Benevolence for the long haul and she might as well unpack her things and settle in.

“Cold?” River asked, his warm breath fanning her cheek.

“I forgot how chilly it gets at night this time of year.” She zipped her jacket—as if that was going to help—and took a step away. They'd seen what they'd come to see: two people they cared about obviously having fun. No one was hurt, crying, or desperate, and the night was playing out the way Byron and Belinda had both wanted it to. A sweet little church and an old-fashioned cakewalk, and there Brenna was, standing on the outside looking in and almost wishing she were part of it.

How sad was that?

Pretty damn sad.

She sniffed back tears and told herself she was tired from all the time in the shop and all the drama of being back home. She had no other reason to cry. Her bank account might still be empty, but she had a nice apartment with a comfortable bed, warm clothes, and enough chocolate to keep her from starving. She was more fortunate than most of the people in the world.

“What's wrong?” River asked, his hands sweeping up and down her arms, providing friction and warmth and a tiny zing of electricity that made her pulse leap.

“Nothing.” She tried to smile, knew she had failed. “It's been a long week and tomorrow is going to be another long day. I think we should skip my visit to the ranch. I'll stop by tomorrow after work.”

“Funny,” he murmured, his eyes black in the light seeping out the church window.

“What?”

“I never would have taken you for a coward.”

“Who says I am?”

“Me.”

“Because I've had a long week and want to go home?” She didn't feel sad anymore. She felt pissed, and looking into his smugly superior face wasn't helping.

“Because you're not honest about the way you feel.” His hands slipped from her arms, and she felt colder than she had before.

“You want honesty? I
am
tired. Being in Chocolate Haven all day every day sucks. Everything I touch turns to glue or mud or cement. Poor Byron is losing money hand over fist while he lets me fiddle around in a place I don't belong.”

“Who says you don't belong there?” He put a hand on her waist, and she found herself walking across the churchyard, ducking under the low-hanging branches of a willow tree.

“The pile of trashed candy you tossed in the Dumpster.”

He laughed, lifting a willow branch and nudging her out from under the tree. The cemetery was to the left, the gravestones jutting up toward the cloudy sky. To the right, the church lawn meandered down a gently sloping hill. If they walked down it, they'd be back on Main Street. They walked toward the parking lot instead, and the vehicles they'd left at the very edge of the lot. Misty rain fell, adding hazy halos to street and window lights. The town looked quaint and pretty, the kind of place Brenna would have seen illustrated on the front cover of a book and longed to be part of. When she looked—really looked—at the quiet streets and mom-and-pop businesses, the lovely little churches and the Victorian homes, she yearned to have what Benevolence seemed to offer: family and home and a place to belong.

It had been a long time since she'd felt like she had any of those things.

“You do know,” River said as they reached the Chrysler, “that you can't expect to walk into a chocolate shop and learn the art of candy making in an afternoon, right?”

“Five afternoons. Five mornings. Five very late nights,” she corrected him. “Five thousand lessons from Byron, who really thinks I have
the gift
.”

“He's been making chocolate a long time. He'd be the one who would know.”

“He sees what he wants to see, and because he loves me, what he sees is something much more fabulous than what it is.”

“Don't limit yourself. There's a hell of a lot to learn about candy making and it can't be done in a limited amount of time.”

“Addie did it,” she blurted out, and then felt small and jealous, the younger sister who'd never quite lived up to her older sisters' examples.

“That's not what I heard.” He took the keys from her hand and opened the Chrysler's door.

“What did you hear?”

“That it was the hardest thing she'd ever had to learn to do. Tougher than college and tougher than dealing with your mother.”

“Dang,” she breathed. “That's pretty tough.”

“Exactly.” He nudged her into the car, tossed the keys into her lap. “Come on. Let's get back to the ranch. The council meeting went on way too long and I'm starving.”

He closed the door.

She didn't reopen it to tell him she was going home, that she didn't want to eat sirloin burgers or come up with ideas for decorating Belinda's house.

No. She didn't say one damn word.

She just shoved the key in the ignition, started the Chrysler, and followed him out of the church parking lot.

Fat raindrops splattered the windshield and she turned on the wipers, focusing her attention on the dark road and the taillights of River's truck. She'd never really asked Adeline what it had been like to run Chocolate Haven while Byron was in the hospital. Probably because it had never occurred to her that her organized, efficient, hardworking sister would be anything but stellar at it.

She should have asked.

She should have done a lot of things.

Like come home more than twice while Byron was in the hospital. Like ask Adeline if she needed help.

She'd been busy with her own life: the store, Dan, the fancy little parties he'd always wanted to host. She'd let that be her excuse, and Adeline had accepted it.

She'd deserved a lot more.

Brenna really needed to tell her that, because running Chocolate Haven was no joke. It was probably the most difficult thing Brenna had ever done. And she hadn't even really run it yet.

Monday.

That was the day.

She'd be on her own, making all the treats Byron had been coaching her in. The thought filled her with the kind of cold, hard dread she'd had the day she'd returned to New York City and found her condo empty, that stupid note from Dan lying on the counter:

“Bastard,” she muttered, the Chrysler bouncing onto the long driveway that led to the ranch. The house didn't look any better at night than it had during the day, one lone light shining from the porch, the rest of the house dark and abandoned looking.

She pulled up behind River, parking the Chrysler behind his truck. Before she could get out, he was there, an umbrella in hand, his shirt dusted with raindrops, his hair shimmering with them.

A gentleman
.

That's what Janelle would have said.

Just like your father
.

Had
Brett Lamont been a gentleman?

Brenna couldn't remember. She'd been too young when he'd died, and all her memories were of the sad things. Hospital visits, silent afternoons spent tiptoeing around the house because Brett needed rest. Church services with that empty space at the end of the Lamont pew—the one reserved for a man who was lying in bed, dying of brain cancer.

Brenna remembered those things.

Every once in a while, other memories would pop through: a trip to the pumpkin patch, picking apples at a local orchard, her father's laughter and her mother's contented smile.

It had been a long time since she'd seen that on Janelle's face.

“Angel and Huckleberry must be out. Her car is gone and the lights are off. A miracle, actually, because they usually have every light in the house blazing. Careful on the porch. A couple of the steps still need to be repaired,” River said, his arm slipping around her waist, the gesture natural and easy, as if he'd done the same act a million times before.

Maybe he had.

He was three years older than her. He'd have had plenty of opportunities to date, get engaged, get married.

She eyed his left hand. It didn't look like he was wearing a ring, but a lot of people didn't bother with rings. Heck, a lot of people didn't bother with marriage.

An old-fashioned idea.

That's what Dan had thought. Which was why she'd been surprised when he'd proposed. Surprised and a little appalled. She'd been happy enough to keep things the way they were, a little boring, a little mundane. Marriage meant a wedding, which meant making a big deal about something that hadn't felt all that big.

River must have noticed the direction of her gaze.

He smiled. “Don't worry. There's no one waiting for me back in Portland.”

“Why would I worry?”

“Because you're the kind of person who worries about everything.” He said it as if he knew it to be a fact, and she wanted to be offended, but she couldn't.

He was a straight shooter, a guy who said what was on his mind. She was the same way, so she couldn't hold it against him. “Not everything. Just people's hearts being broken.”

“Because yours was?”

“Not even close.”

“Then I guess it's good you dropped your ex.” He fished keys out of his pocket and unlocked the front door.

“Because my heart wasn't broken?” She laughed nervously.

They were getting a little personal, touching on things she wasn't comfortable with.

Her fault, because she hadn't insisted on going home.

“Because if your heart wasn't broken, it was never invested, and if you weren't invested, why be in the relationship?” He flicked on the light in the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out a package wrapped in white paper. “Grass-fed beef,” he explained, unwrapping the package. “There are potatoes in the pantry closet. Want to grab them?”

“Where . . . ?”

“Right here.” He leaned past, his arm brushing her abdomen as he opened a narrow door. Her breath caught, her mouth went dry, every single cell in her body screaming
this is what it's supposed to be like.

He must have felt it, too.

He paused, his arm against her stomach, his eyes blazing. “Onions too,” he finally said, his voice gruff.

He turned away, busied himself with pans and knives and a bunch of things that had nothing at all to do with whatever had been between them.

Thank God!

That's what Brenna should have been thinking.

More
was what her brain was shouting.

“Idiot,” she whispered, grabbing a bag of potatoes and one of onions. They hadn't come from any store she'd ever been to. These were in white cloth sacks.

“What's that?” he said, and she just shook her head because what could she say?

He eyed her for a few seconds too long, his expression unreadable; then he gestured to the sink. “Go ahead and rinse four of the potatoes. Then I'll show you how I want them cut. This is a quick meal. If we work together, we'll be eating in a half hour.”

“Sounds good,” she said, making sure her voice was as light and easy as his. No way did she want him to know just how much he'd affected her. No way did she ever want to be that vulnerable and weak again.

She didn't even look at the potatoes, just grabbed four from the bag and hurried to the sink, running the water hard to drown out the wild beat of her heart.

* * *

This was probably a bad idea, but River couldn't seem to care. He showed Brenna how to cut the potatoes and how to fry them, helped her sauté the onions and some mushrooms he'd found at a market outside of town. The meal was simple, the ingredients fresh, and the company . . .

Yeah, the company.

He watched as Brenna devoured her second burger and reached for another fry, her cheeks going red as she met his eyes.