Chapter THREE
DARCY DIDN’T WANT to get out of bed, even though she’d been awake long enough so she really needed to pee. But she waited out the sounds of Jake making coffee and taking a shower and the smell of slightly burnt English muffin. There was a horrible grinding sound, as if he’d thrown a bunch of rocks in the blender, and then, finally, the door closing and his heavy footsteps on the outside stairs.
She should have gotten in her car, driven back to Concord and fed Kevin the scary bear story. Even while she was telling herself the chance to be in on the opening of a new and hopefully successful restaurant was a golden opportunity, she knew deep down in some sappy part of her that she hadn’t wanted to walk away from Jake so quickly.
Which was stupid and she knew it. He was a player and he’d played her. And now he was probably playing her some more to get done what needed to be done and save face with his business partner.
But when he was standing out there shivering, covered in goose bumps, but looking at her with those eyes, she’d felt just like she did before he kissed her as if he’d been waiting his entire life to kiss her and she hadn’t wanted to leave.
So here she was, hiding in her bedroom to avoid the awkward sleepy morning moments like who got the bathroom and dancing around each other in the kitchen. Sure, this was going to go well.
After she showered, Darcy turned the toaster setting down slightly and made herself an English muffin and a coffee. He’d washed his mug and the knife, along with the blender, so there were no clues as to what he’d been mixing. Maybe some kind of weird protein drink or something, which would explain the abs.
No thinking about his abs, she reminded herself as she washed her few dishes and set them next to his to dry. Then, dressed in jeans and a Jasper’s Bar & Grille polo shirt with her hair in a ponytail, and feeling a little more like her work self, she went down to face the day.
Because she was only going outside long enough to get down the stairs and in the back door, the key to which she’d found labeled and sitting on the counter, she skipped putting on her coat. She arrived for her first official day on the job half-frozen and cursing the unexpected windchill.
What seemed like acres of stainless steel greeted her. She wasn’t a cook and didn’t know a lot about the different equipment, but it seemed as if Kevin and Jake had spared no expense when it came to outfitting the kitchen. What really mattered to her was on the other side of the double swinging doors.
Of course, the first thing she saw when she pushed through them was Jake. He was standing in the middle of the dining room, scowling down at something on the floor. When he heard the swish of the doors, he looked up and gestured her over.
“Take my hand,” he said when she reached him.
“I’m guessing you haven’t read the Jasper’s sexual harassment policy.”
“What?” Clearly distracted and annoyed, he held out his hand. “No. Just let me hold on to you and I want you to walk in front of me.”
“Fine.” She grasped his hand and crossed in front of him.
On the second step, her foot shot out from under her and only Jake’s grip kept her from landing on her ass on the floor, or maybe even smacking the back of her head.
“I knew it,” he muttered, but he didn’t sound happy to be proven right about whatever he was talking about. “I crushed some ice this morning and put a few piles around the floor to melt. They told me this flooring wouldn’t be slippery when it’s wet.”
“They lied.”
“In my boots, it’s fine. And in snowmobile boots, it’ll be fine. But when the snow starts melting off those boots, the servers wearing sneakers like yours will be going down like bowling pins.”
Darcy knew nothing about flooring and not much more about snowmobiling. “Do they make some kind of absorbent mats we could put under the tables? Maybe attractive ones that look like throw rugs?”
“Maybe we could lay down braided rugs. Homey feel and they’re absorbent.”
“And who’s going to deal with a pile of sopping-wet, heavy rugs every night at closing? It won’t be the wait staff. And they’d never dry completely.”
“Good point. I’m going to have to research options. The amount of snow that might get tracked in isn’t something I’ve ever had to factor into a restaurant plan before. Having a good mat inside the front door’s always important, but snow melting off sledding boots while people eat is a new challenge.”
Darcy was trying to pay attention to what he was saying, but somewhere around researching blah, blah, blah, she realized their fingers were still laced together. His hand was strong and warm and there was something incredibly comforting about the feel of it cradling hers. In fact, when she’d dreamt of him a few weeks back, it hadn’t been the sex her subconscious had returned to. She’d dreamed of walking down the sidewalk with him, hand in hand.
“I need to call Peterson,” Jake said. She knew Derek Peterson, of Peterson Construction, was handling the bulk of the remodeling and handling the various subcontractors.
His hand slid free of hers so easily as he walked away, she wondered if he was even aware they’d been linked. As he disappeared through the swinging doors, Darcy sighed and tried to shake it off. She had work to do, starting with exploring the waitress station setup and seeing how many different ways she was going to make him change it.
* * *
“FOR THE THIRD TIME, Jake, big-ass is not a cut of steak.”
He grinned at her over the slightly burned, formerly frozen pizza sitting on the table between them. It was a very late dinner, so he’d gone for easy. “Sure it is. What kind of steak does a man want? A big-ass steak, that’s what kind.”
“We’re not putting big-ass steak on the menu.”
“Bet you a hundred it would be our top seller.”
When she rolled her eyes and went back to sawing through the pizza crust, he laughed at her, but only on the inside. She was in a touchy mood and it was probably best she didn’t know how much he enjoyed pushing her buttons. It was payback for the list of things wrong with the front end of the restaurant she’d given him. Three full sheets from the legal pad she’d filched from his office. She even wanted the commercial coffee brewing station moved—claimed it was too close to the pass-through window and would cause traffic jams—which meant contacting the electrician about circuits.
“We’ve been at this an hour and all we have is the Jasper Burger,” she said. It was a crowd favorite at the Bar & Grille, so they’d put it on the menu and hope word of mouth spread that far north.
“And a big-ass steak.”
“What about a pasta dish?”
He chewed and swallowed another bite of cheese-and-sauce-covered cardboard, chasing it with a swallow of beer. Screw the pub’s menu. They needed to come up with a better meal plan for themselves. “I’m iffy on pasta.”
“Right, because men like big-ass steaks cooked so rare a good vet could save them.” She sounded on the verge of stabbing him with her fork, so he bit back the grin. “You’re too focused on the sledders. This area’s hurting for dining options, as we know since we’re eating frozen pizza, so some good, reasonably priced family choices will draw in the locals and help keep the place going year-round. The big-ass steak crowd may bring in the gravy, but it’s the spaghetti and meatballs and all-you-can-eat fish fry crowd that’s the bread and butter.”
“If the menu’s too scattered, we’ll go broke keeping all the ingredients on hand.”
“True.” She pushed her paper plate away and pulled her legal pad—which matched his—in front of her.
“How about you make a list of things you’d like to see and I’ll do the same and we’ll see where they cross over and go from there? We’ve both got the Jasper Burger and Jasper’s Big-Ass Steak.”
“Steak cut yet to be determined,” she said firmly.
He made a few notes on his paper. She was right about the fact that he’d been overly focused on attracting the sledders and maybe not enough on building a community restaurant. The residential area was so scattered he wasn’t sure they could sustain a steady business all year long, so his idea was to make as much money as possible during the snowy months and cut down to a skeleton menu and crew during the off-season. But maybe people would be willing to make the drive for a good, affordable night out.
Mostly, though, he watched Darcy making her list. She was cute when she was lost in thought. He could do without the constant tapping of her pen against the paper, but the way she bit at her bottom lip made him want to nibble at that spot, and with her free hand she twirled curls into bits of her ponytail.
She hadn’t said anything earlier, when he’d forgotten to let go of her hand after the slippery floor experiment. She hadn’t pulled away or commented on the fact, and he wasn’t sure what that meant. To him, it just felt natural to hold her hand. But he couldn’t take for granted she felt the same because the last thing he wanted her to do was pack up and leave.
“What?”
Damn, she’d caught him staring. “Nothing. Just staring off into space, I guess.”
She went back to her list and he forced himself to focus on the paper in front of him. It wasn’t working. “Did you know the potato famine lost Ireland about two million people, between death and emigration?”
Looking up from her paper, one eyebrow raised, Darcy shook her head. “No, I didn’t. Where did that come from?”
“Oh. I wrote down French fries.”
“Ah, potatoes. I get the connection.” She started tapping the pen on the paper again. “How did you get to be such a trivia guy, anyway?”
He shrugged. “It was just my mom and me growing up and she had to work, so after school I’d walk to the library and hang out there until she picked me up. After my homework was done I’d pull a random book off the nonfiction shelves and start reading. The almanacs were my favorites because there was a ton of information in little bite-size pieces.”
“You should go on Jeopardy.”
That made him laugh. “I don’t think so. Not a fan of being in front of an audience, and trust me, under pressure I forget every bit of useless knowledge I’ve ever picked up.”
“What happened to your dad?” As soon as she asked the question, Darcy’s cheeks flamed and she waved her had. “Never mind. I take that back. Not my business.”
“No, it’s fine.” He liked that she wanted to know more about him. “He took off when I was young enough not to remember him. I was in high school before my mom got married again, and he’s a good guy. They’re in Vermont, where my stepdad teaches, and I try to visit them a couple times a year. My mom and I have always been pretty close.”
She smiled and warmth rippled through him. Damn, she had a great smile. “My parents live in a small town about forty minutes from Concord. I wanted a little more excitement, or at least the ability to see a movie in an actual theater, so I moved to the city after school. I see them at least once or twice a month.”
“What do they think of you being up here for a month?”
“They’re excited for me. Proud that Kevin thought enough of me to ask me to do it. They weren’t quite as thrilled about me living with a stranger. I should probably warn you I have pepper spray.”
He laughed and scribbled on his pad of paper. “Making a note of that.”
“They like Kevin, so they decided to trust his judgment and not lock me in my old bedroom.”
“Do you think they’ll come up for the opening?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Maybe?”
“You should invite them to the big Valentine’s Day shindig.”
She pointed the pen at him. “I’ve heard you call it a shebang and a shindig and a thing. What, exactly, are you planning for the Valentine’s Day opening?”
“It’s a secret.”
“So, in other words, you have no idea.”
“You don’t think I have a plan?”
She smirked, which wasn’t quite as attractive as her smile, but was still cute. “Is it as good as your plan to serve up burned frozen pizza so I’ll take over the cooking?”
Busted. “I’m pleading the Fifth.”
“And I’m pleading exhaustion. We can work on the menus more tomorrow and we also need to talk about placing an ad. I think it might be good to get one or two really experienced servers in here before opening, and I think we’re going to be buried in applications.”
“I’ll be wrapped up most of the day with Peterson and the fire inspector and a few other things. I’ll try to sneak in some menu planning so we can talk about it over dinner. Which, by the way, is your turn tomorrow.”
“Whatever. Just throw the silverware in the sink and I’ll wash the dishes in the morning.”
While she was in the bathroom, he tossed the paper plates and dropped anything washable into the sink. As long as the day had been, he wasn’t ready to turn in yet, so he flipped on the television and tried to get comfortable on the couch. Thirty seconds later he turned the TV back off and made a mental note to call the cable company. Or a satellite dish company. Any company that could offer him a distraction.
“Good night,” Darcy said as she made the quick trip from the bathroom to her bedroom.
“Night.”
And then there was silence. It was late enough so there weren’t any cars driving by to make road noise that was just enough to drown out the slight creak of Darcy’s mattress as she climbed into bed. The rustle of covers. The small sigh as her head hit the pillow.
He knew she slept on her left side, with her arm tucked under her pillow, because he’d been lucky enough to wake up curled around her, and the memory was slowly killing him.
And it was only the second night.
* * *
DARCY AVOIDED JAKE AGAIN in the morning by staying in bed until he’d left the apartment. The idea of having their morning coffee together, all sleepy-eyed and messy-haired, seemed intimate to her and she wanted no part of that. It was hard enough keeping their arrangement focused on the business.
She’d just finished washing the few dishes they’d dirtied when the phone rang. Kevin had arranged for a landline to be put in before Jake had even arrived, from what he’d said, because cell coverage was so spotty. Spotty being practically nonexistent, of course.
After drying her hands, she picked it up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Kevin.” She was hoping to be a little more settled in—both literally and emotionally—before reporting in to the boss. “How are things going?”
“Good.” That was the truth, more or less. The number of hours she spent tossing and turning, trying not to think about having sex with his business-partner-slash-old-friend Jake, weren’t really Kevin’s business. “We’ve made a lot of notes on the front end and we’re working on the menu.”
“You’ve got the Jasper Burger, right?”
“Number one on the list. Number two being Jasper’s Big-Ass Steak.”
A couple of seconds and then he laughed in her ear. “That’ll sell out every weekend.”
“That’s pretty much what Jake said.”
“I guess I should have told you he prefers Jake.” That would have been nice, she thought. “Nobody but me calls him J.P. and he hates it.”
“So I heard.”
“Any problems? You guys getting along okay?”
“We’ve got a handle on it. Other than his genius plan to coerce me into cooking every night by feeding me burnt frozen pizza.”
“Not much for takeout up there.”
She snorted. “To say the least. The gas station was having a sale on microwave burritos, though, and just in time for my night to cook.”
“Ouch. Is he around, by any chance?”
“He left about an hour ago.”
“He was supposed to call me half an hour ago.”
“Must have slipped his mind.” Seemed to be a problem with Jake Holland.
“I’ll leave a message on his cell so if he passes through a signal, it’ll remind him. Let me know if you have any problems, okay?”
“Yeah. Tell Paulie I said hi.”
“She misses you. Says the new girl can only carry one plate at a time and doesn’t know scotch from chocolate milk.”
Darcy laughed. “It’s nice to be missed.”
They hung up and she debated on whether or not to go downstairs. The menu was her top priority because they needed to have ingredients on hand before they started hiring cooks. Once they’d narrowed the list down to a few choices, she intended to put them through their paces in the kitchen. They had to be able to master the Jasper Burger recipe, and they couldn’t hire anybody who couldn’t cook a perfect big-ass steak.
She worked on it for several hours, playing with and discarding meal ideas. Playing with the pricing. It was tough to balance the two demographics—hungry sledders with a little money to throw around versus families looking for an affordable night out—without a big disparity on the menu. And, as Jake had pointed out, they didn’t want to be overstocked on a wide variety of ingredients right off the bat.
After a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, she set aside the pub’s menu and started a grocery list. They needed real food in the apartment, even if she had to cook it herself, because being limited to things available at the gas station’s convenience store was not only killing her appetite, but wasn’t going to do her waistband any favors, either.
The trip to the grocery store took up most of the afternoon since it wasn’t a short drive, and she was happy to see Jake walking down the apartment stairs as she parked her car. She’d been so focused on stocking their kitchen so she wouldn’t have to make the drive again any time soon that she forgot she had to carry all the groceries up the stairs.
She was barely out of the car before he was looming over her. “Where have you been?”
“Not being a huge fan of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I went to the store and did some shopping. Actually, I like a PBJ sandwich now and then, but not with grape jelly. I like strawberry preserves.”
“It didn’t occur to you to maybe leave a note?”
“No, actually it didn’t.” Maybe she should have, just as a courtesy, but he needed to back off. “Are you going to help me carry these bags up?”
“Dammit, I was worried about you!”
“When I’m doing work for the pub, that’s your business. When I’m not, it’s not.” She couldn’t make it any more plain that he was overstepping. And because knowing he’d been worried about her made her feel all warm and gooey inside, she needed to nip it in the bud.
“We also happen to be sharing a living space, and no matter how platonic it might be, if you’re going to disappear for hours, it’s polite to leave a damn note.”
“Fine.” She could be just as loud as him. “Next time I’ll leave a damn note. Hopefully it won’t get wet.”
When she tried to go around him to get to the trunk, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“I’m not lying about your number, Darcy. It was pouring and I was on a dirt road and a car was in the ditch. By the time I pushed her out, I was soaked and so was the paper. The ink ran and I couldn’t read it.”
“I said forget it. It doesn’t matter.”
He cupped her chin in his hand, gently but firmly lifting it so she had to look at him. “It does matter. You think I blew you off and I didn’t. I wanted to see you again and because I was a nice guy and helped a woman get her car out of a ditch, you think I’m an a*shole.”
Her opinion of him wasn’t anywhere near that low, but before she could tell him that, he bent his head and kissed her. There was nothing tentative or shy about it this time and it brought back every minute of that amazing—almost freaking magical—night. It also brought back the teenager-like giddiness as she waited for his call. And how hurt she was when the phone never rang. How stupid she felt.
How much worse it would be to add professional humiliation on top of it if she had to go running home before the pub was open, nursing a broken heart. She broke off the kiss, turning her face away from his.
“Darcy.” His voice was rough.
“Technically, while I’m here I work for you. You’re my boss and if you do that again, I’ll quit.”
She pushed past him and grabbed a few bags out of the trunk to carry upstairs. He could lug the rest. After dropping the load in the kitchen, she went into her room and closed the door. Dropping her head back against the wood, she tried not to cry.
He probably hadn’t deserved that, but it was the only way she could think of to make him stop touching her.
Jake wasn’t the first guy not to call when he said he would, but he was the first she’d invested that much hope in. It was the first time she’d cried into her pillow instead of muttering disparaging comments about the nature of men and moving on with her life. And that scared her.