I almost smile despite myself, because Mimi would’ve done the same.
Also, I love the idea of Chandler Sullivan being punished.
But I don’t smile, because Sabrina hasn’t earned my smiles again.
She points to the desk before going back to the dishes. “There are marks on the wall under the bulletin board where Grandpa tracked my mom and uncles’ heights while they were growing up. My uncles had a mashed potato fight once fifteen years or so ago and there are probably still spuds behind the stove. I can tell you why those six floor tiles by the back door are different, why we don’t have a more efficient coffee roaster, and who’d come back to work here and take this place to the next level with both our food and our coffee game now that Chandler’s not involved anymore, but I’m off gossip. However, I’m not off doing whatever it takes to save my family’s café. So if there’s something you want to tell me about why your face twitches like that every time someone says Chandler, now would be a good time. I can help you. We can help each other. But only if you trust me.”
Heat creeps up my neck again, but this time for an entirely different reason.
Trust her.
I trust exactly two people. Zen and Mimi.
I’m not putting my hard-won Super Vengeance Man suit in Sabrina’s hands.
Not when she ghosted me. Not when she shares genes with Chandler Sullivan. And not when I’m rapidly picking up on the clues that she’ll do anything she can to save this café.
“Maybe it’s always been a dream of mine to run a kombucha bar in the mountains,” I say.
“Big change from running your own research lab.”
The heat gets hotter. “Doing a little googling?”
“No, I’m awful at it. I have friends that work computers much better than I do and who have made it their current life mission to help me.” She hands me another bowl, this one soaking wet.
I grab the towel she was using. “Find anything else interesting?”
“I’m sorry about your dog.”
My shoulders hit the ceiling tiles. “Off-limits.”
“Everyone in town is looking you up. You get one chance to tell your story before they fill in the details.”
“And how many details are you filling in for them?”
She pulls her soapy hands out of the water and looks me dead in the eye. “Only what they need to know.”
“What you need them to know.”
“Same thing.”
“Like that I know about Mr. Shredded Wheat and his two girlfriends?”
She doesn’t blink at that either.
Because she’s that good?
Or because she lied about the gossip in Hawaii?
“I’m not threatening you,” she says quietly. “I’m explaining to you how this town works. I can help you or I can stand in your way. Happy to do either. But I need to know what you want if you want my help.”
For a split second, I’m back in Hawaii. Carefree. Light. Hustling to keep up with the whirlwind that was my temporary Duchess as she tried to make the world a better place.
I want that.
I crave that.
But it’s not why I’m here.
“You left,” I grit out.
She looks up at me for a moment longer, then nods slowly. “Got it. Good luck to you then.”
That sounds ominous.
Worse, though?
It does nothing to cure the overwhelming curiosity about how different the next few weeks would be if I just kissed her.
Right here.
Right now.
“Sabrina?” Willa sticks her head into the kitchen. “Shirlene’s here.”
Sabrina smiles. “Jitter and I will be right out.”
Moment over.
She’s gone.
And I think I just lost her.
Again.
10
Sabrina
After work, Jitter and I take a hike, visit Grandpa for a few minutes, and then head back downtown to meet Laney and a few other friends at House of Curry for a low-key engagement party for one of the owner’s grandsons. The restaurant is on the next block down from Bean & Nugget, but it feels seven thousand worlds away.
Nani Parvati’s restaurant isn’t in danger of being taken over by someone who wants to gut the Tooth’s favorite Indian restaurant. Her kids and grandkids are all ready to keep running it into eternity. Unlike Chandler, whose favorite part of his job was driving around to the various locations and telling people what they were doing wrong, Nani Parvati’s family is always in the kitchen or working the dining room, laughing and joking and teasing each other in the best way.
Jitter shakes it all out outside, and then we join the party.
The restaurant’s about two-thirds full and still open to the public, so it feels like half the community is wandering through tonight.
I get asked a few dozen times how the new Bean & Nugget owner is.
I smile and report things are great at every opportunity. Whatever Grey’s issues with Chandler, they’re separate from my own desire to make sure my cousin doesn’t get to think he’s hurting me too.
Is that petty? Or is it self-protective?
I don’t even know these days.
Laney’s parked at a table in the corner of the red-walled building, and Jitter and I finally make our way to her. Devi, the owner of the gallery next to Bean & Nugget and one of Nani Parvati’s grandkids who isn’t going into the family business, is sitting with her.
“How’s the new boss?” Devi asks me when I slide into the booth next to her. She’s in overalls that are speckled with all colors of paint, as are her brown cheeks and her thick black hair that’s tied up in a messy bun.
“Grumpy,” I reply cheerfully.
Laney makes a what’s wrong with you? face, and I realize I’m doing it here too.
I’m faking the cheerful.
Necessary outside of this booth.
Inside the booth, probably not so much.
“Grumpy and hot?” Devi prompts.
Ugh. Unfortunately.
The look on his face when I almost fell while doing dishes—that intense focus—was exactly the same as it was our night in Hawaii. And then the way he watched me while he helped me finish the dishes—someone pass me an ice bath.
I can tell you why he made me feel good.
It was because the minute that hotel door closed behind us, the world ceased to exist, and Duke—Grey—made me feel like I was the entire world.
I’m not surprised he’s a researcher or that he’d hold a patent for something amazing. He’s intense when he focuses. That likely serves him well in the lab.
Laney hides a smile behind a bite of veggie korma.
I clear my throat. “I think he’s overwhelmed at the change in climate from the West Coast and the pace that things move in small mountain towns.”
Devi’s brown eyes light up. “Ooh, right, he came from California, didn’t he?”
“That’s what I hear.”
Both women eye me.
Laney with are you seriously pretending you’re still off gossip?, Devi with is that all you’ve heard?
“How’s your leg?” I ask Laney, even though I want to ask her how Emma’s doing, which I won’t do unless we’re completely alone.
I’ve been smiling through all of the questions I’ve gotten about her the past week and a half too. Runaway-mooning has turned into my standard answer.
Laney pulls a face. “Annoying. Don’t tell Theo I said that though, or he’ll make it his new mission to make me more comfortable.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Devi asks.
Laney shakes her head. “It’s a good thing. But I think he’s itching to go snowboarding or to do anything other than sit still in his house for one more day, and he won’t if he thinks I can’t survive eight hours without him.”
“He’s surviving this party without you.”
“I asked him to fix me lasagna for lunch tomorrow, and he took off for the market over in Elk’s Knee since he says they have the freshest ingredients for the homemade sauce it needs, and he needs to start it before they open tomorrow.”
Laney hates lasagna.
Which means Theo’s probably actually doing something with or for Emma.
My heart squeezes. I want to be helping too, but for the first time in my life, I don’t know how.