“Yeah. Secret agents."
"Do we have trench coats and sunglasses?"
“You know that spies don’t really wear trench coats and sunglasses. If they did, everyone would know they were spies.”
“When did you become so jaded?”
“I don’t know what that means,” she says.
“It means…” I sigh, searching for the word. “Realistic. You used to believe in fairy tales.”
“I’m growing up.” Her voice is somber. A pang of nostalgia for when she was younger goes straight through my heart.
“I don’t need to be reminded of that fact, kiddo.” I hug her tight to me.
I stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago.
After Chloe is asleep, I lie awake in bed unable to sleep, a million thoughts racing through my head. I fell in love with this small town out in the middle of Nowhere Colorado when Chloe and I drove out to visit my parents, who'd moved from the suburbs of Chicago to Gold River, Colorado, four hours from here.
Most people retire and move to Florida, or at least to someplace warm where they don't have to worry about shoveling snow all winter, but not my parents. They move to one of the coldest places in the United States. After Adam's death, they were on me nearly every day to move out to Gold River with them, but I resisted the idea.
At first, I intended to stay in Chicago where Adam and I had a life together. Then when everything came out — the scandal that destroyed everything I had believed in — I stayed in Chicago purely out of stubbornness. I wasn't letting anyone's opinions drive me out of town. I'd stay with my head held high and raise my daughter.
Then Chloe and I flew in to visit my parents. On the drive from the Denver airport, we stopped in West Bend and I fell in love. There was a "for sale" sign on the bakery door and I don't know why I called the real estate agent about it, but I did. Any other day, I'd have talked myself out of something like that. It's a pipedream, I'd have told myself. It's completely unrealistic and you'll fail. Except that day, I didn't.
It was a bargain price for the bakery, and suddenly I was doing a loan application and creating a business plan.
There have been days I was so proud of Chloe and I for making it here and getting through this on our own. And there have been so many days I thought coming to a small town like West Bend was surely the biggest mistake I'd ever made.
I thought that moving Chloe here and away from my husband's tainted legacy would be a way of preserving her innocence. The last thing on earth I want is for Chloe to be bullied because of my past - or my late husband’s past, to be more accurate. I hate that Chloe is losing her faith in fairy tales at six years old. She should believe in happy endings.
There are no happy endings in store for me, and life is definitely not a fairy tale — even if some guy comes barging into my store, trying to rescue me like I’m a damsel in distress. A ridiculously arrogant, pushy guy who stood so close to me that his scent – woodsy and leather and manly – made my head spin.
He’s cocky as hell.
Completely misogynistic.
An uncivilized brute.
And the whole time I was standing there in the kitchen with him, totally appalled by the words coming out of his mouth, I couldn't stop thinking about how his lips felt on mine.
And how he would feel inside me.
I don't even know his name and I'm thinking about how he would feel inside me.
I roll over onto my side, squeezing my eyes tight as if, by doing so, I can force the image out of my head. I can't stop picturing the way he looked the other day when he was standing outside of the general store bare-chested after throwing his shirt into my lap, like he spends his days splitting firewood and sweating in the sun.
He works with his hands.
The thought sends heat surging through my body, right to my core. I mentally chastise myself for the reaction.
How long has it been since I’ve had a man in my bed? I rack my brain trying to remember. There was that guy I went out with last year. How old was Chloe then? Oh shit, that wasn't last year. That was three years ago.
Is that really the last time I got laid?
So I'm a little hard up. That's all there is to it. It's a totally reasonable explanation for why being in close proximity to that man seems to make my heart race and my breath short - and for why the thought of fucking him sends a tingle of arousal through my body like electricity.
I imagine him slipping his hands under my thighs, picking me up and carrying me across the kitchen in the bakery, and slamming me hard up against the wall.
When he kisses me, it's harder than I've ever been kissed, his touch positively bruising.
I slide my palm up my stomach underneath my cotton t-shirt and over my breast. My nipple hardens under my palm as I picture his mouth enveloping me, his beard rough against my skin as his tongue swirls over my nipple.