Page 5 of Love You
“Oh?” Hilde clearly wasn’t buying it. But she was good about giving Darcy plenty of personal space so they left it at that. “I made that cake you like if you’re hungry.”
Chantilly cake. White layer cake with custard filling, whipped cream frosting, and berries from Nana’s garden. The cake and all the other good things Nana made in her kitchen were the reason Darcy had gained six pounds since moving to Glory Junction.
“Maybe tomorrow,” she said, and dropped a kiss on her grandmother’s cheek. “Good night.”
* * *
Usually up by seven, Darcy slept in until nine. And despite the adage that things would be better in the morning, they weren’t. She was still sex-deprived and mortified from the night before. So she showered, went downstairs, and cut herself a huge slice of cake, the breakfast of champions. Through the window, she spied Hilde in a big, floppy hat, holding a pair of flower shears, in the garden.
The house phone rang and when she saw it was Lewis, she let it go. “Why aren’t you picking up your cell phone, Darcy?” he asked on the answering machine recording.
“Because I’m no longer married to you, Lewis!” she shouted into thin air, and then kicked herself for not having the balls to pick up the phone and tell him to bugger off. For good.
But Lewis wasn’t really a bad guy and the things that had happened between them were just as much her fault as his. She wanted to stay friends, she really did. But she no longer wanted to be his keeper. Because being Lewis’s keeper—and wife—was a full-time job without any benefits. None at all.
She thought about putting in a few hours at GA. But on a Sunday she might run into Win. The spring-summer season was kicking in and Win had back-to-back tours to guide. She knew because she did most of the scheduling at the adventure company when she wasn’t fielding phone calls and making doughnut runs. The Garners each had a legendary sweet tooth and an unbelievable metabolism. Probably from all the physical activity they did. Anyway, going to the office today was a bad idea.
She’d have to face Win eventually but today . . . there was cake.
* * *
Monday morning, she waited for her number to be called at Tart Me Up, Glory Junction’s premier bakery. GA’s meeting was at nine, which meant the pastries had to be in the conference room by 8:55, sharp. It was an extremely challenging job. So challenging that an eight-year-old could do it while standing on her head. Six months ago, she’d asked for a promotion. And here she was, still waiting for pastries.
It wasn’t that TJ, her boss, was a jerk. In fact, he was the best supervisor she’d ever worked for. High on praise, low on micromanaging. And like all the Garners, he was nice to look at. And taken by the equally adorable Deb Bennett, who also worked at GA. The company, though highly successful, was small and so was its budget. For that reason, things like promotions moved up the family chain at a glacial pace.
In the meantime, she tried to dazzle everyone with her extraordinary organizational skills. And they were extraordinary. It was the reason Lewis had fallen in love with her. At least that’s what he’d told her on the day he’d proposed as she drove his Volvo station wagon through the Buggy Bath Car Wash on Jefferson Street. He’d made her take the wheel because car washes gave him claustrophobia. As did movie theaters, nice restaurants, vacations, or any other place she wanted to go. So, for the next two years she ran his office and his home, organizing his life right down to his sock drawer. Then one morning, after one empty bed too many, she decided this was no life. No life at all.
In fact, it mirrored her parents’ loveless marriage and the cold, soulless home she’d grown up in. So she filed for divorce, taking only her clothes and severance pay, and moved in with Nana, hoping to start over and find the kind of fulfillment she never did with Lewis.
But she’d been in Glory Junction a year now and hadn’t dated once. No one had even asked for her phone number. She’d thought about joining a dating site but one look at the local pool—a sixty-eight-year-old widowed sheep rancher, a twenty-two-year-old avid collector of spherical objects, and a fifty-six-year-old lesbian—and she bagged the idea. The age-appropriate men weren’t interested in her, not even a little.
And Win had been downright uninterested, if you didn’t count that pity kiss when he’d walked her to her car. She was starting to think she was the problem, not Lewis. Maybe he’d been a cold fish because she lacked any kind of sexual appeal. It wasn’t as if she was ugly. She had nice blond hair that was usually clean and tidy, big blue eyes that netted her plenty of compliments, and dimples that made her look younger than her thirty-one years. She might be out of shape and fifteen pounds heavier than a woman five-foot, two-inches tall ought to be, according to the body-mass-index chart at her doctor’s office, but no worse off than most women her age.
The kid behind the counter called her number and Darcy gave him her pastry order. Rachel Johnson, the baker and proprietor of Tart Me Up, came out of the kitchen to say hi.
“You must be stocking up for the morning meeting at GA,” she said, and threw a few extra cinnamon buns into the box. When women weren’t throwing themselves at the Garner brothers, they were giving them free baked goods.
“Yep,” Darcy responded, and from the corner of her eye she saw Boden Farmer take a number from the ticket dispenser. The owner of Old Glory, the local watering hole, was gorgeous in aSons of Anarchykind of way. Tall, ripped, and a little dangerous-looking in his biker boots and chains. And although he was single and roughly the same age as Darcy, he’d never given her a second look.
Rachel handed her the box of goodies over the counter. Darcy thanked her and took her own morning pastry to one of the empty tables. She had fifteen minutes until the meeting started and wanted to eat in peace and quiet. Munching on her cheese Danish, she watched Rachel and the counter kid swiftly serve food and coffee to a growing line of customers. When Boden’s number was called he dropped his phone into his back pocket and gave his order. Never once did he acknowledge Darcy, which ordinarily she would’ve accepted as par for the course. But today it made her feel even more invisible than she usually felt.
She finished eating and was halfway to the door with her pastry box when she worked up the courage to say something. Anything.Fine morning we’re having, Boden. Or . . .I’ve been in your bar a million times to pick up food orders and you can’t even greet me? Wave? Nod your head in my direction?
She spun around, planning to confront him, and smacked into something hard. The impact alone would’ve smarted enough, except the burn of hot liquid dripping down her sundress distracted her.
“Ah, jeez, I’m sorry.” Boden righted her with one strong arm, put down the spilled cup of coffee with the other, and grabbed a wad of napkins from the condiment bar. “Are you okay?”
Darcy plucked the top of her dress away from her chest. “It was my fault. I wasn’t watching where I was going . . . I’ll pay for your coffee.”
“Don’t worry about the coffee.” He started to pat her down with a towel Rachel had brought from behind the counter and grimaced. “Did it scald you?”
“I have some aloe vera ointment in the first-aid kit. Let me get it,” Rachel said, and Darcy wanted to crawl under the nearest table.
“I’m fine. Really. What about you?” The coffee had missed Boden’s white T-shirt but had splattered all over his boots. She put down the box, took the towel from him, crouched down, and tried to wipe them dry.
He gently tugged her up. “I’ve got it.”
“But your boots,” she argued, “they’ll be ruined.”
