Page 26 of The Last Resort
“How’s it going? Is there anything I can do to help with the designs?” asked Dan from the doorway of Rachel’s bedroom. She had set up a small desk in the corner and was working through some planning regulations for the local area. Her newly arrived printer/scanner sat on the floor.
Kellie had left for work earlier, leaving Rachel home alone with her brother-in-law for the first time since she’d arrived.
This was Dan’s third ‘pop in and check on Rach’ visit of the morning, and it was getting on her nerves. She wasn’t used to people constantly asking about her design work. It was bad enough having to work in someone’s home rather than her old office, but when the person who kept interrupting her was the man who had caused her sister such pain.
Rachel puffed out her cheeks.
Be nice to the ass. Be polite.
“No. I’m fine, thanks, Dan. I’m fixin’ to get some morework done, so if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather be left in peace.”
He lingered in the doorway for a moment, muttered something about needing to get to work, then disappeared. Rachel was relieved when the sound of his SUV’s engine starting up and the crunch of tires on ice-covered ground signaled his departure.
“Thank heavens, he’s gone.”
She was grateful for the job Dan had helped to arrange for her, but it didn’t fix what had happened between him and her sister.Nothing fixes the past.
She was in a grumpy, restless mood, and Dan was only partly to blame.
“I’m homeless, and relying on the charity of relatives,” she muttered.
This was not how her life was meant to pan out. If things had gone according to her well-laid plans, she would still be running a successful design practice in Atlanta. Still have her own house. And by now be married to Anthony.
The fingers of her right hand brushed over her ring finger. They touched only skin. The diamond solitaire she had accepted from him was long gone. Occasionally she wondered whether he had taken the ring back to the jewelers or if his new wife wore what had once been hers.
Don’t sit and stew over the things you can’t change.
Her mother’s words of advice had Rachel pushing back from the desk and getting to her feet. Constantly mulling was a bad habit she was trying her hardest to break. It was all too easy to sit and ponder what her life might look like now if the nightmare hadn’t happened.
Too easy to start clicking on social media sites and seeing what her former fiancé and old friends were up to back in Georgia. Not that any of her so-called friends had bothered to check in on her. The moment her father’s trial was over,she’d been ghosted by many of the people who’d sworn they would stand by her no matter the cost.
Rachel sucked in a deep breath. “I need to get out of here and go find coffee.” It was Wednesday, and her hopes for a brighter day were all pinned on seeing Matthew. Of sitting across the booth from him, staring at his black rimmed glasses while he filled her in on his exciting trip to New York. And all the while she would be wondering if and when he was going to kiss her again.
She might have her issues with Dan but at least the boots her brother-in-law had donated to her, gave Rachel a sense of freedom. Being able to walk around town on the days when Kellie needed the car was a godsend. Muscle memory soon had her standing out the front of theManhattan Escapeebakery, banging out the snow from her chains on the metal blade of the boot-scraper which was positioned to one side of the door. She was already picking up the local habits.
Inside the café, Rachel made her way to the booth that she and Matthew had somehow claimed as theirs. They barely knew one another, but she still had a bone-deep need for him to walk through that door. To see him. She went to slide into her usual seat, ready to watch the door, waiting for his arrival, but someone else had already claimed the booth.
A pair of gloves and a notebook sat on the table. Disappointment stirred in her heart at the thought of a stranger taking what in her mind already belonged to her and the hunky accountant. She was still getting over them not being able to find a seat on Sunday morning.
Then again if we had found one, he might not have taken the chance and kissed me.
“Rachel?”
She turned. Matthew was standing in the hallway which led from the bathrooms. He pointed to the table. “I sat down before I realized they hadn’t had time to wipe the table. Thelast customer had spilled some ketchup and I put my hand in it. Had to go and wash it off. Sticky fingers.”
“Ew! The only thing I can think of that would be worse would be a slick of cold pimento cheese.”
A flutter of foolish emotion raced through her at the sight of him. The three and a bit days since they’d last met seemed like an eternity.
She took in Matthew’s chocolate brown knee-length car coat. It was a change from his usual black puffer jacket. And while it looked a little out of place for a ski town, she had to admit, it suited him. The three rows of double buttons and the quality cut, quietly hinted at this being an expensive coat.
He ambled over to her. When he reached the table, Matthew gifted her with one of his panty-dropping grins. “Howdy stranger, why you’re as pretty as a peach, fancy some company?”
Rachel laughed, enjoying the warmth of his smile. And what it did to her body. His attempt at a southern accent was laughable, but so damn cute. It was always said that a man could laugh a woman into bed, and from the way Matthew made her positively giddy with delight, she sensed it wouldn’t take more than a chuckle or two, for her to get naked with him.
“Why, sir, I hardly know you. An Atlanta lady doesn’t just eat her grits with any old gentleman.”
Matthew snorted. “Old, why I’ll have you know I’m a spring chicken.”
