Page 28 of Mistletoe Latte

“Woof,” Emma exclaimed.

He chuckled. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to carry them. Just hold the doors for me and maybe push the dolly.”

They slipped into the parking lot and the freezing December wind cut straight through Emma’s sweater. Her teeth chattered and she rubbed her arms for warmth.

“Hey, Rob?” Nick called to the idling plain-white delivery truck in the middle of the back lot. The driver’s side door swung open and a man dropped to the cement.

“Got the usual for you, Iverson,” Rob said. He nodded to Nick, then bent over to undo the latch on the back.

Nick glanced at Emma fighting off the shivers. To her shock, he wrapped both his hands around her arms and vigorously rubbed them. “How’s that?” he asked.

The winter cold burned away thanks to the heat building on her cheeks. “Better,” Emma whispered.

A rat-a-rat-a-rat drew her attention to the truck’s back door flying up. Rob hopped to the edge and reached in, undoing a strap. “Two bags medium roast, one dark.”

“I hope so,” Nick said. Rob grunted as he picked up one of the giant burlap sacks and tossed it at Nick. Emma flinched, but he caught it without pause and hoisted the bag onto his right shoulder.

“Number two!” Rob called, launching the second into the air. That one gave Nick more trouble. He balanced two hundred pounds on his shoulders. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he leaned on his heels before catching himself.

“Mind getting the door?” he asked through obvious strain.

Emma dashed back and pulled it open so it eclipsed her. Nick waddled past, his shoulders bulging so wide from the bags he had to turn and duck to make it inside. Once she was certain he was past, Emma risked peeking in. Only a steady shuffle, then a loud grunt of exertion escaped.

“Hey, girly,” the truck driver called, waving her over. Emma let the door close and stepped toward him. “You ain’t Skylar. Are you new or something?”

“Something,” she said. The town seemed small enough for gossip to spread faster than chicken pox, but they didn’t all need to know her life story.

“Well…” Rob lifted the bag and tossed it in the air.

Oh no!Emma dived for it, unprepared for the crushing weight of a hundred pounds to slam into her forearms. She nearly hit the pavement along with the sack. Digging her fingers tight into the straining burlap, Emma hefted the bag higher. She managed a couple of inches, the bottom of the sack slamming into her shins as she waddled away.

“Good luck with him, Something,” Rob called as he slammed his truck door closed. “You’re gonna need it.”

Moving like a penguin with vertigo, Emma wobbled for the door. Her palms ached from the scratchy burlap abrading her skin. But if she stopped to adjust, there was no way she could pick the bag up. Staring intently at the beans, Emma didn’t realize she’d reached the door until her toe smacked it.

Now what?

Maybe if she hugged the beans she could open the door. Emma hunched even lower, wrapping her entire arm around the sack and was about to let go for the handle when the door swung for her. In a panic, she half waddled and half fell backward.

“Same as next…” Nick said. He caught her struggling to lift the bag.

She put on a smile. “I’ve almost—”

The beans defied gravity, growing weightless and rising into the air. Emma followed them, her arms grateful for the release. Nick swung the bag over his shoulder.

“You should have waited for me,” he said, his biceps cradling the bag like a fireman would a fire victim. The muscle’s strain warped his sweater’s waffle weave to the limit, revealing the hard lines below.

“Sorry.” Emma winced at herself for noticing. “He just…”

The truck pulled away, blasting hot air as it went. Nick sighed. “He does that.” After opening the door, Nick walked the bag down the hall like it was no big deal while Emma wandered behind. “Skylar’s used to his tricks, but…I’m guessing delivery trucks didn’t throw crates of vegetables at you.”

“Not usually. We’d carry them off the truck. When we were on the chef’s bad side.” Which was every day for her.

Nick nudged open the storage room door with his foot and heaved the bag to the floor. “Aren’t you professional chefs supposed to be living the high life? Tasting the sauces, giving orders, calling people donkeys?”

Emma barked a laugh at the idea. “Maybe the head chef for the entire chain, but the rest of us put in the twelve hours prepping and cooking for each service. This has been a vacation in comparison.”

“I know a fourteen-year-old that would disagree with that. Loudly. There’s a can back there by the wall. Can you get it?”

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