Chapter FOUR
JAKE BURNED OFF some of his anger making trip after trip up and down the stairs with groceries, but by the time he’d brought up the last bag, he still had a low simmer going on.
She was full of shit. Their working together—and him technically being her boss—had nothing to do with her pushing him away. She was pissed he hadn’t called her and she wouldn’t allow herself to believe him no matter how many times he told her he’d tried. That wasn’t on him and she was grasping at straws trying make it otherwise.
“I carried them up, you put them away,” he called to her door. “I’m going to make sure they locked up downstairs.”
He didn’t say it out of courtesy but so, if she was in a snit, she’d know it was safe to come out and put the groceries away without running into him. The last thing he wanted to do after the day he’d had was sort canned goods from boxed and try to figure out how to fit everything in the fridge.
It didn’t take as long as he’d thought to do a walk-through of the restaurant, so she was still at it when he returned. She looked calm enough, but he’d spent enough time watching her to see the tension in her shoulders.
Jake wasn’t one to let things fester, so he grabbed a bag to unload. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. You made it clear to me you weren’t interested in anything but working with me, and I should have respected that. But the boss card?”
“That was uncalled for,” she said before he could, which surprised him. “I just needed some space, and that was an excuse.”
“And you’re still mad at me. Admit it.”
“Fine. I’m still mad at you. And before you say it, maybe you tried to find me, but I didn’t know that, so I was hurt and I was mad.”
And that’s where the lashing out had come from. Not anger. Hurt. “How many freaking boxes of macaroni and cheese did you buy?”
“It’s my favorite food.”
“And you gave me shit about frozen pizza?”
“No comparison.”
He lined up the boxes in the cabinet and peeked in another bag. “So, if you were hurt when I didn’t call, I guess that means you cared if you ever saw me again or not?”
When she got really still, studying the label on a can of green beans, he forced himself to be patient and wait for the answer. “Yes, I cared. I wanted to see you again.”
“And now?”
She set the can in the cupboard and turned to face him. “Throwing that whole boss and employee thing at you outside was wrong because of why and how I did it, but the truth is, I do work for you. More importantly, I work for Kevin and this is important to him. I don’t know how much money you have to throw away, but he doesn’t have a lot, so we have to make a success of this place.”
“I promised Kevin I wouldn’t touch you.” Saying it out loud somehow seemed to make the guilt better and worse at the same time.
“Why did he think you would? I swear, if you told him—”
“I didn’t. He didn’t mean you specifically. He just didn’t want me getting involved with whoever he sent.”
“Is that a problem you have often?”
“No, which is why it pissed me off when he said it. And when you said it.”
“I like you, Jake.” The words would have had him singing and dancing on the inside except he heard a but coming. “But after one night, I liked you enough to be hurt when you didn’t call. If we start something and then we have a problem, I won’t be able to stay. I’ll let Kevin down and I’ll let myself down.”
He was pretty sure if he backed her up against the counter and kissed her again, she wouldn’t slap his face for it. But she was vulnerable right now, so that would make him a jerk. And she was right about Kevin. If the pub suffered or, God forbid, failed because things went south between him and Darcy, Jake would lose her and one of his best friends.
“I’m not giving up,” he told her. “Once you’re back at the bar, you might see more of me than you think.”
“Sure. You’ll call me, right?”
“Hey!” She laughed at him, then turned back to the last couple of bags of groceries. “Stop buying cheap pens, woman. We’d probably be married already if you’d used a damn Sharpie.”
“You’re a real funny guy, Jake Holland.”
So damn funny he tossed and turned half the night, wondering how much truth was in his words and imagining what might have been if she’d just used indelible ink.
* * *
DARCY NEEDED CHOCOLATE. With alcohol. Alcohol-infused chocolate with a bag of potato chips on the side. She was going to strangle Jake Holland with her bare hands, even if she had to sneak up behind him and knock him unconscious first.
Her car was nothing more than a car-shaped mound of more snow than she’d ever seen fall at one time. The windchill could freeze a person’s eyes closed if she took too long blinking. She felt caged in the building, and Jake was going out of his way to be as sexy as possible.
He had to be doing it deliberately. There was no way a man could be like that naturally. In the three weeks since they’d talked and come to an understanding there would be no sex, he’d gone out of his way to make her want him. She was sure of it.
Half the time the man didn’t have a shirt on. January in northern New Hampshire and she’d find him painting the stall doors in the men’s bathroom, dripping paint down his naked chest in a way that encouraged a woman’s gaze to follow the eggshell path south. He must have switched shampoo or soap or something because she was constantly aware of how delicious he smelled. And half the time when she glanced at him, he was watching her with that same look in his eye he’d had the night they met, just before he’d kissed her.
She needed a distraction, so she picked up the phone and punched in the number for Jasper’s Bar & Grille. And, just as she’d hoped, it was Paulie who answered.
“Hey, Paulie, it’s Darcy. Can you spare a few minutes?”
“Of course. Let me pick it up in the office. Hold on.” Darcy heard her yell to somebody she was taking a break and to hang up the phone after she picked it up in the office. Kevin had yet to invest in a real phone system. “Okay, that’s better. So, hey, hear you guys are getting a hell of a snow up there.”
“Yeah. It’s making Jake twitchy because the sledders will be out in hordes this weekend and every engine he hears is lost dollar signs.”
“Plenty of riding time left after the Valentine’s Day thing. What is the thing, anyway?”
“He says he has a plan. He’s yet to tell me the plan, but he says he has one.”
“How are you two getting along?”
Now, that was a loaded question. On the surface they got along fine and worked together well. Under the surface? They were both a little ticked off they’d talked themselves out of having sex. But she couldn’t say that. She and Paulie were friends, but Paulie and Kevin were best friends.
“We work together well” was what she settled for. “We were supposed to start interviewing wait staff today, but I think we’re having a snow day instead.”
“Oh, I should tell you Kevin wore his T-shirt to dinner at his parents’ and now all the kids want one, too.”
Darcy groaned. “I can’t believe Jake had those made.”
He’d special-ordered three T-shirts, one for each of them. Emblazoned on the front were the words Jasper’s Big-Ass Steak House. She had to admit, she’d laughed pretty hard when he gave her hers.
They talked a few more minutes, mostly about what Darcy should be looking for in wait staff, but then Paulie had to go mediate a situation and promised to call later, when she had more time.
Sick of the beige walls, Darcy pulled on her parka, boots, hat and gloves, then wrapped a scarf around her face for the trek down the flight of stairs to the back door. It was that cold. Once she was in the kitchen, she reversed the process and piled it all up for the one-minute walk home later.
She heard Jake’s laugh before she went through the swinging doors and she stopped, peering through the small window. She could only see him over the pile of stuff sitting on the coffee counter, waiting to be put away, but everything about his demeanor said he was talking to a woman. Whoever she was, she either had a sled dog team or drove the plow truck.
Darcy pushed through the doors and went around the counter to the table Jake was sitting at with a fortyish-looking woman with very short blond hair and a bright smile.
“Oh, here she is. Karen, this is Darcy Vaughn. She’s more or less in charge of everything on this side of the swinging doors. Darcy, this is Karen Sikes. She’s here to interview.”
“Wow. I didn’t think anybody would make it in.”
Karen actually scoffed. “Let a little snow keep you from doing your business up here and it won’t be long before you don’t have any business to keep.”
“Good advice,” Jake said. “I know my four-wheel-drive’s been getting a workout.”
Darcy rolled her eyes. She didn’t even want to think about how long it was going to take to shovel her car out. Not that she was going anywhere. After pulling out a chair, she took Karen’s application from Jake to refresh her memory.
“Waited tables until I had my kids,” Karen said. “Waited on them until they went to school, then went back to waiting tables until the restaurant closed down. You can’t compensate for slow business by charging nine dollars for a cheeseburger. You have a menu yet?”
“It’s still tentative.” Jake pulled his copy out of one of the folders in front of him and handed it to her.
Karen’s laugh echoed through the dining room, and she tapped a finger on the page. “Not a man I know who’ll pass up a big-ass steak.”
Darcy had done everything but beg Jake not to put that on the menu. The cut and the ounces were enough. But he was determined to prove her wrong, and so far, everybody seemed to love it. “I’m a little concerned customers won’t want to say it out loud, which makes it hard to order.”
“Honey,” Karen said, “if you can’t say big-ass steak, order the grilled chicken and some cottage cheese, because it’s too much beef for you, anyway.”
Jake tried to cover his amusement with a fake cough, but failed miserably and she kicked his ankle under the table.
“Little high on the children’s menu.” Karen marked the spot with her finger. “You want a couple of two-ninety-nine things, like a hot dog or PBJ with fries, and a couple of four-ninety-nine things, like chicken tenders or fish, but you want most to be about three ninety-nine. Grilled cheese sandwiches, mac and cheese, cheeseburgers. Basically you need to cut everything by at least a buck.”
She must have caught the look that passed between Darcy and Jake, because she shrugged. “I was born and raised in this area and I’ve been taking food orders around here since I was fifteen. You can do what you want, of course.”
They talked about almost every item on the menu. Then she gave them a list of names to beware of in the stack of applications. So-and-so had a drug problem and would steal from them. Another so-and-so was a sweetheart, but clumsy as an ox with a special knack for spilling coffee. They couldn’t tell her if those people had applied or not, but Jake took careful note of them on his legal pad.
It was almost an hour before Karen left, and Darcy’s head was spinning from the conversation. She not only knew everybody, but knew what they did and didn’t want to eat.
“She’s definitely got the knowledge,” Jake said after Darcy grabbed them each a bottle of water from the kitchen. “Competent and definitely comfortable with the job.”
She wasn’t so sure. “Sometimes people like her don’t take managing well. And when somebody’s that firmly entrenched in the community, being too friendly can be a problem, to say nothing of the backlash if there was a problem.”
“She’s at the top of my short list.”
“Mine, too. I just think we need to give her a lot of thought before we jump at making her an offer. But at least we know weather won’t keep her from coming in.”
He looked at his watch and winced. “We have to finalize that menu tonight, so you hold on to the copy with her comments on it and we can talk about it over dinner. I have to go call Kevin before his head explodes. I blew him off yesterday, so next time my phone picks up reception, I’ll probably have a dozen messages from him.”
“When’s he coming up? Next Tuesday, right?”
“Yeah. He’s going to come up Tuesday and look around. Have an on-site meeting. Then Wednesday we’re going to hit the trails and he’ll drive home Wednesday night. You want to go out with us?”
“Snowmobiling?” She laughed. “Absolutely not.”
Shaking his head, he gathered his files and papers. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I’ll live.” She watched him walk away, loving the way his legs looked in worn denim, and he caught her looking when he spun around.
He winked. “By the way, your turn to make dinner.”
* * *
JAKE WASN’T SURE HOW he managed to get through every day with Darcy. She would talk and he would try to listen. And on some level he retained the information because he always remembered the conversations later, but every time he was near her, all he could think about was sex.
If they were in the apartment, he’d imagine taking her on the kitchen table. Or bending her over the arm of the couch. The shower. The colorful braid rug she’d bought to cheer the place up. Sometimes he even imagined taking her to bed.
Downstairs, the possibilities were endless, though at least some of them were probably code violations.
“Hey, it’s your turn. Unless you’re ready to forfeit.”
“Never.” He took his iPad from her and looked it over. They were playing Trivial Pursuit and she’d just blown an Arts & Literature question. Which was good because she had one more piece of the pie than he did and he didn’t intend to lose.
When he landed on the correct space to get the orange Sports & Leisure wedge he needed and knew the answer right away, Darcy made an annoyed sound and leaned back against the couch.
“I think you’re cheating.”
He laughed. “How would I be cheating?”
“I bet you hide under your covers and play this all night so you can memorize all the answers.”
That’s not at all what he played with under the covers, but he’d be keeping his nocturnal activities to himself. “You know, you’re not a very good sport.”
A few minutes later, when she’d added a pink wedge to her collection, he rolled his eyes. “It’s the Entertainment category. You’re just getting the easy ones first so your pie looks better than mine.”
“Now who’s a poor sport?”
Inevitably, it became a race for the last wedge each needed, and the game got really intense. And when he blew his Geography question, the words he muttered were pretty intense, too.
Darcy grabbed for the iPad. “My turn.”
He held it out of her reach. “Don’t be grabby.”
“It’s my turn.”
“It’s my iPad.”
She made a mock pouty face at him. “Oh, are you going to take your toys and go home now?”
When she made another grab for it, he held it up over his head because he was tall and she was short, and she hated when he did that.
What he didn’t anticipate was Darcy losing her balance and ending up straddling his lap or her hands bracing themselves on his chest. Or the way, to keep her from falling backward and knocking herself out on the monster coffee table, his hand slid under her ass.
His body reacted immediately to the weight of her on his lap and he looked into her wide eyes. He wanted to say something flip, like “now who’s cheating?” but he was pretty sure nothing would come out but a hoarse whisper.
When her weight shifted, which he was afraid might cause things to explode, he thought she was moving back to her own side of the couch. Instead, she settled herself more comfortably on his lap, her knees on either side of his hips.
“This is a bad idea,” she said.
“Very bad,” he agreed.
“I don’t care anymore. Every single day I’m practically out of my mind, wanting you to touch me. I need you and screw the consequences.”
Jake dropped the iPad. Maybe on the arm of the couch or maybe on the floor. Didn’t care. All he cared about was sliding his hands up under Darcy’s shirt and feeling the heat of her soft skin.
All that mattered was touching her.