Burned by Love

by Erin Wright

  “Yup,” he said simply, and then let the silence hang between them.

  It was almost fun at this point. He could tell she wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him – GIVE ME INFORMATION!! – but somehow managed to keep ahold of herself.

  Barely.

  “Well, this is her desk,” Shayla said, gesturing towards a desk piled with more papers than the National Archives kept on hand. It was a wobbly looking piece of shit, and he wondered for a moment about its structural integrity with that much paper on it.

  He pulled a blank sheet off a mostly used legal pad and plucked a pen out of the coffee cup that said, I’m not bossy – I just know what you should be doing.

  He had to work not to snort out loud at how perfectly that fit Penny.

  He looked up. Shayla was still standing there, watching his every move hopefully. She was probably thinking she’d read over his shoulder as he wrote out the note.

  Not a chance in hell.

  “Thanks,” he said flatly, staring straight at Shayla, not moving a muscle.

  With a disgruntled sigh, she flounced back up front, her skirt bouncing along with every unhappy stomp.

  Troy could feel the eyes of a few of Penny’s coworkers on his back, but when he not-so-casually looked around the office, everyone’s eyes dropped quickly to their computer screens.

  What did you expect – it’s a room full of reporters, which are, by definition, nosy bastards.

  Ignoring his audience for a moment, Troy quickly wrote down his number and a note that he’d forgotten to get hers previously, and then asked her to text him when she got off work. Hopefully she wouldn’t find the “text” part of that weird. Everyone texted instead of called nowadays, right?

  He slipped the note underneath the band of gold ribbon that the sales lady down at the chocolate store had used to wrap the box with, and laid it on Penny’s keyboard – an easy decision since it was the only part of her desk that wasn’t covered by something else. He’d been tempted to write, PS Hi, Shayla! at the bottom of the note, but wasn’t sure if Penny would understand, or would get pissed about it. Better to leave sarcasm out of it.

  With a nod to the receptionist, who was practically vibrating in her chair with impatience for him to leave so she could sneak back and read the note, he headed back out into the bright June sunshine, the glare off every shiny surface hurting his eyes after the gloom of the newspaper office.

  And not a single printing machine tried to eat me, either.

  With a grin of triumph, he slid back into his truck and headed back towards the mill. Not a bad save, all in all. After thirty-something years of watching every word he said, metering words out like gold coins – precious and rare – he’d found some workarounds to make it through life without it being painfully obvious that talking wasn’t his favorite activity in the world.

  Actually, he was probably only fooling himself – if he asked anyone in his family or at the mill if he liked to talk, they’d all probably piss their pants with laughter at such a stupid question.

  But if he asked anyone in his extended family or at the mill if he could talk, they’d all say yes, of course. Only his parents and aunt and uncle knew the truth.

  And with any luck at all, that would never change.

  Chapter 10

  Penny

  “Like, really tall,” Shayla said, stretching her hand as high above her head as she could to indicate Troy’s height. “But so quiet. I could hardly get a word out of him. How do you know him?”

  Penny used her height plus her heels to tower a bit over the ditzy girl, hoping to intimidate her into shutting up. Shayla reminded her of Glenda, actually, now that she thought about it – both receptionists, both loved to gossip, both couldn’t get Troy to talk.

  They don’t know him like I do.

  Considering Troy and her had only gone on one date, that was a hell of a thing to say, especially since Glenda worked for Troy, but Penny instinctually knew it was true anyway.

  Shayla continued on, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Penny hadn’t answered her question. “Are you going to open up the note?” she asked excitedly. “And the chocolates? They only wrap a gold ribbon around the box when the good ones are inside. Otherwise, they use a silver ribbon.”

  “How do you know this?” Penny asked wearily, giving up on her idea of intimidating Shayla into shutting up – not something that usually worked anyway – and sinking into her office chair. Her feet ached. God, how she loved high heels. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure if they felt the same way about her.

  “I worked at Once Upon a Trinket during high school. They always need extra help during Christmas and summer break. Eventually, they stopped asking me to come in and work for them, though. Their business probably slowed down or something.”

  Or they got sick of listening to you.

  Penny decided to keep that theory to herself.

  “Well, I’m going to get some work done,” she said pointedly, staring up at the girl without blinking.

  “You’re not going to—” She broke off at Penny’s pointed stare. “Fine,” she grumbled and stormed back upfront.

  Penny had to wonder if Shayla had already read the note Troy had slipped underneath the gold ribbon, but decided that for her sanity, she didn’t want to know. Despite her professed nonchalance in front of Shayla, her hands were shaking as she pulled the note out and scanned it. After getting the flowers that morning, she’d spent her entire interview with Mrs. VanLueven that was supposed to be focused on her plans to grow a military support organization for returning soldiers, instead wondering when she’d see Troy again. By the end, Mrs. VanLueven had gotten more than a little snippy with her when Penny had asked her the same question three times in a row, and quite honestly, Penny couldn’t fault her for it.

  Daydreaming wasn’t normally a flaw of hers. She was usually too focused on the world, what needed to be done, talking to the people around her, learning and growing…

  No, she wasn’t usually much for daydreaming.

  Penny,

  I realized that I forgot to get your phone number so I could call you. I’d like to go out again. Maybe not to an event with quite so many beat-up spoons, though. Text me when you get off work.

  Troy

  And then his phone number.

  “What did he mean by ‘beat-up spoons’?” Shayla called back from her desk up at the front.

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Penny yelled back.

  Blessed silence.

  She slid the ribbon off the box and pulled the top off. Inside was an assortment of chocolates that all looked good enough to eat.

  Really? Good enough to eat? You know what you should do, Penny? You should write for a living, considering your amazing way with words.

  She rolled her eyes at herself, and, dithering, finally chose a rounded dark ball with a few strands of coconut on top. Her teeth sunk into the chocolate and her tongue exploded with happiness. Coconut and dark chocolate – it was a combination for the gods.

  Expensive hand-dipped chocolates and a huge bouquet of flowers, all on the same day, eh? Penny Roth, he may just like you.

  She paused, her hand almost to her mouth with the other half of the chocolate ball of goodness.

  What if he likes me too much? What if he’s hoping I’ll stay here?

  She shook the thought off almost as quickly as it crossed her mind. She’d gone on exactly one date with the guy. It was a little too early to be worried about how they were going to make it in the long term. That was the kind of clingy bullshit that drove guys crazy. Now was the time to just go out, have some fun, and enjoy herself. Nothing else expected or needed.

  She popped the other bite into her mouth and moaned a little with pleasure.

  Yeah, she could get used to this.

  Chapter 11

  Troy

  Troy pulled up to the old Connelly place, now owned by Wyatt Miller, and cut the engine.

  Actually, n
ow that he thought about it, Wyatt had owned this spread for probably a good fifteen years; Troy probably shouldn’t consider it to be the old Connelly place anymore. Old habits die hard, I guess.

  Wyatt had bought it off the auction block when Sheriff Connelly had lost it during that spate of shithole water years the valley had gone through. Hell, Uncle Horvath almost lost the mill at the same time because the farmers just weren’t bringing in much grain to be threshed. You can’t thresh grain that hadn’t been grown, and grain doesn’t grow if it doesn’t have water.

  It wasn’t an equation that many were successful in getting around, and the local farmers weren’t an exception.

  When Wyatt had bought the place, Troy’d thought he’d acted like a hell of an asshole, going around and bragging to everyone that he’d do a damn better job of running the farm than Sheriff Connelly had. Wyatt wasn’t much in the people skills department to begin with, and that round of bragging – when everyone in the area had been hurting because of the drought – hadn’t won him any new friends, that was for damn sure.

  But coming up on two years ago, the unlikeliest pair on the planet – the sheriff’s daughter and Wyatt – had hooked up, and dammit all if it hadn’t changed Wyatt completely, and all for the better.

  In fact…

  Troy squinted into the sunlight streaming through the windshield of his truck. Yup, there was Sheriff Connelly himself in the crowd, apparently ready to help with the move today. Troy’d heard that Wyatt and his father-in-law were getting along real nice nowadays, but still, it was a shock to the system to see it. After the fistfight the two of them had gotten into, Troy never would’ve guessed he’d live to see the day.

  Sparky began whining in the bed of the truck, pulling him back to the present. She never jumped out until Troy got out of the cab, and she was getting impatient with his lollygagging around. She had four-legged friends to greet and humans to avoid, dammit.

  “I’m coming,” he grumbled as he slid out. The soles of his boots had barely touched the ground when Sparky took off like a shot, out of the bed of the truck and straight towards Ellie Mae, Wyatt’s dog. They began busily smelling each other’s asses as every dog in the world just loved to do, their tails wagging up a storm. Ellie Mae was what could kindly be called a “farm dog” – there were so many different breeds in her, “mutt” didn’t begin to cover it. Compared to her nondescript brown and tan shaggy coat, Sparky’s breeding as a hunting dog shone through clearly. She had gorgeous lines and a silky white and black speckled coat that almost sparkled in the bright June sunshine.

  Troy watched her closely, and saw the same thing he always did: Even in the midst of Sparky’s delight of being around Ellie Mae, she was still carefully hanging back from the rest of the humans, watching to make sure no one came too close. Whoever the jackass was that lost her up in the hills – and had beat her into submission previous to that – deserved to burn in hell, no doubt about it.

  Troy could only hope there really was a hell. It’d suck if Sparky’s former owner got away with it all.

  Sure that Sparky was okay for the moment, he wandered over to the back of the knot of people gathered around Abby, Wyatt’s wife, clipboard in hand. “Everyone knows where the new place is, right?” she asked rhetorically, before continuing on anyway. “Up the road a mile and on the left. We’re going to focus on getting the furniture down there today so we can get all of it set up and in place; boxes come down second. We can easily stack boxes around the furniture, but I don’t want to have to rearrange furniture while also unpacking boxes.”

  Everyone chuckled politely at that, acknowledging the wisdom of her words. Stetson, Wyatt’s youngest brother, looked over and saw Troy at the edges of the group. “Oh hey, Troy! Thanks for coming!” Everyone turned and said their hellos as Troy waved, pulling the edges of his lips up into what he hoped passed as a smile.

  Being the focus of everyone’s attention, even if it was friendly and welcoming attention…

  He could finally breathe again when the group turned back towards Abby. “Juan is in charge of his room,” she said, pointing at a Hispanic boy, already well on his way to being a heartbreaker at maybe 10 or 11 years old, “so any questions about it go to him. I’m going to be in charge of the kitchen and living room; Wyatt will be in charge of the rest of the house. Any questions?”

  “Where do you want me to set up lunch?” Carmelita asked, standing next to Jennifer who was holding what appeared to be a poster child for adorable babies. Carmelita had been the housekeeper for the Miller family since Mr. Miller had been alive, and when Stetson had inherited his father’s farm, Carma had come along with it, part and parcel. Troy had seen her around, of course, but mostly what he knew about her was that she was one hell of a cook. The fact that she was gonna be cooking today’s meal as a thank-you to the volunteers for their help made Troy’s stomach rumble with anticipation.

  Hells to the yes! Coming out to help the Millers move from the old farmstead house to the new one Wyatt had built over the past year was looking like a better and better idea by the minute.

  “Let’s have you do it in the backyard of the new place,” Abby said. “Do you need any help putting that together?”

  “Only a man or two to set up tables,” Carma said dismissively. “No one cooks in my kitchen except me.”

  Abby, wisely, didn’t point out that the kitchen in question was hers, but instead just nodded her agreement. “Troy, Stetson, you help Carma set up the tables and chairs for lunch. Everyone else, let’s go inside the old house and I’ll point out the furniture that needs to be loaded up.”

  Troy hadn’t actually been to the new Miller house yet, so he followed Stetson and Carmelita’s lead in getting there. Once he stepped inside of the grand house, he sucked in a quick breath of surprise. Damn. Maybe Wyatt had ended up to be a better farmer than Sheriff Connelly, after all. He had to be kicking some major ass to be able to afford a house like this, anyway.

  “I know, right?” Stetson said in his ear with a small chuckle as he stepped to Troy’s side. “Wyatt built a lot of it himself, though, keeping the costs down. They want a big house so they can foster-adopt a lot more children. Juan’s such a great kid, I guess they figured they wanted ten more just like him.”

  It looked like it could house ten kids, with room to spare. Troy had heard that Abby couldn’t have kids, so they were going the foster-adopt route instead. Damn impressive. He never would’ve guessed it of Wyatt Miller, of all people. Troy’d always liked Abby – how could you not? She was a sweet, hard-working woman with a backbone of steel – but still, he was surprised by just how good of an influence she was on her husband. Wyatt better be thanking the Lord every day that he found a woman like her.

  “What are they doing with the old home?” Troy asked as he admired the river stone fireplace that dominated the north wall. Wyatt sure went for the dramatic.

  “Selling it interest free to Jorge Palacios, his foreman, along with a little acreage. Jorge has been with him for years now, and with all of those kids and grandkids him and Maria have, Wyatt figured getting him into a real home instead of a double-wide was the best present he could give him.”

  Troy nodded thoughtfully. It was damn typical that the foreman of a spread lived in a double-wide on the place, free rent included as part of the job, but it also meant that they weren’t building equity in land and homes of their own. To split off a piece of the property for Jorge to buy was a damn considerate idea.

  Yet another change wrought in Wyatt by Abby, Troy was sure of it.

  “Come, boys,” Carmelita said in her light Hispanic accent, heading towards the back of the house where Troy guessed the kitchen was probably located. “Let us get set up in the backyard, then maybe I will feed you a little something before sending you back up to the other house, yes?”

  Troy grinned at the back of her as the housekeeper moved without hesitation towards the kitchen, ready to get to work. He sure liked how she thought. The short woman was as
round as she was tall, but there was a strength to her that clearly said she was in charge, and if you knew what was good for you, you’d do what she wanted, when she wanted it.

  Troy had never been able to stomach simpering girls who said things like, “Oh, whatever you want,” in response to virtually every question, and so he could instantly tell he and Carmelita were gonna get along just fine.

  As Stetson and Troy carried tray after tray of food into the nearly empty kitchen, laying it all out on the granite counters for Carma, Stetson ribbed his housekeeper – someone, Troy could tell, who he considered to be a beloved grandmother – about outdoing herself this time. “You know what you should do, Carma?” Stetson asked rhetorically as he brought in a tray of empanadas. “You should open up a restaurant in Sawyer. Give Betty’s Diner a run for their money. You would have people lined up around the block to eat your food.”

  As Troy set down a big bowl of fragrant, spicy salsa, he inwardly had to agree. The enchiladas, the salsa and chips, the empanadas…he’d give his right nut sac to eat like this every day. Troy wondered for a moment about tackling the older woman and making a run for the front door with Carma tucked underneath his arm. She was damn short; he could probably make it to his truck before the alarm got out to everyone, especially if he knocked out Stetson with one of the cast iron pans beforehand.

  “I am too old for such things,” Carma said dismissively, but Troy detected a hint of longing in her voice. “And anyway, who would cook for you and Jennifer and Flint if I did not? You would waste away to nothing without me around.”

  “I could probably stand to lose a few pounds,” Stetson said with a laugh, patting what appeared to be a perfectly flat belly. Troy wondered for a moment how it was that Stetson did stay so thin, with this kind of food surrounding him every day. He would have to wrestle a whole lot of calves to work all of this off. “And anyway, Jennifer knows how to cook.” He paused for a second. “I think.” Troy let out a bark of disbelieving laughter at that, and Stetson turned to him with a grin and a shrug. “What? She’s cooked a couple of times over the past few years, when Carma was stuck in Boise for an appointment or something. No one died. Well, at least no one worth mentioning. We just don’t bring up Great Aunt Elma anymore.”