by Wendy Vella
Willow had her back to Buster Griffin as he approached the table, but she recognized his voice and realized he’d seen her.
“Hey, Buster. I’ll take you up on that offer, if you’re sure.” Macy was now holding Billy in her arms.
“Thank you for letting me share your table, Macy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do.” Willow didn’t look at Buster as she nodded to Macy and began to walk away.
She’d wake up early tomorrow and plan how she was going to approach him with her offer. Now was not the time to do that. After a good night’s sleep, she’d be businesslike and once again her confident self. The shock of seeing him would have eased…hopefully.
“Wait, Willow. Let me introduce you to Buster. He’s a friend, and owns The Hoot Café. Best food in town,” Macy said loudly enough that Willow would hear.
“We’ve met.”
She heard the emotionless tone in Buster’s words, so she continued to walk away. Lifting a hand, she signaled good night and headed for the stairs. She’d nearly reached them when a hand touched her shoulder.
“How’s your burn?”
“Fine, thank you.” Reluctantly Willow turned to face him and ignored the vicious kick her heart gave as she looked into his green eyes. The collar of his thick black coat was standing, and his face was flushed from being out in the cold. He looked big and dangerous, and she felt her heart start thumping out a heavy tattoo against her chest.
“Let me see.”
“No.” She put her arm behind her back.
“Don’t be childish.”
He tried to reach around her, but she backed up a step. “I said it’s fine. Now please leave. Macy and Billy are waiting.”
“Has anyone looked at it?” He stood watching her, eyes intent as they roved over her face.
“Me.”
“You a doctor?”
“No, and neither are you.”
She wasn’t sure, since his lips didn’t move, but it looked like his eyes were laughing at her.
“How do you know that?”
He was close, no more than a step between them. She dug her toes into her boots to stop herself from stepping backward.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t have been in Café Gryphon if you were a doctor.”
He smelled of cool winter nights and cinnamon, something that should be bottled because the scent was turning her knees to jelly.
“I may have been bored and needed a new challenge. In fact, there’s no way for you to know that I’m not some top cardiothoracic surgeon who’s burnt out.”
It was the strangest conversation Willow had been involved in since she’d last spoken to her parents, when her mother had tried to tell her that the color of clothing was directly related to insomnia.
“As we never spoke to each other, you’d know more about that than me, but I’m sure I’m right.” Willow took another step backward, not realizing she was close to the stairs. Her heel caught, and she fell onto her butt. Hot with embarrassment, she felt two big hands grip her waist and resettle her on her feet. They hadn’t contacted her skin, but she was suddenly hot all over.
“You all right?”
“Of course.” Willow wondered what else she was going to do to humiliate herself in front of this man. She’d stuttered, then run from his café when he’d spilled coffee on her, and now clumsiness had landed her on her backside.
“I’m sorry I hurt you earlier.”
“Don’t worry about it.” His eyes seemed darker tonight. Perhaps because the lighting wasn’t bright here, or maybe because he was laughing at her. She hoped it was the first option, because she didn’t like people laughing at her.
His sigh was loud and weary. “The thing is, Willow, I don’t want to sell—”
“At least look at the offer,” she quickly said. “It’s a lot of money, and you could do lots of things with it, like expand The Hoot.”
“I don’t want to expand The Hoot.”
“Go on a vacation, then, or if you want to own two cafés I could find you another one in New York. The money this buyer is offering you will give you plenty of options,” Willow said, searching for the right carrot to dangle before this man. She could usually read people, but his face was closed, and his body language gave nothing away. “It’s the location of Café Gryphon that the purchaser wants, and of course because you’ve turned it into such a success.”
“I’m happy with things the way they are, and I already own several cafés.” His face was calm, his eyes the same, yet she had the feeling the more she spoke, the angrier he was becoming. “I don’t want either a vacation or to see my café turned into some faceless, impersonal business like a dozen others.”
“You own other cafés?” The man was full of surprises.
He nodded, his eyes doing a slow survey of her face.
“Just give me some time to discuss it with you,” Willow said.
“Do you know what he wants to do with the Gryphon, this person who’s willing to pay a big price for my café?”
Willow nodded.
“And you spent a year eating my muffins and drinking my coffee, yet you feel no loyalty to my café? No loyalty to those muffins or coffee?”
“Mr. Griffin, this is business. If I let my heart or my stomach rule that, then I wouldn’t be the success I am,” Willow said, using her best no-nonsense tone while inside she was trembling. In New York there had been a counter between her and this man, but now, with nothing but a few feet of air separating them, the force of his attraction was lethal.
“Business,” he said, dragging out the s. “Well, I have news for you, Ms. Harper. My business is not for sale, even if you wrap that offer up in a big satin bow and present it naked… Although,” he said, “I might take my time turning it down if you did.”
“Mr. Griffin, I am a b-businesswoman, and I find that comment insulting.” Willow tried to sound insulted but, in fact, she sounded breathless.
He moved closer, so the toes of his shoes were brushing hers. “You find that insulting, and I find your offer to turn my business into a franchise insulting. I think I win the insult battle, Ms. Harper, don’t you?”
“I-I…” Willow couldn’t speak as he leaned closer, his face now inches from hers. His green gaze moved slowly over her face. He then ran a finger down her cheek, and Willow suddenly couldn’t breathe.
“When you came into the Gryphon, your skin was often flushed with a hint of color, and I wondered what it would feel like. Now I know.”
“I don’t believe you thought about me at all.” Willow tried to scoff, but because she’d spent hours wondering how it would feel if he touched her, she couldn’t make a sound.
“Oh, I gave you more than a second’s thought.” The finger ran down her cheek once more. “But what I really wanted to know was what you tasted like.”
“Pardon?”
His lips brushed hers in soft, searching kiss that had Willow gripping his arms to steady herself. He lifted his head seconds later, then ran a thumb over one cheek, his eyes holding hers steady before he turned and walked away, leaving Willow hot and achy all over.
Gripping the handrail, she walked up to her room on unsteady legs. She’d imagined kissing that man for months. It had only been a brief touch, no more than a second or two, but she felt as if the ground had shifted beneath her feet.
“She’s nice, Buster. I asked her to stay with me if she can’t find anywhere else,” Macy said.
“What?” Buster took his eyes off the road for a second to look at his friend. He couldn’t believe he had just kissed Willow Harper, the uptight Realtor from New York who reminded him of his ex, and who was here in Howling to annoy the shit out of him. “Jesus, Macy, you have to stop thinking everyone’s a good guy.”
Buster had grown up with Macy Reynolds. She’d always been spoiled and obnoxious, mostly because her parents had denied her nothing, and he and his friends had pretty much thought she was a royal pain in the butt. All that had changed when he’d found o
ut that her husband had been abusing her, and that the façade he and the rest of Lake Howling residents had seen was the one her husband had created through fear.
“She’s a good person, Buster. I just shared a meal with her, and she liked Billy—who, I might add, laughed and smiled at her all night. He’s far more discerning about who he likes than I am.”
“You can’t know if a person is good just from sharing a steak with them, Macy. That’s not how it works.” But, hell, the woman had tasted good, Buster thought. She’d fired his body to life in seconds.
“Don’t worry—she didn’t look any happier than you about the prospect, so I told her she could use the cabin. Only it’s been closed up for a while.”
“Maybe she’ll just leave,” Buster said hopefully. Please leave, he added silently. Ms. Willow Harper was the kind of woman he’d vowed to stay away from. Uptight, formal, snooty, a businesswoman who dedicated her life to one thing: herself. So why the hell did she get him so hot? New York had been no different. Every time he’d seen her walk into the café, his body had reacted, and that had pissed him off. That was how things had started with Jessica. The problem was, he wanted to mess Willow up a bit; always had, from the minute he’d first laid eyes on her. And tonight he’d given in to that temptation and touched her. Big mistake, buddy. The woman had tasted like ambrosia.
“She said she needs a break, and she may as well do so here as anywhere. Just three or four days, then she’s headed back to New York for Christmas. She seemed intent on leaving Howling before the carnival starts, too.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m unhappy about that,” Buster said, wondering why he was, in fact, unhappy about it. The woman was nothing but trouble to him.
“What’s the connection between you and Willow?”
Buster felt Macy’s gaze on the side of his face, her question throwing him off balance.
“There’s no connection between us. She’s here to get me to sign some papers that I don’t want to sign. It’s no big deal.”
“Willow’s not your ex, Buster, and I’ll add to that that you don’t have to hate every woman you think may be like Jessica.”
“Yes, I do,” he said hoping that would end the conversation.
He wasn’t sure what got to him, but there was something about Willow Harper that tapped deep into a vein inside and unsettled him, and Buster wasn’t good with emotions. He was the belligerent, unsmiling friend. The one everyone loved but shook their heads over.
“But you knew her in New York?”
“She used to come to the café every day,” Buster said reluctantly. Jake and Tex would tell their girls that, and it would get to Macy eventually, so he might as well come clean.
“Every day? So you two are friends, then?”
“No, Macy, New York isn’t like Howling. We don’t invite everyone we see to sit down at our table. I just used to say hello to her, and that was pretty much it.”
He felt her gaze boring into the side of his face.
“What?”
“You saw her every day and only spoke a handful of words to her? Shame on you, Buster Griffin. That woman is lovely, and she deserved more from someone who knew better.”
“New Yorkers don’t know better. Besides, I tried to talk to her a few times, but she never responded, so we settled on the basics. Hello, goodbye, muffin and skinny latte, thanks.”
“I say BS to that, and I’ll add that people the world over respond to kindness and the hand of friendship, so don’t try to sell me any other story.”
He felt a tug of shame at Macy’s words. He should have tried harder with Willow, because there were other regular customers he’d become friends with, but with her there’d always been an invisible barrier he’d never wanted to hurdle. Partly because she reminded him of Jessica, and partly because he had felt something with Willow from the first glance. He wasn’t sure if it was the occasional flash of vulnerability he saw in her or the fact that she was sure to have more secrets than a teenager’s diary.
“What are you, Little Miss Public Relations or something?” he muttered, falling back on the tried-and-true grumpy Buster everyone knew best.
“She’s nice, is all I’m saying, and you need a nice woman in your life again.”
“Whoa, hey, you can stop that thought right now,” Buster said, turning into her street, which coincidently was the same as his. Howling was a small town, with the majority of its full-time residents living in a cluster of a few streets. The road around the lake housed the rest, up driveways tucked back amongst the trees. “You spit that thought out of your mouth around any of the others, Macy, and they’ll run with it all the way to the altar, so let it die.” Pulling into her driveway seconds later, he stopped his car. “I don’t know the woman and I have no wish to.”
“You’re pretty defensive, considering you don’t know her.”
Buster withstood the look. He was used to people interrogating him. His friends were masters at it.
“Whatever. Now get the hell out of my car, and take your brat with you.” Buster kissed her cheek before getting out to help her with Billy.
“I hate this house.”
Macy was standing with Billy in her arms, looking at the three-story mansion in front of her. It was the biggest house on the street and set back slightly from the road. The Palace, he and his friends had nicknamed it years ago, when Macy’s ex-husband had had it built. At the time, they’d thought it was for her, but now they knew better.
“Then sell it and move.”
“Who’d buy it?” She turned to look at him, and Buster saw the anger in her eyes. “He used to make me vacuum it three times some days, and then he’d get on his knees and inspect the carpet to see if I missed anything.”
“Christ, Macy, I’m so sorry we didn’t know what he was doing.” Buster wrapped an arm around Macy’s shoulders and held her close. He wasn’t a toucher, but his friends were, so he’d gotten used to it.
“It’s okay, Buster, really. I’m better now, but this place makes me a little crazy because all those memories of him are in there.”
“Then we have to do something about that, girl, and I have to say I’m disappointed to see no color in there. What’s the deal with that?”
She shrugged, unlocking the door. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve just never really felt like it was mine, so I left it as it was after he went to jail.”
Buster gave her shoulder a squeeze as he followed her inside. “Well, we need to change that, but for now we have to get this sleeping boy into bed.”
When she headed upstairs, Buster checked that the windows were closed, and the heat turned up, and while he did he had a good look around. The house was sterile and cold.
“Okay, so, I’ll see you,” he said, heading for the front door. “And I want you to think about the colors we’re going to paint this place.”
“What?” She was coming down the stairs from putting Billy in bed for the night.
“We’ll start with paint, then see what else we can do to make it feel more like your home and not his,” Buster said, then, lifting a hand, he headed out the door. He knew women. She’d chew on what he’d said, and by the next time he saw her she’d have paint charts in hand.
He would call his friends in the morning, and they’d put their heads together about Macy. She didn’t want to stay in the house the way it was, so they’d do something to change it. But first she needed a Christmas tree. They’d sort that out in the morning too.
Willow slipped into his head, how she’d looked all flustered when she’d fallen on the stairs at The Howling. He hadn’t meant to touch her, but he had, and then the kiss had followed. Brief and sweet, and it had left him reeling. Her lips were soft and for a second they had clung to his, even though she’d probably deny it with her last breath.
“And that sure as hell is not going to happen again, Griffin,” he said as he walked back toward his car. “Seeing as how she’s public enemy number one.”
A few minutes
later, pushing aside thoughts of Willow and the papers she’d brought with her, and the taste and feel of her lips beneath his, he punched the remote on his garage and drove in.
Once inside, he climbed over the pile of boxes in his doorway, around the shoes, then into the kitchen. Turning on the gas stove, he got to work.
CHAPTER FOUR
Willow woke early, ate breakfast in her room and planned everything she would say to Buster Griffin, right down to the polite greeting. After checking out of The Howler, she stowed her bag in the trunk of her sedan, then, with her glasses firmly in place, she picked up her briefcase and handbag and headed for The Hoot. She would simply tell him the details of the contract, outline the positives, and leave the documents for him to look over while she took a walk. He would see reason, and then he’d sign them, and she’d be on the road out of Howling before lunch. It all sounded simple when she thought it through.
Yesterday had just been tiredness. All her stuttering and foolish thoughts and behavior had been a result of the last few months of working seven days a week with little sleep, and the worry of paying her bills. Today she would push aside the desperation of her circumstances and be confident. She was good at her job, so there was no reason for her to doubt herself.
Straightening her shoulders, she pushed open the café door, and the delicious smells ticked her nostrils once more. There were plenty of customers this morning. A few smiled, and she returned the gesture before reaching the counter.
“Hi. What can I get you?”
“I wanted to speak to Mr. Griffin if possible, please,” Willow said to the young man serving.
“He’s not back until tomorrow. You want me to give him a message?”
She hadn’t expected that. “No, thanks.”
Buster Griffin had known he wasn’t going to be here when she saw him in The Howler last night, and he’d said nothing. Battling not to let the anger and frustration show, Willow headed back out the door.
What should she do now? It was cold, so she couldn’t sit in her car and wait, and besides, if he wasn’t back until tomorrow Willow would be an icicle by then. Looking up and down the street, she didn’t see him; that would have been too simple. There was no way she’d leave without his signature on that contract, so she’d have to find somewhere to sleep tonight and visit The Hoot again tomorrow.
