by Violet Duke
A flush of pleasure spread across her cheeks.
“I’ve thought about as least that many ways to win you over.” He trailed his thumb along her jawline. “I figured if I had entered the challenge, odds were I would’ve won the prize due to the sheer volume of my entries alone. So, I went ahead and awarded myself the prize. Well, half of it, at least.” He pulled out an embossed ivory card from his back pocket.
“You bought a certificate from that spa?” Quinn recognized the ivory card immediately because she’d actually been the one to pick the spa for Luke’s contest. Of course she’d never had the time or money to ever go there as a customer herself, but she’d heard good things.
“For you. It’s a single certificate because I didn’t want you to feel there were strings attached to it. I know how hard you work and I wanted you to have a day to relax. Even if you don’t want to see where this can lead between us, it’s still yours.” He kissed her gently, silently giving her the promise that there was no pressure to say yes and no guilt in saying no.
She looked at the spa certificate and then at the sinfully hot man asking her to let him love her in the way she’d always dreamed—two of the sweetest offers she’d ever received.
“Yes...I’m saying yes,” she replied breathlessly. “I don’t just want a ride on the counter. I want the whole package.” She looked into his eyes. “With you.”
* * * * *
THE DIFFERENCE in Quinn the past few days could only leave Luke to believe she was in love. Or close to it. For the first time ever. That remarkable realization was what made this conversation ten times more difficult. He hated seeing her perpetual smile lately vanish and get replaced by worry over the financial problems he’d put them in.
“Quinn, I just found out this morning. Harold’s son Noah was the one to call and tell me directly.” Luke waited for the bomb he’d just dropped to sink in. “The lease increase would start our next contract period in July if we decide to accept and renew.” Luke looked up warily.
Quinn fell back against her office chair, stunned. “Double our monthly lease?”
“He said a few wineries are interesting in setting up shop here in Cactus Creek and our building is the top choice because of the cellar and the location. Apparently, besides the two who want to buy the building, a third is part of some big franchise offering to pay double what we’re paying to lease. But he says he’ll stick with us if we can match what they’re offering.”
“There’s no way we can afford that drastic a hike. Since we went with the three-year business loan for the lower interest rate and higher monthlies, nearly all our profits go straight to our payments as is.” She shook her head sadly. “Crazy as it sounds, I’ve grown to love it here almost as much as you, but I simply cannot see us paying that huge sum each month to stay here.”
“It’s not as if this space isn’t worth it, Quinn. You know the amount isn’t unreasonable.”
“But it’s unfeasible. At least for our business. We’d be in the red the entire time.”
“So what’s the alternative? Attempt to rebuild everything we have here somewhere else? And I’m not just talking about the shop.” Luke shoved his hands through his hair in frustration.
Quinn banged her fists on her desk. “I can’t believe he’s being such an opportunistic dick!”
Luke sighed. “That’s the part you’re going to really hate. See, Noah owns most of the commercial property here in town. Remember how I told you Dani mentioned that some of the mom-and-pop businesses are having a tough time keeping up? The thing we were going to help Harold with? Well, even without selling, by just accepting that third winery’s offer, he can help five of those businesses from shutting their doors. He doesn’t like the reality of increasing our lease to keep theirs feasible, but there it is. Plus, with the isolation of some of his properties— ”
“Don’t tell me, Dan and Barb’s little grocery store?”
“Yep. If they shut down, it’s unlikely he’d get another tenant for a one-story building in the middle of nowhere, which would force him to sell the whole lot. If he did, he thinks a big box store might be the only one to offer. Apparently, they’ve been sniffing around. Despite my hating the position he’s putting us in, I do admire his doing what he can to prevent those kinds of city changes around here. He won’t say it but I think he has a soft spot for small-town life.”
Quinn flipped her head back in defeat. “You’re right. Now I really hate this guy.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Me too.” But honestly, he didn’t. Noah was truly a class act. Not only had he offered a more than generous deferred payment extension on the collateral loan so Luke wouldn’t lose his recipes, but he’d also prepared an extensively researched list of comparable relocation properties.
Quinn’s gaze fell back down to the ground and stayed there. “Luke, I just don’t think...”
“I know,” he broke in quietly. There was no way he could ask Quinn to take this sort of risk, this kind of sacrifice. Yet again. “I know,” he repeated more to himself. This was an impossible choice before them. While staying would in fact mean operating in the red, leaving would flush the thousands they‘d invested in this new shop right down the toilet.
Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
Studying her pained expression, he added with as much hope as he could muster, “But we have a few months to find a way around…that.” That being exactly what they were both thinking. Luke frowned and looked away. No matter which route they decided to take, they both knew there could be a shared outcome he never thought he’d ever have to face.
The end of their business partnership.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DANI STARED at the coffee dripping into carafe. Her head was a mess—her heart too.
She needed to come clean with Luke.
A task infinitely more difficult with each Valentine surprise the crazy man doled out.
Every few days for the past two weeks, just when the high of the last surprise would wear off enough for her to man up enough to try and tell him, BAM, he would sweep her off her feet with another touchingly sentimental gift or gesture. He was impossible.
And she was falling irretrievably more in love with him every day.
The fact that he was working so hard to stay positive about his business situation was just compounding her guilt. He downplayed it a lot, telling her ‘the small lease increase’ was the reason for his being more stressed than usual lately. She couldn’t very well call him on it and say that she knew it was more than a ‘small increase’ without explaining everything.
So she kept putting it off. Even though the whole thing was making her crazy.
What made this all especially tough was the shortage of available sane people to save her from her burgeoning madness. She couldn’t go to Derek because she was probably the last person he wanted to talk to these days—and the guilt still ripping her up on that front really shouldn’t be in the same room as her Luke-guilt. Of course there was always Rylan. But knowing that Quinn would surely kill him for keeping this sort of thing from her put him on the bench as well. That left Xoey. Ah Xoey, with her life philosophy that we should all be a) unafraid to jump into love ass first and b) unashamed to ‘exchange if not satisfied’ every ninety days.
Again, there were no sane people to help her through this.
It didn’t help matters any that lately Xoey seemed to think Dani’s life was a soap opera she could tune into on demand. So now, instead of talking during their regular doughnut and coffee weekly breakfasts like they used to, Xoey was totally obsessed with grilling Dani about Luke’s latest Valentine instead. And that was before she knew about the photos—
Speak of the devil. The sound of a key turning her front door lock had Dani pouring the coffee. Without even a hello, Xoey put down the doughnut box, settled on the couch, and held out her hands expectantly. Dani sighed and handed over the keepsake photo album Luke had insisted she keep when he’d first started his romantic cru
sade. Last week, Dani had made the colossal mistake of mentioning the album to Xoey, which of course, led to Xoey spending every day since being a royal pain about it being available for her viewing pleasure today.
Opening up the album giddily, Xoey kicked her feet up and began quietly editorializing each photo. “Ohhh,” she sighed over the earlier pages chronicling the third Valentine, “he made you a mix CD?” She shook her head in envy. “A boy in middle school made me a romantic CD once. I loved it. I kid you not, I still have it somewhere.” Her face sobered then as she flipped through more album pages with a soft, “No one has ever been this romantic for me.”
Startled, Dani just stared at the brief flash of sadness in Xoey’s eyes. She quickly sat beside her. “Hey, what’s going on? Anything you want to talk about?”
Xoey quickly put on a falsely bright smile. “Nah, just getting a little green-eyed here.” She picked up the album again. “Luke’s right, you know; you really are a closet romantic that needs to hurry up and come out already.” Looking up, she added, “I’m happy for you.”
Suddenly, the tiniest hint of a glow crept into her eyes.
Dani suppressed a grin as she waited. This ought to be good.
Xoey flipped to a specific page in the album and poked an innocent finger at the photo from the fourth Valentine, the one of Dani’s hand holding—and covering—a handwritten poem from Luke. “You know what would make me really happy right now?”
Dani rolled her eyes. “Neeever going to happen.”
“Oh, c’mon.”
“Nope.” The poem in question was under lock and key in Dani’s bedroom safe. Though she generally told Xoey everything, some things had to stay private...like a poem so crazy adorable that goofy stars lit Dani’s eyes whenever she thought about it. Since Luke wanted each Valentine to be consistent with the one she’d missed in the year she’d missed it, his Valentine gifts had started first with youthful candy hearts and worked up from there. For her fourth Valentine, Luke had channeled his old adolescent self to write a love poem for her. As such, not only was it as unfiltered as a teen’s thoughts, it was romantically candid and hella funny. Dani eventually committed every word to memory after rereading it dozens of times.
More than anything, what Dani loved was feeling like she was living actual Valentine moments with him across the gamut. She finally understood what people meant about those odd butterflies from being in a too quiet, swanky restaurant for an overpriced, albeit delicious, meal. Absolutely nothing beat reliving the helpless laughter over the date where a freak cold front had rolled in and frozen them solid during their picnic at the desert botanical garden. And she’d never forget the heart-melting night he’d projected a movie on the Ocotillos parking lot wall so she could sit in his car with him and watch it like they were teens at a drive-in, something she’d secretly always wanted to do. The way he’d carry on in full Valentine mode—as if the entire world were still celebrating February 14th along with him—made every experience priceless.
“Hey,” Xoey broke into her musings accusingly. “You’re missing a few photos here.”
Dani’s color ripened to crimson. “We, errr, have to edit a few of the photos first.”
Xoey was tickled and particularly graphic in her guesses of what needed editing.
Dani neither confirmed nor denied the accuracy of at least one of Xoey’s guesses.
With another envious groan, Xoey fell back onto the couch. “Tell me the guy has some sort of flaw. Bad habits, strange fetishes...anything?”
Smiling, Dani shook her head.
Xoey shot her a meaningful look and said quietly, “He’s it for you, Dani. And I know deep down you know that, too. I also know you well enough to know something’s been up with you lately. Something big. Whatever it is, just talk to him. That’s the only way to fix it.”
Looked like Xoey was the sane person to help her through this after all.
“SORRY I MADE YOU miss lunch again, Sam.”
Dani rushed into her office and put a plate of food in front of her assistant manager on duty just as he was finishing up some paperwork for her. “I just can’t get the lautering right on this new brew recipe. It’s driving me nuts.”
Sam tugged her ponytail sympathetically. “No worries. It was slow today. And I loaded up on energy bars when I saw not all the steam in the brewery today was from the kettles.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. The guys loved teasing her that the extra soundproofing they’d sprung for in the expansion was partly to block her loud and ‘colorful’ brewing lingo.
He chuckled and grabbed the plate of food she’d brought for him. “I’m going to take my lunch and break together since I only have two hours left in my shift. Holler if you need me.”
Dani glanced at the clock—yikes, it was later than she’d thought. “Damn, I’m sorry you worked straight through. You know what? Go on home already. You earned it.”
He slammed a finger up to his lips. “Shhh! You know Elle has ears like a bat!” Wary, he stuck his head out the door and cased the hallway to see which waitresses were nearby. “Last thing I want is for Elle to call Terri and tell her I’ll actually be able to make it home in time for Jenna’s ballet recital. Thanks, but no thanks—my ass is working my full shift to make sure I miss it. It’s Terri’s turn to sit through the thing and videotape Jenna’s three minutes on stage.”
Not even attempting to hide her smile, Dani made a zipping motion of her lips and slapped Sam on the back sympathetically. They’d all heard about little Jenna’s last recital—it had lasted five hours. And since it had been during Terri’s shift waitressing, Sam had been on video duty while Terri had been in Ocotillos, crossing her chest in thanks every time he’d sent her a pained text from his seat in the auditorium amidst a sea of rabid dance moms.
“Hey, what’s this?” she asked Sam, belatedly noticing the big file box on her desk.
Amusement twitched across his lips. “Your mail, madam. We eventually had to box it all because it was overflowing your similarly neglected in-tray this week.”
Ah yes, that sounded about right. When her head was focused on a new brew, there were times her workers had to club her over the head with day-to-day business things. The year she’d made her award-winning black lager, she’d completely forgotten to renew their logo napkin contract. For a week, they’d had to use picnic napkins—the big country-cute square ones that had no place in a bar—to tide them over until she’d gotten everything straightened out.
That was what had given birth to Sam’s ‘Dani, open me!’ folder hanging from a string in her office doorway, right at nose-level. She was embarrassed to admit that on two occasions—okay, maybe three—she’d walked face-first into it while she was deep in thought about a beer recipe.
No one said brewing wasn’t a dangerous business.
Particularly lately, it seemed that Dani had suffered two more face whacks from the folder just this week. “I’ll be better once I fix this recipe, Sam, I promise.” Dani opened the file box. “Hey, if you need to hide out from Elle, why not eat here and help me sift through all this mail?”
Sam gave her a strange look and backed away slowly. “You don’t remember, do you?”
“Remember what?” Her blank expression turned more suspicious with every step he took toward the door. She peered in the box to take a look.
And fell into her seat in shock.
There were dozens and dozens of pink and red envelopes in the box. “No.” Her voice was hoarse as she picked one of the cards up delicately. “People actually sent us Valentines?”
“A lot of people.” Sam’s shoulders lifted in a hey-it-was-inevitable way. “Luke pretty much became the most romantic guy in Arizona since his little concession speech. It was just a matter of time till the right people read about his whole ‘send a valentine to Ocotillos’ request. Hell, all of us here were prepared from day one to get slammed with letters. We’ve been getting dozens a day for the past two weeks. Hence the box.” With
that, he quietly moved to the door to give her some privacy.
“Wait, stop! You can’t leave me alone with these. You have to help me open them.”
“Nooo.” He took two more steps back. “Sorry, I’m allergic.”
“To Valentine’s Day cards?!”
“To the ones in that box? Oh yeah. Remember, I’ve been working with you long enough to know exactly what kind of stories are going to be in those cards. If I read ‘em, my allergies will hit and turn my eyes all watery. Not good. Sorry, boss.” He exited the office quickly.
“Vick!” called out Dani when she saw her headwaiter outside. “Help me out will you?”
Vick started in the door with a smile until he saw Sam shaking his head slowly, eyes closed. Then he saw the box. “Nuh-uh,” he jumped back out to the hallway. “Sorry, Dani, but those there are addressed to you and it is a crime, a federal offense in fact, for me to open another person’s mail.” Clearly, his acting classes were not paying off since laughter was bubbling out with the bullcrap dribbling from his mouth. “You know how I’m a stickler for the law.”
“Are you frickin’ kidding me? I’m the one who bailed you out of jail for fighting a few years ago!” she blasted out, smacking his arm with one of the big pink envelopes.
“Yes, and I know you want me to stay on the straight and narrow. What you’re asking is what they call a gateway crime.” He tsked as if devastated there weren’t a better solution.
“Argh!” She pushed past both exasperating men to make a plea to Javier, who’d come over to see what was making Dani have a near meltdown. When he saw her holding one of the Ocotillos Valentine’s Day cards, he spun around to run right back to the kitchen.
She caught him by his apron strings. “Javier!”
Slowly, Javier turned and gave her a polite look. “Si, Miss Dani?”
