“Thank you.”
Roark cleared his throat, his hand going to Madison’s.
“And the girl?” Madison asked. “Anna.”
“I have to get her back, but I don’t know how.”
“Something tells me you’ll figure out a way.”
“But if we can help,” Roark added, “we will.”
Dev looked at his brother and for the first time, Roark had his back, without holding him back. He trusted Dev to go forward with his plan, trusted him to do the right thing.
What’s more, Dev trusted himself too.
Chapter 28
Anna read the congratulatory email for the fifth time. Her boss’s announcement to the department, singing Anna’s praises for the account she won yesterday.
Only two weeks at work and she had an up-and-coming health food chain as their new client. All because of her genius slogan.
Her spark was back. Last week she’d come up with at least three other great slogans and helped an associate with her account. She had the magic again and should be flushed with success, reeling with the triumph.
Instead, she felt nothing.
“Sandwich, salad, fruit cup?” Lucy, the girl from the deli downstairs, made her rounds amid the cubicles, selling lunch to the poor souls who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, leave their desks for lunch.
Poor souls like Anna.
“Sandwich, salad—oh hey!” Lucy stopped outside her glass-walled office. “You want the usual?”
Anna closed her laptop. “Sure.”
Weeks of people tiptoeing around her, shooting her glances of concern mixed with wary judgment, but not a single person had asked how she was doing or said how nice it was having her back.
Even if comments like that were empty social norms, it’d be nice. The people here didn’t even bother. They cared a lot about her ideas and closing deals, but they couldn’t be bothered to care about her.
Lucy shuffled some sandwiches around on her cart, looking for Anna’s turkey on wheat.
“Y’know, I’ve been meaning to ask, I didn’t see you around here for a while. Started to wonder if you’d moved on to bigger and better things.”
“I went on vacation.”
“Good for you. Must’ve been a nice one.”
“It was.” Better than nice. Nice didn’t begin to describe what she’d experienced over the last few weeks. Life changing. Altering.
And then she’d run away.
Dev was right. Like a coward, she’d sneaked off in the middle of the night because she was scared. Scared to admit how much she wanted to stay, scared because she didn’t have the answers, didn’t know what would come next if she stayed.
The office she’d prided herself on now felt like a fishbowl, where everyone could stare at her and wonder why she’d been gone so long. What had been wrong with her? Was she lazy or crazy?
Maybe both. Maybe everything her mother ever said about her was true.
Anna blinked hard and sat up a little straighter. She wasn’t going down that spiral. Not right now and not here. “It was very nice. Thank you.”
“Cool. I have a few days off myself. Thinking I might go to the beach or something.”
“You should. Enjoy yourself.”
“Thanks.” Lucy took Anna’s cash and passed over the carefully wrapped sandwich. “You know, I heard what happened right before you left.”
Anna groaned and dropped her chin.
“No, not to embarrass you.” She stepped farther into Anna’s office. “It’s just . . . I’ve been there and I wanted to say I hope you feel better.”
“You’ve been there?” She glanced up.
Lucy huffed with a laugh. “I’m in med school at night and, before I took on this deli gig, I was trying to work forty hours a week at a nursing home, go to school, and have a life.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what I was trying to prove or who I was trying to prove it to, but I started getting these headaches, and they checked my vitals at the nursing home. I was dehydrated, low iron, underweight. There I am, supposed to be caring for the sick, and I’m letting myself fall apart. The madness had to stop. My priority was finishing school. So, I put in my notice at the facility and I have this deli job until I graduate. Why overcomplicate things when they can be so simple?”
They shared a look.
“When I quit, my supervisor at the facility told me I couldn’t have it all. I’d have to start all over again when I graduated. Low nurse on the totem pole. Like I care? I’d rather start over and stop being unhappy. You know?”
Anna did know. For her though, starting again meant . . . exactly that. In her line of work, she’d have to go to a different agency and ask to work remotely, which they hated, but it did happen, rarely.
She’d be back at the bottom, climbing her way to the top. Having to prove herself all over again, but she would have Dev.
Maybe.
Or she could’ve lost him forever by leaving.
She rested her head on her hand, suddenly too tired to even hold it up.
“Looks like you could use another vacation,” Lucy joked, backing out of her office. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
“I will.”
The white paper crinkled as Anna unwrapped her lunch and spread it out on her desk. She did more picking at the bread than eating.
If she were back at Honeywilde, she’d probably be finishing up a long walk or trying her luck in the mosaic-tile class, going to get lunch, either downtown or at the restaurant. Either of which would taste one hundred times better than this turkey sandwich.
Life at a resort wasn’t reality, but she’d felt useful and productive, and more than anything, appreciated.
In one swipe of her arm, she shoved the sandwich and paper into her trash can.
An aching loneliness yelled at her from inside.
She couldn’t ignore it, drown it out by going right back to work. Didn’t matter. The truth was an empty nothingness, threatening to swallow her whole.
She was here and successful—and unhappy.
With a longing that hurt in her chest, she missed Devlin.
Pretending otherwise was pointless. She’d snuck out of Honeywilde in the dead of night, not even brave enough to face him. And she’d said he was scared. Ha!
She’d been terrified. Too scared to stay and face him again, and scared to leave. She had no idea what she was doing here. She missed the Anna she was while at Honeywilde. The lightness, the joy, and the love of life.
What was she going to do? Go right back to sixteen-hour days, being the queen of advertising, having late dinners alone in the kitchen? The occasional happy hour with coworkers, pretending she had anything more than a superficial connection with them? They didn’t know her any more than she knew them.
Or, she could quit. Make it permanent and official. Leave her job, the work she loved, and resent Dev for making her go.
No, that was pathetic. Why should she have to give up a career she loved to have love, and why should she give up love for her career? Who the hell said she couldn’t have it all?
That was her mother’s way of thinking.
And it was her mother’s opinion that Anna wasn’t good enough, would never be good enough to have the things she desired.
But she was wrong.
Anna gritted her teeth. If anyone could find a way to have a job she loved and the man she loved, be hardheaded and persistent enough to make the impossible happen, it was her.
All she needed was a plan, and a way to make a deal with Devlin while they worked out the details.
That was, if he’d even consider taking her back. If she hadn’t lost him forever.
“Ms. Martel?” The admin she shared with another exec poked his head into her office. He was right out of college, with wide, hopeful eyes, and she both envied and pitied him for the path that lay ahead.
“Yes.”
“You have a delivery.”
“Okay. You can bring it in.”
“
It’s, um. It’s in the lobby. Security said you’d need to come down. There are too many to bring up.”
“Too many what?”
“I’m not sure, actually. They said it looked like bushes.”
“Bushes?”
He merely shrugged. “I can go with you to help.”
They shared confused looks the whole way down the fifteen floors, but when the elevator doors opened with a ding, and Anna saw what was spread out before her on the lobby’s tile floor, she knew.
There had to be a dozen of them, surrounding the security desk, both guards baffled and unamused.
“They . . . these aren’t just bushes.” She ran her fingers over a cluster of the dark blue berries, hidden beneath some leaves. “They’re blueberry bushes.”
“Like the kind you eat?”
A laugh bubbled up from her chest. “Yes. The kind you eat.”
“Ma’am.” One of the security guards approached her. “We need you to sign for them before the driver will go.”
Tears burned in her eyes, threatening to spill over. “Of course I’ll sign.”
The line on the paper was a wobbly blur, her vision cloudy, her cheeks wet.
She wanted to believe this meant something, but what if it didn’t? She kept her head down, afraid to let security see how bad her lip was trembling.
She scribbled something resembling her name, all the possibilities tumbling through her mind.
Devlin could be opening the door for her to call him, or this might be his way of making amends. She had no way of knowing. A dozen blueberry bushes had to mean something.
But what?
“Anna?”
A weeping sound escaped her throat.
A voice, painfully familiar and perfect, drew her name out in the delicious way only a Southern drawl could.
With a quick blink and a prayer, she looked up, and found Devlin standing on the other side of her gifts. Long and tall in his jeans, his hair tousled. He stood out amid the suits and shorn hair. He was relaxed, a little rebellious, and everything she’d missed since the moment she left Honeywilde.
“Hey,” he said.
She sniffed. “You’re here?”
His laugh sounded like he might choke on it. “Took some time to find you, but of course I’m here.”
The heat of stares made her neck go warm.
A small audience made up of security, her admin, and some random passersby had gathered.
“Why . . .” With a quick glance that made the onlookers uncomfortable enough to look away, she moved toward Dev. A line of blueberry bushes stood between them. “Why of course?”
Dev’s blue eyes shone. “Because you’re here.”
“But—”
“I was wrong for what I said. For the way I pressured you not to leave. I knew you had to go. You have responsibilities here and you’re not the kind of person to shirk those. I should’ve handled things differently, and I’m sorry.”
Anna blinked again. “I should’ve handled things differently too.” She could’ve been braver, stronger, and told him they would find a way.
He eased a little closer. “I was scared, exactly like you said, but not only about the festival. I was scared I’d fail. Fail you, fail the whole town. So scared that I pushed because I knew if I pushed, I could push you away. Then you were gone and . . . I’d failed anyway.”
His blue eyes were wide-open and vulnerable as he told her how he felt. This was Dev with no defenses, and if he was brave enough to take down the last walls, she could be brave enough to jump.
“I want to be with you, and if that means me being here or long distance or whatever, I’ll do it. I can be patient and we’ll figure it out. If I have to leave Honeywilde, I will.”
“No!” She would never let him do that. “You love that place.”
“I love you more.”
Her vision blurred. She’d never let him, but he’d give up Honeywilde, just like that, for her. Because he believed in them.
She’d known she loved Dev days before she left, but even love couldn’t override her fear, until now. “I love you too. I love you and I was wrong. I was scared and you were right about me being miserable, but I wasn’t strong enough to do anything about it.”
“I shouldn’t have said what I did about your life here.”
“You weren’t wrong. Under all of your angry words, there was a lot of truth. I’m not happy here. I’m successful, but I’m not happy. I’m happy with you and I . . . I deserve both.”
His smile wobbled. “Damn right you do. And whatever it takes, however many times we fail and have to try again, I’m willing. I don’t want to be without you, ever again.”
“Me either.”
“I know it won’t be simple or easy—nothing in my life ever is—but we’ll figure it out.”
“I know we will. We make a really good team.”
“I already have enough regrets to haul around. I’m not adding you to that list. I can’t live day after day knowing I didn’t go all-in on this with you.”
She threw her arms around him. “Me too. All-in is exactly what I want.”
Dev kissed her, long and deep, pulling her into him until her feet barely touched the ground. If they still had an audience, she didn’t care.
Anna laughed, even though she was still crying. “I have one question though.”
He leaned back, brushing her hair away from her face. “What is it?”
“What are we going to do with a dozen blueberry bushes?”
His laughter bounced around the lobby, his smile filling the hollow parts of her heart. “I’m not sure. Maybe bring them with us to the Blueberry Festival?”
Chapter 29
Dev stood at the door of the library’s largest meeting room, Anna’s hand in his.
“I can’t believe Ms. Brenda got all these people to come here tonight without knowing all the details.” He looked around the room. Mr. Miller, his daughter Elise, and Jake sat near the front. Della was there with Will and the rest of her family. Pretty much every business owner and their families, along with a few more, filled the room to capacity.
“I can.” Sophie poked him between the shoulder blades. “Y’all are in the way. Go inside.”
He and Anna moved in and over to the side; Sophie, Roark, Madison, and Trevor were right behind them.
“Are you nervous?” Sophie stood on his other side.
“Who, me? I’m terrified.”
“Everything is going to be fine.” Madison moved to stand on the other side of Anna.
It’d taken the two of them less than a week to become thick as thieves. Dev got the feeling he and his brother ought to be nervous. If Anna and Madison put their minds together, and teamed up with Soph, the Bradley boys would be outmatched.
Anna turned to him, her smile soothing his jitters. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or not?”
“Shhh.” He put his finger over her lips. “The meeting is about to start.”
He made his way to the front of the room, Roark right behind him. Dev raised his hands to get the crowd’s attention. “If I can have everybody settle down and take a seat.”
Once the room grew quiet, he cleared his throat, praying his voice didn’t shake. “I’m sure you’re all wondering why you’re here. I have a few announcements about the festival, which takes place in a couple of weeks, and I have some good news and some bad news.”
His gaze met Anna’s. She still stood in the back, flanked by Madison and Sophie, Trevor’s dark head sticking high above Soph’s, and Wright ducking in at the last minute with a wave.
“The bad news first. I wanted to thank all of you for being so supportive and understanding. You all signed the petition to pressure the DOT to get that road-closure permit approved, and your commitment to this event is inspiring. Truly. Unfortunately, the official process is very slow.”
There were several boos and moans from the crowd.
Dev put his hand up to get the room quiet. “However,
with your cooperation and transparency, and the help of one of Windamere’s wonderful citizens”—he smiled at Ms. Hendricks—“my brother Roark and I were able to do some digging into the financial . . . struggles with the past festivals. Some things didn’t add up, as many of you suspected.”
The entire room began to murmur.
“We approached the tourism office with the same questions some of you are probably asking right now, requesting an official investigation. This was on Thursday. We found out that on Monday, the head of tourism, Mr. Crawford, resigned.”
The room filled with gasps and murmuring, cross talk, and a million questions.
He had to get the room to focus again. “I know you all have questions and concerns. We do too. I can’t promise you all the answers will be unearthed, but I can promise you, my family is going to continue to dig and pursue this issue until we all have every question answered. But now . . . for some good news . . .”
In the back, Anna still smiled at him. Knowing her, she’d already figured out where he was going with all of this. Excitement and pride rolled off of her, strong enough that he even felt a little proud of himself too.
As he dug into his back pocket for the folded piece of paper, he met Roark’s gaze.
His brother nodded, his chin low, biting his lip so he wouldn’t grin like a loon and spoil the surprise.
Dev held the paper up high. “In light of the tourism office being investigated, transportation decided to side-step their official appeals process. We got the road closures! Windamere is having the Blueberry Festival!”
The room erupted.
Cheers and applause.
Della Maldonado kissed Mr. Miller on the cheek. In the back, his family clapped, jumping up and down, Trevor high-fived half the room, and Devlin could barely see he was smiling so big.
“Y’all need to thank Mr. Graham at the transportation office . . .” Dev had to yell above the happy chatter, and talk through Roark clapping him on the shoulder and jostling him. “He helped get our request approved, on a rush.”
No one was even listening to him anymore. They were all too excited.
Having downtown dedicated to nothing but the festival for three straight days was huge. At Anna’s suggestion, they’d continued to advertise, even in the face of uncertainty. The businesses had all poured their resources and enthusiasm into the event, and in a couple of weeks, Dev could have a success on his hands.
A Date with Desire Page 27
