by Sarra Cannon
Luckily we were so busy that we didn’t do anything more than work our butts off for most of the night, and when it was all over, I left the guys to do all the cleaning while I went home to get some rest.
I was exhausted from watching the door all night to make sure Bryan didn’t try to sneak inside. Slim was under strict orders to send him away if he showed up, but when I asked at the end of the night, Slim said he hadn’t seen any sign of the guy.
Dad had been pissed to hear that Bryan came into the bar. He agreed with me about putting in an alarm system at the house, and it’s scheduled to go in next week sometime. It might end up being overkill, but I don’t want to take any chances of repeating what happened when I was in high school. Bryan just isn’t the type of guy that can be trusted to act like a civilized human being. Especially when he’s been drinking.
“What are you thinking about?” Leigh Anne asks. “You look so angry all of a sudden. Is Colton really getting to you that much?”
I shake my head. “No, gosh, no. Colton’s fine,” I say. I pause and set down my spoon. I didn’t want to mention what happened to anyone, but Leigh Anne has more experience with this stuff than I do. Maybe she could really help. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
She picks up the knife and gets back to work cutting carrots. “Of course.”
“When you were still living on campus after what happened to you, how did you handle it when you ran into him?” I ask, hoping I’m not going to upset her by talking about this. “I mean, did he ever threaten you or try to talk to you again?”
Leigh Anne studies me. “Has something happened to you?” she asks.
I close my eyes and sigh. I should have known better than to start a conversation about this when I know I’m not ready to talk about it.
“I wasn’t raped, if that’s what you mean,” I say. “I just went through some hard times with a guy back in high school, and he showed up again at the bar the other night. It was really tough seeing him again. I’m just not sure how to handle it. Emotionally.”
She takes a deep breath. “It’s a difficult thing to handle, when you’ve been through something traumatic because of someone else,” she says. “When they’ve hurt you, but they refuse to really take responsibility for it.”
Her words echo deep inside that locked chamber in my heart, and I have to turn away so she won’t see the tears in my eyes.
“To be honest, I didn’t handle it very well,” she says. “Not at first. He acted like he couldn’t imagine he did anything wrong. Like hey, maybe we could go out again sometime and didn’t we have such a great night together? It made me sick to my stomach. Most of the time I tried to avoid him. If I saw him somewhere, I’d turn and go a different way. But when I did run into him, I just made sure to never let him see that he’d won, you know? I kept my head up, and I held it together. I didn’t want him to know he still had any power over me.”
I nod and wipe the back of my hand across my cheek.
“Hey, are you crying?” she asks. I hear the knife hit the cutting board, and seconds later she has her hands on my shoulders, spinning me around. “What’s going on, Joey? Are you alright?”
She pulls me closer and wraps her arms around me.
I can’t help but sob into her shoulder and hold tightly to her. “I’m going to be okay,” I say through my tears. “I know I probably sound crazy, but I really appreciate you talking to me about it.”
“You don’t sound crazy,” she says. “You sound scared. You can always come to me if you want to talk about it.”
I pull away and sniff, wiping the tears from my face.
“Thank you, Leigh Anne. I can’t believe I just cried all over your shirt,” I say with a choked laugh.
“It’s okay, really,” she says. “And I understand if you’re not ready to talk about what happened yet. I’ve so been there. But just know that I’m here, okay?”
I nod and take a deep breath. “Thank you.”
Outside, the sound of tires crunching on gravel catch my attention. I stand on my toes to see out the window above the sink, grateful when my father smiles and waves.
Chapter Ten
The food looks so amazing, it’s making my mouth water.
“You really cooked all this?” I say to Jo, amazed. “I had no idea you were such a chef.”
“Jo is the best cook in the state, I swear to God,” Leigh Anne says. “Just wait ‘til you taste these ribs.”
“Yeah, if she doesn’t give up the recipe to this homemade bbq sauce soon, I’m just going to ransack her house and come find it for myself,” Knox said.
“Come on now, you don’t think I’d be dumb enough to actually write it down, do you?” Jo lifts an eyebrow and stares Knox down as she sets a basket of bread on the table.
It’s a gorgeous day out and the leaves are all just starting to change colors, so the forest is lit up with bright reds and oranges. Penny and Mason arrived with Penny’s twin brother Preston and his girlfriend Jenna, so we have a full, happy group. We all sit down at the large picnic table Knox made and Rob offers to say a quick prayer.
“Dear Lord, thank you so much for this delicious food that my daughter has prepared for us. Thank you for the gift of such beautiful weather,” he says. “And most of all, we thank you for this time spent with friends and family. Amen.”
“Amen.”
“Colton, pass me your plate, and I’ll get you started with a slab of ribs,” Knox says.
“Thank you, sir.” I hand my plate over and Knox loads it up with ribs that are dripping with bbq sauce.
Jo is sitting across from me, and she takes a heaping spoonful of coleslaw and then passes the bowl over. I cannot wait to taste all this food. There’s corn on the cob fresh from the grill, homemade bread, baked beans, and I heard a rumor there was a chocolate cake for dessert.
“How come you’ve never talked about how much you like to cook?” I ask as we pass the food around the table.
Jo shrugs. “It’s never come up.”
I take my first bite of the ribs and my mouth explodes with flavor. The meat is so tender it falls off the bone.
I literally moan, it’s so good. “Oh, my Lord, that’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.”
Jo giggles and tries to hide her face behind her hands.
“You’re going to be hooked for life,” Mason says.
“I can’t believe this,” I say between bites. “Why aren’t you serving this in the bar?”
“We don’t have a license to serve food,” Jo says. “We don’t even have a proper kitchen.”
“Build one,” I say.
“Hush,” Jo says, shaking her head.
“Now, wait a second, that’s not a bad idea,” Penny says. She leans forward against the table.
“Things are going so well at the bar lately, we could really use this momentum and make plans to build an addition,” Knox says.
“Hold on, this is crazy,” Jo says. “We just barely got back on our feet. We can’t afford to build an addition right now. And do you know how much is involved with starting a restaurant? There are all kinds of codes to meet, inspections, permits.”
“I’m not saying it would be easy, I’m just saying you could make a fortune selling food like this,” I say. “It would be worth it. People would drive a hundred miles to get a taste of these ribs.”
Jo’s face flushes a dark crimson and she lowers her head to her hand. “Seriously, you guys, don’t be ridiculous.” She looks up and holds her palm out toward Rob. “Tell ‘em, Daddy. This is crazy, right?”
Rob’s eyes are sparkling, and I smile. He’s on board, I can tell.
“It’s not a bad idea, pumpkin,” he says. “Think about it. We could put together a whole menu of your favorite recipes. Heck, we could even open up for lunch.”
“That would take an entire renovation,” she says. “We’d have to close the whole place down, get permits from the city, hire a contractor, go through inspections just to ma
ke sure the kitchen’s clean. We’d also have to hire more employees like an extra cook and some servers. I couldn’t be in there cooking all day by myself.”
“Oh, I see what the problem is,” Knox says, threading his fingers together and narrowing his eyes at her. “You just don’t want to have to share your recipes with someone else.”
She smiles and tosses a fresh piece of bread toward his head. She aims too high and it goes sailing off into the dirt several feet behind him.
“You guys are just ganging up on me now,” she says. Then she turns to me, her eyes focused in on mine. “This is all your fault Colton Tucker.”
I smile. “I’ll gladly take the blame if it means you actually take this under consideration.”
“You can’t really think this food is good enough to open a restaurant,” she says.
“I do,” I say, completely serious. “It’s some of the best food I’ve ever tasted in my life. You could really have something here.”
“I agree,” Preston says. “This is amazing.”
She takes in a breath and runs a hand over her hair. It’s pulled back in a loose ponytail today.
“You did try to start a catering company,” Leigh Anne says. “So it’s not totally out of the ballpark, right?”
“I tried, but it was just too much to keep up with,” she says. “Too much to do on my own and work the bar at nights, too. I couldn’t manage it all. All I’m doing is a few small jobs a month, nothing significant.”
“If you open a restaurant right at the bar, it would be so much easier to manage than trying to advertise and drum up business. Much less having to cart everything off to different locations for catering jobs,” I say. “This could really be something special, Jo. I’m not joking around. You should really think about it.”
“I don’t even know where we’d get the money,” she says.
“I’ll invest,” Knox says. “I can even agree to be your contractor, if you want. I can bring in a few of the guys who have been working for me lately, and we could build the addition ourselves. Make sure everything is done just right.”
“I bet my dad would be interested in investing in a new restaurant here in town,” Preston says. “Just say the word. We could probably help swing all those permits you were talking about.”
Jo meets my eyes again and shakes her head. She’s trying to hide it, but a smile breaks out on her lips. She ducks her head again and laughs.
“This is a crazy idea,” she says.
I clean the rest of my plate and watch her. I’ve never seen her look so happy and vulnerable, as if this is something risky but worthwhile.
“Maria’s going to kill you for suggesting this,” Leigh Anne says, joking about our old boss at Brantley’s. “More competition in town for a good bar and grille is the last thing she needs.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” I say.
Everyone laughs, but it’s Jo who has my attention. She looks up, her face half-hidden behind her hands with her elbows propped up on the table. She shakes her head again, but I can see the smile in her eyes.
“Just promise me you’ll think about it,” I say. “The world needs this kind of food.”
She giggles again and picks up a piece of bread, aiming for my head. “Let’s change the subject, before I run out of bread to throw.”
But I can see the pride in her eyes. I can see just how important something like this would be to her. And more than anything, I realize just how exciting it is to see her be truly happy.
Chapter Eleven
After lunch, the guys offer to clean while Leigh Anne and I relax by the lake. I look around. I’m not sure where Penny and Jenna have gotten off to. Maybe a walk with Penny’s little girl in the stroller.
I sit down on the dock and take off my shoes, dipping my feet into the water.
I shiver and pull them back out. “Ooh, that’s cold.”
“It’s hard to believe it’s fall already,” Leigh Anne says, leaning back on her hands. “Time seems to just be flying by.”
“You’ll be graduating after this year, right?”
She nods.
“Then what?”
Leigh Anne looks out over the water and shakes her head. “I have no idea,” she says. “Knox is just starting to get his woodworking business off the ground, so I’m sure he wants to stick around Fairhope. I haven’t given it much thought, though. I guess I better get on that.”
I laugh. “Maybe so,” I say. “You’ll figure it out. Just follow your heart.”
“Thanks,” she says.
“Hey, Leigh Anne? Can you come in here for a second?” Knox calls from the house. “I want you to show Rob that video you took the other day. I can’t find it.”
“Be right there,” she says.
Leigh Anne stands up and brushes her hands off on her jeans.
“That’s really good advice, you know.”
“What?” I ask.
“To follow your heart,” she says. “Maybe you should really think about that restaurant thing.”
I nod, my stomach filling with butterflies all over again.
She takes off toward the house, and I lay back against the wood of the old dock.
A restaurant?
I stare up at the changing leaves and try to imagine what it would be like to run and own a restaurant of my own. It’s a lot of hard work, but I can’t think of anything more fun. I could spend all day experimenting in the kitchen with new recipes and combinations. I could put together fun menus and better than anything, I could cook as much as I wanted to.
My heart races at the thought.
I love tending bar and taking care of my dad’s place, but adding a restaurant would make it my own in a way I never even dreamed about until now.
Is this really something we could do?
“Good idea,” Colton says, interrupting my daydream. He sits down beside me and leans all the way back until he’s lying down beside me with his arms propped under his head. “I could probably use a nap, too, after all the food. I’m stuffed.”
“Feel free to take some of the leftovers home with you, if you want.”
“Oh, I most definitely want,” he says. “I want to get a piece of that chocolate cake I heard about, too.”
I laugh. “I figured everyone was so full from lunch that it could wait a bit,” I say. “We’ll cut some up in a few minutes if you think you can handle it.”
“Have you always loved to cook?” He rolls onto his side and props his elbow against the dock.
I turn my head toward him, painfully aware of just how close we are right now.
“Growing up it was just me and Dad, and he doesn’t know the first thing about cooking,” I say. “I guess I picked it up out of necessity after Mom left. Lucky for him, I was pretty good at it.”
“I’m glad I got a chance to come over today,” he says. “I would have been sad to miss it.”
“If you missed it, you would have never known it was worth being sad about,” I say.
He laughs. “Don’t you know better than to talk in riddles when a man has a full belly?” he says. “I was trying to say I loved the food.”
“I appreciate it,” I say. I glance up, and the way he’s staring down at me sends a jolt through my heart. I suddenly want very badly for him to kiss me.
My gaze dips to his mouth, and I feel like I can’t breathe.
For months now I’ve been trying to deny that there was anything real between us. It was a simple flirtation, and that was as far as it would ever get. That was all it would ever mean to me, period.
I’ve denied it, because I don’t want this. I like my life just the way it is. It’s safe and simple and comfortable. Relationships make everything messy and confusing, and in the end, someone usually ends up getting hurt. I don’t need that in my life.
But sitting out here on the dock with the cool autumn breeze blowing across my skin and the afternoon sun peeking out from behind a cloud, this feels like the simplest thing in the
world.
I want Colton Tucker to kiss me.
Something I haven’t wanted from any man in as long as I can remember.
My lips part so that I can draw a breath, but my heart is pumping so hard, it catches in my throat. Not once does Colton look away from my face, and as he moves toward me, half my body lights on fire in anticipation.
“Jojo, get up here,” Daddy calls from the porch. “You’ve got to see this. It’s hilarious.”
Colton pulls back and stands so fast, I’m surprised when he doesn’t fall backwards into the lake.
I sit up and run a nervous hand through my hair. “Coming,” I yell back.
Daddy disappears into the house, and Colton holds his hand out to me, helping me get back to my feet.
“Maybe we could—”
“I should go—”
We both start talking at the same time, and then laugh like awkward teenagers. The perfect moment has passed, and as we make our way back up to the house, I wonder if it will ever come again.
Chapter Twelve
“How many of y’all are ready for some good music tonight?”
The crowd at Rob’s is epic this weekend. Rob told me there was a line of fifty people still waiting outside when they had to close it down. I told him we better work on getting a bigger place, and he just laughed. But from the way things are going, Rob’s is quickly becoming the place to be on a Saturday night.
“I couldn’t hear you guys, I said who’s ready for some music?”
The screams get louder, and I search for those deep brown eyes behind the bar. Jo smiles and shakes her head, but I know she loves it.
“Okay, settle down. Y’all don’t have to scream. I can hear you,” I say, and everyone laughs. I turn to put my arm around the lead singer of this week’s band. “Let me introduce y’all to one of the best up-and-coming bands in the South. Out of Athens, Georgia, let’s give it up for Woodland Pride.”
