Her Unexpected Hero

by Kyra Jacobs

  “Could you find someone else?” asked Stephanie. “Another college kid who’s not asking for as much, someone to fill in for a couple weeks?”

  “It’ll take too long to find anybody else. I need help now. And I’m telling you, Cole is our guy.”

  Stephanie ran one hand up and down her opposite arm. “I know you do, it’s just… Well, I’m not sure he’s really who you all want working here.”

  Maddie looked to Miles, who shook his head, clearly as clueless as she was. “What? Why not?”

  “Look, I shouldn’t say anything, so this doesn’t leave this room. But you know how we’re taking camp counselor applications for next spring’s Fun In The Sun program, right? Well, Ruby asked me to see if there were any spots Cole might qualify for. Since I wasn’t sure which program he might like best, I brought it up with him after he finished playing at church last weekend…”

  Maddie frowned. “And?”

  “And he was quick to tell me not to put his name in at FITS. Started acting almost paranoid at the thought.”

  “So?”

  Stephanie and Miles exchanged a look. Maddie rolled her eyes.

  “Look, I don’t know what kind of telepathy you two lovebirds have going, but stop it. Maybe he’s just not a fan of working with kids or something. You couldn’t pay me to take a job like that.”

  Miles chuckled. “Ah, Madds. Always so brutally honest.”

  “Which is bad, why?”

  He shook his head and walked over to stand beside Stephanie once more. “True, it’s possible that we’re making mountains out of mole hills. But—”

  “Imagined mole hills…”

  “Regardless,” he said. “If you want to bring him on, he can only stay so long as our rooms stay filled. Otherwise, we’re going to have to make cuts elsewhere. And don’t think your budget is safe from the axe, either.”

  “But if Kayla’s fall advertising campaign keeps guests coming, it won’t be an issue, right?” she asked.

  “That’s a big if.”

  “Well, an if is better than a no. So…do I have your blessing on this?” She clasped her hands.

  Miles studied her for a moment. “We’ll give it a try. But if he messes up, he’s gone. And Old Tom’s grandson or not, if he’s got skeletons in his closet that are keeping him from applying at the foundation, he’s not someone I prefer to have on our payroll, either.”

  “Like I said, imagined mole hills. He’s a Granville, for crying out loud. I don’t think that family knows how to live anything but the straight and narrow.” At least they’d better not, not for what it’s costing me. “And he won’t mess up. I won’t let him.”

  “I’m sure you won’t.” Stephanie grinned and took Miles by the hand. “Come on, honey. Clock’s ticking. We’ll run out of time for showers.”

  He raised her hand and pressed a slow kiss to it, a wolfish grin on his face. “Wouldn’t want that to happen.”

  Maddie started forward, shooing them toward the door. “Okay, out you two go before you make me gag or something. Hard enough not to puke every time Brent and Kayla walk into the room. Now I’ve got to endure the likes of you, too.”

  “You’d better work on containing that gag reflex before the gala, Madds,” said Miles. “Because I’m expecting to see your date with his tongue down your throat at least once that night.”

  Maddie grimaced. And maybe did gag a little. “Ew. No PDA.”

  “Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.” Stephanie pulled Miles close, her gaze locked with his, and pressed a long, slow kiss to his lips.

  Maddie moved to the sink and grabbed the sprayer attachment. “Nope, still knocking. And I need to get cooking, which means I’m giving you the count of three to clear on out of here. One. Two.”

  The lovebirds drew apart, laughing as they passed through the swinging doors.

  “Three,” Maddie said to an empty room. She returned the sprayer to its base with a sigh. That’d been more work than she’d anticipated, and even after all that fussing she hadn’t been able to get Cole the advance. Though, if she was being honest with herself, she’d known her chances of getting that were slim to none. At least now she could say she tried. Hopefully, he’d understand and let it go. Besides, what could he possibly need fast cash for, anyway?

  That look Miles and Stephanie had exchanged resurfaced in her mind. Surely they were overreacting about Cole not wanting a FITS job. So what if he’d backed away from the suggestion that he apply—didn’t mean the guy had skeletons worth hiding in his closet.

  Right?

  She pictured Cole as he looked in the kitchen last night, with his warm smile and laid-back demeanor. Her gut was telling her the others’ concerns were all wrong, that her new dishwasher/potential dating coach was as innocent as anyone. Then again, her gut had led her down the wrong path before.

  Maddie still had the emotional scars to prove it.

  …

  Cole sensed a change the minute he stepped into the Checkerberry’s kitchen that night. Not just in the aroma permeating the room—some kind of beef brisket instead of ham, and mouthwatering at that—but something else. A change he was all too familiar with but had done his darnedest to leave back in Texas. And though Maddie offered the same distracted nod she’d given him in parting last night, her eyes followed his movement as he crossed the room to grab a clean apron. Which meant the monkey that had been mercifully absent these past few months had found his back yet again: suspicion.

  “Was beginning to wonder if you’d come back,” she said.

  “Why, expected me to skip town?”

  “What?” She looked up from a bowl of potatoes she was peeling, dark brows furrowed. “No, I just have a bit of a reputation, is all. Guess for once it didn’t precede me.”

  Talk about ironic. He thought she was being suspicious of him, and it was actually the other way around. Maybe his tarnished track record hadn’t caught up with him yet after all. If he played his cards right, it never would. He’d been unfairly charged, done time that never should have been given. And all because he’d forever ago swapped parental roles with his addict mother and wound up in the wrong place at an even worse time.

  Life more than owed him a do-over. Who knew—maybe Maddie would help kick-start it.

  “Oh?” he asked, playing innocent though he’d been to enough Sunday luncheons over the summer here to know exactly what she meant. If the Checkerberry’s chef wasn’t happy, she did little to hide it. “And what reputation would that be?”

  She brushed past him, snipping nothing but air with kitchen sheers as she moved. “That I’m a pain to work with. Mouthy, bull-headed, brash.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  Their gazes met and both broke into a grin.

  “You get me my raise?” he asked.

  “Depends. You actually gonna wash some dishes tonight or just stand there yapping?”

  Sweet. Resisting the urge to do a fist pump, he ambled toward the sink. Surely he could survive that sharp tongue of hers by working hard and staying in her good graces.

  “Moving that slow will get you nowhere quick, Granville.”

  If she had any good graces…

  “And my advance?” he asked.

  “Work first, talk later.”

  What was with her being intentionally vague about his cash? She wouldn’t try to pull one over on him, not after seeming so pleased with his work last night. Would she? “You’re the boss, boss.”

  Cole reached into the sink, then quickly yanked his hand back out of the water. Good lord, the woman was either bent on killing bacteria or singing the skin off his hands!

  He turned on the faucet, adding cold water to the mix, and tried to ignore the way his skin felt like it was still on fire. Maddie walked past, arched a brow at the running water, and reached for her radio. A few button taps later, ’90s alternative rock was suddenly alive and well.

  He eased a hand into the soapy water, found it to be slightly under 1,000 degrees this
time, and set to work. Behind him, Maddie settled back into whatever routine he’d interrupted. He snuck a glance now and then, more to see if he could catch her hawk-eyeing him again. To his relief, she seemed to have more or less forgotten he was even there.

  And to his enjoyment, her back was often to him. A view he’d never scoff, as she had some amazing curves. Maddie wasn’t one of those toothpicks of a woman like the ones plastered all over billboards and television commercials. Her work clothes weren’t overly flattering, the angles designed to conceal not highlight, but they didn’t hide everything. Besides, he knew better after first spying her outside of work a few months back at the laundromat across the street. He’d done a double take, hardly recognizing her in a long dark sweater and jeans. Judging by the way she always kept to herself there, Maddie didn’t seem to be much of a social butterfly—which explained the dating pinch she’d admitted to being in yesterday.

  Of course, if she had any clue of the effect a body like that could have on the vast majority of Michigan’s male population, she wouldn’t need a stitch of coaching. As if to taunt him, she chose that moment to open the oven and slide a dish inside, bending low to keep its contents from spilling. If they’d been in Texas, he’d be whistling.

  “Stop looking at my butt, Granville.”

  The small glass bowl in his sudsy grip slipped and he scrambled to catch it before it fell back into the water and landed on a number of other breakable items. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Uh-huh.” She finished with the oven and came over to dump a handful of freshly dirtied utensils in the water. “Next you’re going to say you were assessing my assets to help prep me for our first coaching session.”

  The woman was brilliant. Snarky as hell but brilliant. He’d take a bailout any day. “You’re a quick learner.”

  “Not quick enough.”

  She turned away with a frown and Cole opened his mouth to ask why. But when she picked up a knife and started not-so-quietly dicing onions and peppers, he reconsidered. Maybe another time, when she wasn’t wielding a lethal weapon.

  And wait—had she just admitted that they’d soon be having their first coaching session?

  The swinging doors that led out to the dining room scraped the floor behind him, the sound followed by a startled coo. He turned to find a young woman in skinny jeans and a tight V-neck with the word pink stretched across her meager chest. She stared at him with mouth ajar, a white piece of gum teetering precariously on her tongue.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  Cole looked to a frowning Maddie, who, after an awkward moment of silence, set her knife down with a sigh.

  “What are you doing here, Sarah?” she asked.

  “It’s Thursday—I always come in around this time on Thursdays.”

  “Well, that’s partially correct,” said Maddie. “You did use to come in around now—which, by the way, is late—on Thursdays. But that was before you put your social life ahead of your responsibilities here for the last time.”

  “I really don’t think we should be talking about this in front of”—Sarah waved a hand in Cole’s direction—“him.”

  “‘Him’ has a name, actually.” Maddie walked over to place a hand on his shoulder. The touch, though anything but intimate, jolted him like a giant zap of static electricity and warmed him from head to toe. “Sarah, this is Cole. Unlike you, he’s punctual, courteous, and highly efficient. Oh, and I’m pretty sure he won’t be walking out on me like you did, chasing after some bozo named Mark.”

  “It was Matt,” Sarah said through clenched teeth.

  “Nope,” said Cole. “I won’t be chasing after one of those, either.”

  Maddie let go of his shoulder to offer him a fist bump. Sarah, however, looked less than amused.

  “That’s my job, and you promised I could work here until the end of the season.”

  “That was before you walked out on me yesterday. For future reference? That’s called insubordination, and I’m preeeeeetty sure that’ll get you fired from about 99.9 percent of the jobs out there.” Maddie turned from the girl and walked back to her cutting board. “Speaking of which, good luck finding the next one. Hope Mark was worth it.”

  With a frustrated roar, Sarah spun on her heel and slammed her way out through the swinging doors. Cole watched her go, wide-eyed. Was that how people were brought up to act in Michigan? Back home, he would have gotten a belt to his backside for behaving like that.

  He turned to Maddie, realization settling in. She could have sent him packing, allowed Sarah to resume her post, and gone back to the way things were. This was her kitchen to run, as she so often reminded him yesterday. Instead, she’d stood her ground and defended his presence. When was the last time anyone besides his grandfather had done that?

  A quick glance found her dragging a hand down one side of her face. He wished there was something he could do to repay her for her kindness, to ease her burden. But all he had to offer was music and humor. Without his guitar, humor would have to do.

  “I think it was Matt,” he whispered.

  She looked over and met his gaze, a weary smile tugging at her lips.

  “Oh, I know. Knew it all along. Also knew the jerkwad wasn’t good for her, but clearly she never listened to a word I said.”

  He leaned against the sink. “So let me get this straight. You seem to have a good sense of how other people’s relationships will go, and yet you’re struggling to find a date for this fancy dance of yours?”

  Her full lips formed a small O and pink crept into her cheeks. “I…something like that.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “New rule—no talking dating stuff until after the dinner rush.” Maddie picked up her knife and wagged it in his direction.

  He raised both hands in surrender and turned back to his dishes. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Maddie.”

  Cole chuckled. Oh yeah, he had to get her set up with the guy from the laundromat now. Not just because he enjoyed watching his over-confident boss squirm any time the subject of dating came up, but because he owed her. Big time. To defend him like that was about the biggest gift anyone had given him in a long, long time.

  So while she focused on dinner preparations, he did his due diligence at the sink, savoring the aromas wafting through their shared space. Beef, vegetables, freshly baked bread. A person could gain ten pounds just from the smells in a kitchen like this. And though he told himself not to get his hopes up for another meal handout, Cole was happy as a pig in slop when she later slid a plate full of brisket and mixed vegetables his way.

  “Thanks,” he said, reaching for a fork.

  “No thanks necessary. Just trying to fatten you up, is all.”

  She shifted from one foot to the other, her gaze anywhere but his. Cole felt his appetite begin to slip. Here it comes, the brush off…

  “So, Cole, I know we talked about your salary requirements last night…”

  “Yes.”

  “And I want you to know it was no easy task to get approval for an increase like that. Like, not at all.”

  He studied her face, still unreadable. “But you got it, right?”

  “I did. Though, I honestly can’t say for how long. We’re only open until the end of November, and even then, if business starts to decline Miles will insist we start cutting expenditures.”

  “Meaning staff.”

  She shrugged. “Among other things.”

  Okay, so a few weeks at the worst, a month and a half at the most. He ought to be able to build up a decent student roster by then. “And my advance?”

  “That I did not get.”

  Cole cursed under his breath. Two nights now he’d wasted here, in the hopes of getting the cash he needed, when he should have been out hunting for odd jobs that would pay on the spot. He drew his ball cap off, smoothed a hand over his hair, and set the cap back in place—a motion that usually helped trigger fresh ideas. Tonight, it brought him nothing.


  “Can I ask you something?” Maddie’s voice was softer now, less prickly than usual. Cole looked up but remained quiet, still too angry at the unexpected turn of events to speak. “What do you need it for?”

  He stabbed at his dinner and took another bite. Somehow, the dish had lost its flavor. “Does it matter?”

  “Humor me.”

  Been there, done that, and look where it got me.

  He pushed the plate away. “For a deposit. On a storefront downtown.”

  “A storefront?”

  “A guitar shop, actually, for doing repairs and giving lessons. Been eyeing a few places since I moved to town, but didn’t think any of the leases would be up for another six months or so. The one with the most potential became available yesterday.”

  “Let me guess—they want a deposit.”

  “Bingo. I’ve been saving all summer, working odd jobs wherever I can. But I’m still short.”

  All that blood, sweat, and tears had been for nothing. And the hundred he’d put down on it this morning to lock in his chance at the place in anticipation of having the rest in hand tomorrow from Maddie? Apparently that’d been all for nothing, too. Cole felt his anger shift to another emotion he’d grown all too familiar with over the past few years: defeat. He pinched the bridge of his nose, using the pain to distract him from his growing disappointment.

  “By two hundred bucks,” she said.

  “Yeah. By two hundred bucks.”

  A small thump sounded on the counter, and a paper-clipped stack of greenbacks slid in to view. He stared at it for a long moment, not quite believing what he was seeing. Maddie’s shoes issued a soft squeak as she busied herself collecting dirtied dishes in her workspace, drawing him out of his shock.

  “What’s this?”

  She brought an armload of dishes to the sink and carefully dropped them into its soapy depths. “Let’s just say you aren’t the only one who ever dreamed of striking out on their own.”

  A lump formed in his throat. “Maddie, I can’t take this.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “No, I—”

  She planted a hand on one hip. “You want to keep working here or not?”

  “Well, sure.”