by Alisha Rai
She’d loved him, too. As a brother. As a best friend.
Not anymore, though. He hadn’t loved anyone in so long, he barely knew how. His relationship with his sister was proof of that. And judging by Sadia’s face, she wasn’t exactly brimming over with love for him.
She moved her head from side-to-side, and he frowned, realizing she was shaking. “Sadia.” Without being fully conscious of it, he changed his grip on her hand, stroking her fingers. Her skin was so soft.
She was one of the few people he’d ever been okay with touching and being touched by. He slept with women, yes, but they didn’t hug. They fucked, rough and without emotional engagement, and then they walked away, neither of them glancing backward.
“Hey.” He ran his thumb over hers, but her shaking only intensified.
Her eyes glinted, and his hand fell away. If he was unused to talking and hugs, he was massively unaccustomed to women crying on him.
But nothing startled him as much as the low growl that erupted from her throat. “Hey? Is that all you can say to me? Hey?”
He glanced around, but the place was loud enough and dark enough that no one was paying attention to them. “Calm down.”
Her eyes opened so wide he could see the whites all around her pupils. “You. Did. Not. Just tell me to calm down.”
He eyed her. He had told her that, but she seemed to be getting angrier. The opposite of calm.
“You want me to calm down.” She nodded. “Why don’t I do that, Jackson? Why don’t I calm down? Because what’s there to be upset by? You only disappeared from the face of the earth for ten years. Ignored every single email I sent you. Ignored your nephew’s birth, your sister and mother’s pain, your own brother’s funeral.”
He flinched. There had been something ironic about being in a jail cell when his brother had died a little over a year ago, but processing that irony had been far beyond his capabilities.
She wasn’t saying anything but the truth. Only a monster would have ignored every word she’d written to him over the past decade. Only the most uncaring of people wouldn’t have at least called her when her husband—his brother—had died.
That’s what he was, what he’d aspired to be. Alive, but unfeeling. His heart beat, his blood pounded, his organs functioned. That was it. That was enough.
Or he’d thought it was enough.
“But I should calm down. No need to be upset.” The tears trembled on her lower lashes. “Fuck you, you selfish—”
“Useless, assholic dick,” he finished, softly quoting her last email to him.
The tears spilled over. “And fuck you for never responding to me. Not even when I begged you.”
Oh.
His frozen heart hadn’t been tested by Sadia’s tears. Every single one that slipped down her face flicked against his defenses like acid. “Sadia. Stop crying.”
Her eyes grew even bigger. Ah, shit, he’d said the wrong thing again. “Don’t you ever tell me what to do.” And then she grabbed the drink she’d made him, and with a flick of her wrist, dashed it in his face.
She whirled away and stomped off, jerking at the knot of the apron strings tied right above her ass. Her round, cuppable, squeezable . . .
He jerked his gaze away. God, no. He couldn’t think of her ass. Or her thighs, jiggling with every step.
He licked his upper lip. The alcohol was dripping down his neck, into his collar. He wasn’t much of a drinker anymore, but whatever she’d given him was smoky and sweet. Like her.
God, if he’d ever wondered what a flirtatious all grown-up Sadia would be like . . . no, he had to scrub that from his memory like he’d scrubbed so many other things.
Jackson mopped up his face as best he could, tugged his hat lower and came to his feet.
His bike was hidden at the far corner of the parking lot, far out of the spill of light cast by the bar’s broken neon sign. He leaned against the metal and chrome, and waited. After about fifteen minutes, a car engine sounded from behind the café, and then a tidy crossover drove out of the parking lot.
He was imagining the wetness on Sadia’s cheeks as she drove away, right?
He sagged against his bike and burrowed his head in his hands, scrubbing his eyes. There were no tears there. He hadn’t cried in . . . well, since he’d been a kid, in this very town.
Slowly, he put on his jacket and his helmet, got on his bike and headed in the opposite direction. He wanted to follow her, but his motorcycle would be too obvious in her tidy residential neighborhood. And he knew that because he’d already cruised by her place a few times.
It’s a wonder no one’s called the cops on you yet.
He was playing it pretty fast and loose with surveillance in a place where local law enforcement didn’t exactly have a great opinion of him.
Jackson revved his engine and took a sharp left turn, his headlamp slicing through the post-midnight gloom. The streetlights were spaced few and far apart, but he didn’t need them. He could maneuver the roads in this town with his eyes closed. A decade of self-imposed exile couldn’t change that kind of muscle memory.
He’d been born in Rockville, the second son of local royalty, the grandson of a man who had helped carve civilization out of a patch of frozen land in upstate New York. Growing up here had been idyllic. Until the last couple weeks he’d lived here. A jail cell was never pleasant, especially for a kid who had grown up privileged.
He hung a right, barely glancing at the library where he’d whiled away most of his after-school hours or the high-end florist where he’d bought a corsage for Sadia when he’d taken her to the junior prom.
For the first time since he’d come back, he inhaled deeply. The air smelled like wood chips and apples, firing up some long dormant part of his brain. It smelled like home. The last place he wanted to be, and the one place in the world that didn’t want him.
Jackson slowed as he approached the town’s main square. He looked left, then right.
A single car zoomed through the intersection, and he knew he was imagining the driver surveying him, but he hunched his shoulders anyway, trying to make himself smaller. The last thing he wanted was to be recognized by some longtime resident.
Jan, you’ll never believe it. I think I saw Jackson Kane on the road. No, Paul’s younger brother. Remember? He burned down the C&O. Well, he was never tried, but everyone knew he did it. He left town right after and guilty men don’t run.
He could leave again, now.
If he went right, he’d hit the on-ramp for the highway. It would take him about seven hours, give or take, to get to New York City. He had a gig scheduled there in less than a month. His duffel and all his shit was still back in his seedy hotel room, but he had no attachment to any of the stuff he carried. Abandoning them here wouldn’t matter.
A car drove up behind him and he waved the vehicle around him. Jackson held his breath. The car cruised by and took a left.
He looked after the red taillights. Left was not an option for him. Going left meant he’d head deeper into town. In three minutes, he’d reach the supermarket his family had once owned. The café Sadia now owned.
Jackson shivered. The wind was cutting through his leather jacket, and dry leaves whirled in the street. He wasn’t cold, though. On the contrary, sweat was gathering on his upper lip.
He turned his right turn signal on. Looked around the empty intersection, like someone else would come rolling up to tell him what to do.
The tick of his turn signal echoed the pounding of blood in his veins. He eased off the brake. Skated forward a foot. Then another.
Then he hung a left.
Two and a half minutes later, he maneuvered between the two legacies of his parents. On one side of the road was a huge building. The last time he’d seen it, at least half of it had been burned out.
A Molotov cocktail could do a hell of a lot of damage when that cocktail hit a gas line. They’d rebuilt it bigger, and the name on the front was different now.
&nb
sp; Chandler’s.
It used to say C&O. His mother’s father, Sam Oka, had laid the first brick of that store, alongside his best friend John Chandler. The Chandlers and the Oka-Kanes had been intertwined in business and family for two generations, until one icy night ten years ago, when Jackson’s father had driven headfirst into a tree. Maria Chandler, Nicholas’s mother, had been in the passenger seat. Robert and Maria had both died.
Instead of playing the grieving widower, Brendan Chandler had taken the opportunity to swindle a depressed Tani Oka-Kane out of her half of the C&O empire.
And, as gossip would tell it, in revenge, Jackson had burned down the flagship C&O.
He turned his bike away, into the café’s empty parking lot. Kane’s Café was spelled out in red backlit channel letters, the neon colors spilling onto the pavement.
He killed the engine of his bike and took off his helmet, swiping his hand over his hair, unused to the short strands. Unlike the new building that had taken the place of C&O, this small, squat building was homey instead of grandiose. His father’s parents had been popular, gregarious individuals who had moved here from Hawaii when Robert Kane had been a baby. The townspeople had been delighted when the Kanes’ only son had fallen in love with the reigning princess of the C&O empire.
Jackson got off his bike and walked toward the building. With a quick glance around, he circled the place and went to the back door. The black magnetic key holder under the drain pipe was still there, all these years later. His grandfather had been forgetful as hell.
He opened the back door and stepped inside, holding his breath for an alarm, but all was quiet.
He walked to the front, careful to keep the beam of his phone’s flashlight away from the windows. It looked exactly as he remembered it: the red booths, the white counter, the cheerful, ever-changing local art on the wall.
He ran his fingers over the gold lettering of the café name on a menu stacked next to the register. Jackson bet Paul had gotten a kick about keeping their family name on a small part of this town, directly opposite Chandler’s. No one had been angrier about losing their stake in C&O than Paul. Until the night their mother had signed their shares away, Paul had been the golden heir-apparent, the future co-CEO of the grocery store empire.
The sharp prick of pain took Jackson by surprise. He’d gotten too good at avoiding the ghosts of his past. Not much happiness, yes, but no pain either.
He rested his hand against the lettering of the name, against that apostrophe in Kane’s that denoted it a possessive. Even though he was dead, this was Paul’s, Jackson reminded himself, perversely eliciting that painful kick. The business, this town. The woman he’d been spying on like a fool.
I miss you.
I think about you all the time.
I love you.
Come back.
Without conscious thought, he rubbed his finger over the screen of his cell. Every single email his former best friend had sent him over the past decade was housed in that phone, and he knew them by heart. They were the reason he had any electronics at all, so he could carry that inbox with him wherever he went. The modern-day equivalent of wrapping a stack of letters with a ribbon.
They’d started shortly after he’d run. Sometimes she’d sent multiple notes in a week; sometimes there would be a long stretch between them. They’d finally stopped over a year ago, with a few words. Jackson. Paul’s dead.
And then, a couple weeks ago, he’d woken up in Hong Kong, grabbed his phone, and nearly rolled off the bed when he’d noticed Sadia’s name in his inbox. So, motherfucker, I want you to know your sister is back home and dealing with all sorts of shit on her own: your mom, Nicholas, his dumb family. If you care about her at all, maybe you could check in with her. Though I know that’s a long shot, because you’re a selfish, useless, assholic dick who doesn’t care about anyone but yourself.
If you care about her at all . . .
When he’d exiled himself from this town and everyone he’d once loved, he’d thought he excised every soft part of him he possibly could. It had been a necessary protection. Feelings could be manipulated. Stone could not.
But that had been an illusion. He’d learned exactly how much he still cared when he discovered Livvy was going to be in arm’s reach of Nicholas. His fear for his twin had been palpable. The man had once devastated her so badly, she’d wanted to die.
He’d thought he’d played his part well, that she wouldn’t go back to Nicholas, that she’d be fine, and they could all go their separate ways, but he’d been wrong. He didn’t have to play his voicemail to recall the message his twin had left him a week ago. “Hey, it’s me . . . Livvy? I, um, wanted to tell you that Nicholas and I are going away for a bit. Maybe a couple of weeks. I know this seems like a sudden about-face, but he, um . . . anyway, we’re talking, is all. I’ll call you when I’m able. Don’t worry about me.” Her voice softened. “I don’t expect you to stick around for me. I know you may even already be gone, and that’s okay. I love you, Jackson.”
He stared out the front window. I don’t expect you to stick around for me.
And why should she? He might have held Livvy all those years ago when she screamed she wanted to die, but he’d been scarce since then. She’d had another depressive episode after Paul had died, she’d told him last week. He hadn’t even known.
Isn’t that what you wanted? You can leave now. There’s no one for you here. No one who expects you to stay. No one who needs you.
His gaze drifted over the window, to the Help Wanted sign there. He could easily read the mirror image text reflected in the glass.
Chef Needed
He narrowed his eyes and switched to the web browser on his phone. It took about five seconds to discover a chatty reviewer—Sally R. from Rockville—sadly lamenting that the longtime chef had left Kane’s and the owner’s cooking left a lot to be desired. Jackson checked the date. Two weeks prior.
Rick had left? The man had taught Jackson how to cook.
Jackson scrolled through a few other reviews, his frown growing as he noted the complaints about burned baked goods and subpar lunches. Unless things had changed drastically, Sadia wasn’t a chef.
But he was.
He’d wondered why was she working at the bar. The café would never have the income potential of the C&O, especially without upgrades, but it had pulled a comfortable income for his grandparents, and he assumed, for Paul and Sadia. Did she need the extra money?
He could picture Livvy with her arms crossed over her petite frame. She always stood by you. You owe her, Jackson. She needs you.
Oh fuck.
A couple of things were blindingly obvious:
Sadia needed a chef.
He was a chef.
She hated him, quite rightly, because he had wronged her. Which meant . . . he did owe her, in ways Livvy didn’t even know.
It was practical and logical for him to stay and lend a hand here, in his family’s old café, while he waited for Livvy to come home. He was probably the last person alive who knew this place as well as his grandparents.
And, goddamn it. He wanted to stick around.
He stuck his phone in his pocket and rolled his neck. It was a good thing he didn’t require much sleep. A scout of the kitchens, a shower, a shave, and he’d be back, ready to do battle with Sadia to win the privilege of helping her.
He licked his upper lip, tasting the whiskey she’d thrown in his face. He had no doubt it would be quite the fight.
Chapter 3
Sadia gasped, her eyes flying open. Before she could even fully see, she had her phone in her hand, rescued from the pillow no one slept on. She squinted at the time, bringing the phone close to her face so she could make it out.
She let out a breath, some of her panic subsiding. She’d once luxuriated in waking slowly and carefully, making her way through each layer of sleep. Since Paul had died, that had changed. Now she woke up every day in a jolt, fearful of oversleeping.
Th
ere were only so many hours in a day, and so many things she needed to accomplish. Wasting time on sleep could be disastrous.
She turned off the alarm that wasn’t scheduled to go off for another twenty minutes and stared at the ceiling, the predawn light from outside creeping through her curtains. Her eyes were gritty and tired. It had been a while since she’d had a sleepless night. She was so exhausted lately, sleep was almost always guaranteed. Especially on nights she pulled the late shift at the bar.
But then, last night had been a bit of an anomaly.
Don’t dwell on it.
She’d tossed and turned for a long time, her anxiety ratcheting up every time she’d noted the time and her brain had automatically calculated how much sleep she would get. Three hours, then two, then one. Finally she’d dozed, her eyelids overpowering her mind.
She’d hoped she could wake up and pretend Jackson had been a dream, but that wasn’t possible. Two minutes. She’d allow herself two more minutes of dwelling, and then she’d get up. She could spare two minutes in her schedule.
Sadia stretched, the muscles in her shoulders aching from days of hunching over a stove and a desk. She’d been operating in fight-or-flight mode since Paul had died, and it had only grown more intense any time she had a tiny setback. Seeing Jackson was a setback.
She’d tried to be understanding when Jackson had fled town after he was released from jail, but he’d been a part of her life for so long, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from talking to him. After she’d received no response after the first year or so, she’d assumed she was emailing into a void. Those letters had become an outlet for her, a place to store some of the thoughts she didn’t or couldn’t say out loud. She’d only stopped when Paul had died because she couldn’t justify the time she’d spent on writing frivolous notes no one read.
But then she’d discovered he was responding to Livvy’s emails to that same address. Which meant he must have gotten hers, too.
Ignored every single email I sent you. Ignored your nephew’s birth, your sister and mother’s pain, your own brother’s funeral.
