by Melissa West
The smell of garlic and sauce hit Zac’s nose as he moved into the kitchen and set down a spare box of fruit and veggies and a Bundt cake he’d bought from AJ&P Bakery’s booth. “Got your favorite.”
Carrie-Anne stopped stirring whatever Italian dish she was making and came over to hug her dad. “Ugh, you smell horrible.” She wrinkled her nose and waved her hand through the air, causing Zac to laugh.
“I’ve been at the market all day.”
The twelve-year-old faked a cough and fanned her nose again. “How did you sell anything smelling like that?”
“Well . . . I might have gone by the farm after.”
“And there’s my daddy. How is the strawberry patch looking this year? Mrs. Campbell asked me about it after class today. She wants to do a field trip there in a few weeks.”
“It’s good. I think we’ll be fine for the first U-Pick this weekend.”
Carrie-Anne’s face lit. She always loved when the kids came out to the farm, loved helping them find the biggest strawberries in the patch. And he loved watching her feel so happy. It made him think she’d put her mother leaving behind her, even if Zac still hadn’t.
“Great! I’ll tell Mrs. Campbell. And I can send an e-vite again this year if you want? Maybe put something on the school’s Facebook page?”
“I don’t want you to worry over it. I can have someone post on our page to get the word around, and then this is Crestler’s Key. Word will spread.”
“I know.” She stirred the sauce again. “But I like helping. You shouldn’t have to do it all by yourself.”
Zac felt the familiar knot in his throat rising. “Now, you know better than to worry about me, Carrie-Bee. I’m just fine.”
She shrugged, glanced over her shoulder at him, then back at the pot.
“Okay, I know that look. Is there something else on your mind?” Zac asked as he grabbed some plates from the cabinet and set the table, then poured them each a glass of sweet tea.
“It’s just . . .” She trailed off, and Zac feared something horrible was coming. Something like when she got her first period, and they both thought she had internal bleeding until he called his sister, Kate, and she came over and explained that he was an idiot. Which truthfully, he should have known by now.
“What is it?”
“I was just wondering . . . you know. Well . . . why don’t you date, Daddy? Reagan Prictor’s parents got divorced, and her mama’s already dating that new plumber that joined Drain It. Seems to really like him, and Reagan asked me if you ever date, and I said no, which she thought was odd. Is it odd? I don’t know. Because I think you probably should. So why don’t you? Date, that is.” She turned to face him, her long brown hair hitting at the middle of her back, her skin the same olive tone as her mother’s. If not for those green eyes staring at him, the very same as his, she’d look nothing like him.
“I date.”
“Not that I’ve ever seen.”
“Well, I’m not going to bring women around here, Carrie-Anne. That’s not right.”
She paused while scooping pasta onto their plates. “It’s not wrong.”
“I don’t need anybody else messing with our lives.”
“But maybe she won’t mess with our lives.” Her gaze hit his, and he realized in that moment that maybe this wasn’t just about her wanting him to have a lady around the house. Maybe she wanted one, too.
“Sweetie, I . . .” But what could he say?
“I’m not saying you need to go marry Sophie Marsh or anything.”
He choked on a sip of sweet tea and coughed out a laugh. “Yeah, wouldn’t hang your hat on that one.”
“She is pretty, though.”
“Yeah. Pretty evil.”
“Dad!” Carrie-Anne giggled, and he pulled her to him for another hug.
“Look, I’m sorry. I thought I was protecting you by keeping it just us, but I never thought that maybe you needed something more than me.”
She shook her head. “Oh, no, Daddy, I’m not saying that. You’re great. I just . . .”
“I know. And it’s okay. How about I agree to try?”
A tiny smile found its way across her face. “You’ll date?”
“I already date occasionally. But I’ll do it a little more now. How’s that?”
“Perfect. And while we’re talking about dating . . .” She scooped a bite of noodles onto her fork, but didn’t take a bite. “Well, Reagan and I were talking, and her mama’s mentioned you a few times, so we thought maybe—”
“No. No way in he—” He caught himself as Carrie-Anne raised her eyebrows. “Heck. I was going to say heck.”
“Sure you were.”
He laughed again, then they dove into their fettuccini Alfredo, hunger taking over. “Mmmm, this is amazing. Grandma teach you how to cook this?”
She beamed. “Aunt Kate.”
He nodded as he swirled some noodles around his fork and took another large bite. “I’ll have to thank her next time I see her. You can cook, kid. I’ll give you that.”
“While you’re thanking her, you could ask if she has any single friends.”
“I said I’d try.”
“No reason not to start trying now.”
Zac scratched his chin and then ran his hand through his hair. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you?”
“Just a few dates, Daddy.”
“Right.”
The problem was, Zac wasn’t sure he could open his heart enough to truly date anyone. The only person he’d even considered was Becca Stark, and she’d been head over heels for Nick Hamilton. Still, what he needed was someone like her—good and wholesome without a ton of baggage and without a wealth of expectations. But how fair was that? He had baggage for days, and what was wrong with a lady expecting a thing or two? Nothing.
Only Zac wasn’t so sure he could meet any of those expectations . . . and then what?
But as he watched his daughter watching him, he knew he’d have to give it a try. If not for himself, then for her.
* * *
Sophie sat outside on her wrap-around porch in a rocking chair with two broken slats that she couldn’t bring herself to throw out. Her grandmother used to rock in it every evening, a cup of tea in her hand, her gaze on the stars popping on in the night sky.
Sophie used to ask her what she was thinking about, and Nana would always answer, “Before.” They’d sit in silence then, Nana’s mind on her time as an Army nurse and a thousand experiences that no one should have had, and no one would ever know. Never once did Nana reveal any of the horrors she’d witnessed. If not for those evenings on the porch, Nana’s face strained from the effort to appear indifferent, nothing but sadness in her eyes, Sophie might have thought it hadn’t affected her.
Now, as an adult, Sophie knew the hard truth—everything affects a person. A laugh at the wrong moment that reads as an insult. Sending a call to voicemail. Ignoring someone you know in the grocery store because you’re too busy to say hello. Minor moments remain ingrained in our subconscious forever. Something like war? Well, it was no wonder PTSD existed and far too many sought out the relief of a bottle.
Rocking back again, Sophie ran her foot lightly over her gray tabby cat, Petite, who’d taken to being petted in this way while Sophie worked on her laptop, and now stubbornlyt refused to be petted in any other way. Taking another sip of her green tea, because apparently Nana had affected her too somewhere along the way, Sophie tried to make sense of her thoughts.
Her pesky thoughts weren’t focused on something as significant as war; though if she were honest, she felt like she’d entered one in Crestler’s Key without realizing it. Now she couldn’t seem to find a way out of the fight, and the ridiculousness of it was that she kind of enjoyed it. She enjoyed those little laughing smiles of Zac’s and the way he supported his family to a fault. Even the way he coddled his daughter on purpose so she’d roll her eyes and push him away.
It was a super hard thing to hate som
eone and also like him. The conflicting emotions made Sophie’s head ache, and she tried to think of some new reasons to hate Zac Littleton. Like maybe he refused to let women get certified at that dive shop of his. But she knew a few ladies around town who’d gone through the training, likely just to see the brothers in a wet suit. And now, all Sophie could see was Zac in a wet suit. Then her thoughts drifted to him without that wet suit on, and Sophie’s cheeks lit despite the fact that no one was around.
Sophie shook her head to try to regain some semblance of respectable thought. “The tea’s jacked up my brain again, Petite,” she said to the cat. Immediately she cringed because she’d become that lady—the one whose closest friend was her long-haired cat. That thought made Sophie want to throw on her best dress and heels and go into town. But then, this was Crestler’s Key, and most everything was closed. She could head to that bar in Triple Run, but it seemed like everyone who went there ended up marrying a man from Triple Run and never moved back home. Which sounded nice, except Sophie owned Fresh Foods; it was her dream and passion, and she refused to let a man interfere with her dream. So there would be no going to Triple Run’s bar and no risking meeting a man who could take over her world.
She had already had a man like that, and she planned never to go there again. Plus, day by day, it felt like a man was already attempting to control her life—or at least her business.
Sophie thought of Zac Littleton carrying the boxes of fruit and vegetables, his arm muscles tight from the effort, his face as relaxed as ever, and those worn jeans and how perfectly they clung to his—
“Nope, nope, nope.”
Pushing out of her rocker, she stormed inside and decided that, a hundred dollars or not, what she needed was a little shopping therapy at Earth Essentials. Shopping always made her feel better . . . for a moment. Until that newness wore off and she was left with all the same thoughts zipping around in her brain. Thoughts no longer silenced by instant gratification.
But what she really needed to do was talk to someone who knew Zac so she could get insider details. Like how the heck he sold over a hundred dollars more than her. Seriously, how was that even possible? Did the whole Little League team buy a dozen of everything? Or maybe the choir at the giant Baptist church? Those ladies liked to power walk like it was their job, which tended to equal fruit and smoothies and energy stuff, right? So maybe them. Or maybe . . .
Sophie chewed her thumbnail and thought about it. Then thought about it some more. Finally, she couldn’t simply think about it anymore. She needed to do something.
Grabbing the phone book that was still delivered to her door every three months, despite the fact that nobody needed a phone book anymore or even looked at one, she flipped through the names until she found the one she was looking for. She dialed the number before she could chicken out.
The phone rang three, then four times, and it was then that Sophie realized the time and that maybe they were both sleeping and she was going to ruin the little girl’s day tomorrow and maybe she had a test and now she would fail and it would all be Sophie’s—
“Hello?”
“Oh my God.”
“Well, actually, most people call me Zac. Or ‘Hey, dude.’ But sure, you can go with God.”
“I wasn’t calling you God.”
“But you were calling me.”
Sophie stomped her foot and cursed to herself, except she must not have kept it to herself, because the next thing she knew, Zac was laughing. Loudly. A full-body kind of laugh, the kind that rumbled from deep within a person.
“What?”
“You call me, and then you get mad because I called you out on calling me? What sense does that make? Ah, right. About as much sense as you thinking you were going to win that bet today.”
“I can’t stand you.”
“Man, not many people admit to hating God, but whatever works for you, honey.”
“I didn’t call you God.”
“Sure you didn’t.”
“Oh my God!”
“See.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“All right, but you won’t have any resolution to whatever made you call if you hang up.”
Sophie’s temper boiled over, her fingers and toes and stomach all tensed for a fight. She’d never met a man who behaved as arrogantly as Zac, and suddenly she regretted every positive thought she’d ever had about him.
“I called to ask how you cheated.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” He chuckled softly, the sound so delicious she almost sighed—before yelling at herself to pull it together. Once again, she wished Zac had some horrible habit that would make her less attracted to him. Maybe he smoked. No, no way did he smoke. Not with super white teeth like his. She’d have to find something to secure this hate before it turned into something really dangerous.
Like a crush.
“Did you just call me a cheater?”
“I didn’t call you a cheater. I asked how you cheated. Not the same thing.”
“It’s exactly the same thing. So let me get this straight. You’re so arrogant that you can’t possibly think you could lose fair and square. It has to be the other person is cheating.”
“I’m arrogant?”
“I know. That’s what I said.”
Sophie was pacing her house now, her bare feet slapping against the hardwood floors with the weight of her rage. “That wasn’t a statement, it was a question. Gah, where did you go to school?”
“Wow. And now you’re questioning the educational system here in Crestler’s Key? Hmm, I bet the Independent would be interested to hear about that. Care to give an official statement?”
“Don’t you dare.”
His laugh filled the void again. “I’m just messing with you. I wouldn’t wish the Independent on my greatest enemy.”
“Which is me.”
“Obviously.”
For some reason, that bothered Sophie more than it should have, but she pushed it away. “Back to the topic. I want to know how you outsold me by so much today.”
“I’m sure you do, but magicians never reveal their tricks.”
“So it wasn’t real? You faked it. I knew it couldn’t be real,” she said, almost more to herself, and for the first time that night, she felt a bit of relief.
“Now, now. Don’t get carried away with yourself. That’s not what I said. How about this—you tell me how much it cost you to convert Freddie’s farm to organic, and I’ll tell you how I kicked your ass today.”
“You didn’t kick my ass.”
“So a hundred bucks more than you doesn’t qualify as a good ass kicking? Tell me, then—what does count as an ass kicking? Two hundred? Five? I need to be able to adequately prepare.”
“Hold up. You’ve sold five hundred dollars at the market before?”
She could almost hear his smile and immediately resented her inability to keep her mouth shut and her opinions to herself. It was one of the reasons she’d failed so miserably at nearly every job she’d ever had. There was professionalism, and then there was watching people get treated poorly day in and day out, all while not saying a word.
It wasn’t lost on Sophie that she, a mere executive assistant, had defended the staff to her old boss, but at the time she couldn’t defend herself to the person closest to her.
Shaking her head, she pushed the thought away. She was finally doing what she loved, but every month her stress level climbed higher and higher. Production costs on the farm were insane, and she couldn’t afford the equipment she needed to speed things up. So she was stuck producing only what she could produce, praying come spring she would reap the benefits of her hard work. And she had . . . a little. But Fresh Foods was still a long, long way from being a lucrative farm.
Turning her frustration back on the problem at hand, or in this case, at phone, she said, “I’m listening. What, did you convince the hospital to buy apples for all the patients or something?”
She heard the sound of a
screen door opening and then flapping shut, then Zac adjusting the phone. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sitting on my front porch if it’s okay by you.”
“Doing what exactly?”
“What the hell is this? Twenty questions?”
Sophie cleared her throat. “I just want to know how you outsold me.”
“The truth?”
“Always.”
“Is that number you showed me your norm?”
Sophie poured another cup of hot water and dropped a teabag of English Breakfast in it, needing something more than the green tea she usually drank in the evenings. She contemplated whether she should tell him the truth—that it had been her best day—or lie and say she did that all the time. But the problem with lies, even a tiny white one like this, was that they always seemed to track Sophie down at the worst possible times and expose her. She learned at age twelve—when she’d found the rainbow butterfly eraser in the hall after school, only to learn Missy Bench had lost hers and was asking everyone if they’d seen it—that she was as bad at lying as she was at sports. And don’t even get her started on sports.
“Is it?” Zac pressed. She could hear the soft sway of something in the background on his end. If he was in a rocking chair, she was going to lose it. Which was stupid. Everyone rocked in the South. It was the great Southern pastime.
Frustrated yet again with her inability to keep her mouth shut, she bit her lip, only to give in to her curiosity a half second later. “What is that sound? Are you in a rocker?”
“Good God, woman. Want to know what I’m wearing, too?”
“Funny.” But now that very question was circling around in Sophie’s head, and she had to bite her lip hard to keep from asking it. She needed to go see a doctor, someone to rid her mind of this disease called lust that had polluted it. Because that was what it had to be. Lust. Nothing more. And who could blame her when the guy on the other end of the phone looked like Zac?
“I thought so.”
“Thought so what?”
“That it was funny.”
“It was a high.”
“Picturing me naked?”
