by T. I. Lowe
Josie kept her eyes on the lookout for dawn to arrive, reminiscent of a young child waiting on Santa to show up, as she went over the ever-running list of things she needed to take care of: Dalma, her father, a few church committee responsibilities, and delivering some groceries over to Theo and Deandrea.
“Finally,” Josie muttered to her phone when the alarm went off. Tossing the quilt off, she hopped out of bed to prepare for the day.
After dressing in cutoffs and an old T-shirt, she worked her hair into a long side-braid and brushed her teeth. Calling it good enough, she slid on a pair of Chucks and left the comfort of her small beach cottage to start the promising day. It took two attempts before her small pickup truck decided to crank, but once it did, she hurried over to the diner.
“You know that ain’t the boy’s favorite.” Jasper narrowed his eyes at her when she said she needed two orders of stuffed French toast, but Josie couldn’t hold his stare and turned her attention to filling to-go cups with the freshly brewed coffee. “August always orders the biscuits and gravy,” he added like she didn’t already know that.
She shrugged her shoulders and pushed the cups into a cardboard carrier. “It won’t hurt him to try something new, since he’s making me do the same thing.” She’d already filled her dad in about the paint project while they got the grill and fryers heating up earlier.
Jasper went into the kitchen, with Josie following, and began dredging the brioche bread in the custard mixture. “You’ll be back in time for your shift, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Josie answered while dodging a late sous-chef rushing through the kitchen entrance.
“Sorry, boss,” Calvin called out as he hurried over to the sink to wash his hands.
“Happens to the best of us, but only happens more than twice to the worst of us.” Jasper plopped the bread onto the grill top, sending out a satisfying sizzle and a waft of sweet vanilla, while giving his tardy employee a stern look.
Calvin nodded his head, message received loud and clear, and began rolling out the biscuit dough his boss had already prepared during his twenty-minute tardiness.
Josie busied herself with slicing strawberries and then folding them into lightly sweetened cream cheese. As soon as her dad flipped the toast, she moved over and spread the fruit mixture onto the toasted side.
“This was your mom’s favorite,” Jasper said absently as he flipped two pieces on top of the others to sandwich the goodness inside.
“I know,” Josie whispered. The sadness in her dad’s voice made it hard for her to speak any louder. She grabbed a to-go container from the tall stack and held it open so he could nestle the decadent breakfast inside.
A little over six years had passed by since they lost her mom unexpectedly, but it continued to sting like it was just yesterday. One minute Jolene Slater had been flouncing around, joking around with customers in her usual style; the next minute she was on the floor gasping for breath like a panicked fish out of water. A pulmonary embolism stole her from them before they noticed the grease fire in the kitchen that caught during the frenzy. The diner was saved with minimal damage, but the loss of Jolene left lasting wounds on not only the father and daughter, but also the patrons of Driftwood Diner.
Guilt squeezed Josie’s empty stomach, sending out a growl of discord. It was the same guilt mixed with obligation that kept her tethered to the dream her parents had shared of owning and operating their very own restaurant. “You need me earlier than eleven?” She set the foam container down, ready to call the whole painting idea off. “Or I can just stay all day.”
Jasper seemed to snap out of his own haze of past hurt and narrowed his eyes at his daughter, making the young woman squirm instantly. “Calvin, you know our little girl here has caught the eye of a famous artist?” Calvin was not much older than Josie, but it didn’t deter Jasper from referring to her in that fashion.
Calvin looked over his shoulder while slinging round disks of dough onto a buttered sheet pan. “Josie Slater, what have you got to say for yourself?”
Jasper took that as the opening to embarrass her enough to have her edging closer to the door. “Nothing is what she has to say. The boy had her so tongue-tied that I think she was close to creating her own language.”
“Dad!” Josie’s eyes grew round as saucers.
Both men barked in laughter, causing her cheeks to heat faster than the convection oven Calvin was placing the pan of biscuits into.
“I’m serious. I reckon we need to find the girl an interpreter. Calvin, you know anyone else who speaks gibberish?”
“Can’t say that I do, sir.” Calvin chuckled.
Undoubtedly, her dad had no intentions of hushing until she left, so the flustered woman gathered up her food and coffees and made a run for it. She didn’t slow until she was loaded in her truck and hurrying along the normally twenty-minute drive inland. Fifteen minutes later, she parked in front of the address August had texted her last night a little after he’d dropped her off. She pulled her phone out and rechecked the address and found it to match the one before her.
“Humph.” As she sat staring at the two-story brick building, a shiny black truck pulled up beside her.
August hopped out and walked over to open her door. His hair was damp and he smelled like a fresh bar of soap, looking well-rested and ready for the day ahead. Josie smoothed her hand over her wrinkly shirt, feeling right frumpy and tired in comparison.
With that easy smile he carried around like a favorite accessory, August said, “Good morning.” In the quiet of morning, his deep voice boomed with enough exuberance to wake her.
“Good morning,” she parroted.
“So you found it okay?” He held his hand out to help.
“Yes.” Josie handed him the coffees. “I have to admit I wasn’t expecting this.” She glanced over and read the stone plaque embedded among the red bricks. FIRE STATION NO. 40.
She knew the old relic was out here, but as it went with most abandoned buildings, the fire station had been easily forgotten. Leave it to August Bradford to remember it. Seemed he had a knack for such things.
“I needed a space to help feed into my creativity. Derek found it, and as soon as I saw it, I knew this was home.”
“Home?”
They began walking to the door that was dwarfed by the two giant bay doors to its left. “We remodeled the top loft into my apartment. The bottom floor is the studio.”
“But you’ve only been back—”
“Yeah, but I’ve been preparing to return for the past year. Derek handled most of it for me.” Pride and respect lit his voice at the mention of his father.
“Where’d you just come from then?” She gave him a once-over as he unlocked the door.
“Tucker and Zachary wanted me to stay over with them last night,” August admitted, not shying away from the fact that this could be considered a sissy move to have a sleepover with younger siblings. Josie liked that he never cared to fit into preconceived molds anyway.
Josie’s gasp resonated around the vast space as they entered. Rustic with an industrial vibe, the worn brick walls and cement floor invited her to stay awhile and explore. She stared at a row of wooden chairs lining the left wall with hooks behind them.
August followed her eyes. “That’s where firemen lugged on their gear when they would get called out for a fire.” He walked her closer and brushed his fingers along the bricks around one of the hooks and showed her the hint of soot it left on his fingertips. “This is where they hung their helmets.”
She smiled appreciatively while circling around. “It looks ready for the fire trucks to pull in at any moment.”
“That’s what I was going for. I wanted to keep it as original as possible.”
She tapped her knuckles against the brass fireman’s pole just past the line of chairs, eliciting an echoing ping. “Does it still work?”
“Oh yeah. Between my brothers and me it’s been well tested.” August smiled. “You wanna give it a
try?”
“No thanks.” Instead, she grabbed ahold of the pole and twirled around it while taking in the giant area. “This sure is a lot of space for just painting a picture.”
August led her over to a picnic table set up in the back with a small kitchenette behind it and sat opposite her. “I have a fairly large project coming up. All of this space will be coming in handy soon enough.”
Josie unpacked the plates and didn’t inquire about the big project, worrying she’d lose sight of the painting arrangement only being temporary. That’s all this can be. Temporary.
August opened the lid of his container and made a face. “I think I have your breakfast.”
Josie snickered and showed him her matching container. “Nope. You’re pushing me out of my comfort zone, so I’ve decided to help you expand your palate.”
“All righty then, but you’ll need to keep this in mind the next time I push a little more.” Before she could protest about a next time, August led them in saying grace. He thanked God for the food even if it wasn’t what he really wanted, which came close to causing Josie to snicker out loud in the middle of his prayer. But she easily reined it in when he thanked God for the friendship he enjoyed with Josie.
His sincerity caught her off guard, so much so, Josie was barely able to whisper, “Amen,” when he concluded the prayer.
“Okay, this is good,” August admitted around a mouthful.
“I knew you’d like it. Driftwood Diner serves up all kinds of tasty fare. Not just biscuits and gravy and shrimp burgers.” Josie managed all three sentences without one hiccup and was even able to add a hint of tease. Seemed the more she was around August, the more at ease she felt.
“I think you might be on to something.” August winked at her as he stuffed another giant bite into his mouth.
Josie took a bite of toast too, and as the tanginess of cream cheese and the juicy sweetness of berries hit her tongue, her eyes drifted shut to savor the goodness, but August’s satisfying moan had them popping open.
“Awesome, right?” She pointed to his quickly disappearing breakfast.
“Beyond,” August commented on a groan.
As Josie washed the sweetness down with a sip of coffee, she regarded the man enjoying his breakfast on the other side of the table. Sure, August was a ruggedly handsome man—Opal wasn’t kidding with her Superman reference—but more importantly he carried a gift of charisma that instantly drew people to him. Josie was one of those people, yet it always intimidated her for some reason. Maybe Opal was also on to something about the intimidation coming from her liking him. Even so, Josie was aware enough to understand it went deeper than a mere crush.
The French toast began churning in Josie’s stomach, so she pushed the plate away and stood to shake off the unease creeping over her. “I’m working the lunch shift, so I can only stay until ten.”
August looked up, apparently catching on to the sudden change in her tone. “Okay . . . Can you come back afterward?”
“I have to close,” Josie blurted, nervousness clamping down on her again. She inwardly chided herself, wishing she could remove the ill-fitting awkwardness as easily as August seemed to have removed his piercings.
“Y’all close at two.” He lifted a thick eyebrow and took another bite, not letting her shift in mood faze him or rush his meal.
“B-but today is S-Saturday. We clean fryers on Saturdays.” Josie wiped her sweaty palms against the sides of her shorts, knowing how lame it was to be using that as an excuse. From August’s sardonic expression, he knew too.
August took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. “The paintings and supplies are set up behind that partition.” He pointed his plastic fork toward a metal room divider along the left side of the room. “Go ahead and pick which piece you’d like to work on today.”
Josie regarded the corrugated partition with rustic hinges holding three sections together. It looked like a piece of art in itself. The entire space seemed to ripple with creative energy, and she’d be a fool not to take advantage of it. Squaring her shoulders, she ignored the nagging trepidation and allowed her heart to lead her behind the partition.
Three easels were set up, each holding one of the unfinished canvases, and a long table was set to the side with any and all supplies she’d need. The painting of her profile was too unsettling and personal to start with and the freestyle piece felt a little too daunting in her current state of mind, but the handprints piece on the middle easel drew her as if it were picking her and not the other way around. It was a simple piece, and for some reason she wanted to paint August’s hands with as much care and detail as he’d painted hers. Within minutes, she’d prepared her brushes and paints, and with no hesitation, she began to add color to the canvas.
A little later, jazz music began quietly filtering through hidden speakers right before August appeared beside her. Without conversation, he made quick work of setting up his supplies by the canvas of her face. Josie was relieved as well as uncomfortable with him picking that one. He seemed to see her in a lot different light than she saw herself.
She dipped the brush in the cup of water to clean it and chanced glancing over at August, which was a mistake. Watching him tilt his head one way and then the other while biting down on his bottom lip made it almost impossible for her not to get caught up in the view. She shook herself out of the daze and refocused on her canvas, successfully keeping it there through several song changes. Even though Josie gave it her best effort, she eventually gave in and went right back to admiring him.
August must have sensed it and looked up, catching her staring. He set his paintbrush down and then took hers and did the same, not once unlocking their gazes. After angling them both away from the art easels to face each other, August tilted his head one way and then the other while biting down on his bottom lip just as he did earlier when studying his painting. “You’re a rainbow.” The deep resonance of his voice echoed around the room, and Josie was just as lost in its tones as she was in the depths of his silvery-blue eyes. He brushed wisps of hair behind her ear. “Pale yellow. So pale, the gold is almost invisible.” Releasing her hair, he braced one hand on her hip and skimmed the back of his other hand along the heated skin of her cheek. “Rose gold.”
Josie didn’t so much see but feel him exploring the pigments of her features. His touch released a chaos of sensations that were irresistible yet unnerving, but she dug her nails into the palms of her hands to will herself just to take in the moment and not be a coward for once.
August traced around the edges of both eyes as if drawing her with his fingertip. “And this blue . . .” He angled a little closer, and when he continued speaking, his breath also touched her skin. “A stunning mix of sky and sea with a delicate hint of lime near the center.” His finger slid down the bridge of her nose. “A collection of bronze coins.”
“That’s a nice way to say freckles,” Josie said, somehow managing to squeak it out.
August didn’t allow her sarcastic comment to distract him. He remained focused as the pad of his thumb grazed her bottom lip. “Scarlet or ruby.” Their gazes reconnected as he traced her jawline, sending a shiver down her spine with a bead of sweat chasing after it. “You’re going to have to get used to this, Jo.”
She cleared her throat to speak and then had to do it again to wiggle the words loose. “Used to what?”
“Me being this close to you.” August tightened his grip on her hip, emphasizing his point.
“Why?”
“Because it’s where I want to be. And I’m making plans to stay right here.” He held her close for a few more minutes before dropping his hands and putting some space between them.
Josie didn’t respond. She couldn’t. August’s touch was innocent and his words sincere, and both caused her body to malfunction. The technique of breathing was lost on her while at the same time she was close to hyperventilating. Sweating at the same time as trembling. Wanting to trace his features and offer her own sinc
ere words, while also wanting to flee.
To prevent herself from doing either, Josie plucked the paintbrush from the cup and turned toward the canvas as if August Bradford hadn’t just shaken her to the core.
8
August could barely focus on the canvas in front of him as his idiocy played on repeat. Did I just do that? Say that? What happened to the goal of making her feel comfortable and slowly presenting the idea of being more than just friends? But, man, he couldn’t help himself. Just as he’d thought last night at the art show, the woman was in her element in front of that easel. She shone. Yes, he’d promised Carter he’d figure out how to broach the idea to her about joining them at the camp, but he also wanted to figure out how to present the idea of becoming a significant part of his personal life as well.
“I need to head out.” Josie spoke, breaking their two-hour-long silence.
“Sure, okay.” August dropped his paintbrush into the cup of water, picked up a rag, and began wiping his hands. “Just leave it and I’ll clean up.”
She ignored him and worked on putting her stuff away.
August looked at the canvas and noticed she’d finished one block. Pop art was a little deceptive. It didn’t look like it required much detail, but there were lots of hidden elements that observers wouldn’t notice. Had those details not existed, the piece would be noticeably lacking. Josie clearly held the skill needed. “I’m impressed, Miss Slater,” he commented, hoping to lighten the mood before she left.
“I, umm . . . I was trying to get as much done as possible—”
“There’s no rush—”
“I don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to this—”
“Hurrying through life will only rob you of the joy of the journey.” August stepped in front of her before Josie had another turn at cutting him off. “Take a breath, Jo.” He placed his hands on top of her rigid shoulders and gently squeezed, hoping to put her at ease. The good Lord knew he’d messed up doing that earlier.
