Sweetheart Read online

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  My father’s fresh pesto pasta followed by strawberry rhubarb pie was amazing, as always, and I left their house with a full stomach and tomorrow night’s dinner tucked into Tupperware containers in my bag.

  My thoughts shifted to Beck again as I drove home. Having seen the way Jess could act out when she felt insecure or unhappy, I could take an educated guess at what it must have been like between her and Beck at the end.

  Taking a deep breath and then releasing it, I consciously let go of the sense of grievance I’d been carrying around for the past few days because of the way he’d cold-shouldered me.

  Beck was entitled to protect himself if that was what he needed to do. I couldn’t begrudge him that.

  I really couldn’t.

  7

  Beck

  “Come on girl, up you go.”

  Larry leapt up onto the van’s passenger seat, already vibrating with excitement at the prospect of a trip, and I gave her head a gentle caress before shutting the door. I was rounding the van to get to the driver’s side when Sam appeared, eyebrows knit in a frown.

  “Where are you going? I’m doing the morning run.” He held his hand out for the keys.

  “I got it.”

  “But I’m happy to do it. I told you I’d handle all the Bean runs,” he insisted. “That was the deal.”

  “I got it,” I repeated.

  “But—”

  “Sam. Read my lips—it’s fine. It’s not a problem, okay? It’s just a delivery run like any other delivery run.”

  I could see Sam trying to decide if he should push again, and I saved him the trouble by climbing behind the wheel. It might have taken my brother calling me out over my irrational rejection of the Busy Bean’s business to slap some sense into me, but I was over being freaked out about Jess Elliot’s little sister.

  I was more than a little embarrassed about the way I’d handled the whole situation last week. I’d let the past bleed into the present and acted like an idiot. Who cared if Haley Elliott worked at the Bean? She was nothing to me. This was business—my business—and I was going to handle it like a grown adult. So. I was going to be the one to make the first delivery to the Busy Bean this morning.

  “All right,” Sam said. “Bring me back something for lunch, then. Whatever looks good.”

  I pulled the door shut and started the engine. A tap sounded on the side window and I wound it down.

  “Grab something for dessert, too. Like a cookie, or a piece of cake,” Sam added.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Something to drink? I’ll call if I think of anything else.” He grinned at me then slapped the side of the van and stepped out of the way.

  I snorted out an almost-laugh and put my foot on the gas. Larry gave me a pointed look as I turned onto the highway, and I hit the button to lower her window to half-mast.

  “There you go.”

  Larry stuck her head out the window, her tongue already lolling from her mouth.

  At least I’d brought joy into someone’s life today.

  The first half of the run went smoothly enough, although an accident on 89 meant I was running twenty minutes behind my self-imposed schedule by the time I pulled into the parking lot at the Busy Bean. Assuring Larry I wouldn’t be long, I loaded up the hand-truck and headed for the staff entrance.

  No one wants the delivery guy blocking the front door. We’d learned that one the hard way early on.

  The door was wide open to allow fresh air to flow through the screen door, and I paused before barging inside.

  “Knock-knock,” I called out. “I’ve got a delivery here.” It was dim inside compared to the brightness of the midmorning sun, and I could only see vague shapes through the screen.

  “Two secs,” someone said, then a moment later a dark-haired guy appeared at the door wiping his hands on a dishtowel. “Coffee beans, right?”

  “That’s the one,” I said.

  He waved me inside and led me behind the counter and through a wide doorway into the kitchen. My stomach gave an embarrassingly audible growl as I inhaled the scent of delicious food.

  “Whoa. What smells so amazing?” I asked.

  The tall guy pointed at a bakery rack filled with freshly baked bagels.

  “Could be those. Or might be those.” He indicated two trays loaded down with monster muffins. “Coffee, chocolate, and walnut.”

  A little pool of saliva formed in my mouth. “Or it’s a heady combination of both.”

  “Most likely. Here.” He passed me a wonky-looking muffin. “This one’s too ugly for public consumption. I’m Roderick, by the way.”

  “Beck,” I said, offering him my hand. “I think this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  We shook and he narrowed his eyes as though he was trying to work out if he knew me.

  “You go to Colebury High?”

  “I did,” I said. “Graduated in 2011.”

  “Couple of years below me, then.” He glanced at the cartons stacked on the hand-truck. “Audrey and Zara are pretty excited about your beans.”

  “Good to hear. Any idea where I should put them?” The muffin was still warm from the oven, and I was desperate to stuff it in my face so I could find out if it tasted as good as it smelled.

  “Over here.”

  He showed me where the storeroom was off the main kitchen. I set my muffin down and was just hefting the first box onto the shelf Roderick indicated, when Haley bustled into the kitchen. I glanced at her pretty face in profile before looking away.

  “Roddy, people are going crazy for the bagels today. When are these bad boys going to be ready to go?” she asked as she ferried a stack of dishes to the sink.

  “I’ll start putting them out now if there’s room,” Roderick said.

  “Oh, there’s room.”

  She swung away from the sink and her gaze shifted to where I was now sliding a second box beside the first in the storeroom. I could tell from the way she blinked twice that she hadn’t registered I was there until that moment.

  “The coffee has arrived,” Roderick said. “I repeat, the coffee has arrived.”

  “Good to see,” Haley said, but there was wariness in her big brown eyes.

  Which made sense, because I hadn’t exactly rolled out the welcome mat during our previous interactions. I’d even gotten her name wrong, something I’d worked out pretty quickly when I met Audrey Shipley to talk about supplying the Bean.

  “We’ve discovered that this batch prefers a slightly finer grind,” I said, eager to smooth things over. “So don’t be afraid to go there.”

  “Okay, thanks. Good tip,” she said.

  Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed to me that she relaxed a notch. Which was good. The sooner we got past the weirdness I’d created, the better. I wracked my brain for something else to say.

  “What temp are you running the Astra at?” I asked.

  “I think it’s one ninety-five, but don’t quote me on that,” she said.

  “There’s some new research that indicates lower temperatures for extraction can lead to different flavor profiles. Not sure if you saw any of the recent trade articles.”

  Her eyebrows knit together briefly, as though she was trying to understand what language I was speaking. “Ah, no. Don’t think I did.”

  “Good reads,” I said, nodding. “Especially the stuff about yield percentages and total dissolved solids. Nobody wants to go higher than twenty-two percent, obviously, but that doesn’t mean we can’t aim for more than eighteen. Definitely worth checking it out.”

  “Sounds fascinating.” She pointed toward the doorway to the dining area. “Better get back to it.”

  She exited the kitchen and I finishing unloading the remaining cartons, patting myself on the back for making such a good stab at normalizing things between us.

  Roderick was busy filling a display tray with bagels when I exited the kitchen, and I raised my han
d in farewell as I pivoted the hand-truck toward the door.

  “Good to meet you. Thanks for the muffin.” I lifted it to let him know I hadn’t forgotten it.

  “No problem. Enjoy.” Roderick flashed me an easy smile.

  I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as I loaded the hand-truck back into the van. Couple more visits and Haley Elliot would just be one face among many on my delivery route, same as everyone else, and I could forget my minor freak-out and let it fade into the mists of time. Sam could stop looking at me like I had Handle With Care stamped on my forehead, and I could go back to concentrating on making Dark Horse all it could be.

  “Amen to that,” I muttered.

  8

  Haley

  I was busy filling a large takeout coffee order when Roderick brought out a tray of bagels to replace the empty one in the display cabinet.

  “New coffee guy seems like he knows his stuff,” Roddy said once he was done.

  “He does, indeed,” I said, pouring freshly-steamed milk into two takeout cups.

  Roddy went back into the kitchen, and I reflected that it was probably just as well that he hadn’t noticed anything weird about Beck’s sudden transformation into Professor Coffee. That made sense, though. He didn’t know Beck. I did, and I knew exactly how hard Beck had been working to fake some kind of normal interaction with me.

  I guess the upside was that he’d actually exchanged civil words with me and even made eye contact for a couple of seconds. He was making an effort to be polite, and that was a good thing. For the sake of world peace, I was more than happy to meet him halfway. Maybe in a few months’ time we’d even be laughing about all of this.

  That little dream crashed and burned three days later when Beck made his second delivery to the Bean. The word had somehow gotten out that we had secured a supply of the magic beans everyone had fallen in love with, and the shop was jumping from the moment we opened the doors. I’d lost track of the sheepish smiles I’d received from regulars who’d come back into the fold, but I just treated them all to my brightest smile and offered samples of Roderick’s blond brownies to remind them they’d been fools to leave us in the first place.

  I’d just caught up on our coffee orders, cranking out drink after drink while Audrey manned the register, when we finally hit a lull and had a chance to play catch-up.

  “Let’s clear those tables, Hales,” Audrey said, and together we whizzed around the indoor and outdoor dining areas, collecting dirty dishes and silverware with brisk efficiency. Along the way, I took two new coffee orders, repeating them to myself as I made my way around the counter and into the kitchen.

  As luck would have it, Beck was leaning an elbow on his empty hand-truck as I entered, his back to me as he chatted happily with Roddy. My gaze went straight to his ass before I could catch myself.

  As always, it was perfect, a gift to jean manufacturers everywhere.

  I dragged my gaze away and dumped my dishes in the sink. There was no point torturing myself.

  “Brazil was the best,” Beck was saying. “Amazing beaches, and the Brazilians really know how to party.”

  “I never got to Brazil, but I had some crazy times in Argentina with my ex,” Roderick said.

  “Did you try torta rogel while you were there? Man, I still have dreams about how good it was,” Beck said.

  I scraped the dishes clean and stacked them in the dishwasher while Roderick and Beck enthused about South American desserts. Then I took a deep breath, preparing to do my part to normalize relations between myself and Beck. “One of the waitresses at my last job was from Chile, and she used to bring in alfajores for us. They were pretty amazing.”

  “Oh, yeah, I ate my body weight in those when I was in Argentina,” Roderick said.

  I waited for Beck to keep the conversational ball rolling, and after a slightly-too-long silence, he cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders.

  “I’ve brought a sample for you guys today,” he said, indicating a lone bag of beans sitting alongside the boxes in the storeroom. “We’ve been experimenting with three of our favorite single-origin varieties, seeing if we can find the sweet spot where we get the best of all worlds in one blend. We’re going for a very light roast so the beans can speak for themselves, and we’re pretty happy with the floral and spice notes we’re getting.”

  Oh shit. Professor Coffee was back.

  “That sounds cool,” I said. “I’ll let Audrey and Zara know.”

  There was another slightly-too-long pause and I could feel him ransacking the corners of his brain, trying to find something else to say to me.

  “Something else I’ve been meaning to mention to you guys—have you ever thought about adding a cold brew to the lineup? It can take a lot of pressure off the barista if it’s done well.”

  “Doesn’t that require a lot of specialized equipment?” I asked, resigned to following him down the coffee rabbit hole again.

  He was trying, right? I had to give him points for that.

  “You can get fancy if you want to, but all you really need is a good strainer to get started,” Beck said earnestly, every line in his body attesting to how hard he was working on this conversation.

  “Interesting. I’ll run the idea past the powers that be.” I moved toward the doorway, ready to put us both out of our misery.

  “I’ll bring you the guide my brother came up with next time I’m in,” Beck said.

  The poor guy was practically sweating as I gave him a thumbs up and ducked back into the dining room.

  Audrey was talking to a customer at the register, and I got to work on the two coffee orders I’d memorized, utterly bemused by what had just happened in the kitchen. So much for Beck getting over his issues with me. Was this what it was going to be like between us now? Because Professor Coffee was a lot.

  After a brief pause, I could hear Roddy and Beck laughing and talking again in the kitchen behind us, their conversation resuming it’s easy-breezy rhythms now that I was no longer present. I tamped coffee into the group handle, telling myself not to take it personally. This had always been about Jess, not me. And at least Beck wasn’t giving me the cold shoulder anymore.

  Nope. He’s giving you the coffee shoulder. Whole different thing.

  Roderick and Beck suddenly laughed so loudly I glanced over my shoulder to make sure a clown wasn’t doing laps of the kitchen in a miniature car. I caught Beck mid-guffaw, head thrown back, his eyes bright with amusement.

  It was a little shocking how handsome he looked in that unguarded moment. I’d gotten so used to him being grim and tense around me, I’d forgotten how attractive he was, but suddenly I was potently conscious of the fact that he was a big, blond guy with gorgeous blue-green eyes and a very hot body I’d once had more than my fair share of illicit fantasies about.

  “Yow,” I hissed, snatching my hand away from the boiling-hot group head.

  “You okay?” Audrey asked, glancing up from where she was wiping down the counter.

  “All good,” I assured her, annoyed at myself for making such a rookie mistake.

  I glanced down at the red mark on my hand.

  Let that be a warning to you.

  Because there was zero point in noticing Beck’s hotness when the man couldn’t even hold a normal conversation with me without turning into a human Wikipedia entry on coffee.

  Giving my injured hand one last shake, I reapplied myself to the task at hand, and this time I very deliberately ignored what was going on in the kitchen.

  9

  Beck

  “When are we going to see you again?” Roderick asked as I wheeled the hand-truck toward the door.

  “Monday,” I said.

  “Perfect. I’m trying out a ricotta cheese cake recipe, and I’m looking for a guinea pig.”

  “I am definitely your man,” I said, because, like my brother, I was always looking for an opportunity to fill my stomach.

  “See you next week. Bring your appetite,” Roderi
ck said, turning away to check the oven.

  “Will do.”

  I wheeled the hand-truck out the door and rounded the side of the building to where I’d left the van. I had one more delivery until I could head home, but just as I was about to start up the van, Haley exited the shop, carrying two plates for one of the outside tables. She was wearing black skinny jeans, and I couldn’t help noticing her plush hips and backside as she wove her way through the tables, smiling to regulars along the way, the curve of her mouth sweet and sincere. She delivered meals to two elderly women and stood chatting with them, her face bright with interest.

  She looked nothing like her sister. Different eye color, different facial features, different figure. She carried herself differently, too. Jess’s stride was long and confident, daring the world to keep up with her. Haley’s gait was more careful, as though she was less confident of her welcome. Where Jess was the master of the flirtatious hair toss, when Haley lifted her hand to tuck her brown hair behind her ear, it was a deeply practical gesture, performed with absolutely no coyness or finesse.

  They couldn’t be less alike—and yet she was still Jess Elliott’s sister, and I was still supremely conscious of that fact whenever our paths crossed.

  When she’d entered the kitchen five minutes ago, all the little hairs had stood up on the back of my neck and my brain had gone blank, even though I’d been enjoying a perfectly normal conversation with Roderick just seconds earlier.

  I don’t know what it was—some weird flight-or-fight instinct that had kicked in a couple of years too late, maybe—but it was fucking unpleasant, and I could do without it in my life right now. The obvious solution was to take up my brother’s offer to handle the Bean’s delivery runs, but I wasn’t going to do that. It smacked too much of retreat. Or, worse, defeat.

  I was just going to have to keep powering along. Whatever it was that made me go on the alert whenever she was around would wear off. It had to eventually, right?