Gabe’s pissed. Like, really pissed.
Our goodbyes are… awkward. The kind of awkward that can only come from a situation where two people are about to have sex and then discover that they’re, well, enemies.
I’m pretty sure Gabe’s pissed at his mom, not me, but…
The sexy mood is as dead as the Dollar Store on Christmas Day.
If I were the kind of woman who believed in signs, I’d think the universe was trying to tell me to quit it with the one-night stands. Too risky. You could end up sleeping with your boss’s on-again off-again boyfriend… or the guy whose business you’re about to turn on its head.
But I’m not that woman. I don’t believe in signs, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting uncomplicated sex. I’ll just have to get better at double checking for complications before I lock lips.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” I tell him. “At the meeting.”
The look he gives me screams “over my cold dead body,” but he manages not to say it. “See you tomorrow morning,” he grinds out. He throws a twenty down on the bar, slips off his stool, and stalks toward the door before I can say anything else, like, “Let me pay for my drink.”
Which is probably a good thing. He needs to have it out with his mom before anything else happens. Definitely before I take a shot at explaining to him why Wilder Adventures does need to diversify if it’s going to capture the new market.
I don’t panic. This happens occasionally with consulting, when someone at the client company gets blindsided. One of my jobs as a consultant is to make sure all the key players buy into my work… although, it’s best if the person who hires me does that before bringing me in.
Obviously, Barb Wilder didn’t. There were no hints that she wasn’t truly in charge of the business. And damn it, I asked her if there was anyone else I should talk to before I showed up at a company meeting, and she said no.
Either Barb and Gabe are locked in an epic power struggle or she lied to me.
I’m going to have a heart-to-heart with her about the trust relationship I need to do my job well.
Suddenly all the exhaustion from earlier rushes over me, and all I want is to go back to New York. In the years I’ve been working in marketing there, I’ve never out-of-the-blue discovered that someone’s mom was using me to manipulate her kid. A whole lot of other bullshit, sure, but not that.
And Barb seemed so down-to-earth, too. What a disappointment.
I pull up the Wilder Adventures website, wondering how many signs I missed. Should I have known who Gabe Wilder was the moment I laid eyes on him? I did my due diligence, so how did I not recognize him the instant I saw him?
There are headshots of all five Wilder brothers on the site. Gabe’s photo is the blurriest. I wasn’t kidding about the amount of hair in that photo—he’s a wild man. I’m sure my gaze skated right over him and on to the other brothers, all of whom are more clean cut in their photos than he is and therefore way more obviously good-looking.
None of the brothers is listed with a title, just a specialty: Gabe leads hunting trips, his brother Brody does fishing trips, and so on.
There are tons of photos of the brothers on the Facebook page, but few of them are of Gabe. I wonder if that means he’s often the guy behind the camera? There is one photo of him taken over his shoulder as he sights a turkey. You can tell he’s a gorgeous specimen of broad-shouldered, narrow hipped manhood, but it’s not surprising I didn’t recognize him from the rear view.
Although, it is a reminder that I think like a city girl, not a small-town girl. In a town this size, how many guys named Gabe would there be?
Obviously, too few.
I slip off my stool—Gabe’s twenty more than covers both our drinks and two generous tips, because this isn’t New York City, after all—and head upstairs.
I’m not nearly as calm as I want to be.
Because I had a plan, and Wilder Adventures was part of it. My plan was to do this short gig, collect the money, give notice at my job, and start my own marketing firm. Without the money from this gig, I’ll have to go back to work at my old job… and I’ll have to face Gennie.
After what I did to her, that really isn’t an option.
I meet my mom first thing the next morning in the hotel lobby.
“Oh, hon,” Mom says, as soon as she sees me. She wraps me up in a big hug, and tears fill my eyes. Then she steps back and studies me, Mom-style.
“I know,” I say. “I look tired.”
We both smile at that. We have a deal that neither of us will ever tell the other one that, even if it’s true.
“Let’s blame jet lag,” I suggest, even though we both know it’s more than that. She knows the story of what happened with Gennie and Liam. Well, not all of it; I didn’t get into the “O face”-level details. But I told her about the flowers and the humiliation. She is literally the only person I have told or will ever tell. My mom and I know how to keep secrets.
“But you look amazing,” I say. It’s the truth. She stopped coloring her hair when she moved from Boston to Rush Creek, and it’s turned out to be the most amazing shade of silver. Her eyes are bright and her cheeks are pink, and her face, which has always been angular, almost severe, is somehow softer.
“Aw, thanks.” She gets pinker. Which, if you know my mom, is hilarious. She doesn’t blush. “Do you want a big breakfast? Like diner style?”
“What I really want is a breakfast sandwich and a cup of coffee.”
She leads me to the coffee shop I scented last night, Morning Rush, and we each order bottomless morning coffee and breakfast sandwiches, all of which costs half what it would have in New York.
We sit at a small table near the back, where the scent of roasting coffee is almost its own high. I take a healthy bite of my sandwich. The bacon is crisp, the cheese sharp, hot, and melty, and the bagel—
“This isn’t really a bagel,” I say. “More like an O-shaped roll.”
My mom sighs. “Are you going to be a New Yorker about this?”
“Yes. You shouldn’t make things bagel-shaped if they’re not bagels.”
“What about donuts?”
I nod. “There’s an exception for donuts.”
“It’s a good roll, though,” she says.
“Except it’s missing its middle.”
She shakes her head at me and digs in. “So you’re headed to the Wilder offices from here?” Her eyebrows draw together at the expression on my face. “What’s wrong?”
How can she tell so easily? “Wilder Adventures,” I say. “Does Barb actually run it? I mean, I know she owns it, but is she, you know, the decision-maker?”
“No. Her oldest runs it. Gabriel. Did I not tell you that? Did she not tell you that?”
I sigh heavily. “No.”
Hearing his name sends a shiver through me. My attraction to Gabe is a hugely inconvenient factor here. It’s strong enough that last night as I was falling asleep, I was still trying to convince myself that it would be okay to sleep with him. Luckily, he clearly never wants to see my face again.
So inconvenient.
My mom is eyeing me suspiciously. “Lucy?”
“I kissed him.”
“You what?”
Because brains are a pain in the ass, mine flashes back on the feel of that kiss. As kisses went, it was pretty innocuous. You could even say it was safe for work. But it really wasn’t. I wanted to grab his head, slide my tongue into his mouth, and press my body against his. And then I wanted him to sweep every item of glassware off the bar and lay me down on it, without passing go. No. Not safe for work.
“Lucy?”
“There were ducklings,” I attempt. “We rescued these ducklings that were down a drain.” My unhelpful brain provides a stunning, full-color close-up of Gabe’s forearms, flexing as he levered the grate up. Lean muscle and ropey sinew and that forearm bulge that has always been my downfall. “And then I agreed to have a drink with him. And then he kissed me. And then I found out who he was.”
“Ohhh,” my mother says. “Oh, that’s—”
“Bad,” I say. “Very bad. I seem to be having a run of very bad luck.”
She snickers at that. “But this is the twenty-first century. These things do happen. You could consult for him and also…”
Thankfully, she does not provide a verb. She trails off, but my brain helpfully finishes her sentence: …and also fuck him. I get hot all over. And then cold, because nope.
“I think the ‘also’ ship sailed,” I say. “That cowboy rode off into the sunset, alone on his horse. Or whatever metaphor would be best for Rush Creek.”
“In Gabe’s case, maybe it would be that the deer took its fatal arrow? Or, hmmm. The turkey flew the roost? Is that the expression? Flew the coop?”
My mom can be easily distracted by puzzles and word games, which is one of her most lovable traits.
“I don’t think turkeys live in coops. Let’s go with the deer and the arrow. It’s deader.” Because there’s no way I’m getting any more Gabe Wilder kisses now.
I’m disappointed. I have to admit it to myself. The way things started up with Gabe forced me right out of my comfort zone and into a kind of insta-chemistry and ease that would have definitely translated to orgasms. I’d talked to him. Like opened-my-mouth-and-words-fell-out talked.
But there’s no way Gabe and I are going to be easy with each other now.
And that’s for the best. Barb’s job is going to pay me enough to get me halfway to where I need to be to start my own business.
Since I clearly am not a plays-well-with-others human.
Gennie’s voice floats into my head. If you’d just let any of us be friends with you like we’ve been trying to do, this wouldn’t have happened.
Starting my own business will let me focus on what I’m best at, without distractions. And Barb’s job is the first step.
Kissing Gabriel Wilder was just an unfortunate speed bump. My last mistake before I turn things around.
I pack my attraction to Gabe into a box and stick it in the brain attic.
“Gabe Wilder does not seem to be convinced that Wilder Adventures needs my help.”
My mom frowns. “Barb told me she’s let Gabe do his thing for years. But it’s not working. And he’s… stubborn.”
Oh, so Barb does want me to mediate a mother-son feud. Great. “I wish I’d known that. That never works. Bringing in someone from the outside to say what you should have had the courage to say yourself.”
My mother sighs. “I guess she must have thought if it came from an expert, he’d listen.” She reaches out and puts a hand on mine. “You’ll convince him, Lucy. I know you will.”
No one has faith in you like your mother.
“You’re the best, Mom,” I say. Which reminds me of my bad news. “It, um, turns out that the hotel room at the Depot is only for three nights. I called around last night—”
“No! I booked it for three weeks! I know I did! I’m going to call Julia. I’m sure she can straighten this out.” My mom looks stricken.
I bite my lip. “I don’t think she can. The woman there—I don’t think she was Julia, but she seemed to know what she was talking about—she said they don’t have anything after the next few days. Something about a festival.” Small towns and their never-ending festivals!
“Oh, honey. I am so, so sorry. I swear I said three weeks.”
“It’s not your fault. I should have checked the confirmation. It’s one of those mix-ups. I’ll find somewhere else to stay.”
I don’t tell her I called every hotel in the Five Rivers area last night. No luck.
“But”—her voice is dire—“you’re right. About the spring festival. I forgot about that. Everything will be booked.”
“There’s gotta be something.” I say this with more conviction than I feel.
“You know what?” my mom says. “I bet Barb has an idea where you can stay. I’ll check with her. And if that doesn’t pan out, you can come stay with me and Gregg. The couch is very comfortable.”
“I love you, Mom. And I know you love me. But if we both want to keep loving each other, I probably shouldn’t come stay with you and your boyfriend and his two cats and very large dog in his Airstream for three weeks.”
My mom says softly, “You are always welcome, wherever I am.”
I know this to the bottom of my heart. After my dad went to prison and we found out the extent of his lies and crimes, my mom always made a place for me in her arms. She dried my tears and did everything in her power to prove to me that I still had one parent who loved me. One person I could trust. Despite her own broken heart.
“You’re the best, Mom. But I bet Gregg wouldn’t be so quick to agree to me staying for three weeks.”
My mom wrings her hands, something she does only when she’s really nervous. I squint at her. “What?”
“You can ask him yourself. I, um, hope it’s okay. I invited him to join us after I got you all to myself for a bit.”
“You—what?”
She looks past me, and I turn to see a man standing at the counter, ordering. He turns and waves at us.
“Don’t be mad, sweetheart.” Her eyebrows draw together.
“Of course not, Mom. Of course I want to meet him.”
The man heads our way with his sandwich, holding his cowboy hat politely in one hand and extending the other for a shake. He’s tall and broad, rugged-featured and good-looking, with salt-and-pepper hair and smile lines. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Lucy. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“You, too.” I smile at him.
“I see she got the Spiro good looks.” Gregg winks at my mom.
She blushes. Gregg does, too.
They’re kind of adorable. I wasn’t expecting that. I mean, I knew things were good with them or they wouldn’t be moving in together, but I wasn’t expecting flirting and blushing. My mom is like me, super cautious about letting people in, at least since we found out about Dad and all the crap that came after that. When she told me she was moving to a small town to be with a guy she’d met on a Hawaii vacation, I almost fell over.
She pulls up a chair for Gregg and he sits.
“Your mom says you’re here for a job,” he says.
I nod. “I’m doing consulting work for a local business.”
He nods. My mom probably told him. “If it wouldn’t be an imposition, I might ask your thoughts on mine.”
“Absolutely. What’s your business?”
“I own the bike shop.”
I give him a second look and realize he’s the guy I saw chatting with the coffee store owner last night. Right. Small town. No end to the coincidences.
“I’d be happy to help if I can,” I say, meaning it. As much as I worry about my mom getting hurt again, if she loves this guy, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
My mom takes advantage of the moment to tell him, “There was a screwup at the hotel. I told Lucy it would be fine if she stays with us if she needs to.”
Gregg doesn’t blink. “Sure thing. The couch is surprisingly comfortable.” He touches my mom’s shoulder and she smiles at him.
“That’s so kind,” I tell him. “I’ll check to see if Barb knows of something, but if she doesn’t have a lead, I’ll definitely take you up on that.”
I reach for my napkin, only to realize I don’t have one. “I’m grabbing a napkin—anyone else need one?”
They shake their heads and I get up. As I come back to the table, I see they’re holding hands, and Gregg leans in to whisper something in my mom’s ear. She blushes again, ferociously, then tilts her face for a kiss.
I look away as fast as I can, but not fast enough.
Um, yeah. This. This is why I need a place to sleep that isn’t the Airstream.
I’m happy for my mom. I really am.
But the chances of my crashing on Gregg’s sofa are near zero. I can’t harsh their new-love mellow, and I don’t want a front row seat.
Little do I know how much I will later wish I’d grabbed that super-safe sofa option.