Chapter Three

Sarah woke the next morning to the sound of rain and the smell of bacon. After dressing, she headed for the kitchen where she found Bridget at the stove with Jack wrapped around her from behind and kissing her neck. A pang seared her heart. It had been years since anyone had held her like that. Dating hadn’t taken top priority in her life and now she realized how empty it was.

The goal of making junior partner had reigned in her world. She’d made friends, though, hadn’t she? They’d gone to bars and dinners together, talked work strategy. She bit her lip. Not one of them had texted to check in since the layoff meeting.

A giggle from Bridget broke Sarah’s train of thought and she shook her mind clear. They’d all gotten fired a few days ago. It made sense no one had reached out yet. Everyone was still reeling from the news. Sarah stepped into the kitchen. “Morning.”

“Hey, good morning.” Bridget turned and tried to wiggle out of Jack’s arms, but he followed with a grin. “How’d you sleep?”

“Oh, fine.” And she had. One of the best night’s sleeps in a long time. Fallbank was so quiet at night and her mattress here was softer than the one she’d bought fresh out of college back when her budget was super tight. “Why aren’t you at the store? And why aren’t you on a job site?”

“I’m on desk duty today and don’t have to be there for another hour,” Jack answered. “I get to have breakfast with my honeybee and future sister-in-law.”

Bridget blushed, but her grin stretched ear to ear. “Gran is opening up the shop this morning and has Arianna there to help.”

Sarah couldn’t help her smirk. “So I was right in hiring her. Things worked out, huh?” It was so satisfying to be correct.

Bridget threw her a baleful look. “Arianna is great and a hard worker. You still shouldn’t have hired someone without asking me. Three Sisters is my store.”

Well, look at that. Her baby sister had just put Sarah in her place. Good for Bridget. They all sat and filled their plates with eggs, bacon and toast.

Sarah was proud of her sister’s newfound backbone. She’d come into her own confidence and Sarah loved seeing her thrive. “Noted. So, store owner, do I get to come work there for a while, too?”

Bridget pursed her lips. “I could use someone for marketing and keeping the website up to date with products we have in stock.” She glanced down at her plate. “I’m not sure how much I can pay you. I need to look at the books and see what’s feasible.”

Sarah reached out and covered her sister’s hand. “That’s okay. You’re not charging me rent and I have money saved. I’m not saying I’ll work for free, but I’m sure whatever we can sort out will be all good. I’m just grateful to have family to lean on right now.”

Bridget grinned and Jack threw Sarah a smile, too. “I’m so happy to have you home, Sare-Bear. I missed you. Now let’s go get dressed and see what’s happening in the shop. I have a new employee to put to work.”

 

* * * *

 

“Hey, Gran? Do we have any more of the muscle salve in the back? There’s an online order for three and that would wipe out what’s on the shelf.” Sarah glanced at the wall from her perch behind the computer on the counter. As she looked over the list of orders on the screen, it appeared website shopping had taken off since her last visit to Fallbank in the autumn. She shuddered at the remembrance of Gran’s heart attack. That phone call had caused a panic she hadn’t felt since—well, since she’d had to break up with Corey. Cornelius. But that wasn’t a memory trail she wanted to revisit. Ever.

“I’ve got the last five here.” Gran came out with a small box and a smile.

Sarah snagged what she needed and put the rest on the shelf. Then she added the salve to the restocking list Bridget kept. By the looks of it, they’d need to make a few things tonight if there wasn’t more at the house. A slight brush of wind accompanied the tinkling of the bell at the door. Turning, Sarah grinned. “Becca!”

Her cousin returned her expression and strode across the floor to give her a tight hug. “It’s good to see you, Sare. Too long since you’ve been back.”

Despite Sarah’s angst at losing her job and the flooded apartment, she had to admit being in Fallbank was nice. She still needed to find a new job as quick as she could and get back to Seattle and her life there, but maybe updating her resume and searching job postings could wait until the weekend. Ease into the job scene. There was a four-month severance package her company had given her to keep her savings from getting completely drained.

“Being home is a good break. I wish I hadn’t gotten fired and had a water pipe apartment disaster as the reasons for it, but silver linings and whatnot.” She waved a hand and shrugged off her melancholy moment.

“Oh, I love this,” Gran said, beaming. “All three of my granddaughters here again. Now if we could get your brother to come visit, Becca.”

Becca shook her head. “Don’t look at me, Gran. I’m lucky he texts me on the regular. Phone calls are almost impossible to get Hop to answer.”

Gran sighed. “One day he’ll come back home. Until then, I’ll enjoy having my girls here.”

Bridget came out from the back room with an arm full of candles. “Hey, Becca. What brings you by?”

Becca pressed her hand to her heart. “I can’t just come in? I need to have motivation to come by my family’s store?”

With an arched brow, Bridget waited.

“Okay, okay. I have goat milk and some fresh plant clippings in my truck for you.”

“Oh, perfect. I need to make some products this week. Thanks,” Bridget replied as she placed candles on different tables around the store. “And since you’re here, maybe we can talk wedding dress shopping?”

Both Sarah and Becca grimaced, then laughed at each other’s expressions. “I don’t know why you’re not enthused,” Sarah said to her cousin.

“Ha, ha. Me and dresses don’t go hand in hand. I can’t even remember the last time I wore a skirt or dress.” Becca gave an over-exaggerated shudder.

Bridget leaned against the counter. “I guess you’re lucky that I’m just picking a color for my two bridesmaids to wear and not the actual outfit. I’m sure you’ll find something that fits your style in a pale sky blue.”

“Hell yeah!” Becca fist-bumped Bridget. “I knew you were my favorite cousin.”

“Hey, now.” Sarah mocked offense and crossed her arms. “What about me? What about all those times I told your parents you were sleeping over at our house so you could sneak off to do God knows what with Julie Kennedy back in high school?”

“That was then and this is now. Besides, Julie moved to Colorado, is married to her college girlfriend and has three kids.” She lifted her shoulders in an exaggerated shudder. “We were never going to work out long term.”

“Speaking of…” Bridget plastered on a smile as the door chimed. “Hey, guys. What brings you by?”

Sarah glanced over and saw Cornelius along with a couple of other loggers she assumed he worked with. The sight of him in dusty jeans, a well-loved flannel shirt, messy hair hanging over his forehead and those black rim glasses did things to her. Things like her heart missing a beat and her chest growing tight, not to mention a distinct tingling lower in her abdomen and heat making her skin fell tight. How did he still have such sway over her after all this time? Shouldn’t she have moved on already?

“The guys need some hand lotion. The good stuff that keeps skin from cracking.” Cornelius rubbed the back of his neck. “And I, uh, I need body wash.”

Interesting. What had him embarrassed to ask for that? Sarah focused back on the laptop screen in front of her, doing her best to ignore the men in the store. When the two others approached, she rang up their items and found Cornelius waiting behind them.

“I’ll check you out,” she said and immediately wanted to kick herself. “I mean, you know.” She gestured to the bottle he held. Ugh, she was acting so awkward.

“Yeah, thanks.” Cornelius handed over the item and adjusted his glasses.

She made the transaction quick, but as she looked up to hand over the bag, she found Cornelius watching her. For a moment, their gazes locked and all she could do was fall into those deep blue eyes of his. She’d always loved how beautiful the blue of his irises were. Like the ocean just as dawn was breaking. Frame them with those glasses and she could combust from desire. He licked his lips and she drenched her panties. The vision of him peering up at her from between her thighs while he did wicked things with his tongue hit her hard.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder, making them both jerk free of their staring. “Ready to go?” one of the loggers asked.

“Sure thing.” Cornelius turned away, but not before Sarah caught the blush creeping across his cheeks to the tips of his ears.

Sarah worried her lower lip with her teeth. What was that moment about? Did Cornelius still harbor feelings for her? A wave of sadness crested through her. As much as she might wish it, they couldn’t be together again. He would never forgive her if he found out what she’d done.

 

* * * *

 

Cornelius looked over the files Jack had sent to him. Jack was on their latest job site today while Cornelius worked at the office. He read over their list of upcoming sites and the requests coming in from timber companies. His exhale ruffled the papers on his desk. They needed to recruit more people if they wanted to keep up with timber requests. Otherwise, they would need to say no to some distributors and timber purchasers would look elsewhere. If they found another reliable business that could handle the workload, those businesses wouldn’t come back to Timber Logging Company.

How to get new blood in town, though? That was the big question. He’d need to figure out where to start advertising for new loggers then entice potential employees to come to Fallbank. He rubbed a hand over his forehead, then poked at his glasses. Maybe Jack would have some brilliant idea in his fancy business arsenal. It wasn’t a bad problem to have—too much demand, not enough workers to keep up. But it was still an issue needing solving.

Cornelius rolled his head on his shoulders to loosen up his tight muscles. Shutting down his laptop, he packed up for the evening. Making his way home, he thought about stopping over at Jack and Bridget’s, but then he saw Sarah’s flashy car parked in the drive and went straight to his house. He wasn’t sure he could deal with seeing Sarah so soon again. She brought back too many memories and emotions. He wasn’t up for that tonight.

Instead, Cornelius found himself warming up a lasagna he’d prepped and frozen a few months back. Then he took his plate and his beer onto his back porch to enjoy the early spring evening. As he settled into his chair, a familiar head popped up over the edge of his fence.

“Hey, partner,” Jack said as he glanced at the plate of lasagna and the beer sitting on the table. “How’s my best man doing?”

Cornelius went on instant alert. Jack was being way too congenial now—he must be up to something. Cornelius narrowed his eyes at his friend. “What do you want, Jack?”

Jack’s answering laugh was at once reassuring and alarming. “Nothing major. It’s that the ladies decided the invitations for the wedding needed to go out as soon as possible. You know, since the wedding is about three months away.”

“Uh-huh.” Cornelius took a bite of his food, savoring the taste of cheese and marinara sauce.

“So, we thought tonight would be good for us to get those put together.”

“Tonight?” Now all of the bells in Cornelius’ mind were blaring. “By ‘us’ you mean…”

“Me and Bridget. Becca…” Jack’s voice trailed off as he mumbled something that sounded like “you and Sarah.”

Cornelius adjusted his glasses as he leveled a glare at his business partner across the fence. He refused to think of Jack as his best friend in this moment. “I missed what you said at the end.”

Jack threw Cornelius a no nonsense look that was eerily similar to one of Gran’s famous ones. “You and Sarah. There. You happy? As the best man and maid of honor, you two are obligated to join in the envelope-stuffing and address-writing fun.” He sighed. “Look, I know you don’t love hanging out with Sarah because of whatever happened between you two, but I would be grateful if you helped. I promise to supply beer for the endeavor. And Bridget made chocolate chip cookies.”

That last sentence had Cornelius up and moving. “Well, you should’ve led with that. I don’t pass up Wildes’ cookies.” He knew giving Jack a hard time over wedding stuff because Sarah was involved was a jerk move and he needed to squash the instinct to react that way. Whatever he felt toward Sarah didn’t need to be dragged into what should be a happy and fun time for his best friend and the girl who was almost his little sister. Cornelius would focus on that and not ruin the vibe by being an ass.

Plus he really did love Bridget’s chocolate chip cookies. Those damn things were magic, no matter how hard she denied it.

A few minutes later, Cornelius was sitting in Bridget’s living room with a pile of envelopes and custom-printed invitations in front of him. He and Jack were on stuffing duty while Sarah and Bridge wrote addresses and Becca sealed and stamped. A half-filled plate of cookies sat on the coffee table in the middle of their little circle.

“How did you get these done so fast?” Becca asked as she studied an invitation. “And is this QR code how people RSVP?”

Bridget smiled. “Yep. I decided to save money on stamps and extra paper by having the QR code link to a site for me to track who is and isn’t coming. Plus you’d be amazed at what you can design and print on your own these days.”

Her cat, Candle, jumped down from the perch on her cat tower and sauntered over to where Bridget sat. She then rolled onto her back and batted at the pile there. Bridget gave Candle scritches while shifting her stack out of reach.

Cornelius paused and looked closer at the invitation. They were pretty and the cardstock was quality. “Impressive, little B! Look at you being tech savvy. Who knew you’d get one website under your belt and become a computer genius.”

Bridget smirked. “This was all Sarah. She has mad marketing skills.”

“Plus the print shop up the road did the heavy lifting of production,” Sarah chimed in.

“You made these?” Cornelius blurted out. He cringed at how offensive that sounded. “Not that I don’t think you couldn’t make these, but you’ve been here a couple of days. When did you find the time?”

Sarah shrugged. “I’m not all that busy. There’s only so many job postings out there for me to apply to. Plus Three Sisters seems to be a pretty well-run machine.” She grinned at Bridget. “So I offered to come up with some ideas and they liked this one so much that here we are now.”

“I think you’re being too humble. These look awesome.” He wasn’t lying. The invitations had a simple but elegant font, the border showed intricate, detailed geometric lines intersecting and the overall effect was very Art Deco and sophisticated. The perfect representation of Bridget and Jack. Neither of them was flashy, but they were more traditional than hippie. And not hipster-like at all. Cornelius looked up and caught Sarah’s gaze. “This is impressive, Sarie.” He hadn’t meant to let his old pet name for her slip out, but he’d been so awed, it had happened without thinking. He hadn’t made that mistake since the night he’d called and begged her to take him back a week after she’d broken up with him. His chest ached at the memory. He wanted to close his eyes, but was captivated by the sight across from him. Ugh, he didn’t need these feelings. He wasn’t getting back with her.

Sarah’s skin flushed pink from the roots of her hair down past the collar of her shirt. She mumbled a thank you and fixated back on her pile of envelopes to address.

Buzzing with desire while at the same time feeling awkward, Cornelius pushed his glasses up his nose and went back to stuffing invitations. He wasn’t sure if her embarrassment stemmed from the use of the nickname or his praise or both. Either way, he’d done a fine job of making everyone at the table uncomfortable.

After a moment of weird silence, Becca said, “Cornelius, have you ever thought about getting eye surgery or contacts?”

“No,” both he and Sarah exclaimed at the same time. They locked eyes again and Sarah stuttered out a laugh that sounded forced to his ears.

He cleared his throat. “I, uh, I mean, it has crossed my mind, but sticking my fingers in my eyes for contacts doesn’t appeal and lasering my eyes seems aggressive for what a pair of glasses can fix.” And Sarah had always liked them. Especially in bed. Or anywhere she could kiss him enough to make them fog up. She had a thing for glasses, said they were sexy. He’d never wanted her to not find him sexy, so here he was. A thirty-one-year-old single man who wore glasses and couldn’t seem to shake off the hold of his childhood girlfriend over a decade after she’d dumped him. God, he was pathetic.