Slow Burn Cowboy(43)

Now she was trying to work without drooling in front of the customers as she reflected on everything that had happened between them underneath the covers. Trying to make it through the day without calling him and asking for something stupid and desperate like a quickie in her back room.

She was thinking about him a lot. Which wasn’t all that weird. It was the way she was thinking about him that was weird. The quantity of Finn thinking time was about like it always had been. For some reason, she was more aware of it now than she had been before. That she thought about him a lot. Almost all the time, really.

She was still thinking about that when the door opened and Alison walked in. She had asked Alison to meet her at the shop around noon, so that she could get introduced to Violet and consider hiring her on for the rest of the summer, and maybe even into the school year.

“Hi,” she said to her friend, hoping that her illicit thoughts weren’t written all over her face.

“Sorry,” Alison said, “I’m early, but I was hoping to steal some of your pistachio cream. I have evil plans for it.”

“Well,” Lane said, grateful for the distraction. “You know I support that.”

“So this is Finn’s niece that I’m meeting today?”

“Yes,” Lane said, “and I warn you, she is a little bit prickly. But I’m hoping that she can hold it together and make this work. If not, you know you’re not under any obligation to hire her.”

“Come on, Lane. You’re my friend. And it’s important to you, obviously. Which means I’m definitely going to hire her.”

“No,” Lane said, waving a hand. “I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

Alison had made it her mission to not just earn a living from her bakery, but to use it to help women who found themselves in dire straits. Women who, like her, had put their lives on hold for controlling men and lacked support and job skills when they finally came out the other side.

Alison laughed. “I do. But in a good way. Anyway, you know the strays are irresistible to me. You said she needed this job, and that’s a huge part of why my bakery exists. Sure, traditionally it’s to help women who haven’t been in the workforce for a long time, but, a woman making her first foray into the workforce works for me too.”

Lane smiled. “I’m sure this job could work wonders for her. She’s had a rough go of it. And she’s not happy to be living here. Her mom left,” she said, figuring it was best to try and explain Violet’s moodiness before Alison actually met the teenager.

“That has to be rough. Fortunately, handling tough cases is also my specialty. Seeing as I was one for a while.” Lane knew that was true. She also knew that her friend would strike the right balance between being gentle with Violet due to her situation, and encouraging her to suck it up.

Alison didn’t allow wallowing.

“I have a feeling you’re exactly what she needs,” Lane said.

Saying that made her wonder if Alison was what Lane needed too. She was tempted to confide in her friend. About Finn. About Cord. About everything.

But the words stuck in her throat, and a moment later it didn’t matter, because the door opened again and Finn and Violet walked in.

“Cain didn’t come with you?” she asked.

“No,” Violet said, looking horrified at the suggestion. “I told him I didn’t need him to hold my hand.”

“She did need a ride, though,” Finn said. “Mostly because she didn’t know where she was going.”

“Are you able to get to work?” Alison asked. Skipping right to the practicalities.

“Yeah, my dad said he’d help with that,” Violet said. Lane had a feeling Cain had put the fear of God in her, considering she wasn’t being her usual dour self. The change looked forced, Lane thought. But it didn’t really matter if it was genuine or not. As long as the girl knew how to turn it on. “He’s really into me getting out of the house and learning...responsibility and things.”

“Well, I am also a fan of responsibility,” Alison said. “Do you have any experience baking?”

“Not really,” Violet said. “My mom didn’t cook. My dad hired someone.”

“That’s fine,” Alison responded. “As long as you don’t mind mostly handling the register until I can train you to do the harder stuff. Everybody that works in my bakery learns how to make all of the goodies, so you have to be willing to get up to your elbows in flour. Which I guess is the next question. Any serious food allergies? Because that makes things tricky.”

“No,” Violet said. “And, while I’m not educated on how to make baked goods, I eat them pretty proficiently.”

“That helps. I like some enthusiasm for the product.” Alison looked her over thoughtfully. “I think you should have a chance. Can you start next week?”

Violet cracked the closest thing Lane had ever seen to a smile. “Yeah,” she said. “I don’t have a life here at all. So I don’t really have any schedule rearranging to do.”

“Even better. I most especially like hiring people who don’t have lives. All the better to monopolize their every waking moment.”

Violet laughed, somewhat uneasily, clearly uncertain as to whether or not Alison was being sincere.

“She’s joking,” Lane said, except she had a feeling her friend was only joking a little bit. Alison’s bakery was her life. Her lifeline. The representation of the new life she had built for herself.

Another way that she and her friend were very alike.

“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. I just have some shopping to do here at Lane’s if you want to look around for a second. And then I can take you over to the bakery.”

Violet immediately backed away from the three adults, pulling her phone out of her pocket and wandering to a deserted corner of the store.

“That pistachio cream would be good,” Alison said. “And if you have anything else you think I should fill a pastry with, let me know.”

“I got hazelnut cream from the same company. I think that would be great.”

“Definitely. Get that too.”

The door to the store opened again, and this time it was Rebecca who walked in. Lane hadn’t been expecting her, but it wasn’t totally unusual for her friends to come by and pick up ingredients for dinner.

As far as she knew, Rebecca didn’t cook, but Gage did.

For some reason, the tension in the room began to ramp up slightly when Rebecca walked closer, and it took Lane a moment to realize why. And to realize that it was coming from her.

That whole thing with Rebecca and Finn—as much nothing as it was—was suddenly at the forefront of her mind. But, more than that was the discussion they’d had after. When Rebecca had grilled her on whether or not she and Finn were just friends and Lane had insisted they were. It made her feel horrifically transparent, and also a little bit like a liar. Even though at the time, even under cruel and unusual forms of torture, she would have sworn that she and Finn were only friends.

She hadn’t meant to lie to Rebecca. She really hadn’t.

Or maybe she had. Because she had certainly been lying to herself. So all the lies were certainly born of self-protection. And were maybe not entirely unintentional as far as her subconscious went.

“Hi,” she said, far too brightly.

“I didn’t know there was a meeting,” Rebecca said.

“A job interview,” Alison said, “I’m hiring Finn’s niece to work at my bakery for the summer. And maybe even for the school year if we can work it out.”

Rebecca’s gaze slid to Finn. “Great. That’s good.”

She could sense Rebecca’s awkwardness, and that made Lane feel even weirder. Because if Rebecca still felt tension, didn’t that mean she was still attracted to Finn? Yes, she knew that Rebecca was happy with Gage, but Finn was sexy. Undeniably so.

A strange heat surge through her veins, and she recognized it as the exact feeling she had felt months ago when Rebecca had confessed to her that she had nearly picked Finn up at Ace’s with the intention of going home with him.

She had been jealous then. She was jealous now.

And it occurred to her that she was standing there scowling, and everybody in the room—with the exception of Violet, whose attention was focused solely on her phone—was aware of it.

“Yeah,” she said, keeping her tone that same false level of bright, “a job interview. Not a meeting that you were excluded from. What did you need?”

“I wanted to pick up some blackberries. You texted the other day and said you had them. I thought I would get some to take home for shortbread tonight.”

“Yes,” she said, trying to clear her brain of all the ridiculous, extraneous things that were rattling around in there and focus on the food. “I do. So I’ll get that and the creams for Alison, and then everyone will be set.”

She turned, running into Finn and scampering backward like a startled animal. Her skin burned where she brushed against him, and she knew that her reaction had been both totally obvious and wholly visible.

She put her head down, walking quickly to the back of the store, where she had stashed the berries in a mini fridge.