Page 14 of Windward Hearts

Meanwhile, the Country Corner Market was thrilled with the big sale. This was why Jared loved operating a small local business. Everybody won.

He was loading his many, many bags into the back of his car when June pulled into the spot next to him. She seemed distant, at least judging by the way that she entirely missed his first wave. When she came around the back of her car to approach the store and came face-to-face with him, she was startled.

“Oh. Gosh. Hi, Jared,” she said, blinking away whatever fog had hung over her head.

“Hey, June,” he said warmly. “Woolgathering?”

She smiled, but there was something strained around the edges of it. It reminded Jared of a previous version of June, one that had been around frequently before she’d met her new boyfriend, Levi. These past few months, June had seemed a lot lighter, less burdened.

But now, it looked as though that weight had come crashing back down.

“Yeah,” she said vaguely. “You know how it is. Just getting caught up in things.”

He did know how that went, but this didn’t look like that. This looked heavier.

“Need to talk?” he offered. “You know, if anything is on your mind?”

She wrinkled her nose.

“You know, it’s really nothing,” she said. “Or, at least not anything that sounds like anything. I just… do you ever get worried when things seem like they’re going too well?”

He bobbled his head from side to side. “Uh, well, I run a restaurant, which is basically a disaster factory, so more in theory than in practice, but… yeah, I guess I get what you mean.”

She laughed at his little joke, which was what he’d hoped to accomplish.

“I actually get that. I have a kid, which definitely makes my house into a disaster factory. But recently, things have been going well.”

“And this is… bad?” Jared ventured.

She narrowed her eyes. “Suspiciously well.”

He was definitely not following this. “So you think Benjamin is… up to something?” he tried.

She chuckled again. “Ha. No. Benjamin is a great kid, very smart, but he is terrible at keeping secrets. I once walked past his door and asked what he was doing in his bedroom and he said, ‘Uh, not anything I’m not supposed to!’” She gave Jared a flat look. “I mean, he was only using my good scissors to cut a million pieces of construction paper, so it wasn’t that bad as far as crimes go, but the point is: not a sneak.”

Jared grinned, even though he cringed at the thought of someone using his good knives on paper. The kind of chaos that June was describing sounded nice, though. The kind of chaos that came from having a loving family.

“Okay, so not Benjamin,” he said. “And things seem to be going great with you and Levi⁠—”

He broke off as something in her expression twitched.

“Not going well?” he amended.

“No, it’s going great,” she said, but her tone didn’t match her words. “I just… I guess I’m just worried that this little bubble we’re in is too perfect. And then it’s going to pop. And then everything is going to just feel awful.”

She looked so wretched that Jared reached out and patted her shoulder fondly.

“June,” he said patiently. “I don’t want to minimize your concern here at all, but I think you might be inviting trouble that doesn’t exist. I mean, yes, all couples argue. There will be hurdles. That’s life. But you don’t need to anticipate the trouble when it isn’t here. All that will do is drive you a little bit crazy. It’ll distract you from the happiness that you have.”

June paused, considering this. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

She didn’t sound as though she was convinced, but she didn’t sound as though she wasn’t entirely unconvinced either.

He finished loading up the rest of his grocery haul as June went into the store to do her own shopping. Even after she’d left, however, Jared found that her worries were still on his mind.

He was a chef, one who had trained in the most elite academies in the world. He’d had an education in which perfection was demanded with every dish, every cut, every drip of sauce. It was hard not to let that expectation journey into his everyday life. It was hard not to think that if something wasn’t perfect, it might as well be trash.

But that wasn’t life. And, like he’d warned June, perfection didn’t last forever. That was life too. Perfect would get boring if it was unfaltering.