AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Grinny chuckles and taps her hand on Jamison’s desk…Granddad’sdesk. “I’ll see you Saturday at 5:30, if not sooner.”
He nods and takes the hand she offers, patting it so sweetly, I just about die.
There’s no way my heart can hate him as thoroughly when he’s so kind.
CHAPTEREIGHT
NEW PLACES, NEW NAMES
JAMISON
The next morning I show up at Happy Cow an hour earlier than yesterday, wondering if I’ll run into Scarlett.
But Lar and Mar are chatty today. They were yesterday too…until I told them I was there to get whatever a typical order for the lodge would be. When I’d picked up the keys from Albert the night before, he’d said the employees enjoyed things from this place occasionally, and I thought it’d be a nice gesture for the meeting. It wasn’t until later that I heard Scarlett usually picks up pastries and coffee every day from Happy Cow and for whatever reason, hadn’t yesterday.
“Landmark Mountain?” Lar had said.
And then their eyeballs practically waved visible red flags as they looked me over.
“You’re the new owner, I take it?” Mar had sniffed, doing one more drag over my suit and from the look on her face, finding me lacking..
“I am.” I’d reached out to shake her hand, glancing again at the name in red cursive on her apron and then his. “Hi, Mar, Lar. I’m Jamison.”
Both waved their flour or powdered sugar-gloved hands at me like I should’ve known better than to shake a baker’s hand, stupid businessman. And I mentally agreed with them in my head. It was stupid to try to shake a baker’s hand.Way to pass around the germs, dude. No one wants to go down eating a donut.
“It’sMareandLare,” she corrects, scoffing. “Marrrr and Larrrr,” she mocks, shaking her head. “Marlike Mary,Larlike Larry.”
Just striking out right and left. I’d even consciously reined in my accent that first time and still got it wrong. “Mar and Lar, got it,” I said, pronouncing it correctly this time.
“So Scarlett is gone, poof, just like that?” Mar’s jaw clenched and I shook my head, raising a hand.
“Oh no, she’s still working at the resort…as long as she wants to, as far as I’m concerned, but…it’s ultimately up to her.”
It was like the sun came out again and there had never been a storm in this quaint bakery to begin with, the reception considerably warmer once I said that. Lar pounded me on the back—I guess that’s okay germ-wise. Mar told me all the extra things she’d stuck in the bag for me to try out, on the house, and even waved when I backed out with my arms loaded down.
It was a little old lady with tight white curls who looked at me shrewdly and asked if I planned to walk out with the entire bakery on my back. I hadn’t known what she meant or what she was doing when she patted around on my back until a cloud of white dust Lar had left on my back filled the air around us.
Today, Lar and Mar greet me like I’m their oldest friend.
“Jamison, how was your first day?” Lar booms.
“It was a great day,” I say.
It was the most off my game I’ve been since—oh, middle school, but I keep that to myself.
“Glad to hear it,” Lar says. His head tilts when the phone rings and he holds up his index finger before he turns to answer it.
“Did you and Scarlett get your wires crossed or are you picking up the order for her today?” Mar asks, grinning at me like I’m in on a joke.
“Uh, I don’t—”
The door swings open, bell jangling loud enough to wake the dead, and I turn around to see Scarlett glaring at me.
Great.
It looks like she didn’t have time to warm up to the idea of me taking over her family legacy overnight.
I brace myself and smile, taking her in. I could barely look away from her yesterday. Today, it will be best if I only look away. The thoughts that run through my mind are X-rated.
