Where My Heart Breaks Read online

  “I can’t afford even an hour in this place,” Reed said. “I’m lucky they let me in the door to work on it.”

  I knew that he meant the words to be a joke, but there was a hint of truth underneath them. It tugged at me, how it felt like Reed didn’t feel worthy of a place like the Willoughby. I didn’t feel worthy of it either. In that moment, something snapped in my head. I had been acting like a selfish, spoiled brat. That type of person definitely wasn’t worthy of calling the Willoughby home.

  I was going to take myself seriously. If I did that, maybe Patrice would take me seriously. Maybe my mother would take me seriously. It was a stretch, and I knew it. I had a long way to go, but it seemed like a waste not to get started right away. Maybe I could even talk Patrice into a weekend off for good behavior. If prisoners in jail could do it, why couldn’t I?

  Digging in the file cabinet, I pulled out a document. “Work Order” blazed across the top of the page, just like it said in the “Administration” portion of the training manual. I dutifully wrote down the issue on the first narrow line.

  “Room 206. Bathroom doorway lock not working properly. What’s your hourly rate?” I quizzed, trying my best to look serious and professional.

  “Sixty-five dollars an hour,” Reed said.

  “How long do you estimate the repair will take?”

  “Fifteen minutes, but I charge a full hour regardless,” Reed replied.

  “I’m sure you have a friendlier rate in that case.” I smiled sweetly.

  Reed’s eyebrows rose. “Perhaps, but usually there’s some kind of quid pro quo for that type of arrangement. What’s in it for me?”

  It was my turn to be surprised. There was some serious undercurrent in Reed’s statement that made my body tingle all over. As my eyes slipped to his biceps again, several images ran through my mind of what I would willingly offer up in return. Reed cleared his throat, and I blinked. So far, my ability to keep my thoughts on the friendly side of the fence was failing miserably. I needed a new angle.

  “As my friend, I am sure you’d love to help me impress my manager with my superior negotiation skills,” I said. “But if you insist, your coffee is on me tonight.”

  “So we are going out tonight?” he asked. He leaned in, and I found that I wanted to lean across the desk and nibble on his lower lip.

  I pushed back from the counter. “Yes. You can help me get up to speed on all the Bleckerville sights from Walter Moolen’s book since you seem to know it so well. I promised my aunt that if she gave me time off, I’d use it to study up on local lore. It just so happens that tonight is my first night off.”

  “Well, aren’t you the studious employee,” Reed said in a mocking tone. He pulled the work order out from underneath my fingertips and swiped a pen from the container next to the register. He scribbled something on it and then slid it back to me. “Lucky for you, I am free tonight. I’ll be back down in fifteen minutes. You can clock it if you’d like.”

  I purposely didn’t look up as he climbed the stairs even though I wanted to catch a look at his finely toned backside. Friends didn’t stare at their friend’s butts. As soon as I heard the steps on the floor above, I slid the work order over to my side of the counter to read his scribble.

  Negotiated rate: $45

  I grinned. I wouldn’t complain about a twenty-dollar friendly discount. Maybe I was starting to get the hang of this friendship thing. I put the work order in the receipt basket for Patrice to pay and file, and returned to the catering manual, although I did glance at the clock. I was curious if Reed’s assessment of his handyman skills were as accurate as he believed them to be.

  Almost fifteen minutes later exactly, Reed reappeared at the bottom of the stairs. “Ms. Spivey, I am pleased to inform you that the issue in room 206 has been resolved.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Black,” I said primly. “It appears that your services are exactly the caliber that I’ve heard them to be.”

  He moved toward the desk with a slow grin. “That’s fascinating. I’d be very curious to know what you’ve heard about my services, Ms. Spivey.”

  I caught his insinuation immediately and felt the flush roll up my cheeks. There was no way I’d be able to maintain the friendship façade that he said he wanted if he kept saying stuff like that. “Thank you for the discount. I’m sure my aunt will be pleased.”

  Reed slid a small piece of paper across the desk. “I just want to make sure you are pleased, Ms. Spivey.”

  I nodded my head. I didn’t trust my brain to form a complete sentence as I looked up into his intense stare. I was so lost in his eyes that I didn’t hear the telltale squeak that would indicate we were no longer alone. Reed’s eyes cut away from mine, and he frowned. As I turned and found my aunt staring at us, I slid the piece of paper into my pocket. I wondered how long she had been there and how much of the conversation she heard. Judging by her expression, probably too much.

  “Hello, Patrice.”

  “Reed.” My aunt’s greeting was colder than the air conditioning. “Is room 206 all taken care of?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied in his slow drawl. “You shouldn’t get any further complaints from your guests.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Patrice said. “There are some shutters that are loose on the third story. Can you take care of that next week?”

  “I’m sure I can fit it in,” Reed said. His stiff stance told me that his relationship with Patrice was nothing but business. That didn’t surprise me. From what I had seen so far, Patrice ran the Willoughby like a military camp.

  “Excellent,” Patrice said. “I guess you’ll be on your way then.”

  “Always a pleasure. Bye, Kate.” Reed turned and was out the front door before I could say anything else.

  I realized that Patrice was staring at me, and I squirmed. I thumbed at the receipt basket. “I negotiated a better rate for his time,” I said. When her eyes narrowed, I knew that was probably the worst thing to say.

  “Leave the negotiating to me,” she said. “Reed Black is a complicated man, Kate. Given your history, I’d take great care in thinking about whom you choose to spend your time with this summer.”

  I bristled. “I suppose you’d like it if I spent time with somebody like Sam, I’d wager?”

  “Sam is a decent, respectable boy,” Patrice said. “You’ve chosen far worse alternatives in the past based on what your mother has told me. Besides, you are here to help me this summer. I don’t need you to be distracted.”

  Her biting words hit me square in the stomach. There was little question that Trevor was a worse choice by a factor of ten. There were a million scathing things that I wanted to say in my defense, but I knew that none of them would have gone over well. It grated that even though I had done nothing since arriving at the Willoughby to warrant Patrice’s warning, I was still being judged by my past.

  “That’s what I am doing,” I said sullenly.

  “If you expect to be off at dinnertime, I’d get moving,” Patrice said.

  I didn’t need the reminder. For the next forty-five minutes, I made sure that I cleared the reservation queue and sent out confirmations. I finally figured out the sample catering equation and felt reasonably confident that I’d know what I was talking about if Patrice required me to do the ordering.

  As the time rolled up on six, I realized that I forgot to look at the piece of paper that Reed slipped into my hand just before my aunt walked into the room. I pulled it out of my pocket and opened it up. There was a time and an address written on it, but nothing else.

  8pm. Java Joe’s at 510 Maple St. (hang a left at the library off Main)

  Well, that answered that question. Reed and I were on for the evening. I felt the butterflies erupt in my stomach. I couldn’t remember being this excited about a non-date with a guy. Maybe that was because other than a few short-lived relationships from early on in college, Trevor was the only real boyfriend I had ever had, and he turned out to be a doozy.

&nbs
p; Trevor asked me out mid-way through sophomore year. He was in my political science class, and I had noticed him just as surely as every other red-blooded woman in the class had noticed him. He looked like a living Ken doll. I was astonished when I found him waiting for me in the hallway after the mid-term, and he asked for my phone number. He had been so sweet and charming that I thought I hit some kind of dating lottery jackpot. It turns out the joke was on me.

  Patrice showed up at six o’clock on the dot and did a quick review of my progress. She seemed reasonably satisfied with what I accomplished, and I escaped before she could find any flaws in her logic to give me the night off.

  Up in my room, I began to panic. I didn’t know what to wear. I didn’t know what I was going to talk about. I kept coming back to the fact that I was a pathetic mess. I needed help. Lucky for me, help was never more than a phone call away.

  “I’m meeting Reed for a non-date in less than two hours. Tell me what to do,” I said without a word of greeting as soon as Millie answered the phone.

  “If this really is a non-date, it doesn’t matter,” Millie said. “If you didn’t wash your hair or shave your legs today, even better.”

  “Millie! I need help,” I whined. “I still need to look presentable.”

  “Calm down,” she said. “What are you doing for your non-date?”

  “Meeting for coffee and talking about the book that dude wrote here,” I said.

  “Well, that sounds suitably boring,” Millie said. She sounded pleased, which made me roll my eyes.

  “I told you that I’m being good,” I replied. “I can’t help it that my friend is gorgeous. I don’t want him to look better than me.” It was a white lie. I didn’t want to look like I didn’t belong with him. I still couldn’t believe that he was willing to spend time with me at all, even as a friend. If anything, that told me how stupid everyone in town must be that he had to sink to the level of hanging out with the pathetic new girl.

  Millie always insisted on being the best looking woman in the room, which wasn’t a stretch in her case. “You’re a fox and you know it, Kate. Wear that mauve sleeveless top that accentuates your rack and the slim khaki capri pants. Slingback heels. Hair half up, half down.”

  “You said that in the rack department, I was hopeless,” I said with a smile. I knew Millie would come through for me.

  “Oh yeah, don’t forget the push up bra,” Millie said without missing a beat.

  “Thanks,” I chuckled. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Kate?” Millie paused, and I waited for her to spit out whatever was on her mind. “Be careful, okay?”

  I sighed. Just like that, she managed to kill the mood and put a damper on my merry spirits. “It’s just a cup of coffee, Millie. C’mon. Even I can handle that without anything crazy happening. Besides, Reed was very clear on that front. We’re friends. Nothing else.”

  “Okay,” Millie said. “Call me when you get back.”

  “Bye, Mom.” I emphasized the maternal term and hung up. It occurred to me that I hadn’t spoken to my own mother since arriving at the Willoughby. That was definitely all right with me.

  I didn’t plan on being back that early. I might just be having coffee, but surely I would be out and away from Willoughby for at least a few hours. If Reed was truly my friend, he owed me that. He might not know it yet, but as my one and only friend in Bleckerville, it had just become his responsibility to make sure I didn’t die of boredom that summer.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I pulled up outside the building that housed Java Joe’s and stared. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it wasn’t anything this cute, especially with a name like Java Joe’s. I expected a vanilla kind of store front in an old strip mall, but instead found that the coffee shop was the lower level of an old Victorian style row house. A white picket fence surrounded the front yard, and I could see that several tables sitting on the front lawn outside were already occupied. It was comforting to know that regardless of where you lived, caffeine remained a staple.

  I parked in the small lot next to the house and saw Reed’s blue pick-up truck already parked in one of the spots a row over. The butterflies in my stomach were back. I took a calming breath and then grabbed my purse and Lula’s ragtag copy of Where My Heart Breaks off the passenger seat.

  “Stop being a ninny. It’s just a cup of coffee, for Pete’s sake,” I said to myself as I got out of the car in an attempt to calm my nerves. My shoes felt as if they had lead in them. I was terrified of making an idiot of myself. “You’re acting like the guy offered to take you to Paris.”

  “Anybody I know?” Reed’s voice behind me stopped me in my tracks.

  I wanted to sink into the ground and disappear. I reminded myself that this was one of the reasons why talking to yourself out loud was a bad idea. Right after having people think you are crazy.

  I turned slowly and found Reed standing there smiling at me. He had changed into jeans since I last saw him. His face was clean-shaven. I also noticed that he was wearing a pair of wire frame glasses and carrying a computer bag. Those two things gave him a completely different look. Instead of rough and tumble bad boy, he was now transformed into smoldering academic guy. Either way, he looked completely lickable.

  “Hey,” I said. “I thought you were already inside.” I thumbed toward Java Joe’s hoping that he’d forget all about the fact that he heard me talking to myself about him.

  “No. I thought I’d wait out here and walk you in,” Reed said.

  It had been a long time since a guy had done something so chivalrous for me. Even just as a friend. Before he disappeared for good, Trevor only came around when he needed to swipe some more of my anti-depressant pills or borrow money. That, and to tell me what an ugly, useless woman I was and how I’d never amount to anything.

  “That was really thoughtful.”

  “I’m a thoughtful kind of guy,” Reed said.

  As I fell into step next to him, I wondered what to make of him. Reed had so many facets to his personality that I was starting to get dizzy. Did he cultivate the bad boy image to keep people at arm’s length, or to give the outwardly appearance of what he thought people expected from him? I hoped to get to know him better and figure it out.

  “So do you live in town?” Before I left the Willoughby, I wrote down several questions that I could use as conversation starters if the discussion started to lag. It never hurt to be prepared, especially when you anticipated making an ass of yourself at some point during the evening.

  “I live a few blocks over on Post Road,” Reed replied.

  I had no idea where Post Road was, but I murmured something innocuous in response. I wondered if he lived alone or had roommates. I did a mental shake. None of that should matter since I’d probably never see his place anyway. After this evening, I was firmly convinced that Reed would decide that he had a temporary bout of insanity in wanting to have anything to do with me.

  We arrived at the front gate, and Reed held it open for me to pass through in another unexpected gentlemanly gesture. I heard conversations at the tables quiet as we passed. It felt odd knowing that we were the focus of everyone’s attention. I didn’t enjoy being in the spotlight, and I sensed by the way that Reed’s body tensed next to me that he liked it even less.

  “Do you want to sit inside or outside?” Reed asked.

  It was such a beautiful evening that I hated the idea of sitting inside. I spied a small table on the front porch to the side of the coffee shop’s entrance. It was tucked back under the eaves and it looked to me as if it offered more privacy than the tables on the lawn. “How about there?” I gestured toward the table.

  “Perfect,” Reed said.

  His agreement made me feel good. It was silly, but it felt good to have someone agree with me for once. I made my way up the steps to the table and set my purse down on one of the chairs. Reed dumped his bag into the other chair. “I know you offered to buy my coffee, but I’ve got two free ones coming anyw
ay. What can I get you?”

  I started to protest, but Reed shook his head. “Seriously, I come here all the time. Being a regular has its benefits.”

  Sensing this was an argument I was going to lose, I gave in. “A non-fat cappuccino then.”

  “Coming right up,” Reed winked. He gestured at the table. “Make yourself comfortable. There’s some great people watching here.”

  Somehow I had a feeling that Lula’s would have that dubious honor, but I just smiled and pulled my chair out. While I waited, I fished my notebook and an area map that I swiped from the Willoughby’s brochure rack out of my purse. I added Lula’s copy of Where My Heart Breaks to the pile and then flipped the notebook open to my notes.

  Between talking to Millie and getting ready for my non-date, I had managed to flip through the beginning of the book again and write down several of the locations mentioned in the story so far. I was amazed to find that I was looking forward to visiting the different places and comparing it to what Walter Moolen wrote in the book. I had never considered doing something like this before. It was cool in an academic kind of way.

  I used to be an A+ student. I was valedictorian of my high school class, and scored several large scholarships that helped fund my college tuition. There was no other way I could have afforded it on my own. My parents believed in earning your own way, and that included paying for college. My perfectionist tendencies didn’t translate well under the pressure of performing to that same level in college while holding down multiple part-time jobs to fill the tuition gap left over after my scholarships were applied. Then I met Trevor and effectively blew that plan entirely to hell. If my parents didn’t pony up for my senior year, I wouldn’t be able to go back to school even if the school would take me.

  “You look deep in thought,” Reed said, placing a coffee cup down in front of me.

  Before I could answer, I had to pick up and carefully admire the cracked mug that exclaimed “Caffeine Addict” in huge red letters on the side. “This is eclectic,” I said.

  “Did you expect any less from a place called Java Joe’s?” Reed replied as he settled into his chair. “I went to school with Mallory, who owns the place. She’s been collecting coffee mugs since the first grade. Her mom would take her to every garage sale within a hundred mile radius. Every mug has a story, and Mallory remembers every single one of them.”