I flash a watery smile at my parents, blinking away the last of my happy homecoming tears. “I’m glad to be here. I needed a break.”
I really did, I realize. Working sixteen hours a day is just not sustainable. No amount of money is worth the exhaustion I felt working for Hudson’s. I was running myself ragged trying to keep up with Blake, even after he stopped with the whole “force Winona to quit” campaign. I always ended up staying late because he was staying late, and we barely had time for much more than nookie.
Although it was mind-blowingly amazing nookie.
No. I can’t think about that anymore.
I bend down to grab my suitcase. “I’m not going to be ready to meet up with folks for a couple of days at least,” I say wearily. “I just want to go crash in my room and relax.”
My mother’s eyebrows draw together in a fierce scowl. “Not until after you’ve had a good meal. You’re nothing but skin and bones.”
“Have you been talking to Edna?” I demand.
She smiles triumphantly. “As a matter of fact, I have. Thanks for reminding me. We need to talk about those late nights you were keeping.”
Good lord. The mom-tentacles have a really long reach.
“‘Were’ is the correct word,” I say with a wry smile. “I’m not working at Hudson’s anymore, so those days are behind me.”
After I sit down for a late afternoon lunch and let her stuff me like a Thanksgiving turkey, we apologize and hug each other a dozen more times. Finally, they have to get back to work, and I’m practically ready to pass out from a food-coma.
When I get upstairs to my room, though, I can’t help myself. I flop down on the four-poster bed with the frilly eyelet lace canopy, pull out my phone, and check up on Blake. It’s a little hypocritical of me, given that I have ordered all of my friends not to update me on anything they’ve heard about him, on pain of a very sharp scolding. After what Aunt Loretta said about the whole criminal family thing, though, I need to know he’s okay.
Part of me hates him for breaking his word about keeping the peach thing secret, and how he hurt my family and shamed them in front of everyone, but there’s that other part of me that will always…well…love him.
As soon as I scan the news, I remember why I’ve been avoiding him. Seeing news stories on him, looking at his handsome mug, makes my bruised heart throb in sorrow.
It seems Blake came clean about everything, including his father and uncle’s involvement with the original financial scandal.
He’s made an announcement that his uncle is currently under investigation for financial irregularities found within their accounts, along with a whole bunch of blah blah, the store is stronger than ever, their commitment to their customers is stronger than ever, this doesn’t affect their bottom line, yadda yadda. The entire board voted to suspend Bill Hudson from his CFO position. They replaced him with one of the board members, Earl Dempsey, for the time being.
Blake says that when their finances are straightened out, he will be going public. However, he no longer plans to open up overseas. He’s working on projects that are closer to home, and he’ll reveal what they are as soon as the auditors have finished their review.
Unfortunately, the I’m sorry, Winona billboard thing is also all over the news. All I want is to heal in peace and privacy, and Blake’s made that impossible.
I mean, I miss him. Of course I do. I miss falling asleep in his arms. I miss waking up to see him standing over me with a cup of coffee and a smile of pure love and warmth in his eyes. But he gave me his word that he’d never tell anyone about what I was doing for my parents, then he blabbed in front of the biggest gossips in town. If I can’t trust him, it doesn’t matter how great he makes me feel or how much he makes me laugh or how many times a night he makes me see stars or… Oh God, shut up, hormones.
I close my eyes, pull my blanket up over my head, and fall into an exhausted, dreamless slumber.
After a lengthy nap, I go look for my parents. My mother is out in the field, with a couple of high school students who work for her in the summer, hand-picking luscious Freestone peaches. They really need more employees, but they can’t afford them.
“How can I help?” I call out.
“This batch is just about ready to go to the barn,” she says. That’s where we’ll give the peaches their hydro bath, cooling them so they don’t get overripe before they reach the grocery stores or get shipped out in gift boxes. Other batches will go into our jam jars.
After I deliver the peaches, I come back out to the field and help with the harvesting. It feels good to lose myself in hard physical labor. I only think of Blake maybe five or six or ten times an hour, so things are definitely improving.
The next morning, though, when I make way to the breakfast table, I find my parents in the kitchen looking like a fox got into the chicken coop.
“What is it?” I ask, alarmed.
My mother gives me a suspicious look as she sets down a plate of bacon in the middle of the table. “Someone just ordered ten thousand dollars’ worth of product from us. Someone with a New York City address.”
“You know it wasn’t me,” I protest. “Oh, tarnation! It’s Blake.”
“Well, we refused the order,” she huffs. “Of course.”
Now I’m mad. My parents desperately need money, and this is just a cruddy thing to do, dangling that temptation in front of them when their pride won’t let them accept it.
“I will take care of it,” I say tightly.
Forking Blake. If he thinks this is going to get me to call him, he’s got another think coming. I fetch my cell phone from my room, stomp outside onto the front porch, and call Alice.
She answers after two rings. “Winona!” she cries. “I’m so happy to hear from you.”
That tugs at my already tender heart-strings. I adore Alice and Tamara, and I hate the thought of them not being in my life. But I remember the look on my parents faces after Blake shouted out our private business, and I harden my heart.
“Alice, you know I love you, but Blake just needs to stop.”
“I hear you,” she says sympathetically. “If it helps any, he told me what he did. He feels absolutely wretched about it, and I’ve ripped him a new one. Oh, and Ariel threw a sandwich at his head and quit.”
“Yeah, I knew about that.” I smile at the visual.
Ariel finally found her mojo. I got her a job working for Marshall, doing focus groups with kids to develop an educational line of Sunni Sunni Smartypants dolls, and I’ve been getting excited texts from her every day about the progress of their romance.
“Here’s the thing, though. The phone calls and flowers are upsetting enough, because I’m trying to move on, but he placed an order for ten thousand dollars’ worth of product from my parents. That’s just cruel. They desperately need money but they can’t take it from him.”
“I’m so sorry.” She sounds appalled. “You’re right. I’ll talk to him.”
“Please do.”
I wish I could talk to him. I wish I could see him, touch his face, kiss him, send him a snarky text and wait for his smart-aleck answer…
“Also, the billboard on Times Square? He needs to take that thing the heck down.”