Second Chance at the Orchard Inn, page 25
“We all are, but he’s earned it.” Joe let out a breath. Then he cocked a brow. “Big question of the day is who’s going to fill in for him as shift leader for your crew.”
“You made a decision.”
“Sure did.” Joe kept a straight face for all of a second. When his face split into a wide smile, Devin mentally pumped his fist. Joe extended his hand across the desk. “Congratulations.”
Devin didn’t waste any time. He shoved his hand into Joe’s with fireworks going off inside his chest.
Yes. Holy freaking hell, yes.
“I won’t let you down, sir.”
“Oh, believe me, I know it, or I woulda picked somebody else.”
As he pulled his hand back, Joe started talking about responsibilities and expectations, and Devin was definitely listening.
He was also mentally updating all the numbers in his budget.
He’d never really expected to get the job of shift leader. There were older guys who’d put their names in. Heck, Bryce could have gotten it, and then Devin would have been looking for another job entirely.
But he knew exactly how much his pay was going to go up by. Every cent of it could go into savings. Twenty-eight months would be more like fourteen. Maybe even twelve.
One year. One year until he’d have enough for the land and the materials.
He couldn’t wait to tell everybody. Drinks with his buddy Han would be on him tonight.
Arthur was going to be so proud.
Joe paused, narrowing his eyes at Devin and making him tap the brakes on his runaway thoughts. “It won’t be an easy job, Devin.”
Devin swallowed. “I’m up for the challenge.”
“You don’t have to convince me,” Joe repeated, holding his big hands up in front of his chest. He set them down on the desk and fixed Devin with a meaningful look. “Just. Stand your ground, okay? Do that and I have every confidence you’ll be fine.”
Right.
Moving up would also mean being responsible for an entire shift crew of guys.
Including Bryce Horton.
That same hot, ready-to-fight instinct flared inside him, followed right after by the icy reminder to push it down. He smiled tightly. “Not a problem.”
“All righty, then.” The matter seemed settled as Joe stood. “I’ll get the paperwork sorted. You start training on Monday.”
Devin rose. “Thank you. Really.”
Joe gestured with his head toward the door. “Go on. Have a beer or three to celebrate, you hear?”
Devin had no doubt he’d do exactly that—eventually.
With a spring in his step, he headed for the parking lot. He smacked the steering wheel of his beat-up bucket of bolts as he got in and slammed the door behind him. As the old truck lurched to life, he cranked the stereo and peeled out, triumph bursting inside him.
This was it. The break he hadn’t dared to hope for but that he needed, the thing that was going to get him on the fast track to his goals.
And there was only one place he wanted to go.
The Harvest Home food bank and soup kitchen stood in a converted mill on the north end of town. Business in Blue Cedar Falls was generally good, and it had only been getting better since tourism had picked up on Main Street.
Main Street’s cute little tourist district felt a long way away, though. Devin’s wasn’t the only rust bucket truck parked outside Harvest Home. On his way in, he held the door for a woman and her four kids who were coming out, each armed with a bag. He didn’t need to peek inside to know they were filled with not just cans but with fresh food, too. The kind of stuff that filled your belly and your heart.
Goodness knew Devin’d had to rely on that enough times when he was a kid.
He ran his hand along the yellow painted concrete wall of the entry hallway, his throat tight. He couldn’t wait to tell Arthur.
But when he turned the corner, it wasn’t Arthur standing behind the desk. Oh no. Of course it wasn’t.
Devin’s blood flashed hot. For one fraction of a second, he let his gaze wander, taking in soft curves and softer-looking lips. Dark eyes and long, silky, ink-black hair.
A throat cleared. A brow arched.
Like he’d been slapped upside the head, he jerked his gaze back to meet hers. She smiled at him mischievously, and he bit back a swear.
“Hey, Zoe,” he managed to grit out. Silently, he said the rest of her name, too.
Zoe Leung. Devin’s best friend Han Leung’s little sister. Arthur Chao’s beloved niece.
The one person on this earth he should not be getting caught checking out. Especially by her.
“Hey, Dev.” The curl of her full lips made his heart feel like a puppy tugging at its leash to go run off into traffic. Only a semi was barreling down the road.
The past few months since Zoe had moved back home after college had been torture. Fortunately, he had lots of practice keeping himself from doing anything stupid around her. He’d been holding himself in check for years, after all. Since she was eighteen and he was twenty-two.
Because if he ever let go of that leash on his control? Gave in to the invitation in her eyes?
Well.
It’d probably be a whole lot easier if he just got run over by a truck.
Chapter Two
Zoe Leung’s heart pounded as heat flared in Devin’s eyes.
Only for it to flicker and then fizzle in about two seconds flat.
The whole thing made her want to tear her hair out.
Because she was a realist, you know? Sure, she’d had a crush on Devin since she’d realized that not all boys were slimy and gross (her brother Han definitely excluded). But she’d never expected anything to ever come of it.
To him, she was the bratty kid who used to follow her brother and his friends around all the time. Skinned knees and messy ponytails and oversize hand-me-down T-shirts did not bring any boys to the yard, and she’d made her peace with that.
Right until her high school graduation, four and a half long years ago.
Her mom had made such a big deal of it. Her last kid graduating from high school had combined with menopause in some pretty unpredictable ways. Finally, the nagging about wanting a good picture had gotten to be too much. Fed up with it all, Zoe had gotten her sister Lian to help her figure out how to do her hair and her makeup, and she’d actually worn a dress for once. It’d been a big hassle, but she’d had to admit that she felt and looked great.
At the party after, while Han and Devin and a few of their friends were tossing a football around in the backyard, she’d gone up to them to let them know the pizza was there.
She could see it all in her head so clearly. Devin had looked up. His eyes had gone wide.
Only to have a football smack him right in the head.
He’d never looked at her the same after that. Every time his gaze landed on her, it would darken. His Adam’s apple would bob, and that scruffy jaw would tense, his rough, hardworking hands clenching into fists at his sides.
Exactly the way he’d been looking at her about two seconds ago.
An angry flush warmed her cheeks as he jerked his gaze away—probably checking to make sure her overprotective big brother, Han, wasn’t going to materialize out of nowhere and throw another football at his head.
It was infuriating.
When he didn’t have any interest in her, she could totally handle it. But now? This weird, intense game of sexual-attraction chicken he was playing?
What a bunch of bull.
The last time they’d run into each other at the drugstore, he’d done the same thing, heat building in his gaze right until the moment she’d stared back at him. She’d played it cool, hoping he’d say something. Instead, he’d grabbed the first thing he saw off the shelf and darted toward the checkout. Either the guy was super eager to get home with his novelty sunglasses or he was avoiding her.
After months of being back home spinning her wheels on her doomed job search, she was tired of spinning her wheels on whatever was going on between the two of them, too. She wasn’t expecting him to drop down on one knee and ask her to marry him or anything. But she was into him, and it sure seemed like he was into her. While she was here, couldn’t they, like, do something about it?
Enough playing it cool. Clearly she was going to have to be the one to make the first move.
Abandoning subtlety for once, she sauntered over to him. She put a little swing in her hips, just for fun. She’d come out of her shell a lot during the four years she’d been away. She could still rock a messy ponytail and an oversize T-shirt, but the snug top and short skirt she was wearing in preparation for her shift at the Junebug tonight were just as comfortable—and she knew how to use them.
“How’s it going?” she asked, coming to a stop a foot away. Too close, for sure. The air hummed. He was tantalizingly warm, pushing heat into the tight space between them and making her skin prickle with awareness.
Licking her lips, she gazed up at him. She was all but batting her lashes here.
The darkness in his eyes returned as he stared down at her.
He had always been good-looking. Back in the day, it had been in a loping, gangly teenage way. His spots on the baseball and football teams had put some muscle on him, but whatever he’d been up to at his construction job had done even more. Under his jacket and tee, he rippled with muscle. His jaw had gone from soft to chiseled, and he kept his golden-brown hair shorter, too.
“Uh.” He swallowed. “Good. Great, actually.”
“Yeah?”
He still hadn’t backed away. That was a good sign, right?
“Yeah.” He nodded almost imperceptibly.
Something turned over, low in the pit of her belly. He smelled so good, like man and hard work and wood shavings.
She wanted to ask him what was going on that was so great. She wanted to sway forward into him, tip her head up or put her hand on his broad chest and find out if it was as hard and hot as it looked.
He swallowed and shifted his weight, edging ever so slightly closer to her. Her heart thudded hard. Maybe he wanted her to do all those things, too. Maybe…
“Devin? What are you doing here?”
Crap.
The instant Uncle Arthur’s gently accented voice rang out, Devin jumped back as if he’d been burned. The hot thread of tension that had been building between them snapped. A flush rose on her cheeks, almost as deep as the disappointment flooding her chest.
“Arthur! Hey, um.” Devin glanced around wildly, looking at everything but Zoe. Honestly, it would have been less conspicuous if he’d come over and put his arm around her. “Do you have a second?”
“For you?” Uncle Arthur smiled, pleased lines appearing around his eyes and mouth. “Of course.” He looked to Zoe. “You don’t mind?”
Zoe forced a smile of her own. “Of course not.”
With a smile of thanks to Zoe, Uncle Arthur led Devin back to his office. Zoe was tempted to follow and listen at the door, but that would be childish.
Instead, she sighed and retreated to the front desk. This was a slow hour. All the appointments for people to pick up goods from the food bank were over, but the soup kitchen hadn’t opened for dinner service yet. Down the hall, pots and pans banged, though, so Harvest Home’s two staff cooks, Sherry and Tania, must already be at work.
That didn’t mean there wasn’t anything to do, of course.
Ever since she’d slunk back to Blue Cedar Falls with the useless accounting degree her mom had talked her into, she’d been splitting her time between scrolling social media, waitressing at the new bar in town, and helping out here. Working at Harvest Home barely paid a pittance, of course, but she didn’t mind. Uncle Arthur might be her mom’s brother, but he was her exact opposite in terms of how he treated Zoe. He was cool and relaxed, and he trusted Zoe with real responsibilities. Watching him work his rear end off here—even though he was in his sixties and on three different high blood pressure medications—made her want to live up to his example.
She liked helping people. Sending folks off with whatever they needed to help get them through tough times gave her a warm feeling inside. Even the boring administrative stuff felt important.
With a sigh, she plunked behind the desk and got to it, confirming pickups, arranging deliveries, and checking in about volunteer shifts. When the crew of said volunteers helping out with supper tonight showed up, she showed them to the kitchen and placed them in Sherry’s and Tania’s capable hands. On the way back, she definitely did not linger outside Arthur’s office, staring at the closed door as if she could burn through it with her laser eyes and find out what he and Devin were going on about.
Okay, maybe for a minute, but that was it.
As she returned to the front room and started in on labeling bags for the next day’s pickups, the door swung open.
A telltale tutting sound announced who it was before Zoe could so much as look up.
“Zhaohui.” Her mother came in carrying a box of extra produce from their family restaurant, the same way she did every Tuesday—the one day of the week the Jade Garden was closed. She set the box down and came straight over, her tone as disapproving as ever as she snatched the marker from Zoe’s hand. “You know Arthur likes black ink.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “Well, I like purple, and do you see Arthur doing the work?”
“I think the bags look great.” Han had come in behind her, hauling another crate of soon-to-expire vegetables.
“See?” Zoe told her mom.
Her mom made that noise in the back of her throat that said nothing and everything as she waved a hand at Zoe and let her grab the marker back. She drifted away, and Zoe met her brother’s gaze over her head.
“Hey.” Han wrapped an arm around her shoulders to give her a quick squeeze in greeting. She rolled her eyes the way she was contractually obligated to as his little sister, but she appreciated the affection all the same. “How’s it been today?”
“Not bad.” Zoe finished labeling the bags—in dark, entirely legible purple—as she gave him a general rundown. She glanced at the clock. She didn’t need to leave for her shift at the Junebug for another few minutes. Normally, with Han and her mom here to take over, she’d head out and get a few minutes of quiet in her car to decompress, but she eyed the back office again.
Before she had to make a decision, the door swung open, and her breath caught. Devin came out first. Uncle Arthur followed, patting his back. Both of them were all smiles.
As Devin spotted Han, his grin grew even wider. “Dude, I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
“What’s up?” The two traded bro-hugs and smashed their fists together, and for a second it was like being twelve years old again, watching them and feeling completely outside it all.
Devin stepped back. “Guess who’s moving up to shift leader next week.”
“Whaaaat?” Han held his hand out, and they high-fived.
“That’s awesome,” Zoe interjected.
Devin’s gaze shot to hers only to dart right back away.
Uncle Arthur clapped Devin’s shoulder. “I knew it would happen.”
The corners of Devin’s mouth curled up, even as he shrugged and looked down.
Zoe’s ribs squeezed. He might be trying to act cool, but Devin had been following her uncle around for even longer than Zoe had been following Devin. She knew the praise and faith meant the world to him.
“Your company hiring?” her mom asked Devin, her tone way too innocent. “Maybe in accounting department?”
Zoe glared at her.
“What?” Her mom put her hand over her chest. “I’m just asking.” She raised her brows. “Someone has to.”
Sure, sure. So helpful. Zoe clamped her mouth shut against the instinct to remind her mom that she’d been the one to push Zoe into accounting in the first place. Well, that or medicine or law, and accounting had definitely been the easiest option of those.
Zoe hadn’t exactly had a strong sense of what she wanted to do, but it wasn’t sit behind a desk crunching numbers all day. The fact that she hadn’t been able to find a job in the field was salt in the wound. Did her mom really need to remind her of it constantly?
“I’ll check, Mrs. Leung,” Devin promised. He cast Zoe a sympathetic glance, and she couldn’t decide if that was better or worse than him totally ignoring her.
Her mother cocked a brow, silently saying, See?
Zoe huffed out a breath.
Defusing things the way he always did, Han turned back to Devin. “We have to celebrate.”
“The Junebug does two-for-one drinks before eight tonight,” Zoe blurted out. Self-consciousness stole over her as all eyes turned to her, but screw it. She doubled down. “Plus, you know.” She pointed her thumbs at her chest. “Employee discount.”
Han looked to Devin, brows raised.
“Sure,” Devin said slowly. He let his gaze fall on her for all of a second. There was that flare of heat again. But as fast as it had come, it disappeared as his eyes darted away. “Who doesn’t like cheap beer, right?”
“Right,” Zoe agreed. She smiled tightly.
Thanks to her entire freaking family showing up, this round of “Poke Devin Until He Cracks” was a stalemate.
But the good news was that she’d just earned herself another shot.
Chapter Three
So, how’s it feel?” Han asked. “Mr. Fancypants promotion.”
Devin shook his head. “I’m still having a pretty hard time believing it.”
After a brief stop at home to change, he’d met Han at the Junebug on Main Street for the cheap drinks Zoe had promised them. Add in some burgers and the owner Clay’s famous cheese fries, and this was basically Devin’s ideal night out. He snagged another stick of greasy goodness from the basket in front of him and popped it in his mouth. It tasted like victory.
And cheese.
But mostly victory. After years of careful planning, everything he’d been working for finally felt like it was within his grasp. Arthur’d taken the time to rerun the numbers with him in his office, and twelve months was a solid projection. For years now, Arthur had been holding on to that lot on the outskirts of town for him. It was one of a handful of shrewd real estate investments he’d made decades ago. He’d been slowly selling off the rest of his plots as Blue Cedar Falls had grown and tourism had boomed, but not that one. It made Devin’s throat tight, just thinking about it. The guy had so much faith in him.
