A Place to Rest Part 18

"And you're not the person to make her happy?"

"I don't know. No one else seems to think so."

When Tia silently studied her, Sawyer braced for the expected criticism. Tia, like Erica, always thought she knew what was best for her. But somehow Sawyer knew this time was different, Jori was different. And while she wasn't ready to admit she wanted anything more than to explore the s.e.xual attraction between them, inside she knew she felt something she hadn't felt in years, maybe ever.

"Honey, what do you and Jori think? That's all that matters."

* 148 *

"I thought you'd tell me what I should do." Sawyer didn't try to hide her surprise at her mother's response.

"Would it do any good?"

"That never stopped you before."

Tia shrugged. "I just want you to be happy, Sawyer. That's all I've ever wanted. And if you've felt I went about it the wrong way sometimes, you need to understand that my intentions were good. But it seems like Jori has gotten under your skin. I could try to tell you what to do, but I think maybe this time you need to fi gure it out for yourself."

Sawyer hurried across the apartment, grabbing her keys from the sofa table. Brady and the others were probably already downstairs waiting. She'd scheduled a meeting with the kitchen staff and servers to review the new menu, and she was already twenty minutes late. Knowing Erica would have been ready for the meeting early, she cringed.

So when, minutes later, she walked into a nearly empty dining room, she stopped short. Chuck and Jori sat at one of the tables and Brady leaned against the bar, ankles crossed.

"Where the h.e.l.l is everyone? I posted a notice about this meeting next to the time clock, a week ago." Now Sawyer was irritated. She'd been stressed about being late, and most of her employees hadn't even been responsible enough to show.

"I let them leave," Brady said, not moving from his indolent pose.

"You-let them leave?"

Pushing away from the bar he strolled over to an open box on the table in front of Chuck, pulled out a folded menu, and handed it to her. "Yeah, since we obviously can't use these."

Sawyer s.n.a.t.c.hed the menu out of his hand and opened it.

Erica had briefed her on the specifi cs of the order. The weight of * 149 *

the paper felt right, the color scheme looked correct. "What am I looking for?"

"Well, my blue-cheese-crusted fi let is stellar. But I don't know if it's good enough to charge three hundred and thirty-three dollars."

Chuck started to laugh, then covered it with a cough when Sawyer glared at him.

She scanned down and found the error. "d.a.m.n," she grumbled as she saw two more typos in the same column. "Well, I'll just call the printer and tell them they screwed it up. They're going to fi x it before-"

"I checked the proof. It's exactly as you sent it in."

"And they didn't think to question a three-hundred-dollar steak?"

"They're printers, Sawyer. They don't proof the copy. They just make it up as it's sent in."

"Okay. I'll make the corrections and put in a new order.

Thanks for handling that and I'm sorry I was late."

Sawyer glanced at Jori and found unwelcome sympathy in her expression. Without another word she headed for her offi ce to call the printer. She had to straighten out the menu, and then she would have to call Erica and inform her of the mistake. She really didn't want to, but if Erica discovered she'd been left out of the loop, she'd be doubly mad.

Ten minutes later, Sawyer dropped the phone back in its cradle, struggling not to slam it down. The printer needed two more weeks to redo the order, and they weren't going to give her a break on the second batch of menus. Sawyer's insistence that the fi rst set was unusable hadn't swayed the manager there. He maintained that the menu was printed exactly as ordered, and Sawyer couldn't argue.

It was her next conversation Sawyer dreaded, and even as she dialed the number she fl oundered for an excuse not to call Erica.

* 150 *

"I know proofi ng menus isn't very exciting, but it's not that hard to get it right." Erica's response to hearing about the mix-up was as expected.

"Okay. I made it mistake. I'll get it fi xed."

"Mistakes cost money, Sawyer. Or didn't they teach you that in business school?"

"G.o.d, Erica, can you get off my back for one d.a.m.n second." Sawyer fought the urge to fl ing the phone across the room. Imagining it fl ying into pieces as it hit the wall gave her a moment's satisfaction, but that would just be another expense for Erica to b.i.t.c.h about.

"Well, you would think I could take a few weeks to have a baby without worrying about my sister running my restaurant into the ground."

"Yeah, you would think so, wouldn't you?" Sawyer agreed sarcastically. "Listen, I'll pay for the d.a.m.n menus. I shouldn't have even told you about them."

"Don't you dare keep things from me. I want to know everything that's going on down there."

"Erica, you're going to have to learn to trust me. I know I'm not getting everything right, but I'm trying." Sawyer leaned forward, rested one elbow on the desk, and rubbed the back of her neck with her other hand.

"How am I supposed to trust you? As far as I can see, you only agreed to work at Drake's so you could get in Jori's pants, so-"

"That's not fair."

"Tell me it's not true." Erica raised her voice.

"It's not."

"Sawyer, I'm tired. Just deal with the menus, please."

Sawyer hung up, then circled the desk, needing to get out of the offi ce. In fact, she was fi ghting the urge to leave the restaurant * 151 *

altogether. As she entered the kitchen she looked longingly at the back door and thought about how good it would feel to just walk out and get in her car.

"Sawyer, where are my apples? They should have been with this morning's produce, but I can't fi nd them," Jori called, interrupting her escape plot.

Sawyer groaned, remembering how she'd dragged herself out of bed that morning when she heard the bell from the loading dock. She'd been asleep for barely four hours, and the last thing she wanted to do was go down and count food. She'd waited just long enough for the deliveryman to unload the truck, then quickly signed the receipt. She'd been meticulously checking the orders every day and hadn't found an error yet. But that morning, she had been upstairs crawling back into bed before the rumble of the delivery truck had faded.

"Sawyer?"

"Did you look in the pantry?" She crossed to Jori's counter.

"Twice."

"Well, I'm sure they're around here somewhere." So a bunch of apples were missing. Sawyer really didn't understand what the big deal was.

"I can't make my apple crisp without apples."

"Can't you just make something else?" Sawyer didn't even try to keep the irritation out of her voice. She was tired. She'd just had her fi ll of att.i.tude from Erica, and she wasn't about to take more from Jori.

"I ordered them with this menu in mind. Now I'll have to sc.r.a.pe something together."

"Jori, if the apples aren't here, there's really nothing I can do about it, is there? You're the head pastry chef. Can't you just fi gure it out instead of needing me to hold your f.u.c.king hand?"

Jori didn't respond.

"Ladies, is there something I can help with?" Brady interjected from behind Sawyer. His tone held a warning that she was certain was directed at her, and it irritated her.

* 152 *

"Just make something else, please," Sawyer said, then turned away. She headed for the same offi ce she'd fl ed earlier, now wondering if she could manage to hide in there for the rest of the day.

"I don't need her to hold my hand," Jori muttered as she mashed bananas in a small bowl. She'd decided to make the bananas Foster upside-down cake she'd planned for tomorrow night. She would go to the farmers' market in the morning and get the apples for the crisp. "I don't need anyone."

She'd been proving she could handle things on her own since she was eight years old. It hadn't even taken a year in foster care for her to realize she would never have the loving, supporting parents that many of her peers took for granted. But these days she told herself she didn't care. She took a certain amount of pride in saying she'd provided for herself.

As she spread a mixture of melted b.u.t.ter, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a baking pan, she remembered the fi rst and only time she'd returned to her childhood home, shortly after she began working at Drake's. She'd taken a taxi there and had asked the driver to turn around twice as she struggled to recall the directions to the house. The neighborhood had looked different than she remembered; most of the dilapidated homes were abandoned now. Two blocks over, a crop of government housing had been hailed as progress a decade ago. Jori recalled seeing the mayor conduct a ribbon-cutting ceremony on television and noticed it hadn't taken long before the residents here began to clear out.

She'd directed the driver to stop in front of a duplex that the owners had clearly given up on some time ago. Patches of weathered gray wood showed through chipped white paint, and jagged gla.s.s clung to the frames of several broken windows.

She got out of the cab and paused on the sidewalk, weak with remembered fear even though over twenty years had pa.s.sed since * 153 *

she'd last been in this yard. The gra.s.s and weeds were up to her knees, and she could barely see the paved walk as she approached the house.

The porch sagged dramatically at the far end, and the steps creaked as she climbed them. The door wasn't locked, and when she stepped inside, the sting of vivid memories a.s.saulted her.

The house was empty, but as Jori wandered through it she saw it as it had been. She'd often come down to breakfast in the morning to fi nd her mother where she'd pa.s.sed out the night before, slumped over the yellowed and chipped Formica tabletop.

And in the living room, her father had pushed the sofa against the wall so he could watch the fi ghts on television without a glare from the nearby window. Jori had often crawled into the s.p.a.ce between the sofa and the wall and pretended it was a portal where she could escape to a magical world free of the darkness and pain of this one. But when she opened her eyes she was still there and, looking back, that was when she'd learned that no one would rescue her and she'd have to rely on herself.

When her mind wandered too close to her past physical abuse, she instinctively jerked it away and forced her attention to the batter she poured over the cinnamon mixture and a layer of sliced bananas. She avoided those memories whenever possible, and she certainly wouldn't revisit them while standing in the kitchen at Drake's.

She retreated from those old monsters in much the same way she still backed away from situations that made her uncomfortable.

She'd spent most of her life cloaked in self-imposed isolation, cultivating avoidance instead of relationships. But recently, the Drake family had become an exception to this practice.

Everyone, herself included, accused Sawyer of running away from intimacy, but Jori did practically the same thing. Sawyer was confi dent in a crowd with superfi cial social interaction but ran from a real, personal connection, whereas Jori was the complete opposite. When she thought about it that way, it seemed they might be the perfect complement for each other.

* 154 *

Sawyer seemed determined to ignore Jori's insistence that they not get involved. She could be short-tempered when she was tired or when she was pushed. And if they were in a relationship, she would probably try more than once to run away. But she was also open and friendly, and she made Jori laugh. She understood Jori's shyness and tried to ease it when she could. Jori recalled the night of the concert and the way Sawyer had tucked her against her side as if she'd wanted to shield her from the crowd pressing in around them.

While Jori was afraid of the outcome of pursuing anything more than a professional relationship with Sawyer, she couldn't deny the physical pull between them. She enjoyed their fl irtatious banter, and just thinking about kissing Sawyer was enough to make her heart race and her body respond in amazing ways, if she gave her imagination free rein.

She glanced toward the hallway leading to the offi ce and wondered if it was crazy to think a relationship with Sawyer could be worth risking her job. More than just her job, she'd be risking her comfortable emotional cushion. She hadn't truly let anyone close since she was eight years old. But no matter how much she tried to deny it, Sawyer was already too close. She could restore the distance between them quickly enough. A few weeks of acting cool and professional and Sawyer would probably lose interest.

But what if she didn't? What if she forgot about the fear and certainty that it wouldn't last and for once in her life simply let things happen? Worst case, she got her heart broken. Oddly enough, the thing she'd spent years trying to avoid didn't seem so bad anymore, because even heartache meant she felt something.

And she hadn't realized how much she needed that. Isolation protected her from hurt, but it also kept her from the elation she'd felt in Sawyer's arms.

When she'd asked about the apples, Sawyer had snapped at her. But Sawyer hadn't directed her anger solely at her. She'd seen her frustration begin during the exchange with Brady over the * 155 *

menus. Again, she looked down the hall, wanting her, whatever her mood. By the time she put the cake in the oven, she had decided to reverse her usual instinct to withdraw from confl ict.

She found Sawyer behind her desk, her gla.s.ses lying on its surface and her hands covering her face. At her determined knock, Sawyer glanced up.

"Come on in. I won't bite."

"Is something wrong?" Jori doubted that Sawyer wouldn't bite if provoked.

"That's a nice way of asking why I was being a b.i.t.c.h."

"Well?"

Sawyer rubbed her hand over the back of her neck. After the way she'd acted, she'd expected Jori to put an icy distance between them. "I need to get away from this place."

"Then let's go." Jori walked around the desk and laid her hands on Sawyer's shoulders.

"Where?"

"I'm not working Monday. Can you take the day off?"

Sawyer thought for a moment, then nodded. "Sure, I can leave Wendy in charge. What did you have in mind?"

"You decide. You're the one who needs some R and R. I'm all yours until Tuesday afternoon."

"All mine, huh?" Sawyer immediately pictured the two of them in bed for twenty-four hours. This sudden shift in the direction of their relationship confused her. She knew she'd been pushing the boundary Jori insisted on keeping between them, and maybe that was unfair. But was Jori changing the rules now? The hands kneading the muscles of her shoulders sure hinted that she was.

"Just remember, the point is for you to blow off some steam and relax."

"Oh, I can defi nitely see us blowing off steam." Spinning around, Sawyer grabbed Jori's waist and pulled her between her spread knees.

* 156 *

Jori had a pretty good idea what was going through Sawyer's mind, and though Sawyer sounded like she was teasing, Jori knew she was testing her willingness. They had been fl irting from virtually the moment they met, and suddenly it felt as if they'd been leading each other to this moment and Sawyer was leaving the next step up to her.

She bent and kissed Sawyer, her decision sealed in the soft caress of lips, the thrill of arousal along her spine. Sawyer touched her cheek, and Jori wrapped her fi ngers around Sawyer's wrist, encircling it, feeling Sawyer's sprinting pulse.