AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Got plans for all the OT money? Maybe a vacation or a bakery?”
“Ah! Not you, too?”
“I misspoke. I meant a bakery with coffee. You know you’re kidding yourself when you call it a coffee shop with fresh baked goods. It’s the same thing.” Penny leveled her with her get-real look.
“Semantics are important. Running a bakery with coffee sounds scarier than a coffee shop and whatever muffins, cookies, and bars I feel like baking.”
“Hmm, denial isn’t just a river in Africa,” Penny said, before sipping her drink. “Who else thinks you should open a coffee shop with excellent, fresh, bakery-made goodies?” If Penny didn’t look like death warmed over, Maggie would have pummeled her with a throw pillow.
“Lucas.” Maggie wished her voice hadn’t sounded warm and gooey. If a hot from the oven brownie could talk, it would say Lucas just like she had.
“You like him.”
“I do. A lot. Against my better judgment.” The Buchanan women with the gift had a long history of not faring well in matters of the heart.
“Why?”
“I’m a witch?” Duh.
“You’re an energy mover. Semantics, remember?” Penny said, tossing Maggie’s earlier words back at her. “He’ll be on board once you tell him your limitations and sell him on the benefits and downplay the negatives.”
“There are no negatives.”
“Exactly. Next excuse?”
“He’s a hot NFL football player and I’m a soon-to-be-unemployed barista.”
“I wouldn’t say hot.” Maggie knew defending Lucas’s hotness to her sister would only backfire. “And you won’t be unemployed for long. What else ya got?” Penny prompted, sounding way too chipper poking holes in Maggie’s reasoning.
“What if he gets traded?”
“What if he doesn’t? He’s sticking around this winter and from what I’ve heard, he usually finds a beach somewhere. He’s staying for you, Maggie. That means something. He’s cray-cray over you. And if he gets traded, you make a plan. Plenty of couples do it.” Penny tucked the blanket under her chin. It was the one Maggie had given her last Christmas with Bookmark? You mean quitter strip? printed around the edges. “If I had anyone look at me the way Lucas looks at you… Don’t waste this, Maggie.”
Penny sounded so wistful, Maggie’s heart hurt. She wondered if her sister’s refrain of I’ve never met a man as interesting as a book, was all for show. Penny claimed she was a happy single with no desire to build a life with someone. She was complete on her own, which Maggie thought was fine and dandy, but wouldn’t it be nice to have someone by your side? Someone other than your sister to help you hobble into the bathroom and make your tea when you had a sprained ankle?
“You know, Lucas isn’t the only one sneaking looks. You and Bash have your own covert operations going.” Maggie nudged her sister’s good leg.
“Ha! He’s the most disagreeable person I’ve ever met, and he thinks I’m, I’m”—Penny screwed up her face—“I don’t know what he thinks, honestly, but it isn’t good.” She huffed and hugged her pillow to her. Interesting, Maggie thought, wondering how long it would take Penny to figure out she was wrong. About Bash. About a bakery. But maybe not about her and Lucas. Maybe there is a future for us?
Lucas looked from his laptop into the kitchen. “I’ll split one if you’re interested.”
“Thought you didn’t like pansy-ass kombucha,” Bash said, opening the cupboard door and pulling out two glasses.
“I don’t like a full bottle of the stuff.” Lucas watched Bash add ice into the glasses and pour the fizzy brew over them. He handed Lucas a glass before dropping into the recliner next to Cal.
“I hate retail,” Bash said, leaning back and stretching out. “My feet are killing me.”
“Told you to wear sneakers and not your hipster loafers,” Cal reminded him, face buried in a book. “Must have been busy if you’re home this late.”
“I checked in on Penny before I left,” Bash said, not looking at Cal. Looks like I’m not the only one interested in a Buchanan. Maggie told him she thought Penny’s and Bash’s mutual dislike cloaked something more, and Lucas couldn’t wait to tell her about Bash’s detour to check on her sister.
“Is she doing better?” Cal asked. He’d offered to go in and help at Get Lost. He’d done it in high school, but Bash had argued that Elspeth didn’t need both of them there and Tuesday was his farm day. It sounded like Bash hadn’t considered not going. As if helping the bookstore, helping Penny, was nonnegotiable.
“I think so. She still looks like the losing end of a bar fight. Stupid, stubborn woman. If she’d waited, like I’d told her to, none of this would have happened.”
“Sounds like Penny, and Maggie and Harper, too. They’re all as stubborn as dandelions and good luck telling them what to do. They’ll do the opposite just to prove you wrong,” Cal said.
Lucas couldn’t argue with him. Maggie was sunshine personified with everyone but him. He got to see her prickly side and hear her complaints. He tried to find comfort in that. That she was comfortable enough with him to show him her true self. Not the uber-organized, energizer rabbit, happy to please everyone person she showed to the rest of the world.
