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Hope and I text back and forth for a few minutes, but Adam is still at the forefront of my mind. Every time my phone dings with a new text from Hope, I hope that it’s Adam. Each time I pick up my phone and see that it’s not, I force myself not to be disappointed. I tell myself, out loud, in Faith’s voice, tohave a little faith.
I laugh at my joke. Hope and I go back and forth a little longer, and Adam still doesn’t respond. Then my joke isn’t funny anymore.
I spend the rest of the night worrying that Adam feels like I’ve led him on or that I didn’t enjoy kissing him, and a thousand other things he might be thinking. I’m in and out of sleep until the early hours of the morning and end up sleeping way past the time I meant to get up.
The first thing I do is check my phone. Adam hasn’t responded. Then I check the driveway to see if Adam’s truck is there. He didn’t park it in the garage the night before, and now it’s gone.
A frustrated sigh escapes my lungs, along with the thoughthave a little faith.And I hate that it actually makes me feel better. There’s no way not to be positive whenhave a little faithis rolling through my head like a combine in a wheat field during harvest.
I also hate that my mind slips back into farming metaphors when I think about my family in Kansas. You can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl, and all that.
I spend the morning working on designs and not going to the work site. Georgia meets with the producers tomorrow, and I’ve got plenty of content to post today. If I weren’t still waiting for Adam to text me back, I might find some other excuse to go over. But, nope. No way will I show up looking as desperate as I feel waiting for his answer.
In the afternoon, I drive thirty miles around the lake to Eden and take a chance on an antique store. It ends up being more of a junk store than anything, but I do find some old pink glassware that will add a nice touch to some of the open shelving we have planned for the kitchen.
I also happen upon an old gas station with a small, handmade sign that advertises Nick’s Edible Delights in curlicue font. Of course, I have to check it out to see if Nick is selling the kind of edibles that were popular with most of my New York friends, or if the name is a delightfully naïve choice.
The old nonworking gas pumps are still up outside the entrance, which I didn’t think was legal, but they add a certain quirky ambiance to the white, chipped concrete structure. I walk out of the cold, dry air outside into warm, humid air that smells of rising bread. The interior of the store is as different from the outside as the temperature. It’s still quirky, but in a modern, Schitt’s Creek Rose Apothecary way.
Muffins and a variety of sourdough loaves fill baskets behind the counter. The deli section has handcrafted goat and sheep cheese from around the valley, and I recognize the kind Adam gave me after our shed hunt. There are jars of caviar, pate, and a selection of truffles. A large selection of jams lines the shelves, along with homemade baked goods, none of which seem to be edibles.
I check the ingredients just to be sure, and I love that they are mostly flour, butter, and sugar. The perfect ingredients to get high on.
I grab a basket and drop an expensive jar of locally made huckleberry jam in it. Many of the items I pick up and look at are made locally, and I’m surprised again by how much Paradise Valley has to offer.
“Can I help you?” The deep voice surprises me, and I nearly drop my basket.
I turn around and face a big man with a bushy white beard and a belly that looks like it could shake like a bowl full of jelly.
“Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to scare you.” He is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a real Santa. He even has the rosy cheeks and smile to complete the look.
I return his smile and resist the urge to tell him what I want for Christmas. “You didn’t scare me. Just surprised, a little. Is this your store?”
“Yep.” He sticks out his hand. “Name’s Nick.”
Because of course it is.
“I’m Evie.” I don’t even bother saying Evelyn. I embrace his hand, along with my identity as Evie in Paradise. “This place is amazing. I’ve been to stores like this in New York, but most of the products came from all over the world rather than a few miles down the road.”
“New York, huh?” He shuffles toward the counter, and I follow close behind. “You need to try the Garden of Eatin’ in town. Chef there—Adam—trained in New York. Tell him I sent you, so he’ll make you something besides a hamburger. He doesn’t really like out-of-towners, although you wouldn’t regret eating one of his cheeseburgers. He buys the cheese and brioche buns from me.”
“I know Adam, and he did serve me a cheeseburger the first time I ate at the Garden, but he recently promoted me to the brown butter and plum pork.”
“Is that right? You’ve been here for a while then.” He takes a muffin from one basket and hands it to me. “On the house.”
“About a month. Thank you.” I take it, peel off a section of the paper and bite into the perfectly moist, carb-loaded delicacy. “Mmmm, so good.”
“Huckleberry. They’re better in the summer when I can get the berries fresh.” He leans over the counter closer to me. “A month, huh? You’ve made quite an impression.”Maybe it’s the whole Santa thing he’s got going, but his eyes twinkle. I swear.
“So I’ve been told.” I take another bite, and it tastes even better than the first. “We’re working on a project together, and we’re neighbors, so we’ve had a lot of opportunities to get to know each other.”
“In that case, would you mind taking his order back with you? It’ll save him a trip out here to pick it up.” He leans down, sets a big brown bag on the counter, then goes for another one. “He won’t ever let me deliver it, especially when we have less daylight. I don’t see so well in the dark anymore.”
My smile falters, but only for a second. “I’d be happy to. I already owe you for the muffin.”
Twenty minutes later, my car is loaded with bread and cheese for Adam, the jam, cheese, and bread I’ve bought, and the huckleberry muffins Nick insists on sending with me.
“They’re Adam’s favorites too,” he says when he hands them to me.
