Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
He stepped in closer. “I’m not a risk.”
Based on the articles I’d read about him, he was a bigger risk than I was willing to deal with. I already had enough going against my restaurant. I didn’t need an ex-pro with past addictions floating around the gossiping mouths in town. “With your past—”
“We all have a past,” he said, his deep voice dripping with regret. “But it’s not what I’m defined by. Give me a shot to prove that Honey Farms is the best for you, Chef. Just give me a chance that no one else in this town will give me.”
I felt a tug in my chest. I hadn’t been in Honey Creek long, but I could tell that they’d probably held grudges against people and their past demons. If they treated a new person the way they’d treated me, I could only imagine the torment they’d give Nathan. The words failure and junkie came to mind.
I really, really hated that town.
I arched an eyebrow. “You swear this is good stuff?”
“Better than you can imagine.”
Nathan Pierce was calling me chef. It was taking everything inside me not to ask for his autograph. Sure, he had a downfall after the Major Leagues, but no one could stop him when he was on that field. He had all-star written all over him until his injury in the final game of the World Series. After that, it appeared that he spiraled into the triple threat of darkness: partying, drugs, and depression.
I wondered what would’ve become of him if he hadn’t gotten injured.
Noah would lose his mind after I told him this story.
“All right,” I said. “Let me cook with these, and I’ll get back to you.”
Nathan shook my hand after he handed me the box. “I appreciate it, Chef. Thank you. My card is in the box, and you can call me. You can even visit the farm, and my brothers’ butcher shop is right down the road.”
As Nathan turned to leave, he paused for a second and gazed across the street at the dog daycare, The Pup Around the Corner. A wave of sobriety washed over his face as he stared. It was as if he’d stepped into a memory that swallowed him whole.
“You good?” I asked.
He shook himself free of whatever chain had hooked onto him. When he looked my way, he forced a smile. “Yeah. I just saw a ghost. Or, well, the sister of a ghost, at least.”
I didn’t know if he meant an actual ghost or not. Based on the rumors, he’d done enough drugs to be able to see ghosts possibly. He’d been close enough to death from overdoses that it wasn’t a bizarre idea. He muttered a goodbye and then, in haste, headed in the opposite direction than he had focused on a few seconds ago.
I looked over at the shop he’d been studying, and my chest tightened when I saw the owner walking into the shop with another person.
I’d noticed the woman a lot over the past few months of construction. There was no denying she was beautiful. Her skin was a mesmerizing dark bronze that seemed to glow whenever the sun met her. When we crossed paths at the grocery store the other day, our eyes locked for a second. Her doe eyes were walnut-colored with slight hues of honey strands throughout her irises. Annoyingly entrancing.
She had a few freckles across her cheeks and dimples that only deepened whenever she smiled. She was short, about five-foot-four, but her personality made her feel taller. If she lacked anything, it wasn’t confidence, that was for certain.
She talked like Tatiana and Teresa, too, with her hands. Everything was explosive. Everything was a performance.
That afternoon, her naturally curly hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She wore a flowy red jumpsuit and a bright yellow bandanna tied around her head, pulling her whole look together.
She seemed to be the town’s golden girl. Apparently, everyone liked her, which meant one thing—she was a pushover. Even Gandhi had people who hated him. No person was liked by everyone unless they allowed others to walk all over them.
That fact alone made me distrust the woman. Anyone who was a pushover was also a liar. Maybe not to others, but at least to themselves. They lied to make others comfortable, which was the stupidest thing in the world to me.
Why dull yourself in order to make others shine? It seemed ass-backward to me. I’d never met another person worth losing oneself to. Correction—I’d met one person I lost myself to, and I could vouch it wasn’t worth it at all.
That woman across the street was a liar. I hated nothing more in the world than liars.
She laughed a lot, too. Nobody had that many real laughs, which only fed into her being fake. She currently laughed so loudly with the other person beside her that I swore her laughter rippled off my chest. That annoyed me. Why would anyone laugh that hard about anything? Nothing was that funny.