Bountiful

  Chapter Seventeen

  Zara

  The next day I did not, in fact, text Dave the details of Sunday dinner. And then I didn’t text them on the day after that, either.

  For starters, I just couldn’t picture him sitting down for ham and pasta with my family on Sunday, while my brothers and my uncles asked pointed questions.

  But even if Dave was willing to withstand that sort of trial, I wasn’t sure I wanted him there. I’d feel so exposed, sitting there beside him while my family looked on. Because the truth was that I’d often wished for a man in my life who would come to Sunday luncheon, drink beer with my brothers, and hold the baby.

  If Dave was sitting there beside me, stepping into that role only for a day, I was afraid that everyone would be able to see right through me. Old yearnings would rise off me like mist.

  My tough-girl cred would take a serious hit. I didn’t want that. So I was stalling.

  Wednesday morning it was my turn to open up the bakery. I took three early days and Audrey took three. And we traded off on Mondays, which kept things even.

  At five a.m.—per our usual routine—I tapped on my brother Alec’s apartment door, which was right upstairs from mine. Still mostly asleep, Alec shuffled in his boxer shorts down the staircase. Without a word, he went into my apartment (really Benito’s, of course) and lay down on the sofa for the next leg of his slumber.

  That’s where I left him, as well as Nicole asleep in her crib. I tiptoed out again, heading down the stairs and across the lot to the bakery.

  In an hour Nicole would wake up and babble to herself until her sleepy uncle managed to stagger into her room to greet her. They would hang out together for an hour or so until my mother arrived for her babysitting shift.

  This was my patchwork support system. It allowed me to run a business. On the other days—when I went to work at ten or noon—Nicole went to a daycare in town.

  Going to work at five in the morning wasn’t ideal, but I enjoyed the solitude more than I’d expected to. The first thing I did was preheat the oven and stir together a batter for muffins. I enjoyed moving through the early morning stillness of the coffee shop routine, flipping on lights, warming the espresso machine.

  There was tremendous satisfaction in owning a business. Every month Audrey and I learned a little more about what worked and what didn’t. How to predict which days would be busy and which would be slow. How to price our products and how to entice clients to try new things.

  Someday I hoped my daughter would go to college and be a scholar. I hoped she had her pick of careers. But I was going to show her what resourcefulness looked like. It looked like four-dozen muffin trays ready to go into the oven before six a.m.

  July was berry season. So I stirred local blueberries into the first batches of muffins. Audrey had taught me the rudiments of baking, but I’d learned a lot myself. When fall came, I couldn’t wait to try some new recipes with the pears from my family’s orchards.

  As the daylight strengthened outside the kitchen window, I cooled the muffins and took delivery of the bagels we sourced from a bakery in Montpelier. I measured out the dry ingredients for the cookies that Audrey would make when she arrived later.

  Then I went into the front of the shop and patrolled the tables and chairs for cleanliness. I restocked the coffee grinder and checked our supply of milk and other mixers. I made coffee, its rich scent as familiar as breathing. I took the chalk to our signboards and listed blueberry muffins as today’s seasonal pastry.

  One of the beams where I wrote pithy sayings had been smudged, so I cleaned it with a cloth, then wrote a new saying in its place. If I’m silent, I might be furious, or maybe I’m just chillin’. May the odds be ever in your favor.

  I loved improvising this way. Putting my own personality on the walls. It was tough to run a business, but also fun and freeing. Just like single-motherhood.

  The first customers—as well as Kieran, my part-time barista—began showing up right after I flipped the sign to “open” at seven. Then the real hustle began. For the commuting crowd I made lattes and poured coffee. I sliced bagels and spread cream cheese while chatting about the weather and the Red Sox.

  Kieran was a quiet presence beside me. He was a great worker, hustling to refill the platters of baked goods from the trays in the kitchen, pouring coffee orders, anticipating our customers’ needs. He did everything well, except for small talk. Every day I watched various women try to catch his eye or engage him in conversation.

  Good luck, sister, I’d think. But it never really worked.

  Five hours went by in a rush, and I took off my apron just as Audrey came through the door. “Morning, sunshine!” she sang. “How’s tricks?”

  “Not bad. Do you need me to stay a little longer while you get the biscotti on?”

  She looked around at our moderate crowd. “Nah. It’ll only take me a few minutes. Go on. It’s yoga day, right?”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  Audrey waved me away, looking unconcerned. She slung an arm around Kieran and greeted him. He gave her a quick kiss on the temple and then motored off to grab more bagels from the back.

  And then I walked out the door. Going to yoga a couple of times a week always made me feel guilty. It was stolen time. I texted my mother from the parking lot. Thinking about going to yoga.

  You should, she replied immediately. The princess is napping. I’m reading the new Jill Shalvis. Go.

  All right. Thank you! I replied. The words “thank you” were the two most common in my vocabulary. I thanked my mom, Alec, Benito, my uncles, Audrey… The list went on forever. I was in debt to everyone, all the time. And I would steal this hour of yoga for myself because their assistance allowed it.

  Since I’d worn my yoga bra and leggings under my clothes when I went to work this morning, I didn’t have to go upstairs first. I jumped into my car and drove the ten miles to the Green Rocks resort community. It was a group of rental properties in the woods, with a lodge for community activities. I never went there except for yoga, but my mother played bingo at Green Rocks sometimes.

  My mother loved bingo. She was like a Fifties housewife in a new-millennium body.

  The day was warm but not unpleasant, and I made the drive with the windows down. I parked my little car on the gravel lot outside the lodge and retrieved my yoga mat from the trunk. My water bottle was only half full, but it would have to do.

  “Let’s get started in child’s pose,” Rayanne—the teacher—was saying when I slipped into the back of the lodge’s great room. “Unless there’s another pose that’s calling out to you today.”

  Everyone else was already kneeling on their mats, their arms stretching out toward the front of the room, foreheads lowering to the floor. Not wishing to tromp around where my classmates were beginning to relax, I tossed my mat onto the floor in the back, hastily unrolling it. Then I shucked off my top and tossed it against the back wall.

  “Welcome, Zara,” the teacher said softly, and I smiled at her.

  Another yogi’s head swung around to look at me. And I froze when I realized it belonged to none other than Dave Beringer. His green, startled eyes took me in.

  Then he smiled. And my insides went all warm and squishy. I found myself smiling back. He winked, and then turned to face forward.

  The spell was broken. I kicked off my skirt and settled down on the mat, wondering what the hell he was doing here.

  “Let’s begin by focusing on our breath,” the teacher prompted. “Bring yourself into a place of presence on the mat. Inhale deeply through your nose. Open your mouth and sigh it out.”

  The whole room inhaled and sighed. But one of those sighs was his, and now I was listening for it.

  Great.

  I tried some deep breathing while my brain tried to catch up with the idea that Dave was on a yoga mat about seven feet away. Yoga? Really? I knew he was a professional athlete, but I pictured him grunting in a gym somewhere, not stretching in child’s pose. br />
  Maybe he had an injury, and had been advised to stretch? Or maybe he’d never been to a yoga class in his life before today and had decided to try it out.

  Don’t even think about him, Zara, I coached myself.

  Yeah, right. As if I could look anywhere else. All his muscular glory was on display in a pair of black lycra shorts. They were neither thin nor very short. But no scrap of fabric of any caliber stood a chance against that musculature.

  Seriously, his butt was a work of art. And I had a great view of it.

  When the teacher asked us to rise to mountain pose, I could see that his T-shirt read, “You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Down Dog.” When we were asked to dive down into a forward fold, he bent that drool-worthy body with such swiftness and grace that I clawed back a gasp.

  My ability to focus only went downhill from there.

  The man had obviously been to many, many yoga classes. His body in motion was a tremendous distraction. It was lucky that Rayanne always used the same poses during the first half of the class, because my attention was shot. I watched, enthralled, while Dave executed the sun salutation sequences as if he’d been doing them all his life. And every time he lowered his body slowly from a plank position to the floor, I pictured myself underneath him…

  And here I’d thought this hour would be relaxing.

  The only saving grace was that he couldn’t see my distracted face perving on his posterior. Although, it was quite possible he could feel my hot gaze on his tight man buns. My gaze and everyone else’s. It wasn’t every day that a hot stranger wandered into the late-morning yoga class. It was mostly moms trying to get out of the house.

  “Find warrior one. Exhale, hands to heart’s center. One breath here. On the next exhale, twist toward the right.”

  Since I was a beat behind the asana, Dave turned before I did, his powerful arms locked in the prayer position, his bulky torso twisting over a surprisingly slim waist…

  And he caught me staring. Green eyes bored into mine. And then he licked his lips, as if he were having a dirty memory.

  Shit!

  I twisted, finally. My body was an inferno as I struggled to do vinyasa yoga in the presence of my baby daddy. And revolved poses were not my strong suit, either. So I wobbled like a tourist on the bunny slope at the ski hill.

  Just kill me already.

  After that disaster, I tried to up my game. Rayanne brought us into half-moon, and I concentrated with everything I had, lifting my leg toward the heavens and balancing my fingertips on the floor.

  “Feel the extension in all four directions,” the teacher prompted.

  I felt them. And I knew I’d be feeling them tomorrow, too. I’d pay later with muscle pain for trying to show off.

  During the entire hour, Dave struggled with exactly one pose, and that was the standing split. And thank goodness. If that man had managed to do the splits while inverted in the air, all the women in the room would have crash-landed right onto the floor.

  By the time we got to boat pose on our mats, every one of my muscles was quivering. But somehow I’d survived the hour. When the teacher brought us into Savasana for a rest, I was breathing like a sprinter and sweating through my sports bra.

  Worse, I was more turned on than I’d been in two years. Lying there on my back, with my ankles gently spread… God. Every other time I’d assumed this position in Dave’s presence, we’d been burning up the sheets.

  And it had been so, so long since anyone had touched me.

  When Rayanne finally asked us to sit up and join her in a single Om, I closed my eyes and listened for him. And there it was—his deep voice an octave below all the others, vibrating through my core.

  “Thank you for joining me in your practice today,” the teacher said softly. “If you began class by setting an intention for yourself, try to carry it with you throughout the day.”

  My daily intention was simple and yet still terribly difficult—to not think about David-freaking-Beringer.

  Class broke up, and I dabbed my towel at my face in a vain attempt to look less sweaty. As a teenager, I used to get so mad at my mother when she emphasized the importance of behaving in a “ladylike” way. I’d hated that word, and everything it stood for. But now I almost understood. Sometimes, when you’ve been stripped bare by circumstance, and your personal travesties are known by every person in your small town, ladylike is all a girl has left.

  Scraping my dignity off the floor with my tired body, I rolled up my yoga mat and attempted to slow my breathing.

  “Afternoon, gorgeous,” Dave said, standing over me.

  Play it cool, Zara. I rose to my feet so I could look him in the eye instead of in the crotch. “Afternoon. Didn’t expect to see you here.” I hoped he knew that was true.

  “The cabin we’re renting is in this complex.”

  “Oh,” I said slowly. That made perfect sense. Of course he’d rent in the most expensive spot in the county.

  We headed for the door, walking out together. I didn’t miss the appreciative looks the women gave him as they passed us, heading to their cars.

  “So, yoga, huh?” I asked like an idiot.

  “It’s mandated by the team. Some guys hate it, but it works for me.”

  It sure does.

  “Hey—can I pour you a cup of coffee?” he asked, pointing toward the circle of cabins against the forest. They weren’t cabins, really. More like two-story luxury homes. “We’re just over there.”

  “I do own a coffee shop,” I pointed out. “I should probably get back to it.” Ugh, that came out sounding bitchy. “Honestly, I don’t want to meet your teammates when I’m this sweaty.” And reeking of desire.

  His smile was the panty-melting kind. “That’s funny, because they see me sweaty all the time.”

  “Be that as it may…” I cleared my throat and tried to find somewhere to put my eyes. Dave was sweaty, too, and his eyes were bright. He looked exactly how I remembered him in the middle of sex. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather meet strangers when I’ve had a shower.”

  And boy, did I need one. Cold, probably.

  I tipped my water bottle up to my lips, but nothing came out. Another smooth move on my part. I’d drained the bottle within the first twenty minutes of class, just trying to keep up with Mr. Professional Athlete.

  The corners of Dave’s mouth turned up in a smirk. Then he offered me his own water, which appeared untouched.

  “Thank you.” I grabbed it gratefully and took a gulp, hoping it would squelch the fire raging inside me. As if.

  “Don’t mention it, yogi.” He watched me take another sip, and I felt his gaze like a hot stroke of his hand.

  As if I weren’t already self-conscious enough, a drop of sweat chose that moment run out of my hairline and down the side of my face. Since I was holding my stuff in one hand and Dave’s water bottle in the other, I made an awkward movement that tried and failed to wipe it off with my shoulder.

  Dave’s low chuckle reverberated in my chest. He stepped closer, into my personal space. His muscular body leaned close to mine. He grasped the water bottle and then slowly kissed the drop of sweat off my cheek. All my blood stopped circulating as his lips tasted and then teased my skin. Then they skimmed lower. He tortured the sensitive corner of my mouth, as every nerve ending in my body lit up.

  If I turned my head a fractional degree, that full mouth would land on mine in a heartbeat. He’d tilt my chin just so and…

  “Time out,” I gasped, leaping backward.

  Dave blinked at me through an aroused haze.

  He looked so hot, so ready to do every amazing thing we’d ever done together, all over again. But we couldn’t, damn it.

  So I got angry. Because that always helps. “What the hell was that? I’m…”

  “Sweaty,” he finished. “I heard you the first time. Thing is, I never minded you sweaty.”

  “Dave!” I warned, as my heart rate doubled. “That is not the problem. You cannot kiss
me.” I was furious at both of us. At him for showing up here and reminding me how badly I’d wanted him. And at myself for being so fucking predictable.

  “I can’t?” He crossed his sculpted arms and stared me down. “Because I swear you’ve been staring at me with your tongue hanging out for an entire sweaty hour. So sue me for remembering exactly how good it was to get you all hot and bothered.”

  “Stop. It,” I hissed, wondering if anyone was still inside the building behind us, listening through an open window. “Maybe you can still think with your dick, but things changed for me. You don’t have the first idea what it’s like!”

  “I don’t, huh?” His face flushed even redder. “I wonder why. You never answered a single question I ever asked you. ‘Hey, did you grow up around here, Zara?’ ‘Shut up and take off your clothes, Dave.’”

  His complaint had the sting of truth. Emphasis on sting. It ignited all my pent-up fear and frustration at once, and that’s when I lost my ever-loving mind. My hand flew up, unbidden, connecting with his face. I heard a loud smack.

  I’d actually slapped him.

  Dave reeled back, as if the surprise hit him harder than my hand.

  Horrified by my own actions, I stood there with my mouth open, my heart thundering with a toxic brew of rage, fear, and regret. I expected him to put a hand up to his cheek, which was reddening quickly. But he didn’t. Instead, his expression just…dimmed. Like the lights went out inside. Then he backed slowly away from me, like I was a wild animal that needed to be watched.

  I felt like one.

  He turned and walked quickly away, disappearing a moment later behind the row of scrubby pines bordering the cabin property.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dave

  I barely noticed Castro in the hammock as I stomped into the house. “How was the class?” he called after me. “Worth going?”

  He got no answer.

  Quick strides carried me up the stairs and into my suite, where I threw my clothes on the floor and stepped into the shower. I stood there a while, letting the water sluice down over my body, wondering what the hell had just happened.