to melt a stick of butter in ten seconds. “He’s talking about me, not the inn. Being newly engaged is a full-time job.”
Oh. Yeah.
That.
James snorted. “Keep it clean, Syd. There’s an impressionable young mind here, and his hormones are already at DEFCON 5.”
“Once we’re open, though, I could volunteer. We all could. As a way to pay back for your stepping up to help us.”
“Don’t think I won’t hold you to it.”
Alex didn’t mind the promise/threat. As they walked back down the hallway, he said, “This is fantastic. Everything was so easy. Thanks for smoothing the way. Seriously, Sydney—I don’t know why you’re so down on Chestertown.”
“Just wait,” she said in an ominously deep voice.
“You like James.”
“I adore James. I’m also positive he wasn’t responsible for my mom running away from here. From us.”
It might be twenty-three years since her mom left, but the residual pain pulsing off of Sydney still felt fresh. And it made sense. Alex just wished that pain didn’t have to be a mash-up with her hating Chestertown.
“James likes it here. Your family does, too. I’m just saying, it probably isn’t as bad as you think. Seeing it through the lens of an adult rather than a child can make a difference. I’m determined to learn to like it here. What if you gave it a try with me?”
“What if…I make a concerted effort to stop being so negative about it? That feels like enough of a huge leap.”
“Fair enough.” If she was hitting the road again in three months, did it really matter?
It did.
Because Alex didn’t like seeing her obvious unhappiness.
Even a fake fiancé couldn’t let that lie.
Chapter Nine
Sydney winced as her dad’s voice followed her down the Mercantile’s hallway. “Hon, don’t prop open the back door. That cold air breezes right in and cools down our coffee. Walk back around after your trash trip.”
Riiiight. Because she needed instructions on how to take out a damn garbage bag and toss it into the dumpster.
Sydney had stamps on her passport from thirty-two countries. She’d lugged bags and equipment over trails…and things that claimed to be trails but were just rain ruts in the dirt up the side of a mountain. She’d been in charge of helpless, whiny pseudo-stars and frog-marched them through customs. It was generally known that a location producer could make anything happen and get everything done.
So Sydney could take a single bag twenty steps and out the door.
At least, she was quite certain of it.
Her dad was driving her insane. Not in a way that she could legitimately blow up over. No, it was all helpful nudges. Reminders, like with the trash bag.
They were reminders that, in person, she and her dad had reverted to the same dynamic they’d had when she left town. As a teenager.
Oh, they’d talked plenty over the years.
Sydney kept him filled in on the ups and downs of her career. Neil kept her up to date on the goings-on of Chestertown, even when it was obvious that she’d stopped paying attention. They talked about the Orioles, the Ravens, and whatever Olympic hopeful caught the world by surprise every two years.
But she’d quickly discovered that physical proximity changed everything. Sure, she knew part of it was worry about his mom going through chemo.
Worry about how things would stand at the Mercantile once Sydney left again.
Worry about if and when his daughter would ever come back again.
She loved him enough to acknowledge all of that. And, therefore, to tamp down any visible irritation when she was around him. But she was pissed off and frustrated enough to let out a tight, long whine as she hip-checked the bar across the back door.
Without putting on a coat first. Even though it was a whopping twenty-one degrees on this January 14th. Why? When she wore only a long-sleeved tee?
Solely because the first thing her dad had said, after asking her to take out the trash, was a reminder to put on her coat for the twenty-second trip outside.
She’d be mature later. For now, she’d make it a point not to care that her fingers were already going numb around the straps that cinched the top of the sack. And maybe do a little dance step over the cobblestones that made up the alleyway behind the shop.
Because Dad would no doubt tell her not to dance. That the slick, uneven stones might be icy.
It was more of a shimmying skip than a dance. The bag threw her off-balance. It still made her happy,