Chapter Fourteen

TESSA

Vanished Into Thin Air

Manny paced back and forth in front of the brick wall at the back of the store. Several pages of blueprints lay across the top of a table. He kept glancing at them and then back at the wall.

‘Hoping your X-ray vision will kick in soon?’ I teased.

‘Ha. Very funny. I’ll have you know that damn Superman costume chafed in all the wrong places.’

I barked out a laugh. ‘I bet it did!’

‘Like you’re one to talk. You still have scratches on the back of your neck from that awful wig.’

My hand flew up to my skin. ‘What? Scratches? Where?’

He gave me that slow smile that said he was full of it.

This conversation was the reason why Manny and I couldn’t be anything but friends. Romantic entanglements made things too weird. All the little innuendos tossed back and forth became awkward when kissing or sex was involved in a relationship. We could be idiots together. Tease each other and not have it be uncomfortable. That was exactly what I needed in my life. Friendship. Now if only my heart, and my damn hormones that made me feel sixteen again, would get the message.

‘You’re way too gullible, Tess.’

‘Says the man whose daughter barely has a cough but convinces him she needs to stay home from school the last two days.’

His bright smile faltered. ‘You think Lou’s faking?’

‘Oh, Manny,’ I sighed. ‘Does she have a fever?’

‘No.’

‘What about a rash?’

He rubbed a hand over his mouth. ‘No.’

‘Headache or nausea?’

This time, all I got was a shake of the head.

‘Thank you, people of the court, I rest my case,’ I said, doing a little bow.

‘Why would she lie to me?’ he sputtered.

‘Children play sick for all sorts of reasons. Is a kid bothering her at school? Did she have a fight with her friends? Is she struggling with any subject?’

The wind picked up outside, sending a low whistle through the windows. Trees in the square bent and swayed as another whirlwind whipped through the dark, empty streets.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Not that I know of.’

‘You should talk to her and see what’s up. Maybe all she needed was to spend a little one-on-one time with you.’

‘She has been extra grumpy lately. I can’t figure it out.’

‘Has anything changed with your routine? One week, I had a lot of author events here, and I missed dinner a few times. It threw Rose off her schedule, and she was a total cranky pants because of it.’

‘Everything is the same. Well…’ He hesitated.

‘Well what?’

‘The old Thomas Place is a lot more work than we expected. A few days Barb and Susan have had to watch Lou. Feed her dinner. Put her to bed.’ He gulped. ‘In fact, they’re at my house right now so I can be here.’

‘We can do this another night, Manny. I refuse to put anything into motion until Barb and Susan come around anyway.’

‘Tess,’ he grumbled in that bearlike way. ‘Stop worrying about what everyone else thinks. The buffet fits perfectly, and you like the bar design. Let’s move forward. Build it. Once we’re finished, and it’s up and running, Barb and Susan will see it’s not a big deal.’

He was right, but it still didn’t untangle the knot in my stomach every time I remembered the way Barb looked at me like I’d insulted her signature raspberry scones.

‘I’m sure what’s happening with Lou is just typical kid stuff. Someone said the wrong thing, or she didn’t get to sit next to a friend at lunch,’ I said, purposefully changing the subject.

‘I hope it’s that simple. The last thing I want is for her to be upset and not be able to talk to me about it. I want to lay that groundwork early, because I know when she becomes a teenager, the last thing she’s going to want to do is talk to me about her issues.’

Another burst of wind shook the trees outside. I crossed the room and gently touched his arm. ‘You’re doing a great job with her. Don’t get inside your head and believe any differently.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’m trying really hard.’

‘Lou knows that.’

He placed his hand over mine. We held on to each other for a long beat. I wasn’t sure what kind of mental state I would be in without him. He sensed my every worry. Was always quick to build me up when my resolve started to fade. Unlike my ex, he didn’t assume he’d be rewarded when he did something kind. Or require some sort of praise for simply being a decent human.

As I gazed into his slate gray eyes, I considered how easy it would be to slide into his arms. Let him caress me in places where I ached to be touched. But deep in my heart I understood that once that boundary was crossed, there’d be no going back. That if things flatlined between us, the friendship we’d built would never be the same. I was willing to risk loneliness in order to keep that from happening.

‘Back to the coffee bar,’ I said, letting go of him.

‘Oh, yeah. Sure.’ He let out a shaky breath and moved around to the opposite side of the table.

‘The blueprints show there’s water and electrical access behind these walls. That means we won’t have to install any new lines, which will help with costs.’

The antique buffet we bought sat in a corner, still covered in gray moving blankets. Manny suggested we leave it there until his team could cut into the wall and get an idea of all the access points. He warned that they’d probably have to drill into the back of the piece to run electrical cords and a line for water.

I tried to picture the setup as he kept talking about construction. How the built-out wall of shelving and the sideboard on the buffet could hold stacks of white coffee cups and thick, leaded glasses, all branded with the P&P logo. In the center, we’d place a chrome espresso machine, as well as three cylinders that would hold freshly brewed coffee: light, medium and dark roast. On the other side of the buffet, I’d place several glass containers to hold all the different types of tea I’d offer: chamomile, ginseng, Earl Grey, a flavored green, like pomegranate or blackberry jasmine. The ideas and flavors spun through my head. The more I thought about how it would look in the store, the more I wanted this to happen.

We stood shoulder to shoulder, and I told him my ideas. He smiled. Said he’d done some research and discovered some of the best coffee beans came from places like Colombia, Jamaica and Hawaii. It was hard to explain how the low rumble of his voice set me at ease. I cocked my neck right and then left.

‘Still have that uncomfortable pinch?’ he asked.

‘Yep. It won’t go away.’

‘That’s because you keep falling asleep in the girls’ beds at night.’

‘It’s not like I mean to, but Rose continues to have those nightmares. She wakes up screaming and won’t go back to sleep unless I’m there.’

He pressed his lips together. After having one too many glasses of wine after a family dinner, I’d told him about Rose’s nightmares. What I hadn’t said was that when she was in the throes of one, she called out for my ex to save her from whatever monster was chasing her. I felt like such a failure when I finally got her to wake up, and it was me she saw and not her father. But Dr. Sheridan said things would get better, and I was holding onto that reassurance for dear life.

Manny reached out and, with a soft touch, he kneaded the solid knot above my right shoulder. My eyes shuttered closed at the relief his hands brought to the tender area. An embarrassing groan escaped my lips as he dug his capable fingers deeper into the tension corded in my neck. His heavy breath warmed my skin.

It would have been so easy to spin around. Press my lips to his and let go. I’d have been a liar if I didn’t admit that Manny had made more than one appearance in the spicier dreams I’d been having lately.

As the knot began to unwind, he whispered against the cuff of my ear, ‘Am I getting the right spot?’

I turned around as heat started its slow, torturous journey up my body. Manny stared at me with wild abandon, like he could sense what was building between us. He moved in and slid a hand through the hairs that escaped my braid. With a small but delicious tug, he pulled me to him. Our hips pressed together, lips only a breath apart. I inched in closer. Our lips almost touching when a splintering crash made me jump back.

‘What was that?’ I shrieked.

Manny immediately yanked me behind him. We waited for another sound. Any other noise that would give us a clue about what was happening. Another frozen silence passed before he said, ‘Wait here.’

‘Um, no. In horror movies, the girl that gets left behind always dies first.’

He cursed under his breath but didn’t stop me from following him around the corner toward the front of the store. Settled on the ground only inches from the door was a black rock the size of Manny’s fist. Splintered glass from the single pane in the center of the door spilled out around it. The sound of shards cracking beneath his work boots sent a shiver through me. Waves of memory from Halloween hit me in an icy shock.

Before I could stop him, Manny threw open the door and sprinted into the small parking lot in front of the store. I chased after and skidded up behind him, my black ballet flats sliding along the gravel sprinkled across the asphalt.

The air was eerily quiet. Wind ruffled what was left of the leaves in the trees. The clock tower made its familiar click click click noise before it was ready to chime the nine o’clock hour. Manny spun in a circle, trying to locate who threw the rock, but there was no sound of trailing footsteps or a car racing away.

‘First, the house. Now the window here,’ Manny said. ‘There’s something not right going on.’

‘This doesn’t make any sense. Maybe it was just a rock tossed by the wind.’

He let out an aggravated sigh, grabbed my hand, and led me back into the store. ‘I’m calling Deputy Ben.’

While he was busy on the phone, I walked back to the door. Outside, the emptiness in the town square rattled something deep inside me. If it wasn’t the wind, then the person who’d done this had vanished into thin air, and that fact frightened me more than anything else.