Sweet Escape (Sugar Rush #2) Read online

  That did it. Even the silence seemed to relent.

  “Okay,” Luke finally said. “Do whatever it takes.”

  “You tell Polly to enjoy her classes and work hard,” Evan replied. “I’ve got everything covered here. I promise.”

  He disconnected before Luke could turn the subject back to Sugar Rush. For six more months, this was Evan’s show, and he intended to keep it that way.

  He ended the call and went into the office adjoining the living room. Walls of bookshelves, leather chairs, and a massive mahogany desk dominated one half of the room, while the other was dedicated to a long table strewn with model airplane and boat equipment—parts, glue, and paint. Shelves displayed dozens of intricate models, from clipper ships to WWII bombers.

  Every time Evan stepped into his father’s office/workshop, a combination of nostalgia and slight apprehension assaulted him—the office had always been the place where he and his brothers were summoned to answer for one infraction or another.

  And while Warren Stone had never physically disciplined them, his big, stern demeanor and grave disapproval had added layers of regret to punishments of grounding and extra chores. And though Warren’s hard edges had been muted by grief after the death of his wife, he still radiated an authority that even Luke couldn’t refute.

  The model boat and aircraft were the only external evidence of their father’s lingering pain. He’d started the hobby while Hailey was still in the hospital, and in the years since it remained Warren’s escape from the world.

  His father stood at the window, the phone at his ear and his voice low. Evan stopped just as Warren turned to look at him.

  “I’ll call you back,” he said into the phone.

  He ended the call and tossed the phone on the desk. A faint flush colored Warren’s neck. Amusement rose in Evan. His father was never embarrassed.

  “Anything to do with your date Saturday night?” he asked. “Are you going out with her again?”

  “No.” Warren scowled. “What do you want?”

  Evan knew when not to push an issue with his father.

  “Didn’t Mom once work with Greenpeace about scholarships for environmental research?” he asked.

  “Yes, quite extensively. She wanted their input and ideas.”

  “Do you still have contacts there?”

  “I don’t, but I probably have names of people she worked with.” Warren went to his desk and opened a file drawer. “I keep most of the conservation documents in the library at Sugar Rush, but here’s a file of recent work. I’ll go through email records too.”

  Evan leafed through the documents and briefed his father on what was going on with the Fair Trade Foundation and the Singa Corporation.

  As he started to leave the office, he caught sight of the family portrait on the wall—the one taken when he and his brothers were teenagers, and Hailey was still in grade school. They were all smiling in a natural, unforced way, and his parents stood behind the children with their arms linked.

  His father would carry his grief forever, but Evan wished the past eleven years had eased it somewhat. Maybe that was even the reason neither he nor any of his brothers had gotten married yet. It was tough to find the kind of love their parents had shared. Just as it was tough for Warren to move on.

  Apparently Evan wasn’t the only one in the family with heart problems.

  Chapter

  SEVEN

  Hannah fastened a lid to her take-out coffee and pushed through the glass door of the diner. A taqueria, a Chinese restaurant, the Cozy Coffee Café, an insurance agency, a bank, and several stores bordered the main street of downtown Rainsville. Residential neighborhoods, strip malls, and agriculture fields—lettuce, strawberries, broccoli—radiated outward from downtown.

  As far as she could tell, nothing had changed here in the past decade. Not that she’d expected it to. Rainsville was like a dry, overbaked cake stuck in the pan.

  Even the seasons failed to change—the temperature dipped in fall and winter, but the leaves remained mostly green and there was little actual rain in Rainsville. Blocked by mountains, the ocean breezes and fog didn’t reach the town either, as if the wealthy residents of Indigo Bay were hoarding the coastal beauty for themselves.

  Hardly a wonder that she’d been desperate to leave, even before Andrew had died. As a teenager, she’d found an escape in Indigo Bay half an hour west with its stone cottages, hidden courtyards, and the stretches of beach that hugged the rocky shoreline. She’d gone there to run on the beach. To smell the salt air, stare at the ocean, and imagine what was on the other side. To window-shop at the boutiques that sold French linens, Italian pottery, Turkish rugs, Scandinavian woolens, Japanese tea services.

  Her plans with Andrew, the older boyfriend she hadn’t told anyone about, had been grandiose and thrilling—they’d take off to see the world, carrying nothing but their meager belongings in backpacks. They’d work where they could, save money, meet people, and visit as many places as possible—all together.

  Then a surfing accident had taken Andrew away, and the devastation that followed had incited Hannah’s urge to flee. When she’d turned eighteen and graduated from high school, it had been so easy to leave. An au pair job, a cheap ticket to Rome, no other plan except to earn enough money to go to as many different places as she could.

  A decade later, that plan hadn’t changed.

  She walked east to Rainsville Park, the only public place in town kept green by careful rationing of water. The Shingle Mill creek, a narrow intermittent stream of water, ran through the town before joining a watershed farther south. A wooden bridge spanned the creek, leading to a playground and splash pad on the other side of the park.

  Hannah sat on a shaded bench and pulled her laptop out of her bag, opening the browser to her blog. In the past three months she’d only managed two measly posts about Wild Child.

  No wonder. There was nothing to write about around here. The bachelor auction was her only useful content to date, but she had no other ideas.

  She needed to come up with something soon, though, or she’d start to lose both advertising revenue and readers—both of which she’d need once she was back to her real life. She could stick out her time in Rainsville, but Lock Heart would never survive six months of slow, tepid content.

  She scrolled through her blog. During her trips back to Rainsville, especially when her mother was sick, she’d written posts on Indigo Bay, several local restaurants, a trip to San Francisco. What was left? A review of the Cozy Coffee Café? A description of broccoli-growing season?

  She couldn’t write when she was standing still. Being on the move always generated ideas, the physicality of traveling causing her blood to rush faster in her veins, firing her brain synapses to create.

  As she navigated the crowded bustle of a market in Hong Kong, climbed to a mountainside tea garden in China, ate curry from a roadside stand in Bombay, she subconsciously wrote the narrative in her mind while taking photographs that captured both unexpected moments and her own carefully constructed compositions.

  She pulled up the draft of her post about the bachelor auction and reread it. Though uninspired, at least it was something. She edited a few sentences, added several of the photos she’d taken, and hit the publish button.

  A shadow fell across the keyboard. She looked up at a blonde woman who’d stopped a few feet away, her slender figure clad in jogging pants and a T-shirt. A second passed before Hannah realized it was Lucy Clements, Evan’s ex-girlfriend.

  “I thought that was you.” Lucy approached, pulling her earbuds out of her ears. “You won Evan at the auction.”

  Unease rustled in Hannah, but she kept her voice polite as she said, “That’s correct.”

  Lucy crossed her arms, her gaze narrowing. “I haven’t seen you around here before.”

  Hannah blinked. “You live in Rainsville?”

  “No, I live in Indigo Bay. My grandmother lives here, and I sometimes housesit and take care o
f her cats when she’s away.”

  “Oh.” Somehow this bit of information softened the image of the sharp-clawed, cheating ex Hannah had developed. “Well, nice to see you again.”

  “So have you and Evan planned your dates yet?” Lucy asked.

  “No.” A touch of irritation tightened Hannah’s spine. “Not that it would be your business if we had.”

  Lucy shrugged. “I guess you two planned that bid in advance.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I overheard Julia Bennett saying you own Wild Child. It’s a nice place, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t give you fifty K to throw away at a bachelor auction.”

  “Again,” Hannah replied, “not your business.”

  “Evan was my business for six months,” Lucy said, her lips compressing. “Everyone at that auction expected us to get together again.”

  Hannah had no desire to get dragged into a conversation about Evan and Lucy’s failed relationship, but she also wasn’t about to let the other woman have the upper hand.

  “Evan would have to agree to that, wouldn’t he?” she said.

  “What did he tell you about me?” Lucy stepped closer, and the sunlight glinted off a sheen of tears in her eyes. “Did he tell you why we broke up? Is that why you two cooked up the bid so I wouldn’t win?”

  “First,” Hannah said, shoving her laptop back in the case, “we didn’t cook up anything. And second, if you really want to know, he did tell me you cheated on him.”

  “Did he also tell you that he strung me along for months?” Lucy snapped. “That I thought the whole time we were going to get married? And that I only found someone else after Evan said he didn’t want to marry me?”

  Pity rose in Hannah at the other woman’s obvious distress, but she steeled herself against it because she still didn’t want to be having this conversation.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I don’t know why you’re telling me this.”

  “I’m telling you because if you expect your fifty-thousand-dollar bid is going to force him to commit, you’re totally wrong.” Lucy swiped at a stray tear. “I really loved him, and I thought we’d have a life together. But not only does Evan not want to have a life with anyone, I don’t think he’s even capable of love. And that’s the biggest fucking irony of all.”

  Hannah picked up her bag and stepped away. “Thanks for the warning, but I need to go.”

  “Good luck with him.” Lucy started jogging toward the Shingle Mill Bridge, then called over her shoulder, “There’s a reason they call him Heartbreaker.”

  Whatever.

  Hannah had always stayed away from cat fights and bitchiness, so it was easy enough to deflect Lucy’s biting remarks.

  Except her comment about Evan not being capable of love stuck in Hannah’s mind like a burr. Why would Lucy say that? And why would she call it an irony?

  Because she’s a bitter ex-girlfriend who didn’t get the big diamond ring she’d wanted. Simple as that.

  She’d forget about the encounter. Evan’s past relationships were none of her business, even if it had been the reason she’d spontaneously bid on him. Well, one of the things. There was also the crackling heat between them, the way his lips turned upward when he winked at her, the ridiculously sensual way he’d fondled her earlobe—

  And it didn’t matter if he was capable of love or not, because she didn’t want that from any man, much less one whose entire life and family revolved around the very area Hannah had sought to escape.

  In fact, she was glad to know about Evan’s emotional distance from relationships… it would be much easier to keep their date casual and free of expectations. Much easier to remind herself not to be caught up by his sexy charm and devastatingly hot kisses. She had no time for a Heartbreaker.

  She walked back to her van and returned to Wild Child, stopping to hold the door open as a sharply dressed elderly man with a cane approached.

  “Hi, Mr. Becker,” Hannah said. “I saved the biggest croissant for you this morning.”

  “That’s my girl. Why aren’t you fifty years older?”

  “Born in the wrong year, I guess,” Hannah replied wistfully. “My loss.”

  She cleared a few magazines off the table near the bookshelves, which was Mr. Becker’s favorite place to sit. After bringing him his croissant and a pot of Darjeeling tea, she lowered her voice to avoid being overheard.

  “Any luck?” she whispered.

  He shook his head, leaning toward her conspiratorially. “I’ve finagled a way to sit beside her at Bingo on Friday night. I’m going to bet her a cup of coffee that I’ll win.”

  “What if you lose?”

  “Then she’ll have to buy me a cup of tea.” He touched his finger to the side of his nose, as if he were imparting an espionage secret.

  Hannah smiled. “Make sure you bring her here, either way. What’s her favorite kind of cake?”

  “Carrot, I think.”

  “I’ll have two big slices waiting for you.”

  She patted his shoulder and silently sent up a wish to whomever was in charge of senior citizens’ love lives to cut Mr. Becker a break with Miss Purdy, the white-haired septuagenarian whom he’d been trying to court for all the months Hannah had been in Rainsville. Either Mr. Becker was off his game or Miss Purdy really wasn’t interested.

  Hannah suspected it was the former—for all his awkward attempts to gain Miss Purdy’s attention, Mr. Becker cut quite a distinguished figure in his well-tailored suits and ascots that put even the corporate Stone brothers to shame.

  She made the rounds refilling tea and coffee. Several of the regular customers were there, including Polly’s friend Mia, Mr. Singh from the Indian restaurant down the street, and Gavin Knight of Knight Security, the company that handled security for Sugar Rush and, at Luke Stone’s insistence, had installed Wild Child’s elaborate alarm system.

  Hannah stopped by a cluster of cushy chairs, where four young mothers sat, one rocking a baby and the others supervising three toddlers playing with toys and puzzles from the children’s shelf.

  “How was the concert at the park?” Hannah checked to make sure their carafe of French Roast coffee was still warm.

  “Only a two-tantrum event, so I’d say it was a rousing success.” One of the mothers gave Hannah a rueful smile.

  “And we’re going to the circus this afternoon, so keep your fingers crossed for us,” another one added.

  “Sounds like you’ll need a petits fours fortification.”

  Hannah filled a plate with a variety of the miniature cakes and brought it to the ladies. As she returned to the counter, her phone buzzed in her apron pocket.

  She glanced at the screen, her nerves suddenly jumping to high alert. She indicated to Ramona that she was going into the back to take the call.

  After inhaling a deep breath, she swiped the screen. “Hannah Lockhart.”

  “Hannah, it’s Elaine Miller from Franklin Publishing. Do you have a moment to talk?”

  “Yes.” Her hand tightened on the phone.

  “I apologize for not calling sooner, but I’ve gone over your manuscript several times. I really do think your blog has enormous book potential, especially given the love theme of so many of your posts, but I’m afraid the manuscript you submitted isn’t going to work.”

  Hannah’s heart began a slow descent to the pit of her stomach.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.

  “This isn’t an outright rejection,” Elaine assured her. “Honestly, Hannah, I’ve been wrestling with this myself for a few weeks. Turning a blog into a book isn’t just a matter of compiling posts. In print, I see this as travel essays and photography, but it has to focus on you, the single woman traveling alone. Maybe connect everything to the concept of freedom and feminism or your own personal philosophy. I think that’s the missing element we could incorporate, more about your feelings and experiences. I’m sure you’ve had a lot of boyfriends over the past ten years, but you
don’t mention any of them on the blog. Perhaps we could do that in the book. Write it as a memoir of a woman who wanted to escape, and in doing so indulges in cultural excesses of food and sex.”

  Hannah frowned, irritation scraping her insides. “That’s not what I did.”

  “It doesn’t have to be totally factual,” Elaine persisted. “But it needs a personal angle, more about Hannah Lockhart than the love festival in China.”

  “I see.”

  “Think about it,” Elaine suggested. “See if you can rewrite the manuscript or expand the content so that we have a stronger foundation. Food and sex always sell, and your photography is so gorgeous it’s almost fuckable.”

  “Uh… thanks?”

  “Fuckable photography with sexy essays,” Elaine replied cheerfully. “We might be on to something there. See what you can come up with and get back to me, okay? I’ll expect to hear from you before the end of the month.”

  Sure. Hannah thanked her and ended the call. She wasn’t about to fictionalize her entire experience of traveling. And yes, she’d had boyfriends but she purposely didn’t discuss them on the blog because the blog was less about her than it was about the universality of love customs throughout the world.

  At least Elaine hadn’t given her a full rejection, though the “end of the month” gave her only four weeks. She had to come up with a brilliant, fresh idea fast… while being unable to do the one thing that fed her inspiration.

  She returned to the front counter, where Mia was leaning against the counter, checking her phone.

  “She did it.” Mia held up her phone triumphantly in Hannah’s direction. “Made a perfect crème caramel that Monsieur Lacroix said was pas mal. Polly says it was like receiving a benediction from the pope.”

  Hannah looked at the photo of a radiant, smiling Polly holding a plate displaying the golden-brown custard decorated with spun sugar. Her heart softened and ached at the same time.

  “Good for her.”

  She kept her tone light, though she couldn’t suppress a needle of hurt. Polly had never sent her pictures of Paris or the pastries, not that Hannah deserved them. It wasn’t as if she’d ever made an effort to keep in touch with Polly over the last ten years. She’d never been there for her sister—well, not until now.