“How about we start moving stuff in?” Devon suggested.
“Of course.” The two frequent customers had been promised treats in exchange for their help, and in this chilly weather with darkness creeping in at barely five in the evening, she wanted to get this job done quickly, too.
The three men went out to the truck. Aaron unloaded boxes and directed Devon and Manny to carry them to their assigned rooms while Steph ensured no one tripped over anything. She was grateful to be inside, though Aaron’s reception had been colder than the February weather. Not that she’d expected a hug or anything. She just didn’t think he’d be so surprised to see her, considering how long she’d been working for his grandmother. She knew he visited at least once a year at Christmas. Georgette always talked about him and what he’d been up to. Had she not mentioned anything about her longtime employee to him?
Then again, why would she? It wasn’t as if Aaron should care about her after all these years. They’d barely known each other back in high school.
She peeked out the window as the last of the boxes was hauled out. Aaron closed the truck’s door, his long, lean form stretching to reveal a flat stomach and lean hips beneath his sweater. He was still kind of geeky-looking with his tousled brown hair and long limbs, but gone completely was the chubbiness of his high school days. He looked like a young professor, or maybe a grown-up Harry Potter in jeans and loafers. Mercifully, he didn’t have those big wire-framed glasses anymore, though she’d noticed a pair tucked in his breast pocket. A certain type of girl might find that brainy look attractive, she decided.
The guys came in, and Steph helped Georgette set out the coffee and treats. Most of the boxes had been placed inside the empty guest bedroom, which she supposed had once been Aaron’s. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised not to find a trace of him there, though it made little sense for Georgette to keep his room intact after all these years. Packing up everything and leaving home for good was an alien concept to Steph. After she’d moved out just last month, Mom and Dad had promised to keep her room exactly as she’d left it so she wouldn’t have to worry about finding storage space for what couldn’t fit into her tiny apartment. They hadn’t been happy about her leaving the nest, but she’d made it clear they couldn’t stop her. And they hadn’t.
After the coffee and spinach-and-goat-cheese pastries were laid out, Steph went into Aaron’s room and started unpacking. She didn’t feel as though she’d earned a treat yet, considering all she’d done was shuffle boxes around.
Three boxes into her digging, she discovered pretty much all Aaron owned was books. She exhumed the heavy law textbooks from the first box—the spines thoroughly bent and the pages marked with multicolored Post-it notes—and placed them on the bottom of the big brown bookshelves. The next box had an assortment of trade paperbacks, a lot of them with long titles about things she didn’t know anything about. Peak oil, electric cars, global economics, science, history...
“What are you doing?” Aaron asked from the doorway.
“Just thought I’d help you shelve some of this stuff.” She hefted one of the boxes, letting out an “oof!” It was a lot heavier than she’d thought.
Aaron rushed toward her. “Good God, you’re going to break your back doing that.”
“What, lifting this?” She bent her knees and jiggled the box. “Nah. I carry fifty-pound sacks of flour all the time.” She’d always been at the bottom of cheer pyramids, too. Mom had never liked that other girls were standing on her, but she hadn’t minded.
Georgette’s grandson gave her a stern look. “Still.” He gently slipped the box from her grasp and set it down with ease. “You don’t need to do this.”
“It’s no problem.” She flexed her aching fingers discreetly.
His eyes narrowed. “No, seriously. I’ll do it myself.”
“Really, it’s no problem.”
He frowned. “I’m particular about how I shelve my books.”
The steel in his voice had her reconsidering. “Oookay.” She took a step back, hands raised. “How about your clothes? I can fold them and put them—”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal with everything later. Really.”
Was there something he was hiding? Or did he simply not want her help? She hid her soreness at being dismissed by dusting her hands together as she left the room. “All right. You’ll be at it all night, though.”
He closed the bedroom door firmly behind him, and they rejoined the others in the kitchen.
“Not letting you help him unpack, is he?” Georgette chuckled when they entered. Devon and Manny were digging into their pastries with gusto. “Aaron’s always been fussy about his things. He never even let me clean his room.”
“That’s because I can do it myself.” Something about Aaron’s tone irked Steph, as if he were implying she couldn’t put things away herself. No. She shouldn’t read into what other people said—Mom told her she got defensive sometimes without proving...provoke...provocation. It wasn’t as if she had any reason to react so strongly to Aaron.
He shook hands with Manny and Devon. “I appreciate the help today, guys,” he said.
“Anything for Georgette’s spinach pies,” Manny said, toasting him with his coffee.
“Oh, Aaron, you should talk to Devon about getting Wi-Fi installed at the bakery. I think he’s done it for other businesses in town.”
“Why do you need Wi-Fi?” Steph asked.
Georgette beamed. “Aaron’s going to renovate the bakery’s dining room and turn it into a bookstore.”
Steph stared, her feet suddenly cold. She tried to hide her shock and simply look interested in what was being said, as she’d been taught, but she felt her whole future and everything she’d been working toward slipping from her grasp as readily as the smile from her face.
“But...where will the customers eat?” she managed to ask.
“I’ll still keep a few tables in the main part of the bakery, but most of the business has always been takeout anyhow,” Aaron explained. “Plus, I’m adding a patio for the warmer months.”
What did he even know about what business was like at Georgette’s? He hadn’t worked there in the five years she’d been there. “When were you going to do all this?”
“As soon as possible. I’m meeting a few contractors on Monday. I want renovations done by the end of April so we can be open for patio weather.”
And when, exactly, had they planned on telling her about these changes? After all she’d done for Georgette’s, wasn’t she owed at least an explanation?
Sure, Steph was only an employee, but she was a damned good one. She was the only person Georgette had trusted with her recipes, the only person capable of running things solo since Georgette’s stroke a few weeks ago. She’d hoped the elderly baker would sell the business to her when she retired—clearly the eighty-two-year-old couldn’t run it by herself anymore.
But now Aaron Caruthers was here, nosing in and ruining all her plans.
Her throat tightened and her tongue felt thick as objections tumbled one on top of the other. She was so frustrated she couldn’t spit out a single word of protest.
They were still talking, but she couldn’t understand what they were saying. She was drowning in words, all of them mashed into a messy jumble by her building anxiety. She wanted to tell them this wasn’t what she wanted, that this wasn’t what she’d planned, but she couldn’t say it without sounding petulant.
“I’m hoping the two of you will work together,” she heard Georgette say. “Steph knows everything about how the bakery runs. I don’t mind change, you know, but I