He bussed her on the cheek. She didn’t return the favor. Noah didn’t like lipstick. She giggled and thought of doing it anyway, of leaving a big swath of red gloss across his cheek, but suppressed her inner imp.
“What did you bring today?” he asked.
“Tomato garlic soup and pastrami on rye.”
“Hot mustard?”
“You got it, cowboy.”
Noah smiled, cleared off the counter and pulled up a couple of stools. He retrieved their bamboo reusable cutlery from a drawer and handed it to her while she set out their lunch, the routine comforting. They might as well be a married couple.
And don’t think she hadn’t wondered many a time whether she should be marrying Noah. He suited her perfectly. She couldn’t ask for a better friend. Too bad that she wanted more in a relationship than this easy friendship.
“Want to go to a concert in Denver?” Noah asked. He named a date in October when a band they both liked would be performing.
“You bet.”
It was a pair of young Swedish women with old souls, throwbacks to sixties hippies, and their music resonated with Noah. They were also insanely talented and very young.
“How can they be successful at such an early age?” she mused.
“Adolescence lends itself to creativity. You remember how creative you were back then.”
Yes, she did. It had been a magical time.
And so painful.
She’d had no female influence to guide her into womanhood. Mom had already been dead for nearly ten years. Audrey remembered being confused, with a body that was blossoming too quickly, too early. She’d hidden her loneliness under a tough veneer and her burgeoning breasts and hips under big clothes.
Dad hadn’t had a clue how to help her.
“Those girls in the band were probably supported by their parents.” Noah threw his sandwich wrapper into the recycle bin. “Imagine where you’d be today if your dad had supported your interest in flowers instead of pushing you into geology.”
“He only wanted what was best for me.”
“I know, but only you could decide that. Not him.”
They’d been through this argument before, so Audrey said no more. Nothing either of them said would change the fact that she’d worked in an industry she shouldn’t have for too long.
She was where she needed to be now, though, and just in the nick of time to take care of Dad.
Noah seemed to understand and changed the subject. “How did the standoff go at the greenhouse this morning?”
“Fine,” she answered. “Gray didn’t even know his father had sold the land to me.”
“Figures. Dude just wants to make money so badly.” He pointed his wooden spoon at her. “You watch out for that guy. He’s a corporate snake in the grass. I don’t doubt he can get down and dirty when he needs to.”
“Relax, Noah. The sale was legal.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
Audrey smiled, but Noah didn’t return it, and that chilled her.
“Listen, Noah, I dealt with plenty of Gray’s corporate doppelgängers in my previous job. I can be as tough as I need to be.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No ‘buts’ about it. Seriously. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can.” Noah’s sentiment sounded hollow. He should be the last person on earth to condescend to her, but she knew their history made it hard for him to think of her as independent.
In high school, when she’d been only fourteen, and too smart and a year ahead of her peers, and already trying to express her individuality with weird clothes, he’d caught a bunch of kids bullying her. Older Noah had given them hell. Even as a young teenager, Noah’s personality had already been set in stone, as though he’d come out of his mother’s womb fully formed. No one Audrey knew had better ethics or morals or stronger convictions, and he wasn’t afraid to act on them.
When he’d rescued her from the kids making fun of her spiky hair, her big boots and her baggy clothes, when he’d taken her under his brotherly wing, she’d been grateful, but it had been an uphill battle ever since to get him to see her as a grown-up. Maybe that was why they’d stayed friends and nothing more.
Too bad Noah’s version of support didn’t match what she needed these days. She buried her disappointment and ate her lunch.
When she left, though, Noah called to her, “Audrey.”
She turned from the doorway.
“You know I want only what’s best for you, right?” He smiled, his lips full in the middle of his red beard, but creases furrowed his forehead.
Oh, Noah. He didn’t even begin to get the similarities between her father and him. Hadn’t they already established that Dad had always wanted what he thought was best for her, too?
“I understand,” she said to ease his worried frown and left the shop.
* * *
GRAY TOSSED HIS pen on to the desk and took a deep, calming breath. Either that, or he would throttle the closest person. Considering that it was Dad’s blameless accountant, that wouldn’t be fair.
“I tried to talk Harrison out of this innumerable times,” Arnie said. “He wouldn’t budge. He wanted to give his people all of these benefits.”
“The company can’t afford them, though. I understand Dad’s urge, his largesse, given how long most of his employees have worked for him, but did he have to give them everything? Massages, for God’s sake. Orthodontics. Orthotics. Couldn’t he have chosen a cheaper benefit package? Just eye glasses and dental? Did he have to opt for the whole kit and caboodle?”
“I used those arguments myself, but he was...” Arnie’s glance slid away.
“Go ahead. Say it. Dad was stubborn.”
“Yeah, he was. About this, at any rate.”
“We have to cancel the contract with the insurance company.”
If the situation hadn’t been dire, Arnie’s look of horror would have been funny.
“What?” Gray asked. “We have to.”
“It’s one thing to fight with a union or a group of employees about implementing this kind of thing, but once it’s done, it just shouldn’t be taken away.”
Gray took another of his calming breaths. “It’s either that or layoffs, right?”
Arnie’s mouth became a thin slash in his aging face. “Yes.”
“Layoffs are the last resort, so we get rid of the benefits.” Gray glanced at his watch. Six o’clock. His head ached. He and Arnie had been hammering away at the budget, making cuts wherever they could, but the benefits package Dad had bought his employees a few years ago was the biggie.
“Come on,” he said. “Hilary should have everyone gathered by now.”
He stood and slid the walls of his office open. Many of the employees were already there. Turner Lumber employed over fifty people.
Some looked relaxed and others tense. Some expected him to be his dad. Others knew he wasn’t.
“The cashiers are just cashing out their tills downstairs,