Читать книгу Sunrise Cabin - Stacey Donovan - Страница 7

chapter two

Dylan lumbered to the kitchen, still groggy, and grabbed the steel coffee canister. When he lifted the lid, two beans rattled around at the bottom. He sighed.

He wasn’t in the habit of eating breakfast. A banana, sometimes, if he’d been to the store recently, and most often, he hadn’t. The kitchen in the loft-style apartment was actually gorgeous: new cabinets, marble countertops, always clean. The two things he used were the refrigerator, which frequently held leftover pizza or kung pao chicken, and the coffeemaker, which couldn’t help him now. He’d have to get dressed and get to a café. Usually, he fueled up with caffeine right after getting out of bed, and the variation in his routine unsettled him.

In the living room, he paused to gaze out the huge sixth-story window. Clouds hung over his downtown neighborhood. When he’d first moved in, big trees had stood in front of the newest construction. He’d admired them for surviving in a small plot of soil and breaking through the pavement; he could appreciate that type of raw determination. But then, out of idle curiosity, he’d poked around online to figure out what species they were. Their name, “tree of heaven,” was ironic; they were known for not only destroying sidewalks but also putting out a chemical that killed nearby plants. Dylan had been glad when workers had removed them and planted a row of sugar maple saplings in their place. Their top leaves were starting to turn cheddary orange.

As he picked up his phone, a glum feeling settled over him. New texts. Please don’t be Mark.

But of course, it was his boss. Two messages from him detailed extra changes he wanted to the presentation due that morning, and a third one explained a new assignment. Dylan briefly considered going straight to the office and drinking the coffee there, but he’d been at the office for a few hours on Saturday and wasn’t ready to face it again quite yet.

In the bathroom, he scrubbed his face but skipped shaving. Even at his investment banking firm, a day’s worth of stubble was acceptable. He dressed quickly, grabbed his laptop bag, and was out the door.

Soon afterward, he parked outside Dolce Café and Bakery and strode to the door. He caught another guy, with a girlfriend or wife, glancing from Dylan’s new luxury car to Dylan in his perfectly tailored gray suit, in an almost automatic moment of admiration and envy.

Dylan didn’t mind getting noticed like that, once in a while. He’d earned it. As a kid, he’d sometimes attracted attention for the opposite reason. When he’d shown up for school two days in a row in the same outfit, or wore pants with permanent stains on the knees, other kids had given him plenty of grief. These days, nobody could look down on him, and nobody could get under his skin.

A long line of people stood waiting to order. Great. He should’ve gotten an earlier start to the day. He tried to tamp down his impatience by looking at stocks and scanning business headlines on his phone. When he finally reached the counter, he made his usual order—black coffee, the largest size, the darkest roast—left a dollar in the tip jar, and sat down at the counter. After taking the first blessed sip, he opened his laptop and pulled up the PowerPoint presentation. He never should’ve taken the whole Sunday off. It always made Mondays worse.

If he finished the deck in the next hour and drove into work, he’d be able to print it out and check it before putting it on his boss’s desk at nine a.m. He’d learned the hard way that errors were much harder to catch onscreen. He’d started the job four years ago, and after the first presentation he’d worked on hadn’t gone over well with the client, his supervisor at the time had called him into her office to point out the misplaced comma on the one-hundred-twenty-sixth slide of a one-hundred-forty-three-slide deck. Dylan was pretty sure punctuation hadn’t been the deal breaker, but he always checked carefully now.

A woman with wavy, shoulder-length blonde hair draped her red jacket over the back of the chair right next to him and sat down. Odd. There were other empty seats. She didn’t seem to notice him, though, as she set a whipped-cream-topped beverage in front of her. A pumpkin spice latte, no doubt, given that it was the first day of October. In fact, little orange pumpkins dotted her purple dress, so she probably loved fall. Where did a grown woman even buy a dress like that? He could imagine one of the women in his office showing up for a meeting in it instead of their usual tailored clothing in gray or black. Honestly, it would be hilarious.

This woman looked to be maybe a few years younger than his own age of thirty-four, though the purple pumpkin dress no doubt contributed to that impression. So did the slight smile on her face and the bright pink lipstick that contrasted with her pale complexion. She dug through a huge, shiny yellow purse and pulled out a turquoise book. He was practically sitting next to a rainbow.

She looked up at him. Busted. He hadn’t meant to stare at her. “Hi, how are you?” she asked in a tone of polite good cheer.

He didn’t really have time for a conversation, even if she was cute. And okay, she was, in a quirky way.

“Eh, it’s Monday,” he said.

Why had that come out of his mouth? One of the assistants at his office always said it on Monday when people asked how she was doing. Sometimes he’d think to himself in a surly way, Thanks, I know what day it is.

“Best day of the week,” the woman quipped and opened her book, apparently finished with the conversation.

Wait, what?

Nobody believed that. Maybe she wore all those bright colors because she was, in fact, a crazy person. An adorable crazy person, but still.

He focused on his laptop screen and tried to check the five-year projections in the appendix. They’d revised it four times, so it would be easy to have a mistake here…

No. This was bugging him too much. He turned back to the woman and demanded, “How is Monday the best day of the week?”

She glanced up again from the book—or the journal, apparently; she had a pen in her hand. Her blue eyes were wide, guileless. “I call it Clean Slate Monday.”

“Clean Slate Monday,” he repeated, as if that explained anything.

She nodded. “You know, like if your last week—or actually your last month, or your last year, or whatever—if you had disappointments, or you messed up, you can forget about all that. Because it’s a brand-new week. A fresh start.” As Dylan stared at her, she took a sip of her latte, then wiped off a bit of foam that clung to her upper lip. She shrugged. “Anything could happen.”

Dylan had no words for the feeling that thrummed through his veins. Something told him she was different from anyone he’d ever met before, and he needed to know her better.

But his cynicism rose to the surface to protect him from the unfamiliar. “Do you work on Mondays?” Maybe she was a waitress in a restaurant that was closed today. Anyone could enjoy their day off. Maybe she didn’t work at all.

“I do, actually.” Her tone was wry. “I’m a teacher. I have weekends off. Well, more or less.”

Okay. He wasn’t sitting next to a rainbow. He was sitting next to a unicorn. A person who worked Mondays through Fridays, and called Monday the best day of the week, didn’t even seem real.

She went back to writing in her journal and he caught a glimpse of the page. A sketch of a house occupied half of it. No, not a house: a cabin. It looked a lot like his grandparents’ cabin, where he and his sister had spent some of their childhood summers. Why would she be drawing something like that? He wondered what her life was like, and what was going through her mind.

But although curiosity was getting to him, he looked away. He needed to stop staring at her like a creep, and whatever she was writing or drawing, it was none of his business. He had plenty of business of his own and should get back to it.

Usually, he had no trouble settling down to work. He’d gotten himself through college with a combination of scholarships and jobs that had been unpleasant, exhausting, or both: loading delivery trucks, cleaning toilets, and one summer, even gutting salmon in a cannery in Alaska. He was made for work.

The figures in the projections balanced out. He adjusted the formatting, advanced to the next slide, and stared at it, still acutely aware of the woman next to him. Whatever she was working on, it was probably much less crucial—and probably a lot more fun.

His phone rang. Dylan looked down and saw his brother-in-law’s name on the screen.

Why was Paul calling so early? Well, it could be an emergency. Dylan answered. “Hey, what’s up?” As he did, the blonde woman got up and grabbed her jacket, and disappointment flickered through him.

“Hey,” Paul said. “Just reminding you to pick up Dee’s cake tonight.”

No. He’d forgotten all about his sister Deidre’s birthday. Paul had planned a surprise party for her. He’d invited her favorite people, secretly bought decorations, and conspired with Dee’s best friend to get her out of the house for some spa thing and then back home again.

Dylan had questioned this whole plan from the jump. He’d asked Paul, “Are you sure she likes surprises? I don’t even like it when one person drops by without asking.”

His brother-in-law had shaken his head. “Most people are more spontaneous than you. Actually, everybody is.”

“I can be spontaneous,” Dylan had said. “I just need some warning.”

Dylan’s doubt about the party was no excuse. He’d had one job. Bring a chocolate sheet cake with the words, “Happy Birthday, Dee!” written on it in frosting.

In response to his silence, Paul said, “You didn’t order it.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Dylan said with fake confidence. “I’ll call around. Someone can do it.” Not that he had time for calling…

But he was in a bakery. The kind that made individual treats, not big cakes, but still. He glanced over at the display of baked goods. The blonde woman stood in line at the other end of the counter, bouncing on her toes, cash in her hand, and he was glad she hadn’t left yet. He asked Paul, “How many people are going to be there?”

“Eh, twenty-five, maybe. Well, thirty, if you count Dee, me, the boys, and you.” He sighed. “I invited more, but people are so busy.”

“Thirty’s a lot.” If someone had been throwing a party for Dylan, he wouldn’t have been able to think of thirty people to even invite. He walked closer to the bakery counter, surveyed the inventory, and told Paul, “I’ll get cupcakes.”

Paul hesitated. “They can’t put her name on them.”

Seriously? His sister was turning forty, not seven. She wasn’t going to pout if her name wasn’t on a cake. Dylan kept his voice light. “It’s a birthday party. Everyone’s going to know who the cupcakes are for. And I’ll get different flavors.”

“All right, sounds good,” Paul said. “Thanks.”

“No problem. I’ll be there at seven.”

“Six-thirty,” Paul corrected. “Dee’s coming at seven.”

Right. He had to get there early and hide behind a couch or something in the dark, and then jump out and yell, “Surprise!” Did people still do this? Apparently, Paul thought so.

Well, Dylan appreciated his organizing it. He treated Dee right, and Dylan was happy to show up and do what was expected of him.

He got in line behind the blonde. As he drew closer to her, his heart seemed to wake up, beating a little faster, and he didn’t really get why. She was a random girl in a café, and not his type at all.

His last girlfriend, Lauren, had been his type, and they’d probably still be together if she hadn’t taken the job in New York. She’d scored an incredible opportunity, so he hadn’t blamed her. Dylan couldn’t see himself ever moving there, not while Dee and the boys were here in Denver. Truthfully, he also couldn’t imagine leaving the mountains behind, even if he didn’t spend as much time in the outdoors as he would’ve liked. Lauren had made a very grown-up decision to not try the long-distance thing. Maybe it was too bad that it hadn’t mattered to either of them that much.

He hadn’t dated since. Vaguely, he imagined that first he’d get another promotion at the firm. He couldn’t focus on relationships and making VP at the same time.

The blonde woman told the lady behind the counter, “I need twenty-five cupcakes.”

No, no, no. Dylan’s gaze flew to the bakery counter. Five kinds of cupcakes, six of each flavor. Exactly how many he needed. Except she was going to take most of them. “You can’t do that,” he blurted out.

She turned her head to regard him. “Excuse me?”

Okay. He could’ve sounded more reasonable. “I need them for my sister’s birthday party.” There. She wouldn’t be able to argue with that. She’d know now that he was a nice guy, too.

“Is that birthday party at eight-thirty in the morning?”

He snorted. “No, it’s tonight, but—”

“Then you have time to go somewhere else, and I don’t.” She smiled as if that settled it. The lady behind the counter began putting the cupcakes in a big box.

He wasn’t ready to give up yet. “I don’t have time. I’m very busy.”

“Everyone’s busy,” she said lightly. “Not just you.”

Everyone wasn’t as busy as he was. “So what is it, one of your students’ birthdays?” She nodded. “Aren’t the kids supposed to bring those?”

“Some kids come from homes where…” She shook her head. “There’s either not enough money or not enough paying attention.”

That hit him right in the gut. He’d grown up in one of the latter. His memories transported him back to the first grade, when his best friend at the time loudly asked him why he hadn’t brought treats for his birthday. He hadn’t remembered that in years. After his mom had died, his dad had been distant, sleepwalking through life, not keeping track of even some very basic things. Dylan had been too young to process all that at the time. He’d just felt embarrassed and angry.

This woman looked out for neglected children, and that made something turn over in his heart.

“That’s very kind of you,” he said.

The lady behind the counter said, “That’ll be eighty dollars and twenty-five cents.”

Dismay flashed across her features. Clearly, it was more than she’d expected. Well, she was a teacher; she probably didn’t make a big salary.

“I’ll get that,” he said.

She gave him a puzzled frown and the bakery lady said, “She was here first.”

He said to the teacher, “No, I—I’ll get them for you.” Her eyes went wide, as though he’d taken leave of his senses. “For the kids, I mean,” he added.

She shook her head, though a smile played at her lips. “I can’t let you do that.”

“I insist.” Maybe he was being overbearing. He held up his hands. “I mean, unless you say no again.”

That made her laugh. “Okay, since it’s for the kids, I’ll let you.” He loved her voice, with its wry drawl. It sounded like smoked honey. Her cheeks flushed pink. Wow. Was she ever pretty when she blushed.

He pulled out his wallet, counted out the money, and handed it over. The teacher gave the woman behind the counter a delighted look and said, “Yay,” and the woman smiled back. As Dylan took his change, the teacher picked up the box of cupcakes. “Thank you,” she told him. “That’s very generous.”

Dylan realized the couple behind them was watching him—the same couple he’d seen in the parking lot. While he hadn’t minded them noticing his nice car or his expensive suit, he now felt self-conscious. He shrugged and said to the teacher, “My good deed for the day.”

“You do a good deed every day?” She sounded impressed.

“Um…no. Almost never.”

“Oh.” She appeared to be at a loss. “Well, I should go.”

“Yeah. Nice meeting you.—I’m actually heading out too.”

She nodded and they both moved toward the exit. Ughgh. There was nothing more horrible than essentially saying goodbye to someone and then continuing to walk alongside them. To diffuse the weirdness, he said, “I’m Dylan, by the way.”

“Paige.”

Get her number.

He pushed the idea out of his head. He wasn’t the kind of guy who tried to get women’s phone numbers right away. And if he asked, she’d think he’d paid for the cupcakes to make her owe him, which wasn’t true at all.

Still, he’d like to run into her again. As friends, or friendly acquaintances. As he held the door open for her, he said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before.” She would’ve been pretty hard to miss.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been here. But it’s right by the school.”

He nodded. “I come here a lot to work.” In fact, it had been a long time since he’d last stopped in, too.

“What do you do?”

“I’m in investment banking.” He waited for one of the usual comments: how he must make a lot of money, or how he must be very smart.

She laughed. “I don’t really know what that is, but it sounds awful.”

It is awful.

As he brushed away the unexpected thought, she said, “Thanks again,” and turned and walked down the sidewalk. He’d parked in the opposite direction, and he headed that way, but couldn’t resist a backward glance. She was bending over to put the cupcakes in a bright yellow VW bug—of course, that was what she’d drive. She straightened and looked back at him. He gave what he hoped was a casual wave and turned away again.

As he got into his own car, he regretted not telling her that his job wasn’t awful. Nobody loved their work. Possibly she did, but that wasn’t the norm. That was why they called it Work and not Super Fun Time. He’d been paying his dues at the firm, and he’d see more and more rewards in the next few years. His mind went to the presentation he still hadn’t double-checked. He’d give it a quick look at the office, and maybe it’d be fine.

Paige. He said her name to himself again so he wouldn’t forget it. But he doubted he would, anyway, and he also doubted he’d need to remember it. He probably wouldn’t even run into her again.