To Catch A Player

“Me too. Thanks.” He ran a nervous hand over the top of his head and let out a long breath. “Reese, I’m sor—”

I walked away before the sentence was over, because I didn’t need his apology. I didn’t want it—and even if I did, work was not the place where I wanted to have an emotional breakdown.

“Damn, that was ice cold,” Maven said, standing beside me with her gaze focused on Jackson. “I’m kind of proud of you.”

“Thanks,” I snorted. “Enjoy the show. I’ve got work to do.” I spent as much time as I could in the kitchen, whipping things into some semblance of order before tomorrow rolled around. I needed to be organized and ready to go when the timer started if I stood a chance at finishing in the top three.

Several trays of biscuits and a big pot of smoky caramel barbecue sauce later, I ventured into the restaurant to see if the chaos had left.

They hadn’t. They milled around while Janey shot photo after photo of anything and everything, but somehow nothing at all. “We’re almost finished, I swear!” Janey looked up with a wide grin and a wink. “Promise.”

“Good, because I still have work to do.” I returned to the kitchen and vowed to stay there until I felt the entire building was empty.

“You planning to ignore me for another year?”

Jackson. I should have known he wouldn’t go away so easily, now that his ego had been bruised. “Doesn’t seem like I need to ignore you at all, so no. I’m not.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

I turned to him then. “It means you do a pretty damn good job of ignoring me when you want to, so I don’t need to bother!” There was no way in hell I’d lose my cool now. I gathered everything I felt into a tiny ball and shoved it down, deep down, until my shoulders relaxed. “Look, I don’t have time for this so let’s not do it, okay?”

“I’ll give you a hand.” It was the perfect olive branch, and it would have been so easy to take it. To accept what he was offering and pretend he hadn’t done it. Again. But I couldn’t.

“No, thanks. I’ve got it.” I knew that wouldn’t go over well, but he’d made plenty sure I could get by without him.

“This is part of the Hometown Heroes thing, Reese. I’m supposed to be helping you.”

It was good to know that his loyalty was to Janey and the town, not to me.

A girl always needed to know where she stood.

“I know that, but when you didn’t come back—when you didn’t say if you were coming back—I figured out how to get it all done without any help.” Something I realized I needed to get used to, since I could no longer pretend there was a chance of Aunt Bette getting any better. “I don’t need any help.”

“I’m sorry, Reese, but I really can explain.”

I held up a hand to stop an explanation I didn’t want or need. “It’s okay. You don’t need to explain a thing, Jackson. It’s on me, actually, for misreading things between us.” There was no use pointing out that he’d given me those words to misread, because it would just prolong whatever this was.

“You didn’t,” he insisted, but we both knew the truth. “You didn’t misread things.”

“You can hang around the tent tomorrow if you need to for photos and to fulfill your Hometown Heroes agreement or whatever. I’m sure Janey won’t mind.”

And that was all that mattered here anymore, so I turned away from Jackson and kept myself busy in the kitchen, pretending I was by myself until I was sure I was completely and totally alone.

Something else I had the rest of my life to get used to.JacksonI shouldn’t have been surprised when I showed up at the restaurant early the morning of the final cook-off to find that Reese had already left. Without me. She was hurt, and more than that, she was pissed off—and it was all aimed at yours truly. But I had to give her credit, nobody did mad the way Reese did.

She made it as sexy as it was infuriating.

I’d spent an hour standing in the kitchen last night, staring at her, silently pleading with her to turn around and look at me. To talk to me. Hell, to yell at me. To say anything at all to let me know there was a reason to keep hoping. To keep fighting. But she was stubborn and had outlasted me by a mile, so I’d left and vowed to come back in the morning.

Ready to fight.

She got me again on that front, but I knew where she was and I happened to have it on good authority that she would be there all day. I retraced my steps back home to get my car and managed to arrive at the fairgrounds early enough to find a parking spot that wouldn’t leave me stranded all day if things went south.