Every Time I Fall (Orchid Valley 3)

“So?” Stella asks. “I’m losing my mind, right? Tell me it’s not Dean and I should mind my own business.”

I give her a weak smile. “You should mind your own business?” I say, but it comes out sounding like a question, because I don’t really agree. Amy broke Dean’s heart over the summer, and I don’t blame Stella for wanting her to keep her distance.

“The other part, though?” Stella asks. “That it’s not really Dean?”

I shake my head. “Unless you want me to lie to you . . .”

She groans and snatches her phone back. “I’m trying so hard not to hate her. She’s Hope’s mom, and I need us to have a good relationship, but . . .”

“She makes that extremely difficult,” I supply, and Stella nods. Poor girl. I have to give her props for trying to make nice with her boyfriend’s ex-wife. “What is Dean thinking?”

“He’s not. Obviously.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, why are you here?” She props her hands on her hips and takes in the empty kitchen.

“I have a meeting,” I say, grabbing my rag to finish sanitizing the stainless-steel counter, where I just prepped a new variation on my much-loved artichoke chicken flatbread.

Stella folds her arms. “A meeting, or an excuse to be a workaholic?”

I shrug. “Little of column A, little of column B.”

It’s Monday afternoon and The Patio is closed today, but I’ve come in for a special meeting with one of my wine suppliers. Even if Frankie hadn’t emailed asking to change the time, I still would’ve probably found myself here. The kitchen is my happy place, and when the restaurant isn’t open, I can play with my true love—chemistry. By which, of course, I mean baking.

I used to be embarrassed about that, about being a big girl who likes to cook and bake—who wants to be a walking cliché?—but when I dropped out of college almost five years ago, necessity won out over pride. I took a job as a sous chef. I worked my way up to head chef the way someone my age can only do in a town as small as Orchid Valley, and I’ve never looked back.

Stella laughs and shakes her head. “I’m clocking out. Do you need anything before I go?”

In addition to being my friend and my brother’s girlfriend, Stella is the receptionist at The Orchid, the day spa that houses my restaurant, and she’s as responsible for holding this place together as my other best friend, Brinley, who’s the owner.

“Not a thing,” I say. “What about you? Need anything? I have some cookies in the walk-in.”

She presses a hand to her stomach. “No. I ate a brownie and a sea salt caramel cookie while at reception, and I enjoyed them way too much. I’m cut off.”

I laugh. “Glad you liked them.”

She arches a brow. “Liked? They were amazing. I had . . . mouthgasms.”

I laugh. “Mouthgasms?”

“Yeah. I feel like I should at least buy you dinner or something.”

Laughing, I take my bucket of sanitizing solution to the sink and dump it. “What are you and my brother up to tonight?”

She sighs. “We have Hope, so I think we’re going to talk Dean into having dinner with us.”

“That’s nice,” I say, trying to keep the frown from my face.

“Maybe? He’s not been doing so great since Amy dropped him, and Kace is worried about him. But now I’m going to be all awkward avoiding the subject of Amy and what he did this weekend.”

I keep my mouth shut, determined to neither confirm nor deny her suspicions.

“He needs a good woman, ya know? Someone who can remind him what it’s like to be treated with respect and value. Amy just—” She snaps her mouth shut and shakes her head.

“You can say it. You know how I feel.”

“Nope.” She flips her hair and rolls back her shoulders. “I will not talk trash about my boyfriend’s ex. I won’t do that to him or to Hope.”

I get it. I feel the same way, but as we already established, Amy makes it difficult. Especially if she’s messing with Dean’s head again.

“And anyway,” she says, “Dean makes his own choices. It’s not like Amy’s some evil seductress who’s got him under her spell. He knows how she feels and what she does and doesn’t want and chose to be involved with her anyway.” She glances at her phone. “Apparently, continues to choose, I guess.”

“So true,” I mutter. It’s easy to cast Amy as the villain here, but if she’s being upfront with Dean and he’s choosing to sleep with her anyway, isn’t that Dean’s problem? “I think you’re a better person than I am, Stell.”

She shakes her head. “Nah, but I’m trying to be decent.”

“Abbi?” someone calls from the hall.

I gasp, eyes flying to the clock. I wanted to be at my desk when he arrived, to be doing paperwork so it didn’t look like I made a special trip into work just for him. Even if I did. “On my way,” I call back. I toss my rag in the bin and turn to give Stella a quick squeeze. “That’s my meeting, but tell the boys I said hi.”