Loving Bailey

The distribution of this work without the
express permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law.
Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not
participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted
materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Bailey Southerland’s big chef’s knife paused
mid-stroke as she looked from the lemons on her cutting board
through the window to the man pounding on the front door of her
restaurant. She didn’t recognize him, and his artfully faded
leather bomber jacket and chambray shirt screamed J Crew. Too
polished for a local. Besides, a local would know she didn’t open
for – she glanced at the clock on the wall behind her – another
hour and a half.

Sorry
, she mouthed, tapping her wrist
where a watch would be if she bothered to wear one.

The handsome stranger cast his eyes
heavenward and clapped a hand over his heart before turning his
clear blue eyes on her and mouthing,
please
. The intensity
of his gaze and the curve of his smooth, full lips made her heart
beat a little faster.

It couldn’t hurt to find out what he wanted.
She wiped her hands on the bar towel tucked in her apron and
crossed the dining room to flip the lock on the front door.

“Can I help you with something?” she asked.
Now that she was closer she could see his sandy brown hair could
use a trim and he needed a shave. Neither detracted from how
attractive he was. If anything, his slightly scruffy jaw line
counterbalanced his catalogue model clothes.

“God, I hope so.” He started to walk through
the door but stopped when she didn’t step to the side. “Please, I
need coffee and I can’t bring myself to drive down the
mountain.”

“Just coffee?” she asked, moving out of his
way so he could come inside.

“And maybe something for breakfast?” he
asked, looking sheepish and adorable.

“Aren’t you staying at the lodge?” He didn’t
look like a geologist or conservationist, which left Treetop
Adventures or Mountain Lake Lodge. His buttery leather loafers bore
no resemblance to the hiking boots he’d need to do the obstacle
course up in the trees. “Why didn’t you eat there?”

“They put the continental breakfast away at
ten. Who gets up that early to eat breakfast?” He winked at her.
Bailey was on her second cup of Earl Grey before eight, but she
couldn’t help but grin back. Something about the handsome stranger
charmed her.

“Sit down.” She motioned to one of the bar
stools. “We don’t serve breakfast, but I’ll see what I can do.”

She scooped some beans into the grinder and
pushed the button. The rich aroma of French roast coffee filled the
air.

“Oh my God,” he groaned. “You’re an
angel.”

“Hardly.” She started the coffee brewing and
ducked back into the kitchen to find something to fix him for
breakfast.

“Who was at the door?” asked Jen, Bailey’s
best friend and part-time pastry chef.

“Some guy who’s staying at the lodge.” She
glanced at her reflection in the chrome towel dispenser beside the
hand wash sink and straightened her white cap, tucking a few stray
curls behind her ear.

“Just some guy, huh,” Jen said, watching her
from the bread dough she was kneading.

“Do we have anything to serve for
breakfast?”

“There’s some day old bread for French
toast.”

“That’ll work.” She grabbed the loaf and
sliced off two thick pieces.

“What does the
some guy
look
like?”

“Cute enough, I guess.” Bailey pulled the
milk and eggs out of the reach-in and grabbed a bowl to make the
custard for the French toast.

“I want to see. I want to see,” squealed
Jen.

“Shh, he’ll hear you.”

“Oooh, you’re worried about what he’ll think.
Now I’ve got to see.” Jen dusted the flour off her hands and
scooted out the door before Bailey could figure out a way to stop
her.

She snagged a whisk off of the hanging rack
and started to beat the milk into the eggs. When the mixture turned
pale and frothy, she dunked the slices of bread and then laid them
out on the hot grill. By the time the toast was ready to flip, Jen
was back, fanning herself with her hand.

“My, my, my,” she said. “His clothes are a
little pretty, but I’m not going to hold that against him. I’d be
more than happy to hold something else against him. Like me,” she
said, waggling her eyebrows.

“Shut up,” Bailey said with a laugh.

They both knew Jen was kidding. She had two
kids, a mortgage and she and her husband shared a passion to rival
newlyweds. Bailey envied them. She wanted that. Someone she could
love who would love her back. A partner to build a life with the
way she’d built her business. She picked up the carton of
strawberries sitting on the counter. She thought she’d found the
right person, but despite her best attempts, it didn’t look like
that was ever going to work out.

Unlike store-bought berries which were
shipped from halfway around the world, these were red the whole way
through, and when she sliced them the scent of fresh strawberry
filled the room. She popped a berry in her mouth and closed her
eyes as the sweet tart taste flooded her mouth. Trace Campbell
might not be able to take a hint, at least not where she was
concerned, but he knew how to grow some truly delicious
strawberries.

Sliding the French toast onto a plate, she
topped it with the sliced berries and sprinkled on powdered sugar.
When she pushed open the door to the dining room, the man looked
over the rim of the coffee cup he clutched like a lifeline and hit
her with a smile so full of pleasure she stopped mid-step.

“I think I love you,” he said when she set
the plate in front of him. He took an enormous bite of French toast
and berries and groaned. “God, it’s official. True love. What did
you do to the strawberries to make them taste so good?”

“Not a thing. It’s just the berries. They’re
grown locally at a farm at the bottom of the mountain. First of the
season.” As she said it, she tried not to think about the farmer
who grew them and how much she’d hoped they would be more than
friends. No use crying over bruised berries.

“They’re amazing,” he said, following another
bite of toast with a swallow of coffee. “So is this view.”

Bailey looked out the wall of windows to the
view of the valley below. She’d fallen in love with Mountain Lake
on a weekend visit to her sister, Rachel, at Virginia Tech. They
made the climb up the 4,000 foot peak in Rachel’s ancient Volvo and
had lunch at the old Mountain Lake Lodge. Bailey had been
completely charmed by the history of the place.

When she was ready to start a restaurant of
her own, she’d come back to Mountain Lake and found the house
hanging off the side of the mountain which she’d turned into
Seasons.

“It is, isn’t it?” She took one more look out
over the spring green patches in the valley below. “More coffee?”
she asked, reaching for the pot.

“Please,” he said. “My name is Spencer Davis,
by the way. Thanks for saving me from another cup of hotel
coffee.”

“My pleasure. I’m Bailey Southerland.” She
held out her hand and Spencer took it in his much larger one, not
so much shaking it as giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Nice to meet you, Bailey Southerland. I
think it’s going to be a real pleasure getting to know you.”

Trace Campbell finishing pulling the last of
the radishes from the end of the row. It was barely May, but if the
weather held, it would soon be too hot to keep them from bolting
and going to seed. The variety was a blend called Easter egg and
the ping pong sized globes were white, pink, pale lavender and the
expected red. Bailey asked him to plant them for her to use at
Seasons.

He dropped them into the tub. He’d add them
to the greens he and the interns had picked that morning and take
them up to the restaurant with another batch of strawberries and
some fat asparagus spears. His long-term intern, Jake, handled some
of the other deliveries, but Trace always went to Bailey’s
himself.

“Hey boss, what do you want to put in here?”
Amanda, a junior from Radford and his newest intern, stood at the
end of one of the beds they’d cleared the spinach out of the day
before. She tucked her hands in the pockets of her cut-off short
shorts and stuck out her chin in a gesture which was almost
provocative.

Please don’t let her get any ideas
. It
seemed like at least once a season he ended up fielding off
unwanted advances from one of the young college women who came to
work for him on the farm. Usually it was as simple as making it
clear that he didn’t get involved with the people who worked for
him, but it always made for some awkward days.

He didn’t have any illusions that it was him
they were interested in. For most of them it was their romanticized
view of the farmer, the same reason they spent their summers
working on the farm. Ten years from now they wouldn’t be farming;
they’d just gotten caught up in the magic of working the land and
saw him as a kind of contemporary Thoreau.

They wanted a fling and his roots ran too
deep for that. The few times he did date it was someone from
Blacksburg or even farther away and he always kept things casual
and just for fun. There had only been one person he’d been
interested in since Anna left over a decade ago. And he wasn’t
about to mess things up by changing their relationship. He might
want more – hell, he did want more, but there was no way he’d risk
losing their friendship.

“Go ahead and rake the bed and then you can
put in a second crop of Swiss chard.” Bright Lights, it was another
of Bailey’s varieties. “Get Jake to help you if you have questions.
I’ll be back later.” He picked up the tub and headed to the shed to
get the rest of the produce for Seasons.

Trace’s twenty year old Ford pickup ground
its way up the mountain. It worked harder and harder at the end of
each switch back. He ought to replace it before it broke down for
good, but he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it while there
was still some life left in it. He passed the huge boulders which
dotted the top of the mountain and was struck again by the size of
the rhododendrons. Spring was a little later arriving at this
elevation and purple blooms still covered the tree sized
plants.

There was already a car in the lot at Seasons
and he glanced at his watch to make sure it wasn’t later than he
thought. No, too early for dinner traffic even on the weekend. He
grabbed the tub of produce from the passenger seat and pushed open
the back door. Emory stood at the counter polishing dishwasher
spots off of the silverware and stacking it in trays. It wasn’t
time for whoever was serving that night to be there yet, assuming
Bailey had someone scheduled. Things didn’t really pick up at the
lodge for another month, but Bailey’s restaurant had earned its own
reputation and people had started to make the long drive to the top
of the mountain just for her fresh seasonal menus.

It made him proud to think of it. When she
moved into the empty house four years ago and said she was going to
turn it into a destination restaurant, none of the locals thought
she’s last a year. She proved them all wrong. She was intelligent
and creative and her hard work was starting to pay off.

“Where’s the boss lady?”

“Out front with some guy,” said Emory.

“What guy?” Trace hadn’t let himself take a
chance getting romantically involved with Bailey because he didn’t
want to risk losing her as a friend. She was too important to him.
His stomach clenched at the thought that he might lose her to
someone else.

“Some writer. He was here when I got in. I
think he’s been here all day.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Don’t know, but I don’t think he came for
the food or if he did, that’s not why he stayed,” said Emory with a
knowing glance.

Trace set the tub on the center work table
and pushed open the door to the dining room. Bailey sat at one of
the tables by the window, laughing with some guy wearing one of
those fake work shirts too clean to have ever seen an honest day’s
labor. She leaned toward him, her dark curls falling in a riot
around her face. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked so pretty,
he stopped for a moment and simply watched her.

The guy was watching her, too, looking at her
like she was something good to eat. Trace clenched his fists to
keep from decking him before they were even introduced. He cleared
his throat and they turned to look at him. Bailey jumped, her
expression sheepish and defiant at the same time.