Page 6 of Honeycombs & Homecomings

“Honestly,” Allie said. “I wish I could, but Tony and I have a date tonight.” She didn’t sound excited.

Jo leaned away from Allie. “You need to talk to him about—“

“I know. I know.” Allie brushed Jo off with a wave of her hand.

The problem was that Tony worked for them. He sold to big companies and had started looking for investors recently. He was great at sales and had an investor signed up to visit Thursday night through the weekend, two days from now. He sucked at keeping track of inventory, often promising more than they had, leaving them scrambling to make their orders, which they’d barely managed to do every time. Then he’d laugh it off and say, “See, I knew you could pull it off.”

“I heard you got into a fight with him at Mirabelle’s.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve been doing a lot of that lately. He showed up late, then acted moody all night. I had to keep him away from everyone, so no one would know we were fighting.”

“What?” That didn’t seem like Tony. If he were a horse, he’d be of the show variety—he’d never want to be accused of a bad date. But things had been tense between them lately. Jo never thought she’d see the day when their PDAs would be replaced with as many arguments.

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

Jo stood, grabbing Allie’s hand to yank her up. “Fine, but perk up, and you have to talk to him about the last order he made. And, we only have a few hours until Kathy is off the day shift in our booth, so we need to get the rest of our stuff, and mom, and get out of here.” She turned and headed for the stable door.

Allie threw her head back and clunked slowly forward. “Fine, but I’m not perking.”

***

“I’m sorry, you’re where?”

“Virginia, Tim, for the hundredth time,” Cash Evans repeated to the director of operations of his five restaurants. Tim was one of his best friends, but when he heard something he didn’t like, the two men tended to get into a round that was nowhere near as fun as Yankee Doodle. Telling Tim he’d gone home for a few days one week after Cash had opened his fifth restaurant, “True Tastes,” was bound to be one of those times, which was why Cash had waited until he’d landed and was in his rental to tell Tim he’d gone home.

And boy, was he ever home. Trees in striking shades of bright yellow, orange, and red, mixed with evergreens whipped past him on either side of the road, the colorful leaves kicking up under his tires and into the air behind his car.

“Do we need to get your hearing checked?” Cash asked with a grin.

“I heard you,” Tim growled. He hated age jokes like Cash hated store-bought sauces since he’d discovered a gray hair last year. “I’m just wondering why?”

Cash gripped the steering wheel, the leather and plastic under his hands giving way slightly. “It’s time, is all.” In reality, there was more to it. Cash was only thirty-two, but he wondered if he was going through a third life crisis.

“Is this about Shelly?” Shelly was Cash’s ex-fiancé. They’d broken up three months ago.

When he’d proposed to her, she’d seemed like a breath of fresh air—especially considering he lived in California where so many pretended to be something they weren’t. After they got engaged, Shelly had quickly turned into something more akin to a breath of fresh jalapenos.

“No!” He’d lucked out of that one.

Tim remained silent.

“Okay, not entirely because of her.” When the thought had popped into his head to take a trip home, he’d immediately liked the idea. It’d been so long, and part of him wondered if he’d originally liked Shelly because she was from his state—a breath of fresh air. He missed home. “I haven’t been home in five years. And I need time away.”

What he needed was a fresh perspective. Lately, all the challenges that came with his job had faded, leaving him listless and bored. The spice was gone from his life, and he needed to figure out how to get it back.

“Parker is going to freak.”

Cash’s nervous manager of his newest restaurant had a reputation. But he always came through. Cash had faith in the man. “He’ll be fine.” To his right, illuminated by his car’s headlights, a “Welcome to Harvest Ranch” sign came into view.

“You’re not the one who has to tell him you’ve left opening week. You’ve never done that before.”

“Jacob is the best chef in Santa Ana, he has it covered, and so do the rest of the staff. Parker won’t have to do any extra work. The place is running like clockwork. I’m only telling you because—”

“You knew I’d quit if you didn’t?” Tim asked.

“Don’t be such a drama queen.” Calling him a drama queen wasn’t really a jab—it had been Cash’s way of letting his friend know over the years when he needed to calm down. It worked most of the time.

“Cash, I know you haven’t been yourself lately, and what with this week being what it is or should have been—”

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