Page 57 of The Sweet Life

“Hang on to that thought. I’ll be right back.” Jake set his bottle on the table and got up to grab their order.

He was halfway back to the table when the smell of smoky BBQ brisket, jerk chicken, and french fries wafted past her nose. She moaned. Jake looked around as if embarrassed the other diners might have heard her.

She motioned for him to hand her the bag. “You’re acting as if none of Smoke Shack’s customers have ever moaned over the smell of their food.” She opened the bag and moaned again.

“Seriously, Sage, you need to stop moaning like that,” he said, sending an apologetic glance at the table behind theirs where a mother sat with her three children as he took a seat.

“Stop moaning like what?”

He leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “Like you’re having sex.”

She laughed. “I do not sound like…” She caught the mother of three’s eye, and the woman nodded as if commiserating with her, pointing at Jake and then shaking her hand in the universal gesture ofthat man is hot.

Sage gave the woman a look while casting a pointed glance at her children. Then she handed Jake his BBQ brisket burger and fries without meeting his gaze.

At his amused snort, she took an aggressive bite of her jerk chicken sandwich. Of course he’d seen her staring down the woman. He didn’t miss much. They ate in silence for five minutes with Sage trying to contain her moans, but the fries did her in. She raised a hand to her mouth and uttered a quiet moan.

“Next time we order from Smoke Shack, we’re eating on the beach. Better yet, at home. I mean, the farm.”

She was embarrassed about her moaning, and Jake seemed embarrassed that he’d referred to the farm as home. She took pity on them both and changed the subject. “So, like I was going to tell you, I think Kendra has cured my boredom problem, and yours too.”

“I don’t have a boredom problem. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.”

“Well, unless you want to tell the fifty people who have emailed, and that’s not including three senior homes and two day-care centers, that we will not be opening the lavender farm at the end of June, you’re going to be even busier.” She took another bite of her jerk chicken sandwich, savoring and swallowing before continuing. “We also have twenty-five online orders from the lavender shop that need to be fulfilled, and Kendra has been fielding phone calls too.”

“We have a lavender shop?”

She took a sip of her beer and nodded. “We do. You know the cute little weather-beaten shed? That’s the physical shop, and there’s one online.”

“Huh, and what do we sell in our shop?”

“A lot.”

“And where do we buy this stuff that we sell?”

She picked up a french fry and shook it at him. “You’re adorable.”

“Thank you.”

“I was being facetious.”

“I figured. So you’re telling me we’re supposed to make the stuff we sell in the shop?”

“Unless we want to disappoint hundreds of people and have our bottom line look bottomless when we put the farm on the market, I am. But don’t worry, I’ve figured out a way to deal with our lavender-product problem and my family-feud problem.”

“I thought you said your visit with your grandmother went well.”

“It did, and she credited the smell of lavender for making her chillmellow.”

“Chillmellow?”

“Chill and mellow. I’ll invite my family over this weekend. They’ll spend the day making our line of products with us and bonding, and then we’ll end the day with a Sunday family dinner.”

“We have alineof lavender products?”

Interesting. She’d thought he’d focus on the Sunday familydinner part, but maybe he thought she’d learned to cook in the intervening years. “We do, but we’ll cut down to just a few items. Kendra found a book of recipes and a box of ingredients to make the products. We’ll go with the easiest ones. Plus there’s always YouTube. And my mom. She knows a ton about aromatherapy and the benefits of lavender. So we’re all good.”

“You sound more hopeful than positive. Are your sister and aunt still upset about your mom and Flynn?”

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