Page 92 of Lost Then Found
Losing Blue Ridge is a major setback.
I already know it’s going to wreck my inventory. It’s going to cut deep into my margins.
I run a hand down my face, forcing myself to think.
We can switch to local suppliers. They’re more expensive, but we can make it work for a little while. A week. Maybe two.
We can trim the menu, adjust portion sizes.
We can buy in bulk from warehouse distributors. The quality will take ahit, but it’s something.
It’s all temporary, though. None of it will hold. None of it will fix the fact that I’m hemorrhaging options.
I press my palms into my forehead. I knew he’d pull some shit like this, Miller had even prepared me for the possibility of it—I just thought I’d have more time. Thought I’d at least get a chance to catch up before he was already three steps ahead, laying the next trap before I even knew I was in one.
Humiliation burns the back of my throat.
He fucking played me like a goddamn fiddle.
And I let him.
**********
I yank my Dodgers cap lower, shading my eyes from the late afternoon sun. The wind picks up, tangling my hair across my face, and I shove it back with a frustrated sigh. My mind won’t quit racing, stuck on an endless loop of numbers and phone calls and worst-case scenarios.
All afternoon, I’ve been chasing leads, scrambling to find new suppliers, holding onto the edges of The Bluebell like it might slip through my fingers if I loosen my grip even an inch. But now I have to shift gears. Now, I have to be a mom. And that means pushing everything else aside—burying the panic, plastering on a smile, and making sure Hudson doesn’t feel a single ounce of the pressure pressing down on me.
That’s the thing about doing this alone. It’s not just the weight of responsibility, the constant decisions, the exhaustion that sinks into every fiber of my being so deep I swear I could sleep for a year. It’s the fact that there’s no one to split the load with. No one to say,Hey, I’ve got this one. You rest.No one to come home to at the end of the day and vent about how my kid is growing up too fast or how the fridge just broke or how I spent all morning trying to keep a man in a cowboy hat from bulldozing my life.
I scan the field and spot Hudson by third base, grinning as he gestures wildly, caught up in some animated retelling. His cheeks are flushed, hiswhole body loose with the kind of happiness that comes easy when you’re twelve and the only thing on your mind is baseball.
My chest tightens.
I’d do anything to protect that, to make sure he never has to carry the kind of weight I do.
A gust of wind rolls through, carrying the crisp scent of mowed fields and sun-drenched soil, and I wrap my arms around myself, holding on to something invisible.
It would be nice, I think, to have someone to share all of this with. Not just someone there—not just some warm body filling a space—but someone who wants to be in it with me. Who sees the mess, the cracks, and chooses it anyway. Someone who stands beside me, who lets me lean when my knees start to shake.
But that’s not my life. It hasn’t been for a long time.
The sun shifts, casting a long shadow over the grass beside me. A broad, unmistakable silhouette.
I don’t have to turn to know who it is. But I do anyway.
Boone stands a little behind me, a coffee cup from The Bluebell in one hand, the other tucked into the front pocket of his jeans. A backwards baseball cap sits low on his head, dark curls spilling from beneath it, brushing against the nape of his neck. His white T-shirt is pulled taut over his chest, over shoulders and biceps that have only gotten stronger with time.
Damn him.
Damn him and his stupid backwards baseball hat. He knows what that does to me.
The wind picks up and my hair whips across his chest. He’s close enough that I can smell him. Clean, like fresh detergent and the faintest trace of something masculine, maybe new cologne.
Boone clears his throat behind me. “Everything okay?”
I turn to look at him, arms crossing over my chest. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
He lifts a brow. “Because I thought I was picking Hudson up frompractice from now on.”
