In Your Dreams by Sarah Adams - 12

It’s dark when I get back to the farm. Unfortunately, the drive lasted just long enough to turn me into a chicken. I don’t want to confront James anymore. I want to go inside and live in ignorant bliss.

But on my way in, I stop and stare at the restaurant. What was a dream come true for me now feels hollow. Will I be able to show up confidently for work every day if in the back of my mind I’m wondering if it’s actually a Madison Walker daycare?

I want to make incredible food over the coming years and succeed the pants off this restaurant. I want to prove to myself, and everyone else, that hiring me wasn’t a mistake. But before I can do that, I have to make sure we’re starting on equal footing. I don’t want to be a pity hire.

And ultimately, that’s why I end up walking from my cottage to James’s house. I don’t know why I’m even doing this now. It’s almost ten o’clock, so there’s a very small chance he’s still awake. And I’m not a monster, so if the lights are all out I’ll go home and stalk him again tomorrow.

Except as I make it across the property and round the barn, I have a perfect view of his back porch stairs. And there he is, sitting, elbows on his knees, hat discarded beside him . . . smoking a cigarette.

I must be seeing this wrong. James does not smoke. But as I get closer I can smell the distinct scent of tobacco. Which suddenly explains why the smell was hovering around him at the bar the other night. It wasn’t ingrained in the wood. It was clinging to his skin.

“Jameson Huxley,” I say in my best impersonation of an indignant person.

He looks up and squints into the dark. His eyes flare when he spots me about twenty feet away. And then this idiot tries to hang his hand over the side of his opposite leg so I won’t see the cigarette between his fingers. “Maddie? What are you doing here this late?”

“Never mind that.” I make my way to him. “Whatcha got there, bestie?”

He has the audacity to frown. “What . . . what are you talking about?”

“Oh my god, you grew up such a good boy that you never learned to lie properly.”

He’s antsy as I approach. “I lie just fine.” When I get closer, almost within arm’s reach, he leans away and holds up a hand. “Stop. Don’t get closer.”

“Why?”

“Because you have cooties.”

I’m getting as close to him as I can now. “ Why, James?”

He backbends over the stair to avoid me while holding his hand behind his lower back. “Because I haven’t showered!”

“James.” I lean in, hands bracketing his shoulders, gripping the stair behind him.

Finally, he rolls his eyes and raises his cigarette up beside my face. “Because there’s still smoke in the air and I don’t want you to breathe it. It’s not good for you.”

“Hmm. And if it’s not good for me, it can’t be good for you either. So why the hell are you smoking?”

He licks his lips and the faint smell of the cigarette burns in the air between us. I can taste it. “Why the hell did you have a panic attack?” he says, rewording my question a little and throwing it back at me.

I grin softly. “Touché.”

“Hold your breath.” He lifts the cigarette to his lips, takes one more drag, then blows it up into the air away from my face before dropping it to the ground and stomping it out.

I move to sit on the stair beside him. We don’t talk for a solid minute. Which is one minute too long for me. “I have a question.”

“Just one?”

“I want a truthful answer too. Even if you think it might hurt.”

He looks at me, one dark brown eye closing a little. “I already don’t like this question.”

I take a deep breath, gathering my nerve, and then exhale. “Did you create the restaurant just for me . . . ?” He opens his mouth, but I hold up a finger. “Wait. I’m not done. Did you make the restaurant just for me . . . because you and my siblings thought I wouldn’t cut it as a chef on my own? Did you concoct this restaurant as my safety net?”

He angles to me now and intentionally meets my eyes. “Madison. I swear to you, I did not make this restaurant for that reason.” Relief washes over me. “First, that would be a terrible financial investment to concoct a restaurant for someone who I think could run it into the ground. I love this farm too much to do that.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way. Now I feel silly.

“And second,” he goes on, “I’ve never tasted food as good as yours. I asked you to be our chef because I genuinely believe you’re the best person for the job. Honestly, there’s no one else I’d rather have in that kitchen.”

My throat tightens. Not only because he believes in me, but because the dishes he’s talking about? They’re all ones I made before culinary school. Back when cooking was pure joy. A playful experiment in reimagining the meals we grew up on. I miss her —the girl who cooked for fun. Who tossed ingredients together just to see what would happen. Who didn’t second-guess every dish.

New York stripped that version of me away. It turned something I loved into something that scares me. And now I wonder . . . will I ever get her back?

“Okay,” I manage, blinking fast and swallowing hard. “Thank you.”

His brows pull together. “What brought this up?”

“My siblings tonight. They made me feel weird.” I pull my feet up a stair so I can wrap my arms around my knees. “They kept saying things that made it seem like the restaurant didn’t exist before me—like I was tied to it somehow.”

“I see.” He looks toward the crops.

“And they implied that you renovated the cottage yourself. Just for me.”

“Well . . . I did do that.”

I whip my gaze to him. “Why?”

“Why what?” He picks up his hat, shakes it out once, and places it on his head. Backward.

“Why would you renovate the place yourself?”

He grimaces, holding the answer between his teeth a second longer. “Because the construction crew wasn’t going to be able to get it done before you needed it.”

My skin is tingling. “Were they behind schedule or something?”

“Not exactly.”

I close my eyes. “Was it not part of the original plans?” He’s silent. “James . . . is this actually the chef’s cottage . . . or is it my cottage?”

The heavy breath he drags in says it all. “Should any other chef take the position after you . . . a chef’s quarters will not be included in the job.”

“James!” I’m shaking. “You shouldn’t have done this for me!”

“You were going to need a place to stay! And you’d already done me a huge favor by coming home for this job.” He shrugs, shoulders tugging against his T-shirt. “I wanted you to have somewhere to stay without adding more to your plate.”

At this news, all I can do is drop my face into my hands and whimper, “Jamessssss.”

“What am I missing?”

“So much. Oh my god. I do not deserve all this. You need to fire me right now and get someone else.”

“I won’t be doing that.”

I pop my head up. “Everyone thinks I’m going to screw up or get bored and leave! And for good reason! You should think this too. I didn’t even . . .” I pause and pivot away from that subject. “The panic attack in the kitchen . . . it’s not a rare occurrence. It’s sort of the norm for me lately, in fact. It’s part of why . . .” I can’t get it out. I need to, but I can’t say the words.

James, noticing the truth is lodged somewhere in my windpipe, bumps the back of my hand with his knuckles. “How about a truth for a truth?”

I don’t want to be lured by this manipulation—but I am. “Fine. You first.”

“I’ve been smoking on and off since high school. I used to smoke a lot back then and went through great pains to cover it up. I picked up the habit from my dad, even though he does not know I ever saw him smoke.”

“No way—Martin Huxley does not smoke!” I say, picturing the happy, salt-and-pepper-haired, six-foot-tall and fit man who refused to use synthetic pesticides on the farm’s produce because it wasn’t healthy. “He’s obsessed with kombucha. You can’t be into both. ”

James laughs. “He doesn’t smoke anymore. He gave it up like fifteen years ago when he had a lung cancer scare that turned out to be nothing. It scared me too, so I rarely smoke anymore. Only when I’m under a lot of stress and I can’t sleep.” His eyes, so dark in the night, slide to me. “You’re the only person to ever catch me.”

Well, this is an interesting revelation. James, the most upstanding man I’ve ever known, has a deep dark secret. I’m suddenly overcome with desire to see if he has more.

“I smelled it on you.” I peek at him from the corner of my eye. “At the bar the other night. But I thought for sure it couldn’t be you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not the type to stress smoke.”

This seems to amuse him. He leans back, resting his elbows on the stair behind him. “And what type am I?”

“You’re stable. You’re dependable. Wholesome. What you see is what you get.”

“What you just described is an oak table.”

“Yes, exactly!” I say, but then I see his disappointed expression. “. . . No. Wait. You make that sound bad.”

“ You, ” he says around a chuckle, “make that sound bad. God, excuse me, I have to go cover myself in tattoos and rob a bank before the Golden Girls ask me to come live with them.” He stands, slapping his hat on his head once again.

I grab his hand. It’s big and calloused and unlike any hand I’ve ever held before.

“I didn’t mean it negatively. I meant it . . . opposite of negative.” I stand too and forget to let go of his hand. “Can I start over? I messed that up.” Apparently, I’m only capable of telling James he’s either a sexpot or a docile grandpa. I need to get my balance.

His eyes track over my face. “Okay, but only because I’m dependable and don’t want to let you down.”

I laugh and drag him with me up the stairs. “Come inside. I’m going to explain while showing you a way to relieve stress that’s even better than smoking.”

He drops my hand to stretch his long arm around my shoulder to reach the door, opening it before I can. This also puts his mouth wonderfully close to my ear when he says, “If I wasn’t so wholesome, I would think you were about to suggest we have sex.”