Page 8

“That’ll be $92.70, hun.”
Esme handed over her card, and the cashier swiped it. Immediately, the machine beeped in protest. “Sorry, hun. Declined.”
“Oh. No problem.”
I watched as she opened her wallet, pulled out some notes and counted them, then a stricken look washed over her face. The older girl of the four, the one with the blond hair, shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable.
“I’ll have to put some stuff back. Sorry.”
Fuck. She couldn’t pay for the groceries. Without a word, I took my black AmEx from my wallet and handed it to the cashier.
“No! It’s okay. We don’t need everythi—”
Although I didn’t understand why her employer would send their nanny to the store without enough money to pay for groceries, I said, “It’s fine.”
“I’ll pay you back, I promise. We’re just a little short this week, but I can—”
Feeling my heart squeeze at the look of devastation on her face, I went for reassurance. “Esme. It’s fine,” while taking my card back from the cashier, who was smiling at me like I’d just descended from heaven. Hardly.
“Okay then. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“No problem.”
She didn’t look at me as she shoved her wallet back in her purse and pushed the cart through the register. Me? I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she wheeled the cart out of the supermarket, the kids trailing behind like little ducklings.
CHAPTER5
Wolfe
Esme. Esme. Esme. My one sliver of sunshine in this shitty, shitty town. I blew out a breath, leaning back on the leather couch and staring up at the ceiling.
Yeah, okay, so I’d said Esperance was the shittiest town I’d ever spent time in, but that was an exaggeration. It wasn’tthatbad. It was just that there was zero night life. If you didn’t count the opossums, owls and squirrels, it left you with a few restaurants and one bar. And yeah, the restaurants weren’t terrible. Which was lucky, since I couldn’t cook for shit. I’d had a pretty decent lasagna at Alfredo’s. The beer at Lacey’s Bar & Grill was perfectly drinkable. More than, actually. The big screen tv showed all the sports a man could ever want.
I pinched the bridge of my nose as realization hit me. Esperance wasn’t the problem. I was. I was just so fucking bored. Restless. Desperate for some excitement. Something to shake up the dull monotony of my days. Thirty-three years old was way too young to already feel so jaded and tired. Fuck my life.
Immediately following that thought was self-derision.Get over yourself, asshole.I led an absolutely charmed life and had no reason for self-pity.
Annoyed at myself, I shoved to my feet, running my hands through my hair. It was a perfect Saturday morning; the sun beating down, doing its best to convince me to get out in it. Bask in those rays. Stop moping like a sad sack loser.
Slipping on my aviator sunglasses and loafers, I squared my shoulders and headed out the door. The back of my house faced the river, but it fronted a long, tree-lined avenue, lined with equally big houses on the other side. Aside from a little pocket on the edge of town, this was the most expensive area of Esperance.
At the end of the street, there was a narrow, cobblestone alleyway that led directly onto the main square. And what a weird place that was. I’d never seen anything like it. Well, not in the States, at least. It was a perfect replica of a medieval French town and although I’d given a passing thought to how odd it was, I’d never really looked into the history.
With a hot, dull Saturday stretching in front of me, that was going to change. Because at the end of the narrow alleyway was a tourist board, chock full of information about the town and its history.
Oh, it was a love story that started it all. How cute. Turns out some guy back in Scotland fell in love with a woman in France, came to America to make his riches, went back to France, married her, brought her here. Although she loved him, she longed for home, and it made her sad. So this guy, Fergus, builds her a replica of her village back in France. She loves it; they stay married and pop out a ton of kids. He calls the town Esperance, which is French for hope, because he never lost the hope that he’d win his love and live happily ever after.
Some people have more money than sense, which isveryrich, coming from me.
Just out of curiosity, because the board was littered with the name Ballantyne, I cast my eyes to the right to see a family tree. Fergus Ballantyne and Evangeline Leroux had nine kids. Jesus. Those kids also had a fuck ton of kids, lots of which stayed in Esperance. Down the list I went until I stopped at one Maxwell Ballantyne. The fly in my ointment. The thorn in my side. The wrench in all my fucking plans, for some reason I didn’t even know.
One level up from him, Edward Ballantyne. I tapped my finger on the board, taking it all in. Somewhere in here was the trick I needed to close this deal.
Taking a moment to absorb everything I’d just read and realized, I gazed out at the square, unseeingly. The limestone buildings, the cobbled paths, the striped awnings, all faded away as I started formulating a plan.
Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, though. A flash of white blond hair, a blue shirt. Coming out of the supermarket, heading to the little cake shop. I watched Esme for a moment, my heart squeezing. Christ, she really was stunning, even from here. She went into the cake shop, coming out a few moments later with a little white box. There was something about her demeanor that pulled at me, an air of sadness swirling around her. I frowned, following her with my eyes as she walked across to the gazebo in the center of the square and sat down, pulling the cake from its box and candles from a plastic shopping bag. My frown deepened as she started sticking the candles in the cake, like a birthday cake. The sadness, the fact that she was by herself and the candles in the cake made me wonder if she was acknowledging a birthday of someone that had died. I should leave her to it. It was none of my business. And I barely knew her, after all. She’d hardly want a stranger imposing on her grief. But once she started lighting the candles, wiping at her eyes with her other hand, I was done for. No way was I leaving her in the middle of the square, crying over a chocolate cake on her own.
CHAPTER6