Page 170 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

EVE

I saw the name on my cell as it rang. Then again. “Hello, Father.”

At two-thirty, it was between busy times, so I answered instead of letting it go to voicemail.

He’d call again, so it was better to get it over with.

For a second I wondered if he chose this quiet time intentionally, but quickly remembered he didn’t do anything out of courtesy. It was just when he thought of me.

The Swing Band music I had playing wasn’t too loud to bother the call–or customers.

“How are things downtown?” he asked, his voice as stiff and proper as someone who had a stick up his ass could be.

Downtown. As if he wasn’t ten miles away up by the ski resort.

“Things are fine,” I replied.

While he was a local himself, born and bred, he didn’t do the quaint Main Street that made Hunter Valley unique.

It was below him to leave the posh area up by the resort. The one his parents founded. Whatever.

It wasn’t below me. Never was.

“Yes. The lifts might start a week early,” he replied. “How’s your little shop?”

I rolled my eyes and grabbed a new bag of coffee beans from the display and gave it a squeeze, envisioning it was my father’s neck.

“The little shop is doing well,” I replied. “It is only ten miles from home. You can come down and see for yourself.”

“Evelyn,” he chided, using my name in that tone that was meant to shame. It used to work, the disappointment I felt in any decisions that didn’t match theirs, but no longer.

“I’ve connected with a local inn to exclusively sell my beans for their restaurant, the small café, and placement in the rooms with the coffee makers.” That should make him happier, telling him of the growth of Steaming Hotties. It was a big contract.

While I’d been friends with Bridget for a long time, it was her boyfriend who I’d proposed the business arrangement to a few months ago.

Maverick James, of the mega-big James Hotel chain family, was building a high-end inn in the area and stopped in frequently for coffee.

I thought I had a little bit of a role in the two of them getting together, Bridge having spilled coffee all over the guy when they first met. Right here in the shop.

The little shop that my parents thought was me amusing myself before I settled down with Cheney Douglas.

My boyfriend since senior year of high school.

The one who our parents matched together.

The one who I was expected to marry, my fate decided–by them–when I was seventeen.

The one who I dumped a year ago when I realized–yeah, my head had been really far up my ass–he expected me to play with my coffee shop for a little while and amuse myself before returning to the resort side of town and become his stay-at-home wife.

The one who also kept pestering me about when my play time was going to end.

The one my father was going to mention in about thirty seconds.

That Cheney Douglas. I had no idea why he wanted to marry a woman who didn’t like him.

Oh yeah. Money. I had lots of it. I was a Hunter, after all. Yeah, Hunter, as in Hunter Valley. To my parents, I was the wild child, although not really wild. I just liked to wear dangling earrings. Cowboy boots. Jeans with rips in them.

Yeah, totally wild. Not a pearl earring or matching sweater set in sight.

“Ah yes, your magical beans.”

If smoke could really come out of my ears, the fire alarm would be going off right now.

“Yes, most people think they’re magical when they drink their first cup every morning,” I countered. As if I was peddling something like magical mushrooms instead of the brew he had two cups of every morning.

“As I’ve told you before, you need to ensure that you–”

“Do not start mansplaining how to run a business when you are not employed,” I snapped. He might be a Hunter by birth, but he didn’t work for the resort. He didn’t work, period.

He tsked me. “Evelyn, I–”

He was cut off with a rustle and the sound of a phone scuffle.

“Evelyn, dear.” My mother stole the phone away.

I wasn’t sure if it was to keep the peace or because she couldn’t wait a second longer to meddle herself.

I could see her in her dress, either in pink or pale blue, with her grandmother’s pearls about her neck.

“I spoke to Cheney’s mother and she said Cheney hasn’t heard from you. ”

Definitely to meddle.

“That’s because we’re not together,” I reminded. “I have no reason–or interest–to talk to him.”

“Does he know that?”

“I feel confident that my ex knows he’s an ex,” I grumbled. I’d told him face-to-face. In voicemails. Texts. Again face-to-face.

“Well, you’ll see him in a few weeks at the party at the club. I’m sure you’ll make things right before then.”

“What party?” I skipped the part about why I needed to make things right. I thought that him being my ex was completely right.

“The annual holiday party,” she said, although she probably wanted to add a duh onto the end.

“You’re coming, of course. I have a dress for you.

Velvet and without all the patterns and layering you find in the bargain basement for these days.

With your business closing, I didn’t think you’d have time to find one. ”

The bell above the door dinged and I turned and waved at a customer.

I skipped over the fact that my mother took another dig at my wardrobe for the important gem. “My business closing?”

“Cheney told me the other day at the club that you’re shutting your coffee shop down. Your father said it was just a phase and I can see now that he was right. Letting you use some of your trust fund to play coffee shop was money well spent and now we can plan your wedding!”

“What?” I asked.

I usually kept my voice calm with my parents.

Any shift in my tone was something they pounced on.

I was too emotional. Too dramatic. Making too much out of nothing.

They were exceptional at gaslighting, using my anger and frustration with them as proof I was unrealistic with my life choices. I took a deep breath.

“I’m not going through a phase and my coffee shop isn’t closing. I’m not playing at anything. I live in a cute little house downtown. Just because my clothes aren’t made with cashmere doesn’t mean they are castoffs. Why would I move back in with you? Why would you want me to?”

“Evelyn–”

“I have a customer. I have to go.”

“But–”

I hung up, wishing I could put something stronger than non-dairy milk into a cup of coffee. I pasted a smile on my face for the customer and got back to work. To my business that was not closing.

I spent long enough being controlled and my life planned by others.

I was done with that. I’d majored in business in college instead of French like my mother wanted.

My father had been pleased with my choice, saying I might get a role in running the Hunter Valley Resort.

Not his business because he didn’t do anything with the company except spend the profits.

It had been his parents who built it from scratch and made it a success.

Not just his father, but his mother as well.

She’d been the skier. The sporty one who saw the potential for turning the local mountains into a winter destination.

Between my grandfather’s business sense and my grandmother’s vision, they made it what it was today.

They’d made the place, the entire town, enduring. Just like their love for each other.

Like coffee. Everyone always needed coffee.

I’d done my senior project on the business plan for Steaming Hotties, and I’d made it happen after graduation.

Not for fun. Not shits and giggles or a phase or whatever else my parents and Cheney thought.

This place was my shop. My baby. My business. My livelihood.

Nothing was going to change that. Not Cheney. Not my parents.