Page 177 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

EVE

With my head inside the lower cabinet, I looked for the reason the wash sink was leaking. It wasn’t much, just a trickle, but the batch of napkins that had been stored beneath were ruined. Fortunately, their destruction was what alerted us to the problem.

It was after three, which meant the quietest part of the day. Before I disappeared beneath the counter, there was only one customer working on his laptop by the window.

“Um, Eve,” June, my afternoon employee and friend, said. I saw her sneakered feet out of the corner of my eye.

“What’s up?” I asked, my voice strained since I was bent funny. I had a wrench around the… whatever it was called that a wrench tightened.

“There’s someone here to see you.”

For a second, a thrill shot through me that it might be Silas. I’d been thinking about him and what we did on that desk pretty much non-stop. The fact that I was exhilarated at the possibility that he was here proved how much I liked him. Wanted him. Craved him.

I quickly squashed the idea that he was here.

He didn’t know who I was other than the woman from the bar.

He didn’t know I owned Steaming Hotties.

Or lived behind him and watched him walk around naked.

If we ran into each other on the street or at the grocery store, that’d be one thing, but he couldn’t intentionally seek me out.

I maneuvered out of the cabinet, set the wrench down, and pulled myself to my feet using the edge of the counter for leverage. There, standing all smug and asshole-ish, was Cheney.

Inwardly, I groaned. He was the last person I wanted to see. “This is a surprise.” It was a complete surprise, but he missed my sarcastic tone. “What brings you in?”

The only reason he was in town was because of me. His family lived up by the resort in a big, fancy house paid for by the family’s mine. Yes, an actual mine. It was sold to a conglomerate, but the way they lived, they had to have made a lump sum and then now lived lavishly off of annual dividends.

I learned a long time ago that money meant nothing. Not happiness. Not friends. Sure, it helped pay the bills. I wouldn’t begrudge anyone the desire for money. But when it was the only desire, when it turned someone… sour, then it was bad.

Money spoiled my parents. Cheney, too.

I wouldn’t let it spoil me. I liked to think I was like my grandparents, earning my keep and building something from hard work.

June stood a few feet away with a stack of coffee filters.

She looked like she was counting them, which was not something anyone ever did, so she was completely and totally eavesdropping.

That was fine. I wanted this conversation witnessed because whatever was said was heading back to my parents and spun around to make me look like shit.

“I talked to your parents.”

Gah.

He crossed his arms over his chest, making himself seem wider. That was impossible since he was built like a runner, but he didn’t run. He had a trainer who he paid a fortune to teach him how to play squash. Squash!

He wore khakis, a heavy coat and boots that were meant for mountaineering.

He was dressed like those living in tropical climates who drove a fancy 4x4 SUV and never went off-roading or saw ice or snow.

The coat and boots would never be put to real use to do something as simple as shovel his own walkway.

He wouldn’t want his slick dark hair and perfect mustache to get messed up.

I couldn’t see his fingers, but I assumed his nails were manicured. They always were.

Looking at him made me depressed. Not only because he was annoying, but because I’d stayed with him for years. Sure, I’d been at boarding school and college at the time, so it had been a long-distance relationship, but we’d been together.

It took me too long to recognize he was shallow, arrogant, selfish, and didn’t have any of my interests or feelings at heart.

To him, I was a trophy. A woman he wanted on his arm.

No, more than that. He wanted the alliance with my parents.

To be part of the Hunter family. The family money he wanted to live on, even on top of his own.

The lifestyle I didn’t give a shit about.

He didn’t care about anyone but himself. Well, he cared about my parents and that was creepy as hell.

“That’s nice.”

“Your mother said that you had no intention of giving up on this little project of yours and moving home.” He looked around as he spoke.

As if the original brick walls and stylish interior was me living chained to a tree I was trying to protect from deforestation while on a hunger strike.

“This is my business, Cheney. My job. I’m an adult. Why would I move home?”

He leaned in, his dark gaze serious. Not intense.

Silas had been intense. His entire demeanor. The way he fucked. With deliberation and focus and he’d been thinking of my needs. What guy pulled out and ate a woman out to get her to come?

Silas.

The comparison between the two men was obvious. Cheney tried to be everything Silas actually was. That made me see my ex as more of a wuss than ever before.

“You’re my woman, Evelyn.”

Evelyn.

I frowned, stepped back. I was soooooo not his woman.

While the counter was between us, I wanted a little more room. He was like a spoiled kid with a toy he couldn’t have. He’d do anything to get it, no matter the cost. I had a feeling the cost would be to me. Not him.

It was my turn to cross my arms.

“No, I’m definitely not your woman. I made that very clear last year when I told you we were breaking up, that we are no longer together. Please stop coming by because you are no longer in my life.”

He raised a hand and pointed all around. “This place? Your little fun? It’s done. Your father made me the executor on your trust fund.”

June shoved the coffee filters away a little more aggressively than necessary and went to the urn of fresh coffee.

My stomach dropped. My grandparents left me money.

Lots of it. I wasn’t able to access the trust because of two conditions.

The first was a little crazy: marriage. If I married, I could take control of my own trust. I always wondered why they’d set that stipulation and assumed it was because they founded the resort together and had an amazing marriage and wanted the same for me.

Maybe if I found the perfect guy, we could use the money together to build something as enduring as my grandparents.

There was no marriageable man on the horizon.

Definitely not the one in front of me.

Not even for access to my money. That meant I would only get control of it to use it for Steaming Hotties through the second condition: turning thirty.

I couldn’t touch it until that age unless the executor granted special permission.

My father had been the executor and he’d agreed for me to take money out to open Steaming Hotties.

I’d thought it was because he liked my business idea, that my business plan I’d shared with him had been solid, but no.

He’d done it to amuse me. He’d given me enough to get the business up and running, but not much more.

I was expecting a second payment next month, but after the call the other day, I got worried.

Pulling together all the paperwork necessary, I applied for a small business loan at the banks.

Local ones and a national chain in Missoula.

I was glad I started that process because I wondered if my father ever planned to give me the second infusion of cash. It was becoming really clear he’d had this worked out with Cheney all along to force me to quit.

To let me have my fun and then shut it down.

“Why?” I asked. The question was all-encompassing, but Cheney knew what I meant.

“Because he wants us together,” he replied, as if it was actually that simple.

“By controlling my finances?” That made no sense. Seriously. None. Why would a woman ditch a business she’d worked hard to establish and make flourish, solely because a man she dumped took over control of her trust fund?

It was my money. Mine.

I didn’t want to lounge by the pool at the club and play doubles tennis. I wanted to work. To be like my grandparents and build something of my own. That was why I’d used that money instead of a small business loan from a bank. It was my money.

He shrugged, but not because he didn’t know, but because it was a done deal. As if my questions were irrelevant. “You’ll get an allowance when we marry, so what’s the difference? It’s to ensure you don’t make poor decisions. Consider this practice. Oh, and Evelyn, this place is a poor decision.”

I swallowed hard and tried not to reach across the counter and strangle him. Poor decision, my ass. I was looking at the biggest poor decision of my life. Him.

“It’s turning a profit,” I said. It was, but barely. I couldn’t live off it… yet.

“Not for long. Not without that next infusion of cash, right?” He looked around.

“You’ve got payroll. Coffee beans can’t be cheap.

Including that stupid pink t-shirt you’re wearing.

” He eyed my chest where the Steaming Hotties logo stretched across my boobs.

“I’m sure the landlord won’t hold out until your thirtieth birthday for rent because as executor, I’m not giving you another dime toward this… bad choice.”

He was trying to force me to shut down.

“I don’t need my trust fund to run the business,” I told him, tipping my chin up, hoping I showed the confidence I didn’t feel. I didn’t need it specifically. I needed money.

“Really?” he asked, his brow turning up, which made his mustache twitch. Had it always looked so stupid? “I guess I’ll have to wait and see.”

“You came in to tell me this? You could have done it over the phone. Saved yourself some time.” I tipped my head down and looked at his clothes. “And the cost of a new outfit.”

June came to stand beside me and slid a cup of coffee across the counter toward Cheney. It was in a to-go cup, lid already on. “Here you go,” she said, her friendly customer-facing smile in place.

Cheney looked at the drink as if it was poison. “What’s this?”

“Coffee. To go. You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

It was her turn to cross her arms and give him a look of death.

Cheney took the drink, took a big sip and gave me a sly smile. “See you soon, honey.”

I watched through the picture window as he left the store, strolled down the sidewalk, taking another sip as he went.

“I hate that guy,” June said. She’d never met him before, only heard about him from the times we drank wine and ate pizza together.

I turned my head. She was my first hire. My first friend in town after college. She was a year older and was a ski instructor who worked for me full time while waiting for the ski season to start.

“I hate him, too,” I said, seething.

“What are you going to do?”

I frowned, grabbed the short sticks of pasta that we offered as compostable coffee stirrers and started shoving them in their little container. “I’m not marrying him, that’s for fucking sure.”

“Good.” She turned away. “Don’t listen to him. The t-shirts are great. Makes your boobs look spectacular.”

I humphed because I was too angry to outright agree.

Next, I grabbed a rag and started wiping down the counter, but it didn’t need it. I needed something to do with my hands.

“Oh, Eve.”

I turned. “Yeah?”

“I put some of this in his coffee.” She held up a bottle of powdered laxative and waggled her eyebrows.

My mouth dropped open, and I snagged it from her. It was half empty. “Where did you get that?”

“My aunt is having a colonoscopy in a few days and needs this as part of the prep, which sounds pretty awful. I picked it up for her at the store on the way in.” She eyed the plastic bottle and frowned, probably at the idea of getting a camera up her butt.

“I’ll have to get a replacement bottle, but it’s so worth it. ”

“Why on earth do you have it here behind the counter?” I wondered.

She tipped her chin down, gave me a stare. “Just say thank you.”

I envisioned Cheney on the toilet for the foreseeable future and I had to smile.

“Thank you.” I gave her a hug, the laxative bottle between us. “You’re such a good friend.”