E is for Everett (Men of Alphabet Mountain) - Page 12

Finn was in his late twenties, knew the town well enough to fit in, and he was a damn fine cook. He could run the kitchen, and Mom could keep the front of house in line. Everything would be fine for me to take one day off. I had to keep telling myself that over and over.

Dad was up, sitting in his usual chair, when I went into the living room early that afternoon. I was all ready for a nice, head-clearing walk to one of my favorite places in the world as a child, but first I needed to make sure he got some lunch. He looked over at me and smiled amiably, in a good mood and seemingly with all his faculties.

“Morning, sweetheart,” he said.

“Morning, Dad,” I said. “I’m going down to the creek for a bit. Is there anything you would like for lunch before I go?”

“You always did love that creek,” Dad said, his eyes wistful as he clenched my hand for a moment. “You would go out there and spend hours when you were a teenager. Your mother always worried you were smoking, but I knew better. Not my Helen. Carrie on the other hand…”

He trailed off and I couldn’t help but laugh. He was right. Even though roughly eighty percent of the people I knew when I first started in food smoked, I never got into it. My addiction was tattoos. Carrie did all the rebellious kid stuff while I worked on getting good grades and getting the hell out of Ashford.

“So, tacos?” I asked.

His face brightened and he returned his gaze to me.

“That sounds wonderful,” he said. “You made those tortillas the other day. Are they still good?”

“They sure are,” I said. “Everything will be ready in about fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks, honey,” he said.

I made Dad some tacos with a quick and simple recipe I learned early in my career, and I ate one myself before heading out. Tacos were one of the questionable items I was toying with adding to the menu at the diner. Sure, they weren’t exactly normal diner fare, nor were they terribly common in Ashford, Tennessee outside of a chain restaurant at the edge of town, but they were delicious. If Finn and I got on the same page about them, it could give Dina’s a destination menu item that no one else would even attempt to try.

Rolling the idea over in my head while I walked, I headed toward the creek where I spent so much time as a teenager. The backpack I had brought home from Chicago was the same one I always wore to work, which was a purposeful decision that I tried not to think about too much. My chef knives were in the bag, and while I would protect them with my life, I worried sometimes I might have to protect my life with one of them. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but one that I had from time to time.

At least Ashford was safer. Chicago got a bad rap as far as I was concerned. A lot of the crime was all in a concentrated area and had a systemic problem that fed into itself, causing a lot of the strife, but there was no comparison even in the safer areas of Chicago to Ashford. I probably didn’t need my knives with me, but I felt better having them, just in case.

The bag bounced a bit on my lower back as I hiked up the hill and then crested it, heading down toward the creek. Pushing through the trees on the trail that seemed as old as the Appalachians themselves, I made my way down and down until I could hear the water rolling through.

Just as I got to the edge of the tree line, I heard someone ahead of me and stopped. Peeking through the trees, I noticed it was one of the logging guys, sitting there on a fallen tree. He had an old-timey lunch pail with him and was holding a sandwich, happily snacking. It was kind of adorable, but at the same time wildly annoying.

This was my creek. I knew I didn’t have any real claim to it or anything. It was way out in what I assumed was unincorporated land, but it was also a place that I had come to for years and thought of as my own. I didn’t want to share it.

I made myself known with a light cough and he looked up and waved. For a split second, my heart leapt into my throat. It was the hot one that I saw at the hospital. Dammit. Just what I needed.

I made a half-smile and waved back but then turned my expression into what was probably a glare. I wanted him to know I wanted to be alone, but I didn’t want to piss off a burly man in secluded woods either.

Tags: Natasha L. Black Erotic
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