She glanced up, then, a distracted meeting of gazes and a fleeting smile. “Hey.” She went back to her work, and he was both grateful for the fact that it had turned out to be a non-event – and a little disappointed that there hadn’t been any eye contact, or tension, or a chance for butterflies in stomachs.
“Hey.” He unwrapped his sandwich. “Work stuff?” he asked, and, when she glanced up, nodded toward the computer before taking a bite.
“Not really.” She frowned. “I’m looking at loan options.” She shook her head. “Not very successfully.” That was when he noticed that she wasn’t just concentrating, but that faint lines of strain wreathed her usually-smiling mouth, lip caught again between her teeth. She looked worried, and sounded it, too.
He set his sandwich down, and wiped his hands. “A loan? Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” she said, and then sighed, and her gaze finally met his and held. Her dark eyes brimmed with stress and sadness, and Carter wanted to reach across the table, an automatic reaction to touch her somewhere, anywhere, and offer comfort. He didn’t, but he found himself leaning toward her. “No,” she admitted, a minute later. “I don’t…” Her gaze flicked toward the counter, where her mother had stepped back to froth milk and let the teen boy run the till for a moment. When Leah glanced back, she leaned forward, too, and her voice dropped to a whisper.
“Okay, they’d die if they knew I was telling anyone, but when I got here, Mom was in the office on the phone with the landlord. He’s selling this building, and he’s got the price so jacked up they can’t afford to buy it from him.”
He lifted his brows. “Why would he make it so hard for them?”
“Because he’s a grouchy old asshole,” she muttered. “He’s been hiking their rent up every three months for the past two years, Mom said. He’s trying to make them go broke! I don’t…” She let out a shuddering breath and pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes closing a moment. “I had no idea they were in financial trouble.”
“They must not have wanted to worry you.”
“But I could have helped!” She tossed her hands up, and then linked them behind her neck, sighing again. “I could have tried to help. Jeez.” She inclined her head toward her computer. “I thought maybe if I cosigned the loan with them, they could pass the credit check. I just…don’t know what to do.” She turned to Carter, gaze imploring. “They’ve poured their whole life savings and all their love into this place. If someone else buys it, and forces them to vacate, it’ll all go down the toilet.”
“I’m sorry,” he said with a pang of sympathy. He hated seeing her like this; the urge to help was swift and strong. “What if someone bought it who would just keep the shop as is. Charge your parents rent like the first owner – or, well, not price gouge them. But maybe a new landlord doesn’t mean the shop has to go anywhere.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced. “But there’s no guarantee. They could say they would leave it, and then change their minds in six months.”
“Cook’s Coffee is a landmark.”
She gave him a look.
“It is. It’s an important local business around here. You’d just need to find a new landlord who thought the same way and wanted to keep it as is.”
“I don’t think you get to pick your own landlord,” she whispered, dryly.
“No, but you could…” He gesturing, frowning to himself. There had to be a way…
“Ask someone to buy the place,” she said, and then her eyes flew wide. “Oh my God, we could ask someone to buy it.”
“It’s an idea.”
“It’s agoodidea.” She grinned, hope sparking in her gaze. “Who just bought every other building on this block?”
He sat upright with a jolt of excitement. “The club.”
“The club.” She grinned, and she was radiant. He wanted to kiss her, he realized. Wanted to thread his fingers through her hair, reel her in close, and taste her mouth.
The impulse was so shocking, so intense, and flooded him with such molten heat that he gasped.
“What?” she asked, brows drawing together. She must have thought something was wrong. He wondered what his face was doing, besides heating until he felt feverish.
He cleared his throat and tried to get a handle on himself; tried to push away the specific, highly arousing fantasies that surged up out of the vague depths of his imagination and plastered themselves across the forefront of his mind. “I can talk to Ghost, and see if he’ll go for it.”
“Would you?” She vibrated, bouncing a little in her chair and clasping her hands together. “Oh my God, Carter, that would be perfect!”
Back at the practice field, his chest had felt light and empty; now it felt full, heavy – achingly so. Full of promise, and want, and the kind of crippling avarice that would keep him pinned to this chair until he could talk himself down.
He picked up his tea and took a long, cool slug, helpless but to smile back at her.
He thought about what Ava had said, about getting things settled first, and knew it was time to talk to Jazz.
Twenty-Three
