One Last Promise (A Bedford Falls Novel Book 2) Page 4

  Kelsey found his mettlesome nature both irritating (because she didn’t want to engage in a tension-filled discourse with her mother) and endearing, because only recently had he patched up a fractured relationship with their father and wanted Kelsey and their mom to have that same easy rapport. But in Kelsey’s mind, she’d done nothing to fracture their relationship. Her mother had simply pulled away, leaving Kelsey hurt and confused. And she had no interest in opening herself up, only to get shut out again. If anything, her mom had some explaining to do, and since she had countless opportunities over the past decade to reconcile their differences, Kelsey wouldn’t make it easy for her by opening up the topic for discussion.

  So she stared at her mother, waiting for something more; perhaps a repudiation of having taken the cookbook without asking for it or even a scornful expression for that same act of betrayal. But her mother just looked back at her, expressionless. Kelsey got the impression that the one woman on the planet who should have meant more to her than any other appeared as if she’d just met a stranger whom she couldn’t quite trust.

  But if that was the case, why did her mother always hug her upon greeting her? Didn’t that divulge some sort of affection? She could have easily given her an aloof peck on the cheek. Then again, perhaps her mother clung to the fantasy that Kelsey had shattered their relationship, and she hugged her daughter to make her feel guilty. Kelsey wouldn’t put that past her. Yet, recalling the embrace they shared only moments ago, she counted off five seconds from the moment her mother held her to when Kelsey pulled away. A meaningless hug might last three seconds at most. Anything beyond that could only be described as significant. Likewise, her mother clutched and squeezed her, which should indicate that their contact meant something. She could have simply patted her shoulders and stepped back a second later. But as much as Kelsey wanted to believe that her mom truly loved her, when she looked into her mother’s eyes, she saw…indifference.

  Kelsey nodded and left her mother to collect the tattered and torn plum-colored three-ring binder, which held over 325 recipes, from appetizers and soups to meat and seafood dishes, not to mention an assortment of cookies, bars, brownies, and cakes. She retrieved the binder from a locked drawer inside her desk and made her way back to her mother. Kelsey held it out. She couldn’t just hand it back without thanking her for how integral the recipes had been in developing the menu for her restaurant, but her mother hadn’t given permission to take it in the first place. Kelsey had just taken it. Correction: she had stolen it!

  But if she explained why she’d done so, her mom wouldn’t accept her line of logic. She would consider it silly and immature. Nevertheless, Kelsey wanted her mother to know how big of a contribution her recipes had made to the success (so far, anyway) of her restaurant. The concept of a themed restaurant would mean nothing if her customers didn’t like her food. So Kelsey tried to break the ice by saying, “They really made a—”

  “Excuse me,” said a man with a bushy mustache and a flat-brimmed, flat-topped straw hat. The thirty year-old man wearing a tweed suit squinted through bifocals as he stepped between Kelsey and her mother. He held out a hand. “Are you Kelsey Lawford? The owner of this establishment?” His whiny voice sounded as if his body never afforded him the opportunity to take a full breath, instead requiring him to snap up half-formed inhalations.

  The hair on the back of Kelsey’s neck lifted. She found this man creepy and revolting.

  He pulled a brown handkerchief out of his suit pocket and sneezed into it. He dabbed his mustache with it then placed it back into his pocket. “My name is Leonard Jarvis. I’m the proprietor of the Blissful Burger across the street.”

  Kelsey almost laughed. When she’d heard that a competitor planned to open a tropical-themed restaurant within weeks of her grand opening, she’d gotten worried. It meant she’d have yet another rival vying for the same customers she hoped to lure into her establishment. But upon hearing that the owner expected to name his restaurant the Blissful Burger, she chuckled at the ridiculousness of it. And since their enterprises would appeal to different clientele, Kelsey hadn’t given the Blissful Burger a second thought.

  “Well, I better get going,” said her mother, looking at Leonard Jarvis from the corner of her eye as she spun around and exited the building.

  At first, Kelsey regretted not getting a chance to continue talking with her mother, but on second thought, she had no idea what she would have said. But the revolting man in front of her captured her attention in the most negative way, and she had already begun calculating excuses to convince him to leave. “What can I do for you, Mr. Jarvis?”

  He grinned, exposing chipped, yellow teeth. “You may have noticed that my business recently opened.” Jarvis nodded, waiting for her to acknowledge the obvious.

  “O-okay,” Kelsey said, contemplating whether she should shove him through the revolving door five feet away.

  “I just wanted to wish you the best of luck in the success…” He glanced at the Wicked Witch and grimaced…“of this place.”

  “Well, thank you. The same goes for you.” She held out an arm, directing him toward the door. “Now if you’ll—”

  “I plan on burying your little restaurant, by the way.”

  That comment caught her by surprise. What gave this jerk the nerve? And how could he call her restaurant “little?” It dwarfed his one-story building. “Is that a fact?”

  “Oh, it will be. After you close down. And that will happen much sooner than you think.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “No, it’s a certainty.” He drew closer to her.

  Kelsey stepped back to increase the amount of space between them.

  Jarvis grinned. He took another step toward her.

  She held out a hand, stopping him. “That’s far enough. Please leave.”

  “I’ve waged war against you.” He smiled again. “And I will bury you.”

  Kelsey couldn’t help but shiver, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d rattled her. “Leave now or I’ll call the police. And they’ll boot your ass out.”

  His smile seemed frozen in place. “Good luck in the trenches.” He spun around on his heel and stepped through the revolving door. Outside the building, he faced her, placed a hand behind his back, plucked the hat from his head, and bowed, strapping a hand across his stomach. A moment later, he straightened and returned the hat to his head. That same creepy grin hadn’t left his face. He stared at her for a moment then disappeared a second later.

  Kelsey, so shaken by this strange man and his ominous threats, still considered calling the police. But Jarvis hadn’t really threatened her. He’d “waged war” against her, whatever that meant. It might come in the form of lower-priced entrées or cheaper drinks. It could come in the form of an online ad campaign. But how would the latter constitute “waging war” against her? Did he plan on launching a social media smear campaign?

  Jarvis’s foreboding statements chilled her, but rather than falling victim to the twisted delusions of a new rival, Kelsey used this opportunity to confirm that she’d done everything conceivable to ensure that The Witching Hour would become successful. She wouldn’t let Jarvis’s mind games disconcert her.

  She spent the next couple hours on the Internet doing research on her new adversary and found out that he had a track record of driving his competitors out of business in three states: Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Based on short newspaper articles, over the past four years, Jarvis had used an apparently unlimited amount of capital to undercut his competition until they had to close their doors. That said, the articles didn’t reveal what strategy or methods Matthisen had used to accomplish these feats.

  Kelsey felt nauseated. She hadn’t expended so much time and energy to give up now. Regardless, based on the finality in the way Jarvis bowed to her, she got the impression that he wouldn’t appear again until he’d accomplished his goals. And that unnerved her more than anything.

 
; CHAPTER FOUR

  “What do you think, Max?” Damon asked, looking down at his fifteen year-old Beagle, who stared up at him with a non-descript expression from the shiny hardwood floor. “It’s the end of the book. What does our heroine do after the hero pulls her in close for a kiss?”

  With his chin lying against the ground, Max (aka Maxwell, Maximus Prime – named after the Transformer – and Maximillion or any of a dozen other nicknames Damon had given him) looked up at him with watery eyes. He swiped his tongue against lips, twitched his nose, and whined.

  “She gives in to him, right? After all, it’s true love.”

  Max just looked at him, expressionless.

  “Oh, come on. I’m not that cynical.”

  Max didn’t budge a muscle.

  “You’re a touch critic. Hey, I met someone today. You’d really like her. Her name is Kelsey.” A well-adjusted person wouldn’t talk to their dog about his love life, but Damon always used Max as a sounding board, even if his dog was not capable of giving advice. “I shouldn’t be interested because Alex won’t like it, but what if it works out? Think I should I go for it?”

  Not hearing a chuff of agreement or a squeal of dissention, Damon pushed away from an immaculate mahogany desk that weighed over two hundred pounds. The surface contained a flat screen monitor and printer, along with a thesaurus, dictionary, sharpened pencils and a notebook that contained the plot and character profiles of his almost completed new romance novel, The Wicked and the Damned.

  Over the past few weeks, Max had lumbered around the house, lacking the indomitable spirit and boundless energy of days gone by. And Damon didn’t want to consider the obvious: the only friend that had seen him through high school and college, not to mention helping him get past heartache, and years of frustration as a struggling author before romance readers across the United States and Europe began purchasing his novels en masse, had gotten old. Each day he looked at Max’s face, he pretended not to notice the gray hair that had crept into his chin and sprinkled across his nose and ears.

  “Okay, I’ll put it in doggie terms: “It’s like puppy love. Make sense now?”

  In response, Max wagged his tail, but no other body part jiggled with the motion.

  His dog responded that way whenever Damon mentioned food, but considering that he hadn’t even inquired about Max’s appetite, an uneasy feeling trickled down his back, indicating that Max’s recent abnormal behavior these past few weeks might not subside, preventing his more charismatic personality from shining through. As Max’s outgoing demeanor deteriorated, giving way to a more lethargic bearing, Damon had taken Max to a veterinarian, and when his dog didn’t even resist the visit, Damon had concluded that nothing could perk up his best bud. The veterinarian echoed his fears: Max didn’t suffer from a virus or a disease. He’d simply gotten old.

  Damon had known Max longer than any human, a true confidant who always listened and never judged, a buddy who, until recently, never said no to a game of catch and also rooted on their favorite team, the Chicago Bears, by barking every time Damon cheered a touchdown by the hometown team.

  And although Damon gave his dog a nickname, he acquired a nickname as well: Romantic Times magazine saddled Damon with an absurd nickname: Dashing Damon Durant. After blogging about his distaste for the moniker, his readers had left comments about his post, suggesting over two hundred other epithets before settling on The Duke of Disregard, which he regarded as both silly and fitting since he wrote Regency novels set in London between 1811-1820 and all of his male protagonists were dukes.

  Although he wouldn’t admit it, he actually enjoyed the nickname, not because he fashioned himself as regal but because it meant his readers enjoyed his novels, finding them romantic, titillating, exciting, and fun. In short, their validation made him want to validate their belief in him by taking pride in the name they had given him. At book signings, which he conducted twice a year throughout the states at six-month intervals, he loved meeting those who spent their hard-earned money on the most challenging but rewarding career he could imagine.

  Over the past ten years, he’d written half dozen novels that, while turning a profit for his publisher, forced Damon to take construction jobs on the side in order to support himself, because all of the time and energy and dedication he expended to complete and market each novel had actually put him in the hole. Therefore, after preferring not to sign another contract with a print publisher, he bought back the rights to his novels and decided to self-publish them along with latest novel, The Wicked and the Damned. That book concluded the seven-volume “Wicked” series that focused on a brood of male siblings and the personal issues they wrestled with in order to overcome their status as titled and wealthy in Regency England to find the loves of their lives.

  Although he wanted to concentrate on work, his thoughts returned to his dog. After scooping out some sliced strawberries as well as blueberries and blackberries from a container in the freezer, Damon placed them on a plate in front of Max, who used a paw to move the plate closer to his mouth, so he wouldn’t have to expend energy to move his body closer to it. He looked at the treats then raised weary eyes to Damon as if to say, “Why is this happening to me?”

  With eyes that filled with tears at his friend’s hopeless expression, Damon knelt down and tried to put on a smile. He failed. “What can I do? How can I make this right? What do you need?”

  Max, suffering a bout of shame to have brought his owner to such apprehension, lowered his gaze and unraveled his tongue to swipe some fruit into his mouth.

  Damon’s heart clutched so tightly that he had to look away. He couldn’t just sit here and watch his pal fade away. He needed to do…something. “How about a trim? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Then again, Max hadn’t yet developed his winter coat. Even worse, it seemed that he’d lost some hair. “Okay, how about a new bone? Or a squeaky toy? Hell, I’m not cheap. How about both?”

  At the word “bone,” Max’s ears lifted, but when he heard the word “toy,” he raised himself up and his eyes shined with life.

  The excitement in Max’s expression and posture raised Damon’s spirits. Perhaps, his dog still had some life left in him, after all. “That’s right, buddy. Let’s head on over to PetSmart. Maybe we’ll get some treats there, too.”

  * * *

  After Paul left, the kennel’s owner had approached Kelsey, stating that due to illness and vacation, he’d run out of staff members to fill in for the Fennel Kennel Club’s two-hour weekly visitation at PetSmart, where an employee informed curious customers about the shelter and the dogs that needed new homes. He asked if she’d be willing to step in, and the short stint along with the prospect of seeing happy, well-cared for canines appealed to her.

  Plus, she now had an excuse for not having a date on Saturday night. Since so many of her girlfriends had boyfriends or had gotten married, she wouldn’t have had much to do anyway except bury her sadness in a pint of Breyer’s Ice Cream (in place of dinner) while running another television marathon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She liked to think that she had something in common with the Slayer: steadfast resolve during times of great conflict, undying loyalty to her friends and family, belief that people can change despite past transgressions, and, above all, an inability to maintain an enduring romantic relationship.

  So the prospect of speaking to actual people, rather than re-watching episodes she’d seen close to half a dozen times made her feel like she had a life. She disregarded the notion that, other than families, only lonely, single people visited PetSmart on a Saturday night by justifying that at least they had a reason to be there. But since she had taken the gig as a volunteer opportunity, others might find her even more pathetic than the customers who entered the store.

  A couple hours later, after finishing a quick and healthy dinner at a local supermarket, Kelsey headed over to PetSmart, spoke with the manager, who’d been apprised of the scheduling shortage, and signed off on a waiver before taking a booth at
the front of the store. She stood behind a counter, flanked by two easels that propped up a three-by-four-foot laminated board displaying blown-up photos of smiling dogs. Kelsey adjusted the cloth banner running the length of the table, advertising the Fennel Kennel Club and waited for customers to approach her. Unfortunately, very few people wandered through the building; they had better things to do.

  Soon enough, a four year-old boy with a devilish grin held up a shiny toad in his palm as he chased after his shrieking six year-old sister who darted past Kelsey’s booth. Behind them, a married couple in their early thirties walked with their arms around each other’s shoulders and waists, laughing at the ridiculous scene playing out ahead of them.

  Kelsey swallowed back a moment of jealousy, not just because the couple still looked very much in love, but also because they hadn’t chastised their kids for acting like…children. That’s the type of relationship she wanted: to be in love with happy children. But with technology separating families from spending quality time together and parents who often needed to work, while rushing to and from every place imaginable, Kelsey saw how married couples had difficulty keeping the romance alive in their relationships.

  She’d always imagined having three children – two girls and a boy, each separated by two years – not that she’d given it great thought or anything. And if she ever fell in love, got married, and was fortunate enough to start a family, she would cut down her workload to spend as much time with them as she could. On the other hand, if her husband preferred to be a stay-at-home father, she would happily continue onward with her career, albeit with reduced hours to help care for her kids and make sure they grew up with enough guidance, support, and love as possible.