Here in My Heart: A Novella (Echoes of the Heart) by Anna DeStefano

saying good-bye the right way.
    “No more kissing,” she said, taking herself to task as much as Brad. “We’re talking about building a successful partnership, not a train wreck.”
    He’d rested his arms on his knees, lethally relaxed. Intense. Sad.
    “Deal.” He stood and reached out his hand, expecting her to close the distance between them.
    She did, but she didn’t trust herself to touch him yet.
    “Friends?” he asked.
    As long as they didn’t forget that this was only about being friends again, no one would get hurt, right?
    “Friends.” She gave herself points for not sounding as dubious as she felt. She shook. “When do we start?”
    He lifted his bag over his shoulder and with a confident smile headed up the stairs.
    “Monday morning at the Dream Whip.” He paused and looked down at her. “You’ll bring me up to speed while prepping for the lunch crowd. I’ll be gone most of tomorrow driving to Savannah and back, picking up some things for my stay. In the meantime, I’ll bunk in my old room down the hall from Vivian’s. You can run back to your parents’ couch to sleep. But Vi’s probably got spies posted in the trees out front, waiting to report on your defection.”
    Dru’s friend was being a smart ass. And he was entirely too adorable at it still for her peace of mind.
    She grabbed the backpack she used for a purse and headed up the stairs, brushing past him.
    “I’m up by five on Mondays,” she said, “and out the door by five thirty to meet the vendor trucks dropping off the week’s deliveries.”
    She made a beeline for her bedroom at the end of the top floor, ignoring Brad’s room as she passed. It was still teeming with teenage-boy mainstays like team trophies and posters of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models.
    “Get ready,” she challenged, “to work your fingers to the bone. I’m not putting myself through this unless Vivian can trust you to do right by the business.”

Chapter Seven

    “Wow!” Sally said, the Friday night before Christmas. She and her parents had just walked into the Dream Whip.
    “I know, right?” Dru laughed.
    She balanced a tray on her shoulder. It was overflowing with cups and plates and wrappers and disposable salad bowls. She couldn’t get over it. The entire community of Chandlerville was swarming the restaurant after the football game. All night she’d been bussing tables and booths, turning them over. As fast as one group of people left, another claimed the open space.
    Dru had never been so thrilled to be dead on her feet.
    “We’ve never had a Friday night like this,” she said, “not in all the time I’ve worked here. The new promotion—”
    “The one in the program from the game?” Sally held up her copy. “Officer Douglas was so right!”
    “I can see that.”
    Brad had been right about many things over the last few weeks. The SEE YOU AFTER THE GAME coupon in the football program was only his latest suggestion. His experience working food service his first year in Savannah had become a gold mine for the Whip.
    He and Dru had bickered back and forth about most of his suggestions for changing things. Sometimes he’d won, sometimes she had, but they’d put the business first always, and Dru had secretly come to enjoy the friendly sparring. It had felt like old times.
    And it had made Vivian’s day every time she’d caught wind of it. Dru and Brad tried to downplay the confrontations and focus their reports during their visits with his grandmother on their compromises, and how they were improving the restaurant. Meanwhile, as expected, Vi’s contacts in the community had entertained her with stories about each row.
    Dru had relented about the football program ad and booked it herself. She’d held her ground with Brad for longer than she’d actually disagreed with him about running a coupon. Not because she’d thought he was wrong. It just felt wrong sometimes still—making decisions with him, working with him, and