Jealousy Junction by Cathryn Grant (rosie project .txt) 📗

Chapter 1

Moving from California to Liars Island had been an impulsive decision. Still, somehow, I felt like moving there was inevitable, that making a home on Liar’s Island was my destiny.

However, it wasn’t at all impulsive that I wanted to open an organic grocery store. I’d wanted that for years, maybe since I’d been a little girl, handing a basket of vine-grown tomatoes I’d tended from seedlings to my family. Watching their eyes grow wide, their tongues creep out to lick the juice from their lips as they moaned softly over the sun-kissed flavor.

I’d always thought I would watch my dream unfold in my hometown, but my mother was swept away by a rogue wave on a wild beach, and a few years later, my father died a slow, tormented death from cancer. After that, I just wanted to be somewhere else. Someplace fresh.

Once I discovered Liars Island, only a few weeks passed before I had packed and moved, leased the site for Fresh Barons, and purchased a beautiful lakefront home with my inheritance.

So far, my impulse had proven correct.

Fresh Barons was everything I’d dreamed. I’d had the interior custom-designed and built so that it offered shoppers the atmosphere of a farmer’s market. The vegetables were in stands with canvas roofs, and the bulk nuts and dried fruits were stored in oak barrels.

Now, I stood at the back of the store, just outside the space that led to the warehouse and my office.

The store hummed with shoppers. Even teenagers loved strolling the aisles of Fresh Barons, stopping in on their way to school to grab a smoothie or a fancy coffee drink made with locally sourced and organically grown beans. Women and men, young and old, pushed their carts at a leisurely pace, drinking in the aromas from the deli and even the faint undertone of roses from the tiny flower stand tucked in the corner near the main doors.

I loved being in the store—my office, not so much. I did as much bookkeeping work as I could in my home office. The office in the corner of the warehouse was cold, even when the weather was warm.

John Baker, a prince of a general manager in every way, was overseeing the stocking of recently delivered produce. “We’re still getting requests for a larger variety of mushrooms,” he said. “Almost every day.”

I smirked. “Six varieties aren’t enough? It’s more than—“

“You don’t have to tell me. I’m just passing on the word. I could check into it.”

“You’re saying we should?”

“Customers have fallen in love with you when they see you stock something they’ve asked for. It makes them feel noticed.”

He was right about that. We just needed to have a little caution. There was a fine line between providing the greatest variety and having to deal with more waste.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I pulled it out and looked at the message.

My heart nearly stopped, literally. I’d expected a message from one of my section supervisors, or maybe from my newest friend on Liars Island, Lucky Channing. Lucky works as a stylist at the Blunt Cut but spends all her free time at political marches and was always trying to get me to join her.

I half hoped it was a text from Jerry. We’d only been seeing each other for a month or so, but he was already staying at my house most nights.

When he wasn’t with me, Jerry lived in a motor home at the campground he managed. He was the last guy I would have expected to fall for—two years younger than I was and kind of a hippie, although I guess some would consider an organic grocer to be leaning in the hippie direction. But he was so easy-going, so much fun, so optimistic, like me. Having an optimistic partner was important to me. It was also nice to be around someone who wasn’t as driven as I was most of the time. I had a lot of energy to burn, and Jerry was very good at keeping me grounded. I thought I might be falling in love.

Lucky and some of my other friends gave me the side-eye when I told them Jerry and I were seeing each other. They didn’t think he was all that sharp. But I didn’t see him that way at all. It made me wonder if they’d ever actually talked to him for more than three minutes. He was probably more intelligent than quite a few of them.

No, the text was from the last person I ever expected.

My sister. The sister who made my heart ache every time I thought of her, but who had also made me vow I wouldn’t open myself to any more rejection. In most cases, I’m not a person who takes things personally. I’m happy and upbeat, and I try to see the best in everyone. Truly. It’s the truth.

But you can’t let people keep stabbing you in the heart and not finally wake up and say—Hey, I might be able to make this pain stop if I don’t keep holding my heart out there on the palm of my hand where it’s free for anyone to attack. What I finally told myself was—Have some boundaries, Alexis.

Even though Tanya and I had lived about fifteen minutes away from each other, she had cut me out of her life after our father died. She didn’t want to get together for dinner or even a drink. She didn’t want to talk to me about her wedding plans, and she didn’t want to go for a hike or shopping or even chat on the phone.

Then, she failed even to ask my opinion when she sold our family home without looking back. She had inherited the house, while my inheritance consisted of liquid assets. My father had been thrilled that his legacy would be my vision for helping people put healthy, pure food into their bodies. He loved that I had a dream,