Debbie Macomber - Blossom Street Bundle

He’d also told her that Kellie Kramer had been fired. She’d overstepped her bounds, and her insubordination wouldn’t be tolerated. Her motive had been to hurt Clark and his father. If Phoebe ended their engagement, Kellie would succeed. He’d begged for another chance and, with her mother’s encouragement ringing in her ears, Phoebe had let him convince her.

“Phoebe? Phoebe, are you still there?” her mother asked plaintively.

“I’m here, Mom.”

“Promise me you’ll sleep on this,” she said again. “Your entire future is at stake.”

“I already told you, Mother. There’s nothing to sleep on. Clark was with this other woman. He admitted it!”

“Yes, but she entrapped him.”

“That doesn’t matter. What does is that he broke his word.”

“I’m so afraid you’re going to do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”

You mean something you’re going to regret, Phoebe thought but didn’t say. She closed her eyes. “I…I can’t talk about this anymore. Good night, Mom.”

She had to persevere, not only against Clark but against her own mother, who’d rather see Phoebe sacrifice her happiness and integrity than end a socially advantageous—but emotionally corrupt—relationship.

She couldn’t get to that knitting class fast enough, she told herself wryly. She had to banish Clark Snowden from her life and that meant she needed all the fortification she could get.

CHAPTER

Bryan “Hutch” Hutchinson

Hutch sat in Dr. Dave Wellington’s office, waiting. His physician and former classmate wanted to speak to him and that couldn’t be good. He’d gone in for his annual physical, except that it wasn’t so annual, and following a series of tests, Dave’s nurse had ushered him into his office.

Hutch and Dave had been friends for years; they’d gone to high school and college together, both star football players. Before Hutch took over the family business, they’d golfed together every Wednesday afternoon. Golf. Like so much else, he’d given it up after his father’s sudden death. Hutch had assumed the position of CEO at Mount Rainier Chocolates, and his life hadn’t been the same since.

There was no longer time for golf in the middle of the day. And now, with the pending lawsuit…

Hutch didn’t want to think about that because whenever he did he grew irritated. He figured that was bad for his blood pressure, which the nurse had told him was elevated. Little wonder. So okay, he probably wasn’t as fit as he’d been in college. He didn’t have time to work out. The company’s demands made it impossible.

“Am I going to live?” Hutch joked as his friend walked in. Dave strode to the other side of his desk and pulled out the chair.

“That depends.”

The smiled died on Hutch’s lips. “You’re joking, right?”

Dave leaned toward him. “Your blood pressure is far too high.”

“Yeah, but…” He frowned. These days his stress level was through the roof, thanks largely to a frivolous lawsuit recently filed against the company. Some woman claimed that eating Mount Rainier Chocolates had made her fat. Oh, the lawsuit dressed it up with fancy words about “psychological dependence” and “exploitive advertising” but the plaintiff’s weight gain was the basis of her legal action. Talk about stupid! And yet it was just the kind of case he’d often read about, in which a jury awarded huge sums as punitive damages. The plaintiff shouldn’t have stood a chance of winning, but she had a crackerjack attorney who’d charged Mount Rainier Chocolates with malicious and willful misconduct and obviously hoped to create a precedent that would make his name. Every time Hutch thought about it, he became more agitated. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? To common sense? To accountability?

Hutch didn’t care what it cost; he wasn’t caving in, not to blackmail, and that was what he considered this. Okay, so his blood pressure was high; he’d deal with it. “Fine, I’ll take a pill.”

Dave shook his head. “It’s more than that. You’re working too hard, not exercising enough and I’m well aware that your diet is atrocious. You have all the classic symptoms of a man headed for a heart attack.”

“Hey, I’m only thirty-five.”

“Unmarried. And you know what the statistics say about the benefits of marriage—especially for men.”

The fact that he didn’t have a wife was also an issue with his mother. “I don’t have time to meet women,” he grumbled.

Dave talked right over that. “You also have a family history of heart disease.”

“Yes, but—”

“How old was your father when he died?”

Hutch exhaled. “Fifty-eight.” He’d never forget the day he lost his father. He’d been twenty-five, carefree, selfish and a little arrogant. Back in those days, he had time for golf and dating and friends. That had all changed, literally overnight.

He’d always accepted that eventually he’d step into his father’s shoes as head of the family enterprise. But he’d figured it would be years before Bryan Sr. retired and he hadn’t concerned himself with details about the business. Although Hutch had showed up for work every day, he hadn’t paid much attention. Certainly not enough to assume the company’s leadership on such short notice.

It had taken him two years to learn everything he needed to know about the business and the CEO’s role. He’d made mistakes and the company had floundered. Not only did he have responsibilities to their employees, his mother depended on the income. Mount Rainier Chocolates had lost market share, and those lessons had been hard, but Hutch had slowly found his way. Over the next few years, the company did marginally better and then, gradually, there’d been a turnaround. His confidence increased. Hutch had encouraged the development of new products, which he wanted to test. He’d switched distributors. He was involved in every aspect of the business, from research to hiring to advertising and everything in between. And because of all that, he worked twelve-and fourteen-hour days. This wasn’t a good time to be sued, in other words. Then again, was there ever?

“I’ll write you a prescription,” Dave said sternly, “but what you really need is a change in lifestyle.”

Hutch resisted the urge to groan aloud. He couldn’t add one more thing to his already crowded schedule. “Like what?”

“Diet.”

Now, that rankled—although he agreed that he skipped too many meals and ate too much junk food on the run. “I’m not overweight,” he argued.

“True, but you’re close to being anemic, your potassium is low and you’re putting your immune system at risk. That’s one of the reasons it’s taking your thumb so long to heal.”

More than a month ago Hutch had sliced open the flesh between his thumb and index finger while he was trying to cut a rubbery, two-day-old piece of pizza. The injury had required several stitches. To this day it continued to bother him. His improperly healed thumb was what had prompted him to make the appointment for his physical. It’d been a year and a half since he’d last seen Dave in a professional capacity. Or any capacity, really, except for a drink at Christmas.

“What about vitamins?” Hutch asked hopefully.

“I’m going to recommend one and put you on iron tablets, as well as blood pressure medication, but that isn’t enough. You need to start taking better care of yourself.” The unspoken words hung in the air between them. Otherwise Hutch would end up like his father—prematurely dead of a heart attack.