Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Vivian slowly buttoned the front buttons of her sweater, standing in the center of her kitchen and staring into space. It was Saturday evening after dinner, and she was home alone.
Will I ever get used to this? She thought, looking around her cozy, tidy kitchen. Being alone in the house like this?
Frank had been a quiet man, and he’d often been gone at night, going out with friends or working late hours at the pub. But his presence had always seemed to be in the house with her, even when he wasn’t home. She had never felt alone in their house, even after all of the kids had moved out, because if he wasn’t there, she always knew he was coming back soon.
She took a deep breath as she finished buttoning her sweater. She contemplated getting a dog, or some other kind of pet, to help keep her from feeling too lonely. She smiled quietly, reminding herself that the kids were there with her. She could handle the days ahead with them at her side.
She wasn’t looking forward to the task ahead of her, but she squared her shoulders and made her way to Frank’s little home office, which was located just past the stairs. The room was small, little more than a glorified closet, but it had been packed full of papers. Frank had seemed to have everything loosely organized, but what had probably made sense in his mind was a puzzle to her. She’d already spent hours combing through the papers, making sure Julia would have everything she needed in order to put the finances of the pub in order.
She put her hands on her hips as she looked down at the desk. She only had one more drawer left to organize and clean out, and she told herself firmly that she could do it. It wasn’t the cleaning that bothered her, but she seemed to feel the weight of Frank’s passing so much more when she was sitting there combing through all of the papers that he’d arranged. He was never going to arrange them again, and she couldn’t help being sad that she was pulling apart something he’d made.
She pulled open the last drawer and tugged out a thick stack of papers. Most of them were tucked into paper folders, but many of them were stacked loosely, or even crumbled. She set the stack of papers down on the desk in front of her, and then sat down in Frank’s creaky old chair.
She began to go through the papers one by one. Many of them were documents that Julia should have, and many of them were old business letters that she put onto the trash pile she’d been making. After a few minutes, she came across a letter that made her frown. It was from a Judd McCormick, offering to buy the property where the pub was located.
“That skunk,” she muttered, remembering the tall, smooth-talking businessman. He’d talked to her in person at the pub a few times, probably trying to sweeten her up. She’d found him to be disconcertingly insincere, and he’d seemed like the kind to only pretend to listen while in reality he was just following whatever narrative he had going on in his head.
She glanced at the date on the letter, and her eyebrows rose. It was dated the year before, a few years after Judd had come into the pub and spoken to her. She turned to the next document, and sure enough, it was another letter from Judd, dated the year before. She lifted up that letter and found yet another one underneath it. One by one, she uncovered several letters from Judd McCormick, all dated a year apart.
She shook her head as she read over the letters. They were worded almost exactly the same way each time. The man had clearly been determined not to quit, and she felt grateful that Frank had never given into him.
I still have the pub, thanks to you, Frank, she thought, taking a deep breath and feeling a bittersweet ache in her chest. It’s all the legacy I have left of you, aside from our children.
Her heart lifted at the thought of her children. She didn’t know what she would do without them there with her, and she wished that they could all stay a little longer.
Smiling a little to herself, she placed the letters from Judd onto the top of the trash pile and began to finish the rest of her work.
Cooper tried to stifle a massive yawn, but it spread across his face anyway. Behind him in the back seat of the car, Macey was finally sleeping, and he let out a sigh of relief.
It had been a rough night. His little girl had been restless and fitful almost the whole night, acting irritable in a way he didn’t understand or know how to deal with. He was grateful it was the weekend instead of a workday, because he’d gotten three hours of sleep at best. He felt like a walking zombie, and Macey also seemed tired and still irritable.
He’d decided to treat them both to a fun breakfast out on the town, and they were on their way to The Salty Spoon, one of Rosewood Beach’s local restaurants. Getting Macey ready had been a struggle, and he was beginning to doubt that going out to eat was a good idea. He wasn’t sure how their outing was going to go, or how she was going to behave inside a loud, busy restaurant.
He a’rived at the restaurant and parked along the street outside. He could already see that their parking lot was packed, and he decided that he might as well skip the chaos and park there on the road. He glanced at Macey in the rearview mirror again. She was sleeping fitfully, but at least she was still sleeping, and he didn’t want to wake her. He let out another massive yawn, deciding to take a short nap himself in the driver’s seat. He figured they could both get some shuteye for a while, and she would wake him up when she’d awoken.
Feeling relieved at the prospect of getting a little more sleep, he closed his heavy eyelids and began to drift off almost instantly. In the next moment, however, a car horn honked loudly nearby, and Macey began to cry.
He forced his eyes open and turned around toward his daughter, speaking to her soothingly and patting her knee.
“It’s okay, Macey, it’s just a car,” he said. “Look, we’re here at the restaurant. You want to go inside?”
She made some kind of noise and moved her head up and down, and he took that as a “yes.”
“Come on,” he said, smiling at her cheerfully. “We’re going to get some pancakes. You love pancakes, right? And chocolate milk?”
At the mention of chocolate milk and pancakes, Macey brightened. Cooper got out of the car and helped her out of her car seat, and then they made their way inside the restaurant together, holding hands.
The place was packed. People were talking and laughing and clinking their dishes, and waitresses and waiters were zipping around, hurrying from table to table. The place smelled incredible, but Macey took a step back, looking nervous.
“You want to go in?” he asked her.
She hesitated for a moment, and then seemed to remember the chocolate milk and pancakes and nodded.
He stepped up to the hostess. “Can you squeeze us in anywhere?”
“Sorry, it’s a twenty-minute wait.” She looked sympathetically at Macey, who still looked wary and cranky. “But I can give her some crayons to play with in the meantime.”
His stomach grumbled, and he kicked himself for not thinking to make a reservation. “That would be great, thank you so much.”
“Of course.” The hostess smiled at him and took down his name for the wait list.
He sat down with Macey on one of the benches placed by the front door. She kept trying to get off the bench and walk into the restaurant, not understanding why they were waiting there. After her fourth attempt to go into the dining room, she was starting to get very frustrated.
“Not too much longer, honey.” He smiled at her, hoping to help her feel calmer. “You want to play with the crayons?”
At first, Macey wasn’t interested in the crayons or the disposable coloring-page kids’ menu that had come with them, but he started to draw something on the back of the menu and that caught her attention. She was soon scribbling away happily, seeming to just be enjoying the way the crayons traced color across the page.
Cooper leaned his head back against the wall and felt his eyes become droopy with fatigue again. He glanced at his watch and sighed, seeing that they still had another sixteen minutes to wait.
It didn’t take long for Macey to cover her whole menu—and some of the bench they were sitting on—with crayon marks.
“That looks wonderful,” he told her, hoping the hostess would be willing to give them a second menu. She wasn’t at the door at the moment, however, and Macey slid off the bench and started toward the dining room again.
“No, honey.” He hurried to take her hand, but she tugged herself away from his grasp. “We have to wait.”
“No.” She frowned, her bottom lip starting to tremble. He could sense a tantrum coming on, and he took a deep breath, wondering what to do.
“I’m going to tell you a story.”
She pointed to the dining room.
“It’s a very special story. I can only tell it to you if we’re sitting on the bench, and we have to hear it before we eat our breakfast.”
Macey wrinkled her nose for a moment, but she loved stories, so she reluctantly toddled back to the bench. Breathing a sigh of relief, he took her onto his lap and told her the story of one of his favorite movies, substituting fruits and vegetables for the heroes, and moldy bread for the villain. He was able to coax a few smiles out of Macey, but a story like that would normally have her practically falling over with giggles.
When he finished the story, she glanced toward the dining room again and squirmed on his lap. He knew that twenty minutes must seem like hours to a two-year-old, and he glanced at his watch again. They still had a few minutes left to wait. Macey, sensing the release in his grip around her, started to wiggle off his lap toward the dining room.
“No, sweetheart. Not yet, we?—”
He could see her face starting to scrunch up as she got ready to burst into tears. He winced, but at that moment the hostess stepped up to them. “All right, you two, thanks for waiting. We’ve got that table all ready for you.”
“You here that, Macey?” He picked his daughter up, smiling at her. “We get to eat now.”
Macey’s tears evaporated at the prospect of food, and he breathed a sigh of relief. They followed the waitress into the dining room, where they were seated at a booth next to a window.
They ordered their food, and everything was going well for a while. Macey got a new kids’ menu to color on, and their drinks arrived after a couple of minutes. Cooper took a sip of his coffee gratefully, and Macey wiggled in her chair with excitement as she took a sip of her chocolate milk.
Things stopped going well when she went back to coloring and moved her hand too wildly across her menu. She knocked her chocolate milk over, and the lid popped off. Chocolate milk splashed across the table in a sudden river and began to drip onto the floor.
Macey burst into tears, and Cooper set his coffee cup down in a hurry.
“Oh, don’t worry, it’ll be okay!”
Cooper looked up in surprise as a woman hurried up to their table, immediately dabbing the spill with a stack of napkins. She moved quickly and efficiently, smiling encouragingly at Macey.
“We’ll get you another one, don’t worry. Excuse me.” The woman stopped a passing waitress with a polite gesture. “Could we get another glass of chocolate milk for her? This one spilled.”
“Of course.” The waitress smiled and hurried away.
The woman turned back to the table, finishing cleaning up the spilled chocolate milk, and Cooper started to help her, still feeling surprised by the way she’d swooped in so quickly to their rescue. She turned to him, smiling, and his heart started to beat faster when he recognized the woman who he’d caught in the rain the other day.
“Oh, hello.” She seemed slightly taken aback for a moment, as if remembering how rude she’d been to him, but then her smile returned.
“Hi.” He blinked rapidly and then smiled back at her. This time she was the one helping him out when he was struggling. He felt a little uncomfortable, worried that he came across as someone who was failing at rocking the single parent situation, but he couldn’t help feeling a little tickled by the circumstances.
Now we’ve even , he thought, suppressing a smile as he dabbed at the table with a napkin. This is a good way of breaking the ice.
He stole another glance at her as she piled the soggy napkins into a heap at the end of the table. It seemed strange to see someone dressed in such fancy big-city clothes cleaning up a table at a restaurant, but despite her high heels and pencil skirt, she was clearly comfortable with getting her hands dirty. The way she’d jumped right in to help made him think she wasn’t as prissy as she’d first appeared.
“Thanks for helping us with this.” He smiled at her, feeling as nervous as a schoolboy around her, since she was so pretty. Her makeup wasn’t as elaborate as it had been the first day he’d met her, but she was still strikingly beautiful, and her dark hair was pulled back with a gleaming black hair clip.
“Of course. I know how quickly these kinds of things can happen in a restaurant.”
He found himself buzzing with curiosity about her. Did that mean she was a waitress? She sure didn’t dress like a waitress. “Can I ask your name?”
“Julia Owens.” She reached her hand out and he shook it. Both of their palms were slightly sticky from the chocolate milk.
“Cooper Harris. Very pleased to meet you.”
They shared a smile, and then she seemed to be about to leave the table.
“What brings you into town?” he asked hurriedly, hoping she’d stay and talk to him for a little while longer.
She hesitated, looking sad all of a sudden, which confused him.
“My father recently passed away.” Her voice was soft but steady. “I’m here for the funeral.”
He swallowed, his heart going out to her. “I’m so sorry to hear that. My condolences.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“So your family lives here in Rosewood Beach?”
“Yes. My mother and two of my siblings live here, and another sister and I are back for now.”
He liked the way she said “for now.” It implied she wasn’t about to disappear back to the big city. He found himself hoping that she wasn’t going to.
“Well, we’re glad you’re back.” He smiled at her, feeling a little tongue-tied and awkward. His heart was thumping in his chest as he wondered about her.
She flushed slightly, her hands resting delicately on the end of the table as if she wasn’t sure what to do with them. She glanced at Macey, who had gone back to her drawing, and smiled hesitantly, as if she didn’t have much experience with children.
“She’s a cutie.” Julia turned back to him, still looking slightly flushed.
“That she is.” He glanced down at his daughter for a moment, fondness filling him, then returned his attention to Julia. “Do you… do you have any nieces or nephews?”
He’d been about to ask her if she had any children of her own, and then decided that was too forward. He glanced at her hands and noted that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
“I do, one niece. She’s twelve now. I’ve been away so much it feels like she went from baby to pre-teen in the blink of an eye.”
He chuckled. “Her mother probably feels the same way even though she was there the whole time. I can’t believe how fast this little one is growing up.”
Macey looked up and offered a chubby smile, seeming to be aware that she was being talked about. Cooper chuckled again.
“Are you here for breakfast?” he asked Julia, glancing around and wondering where her table was. They were fairly close to the door, in a large room, but he didn’t see any empty tables or booths around them.
“That was my plan. Unfortunately, they’re too busy here this morning. I’m happy they have the business, but it means I’ll have to go somewhere else.”
“I’m sorry to hear that?—”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m on my way to The Lighthouse Grill anyway. It’ll be easy for me to just grab some breakfast there.”
“Oh, well, would—you can eat with us if you want.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he worried that he’d been too forward. She immediately flushed a little bit and blinked a few times. “I mean, since there is nowhere to sit. Or you could join me—us—another time. Or…”
By that point, he felt sure that he was also flushed pink. He wanted to kick himself, realizing how sorely out of practice with flirtation he was.
“Thanks for offering,” she said, smiling at him almost shyly. “But I’ve waited here long enough and I should get going. Besides, I don’t want to skip the line, if you know what I mean?” She gestured back to where other people were still waiting for a table.
He felt disappointment flop in his stomach, although he had to admit her excuses were valid, and he liked that she was being considerate to the people in line behind her. “Of course. Well, I hope you have a good day.”
“You as well.” She hesitated for a moment, and then she smiled at him. “I hope I’ll see you again.”
“Likewise,” he stammered, and she turned around and made her way toward the door of the restaurant. He watched her go, feeling his chest expand with hope.