Chapter 4 #2
Dr. Brooks strolls in with his usual calm, nodding at the visitor and heading straight to the counter.
Dr. Sam Brooks, the town’s widowed physician, is the unofficial voice of wisdom and reason in Sweetpines.
He’s known for his house calls, dad jokes, and prescribing hot tea as often as antibiotics.
He’s here for a small bouquet, same as every week, for his late wife Ruthie’s memorial bench.
I’ve seen him sitting there before, quietly sipping something from a thermos and reading old paperbacks, savoring every page.
He always takes the longest pause before choosing his bouquet, as if he still wants to give Ruthie a gift she will cherish. Something about that has always stayed with me. Maybe because it reminds me how unshakably faithful people can be.
It’s the kind of devotion I used to believe in without question. These days I’m not so sure. But seeing him each week, still choosing flowers for someone he can’t speak to anymore…it makes me want to believe again.
While he’s counting out the exact change, Dr. Brooks lifts his eyes with a grin and says for everyone to hear, “This matchmaking mayhem is the best entertainment I get all year.”
“You really enjoy this commotion, Doc?” I quiz.
“Better than reruns of The Office. Keeps me from becoming a couch potato.”
I roll my eyes. “So, you’re prescribing laughter with some mocking thrown in now?”
“Only when I run out of hot tea,” he says with a wink.
“You’d be shocked how many people in town think you actually write ‘tea’ on prescription pads.”
“Only for the ones who need it most.” He gives me a knowing look.
“Oh, and Maisie, thanks again for bringing that apology bouquet out to me last minute. I was about to lose Mrs. Clausson to a doc up the river. Mr. Clausson said Marla was offended. Claimed I…” he raises his fingers in air quotes “‘… came down too hard on her about her dietary choices.’”
“Anytime, Sam.” Then I murmur under my breath as he heads out the door, “Better than The Office. Huh.”
I brush a fallen petal from my arm and turn to the visitor. “Well, I need to head out. Gotta get these centerpieces to the quilt gals.” I pluck a yellow daisy from the vase and tuck it behind my ear. “Oh, and I have to compete again, too. Small-town obligations and all.”
My arms are full as I walk through the square for the centerpiece hand-off.
The floral tray wobbles slightly with each step.
It’s balanced with six carefully arranged centerpieces and a hopeful prayer that none of the daisies decide to make a dramatic leap.
I spot the Stitch Sisters gathered beneath the judging tent, their voices floating across the breeze.
I slow my pace, not wanting to interrupt. I’m close enough to hear but they haven’t spotted me yet, so I wait, hovering beside a shade-dappled picnic table, letting their conversation wrap around me.
Frances Doyle flips through a clipboard while Millie Song fans herself with a folded quilt swatch.
“Nine couples. Five days. Two contests down. Three to go. Check. Check. Check,” Delores calculates, counting on her fingers.
“We’re off to a good start. And don’t let anyone tell you it’s just for fun.
That quilt holds ten years of Sweetpines love stories. ”
I bite back a smile. Delores has always had a flair for drama—Shakespeare with a quilting machine and a matchmaking agenda; but, she is the one who keeps the Stitch Sisters organized and on track.
“The Sweetpines Matchmaking Festival was your idea,” the youngest Stitch Sister, Estelle—who insists everyone call her ‘Essie’ now—reminds her as she adjusts her thick bifocals. “You said if a quilt couldn’t bring two people together, nothing could.”
Essie’s still got that starry-eyed optimism. She used to babysit me, Tess, and Jenna when our parents needed time for themselves. Years later, she tried to match me with her nephew using a personality test and some leftover cupcakes that had absolutely no business being involved in romance.
“Dot, that first festival was the year we matched your niece Evelyn with her mailman,” Franny laughs. “Now they run a llama rescue together.”
I grin at that one. Evelyn had always said love finds you in unexpected ways.
“We sure do know how to give love a nudge. Half instinct. Half mischief,” Reenie pipes up.
Reenie commands a room with one raised eyebrow, and bakes lavender shortbread that somehow manages to taste like encouragement.
Her hair is always in the same no-nonsense twist she’s worn since the ‘90s, tight enough to survive a windstorm, or a quilting brawl. If she says it’s instinct and mischief, I’m inclined to believe her, especially when she says it while wielding a highlighter as a matchmaking wand.
Franny, who can whip out a statistic from any of the past festivals, adds proudly, “We’ve had three engagements, two business ventures, one public breakup, and a grand total of six calendar-worthy couples.”
That voice of hers always gets more animated when numbers are involved. I swear she tracks romance as though it’s baseball.
“That’s because we’re pros at designing challenges to test all kinds of compatibility—creativity, communication, chemistry, and chaos tolerance,” Reenie brags.
And chaos tolerance, I think, eyeing my tray. No truer words.
“And if the town gets a little entertainment out of it,” Dot adds with a wink, “all the better.”
“And we all know it’s just as likely, if not more so, that failed matches, spicy drama, and blowups are what the town gossips enjoy most,” Delores whispers, and they all dissolve into companionable, knowing laughter.
I don’t move. I just listen, the corner of my mouth twitching with affection. This whole thing might be completely ridiculous, but hearing them now, I kind of get why we all keep coming back.
When the challenge is announced—candlelit cooking—I hear a loud groan from beside me.
“No,” Beau complains, almost panicky.
“Yes,” I say, entirely too cheerful. “Cooking under pressure with random ingredients and judgmental quilting ladies watching? It’s my dream date.”
Beau suggests having a fire extinguisher ready. If I remember correctly there will be a second cooking challenge in a day or two.
Team Tune-Up is already mid-argument by the supply table. I catch the words “tongs,” “unforgivable garnish,” and “not again, Luis.”
Near them, Lucy Brandt and the new guy are standing stiffly beside their ingredients like they’re not sure who should touch what first. She gestures to a zucchini.
He shrugs. Their whole vibe screams we’re trying, but we don’t know how to flirt.
It’s oddly sweet. They both reach for the salt at the same time, knock it over, and then try to apologize over each other.
They’re either going to completely bomb this challenge, or win by pure luck.
We’re handed a box of ingredients, which looks like it was curated by a particularly exotic farmers market fairy.
There’s a bunch of shallots, a bruised mango, fresh thyme, two types of cheese with labels I can’t pronounce, and—oddly—a single pomegranate.
There’s also a slab of bacon. Beau stares at the shallots like they insulted him personally.
He reaches for a pan and immediately drops it with a metallic clang. “That pan attacked me,” he mutters.
“You okay there, Gordon Ramsay?” I tease, grabbing it before it spins off the table.
From the other table, the Maybes, our favorite on-again, off-again couple, clink their bell peppers together in a weirdly intense high five, as if they’ve conquered the food pyramid. “Let’s not ruin this like last year,” Gregory says loudly.
“We didn’t even enter last year,” Gretchen shoots back. “We were taking one of our…long breaks.”
Beau fumbles with the cutting board. I take the lead, assigning tasks with the same authority I use to wrangle a wedding arch in high winds. I show him how to dice the shallots, keeping my fingers curled in a way he immediately forgets, slicing a paper-thin cut on his thumb.
“War wound,” he says, holding it up.
“Cooking cooperation,” I say, wrapping a Band-Aid around his thumb. “Now, stir that sauce like your reputation depends on it.”
We’re halfway into sautéing when Beau reaches for a spice jar and knocks it over.
A puff of paprika blooms into the air and directly into his mouth.
He sputters and shakes his head. Then some of the spice sprays from his mouth in a crooked arc as comedic as a fire-breathing dragon with poor aim.
It paints the counter and his shirt in orangey-red.
His face twists in a grimace, eyes watering as he fans the air in front of him.
“Well,” I say, waving it away, “either this risotto is going to win us the challenge, or it’s going to exfoliate our lungs.”
He gives me a sideways look, still wiping paprika off of his face.
“Good news,” I add, handing him a wooden spoon, “this could be our dramatic downfall arc.”
A few feet away, Team Let’s Go Viral announces they’ll be making soufflés “for fun.”
“If their soufflés don’t collapse,” Beau comments dryly, nodding toward Team Let’s Go Viral, “I might.”
Just then, Cassie tosses her perfect ponytail and spews something about “the flower girl and the woodsman.”
I smile sweetly. “Every festival needs a couple of overachievers.”
Peaches strolls through the judging area, sniffs a sprig of thyme, then swipes a baby carrot from under the table. Dignified theft, if I’ve ever seen it.
We plate the salvaged risotto, garnish it with whatever green we can find that doesn’t scream regret, and try not to sweat.
“Hey,” Penelope Smithers leans in as she passes. “You two better practice your kissing for the competition. Make it look convincing, sweethearts. Remember, to win, you have to be the most compatible, well-matched, emotionally connected couple.”
Penelope, Pen for short, and her husband Marty own the town diner the Griddle and Grain. Marty bakes, and Pen griddles. They also function as unlicensed therapists for customers who sit at the counter.
My hands freeze over the plate. It’s a joke, probably, but it lands as poorly as a spark in a dry forest. Beau coughs into his elbow, suddenly fascinated with the risotto. Meanwhile, something flutters uninvited in my stomach, and I have to focus hard on breathing normally.
Peaches sneezes under the table, punctuating the moment.
I glance up, and our eyes link, unable to look away. Charged. Uncertain. Open.
The less said about the results of the cooking competition, the better.
That night, we walk together back through town.
It’s quiet, but not awkward. The kind of quiet that makes you want to say things you normally wouldn’t. So I tell him, “You know, I once won a pie-eating contest at the fair when I was twelve.”
Beau looks at me, amused. “That tracks.”
“I wore my mom’s gardening hat for luck. Ended up with blueberry filling all over my face and a stomachache that lasted three days. Totally worth it.”
He chuckles, and I swear it softens the cool night air. “You ever go back for a rematch?”
“Nope. Retired undefeated.”
We walk a few more steps, and I think back to the Beau I used to know.
“Hey, Beau, I remember a few things about you from hanging around with Tess when I was growing up. You always had a grin on your face. You were ready with a quick joke or clever comeback for Tess when she told you to leave us alone.”
I scuff my toe along the cobblestones just to do something. “You weren’t loud exactly, but never this quiet.”
He just grunts.
I almost ask him what changed. What made him close off when he came back to Sweetpines after all those years.
I also remember one time, back when I was twelve or thirteen, watching him play guitar on his front porch, strumming with the easy rhythm of someone who knew the song by heart.
His laughter drifted into the dusk when he messed up a chord and playfully punched Tess when she teased him.
Now, the quiet wraps around him differently. Tighter. He carries it like armor. I wonder what it would take to make him set it down again. What he’s really thinking when the quiet stretches so long. But the words bunch up behind my teeth.
Instead, I nudge his elbow. “What about you? Any blue ribbon-worthy childhood pandemonium I should know about?”
He tilts his head, pretending to think. “Does accidentally supergluing my hand to a birdhouse count?”
I blink. “Tell me that’s literal. I don’t have the emotional bandwidth for metaphors tonight.”
“Literal, alright. Real wooden birdhouse. Literal glue. Tess dared me to build a birdhouse and sing to her new parakeet at the same time. The concert didn’t happen, but I learned a valuable lesson about multitasking and citrus-scented solvents.”
I laugh again, but it fades a little slower this time. Silence stretches between us. It’s light, suspended in the air as when a swing is at its highest point.
We’re still pretending to be a couple. At least, that’s the story we keep telling ourselves. But somewhere between paprika mishaps and fumbled balloons, it’s starting to feel…a little less like pretending.
This evening, we walk together in an easy, comfortable way.
When our hands brush, neither of us pulls away.
We don’t talk about the contest. Just everyday things.
About the way risotto shouldn’t snap.
How many terrible band names we can come up with in five blocks.
About the time I got locked inside my greenhouse for an hour because I tried to fix the door latch with a twist tie from a bag of potting soil.
And for the first time all week, I stop steering the story. I let myself step into the narrative and feel it.