Chapter 19
“Guess it’s my turn to say congratulations.” Ryder sat on the picnic table under twin maples near where they’d danced the night of the guitar pull.
Elizabeth glanced over at him. “Will you miss me?”
“Yes, will you miss me?” They’d not talked much since her sorta-maybe confession of love.
“You know I will.”
A low fire burned in the stone firepit, and music played from speakers mounted on the side of the house. On the other side of the trees, Will and Markey played bocce ball with Ethan and Bobby.
Officer-cousin Jeff stopped by long enough for congratulations and a large piece of Haven’s Bakery cake. His girlfriend Ursula had arrived about an hour ago and was on the deck with Mila, Julie, Beka, and Granny D.
“How was dinner with your parents?” Elizabeth said to Ryder after a moment.
“Nice. I got a full update on their lives. One thing about my parents, they never change. Everything revolves around their careers.”
“I understand that.” Elizabeth picked up a dying leaf and tore away the edges.
“Dad grew up old-school. Worked hard, got a good education, and strived for the top. His great-grandparents emigrated to the US as kids during the Irish Potato Famine, and I’m not sure the poverty mentality ever left them.
Mom grew up with money, but her parents told her to never depend on anyone but herself.
Not her husband, or friends, or children.
She was a National Merit Scholar and wrote her own ticket. ”
“I’m surprised you fell for me,” Elizabeth said. “I sound a lot like your mom.”
“Maybe that’s why I fell for you.”
“Because you missed your mom during childhood, and I’m the substitute? How Freudian of you.” Elizabeth let the last of the leaf in her hand flutter to the ground.
“No, I meant I really admire and respect Mom.”
“But you still wish she’d been around more.”
Was she fishing for something beyond Ryder’s childhood? Like a peek into her future through Ryder’s view of his mother? “Doesn’t every kid?”
“We’re not talking about every kid.”
A couple more Dorsey cousins, aunts, and uncles arrived, pausing to hug Elizabeth and hand over something from their personal belongings.
The picnic table was stacked with towels, boxes, decorative pillows, framed family photos, pots, pans, knickknacks, a carefully bagged quilt someone said belonged to Great-Granny, and envelopes, which Ryder guessed contained money.
“Mom was around more with my brother,” he said when they were alone again. “I was the surprise caboose baby, and her career was a freight train. She did provide the best care and education. Keeping me here in Hearts Bend when moving to Nashville or Atlanta would’ve been easier for them.”
“All fear of passing on Epstein–Barr aside, you’re making my case on why I’m not so keen on marriage. I don’t want my kid saying the same things about me in thirty years.”
“I think there’s a balance to it all, Beth. In the end, it comes down to priorities and values. I sometimes wonder if my mom regrets being away so much. She hinted at it during dinner when she asked me about you.”
“Me? What did you tell her?”
He looked into her eyes for a moment, then toward the bocce game. “That you were a Dorsey and I knew you from the summers you worked at Ella’s. I said you were a friend, also smart, ambitious, determined, fun, easy to laugh with and”—he glanced at her again—“beautiful. To which my mom agreed.”
Each confession warmed her, filling places in her she didn’t know were empty. She liked to believe a career-minded, independent woman was not wooed by a man’s words, but she’d take them. Treasure them.
“Oh, hey, any word from the Colorado offer?” she said.
“Naw. I’m not going. Travis called me into his office this afternoon, apologized again for the misunderstanding, and talked about my career with the WMA. I think he wants to move up and hand me his job.”
“That’s quite a turnaround. Congratulations. I think Will still wants me to take Dan Harper’s place when he retires in three years? Stay at Dorsey, work with Dan, become CFO when he leaves.” She nudged Ryder’s shoulder. “By the way, Travis is right. You’d be good in his job.”
“Maybe you can come back to Dorsey after your master’s degree.”
She laughed softly. “Probably not, but we’ll see.”
“I wish you all the best, Beth.” Ryder kissed her cheek. It was clinical and cold, not like the passionate ones he whispered along her jaw and down her neck that night at the fire tower. The mere memory made her shiver. “When do you leave?”
“Thursday afternoon. I’ll drive halfway.”
Ryder slid off the picnic table. “Don’t be a stranger. Come visit.”
“You know I will.” The exchange was perfunctory. They both knew it’d be a long time before she returned to Hearts Bend.
He glanced toward the family, some playing games, some gathered by the smoldering firepit, talking and laughing. “You should go celebrate with everyone.”
As he walked away, Elizabeth felt…what? Cold? As if something had been taken from her. She ran after him. “Ryder?”
“Yeah?” He turned slowly, and in the dusky light she caught a shimmer in his eyes.
“I’ll text you.”
He nodded once. “Sure.”
Sure? Nothing about this moment contained the affection she’d grown to love about their relationship. But what did she expect? He’d told her he loved her. She told him she was leaving.
As she joined the family breaking out the goodies for s’mores, she fought a familiar sensation. The one she’d battled every summer as a teen on her last day in Hearts Bend—that this place was home and she could not go a single day without seeing Ryder Donovan.
After leaving Dorsey on Wednesday with a small box from her office, Elizabeth returned her shirts and apron to Ella’s. Tina sat in her corner booth, eating a chef salad and going over the monthly accounts on her laptop.
“So, you’re really leaving,” she said, scootching her work aside, giving Elizabeth her full attention.
“I know, I know, you were never going to be a permanent face at Ella’s—I saw your star rising when you were a teenager.
It’s just now I realize that final day has come.
Shoot, I thought I’d lost you for good when you headed to MIT, but you worked a couple of weeks your freshman summer.
And I snagged you for a couple of Christmas breaks. ”
“You’re going to make me cry.” Elizabeth motioned for Lucy to bring her a Diet Coke. “I’m grateful to you, Tina. You taught me a lot. And you trusted me.”
“I’d sell the place to you if I thought it’d make you happy.”
Elizabeth laughed softly as she reached for a napkin to catch the single tear in the corner of her eye. “You sound like Will. Wanting me to be CFO.”
“You’re a talent, Beth. You’re good with people.
You’re clever and intuitive. Wharton is lucky to get you.
Blow their socks off, hmmm? And if one of those fancy Fortune 100 companies like Goldman Sachs doesn’t hire you, they’re fools.
Just remember you are far more than anything you put on a résumé. ”
“I’m not that great, Tina, but I’ll take the compliment.”
“You are. You went to Wharton and won over the admin thingamajig! That’s you being you.” Tina stabbed at her salad. “Next time, don’t lie to us about your future.” Elizabeth heard that lecture over and over.
Tina went on, talking about the diner and how Buck Mathews mentioned Ella’s during an interview that was just published, and the phone’s been ringing off the hook.
Elizabeth listened with yearning as she talked about Inside NashVegas coming to do a piece on the diner.
“And on me, Tina Danner, how about that?”
“You’ll be great,” Elizabeth said, again with the sensation of missing out. As if she was letting go of something she loved. “Text me when it airs.”
“So,” Tina began, sitting back, sipping her iced tea. “How did you leave things with Ryder?”
“Same as always. Hello, goodbye, stay in touch.”
Tina made a face. “He loves you. I can tell by the look on his face.”
“He told me.”
Tina sat forward, dropping her glass to the table with a thud. “And what did you say?”
“I don’t know…Nothing.” Tina knew about the Epstein–Barr as it pertained to food safety, but perhaps not about kissing. “I can’t let him kiss me or anything. What if I’m infectious and don’t know it?”
“What? You didn’t kiss him because you might be infectious? But you’re not infectious. Otherwise, you’d not be in my kitchen.”
“I know, I know, but—”
“You used it as an excuse?”
“And a pretty darn good one.”
Tina let a long sigh be her reply. “I never met anyone who fought love so hard.”
“I’m not fighting. I’m staying focused.”
“I know, and I just praised you for it. However, I’m a sucker for love.
Yes to Wharton and a big fancy job, but make room for love, Beth.
Don’t be the woman who loses herself to a big fancy job that requires all her time, energy, and heart.
No one wants to go home to a beautiful apartment with big windows overlooking city lights and eat alone. ”
“I’ll go to dinner with friends.”
“You mean colleagues and you’ll talk work all night.”
“So? That’s how I grow, learn, network.”
“Okay, okay. I’m team Beth. But…” Tina yanked a napkin from the caddy and shoved it toward Elizabeth. Then she took a pen from her pocket.
>JF>When does love get a chance?
Fine. Elizabeth grabbed the pen and wrote on the napkin.
>JF>When I’m thirty-two.
She turned the napkin to Tina.
“Sign it,” Tina said.
“Sign it? Are we making a contract?”
Tina tapped the napkin with her finger. “Yes. Sign it.”
Elizabeth shook her head, laughing, and penned her name across the bottom. “There. Happy? It’s not binding, you know.”
“Of course it is.” Tina tucked the napkin under her laptop and took a bite of her salad.
“Girl, when I met my husband, I was a goner.” She patted her heart.
“Nothing mattered but him. We rushed down the aisle, had three boys—bam, bam, bam—while he built a great construction business. He’s the one who told me Ella’s was being sold, if not closing.
Together we figured out a way to buy it.
He wanted it to be all mine. Little did I know he was going to be arrested by the FBI for fraud a few years later.
But he knew enough about his dealings to keep them from taking this place. ”
“Have you ever let love back in?” Elizabeth said, a tone of knowing in her voice. “You’ve been divorced for what, ten, fifteen years? What about Marty? He seems keen on—”
“We’re not talking about me.” Stab, stab, stab at what remained of her salad. “And for your information, I have agreed to dinner with Marty. But we’re just friends.” She jabbed her fork at Elizabeth. “You’ll be at school by then.”
“I want photographic evidence.”
“You won’t be dancing at my wedding anytime soon, but sweetheart, I hope to be dancing at yours.”
“Why do you care so much?” Elizabeth said. “Your marriage didn’t turn out so great. How do I know Ryder won’t commit fraud or cheat on me or die? Love is not without risk.”
“Everything is a risk. School. Work. Love. Life. If I hadn’t fallen in love and married, I’d not have the boys: Cole, Chris, and Cap.
My grandchildren. My husband was a good man who made a big mistake, and he paid for it.
He’s remarried now. Doing well.” Tina slid from the booth with her salad bowl and empty tea glass.
“Do me a favor. If you have any feelings for Ryder Donovan, keep in touch. You may think thirty-two is the right time to pursue love, but men like Ryder Donovan don’t come along every day. ”