Chapter 14 #2
The shop was quiet after Tessa left. Mary watched her from the kitchen with a careful, sidelong look that Grace pretended not to notice.
She stood still and felt the warmth of the shop around her. She smelled yeast, the lemon polish she used yesterday, the faint vanilla that permanently lived in the air of Buns ’N’ Roses.
This is my happy place.
She’d talked with Liam about opening a bakery for a while, and he’d encouraged her to do it, saying he knew it would make her happy. But she’d been scared of the idea of running a business all by herself.
Funny how he’d known it way back then, and she was just now coming to know it now.
The thought of him came in the way it usually did, with no beginning or ending like a snippet of music she heard without really paying attention.
She let it come and didn’t tell herself she was getting over him because she wasn’t.
She’d stopped expecting that of herself a long time ago.
She also didn’t tell herself she was betraying him because she wasn’t.
She loved him. She would love him for the rest of her life.
What had changed was something smaller and quieter. Her center of gravity was no longer pinned exclusively to a memory. That, and she understood now that she could love someone else while she still loved Liam.
She thought of the man warming syrup at her stove and smiled a little to herself.
She wiped her hands on her apron and went back to work.
Reno picked her up when the bakery closed, and he surprised her by already having Lily in the truck. “I thought you might be tired since I heard you stirring well before your alarm went off this morning. I figured you’d appreciate getting to go straight home and relaxing. Maybe even take a nap.”
She groaned in delight at the thought.
“And that reaction to my comment, you’re definitely taking a nap, now,” he declared. “I’ll entertain Lily for a while.”
That was how she ended up sleeping until nearly dark and stumbling out to the back porch to see Lily sitting on the ground cutting a crown out of yellow construction paper. Reno already wore a crooked crown on his head. His was pink.
Lily had a sticker on her shirt that said I AM A HELPER! in red letters that hadn’t been there when they drove home, which meant Reno had gotten if for her and given it to her.
“Mommy! I made Mr. Reno a crown!”
“I see. Does that mean he’s an honorary princess?”
Lily giggled. “Uhh huh.”
Lily ran to her, and Grace bent down to catch her. Lily smelled like grass and paste.
Reno looked at her and Lily, and the smile that broke across his face caught her by surprise. It was warm and open and caring in a way she’d never seen before. It was a good look on him.
“Hi,” she said over Lily’s head.
“Hi. How was your day?” he responded.
“Productive. Long. Yours?”
“Pretty fantastic so far. And I’m about to have a tea party with a princess, so it’s going to get even better.”
The crazy thing was he looked genuinely delighted to be roped into a tea party with a four-year-old and a bunch of stuffed animals. The high-powered Ivy League lawyer was sitting in the grass, wearing a pink crown, and grinning ear-to-ear.
She went in to start supper and was surprised to see he’d already started it. Rice was steaming in the rice cooker. Chicken breasts marinating in something that smelled of lemon and rosemary in the frig.
“Hank kicked me out of his bathroom early, so I went to the store.”
“Why did he kick you out?” she asked, pulling out salad ingredients.
Lily answered before he could. “Mr. Reno got sent home for being sassy.”
“Is that so?” Grace grinned. “I guess Mr. Reno is in a good mood today.”
Grace chopped raw vegetables and watched him move around the kitchen as if this was his home. Shockingly, it didn’t bother her. It was nice having him around all the time.
He put the chicken in the pan, and it sizzled temptingly.
The afternoon sun streamed through the kitchen window casting buttery light that made the space look like a greeting card for a few minutes.
Lily came in from the back porch to present Grace with a light blue crown, and they all sat down to eat wearing their crowns.
Lily was so tickled she could bust, and Reno wasn’t far behind her. Grace just shook her head and went along with it.
She asked how Hank’s bathroom was coming, and he told her the boring shower tile had been installed. He also mentioned Madison was coming Friday and wanted to meet her and Lily. He asked if she was busy Friday night because Hank had invited them to supper.
“That sounds fun.”
Reno smiled at her, the expression in his face communicating clearly that he’d been asking her out on a date in case she’d missed that part. She smiled back, communicating clearly that she hadn’t missed that part. His smile got even bigger.
“Madison will love you,” he said.
“Madison will love Lily.”
“That too,” he replied easily.
Cooper called after supper, and Reno took it on the back porch. The frogs were starting up, and through the screen door she could hear his voice but not his words. She washed the dishes. She wiped the counters. She listened to Lily explain to Marshmallow the proper way to be a princess.
He came back in. “Cooper has updates.”
“Porch after bedtime?” she responded.
“Perfect.”
The lake had gone copper and was going black. The moon was a thin curl just clearing the trees. She sat on the couch with Marshmallow climbing into her lap with the entitlement of a queen.
Reno sat next to her with his bad leg propped on the coffee table.
“All right,” she said. “Tell me.”
He told her evenly that Curtis Marchand had been spotted driving into Cobbler Cove yesterday afternoon.
This morning, Apple Pie Creek police found a back way out of his mother’s ski chalet that he must have used to slip past the deputy keeping an eye on him.
Curtis had driven down Main Street, slowed by the bakery, gone around the block twice, driven past Lily’s preschool, driven past the cottage, and driven home.
Never stopped, didn’t appear to take pictures.
Cooper had personally tailed him in an unmarked car the whole time.
Reno relayed a message from Cooper to Grace that she and Lily had never been in any danger. He’d been on Curtis every second. Also, the Apple Pie Creek police had put a man on the back way out of the Marchand place now, as well.
She was not going to do anything stupid like cry. She wasn’t.
“Is that all?” she managed to ask reasonably calmly.
“There’s something else. The Apple Pie PD told Cooper that Tara Marchand visited a new a law office in Apple Pie Creek that specialized in civil law suits.
The Apple Pie Creek sheriff, as a favor to Clint Wheeler, had an off-the-record chat with the owner of the law firm and found out that Mrs. Marchand was planning to file a lawsuit against what the lawyer described as a business rival who’s stealing customers from Mrs. Marchand’s bakery.
Cooper thinks she’s suing me? What for? I’ve never even met the woman, let alone stolen anyone’s customers.”
Reno said gently, “The purpose of her lawsuit will probably be to harass you openly and in a way that she can do the harassing herself. I’m given to understand she’s very wealthy. She undoubtedly expects to drown you in legal fees until you go out of business.”
“I won’t let her drive me out of business. And this is good news. I’d rather have this woman sue me than have somebody hurt Lily.”
“You’re willing to fight the suit?” Reno asked without inflection.
“Absolutely. Will you help me fight it?” she asked. “If you don’t want to be a lawyer for me, I understand. But maybe you could advise me?”
“Babe, this is exactly the kind of case I went to law school for. It’ll be my pleasure to represent you.”
She’d never heard that stone cold tone in his voice before. But abruptly she understood why he’d been such a successful, high-powered litigator.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said.
He nodded. He didn’t say the words hanging in the air between them, and she was grateful he didn’t. She wasn’t ready to hear them yet. But she thought she would be soon. She would know when she knew.
She wished him sweet dreams, which earned her a wry smile, and went to Lily’s room to kiss her forehead and pull up the covers. Her daughter was already asleep, and Cinnabun was on guard duty as always.
She went into her own bedroom and closed the door behind her.
She turned on the small lamp on her dresser, the one with the silk shade Liam had brought back from a trip somewhere in Asia, which was all he was allowed to tell her about the trip.
The light fell on the photo of Liam.
She and Liam had been in lockstep since they were six years old.
They’d learned to read together. Ate lunch side-by-side every day of elementary school.
They shared their first kiss. Went to prom together.
They’d done everything together for most of their lives, and they’d been almost exactly the same age every single one of those days.
She was not the same age as him anymore.
She was almost thirty-two and he was still twenty-five. By the time Lily was his age now, Liam would be a distant, poignant memory, a young man Grace had loved a lifetime ago. When Grace turned eighty, if she was lucky enough to live that long, Liam would still be a laughing young man.
She looked at him in the photograph. He was so young in it.
He was younger than the deputy who had waved at her from the lot at Lily’s preschool this afternoon.
He was younger than Reno had been three years ago when he walked away from her entire life.
Reno was thirty-three now. Liam would never be thirty-three.
Ever since the fire, she’d continued to think of herself as continuing on with their life together. She lived in their house, raised their daughter, followed the dream Liam had encouraged her to follow.
But the truth was, she was no longer in Liam’s life or in their life together. She was in her own. His life was trapped in a photograph and hers was out here in the real world.
She’d been carrying it around quietly for at least a year, refusing to acknowledge it because she wasn’t ready to let go. But tonight was the night she was finally saying it to herself in words.
She put something else to words as well.
If I don’t live alone for the rest of my life, Liam, I need you to be okay with that.
She listened to the part of herself that was as much Liam as her, waiting to hear how that part of her heart responded. She didn’t rush herself, and the answer came slowly. But it came.
Liam would be okay with that.
And she was starting to think she would okay with not living out her life alone, too.
She set the picture down and turned out the lamp.
In the dark, she spoke to Liam silently, the way she had a thousand nights before this one.
Liam, I don’t think I’m asking for permission anymore. I think I’m telling you what I’ve decided.
And then she slept.