Chapter 13
TOM
Tom released Lila slowly. His hands lingered at her waist for the briefest second longer than they needed to. Then they fell away, and Lila straightened up. Tom turned his head.
Harold was sitting in the chair by the window. Tail wrapped around his paws. Eyes half-closed. The expression on the cat’s face was unmistakably smug.
“Harold, what in the world?” Tom growled at him.
Harold flicked his tail and went back to grooming his front paw.
Just then, before Tom could apologize for his ill-mannered feline who had rudely used Lila’s back as a springboard, the bell above the door chimed.
Mr. Coleman from down the road came in for his usual two-seeded rolls and a small loaf of rye.
Tom turned to greet him, and what had just happened caught up with him all at once.
Heat rose in his neck. A strange, suffocating feeling bubbled under his ribs.
The full and terrible realization of what he had just done made his breath hitch in his throat.
He had asked Lila on a date.
He had dressed it up in cupcake recipes and a binder of her ideas for the bakery, but beneath it all, he had still just asked her on a date.
He had also held her in his arms for a moment that had been too long to be accidental and too short to be enough.
And he had stood there afterward and arranged the whole thing as if it were a normal day at the bakery.
Tom pulled himself together as Mr. Coleman approached the counter.
Lila greeted the older man warmly and reached for the rye.
Tom stepped back and let her serve, his mind moving in three directions at once.
Eleanor’s photograph above the front sink.
Five years a widower. The wedding ring was still on his right hand because he had moved it across instead of taking it off.
The small one-bedroom apartment above the bakery that he had carved out because he could not bear the bigness of Heart House without his late wife.
What in the world had he just done?
Mr. Coleman left with his bread. Lila turned back to Tom with her warm, easy smile, the one that had been undoing him quietly for six months without him having the courage to admit it, and Tom felt suffocated all over again.
“Lila,” Tom began.
“Yes?” Lila prompted.
“I just remembered. I told Linda I’d go over to the hotel this afternoon. She needs help to go through some of George’s affairs.” He cleared his throat. “Are you all right here on your own for an hour or two?”
“Of course, Tom,” Lila replied without missing a beat. “Go. The afternoon will be quiet until the school crowd arrives. I have it covered.”
“Are you sure?” Tom fought to stop himself from turning on his heel and sprinting out the door. Get a grip on yourself, Tom.
“I’m sure.” Lila nodded. “Go. I’ll be fine.”
She gave him that warm, easy smile again, and Tom felt the guilt of not being honest with her settle a little deeper into his chest. He hadn’t lied, exactly.
Linda had asked him to come over when he could to talk through what he had been quietly helping George with.
He had simply made it sound a great deal more urgent than it actually was.
“All right,” Tom said. “I’ll be back to help close up for the night.”
“Take your time.” Lila turned as another customer walked in.
Tom took the opening, grabbed his keys from the counter, and turned to leave. His eyes caught Harold’s on the way past the window chair.
Harold stared back at him.
The cat’s gaze was steady and unimpressed. Tom could feel it on his back as he pushed open the front door of the bakery. He shook his head once at himself. He was now imagining that his cat was glaring at him for lying. He needed air.
Tom climbed into his truck and sat for a moment with his hands on the wheel.
He drove to Hearts Hotel without remembering most of the drive.
The streets of Sweet Blossom Bay slipped past the windscreen in a soft gold afternoon haze.
Tom passed Maggie’s boutique with its pale pink awning.
He passed the Sweet Blossom Bay Marina & Historical Society at the end of the row.
He turned onto Bay View Drive and let himself slow down just enough to take in the long curve of palms that lined the road.
His mind was a knot.
He had asked Lila on a date.
He pulled into the small gravel drive at the front of Hearts Hotel and parked.
The hotel sat warm and golden in the afternoon sun. Tom climbed the front steps, nodded to the young woman at the front desk, and made his way down the back corridor to George’s office.
The door was open a crack. Tom knocked once and pushed it gently.
Linda’s head shot up from behind the desk. Her eyes widened. She quickly stuffed something into a drawer beside her and slid the drawer closed before Tom had crossed the threshold.
He paused in the doorway, his hand still on the handle.
“Am I interrupting?” Tom asked.
“No,” Linda answered, a little too quickly, looking as guilty as he was feeling. “Not at all.”
She watched him for a moment. The line between her eyebrows deepened.
“Are you all right, Tom?” Linda asked.
“Yes.” Tom drew a breath. “No. I don’t know.”
He stepped fully into the office and closed the door behind him.
Linda set down the pen she had been holding. The worry on her face settled into something far more focused.
“Tom, are you ill?” Linda asked.
“No, no, nothing like that, sweetheart.” Tom rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “I just...”
He stopped. He could not believe he was about to do this.
He was seventy-five years old, about to ask his stepdaughter for advice on a woman, and he was not at all sure he had the words for any of it.
He shook his head as if to clear it, then let his eyes drift around the office, landing on the wall of family photographs.
Linda and Michael, as children, sitting on the front porch of Heart House with their mother between them. Michael in his graduation cap. Linda, on her wedding day, on Tom’s arm, the look on her face that he would carry in his heart to his grave.
And the picture of Linda’s father in his army uniform on his last leave before he was killed.
Tom’s eyes settled on it. The tightness in his chest eased by half.
“I can’t believe how much Michael looks like his father,” Tom said quietly.
Linda turned and followed his gaze. Her expression softened.
“Yes, he really does,” Linda agreed. “Ryan looks just like them, too.”
“I know.” Tom let his eyes drift to the next photograph, and his heart squeezed.
Eleanor, in front of the bakery, her dark hair pulled back, an apron tied at her waist, Linda at twelve and Michael at thirteen on either side of her. The summer light on the day the photograph had been taken had bleached the colors a little, but Eleanor’s smile had held.
Tom felt the lump rise in his throat before he could stop it.
“I can’t do this,” he said under his breath.
“You can’t do what?” Linda asked. “Tom, I’m starting to worry now. What’s going on?”
Tom drew in a breath and his gaze stayed on Eleanor’s photograph.
“I miss her every day,” Tom said quietly.
Linda’s eyes filled. She turned her head to follow his gaze. The small office held a silence between them for a long moment.
“I know, I do too,” Linda answered.
“Linda,” Tom began, “I think I’ve done something stupid. And I don’t even know why.”
Linda’s eyebrows drew together.
“Did you sell the bakery?” Linda asked.
“No.” Tom blinked at her. “Never.”
“Did you commit a crime?” Linda pressed.
“No.” Tom managed a small laugh. “At least not the last time I checked.”
“Then it’s probably a mistake that can be sorted out.
” Linda gave him a warm, reassuring smile.
“And you’ve obviously come here to talk to me about it.
So spill.” She waved at the chair in front of her.
“Sit. Whatever it is, you can tell me.” She held up one hand before he could open his mouth.
“Except if it’s anything to do with intimate things,” She shuddered.
“I think we had that conversation when I was twelve, and it was very, very awkward.”
Tom laughed properly. The sound caught him by surprise as he sat in front of her.
He could still remember Eleanor begging him to be the one to give Michael and Linda ‘the talk.’ Michael had nearly died of embarrassment.
Linda had thrown a small couch pillow at him and stormed out of the room, telling him very firmly that they had classes for that at school precisely so they wouldn’t have to have these conversations with their parents.
“That conversation has never been repeated,” Tom confirmed.
“Phew, that’s good,” Linda breathed. “So now we’ve narrowed it down. What could be so bad?”
Tom looked at her. He drew a breath.
“I think I asked Lila on a date,” Tom blurted out.
Linda’s face went perfectly blank. She blinked at him for two full seconds. Then she burst out laughing. Tom raised his eyebrows.
“Well, it’s good to know my crisis is amusing,” Tom drawled.
“No.” Linda was trying and failing to get her laughter under control. “No, I promise you it’s not funny, Tom.”
“It looks like you’re enjoying this.” He looked at her pointedly
“No, I’m sorry, Tom.” Linda pressed a hand to her mouth. “It’s just that you came in here looking so distraught I thought you’d run over Harold.”
The mention of his cat brought back the moment. Lila in his arms. The warmth of her against his chest. The quiet catch of her breath against his. Tom shook the picture off and wrestled himself back to the conversation.
“Tom,” Linda said, leaning across the desk and taking his hand. The smile on her face had not left, but had changed to one of warmth and understanding. “It’s about time you asked her out.”
“What do you mean?” Tom asked, a little bewildered.
“Me, George, Maggie, and even Rosa,” Linda explained, “have all been quietly noticing how the two of you look at each other.”
Tom stared at her.
“You all knew?” Tom asked.