Chapter 11
Eleven
Storm
“What about this one?”
I gently squeeze the tomato that Holly holds up and smile at her. “That one’s great,” I tell her, putting it in the bag.
She beams back at me and I feel it in my chest.
Deep in my chest.
She’s smart and precocious and lights up the space around her.
“How many more do we need?” she asks.
I lift the almost overflowing bag. “I think we have enough, peanut.”
“I’m not a peanut.”
“Okay peanut-who’s-not-a-peanut”—Poppy chuckles—“we have enough.”
Holly nods briskly, my daughter clearly more focused on the gathering ingredients than lame jokes (something I can definitely appreciate). “What else do we need?”
“Garlic,” I say. “And Italian sausage—”
Her nose wrinkles. “I don’t like sausage.”
I almost tell her we can skip it, but something has my eyes flicking to Poppy’s.
She just looks away from me and says, “I don’t think you’ve ever tried this kind, sweetie. And if you don’t like it,” she adds over the protest forming on Holly’s face, “you can eat around it.”
Holly pauses. Considers that.
Then nods. “Okay.” A beat. “Where’s the sausage?”
I point her in that direction, lips twitching when she bustles over to the case.
A woman smiles as she watches her go by. Then her gaze drifts toward me—
Her eyes go wide, her mouth drops open, and she nearly plows her cart into a display of apples as she rushes to glance between me and Poppy and Holly.
In an instant, that itch between my shoulder blades I felt as a kid, the tightness in my chest, the shame eating away at my bones…it’s all back.
Or maybe that’s the fucking letter burning a hole in my pocket.
The one the lawyer gave me when he went over my dad’s will with Rain and me.
The one I have absolutely no intention of opening. Ever.
So why’s it in your pocket, asshole?
Because—
“I know,” someone hisses behind me. “Can you believe it?”
Okay, nope. It’s not the letter. It’s this fucking town.
“Do you think he knows?”
“How could he not?” the first woman says. “He’s here with them.”
“That’s true. And Holly was chattering his ear off.”
“I know, and it’s sweet. But do you think he’ll stick around long enough—”
“Come on,” Poppy says, wrapping her hand around my arm and drawing me forward. “Holly can’t be left to her own devices in a grocery store for long.”
I’m letting her tug me along—and away from those fucking voices, the judgment, the shame—before I actually process what she said.
“She can’t?” I blink. “Why?”
A flick of her gaze, and although it’s short, our eyes barely connecting, I know she heard the women talking too. But she doesn’t comment on that, just says, “Because—”
“Can I get this, Mom?”
Her shoulders slump, an aggrieved sigh slipping free as she gestures at her—our—daughter. “That,” she finishes.
I follow her outstretched hand and see the huge platter of cookies that Holly’s holding up. “Ah.”
“Can I get ’em?” Holly begs. “Please, pretty please?”
“Sure,” Poppy says, much to Holly’s glee.
Glee that only lasts a heartbeat.
Because then Poppy adds, “So long as you don’t touch the ice cream that Storm brought.”
“I—” Holly blinks.
Then again.
“What?” she asks softly, as though she can’t quite believe what her mom just said.
It’s a rather brilliant move, and I can’t help but admire Poppy’s ingenuity.
Can’t help but wonder what other skills she’s learned over the years.
Especially when Holly looks over at me with a sort of growing resignation and asks morosely, “Is it bubblegum?”
“What?”
“The ice cream. Is it bubblegum?”
My lips twitch. “Is there any other kind of ice cream to get from Scoops?”
“Rocky Road,” Poppy chimes in, the edges of her mouth tipping up now that Holly’s capitulation is in sight.
I chuckle. “That’s so far beneath bubblegum, it’s not even funny.”
But even as I tease her in the here and now, I remember another time, another life, another moment when I waxed poetic about the superiority of bubblegum ice cream over rocky road.
On the beach that night.
Under the stars and the full moon, the cool summer breeze rippling over my skin.
Right before I gave into temptation and kissed her…and didn’t stop.
“Ugh,” Holly says, tapping a finger to her lips before sighing the sigh of someone far, far older. Then she exhales again, even more heavily, and says, “I’ll put these back.”
As she trudges away to do precisely that, I ignore the sensation of a dozen pairs of eyes on us and snag the pack of Italian sausage.
Then I make short work of grabbing a loaf of freshly baked bread—the canned breadsticks Poppy has in her fridge just won’t do—and push the cart to the front of the store.
There’s a brief moment of tension when Poppy tries to pay for the groceries but I win that battle and swipe my card, taking the bags as Holly—already over her cookie sadness—chatters away.
She talks about her friends at camp, who she hopes her teacher in the fall will be, and all about the other things she wants to learn to cook.
“I know how to make ice cream—” she begins.
“Of course you do,” Poppy mutters.
But when I glance over, expecting to see irritation lining her expression—the words aren’t exactly encouraging—she’s smirking, her eyes dancing with mirth.
“What?” I ask.
“This kid and ice cream,” she says with a laugh as we turn onto Main Street and start heading for Sully’s.
“Mom says if you cut me open, I’d be made of ice cream,” Holly chimes in. Then adds in a stage-whisper, “But she’s just kidding. If you cut me open, I’d be made of blood and other stuff.”
I chuckle.
“Do you know how to make ice cream?” Holly asks.
“I do, actually,” I tell her. “It’s not that hard.”
Poppy snorts.
I glance over at her, lift my brows in question.
She grins. “I was just thinking about you burning that entire batch of hot dogs at The Shack.”
“In my defense, I was distracted.”
Mischief in her green eyes. “Hmm. I wonder by what.”
We pause by the one signal in town, waiting for the crosswalk light to turn green, and I bend down.
“I’ll tell you by what,” I murmur, and I’m close enough to watch the flush rise in her cheeks, to see her pulse speed at the base of her throat, to watch those gorgeous green eyes dilate. “It was that tiny red bikini.”
She shivers and I shift even closer, inhaling deeply.
God, she smells good. Good enough to—
Someone giggles, and my head snaps up. The light’s turned green…and we’ve garnered even more attention.
Great.
“This fucking town,” I growl.
Her eyes cool and she steps back. “This town isn’t so bad.”
“Yeah, sure. Tell me that after the gossip about us being seen together”—I make air quotes—“hits the streets.”
“Gossip hits the streets all the time, Storm. No one’s immune.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the fucking problem,” I mutter.
“They mean well—” I scowl and she gives me a rueful smile.
“Okay, they’re nosy, sure,” she admits, “but tell me another place in this world where Gertie Walkins could create a schedule to both get Donna Sullivan to her chemotherapy appointments and watch over her cats when she wasn’t feeling well afterward.
Or a place where the town comes together to raise money for the Pioneer Museum every year so every kid can have free summer camp and after-school care.
Or where they vote down big chain businesses so our grocery store can function and Bits & Bobs can run its craft shows and Sully’s stays afloat.
Or where,” she adds softly, “my fridge was always full in the months after I gave birth, and there were always plenty of babysitters, and when I didn’t think I could stand it for one more second—because Holly just wouldn’t stop crying—there was a rotation of men and women in my apartment, sweeping Holly out of my arms and all but shoving me into bed.
So, tell me, Storm,” she finishes softly, “where else could I find that?”
Nowhere else.
Because as much as I hate this town, I can admit that there’s also something special about it.
Not for the son of Norm Harrison.
But for Poppy Baker and her daughter?
Yeah, Cedar Hollow absolutely is that place.