Chapter 14
The next morning, the autumn weather had changed from golden to Gothic. The wind had howled outside the apartment windows all through the night, and now, as Rebecca stood in the diner with a mug of steaming coffee warming her hands, the trees outside still bent in the powerful gales.
Earlier, she had showered and dressed in jeans and a burgundy top, then spent too much time in front of the mirror trying to fix her hair, reminding herself of her promise to treat Cort Adams like anyone else. Like a friend. But still, she put on a little lip gloss.
At eight a.m. sharp, there was a knock at the diner door.
“Come in, Cort!” Rebecca called.
But when he stepped inside, he wasn’t alone.
A boy followed him—red-haired, freckled, and unmistakably Cort and Melanie’s son.
He was carrying a crate. His gray eyes were all Cort, but his hair was the exact coppery shade that had once swung in a perfect ponytail as Melanie cheered from the sidelines.
Cort and Melanie’s son was adorable, and Rebecca smiled in warm welcome, even as the teenager inside her felt a faint ache.
“Another windy night,” Cort said. “A tree came down on the power line at the school. They’ve lost power.
No classes today. Pip’s with me, and his mom’s away, so I can’t work.
I’m sorry, Becca.” He lifted the crate from Pip’s arms. “But we brought you these before Crispin enacts rule number 100, section B. You know, the one where he wraps your business in shaming signage.”
Rebecca peered into the crate, which was filled with glossy pumpkins and gourds of all shapes, colors, and sizes. “Where did you get those?”
“We grew them,” Pip said proudly. “It’s our hobby.”
Rebecca looked at Cort. “Really?”
“It’s true,” he said with a smile. “I’m an avid home gardener now.”
“It’s generous of you to share your bounty. Thank you for averting a civic crisis. And it’s been a while since I’ve seen you, Pip—you’re really growing up.”
“I just turned eight,” he said, blushing so deeply his freckles stood out like constellations.
She’d always blushed too easily herself—and right on cue, her own cheeks grew warm as Cort stepped closer. That familiar mix of sawdust and soap hit her all at once, and her heart thumped traitorously.
“Rebecca’s an old friend,” Cort told his son. “She tutored me in English, back in high school. I’d be a useless reader without her, and she made me love books.”
Rebecca smiled. “You were just trying to get a passing grade so you could keep playing football.”
“It was more than that, and you know it,” he said lightly. “So, shall we get decorating so Crispin will call off his dogs?”
“Oh, you don’t have to help. I can manage myself,” she said.
“Yes, but what if you use two orange and three white? We can’t risk it.” He winked at Pip. “Go grab the burlap, buddy.”
“I’ll be honest, I was feeling more helpless about these pumpkins than it’s normal to feel about festive fall decorations.” Her smile was wry. “Thank you for all this.” She lifted a gourd and held it up. “These are really gorgeous, Cort. I never thought I’d say that about a gourd, but they are.”
His smile was charmingly proud. “You should see us when the seed catalog arrives every year. It’s like a second Christmas. Parenthood makes you get into things you never thought you would, and gardening is definitely one of those things for me.”
Pip had returned carrying a swath of burlap ribbon, and the three of them set to work, arranging pumpkins in the urns Rebecca had rescued from the storage shed.
“The tiny orange ones are Jack Be Littles,” Pip said proudly.
“The white ones are Baby Boos.” He giggled at this, and so did Rebecca.
It was nice, having Pip around. It made it a lot easier to feel less self-conscious around Cort and was a good start toward behaving like a normal, platonic person around him.
“Those stripy ones are from an ornamental mix,” Cort added. “You never know what you’ll get.”
Rebecca picked one up and tilted it toward Pip. “Is it just me or does this one look like a swan?”
“A dinosaur, I think,” he said.
Rebecca stepped back to look at their handiwork.
“It looks great. I have to admit, annoying as these rules are, it does make it feel more like home.” The word “home” seemed to hover there in the slanting sunlight, fragile and bright.
“Anyway, looks like the wind’s done for now,” she said quickly, rubbing her hands.
“But my fingers are freezing. Pip, would you like a hot chocolate?”
He glanced at his father. “Mom says no sugar on school days…”
“When school’s canceled because of a fallen tree, it’s not a school day,” Cort said. “Go ahead.”
“The booth by the window’s the best seat in the house,” Rebecca told him. “I actually found a box of my old art supplies yesterday—pencil crayons, paper, even pipe cleaners—if you’re interested, Pip.”
“Oh, yes, I just learned how to make animals with them,” Pip said, his excitement clear.
She set him up, and he immediately began twisting a neon-green wire into the shape of a turtle.
“Coffee?” Rebecca asked Cort.
“Always.”
She poured him a mug and slid it across the chrome counter. “Order’s up.”
Cort smiled. “Remember how busy it used to get in here? It was the place to be. Studying with you, getting free dessert and coffee. I felt pretty special.” He looked up.
Rebecca’s pulse fluttered. His voice was easy, but the words he had said landed somewhere deep.
She had felt special, too, sitting at a table with Cort Adams. But she couldn’t say that to him.
She focused on whisking cocoa and sugar into paste.
“I wish I had whipped cream,” she said. “Bet Pip would love that.”
“He’ll be thrilled with this.” Cort took the mugs. “I’ll bring his over.”
“Thank you, Becca!” Pip called from the booth, once his hot chocolate was delivered and Cort had returned to the counter.
Rebecca smiled. “He’s a sweetheart.”
“Best thing I ever did,” Cort said.
“Looks just like his mother.” She tested the words and found they didn’t hurt anymore.
“Lucky for him, right? Better than looking like me.”
“Oh, give me a break,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You look exactly the same as in high school, and every girl was in love with you.”
“Not every girl,” he said quietly. She quickly broke his gaze, heat filling her cheeks. Rebecca was grateful when Pip called out to them.
“Dad! Becca! You have to come see this!”
—
Pip was sitting in the booth holding a sheaf of old papers, some crumpled, some still folded. They were full of pencil sketches, pencil crayon drawings, childish block letters. “They’re all about the diner. Did you make these, Becca?”
Rebecca reached for one and looked down. It was a drawing of a sign that read, The Blackbird it was where she had grown up. “Hey, Pip, there’s a little hot chocolate left in the pot. Would you like more?”
“Yes, please,” he said. “Your cocoa is even better than Dad’s, and he makes the best.”
Rebecca laughed. “Maybe I’ll have to challenge him to a cocoa-off sometime.”
“You wouldn’t stand a chance,” Cort teased, his gray eyes warm again. “My secret recipe is legendary in the Adams household.”
“Dad puts cinnamon and a little bit of cayenne pepper in it,” Pip stage-whispered, clearly unaware of the concept of a secret recipe.
Cort clutched his chest in mock horror. “My own flesh and blood betrays my culinary secrets.”
Rebecca watched as Pip laughed, his red hair falling across his forehead in a way that reminded her of autumn leaves cascading from branches.
Back in the kitchen, the scent of applewood smoke and burning leaves came in through the window on the breeze.
On the counter behind the stove, Rebecca saw a battered tin recipe card box she hadn’t noticed before.
As the sound of Cort and Pip chatting in the dining room drifted toward her through the pass, she pulled the box toward her and took out a random card.
It was a recipe for her grandmother’s “famous” applesauce cake, which, she said in the recipe, was actually even better made using frozen applesauce from the previous season.
“A great way to use up the inevitable leftovers forgotten in the freezer—and time only deepens the flavors.” This made Rebecca smile.
It was typical Lenore. She had been raised in a different era, when wastefulness was more than frowned upon.
She had always found a use for everything, from apple peels, which she used to make apple jelly and homemade apple cider vinegar, to the decorative gourds once harvesttime was over, which she composted in her small back garden to enrich the soil.
Rebecca set the recipe card aside. The applesauce cake was a simple recipe.
Even she, who had never had much interest in baking, could manage it.
The idea of baking one of her grandmother’s recipes shifted something inside her, as did pouring out the rest of the hot chocolate to bring to Pip, looking out through the pass and seeing people at the tables in the diner.
A friend and his son. She had fought it, but already she knew hiring Cort had been the right thing.
That having him around was something she was grateful for, despite herself.