Chapter Eight – Rachel
By the time Rachel drove back into the yard behind the restaurant, she had herself under control again.
Or nearly.
Elliott was in the passenger seat, the basket of chervil wedged beside them, and the whole errand had reduced itself—at least on the surface—to what it had always supposedly been.
A practical problem. A practical solution.
Twenty minutes up the mountain. Twenty minutes back.
No reason at all for her to still be thinking about the porch, the herb beds, and the way his hand had closed around hers to help her up.
No reason at all to still hear his voice saying, I’m glad it was you who came.
She switched off the engine and reached for the keys before the thought could get any further.
Elliott was already out of the car by the time she opened her door. He took the basket from the passenger seat before she could.
“I’ve got it,” he said.
“Of course you have.”
Inside, the restaurant had already moved on without them.
Matt looked up, saw the basket, and was visibly relieved. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Rachel said, putting her keys away.
Matt lifted out the chervil at once, then glanced at the rosemary tucked beside it. “What’s this?”
Elliott shrugged. “A random herb. I figured you’d come up with some use for it.”
Matt huffed a laugh. “Fine. I’ll take it.”
Rachel went back to work. Today, though, her mind was still not entirely in the room, and the fact of that irritated her.
She did not think about his cabin.
She did not think about the porch rail warm under her hand or the way Elliott had asked her if she wanted to go inside. And she most certainly did not think about how, for one brief and extremely foolish second, she had wanted to say yes.
She reached automatically for the booking sheet by the host stand and forced herself back into work. Names. Times. Dietary notes. The practical stuff. Familiar, measurable things. The sort she knew how to do with one hand tied behind her back.
Seating diners, discussing the menu, taking orders.
And through it all, Rachel remained unhelpfully aware of Elliott.
Not because he did anything to draw attention to himself.
Quite the opposite.
He was simply there in her peripheral vision.
He carried trays, cleared plates, and took things from one pair of hands and passed them to another.
Once, when she reached for the dessert board at the same moment he did, his fingers brushed the edge of it, and he stepped back at once, giving her space as if he had known exactly how much she needed.
That should have made it easier.
It did not.
By the time the afternoon drifted toward the school pickup time, the effect he had on her ought to have worn off.
It hadn’t.
The back door swung open, and Tessa came in with Lucy’s cardigan over one arm, Aria’s school bag over the other, and a familiar smile on her face.
“The girls wanted to come and say hello,” she said, with the girls behind her. “Though I suspect they mostly wanted to see Elliott and ask more questions about where he’s been.”
“Rather than their mother,” Rachel said.
“That’s not exactly true,” Lucy said, going straight to Rachel for a hug.
“But mostly,” Rachel said, dropping a kiss onto the top of her head.
“Maybe a little.” Lucy held up her index finger and thumb.
“Well, remember what I told you.”
“Don’t disturb Elliott if he’s busy,” Lucy recited.
“Good.”
“Hey, I thought I heard your voice,” Elliott said as he came to join them. “How was school?”
“Okay,” Lucy said. “But we came here to talk about you.”
“You did?” Elliott shot Rachel a slightly panicked look.
“Yes. We want to know what other countries you traveled to,” Lucy said.
Aria leaned in a little. “What’s that smell?”
Elliott lifted his sleeve and sniffed it. “Rosemary, I think.”
Lucy frowned. “Why do you smell like rosemary?”
“Because we had a herb emergency,” Elliott said. “Matt needed chervil from up at my place, and your mom drove me up to fetch it. The rosemary was there too, so we brought some back.”
“What do you use rosemary for, apart from on potatoes?” Aria asked.
“Lots of things,” Elliott said. “Like cakes.”
That sparked Lucy’s attention. “Can you make cakes?”
Elliott leaned one hip against the counter. “I can manage a few.”
“What sort?”
He pretended to think about it. “Depends. Are we talking birthday cakes, cakes for eating with tea, cakes that look impressive, or cakes that are mostly there as an excuse for icing?”
Lucy considered this. “All of them.”
“That’s ambitious.”
“It’s a serious question.”
“I can tell.”
Tessa, stirring her coffee at the back table, looked up and said, “At this rate, Elliott’s going to stop writing a travel book and start writing one about cakes.”
“Yes!” Lucy’s eyes lit up. “That’s an amazing idea. We could taste them all for you.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Rachel said.
“What’s the best one?” Aria asked.
“Well, since we’re on the subject of rosemary, I was telling your mom earlier about an orange and rosemary cake I had in Italy once. Very simple. Very good.”
Lucy looked horrified and fascinated in equal measure. “Orange and rosemary?”
“That sounds strange,” Aria said.
“It was good strange,” Elliott said.
Lucy turned at once. “We should make one for Mom.”
“At our house,” Aria added, nodding. “We could make it there.”
“Yes!” Lucy clapped her hands together, completely swept along by the idea. “We already have oranges. I saw them in the fruit bowl this morning.”
Elliott looked at Rachel, a question in his eyes, clearly waiting for her permission before agreeing to anything.
Rachel felt something lurch inside her chest. The suggestion had caught her completely off guard. This wasn’t just Elliott being friendly at the restaurant—this was inviting him into their home. She opened her mouth to refuse, but found herself looking at the eager faces of her daughters.
“I...” Rachel struggled to find a gracious way to decline. “That’s a lovely idea, but...”
“Please, Mom?” Lucy’s eyes went wide and pleading. “We’ve never made a cake with rosemary before.”
Tessa caught her eye from across the room, giving her a small, encouraging smile that somehow made this harder.
“Not today,” Rachel finally managed. “We’d need to buy the ingredients, and you both have homework.”
“Tomorrow, then?” Lucy asked immediately, not missing a beat. “After school. Please.”
Rachel hesitated, feeling cornered. “I suppose tomorrow would work.”
“Yes!” both girls exclaimed in unison, high-fiving each other.
Elliott looked as surprised as she felt. “Only if you’re sure,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to impose.”
“It’s fine,” Rachel said, though it didn’t feel fine at all. “The girls would love it.”
“Tomorrow it is.” Elliott nodded. “I can bring everything we need.”
“Yes,” Lucy clapped her hands together.
Rachel watched her daughters’ faces light up with excitement and forced herself to smile along with them.
What had just happened? How had she gone from being so carefully guarded to inviting Elliott into their home to bake a cake, of all things?
The boundaries she’d tried so hard to maintain were crumbling faster than she could rebuild them.
Yet seeing how happy the girls were made it impossible to take it back. It had been so long since she had seen them this excited.
“I’ll text you the address,” Rachel said, pulling her phone from her pocket, trying to make this feel more businesslike, more contained.
“Great,” Elliott replied, his voice rough as he pulled out his own phone. “I’m looking forward to it.”
As they shared numbers and she texted him her address, Rachel felt a flutter of panic. Tomorrow, Elliott Thornberg would be in her kitchen, in her home.
Hoping she would not regret it.
Because all this talk of cakes in Italy was a reminder that Elliott’s life had been wide in all the ways hers was not.
His had been full of roads and planes and places she had only ever seen in pictures.
Hers, and the girls’, was built around school terms and playdates, homework and dinners, and being home on time.
Nevertheless, against all common sense, she had just let him one step closer.