Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mother nature had gotten the memo that today was the community bazaar, because the weather could hardly be better.
Jared tipped his head up to feel the late spring sunshine on his face.
The sky was a perfect, cloudless blue, and the temperature was ideal.
It was warm without being hot, and Jared felt that he would have been comfortable even if he took off the light denim jacket that he wore.
The whole town had taken the beautiful day as encouragement to turn out for the historical society’s event.
The community green was bustling, so thick with people that Jared could only catch glimpses of the different booths as the crowd ebbed and flowed around the space.
Jared didn’t mind; he had plenty of time.
The restaurant was only open for dinner service, since everyone in town was likely to be eating here.
He didn’t even think that there would be many people at the restaurant that evening, since from the smells in the air, there was lots of good things to eat right here.
Jared planned to eat as many of them as his stomach could handle.
He loved cooking, but there was something very fun about eating food that someone else had cooked too, especially when those chefs were professionals in their own way too.
He let his nose lead the way, enjoying the feeling of grumbling hunger that was growing in his stomach, satisfied that he would soon get to ease those grumbles.
He followed the arc of booths around the green.
First, he stopped by Eleanor’s booth, which had a series of books on local history on display.
The store’s proprietress was too busy for them to chat for very long, but Jared purchased a cookbook that looked at Massachusetts culinary history and updated the recipes to fit modern trends in cooking.
All the chefs who had contributed to the book were New England natives.
Jared could see some of the recipes as useful inspiration for things he might serve at Riverstone Kitchen.
Even if he didn’t end up using them in his professional life, a quick flip through the pages made him certain that he would cook at least a few of these meals for himself.
Next, he passed to the booth hosted by Juniper Café, where he bought himself a bear claw that was basically the size of his face.
He took a bite, finding it so delicious that he had to pause to close his eyes for a moment.
They’d been generous with the frangipane in the middle, and he could tell that it had been made in-house.
The prepackaged stuff always tasted a little chemical, in his opinion, but this was fresh.
The glaze on top had just a hint of citrus to it, and the bright flavor added complexity to the pastry.
Jared looked at it longingly. He didn’t want to fill up on the very first thing he bought to eat, but this pastry was pretty darn irresistible. He took a few more bites before reluctantly wrapping the remaining parts in its paper bag and tucking it safely in the tote he had slung over his shoulder.
He was pleased with his restraint when he moved to the next booth, which had local artisanal cheese samples.
He tried more cheeses than he could count, then bought a semi-firm, raw milk cheese, a Camembert-style round, and a pungent hard cheese.
He made sure to get a card from the seller, in case any of the cheeses would be good at the restaurant.
He reasoned that if he was buying unreasonable amounts of cheese for professional research, then it wasn’t actually unreasonable at all.
He passed by the Nautical Crafts booth, smiling when he thought of the logo on the box of poker chips that Hope had gotten for the restaurant.
He had never been much of a craft guy, since his ‘work with your hands’ energy all went into cooking, but he admired the historical crafts and the different materials for any modern crafter’s needs.
When he saw a block of fabric samples in coordinating patterns, he thought about Hope and her quilting, but stopped himself before he reached for it.
She would know better than he did what she needed for her hobby, and besides, he didn’t want to be presumptuous.
He passed a few more boutiques from different local sellers, making purchases here and there. He purchased enough jam to get him through at least a year, plus a corn-and-blueberry cookie that looked really interesting. His bag had started to get really heavy by the time he reached Hope’s booth.
She turned to him with a smile.
“Hi!” she exclaimed, finishing tidying a stack of quilted squares before she turned to address him more fully. He paused, then realized that the smaller items were pillowcases, likely for throw pillows. That was clever, since she could make them more quickly than full quilts.
“How’s business going?” he asked.
She gave an excited shimmy. “Really good, actually,” she said, beaming. “I kind of thought that nobody would buy anything, but I’ve sold a whole bunch of things!”
“I’m so proud of you,” he said, meaning it.
Her grin widened even further. “Thank you,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without you, seriously.”
He shrugged, brushing off the compliment. “I just gave you a little nudge, that’s all,” he said. “You were the one who made all these great things.”
“It was more than a little nudge,” she amended. “Winnie told me that you really talked me up.”
Now it was Jared’s turn to blush.
“Nothing that wasn’t true,” he said.
Another customer came up just then, so Jared gave Hope a little wave and continued his circuit around the bazaar, feeling just a little disappointed that their conversation had been cut short.
He could have spent the whole afternoon happily hanging out with her, he thought.
He never really got tired of spending time with her.
But there was still lots to see, and he didn’t want to distract Hope from her success.
He kept moving, pausing for a long while at the informational displays that the historical society had arranged at the center of the bazaar.
He would not have called himself a history buff, per se, but he found the exhibit fascinating.
He particularly liked the photographs of Magnolia Shore from the early eras of photography.
Many of them were of stiff-faced people from the Victorian era, posing solemnly for the one photograph that they might take in their lifetimes, but his favorites were the ones where people had been caught unawares.
Sometimes, their expressions were a little blurry, but he could see their laughter.
In the second half of the loop, he stopped at the Magnolia Boutique table, where Diana had put out an assortment of her smaller wares for sale. Nobody was at the table for the moment, so Jared stopped to say hello.
“Hi, Diana,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” she said brightly. “Weirdly, I have been selling a lot of sunglasses today. I almost didn’t bring them with me to stock, since they’re not exactly historical.
” She held a hand up to her eyes and squinted at the bright sky.
“Or maybe it’s not so weird after all. It’s sunny today, and a lot of these people are from out of town, so it’s not like they can just pop on home and come back if they need sun protection. ”
“You know,” Jared observed, “I thought I saw an awful lot of new faces around here.”
“Yeah, I heard the main historical society guy, Lyle, talking about it. Apparently, this is a way bigger turnout than they’d hoped for. The good weather drove people into searching for something outdoors, and they found us. Which, you know, great for us.”
“Absolutely,” Jared agreed. “Maybe I’ll live to regret closing the restaurant, but I’m feeling pretty happy about the day off for right now.”
“I’m a little jealous,” she admitted. “I want to be eating all the snacks.”
He grinned. “Well, not to rub it in, but they have been pretty delicious.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, making him laugh.
“How’s the wedding planning going, by the way?” he asked. At the last small business owners’ meeting, Diana had bemoaned how very many details went into planning a whole wedding.
“Still pretty chaotic,” she admitted, offering him a good-natured but still long-suffering sigh. “I’ve been stuck on the wedding dress.”
“In fairness, that’s a pretty big part of the whole planning bit,” he said. “Or, you know, so I hear. Not that I have a ton of personal experience shopping for dresses.”
“No?” she quipped. “Well, take it from me, it is a big part. And I keep dragging my poor friends to every bridal shop in the state, because I just can’t seem to find the dress.
Not that they’ve been bad sports about it,” she hastened to add.
“They’re actually being beyond lovely. Every time I’m tempted to give up, they keep my head in the game. ”
“Those are the kinds of friends to have,” he said.
“You are absolutely right about that,” she agreed. “And, speaking of…” She waved, and Jared followed the expression to find Cadence, Tyler, and their daughter Isabelle coming toward them.
“Hi, Aunt Diana!” Isabelle cried, darting behind the booth to give Diana a quick embrace before returning to her parents’ side. “Hi, Jared.”
“Hi, Izzy,” he said. “Those glasses are new, right?”
Izzy held a hand under her chin, framing her face. “Indeed, they are, thank you for noticing,” she said with a truly hilarious amount of drama. “Aren’t they super cool?”
“They are super cool,” he agreed.
Suddenly, her eyes went wide behind her lenses. “Want to know something super silly, though? I didn’t want them for a long time, because I thought they would look dorky. But they don’t.”
“They don’t look dorky at all,” he said. He tried to keep his face earnest and serious, because he didn’t want to make Izzy think he was laughing at her, but it was hard, especially because, behind her, Diana and Cadence were both silently cracking up.