“Yup, born and raised. Other than a few years in Tuscaloosa for college, I’ve never lived anywhere else.”
“Tuscaloosa, huh?”
“Yup, Roll Tide!” she responded with a little giggle.
“We’re gonna have to disagree there, Miss Hawthorne,” he said, feeling the wry smile start to creep up his face. “It’s Geaux Tigers!”
She rocked back a half step, looking almost affronted by his response. A ladylike hand flew to cover her chest as she mockingly gasped.
“OMG, you’re not kiddin’, are you?”
“I have family from down there. They made sure my allegiances were formed young.”
She let out a little giggle, and the sound sent a feeling through Holden that he didn’t recognize. Something he hadn’t felt since Hannah. Was that…lust? He had no idea, but what he did know was that if he wasn’t careful, he was going to try and make her make that sound again. He needed to get out of here. Needed to go retreat back into his space and be alone.
“Well, Miss Hawthorne…”
“Gigi, please,” she corrected him.
“Gigi,” he said. “I should leave you be to get settled. If something doesn’t work, my number is on a sticky note on the fridge. You should have enough service to text me. If not, just knock on the door.”
“Thanks again.”
Holden nodded once more and stepped to the side to head to the door. In doing so his arm brushed up against hers, and Holden watched as Gigi flinched, crashing into the counter behind her as she tried to move out of his way. It struck him as an odd reaction to such a light touch, but he reminded himself that she’d been through a lot recently. He probably did weird things right after losing Hannah. Hell, he was still doing weird things if you asked his friends and family.
He had no idea what her story was. But there was something about Gigi Hawthorne that had him intrigued. He just hoped she wasn’t going to be trouble.
3
Gigi
Without a doubt, this had been the most interesting week of Gigi’s life. Which was saying something, because her very privileged life up until now had allowed her to go a lot of places and see a lot of things. Included in that list of things, however, had not been espresso machines, industrial kitchens, cash registers, or studio apartments. To say the learning curve was steep would be an understatement.
Not that she wasn’t grateful—she was more than just grateful. She'd thought about leaving Bradley for years but never actually had the guts to do it. Every time she’d started to think about it, or even tried to think of a plan, she’d always come back to the same thing—how on earth would she support herself? But that question had seemingly been answered thanks to a random nail in her tire. It was still a little surreal to her how it all came together so quickly, but if she’d learned anything in her thirty-four years on this earth, it was that you did not question God’s timing. His sense of humor, however, was something she was starting to wonder about. Sticking her in the middle of rural Vermont and having her work at a café had to be keeping Him all kinds of entertained.
Just like that first day at the café, her new landlord—who was sexy as all get-out with his tattoos and beard—came in every morning for coffee. She didn’t fully understand why he didn’t just have it at home, but Kirk told her it was the only time he knew of that Holden left the house. Who was she to question someone else’s routine? Besides, she enjoyed seeing him. And not just because his was the only coffee order she had gotten correct that morning. There was something about Holden that made her feel like she was thirteen again and crushing on some boy in math class. And she really, really liked that feeling.
While she hadn't had to fiddle with the coffeemaking side of things after her first day, she did have a couple of run-ins with the register. Kirk hadn’t told her not to hit the back button. Had he told her that, she wouldn’t have done it, and it never would have resulted in the machine freezing to the point where the rest of the day was spent ringing customers up by hand. Kirk was more than happy to banish her to the kitchen so she could get to work on the cakes after that.
True to her word, Zara had been right about their kitchen having everything she would need. Between Audrey having been a professional chef and Roderick, the uber hot baking mastermind who kept the Bean stocked with all the savory baked goods, they knew all the right equipment for an operation like this. Not that a lot of them meant anything to Gigi, but she could tell that it had anything you could want if you actually knew what you were doing. She was holding her own though, or so she’d thought, until Audrey approached her this afternoon.
“Hey, Gigi, how are you settling in?” Audrey asked, as Gigi pulled a tray of cupcakes out of the oven.
The tops of each little cake hadn’t risen the way she had expected. Instead of having a nice round top that crested over the top of the divot in the tray, each one was barely level with the little wrapping she’d placed the batter in. Had she not put in enough batter? Oh, for heaven’s sake…
“Fine!” she replied, with maybe a little too much enthusiasm. She didn’t want her new boss to have any idea that she didn’t really know what she was doing and that underneath this very well put together exterior, she was nothing but a hot mess. Hell, these days she was the hot mess express. “It’s been quite the week, but I think I’m starting to get my footing.”
“Good! I’m so glad you found a place to stay so quickly. I stayed at the motor lodge myself for a moment when I first visited Colebury, and it’s an experience!”
“That’s a very nice way of putting it!”
“I just wanted to check in, because we’ve gotten some feedback on all the new stuff you’ve made. Everything is so pretty. The roses yesterday were just adorable!” Audrey started.
“Oh, I love those!” Gigi responded. The one thing that the Busy Bean didn’t have on hand was fondant. Which was fine, because regular frosting was easy enough to make, and Gigi knew she wouldn’t screw that up. It just meant being extra careful in piping a large rose on top of each one. “There wasn’t any fondant in here, so I’ve had to keep things pretty basic for right now until we can get some in. Or I guess I could try and make some.” She’d watched the chef who taught her class make some, and it looked easy enough. Maybe she could try that.
“I’ve got it on the list to order,” Audrey continued. “But, we’ve had some…I don’t want to say complaints, but…comments…that things have been a little undercooked.”
“Undercooked?” Gigi repeated. Her heart sank. Here she thought she’d been doing so well, that she’d actually made a halfway decent cupcake. Sure, it was just a basic recipe off the internet, but everything had smelled so good when she pulled them out of the ovens. Maybe she should have tried one first. “I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t make anyone sick!”
“No one got sick—nothing like that. The cake part is just a little gluey, you know? Look, I understand that industrial convection ovens take some getting used to, so don’t worry about it. Even Roderick had to play around with some of his stuff when he started here. I just thought I’d let you know so that you could adjust your baking time.”
Gigi knew she couldn’t blame the oven, but she was not about to admit that out loud. She couldn’t let on that she was faking her way through this. If the cupcakes needed to bake longer, then they would bake longer. That’s all there was to it. Maybe she should practice at home.
“Thank you for letting me know. I’ll leave them in for another minute or so and see what that does,” Gigi said, hoping it sounded correct. Since Audrey simply smiled and told her she’d see her later, it must have been a satisfying enough answer. It just didn’t leave Gigi feeling very good about herself.
Holden
If Holden hadn’t known any better, he would have thought that the blinking cursor on his screen was mocking him. Why was this so hard? He used to long for the days when he would have enough downtime to get all the ideas bouncing around his head onto the page. Inspiration always managed
to hit when he was in the gym or out for a run—moments when he could do absolutely nothing about it. Thankfully, his muse had left him alone during matches so he wasn’t distracted, but the second he stepped off that pitch, it’d been fair game.
It was another perfectly crisp fall day in Vermont, and Holden was sitting out on the front porch with his laptop. He’d been hoping that maybe some sunshine and fresh air would help knock something loose in his brain. As if the bright fall colors had magic powers. Turns out, they didn’t provide anything other than a great view and a wonderful distraction.
The sound of his phone ringing stole his attention from the mostly blank Word document. Pulling it from his back pocket, he rolled his eyes playfully when he saw his godfather’s name on the screen.
“Uncle Field…” he greeted him.
“Why do you already sound suspicious, young man?” the familiar voice on the other end said.
“Well, old man, it’s the middle of the day. Some of us are working,” Holden retorted, giving his godfather a hard time. If there was anyone on this planet he could be a smart-ass to, it was this man. In fact, it was Caulfield Montgomery who had taught Holden how to be a smart-ass in the first place.
“Working? Does that mean you’ve typed more than four words today?”
Ouch. Holden winced at the all too accurate accusation. Caulfield was an incredibly successful author in his own right, so he understood a thing or two about writer’s block. Not that his understanding stopped him from harassing Holden about it, claiming it was all “part of the process.” Looking down at his laptop screen, Holden counted the words written there.
“Six, thank you very much.”
“Well, that’s more than four,” he laughed.
“I trust that mocking me about my word count isn’t why you are calling?”
“It’s October. I thought I’d check to make sure you remembered to winterize the pipes in the carriage house. Don’t want anything to burst.”
And there it was—the real reason he was calling. Mrs. Welch must have spilled the beans about the carriage house not only being occupied again, but by a very attractive woman. No, attractive wasn’t the right word for Gigi. Stunning, beautiful, sexy—all of those worked to describe the shapely little blonde who had stumbled into his life last week.
“Carriage house isn’t empty at the moment, so no need to winterize the pipes.”
“Not empty? I thought the weird kid moved out?” There was a mock ignorance to his tone, and Holden barked out a laugh.
“Am I at least on speaker so that Mom and Dad can hear this too? Wouldn’t want you to relay bad information,” he teased, knowing that his parents were probably no more than ten feet away. After retiring from Dartmouth where he’d been a literature professor, Holden’s father had found the perfect golf community in Florida where they could while away their days. Not surprisingly, since the two men had been joined at the hip since they became roommates in college, Caulfield had joined them six months later, buying a condo in the same building.
“Hi, honey!” his mom’s voice called.
“Hi, Mom.”
“How are you? Mrs. Welch mentioned that a sweet young lady moved into the carriage house. I didn’t think you were planning on renting it out again after her nephew.”
“I wasn’t. But Gigi just moved to town after losing her husband and needed a place to stay,” he told them, trying to keep it as simple as possible.
“She’s a widow? Oh, poor girl. But it gives you two some common ground, which’ll be nice.”
“I don't need common ground with her, Mom. She lives above the garage, that’s all.”
“Son, would it kill you to have a friend?” his father chimed in.
Holden sighed audibly. Did everyone still have these kinds of calls with their family? He would have figured that by the time he turned thirty-nine they would have been over this, but apparently not. Apparently even though he was pushing middle age, his parents still felt the need to talk to him about the importance of friends like he was in kindergarten.
“I have friends, Dad. I just like being alone.”
“Son, this isn’t what Hannah would have wanted.”
“Leave her out of this,” Holden snapped.
“Enough, Heath. Go get us beers, let me talk to him,” Holden heard Caulfield say. A moment later, after some shuffling, Caulfield’s voice came back on the line, much clearer than before. He must have taken him off speaker. “Holden, listen to me.”
“I’m listening, old man.”
“I know you miss Hannah and the life you were supposed to have together. Just like I miss your Aunt Viv. But you can’t stay hidden away in that old house forever.”
“Aunt Viv had an aneurysm. She wasn’t murdered.” Moving his laptop to the ground, Holden stood up and started to pace. His emotions were going to get the best of him if he didn’t somehow take control of everything he was suddenly feeling flow through him.
“She was still taken from me unexpectedly. I still found her body in the garden. It still ripped my heart out of my chest and made my world come to a halt.”
Holden thought back to the phone call from his mother letting him know that Aunt Viv had passed. She’d been not too far from where he stood now, tending to the flower gardens in the front yard closer to the carriage house. Caulfield arrived home from a run to the hardware store to find her lying there among her beloved tulips, already gone. Prior to Hannah’s death, it was possibly the hardest moment of Holden’s life. But for as heartbroken as Caulfield had been, a few short weeks after her death, he was back to his old routine and already talking to his publisher about his next book tour.
“Viv would have my balls if I didn’t go through with this book because of her. Last thing I need is to get to heaven and have her waiting to bitch me out about it,” he’d said when Holden had asked him why so soon. But it wasn’t the same for Caulfield. He wasn’t the reason his wife was dead.
“That’s different.”
“How? Explain to me how it’s different,” his godfather pushed back.
“You weren’t the reason an artery burst in her brain.”
“And you weren’t the reason Hannah was stabbed.”
“I need to get back to writing.”
“You mean back to staring at years-old notes and a blank page? It’s been six years, Holden. Your muse won’t return until you forgive yourself and let yourself move on from Hannah.”
Holden hung up without saying goodbye. He didn’t need this lecture again. His family had made it perfectly clear how they felt about things. The reminder that it’d been as long as it had without any kind of inspiration really only added more salt to the wound. Because Caulfield was right—his muse was gone.
She had died right alongside his girls.
4
Gigi
“Oven’s ready!” Gigi said to the empty apartment as the appliance beeped at her. Grabbing the muffin tray off the counter, she slipped it inside and closed the door with her hip. She set the timer, and then upped it a couple more minutes, wanting to make sure these were fully cooked.
See, you’re getting the hang of this! It just takes practice.
Turning around, she frowned as she took inventory of the incredible mess she’d made. Working in this little space was so much harder than the giant kitchen at the Busy Bean. Her one little counter in this kitchenette only had a fraction of the space that the big, long prep tables there had. Trying to follow this recipe on her phone, while the counter was covered in flour, sugar, and every other ingredient she’d purchased on her way home this evening, was proving a lot more challenging than she’d thought.
The whole process had taken her a good bit longer than expected, but when she finally got the muffin tray into the oven, she heaved a huge sigh of relief. However, the idea of cleaning all this up seemed a little too daunting for the moment. Why was it so easy to make the mess, but so much harder to clean it all up? Not that she’d ever taken her staff for granted
—she knew they worked hard—but she had a whole new level of respect and understanding for them after this week.
Sipping on a glass of limoncello, Gigi wandered over to the little window that looked over the yard and toward the big Victorian house. The stately looking home was painted a soft, light blue color with white trim and featured large, two story bow windows, one on either side of the front door. It looked exactly like something you’d see in a magazine about old houses, and Gigi couldn’t help but wonder if the inside was decorated to match the classic New England exterior or if it was done up in a more modern way. Holden didn’t exactly seem like someone who was particularly interested in all the latest and greatest gadgets, but what did she know? They’d had all of three conversations since she moved in here.
“Well, hello there, sir…” Gigi muttered, taking a long sip of her drink as Holden appeared in view of her window.
He was walking up the long driveway with what looked like the mail in his hand, his strides long and graceful like he was a lion who was lazily sauntering across the prairie. When he’d walked up to the counter last week at the coffee shop, Gigi had immediately been taken with him, although she had no idea why. He was nothing like her husband, or any of the men she’d dated before. At almost six feet tall, he had plenty of height on her, but that still made him shorter than her usual type. But his broad shoulders and muscular frame that always seemed to move so gracefully, no matter what she saw him doing, sent sparks through her body. His piercing blue eyes were guarded, giving away nothing about what he was feeling. Gigi couldn’t read his face even the slightest bit, and that only served to intrigue her more. Oh, and that beard. Beards had never, ever been something that Gigi had found attractive, and yet on Holden, that long, somewhat ragged beard, with streaks of gray starting to weave their way through it, was such a turn-on.
And then there were his tattoos. She hadn’t gotten to see them up close, other than the few that were poking out of his pushed up long-sleeved shirt, but both arms appeared to be covered in brightly colored art, and it left her wondering just how far up his arms they went and where else he might be inked. Watching him now, she was disappointed to see that those beautiful forearms were once again covered in long sleeves as he headed into the house.
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