With the air of a girl twice her age, Eden seemed to mull over the question. ‘Yeah,’ she said again. ‘I like Jason. He’s nice.’
Lily’s knotted stomach plummeted. That wasn’t what she had asked. ‘Yeah, he’s nice for helping us.’
Like a beacon in the night, she spotted a sign she recognized. The Portside Coffeehouse might as well have had angelic rays blazing from its front windows because, in that moment, it was heaven on earth to Lily. Not only because the decadent scent of perfectly roasted coffee beans wafted out onto the street from the opened doorway, and not only because there was a piece of paper taped to the window with Help Wanted, Apply Within in thick block letters written in black Sharpie marker, but because it was the perfect escape from the unexpected turn in their conversation.
There was no way—no way at all—she was confessing the truth to her daughter. The reckless, ridiculous truth. After everything she had been through, after less than twenty-four measly hours …
Eden wasn’t the only one who liked Jason Forrester.
***
The interior of the Portside Coffeehouse was everything Lily hoped it would be. When she first inhaled the sweet scent of their coffee at Nancy’s house earlier that morning, her mind had conjured up an image of what a place that served such rich, delicious coffee might look like. The kind of people who might frequent it. The way the spot might be decorated.
Scratch that. The coffeehouse wasn’t everything she had hoped for—it was more. It was perfect. She had stepped out of a picturesque small town and into a hip and trendy hole in the wall type of café she would expect to find settled amidst high-end stores and boutiques in the middle of a city. Tall bistro tables with ornate stools popped up across the dark walnut floor, the deep crimson of the stool seats matching the vinyl that covered the booths lining the right side of the room. The brick walls added a creative flair, and the ordering counter, though stainless steel and industrial, gave the whole scene a dash of color and character with the sporadic chunky vases of fresh daisies set up near the cash register. Lily let out a sigh, thrilled at finding a spot in Port Landon that made her feel instantly like she would get through this temporary setback on her journey.
With the help of a place that served amazing caffeine buzzes, anything was possible.
‘Hey there. What can I get for you?’
Lily tore her gaze from the electric fireplace on the far side of the room—its faux flames were flickering, but no heat came from the unit—to meet the bright eyes of a tall woman in a black T-shirt. The luster of her auburn ponytail caused envy to sear through Lily; her own blonde locks would never possess the same kind of shine. ‘Hi. We’ll just be a sec. You’ve got a food menu, too, right, not just coffee?’
‘If I don’t have it, I can tell you where to get it nearby,’ the barista assured her. She pointed at the two handwritten chalkboards behind her. One listed more caffeinated drinks than Lily’s imagination could ever dream of, the other boasted an array of soup, sandwiches, as well as scones and biscotti.
‘Eden, do you want some mushroom soup?’ It was the only thing Lily saw on the board that her daughter might actually eat.
A vehement nod followed. ‘With crackers.’
That went without saying. The little girl wouldn’t touch any soup without a handful of soda crackers crushed in it. ‘Deal. What do you say?’
Eden flashed an oversized cheeky grin. ‘Please and thank you.’ With her slight lisp, Lily loved the sound of her daughter’s polite words.
‘It looks like a bowl of your mushroom soup for her, and I’ll get a bowl of the Italian wedding soup.’ She pulled her wallet from her purse, eyeing the dwindling roll of bills. ‘Better add a medium dark roast coffee with milk, too, please.’
The barista paused, but then she nodded, tapping the cash register buttons. ‘Coming right up. That’ll be …’ Tap, tap, tap. ‘Thirteen dollars and forty-three cents.’
Lily handed over one of the remaining twenties. ‘Thank you.’
The barista slid her change across the counter, then went about pouring Lily’s coffee into a paper cup. She asked, ‘Did you—’ just as Lily blurted, ‘Is there—’
Both women stopped, then chuckled.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lily said. ‘What were you going to say?’
Still grinning, the barista placed a plastic lid on the cup and offered it to her. ‘I was going to ask if I heard you correctly, that your daughter’s name is Eden?’
‘Yes.’ Glancing down at the girl for a brief second, her eyes narrowed. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Does that mean you’re Lily?’
Shocked, she nodded. ‘It does. How do you know that?’
The barista’s ponytail swayed as she went about spooning hefty helpings of homemade soup into takeout bowls. ‘News travels fast around these parts,’ she explained. ‘Not much gets by us.’
It was probably meant as a joke, but the comment made Lily’s insides churn. ‘I’m not sure whether I should be wary or impressed.’
The barista didn’t turn away from her work, just chuckled to herself. ‘It’s not as ominous as it sounds. Or as impressive, honestly.’ She glanced over her shoulder toward Lily. ‘Nancy’s sister works here. I heard about your car trouble when Sonya came in first thing this morning. And how adorable Nancy thinks your daughter is. She’s excited to have a child staying at her place, I think.’
Lily hoped that meant she heard about the car’s inability to run and not Lily’s inability to pay for the repairs. ‘Ah, that makes sense. It’s much less creepy when I know how complete strangers found out who Eden and I are so quickly.’
Setting the bowls on a copper tray, the barista placed it in front of Lily. Then, she held out her hand. ‘I’m Allison, the owner of this fine establishment. There, we’re not complete strangers anymore.’
Lily couldn’t stop herself. She laughed. What was with the people in this town? Everyone seemed to have a knack for making her smile. They were all just so darn likeable. It actually helped to ease Lily’s apprehension when it came to the fact that she liked Jason. It wasn’t him, solely, she found attractive, then. Everyone in Port Landon gave off the same friendly vibe. It wasn’t just Jason, it was everyone. Everything. There was something freeing about realizing that, and Lily clung to the notion like a lifeline.
Shaking Allison’s hand, she replied, ‘Nice to meet you. Interestingly enough, I was actually looking for the owner of this fine establishment. What a coincidence.’
‘Very interesting. What about?’
Eden rocked back and forth on her heels, staring at the bowl of soup on the counter with unabashed longing. Lily didn’t blame her; it had been hours since she had eaten a late breakfast.
‘I saw the sign in your window.’ Lily pointed toward the door.
Eyes widening, Allison lit up like a Christmas tree. ‘You want a job? You’re serious?’
‘Gravely,’ she replied. It wasn’t a want at this point, but a need. ‘You’ve heard about my car troubles and that I’m staying at Nancy’s bed and breakfast. I’m a hard worker and I learn fast. I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I’ll be honest, I’d be grateful for whatever I can get.’
‘You and me both,’ Allison chuckled. ‘No one’s exactly knocking down the door to work now that the weather’s so nice. But my cousin, Paige, is getting married and I’m her maid of honor. The preparations are swamping me. Makes me feel kind of bad for all the wedding baloney I put her through when I got married.’ She leaned against the counter. ‘You’re wanting something temporary, I assume.’
‘Unfortunately, yes. If that works for you, I mean. I understand if it doesn’t.’
Allison waved a hand. ‘When you walked in here, I was just excited to meet you and Eden, the two ladies who rolled into town under the mask of night and gave good ole’ Sonya so much to talk about this morning.’ There was no stopping the woman’s relentless grin. ‘But if you’re saying you can save me from becoming the worst maid of
honor in wedding history by helping out here and freeing me up a little time, even for a little while, then you and I have got some talkin’ to do.’
‘Let me get Eden set up at one of the booths with her dinner, then I’d love to chat. Thank you, Allison.’ Lily wasn’t sure what she had expected, but Allison’s exuberance and infectious personality wasn’t it. The woman was a busybody, in constant motion, and she radiated kindness from her every pore.
She was also, evidently, Lily’s new boss at a job she hadn’t been actively looking for. She needed to call about the Starbucks job in Chicago and figure out how—or rather, if—this was all going to work out. Still, despite the uncertainty about everything, she found that she was excited. This wasn’t Chicago, or part of her plans, but the coffeehouse would be something new. And wasn’t that what she had been searching for when she left Sherman?
Once again, Port Landon was full of surprises.
Chapter 8
Jason
The more he thought about it, the more Jason became convinced that he had to see Lily.
Not because there was some tug pulling him toward her, urging him to attempt to renew her faith in old-fashioned generosity—although a hint of that might be true, even if he didn’t dare to admit it out loud.
It was a valid reason to want to see her again, but nothing was more pressing than talking to her before Nancy Bergeron got to her. After all that talk about allies on the phone, who knew what kind of things the woman would say if she was left to her own devices.
No, it was better if Jason explained his conversation with Nancy to her himself, leaving out all the romantic suggestions and unwarranted innuendo she’d mentioned and letting Lily hear it straight from him that sometimes Nancy could be a little much. It was better to take her anecdotes with a grain of salt.
Once he closed up the repair shop for the evening, he headed to the bed and breakfast. There was a chance he might be too late, that Lily might have returned from downtown already and spoken to Nancy. Regardless, he had to try.
Under the ruse that he could advise her that he had sourced the parts needed for her Corolla and he was ready to order them whenever she gave him the go-ahead, he could find out what the older woman had said. Frankly, he didn’t need Nancy making this harder than it needed to be by suggesting things that would only make things awkward.
God, maybe he was the one making this harder than it had to be.
Either way, he pulled up to the curb in front of Nancy’s shortly after five-thirty, just in time to see Lily and Eden strolling up the sidewalk from the other direction. Coffee cup in Lily’s hand, chocolate cookie in Eden’s, he knew where they had been. And they looked happy. With the treetops creating a canopy of leaves above their heads and the little girl skipping along beside her mother as the sun gave their skin a warm glow, the Brentwood girls looked like any of the other carefree tourists heading back to their lodging for the evening.
Jason found himself smiling along with them. Leaning against the side of his blue Dodge pickup, he waited, letting them get closer before he interrupted their distant chatter and the sweet sound of the songbirds hidden amidst the trees.
‘You two look like you’re settling in well.’ He pushed away from the truck and met them on the sidewalk, ruffling Eden’s curly hair. The preschooler beamed up at him, taking another oversized bite of her cookie.
‘Hey.’ Lily held up her coffee cup in salutation. ‘Yeah, thank you for suggesting a walk downtown, by the way. I think I’m a little more at ease because of it. Even with the caffeine buzzing through my bloodstream.’ A wry smirk formed on her lips. ‘Your little town is beautiful, Jason.’
Pride swelled in him. His town, like he held the key to it and had bestowed it upon her in the hope that she would see it for what it was. Not just a town, or a pitstop, but a home. His home. The notion that she saw what he did, even for a minute, only made him prouder to be a Port Landon resident. ‘It’s pretty great, huh? I told you, not a bad place to be stuck.’ He nodded toward the cup between her fingers. ‘Or to grab a cup of coffee, I see.’
Something darkened in Lily’s gaze, the usual ocean in them growing stormy. ‘Oh. Yeah, I mean, I know I’m strapped for cash at the moment and that I probably shouldn’t have—’
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’ Hands up, Jason cut her off. ‘I never meant it like that at all. Do you see the smile on her face?’ He pointed toward Eden, who was staring adoringly at the remaining chunk of cookie in her hand like it was the Holy Grail. ‘Because I saw the smile on yours as you two were heading this way. If a simple coffee and a walk in the sunshine will give you that, you’d better spend the couple dollars and enjoy it. You’ve had a rough go of it, so don’t be so hard on yourself.’
Her throat moved. ‘I just meant, though, because of the repairs—’
‘Oh, that.’ Jason waved a dismissive hand, pretending it wasn’t a big deal. ‘But that’s actually part of the reason I came here. I’ve got a proposition for you.’
Lily raised an eyebrow, squinting into the slowly sinking sun. ‘I’m not sure how to take that,’ she laughed.
He didn’t realize the innuendo until it was too late. This is what he got for trying to make light of the whole ordeal. ‘What? No, it’s not what it sounds like. I should have said that Nancy has a prop—’
‘Why don’t you two come in off the sidewalk and I’ll make some sweet tea!’
Jason whirled around to see an array of colorful patchwork fabric and silky scarves. The force of Nancy Bergeron seemed to flood the quiet street like a sudden tsunami, bursting out from the front door and onto the front porch. The abundance of flimsy material that seemed to float around her only accentuated her wild gestures as the woman waved them frantically toward the house.
Beside him, Lily buckled over, laughing harder. At Nancy or his obvious backpedaling, Jason wasn’t sure. God, first he mistakenly made it sound like he was about to propose some kind of scandalous clearing of her debt, and now Nancy was showing up and determined to flutter about like some kind of misguided angel.
Maybe he should have just got in his truck and gone home after work.
‘Something funny?’ he asked.
Lily wiped the tears brimming her eyes with one hand. ‘You just … your face, Jason.’ She laughed again at her own nonsensical description. Whispering, she continued, ‘You looked utterly mortified, and then Nancy shouted from the porch … oh my goodness, I lost it. I’m sorry, but that was funny.’
He stole a glance at Nancy, who was still waving her hands to gain their attention. He turned his back on the woman, muttering, ‘I’m so glad you find this hilarious.’
‘You’re the one who was laughing at me earlier, Mr. Pretending To Teach Me Something. Returning the favor is the least I can do.’
Okay, she had him there. But that had been funny. This, with Nancy, as comical as the hippy woman looked as she relentlessly beckoned to them on the front porch, was a potential catastrophe in the making.
Oh well, he could survive Nancy’s good-natured meddling for a little bit, as well as her flamboyance. ‘Touché,’ he replied, attempting to keep his amusement at bay. ‘But just keep two things in mind, Little Miss Spheric Widget. The first is that no matter what that lovely but maddening woman says or does, I was just trying to help you. I swear I meant well.’
Lily sobered immediately. ‘And the second?’
Jason paused. ‘Nancy is tenacious. Once she gets an idea about something or someone—or someones—there’s no stopping her. I talked to her earlier, so I know what we could very easily be walking into.’
‘What?’
They both turned to stare toward the porch. Under his breath, Jason muttered, ‘Get ready for some sweet tea with a side order of thinly veiled, poorly executed matchmaking.’
***
It had been years since Jason had stepped foot inside Nancy’s house. He’d been to the front door many times, dropping off her Buick Enclave after either doing an oil change or putting
on the winter or summer tires. But he had been a kid the last time he made it inside the looming house, and that was because Nancy was known to give the best Halloween candy during trick-or-treating. He still remembered the year he and Branch changed into new costumes partway through the evening just so they could go back to her house and get more full-sized candy bars.
Nancy probably remembered it, too, seeing as she had called Branch by name and the dunce had answered, giving their identities away. Nothing got by Nancy. Funnily enough, she had tossed two more candy bars into their bags anyway, chuckling as she did so. Probably an award for their efforts and ingenuity.
The house still looked the same as he remembered, all antique wood and intricate moldings. The massive piano still sat near the window by the front door, a masterpiece of maple and expert workmanship. At the moment, that masterpiece was where Eden’s attention lied, and she pressed one ivory key, then another, creating an offkey masterpiece of her own.
It was no wonder Edwin and Nancy Bergeron’s bed and breakfast had always been a beloved destination when folks visited Port Landon. Even after her husband passed away five years ago from cancer, Nancy kept the sprawling house. She lived for the social interaction that came with her hostess duties. The maintenance and upkeep were hired out without Edwin’s help, but, if anything, Nancy had thrown herself into the hospitality business even more since she lost him. The house was her companion now, and it gleamed with pride of ownership.
Almost as much as Nancy’s eyes gleamed as she stared at him and Lily across the dining room table.
‘So, Jason tells me you’re going to be staying for a little longer than expected.’ Nancy poured amber tea into the starburst-etched drinking glasses, but there was something about the way she held her mouth, lips pressed to hold in her delight, that reminded Jason of a cat that had just eaten the canary.
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