A little nervous about the night ahead with Zach Dennison, Drea did something she rarely did, even when business was slow—she closed up her flower shop three minutes early. After turning the closed sign around on the door, she made her way upstairs to shower and get ready.
The year she’d opened her business, to save every penny she could, she’d turned the industrial space directly above the store into an open, livable loft. What had started out as a cost-saving measure, ended up being the best decision she’d made since high school. She loved the fact that after a long day dealing with customers and filling orders, sometimes playing delivery driver, she could simply walk up a flight of stairs and into her own personal, sunny space.
Once she reached the landing, she opened the front door and crossed over the polished hardwood floor to the bank of windows. From her vantage point, she looked out on the grounds of The Plant Habitat, the garden center her aunt and uncle owned. The nursery supplied all of her inventory.
She’d grown up in a household where the exchange of bad, cruel words had been the norm. It had taken a traumatic event to change all that.
Her brother, Cooper, had reverted to his birth name, Richmond, officially changing it over the summer. She and her other brother, Caleb, had talked about doing the same. But it seemed a rude gesture to the people who had taken them in and given them a home. In Drea’s mind, taking in three kids that no one else had wanted at the time could only fall into two categories. It was either incredibly brave or incredibly foolish. However anyone chose to classify it, her mother’s brother, Landon, and his wife, Shelby, had done the impossible. They’d given three kids from a dysfunctional home the only stable environment they’d ever known. Going to court to ask for the Richmond name back made for an awkward situation she wanted to avoid if at all possible.
Not that she didn’t support Cooper’s decision to honor their father, she did. Caleb felt the same way. Layne Richmond deserved better than having a manipulative shrew for a wife and dying at the hands of said shrew. Eleanor Jennings Richmond had taken a .38 and aimed it at her husband’s heart. It wasn’t every florist that could say her mother had killed her father. Drea could. Several weeks back, Eleanor had even called collect from the Santa Cruz jail and wanted to talk. Drea had declined to take her mother’s call.
She was still chewing on the name change issue when she went into the bathroom to turn on the water for her shower. While the water got hot her mind shifted to Zach. They’d known each other forever, gone to school together. Which made her wonder why they had never gone out before now.
“Because he’s never seemed one bit interested in you,” she muttered aloud, answering her own query. Stripping off her jeans and shirt, she added, “That’s why you had to be the one to ask him out.”
But grousing wasn’t what had gotten her a date, audacity and brashness had.
Later, after spending an inordinate time on her hair, she decided she could only work with the attributes she’d been given at birth—wild hair that couldn’t be tamed unless she used something to take out the curl along with alabaster skin that didn’t bode well in the sun.
Dressed in her burgundy cocktail dress, she stood in front of the mirror and turned a circle. When the buzzer sounded downstairs she conceded that the outfit showed off her dark mane rather well and even managed to flatter her contrasting milky skin tone.
The thought of Zach Dennison waiting on the other side of the door gave her just enough incentive to take the steps two at a time. The man had always been a bit predictable, if not staid in his attitudes, even back in middle school. She wasn’t after altering that about him, mainly because she saw his hardworking veneer as a major plus. Her brothers were much the same in their work habits. But was it wrong to want to be the one to add a layer of whimsy to Zach Dennison’s life? To decorate that otherwise bland canvas he seemed to tote around with a splash of color? Like arranging white daisies in the same vase alongside an array of dazzling fall mums, a flash of red and gold might be just the ticket to chisel away his industrious veneer.
Making a mad dash to the door left her breathless. “You’re right on time,” she sang out.
“It was a light day. I was able to knock off early.”
“I’ll just get my wrap.”
“You look amazing, Drea.”
“Thanks. I’m glad you noticed.”
“Hard not to in that outfit.”
“You work entirely too hard.”
“I don’t have much of a choice. The pizza place has a start date. Thane’s counting on us to finish the work so it will open on time. Same with Ryder and Troy, they depend on me to carry my fair share of the load. I won’t disappoint them.”
“What’s on the agenda for tonight?”
“There’s a place in Santa Cruz that plays live music. I thought we could eat dinner first and drop in for a drink and a little dancing.”
“Why Zach, I do believe you’ve captured my interest,” she said with a laugh. “Remember that play we put on in sixth grade?”
Zach’s face broke out into a wide grin. “The one with the old-time square dancing? How could I ever forget that I never got the hang of swinging my partner around the old haystack? It made me feel like I had two left feet.”
As they walked to Zach’s truck, Drea leaned in and boldly kissed him on the mouth. “I thought I’d get that out of the way first thing.”
He pulled her into him—the biting and nipping escalating to a frothy steam. Caught up, the energy of the kiss pulled them into a maelstrom, one full of gusts and gale.
Out of breath, Drea took it one step further. “Did you really want to make that long drive to Santa Cruz tonight?”
Zach sent her a knowing look. “Not really. What do you say we go back inside and find something else to do?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter Seven
Jonah insisted on macaroni and cheese for dinner. Instead of making it out of a box, Thane spent almost an hour rummaging through drawers and cabinets in the kitchen looking for his mother’s recipe. He finally found it stuck inside a pocket folder mislabeled desserts.
He picked up the beer he’d opened and guzzled down a good, long drink before going over the ingredients, making sure he had all the necessary stuff on hand.
As a single dad, Thane wasn’t that different from most parents. He worried about providing a healthy diet for a six-year-old picky eater who had a long list of things he refused to eat. He was pleased with himself when he decided to substitute low-fat cheese and milk in place of his mother’s higher calorie version.
While waiting for the elbow macaroni to boil and the oven to preheat, he got curious and rifled through a treasure trove of old Betty Crocker cookbooks he found under the cabinet. Thumbing through the pages, he discovered other recipes that might fall into the “Jonah will eat” category he could use for later meals. Things like homemade spaghetti and eggplant parmesan. As he read the instructions, he marked the pages for future reference, wondering where anyone found the time to make their own whole grain pastas from scratch. Not that it wasn’t a sound idea, he decided. But it had him questioning how his working mom ever truly found the time to do anything else outside the kitchen.
Maybe instead of a nanny he needed to hire a cook. Thane knew his friend, Fischer would surely take over kitchen duties as soon as the man got here, but that was a short-term fix and didn’t solve the problem creating wholesome meals on a long-term regular basis.
“Is it ready yet?” Jonah said, boosting himself up on one of the bar stools at the island counter. “Can I have an Oreo? When do we eat?”
“Soon. And no. You wanted mac and cheese and it still has to bake. Set out the milk and cheese for me, will you? And the butter.” Thane got down a casserole dish and removed the pasta from the stove. He used a colander to drain the pasta, scooping a third of it out and into the bottom of the stoneware dish. He cubed the butter Jonah handed him and set it aside. “You want to layer the
cheddar slices for me?”
“Sure. I like doing this part.” Jonah peeled off the squares of cheese from the stack and, one by one, placed them on top of the macaroni.
Thane reached over his son’s shoulders, added a dab of butter to each piece before spreading another layer of macaroni on top. They repeated the process until it formed a mound above the rim.
After slipping the concoction into the oven and setting the timer, he began to put together a salad. He got out the fruits and veggies—lettuce, apples, jicama, red peppers—he knew Jonah would eat.
“How long do we wait now? Can I have a cookie?”
“Not long, and no you can’t have a cookie before we eat. Don’t ask again. It won’t take that long. This just has to melt so it’ll get gooey and cheesy and brown on top the way you like it.”
“Why did Mimi have to die?”
The jicama slicing came to a halt in mid chop. Thane stopped the motion of the knife, let out a sigh. “Because she got real sick.”
“Cancer, right? Tommy says lots of old people get it.”
Geez, thought Thane, how was he supposed to explain to a child that anyone could get it, young or old. He didn’t want his son getting nightmares every time a sore throat made it difficult to swallow. He took the simple path. “The cancer made her really tired so her body didn’t work the way it was supposed to anymore.”
“Oh. Can we buy her flowers and take them to her like we did before? Tommy says you should do that at least once a month.”
Geez, who knew Archer’s son would turn out so all-knowing. But Thane kept that to himself. “Sure. Tomorrow we’ll go out and buy some of those lilies she liked, take them out to the cemetery to put on her headstone. How’s that sound?”
“’K. She liked those.”
“She did. Anything else you want to talk about?” Thane wanted to know while he continued to slice and dice. When that was done he handed Jonah several pieces of apple to tide him over before moving on to blending together their own favorite dressing. He peeled and smashed garlic, grated fresh ginger, drizzled olive oil and squeezed lemon juice into a bowl along with salt and pepper. He plopped in a carton of Greek yogurt, whisked it all up. He stuck his finger in the bowl, swiped enough to taste, shook his head “Needs honey.”
“I wanna taste,” Jonah sang out as the timer dinged, which had him clapping his hands. “Food!”
The casserole came out of the oven. While it cooled, Thane poured a glass of milk, set it in front of Jonah. He dished salad on two plates before adding the pasta to the side. “Here you go, buddy. Dig in.”
They both dug into the meal with a zestful appetite until the doorbell rang. Thane got up, strolled to the front door with his napkin still in his hand.
He was surprised to see Isabella standing on the porch. Looking around for her bike, he didn’t see it anywhere. “Did you walk here? You really need to stay off that leg. Doctor’s orders.”
“I’ve interrupted dinner. I’m sorry. But I wanted to apologize for abruptly leaving this afternoon.”
“It’s okay. Come on in. Have you eaten?”
“Uh. No. But I couldn’t impose like that.”
“Sure you could. But I’ll warn you it’s nothing fancy.”
He led the way back to the table where Jonah had cleared his plate. “Izzy! What are you doin’ here?”
“Hi, Jonah. I needed to talk to your dad.”
“Want some of Dad’s mac and cheese? It’s his special recipe that my Mimi used to make.”
“Sure. What makes it special?”
“It doesn’t come out of a blue box,” said Jonah and chortled with laughter. “Wanna see my Ninja Turtles?” The boy didn’t wait for an answer but took off running to his room.
“He’s a livewire, isn’t he?”
Thane piled a plate high and handed it off. “And then some. Want a glass of wine with that?”
“You read my mind.”
From the small refrigerated wine cooler at the end of the counter, he picked a bottle that promised a rich black fruity flavor with vanilla and got down two glasses. “You know, for Jonah’s first four months of life, he cried a lot, his body withdrawing from the drug.”
“Thane, that’s horrific.”
“Oh, it was, and very difficult to watch. “Here, let’s sit down and eat.” They settled around the table and he watched her take her first bite, waited for her reaction.
“Ohmygod. This is fantastic. It melts in your mouth. There must be a thousand calories on this one plate.”
“Focus on the salad,” he said with a grin, picking up his wine.
“This dressing is delicious.”
“I made it myself.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope, I do have some basic cooking skills.” He took her through the simple recipe.
“I’ll have to try it. Tell me more about Jonah’s early years.”
“Well, I couldn’t take him home from the hospital until he’d kicked the goddamn stuff. Sorry, but that’s the way I still feel to this day about watching him go through that. To make matters worse, he only weighed four pounds when he was born. So he was in an incubator. Even though I couldn’t actually touch him, I used to put my hands through the mitten things and make sure he knew someone was there for him.”
She could picture his big hands reaching in to swallow up the infant. “When did you get to take him home?”
“At eighteen weeks. And that’s when he started to thrive. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a walk in the park even then. We had some close calls with his breathing. And there were times when I worried about the SIDS thing. I was scared he might forget to breathe and die in his crib.”
“It must’ve been scary for a single father.”
“It’d be scary for anyone. I think I might’ve gone crazy if it hadn’t been for the help I got from my parents and my sister. Tessa was in the middle of her residency at the time. She was a tremendous help to me.”
“She’s a doctor?”
“A pediatric surgeon. Anyway, Jonah didn’t mind being held like some crack babies do. All of us literally took turns holding him to make sure he got used to a human touch after spending so much time in the incubator. Then later, we worked extra hard on his speech and motor skills. It wasn’t an easy time, let me tell you. And when he was around three the doctors thought he might have ADD because he had so much energy. My mom and I started working with him and his symptoms seemed to even out. We decided he could focus just fine. Given his rough start in life, I’d say he’s a pretty normal kid. Or maybe I’m just used to his boundless energy and motor mouth,” he added with a grin.
About that time, Jonah came back in with his arms full of Ninja Turtles and an assortment of action figures. “Here, look, see, I brought a van for them to ride in and everything.” The bright green vehicle slipped out of his grasp and crashed to the floor with a clatter.
“Jonah,” Thane said using a firm tone. “Did you get enough to eat?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, then let Izzy finish eating and then you can show off your Captain America. How’s that sound?”
“O-kay,” he said in a downhearted voice. But it didn’t last long until the boy had switched gears. “Want to watch Despicable Me with me after supper?”
Izzy shot Thane a knowing look and smiled. “I’d love to.”
“Cool.” With that, Jonah dropped the action figures and watched as they scattered every which way which meant the little guy had to scoot between the chairs to retrieve them underfoot.
“Welcome to my world,” Thane said, raising his glass again. He peeked down at Jonah, rooted to his new encampment under the table and then looked over at Izzy. “One thing you can say about this house, we have something going on every minute of every day.”
Surprisingly that sounded appealing to Izzy. Drawn to the havoc Jonah created, she admitted, “I used to hide under the table during thunderstorms.” She giggled and added, “But I finally outgrew tha
t by the time I turned eight.”
“See, it’s a phase.” But about that time Jonah bumped his head on the table, which prompted Thane to augment the statement. “At least I hope it is.”
“I’m sure it’ll run its course before he gets to middle school.”
“Great. Thanks for that image. It’s like that old Robin Williams’ skit where he says that every parent has two visions when they hold their child for the first time. One, you see your kid as an adult thanking the Nobel Prize Committee. The other one is he’s asking, 'Do you want fries with that?’ It was hilarious the first time I heard it. But I didn’t have Jonah then. The thing you learn is that it’s absolutely true.” He met her eyes and asked, “Did you ever want kids?”
“I did once.”
“What stopped you?”
“I married the wrong man.”
Since Jonah sat within earshot, Thane’s reaction came with some degree of restriction. Instead, he simply chewed the last bite of macaroni and sat back. “It hurts doesn’t it? That moment you realize you’ve made a horrendous misjudgment and hooked up with a person you thought you knew but didn’t.”
“Emotionally and physically it takes a toll, especially when you pay for it several hundred times over.”
“I’m sorry.”
“While Jonah made boisterous booming noises with his action figures, Izzy stood up to clear the mess off the table.
“You don’t have to do that. I’ll get it later after I put Jonah to bed.”
“I eat your food, I clean up. Them’s my rules. Besides, it goes faster if we form an assembly line. I’ll rinse and load the dishwasher, you hand it off.”
“Linebackers usually don’t hand off. If they had good hands they’d be playing on the offensive side of the ball instead. But I see your logic.”
She poked a finger into his ribs. “You’re a funny guy, Thane Delacourt.”
“I always try to keep my sense of humor while doing my household chores, especially vacuuming. That’s really a mindless job where your brain tends to lock up on you and wander if you let it.”
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