The Forget-Me-Not Bakery

by Caroline Flynn

  The boy made a scene of whirling around as though assessing the situation, but Paige could tell by the gleam in his eyes that he knew exactly what he was going to suggest. ‘Ice cream!’

  ‘I knew that was coming,’ Cohen assured Paige. ‘Lead the way, Bryce. We’ll catch up.’

  Bryce and Jazz took off ahead of them, and Paige watched as Jazz ambled along with the boy. Now that she knew what she was looking for, she could see the odd way in which the dog moved about. In no way did it seem to be slowing her down any, though. It made Paige’s heart swell to see the dog so happy and content despite having so much stacked against her.

  ‘So, with Allison’s wedding coming up, I suppose that means you’ll have a big, fancy cake to create?’

  Paige smiled, eager at the mere thought of it. ‘I can’t wait. As soon as Allison fills me in on her wedding colors and her ideas for it – and she’s going to have a million ideas, I’m sure – I’ll be starting on trial runs to get the design and flavor perfect.’

  ‘I volunteer to test out those trial runs,’ Cohen offered. ‘I know a ten-year-old boy who would be a damn good candidate, too.’

  ‘Duly noted,’ Paige replied wryly. ‘But I think we should probably let the bride-to-be taste the wedding cake.’

  He scoffed at the idea. ‘Fine, but I’m not above snatching up the leftovers. Just saying.’

  ‘Again, duly noted.’ The playful note in their back-and-forth had her struggling to hide a grin. She wasn’t above giving him the leftovers, either. Chances were, she was going to drive herself insane over this cake. By the time she managed to get it just right, she would be tired of seeing wedding cakes for quite a while. At least, ones that resembled Allison’s.

  Normally, Paige viewed silence between two people as awkward, and the first thing she would do is fear she should be saying something more. But the silence between them was easy, and she didn’t feel that anxious tightening in her chest to fill it the way she once did.

  ‘Have you ever been married, Paige?’

  Whatever she had expected him to say next, it wasn’t that. ‘That was blunt.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, wincing. ‘I guess I’m not good at beating around the bush.’

  ‘No need to apologize. I actually think I appreciate that sort of matter-of-factness about you.’ Her gaze flitted up toward him for a brief moment. ‘And no, I didn’t leave an ex-husband or sordid backstory in New York City.’

  ‘Well, damn, because I do love a sordid backstory.’ Cohen reached out, pointing at the pavilion they were getting close to. ‘Let me guess, no time for dating or relationships due to your breakneck schedule?’

  Paige saw the sign for the Old Port Ice Cream Shoppe, and she laughed at Cohen’s candid remark. ‘You hit the nail on the head. It was hard to find time for other people when I barely had time for myself. Therefore, I’m a cliché – always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Or, in Allison’s case, I guess I’m the maid of honor, but you know what I mean.’

  ‘And that bothers you.’

  This time, his comment was enough to make her stop abruptly. Paige looked up at him with wide eyes. She didn’t know what should have bothered her more, that she wasn’t confident that she’d never truly had time for other relationships so much as just never made time, or that Cohen read her like an open book. ‘Maybe,’ she answered, cautious.

  ‘Sorry.’ Cohen held his hands up in mock surrender. ‘Innocent observation, I swear. I could hear the tinge of longing in your voice.’

  She wondered if she should be angry that he’d called her out on the regret she had a hard time veiling in her tone. The thing was, she wasn’t upset at all. There was something calming about having someone else point it out, willing to let her know how evident her want for a romantic relationship was. What Paige wondered was if his ease at picking up on it was because he understood the feeling all too well himself. ‘Since I’ve been here, I’ve had time to think, and I’ve been wondering if I’ve wasted so much time climbing the corporate ladder, I’ve missed my chances at ever being the woman that has that kind of life.’

  ‘I’m going to assume there was a time in your life when you thought you’d missed your chance at ever owning your own bakery, too, right? But it happened.’ Cohen’s hazel eyes locked with hers as he stepped ahead and opened the white wooden screen door that led inside the ice cream shop.

  Paige sighed. ‘Cohen Beckett, you’re such a smart man.’

  ‘They don’t call me doctor for nothing.’ He gestured for her to pass by him. ‘Besides, you just have to stay positive. Things happen in their own good time, and everything happens for a reason. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.’

  Paige stepped inside the shop, and a blast of cool air hit her flushed cheeks. It was frigid in the little storefront compared to the sun-kissed boardwalk outside. She was surprised to see Bryce sitting in the corner booth furthest from the ice cream counter, Jazz plopped down beside him on the floor, panting incessantly with the biggest smile on her jowly face. She didn’t think they would allow a dog in here, but she’d learned not to question things like that. Some things were done a little differently in Port Landon.

  ‘That’s what you tell yourself, huh?’ she countered. ‘Like a daily mantra, I assume.’

  ‘Nah, more like a rock.’ Before Paige could ask what in the world he was talking about, Cohen pulled a small, smooth object from his pocket and dropped it into her hands. ‘I carry that around with me to remind me. Think positive.’

  Paige turned the beige stone over in her hands. It was warm from the heat of Cohen’s body and smooth to the touch save for the engravings on both sides of it. One side boasted a simple pawprint with a heart in the middle of it. The other had Think Pawsitive scrolled across it in dark brown lettering.

  ‘My wife gave that to me a long time ago.’

  The words made Paige’s head snap up.

  ‘She passed away eight years ago,’ he continued, nodding toward the rock. ‘But, as I said, it’s a reminder to think positive. And, sometimes, all we need is that reminder.’

  Paige searched Cohen’s face. There was a shadow in his eyes, darkening the brownish green of his irises, but the small hint of a crooked smile proved he wasn’t looking for sympathy in his confession. It also proved they shared a common ground – a thinly veiled fear that their time for love had come and gone, and they both clung tightly to the hope that fate would give them a second chance someday.

  ‘A little positive thinking can go a long way, Paige.’

  Her gaze had migrated back down to the little stone in her hands, along with her thoughts. Cohen’s voice pulled her back to the here and now, and she let out a long breath as she held the rock out for him. ‘So can ice cream.’

  Chapter 6

  Cohen

  It was almost midnight, but Cohen couldn’t fall asleep. Spending a few hours in the fading sun with Bryce, Jazz, and Paige after a full day’s work should have left him exhausted, but every time he closed his eyes he could still see the way the sunlight danced as it reflected in Paige’s sapphire eyes, and he could still hear the full-blown laughter erupting from Bryce as he joked and enjoyed himself out on the pier.

  It wasn’t the first time they had gone to the pier after a workday, but it was the first time they’d brought someone else along with them. Usually, Bryce and Cohen were content in each other’s company, as they had been for the past eight years. And until today, Cohen believed he was content with the little life he had with his son and the vet clinic.

  Until today.

  Now, he lay in bed, the covers still pulled back and the bedside lamp still shining dim light across the room, listening to his son’s soft, even breathing from across the hall. This was the life they had, the routine they had fallen into. It had served them well, despite being forced into it by tragedy. Work and school, evenings filled with homework and walks, nights spent in bed by ten o’clock at the latest so they could both get up and do it all again tomorrow.

&nbs
p; It was simple and easy. And until today, Cohen had thought it was enough. He’d been a slave to his routine for so long he found it hard to remember what it had been like when Stacey had been with them. Not that he couldn’t recall the things that mattered – her smile and her warm gaze, her adoration of her son and her unabashed love for him. Those things came to him with a vivid clarity. It was the minutes and days and time spent apart he couldn’t remember. Like his tangible distance from Stacey was the deciding factor of what was important enough to remain etched into his brain.

  He thought he had coped well following the car accident that took her from him. As well as a man in his twenties with a toddler son could cope. There were days he didn’t see how he could continue on, how he could survive one more second with the knowledge of knowing Stacey was gone. But there were more days, as his grief transformed into a simmering bitterness, that Cohen had awoken in the morning, determined to prove to Port Landon’s residents that he didn’t need their sympathy or charity or help to raise his son. He threw himself into his role as a single father, desperate to prove to them, and to himself, that he could raise Bryce in a way that would have made Stacey proud. He could do right by her through their son, even if he hadn’t been able to protect her from the accident that ripped away the life she’d worked so hard to build. The life they had built.

  It had been eight years – years that seemed on one hand to have been long and drawn out, and on the other hand had gone by in the blink of an eye – and Cohen was proud of the boy Bryce had become as a result of his efforts. He had wanted so damn badly to make Stacey proud. Of Bryce. Of him.

  And he had achieved that, Cohen knew it. What he didn’t know was if his own complacency and contentment in being just the two of them had hindered Bryce in some way. His son had talked of nothing but Paige the entire way home after they’d walked her to her apartment door beside the bakery storefront. The boy had relished in having someone else to show off to, someone to tell his jokes to and be a kid around. Bryce and Paige had also bonded over Jazz, and the dog seemed to love Paige just as much.

  It had been the perfect evening – ice cream and walking along the boardwalk while the sun disappeared behind the trees, with his son and his new friend.

  It had been a long time since Cohen could say he had one of those. Not unlike her, he had spent the bulk of his time intent on running his business and raising Bryce. There had been no time for close friendships. Acquaintances, sure – he had a lot of those in town. But no one he could remember spending time with outside of work hours.

  Even now, Cohen wasn’t sure if he was being truthful to himself about his reasons for his inactive social life. Maybe it wasn’t so much that he hadn’t had the time to build one, as that he hadn’t made the time to have one. He wasn’t even sure he’d realized he needed one. It was just another thing in the long line of revelations that were coming to him tonight.

  The wailing of sirens ripped him from his thoughts. With the window open, he knew the emergency service vehicle was heading right past the front of his house. Cohen was one of those people that never could tell the sound of a police siren from a fire truck or ambulance, so he hoisted himself from the bed, clad in blue plaid pajama pants and a white T-shirt, to see if he could catch a glimpse of whatever was coming.

  Cohen’s little bungalow was situated behind the clinic, and it faced the opposite way, out onto Hemlock Street, which ran parallel to the downtown stretch on Main. When he saw the fire engine careen past, with its red and white lights blazing and its sirens screeching in the silence of the night, another revelation hit him deep in the chest.

  Maybe Paige’s life in New York City had been hectic and chaotic, but he’d bet that when she heard sirens scream in the city, she didn’t end up with acid burning in the pit of her stomach because of it. That was both the blessing and the curse of small-town life – when something happened to someone, it happened to everyone. And when something affected someone, it was a given that if Cohen didn’t know the afflicted party personally, he would know someone who did. No one was an unknown face in the crowd. People had names, and families, and history within the town limits.

  Living in a small town was simple and as good as it got on most days. During nights like tonight, however, it was downright scary, and Cohen doubted sleep was on the cards anytime soon.

  The appointment schedule at the clinic was back to back all day. The day started off with two routine surgeries, then progressed on to a series of appointments that all seemed to carry Cohen further and further away from what he deemed a typical day as each hour passed. He wasn’t sure if the disconnect he felt from his brain was due to the challenging cases he was being presented with, or the lack of sleep he’d managed to get the night before. Either way, it felt like there wasn’t enough caffeine in the world to get him through the remaining three hours his clinic was open.

  ‘Dr Cohen, there’s someone here to see you.’ Alice, the receptionist, broke through his train of thought as he stood against the pharmacy counter, reading the lab work results that had just been printed off. ‘And she’s got coffee in her hand, so I’m thinking you might want to go at least get that from her. You look like you need it.’

  ‘Are you telling me I look awful, Alice?’ But even as he joked about it, Cohen set the sheet of paper down and made his way toward the waiting room. If he looked half as bad as he felt, he needed that coffee. Stat.

  ‘Not a chance,’ she assured him. ‘Just that you look like you’re asleep standing up.’

  ‘So, I do look how I feel.’ He patted Alice on the shoulder on his way past her. ‘Thanks for letting me know. Tell my next appointment I’ll be right in.’

  In the waiting room, Paige stood in the middle of the marble tiled floor with two paper cups in her hands, steam billowing from the hole in the plastic tops.

  ‘I know you’re busy,’ she blurted immediately. ‘I just thought—’

  ‘You have no idea how happy I am to see you.’ Cohen reached out for one of the cups in her hand just as Paige held it out to him. God, did I really just say that out loud?

  ‘Me, or the coffee?’

  ‘Both,’ he replied, glad for the chance to play it down. ‘But I won’t downplay how thrilled I am to see this cup. Come on back.’

  Cohen led her through the pharmacy and into the lunchroom. It was organized chaos. Magazines littered the top of the table, and the chairs hadn’t been pushed back into place when the staff used them earlier in the day. There was a desktop computer in the corner on a portable desk, where Cohen attempted to get his notes done throughout the day. It was booted up and displaying a screensaver of a litter of bulldog puppies that had been born in the clinic last year. That litter was the result of a long, drawn-out birth, requiring an emergency caesarean section, but every puppy had lived and the mother was just fine. Rhonda, the veterinary technician, had even adopted one of the puppies when they were old enough to leave their mother. Purses and backpacks were tossed along the far wall where the staff members had left them when they came in that morning.

  ‘It’s not the tidiest spot, but I hope it’s okay.’ Cohen pulled out one of the plastic chairs closest to the table, gesturing for Paige to have a seat.

  ‘It’s great,’ she assured him as she sat down. ‘I won’t stay long. I just wanted to say thank you for yesterday. The walk to the pier with you, Bryce, and Jazz was the most fun I’ve had in a while.’

  Cohen pulled the chair away from the computer cart, straddling the back of it as he leaned forward against the backrest. ‘Well, thanks, but I feel like I should be thanking you. I think that’s the most fun the three of us have had in ages, too. Bryce couldn’t stop talking about it last night, or this morning. You’ll probably be the first thing he mentions when he comes home from school in about forty-five minutes.’

  ‘I’m glad you all had a wonderful time.’ Paige fidgeted with her coffee cup, but she offered him an easy smile.

  ‘We’ll have to do it again sometime.’
Cohen said it as more of a polite gesture than a concrete invitation, but there was enough uncertainty in his tone that it came out sounding more like a question. The moment the words left his lips, he wondered if he’d made a mistake, if he had been too presumptuous, if he’d made it sound like a—

  ‘I would like that,’ Paige replied.

  Cohen fought to keep his expression neutral, a battle of relief and hesitancy warring within him. ‘Great. Me too.’ He let that sink in between them, taking a sip of hot coffee and letting it burn down his throat. ‘I know someone else who’d like it as well. Come here, I have to show you something.’

  He pushed his coffee cup onto the lunchroom table, knowing the perfect distraction from the awkward conversation that was sure to follow. He led Paige out the open doorway into a hallway at the back of the clinic. To the right, the hall led to the prep room and the surgery. To the left, it led down a flight of four stairs. They went left. Cohen was shocked to discover the temptation he had to reach out for her hand as she descended the stairs. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

  ‘Yesterday, you saw the bouncy, crazy Jazz that acts like a typical five-year-old child,’ he explained, his lips curling upward. ‘But let me show you the real Jazz. The one that no one sees unless they live with her.’ Cohen slowly pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs, which had been left open a crack.

  The sound hit them before they could even see her.

  ‘Is she … snoring?’ Paige covered her mouth, holding in her laughter.

  Sure enough, with the door opened wide, there was Jazz, sprawled out across the biggest, most luxurious dog bed Cohen had been able to find online, snoring like a freight train. Her lips puffed out with each loud exhale of breath, and her eyes and paws twitched as she slept heavily.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Paige whispered. ‘She’s so adorable.’

  Jazz’s eyes squinted open at the sound of her voice, and she lifted her head, the tip of her pink tongue sticking out as she glanced around, dazed, and tried to reorient herself. Cohen could see the moment of recognition. Instantly, the excitement of Paige’s presence took over. Jazz scrambled awkwardly to her feet just as Paige crouched down in front of her. The dog wasted no time in allowing herself to be enveloped by Paige’s arms, her tail wagging at sonic speed like a little propeller.