Starting Over on Blackberry Lane--A Romance Novel

by Sheila Roberts

  She smiled. “That almost sounds like a slogan.”

  “Maybe someday, when I have my own place, it will be.”

  “You must be pretty good in the kitchen to be talking about having your own place,” she said.

  “I am. I’m pretty good in other parts of the house, too,” he added. Her cheeks flushed and he chuckled.

  Where had this man been all her life?

  What did it matter? She wasn’t going to be around. He lived in Seattle and soon she’d be living in New York. It would be dumb to start something at this point.

  In spite of her advice to herself, when he offered to hang around and show her what a good cook he was, she wound up taking him up on it. “Kind of hard to cook for yourself one-handed, isn’t it?” he asked.

  It wasn’t as though she was crippled, but, yes, it was awkward. So of course it made sense for him to stay and help her with all that cutting and chopping.

  “If you’re not too tired.” Even though he’d used a paint gun and a compressor to spray paint the house, it had been a long day.

  “I’m never too tired for food,” he assured her.

  Well, okay, then. “Maybe I’ll blog about it,” she said.

  “People still do that?” he teased.

  “They do if they’re hoping to build a following and promote their photos.”

  He pulled his cell phone from his back pocket. “What’s your website?”

  “Food and Fun.”

  “That’s something I need to bookmark.” He brought it up and she looked over his shoulder as he navigated the site. Standing that close, she could catch the faintest hint of what was left of his aftershave. It mixed with the musky scent of sweat and suddenly she was thinking about sex.

  Stop it, she scolded and forced herself to concentrate on the images in front of her. He was now on the recipe page, where she occasionally shared some of her mom’s favorites, along with entries about interesting kinds of food she’d read about and then prepared. “‘What is syllabub?’” he read, checking out one of her older entries. “Yeah. What the heck is syllabub?”

  “It’s an old English dessert made with whipped cream, sherry and sugar, often infused with lemon. Most people have never heard of it. You see it mentioned a lot in Regency romances.”

  “I guess that would explain why I’ve never heard of it. Sounds good, though. Looks good, too,” he said, pointing to the picture. “You took that, of course.”

  She nodded. “I had some friends over for dinner and made it.” Stef and Brad had enjoyed it, but Steve had sneered at it, pronouncing it too girlie.

  Matt moved on to the section she’d titled “People and Parties.” Here she’d posted shots of friends enjoying food at various gatherings—fried chicken, chocolate cake, cherry pie. There was a picture of slices of watermelon piled on a plate with little Serena Goodman eyeing it eagerly. Another shot had been taken at one of her book-club meetings, and she’d taken a picture of an open book lying next to a cup of eggnog residing in one of Stacy’s vintage Christmas cups. One of the things she loved about pictures, she thought, was that they kept special moments with you forever.

  “These are good,” Matt said. “Really good.”

  Compliments about her work were as satisfying as the richest piece of chocolate. This one was doubly satisfying coming from a chef. She smiled and thanked him.

  “Time for a new blog post,” she said. “Maybe I’ll do a piece about being a one-handed cook and take some pictures of the help.” It would be no hardship taking pictures of Matt, that was for sure.

  They went to the store together, and it was fun strolling through the various departments, picking out the makings for a perfect spring meal.

  “Beer or wine?” he asked.

  “Wine,” she decided, and he picked out one that was moderately priced but much more than she would’ve spent.

  “Don’t worry,” he said as if reading her mind. “I’m paying.”

  “That wouldn’t be right.”

  “Sure it would. I’m the one who invited myself for dinner.”

  Back home again, they got to work, starting with a spinach salad, to which they added finely sliced pears, sunflower seeds and cherry tomatoes along with fresh cilantro. She took several shots of him working, smiling over his shoulder at her. A smile like that could drop a woman’s panties at twenty paces. She took more pictures of him. She also captured their salad up close and personal.

  He fired up the ancient barbecue she’d bought at a garage sale when she first moved to town and they barbecued chicken. He made an Asian glaze for it with soy sauce, sesame oil, fresh ginger and red pepper flakes. A baguette instead of brown rice (which he claimed was boring without saffron) and the white wine they’d picked up completed the feast. They settled on her back porch, and she captured that moment, too.

  “Nice,” he said when she showed him the pictures. “Here, let me take one.”

  She handed him the camera and he snapped a shot of her sitting there with her plate balanced on her lap, a forkful of salad raised in salute. He caught a piece of spinach in midfall and showed her, and she grinned. “You’re pretty good at this yourself.”

  “It’s easy when you’ve got a great subject,” he said, making her cheeks sizzle. “You’re cute when you blush,” he added, and of course that made her cheeks flame all the more. The curse of fair skin. He gave her a break and changed the subject. “Next time I come up, I’m gonna fix that step for you before I get started on the trim.”

  “Thank you! My ex was always going to fix it and never got around to it.”

  “So things didn’t work out, huh?”

  “No, they didn’t.”

  “How come?”

  “We grew apart. It was nobody’s fault, really. I think we were just too young when we got together.” She sighed and tossed the piece of bread he’d torn off for her back on her plate. “Have you ever been with somebody who you thought was...well, right, and then that person turned out not to be?”

  “My divorce is final at the end of this month, so I guess the answer would have to be yeah.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s been hard. I wanted what my folks had, thought she’d be the one to have it with. You think you know someone, and that you’re going to have such a great life together, and then somewhere along the way it’s not so great anymore, and you realize you didn’t know as much as you thought you did.”

  It sounded like her life with Steve.

  “It about killed me when she left.”

  “Sometimes it isn’t working,” Griffin said and realized that she wasn’t defending Matt’s former wife as much as herself.

  “Yeah, I guess. You can’t keep trying to build a house on a bad foundation. When it came down to it, we wanted different things.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I couldn’t see it before. Maybe because when we first got together we had a lot of fun. It felt...right. This probably sounds hokey but I thought we were soul mates.”

  Griffin understood that. “Same with Steve and me,” she said sadly. “We seemed to have so much in common at first. We did all kinds of stuff together. But then I looked up one day and realized we were facing different directions.”

  Matt polished off the last of his wine. “My dad said I was rushing things. I guess he was right.”

  What about this cozy dinner? Did it put them at the starting gate for a fresh race into a new relationship? Of course it did. Here she’d just broken up with her fiancé and Matt’s divorce wasn’t even final yet. She could only imagine what Grant Masters would have to say about this. Suddenly she didn’t have much appetite. She moved her plate away.

  He began to freshen her wine, but she shook her head and covered the glass. “I think I’m done.”

  “Oh.” He blinked in surpri
se. “Okay.”

  She got up and went into the kitchen, put her plate in the sink.

  He followed her in. “Did something go wrong out there?”

  “No, it’s, well... Maybe we shouldn’t start something we can’t finish.”

  “You saying it’s too soon?”

  “More like it’s too late. I’m getting the house ready to sell. I’m moving.”

  “Where?” He still looked hopeful.

  “New York.”

  Not so hopeful now. “New York, huh?”

  “I want to see if I can get something going there.”

  “As a food photographer?”

  She nodded.

  “You can do that anywhere, can’t you?”

  “That’s what my mother says. She’d prefer it if I moved back home. But everyone has a website, everyone has stock photos. If I’m going to succeed, I need to go to where the business is. All the big food stylists are there, all the big food commercial directors, the big magazines and publishers. I don’t know if it’ll work out but I have to try.” And how did Matt fit into that picture? Not at all.

  He nodded solemnly. “Yeah, you do. I get that. But hey, you haven’t moved yet.” He stepped just a little closer.

  Whoo, boy. She felt like a cube of butter on a hot day. The way he was looking at her, for a moment there she thought he was going to kiss her. She swallowed. “You don’t want to rush into anything.” Except rushing sounded like a pretty good idea just now...

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “You’re right. But I’m not going to let one screwup keep me from being open to whatever comes next. Wherever it leads.”

  Wherever it leads. What did that mean? She was about to ask him when he gave her nose a playful tap and said, “I’ll be up again next Sunday. See you then.”

  He ambled out of the room and she stayed there, braced against the counter. They’d cooked together, shared their stories. He’d almost kissed her and she’d wanted him to.

  New York suddenly seemed far away and out of focus. Right now, here in Icicle Falls, the picture was looking good.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You were smart to break up with Steve,” Stef said to Griffin as they walked to Gingerbread Haus on Tuesday for a morning latte. “Men are nothing but a headache.” More people should give aspirin as a wedding present.

  “I thought everything was going okay now,” Griffin said.

  “It was, but then Brad got ticked off because I actually had the nerve to be happy that we’re making progress on the house. He should be glad, but instead he’s being a jerk.”

  “I’m sorry things aren’t going well.”

  There was an understatement. “That makes two of us.”

  The bakery was busy as usual. They passed two older women leaving as they went in, both carrying pink bakery boxes. Inside, Cass’s helper Misty was ringing up a sale, and Cass was just putting out a freshly created gingerbread house.

  She greeted Stef and Griffin with a smile and a wave. “How’s everything, you two?”

  “Great,” Griffin said.

  “I need carbs,” Stef announced. “A double serving.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Cass. “What’s the problem?”

  “Don’t ask,” Griffin cautioned.

  “I don’t need to. It’s got to have something to do with the house. I thought Grant was getting a lot done over there.”

  “Grant’s not the problem. Mocha, double shot, please,” Stef told Misty.

  “Just a tea,” Griffin said.

  “The way you eat, it’s like diet prison camp,” Stef said in disgust. “I don’t know how you stand it.”

  Now Griffin wasn’t smiling anymore. “I’m fine with tea.”

  Okay, her sour mood didn’t mean she had to pour lemon juice on everyone else’s day. “Sorry, I’m so bitchy.”

  “Just a little,” Griffin said.

  “More like just a lot, but thanks for being diplomatic.” Stef took her latte to a table, sat down and frowned at it. She’d been so happy to see progress being made. Why couldn’t Brad let her enjoy it? She said as much to Cass when she joined them. “I make one comment about being glad something’s finally getting done, and he goes ballistic on me.”

  “Maybe you hurt his pride,” Cass suggested. “Remember, he wasn’t happy about you hiring Grant in the first place.”

  “There’s pride and there’s practical,” Stef insisted. “I mean, was I supposed to live in chaos forever? It’s not like he hasn’t had months to finish these projects. You know I still don’t have a working bathtub in the master bathroom?”

  “I wouldn’t want to live like that,” said Griffin.

  No woman would. She wasn’t being unreasonable. She wasn’t the problem here. “I wish there was a way to make him see how I feel.”

  “I guess you’ll have to mess up his man cave,” Cass joked.

  Wow! Cass was positively inspired. “That’s genius!” How would Brad like it if the chaos came closer to home, to his favorite retreat? She was willing to bet he wouldn’t be so happy. He’d probably do anything to fix it. Just like she’d done with their main floor.

  Cass looked horrified. “I was only kidding.”

  “Well, I’m serious. I’m going to give him a taste of his own medicine. Let him see what it feels like to live in a disaster area. Then he’ll finally get it.”

  “Or he’ll get really mad,” said Griffin. “I don’t know about this, Stef.”

  “Trust me, it’s not a good idea,” Cass said.

  “I wouldn’t do anything permanent. I’d mess it up a little, maybe take out some furniture.” Maybe take out all the furniture. Heh, heh.

  “I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” Cass repeated.

  “Well, I have to do something.”

  “Bake him cookies and have sex,” Cass said.

  “I’m not much of a baker.”

  “So just have sex. But don’t mess with the man cave. I know it sounds kind of fun, but don’t do it. Real life doesn’t play out like an episode of I Love Lucy.”

  Stef had never seen an episode of I Love Lucy. “It’ll be fine. Thanks for the inspiration.”

  “You’re not welcome,” Cass said. “I wish I’d kept my big mouth shut.”

  “Maybe Cass is right,” Griffin said as they walked back home. “Brad’s already not happy. Why make things worse?”

  “Because he’s making things worse for me. He’s pouting and cranky and resentful, and he’s acting like a six-year-old. Oh, wait, I take that back. Petey’s much better behaved. In fact, if Petey acted the way Brad’s acting, he’d be sent to his room.”

  “Send Brad to his room and leave it at that,” Griffin suggested.

  “Oh, I’m going to send him to his room, all right. And when he gets there he’s going to get a big surprise.” She chortled. Oh, this was going to be fun.

  That afternoon, she made a couple of phone calls and lined up some teenage labor. Then, on Friday, coincidentally around the time high school let out, she went home sick from work. Not really a lie, she told herself. She had cramps.

  She left her son at his after-school day care, where he went on the days she worked. Petey would just get underfoot. Plus, he’d be bound to spill the beans to Daddy and ruin the element of surprise, and Stef didn’t want that. In fact, she didn’t want Brad to see his basement retreat until after Petey was in bed.

  Cass’s warning came back to her. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Something else was nagging at her. What was it?

  Her workers were here now. She shoved aside her doubts and moved forward with the plan. “I need everything cleared out,” she said to the boys.

  And there was plenty to clear out—Brad’s beat-up old recliner, a huge bl
ack fake leather sofa that his parents had given them, the mini-fridge where he kept an extra supply of pop and beer, an old pinball machine that one of her happy helpers was drooling over. She was half-tempted to give it to him but decided against it. Brad would be furious if she got rid of that. She did decide to lose the old card table and chairs. They were in bad shape and needed to be replaced anyway. By the time her workers were done, the only things left were the TV and the DVD player, which were on the wall. She’d have taken those, too, but, in the end, felt that messing with Brad’s technology would be a mistake.

  She paid her helpers and they left, taking the old card table and chairs with them. Then she went online and checked out game tables. She found a nice one, not terribly expensive, that she put on her credit card. She’d get it for Brad as an early anniversary present. She placed her order and printed out the picture. Once he’d seen the error of his ways and they’d kissed and made up, she’d show it to him. He’d be the envy of all his poker buddies.

  Poker! Now, after all the furniture had been relocated to the garage and the card table and chairs had been hauled off and her workers were gone, she realized what had been nagging at the back of her mind. Brad was hosting a Friday-night poker game.

  Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no! With a poker game looming, he would have zero sense of humor about this. Never mind that it was no more than he deserved, no different from what he’d done to her. She had to get the boys back, and that was all there was to it. There was no point in providing her husband with a teachable moment if he wasn’t in the mood to be taught.

  Her cell phone rang. Don’t let it be Brad.

  It was Mrs. Biddle, who ran Mountain Tikes Day Care. “Stefanie, can you come pick up Petey? He’s complaining that his tummy hurts. He doesn’t have a fever, but I think you should come get him anyway.”

  “Of course.” The mess at home would have to wait.

  Stef rushed to the day care and collected her son. “I don’t feel good, Mommy,” he whimpered. “I want to go home.”

  Petey always enjoyed his afternoons at Mrs. Biddle’s house with its big backyard and swing set and collection of local kids to play with. Wanting to go home was proof indeed that he didn’t feel well. There’d been a twenty-four-hour bug going around at school. It looked like he’d caught it.