Melt Into You

by Lisa Plumley

  “But … this is your territory, Dad. I’ve never been good at the creative stuff! What if …” Suddenly, Damon could scarcely say it. With effort, he forced himself to. “What if I really try, and I still can’t do it? What if this is Las Vegas, all over again?” He gestured at the lab. “This is your life! You are Torrance Chocolates! How would you feel if your legacy was handed over to a colossal, globe-trotting screwup?”

  At that, his father gave him a serious look. Through wise and experienced eyes, Jimmy examined him. He smiled. “You’re not a screwup, son. You just need some practice.” He shifted his gaze to Debbie. “If I hadn’t been hogging all the creative duties to myself, you might have gotten that practice sooner.”

  Well. That might be true, Damon reasoned. Still …

  “Besides,” Jimmy told him, “it’s not the result that matters. It’s having the courage to try. Without that, you’re doomed from the start.” He looked around at Damon’s cot, his samples, his notes and packaging mockups and everything else. “You’re got courage to spare, Damon. You always have. I’m proud of you for that.”

  Incredibly, Damon felt tears clog his throat. With a burst of self-conscious emotion, he cleared it away. Damn, but this bawling stuff was hitting him hard lately. What the hell?

  “Okay.” Roughly, Damon attempted a more manly tone. “Okay, good. Thanks, Dad. Just so we’re clear on things. Because—”

  Because I’ve been afraid of doing this for years, he realized then, and now it’s finally happening. With you.

  “Because,” Damon tried again, smiling, “you’re going to want to retire soon and get on with all that resort-going.”

  “He means whoopee,” his mother informed his father shrewdly. “He knows what we were up to at that resort, Jimmy.”

  “I know that, Debbie.” Damon’s father clapped Damon on the back. “By the way, son—there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. So while we’re here clearing the air …”

  Cautiously, Damon nodded. “Okay. Go ahead.”

  “Okay.” His dad nodded, too. “Ever since you were a little boy, you’ve had the idea that you were especially ‘lucky,’” Jimmy began. “We let it slide because we thought it was cute. But you’re a grown man now. You need to face the facts—”

  “You’re no luckier than anyone else,” Debbie broke in urgently. “You’re just not. We’re sorry, but it’s true.”

  Stricken, Damon gazed at them. “Yes, I am,” he insisted. It was a bedrock belief of his life. “I’m really lucky.”

  His parents only laughed, then rolled up their sleeves.

  “Whatever you need to tell yourself, son,” his dad said.

  Then, leaving Damon no choice but to come along for the ride, they all got down to the serious business of turning raw cacao into something even better: artisanal chocolates made with love.

  Chapter 26

  Natasha was in her garden-shed workspace, putting the finishing touches on a new piece she’d been inspired to design, when the sound of someone rustling around outside caught her attention. Going stock-still, she paused at her worktable and listened. Soon enough, the sounds came again—a scrape and a thump from outside, followed by a very human-sounding grunt.

  Alarmed, Natasha put down her artwork. Wiping her hands on her grungy jeans and then straightening her T-shirt, she headed outside to investigate. There, she glimpsed her backyard, her own slice of blue San Diego skyline… and her next-door neighbor, Kurt, who was in the throes of what looked like a wrestling match with a potted blossoming Jacaranda tree … or at least a very large sapling. Its branches were already covered with slender green leaves and myriad purple blooms, several of which dropped off in a flurry as Kurt maneuvered the potted tree toward—

  “Is that a hole in my lawn?” Natasha blurted.

  Kurt started. Almost dropping his tree, he gave her a guilty look. “Natasha! You’re supposed to be at an interview.”

  “I canceled it.” Bewildered, she gestured at what had obviously been a lot of work. “Kurt, what are you doing?”

  “Something I agreed to do a couple of weeks ago,” her neighbor replied with cheerful determination. “Since no one ever told me there’d been a change of plans, I’m finishing the job.”

  “You’re digging a hole in my yard and secretly planting a tree?” Natasha wanted to glower at it to prove her point, but she loved the flowery beauty of Jacaranda trees way too much to pull off a bad attitude about being given one. Not that Kurt knew that. She settled on crossing her arms. “Did Carol put you up to this? Is this supposed to cheer me up or something?”

  Kurt shook his head. With another manly grunt, he released the tree from its container. “I promised not to say.”

  “You have to say,” Natasha insisted. “It’s my yard!”

  “It’s supposed to be a surprise.” Diligently, Kurt loosened the potting soil around the tree’s root ball. With an awkward movement, he rolled the tree into position, then started planting it. “But I will tell you it wasn’t Carol’s idea.”

  “Then whose idea was it? Amy’s? Jason’s? Milo’s?”

  Her neighbor merely shoveled more dirt. “You weren’t this nosy the last time I did some secret yard work for you.”

  “When did you … ?” At Kurt’s raised eyebrows, Natasha remembered. “When I got back from Las Vegas! My whole yard looked fantastic.” She gave him a sly look. “You acted as if you were as surprised by my ‘garden pixies’ as everyone else.”

  “What was I supposed to tell you? That I couldn’t take your yard’s Godzilla-size weeds anymore?” Kurt wiped his brow. “I was trying to be a good neighbor. It was just a little tidying up.”

  “Then it wasn’t part of my lucky streak,” Natasha murmured, half to herself. Kurt’s semi-puzzled headshake confirmed it.

  Hmmm. If that experience was being called into question, it suddenly occurred to her, what did that mean for the other things that had happened to her recently? The things she’d attributed to good luck? Like her magically well-running Civic? Her minor lottery win? Her airborne flirtation and date with Lance the neurosurgeon? Her thousand-dollar jackpot from the airport in Las Vegas? Her newfound ability to enchant, ensnare, and get lucky with Damon?

  Were all those things just easily explained events, too?

  They could have been, Natasha realized. Her Civic had been running better lately because she’d become more conscientious about getting routine maintenance done. She’d been buying weekly scratch-and-win lottery tickets for years now; she’d been bound to win sometime. She’d been feeling pumped-up and proud on the plane back from Las Vegas, psyched over finally standing up for herself with Damon; no wonder she’d been attractive to Lance. And the odds of winning an occasional jackpot on a slot machine weren’t that bad, especially in a high-traffic area like the concourse at McCarran International, where many people pumped in their quarters and hoped to get lucky before their flights left.

  And Damon? Well, Natasha couldn’t quite account for him.

  But if her good luck wasn’t real, then maybe Amy had a point about Natasha’s enduring bad luck, too. And maybe, just like Carol had implied, Natasha’s habit of die-hard stoicism in the face of tough times was just not working for her anymore.

  Maybe it never had worked. Witness her split with Pacey. Their breakup hadn’t been great. Whose was? But theirs had dragged on longer than necessary because she’d stuck her head in the sand and refused to admit it was happening. That’s why, in the end, her divorce papers had come as such a shock.

  Maybe she wasn’t unlucky, Natasha mused. Maybe she was just ignoring the parts she’d played in those sporadic catastrophes—in all those mishaps, big and small. Everything from her Civic’s flat tires to her marriage’s failure to her readiness to believe that Damon had colluded with Wes in an effort to rehab his damaged public persona could be explained by Natasha’s determination to believe that bad things “just happened” to her.

  Because if bad things “just happened” to
her, there was no use in reaching for more … right? If she was so “unlucky,” then she was also safe from recrimination, safe from trying …

  Safe from leading the life she wanted to live. Whoops.

  “Well. The least I can do is help you plant that.”

  Resolutely, Natasha grabbed a shovel from the cache of yard tools leaning against her shed. Then, before turning around, she gave the other tools a long, second look. She bet they would fit inside the shed along with her artwork and supplies.

  Maybe she didn’t need them to be kept apart anymore. Her artwork was still important to her. Being creative still meant a lot to her. But now, Natasha realized, it was just another part of her life, like riding bikes with Milo or teaching Finn to catch a Frisbee. Her artwork—and the garden-shed workspace where it happened—didn’t need to stand for independence or sacrifice or anything else that might have been. Now it could simply be what it was: an artistic outlet, a pleasurable activity … a hobby.

  Finally feeling at peace with that, Natasha scooped up a shovelful of dirt from the mound Kurt had made. She dropped it next to the tree’s root ball, then went back for another load.

  “If you were this attentive to weed pulling,” Kurt cracked with a teasing look, “I’d never need to be a garden pixie.”

  “I’m really sorry, Kurt. I’ll try to do better, I promise.”

  Her neighbor shrugged. He leaned on his shovel, then gave her a contemplative look. “You really can’t guess who did this?”

  Natasha eyed the tree. She shook her head. “I really can’t. It must be someone who knows me pretty well, though. My love of Jacaranda trees isn’t exactly a secret, but I don’t run around shouting from the rooftops about it, either.” She mulled over the question of her undisclosed benefactor. “Does this have something to do with Valentine’s Day?” she guessed. “Because today’s the big day, after all. Milo was all fired up about it before school started. And the women in my running club have joked sometimes about giving each other ‘We Hate Valentine’s Day’ gifts. You know, just so nobody gets too depressed about all the lovey-dovey, hearts-and-flowers, we’re-destined-for-eternity couples’ talk that happens around this time of year.”

  “Hm. And I thought my friends were jaded. We all get drunk, have a beach bonfire to burn old love letters and Valentine’s Day cards, throw darts at our exes’ photos, wear black, blast ‘Love Stinks’ on nonstop repeat, and have an anti-Valentine’s Day movie marathon with Heathers in top billing.” Kurt considered the issue some more. “Oh, and we totally ban all chocolate in heart-shaped boxes … until it goes on sale on the fifteenth of February, of course. We’re not idiots. We just don’t like being coerced into thinking sappy romantic thoughts against our will.”

  “You seem like an unlikely choice for a secret tree-planting mission to commemorate Valentine’s Day,” Natasha observed wryly. “I hope your friends don’t disown you.”

  “They’ll never know. This is the backyard, after all.”

  “Well, that’s true.” With vigor, Natasha shoveled another scoop of dirt. “You know, this looks really nice next to my garden shed,” she observed. “It even complements the paint job.”

  “Yes.” Kurt nodded. “That’s what Damon said. He told me—”

  Abruptly, her neighbor clapped shut his mouth. With newfound industriousness, Kurt went back to shoveling.

  “Damon?” Natasha asked, astounded that her offhanded inveigling had actually worked to root out the truth from Kurt once he’d let down his guard. “Damon put you up to this?”

  Guiltily, Kurt looked at his shoes. He offered her a tentative grin. “Would you believe … garden pixies did it?”

  “No. I wouldn’t.”

  “Would you believe … Carol did it?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.” Galvanized by the thought that Damon had thought of giving her this Jacaranda tree, with all its lovely purple flowers and shady foliage, Natasha stared at it. “This tree,” she told Kurt when she’d begun breathing again, “is the polar opposite of a ‘sorry I broke your heart’ bouquet. This tree is a growing, changing, living and enduring thing!”

  “It might be,” Kurt said dubiously, “if we finish planting it. It’s been out in the sun awhile now. It might be—”

  But Natasha couldn’t listen to his attempts to backpedal now. With a new burst of energy, she grabbed Kurt’s arm. “Do you know what this means?”

  He hesitated, biting his lip. “Uh, it means you’re going to have to mulch it regularly?”

  “Yes! I am going to have to mulch it,” Natasha agreed excitedly. “In a manner of speaking, of course. In the sense that mulching is a protective, ongoing, nurturing process that—”

  “That will have to wait,” Carol finished for her, interrupting as she marched into the backyard with something small in her hand. She raised it. “Milo forgot his epinephrine injector. He’s waiting for you to bring it to him at school.”

  “But—” Dismayed, Natasha glanced from her mother-in-law to Kurt to her new Jacaranda tree. That tree all but proved that Damon had loved her once (even if he didn’t anymore), because something as mundane as a landscaping tree wasn’t a showy romantic gesture—it was a thoughtful one. It wasn’t the kind of thing a disgraced playboy would do to try to look like a dutiful suburban romantic on a webisode of one of Wes’s new-media shows.

  It was the kind of thing a man who cared about her—who wanted the space beside her garden-shed work area to be pretty and welcoming and nurturing—would do. The kind of thing Damon would do … now that he’d been trying so hard to be a better man.

  “But I just realized something about Damon,” Natasha protested, swerving her gaze back to Carol. “I should try to find him. I should—” She broke off, knowing that in the end, there was really no argument. “I should take this to Milo before he has an emergency,” she agreed, striding to her mother-in-law. She took the injector from her. “His teacher keeps a spare EpiPen on hand, but I’d better not take any chances. They’re having a Valentine’s Day party at school today. There are bound to be goodies.”

  “Good.” Carol nodded. “I’ll go with you!”

  “But—” Mystified, Natasha looked at her. “Why? If you can go to the school, then why do I have to go to the school?”

  “Me too!” Kurt announced, dropping his shovel. With relish, he rubbed together his dirt-grimed palms. “I’ll drive.”

  Watching them both sprint away, Natasha shook her head. “But I can drive!” She followed them to the driveway. “Why—”

  “Don’t ask questions!” Carol blurted. “Just come on.”

  Wondering suspiciously if there was more going on here than an ordinary mission to deliver Milo’s epinephrine injector, Natasha followed them. “All right,” she said. “But after this,” she informed her impromptu entourage, “I’m going to see Damon!”

  “Whatever,” Carol said with a blithe wave. She traded a glance with Kurt. “If you still want to do that, you can.”

  Then, on the heels of that cryptic statement, they all piled into the cab of Kurt’s vintage flatbed truck and sped away to Milo’s elementary school.

  With an unexpected stab of nervousness, Damon paced across the room he’d been using to set up his latest taste test. On the twin tables in its center, trays stood ready with chocolate-filled, fluted paper cups. Near the trays, pitchers of water and modest-size glasses awaited. He didn’t want his subjects getting filled up on water; he wanted them focused on the samples.

  This time, the chocolates provided were all allergen-free mockups; no traditional or commercially available samples allowed. That, along with the small water glasses, had been Jimmy’s suggestion. Also among his father’s bright ideas were improved packaging examples (whipped up in a flash by the innovative Torrance Chocolates design department), evocative and appealing posters highlighting the potential new line, and a bonus: an appearance by the Torrance Chocolates mascot.

  Unhappily ensconced in the mascot suit, Jason trudged to Damon’s
place in the room. He yanked at the collar of his furry suit, looking very much like an unhappy six-foot-tall sea otter who was temporarily holding his oversize head under his arm.

  “Do I have to do this?” Jason complained, putting his fuzzy hands on his fuzzy hips. “This suit itches like a mother—”

  “Aw, come on, honey. I think you look cute!” Amy said before Damon could reply. From her place at the room’s window, she looked up from the toys she’d been using to entertain Manny and Isobel. “You look like my big, strong snuggle bunny!”

  “Don’t you mean your ‘big, strong snuggle otter’?” Jason frowned. “Shouldn’t we get started pretty soon? The faster we kick off this thing, the sooner I can shuck this suit and go back to looking like a man instead of a walking stuffed animal.”

  “Soon. It’s not quite time yet.” With another attack of nerves, Damon stalked to the window. He glanced outside. “I’m still waiting.” He cast an apprehensive glance at Amy.

  “Do you think Carol pulled it off? Do you think she’ll get her here?”

  “Have you met Carol?” Amy asked with a grin. “Once her mind’s made up, she’d rather eat rocks than take ‘no’ for an answer. She’ll get her here. You can count on it.”

  The problem was … Damon was counting on it. He truly was. If this maneuver failed, he didn’t know what he’d do next. All the hearts and flowers and love songs and pink balloons and street-corner flower vendors he’d glimpsed on the way here today had only served to underscore the crucial nature of his mission.

  Today, he had to succeed. He had to make up with Natasha.

  Whether he’d proved himself to anyone or not.

  “I shouldn’t have set up things this way.” Damon wrung his hands, still pacing. He thought he might actually be sweating. That never happened to him. But then again, now that he knew he wasn’t really unusually lucky (just a tad overconfident) and never had been unusually lucky (just allowed to believe he was), a lot of things might change for him. Now all he had to rely on were his own hard work and innovative nature … which was really all he’d had all along, anyway.