“I’ll see you tonight. Can I bring anything? Dessert?”
“Just your handsome self.” She flashed that grin once more and was gone. I watched her walk slowly across the grounds, laughing to myself. Liberty was younger than me, but she was like a mom already. She was always fussing over me and the other guys, making sure that we had what we needed and felt the comforts from home even when we were on a job.
Since Megan and I were done, I’d decided to take up residence with my crew. I’d grown up right down the street. Warwick, Rhode Island, was home—always had been. I looked at the Christmas tree again. It was good to be home, it really was. But somehow, I just had to get used to being alone again.
CHARLOTTE
“What do you mean, we’re out of cranberries?” It was a question, but it came out like a holler.
Riley put her hands on her hips, dusting her apron with flour. “I mean, we’re out of cranberries.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “What the hell else could I mean?”
Grr. My sister sure had a way of getting under my skin. “Can you go get some, please?” I asked, making my voice fake-sugary sweet instead of yelling.
She tilted her head and gave me a tight smile. “Sure.” Her tone was fake-nice and matched mine perfectly.
We were probably going to kill each other by Christmas.
I worked on the next batch of scones while she ran out to Luca’s Market, down in the center of town. Hopefully they had cranberries. If not, we were going to have to head to the big grocery store in the next town over. We’d get pushed back on our holiday-pie-making schedule. I loved the holidays because we were busy, but this was our first year and I wanted to knock it out of the park with our customers. I wanted the bakery to become part of their annual holiday tradition. I wanted everything to be perfect.
I looked at the clock. After work ended in a few hours, I was going to take my dog out for a run to blow off some steam. Then I’d have a well-earned glass of wine by my fire and my Charlie-Brown-esque Christmas tree.
Alone, I reminded myself. Well, yeah, but what else was new?
The door jingled and I headed to the front of the bakery. It was just me and Riley, so when she was gone, I dealt with the customers and the baking. I watched the good-looking man come in and unzip his black puffer coat, and then I stopped dead. Oh to the h-e-l-l no.
It was Sean. Sean Maines.
I dropped down behind the counter so he couldn’t see me.
“Hey…are you okay back there?” He peered over the counter while I berated myself for not wearing any makeup to work.
“Um, I’m fine,” I said, wincing. “I just dropped something.” My dignity. I just dropped my dignity down here, don’t you worry about little old me.
“Do you want some help?” He sounded nicer than he should, seeing as I’d broken his heart and all.
Ten years ago, when you were just a kid, I reminded myself. Sheesh. Get over it.
But it seemed like only yesterday that I’d said goodbye to him, now that he was standing in my bakery, all tall and handsome. I rose slowly, my heart thudding in my chest. I forced myself to smile at him politely. “Can I help you?”
Realization dawned in his big brown eyes. “Charlotte?”
“Sean?” I tried to sound surprised, but we could both tell I wasn’t.
“I didn’t know you worked here.” The freckles across his nose were just as adorable as I remembered, but his face was more handsome now, like he’d grown into his looks. I tried not to stare.
“I do…actually, my sister and I own the place.” I heard the note of pride in my voice. “That’s why it’s called Charley’s—it’s a combination of Charlotte and Riley. We opened in October.”
“That’s awesome!” He sounded genuinely happy for me. “I haven’t been in here yet. I remember your cookies. I’m sure business is booming.”
Sean had always loved my cookies. “Aw…thanks. We’re doing well.” The bakery had been successful so far, and my sister and I were thrilled.
He cocked his head to the side, his gaze trailing over me with curiosity. “I’m kind of surprised you moved back—but I heard about your Dad…I’m really sorry. And I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the service. I was working out of town.”
“It’s okay, but thank you.” I was oddly touched at the apology. “But Riley and I moved back because we figured Mom shouldn’t be all alone.”
“That’s nice. She doing okay?”
I nodded. “She’s fine. She just drives us crazy—not that that’s anything different.”
“I get it!” Sean said. “My parents drive me nuts, too. It’s like I’m still fifteen, and they think they can still ground me.”
He smiled and my heart fisted. Oh, for the love of God. You’re not in high school anymore. “You back in town to visit them?”
“No—I live here. My work’s based here. I see my parents all the time.”
He kept smiling at me, and I swallowed hard. In spite of my better judgment, my gaze flicked to his left hand. He wasn’t wearing a wedding band, but I’d heard he’d gotten married a while back. Just another reason to curse social media—you couldn’t get away from any news anymore, not even about people you wanted to leave squarely in your past.
So you could imagine that maybe they were still pining for you.
“You live here with your…family?” I asked. Wanting to be nosy but not wanting to be obvious, I settled for awkward.
“No…” His voice trailed off and I noticed he had dark circles under his eyes. “I just built a house. I live there alone. I just got divorced, actually.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
He shook his head. “It’s okay. What about you? I haven’t been back to a reunion and I don’t do Twitter, so tell me what’s new.”
I shrugged. “Same old, same old. Riley and I both decided to move back this summer. I’d been out in California for a while, but…that didn’t work out. I figured that with my Dad and all, it was time to come back home.”
“Well, it’s nice to see you.” His eyes met mine and I felt that old familiar pull. Ten years later, I still felt my knees buckle a little.
Jesus Charlotte, get a grip! “It’s nice to see you, too. Can I help you with something?” For some reason, that felt a little too flirty coming out of my mouth. “A baked good, I mean? Some coffee?”
“I need a dessert for a dinner I’m going to tonight.” Sean’s gaze roamed the cakes and pies and my stomach, stupidly, fell a little. Recently divorced and going to a dinner. It sounded as if Sean was already in demand. “Do you have any of those cookies like you used to make?” he asked, hopefully.
“Of course.” I smiled in spite of myself. The fact that he remembered my chocolate chip cookies, sprinkled with coconut, warmed my insides. “How many do you need?”
“Um…” Sean appeared to count silently on his fingers. “There’s six of us, plus Matthew’s kids, but Liberty’s pregnant, so she’s eating for, like, five–”
“Oh, I know Liberty!” I said, thinking of the beautiful pregnant woman who’d become one of my regular customers. “You should get her a vanilla cupcake with cream-cheese frosting—those are her favorite.”
Sean laughed. “Sold. I’ll take six of those. She’s seriously eating like crazy. And then enough cookies for the rest of us.”
“Got it.” I started to box everything up. “So, how do you know Liberty? She seems really nice.”
“She’s great—she’s married to my boss. I’ve worked for him for years. I just built my house on their property, down by the beach.”
I taped the box shut. “What type of work is that—construction?” Sean looked pretty big, as if he either worked manual labor or lived at the gym. Or both.
He shrugged a little. “Something like that. We definitely work with our hands.” He took out his wallet and handed over his card. “I’m excited about these cookies. I don’t know if I can wait for dinner. I seriously missed them.”
“Aw. You’re sweet.�
� The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. I wanted to be friendly, but not too friendly. I didn’t want him to think I was playing some sort of game.
Sean’s gaze held mine as I handed him the card back. “It’s nice to see you, Charlotte. I’m really happy for you about this place.”
“Thanks. That means a lot.” I nodded at him and handed him the box. “Tell Liberty I said hi!”
“Will do.” He gave me another knee-wobble-inducing smile before he went back out into the cold.
And I was left staring at the steam covering the inside of my windows, alone with just my memories and regrets from a long time ago.
2
SEAN
“Charlotte from the bakery says hi,” I said, putting down a cupcake in front of Liberty.
“Oh,” she said, “my favorite!” She eagerly grabbed a fork and scraped a large amount of frosting onto the tines. “I love Charlotte. That bakery’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Hey,” John said, looking wounded, “I thought that was me!”
Liberty patted her husband’s hand. “That is you, babe. But Charley’s Bakery is the best food-related thing that’s ever happened to me.” She put her hand over her belly. “The baby seriously loves this frosting.”
“I’d never been there before. When did they open?” I asked, making sure my voice was neutral.
“October—you guys were out on assignment then. Charlotte and her sister own the place. They’re awesome. I’ve ordered about a dozen pies from them for Christmas. And cookies.”
“They have the best cookies,” I agreed, and took a bite of one. Heaven. “These haven’t changed at all.” And neither has Charlotte. She was still seriously hot.
Liberty arched an eyebrow at me and I cursed myself. “I thought you said you’d never been to the bakery before?” If it was something personal—especially if it was something personal that you wanted to keep to yourself—Liberty wanted to know about it.
I swallowed a bite of cookie, inwardly groaning. “That’s right. But I knew Charlotte back in high school—she grew up here, too. I’ve had her cookies before.”
Matthew leaned forward. “Have you, now?”
I ignored his juvenile taunt while Liberty’s eyebrow stayed up. “Were you two friends?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Sort of.”
Now the rest of them were staring at me, too. John, Ian, Matthew, his wife Meredith and their two little kids. Our one big happy family loved to gossip and this was the first time in months I’d mentioned something that involved an actual female.
“Sort of…how?” Matthew asked. He leaned over the table and swiped my cookie away with his big meat paw of a hand.
“Hey!” I grabbed another one and carefully guarded it against my chest. “It was no big deal. We just used to hang out.”
“Vertically or horizontally?” Matthew asked, a wicked gleam in his eye.
“Matthew!” Liberty and Meredith said in unison. But they quickly turned back to me.
“So?” Liberty asked. “Which one was it—vertical or horizontal?”
I shrugged. “A little of both.”
Matthew whooped. “I knew it!”
“Enough,” I warned.
Matthew stuffed the cookie into his mouth and a look of ecstasy crossed his face. “Oh my God, this is good. You might have to get friendly with her again. We need these on a regular basis.”
“Or, you could just go to the bakery and buy some,” I said. “Crazy idea.”
Matthew cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t want to say too much in front of the kids”—he put his hands over his daughter’s ears and Meredith did the same with their son—”but it might do you good to spend some horizontal time with your old friend. Seriously, dude. You’ve been kind of a buzzkill lately.”
Matthew was my best friend, but he was sort of an asshole sometimes. “Thanks for the advice, dude.” I stood and pushed my chair back. “I gotta go. Thanks for dinner, Liberty.”
“Thanks for the cupcake.”
“Don’t be mad at me,” Matthew called, “or I’ll have to punch you!”
I laughed in spite of myself as I headed back to my house. A thin layer of snow dusted the grounds. My boots crunched over the frozen grass as I walked, examining the contrast of bright green and white beneath my feet. Growing up in New England, I loved all the seasons, especially winter. I loved the feel of the cold air biting my face, then having a warm fire greet me inside.
And Christmas. I’d always loved Christmas.
I opened the door and was happy to be greeted by the smell of pine. I plugged the tree lights in and then went around turned on electric candle lights in all the windows. I started a fire in the fireplace, and then grabbed a beer. I stood and looked at my nice new house with all the pretty lights on. It was great. I loved it.
Too bad I had no one to share it with.
It’s not like I missed Megan. She’d sort of made that impossible when I caught her in bed with one of her co-workers, a guy I’d known for years. Blech. In an effort to erase that image from my mind, I had another large swallow of beer. Then I thought about seeing Charlotte earlier today. She’d literally been the last person I’d expected to find behind that counter. She’d moved away years ago, when she’d gone off to college and never come back. I’d heard about her from time to time—that she was traveling in South America, that she was waiting tables in Wyoming, that she’d moved to Northern California. She was always the adventurous type. I never pictured her moving back home.
But I guess she was an adult now, too. Her dad had died and she felt like she needed to be here for her mom.
Being an adult sucked pretty hard. If I’d had the balls to talk to her some more, we probably could have commiserated about that. But balls aside, it was good to see her today—even though it’d been awkward. I missed that brown hair of hers, the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. Charlotte was beautiful, and she was funny, but I needed to keep my distance. I had royally fucked it up with her back in the day.
She was a senior and I’d graduated the year before. I’d been working for my dad commercial fishing. Charlotte was about to graduate and head to college, and I couldn’t stand it. So I asked her to stay. Begged her, if I remembered correctly. Cried like a baby when she’d said no. And then she’d gone off to her fancy liberal-arts college and left little old me behind, without so much as a postcard or a backward glance.
So, while it was great to see Charlotte and know that she was doing well, it was also a kick in the balls. I needed to stay away from her so my ego didn’t take even more of a beating.
I took another swig of beer and regarded the Christmas lights. I usually loved Christmas, but this year it was New Year’s I was looking forward to.
I was so over this year.
CHARLOTTE
“Why didn’t you tell me Sean Maines still lived here?” I asked my mother accusatorily.
She blew on her hot chocolate as Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” played in the background. “I thought you knew.”
“How would I know that?”
“Um,” my mother said, furrowing her brow, “Twitter? Snapchat? Whatever you kids use these days instead of the phone?”
“How do you know what Snapchat is?” I asked, baffled.
She shrugged. “I read the news. I don’t live under a rock—unlike you apparently do, dear. Yes, Sean Maines lives here. He has for years. Works for that private security group run by the billionaire.”
“What? What private security group? What billionaire?” I was starting to worry that Mom had put Sambuca in her hot chocolate.
She sighed and patted the couch next to her until Gypsy, my dog, got the hint and jumped up beside her. “The Quinns—they live over at that big estate by the water. His name’s John, I think. Married some girl half his age. He has a bunch of ex-military guys living over there and they do some sort of security work. Bodyguards, or something. Or so the gossip mill says.”
“And Sean does…that?” I’d thought he was some sort of construction worker, or was still fishing with his dad.
“Yes. He ended up going to some technical institute for computer science and graduated. He’s worked with them forever. Done quite well for himself, as I understand it.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me that?” I asked. I always figured Sean never went to school…
“You never asked. And it’s not like you were nice to him when you broke his heart and left town.” My mother shrugged. “Why are you asking, anyway? Did you see him?”
I nodded. “He came into the bakery. He seemed good…except he said he just got divorced.”
My mother tsked. “Well that’s a shame. Sean always was a nice boy—not that you ever let that impress you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I motioned for Gypsy to come sit by me, but he didn’t budge as my mother scratched behind his ears. Traitor.
“It means, he was the nicest boy you ever went out with. And you broke his heart and never thought twice about it, because you were so fancy that you had to run off to Smith and major in Women’s Studies. And you’ve only been out with jerks and losers ever since.”
“Mom!”
She looked at me innocently. “Well, it’s true, honey. Who’s going to tell you if I don’t?”
“Me! I’ll tell her!” My sister bounded into the room and dropped onto the couch next to me. She looked comfortable and stylish, her hair in a braid, wearing a colorful plaid button-down shirt. She grinned at me over her mug. “You’ve only been out with jerks and losers ever since Sean. And a dude with a man-bun, who was also a jerk and a loser.”
“You don’t have much room to talk,” I mumbled.
“I only went out with one loser. And I married him, and then promptly divorced him. You’ve been out with plenty and you’ve never even been engaged. So I still think I’m doing better than you.”
“Some logic,” I said under my breath.
“Maybe you should go out with Sean,” my mother said to my sister, “he just got divorced.”
Home for the Holidays: A Contemporary Romance Anthology Page 25