“How about a jasmine tea caramel that will calm nerves? It’s a little more subtle than the others but lasts longer. Maybe three to four hours instead of only two.”
“I can probably handle that. And I’m sure I need it. Tucker, God love him, is not a good sit-around-and-do-nothing kind of guy. He’s about to drive me up a wall.”
Pulling three caramels from the refrigerated glass case, Penelope handed one to Layne and set the other two in a clear gift bag. “Save these for when you really need them.” She waved away Layne’s money. “Consider it a trade. I was supposed to call you and set up a play date with the girls. Do you think River would be up for that?”
Layne bit into her candy and closed her eyes as she chewed and swallowed. “Um, yeah, I think that would be great. We just can’t do it here. River and I might never leave.” She paused. “Holy wow, that was good.”
“I’m glad you liked it.”
“Like is an understatement. I would fight Noah to be the one who gets to bring River in if I thought she would let me. But Uncle Noah is much cooler than me, so while he’s here, he gets all the attention.”
“The novelty might wear off if he decided not to leave,” Penelope said, letting a little snark tinge her words.
Layne either ignored the tone on purpose or missed it altogether. “It’d be nice to have him around more. Maybe not in my house all the time, but in town, in the bar. He wouldn’t have to miss out on all the birthdays and holidays and weekend cookouts. And he’d see that life in Malarkey is actually pretty great and he could make it home again. Then maybe he’d want to settle down and start a family of his own.”
Despite her desire for Noah to get out of town as quickly as possible, Penelope’s skin warmed as she remembered the dream kiss. Part of her—a part that was bigger than she realized—wanted the chance to find out what it felt like in real life. Then the image of her mom, lost in the past and more than a little broken, flashed into her mind. If Noah hadn’t blown her off after she’d given him both her heart and her body, everything would be different. If she’d had the sense not to believe the chocolates in the first place.
But she couldn’t let herself forget it wasn’t just her heart on the line this time.
“I’m guessing Noah doesn’t know you’re here trying to talk me into dating him?”
“Crap. That’s not what I’m doing. I just meant some girl, any girl, not you. He would probably skip town immediately if he thought I was over here trying to find him a girl so he’d decide to move back for good. So could you maybe not mention this to him?”
“If only I had a chocolate that could let you time travel and you could erase this whole conversation.” Penelope smiled.
Layne tightened her scarf, adjusting the two ends that dangled on either side of her collarbone until they were even. “Yeah, but then we wouldn’t have talked and I think I might regret that. I kinda like you.”
“I kinda like you too,” Penelope said. She laughed when Layne hid half of her face behind her hand, the tops of her cheeks turning pink at hearing her not-quite-a-compliment repeated back.
Why did she have to be Noah’s sister-in-law? Becoming friends with Layne was the exact opposite of staying away from Noah. But damn if she didn’t want to.
13
Noah clenched his jaw as the craving for a cigarette ate away at his composure. He’d gone eight days without one, and the only thing that kept him from bumming one now was the promise he’d made to River on his first night back in town when she’d caught him on the back porch and yanked the lit cigarette from his hand. She’d looked him right in the eye and said, “You don’t smoke anymore, okay, Uncle Noah?” He might’ve handled the cold-turkey shit better if he had another outlet for stress, but the universe seemed to enjoy screwing with him and offered no reprieve.
He hauled a steaming basket of pint glasses from the kitchen out to the bar. The heat nipped at his fingers as he unloaded them onto the shelf, but he barely registered it. His fingertips were all but numb after so many years handling just-from-the-washer drinkware. With his brother set up at the bar, he could probably manage to slip out for a few minutes. To go see Penelope. Check on her mom. But every time he thought they’d finally hit a lull, another group of people shuffled inside, shaking off snow and chaining him to the bar for another half hour.
“I forgot how crazy snow makes people around here,” he said to Tucker. “Is it gonna be like this all day?”
Tucker shoved the blunt end of a fork wrapped in a napkin underneath the lip of his cast and jerked it back and forth on his thigh. “Why, you got somewhere better to be?”
“Maybe,” he said, thinking of Penelope again. She’d removed all of the notes the town left on her shop windows, which meant she must’ve read the one he left for her. It didn’t make up for what he’d done, but he needed her to know he wasn’t as heartless as he’d seemed back then.
“Sucks to be you then.”
Noah sent his brother a smug grin. “At least I can scratch an itch without the use of utensils.”
“Funny,” Tucker said. He tossed the towel onto the bar and pushed the fork farther in until only the tines stuck out. “The damn bone doesn’t even hurt anymore. But the itching is enough to make me want to claw my own skin off.”
“You might want to go outside for that. Don’t want to chase off your customers.” Noah beat his knuckles on the bar and rocked back on his heels, a smile tugging at one side of his mouth. “On second thought, how about a few more forks? I can probably rustle up a cleaver if you want to just lob the whole thing off and be done with it.”
“I’ll manage on my own, thanks. And you can keep right on serving drinks until the snow fizzles out and all these people head home.”
“Lucky me,” Noah said.
He let his gaze drift outside. Thick trails of footprints traveling diagonally across the street and up and down the sidewalks kept the snow from sticking for too long. I can always see her tomorrow. He ran his hands through his hair, locking them on the back of his neck and blowing out a frustrated breath.
Tucker checked the door over his shoulder and then turned back to Noah with his mouth set in a serious line. “Listen, I know this isn’t where you want to be, but I am grateful you’re here.”
“It’s not so bad here. I mean, if I had my own place, my cat, and all my shit, it’d be better, but I would maybe not hate moving back.”
“I could probably muster up some excitement for that. And a job, if you wanted. But Lee will kill both of us if you quit outright. He only gave you the time off because he knew you’d be dying to get back to big-city life after your stint here.”
Noah had worked for Lee going on five years. Only Tucker knew Noah better. So when Lee asked if it was okay to schedule him for a few weekend shifts over the next couple of months, Noah had seen it as the lifeline it was.
“He won’t kill us. But he might try to have me committed. He doesn’t even expect me to make it a month before I jump ship and go home.” Noah slid a pint glass under the tap and let the golden liquid run down the side to keep the head from forming too thickly. “And seeing as how I own half this damn place, I can give myself a job, thanks.” He set the beer on the end of the bar and started on the Bloody Mary that went with it.
“I thought the whole point of a silent partner was to give me your money and shut the hell up,” Tucker joked.
“If I’d kept my mouth shut, you’d have railroad ties attached to the walls, leaking toxic chemicals into the air for your customers to breathe in. And I’m pretty sure that without me, you’d have the most uncomfortable bar stools in the history of the world. Hell, I should give myself a raise.”
“If you’re serious about coming home, we’ll talk about it.”
“All right then.” He topped the cocktail with a skewer of a green olive sandwiched between two jalapeño slices and grinned at his brother.
As the next rush hit, Noah shifted into autopilot and mulled the idea of moving back
to Malarkey. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed his brother and the way bullshitting with Tucker made his worries seem less overwhelming. He could do it. Move back to Malarkey and do what he loved around people he loved.
And not give a shit if Penelope blows me off.
But even as he thought it, something twisted in his chest.
Yeah, he could do it. But he couldn’t convince himself she didn’t matter.
He put her out of his mind and focused on the drink orders. When Layne came in a little while later, he couldn’t help but notice the way his brother shifted toward her, his eyes taking in every inch of her. The way Tucker’s shoulders stiffened at Layne’s wide-eyed stare, and how he kept his smile easy so his worry didn’t intensify her own.
“So, I just stopped in at the Chocolate Cottage and made a complete idiot out of myself,” she said. She slumped onto a stool and laid her head on the bar with a low moan. Her arms stretched across the slick wood so her hands hung off the opposite side, and she fiddled with the base of one tap. “I’m pretty sure I insulted Penelope like five times without meaning to.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure you weren’t any worse than Noah is around her,” Tucker said. He leaned over and kissed his wife’s head.
Noah slopped the oatmeal stout over the rim of the glass when he jerked to close the tap. “Whoa, how did I get dragged into that? And what makes you think I act like an idiot around her?”
“Because you always do. She’s your Kryptonite, little brother. Any suaveness you might possess becomes totally incapacitated around that woman. Though it’s kind of a douche move, passing that trait on to my wife.”
Layne lifted her head and dragged her hair back from her pink cheeks. “I’m serious,” she said before Noah could reply. “I went in to meet her since River’s been asking to have Ella for a sleepover, and she’s really nice and didn’t kick me out when I basically called her a freak to her face. Why do you two let me out in public?”
“Practice makes perfect?” Tucker said.
“I hate you,” she said. But she smiled and sat up straighter.
Noah waited a few breaths, letting the silence act as a buffer between the mention of Penelope and his curiosity about how she’d reacted to Layne. Then he asked, “So what did you talk about?” He hoped he’d sounded casual. The flash of his brother’s eyes told him he hadn’t.
“Aside from the stuff I’m trying to pretend did not actually come out of my mouth, mostly just the girls and whether or not the chocolates are magic,” she said.
Tucker wrapped an arm around Layne’s shoulders, holding her closer to him. Dropping his voice to a gruff whisper, he said, “What he means is did you talk him up?”
“Why would I do that? Shit, was I supposed to?” She whipped her doe eyes to Noah. He jerked a shoulder like it was no big deal and looked away. “Oh, my God. Is she the girl Tucker swears you never got over?”
“Ding, ding, ding,” Tucker shouted.
Noah threw a damp bar towel at his brother’s head. “You’re an ass.”
“Runs in the family. But seriously, you’ve got to get over her,” Tucker said. “It’s not healthy to let it go on this long. The commercials say to call a doctor after four hours, and you’ve had a hard-on for her for what, nine years?”
“It’s not like I’ve just been letting myself rot away while I waited on her to give me another go,” Noah said. He pried the caps off two light beers and flicked them into the trash. He passed the bottles across the bar to the waitress. When she walked away to deliver the order, he said, “And I’m pretty sure for the past few years you’re always the one to bring her up, not me.”
“It’s my job as your big brother to rub your face in what you’re missing.”
“Yep. Ass,” Noah said.
Layne shifted on the stool, pulling one leg up under her and leaning into the bar top as if trying to shield their conversation from prying ears, though the closest person sat at the far end to hear the basketball game on the television. “Not like I know her or anything, but she doesn’t seem like your type,” she said.
“Yeah, Noah, she is a little lacking in the T&A department,” Tucker joked. With his cast propped on the stool next to him, he wasn’t fast enough to avoid Layne’s smack on the arm. “Hey, you’ve seen the girls he dates. I’m just giving him a hard time.”
“When a relationship is ninety percent about the sex, whether we connect on an emotional level isn’t that important.” Noah tapped the side of his head. “But a girl who can mess up my head with one smile and still make me want to go home and take a long shower, that’s hard to ignore.”
“I don’t want to know this,” Layne said.
Noah smiled and pointed at his brother. “He started it.”
Tucker grabbed Noah’s finger and bent it back, laughing when Noah shook him loose. “With good reason. You’ve known for years that you don’t have a shot with Penelope. Why the hell do you keep trying?”
The image of Penelope as she’d been in high school, with bright teal streaks in her dark hair and black eyeliner making her brown eyes piercing, popped into Noah’s head. She’d been this odd combination of calm and focused on the inside and vibrant and full of laughter on the outside. And he’d been ridiculously attracted to both sides. His pulse spiked when he thought of how short her hair was now, making him want to kiss the exposed expanse of skin on the back of her neck.
“I don’t know.” But he did. He’d blown his chance with Penelope. Knew even as he was doing it that he’d probably regret it. But he did it anyway. And he’d always wondered if she’d been right about their future together. “Back in high school she was absolutely sure of who she was and what she wanted. It was impossible not to be a little in love with her for it.”
“So what did you do about it?” Layne asked.
Tucker chuckled to himself and said, “Dude got out his boom box and held it over his head outside her window and went all 1980s rom-com on her.”
Noah laughed and flipped him off. “Yeah, says the guy who built a life-sized TARDIS, with sound effects and all no less, to convince a girl he was worth her time. You’re full of shit.”
“It worked,” Layne said. She laced her fingers with Tucker’s on the bar.
“Damn right it worked,” Tucker said, grinning at her. He scratched at his leg again with his free hand. “Too bad for Noah I got all of the getting-the-girl genes.”
“At least you were smart enough to use them on the right girl,” Noah said.
“Yes, I was. Meanwhile you’re still pining for yours. Which, I gotta say, is pretty damn ironic since Penelope sells magical love chocolates for a living.”
“It’s only ironic if you ignore all the other kinds of magic she sells.”
Tucker punched him on the arm. “I’m just saying, if you want any sort of shot with her, those chocolates might be your only hope.”
Shaking his head, Noah looked out the front window as if he could somehow see Penelope in her store a few blocks over. Falling in love wasn’t his problem. What he really needed was a way to get Penelope to stop trying to kill him with her mind long enough to see he had changed. But if she had a recipe for forgiveness, she’d sooner stop selling chocolates altogether than give that power to him. Which meant he’d just have to get back on her good side the old-fashioned way.
14
While Penelope waited for Layne to get back to her on a good time for their girls to play together, she focused on a few things on her daughter’s list that she could make happen immediately. Today they were starting with cake for breakfast and then moving on to the animal shelter in search of the perfect kitten.
“You’ve been bugging me to leave since six this morning. And now that it’s time to go, you aren’t even dressed,” Penelope said as she walked into Ella’s room.
“I was dressed. You saw me earlier. But my owl shirt didn’t go with my necklace so I had to change.” Ella pointed at the shirt she’d discarded on the bed. Stretched out ne
xt to it on the rumpled sheets was the compass necklace the apothecary table had given her. “Just close your eyes for a second and when you open them I’ll be dressed again. Okay?”
“I’m not sure the animal shelter is the best place to wear that necklace.”
“But Mama, I have to wear it. How else am I going to find the kitten that’s supposed to love me?”
Penelope wanted to tell her that any kitten in that place would love her just for petting it, but the look of disappointment on Ella’s face made her give in. “You’re right. I would hate for you to bring home the wrong one by mistake.” She lifted the necklace from the bed and the dial spun at a dizzying speed. Maybe it would lead Ella to an animal that would love her.
“That would be so sad,” Ella agreed. “I only have so much time left. I can’t spend it with the wrong cat.” She tugged on a solid navy shirt and flung out her hand for the necklace. She slipped the long chain over her head. Against the dark fabric, the white stars of the constellation popped.
“Perfect,” Penelope said, breathing through the pang in her chest at Ella’s casual reference to dying.
Ella stroked a finger over it then said, “C’mon. It’s cake time.”
She spent the whole drive to the Orchard Street Cafe with the necklace lying faceup on her palm. Whenever Penelope asked what she was looking for, Ella said, “Nothing” in the way that meant something but she wasn’t ready to share her secret with anyone else yet. So Penelope turned up the volume on the radio—one of the stations that thankfully didn’t adopt the Christmas-music-twenty-four-seven philosophy—and sang along to Ingrid Michaelson.
The gravel lot at the cafe was packed. It was usually crowded on the weekends, but since Zan had dreamed of her ex-boyfriend and told everyone she was leaving town, people were lining up almost every day in case it was their last chance to get one of the breakfast plates the cafe had been serving through three different owners. All the owners had grand plans to make the cafe’s menu their own, but there was something almost magical about the dozen or so combinations of eggs and meat and potatoes and sauces that couldn’t be replicated at home. And they’d ended up not changing a thing.
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