by Shirley Jump
“I never really noticed any of that when I lived here and I wish I had,” she said. “It’s just…beautiful.”
They appreciated the view in silence for a few minutes. It was a comfortable silence, the kind that filled the space between two people who knew each other well. The ten-year gap between them winnowed to nothing. He reached across the console and took her hand in his. She smiled at him, and gave his fingers a squeeze.
For a moment, he was a teenager again, parked on a slight hill outside of town on a moonlit night. They’d spread a blanket across the back seat of a convertible he’d borrowed from a friend and lay against the armrest, watching the twinkling stars. She’d been in his arms, and he’d thought the world was as perfect as it could get.
He leaned across the console now, and brushed that stubborn lock of hair off her cheek. “I like this view the best,” he said. “You’ve always been a beautiful woman, Carolyn.”
Even in the dim light, he could see the faint pink of a blush in her cheeks. “And you have always been an incredible charmer, Matthew West.”
He traced the edge of her lips. “Ah, but have I charmed you a second time?”
She held his gaze. Her lips parted and she tasted the tip of his finger. He groaned, and wished they were in his bedroom instead of the cramped interior of his SUV. Matt trailed his finger along her jaw, then slid his hand behind her neck and drew her to him for a long, hot kiss. She drew back, her breath rushed, her eyes wide.
She placed a hand on his chest before he could lean in again. “We, uh, should get to dinner.”
“Yeah. Sure.” He tamped down his disappointment, released her hand, then put the car back in gear. The sun had finished setting and the mood in the SUV had shifted along with the lack of light.
Matt turned down 1st and pulled into Rocco’s lot. A moment later, they were hurrying across the chilly parking lot and into the warm interior of the restaurant. He wanted to draw her to him, just as he had in the old days, giving her his warmth. But her distance in the car earlier held him back.
*
“Reservation for West,” he told the hostess, a young girl of maybe nineteen. He forgot her name—Kayley or Hayley—but remembered her dog, a French bulldog who endured his owner’s penchant for dressing him in little coats. As they crossed the restaurant, Matt exchanged small talk with the hostess about her dog. She clearly loved the complacent little guy, as did everyone in Matt’s office.
They followed the hostess to a booth at the back of the room. Carolyn slid into one side, Matt into the other. When they’d dated, they’d sat on the same side of the booth, snuggled up against each other, laughing and talking as they shared their usual teenage budget meal of fries. A part of him missed those days, that closeness. Then he reminded himself she was leaving in a few days, and this date wasn’t going to amount to anything more than one night.
“Rocco’s hasn’t changed much,” Carolyn said with a smile. “I remember coming here a few times with my parents to celebrate my dad’s birthday, Mother’s Day, that kind of thing.”
Painted Tuscan scenes filled the walls, with images of fountains and statues peppered among the Old World Italian buildings. The tables kept up the theme, with checked red-and-white tablecloths and red candles flickering in the dim interior. “Rocco’s does have a degree of kitsch, but the food is amazing. Too bad I never had the money to take you here when we were dating.”
She chuckled. “Heck, neither one of us had that kind of money. Lawn mowing and babysitting don’t pay for much. But we had lots of other great meals.”
“We did, didn’t we? Remember that picnic by the pond?”
The flush filled her cheeks again. “I don’t remember anything about the food.”
“Me neither.” What he remembered was the feel of Carolyn in his arms, the soft smoothness of her body beneath his, the way it felt like they were some wild creatures, making love under the noon sun.
Carolyn dropped her gaze and studied her menu. Matt studied her. More than once since she’d returned, Carolyn had seemed almost…nostalgic. He wondered if maybe she missed Marietta and the simple life here more than she wanted to admit. And maybe missed him?
“So, what are you thinking of ordering?” he said, because changing the subject from the one in his mind was the only smart option. Ever since he’d asked her out on this date, he hadn’t been sure of his reasons why—only that this new Carolyn intrigued him and he wanted to get to know her better.
Uh-huh. It had nothing at all to do with that kiss. Or the desire that simmered inside him every time he saw her. The lingering urge to reach out and touch her. Hold her. Kiss her again.
Nothing at all.
The waitress came by and asked the same question. Matt recognized her—a woman in her twenties who owned a dachshund with a penchant for eating cardboard boxes.
“I’m going to go for an old standby. Chicken parmigiana.” Carolyn smiled, and shut the menu, sure about her choice. “Does the chef make his sauce from scratch?”
The waitress nodded. “He says it’s an old family recipe, something he knows by heart. Hopefully it doesn’t change when he retires to Florida next month and we get someone new in here.” She turned to Matt. “And what can I get you, Dr. West?”
“I’m going for the calorie overload of lasagna. Thank you.”
The waitress nodded, gathered their menus, then headed into the kitchen. When she was gone, Carolyn gave Matt a once-over look. “Calorie overload? I don’t see an extra calorie on you anywhere. You could probably have ten plates of lasagna and look exactly the same.”
Matt wasn’t a vain man. Hell, half the time he forgot to check a mirror and make sure his hair wasn’t standing straight up before he left the house. But the compliment from Carolyn warmed him, made him sit a little taller. “It’s all the miles Scott makes me run.”
“You still run? You were amazing in track.”
“Those days are long behind me, but yeah, I still run. It clears my head, takes away the stress.”
“Maybe I should start running if I could find five free minutes a week.” She shook her head. “Stress is my middle name. Especially at work. From the minute I walk in the kitchen, it’s bedlam. The restaurant got a nice write-up in The New York Times a few months ago and that quadrupled business. There are days when I wonder why I even bother to go home and sleep, because I have to be back there again a few hours later.”
“Doesn’t sound like you have much of a personal life.”
“Let’s just say this is the first date I’ve been on in two years. My personal life disappeared the minute I started working there.” She shrugged. “But it’s what I have to do to get promoted to head chef.”
“And is that what you want? To be promoted?” She’d always been driven and determined—part of what had drawn him to her in the first place. But this new Carolyn was even stronger, more confident than he remembered. He imagined she was a powerhouse in a restaurant kitchen. No wonder they were looking to make her a head chef already. “But won’t that promotion only increase the stress and hours?”
Her gaze dropped to the table and she fiddled with the silverware. “Yes, but I do want the promotion. Or…I did. Now, I’m not so sure.”
“Because of Emma?”
“Mostly. With the hours I work, I can’t be much of a parent. Emma will spend more time in daycare and with babysitters than she will with me. She’s been through so much already, and I…I don’t know how I’m going to make it work.”
“Then don’t,” he said.
Carolyn scoffed. “I don’t think you understand, Matt. There is no other option. Bob’s parents are too old, and my parents are in no shape to raise a four-year-old. There’s only me. And this…this is what Sandy wanted.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I have to be Emma’s mom, and already I feel like I’m not up to the job. I don’t know what my sister was thinking.”
He reached across the table for her hand. The touch felt warm, right. He saw the worry in her face
and wished he could ease those fears. “I didn’t mean don’t raise Emma. I meant don’t go back to that job. That schedule. You’re a chef—an amazing one if the reviews are right—”
“Wait, you read the reviews?”
“I might have Googled you after you came home. I was curious about your career.” And whether she had married or was dating anyone. All he’d found on the internet was a Facebook profile she rarely logged into, and several glowing reviews for her culinary talents on a night she’d taken over for the head chef, who’d been rushed to the hospital with a burst appendix. They’d called Carolyn the next rising star in New York, and praised her inventive and delicious food.
“I’m…flattered.” A blush filled her cheeks. “I did have a few good reviews. That’s why the restaurant is considering me to replace Paulo when he leaves to open his own restaurant next month. It’s the job of a lifetime. Running a highly rated restaurant in Manhattan? It’s what I’ve worked for all my life.”
“But…” he supplied when he heard the hesitation at the end of her sentence.
“But having that job means not doing the job Sandy left me to do. To finish raising Emma.” Carolyn sighed. “No matter which way I turn, I’m disappointing someone.”
“Then be a chef somewhere else. In a restaurant that’s not so busy. Like Rocco’s in Marietta.” He’d thrown that out as a joke, but as soon as the words left him, he realized a part of him wanted her to say yes. To come back to Marietta…
And maybe come back to him?
His attraction for Carolyn hadn’t died in the years apart. It had barely dimmed. He still found her intriguing and beautiful. A smart, confident woman who had always stood toe-to-toe with him.
A woman who had broken his heart once before. A smart man would be wary of that happening again. But he couldn’t resist her, no matter how hard he tried. Even now, he wanted nothing more than to gather her into his arms.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to live here, Matt. I never wanted to live here.”
“Why?” It was the one question he hadn’t asked that day they broke up. He’d been stunned, reeling from the shock that Carolyn was done and moving away.
She hesitated so long in answering, he thought she was going to change the subject. He waited, still holding her hand. “I always felt suffocated here. Like I didn’t fit in.”
“I think you fit in more than you realized, Carolyn. Just because you were quiet didn’t mean you didn’t have friends, a community.”
She shrugged. “I never really felt that way.”
“Maybe because you were too busy leaving town to notice.” The old wound still hurt. Why hadn’t she seen those connections, with others, with him?
“Sandy was the one who was made for the kind of life people have here. She’s the one who wanted to bake cookies and get a dog, and raise kids. I…I wanted more. I wanted to experience life. To pursue the dream my grandfather instilled in me. And in the process, see the world.”
A world outside of the one he loved here. Outside of them, the future he’d thought they had planned. Even now, a part of him still longed for that future. Insane, that’s what he was. “And did you find what you were looking for?”
Carolyn looked away. The waitress brought their dinners just then, interrupting the conversation with questions about extra cheese, asking if they wanted more drinks.
As soon as the waitress left, Matt broached the subject again. “So…New York. All it was cracked up to be?”
She shook her head and a smile ghosted on her face. “I thought you’d forget you asked me that.”
“I have a very good memory, Carolyn. About a lot of things.” That unspoken thread of desire between them wound its way into his words, into the air. He was very aware of the feel of her delicate hand beneath his, the slight blush in her cheeks, the intimacy of the dim restaurant.
“Me too.” She held his gaze for one long moment, then looked away. “My life is in New York, Matt. That’s not going to change.”
“But is that the life Emma wants? The best life for her?”
Silence descended over the table, heavy and thick. He took a couple bites, waiting, giving Carolyn space.
Carolyn picked at her food, but didn’t eat. After a while, she let out a long breath. “Did I ever tell you the story of the bird with the broken wing?”
He shook his head and she went on.
“A bird hit a window at our house, and broke his wing. Sandy was the one who ran out there, made a temporary home for the bird and brought it to the vet, then nursed it back to health. I was the one who was in my grandfather’s kitchen, learning how to debone a chicken. There’s a fair bit of irony in that, don’t you think? The point is, I don’t have a mother instinct, Matt. No matter what life I give Emma, it’s always going to be short in that area.”
She frustrated him, the way she refused to see past the blocks in her mind. Was she scared? Or truly sure she wasn’t capable of being a good parent? “You’re more of a mom than you think. And if you just give yourself a chance—”
Carolyn crumpled her linen napkin and dropped it on the table. Her dinner was barely touched, the dish growing colder by the second. “You don’t get to have input, Matt. I’m her parent now, not you.” Then she got to her feet and grabbed her coat and purse from beside her. “Thanks for the dinner, but I’m…I’m not feeling well. I’m going to go home.”
“You’re doing it again.”
She blew a lock of hair off her face. “Doing what?”
“Running away.”
“Not running. Just leaving.” Carolyn held his gaze for a long time. “And maybe that’s the best choice for both of us.” Then she turned on her heel and left.
Chapter Nine
Carolyn entered a darkened house. Her parents must have gone to bed early, which didn’t surprise Carolyn. At least her dad wasn’t out in the workshop, sitting there until the wee hours of the morning. Roscoe roused from his place on the kitchen floor and stood on the other side of the baby gates, his tail wagging a hundred beats a minute. “Hey, buddy. Were you good?”
In answer, Roscoe licked her hand. She gave the dog a head scratch, and he leaned into her touch, groaning like he had with Matt.
She chuckled. “You’re beginning to grow on me, you silly mutt.”
Roscoe’s behavior had shifted since she’d started bringing him to Matt. He definitely had a way with dogs. And kids. And all that interaction stuff that Carolyn felt so lost at. Put her in a kitchen with a basket of ingredients and give her thirty minutes to concoct some five-star dish, and she was in her element. But thrust her into a discussion about her feelings or other people, and she did exactly what Matt accused her of doing—
She ran.
In the moment at Rocco’s, she’d been angry with Matt—or at least that was what she had told herself. But the truth was he had hit too close to her own fears and worries.
She didn’t see how she could make a head chef job work while raising a young child and trying to take care of a stubborn dog. She didn’t see how she could, even if she found another job with better hours, make raising a child in the busy-ness of Manhattan work. She knew people did it every day, but when she thought of childhood—
She thought of the one she’d had in Marietta. With town festivals and merry neighbors and friends around every corner. It was ideal for a kid who made connections easily, who joined in with the girls jumping rope on the playground. Sandy had been the one who made friends easily, who fit into every group, while Carolyn had been on the periphery, sketching or cooking or thinking. It wasn’t until she’d met Matt that she had felt a true kinship with someone in this town.
Maybe he was right and she’d had more of a connection than she’d known. Because when she got right down to the brass tacks, she’d never really felt at home in New York either. Maybe she was incapable of connections—
Or maybe she’d never trusted anyone enough to truly open her heart and life.
Whatever the re
ason, she needed to figure out a way to connect with a child she barely knew. Establish a life that centered around all those things the moms on the library steps talked about. The playdates and science projects and soccer games.
Every minute of the day, Carolyn worried that she wasn’t going to be up to the job. That what was best for her sister’s only child—
Was another mother.
Carolyn sighed. She hung up her coat, turned off her phone instead of answering Matt’s call and texts, then headed down the hall to the room she shared with Emma.
She opened the door, expecting to find Emma tucked in and asleep. Her mother had been great about reading stories to Emma until her granddaughter nodded off, which had meant Carolyn hadn’t had to do the bedtime routine. One of these days, she was going to have to learn it. Learn how to be a mother—period.
But this time, Emma wasn’t asleep. Her niece was in her bed, but she was sitting up, her knees drawn to her chest against her bear-printed flannel nightgown, Sandy’s sweater clutched tight in her hands. She was turned toward the window and—
Crying.
Not deep, heart-wrenching sobs, but slow, silent tears that slid down her cheeks. She held tight to her bare legs, but still her little body trembled.
Carolyn’s heart squeezed. There was such pain on Emma’s face, in the way her shoulders shook and her knuckles whitened against her legs. Carolyn wished her sister was here, the sister who was born to be a mother, the sister who’d always had all the right words. The sister who had cradled a wounded bird, woken up every two hours to feed it with an eyedropper, and nursed it back to health.
Emma was so like that wounded bird: fragile, broken. And Carolyn would do anything to have the nurturing instincts of her sister right now.
Carolyn crossed to Emma’s bed and sat behind her niece. Emma’s blond curls were tangled, and the front of her nightgown was damp with tears. Carolyn hesitated, unsure what to do. “Hey, Em, what’s wrong?”
“I…I want my…my mommy.” The words heaved out her chest, a sob dangling on every syllable. “Aunt Carolyn, can you please go get my mommy?”