by Maci Grant
“I’m sure it can. The important thing to remember is that there isn’t so much to worry about. You will do well; just relax and enjoy your experience. Otherwise, you’ll look back and wonder how you missed out on all the great times.”
“I hadn’t thought about that. You’re right. I’ve been so caught up in inventory and scheduling that I’ve almost lost sight of the whole point of this.”
“Which is?” Samantha took a sip of her coffee and smiled at me over the rim.
“That I survived—No! That I’m thriving.” Warmth filled my chest as I nodded. “I turned the hardest time of my life into the most liberating experience, and I’m going to continue to keep doing that.”
“Stick to that feeling. Keep it very close to the surface. That’s what’s going to make the difference between this being just another cafe and its being the place you’re hoping it will be.”
“I will. I’ll keep it in mind all night.”
“Oh, I brought you something.” Samantha pulled out a small brightly wrapped present and set it on the table.
Chapter 2
“You’re already giving me such a big gift by being here. What’s this for?” I glanced from Samantha to the present.
“It’s to celebrate your big milestone of entering Onederland!” She grinned at me. “I figured that you might not have anyone else to give you a gift, and you’ve probably been too busy with the cafe to pick something up for yourself. So this is a just little welcome to Onederland surprise.”
“Wow! Samantha, you’re so sweet. I never even thought about getting myself a gift. Well, I guess the cafe is a gift.”
“It is, but this is something to remind you of just how special you are and how valuable all of your dedication and hard work is. You know, getting out of the two hundreds into the one hundreds is great, but it’s not just about the weight. It’s about moving forward in your life. It’s about being ready for a new phase and open to achievements of all kinds.”
“I know what you mean. When I no longer saw that two on the scale, it was like a burden had lifted off me. I felt like I could do anything. I set my mind to meet that goal and achieved it, and it did really inspire me to set even more goals and work just as hard for them.”
“Open it! Open it, please!” Abby kicked her feet and wiggled in her chair.
“Of course. Would you like to help me?” I nudged the present between us.
“Can I, Mom?” Abby looked up at Samantha with wide eyes.
“Sure.” Samantha grinned.
“Let’s do it, Abby!”
We both tore at the bright paper until a snow globe was revealed. I thought it was a little strange at first.
“Thank you so much. It’s beautiful.”
“See this?” Samantha picked it up and pointed to the single yellow blossom in the middle of the snow globe.
“Yes.”
“That’s you.” She shook the snow globe until all the bits and glitter swirled and blocked the flower from view. “There will always be troubles that arise in our lives, and you can easily get swept up in them. But if you stand your ground and remember your roots, when the storm settles, you will always still be you.” She smiled as the yellow flower reappeared. “Never let anything make you lose sight of your goal, Alex. You’ve come this far. You’ve reached Onederland and that’s quite an accomplishment!”
It truly did feel like I’d stumbled into a wonderland. Not only had I finally seen the numbers on the scale go under two hundred, here I was sitting across from one of the most inspiring women I’d ever known. And I was surrounded by friends and family during one of my biggest accomplishments to date.
Only a year before, I’d been certain that my life was over when the man I’d expected to spend the rest of my life with announced that he wanted a divorce. We agreed to separate for a year, which had then turned into filing for divorce, and our official divorce date was now just around the corner.
With the separation, I’d lost the accounting business I’d built from the ground up with my husband. We sold the house I’d raised my daughter in. I’d ended up with a sense of having no place in the world. It had all combined to create a very difficult emotional state as I quickly closed in on my fortieth birthday.
After the year I’d had, it was almost unbelievable to me that now my heart was filled with excitement and my future seemed wide open for me to enjoy.
After I chatted with Samantha a bit more about how the book signing would go, I walked them to the door and advised them on some nearby attractions to enjoy. The couple walked away with Abby between them.
Once Greg and I had walked with Rachel like that. She’d loved to swing and jump. In that moment, with her laughter surrounding us, our lives had been perfect. I didn’t even for a second consider that I’d one day be single again, that I’d be opening a cafe all by myself. My life was so very different, and yet, it was just as perfect.
“All set, Mom. I think everything is ready.” Rachel handed me a list that had all of the items checked off.
“Thank you so much.” I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tight. “Have I mentioned that I absolutely adore you?”
“Yes.” Rachel laughed and wiggled her way out of my grasp. “Don’t worry, I won’t forget.”
“Not even after you go to college in two months?”
“Not even then. I’ll have tons of laundry to bring home, remember?” She winked.
“I hope so. I’m going to miss you.”
“You’re going to be too busy with all this to miss me.” She kissed my cheek. “I love you and I’m so proud of you.”
“Isn’t that my line?” I grinned.
“I mean it, Mom. After what happened with Dad—I don’t know—I guess I expected you to fall apart.”
“I did a little.”
“Maybe, but look what you’ve created. This is amazing.”
I looked around Common Grounds and had to agree. It really was amazing and it was mine.
“Alex, what do you want me to do with these?” Willow waved huge faux palm fronds through the air.
“Near the front door, please. Hopefully soon we can replace those with the real thing.”
“If you have a better touch with plants than I do.” Willow laughed.
“Well, you do have to water them.” I grinned.
“You forget for one month and all of a sudden you’re a plant killer.” Willow laughed as she arranged the fronds in a vase by the front door.
“Okay, everyone, thanks for all your help. Everything is ready for tonight’s opening. Let’s have some lunch!” I walked into the back and began unloading the catered lunch I’d ordered for the staff and friends that had been helping me.
As we dug into our meal, I tried not to let the fear creep up inside me. There was so much that could go wrong. But if I gave any energy to those concerns, then it might paralyze my ability to get anything done. I hoped that as long as I kept my focus on what would go right, everything would fall into place.
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To Love Again (Forty and Free, Book 1)
Chapter 1
Every wrinkle met its match with the firm pressure and glide of her palm. Even though there were very few wrinkles in the shirt, Nicole was determined to make sure that there were none. Her hand trembled as she swept it over the next wrinkle.
How was she ever going to accept the idea that her children now had another mother in their lives?
She glanced over at the suitcase beside her. It was piled up with more clothes than any ten-year-old girl could possibly need for a two-week trip. But Nicole needed for everything to be there. In the back of her mind, she recognized her attempt to prove that she was, and had always been, a good mother—but that didn’t stop her from smoothing out the last wrinkle.
She set the folde
d shirt into the top of the suitcase and stood up from her daughter’s bed.
So much had changed in the last year in unexpected ways. Perhaps—as some of her friends claimed—she should have seen it coming, but she didn’t. Divorce had hit her like a freight train and plowed right through her happily ever after.
Only—if she was being honest with herself—it hadn’t been exactly happy, not towards the end, anyway.
She walked out of her daughter’s room and picked up a pile of laundry that sat outside her twelve-year-old son’s door. She wanted to make sure that it was clean before she packed it. Since he seemed incapable of actually putting his clothes in his drawers these days, she just gathered all of the clothes from the floor to wash them.
As she walked down the hall to the laundry room, framed photographs—hung exactly two inches apart—stared back at her. There was the photograph of her ex-husband, Jack, as he cradled Jordan the day he was born. Beside it, another photograph of Jack, with Melody in his arms.
Once they were happy—she was sure of it.
At the very top of the rows of photos was the wedding portrait. With eager smiles and much smaller waistlines, the shiny faces in the photograph looked foreign to her, as if they were people she’d never met.
She reached up and loosened the frame from the hook on the wall. It wasn’t right to have it there—not when he was so obviously moving on.
She dropped the laundry off and carried the photograph into her room—what used to be their room.
The moment she sat down and sunk into the familiar give of the mattress, tears stung her eyes. She looked at the picture for a long moment. It was really over now. There was no special cement to put together what had broken many years before, and the fantasy that there might be was gone too.
While Jack had been falling in love, she’d been struggling to deal with the notion of being forty-two and alone. While he was considering adding new babies to his life with his young bride, Nicole was thinking about menopause and whether or not to dye her blonde hair, which had began to sprout silver streaks of reality.
Time marched on, and she didn’t know how to catch up.
Before the tears could begin to flow down her cheeks, she took a deep breath and grabbed her cell phone from the charger on her bedside table. She logged into her new favorite website. It was a support group of sorts, but in reality it was a place for women to be honest—to talk about their fears and their joys, and, most of all, vent about life.
Forty and Free was a website that she’d stumbled upon while attempting to figure out how to react to her divorce. She enjoyed the sisterhood that she felt there and the lively debates. As her heart ached, she typed out a message to post. It detailed her ex-husband’s destination wedding, how excited her kids were to be part of it, and how alone she felt because of it.
When she posted it, she prepared herself for whatever responses she’d get. Within seconds she had messages of support from an assortment of women. What heartened her was the fact that these women weren’t all moms or all newly divorced. Some had been divorced more than once, some had been with their husbands from the time they were in high school and some had never been married. Everyone had their own view of what a relationship should be and no one was shy about sharing it.
As Nicole sorted through the responses, she received an alert about a private message from one of the women she’d became close friends with, Ella.
Cielo Spa & Resort! Trust me. Book yourself a room and have some fun. You owe it to yourself to get out of this rut, and see what the world has to offer. It’s the perfect time—with the kids away—to get to know yourself again.
Ella’s words impacted Nicole more than she would have expected. She typed a quick response to thank her friend and let her know that she would consider it, then she logged out.
Each message of support reminded her that her life was not over.
Just like Jack, she needed to find a way to move forward. She picked up the wedding photograph and carried it over to her dresser. With one last look she shoved it into the bottom drawer.
“That’s enough—enough tears, enough questions—just enough.” She closed the drawer and returned to the laundry room to get the load started.
No, it wouldn’t be easy, but she was ready to live again.
There had once been a time in her life when there were more important things than laundry and a broken dishwasher. A spark of eagerness drew a smile to her lips. Like an old but treasured friend, her desire began to resurface.
For many years the only question in her mind was about what she could do for everyone else in her life. She’d trained herself not to think about what she might be missing out on, or how she might prefer things to be. It didn’t matter what she wanted, as long as her husband and kids were happy.
That method hadn’t worked out very well. She’d sacrificed her needs, and in the end, her husband wasn’t happy. The family life that she’d expected to have had crumbled, no matter how hard she had tried to hold it together.
What was left was a lonely soul—long overdue for some real fun.
Chapter 2
Gavin Bell leaned forward in his chair so that his elbows rested on his desk while he spoke into the phone. “You’re not making sense to me, that’s all I’m saying. What I’m offering you here is a golden opportunity to launch your brand in a way that will get the attention of modern consumers. I understand that you promote tradition, and I assure you that we can create a mixture of tradition and modernization that will retain your current customer base as well as gain the attention of many other demographics. So what’s to lose?”
He pressed the phone closer to his ear and leaned back in his chair. As he listened to his client describe his apprehension, he smiled. He loved a challenge, and more than that, he loved creating solutions. Every time a client gave him a reason to turn down an offer, he enjoyed solving the problem.
“I hear you, I do. And that’s important to you too, isn’t it? If you agree to this deal, you have Gavin Bell on your side. I respect how passionate you are about your brand, which is why I intend to walk you through every step of the process. You will have a say in everything—before the posters go up, before the commercials get made, before the actors are even hired. This is your baby and I get that. All I want to do is dress it up a bit for you.”
He looked up at his computer screen for a quick review of the client’s information. He always kept personal notes about the clients on hand so that he could speak to them as friends rather than business associates.
“Great, Ted. You’re making a wonderful decision, which I can promise you won’t regret. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me. I’ll have my assistant fax you all of the paperwork by the end of the day. Give my best to Karen and the kids.”
He hung up the phone and pumped his other fist through the air in the same motion. The door to his office swung open and Lance Tavish stepped inside.
“How did you get here so fast to congratulate me?”
“I’m not here to congratulate you, Gavin.” Lance pushed the door shut.
Gavin arched an eyebrow.
Lance held his shoulders straight and his hands were tight at his sides.
“What’s wrong? I just landed Ted Bramley. We’ve been trying to get him to agree to a new campaign for over a year.”
“That’s great. It really is.” Lance narrowed his eyes. “But you’re not supposed to be here, are you?”
Gavin rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling and sighed. “I know, I know. But Ted was only in the country for a few days and I wanted to catch him while he’s here so he can sign all the paperwork.”
“There’s always an excuse, isn’t there, Gavin? I mean, there are people who would kill to have a boss that insisted they take a vacation.”
“And there are just as many bosses that would be thrilled to have an employee as skilled and dedicated as me.” Gavin rested his hands on his desk. “Why are you trying to force me to do something tha
t isn’t necessary?”
“Because it is necessary. Because yes, you are my best asset, and I want to keep you for as long as I can. You’ve been going full tilt ever since you left Amy—”
“—This isn’t about Amy.”
“Yes, it is.” Lance grabbed a chair and pulled it up in front of Gavin’s desk. “I’ve watched you for the past five years. You’ve done nothing but work. You don’t even bring a date to the office party.”
“So what?” Gavin cleared his throat. “I tried it once, it didn’t work out. I don’t see why that’s a problem.”
“Because one of these days it’s going to catch up to you, Gavin. It’s going to hit you in the gut and knock you back. You’re not getting any younger, you know. You’re losing your hair and your trim waistline.”
“Hey, I’m not losing my hair.” Gavin reached up and touched the waves of thick brown hair that rested on the top of his head. “Am I?”
“Even if you’re not now, you will be soon. You’re forty-four, Gavin. You know what comes next?”
“Forty-five?” Gavin smirked.
“Seventy. That’s what comes next.”
“I think you’re a little off on your math there.”
“I’m serious. You know how much I care about you. You can’t live your whole life like this. What will you have when you retire?”
“Lance, give it a rest, alright?” Gavin looked back at his computer screen as another e-mail from a client came in. “I have work to do. I can’t take a vacation right now. Besides, all I’m going to do is work at home. What else would I do?”
“Gavin, we’ve been friends since high school. You have never prioritized your emotional needs.”
“I don’t have emotional needs.”
Lance leaned forward until he could meet Gavin’s eyes. “Everyone does, Gav. Everyone. You can ignore it for as long as you want, but there comes a time when it’s just too late to fix it.”