Cooking Up Romance (The Taylor Triplets Book 1)

by Lynne Marshall

  She inhaled him as they kissed to their hearts’ content. Soon they ran out of that contentment and grabbed and groped at each other, obviously ready for more.

  He ended the hot and nearly torturing kisses, because there was nothing further they could do on her doorstep unless he backed her against the wall behind the hibiscus bush?

  “I wish,” he said, looking deeply into her eyes.

  “Me too,” she concurred breathily, reading his mind.

  He let out a quick breath, pulling himself together. “Well, thanks for helping a guy out today.” Not exactly all business, but definitely on track.

  “I had a great time.”

  “Me, too,” he said, sounding surprised by the admission and helping her feel it was partly because she’d been there. “See you tomorrow.”

  She stood dreamily on her porch, watching him stroll slowly back to his car with sleeping Shortcake in it. This had turned out to be the best weekend ever. Though she wasn’t going to post that online. She’d keep all the greatness to herself.

  Chapter Seven

  After the wild ride of the weekend, especially today at the amusement park, Lacy should have been exhausted and fallen right to sleep. But her body still buzzed from being with Zack Saturday night and kissing him good-night just now on the porch. And after spending the day with both Zack and Emma, her mind couldn’t shut down. So first she relived all the sexy parts—which was the entire Saturday night, beginning when she and Zack were on her couch and ending up in her bed.

  She also replayed the good time she’d had before their date, hanging out with Emma, learning to crochet at the age of thirty-one. Loving how the yarn felt and how her very first place mat, light green, pistachio “like the nut,” was already shaping up. Then getting the cotton candy scared out of her on the roller coaster earlier today and facing old fears thanks to Emma’s dare on the Ferris wheel. Her cheeks tightened as a sweet smile rolled out. Great memories.

  There was one word that perfectly described the whole weekend experience. Family. And thinking of family, her parents first, her out-of-control thoughts extended to Greg and the family she’d hoped to have with him once he’d come home and they were married.

  On her own version of a roller coaster with alternating waves of nostalgia and sadness, she mused that if she hadn’t lost Greg, she might have a toddler waddling around the house right now. Not wanting to get melancholy, she pushed back. Don’t go there, not after such a great evening with Zack. Why am I trying to ruin it?

  Zack and Emma were alive and in her life now. They were the closest experience to a family she’d had in ages, and it felt great. She needed to focus on now, not the future she’d lost with Greg. He was never coming back, but he’d always occupy a part of her heart, being the first and only man she’d loved enough to want to marry. The old “if things could only have been different” argument fell flat now, because things were different. Zack and Emma were the here and now.

  Holding on to the past to honor the man she had once loved might seem like a noble thing, but missing out on a future because of it suddenly made no sense at all.

  She wiped at an escaping tear, needing to distract herself. All these ruminations about family had set her up to think about her mom and dad. The two people who’d made her and given her a home, who’d taught her what love felt like. There was still so much of them right here. Her arms tingled and the hairs lifted. Her father’s spirit was far brighter than her mother’s because he’d been around so much longer than her mom. Now the only thing she had left of them were memories. “I miss you guys,” she whispered.

  The sudden yearning for her parents reminded her about the boxes she’d found a couple weeks ago. Now seemed like the perfect time to get in touch with all she had left of them.

  With the excuse of a late-night nosh, as if she needed to eat a single thing more today, Lacy headed to the kitchen. She drank some water, then grabbed a string cheese and retraced her path as far as the small guest room, to the second storage box. Fortunately, this time, Daisy Mae was nowhere in sight, having fallen asleep on her bed.

  With the rope of white cheese between her lips, like a cigar, she dropped to her knees. Using both hands, she opened the box and dug out a wad of papers, and then another. Deeper down were manila folders and legal-sized envelopes. She sat on the bedroom carpet, back against the wall, shuffling through the loose papers, which seemed like a bunch of gobbledygook. With her free hand, she fed herself, chomping on the cheese until it was nearly gone, her attention solely on the folders and large envelopes. Daisy Mae slipped into the room and rubbed her head on Lacy’s shoulder. After the initial introduction, her poor kitty had been in hiding the entire time Zack had been in Lacy’s room last night. That was a long time, and the cat had hardly made herself known this morning before Lacy got picked up for her day at the fair.

  Lacy smiled again at the fresh thought of Zack, even though this time something whispered caution.

  Daisy Mae had probably assumed their house had been invaded by big, gorgeous and oh-so-sexy men, and lain low. The thought of invasions and Zack’s handsome face looking down at her as their eyes connected and held during their lovemaking last night drew a smile that started deep in her belly, then took its time stretching across her face. This time, the steamy memory wrung a shiver out of her.

  Out of pity for her confused cat, she gave Daisy Mae the rest of the string cheese. Finicky as ever, the cat sniffed and hesitated before grabbing the goody and taking off without so much as a meow.

  Before she got off course, all dreamy about Zack again, she shuffled through more papers.

  Something told Lacy to hold off on checking out the clasped envelope, so she thumbed through a couple of folders first.

  After wading through piles of old home and car insurance policies, and pink slips for cars—some going so far back she didn’t even remember them—she found the folder with her parents’ marriage license. Then, her mother’s certificate of death. A ball of emotion thumped deep in her chest. She stared at the paper that officially checked her mother off the roster of living souls, and, still raw from the night of unexplainable passion and vulnerability with Zack, plus the day of feeling part of his family, her chin quivered. Her eyes pricked. Mom.

  After the amazing weekend she’d had, this was not the thing to do and was sure to bring her down. Still, as if it needed to punish her for having such a good time, that envelope called out to her. She examined the front, and then she turned it over to the side with the clasp, where she saw, written in fading pencil, Lacy. Which jolted her. On a deep breath she opened it, expecting to see her certificate of live birth and first footprints, maybe a picture or two; instead found a second document, which confused her. It was called an ABC final order amendment for her birth certificate with her parents’ names listed. ABC—amended birth certificate. Had something been changed?

  She rushed to her cell phone on her bedside table and searched the term, discovering the form was required to make changes to the birth certificate. Which would become official once filled out and returned. Had something been spelled wrong on her original birth certificate? Or the date or time of her birth recorded incorrectly? Was the change something insignificant or very significant?

  Filled with questions, she ran back to the guest room, suspiciously out of breath for rushing such a short distance, her heart thumping behind her ribs. Looking closer at her birth certificate, the final form was dated a month after her actual birth. Something had to have been amended, but what? And why had it taken so long? She dug deeper into the box, finding another manila envelope. With jittery hands, she undid the clasp, dreading what she might find. Still she opened it, because there was no way she could stop now.

  Inside was something called a pre-birth judgment granting full parental rights to her mom and dad. Then behind that, another form, a declaration of parentage with only her mother’s name and
signature. A chill covered her shoulders and chest.

  Why?

  When she was a teenager she’d asked why her middle name was Taylor. Who had chosen it? What was the significance? Her parents had seemed uncomfortable discussing it, but she, being fourteen, had imagined some romantic reason for choosing the name and pressed on. Her mother finally told her it was an old family name. Being her usual determined self, she checked the family tree, or what there was of it. In the documents her family kept in an old ledger passed down from her father’s family, nowhere did anyone have the name Taylor. Not on her dad’s side, anyway. Maybe her Mom’s? But there was no record kept on that side as far as Lacy knew. She’d run into a dead end back then, but she was thirty-one now, and she didn’t have her mother around anymore to ask, nor her father. Why had she never asked him again? Her mother had been an only child, like her. Her father’s only living brother was out of state and last she’d heard, Uncle Nathan was in early Alzheimer’s.

  There was one old friend of her dad who might know something about her birth, but he’d moved to Arizona. Did she even have his phone number?

  She stood and stared into the bedroom dresser mirror. She looked just like her father. Had his strikingly red hair. His nose. But it was hard to find a feature from her mother, who had curly near-black hair, mahogany-colored eyes and olive-toned skin, and these papers seemed to explain why. Was Elaine Winters not her real mother?

  Her pulse crawled up her throat. Dread and anxiety gripped her, when she thought of her life as one huge secret. She worked at but couldn’t quite catch her breath as her vision dimmed on the periphery. Plopping onto the carpet, Lacy’s buns hit with a thud. Pulling her knees close to her chest, hungry for air, she inhaled deeply, held it then blew it out, trying desperately to clear her head, to keep it together. All the while one word forced its way through her mind until it was on the tip of her tongue.

  Adopted.

  There wasn’t anything horrible about being adopted—unless it was kept a secret. Why hadn’t they ever told her? Were her parents hiding something more? Something they felt so strongly about they both kept the secret to their graves. Her Spidey sense erupted, not because she was in danger, but perhaps in danger of discovering something she might not want to know. She held her knees tighter to her, tucking them under her chin until her knuckles went white clutching her arms. She rocked gently side to side to release some tension while attempting to regulate the shallow breaths that accompanied a single crazy thought.

  Could this be the reason she’d often felt as though she’d been ripped away from something or someone, as if a part of her soul had been torn off?

  “Adopted,” she whispered, as though trying it on for size.

  * * *

  Lacy woke up sobbing, crying from deep in her gut as if a stranglehold around her middle squeezed the tears out of her.

  The dream had been so vivid. Maybe it was because she’d fallen asleep thinking of her mother. Or until last night, the woman she’d always thought of as her mother. Or maybe the sad dream was because a sense of betrayal had tiptoed into her thoughts just before she’d fallen asleep. Whatever the reason, at some point early in the morning Lacy had a nightmare. It hadn’t happened immediately. No, the bad dream had waited its turn until after a long patch of restless sleep. As she lay vulnerable, paralyzed and helpless to fight back, the vision stealthily made its way in just before she slipped into REM.

  She fell to her knees and spread her arms over the cold coffin, thinking how smooth it felt, kissing the grain of the wood, then sobbing her goodbyes. Forced to be final, she fought back, thinking if only she held tighter Greg might come back. Or was it her mother. Or her father?

  It was all of them.

  Gutted, she was alone without anyone she loved.

  Soon, all that was left was cold and complete emptiness as her eyes slowly fluttered open. She was on her stomach, still distraught, her arms stretched across the bed as they had been over the coffin moments before. She must have kicked off the covers and the early-morning chill left her shivering. She checked. It was 4:07 a.m.

  Lacy rolled to her back, thinking of all the people she’d lost. Adding them up in the different stages of her life. Her mother at ten. Greg at twenty-six. Most recently, her father when she was thirty. Then the disturbing thought reappeared.

  I lose what I love.

  With her entire body aching, she warned, don’t go there again. Don’t set yourself up for more pain.

  What was going on? She sat up, rubbed her eyes and, filled with dread, walked to the bathroom.

  You lose what you love. Don’t set yourself up for more pain.

  But she already had. Because, as of last night, she’d officially fallen for Zack Gardner.

  Butterflies swarmed her chest. How had she let such a careless thing happen?

  * * *

  Monday at Zack’s construction site felt like an ill-fitting shoe. Lacy tried her best to pretend nothing had changed since she’d seen him last, since they’d made love and had a wonderful day at the amusement park, but she failed. Turned out she was no good at faking friendly. Not that she was grumpy or anything, but pulling a smile out of her apron pocket when she was worried sick proved to be more challenging than she’d ever imagined. Before today, she’d never had to try with Zack, he’d just naturally brought the glee out of her. But since that dream, a dim light was cast over him, and a great guy like Zack didn’t look nearly as appealing after she’d kissed that coffin. Or found out she didn’t really know who she was. Adopted?

  It was all too much, but she had a job to do, so she’d focus on that.

  He had to have noticed her mood shift, too. He tilted his head and studied her while he waited for and collected his lunch wrap from her truck.

  “You feel up to coming over this Wednesday night?” he said when no crew member was near.

  “Wednesday?” Was she up for that? Being with him again, the setup for loss and disaster? And pain. She couldn’t let on about the crazy path her brain had taken since she’d last been in his arms. Her dream. “Sure, why?”

  “Emma won’t be home Saturday—she’s spending the day and night at Meghan’s house. A birthday party. So I thought you could give the next lesson on Wednesday.” He waited, probably expecting a knowing glance or a glint of serious interest on her part about Saturday belonging to just the two of them. Was that what he had subliminally offered? Another night with him? A week ago that would have been the answer to her dreams. Now, thanks to a real dream, she wasn’t sure she could handle being with Zack again.

  So right then, the best response she could give for spending more time alone with Zack was a forced tenting of her brows. “Wednesday’s good.”

  He took his wrap, that questioning head tilt in place, and said, “See you then.”

  * * *

  Tuesday at the Santa Barbara construction site, Lacy showed up, opened the food truck and awning and was well into fitting the filled containers into their slots on the stainless-steel serving counter when there was a crash somewhere out there on the building site. On any other day, she would have thought little about the sound because she was used to loud noises since working construction jobs. But this one was different, and was followed by men yelling and rushing around. This time, something was seriously wrong.

  She stopped to watch, but the ruckus was out by the farthest house frame, so she stepped from her truck, squinting to see better. Still no visual. Then she migrated toward the area, but only as far as Zack’s office. He burst through the door, not seeing her, and ran toward his men, phone in hand.

  “Call 911,” one of his crew called out.

  Zack stopped only long enough to punch in the numbers as he sprinted toward the commotion, phone by his ear.

  Lacy stayed out of the way, though adrenaline pumped through her veins as she got closer and strained to catch what the men talked abou
t.

  “Fell from the ladder,” one man said.

  “Is he conscious?” Zack asked.

  “You okay, man?” another asked.

  Lacy couldn’t stop herself. She trotted closer toward the group, chastising herself for doing the equivalent of slowing down at an accident on the freeway. But she’d gotten to know these men serving them lunch every day, and some had even talked about their families with her. She worried for whoever had been injured, and part of her needed to know things would be all right.

  “Ben, what happened?” Zack asked.

  Ben! Lacy made it to the gathered crowd and edged along the back of the group until she could see around them. Ben sat upright holding his arm, and there was blood all over him. Her stomach turned, and she averted her eyes. She’d never been able to handle the sight of blood.

  “Ben.” Zack sounded amazingly calm under the circumstances. “What happened?”

  “Sliced my finger, lost my balance. Fell. I think my arm’s broken.”

  “Dude,” someone else close to him said. “Your finger’s missing.”

  “Find his finger!” Zack said, as though an everyday order. “We can keep it on ice and maybe they can reattach it.”

  Oh, gawd, Lacy had heard all she could take. She headed back toward her truck, hands jittery, worried about Ben’s condition, her stomach tight and queasy. She grabbed a bottle of water, sat under the awning of her truck and waited for the wave to subside. A light sweat had popped out above her lip. In the distance an ambulance siren grew closer. She hoped they could find the construction site better than she had her first day. And she also hoped by now they’d found Ben’s finger!

  Wait, Zack had said to keep it on ice. She ran back inside her truck to the ice maker and grabbed an extralarge drink cup, filling it with ice cubes just in case they found Ben’s finger. The thought of what might go inside the ice-filled cup caused her to sit again, long enough to take a few calming breaths. She’d never seen an amputated appendage and never wanted to. But right now she needed to think about Ben and his needs, not her aversion to all things gory.