“Maybe.” Joe shrugged. “Secret ingredient and all.”
“It’s amazing. What are you going to call this?”
“Peppermint Mocha?” Patrick suggested and Joe rolled his eyes.
“Snowman in a cup? Snowflake…” Joe continued to rattle off names as Zooey carried his creation carefully behind the counter. In just a few seconds, she created a snowflake latte art on top. Patrick peered over her shoulder, still desperately trying to learn the secret to latte art. When they’d studied together to become baristas, it was the only skill Patrick couldn’t master.
“Java Frost.” Zooey suggested and Joe snapped his fingers, nodding with a wide smile. “That’s it!”
“Well, I’ll try one of them then.” All three Lockharts turned to look across the counter at a pink-cheeked blonde woman, wrapped in a thick white down jacket, making her look not unlike a merry snowman.
They finally had a customer.
Chapter Three
“Can I try one?” Amy Lane asked the trio of baristas behind the counter. They all stared back at her as though they’d never seen a customer before. The blue-eyed blond reacted first by smiling, a slow, lazy grin. She bet that smile got him anything he wanted. The dark haired guy shifted back to let the blond work while the girl moved toward the register.
“How much is your signature drink, Joe?”
“I have no idea.”
“Just charge her for a peppermint mocha, Zooey.” The dark-haired one directed, folding his arms over his chest.
Amy looked more closely at the girl. Slender, with a pixie face dominated by wide turquoise eyes. She seemed familiar. When she smiled at Amy, recognition clicked. “Zooey? Zooey Lockhart?”
The girl’s amazing turquoise eyes widened. She nodded as she peered at Amy. “Yes, do I know you? Wait…Amy??”
She dashed around the counter to give Amy a huge, exuberant hug. “You guys! It’s Amy! Amy Lane? Is it still Lane?”
“Yep, still Lane.” Amy nodded, keeping the smile etched on her face and looking back at the two men who stared at her and Zooey blankly.
“My babysitter?” Zooey said. The men exchanged glances but still seemed bewildered.
“So you must be Patrick, since this is Joe.” Amy smiled at the dark-haired man who must be Zooey’s brother. She remembered them as adventurous, rowdy boys and gawky pre-teens, lost in their mysterious boy world. In her memory, Zooey remained a fairy child, full of imagination and wonder. In high school, she’d spent nearly every afternoon creating fabulous adventures with a three and four-year-old Zooey. “I heard that the coffee shop was re-opening, but not that you all were doing it. It’s so great to see all of you again.”
The men nodded hello as Zooey guided her over to a small seating nook, near a blazing fire. They settled in and Joe brought Amy her drink, flashing her another grin before returning to the counter. She and Zooey smiled at each other awkwardly. Amy pulled off her hat and coat and savored her coffee.
“This is delicious.”
“Thank you!” Joe yelled from behind the counter and then, to Patrick, “See?”
“So, tell me about you!” Zooey said, ignoring her brother and cousin bickering. “What do you do now?”
“I’m a preschool teacher. I teach the little ones, like you were when we used to play together.”
“I bet you’re great at that.” Zooey smiled. “Remember all the games we used to play, spotting fairies in the woods, being ladybug girls or princess knights. You made up the most magical stories.”
“Thanks. I love working with the kids.”
“How’s your sister?”
“Ava’s in New York now. She works on Wall Street. Big financial guru.” Amy shrugged, trying not to sound bitter about her twin’s high-powered life. She loved her job, loved being with the children and watching them grow.
“Is she home for the holidays?”
“No, she decided to spend our birthday in Paris.”
“It’s your birthday?”
“Yep. Thirty today.” Amy attempted to smile but it felt more like a grimace.
“We should celebrate.”
“I’m going to treat myself to a trip to London over summer break. I just decided it as I was walking over here. I’ve always wanted to go. If adventure isn’t going to find me in Ashford Falls, I’ll have to go find it.”
“Good plan.” Zooey nodded.
“I was actually just thinking about finding a part-time job to help with the travel budget. Do you all need any help?”
“We need lots of help, but Patrick insists that the budget won’t stretch to that.” Zooey smiled apologetically.
“Oh, I’m sure I’ll find something.” Amy said. “Tell me about yourself, Zooey. Are you in college?”
“I was. Then grandma died and we got stuck running this place for a year, so here I am.”
“Stuck?” Amy asked as the bell over the door chimed. A little voice yelled, “Miss Amy!” followed by the slap of running feet on the hardwood floor. A bundled up little moppet flung herself into Amy’s lap and sat up. Amy bobbled her coffee cup but steadied it without spilling a drop, long used to little ones and their exuberant hugs. Zooey took the cup and set it down on the table for her before heading back behind the register.
“Who’s under there? Is it a snowman?” Amy laughed, pulling a blue knitted hat off the child’s dark curls.
“No, it’s me!” The child giggled.
“Oh, it’s not a snowman at all. It’s just Livvy!” The child giggled again as Amy helped her shrug out of her coat and then jumped down to check out the nearby play area.
“Olivia, do you know…”
A deep masculine voice trailed off as Amy glanced up to find a tall man, his dark hair flopped over his forehead and his camel colored overcoat very neatly and precisely buttoned up, peering down at her. His spectacles reflected her messy ponytail and flushed face.
“I’m Amy Lane. I’m Livvy’s teacher.” Amy held out her hand.
The man took her hand in his gloved one, the chilled leather cold against her palm. “I’m Ben Brooks, Olivia’s father.”
“Oh!” Amy hadn’t been aware that there was a father in the picture, as she’d only ever met Livvy’s mother at school. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Read me a story, Miss Amy.” Livvy brought her back a battered picture book and crawled into her lap.
“Olivia, come along,” Ben said, his deep voice stern and authoritative. “Don’t bother Miss Amy.”
“It’s fine. I’ll read it to her while you get your drink.” Amy smiled at him before flipping the book open. In just a few minutes, she and Livvy were lost in the tale of Beauty and the Beast.
“Oh you’re a dreadful, mean beast.” Amy cried, in Beauty’s falsetto. “And she rode away from the castle on a… unicorn!”
“You’re so silly, Miss Amy. Turn the page.”
Amy continued reading, doing the voices and filling in crazy words to make Livvy laugh and shake her head. Ben got his drink and returned, taking a seat. He kept his posture ramrod straight and didn’t sink into the squashy sofa. Amy paused and glanced at him, her eyebrow raised.
“Do you all have somewhere to be?” she asked.
“Don’t let me interrupt. Please continue.” He waved to her with a crooked smile quirking his lips. Livvy wore that same smile sometimes. He’d also given his daughter her dark hair, though his was pin straight. Amy smoothed a hand over her hair. Wish I’d thought to put on lipstick this morning.
Amy finished the tale and Livvy climbed off her lap to return the book to the basket.
“That was amazing. Quite a performance.” Ben said. “You’re so natural with her. I’ve had Olivia for two days and she hasn’t so much as smiled once. With you, she’s giggling away.”
“I’m a pre-school teacher. I’ve had a lot of practice being silly.”
“Ah. I see the problem. I never learned how to be silly.”
Amy laughed and then stopped abruptly a
t the expression on his face. “You’re serious.”
“Always.”
“But anyone can be silly.”
“Not me. I never learned.” Ben shook his head, flopping his dark, silky hair over his forehead and glasses. He brushed it aside before sipping his latte. “Her mother is off on a research grant so I’m here to take care of Olivia for the duration. Olivia’s lived with her mother up until now and we’ve only had these very serious visits every other weekend. When she was a baby, it was all rote—change her diaper, feed her, and all that. But now, I’m at a bit of a loss.”
“Just play with her.” Amy suggested. They both watched Olivia, playing with the beat-up tea set in Cupid’s Coffeeshop’s sparse children’s section. As she played, she sang a little song about ladybugs under her breath. Amy recognized the tune from school.
“I never learned that either.”
“You never learned what?”
“To play.” Ben tapped his fingers against his empty paper cup, squinting at Amy speculatively. She smoothed her hand over her hair again. “Perhaps…”
“Perhaps what?” Amy prompted when he didn’t continue.
“Perhaps you could teach me.”
“Teach you to play?”
“You’re a preschool teacher. Presumably you’re an expert in playing.”
“Yes, I suppose.” Amy said. “But, I’ve never taught anyone to play before. The kids pretty much arrive with that knowledge.”
“Surely you teach them games and songs and things. I’ve heard Olivia sing several.”
“Well, yes, of course we do that. But playing… it’s just sort of instinctual, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid not. I assure you though, I’m a fast learner. It shouldn’t take more than a month or so of lessons.”
“A month? Lessons?”
“I’ll pay you. Gladly.” He leaned forward, his gaze intense on her face, reminding Amy of a bird of prey. Even this close, she still couldn’t see the color of his eyes behind the glare of his glasses. He named a sum and Amy caught her breath.
“Wow.” Zooey said, carrying a coffee carafe over to refill Ben’s cup. “That’ll get you to London and back, Amy. Maybe a bit extra for souvenirs too. Bring me something from Harrods.”
“You want to go to London?” Ben cocked his head, again reminding her of a hawk.
“I do.” Amy nodded, running her hands over her thick corduroy pants. “To celebrate my birthday. Well, my birthday is today, actually, but I thought I’d go celebrate over summer break.”
“Many happy returns.” Ben said dryly. “Well, then, maybe we can come to a mutually advantageous arrangement. You need money to jaunt off to London and I need to learn to play with my daughter.”
Amy chewed her lip and looked up at Zooey, who just raised her eyebrows in return. “You’re great at playing, Amy. You should do it. You’ll have fun with Mr.—”
“Doctor, actually. Doctor Brooks.” Ben interrupted. “Please call me Ben though.”
Amy chuckled to herself. Hadn’t she wanted adventure? The chance to break out of her routine? Her mother always warned her to be careful what she wished for. And she was unlikely to find part-time employment elsewhere in Ashford Falls. “All right then, Ben. Playing lessons it is.”
Chapter Four
The following week, after Ben picked Olivia up at school, they met Amy at a nearby park for an outdoor playdate. As the sun dipped toward the west, snow sparkled in the grass and in the crooked elbows of the winter-nude trees. Icicles dripped from the branches. Though the falling sun would send the temperatures plunging soon enough, there was no wind. He and Olivia walked two blocks in absolute silence, his daughter solemn and quiet, with her tiny mittened hand snug in his.
“How was school?”
“Good.”
“What did you learn today?” Olivia just shrugged, keeping her hand in his. At a loss for what else to say to her, they lapsed into silence again.
When they arrived at the Enchanted Lane playground, Amy was already there and dusting off a large plastic fox that, to Ben’s eyes, had a rather sinister grin. She waved cheerfully when she saw them, her cheeks pink and glowing from the cold. Amy strolled over to them, her long blonde ponytail swinging behind her. Up close, her eyes really were as blue as he remembered. The hue of a blue jay’s wing. She smiled warmly at him, transforming her pixie shaped face.
“Are you sure you want to play here?” Ben asked when she got close enough.
“What’s wrong with here?” Amy glanced around the park. “It’s enchanted.”
“It’s muddy.” Ben kept Olivia to the stone flagstone path, stepping carefully to avoid the ground still soaked from the melting snow.
“Knew you’d be one of those ‘no-mess’ people.” Amy chuckled. “Come on, Livvy. Let’s go down the slide.”
Livvy climbed up the steel ladder like an agile little monkey, Amy just behind. Amy sat on the slide and helped Livvy into her lap before they slid to the bottom. Livvy waved her hands in the air, grinning and giggling. Ben only sighed. After meeting Amy at the coffee shop on Friday, he hadn’t heard a giggle out of Olivia since.
“Your turn!” Amy hollered as Olivia ran around to the stairs again, slush flying up behind her boots.
“You want me to go down the slide?”
“You wanted to learn to play with your daughter, right?” Amy asked. Olivia was already at the top of the slide and dived down by herself.
“I missed it.”
“Gotta be quick.”
At the base of the slide, his daughter ripped her hat off her head, her black curls bouncing as she dashed past. Amy caught the hat and handed it off to Ben as she and Olivia swerved in and out of the oversized red mushrooms, playing some sort of hybrid of Marco Polo, tag, and hide-and-seek.
“Come on, Ben. Join us.” Amy called.
“Come on, Father!”
“I’m trying to figure out what you’re doing.”
“Playing.”
Ben dashed around a mushroom, seeking to catch Olivia and instead running into Amy. They bounced off each other. She was out of breath and cherry-cheeked from exertion, her eyes bright and her smile wide. This close, he noticed the way her nose upturned at the end, just slightly. It should have been a flaw but somehow, it just made her look even more pixie-ish and adorable. Olivia clambered up the far side of the play equipment and vanished from view.
“She’s in the playhouse. We’re too big to fit up there but the kids love it. Inside, the walls are designed to look like a library.”
“How did you find this playground? I’d never have known it was here. But then, I don’t know the town very well yet.”
“Baked a lot of cookies to raise funds for this playground.” Amy walked over to a small plaque at the edge of the play space, using the end of her scarf to wipe the snow from it. He followed and read over her shoulder. “In memory of Megan Lane. Your mother?”
“Yes, Mom was a children’s librarian. She loved reading to us so we—my sister Ava and me—decided the playground could be an enchanted forest in memory of her.”
Ben looked around at the small playground, tucked into a little forest glen, hidden in plain sight, on a small suburban street, just a few blocks from Olivia’s mother, Lisa’s home. “Well, it’s charming.”
Just like the woman standing next to him.
“Mom would have loved it.”
“It’s a lovely tribute to her. You’re from here?”
“Born and raised in Ashford Falls.”
“Never thought to leave?”
“I went away for college but…” Amy shook her head, her ponytail swinging, shining gold in the sunset. “This is home.”
“Deep roots.”
“Very.” Amy nodded. “Where are you from?”
“Mostly Baltimore, but my parents did several sabbaticals all over the world.”
“So, tell me why you never learned to play.”
Ben shrugged. “I’m the late-in-life, only c
hild of brilliant parents. My parents placed me in all sorts of exceptional programs, convinced I’d be a prodigy. Gifted and talented and all that.”
“And were you?”
“I suppose so. I raced through school and followed my parents into medical research, though all of us have different specialties. Mom still works. Just got another paper published last week.”
“Is your dad retired?”
“No, he died. Some years ago now. Pancreatic cancer.”
“I’m sorry.” Amy said, placing her hand on his bicep, warm even through all the layers he wore. “My mother died of breast cancer. You didn’t say what you research though.”
“Pancreatic cancer. I work in the labs at NIH.” He shied away from the sympathy in her wide blue eyes, one fellow cancer orphan to another, on the pretense of checking on Olivia. Maybe Amy wouldn’t be like everyone else and comment on the obvious connection between his choice of research field and his father’s death.
After a bit of a pause, spent simply listening to the scurrying forest animals and the creaks of the woodland settling for the night, Amy said, “That’s a long commute from here.”
Relieved, Ben nodded. “Yes, though I can work remotely. When the opportunity for Lisa to go into the field came up, I thought it would be less disruptive for Olivia if I came here.” Olivia, hearing her name, popped her head out the window. Amy covered her face with her hands and then peeked up at her. Olivia’s giggle floated over the playground. Ben sighed. Just once he’d like to make his daughter laugh like that.
“Everyone else calls her Livvy.” Amy said.
“What?”
“At school. Everyone calls her Livvy. No one calls her Olivia.
“We just weren’t much for nicknames in my family.”
“Is that why she calls you father?”
“What should she call me?” Ben said, with a frown. “That’s what I called my own father.”
“What about dad or daddy?”
“Olivia may call me daddy, if she likes.”
“I think she would like that.” Amy sighed. “And I think you should call her Livvy.”
“I’ll try.” Ben said.
Cupid's Coffeeshop Set One: Boxed Set: Books 1-4 Page 2