At that, Jefferson tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and spun toward the center of town. Still awash in memories of the past, Ruby followed.
Chapter Four
Jefferson, with Ruby on his arm, strode into Ashford Falls Square, as though stepping through a portal into his past. Everything looked the same. Only on closer inspection did he find any changes. A few cherry trees sprinkled blossoms across the square while the Bradford pears surrounding the quiet middle fountain waited their turn to bloom. The Ashford Falls Cafe still stretched along the length at the back of the square, the navy and white striped awning flapping in the breeze, though the umbrellas shading the outdoor tables stayed closed, waiting for warmer days to come. A new card store anchored one side of the square, opposite the coffeeshop, though all the rest of the shops were boarded up now. A bumpy, uneven asphalt lot sat where the wooden train station once stood, the tracks still visible through the macadam. So, things had changed in Ashford Falls, even through this disorienting sense of deja vu.
He steered Ruby to the coffeeshop. Inside, he found the same gleaming dark wood from his memories, but the pink marble countertops were modernized with scarlet subway tiles covering the backsplash and heart shaped pendant lamps dangled above the counter. Matching walnut wood chairs and tables, full of lunchtime customers, clustered around a stone fireplace, just as it had nearly fifty years ago. The squashy sofa and chairs gathered near the empty fireplace looked new, though not so different from the ones that sat there in his time. A dark-haired man ran the cash register and Jefferson’s breath caught in his throat as he gaped at the doppelganger of his best friend.
“Patrick does look just like PJ, doesn’t he?” Ruby murmured beside him.
Jefferson swallowed against the lump in his throat and nodded. PJ passed nearly a decade before, Jefferson knew, but staring at his grandson was like looking at his oldest friend. A slim girl stepped up to Patrick’s side, handing her customer a to-go cup with her bracelets jangling. She smiled brightly at Ruby, who waved back before turning to man the hissing espresso machine again.
“Mary’s granddaughter…” Jefferson whistled.
“Patrick’s sister, Zooey. Patrick and Zooey are Henry’s children.” Ruby confirmed. “But she does favor Mary. Has her spirit too.”
“Joe is Audrey’s son, then?” When he’d left, Henry had just been born but PJ and Mary sent photos of the children along with their letters, though the correspondence trickled to annual Christmas cards over time.
“She headed out to Hollywood to become a movie star and came home two years later, six months along.”
“It’s like stepping through a time machine.” Jefferson marveled. “I never imagined seeing this place again.”
They ordered and, after Zooey assured them she’d bring their drinks, found seats near the sunny window. The bright April sunshine exposed the wrinkles around Ruby’s beautiful eyes and highlighted the white in her dark hair. Despite the changes wrought by time, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Being this close to her again stole his breath. He shifted in the seat and decided on a neutral conversational topic.
“I’d heard the coffeeshop closed.”
“It did. After PJ passed, Audrey and Henry wanted to sell to a chain. Mary wouldn’t hear of it. The fight fractured the family. Henry took his family and left. Audrey took Joe and did the same. Mary ran the place as long as she could, but finally it grew to be too much for her and she had to close. I think the heart went out of her then.”
“She passed last fall?”
“In September.”
“You must miss her.”
“Very much. She was more of a sister to me than my own sisters, and part of my life since before I can remember.” Ruby blinked away the tears gleaming in her dark eyes. “Only her three grandchildren came to the funeral. Henry and Audrey didn’t bother coming home.”
“So, the kids inherited and decided to make a go of it?”
“Mary gave them a year to run it together. If they make a profit in that year, then they inherit this shop and her not inconsiderable savings, split between them. But, if they don’t work together, then nothing.”
“Determined to get her family back together.” Jefferson well remembered Mary’s legendary determination. He glanced around the revived shop. Her grandchildren seemed to be doing well enough with her legacy. “I wouldn’t bet against a Lockhart, much less three of them. And I bet I know what lawyer helped her come up with that rather unusual bequest.”
Ruby shrugged, accepting the drink that Zooey served her. Now that he saw Zooey close up, the differences with her grandmother became apparent. Instead of Mary’s espresso eyes, Zooey’s eyes were the startling turquoise of a Caribbean sea. Her cheekbones were more pronounced and her chin more rounded. Otherwise, he could have looked into the face of his former boss and Ruby’s lifetime best friend. Zooey, unaware of her deja vu inducing looks, smiled and returned to the counter. Jefferson looked back at Ruby who sipped her coffee, as regal and poised as if she’d been at Buckingham palace.
“So you did it then? Became a lawyer?”
“I did indeed. Been a member of the bar forty-seven years, this past October. I almost took judge’s robes a few years ago but just wasn’t ready to give up my practice.” Ruby said, pride evident in her voice. Jefferson wanted to ask if it’d been worth it, but didn’t want to stir the embers of their old argument. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. Instead, he sipped his drink, savoring the heady flavors of cherry and vanilla on his tongue.
“Delicious.” He proclaimed. “Though their grandmother wouldn’t have made anything so fancy.”
“Joe comes up with the signature drinks. He’s quite creative. That’s a Cherry Blossom Cappuccino you’re drinking.”
“I always loved cherry blossom time.” Jefferson locked his gaze with Ruby’s, remembering the feel of her curves against him while he kissed her as cherry blossoms cascaded around them, tossing in the spring breeze.
“Me too.” Ruby whispered with a small, sad smile.
Jefferson drew a deep breath and blinked away memories. “So, Rhubarb, what have you been up to these past fifty years?”
At his blunt question, she gave a deep belly laugh, breaking the tension of the moment. Ruby always had the best laugh. “No one’s called me that ridiculous nickname in half a century. It’s so good to see you, Jefferson.”
“And you, Ruby.” He reached across the table, weaving his fingers with hers, and just like that. It could have all been fifty years ago, back when they were courting in this very coffeeshop, chaperoned by PJ and Mary. “I’m a reporter now. They sent me here to get the scoop on the so-called coffee hunk. Knew it had to be the Lockharts.”
“I’ve seen your by-line a few times.” Ruby sipped her drink, not looking at him, and Jefferson wondered how closely she’d followed his career over the years. “You’re a gifted writer, Jefferson. Always were. Did you ever write that novel?”
“No, not yet. Just some angry poems.” Jefferson laughed, reminded of his youthful dreams. “After I left town, I took that job in Seattle. I’ve been all over the world, covering all the news that’s fit to print. My wife and I had three kids, all grown now. I’ve got a passel of grandkids—seven already. And about to be a great-grandfather come this fall. Want to see pictures?”
Ruby slipped her hand out of his to take his cell phone. She fumbled at her neck for her reading glasses, which she perched on the end of her elegant nose. She smiled at the group of kids, seated in front of a Christmas tree and flipped through the photos.
“They’re beautiful. Congratulations. Which is your wife?”
“She passed about ten years ago now. Cancer.” Jefferson said quietly as Ruby squeezed his hand, sympathy in her liquid eyes. “And your husband?”
“Always were too smooth for your own good. I never married.” Ruby eyed him over her reading glasses. “Had a career instead. So looks like we both got what we wanted.”
�
��Or maybe neither of us did. Not exactly.” Jefferson said, not sure why his heart thumped harder in his chest, but not about to ignore it. He blurted out, “Have dinner with me tonight.”
“Dinner?” Ruby blinked for a moment before giving a quick, decisive shake of her head.
“Why not? You got a hot date?”
“Hardly.” Ruby laughed. “I just don’t think it would be…”
“It’s just dinner between old friends. Surely we can share a meal, Rhubarb?”
Ruby looked at him, tapping the stem of her glasses on the table. Finally, she nodded. “Meet me here at seven. We’ll go from there.”
After lingering at work as long as she could, trying to ignore the butterflies zooming around her stomach, Ruby returned to the coffeeshop at half past six that night. Quiet now in the dinner lull, Patrick sat at a table in the corner, surrounded by papers and glaring furiously at his laptop while a teenaged boy lounged behind the cash register. Zooey curled in an armchair near the fireplace, a sketchpad on her knees as she doodled, her dark hair massed into a messy topknot.
“You’ll give yourself wrinkles glaring like that.” Ruby claimed the chair across from Patrick.
He barked a laugh. “Just can’t make these numbers add up.”
“You all have done wonders so far. You’ve got eight more months until the deadline. Give yourself some time.”
Patrick rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. He dropped his hands and sighed. “I just want it to work. Sometimes I wonder if our grandmother was simply crazy.”
“Like a fox. Mary wanted her family back together, especially you three. She knew you’d each bring your unique talents and gifts to running this coffeeshop.”
“Joe and Zooey are the creative ones. Every time I think Joe just can’t come up with a crazier concoction, he surpasses himself. Zooey can draw anything and charms all our regulars. What do I bring to the equation?”
“You’re the balance, the ballast. You’re very much like your grandfather, practical and pragmatic. Mary was the idea person. The creative, crazy schemer. She needed others to balance her out, to do the sensible stuff.”
“Is that what you were? The sensible one?”
“My mother used to tell me I was born an old soul. I met your grandmother when I was just four years old. From the moment we met, Mary came up with crazy schemes and got us into more scrapes than I care to recall. Sometimes I could even talk her out of them but more often than not, I followed along, anxious to see the outcome.”
Patrick huffed out a laugh. “Wish you’d talked her out of this one.”
“Do you?” Ruby asked and Patrick shrugged, not meeting her gaze. “Once upon a time, you and Joe were close as twins.”
“That was a long time ago, Auntie Ruby. I barely remember it.”
“Well, I have something that might help you with that.” Ruby reached into her briefcase and extracted an old battered photo album and handed it to Patrick. “I thought you three might be interested in seeing it.”
Ruby opened the tawny leather album to a large photo of two newborns swaddled in blankets laying side by side in a bassinet, set next to the counter near the cash register. Their grandparents stood behind the two boys, beaming with pride.
“Is this me and Joe?” Patrick exclaimed. “I guess I’m the cranky looking one with dark hair.”
“So serious, even in sleep.” Ruby smiled at the way Patrick’s forehead furrowed as he napped. “And look at Joe’s little fist right by his face, escaping his swaddle again.”
The opposite page held a photo of Patrick, in a squashy armchair near the fireplace, a blanket wrapped bundle on his lap, as a horrified looking Joe peered at baby Zooey in fascinated disgust. Another shot showed the two boys on tricycles out in the square, cherry blossoms scattered over their chocolate smeared faces and plastic eggs overflowing out of the bike’s baskets. A final shot showed a toddler Zooey pulling ornaments off a Christmas tree set in the corner of the shop.
Patrick smiled at each photo and flipped to the front of the album. As he opened the cover, a snapshot fluttered out. Patrick picked it up and looked at it, squinting. “Isn’t this the guy you had coffee with yesterday? The reporter?”
“Jefferson.” Ruby bobbed her head and gazed out the window. “We knew each other well, once upon a time. So many moons ago.”
“He was your boyfriend? What happened?” Patrick asked, with that direct gaze that Mary sometimes used to wear. Ruby glanced away from the espresso eyes of her eldest friend. Sometimes Patrick was just as perceptive as his grandmother always was.
“He wanted to marry me, but I sent him away.”
“You didn’t want to marry him?”
“No, I did, very much. But back then, it wasn’t like it is today with women having careers and babies and every other thing. I’d seen my mother waste her life on a useless man and be saddled with babies while she was just a baby herself. I didn’t want that life for me. He asked me just out there, sitting beside the fountain, and gave me the most beautiful ring, encrusted with three little rubies.” Ruby smiled at the bittersweet memory.
“And you said no, even though you loved him?”
“I’d just gotten into law school and he’d gotten a job as reporter in Seattle. I didn’t want to hold him back, just as I didn’t want to be held back.” Ruby threw up her hands. “So I chose a career over love.”
“And what will you choose now?” Patrick asked softly, nodding behind her. Ruby turned her head in time to catch Jefferson enter the shop. Just like yesterday, her heart tripped against her ribs and heat rose in her face. He still thrilled her, this handsome man in pursuit of plain old Ruby Davis. Today he wore a sharp cut, blue pinstriped suit with a carefully knotted silver tie, and held a bowler hat in his hands. He headed straight for her and Zooey came over to chat with them, holding her sketchpad in her arms.
“Hello, Patrick, Zooey.” Jefferson said, his deep, rich baritone resonating through Ruby like a bell, awakening things she hadn’t felt for a very long time. “Ready for dinner, Rhubarb?”
“Rhubarb?” Zooey repeated the nickname. “Now that sounds like an interesting story.”
Jefferson laughed. That full, open, and infectious laugh he’d always had. “You may not believe it of your auntie, but she can be a bit tart-tongued.”
“You don’t say.” Patrick chuckled.
“She was always beautiful. A fine looking woman.” Jefferson continued as Ruby’s cheeks grew warmer. “But she wouldn’t give me the time of day, so I took to teasing her, desperate for her attention. Still, do you think this woman would step out with me?”
“So how’d you get her to agree?” Zooey asked, exchanging a fascinated glance with her brother.
“He brought me a handful of the earliest spring strawberries and asked if they’d sweeten me up.” Ruby put in, shaking her head at the memory of her impudent young suitor.
“And did they?”
“They were terrible—so sour and bitter!” Ruby laughed, remembering the little crimson berries cupped in Jefferson’s big hands and how touched she’d been at his gesture.
“But she went to the pictures with me the next week so that was something.” Jefferson laughed. “And now she’s agreed to have dinner with me tonight so, if you youngsters could excuse us…”
Zooey and Patrick, both grinning, waved them off. Ruby took Jefferson’s arm and stepped out into the spring night, feeling as foolish and hopeful as a girl again.
Chapter Five
Jefferson stepped out the coffeeshop door, Ruby on his arm, into the quiet spring night. Several streets over, traffic whooshed past but the square itself sat deserted and serene. The blue hour cast an otherworldly sheen on the budding Bradford pear trees. The cascading cherry blossoms glowing white gave the scene the quality of a dreamscape. For Jefferson at least, this moment with Ruby by his side felt like a half-remembered dream, from a simpler time. Together, they stepped over the cobblestones, strolling towards the cafe at the back of th
e square.
“I grabbed a sandwich from there earlier today. It’s all artisan ingredients and all that fluff now.” Jefferson said, “But I thought, for old times’ sake, we could eat here.”
“Kennedy does a marvelous dinner.” Ruby replied, as they were seated immediately in the nearly deserted restaurant. Kennedy had certainly made some changes to the cafe menu, modernizing it from the simple diner fare it had once been. But inside, the cozy restaurant remained exactly the same. Small tables clustered around the long, rectangular dining room, all in dark woods decorated with navy and hunter green. The familiar restaurant contributed to the dream-like reminiscent feeling coursing through Jefferson.
He sat across from Ruby as the candlelight flirted with her face, turning her skin to burnished copper and smoothing away the ravages of age. Jefferson’s blood sang through his veins as he soaked in her beauty. Though he may have gone on, after he left Ashford Falls, a part of his heart still belonged to Ruby.
And always would.
The revelation shook him a bit. He’d adored his wife, loving their life together and the family they’d created. But Ruby would always remain the road not traveled. Being here in their old stomping ground felt right, real, and true, in a way that he hadn’t felt for many years. Shaken, Jefferson flipped open the menu, staring unseeing at the artisan and farm-to-table entrees, trying to sort through the maelstrom of emotions whirring through him. When their young waitress appeared, Jefferson ordered nearly at random. Ruby, poised and collected as ever, did the same.
“How was your day?” Jefferson finally managed at the same time Ruby said, “Did you get your article done?”
They laughed together, breaking the tension. “Yes, all written and filed. I’ll be here tomorrow with my photographer to get some shots of the coffee hunk and the shop.”
“I’m looking forward to reading it.” Ruby smiled and then added shyly, “I read all your work actually.”
Jefferson grinned, delighted that Ruby followed his career. “Do you?”
Cupid's Coffeeshop Set One: Boxed Set: Books 1-4 Page 16