by Jessa Chase
They’d discussed financial strategies in their last meeting, and Cole was looking forward to meeting again and going over what he’d developed for them. He’d found several innovative ways to lower the group’s tax burden, taking advantage of a few newer regulatory changes that not everyone was aware of yet.
This was the kind of stuff that would put him over the top in the running for partnership, but at the moment Cole couldn’t focus. He pulled out his cell phone and clicked on Daisy’s picture.
How’s it going?
A few minutes later, she replied.
Diner is busy today. It’s raining so the floor is sloshy.
Cole smiled as he read her text. He could imagine her trying to keep the diner clean as the customers came and went with muddy rain boots on. He could see her flustered face, could clearly picture her wiping an errant red curl away from her face. He wished he was there to tuck it back behind her ear, stroke her cheek and see her smile.
No rain here. Just mountains of paperwork.
He thought about it for a second, then added onto his original text. I miss you.
It was risky. They hadn’t had more than a handful of conversations since he’d flown home, and none of them had been particularly deep.
Another notification came just a minute later.
Miss you too.
He was glad to see, even with the diner busy, she had time to write back to him. Maybe they weren’t in such a bad place with him in Chicago after all. He was about to write her back when his boss, Michael, poked his head around the doorframe.
Sliding his phone back in his pocket, Cole gestured for him to come in.
“I only have a minute, but I wanted to get your take on something.”
“Sure, what can I help with?”
Michael leaned his big body up against the side of Cole’s desk. “You’ve had your eye on a partnership here, for a while, haven’t you Cole?”
“I have.”
“And you’ve done us a lot of good work. The last few weeks with you out of town were shaky, but overall your work ethic has been really outstanding.”
Cole could hear his heart pounding in his ears, only matched by the faint vibrating of his phone in the pocket of his slacks. He tapped the outside of the phone to silence it, and did his best to pay attention to Michael.
“Thank you,” he said quickly. “And I do apologize for the last few weeks. It was…complicated back home.”
“You have that all settled now, I’m hoping?”
Cole nodded vehemently. “I believe so.”
“Good. Good. Well, we’d really like to have you on as a partner, in that case. The board is getting together on Thursday, and I’d like you to be there. Bring any questions you have, and we’ll see if we can come to an agreement that works for everyone. I’ll have my assistant add it to your calendar.”
After Michael exited, Cole took a quick peek at his phone. Daisy had called him, right after texting back that she’d missed him too. Daisy had called him and he’d dropped the call in favor of listening to his boss offer him everything he’d ever hoped and dreamed for.
He sighed and looked skyward. Partnership was everything he’d ever hoped and dreamed for, right?
DAISY
“Mason! Breakfast time!” Daisy was moving through the kitchen at a fast clip, grabbing plates from the cupboard while moving the pan with the scrambled eggs off the burner. She blew a puff of air at herself in an attempt to un-stick her bangs from her forehead. It wasn’t even 7 am and she was too hot, too uncomfortable, and too cranky.
She could only imagine how she’d feel in a few months when the cool weather turned hot and her belly grew too big to hide.
She had both of their breakfasts on the table by the time her son made his way out of his room. He didn’t look any better than she did, now that she got a good look at him.
“Thank you, momma,” he murmured as he sat down. His hair was sticking up in the back like a little dovetail, and Daisy reached behind him to smooth it down.
“I think it’s just about time for a haircut,” she said with a smile. “Do you want to drive down to Puyallup with me tomorrow, make a day of it?”
Before Mason could answer through a mouthful of scrambled eggs, Daisy’s cell phone began to ring. She grabbed it off the counter and glanced at the caller ID. Somebody from the hospital was calling her. Her heart left up into her throat as she walked into the living room to answer.
“Hello?” she said, her voice nearly escaping her out of anxiety.
“Is this Miss Hewett?”
“Yes, hello. Is Mrs-Is Eleanor okay?”
“Ma’am, this is Kim Miller, I’m a nurse here at Seattle General. I am sorry to inform you but Mrs. Eleanor Shuster passed away earlier this morning.”
Daisy gasped. “Oh, God.” She sat on the couch before her knees had a chance to buckle. “Thank you for calling. I...I don’t know what happens now. What do you need from me? From us?”
“We have you and a Mister Cole Shuster down as her next of kin, but we don’t seem to have his phone number in our records. Could I get that from you so I can notify him of her passing?”
“That’s not necessary,” she said after a moment. “I can call him. I’ll call him. He’s...he’s out of town but he’s coming back. I’ll tell him.” She knew she was repeating herself but her mind was swirling with grief and she felt like she was on the verge of passing out.
She glanced over at Mason, watched the back of his head as he bobbed down for another bite of his eggs. She tried to focus on the shape of him, on his sweet hair and his little manly shoulders. It helped to calm her down some, enough that she wasn’t crying at least.
“Okay Ma’am, well please do call him. I have the number for the mortuary where she’ll be sent to, if you want her somewhere else you’ll need to call them as well.” The nurse sounded kind, if a little bored, as if she’d made this phone call several times already that day. Daisy swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Okay, thank you. Hold on, let me get a pen.” She scrambled for a pen and paper and wrote down the number that the nurse gave her.
“Again, I’m sorry for your loss and please don’t hesitate to call us back if you’re needing something. Your grandma was a wonderful woman.”
The line disconnected and Daisy blinked back tears, thinking about how Mrs. Shuster had really been more like a mother to her than a grandma, but she could see how the nurse had made that mistake.
She swiped at her face before standing, clutching the paper in her hand.
“Okay, Mason, time to go get dressed, okay? You’re going to be late for school if we don’t hurry.”
Mason paused in front of his mother, his wide blue eyes taking inventory of her like she was made of glass.
“Are you okay, momma?”
Daisy plastered on a smile and put her hands on her hips. “I’m okay, sweetie. Don’t worry about me, please. Scoot to your room now, okay?”
He chewed the corner of his mouth like he didn’t fully believe her answer, but he let it go this time.
Daisy, for her part, waited until she’d seen him off to class before calling Cole.
The phone rang so long that she nearly hung up, but just before she hit the End Call button, she heard his voice.
“Daisy?” He sounded tired, and a little panicked. She realized immediately that he must have sensed something was wrong. She hadn’t called him once since he’d gone back to Chicago, in fact they’d only exchanged a handful of texts.
She felt terrible to be delivering such sad news from thousands of miles away.
“Cole, I’m sorry to call. I just-”
“Are you okay? Is the baby okay?” He spoke in a rush of breath that confirmed Daisy’s suspicions.
“We’re okay, Cole. It’s...well it’s your Aunt.”
The line went quiet.
“She’s gone,” he said, his voice barely more than a strangled whisper.
“I’m so sorry, Cole,” Dai
sy had fought back the tears while Mason had been around, but she let them fall now. She sat on her couch with her head cradled in her hands, and sobbed.
“I’m...I’m sorry too. I’m sad, hell I wish I’d had a chance to tell her about the baby. She would have been so excited. But I know...I know this is what she wanted, she wanted to go on her own terms.”
Daisy sniffled loudly. “She did. I’m sorry to drop this on you while you’re back there, though.”
“It’s okay.” He paused. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Yours too. I should have called sooner.”
Cole chuckled. “Well, to be fair, you were pretty pissed at me when I left.”
“I was. I’m not any more. It was a stupid fight. Can I blame the hormones again?”
“Absolutely. As long as we’re okay now. I...I actually have some exciting news. I was going to call you later tonight.”
“What’s going on?”
“They offered me the partnership,” the tempo of his voice sped up as he spoke, his excitement shining through.
Daisy, for her part, felt numb. She wanted to be excited for Cole, after all a partnership at his accounting firm was just about all he’d wanted, all he’d been working for in the last few years. It meant the world to him.
But all Daisy could think about was how far away Chicago was from Madelia. And how very much she wanted to stay exactly where she was.
She didn’t want Mason and this baby to grow up in a concrete jungle. She didn’t want them breathing in all that smog and walking down congested city streets.
On the other hand, she really didn’t want to live so far away from Cole. She didn’t want their child growing up with a father so far away.
“Are you still there?” She realized then that she’d been silent, that she hadn’t even congratulated him on his offer.
“That’s really great, Cole,” she said halfheartedly. “I’m really happy for you.”
“Be happy for us, Daisy. This is a really good thing, I promise.”
“I...I need to go, Cole. I’m sorry. I forgot I need to call the mortuary place too. If it’s okay with you, I’m going to have her brought back here.”
“That’s fine. I have some things to finalize here but I can fly back for the funeral, and then we can figure out our moving plan from there.”
Daisy bit her tongue so hard she could taste the blood, but she didn’t want to argue with the man directly after telling him his Aunt had died.
They disconnected and she went about her day as if in a fog. Nothing she touched felt real, as if the color had simply drained from the world.
She was walking downtown when she nearly ran right over Kate and her stroller.
“Oh! Hey, what are you two up to today?”
“Well, it is just about nap time, so we’re taking a little walk in hopes she falls asleep,” Kate replied as she engaged the stroller locks. Daisy peeked under the blanket covering the top of the stroller and was met with a smile from the very awake Ella. Unlike her mother, she didn’t look remotely sleepy.
“Hello there, Miss Ella!” She ran her fingers through her baby-soft hair before replacing the cover and standing back up. “She’s such a pretty combo of you and Logan, you know that?”
Kate smiled. “That she is. I’m glad I ran into you, I actually have been meaning to call you with some information I found out.” She tilted her head to the side. “Are you doing okay?”
Daisy felt her eyes misting up again. “I’m okay. Mrs. Shuster passed away this morning. I...I haven’t managed to tell many people yet.”
“Oh, hun,” Kate wrapped her arms around her friend and hugged her tight. “Please don’t feel like you need to handle all of this on your own. Lean on me, lean on Logan. Please.”
Daisy nodded against her shoulder. “I will. I’m sorry, I think I made a mess of your shirt. What was it you wanted to tell me? I could use some juicy gossip right about now.”
“Not sure if it qualifies as juicy, but the couple you mentioned before, the two staying over at the Inn? The wife had a run in with an unfinished bit of wood in the hardware store and needed a few splinters removed at the clinic.”
“Oh?” Daisy was curious now. She hadn’t managed to find anything out about the two of them since they’d come to town, as hard as she’d tried to squeeze information out of the woman when she ate at the diner.
“This isn’t medical information so I figure I’m not bound to confidentiality.” Kate spoke in a hushed tone of voice regardless. “They are in town looking at whether they want to buy the diner. Or rather, buy the land the diner is on. From what she said, her husband has no interest in running the diner, but the land is worth a pretty penny.”
Daisy gasped. She couldn’t let that happen, couldn’t imagine seeing the diner torn down and replaced with something else.
“Well, that’s good to know. I can’t imagine that Mrs. Shuster would have wanted that. I guess, well I guess it’s up to Cole now.”
“I’d think you’d look happier at that, considering how sweet he is on you.”
Daisy groaned. “We didn’t exactly leave things on good terms when he went back to Chicago. I blew up at him about something stupid. We talked about it, a little, but I still don’t feel as secure with him as I did before he left. I don’t know.”
“Hormones?”
“Ha, that’s what I said! It would be nice to be able to just blame it all on that, but to be honest we barely know each other. What I do know is that he wants to live in Chicago and I really don’t.”
Daisy dabbed at the corners of her eyes. She really didn’t want to start crying again but it seemed like everything made her feel like crying at the moment.
“We’d visit you, you know,” Kate said after a moment. “Chicago isn’t Madelia, but it’s not on another planet either.”
“It’s definitely not Madelia.”
“Just don’t discount what he’s wanting, is what I’m saying. I know you love this town, but you care about him too.”
“Thank you, Kate. I know I have a lot to think about. I’m going to let you guys get back to your walk, okay?”
One last hug and Daisy and Kate parted ways.
COLE
He knocked on the door leading into Michael’s office, rapping his knuckles against the expensive wood and feeling like he’d rather be knocking his forehead against it. Even as he’d made the decision, he felt his mind and his heart pulling him in a dozen different directions.
“Come in!” Michael said from where he sat at his desk.
Cole entered, took a deep breath, and prayed he was making the right decision.
“Hey,” he said with a small smile. “I was hoping I could talk to you about something…”
Chapter 10.
DAISY
She glanced at her watch nervously as she wiped down the last table in the diner. The town meeting at the school was coming up faster than she would have preferred, and her stomach was roiling in protest and anxiety. It didn’t help that she hadn’t heard from Cole in almost 24 hours, and their last conversation had lit the fire on all of her own insecurities.
He’d gotten the partnership. There was no way he’d ever choose Madelia over Chicago, when they’d just offered him his dream job. He loved her, she was pretty sure he loved her, but how could she compare with a man’s dream job?
“Daisy.”
She heard her name, but didn’t really believe it was him until she turned and saw him standing there.
“Oh, Cole,” she said, and then she was in his arms and everything felt so much better. She didn’t bother stopping the tears, let herself make a mess of his shirt. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
He chuckled. “Honestly? I didn’t know I would be either. It’s like my feet just led me here. You mentioned the town council meeting, and suddenly I didn’t want to be anywhere else.”
Daisy gasped. “The meeting! Crap. We have to go, I don’t want to be late.” She tugged on his
wrist and pulled him out of the diner, and down the street.
It wasn’t more than a five minute walk to the school, but neither of them seemed to be in the mood to talk. There were a few cars still in the school parking lot, but like them, most townsfolk walked to the meeting. When they opened the double doors to the cafeteria, most of the folding chairs were full.
Daisy made a move to sit but before she could, Stacie approached her.
“Daisy, Cole, I’m so glad the two of you could come.” She clicked on the microphone in her hand and faced the audience. “Everybody, take a seat please. Most of you are aware of the situation with Mrs. Shuster and her diner.”
Stacie pulled Daisy and Cole up on the small stage. “You’re probably also aware that there has been an offer on the diner, from these two in the front row.” She gestured to Carol and Marc, who Daisy had met when they’d come to town.
“Well, Daisy, I know you guys have a lot to think about and decide, but the town of Madelia wanted to make sure you had the best possible chance to make that choice. We, well we all got together and we gathered up enough money to pay off the loan on the diner. It’s all free and clear of debt.”
Daisy covered her mouth with her hand and looked like she was about ready to cry.
“And this,” Stacie said with an extra-large grin and a conspiratorial whisper. “This was a present just from the McAllister family. They had a conversation with the man who owns the mortgage for Mrs. Shuster’s house, and he’s decided ya’ll don’t really need to pay the rest of it off. He’s rather happy knowing such wonderful folks will be living there. So consider this a bonus.”
“Oh, my. Oh, you guys,” she sputtered, wanted to run around to each smiling person in the audience and hug them. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. We haven’t…We haven’t decided anything.”
“We’re keeping the diner,” Cole said simply.