“Hello?” Rose rushed to the counter. Where could her mother have gone? She was supposed to wait here for Rose to pick her up. She’d been very clear with her mother that she would be at the coffee shop to pick her up in a half hour.
Voices murmured from the kitchen.
“Mom?” On a normal day she knew better than to invade Grumpy’s space behind the counter, but this was an emergency. She couldn’t lose her mother in Juniper Springs and risk Lillian running into Sassy before Rose could orchestrate a perfect reunion that would end years of silence and bring the two of them back together.
She peeked into the small kitchen at the back of the shop. “What the hell?”
Her mother stood in front of the counter, where Grumpy sat on a stool, and she was wearing an apron. An apron…
“Rosie! You’re just in time.” Her mother waved her to an empty stool on the other side of Grumpy. “I was just having Elroy try a vanilla latte, a caramel macchiato, and a mocha all made with almond milk.”
“I’m sorry…” She didn’t bother to contain her shock at finding her mother in Grumpy’s kitchen. First of all, “Who is Elroy?”
“You think my real name’s Grumpy?” the man grumbled. He sipped from the first mug her mother set in front of him. “Huh. That ain’t half bad.”
“See?” her mother sang, pushing a mug in front of Rose. “It’s still just as creamy as a regular latte. You can’t even tell a difference.”
“You really can’t.” The man took a bigger sip. “Who woulda thought they could make milk from almonds?”
“It’s much better for your cholesterol than the whole milk.” Lillian toweled off the counter where she’d been working. “And you really need to work on getting that LDL down.”
All Rose could do was stare. What was happening here? The last time she’d seen these two together they were ready to strangle each other, and now they were getting cozy in Grumpy’s—Elroy’s—kitchen, talking about his cholesterol problems?
“Try the mocha.” Lillian clasped her hands in front of her as though she couldn’t wait for his reaction.
The man gave the mug a good sniff before he took a drink. “Delicious,” he declared, setting down the cup with a thunk. “You were right, Lil. Almond milk brings out the chocolate flavor.”
Lil? Rose was gaping at them. You could not walk out onto the street and find two more different people. Underneath the plain black apron, her mother wore a spring-green cashmere cardigan and gray slacks with a pair of shiny gold loafers that had likely cost more than Grumpy’s espresso machine. As usual, Lillian’s blondish hair had been smoothed and styled, her makeup perfect.
Because of the whole crotchety thing he had going on, Rose had always assumed Grumpy had to be ancient…but now she couldn’t be sure. She’d never seen him without his typical scowl, but his mouth had curved into something of a smile. His thinning graying hair had even been smoothed down from its typical disarray. Though he still wore his favorite T-shirt—it said I’M NOT RUDE, I JUST SAY WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS THINKING—she hardly recognized him.
“The real test is the macchiato though.” Her mother set the final mug in front of the man, her eyes dancing with anticipation. “You are not going to believe the roundness the almond milk flavor brings.”
Rose finally picked up the latte her mother had set in front of her and took a good gulp to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
“You are a miracle worker.” Grumpy sucked down another sip, closing his eyes as though savoring the new flavor. “You ever move to town, you’ve got a job here.”
“Truly?” Her mother lifted a hand to her heart as though the invitation touched her. “No one’s ever offered me a job before.”
Whoa. Things were getting out of hand now. Talk of her mother moving to Juniper Springs is where Rose drew the line. “We need to go.” She walked to the sink and dumped the rest of the latte. “I have to get back to the inn.” Preferably before her mother and Grumpy started picking out curtains for his kitchen together.
“Oh, all right.” Lillian slipped the apron off over her head and collected her purse and laptop from a desk on the other side of the kitchen.
“Will you be back tomorrow?”
Was it just her or did Grumpy soften the rough edges of his tone when he talked to her mother?
“Of course I will.” Lillian sent him a dazzling smile over her shoulder. “Now that you have almond milk on the menu, I’ll be here every day.”
They said their goodbyes, and Rose led the way outside but stopped abruptly when they reached the curb. “I don’t understand.” She faced her mother. “Where did he get almond milk?”
“I brought some with me.” Her mother linked their arms together. “I could tell the other day that man was all bark and no bite. He needed a little convincing is all.”
Rose started off again, walking alongside her mother. She had to laugh. “So you charmed him into adding almond milk to his menu.” She shouldn’t be surprised. Her mother did have a way with people. She’d forgotten how Lillian always seemed to know what to say to someone to bring them out of their shell or to give them more confidence. It was easy for Rose to discount those qualities in Lillian and focus on what drove her crazy, but the truth was, her mother could be thoughtful and kind.
“We had a wonderful conversation. Elroy is actually quite sweet.”
“If you say so.” Rose unlocked her car and they both climbed in. Now that the shock of her mother’s new friend had started to wear off, the stress crept back in. “I’ll run you back to Dally’s house on my way back to the inn. Sorry I can’t spend more time with you today. I have to finish up decorating the cabins.”
“Why do I have to go back to the house?” Her mother slipped on her sunglasses and glared at Rose. “Why can’t I go to the inn and help you? It’s like you don’t want me there or something.”
“Of course I want you there.” Rose focused on backing out of the parking spot. She simply didn’t want her mother to run into Sassy. Although…her aunt had made herself quite scarce since she’d come home from her trip. Who knew Sassy was a workaholic?
“Then let’s go back to the inn,” Lillian insisted. “You know where you inherited your sense of style. I’m very good at decorating.”
Well, she wouldn’t go that far. She and her mother had a different approach. But she could use an extra set of hands. “You know what? I could really use the help.” She was too tired and too stressed to argue. Besides, Sassy likely wouldn’t be popping into the cabins since Rose had told her she wanted the finished looks to be a surprise. And anyway, maybe this would give her a chance to start the Sassy conversation with her mother. They were running out of time before the big birthday grand reopening celebration, and the sisters reconciling would make the whole event perfect.
“Wonderful.” Her mother seemed to beam with satisfaction. “I promise to do whatever you tell me to do.”
And likely give her a whole lot of opinions in the process, but Rose didn’t have the luxury of being picky. “We mainly have to hang a few pictures and make a few beds.” Nothing too glamorous, but she intended to do her very best to make each space welcoming.
When they pulled up at the inn a few minutes later, Dahlia and the kids were climbing out of their car.
“Maya!” Rose cut the engine and jumped out, greeting her niece with a fierce hug. “Oh, I was so worried about you!” She gave the girl kisses all over the top of her head. “You brave, strong, amazing little woman!”
Her niece giggled. “Sheesh, Aunt Rose. It’s only a sprained ankle.”
“A sprained ankle?” Lillian held her arms open. “Come and let Gigi have a look-see.”
Maya obediently limped to her grandmother and held out her splinted foot. “The brace makes it a lot easier to walk. It hardly hurts at all anymore.”
“Oh, my poor baby girl.” Lillian wrapped her arms around Maya, and Rose shared a look with Dahlia. How come they never used to get that kind of sympathy with an in
jury when they were growing up?
“Woof!” Marigold came bounding up to the driveway from the direction of the pond in all her wet stinky doggie glory and went straight for Lillian. No surprise there. Her dog was determined to win over her mother.
“No.” Lillian backed away, raising her hands out in front of her. “No, no. Sit.”
Instead, Marigold wagged her tail and went in for a hug, leaving paw prints on her mother’s cardigan.
Lillian huffed and pushed the dog away. “You need to take this animal to a training class.”
Right. In all of her spare time. “Mari, come.” Rose pulled out one of the dog biscuits she kept in a bag in her purse, and the dog left her mom alone. “Marigold is a mountain dog, aren’t you, girl?” She scratched behind the dog’s ears. “She wouldn’t know what to do in a training class.”
“Can we take her for a walk?” Ollie asked, swinging a stick around like a sword.
“Yes!” Maya hugged Mari. “You want to go for a walk?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea with your ankle.” Dahlia smoothed her daughter’s hair.
“Dr. Jolly said I can walk as long as it doesn’t hurt.”
Dr. Jolly? Rose questioned her sister with a long gaze. Why hadn’t Maya seen Ike?
“Okay, then.” Dally sent her daughter off with a pat. “But don’t go too far. And if your ankle gets sore, come right back.”
“We will!” The kids and Marigold were already on their way down the hill.
“You shouldn’t be letting Maya walk,” Lillian said to Dally.
Uh-oh. Rose had seen that look in her sister’s eyes before. She’d had a day, and she didn’t need their mother to tell her how to parent her children.
“We should get to work right away.” Before a full argument could erupt, Rose beckoned them in the direction of the Gingerbread Cabin. Colt’s truck was nowhere to be seen, thank the good Lord. The last thing she needed was her mother suspecting Rose had feelings for the boy she’d never liked.
She and Dally and their mother walked the path to the Gingerbread Cabin in silence. Rose was dying to ask her sister why Ike hadn’t been the one to take a look at Maya’s ankle, but that was not a conversation they could have in front of their mother either. Basically, they wouldn’t be talking about anything important for the next couple of hours.
Lillian went inside first, and Dally hung back with Rose. “What if Sassy comes home?” her sister whispered.
She shrugged. “We can’t hide them from each other forever.” If Sassy hadn’t become the mayor, they wouldn’t have even succeeded this long. “Why didn’t Ike check Maya’s ankle?” she asked Dally before she lost the opportunity.
Her sister simply shook her head as though she didn’t want to talk about it.
“This is quite the rustic cabin.” Their mother poked her head out the door. “I didn’t expect them to be so primitive.”
“Primitive?” Rose had put everything into redoing these cabins. They were simple but beautiful—they even had marble countertops in the kitchen! What did her mother expect to find in a small mountain town that was off the beaten path? A five-star resort?
“That’s the mountain experience people are looking for,” Dahlia said cheerfully. She tugged Rose inside the cabin. “The whole point is to provide an escape from the city and the busyness and the technology. People want to reconnect with nature here.”
“Well, in that case, I suppose it’s perfect.” Their mother rolled up her sleeves. “What should I do first?”
Rose looked around, still shaking off the sting of her mother’s judgment. “Why don’t you unpack this box while Dally and I hang a picture over the fireplace?” She showed her mother the crate on the table that held the candles and trinkets they would use to beautify the space. Then she joined Dally by the fireplace. Before picking up her mother, Rose had already measured and marked where the nails would go, so they quickly got the mountain scene into place with only one minor adjustment.
“That’s pretty.” Lillian seemed to admire the painting. “I have to say, I’d forgotten how beautiful it is here in the summer.”
Rose widened her eyes at Dally, hoping her sister could read her thoughts. Their mother was reminiscing. This could be their perfect opportunity to bring up Sassy.
“Juniper Springs is beautiful.” Dahlia went back to the table and pulled out a chair across from their mom. “And we’re so happy you came to visit.”
Rose tried to swallow all of the doubts that started to well up. They had to have this conversation. “Sassy would be really glad to see you too.”
Lillian stopped unwrapping a candle and sharpened her gaze on Rose. “Sassy doesn’t care to see me. She’s the one who chose that horrible man instead of her family.”
Yes, they’d heard all about how Lillian had never trusted Colt’s dad, about how she’d asked Sassy not to see him anymore. When Sassy had refused to cut Robert out of her life, their mother had made the decision for all of them. They hadn’t talked since.
“She loved him, and he loved her.” Rose walked to the table. “Surely you can understand why she couldn’t stop seeing him for you.”
“The man murdered someone.” Their mother went back to unwrapping the candle, her movements furious.
“He didn’t murder anyone,” Dahlia corrected her patiently. “He was involved in a bank robbery where someone else murdered the guard.”
Rose didn’t know why her sister tried. They’d explained this to Lillian at least five times.
“And he regretted it. He paid the price.” How Dally kept that steady, calm tone was beyond her. “You have to remember, his wife was dying, and he couldn’t afford her treatments. Sassy met him years after it had happened.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Their mother was nothing if not stubborn. “He was a criminal, and she chose him over me.”
Rose let out a grunt of frustration. She’d had it—the tiptoeing around, the trying to reason with someone who always chose to be so unreasonable. “What would you do if Sassy walked in that door right now?” Because she could easily make that happen. She could go find Sassy and bring her here, and they could get this done.
“I would leave.” Lillian set the candle on the table. “I don’t want to see her.”
“But she’s your sister.” Disbelief clouded the words. Sassy and their mother had two brothers who both lived in Florida now, but they each had only one sister. “She’s your family.” The burn of anger beat through her heart. “You’re being selfish and irrational and childish.” She’d never spoken to her mother so harshly, and she’d better stop now, or things would only get worse.
“I’m going for a walk.” Rose stalked to the door and pulled it open.
“I knew it. I just knew you two would choose your aunt over me eventually.” Her mother’s voice got weepy. “After everything I’ve done for you—”
“I didn’t choose any of this.” The cutting their aunt out of their lives for so long, the refusal to be close to the aunt who loved them. “This was because of your choices.” The anger had faded into a heavy sadness. “But you never know how much time you have left to fix the things you’ve broken.” Leaving her mother with those words, she spun and closed the door, and then stumbled down the steps.
Her niece and nephew were playing with Marigold by the pond, so Rose went the opposite direction, into the woods. She shouldn’t have held out any hope that her mother would come around. She should’ve told her the first day she’d come to Juniper Springs that Sassy was back in town. If she had, Lillian likely would’ve skipped town and hightailed it back to Savannah.
Maya and Ollie’s laughter grew more distant as the trees enveloped her in their sheltered quiet. She followed the creek since she hadn’t had much time to explore this part of the property, comforted by the gentle swoosh of the water streaming over the smooth rocks. At least then she’d be able to follow it back to the house.
As much as she tried, it was hard to stay mad in the m
ountains. And maybe she wasn’t mad as much as she was heartbroken for both her mom and her aunt. For what they were missing out on in their golden stage of life. In the last several months, she’d come to rely on Dally and Mags. They were her support. She didn’t know what she’d—
A flash of movement up ahead caught her attention. She slowed her pace and tried to see through the trees. It looked like…a person…standing in the middle of the creek? Rose crept closer until she could see.
Colt? The man was fly-fishing. Standing knee-deep in the water with his jeans rolled up.
He hadn’t noticed her—he was too focused on flinging his line in the air—so she gave herself a few minutes to simply watch him. The same electrical current that had moved through her when he’d put his arms around her flared again. He was tall and broad but moved gracefully with the fishing pole, working with the same methodical precision he had used when they’d fixed the roof.
Rose glanced behind her. She could turn around and walk away and he would probably never know she’d been there. But, then again, she had to see him someday, to clear the air after their awkward exchange earlier. And this seemed like the perfect place.
She left the trees and approached the riverbank, her heart pounding harder than it had even when she’d confronted her mother. “Hey.”
Colt’s arm swung the rod forward and he turned. “Hi.” He started to reel in the line as he waded to her.
“I’m sorry to interrupt.” She did her best not to sound awkward but wasn’t sure if she succeeded. “I didn’t know anyone was out here.”
“Don’t be sorry. I was about done. Not catching much anyway.” Colt stepped out of the creek and busied himself with breaking down his fly rod, his movements methodical and focused.
She watched him take apart the pole and stash it into a backpack, but he didn’t look at her once. He didn’t speak either. In fact, he seemed to completely ignore her.
The Summer Sisters (Juniper Springs Book 2) Page 13