“Nah,” Cameron said as he caught the ball and dribbled up for his own shot. Dinah sat back on her heels and smiled. There was no competition this time; no showing off or showing him up, just a delightful companionship she’d always known could be between them. “Prime residential season doesn’t really start until March anyway. Even then, this is a good market for a home like this. You can take your time—even wait until April if that’s what you need.” He missed his shot, grinned at her and shrugged.
Dinah glanced around the yard. The trees she climbed as a kid, the garden her mom started the year Dad died, the deck they’d grilled on after the parade every Memorial Day. “This yard is really gorgeous in April. All the buds.” She felt that familiar surge of nostalgia, but with a warmth, not a pang. She’d condensed her relationship with her mother down to the last tense years, but there were decades of good memories as well. There was a whole life there, not just one extended argument. She really was making peace with her mother’s memory. With her passing.
Cameron looked up at her, paused and palmed the ball as he walked toward her. “She’s here.”
“She’s everywhere.” Dinah teared up, but in a good way. “But I don’t think I have to be here anymore. I’m not ready to let it go today, but I’m ready to let it go a little while from now.” She took Cameron’s hand and led him toward the backyard. “This yard should have a pack of kids running through it. There should be a mess of bikes piled up in the garage and a dog barking at the back door. Mom would like there to be life in this house again.” She looked at Cameron, his dark hair shining in the sunlight, the collar of his coat all messed up from shooting baskets. “She’d have liked you, I think. Especially back when you were a citified, stuffy old broker.”
He pulled her to him, “And now that I’m Middleburg’s most promising young coot?”
She eyed him critically, feeling the long-lost playfulness come back to the edges of her spirit. “Well, that remains to be seen.”
One dark eyebrow went up. “Why?”
“We have unbaked cookies to tend to, mister. I need to assess those budding baking skills of yours.”
“Oh,” he started toward the kitchen. “But that’s my secret; I don’t bake. I’m management. I only supervise.”
Dinah took one hand and ran it along his jaw line as she used the other hand to calmly snatch the ball away from him. “So supervise me.” With that, she ran toward the back door, feeling the energy and balance and God’s marvelous pleasure as she made for the kitchen.
Cameron smiled as the cab turned onto Ballad Road, still thinking about how Dinah soundly kissed him goodbye at the airport, promising to pack up and return in about a week. It would, he guessed, be the first of many Kentucky–New York–New Jersey shuttles for both of them. He’d decided on the plane that he would go forward with the lawsuit. The decision had settled peacefully on him and he felt God’s protection despite the challenges that lay ahead.
As he got out of the cab, Emily Montague practically tackled him in a hug. “You’ve brought her home! Thank you!” she said.
He laughed at her exuberance. “You know Dinah well enough to know no one tells that woman what to do. Besides,” he said as he paid the driver and pulled his suitcase from the back of the cab, “I think God is the one bringing her home. I just helped her to see a few things, that’s all.”
Emily crossed one arm over the other and gave him a look. “I can just imagine.”
Had the whole world figured out their feelings before they did? Was this what he was in for in Middleburg, the whole town knowing his business? After Manhattan’s anonymity, this was going to take a whole lot of getting used to. “We didn’t really settle anything for certain, Emily. I wouldn’t get all excited just yet.”
“Oh yes, I can. Dinah called me an hour ago to say she’ll bake my wedding cake. In her own bakery. Well, I suppose I should say in the bakery she rents from you, but you know it’ll always be Dinah’s bakery in my mind.”
Always be Dinah’s bakery. He did like the sound of that. And Emily was actually tearing up over it. “Sorry,” she said, blushing and wiping away a tear with her mitten. “I’m just so happy. I couldn’t bear not having her around.”
Cameron wanted to say, “Me, too,” but he stuck with a much safer “I know.”
“Not only that, but she says I have you to thank for all the extra time she has to work on it. It seems more than half the Cookiegram cookies are in the freezer stocked up and ready to go, thanks to you.”
He was insanely proud of those cookies. He’d started the whole project just to get on Howard’s good side, but it had turned into so much more. Already, after less than two months in Middleburg, he knew more people by name than he ever had outside of his office in New York. And to top it all off, when he’d turned on his phone after the plane landed, he’d had a voicemail from a guy from church, asking if Cameron wouldn’t like to come join a pickup basketball game on Saturday mornings.
“Welcome home,” Emily called as she turned and started up the street toward her shop.
“Thanks.” And he was home, wasn’t he? He stood for a moment, looking around the charming little town, up the street where he could already name four out of five shop owners, and breathed it all in. There, standing in the sunlight, he caught a glimpse of what Dinah always talked about; how she could be so sure God had brought her here. Even with the lawsuit question settled, lots of other things were still up in the air. But he had a place and people to help him solve it all. That whole community thing Dinah always pushed. He understood it now and maybe that had been God’s plan all along.
Waving at “Mac” MacCarthy in the office next door, Cameron left his luggage in the apartment foyer and went into the bakery. He flipped on the lights and sighed. He’d found the place so odd the first time he saw it—now it was so achingly bare without all those oddities. Because all the oddities were Dinah. Her style, her joy, her energy. He found Dinah’s little sign that said “Back in a Minute” still sitting on the counter. Thank You, he prayed as he pulled the bakery door shut behind him. I couldn’t bear to see anyone else in this space but her.
I’m in love with her. It struck him as he dragged his luggage up the stairs to his apartment, making him stop and stand for a moment in the middle of the stairway. I am. I’m in love with Dinah Hopkins. He should tell her. But how?
Well, now, there really was only one way to tell her, wasn’t there? Before he even got to the top of the stairs, he pulled out his cell phone and called up Janet Bishop at the hardware store.
Dinah closed the top of the shipping crate, feeling the thud deep in her heart. She and Uncle Mike had spent the last five days sorting items from her mom’s house between a garbage bin, Uncle Mike’s van and a crate bound for Middleburg. Together they watched the crate being loaded onto the truck that would begin its journey to Kentucky as Dinah flew back to Middleburg. It had been a healthy process for the two of them. They’d chatted and reminisced as they went through the house to find the items they wanted to keep, while clearing out other items that needed to be discarded. An emotional decluttering as much as a practical one. Some of it made them laugh—like the sixteen pairs of black patent leather pumps, which brought a barrage of teasing from Uncle Mike about Dinah’s extensive flip-flop wardrobe. Some of it, like a set of war letters from her dad to her mother wrapped carefully in lace and tied with a lavender ribbon, made them cry. They found box after box of Dinah’s college and high school artwork in Mom’s attic—she’d kept so many pieces, even the ones Dinah thought the craftsmanship of was definitely substandard. Another box contained newspaper clippings from Dinah’s basketball days. All the classic “mom” hoarding underscored the truth Dinah was coming to understand—despite their friction, they really did love each other.
Uncle Mike clasped his arm around Dinah’s shoulder. “We’ll attempt another box when you come back in March. Shannon and I will look after the house until then. Maybe even start some of those repairs the re
al estate broker suggested.” Cameron had hooked them up with a wonderful, compassionate broker who had helped Dinah and Mike lay out a plan for emptying the house, making a few important repairs and upgrades and putting it on the summer market. With that plan set, Dinah could freely turn her attention back to Middleburg.
And the man waiting for her there when she flew back today, Valentine’s Day of all days. How many times had Cameron crossed her mind in the past two days? How many times had she sent up a prayer of thanks for who he was, how he’d come into her life and what he’d come to mean to her? When she’d read those letters between her parents, between two people who could hang on to what they felt about each other even though the future was drastically uncertain, it felt like God was showing her what was possible between her and Cameron. Was it love? As reluctant as she was to admit it, Dinah was coming to think that it was. Yep, she might very well be in love with the last person on Earth she’d suspect. Wouldn’t Emily enjoy that one?
Dinah swallowed the lump in her throat as the truck pulled out of the driveway. “Well, Patty,” said Uncle Mike, his own voice a bit wobbly, “Happy Valentine’s Day. You’re finally going to Kentucky. Godspeed, little sister.” She and her uncle stood silently for a moment, saying one of the many goodbyes they’d say to all of Patty Hopkins’s earthly possessions. It was an odd, bittersweet sensation.
They were about to head over to Uncle Mike’s when a white delivery truck pulled up. Dinah and her uncle caught each other’s eye as a young woman got out of the truck and headed up the walk with a square white box in her hand.
“Valentine package for Dinah Hopkins?”
Dinah calculated that only a handful of people would know to mail something to her here. “Yes?”
The woman held the box and an electronic pad out to Dinah. “Sign here.”
Dinah handed the box off to her uncle and signed the pad. “Who in the world is Ty Coot?” Uncle Mike asked, squinting at the label.
Dinah’s heart did a slam dunk. “What?”
“The box is from a Ty Coot back in Middleburg. Who’s he?”
Dinah practically grabbed the box out of her uncle’s hand. Sure enough, the box held a certain man’s Ballad Road address with the name “Tycoot” above it.” She worked off the packaging to reveal a box identical to her earlier Cookiegram from her friends in Middleburg. Only this time the card on top was a big red heart with a single name: Cameron. She pulled at the string and flipped open the lid. And stared. And sank down to sit on the front steps of her mother’s house in joyful awe.
A dozen bright red frosted heart cookies gazed out at her. Cookiegrams were just supposed to have a personalized telegram card on top of the box, but someone had taken things a step further. These cookies were actually frosted with a personal message: “I LOVE YOU,” carefully, yet obviously inexpertly, written out in white icing. Some of them had turned out downright laughable, and yet they were the most beautiful confections Dinah had ever seen.
“He loves me,” she nearly whispered, lifting a cookie from the box.
“Who loves you?” Uncle Mike sat down beside her and peered into the box. “Ty Coot?”
“Cameron.”
The smile on her uncle’s face told her he’d already guessed who “Tycoot” was. “Can’t say I didn’t see that coming.”
She looked at him, feeling a tear sneak down her face. “You knew?”
He grinned and kissed her forehead. “You didn’t?” He pulled her into a big hug, just like he used to when she was small.
“Oh, Uncle Mike,” Dinah said as she hugged him with all her might. “I love him back.”
He pulled her back to arms length as his smile broadened. “Does he know?”
“Not yet,” she said, “but my plane lands at four, and you know what today is.”
It was so cheesy. Cookies. The airport. Valentine’s Day. Why had he sent the box, knowing he could have told her face-to-face now? She hadn’t called or responded. He’d intentionally not left her much time to do so, timing the delivery to give her an emotional boost just as she went through the difficult task of actually leaving—or so he thought. It seemed brilliant at the time, he thought to himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so utterly vulnerable. For a deal maker, this was murder—the other side held all the cards. Save me, Lord, Cameron prayed as he stood at the baggage claim with his heart stomping around beneath his ribs. He scanned the stream of passengers coming down the hallway for her red hair, absurdly listening for the sound of flip-flops. He’d know her response just by the way she walked.
A red head bobbed up out of the crowd. No face, just a ponytail surfacing momentarily in the sea of heads. It reappeared further down the throng, off to the left.
She was running. Trying to jump up to see. That had to be good, right?
Ten feet down the hallway she popped up again, still not high enough for him to catch her face. Come on Dinah, show off some of those basketball skills of yours. Jump! He was moving toward her, but the crowds weren’t really allowing him the chance to come much closer. Who knew a small city airport could get so crowded?
Finally, after what felt like hours but must have been only seconds, she moved into sight. Her face said it all as she scanned the room and Cameron heaved an instantaneous prayer of thanksgiving.
The ten feet between them became a marathon of dodging and weaving until Dinah threw herself into his arms. He pulled her up off the ground into his embrace. She loved him! He wasn’t in this alone. He’d never been in this alone, even from the first. He kissed her until she giggled, then he set her down and held her face in his hands and kissed her again.
“Me, too,” she said, grinning wildly.
“Aw, nice going, cookie boy,” came a gravelly voice from his left. Cameron tore his gaze away from his gorgeous redhead to see a short, spunky woman with gray hair and half-moon reading glasses winking at him. The woman turned to Dinah. “Definitely a keeper.”
Dinah rolled her eyes and blushed. “Cameron, this is Josie. She sat next to me on the plane.”
Josie winked again. “And heard the whole story.”
“I was a bit nervous on the flight.”
“She talks a lot when she’s nervous, this one.” Josie touched her finger to her ear and wiggled it and Cameron suspected more than just altitude had taxed the old woman’s ears. “But it was easier to humor her on a day like today.” She smiled, shrugged indulgently at the two of them, and went off with the rest of the passengers.
Dinah talked the whole way home, making dreamy little sighing noises in between bursts of moving, packing and house-selling updates. Cameron felt a zing every time she caught his eye and seemed unable to stop his hand from sneaking off the steering wheel to clasp hers. He’d seen his dad do it a million times to his mom—sneak his hand across the couch or the car or the kitchen table, always marveling at the expression that came over his dad’s face. Always, somewhere in the back of his mind, hoping that feeling would come to him. And it had. He was in love. And it felt like it could last a lifetime. He could picture it—his hand sneaking across the kitchen table to catch hers twenty-five years from now. The swell of affection and satisfaction in his chest seemed almost unbearable. This was it. She was it.
Dinah’s sighs turned to a teary-eyed silence as he put his keys in the lock and opened the bakery door. She picked up the Back in a Minute sign from the counter and held it to her chest. “I’m home,” she said as Cameron put his arms around her.
“I am, too. Happy Valentine’s day, Dinah,” he said, and kissed her again, just because it felt so wonderful right there, where he was, in the Taste and See Bakery in Middleburg, Kentucky.
Chapter Twenty
“Fourteen thousand, eight hundred and twelve.” Janet looked up from her calculator at the table by the bakery door. “I’d never have believed it. Maybe that extra week of orders gave us just the boost we needed. We made it.”
“Well,” said Audrey Lupine, “close enough.”
He’d received two boxes today. One Cookiegram came from Aunt Sandy—from his parents, actually, via Aunt Sandy—a box of yellow-frosted stars with the message “WELL DONE!” on the telegram card. The other was a box of specially red frosted hearts with “I LOVE YOU, TOO.” That one didn’t have a telegram label because it didn’t need one.
“I’m so glad we got to have Dinah do both the cookies and our wedding cake,” Emily said.
“Not just me,” corrected Dinah. “I’d never have been able to do all these cookies alone. Good thing Cameron saw to the volunteer brigades to expand my staff.”
“But it’s just you on my wedding cake.” Emily looked concerned. “You’re not having volunteers do that?”
“No, honey, it’ll be highly trained professionals,” Dinah assured her.
Cameron was more than happy to be added to the guest list for this upcoming wedding. He was thrilled to be Dinah’s date for the occasion—not only would he get to see her finest creation in the amazing cake, but rumor had it he might get to hear her sing. He was itching for the chance to get that woman out on the dance floor, too. It was going to be a heartwarming celebration and he was glad to be part of it.
“Oh now, don’t pout Howard,” Dinah came out from behind the counter. “We’ll make your big ol’ goal yet.” She pulled a slip of paper out of her back pocket. “How much do we need, Janet?”
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