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As if chocolate fixed everything. But Bailey obeyed and popped it in her mouth. It didn’t fix anything, but it did make her feel better.
“Another toast,” Samantha proposed. “To the bitches who try to ruin us. May their chocolate supply dry up and their boobs fall off.”
Here Bailey was aware of her mother frowning in disapproval, and despite everything she had to smile just a little.
“Amen,” she said even as their mother murmured, “Really, Samantha.”
Sammy grinned. “It made her smile.”
For a moment. Bailey set down her mug with a frown. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“You’ll figure it out,” her mother assured her.
She sure hoped Mama was right.
* * *
Cecily couldn’t help feeling guilty as she got ready for her date with Luke. Her little sister was barely home, and here she was, leaving her. Bailey had a naturally happy disposition, so she’d managed to rally during the dinner at their mother’s the night before. She’d been impressed with the changes Cecily had made to the condo after buying it from Samantha, approving the sunny yellow walls and the cream-colored leather sofa and chair. She’d gotten tears in her eyes when she saw the Welcome Home, Bailey sign Cecily had hung on the door, and she’d been delighted with her room.
“This is almost as good as when we shared a room growing up,” she’d said with a smile. “I was always kind of sad when Mama and Daddy bought that bigger house and we each got our own room.”
Cecily had diplomatically kept her mouth shut on that subject. She’d enjoyed having the privacy.
“This will be fun,” Bailey had said, smiling brightly.
But later that night Cecily had heard her crying.
It was hard to come home feeling like a failure, but Cecily hoped that once some of the pain wore off, Bailey would be glad she’d decided to return. Meanwhile, she was going to have to keep working her way through the misery.
“Are you sure you don’t mind if I go out?” she asked as she came into the living room.
Bailey was parked on the couch with a can of pop, a bag of veggie chips and a stack of Oreos. She had the TV on and turned to the Food Network. Cecily looked to see what program she was watching, and Bailey quickly aimed the remote and killed it.
But not before Cecily had seen what was playing. “Isn’t that Serve It Up?”
Bailey pulled a chip out of the bag and studied it. “I was channel surfing.”
“Uh-huh.” Just what her sister needed—to sit around watching a reality TV show about successful caterers. “Why don’t you come out with us,” she suggested.
Bailey stared at her in horror. “On your date?”
“Luke wouldn’t mind.” Well, maybe he would, but Cecily was sure he’d understand.
“No,” Bailey said with a firm shake of the head. “I’ll be fine. Really.”
“If you watch that show, it’s only going to make you feel worse,” Cecily cautioned.
“I don’t think anything can make me feel worse.”
Cecily remembered how she’d tortured herself watching The Bachelorette after breaking up with Fiancé Number Two. “Trust me,” she said over her shoulder. “There’s always something that can make you feel worse. Come on,” she urged. “Come out with us.”
“No way,” Bailey said stubbornly. “I’ll be fine here. Really.”
“Okay, then promise me you won’t watch Serve It Up.”
Bailey heaved a dramatic sigh. “I promise.”
The doorbell rang and Cecily went to let Luke in. She opened the door, and there he stood, holding a single red rose and wearing a smile. Luke Goodman wasn’t the handsomest man Cecily had ever dated. He certainly didn’t have the swarthy good looks of a Todd Black. But he had a strong chin and broad shoulders. Broad enough to cry on. Hmm. Maybe he and Bailey...
“Hi,” he said and handed over the flower.
“Thanks,” she said. “That was really sweet.”
“I figured there was no sense bringing chocolate.”
She opened the door wide and invited him in.
He saw Bailey camped out on the couch and gave her a nod and a friendly smile. No chemistry there, Cecily could immediately tell. “Hi, Bailey,” he said. “You home visiting?”
“No,” she replied. “I’m...home.”
“Yeah? Did you come back to work at Sweet Dreams?”
“No. I...” She bit her lip. “I’m...I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do.”
He nodded, taking that in. “Well, it’s good to see you. Welcome back.”
“Thanks,” she said and frowned at her can of pop.
“We should get going,” Cecily said. “Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to come with us?” she asked in one last attempt to get her sister out and having fun. She was aware of Luke next to her, blinking in astonishment.
But he recovered quickly. “Schwangau has a killer new menu.”
If she’d had any doubts (which she hadn’t), here was proof positive that Luke Goodman was a super nice man. Yes, for once in her life she was being smart about love.
Bailey passed on the offer and shooed them on their way.
“So now we have all the Sterling sisters back in Icicle Falls, huh?” Luke said as they walked to his car.
“It looks like it. Of course, she’s not exactly home because she wants to be.”
“I know.”
She glanced at him in surprise. Although why should she have been surprised? It was a small town, and, for all she knew, Luke had even contributed to Bailey’s legal war chest.
“Hey, I check out the magazine covers when I’m waiting in the checkout line, too,” he said. Then, as though he’d read her mind, he added, “Yeah, I kicked in a few bucks for the cause.”
Once inside the car, which was a hybrid, she smiled. Luke’s head practically reached the ceiling. “Do you ever get claustrophobic in this?”
“I did at first,” he admitted. “But it’s good for the environment and good for the budget, so I adjusted.”
It seemed that he’d had to adjust to a lot of things, probably the hardest being the loss of his wife. How did he manage to stay so cheerful? Wired the same as Bailey, obviously. Those two should have been a match.
But there was no understanding the heart. After all, she shouldn’t be the least bit interested in Todd Black.
She wasn’t, she told herself. Not anymore.
“I think, in the long run, your sister will be glad she came back here,” Luke said.
“Now you sound like Samantha. According to her, Icicle Falls is the center of the universe.”
He smiled. “Isn’t it?”
“Well, there are other places in the world,” Cecily said.
“But not like this one.”
She laughed. “Just how many other places have you seen?”
“Seattle.”
“Well, there you go.”
“Paris.”
The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the perfume factories! Paris was a city Cecily had always wanted to visit. “You were in Paris?”
Now his smile wasn’t quite so happy. “My wife and I went there for our honeymoon.”
“Oh.” Cecily tried to think of something else, anything else, to say, but couldn’t.
“I have great memories of our time in that city, but it has more to do with her than the spots we visited. I have this theory. Any place can be great if you’re with people you care about.”
Oh, melt. This man was too good to be true. “So, that’s why you like it here?”
He nodded. “All the people I care about are right here in Icicle Falls. Plus, I like rock climbing and hiking and fishing. And chocolate,” he said, giving her a wink. “And the family who owns the chocolate company.”
“You’re sucking up to the wrong woman. Samantha’s the one in charge,” Cecily pointed out.
“Yeah, but there’s only one Sterling woman I’m interested in,” he said.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a tiny zing hit her. Luke Goodman had just hit her zing-o-meter. Maybe not as hard as Todd but she definitely felt it. Maybe, if she gave him a chance, he could hit it even harder.
* * *
Okay, Bailey told herself, you can’t sit around all night watching TV and eating junk food. Well, she could, but if she ate any more Oreos she was going to end up looking like a cookie jar.
So what? Cookie jars were cute. Everyone loved cookie jars. She popped another Oreo in her mouth.
If Mama could see her now, she’d say it was a waste to be eating store-bought cookies when she was such a good baker. Yeah, homemade was better.
“Except nobody ever got food poisoning from an Oreo,” she muttered and gobbled down another.
Okay, this really wasn’t helping. And it sure wouldn’t help to spend money she didn’t have on a whole new wardrobe. She shoved away the comfort food and turned off the TV.
Then wondered what to do. Whenever she was stressed or bored, she always found herself in the kitchen. Except the last thing she needed was more food. She’d be right back to the problem of developing cookie-jar hips. Anyway, if she went to the store for supplies, she was bound to run into someone she knew. Not any of her close friends, though, since they’d all moved away, but someone.
She thought of her girlfriends Mitsy and Bitsy still living it up in L.A. They were probably getting ready to go dancing at some trendy club while she sat around her sister’s place like a bored babysitter. Only boring people are boring, she reminded herself, quoting her mother’s favorite response when, as a child, she’d complained of being bored.
Quoting her mother made her remember the book she’d tossed on the guest room dresser. Other than cookbooks and Bon Appétit, she wasn’t a big reader, but her mother had obviously wanted her to read this newest book of hers. Well, she had nothing else to do.
She fetched the book and settled back on the couch with it. She ran her fingers along the gold-embossed script. New Beginnings. That was her.
She studied the artsy photograph of a red rose blooming in a blurred black-and-white garden. “Looks like a gardening book,” she muttered as she opened it to the first page. But her mother wouldn’t have given her this if she didn’t think there was something in it for her. She began to read.
Death in Winter, Growth in Spring
A garden is God’s constant reminder to us that we live in a world of change, a world of birth, death and rebirth. What happens to us is often exactly like what happens in our gardens.
What had happened to her had been nothing like what happened with the little garden she’d been growing in pots on her apartment patio. She’d lovingly watered her basil, rosemary and mint, and everything had thrived. She’d worked hard to grow her business, and that should have thrived, too.
Winter comes and the garden dies. But in reality it’s not dead. It’s merely dormant, waiting for the warmth of a new spring to bring back to life those perennials we so enjoyed the year before.
Bailey frowned. There was no bringing back her catering career.
It’s often the same with our lives. We plan for certain things and hope for positive outcomes, dream big dreams, only to see our plans crumble and our dreams die.
Now Bailey felt as though her mother had written this just for her. Was Mama psychic?
You may be mourning the death of a dream, but you don’t have to mourn without hope. Like a flower in winter experiencing a period of dormancy, use this time to heal and gather strength for spring, when a new dream will crop up.
Bailey frowned and tossed the book on the coffee table. She wasn’t going to be a caterer again, so she didn’t see how any new dream could “crop up.” Anyway, it was already spring, and she was all dead and shriveled.
What was on the Food Network now?
* * *
Luke did manage to register higher on the zing-o-meter dial later that night when he kissed Cecily at her door. It started as a soft kiss, with his fingers threading through her hair, and then got a little more adventurous with his tongue teasing the corners of her mouth. Okay, that was nice.
But was it as nice as Todd’s kiss?
Todd Black was a practiced seducer. Comparing the two men, Luke, who was Mr. Upright and Noble, and Todd, who was... Well, it was like comparing Superman and Jack Sparrow.
But she liked Jack Sparrow.
You are not going to get your heart broken again, she informed herself.
Except she didn’t know for sure that Todd was going to break her heart.
