So, just as she’d done a few days before, Lizzie filled out an application and put together a letter that explained who she was, why she was interested in the program, and how her professional experience was applicable, and then hit send before she could talk herself out of it.
Lizzie scrolled through her DVR, searching for something interesting to watch. She’d been officially unemployed for a couple of weeks, and she was well past the point of boredom. The longest vacation she’d ever taken was a four-night trip down to Mexico for her uncles’ joint birthday celebration, and even then she’d been anxious to get back to work.
Since her savings would take her through a few more months without a job, she’d been scrupulous about the opportunities she’d applied to. Now it was just a matter of waiting and seeing. And waiting some more.
With so much free time on her hands, she was at a loss for how to fill it. So far, she’d tried the whole spa day thing, but she’d been way too tense to enjoy the massage. And as she’d promised, she’d met up with Angelica for coffee, although not in River Hill where she might run into Max.
Not that avoiding him kept her from thinking about him.
While she’d hoped her desire to speak with him about what was going on in her life would wane the longer they were apart, the exact opposite was true. How many times had she been tempted to send him one of the dozens of online quizzes she’d taken so she could learn what mythical creature he was, or what his favorite coffee drink said about his personality?
And it wasn’t like she found any respite from the constant yearning for him when she fell asleep. If anything, the dreams might be worse. No matter what topic her mind latched onto at night, visions of Max somehow permeated her dreams. Things had gotten so bad that she’d woken up at three o’clock this morning—shaking and pulsing—his name on her lips as she came to visions of his face between her legs.
Discovering that she’d depleted her cache of go-to TV shows, Lizzie tossed the remote to the side and reached for her laptop. She opened up her browser and was midway through typing in the address for what was fast becoming her favorite celebrity gossip website when her phone rang. She glanced around to find it, eventually pulling it out from underneath a cushion, and her breath caught when she saw the name on the caller ID.
When she’d first become Mia’s caseworker, she’d programmed every possible number to reach both Vergarases into her phone—including the land line Max said he never used and was thinking of doing away with. Since Mia was too young to have a cell phone, Lizzie had encouraged him to keep it for the girl’s sake. There was no reason for Max to call her from it, so that meant it must be his niece. But why? If something was wrong with him, wouldn’t Angelica or someone have told her already?
As quickly as the question came to her, she tossed it aside. The answer was no. She wasn’t Mia’s caseworker anymore, and she certainly wasn’t Max’s girlfriend. At this point, she wasn’t even sure she could say they were friends.
So why was a nine-year-old reaching out to her out of the blue? Honestly, she was scared to find out. If something had happened, she wasn’t sure she’d ever forgive herself.
With shaking fingers, she hit the button to accept the call. “Hello?”
“Lizzie?”
“I’m here, Mia. What’s wrong?”
Please let Max be okay. Please let Max be okay. Please let Max be okay.
“I need your help.”
Lizzie sat up straighter, her pulse pounding in her head. “Anything. Tell me.”
The little girl’s breath hitched, and then her voice dropped to a whisper. “The nuns at school said I need to go bra shopping.”
All the blood rushed from Lizzie’s head in a single woosh, and she found herself growing lightheaded. “What?”
Mia hiccuped and Lizzie realized she was crying. “Sister Agnes said I’m indecent, and I can’t participate in recess or sports until I wear a bra.”
Lizzie was … horrified. Mia was only nine years old! Yes, she was a little more well developed than some of her peers, but there was nothing indecent at all about her. Sister Agnes, however, was a different story. Lizzie was ready to march straight into St. Aloysius and give the woman a piece of her mind.
Except … that wasn’t her place anymore.
So even though it went against every instinct she had, she took a deep breath and approached this conversation with reserved calmness. “What did your uncle say?”
She was back to whispering. “He doesn’t know. I’m scared to tell him.”
Scared? That didn’t sound like the appropriate response, from either her clinical or personal perspective. Max was the furthest thing from scary that she could think of. “Why?”
“Because he’s a boy, Lizzie.”
Aha. Lizzie fought a smile. What a perfectly reasonable thing for a nine-year-old girl to think. “That’s true,” she conceded. “But he’s also your guardian, and these are the types of things you two are going to encounter as you mature.”
Mia sighed. “Maybe he’ll get married, and I’ll have an aunt who can talk to me about this stuff instead.”
Those words, spoken so innocently, were like a punch to the gut. Lizzie had to clamp her mouth tightly shut to keep the sound of her pained gasp from reaching through the phone and alerting the girl to her distress. She pulled a breath in through her nose and forced herself to calm down. Mia could never know how much Lizzie was affected by the idea of Max meeting someone else. Eventually settling down with her. Growing their family.
“Maybe you can ask Naomi,” she offered, proud when her voice didn’t betray her chaotic emotions.
Mia snorted. “Naomi doesn’t wear a bra.”
“Angelica?”
“Liiiizzie,” Mia whined. “Angelica’s boobs are huge.”
The kid wasn’t wrong, but why that made the actress a bad choice for bra shopping was anyone’s guess. If anything, it made her a perfect candidate. “Which means she knows a thing or two about bras, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, lacy ones,” Mia shot back quickly, as if the style and fabric of Angelica’s bras was the most obvious thing in the world. “She’s very fancy. I don’t want to be fancy. That’s why I called you.”
Lizzie found herself smiling despite herself, and chose to take Mia’s backhanded compliment in the spirit with which it was no doubt intended. She might not be Mia’s caseworker any longer, but she still cared enormously for the girl. If she needed Lizzie’s support with this, that’s what she’d get. “Okay, I’ll call your uncle and arrange to pick you up in an hour. How does Kohl’s and In-n-Out sound?”
Mia squealed. “Yes! Oh my god. Thank you so much, Lizzie. You’re the best.”
When Mia hung up the phone, Lizzie sat on her sofa for a few minutes to catch her breath and prepare herself for the coming conversation. Once she mostly had control of her emotions, she pushed up off the sofa, dialed Max’s number, and brought the phone to her ear.
“Hey, Max. It’s Lizzie.”
15
How had he gotten here, exactly? Max parked his Land Rover in front of the department store with a sense of vague confusion. He unlocked the doors and Mia and Lizzie hopped out, chattering together, while he went over the course of events in his mind.
Seeing Lizzie’s name flashing on his caller ID, he’d picked up the phone with a surge of relief he didn’t really want to examine too closely, only to discover she was calling about Mia. His heart had plummeted as quickly as it had soared, and for a moment he thought he might actually pass out. The swirl of his body’s reactions had resolved itself into a burning sense of rage after Lizzie related what Mia had told her about Sister Agnes, coupled with a familiar sinking sense of failure and shame. Why hadn’t Mia hadn’t come to him about the comment from the nun?
Lizzie had reassured him it was totally normal for a nine-year-old girl to want to go to a female authority figure in this circumstance, but while he might understand it intellectually, somewhere inside of him eve
rything was getting tangled up. Memories of Isabel drifting away from him as she’d become a teenager—her deep-seated resentment and lashing out after their parents had died while he’d tried his best to support and understand her, only to fail miserably—were clawing their way up from where he’d tried to bury them. Sometimes it felt like he’d failed his sister long before she died.
They were so fundamentally different that he’d been at an utter loss how to help her when she’d drifted, without ambition, from gig to gig and wherever her whims took her. When she’d told him she was pregnant at twenty-three, it had been so long since they’d tried to understand each other that he hadn’t really known how to react. He’d asked if she needed money to take care of it, which had been entirely the wrong thing to say. She’d brushed him off, and the next time he heard from her she was on the road again with a new baby in tow.
With his memories of Isabel jumbled together with his worry for Mia, he’d somehow found himself standing in his driveway saying he’d come along on their shopping expedition—if his niece would allow it. He’d glanced at Lizzie, waiting for her to shut him down, but she’d quirked her lips in a strange little smile and said, “Whatever Mia wants. It’s your money, after all.”
Initially, he’d planned to hand over his credit card and go over to Ben’s office to review some of the franchise offers he’d received, an activity that was long overdue if he wanted to keep moving forward with the idea. But instead, he’d piled the three of them into his car and now here they were.
Lizzie slowed down to let him catch up to her, while Mia dashed ahead to the automatic doors and jumped in front of them to make them open. “You sure about this?” she asked quietly.
He glanced over at her. She was red-cheeked from a chill breeze that was blowing her hair away from her face, her neck tucked down into the collar of her jacket, while she grinned fondly at Mia in the not-too-far distance. He’d never seen Lizzie look more beautiful, even when he’d been the one to put the flush in her cheeks on their memorable day together.
Which she hadn’t brought up when she’d called him. He ought to be grateful that Lizzie loved his niece enough to help her out like this. He was. Honestly. But he also desperately wanted to discuss it. Now wasn’t the time, though.
“How bad could it be?” he asked instead.
She visibly restrained her laughter. “Have you ever gone bra shopping before?”
“Uh.” He swallowed. “Not … like this?”
She raised her eyebrows, clearly surprised by his answer, and he found his own cheeks heating as they entered the store. “I’ve, you know, been to Victoria’s Secret. And stuff.”
Her eyebrows went back down. “For your sister?”
“God, no.” He had no idea who had taken Isabel bra shopping, actually. Their parents had still been alive when she was Mia’s age, so it must have been their mother. Later, when she was a teenager, it might have been Ben’s mom. It had never occurred to him to ask. Another thing he owed the Worthingtons. He’d long ago paid back the money that Ben had lent him to buy out the previous owner of Frankie’s, but his debt to the whole family was something he’d never be able to repay. Not that they’d want him to.
As for Lizzie’s question … friends, lovers, or something yet to be defined, he had to tell her about Vanessa. “I had a serious relationship several years ago.”
“How serious?” She waved Mia to the left as they noticed that she’d been distracted by a display of charm bracelets. “Not our main objective today, kiddo.”
He blew out a breath. He hated talking about this. “I had a ring.”
She stopped dead and stared at him. “You did?”
He took her elbow and got her moving again, not particularly wanting Mia to come back over to investigate why they’d slowed down. “Yeah.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “She left.” God, he hated bringing this up. “I was too busy for her, I think.”
Lizzie actually snorted. “God forbid you spend time running a successful restaurant.” She shook her head. “She was an idiot.”
Something warmed in the pit of his belly, and he smiled at her. “Thanks. I hear she’s pretty happy now, so I guess it turned out okay.” In more ways than one. Vanessa wouldn’t have gotten along with his niece at all, he realized.
Lizzie was still shaking her head as they caught up to Mia, who was standing near the undergarments section of the store and looking entirely lost. Max glanced around, noticing they were surrounded by cups and bands and lacy bits in sensible beiges and bright jewel toned colors. He swallowed, and his eyes found Mia’s. . He was pretty sure the look on his face was identical to hers, and the humor sparkling in Lizzie’s eyes confirmed his hunch.
“Want to stay out here on the pathway where it’s safe?” she asked, gesturing to the wide strip of linoleum they stood on.
He took a deep breath. “I need to know this stuff, right?” He pointed at Mia. “Your boobs aren’t going anywhere.”
She turned bright red. “Uncle MAX!”
Lizzie giggled. “Come on, Mia. What we need is a little deeper in.” She took his niece by the hand and led them all toward a wall at the back of the section, to where what looked like sports bras hung. “You don’t need anything fancy, and nothing needs to be poking you or prodding you.”
Mia nodded, looking around. “Which one do I get?”
“Something like this.” Lizzie plucked a plain white t-back sports bra off a display hook, and Max let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. If Mia needed something with more structure and supportive cups and all that jazz he would absolutely buy it for her, but he couldn’t help but be relieved to learn that for now, what she needed was simple. She was only nine; she had plenty more time in her life for complicated.
He didn’t want to screw this up, and most of what he knew about female bodies and how to appreciate them was … not applicable in this situation. He let his gaze flick over to Lizzie for a bare second, but he couldn’t think about how much he appreciated her body or he’d embarrass himself in the bra section at Kohl’s.
He was going to have to read up on healthy approaches to women’s bodies, he realized abruptly. He knew perfectly well the kinds of pressure women faced in society, and what it could do to them—Angelica had shared some very frank stories during their cooking lessons about the differences in her life between her modeling days and when she’d become a ‘curvy’ actress, and what it had done to her confidence—and she had some of the healthiest self-esteem he’d ever seen. He needed to learn more about how to help Mia with that sort of thing.
Lizzie reached up to pull three more options down off the wall. “Okay. Let’s go try them on,” she said, guiding Mia toward the dressing room.
He followed behind, discovering a leather bench that he sat on just outside the door while they proceeded inside. After Lizzie had come and gone twice more with different options, he realized they might be a while. He stood and moved closer to the entrance of the fitting room. “Hey,” he called out to them. “I’m going to go, uh, look at some stuff for me.”
“Okay, we’ll be here,” Lizzie called back from somewhere in the depths of the long room.
He made his way back to the charm bracelet display Mia had been looking at, and picked one up. They were pretty cute, he had to admit as he bounced it gently in his palm. He picked up a bracelet that featured a unicorn charm, then hunted through the rest of the options and found two more that he liked: one was a paint palette, and the other a heart. He tucked them under his arm and turned to walk away, then turned back, a bracelet with a delicately forged anchor affixed to it catching his eye.
Before he could change his mind, he added it to his haul and carried it all over to the register. Lizzie might think it was just a cute nautical charm, but he’d know its significance—she was his anchor. She grounded him, and made his life calm in the heavy, turbulent seas of life. Mia adored her, too.
He’d give her the brace
let, and maybe when she sailed into the future she deserved, she’d let him add more charms for more memories they could make together.
Twenty minutes later he returned to find they were still at it. “I’m back,” he called.
“Almost done,” Lizzie said, and he heard what sounded like Mia giggling.
“Take your time.” He sat back down on the bench and stretched his legs out.
“Max Vergaras?” The voice was familiar. “What are you doing here?” It was Sean’s mother, Mary Amory. She ran The Breadery, and had for as long as Max had lived in River Hill. They’d worked together frequently—Frankie’s made most of their own breads and desserts, but occasionally Max ordered something special from the bakery across the square. And they often catered the same community events. Sean had taken on a lot more of the bakery’s day-to-day operations in the last year, which allowed his mom to take more time for herself these days.
“I’m, uh, waiting for Mia and—” He stopped as his niece and Lizzie came out of the fitting room.
Mary’s gaze turned shrewdly assessing, and her eyes flicked between Max and Lizzie with more interest than he thought was warranted.
“Hi,” Lizzie said, seemingly unfazed by the older woman’s open perusal. “I’m Lizzie.”
Max liked living in a small town most of the time, but once in a while it could be overwhelming—like when your friend’s mother was trying to sniff out potential gossip. Lizzie, bless her, seemed to just roll with it, though.
“Mary Amory,” Sean’s mom said, her eyes bright as she turned to his niece. “And you must be Mia.”
Mia nodded, her hand creeping into Lizzie’s. “Hi.”
The Chef's Cutie (The River Hill Series Book 5) Page 12
