Since Genevieve was wearing a plain pearl-colored short-sleeve sweater set and a skirt that made her look rather like June Cleaver, Evie found Sawyer’s sentiment quite sweet.
“Oh, stop.” Genevieve tapped him playfully on the arm. “You’re such a dork sometimes. You really need to see my dress. It’s absolutely stunning. A bit like Kate Middleton’s but with more sparkle.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have it here,” Claire said with that endlessly patient smile. Evie didn’t quite know how she pulled it off after all these months of dealing with Genevieve. By now, Evie would have wanted to shove a couple of healthy-sized tagua-nut beads in her ears to block out the nagging.
“After what happened to the last one, I’ve been keeping your wedding gown at home under lock and key.”
Taryn made a funny sound, like a little moan. She shifted in the chair and Evie wondered if she’d had a muscle spasm or something.
“Your house isn’t very far from here, right?” Gen said, a persuasive note to her voice. “We would be happy to wait here while you go get it.”
Sawyer shook his head, his cheerful blue eyes suddenly rueful. Poor guy. Until Gen mellowed out a little and learned not to take life—and what she wanted out of it—so seriously, she was going to lead him on quite a wild ride.
“I’m afraid I can’t leave the store right now,” Claire said in that endlessly calm voice. “Evie and Taryn are here to take Katherine to a special birthday lunch.”
“Happy birthday,” Sawyer said, beaming at the older woman.
Evie, Katherine and Claire all gazed at that spectacular smile, hypnotized. Eventually Claire shook her head a little as if to clear it. “Yes, well, I need to stay here to help my customers and then I’m leaving town for a couple of days.”
“But Sawyer is only going to be in town until Saturday!”
“No worries.” Sawyer gave them all that charming smile again and even Katherine seemed to go all gooey. With that smile and those good looks, he only needed half a brain—if that—to be a very popular politician, Evie suspected.
“I’ll be back in a few weeks,” he went on. “By then maybe the dress will be done and I’ll have the chance to see the finished product.”
“But it’s almost done now,” Genevieve insisted. If she had her way, Evie imagined she would insist Claire close the store for an hour simply to run home on Gen’s whim.
“I don’t mind waiting to see it. Thank you, anyway,” he said. He smiled at all of them and even winked at Taryn, which rather endeared him to Evie. “Come on, darling. We’ve got lunch reservations at Le Passe Montagne.”
“That’s one of my son’s restaurants,” Katherine said. “Make sure you leave room for their crème brûlée. It’s divine.”
“Thanks for the tip. I’ll be sure to do that.” He gave them all another of those killer smiles, tucked Gen’s arm into the crook of his elbow and led her out of the store.
“Wow.” Katherine blinked. “Okay, I finally get why Genevieve is a little anxious to make it official.”
“He’s cute,” Taryn said.
“Maybe we should go to Le Passe instead so we can all gawk at him over our crème brûlée,” Evie said.
Katherine laughed. “I’m perfectly content with the café. All that sugar hurts your teeth after a while. And the crème brûlée’s not that great for you either.”
Evie and Claire both laughed, though Taryn still looked confused.
“Thanks again, Claire,” Katherine said. “Would you like us to bring something back for you?”
“You know I love their chicken salad sandwiches. That would be just the thing today.”
“I’ll have Dermot wrap one up for you,” Katherine said. “Shall we?”
* * *
People were staring.
The café in town used to be her favorite place in town to eat, except Le Passe and the steakhouse her father owned up at the resort. The food was good and cheap at the café and her friends liked to come here together and hang.
Now everything was different.
Taryn slumped in the wheelchair, her chin on her chest. She wanted to go home, where people weren’t looking at her as if they were waiting for her to dribble food down her chin or something.
She should have tried to walk in, but since she looked like Bride of Frankenstein when she walked, they would only stare more.
They hadn’t even gone to a table yet. The café was busy and the sign said Wait to Be Seated, which meant everybody could stare and stare.
She wanted to go home, but she couldn’t. It was her grandma’s birthday. She could take the stares for her grandmother.
“Look at this! Three of my favorite girls!” Mr. Caine, owner of the café, beamed at them. Mr. Caine was nice. He had white hair and blue eyes and smiled as much as her grandma did. “How did I ever get so lucky to have you all here at once?”
“It’s Katherine’s birthday and we’re celebrating with her,” Evie said.
“Wonderful!” Mr. Caine grabbed her grandma’s hands, which looked tiny and white in his bigger ones. Grandma turned a little pink. “I just took out a fresh blackberry pie. I’ll save three slices all around for you. My gift to the birthday girl. What do you say?”
“Sounds perfect,” Evie said. “Dermot, it looks like the back section is closed. Any chance you could make an exception and seat us back there, away from the crowd a little?”
Evie was asking because of her, Taryn thought. She should be embarrassed but she was happy when Mr. Caine beamed at them, cheery and nice. “Of course. Of course! That’s our special reserved birthday section, just for my three favorite ladies. Come right this way.”
Grandma led the way and Evie pushed Taryn behind them. The other area was around a corner from the rest of the café and Taryn relaxed a little. It was quiet here and cool. Best of all, no one else was around to stare.
“This is perfect,” Evie said. “Thank you, Mr. Caine.”
Mr. Caine handed them a menu. “I’ll tell you a little secret. The turkey wraps are especially good today. I added a secret ingredient.” He winked at Taryn. “Lemon dill from my own garden. But whatever you pick, I’ll make it perfect for you.”
Before he left, he picked up Grandma’s hand. “And a very happy birthday to you, Katherine m’dear,” he said, his voice more Irish than usual. Taryn’s eyes widened when he kissed the back of her grandmother’s hand.
Evie raised her eyebrows after he walked away. “I had no idea Dermot could be so...charming.”
“Oh, hush,” Grandma said, but she looked pink and Taryn saw her looking at where Mr. Caine had gone. Grandma and Mr. Caine? Too weird. Almost as weird as when she’d looked in the kitchen window that morning and seen her dad hugging Evie.
She still didn’t know what to think about that. She liked Evie—most of the time, anyway. But her dad hadn’t dated anybody since, well, since she could remember. Maybe they weren’t really dating. Maybe they were just friends. She hugged her friends. Or she used to, anyway.
“Oh, look.” Evie’s voice was excited. “Maura and Sage.”
Through the window, Taryn saw them walk into the diner, and her stomach started to hurt.
Her grandmother’s eyes lit up. “Ask them to join us! We can make room.”
Fear and guilt were twisting snakes inside her. She didn’t want them to sit here. Layla’s mother and sister. She couldn’t look at them.
They must hate her. Layla was dead and it was her fault. Layla hadn’t even wanted to go that night but Taryn had talked her into it.
And then the rest.
Everything was because of her.
She shifted in her chair, wishing so much she could get up and run out of the café without falling over.
“Are you all right?” Evie asked quietly.
“Tired,” she said, a lie.
“Do you want to go home?” Evie asked, her eyes concerned.
If she moaned enough, Evie would take her back to the house. She could, but it wasn’t really fair. They were here for Grandma’s birthday. She couldn’t be a big baby and ruin everything.
“No. Not yet.”
“Okay. You just let me know if you’re worn out.”
Mostly she was tired in her head. It hurt to think sometimes. She was getting better. Every day, her mind seemed less cloudy and confused. Some of it was taking less medicine, she knew. Some was her healing. She worked hard when Charlie was there but maybe she should stop trying.
She didn’t deserve to get better. Not when Layla was dead because of her.
* * *
“So who’s watching the bookstore so you could escape for lunch together?” Evie asked as, to her surprise and delight, Maura McKnight-Parker and her daughter Sage pulled a couple of chairs over from a nearby table and squeezed in around their table.
She had been sure Maura would refuse to join them, especially after she saw Taryn there, but after a moment she seemed to collect herself and accepted the invitation. Still, Evie knew it couldn’t be easy for her. Where Genevieve might see the girl as a potential embarrassment, to Maura, Evie guessed that Taryn’s presence—her very survival—would be a stark reminder of all she had lost.
Great waves of pain seemed to radiate off Maura, and Evie wanted to reach across the table and squeeze her fingers, to whisper that she understood but she hadn’t told any of her friends about Cassie. When she had first come to Hope’s Crossing, the pain had seemed too raw to talk about with anyone else. Katherine knew and that had seemed enough. Later, the moment never seemed right. It wasn’t something she could just blurt out in conversation. Oh, by the way, I adopted a daughter with disabilities and loved her for two years before she died. So silly I never mentioned it before.
So why, when she had held Cassie’s memory so close to her, had she told Brodie? She didn’t quite know the answer to that herself.
“Ruth is working for us this afternoon,” Sage answered when Maura didn’t respond. Maura’s older daughter smiled, looking almost fey with her curly brown hair and the big, long-lashed green eyes that marked her as a McKnight. “She’s been such a lifesaver this summer.”
“Who ever would have guessed it?” Katherine murmured. “I think it’s wonderful Ruth enjoys working at the bookstore so much.”
Ruth Tatum was Claire’s mother, a difficult woman who, until a few months ago, had seemed discontent with life, complaining and finding fault and basically doing her best to infect everyone around her with her own unhappiness.
That snowy April night had changed many lives in unexpected ways, Evie thought. Ruth had stepped in to help a grieving and lost Maura at Dog-Eared Books & Brew—and apparently was thriving there.
“She seems like a different person when she comes into the bead store these days,” Evie said. She found it endlessly fascinating to watch people remake their lives, adapting and adjusting to new circumstances. Ruth was the perfect example.
“She hasn’t changed completely.” Maura’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes but at least it wasn’t despair. “This morning I heard her answer a customer’s question by saying that since Ruth had never met his mother, she had no idea whatsoever whether she would like the thirty-dollar coffee-table book he was considering buying. I had to pull her aside and gently remind her that when a customer asked whether his mother/sister/wife would like a book, the answer was always yes.”
Katherine, Sage and Evie laughed. Maura smiled that not-quite smile again, but Taryn still seemed upset and distracted.
“So when does school start, my dear?” Katherine asked Sage.
The girl gave her mother a quick look. “I’m thinking about taking another semester off.”
“No, you’re not,” Maura said. The determined glint in her eyes crowded out the pain there for a moment. “We’ve talked about this. You’re going back to school.”
“I plan to.” Sage looked just as determined. “But I think it would be better if I stick around this semester and start up again in January.”
“And do what? Make lattes? I can hire people to do that. You need to go back to school.”
“I will, when things are more settled here.”
“Things here are fine,” Maura retorted. Evie had the impression this wasn’t the first time these two had had this particular argument. “Between Ruth and me, we’ve got Dog-Eared covered. Your place is at school.”
“Wrong. If you need me here, that comes first, Mom.”
“Let’s take a vote,” Maura said to the table at large. “All in favor of Sage going back to school, raise your hand. Taryn, you too.”
Taryn raised her hand, unsmiling. Katherine lifted hers way up and Evie did, too, though she was sympathetic to both points of view. She had been the grieving mother and she had been the dutiful daughter, wanting to take care of her mother after her sister died.
She had taken one semester off from school right after the fire and then the next after her sister died from her injuries. By the time fall semester was to start, her mother had convinced her she should return—and two weeks into the new semester, while Evie was just beginning to try to get back into the routine of her studies, her mother had overdosed on pain pills.
She knew she had done the right thing, returning to school. Her mother had insisted, much as Maura was insisting now. But Evie would always wonder what might have happened if she had taken another semester off.
If she had been home, would her mother have been so very despondent and in such grave physical and emotional pain that she would see no other choice than to take such drastic, irrevocable actions?
The circumstances were not the same, of course. Maura was surrounded by a warm, supportive family. The McKnights had rallied around her after Layla’s death and they would continue to do so as long as she needed them. Mary Ella, her mother. Sisters Angie and Alex. After years of working as an undercover police officer in Northern California, even Riley lived back in Hope’s Crossing and would be settling here with Claire.
“You need to go back to school,” Maura insisted. “You can’t afford to get off track with your undergraduate work if you want to get into architectural school.”
Sage looked as if she wanted to argue the point further but she was interrupted by the server, a young man with blond dreadlocks who looked like he should be catching waves instead of slinging hash—and whom Evie was almost positive she’d seen working at the ski resort over the winter.
“Hey, ladies. I’m Logan and I’ll be your server this afternoon. Sorry for the delay. Afraid we had a bit of a mix-up in station assignments. I’ve been given strict instructions to take good care of you all or Dermot will have my hide—and I really need my hide, you know? Want to order drinks first or have you had enough time to look at the menu?”
Evie hadn’t even looked at the menu but since the turkey wrap was one of her favorites anyway, she decided to go with Dermot’s suggestion. Katherine and Maura did the same, while Sage ordered the veggie burger.
“Taryn?” Evie asked. “What about you?”
“Fries,” she said. “And...a cheese sandwich.”
After they’d placed their beverage orders, the apologetic surfer-dude waiter hurried away. Katherine, ever the diplomat, quickly spoke up to change the subject before Maura and Sage could begin arguing about college again.
“The Angel has been hard at work again. Have you heard?”
“No. What’s happened?” Evie asked.
“You know how Gretchen Kirk has been struggling since her jerk of a husband took off with that waitress from Breckenridge? Well, apparently she woke up one day this week to find boxes and boxes of brand-new school supplies from the Angel fo
r her three boys and Hannah. Clothes, shoes, backpacks, notebooks. The whole thing. And when she went to take care of their school fees, they were already paid.”
“What a great idea,” Claire exclaimed. “I wish I’d thought of that.”
Evie looked at Taryn and found her frowning. Hannah hadn’t said anything about it during her visits, but then she didn’t talk much about how things were at home, now that her father was gone.
“What’s the latest rumor about the Angel’s identity?” Evie asked. Between the art shows she’d been attending all summer and the last few weeks working with Taryn in virtual isolation, she felt completely out of the loop about the goings-on in town. “Is Claire still determined it’s a quorum of angels rather than a solitary individual?”
“Oh, the speculation runs rampant, depending on the source,” Katherine said. “I even heard one rumor that the Angel is a movie star who moved into a house up in Silver Strike Canyon.”
“I got something from the Angel.” Taryn had been sitting so quietly, apparently just listening to the conversation, that her unexpected contribution to the conversation seemed to take them all by surprise. Sage smiled at her but Maura looked down at her water glass, her features tight.
“What did the Angel give you?” Sage asked.
“A game system for exercising. We have...f-fun on it.”
Evie gave an inward cringe, hoping the girl didn’t mention that her favorite opponent was Charlie Beaumont. She didn’t want to hurt Maura by bringing up what was bound to be a touchy subject, considering Charlie had been responsible for her daughter’s death. To her guilty relief, Taryn subsided into silence once more and the conversation eddied around her.
The service was quick, even for the Center of Hope Café. Logan brought their meals out barely a few moments after he’d taken the order back to the grill, complete with a few garnishes Evie was sure were specially added for their table.
“Remind me to bring you here for lunch more often, if this is the kind of treatment we can expect,” she teased Katherine and was amused when the older woman seemed to grow flustered. Dermot Caine had been a widower for years, just as Katherine had been a widow. Interesting that they’d never dated. Maybe they simply needed a push....
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