“People don’t really get tired of cookies and happy hours, do they?”
She shrugged. “Well, anyone can do cookies and happy hours. It’s the attitude and work ethic, or lack of, that people get tired of.”
She thought they’d gotten tired of her. As someone who didn’t think he’d ever get enough of her, everything in him rebelled against that idea. And Evan would have put good money down on the fact that everyone who had ever worked with Cori, remembered her with a smile. Like they did his father. “I bet you were the one they came and got when a customer was pissed off, though.”
She tipped her head. “How did you know that?”
“Because you make people feel good, Cori.”
She wet her lips, looking very much like she wanted to say something but was carefully considering it. Finally, she thrust out her hand. “I brought you pie.”
He really wanted to delve into it more. The whole she-was-amazing thing. But he’d been the one telling her to take it easy on some of her ideas. He still didn’t know what a photo booth had to do with a pie shop. Yet, he loved the idea. He’d carefully steered her toward the office and books rather than entertain that idea and that made him feel like crap. And restless. And like he was making a mistake.
“What did I do to deserve pie?” he finally asked.
“Well, I take bacon very seriously. And I realized I’d never introduced you to bacon and Nutella. So…” She sighed. “You were on my mind the other night when you were over having movie night with Ava. And this is what turned out.”
He took the pie from her, staring at it. He’d been on her mind. Thank God. Because he thought about her constantly. “You made me bacon and Nutella pie?”
“Hank and the guys said it was really good.”
“I’m sure it is.” Holy crap. He was already on the verge of begging this woman to let him worship at her feet. And now this? He was a goner.
“I invited them all over,” she said. “The other night. To the shop. I…”
She paused and Evan looked up. “You invited Hank and the guys over to the shop?” he asked. “They weren’t there at their usual time?”
“It was during the movie night,” she said. “I was there…and thinking, or wondering, I guess…about my dad. And I found some pictures of me and my sisters in his drawer and I…suddenly had the urge to talk to someone. About him.” She swallowed. “The guys came over and told me stories about him, told me the stories he’d told them. It was…great.”
Evan felt a fist squeezing his heart, and he had to try twice to finally get a smile out. She hadn’t talked to him because he’d been busy watching a movie with her sister. He was glad that she’d talked to the guys though. They’d known Rudy even better than Evan had. Still, he really wanted to be the one who was there for her. “I’m glad. I’m proud of you,” he added, truly meaning it.
She seemed startled. “Proud of me?”
He nodded. “Based on your past with him, it was a risk. You didn’t know how those stories would turn out.”
She gave him a soft smile. “But I did. Because of you.”
The fist around his heart squeezed harder. “Because of the stories I told you about him?”
“Because you loved him.”
Evan clenched his teeth and fought the urge to grab her and hug her. Because he’d never let her go once he started. “That means a lot to me.”
“Me too.”
Not knowing what else to do, besides the hugging, of course, he shuffled some papers into a folder and tucked them inside his bag.
“Where’s your briefcase?” she asked, eyeing the bag.
He shook his head. Damn that briefcase. “That case isn’t really me.”
She grinned. “No kidding.”
He narrowed his eyes. She was clearly teasing him. “I was trying to make a good first impression.”
“You did,” she told him with a nod. “But it was the tennis shoes that did it.”
He chuckled. “You want to stay for a little while?”
“Sure. If I’m not interrupting?”
“No, not at all. I just finished my last meeting of the day.”
“Some big legal case?” She boosted herself up on the table, her feet resting on the bench next to him. Because Cori didn’t even sit at picnic tables like everyone else.
God, he was crazy about her.
“Um, no,” he said, focusing on her question instead of the bare legs that were slick from the rain and very much within stroking distance. “I was actually the client in that meeting.”
“Oh? Everything okay?”
She looked concerned. He nodded. He hadn’t told anyone else about what he’d been looking into, but suddenly he wanted to tell her. “I had this idea and I just wanted to see what it would take.”
She tipped her head. “What’s the idea?”
“I was talking with a company that builds miniature golf courses. I’ve been thinking about putting one in. Here in the park.”
“Oh, that’s so cool!” She grinned. “I love mini-golf.”
Of course she did.
“Where are you going to put it?” she asked, scanning the area as if she could see the perfect spot from here.
But she could. The perfect spot was a few yards behind the pavilion.
“I haven’t really decided.”
“When are you going to do it? Can you get it in before this summer? How long does something like that take to build?”
He shook his head with a smile. He couldn’t help it. Her excitement was contagious. “Yeah, they said they could start next month.”
“That’s really fun! Everyone will be excited.”
“But I’m not doing it.”
She frowned. “What? Why?”
He sighed. “Because I’m now in charge of a foundation that has a ten million dollar trust.”
“Yeah. Exactly. He gave you the money for the town, right?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
Her frown deepened. “What are you talking about?”
“Rudy gave me a shit ton of money to take care of this town. I don’t think he meant for me to build a mini-golf course.”
“But that was the first thing you thought of?”
“I’d thought of it a while ago—that it would be something fun and that my dad would have loved—but I hadn’t looked into the details. I knew it would be too expensive.”
“And now you did look into it.”
“Yeah.”
“And you can definitely afford it now.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Don’t you think a ten million dollar trust should be used for something more…serious?”
“Serious? Like a library or something?”
“Yeah.”
“Does Bliss need a library?”
“No. We have one. But I just…it’s ten million dollars.”
She laughed. “Well, what did Dad want you to do with the money?” she asked. “What did you talk about? What did he think the town needed?”
Evan shook his head. “He didn’t tell me anything specifically. He told me it was up to me.”
Cori shrugged. “Well, then you should build the mini-golf course.”
“I think he wanted me to do something more than that,” Evan told her.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because he told me I could do more than what I’d been doing.”
“Ah.” She didn’t say anything more for a moment.
Then she shifted, dropping down to straddle the bench beside him. The action made the skirt pull up on her thighs and made him wonder what kind of panties she was wearing today. But he made himself focus on her face.
“Evan, are you sure you’re thinking about Rudy here, and not your grandfather?”
Evan felt like she’d just punched him in the chest. “Wh—” He cleared his throat. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you’ve been following in your father’s footste
ps all these years. And you’ve felt a little guilty about it because your grandfather wants you doing…more…something different. Every time you do something fun for this town, you feel like you’re honoring your dad on one hand, and disappointing your grandfather on the other.” She reached out and covered his hand with hers. “I think you need to figure out who you want to be. Not become your father, not rebel against your grandfather, but decide who you are. And then be that guy with your whole heart.”
His whole heart was thudding almost painfully against his sternum at the moment as he stared at the party girl who had been keeping people firmly on the other side of the wall around her heart. The guys at the coffee shop had probably given her some of this insight. No doubt they’d told her about his grandfather. Maybe even his dad. But some of this—maybe a lot of this—was coming from her. Because they really were a lot alike. “Like you’re working on deciding who you want to be?” he asked, his voice gruff.
She didn’t seem surprised that he’d figured that out. Or said it. She gave him a nod. “Yeah. Like that.”
He turned his hand over and laced his fingers with hers.
“Rudy knew you really well, right?” she asked softly.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then I think you need to consider the fact that when he said you could do more, he didn’t mean you should do something different. It’s very possible he meant you should do more of what you do.”
“What I do?” He gave a short laugh. “I don’t really do anything, Cori. I have fun.”
“And he knew that. He knew who you were. He knew that you loved this town. He knew that you made people happy. And he loved you, Evan.” She squeezed his hand. “He would have wanted you to keep being who you are.”
Evan stared at her, his heart pounding suddenly.
“When you and Rudy hung out, what did you do?” she asked.
“Ate pie,” Evan said hoarsely. “Went to ball games. Fished. Sat here.”
“So you weren’t serving soup in a homeless shelter or creating a workable plan for universal health care,” Cori said.
He lifted an eyebrow. “He helped us serve breakfast for the veterans on Veterans Day.”
She smiled. “My point is, Rudy knew you, he knew the things you loved, he loved those same things with you. He was all about giving people a place to get together and have fun and enjoy each other and the town. It sounds to me like he would have definitely played mini-golf with you if it had been here.”
Evan shook his head slightly. “You realize that you’re saying nice things about Rudy and you’re assuming that he was a different guy than the one you knew.”
“I know,” she said. “He really did change.” She looked a little sad, but she smiled. “I’m glad he was happy here. Evan, there’s no way he would have wanted you to be anything other than the guy he got to know and love. And I hate that you don’t think you take things seriously. You take this town and your friendships seriously, you’ve taken Rudy’s trust seriously, you take your role as the guy who makes everything more fun seriously.”
He leaned in. “Ditto,” he said. He swallowed. “You and I are very much alike.”
She nodded, her lips pressed together.
“So you don’t think I should be using the money on scholarships and helping add on to the medical clinic and reroofing the nursing home?” he asked. Damn, he really wanted to build that mini-golf course suddenly.
She laughed. “Of course you should do all of those things too. But geez, you have ten million dollars. You could do all of those things ten times each.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “But make sure you invest some of it. You’d be surprised how fast you can spend a couple million dollars.”
“Especially when you’re giving it away a couple of million dollars at a time, right?”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
But he could tell she knew what he meant. “You think Rudy didn’t know that you’d blown almost your entire trust fund on donations to charities?” he asked.
“He knew?”
“And he loved it, Cori.”
Her smile got wobbly.
“Mud pies.”
She blinked at him. “What?”
“You should have a place where the kids can make mud pies. Something fun and goofy and pie related.”
“At the shop? Ava will have a coronary.”
“At the Parking and Pie party,” he said.
Her voice got softer. “What are you talking about?”
He couldn’t resist any longer. He leaned over, put his hand on her neck and pulled her to stand. Then he brought her up against his body, his hand in her hair. “I can’t do this anymore,” he told her, staring down into her eyes.
“Do what?” she whispered.
“Hold you back. Squelch your ideas. Tell you to put things on hold and that they’re not your domain.” He kissed her hot and hard, then pulled back. “You are amazing, Cori. And your dad knew that about you. He really did. I think he realized that he wanted you to keep being you, doing what you do, too. And okay, you aren’t supposed to make the pies or wait on the customers, but you should definitely throw that party, and put a photo booth in, and have themes like sweetie pies and kiddie pies—”
“And bacon pies?”
“You have more than just Nutella and bacon?”
She nodded. “Bourbon apple and bacon. And—”
He cut her off with another kiss. “Fuck yes, you should do bacon pies,” he told her when he pulled back. “And anything else you can dream up.”
“But that’s not my area. I can’t screw up the trust.”
“Your area is the business. The money. Anything that helps increase that should be your domain.”
Her eyes widened. “A loophole, Counselor?”
He grinned. “Something like that.”
“And that’s okay?”
“It’s more than okay. You have to do it.”
“Which thing?”
“All of it.”
She paused. Then lifted a hand to his face. “You should never say all of it to me,” she said quietly. “All is a lot with me. I’m best in small doses.”
That was the second time she’d said that about herself. “Well, I think you’ve finally found someone who can take it all. Who wants it all. All at once.”
“You sure?” Her voice was almost a whisper now.
“I love that you can’t even make plain popcorn,” he told her, unable to hold any of these feelings back any longer. “That you can’t not add garnishes to everything. You immediately added caramel to Hank’s coffee. You immediately added color to the shop. You immediately added charity to your park party idea. You always, instantly, make things better.” He paused and took a breath. “You’ve made me better.”
Her eyes were shimmery and she lifted her other hand, bracketing his face. “You were amazing way before I got here.”
He shook his head. “All the things I’ve done, the fun, the parties, the meetings at the pond, paperwork in the park, were all efforts to be a guy people wanted to have around. It was a conscious thing. Something I’ve been working at. And not feeling particularly successful at, to be honest. But you…you don’t even have to try. And you do it in little ways. You add bacon to pie. You add sprinkles to coffee. You let the guys who spent too much time in that shop, give input on the curtains—yes,” he said when she opened her mouth, “—I heard about you bringing them fabric swaths to look at. You’ve asked around town about whose furniture and appliances are in the shop and you’ve put their names on the stuff. And yes,” he said again with a smile at her surprised look. “I heard about that too. You’ve made your sisters have dinner with you every night and every night they find something on their pillow when they go to bed—a quote, a flower, a chocolate, a bath bomb. Noah told me about that,” he said, before she could ask. “You’ve made people smile all over this town, Cori, and it’s just by being you.”
She licked her lips, tears
in her eyes. “I do try at some of that,” she said quietly. “The stuff on their pillows…I do that so they want me around even when I’m talking about photo booths in the pie shop and planning parties in the park and driving them crazy.”
He moved his hand to her cheek, his thumb stroking over her cheek. “I love and hate that you don’t realize how much people want you around.” He took a deep breath. “I want that in my life—that make-every-single-little-thing-even-better—and it makes me look at the little things I can do. I don’t need to throw big elaborate parties or help organize street dances or put in a mini-golf course. I can make someone’s day with something a lot simpler than that.”
“You make my day every time you smile at me.”
He felt his own smile drop. He put his forehead against hers and gave a little groan. He needed someone he could make happy just by being himself. She was right, Rudy had known him. And loved him. And all they’d really done was sit and talk. Cori was a lot like her father. “I need you, Cori.”
Cori took a deep breath at that and then pulled back. She gave him a big smile. “I’d better go.”
She started to turn, but he tightened his hold. “What are you talking about?”
She took another breath and smiled, though her eyes still glistened with tears. “I always leave at the high point.”
Uh-huh. He pulled her back to him and put his lips against hers. “I get it. You get out while people are still feeling good, before there’s a chance for it to go bad. But you don’t have to do that here.”
“Things are good right now.”
“Yeah, they really are. But,” he added, “this is not the high point of this afternoon.”
“No?”
“No. That’s going to happen about thirty minutes after I get you into my bedroom and out of your clothes.”
She hesitated then, her eyes going wider. Finally, she said, “Thirty minutes after?”
“I have a lot of things to do before…the high point.”
She blew out a breath and seemed to make a decision. “Make it twenty minutes and I’m in.”
He grabbed his bag, stuffing the rest of his paperwork inside, and then took Cori’s hand as she scooped up the pie. They started across the park.
Evan called Claire as they hurried across the wet grass. It was still misting slightly, and Cori could only imagine how curly her hair was getting.
Diamonds and Dirt Roads Page 23
