by JoAnn Ross
10
Impossibly, things had gotten worse when Madeline had reached the airport ticket counter, only to discover that the last flight west from New York had left an hour earlier.
She could have called Pepper, whom she knew would let her crash at her Upper East Side apartment for the night. But the pitiful fact of the matter was that she felt so brittle, so cold, she was afraid that even the slightest bit of pity or sympathy would have her shattering into so many tiny shards, she’d never be able to put herself back together again.
No. Right now, she needed to lick her wounds in private. Which was how she ended up spending the night in the hotel across the street from the airport. Exhausted as she was, she nevertheless found sleep an impossible target as she lay on her back in one of the two double beds, rerunning not just her earlier conversation, but her entire marriage, like an unending loop she could not turn off. Or mute.
The scenes continued flashing through her mind as she made the flight to Portland, squeezed between a teenager who keep shaking his head in time to whatever music was pounding through his iPod and an elderly woman whose knitting needles never stopped flying as she worked on a sweater for, she’d informed Madeline proudly, her eighth grandchild.
She tried watching a movie, but wouldn’t you know it? It was a romantic comedy, which she definitely wasn’t in the mood for. At. All.
She read the in-flight magazine but couldn’t remember a single word.
So, in order to escape her chatty aisle neighbor, who, fortunately, hadn’t recognized her, she closed her eyes and pretended to sleep while visions of that damn video danced in her head.
She was exhausted when she arrived in Portland. But not wanting to make her grandmother drive all the way into the city from Shelter Bay, she rented a car, and headed, like a homing pigeon, to Lavender Hill Farm.
It was a drizzly afternoon by the time she drove down the curving, lavender-lined roadway to the farm, and Madeline was feeling on the verge of collapse. The house, which had proven a haven after her parents’ deaths, hadn’t changed. It still gleamed as white as a surf-washed seashell. The double porches on both levels invited the inhabitants to sit, unwind, and enjoy the view of the gardens and the ocean beyond.
Her grandmother, whom she’d called when she’d reached the coast road, was waiting on the covered front porch and welcomed her home with a warm and comforting hug.
“Don’t worry, darling,” she said. “Everything always looks better after a good sleep.” She held Madeline’s upper arms and kissed both her cheeks. “I already have a nice pot of chamomile tea brewing. It’s just what you need to soothe what hurts.”
Sofia De Luca had always claimed that there wasn’t a problem a stout cup of tea couldn’t cure. So Madeline took a cup with her as she staggered upstairs to the bedroom that hadn’t changed in the ten years she’d been away from home, stripped off her wet clothes, and put on the pair of pajamas that were lying on the end of the four-poster bed covered in the wedding-ring quilt Sofia had made for Madeline’s parents for their wedding.
She’d taken the quilt to New York with her, but when she’d moved into Maxime’s larger, more ornate apartment, he’d (surprise, surprise) declared it too rustic and homemade for his taste. So, rather than argue, she’d returned it to her grandmother, who’d put it back on the bed in the room where Madeline had spent her teenage years.
It was in this room where she’d sobbed into the feather pillow for her parents. Where she’d gossiped with girlfriends about boys, practiced kissing the back of her hand, and once had tried kissing her dressing-table mirror. It was here that she’d daydreamed about Heath Ledger, after watching him play outsider bad boy Patrick Verona in 10 Things I Hate about You.
Knowing how much she loved the movie, Lucas had bought her a poster, which still hung on the wall opposite her bed, for her eighteenth birthday.
Although she’d torn Lucas’ photo into pieces, then burned those pieces on hot charcoal in her grandmother’s outdoor kitchen grill, she hadn’t had the heart to take down the poster, which was proving even more bittersweet, considering the talented actor’s too-early death.
“How about ten things I loathe about you, Lucas Chaffee?” she muttered as she climbed into the same bed in which she’d wept over Lucas’ betrayal.
Although Lucas’ photo might be gone, there were others on her dresser. A photo of her parents in the courtyard of Trattoria Gabriella on the day of her baptism. Her mother, dressed in a flowing dress printed with red flowers, was holding her in her arms. While her father looked down at them, beaming with obvious paternal pride. Sofia, who’d made the white lace baptismal dress for her own daughter, Madeline’s mother, was standing by her daughter’s side, looking like a woman who’d been given a deed to her own diamond mine. Not that her grandmother had ever cared about jewelry. Her treasures had always been her plants, her friendships, and, most of all, her husband and her family.
As she’d always been about so many things, Sofia proved to be right about the tea. It did prove soothing. So much so that Madeline had no sooner returned the empty fragile china cup to its saucer and put her head on the down-filled pillow that smelled of the lavender her grandmother used in the rinse water when the events of the past twenty-four hours came crashing down on her.
Madeline had no idea how long she slept. It had apparently stopped raining, because light was filtering in through the white lace window curtain. Climbing out of bed, she went to the window and gazed out over the gardens and beyond, to where the sun had begun to set over the sea. The gilded, white-capped waves ebbed and flowed, as they had for eons, reminding Madeline what her grandmother, who’d certainly suffered her own troubles, always told her—that however grim things seemed to be at any given moment, life went on. And it was your choice how to live it.
Something to think about later, she decided as her stomach growled, reminding her that since she hadn’t had any appetite after her confrontation with Maxime, the last time she’d eaten was yesterday afternoon, at the bar with Pepper.
She went downstairs and headed straight for the kitchen, where a note taped to the refrigerator with a photo magnet portraying a wicker basket of lavender informed her that her grandmother had gone into town.
Out for a bit to do some shopping, Maddy, darling, it read in the still-strong Palmer cursive handwriting Sofia had been taught by nuns so many decades earlier. I have my cell on, so if there’s anything special you’d like me to fix for dinner, just call. Meanwhile, help yourself to anything you need. xoxo, Gram.
Given that her grandmother had been the one to continue Madeline’s cooking education where her parents had left off, she opted to leave the menu up to her. Though she did feel guilty about causing her extra work.
Lavender Hill Farm’s kitchen had always been the heart of the home. The rough-hewn beams and a native-stone fireplace were original to the house. As were the hickory floor and pine cabinets. It had been Madeline who’d taken the doors off the cabinets while she’d still been in high school, pointing out that not only did it make dishes more accessible, but it was also more modern.
Which now, thinking back on it, looking at the tattered cookbooks lining those shelves, modernity was probably the one thing her grandmother didn’t want in a kitchen, but she’d never offered a single word of dissent.
The plank farm table and benches took up the center of the room. Madeline traced her mother’s name, which had been carved in the top of the table decades before Madeline was born. When she’d first arrived after her parents’ death, she’d touched that name several times a day, as if as long as it was still there, her mother wasn’t entirely gone from her life. The various nicks and scratches, and even a few burns, spoke of all the years of meals served in this room.
A dog, who apparently had been snoozing on one of the hand-hooked rag rugs Sofia had created over a lifetime of rainy winters, looked up as Madeline entered the kitchen.
“Well, hello.” She crouched down and patted the dog�
��s wide head. From the graying muzzle, Madeline knew this must be the bulldog Sofia had adopted after losing her beloved golden retriever, Rosemary. “You must be Winnie.”
The wiggle of the dog’s rear end as it wagged its stumpy tail, along with a lap of the tongue on her face, confirmed the guess. It also confirmed that Winnie was no guard dog.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to have breakfast with me?”
The clock might say nearly evening, but her stomach said breakfast. And apparently Winnie agreed, since her question earned an enthusiastic woof.
“I guess the answer’s yes.”
The Sub-Zero refrigerator and stove were two of the few changes in the kitchen. Madeline had bought them for her grandmother when she’d signed her first contract with the Cooking Network. Maxime had complained that the expense was unnecessary, since Sofia wasn’t a professional cook, and besides, she’d done just fine for years with her mismatched, outdated appliances.
Madeline had known at the time that it wasn’t just the expense that annoyed him. Her husband had never taken to Sofia De Luca. And while her grandmother had never offered a negative word—other than to ask Madeline after the rehearsal dinner, and again right before she’d walked her down the aisle, if she was certain this was what she’d wanted.
“How about it was what I thought I wanted,” she mused as she opened the stainless steel door to check out the fridge’s contents.
Brown eggs rested in a blue ceramic bowl. There was milk, and in the produce drawer, she found button mushrooms, red bell peppers, and fresh spinach, which undoubtedly came from her grandmother’s greenhouse.
“What would you say to an omelet?”
Another woof.
“And we might as well have some bacon.” One of the ultimate comfort foods. It also got the dog up into a sitting position, looking as alert as Madeline figured an English bulldog could look. The little tail began thumping on the floor.
She opened the wooden bread box. “And English muffins.” The breakup of a marriage was no time to worry about calories.
She cracked the eggs, saving the shells for her grandmother’s compost bin, and washed the vegetables. As she was slicing them, which she’d done thousands of times over the years so automatically, her thoughts drifted back to New York.
Her phone battery had gone dead during the drive from Portland to the coast. As she’d pulled up in front of the farmhouse, she’d decided that she wasn’t going to recharge it. Not yet.
But she’d have to call Pepper and let her know what was happening. Also, since she’d walked out with only her carry-on bag, she’d need to arrange to have someone to go by the apartment and pick up some clothes for her.
Which brought up a staggering fact she hadn’t even realized until now.
Before marrying Maxime, she’d had friends. True, most were involved in the food business in some way, but she’d had an active social life outside the kitchen. These past few years, all she’d done was work.
“And I wasn’t even doing the work I wanted,” she told Winnie, who cocked her head but didn’t take her eyes off the bacon Madeline moved on to slicing. “How wrong is that?”
“Sounds wrong to me, all right.” The deep voice behind her had her spinning around with the carving knife in her hand.
“Whoa!”
The man, wearing worn jeans, a denim shirt opened over a white T-shirt, and work boots, lifted both hands. One hand was holding a metal measuring tape, which went along with the tool belt worn low, gunslinger style, on his lean hips. In the other he had a metal clipboard. “Sorry if I surprised you.”
“What makes you think that sneaking up behind someone’s back—in their own kitchen—might be even the slightest bit startling?” She layered on the sarcasm as thick as the slab of country bacon she’d been slicing.
“I didn’t know anyone was here.” A yellow pencil was stuck behind his ear, drawing attention to the unruly sun-streaked hair she’d once loved to comb her fingers through. “Sofia said she was going shopping.”
“She was.” Madeline gestured toward the note on the fridge. “Is,” she corrected.
“So I figured the house was unoccupied.”
Did Lucas Chaffe have to look so damn good? Couldn’t he have gotten fat? Okay, his work as a SEAL running around in the mountains of Afghanistan—the last she’d heard from Sofia, who insisted on updating her on everyone in town, even someone she had absolutely no interest in—undoubtedly kept him fit. But couldn’t he have at least lost some of that thick hair?
“Obviously you figured wrong.”
“It appears so.…Would you mind doing me a favor?”
“What?”
“Could you put that down?” He lowered his gaze from her face to the carving knife she’d forgotten she was still holding. “I’ve seen Taliban terrorists who don’t have knives as big and sharp as that one.”
“I suspect that’s an exaggeration. Besides, I wouldn’t think a big, bad SEAL would be afraid of a simple carving knife,” she said even as she laid it on the butcher-block countertop. “What are you doing here?”
She couldn’t imagine Lucas robbing anyone, let alone her grandmother. Then again, he was certainly still outrageously handsome enough to play the movie role of a cat burglar. Though, she noticed, studying him more carefully, his face was leaner, more chiseled than it had been ten years ago. During the intervening years, he’d gone from a hot boy to a man.
Eyes, which had always reminded her of the melted chocolate in s’mores, narrowed. “Sofia didn’t tell you?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if she had.” Though she had mentioned an exciting adventure. Omitting, Madeline noted, his name.
“She wants to turn this place into a restaurant.”
“You’re kidding.” Madeline looked around the cozy country kitchen she’d spent five wonderful years of her life in.
“I was kind of surprised, too. But that’s what she says. And she hired me to help her make it happen.”
“Since when do Navy SEALs cook?”
He laughed at that. The rich, deep, all-too-familiar sound sent waves of emotion flooding through her. Pain. Anger. And, dammit, an unbidden, knee-weakening burst of hormones so strong it had her reaching for the edge of the counter for balance.
“She said she’s going to start interviewing cooks in the next month or so. As for me, other than heating up an MRE, which is military speak for meals ready to eat, more commonly referred to as Meals Rejected by the Enemy—and believe me, you’d never want to try them—I’m pretty much sunk.
“Jake, down at the Crab Shack, rubs his hands in glee when he sees me coming. I suspect he’s got his eye on a new fishing boat. And I’ll probably end up funding Kara and Sax’s kid’s college tuition with takeout from Bon Temps.”
“Kara’s pregnant?”
Her grandmother had caught her up on how Kara had come back to town with a son, and was now engaged to Shelter Bay’s former bad boy, who just happened to be a former SEAL teammate of the man who’d invaded Sofia’s kitchen. But she hadn’t mentioned a pregnancy.
“Not that I know of. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if she was. You pretty much risk pheromone overdose being anywhere in the proximity of those two lovebirds.”
Although he’d broken her heart, then stomped on it, Madeline felt her lips threatening to curve. “That’s sweet. They were such good friends in high school. It’s nice they ended up together.”
“Yeah. They’re good people who’ve both been through a lot and deserve to be happy. Though it was a bitch Kara lost Jared. I guess Sofia told you about that?”
Madeline nodded. “It must have been awful for her.”
And, she admitted, put her own failed relationships more in perspective. As bad as being cheated on was—and it felt like hell—she couldn’t imagine losing her husband and the father of her child to murder.
“I’m sure it was about the worst thing that could happen,” he agreed. “Which is why seeing the two of them togethe
r, with Sax playing dad to Jared and Kara’s son, is so cool.”
“I’m sorry about your father.” Sofia had called her about Duncan Chaffee’s unexpected death while she’d been packing for her trip to Omaha. As much as she still disliked Lucas for what he’d done to her, she never would have wished this pain on him.
He shrugged shoulders that appeared wider, more muscled than when she’d loved running her hands over them. Before continuing and moving them down the smooth, warm flesh of his back, and…
Madeline gave herself a stiff mental shake. Reminded herself that she was not the romantic girl she’d once been. The teenager who’d been forced to rebuild her life from the ashes of the pyre that had been what she’d honestly believed to be true, forever-after love.
Will you never learn?
“Yeah…well…” To the young girl she’d once been, the two-years-older Lucas had always seemed so confident. So sure of himself. It was strange to see him struggling now.
“Dad had a good life, you know. Actually, a pretty great life, with a few hard speed bumps along the way.” He shook his head. And although it might have been a trick of the sunlight reflecting off the water outside the window, Madeline thought she saw a suspicious sheen in his eyes. “Damn.”
He dumped the tape and clipboard on the table and thrust a hand through his hair. “It hurts, Maddy.” The fingers of his other hand, which she could still remember exploring every inch of her body, splayed across his heart. “It hurts like hell.”
Even as Madeline fought against it, she could feel that lingering resentment she’d kept buried inside her starting to crumble, like a sand castle at high tide.
Please, no! She didn’t want to care about any man right now. Not her cheating, lying, gold-digging husband. And definitely not Lucas.
But old habits, and, it appeared, old feelings, died hard.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
To keep from touching him, from putting her arms around him and trying to soothe, not as a former lover, but as the friend she’d once been, she jammed her hands into the pockets of the flannel pajamas she’d forgotten, until now, that she was wearing. “He was always so sweet to me. And I know how hard it is to lose a parent.”
