“Thanks.” Her eyes moved down to the paper grocery bag.
He held it out to her, thankful for a distraction to keep her from noticing how flustered he felt tonight. “This is for you.”
She peeked into the bag and scrunched up her nose. “You brought me a bag of flour?”
“The florist was closed. I didn’t want to come empty-handed, and we are baking.”
Her head tilted back as she laughed. “Well, thank you. I’ll definitely put this to good use.”
The lighthearted gift had done its job and broken any tension at the door. All day he’d worried Beth might regret the kiss. When he’d arrived in Wyatt Bend, she’d made it clear she had doubts about him. Now pressure to live up to her faith in him caused him to pull at the shirt collar constricting his throat.
She opened the front door. He reached around her and held it open for her.
The smell of a home-cooked meal struck him the moment he stepped inside. “It smells great in here.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Don’t get too excited about dinner yet. You have to survive your baking lesson first.”
He took in the floral curtains, doilies, and crystal candy dishes. “This is nice,” he said, but his surprise slipped in between his words.
Beth gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I haven’t changed much since Nana passed away.”
While he was out living in a world of strangers, she was here living in someone else’s home.
Grief drew lines across her forehead. “I can’t bring myself to move anything.”
He couldn’t blame her. Her life was full of enough changes. He stood beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Where’s your brother?”
“He’s at a friend’s trying to stay caught up on his schoolwork.” Her hair swung around her face as she nodded her head to the back of the room. “Come on. The kitchen is this way.”
Brendan followed her to a kitchen straight out of the 1950s with white cabinets and red-and-white checked curtains. June Cleaver could have walked through the door at any minute.
Beth handed him a blue apron with ruffles at the bottom. All his plans to play it cool tonight were flying out the kitchen window. Brendan held the apron out in front of him. “I can’t wear this.”
“This is the only other one I have.” She held up a folded pink apron with yellow cats printed on it.
“How did you talk me into this?” he asked as he slipped the blue apron over his head, but Beth could talk him into almost anything.
“See. It looks great,” Beth said with her whole face smiling.
Brendan couldn’t stop a grin from curling up at the edges of his lips. He held his hands out to the blue ruffles along the bottom. “How do I look?”
Beth cocked her head. “Like you’re ready to jump on your motorcycle and join a biker gang.”
She straightened his apron. “I think secretly you’ve always wanted to give up your exciting life as a photographer to bake pies.”
Brendan couldn’t resist. He scooped his hand behind her back and pulled her in close. Emotions he had buried for years surged through his chest as he held her. “If I were with you, I might,” he whispered.
Her back pressed against his arms as she leaned out to see his face. Her smile had disappeared, but tenderness filled her eyes. Brendan touched his mouth to her pink lips. Beth lingered there before he drew away. She cleared her throat and spun around. The old refrigerator rattled when she opened it. Brendan leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. He loved watching her, and he loved the way she blew out her breaths when she was flustered.
She tucked a carton of eggs in her arms and picked up three lemons. “You’re trying to distract me, but you’re not getting out of this lesson. A deal is a deal.”
He closed the refrigerator door behind her. “Okay, okay. What do we do first?”
Beth pressed lemons into his hands. “We need half a cup of lemon juice.” She turned back to the counter. “I’ve already made the crusts. We’re going to make the filling and the meringue.”
Brendan let the lemons roll out of his hands onto the butcher-block island. “So you’re giving me the remedial class?”
She glanced over her shoulder with a smirk. “Basically.”
Brendan slid a knife from the block and sliced the lemon in half. “I wonder what your grandma would have said about you teaching me to bake.”
Beth opened the carton of eggs. “She would have said that it’s about time. She always tried to convince me to bring you over for dinner.”
Brendan leaned his hip against the counter as she cracked the first egg. “What did she say about you dating me?”
She slid the egg yolk from one side of the eggshell to the other, letting the egg white run into the bowl. “She told me to be careful with my heart.”
Brendan couldn’t keep his own heart from dipping down lower in his chest. “So she hated me.”
Beth shook her head. “No. She loved you. She said you were attentive and sweet.”
Attentive and sweet were code words for lovesick.
Beth stopped and looked at him. “But she said you weren’t ready for love. She said neither of us was ready. I never understood that, but I guess she didn’t want us to move too fast.”
Brendan nodded, but he knew that wasn’t what Ethel had meant. When he’d seen a glimpse of love when he looked at Beth, it had scared him out of his skin. He’d been afraid he’d fall so hard he’d end up in Oklahoma forever. He’d feared he wouldn’t know how to love her back. He still worried about those things.
Beth tapped the second egg against the counter, and the eggshell cracked. “Because how can someone not be ready for love? Everybody wants to be in love, right?”
Beth opened the oven and slid the pie inside, making sure she hadn’t forgotten to set the oven timer. She took two pot holders from the drawer, pulled out a heavy pan of vegetable lasagna, and set the steaming pan on top of the stove. “Should we eat outside?”
The fall evening was warmer than most they’d had recently. Brendan nodded. Beth noticed his scruffy chin had been shaved clean and he wore the same dress shirt he had worn to church.
“What should I do to help you?” Brendan asked.
She pulled a glass bowl covered in plastic wrap from the refrigerator. “You can carry this salad and the tea to the back deck.”
Brendan had the ability to make her feel like a teenager again. The fall night and the smell of Brendan’s cologne transported her back to another time. She blew out an anxiety-filled breath before she followed him to the faded wood deck.
Once Beth and Brendan had carried everything outside and slipped on their jackets, they settled at the table on the deck. Brendan unfolded a napkin on his lap and leaned in toward the lasagna pan. “This looks unbelievable. Why haven’t I ever seen this on the menu at the café?”
She raised a single eyebrow. “Because it’s vegetarian lasagna,” she said, enunciating each syllable. “I don’t think people in Wyatt Bend are interested in anything with the word vegetarian in the name.”
Brendan chewed and pointed at the square of noodles and sauce on the plate. “If they tasted this, they would. This is ridiculously good.”
Beth’s face warmed. “You’re just saying that.”
He cut another piece off with his fork. “I’m serious. Where’d you learn to make stuff like this?”
Beth squirmed in her seat. “I used to go on and off diets a lot,” she said, embarrassed to talk about her struggles with her weight with the man who had a perfect physique. “I finally discovered I could cook healthy stuff for myself that tasted good, and I didn’t feel deprived.”
Brendan set his fork down and looked into her eyes. “And you look amazing. You do.”
Beth smiled. She’d lost thirty pounds during the last two years. She still had her curves. She’d never be straight like her best friend, Cassie, but she felt healthy. A few years ago she never would have had the energy to juggle all the balls
she had flying through the air. “Thank you.”
He held his hands open around the plate of food. “So why aren’t you cooking food like this in your restaurant?”
“Because my grandmother had the same menu for years. It’s what people expect.”
Brendan rested his elbows on the table and leaned in toward her. “Sometimes people around here only know what they know. They don’t know what they want. It’s good for them to have someone shake things up.”
Brendan had taken care of that the night he rode into town.
“What would your menu look like if you could do anything you wanted?” Brendan asked her.
Beth didn’t hesitate. “I’d still do comfort food, but my versions of Southern cooking—lighter, healthier, like the things I cook at home.”
He pounded a fist on the table, and their plates rattled. “So do it.”
“It would never work,” she said. “My biggest seller so far has been the chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, and fried okra. Not to mention the pie.”
Brendan’s eyes opened wide. “Well, I wasn’t advocating you get rid of the pie.”
She laughed. As frustrating as Brendan could be, the way he looked at her still made her feel like she was more than a small-town girl dragging around heavy baggage. “Of course not, but I do make a delicious sugar-free apple pie.”
Brendan leaned back in his chair and stared at her. “I’ve missed this.”
Breaking out of her daydream, Beth stabbed at a piece of lettuce and a carrot with her fork. “What have you missed?”
The ice in his iced tea rattled against the glass. “A quiet night. A home-cooked meal. You.”
She couldn’t conceal her smile. She had missed Brendan, too, more than she wanted to admit. “I’m sure you met a lot of people in your travels.”
Brendan cut his fork through the lasagna. “I did meet a lot of great people, but I’d move on to a new assignment if I was freelancing or a new job at a newspaper.”
“And you’d never see them again?”
Brendan swallowed a bite. “Sometimes our paths would cross. Sometimes they wouldn’t.”
The moon was beginning to glow in the dimming light. “It sounds lonely,” Beth said.
Brendan set down his fork. “I guess I got used to it. I forgot what it was like to stay in one place for more than a year.”
The reality that hit Beth almost tilted her out of her chair. What if Beth was just another person who would be forgotten when he got tired of this little town? Could she really expect him to stay here? She pushed the food on her plate around with her fork.
“You got quiet on me.” Brendan leaned forward. “What’s going on?”
She tried to shake off the anxiety that had taken hold. “Nothing.”
He stared at her. “Come on. What are you thinking about?”
She set her fork down on her plate. “It’s just … How much longer do you think you’ll be in Wyatt Bend?” The question landed on the table like a cannonball.
Brendan pushed his chair from the table and moved his napkin from his lap, his eyes still on hers. “I’ll start work again after Connor’s wedding.”
“In New York?”
“Actually …” Brendan had a familiar look in his eyes where he seemed to be debating on how much to tell her.
Beth held her breath, praying for more, but knowing she’d never get all of Brendan, only the parts he was willing to share with her. Beth sipped her tea to hide the shudders in her breaths.
His lip twitched. “I interviewed for a job with the AP bureau in London.”
The drink turned bitter in her mouth, but she forced it down her throat. “You’re moving to England?”
“I don’t know. It’s down to only a handful of candidates. I’m supposed to hear any day now.”
She tensed. “But if they offered it to you, you’d take it?”
He rubbed his hands together and took a deep breath. “I’m not sure. It would be hard to refuse.”
Her stomach twisted. “Have you told your parents or Connor?” Her voice sounded hollow.
Brendan rolled his head around in a big circle and groaned. “Not yet. I don’t even know if I have the job or if I’d accept it.”
With nothing to say, Beth gazed out to the orange and red leaves on the neighbor’s tree. Soon Brendan could be halfway across the world. Even if he didn’t get the job, she couldn’t expect a man like Brendan to stay in a place like Wyatt Bend.
He moved toward her, but the shadows blocked his face from the light of the streetlamp. “Beth?”
She placed his empty plate on top of her own then stood with the plates in her hands. He rose and took them from her, setting them on the other side of the table. He turned her chair out from the table. “Sit down.”
She looked away, numb to facts right in front of her face.
“Please?” he pleaded with his voice as low as the rumble of the car down the block.
She swallowed and lowered herself onto the hard metal chair.
Brendan dragged his chair in front of hers. When he sat, his knees touched hers. His touch stung, and she moved her legs away.
He closed his eyes. “If you have something to say, please say it.” He looked up at her. “You don’t have to hold back with me. I can take it.”
Beth put her face in her hands. “What are we doing here, Brendan?”
He took her hands and moved them away from her face. “I think you’re amazing. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but we have something special. Maybe I won’t get the job. Maybe I’ll decide not to take it.”
She thought about Chase and pulled her hands out of Brendan’s. “That’s the difference between you and me. I can’t jump into something without knowing where it might go.”
Brendan leaned his elbow on the arm of the chair and rubbed a hand across his brow. “What do you need to know?”
She bit her lip, not knowing if she should say what was on her heart. “If you’re leaving, we’re only setting ourselves up for a fall.”
He leaned back like she’d slapped him across the face. “If it happens, we’ll figure it out. I’ll visit.”
She’d always let the highs and lows of her situation sweep her away. It wasn’t about her anymore. It was about maintaining a stable place for Chase to come home to, and he’d already had enough people walk out of his life. She fought to strip the emotion from her face. “Look, I have a business to get off the ground and a teenager to take care of. It’s not the best time for me to be dating.”
Brendan slipped his fingers between hers. “I understand, but I don’t want this to end. I don’t think you do either.”
Her heart was getting woven together with his, and she didn’t have room in her life for another heartbreak. “Brendan, we’re adults. Let’s be honest about this.”
Brendan’s chest rose, and he let out an unsteady breath. “I don’t think I can be any more honest with you right now. I’ve dumped my feelings for you out on this dinner table.”
Silence hung in the air between them until the kitchen timer buzzed through the open window.
“I can’t get involved with you right now.” Beth shrugged, but her shoulders felt like lead. “Some things aren’t meant to be. We can still be friends,” Beth said, not knowing if it was the truth.
Going back now seemed impossible.
Chapter 12
Beth hurried into the stadium with a blanket over one arm and a thermos of coffee in her hand. The crisp fall air pricked at her face. She walked up the stadium steps past the parents of the other boys. The moms sat crowded together on the front row. Beth avoided eye contact with Carolyn, the mother of the boy who had been involved in the fight with Chase.
Beth constantly felt the parents’ judgments of the job she was doing as Chase’s guardian. She stood out among the parents of the other boys, not only because of their divide in age but because of the trouble Chase had been getting into at school. After what Chase had told her,
Beth felt he wasn’t the only student responsible for the fight.
Beth slipped into the back row, and Carolyn whispered something to the two mothers sitting beside her. Before Beth could get her blanket unfolded on the seat, Carolyn had stood from the metal bleachers and was making her way up the concrete steps. Beth took a deep breath to push down the dread and pulled her fleece gloves from her pocket.
Carolyn stood in the aisle beside Beth. She held a tiny, plastic megaphone. The pungent scent of Carolyn’s perfume clashed with the smell of buttered popcorn. “I wanted to talk to you about the little incident at school,” Carolyn said with her shoulders so far back it looked painful.
The two mothers sitting below them turned around to watch. Beth tilted her body toward Carolyn to block the women’s views. “Yeah. I apologize about that. No matter what happened, Chase shouldn’t have gotten physical,” Beth said. “Is Sam okay?”
A photo of Carolyn’s son stared at Beth from the oversize button on Carolyn’s coat. “As well as can be expected. How’s Chase?”
Beth let her legs press against the bleacher back in front of her for support. “He’s fine. Did you ever have a chance to talk to your son about what happened?”
Carolyn’s hair, stiff with too much hairspray, didn’t move in the breeze. “Of course I talked to my son about what happened, and I’m worried about Chase. I mean, it seems he’s been getting into a lot of trouble ever since your grandmother passed away.”
Beth pursed her lips together, not knowing how to get out of the conversation. “Well, it has been a tough time for him.”
Carolyn’s perfectly plucked eyebrows rose. “Yes, but you can’t allow him to use that as an excuse now, can you?”
The two women stared up at them from the front row. Beth shot them a look, and they twisted back around to the field. “I appreciate your concern.” Beth’s voice deepened. “But right now we’re doing the best we can. I assure you Chase won’t bother your son again.”
Carolyn’s lips puckered into a tight knot. “I would certainly hope not,” she said as she turned around in a huff.
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