by Easton, Meg
He whistled as he poured the sauce over the pork chops, covered the pan with foil, and placed it in the oven to cook for the next ninety minutes. He glanced out at the two of them as he put all the ingredients in the food processor to finish the Romesco sauce and while he was pan-frying chicken for paella, and each time, the two were laughing and connecting.
Brooke must’ve asked about the book that Samantha was reading, because she picked it up and showed it to Brooke and started pointing out things on the cover, then flipped to the page she was on. Brooke seemed to always have insider knowledge about how people were feeling, so he knew it wouldn’t take long for her to realize that something was bothering Sam and to find a way to get her to talk about it.
Not ten minutes later, Cole looked through the opening and saw the magic happening. “Bingo.”
“What’s that, Chef?” Hani asked.
He stirred the paella as the wine finished cooking down and added the remaining ingredients, nestled the chicken into the rice, then covered the dish. “Something’s bothering Sam. Brooke, of course, realized that, and she and Sam just moved to a booth to chat more. She’ll have it figured out in no time.”
“That’s great, Boss!”
Hani looked like he had more to say but had already turned back to the chicken he was prepping, so Cole said, “Spit it out, Hani.”
“Nothin’, Boss. Brooke’s just a good person to have around, that’s all I’m sayin’.”
Cole nodded. “That she is.”
Over the next forty-five minutes, as Cole and Hani rushed to get the last of the prep done before the dinner crowd started showing up, he didn’t get nearly as many chances to watch Sam and Brooke through the opening. But every time he glanced out, he noticed Sam was doing better and better, until the two of them were laughing again and Sam looked like she was making progress on her homework. His daughter loved the days when Brooke came in because then she didn’t have to come back to the chaos of the kitchens to work on her homework.
Cole said hello to his hostess, Morgan, and his waiter and waitress for the night, Dex and Jamie, and Heather, the cook who would be Hani’s assistant for the night, when they came into the kitchens to clock in. He told them about the specials and let them each try the finished paella so they could describe it for the customers. Then he kept an eye on the front door for his mother-in-law as he finished up the food prep and the first few dinner customers trickled in.
A handful of tables had guests seated when Susan, Amanda’s mom, walked through the front door. Cole wiped his hands on a towel, took off his apron, asked Hani to cover everything for a few minutes, and headed out to the lobby to greet her. There were lots of painful memories he’d had to work his way through to stay in Nestled Hollow, but having Samantha’s grandma close had been one of the many benefits of sticking with it. She wasn’t exactly the warmest, most comforting grandma, nor was she big on conversation, but she loved Sam and gave her a home environment to hang out in until Cole got off work. As their only relative within driving distance of Nestled Hollow, Sam adored her.
When he walked into the dining area, he could see that Sam and Brooke were finishing up their conversation and Sam had just begun loading up her backpack with all her things.
“Thank you for coming to get Sam,” he told Susan.
She nodded, but she seemed hesitant, and Cole knew that meant she had something to say that she wasn’t saying.
“What is it, Susan? Would you prefer she not go to your house tonight?”
“You know I don’t mind having her over,” Susan said. Then she let out a huge breath. “Actually, there is something I’ve been meaning to talk with you about. Amanda didn’t want you to still be a single dad, raising Samantha on your own.”
“I know,” Cole said, not meeting her eyes.
“She wanted you to have a wife again. She wanted Sam to have a mother.”
Three years ago, as he’d lain on the bed next to Amanda, holding her hand in the last few hours before the cancer took her, he’d been opening his mouth to promise her that he’d never so much as date another person—that he’d stay true to her until the very end.
But before he’d gotten a chance, she’d spoken in a voice more fierce and strong and sure than he’d heard from her in weeks. “You promise me you’ll get remarried,” she’d said. Cole had been so surprised by it that he hadn’t gotten a chance to respond before she went on. “I love you too much to see you spending the rest of your life alone. And not only that, our daughter deserves to have a mother. Give her one.”
“I don’t know if I can,” he’d managed to croak out. And truly, he hadn’t. Back then, he hadn’t fathomed he’d ever be able to imagine himself with anyone else.
After using so much energy to get out her request, Amanda’s voice had gone back to its weakened, quiet rasp. “Of course you don’t think you can right now. But your grief won’t always be so strong. One day, it’ll seem possible. Three years,” she’d said, looking into his eyes like she could burn her wishes into his will. “Three years and I want you to be married. Promise me?”
He’d searched her eyes, wondering how he could make a promise like that.
“It’s important, Cole. Please promise me.”
After squeezing her hand, he’d made the promise.
He thought of the promise often, especially at times like today, when Sam needed someone who could figure out what was really bothering her. It hurt to know he hadn’t kept that promise. Especially since the three year mark passed a month ago. Just like Amanda had guessed, he had reached the point where he knew he could marry someone else. She probably hadn’t guessed how much more complicated things would get the second time around.
Actually, finding someone else wasn’t the issue. There were so many more factors in play than that.
“I know it’s tough,” Susan said. “There’s a reason why I never remarried after my Harold died. But tough or not, you really need to put dating on your schedule.”
“I know,” Cole said, feeling the familiar weight of his promise settling on him.
“I love being her grandma,” Susan said, “but I can’t be her mom.”
They both glanced over as Brooke and Sam hugged each other before Sam hefted on her backpack.
“Grandma!” Sam said as she ran to her and wrapped her arms around Susan’s waist in a quick hug.
Cole crouched down to Sam’s height. “You doing good, sweetie?”
“Ten out of ten,” she said, holding both thumbs up.
He smiled, gave her a hug, and said, “I’ll be by to pick you up at seven. And I’ll bring something tasty for dinner.”
As the two of them left, Cole glanced around for Brooke. She had slipped into a booth across from Whitney and Eli, and she waved him over and patted the seat next to her.
He walked over and slid into the seat. “Hello, Whitney, Eli. It’s good to see you.” He turned to Brooke. “I see you got missing my food.”
“It’s the real reason I had to get an earlier flight back.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that New York is really lacking for good restaurants.”
“They may have some flash, but they’ve got nothing on Back Porch Grill.”
Cole knew she was just saying that because she was Brooke. But it still made him feel good.
“I know it’s a good ninety percent of the reason why I moved here,” Eli said, and Whitney smacked his shoulder with the back of her hand. Eli laughed. “Okay, okay, it was only like four percent of the reason, but it’s a very tasty four percent.”
“Thanks for hanging out with Sam. Did you happen to find out what was bothering her?”
Brooke nodded. “Do you remember a picture book called Princess Samantha’s Perfect Party?”
Cole racked his brain. “I think so.”
“It’s a book her mom used to read to her at night. It was about a girl—Princess Samantha—who made a wish to have the perfect party. It sounds like it was a pretty elaborate party. Anyway, in
the book it was Princess Samantha’s tenth birthday, and since the princess and Sam had the same name, her mom always promised that you’d have a party like that for her when she turned ten. So, as you can imagine, thoughts of turning ten kind of make her miss her mom.”
Huh. He was going to have to see if he could find that book. “How’d you get her smiling and laughing again after?”
Brooke lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I just listened as she told me how much she loved her mom, then listened some more as she told me about all the fun things they did together, then that morphed into funny things until we were both laughing pretty hard.”
“You, Brooke, are a gift.”
She grinned. “What are best friends for?”
“Hey,” Whitney said. “I thought I was your best friend.”
“You’re my best womanly friend.” She placed a hand on his arm. “Cole’s my best manly friend.”
Cole had to tamp down both the feeling her touch sent zinging through him and the thrill her words gave him, like he always did. And with as grateful as he was for her right now, he needed to get some distance if he wanted to keep his resistance at full power. He glanced at his watch and then put both hands on the table and pushed himself to standing. “I’ve got to make sure everything’s set in the kitchen then go deliver some meals so I can get home to Sam. You three have a wonderful dinner.”
Brooke gave him a smile that would warm even the coldest nights. He let himself genuinely return her smile to show his immense gratitude before pushing the feelings he had for her away again. It didn’t matter how attracted he was to Brooke; they could never be more than friends.
Chapter Four
Brooke breathed in the aroma of freshly ground coffee as she stepped into Love a Latte. The smell itself woke up her senses and made her feel like maybe she could accomplish today.
“Well, look at you,” the woman said as Brooke stepped up to the counter. “You’re practically glowing, especially for six a.m. I take it you’ve had a good morning?”
“Hey, Tory. I’m glowing?” Apparently yesterday’s news of making the top five was still fresh enough. “Are you sure you aren’t misinterpreting it as me collapsing under the weight of my to-do list?”
Tory laughed, then scrutinized Brooke like she always did as she decided what kind of drink Brooke needed. “Triple shot latte?”
“Or four.”
“I’ll tell you what. When I leave at eight-thirty to take my kiddos to school, I’ll stop by Best Dressed with a fresh cup.”
“Whatever they’re paying you, Tory, it isn’t enough.” It had been their running joke since the first time Brooke had walked in the shop, before she knew that Tory was the owner and that there was no mystical “they” writing her a paycheck. She paid for her drinks and slipped a twenty dollar bill in the tip jar when Tory wasn’t looking.
As Brooke walked down the still dark Main Street toward Best Dressed, everything ran through her head that she needed to do to prepare for her next presentation at Van Zandt’s along with everything that needed to happen for normal day-to-day operations of her business. She’d had a meeting with her team yesterday, and they’d hammered a lot of it out and divided many of the tasks. But when she’d gone back to work after her dinner with Whitney and Eli last night to work, and while she’d been home sleeping, her brain kept adding more and more things to the list. Now the “list” in her brain was a jumbled mess that she needed to get down on paper and hopefully Delbrina and Noemi could work their magic and form it into a plan.
Even without seeing their plan, she knew it would be pretty impossible to meet, even with her incredible team.
By the time Delbrina and Noemi came in at nine, she had a master list of all the things that had come to her mind, scribbled down and covering the page. They talked about all the normal business items first, and then the two of them took her messy notes and combined it with the list of things Van Zandt had requested.
Brooke looked over the list. “We also need to deal with the fact that I already have a trip to L.A. planned right in the middle of all this.”
“Why are they only giving us three weeks to prepare?” Noemi asked. “They hadn’t even planned to come up with the five finalists so quickly. Surely they had more days worked in to their timetable.”
“I suspect the three weeks is less about their timetable and more about seeing what we can accomplish in such a short span of time. The tight deadline itself might make their decision easier. We’ll just have to work hard and make it happen.”
“My biggest worry is this,” Delbrina said, reaching across the table and tapping the fourth item in Van Zandt’s list. “Designing something that stays true to your brand, but at the same time is very different from anything you’ve done. That’s going to be difficult. Your brand is already quite diverse, and coming up with something so different on such a quick timetable is going to be tougher than a two dollar steak.”
“Do you have any ideas yet?” Noemi asked.
Brooke shook her head. “Nothing. It’s my biggest worry, too. I might just spend the day sketching designs, or even surfing the web for interesting people, and hope that inspiration hits.”
The bell on the front door rang, even though it wasn’t time for the shop to open yet, and she leaned out from the design table they always met around to see who it was.
“Cole! Come on back!”
Her friend looked happy. Excited. Slightly impressed with himself. And hopeful. Tory would probably even say he was “glowing” too.
Brooke loved that her and her team’s offices, their design and production areas, meeting areas, and even some storage space was all open, one area flowing into another with no walls dividing things up. But as usual when Cole stepped into the area, he looked overwhelmed at everything that was going on in the big space.
He glanced at all the papers they had spread on the design table. “Am I coming at a bad time? I can come back.”
“Since I’ve never seen you outside of the walls of the restaurant at this time of day, I’d say you must be pretty excited about what you’ve got in your hands. Sit down and spill.”
Cole pulled one of the empty stools closer to Brooke’s and set a book down on the table, grinning. “I found it.”
Brooke ran her fingers across the title, Princess Samantha’s Perfect Party. She smiled at him. “Nice work.”
“I can see why this was important to her. Everything in this story is stuff Sam would go crazy for.” He looked down at the book for a moment, running his big strong finger across the delicate images on the cover. “Why wouldn’t Sam just ask me to give her this party?”
“Because she knows that all of this isn’t really up your alley.”
He looked down at the table. “She’s my daughter. If anything, all the tea parties I’ve attended and all the times I’ve played Barbies should’ve let her know that I’d do anything for her. I even let her paint my toenails and put bows in my hair.”
Brooke looked up and down her broad-shouldered friend with his big hands and facial scruff and laughed at the mental image of bows in his hair and sparkly polish on his toes. “She knows that you’d do anything for her. I think that she just didn’t want to ask you to do something so far out of your comfort zone.”
“I want to surprise her with this party. Do you think I can pull it off?”
Brooke opened the book and started reading through the story. It was a story about a princess who just really wanted to feel loved. So when her fairy godmother showed up to ask her what she most wanted, she said that she wanted a party that all of her friends would enjoy. It told about how the two of them planned for the princess to invite ten dukes and ten duchesses, and how they would all arrive for the party in a shiny stagecoach, and they would all be lifted up to the top of a tower and slide down a giant slide into the courtyard where the party would take place.
The invitations were fancy, the food was fancy, the decorations were fancy, and the princess wore a fluffy, s
himmering dress, and had sparkly ribbons in her hair, and glittery shoes. And the activities were going to be the most fun that any of the dukes and duchesses had ever experienced.
She met her friend’s eyes and could see that he wanted to make this party every bit as magical as the book made it seem. She also saw the sadness in his eyes that his daughter didn’t have her mother for this, and he wanted to give her something just as grand as if her mom were still alive. He was great at scheduling everything into his life that needed to fit, and he was very capable when it came to projects. But there was no way he was going to come up with the initial plan on his own.
She also knew that together, they could come up with that plan. If she could find a way to fit it in with all she had to do.
There were many things that her parents had taught her about running a business. But there was one thing that they taught her that they hadn’t meant to teach her—that people matter more than businesses. Over and over as she grew up, she saw both of her parents sacrificing relationships with people when those relationships took them away from their business goals. Deep down, she knew that no success in business would make up for failed relationships. As a teen, she had vowed to put people first.
Especially people like Samantha. Brooke had connected with her the first time she’d met her, back when Sam had just started first grade and she saw her struggling with reading as she sat in a booth one afternoon at Back Porch Grill. And people like Cole, who she’d developed a fast friendship with.
She took a glance at all the to-do lists spread across the table and took a slow, deep breath to calm the stress bubbling up inside her. Then she turned to Cole. “With my help, I think we can come up with a plan.”
“Really?” There was a moment of hesitation on his face that Brooke was sure she’d caught before excitement shone in his eyes again, followed quickly by uncertainty as he glanced at her papers. “You’re not too busy?”
“Not for this. But Cole?”
