Authors: Ginger Voight
“It happens,” Christopher said flatly. “We’ve heard horror stories of grandparents trying to take custody of grandkids to give them a more stable home life. We worried about that for a while.” Finally, almost shamefully, he admitted, “They called Child Protective Services after Lilah got sick. We figured they were trying to make a case for how unfit we were so they could take her away from us.”
Joely was instantly appalled. “That’s terrible. Isn’t there anything you can do?”
“We have all the paperwork, of course,” Christopher said. “But it doesn’t fully protect us like a marriage license would. That’s the thing that verifies to the world we are a legitimate family. I wanted to move to a state where it was legal to marry, just to make sure. But Mason still holds out hope his folks will come around one day.”
“You think they will?”
“Where there’s hope,” Mason shrugged.
It seemed a painful twist of fate. Here she was walking away from a perfectly legal, acceptable marriage when these two people were being denied their right to wed. “How long have you guys been together?”
Mason smiled warmly at Chris. “Ten years,” he said as he took Chris’s hand in his. She noticed that they wore matching wedding bands, despite the law.
“Did you meet him when you were twelve?” she asked the handsome man.
Mason laughed. “You’re too kind. I just turned the big 3-4 two months ago.”
“You’ll notice he’s still wearing black in mourning of his lost youth,” Chris teased.
“Please. You look fantastic. You’ll have to tell me your secret.”
“Eight glasses of water a day, always use sunscreen and moisturize every morning and night. Plus Chris makes this weird organic avocado mask that works wonders, but he won’t ever tell me what’s in it.”
“Sounds like a lot of work,” she said. “I barely have time to sleep anymore.”
Chris leaned an elbow on the table. “So what motivated you to start a baking business?”
“I fell into it, actually. I cook whenever I get stressed. Needless to say with losing my home, leaving my husband and becoming a single mom in the space of ten days, I baked so much we couldn’t eat it all. So my mom suggested I sell it instead.”
“It’s funny how destiny works, isn’t it?” Chris pondered. “You go along with the same program year after year and then boom. Something unexpected happens and it changes everything. How long were you together?”
“Married for seventeen years, together for nineteen.” It still tugged at her gut to think of coming so close to the twenty-year mark and stopping just short. She had expected to share that anniversary with pride. Many of their couple friends hadn’t made it as long. With each year that passed she thought they were bullet-proof.
She was wrong.
“I never thought I’d be starting over again at forty.”
Mason gave her a reassuring smile. “If it helps, you’re rising to the occasion beautifully. You’re not the same woman who walked into the restaurant s couple of weeks ago. New clothes, new ‘do,” he said as he gestured to her hair. “I say embrace the change and see what the world has to offer.”
“You’ll have to forgive my husband,” Chris said. “He’s the most hopefully romantic person alive.”
She grinned. “You’re lucky to have him.”
Chris reached for Mason’s hand. “Yes, I am.”
Just being with them made her feel better about life in general. They were smart and funny and clearly loved each other. And they were dedicated, loving parents who cherished Lilah, who was very well adjusted despite what all she’d been through in her young life. Mason and Chris did that. They built that home and that family just like she had once done with Russell. They were so in sync with each other they finished each other’s sentences and anticipated each other’s needs. She hoped that Mason’s folks would come around. If any two people deserved to marry, it was Mason and Chris.
While her mother was making new friends, Kari spent her Saturday afternoon at Lillian’s Place. She wore a white top, which matched her white apron she wore over navy blue slacks. She had tied her long brown hair into a braid down her back, and wore ugly skid-resistant black shoes she had borrowed from her mother. By the age of fifteen, they stood almost the same height, though Kari was rail-thin.
Her friends insisted that she was prettier with makeup, but her mother never bought her any, saying she was still too young. Kari always had to borrow from friends if she got any at all. This entire week working at the restaurant made her feel more naked than usual. She hadn’t worn a speck of makeup, which made her look like she was twelve.
That was not the image she wanted to project around Xander. She could tell he saw her as a little girl, and that was the last thing she wanted that hot guy to see when he looked at her.
Truthfully she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since they moved in with her grandma. She even thought about him during her weekend with her dad at the lake, and was the main reason she wanted to come back. Xander Davy was sexy and exciting and he always made her feel special just by the smile he wore on his face when he looked at her. When he said her name with that accent of his, it shot electricity throughout her entire body, like fireworks. It had been the best thing about that week. The money she earned was just icing on the cake. Because of these two very important factors, she wanted to continue her job there. She knew she’d have to get Xander on her side to convince her mother and her grandmother, which was why she worked extra hard to impress him all week.
Well, one of the reasons. The other reason was that the more work she did, especially as well as she tried to do it, the more it seemed to please him. Nothing was better than when he ‘d say, “Good job, Kari,” with a friendly hand to her shoulder that warmed her all the way to her toes.
That Saturday was a busy one, so she had plenty of opportunity to wow him with how well she was performing at her temporary job. He sought her out by three o’clock that afternoon. “Wonderful job as always, Kari,” he praised with an easy smile. “I almost wish you didn’t have to clock out.”
“I don’t,” she said. “I’m here all day anyway. Put me to work.”
He chuckled. “You know I can’t do that. You can’t work over eight hours a day because of your age.”
She pouted. “I don’t see why it matters. I’ll be sixteen in two months.”
He bent to face her. “And in two months, I’ll let you work more than eight hours. But not today, okay?”
She dropped her eyes. “Okay.”
“I tell you what. I’ll give you a ride home myself.”
“I can stay here and not work,” she offered but he shook his head.
“I wouldn’t put you through that. Much too boring. Let me grab my keys.”
Kari followed him out to his luxury sedan that smelled of his rich woodsy cologne. She sank into the soft leather seats, barely buckling her seatbelt before he raced from the parking lot. She watched how effortlessly he handled the powerful car. It only made her more breathless to be alone with him.
“I really enjoyed having you with us this week, Kari. But how about next time, you leave the part about getting in trouble out of it?”
It was the perfect opening. “Actually I was hoping I could talk to you about that. I think I want to keep my job there.”
He slid her a curious glance. “Yeah?”
She nodded. “It’s fun,” she lied easily. “And I could use the extra money.”
He chuckled. “I think your mother is going to be making plenty enough for all of you, if her cookies still sell at this rate anyway.”
“They’re just cookies,” Kari responded with a roll of her eyes.
“You don’t like your mother’s cookies?” She shrugged. He persisted. “Are you mad at your mum, Kari?”
She looked out the window. “Why shouldn’t I be? She wrecked everything.”
“What do you mean?”
Her eyes flashed when she turned to face him. “She drove my dad away. She stopped trying.”
“Are you so sure she was the first to stop trying?”
That gave her pause. She hadn’t considered that before. Her dad was handsome and successful. Her mom was just her mom. She wore generic clothes, shunned makeup and, worst of all, never let any of them get away with anything. She was hard and miserable. For the past two years, all Kari could think about was that she didn’t want to grow up to be anything like her.
“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” she shot back, tilting her chin a little. It reminded him instantly of Joely. “Mom moved out and Dad’s got a new girlfriend.”
His eyebrow arched a hair. “Oh, yeah?”
She nodded. “She’s pretty too. Real pretty. She’s younger so she’s a lot of fun. We spent last weekend at the lake. Her folks have a cabin.”
He thought about how Joely had been so angry that Friday night. She must have known. Poor kid. “You never know. You may like your mother’s next boyfriend.”
Kari laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“That’s funny?”
“That’s hilarious,” she answered. “Mom won’t find a boyfriend.”
“Why not?”
Kari rested back against the seat. “I told you. She’s not any fun.”
His smirk deepened as he pulled into the driveway in front of the impressive Colonial home. “Well, here you are. I’ll see what I can do about your working at the restaurant. But don’t expect a whole lot of hours. You’re fifteen; you have a lifetime to work and slave like the rest of us.”
She grinned and nodded. “Okay.” She hadn’t moved a muscle to unfasten the seatbelt. She had this insane fantasy that he’d reach across the seat and kiss her. She could picture it in her mind, but he hadn’t moved one inch. The longer she sat there, the more ridiculous she felt. Finally she unfastened the belt and opened the door. “Thanks, Xander,” she said softly.
“Thank
you
, love,” he replied with a wide smile.
It wasn’t a kiss, but it still made her quiver all the way down to the tips of her toes. She walked on air all the way up to the door.
By the time Joely left the Campbell-Pruitts’ that evening, she felt like she’d known them forever. The same was true for Lilah and Hannah. Hannah was so tuckered Joely had to carry her to the car. Only Nash had any energy at all, and she suspected it had everything to do with the three video games he carried in his hands. Chris had wanted to send him off with a care package, which made Chris Nash’s new best friend.
When they got back to the house, she and Hannah took a nap together, lying atop Joely’s bed, still in their clothes. They barely woke up when Lillian returned later that night with Granny Faye and a late dinner. After they ate, Joely finally tucked Hannah into her own bed before she raced downstairs to make her treats.
She stayed up herself until about three in the morning, preparing cinnamon rolls for the breakfast crowd, along with some cutout cookies that she decorated little sweet little pieces of notebook paper. She carefully drew each line, meticulously straight. Then she added affirmations on top, messages customers could keep or share.
They were such a big hit that she spent most of Sunday preparing more. Xander had been so impressed how quickly her affirmation/message cookies had sold out that he ordered four dozen to replace them. Some customers were buying as many as four at a time, and that kind of tasty publicity was good for Joely and good for the restaurant.
There were the individual pies as well, but everyone wanted the little message cookies that declared, “You are loved,” “Carpe Diem,” and “Never give up.” Her customized orders shot up that Sunday. She now had a full two months booked for special events.
She started to wonder where she’d fit it all in. She was exhausted as she fell into bed, somewhere around one o’clock in the morning. But she couldn’t sleep. She knew the next day was Monday, and Xander had already texted her that’d he be there bright and early at ten o’clock.
She hadn’t seen Xander a whole lot during that week, but when she had seen him those intense eyes reminded her of the sexy encounters they had shared. It was their naughty little secret, as his self-satisfied smirk suggested. Despite her better judgment, she found herself giddy from his lascivious attention.
After she dropped the kids off to school, she spent a little time getting ready, dressing up, applying makeup and styling her hair. She trembled with anticipation as she flew down the steps just a little before ten, which came and went without any sign of Xander. She alternated between the chair and the sofa when she wasn’t pacing the same fifteen steps from the living room to the front door.
She peaked out of the side windows, scanning the street first one way, then the other. One quick look at her watch confirmed that he was running ten minutes late. She kept passing the same large oval mirror in the foyer, getting increasingly annoyed with her reflection. Who was this ridiculous, starry-eyed woman staring back at her? She barely recognized her.
Finally the doorbell rang. She waited about thirty seconds before she finally opened it. Xander stood there, holding a brown paper bag and a couple of cups of gourmet coffee.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he said as he brushed past her.
She crossed her arms in front of her. “You’re late.”
He grinned. “Sorry about that. I had a pretty exciting phone call.” He handed her one of the cups. “For the road.”
“What?”
“I have some friends in Dallas, consultants like I used to be. She’s currently working with a morning TV show that has just gone national. She’s pretty excited.”
“I suppose so,” Joely said flatly.
“Your enthusiasm is overwhelming. Truly.” He took a swig of his coffee. “I told her about you, told her about the cookies and she’s just dying to meet you. She wants to book you for a segment on the show.”
Joely’s eyes opened wide as she put it all together. “What? Me? Why?”
“So many questions, so little time. We can be in Dallas in a few hours. You can be a star by tomorrow.” He handed her the bag. “You’re welcome.”
She was stupefied. “I don’t understand. Why does she want to talk to me?”
“Did I skip the most exciting part? I’m such a naughty boy. Your note cookies this weekend were such a huge hit that it occurred to me… you have stumbled onto something amazing. If you’re up for the challenge that is. And I think you are.”
He pulled a flyer from his back pocket, which of course drew her attention to his form-fitting jeans. She had been around hundreds of men in her adulthood, whether standing in line at the bank or introducing herself to Russell’s colleagues at social events. She had watched movies, consumed her fair of television – but she had never in her life been so preoccupied by the male form than when she was standing near Xander. It was almost like stumbling upon a wild stallion one desperately wanted to ride. She had to wrench her eyes away as she took the flyer and glanced it over. “Card cookies?”
“It’s the greeting card you can eat.” He bent down to explain what she was looking at. “You make a larger cutout cookie. Ice it like you have been, with all your amazing designs. Then you add an inspirational message right from the heart. Wrap it, slap a ribbon on it and sell it for twice what you already make for your cookies. Voila. You have a hook with this, something different that people from all over will want to share far and wide. Sell them here. Sell them through mail order. It’s the perfect plan. The divorcee bounces back providing messages of hope for others. Brilliant, no?”
“I don’t… I just… um,” she stammered, trying to wrap her brain around it.
“There were customers buying several note cookies each. They wanted to give them away to other people, which in turn will make them give them away to other people. The marketing is built right in. It’s really quite perfect.” He smiled wider. “So what are you waiting for? Let’s go. We’re burning daylight.”
“I can’t go to Dallas,” she said, as if he should have known.
“Why not?” he said, as if it never occurred to him that she might say no.
“I have three kids I need to pick up in,” she glanced at her watch and groaned. “Four hours.”
“Let Lillian pick them up. She’ll understand. This is business.”
“The kids won’t understand,” she pointed out as she handed him back his cup of coffee.
“Kids are extraordinarily resilient,” he pointed out, refusing to take it. “And it’s a good lesson for them to learn. An empowered mum who sees what she wants and goes after it.”
“They just lost their home and their safe, secure family environment, Xander. I can’t just disappear on a whim. They’ll think I’ve abandoned them.”
“We’re talking about a day trip, Joely. You’ll be back in time to tuck them into bed.”
“It won’t feel that way to them.” The one commitment she had made to herself when going back to work was that she’d never do anything that made her kids feel like they came second. She’d be there for them in ways Russell had never been. In fact, that was the very reason she had to… because he never was.
“They’ll get over it,” he assured her. “Especially when your hard work pays off and you can get your own place and stand on your own feet, which is what you want to do anyway.”
“And I will. But not at the expense of my kids, Xander. I’m a mother first.” He was incredulous as he stared at her. “Haven’t you ever dated a woman with kids before?”
“Dating?” he repeated. “Is that what you think we’re doing?”
Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t know how to respond to the question. Had she horribly misread the situation? Had he really been flirting out of pity after all? “I… I don’t know what we’re doing.”
“I mean, the idea does sound like a lot of … fun,” he said after a slight pause. “Although I should be upfront with you and let you know from the start that I’m not exactly a dating kind of guy.”
Her heart sank a little, though she didn’t know why. “So what has all this been about?” she asked, gesturing to her outfit and the coffees.
“I told you. I go after what you want. I’m trying to teach you to do the same.” That rubbed her the wrong way. “So come on. Let’s hit the road. Do something for yourself for once. Right here, right in this moment.”
At that moment she wanted to slap the crap out of him. She handed the flyer back to him and sat the coffee cup on the glass table standing against the wall. She brushed past him and headed upstairs. She didn’t stop until she closed her bedroom door behind her. She stood at the window overlooking the driveway. A tiny part of her hoped that he’d follow her up the stairs.
She hated to admit that her heart fell when she saw him walk back out to his car, get in and drive away.
She hadn’t expected to do any work that Monday, given that she thought she would be preoccupied with Xander. After he left, however, she changed out of her clothes and headed back downstairs to the kitchen. Her thoughts returned over and over again to his Greeting Cookie idea. She set up her laptop in the kitchen to reference a few generic greeting cards for her first batch. Only one had been salvageable, mostly because it only had a simple three-word sentence: “Get well soon!”
Frustrated, she got in her car and drove to a local crafts’ supply store. Now that she had a little money in her pocket, she could browse around for new gadgets to help her sell her goodies. She bought stencils and brushes as well as new cookie cutters. She headed back home with two bags of supplies which she placed on the table as she whipped up a new batch of the butter cookies she had perfected.
She only had time for one more batch of cookies before she picked up the kids from school. Hannah was over the moon when she realized that Lilah went to the same school that she went to. Despite not sharing a class, they sought each other out at recess, so Hannah was full of stories how they’d spent their time together. It made her happier than she’d been since they moved out of the house, which made Joely glad she splurged on a coloring book from the craft store. Hannah was up the stairs like a shot to color some pages for her new best friend.
Since Chris had given Nash one of his old video games, Nash bailed for the family room the minute they walked in the door. As disconnected as that seemed to be, it was refreshing to see him excited for something, even if it was just a video game. There was a spark of light struggling to catch in those dark brown eyes, and Joely was going to do whatever she could to stoke it.
In need of a snack, Kari shadowed her to the kitchen, which was a complete disaster area. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Just something new,” Joely said with a wave of her hand. Kari picked up one of the discarded attempts. It was pink, with a teddy bear and a pacifier. No words really were needed. Joely had conveyed the message with her art. “They’re greeting card cookies.”
Her eyes travelled to her mother. “Greeting card cookies?”
“Yeah, you know… greeting cards. They’re a relic from the old days,” she joked, but Kari didn’t smile. “It’s silly I know, but it was Xander’s idea.”
Kari’s eyes widened just a tad. “Xander?”
“He said the note cookies sold really well. He thinks there could be a market for this. What do you think?” she asked her daughter, although she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.
Unbeknownst to Joely she had used the magic word: Xander. “I think it could be cool.” Joely warmed instantly to the reluctant praise. “You know what you could do? You could make sets. Like the nursery theme, or flowers for a wedding. That way you can sell packages, rather than just one cookie.”
Joely was pleasantly surprised by her daughter’s insightful suggestion. “That’s a brilliant idea, Kari.” She took an uncertain step forward. “Did you want to, I dunno, try painting one?”
Kari immediately shook her head. “I’m not artistic,” she said at once, purposefully omitting the “like you,” she had almost blurted without thinking. She was still mad at her mother. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t soften.
“I didn’t think I was either,” Joely confessed. “I just couldn’t give up once I started.”
“Why?”
Their eyes met. “Because I wanted to make it work.” Kari didn’t have a reply for that, so Joely walked into the kitchen to prepare another batch. “And you’re more artistic than you know. I can replicate images pretty well, but you’ve got the lettering down pat. My writing sucks,” she confessed with a grin. “Hazard of being a doctor’s wife,” she added, her long-standing joke fading off into awkward silence. “Anyway, I was thinking that we could make some Texas cookies. A lot of customers are on their way through to somewhere else, so we could give them a little taste of Texas to take back home. I mean, if I’m making greeting card cookies anyway, why not postcard cookies?”
Kari offered a nonchalant shrug but she sat at the table anyway. Joely suppressed her smile. Kari watched her mother as she lovingly and efficiently prepared a new batch of cookies, which she cut out in a larger rectangle with scalloped edges. She brought the cooled cookies to the table, where she turned her computer around for both of them to see, doing an Internet search for Texas postcards so they could have a frame of reference.
Kari watched as Joely quickly and delicately iced the cookie, creating the background they would use for their ‘postcard.’ It unfolded like a magic trick. She leaned on the table as she watched her mother artfully blended colors to create what looked like a gorgeous Texas sunset. Kari had already started to place the letters in her head, and could hardly wait to get started.