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“Why don’t we put your tooth in the tooth pillow on your dresser to keep it safe for the Tooth Fairy? Then we can go downstairs for breakfast. Scrambled eggs and toast sound good this morning?”
“Okay,” said Camden. “But could you bring home some more of the ham and cheese croissants from the Cuddle Cup? Those were really good.”
I grinned. The savory pastry was always a favorite with the townsfolk as well as my little boy. “We’ll see if we have any left over at the end of the day. Otherwise, I’ll make a batch for just us this weekend.”
“Yay,” Camden said, smiling and sticking his tongue through the gap in his front teeth again, making us both laugh.
“All right, go get dressed and I’ll meet you downstairs, squirt,” I said, following him into the hallway connecting our bedrooms and entering the bathroom to start the day.
***
After signing Camden into the before-school childcare center, I jogged through the parking lot back to Delilah, my name for the blue Toyota Camry I’d inherited from my grandmother and set off towards the town square. Gramma Nettie had left the Cuddle Cup to my first cousin Leann and me in her will, and even though we’d both been working there for years, it was hard to believe the place was now officially ours. Gramma had been gone for over a year, but part of me still expected to see her behind the counter wearing one of her signature brightly-colored scarves when I arrived each morning, and I knew Leann felt the same. We’d both loved our grandmother dearly and we were her only granddaughters.
The notes of one of my favorite songs began to play and I turned up the radio to drown out the sound of my own voice since I knew it would be impossible for me not to sing the words of “Blue” out loud right along with Patsy Cline. My eyes welled with tears as they always did. As far as I was concerned, no other genre of music could hold a candle to good ole’ Southern blues. Delilah bumped along the road as I drove over the old farm roads that led to the center of the small town in which I’d lived all my life. Why would anyone ever want to leave Love? I’d never been able to understand folks who did, including my own mother. Gramma Nettie always said that her youngest daughter had dreams bigger than she knew what to do with, and I guessed she was right on account of the fact Sarah-Lynn Bixby had gotten herself pregnant with me after a one-night stand with an interstate trucker and then left me to her mother to raise when I was not even a year old just so she could go and run off with another man.
I tapped my brakes coming to the four-way stop at Oak and 6th and tucked a stray honey-blonde curl behind my ear, thinking I should probably get the log out of my own eye before I began casting stones seeing as how I was an unmarried mother myself. But I couldn’t imagine leaving Camden to anyone else to raise. Thankfully, Gramma Nettie had taken on the responsibility for me with open arms as well as an open heart. Grandpa Roy had passed on before I was born, and I suspected Gramma Nettie probably needed me as much as I needed her back then. In any case, between her and my aunt and uncle, I’d come up just fine, at least in my opinion. I was doing what I loved most, which was baking, and I was greeted everywhere I went by the same friendly familiar faces I’d known all my life. Except for one, whose absence I still felt as keenly as I had nearly six years ago when he left. Every time I looked at my son, I saw Cord’s deep brown eyes staring back at me and had to squelch the rising tide of emotions that threatened to tumble out of my heart like a waterfall. No sense in crying over spilled milk, after all.
Asphalt changed to cobblestone as the streets narrowed and I passed the red-brick shops along 3rd, making a mental note to stop into the consignment store to see if I could find warm weather clothes for Camden. The rate he was growing, I should probably search for some at least two sizes larger than what he was currently wearing.
I pulled into the small parking lot behind the Cuddle Cup Café and parked in my usual spot. After letting myself in through the building’s rear entrance, I made my way down the hallway and through the back door of the cafe. Bean, the calico kitten Leanna and I discovered in the Dumpster one night when we were taking the trash out, greeted me in the storage area and began to weave between my ankles affectionately. I bent down to stroke her silky fur, pausing to listen to her soft purring. It was nice to see how much the creature had already grown in the past couple of months since she’d become the café’s permanent feline resident.
I was tying on my mocha-colored apron with the shop’s name stitched in swirly red lettering when the door from the eatery swung open.
Leann’s blue eyes met mine, and I knew immediately something was wrong from the look on her face. Even though we were cousins we looked enough alike that people usually mistook us for sisters, or even twins. We stood at the same height – all of 5’2” – and shared the same heart-shaped faces, pert noses, and dimples in our right cheeks that appeared whenever either of us smiled. However, my dark-blond hair was naturally wavy whereas Leann’s was stick-straight. The two of us had spent an exorbitant amount of time as teenagers in our bathrooms fussing with various types of irons and drugstore products trying to make our hair do what the other’s did naturally, but eventually we’d both given up and accepted the textures of our God-given locks. For the most part, anyway.
“Leann?” I asked, reaching for the jar where I kept a stash of hair ties. “What’s wrong?”
“Um,” she said as she twisted the fabric of her apron between her fingers and bit her lip. “Maybe you should have a cup of coffee first. Or better yet, a glass of wine. Is 6:15 am too early for cocktail hour you think?”
I pulled my hair into a low ponytail and looped the elastic band around it to hold it in place.
“Don’t tell me—is the espresso machine malfunctioning again? I don’t even want to think about how much money we lost in sales last year while we waited for the appliance repairer to fix it.”
My cousin shook her head. “No, no, that’s not it.”
I cocked my head to the side, perplexed. “Then what? Just spill the beans already. See what I did there?” I laughed at my own joke and walked up to her. Monica was on the schedule to man the register this morning, but Leann and I needed to make sure the display was stocked with the freshest baked goods and pastries and prepare customers’ made-to-order menu items.
She cleared her throat. “Okay, you’re going to find out eventually so it’s probably better that you hear it first from me.”
“Yes?” I tapped my foot impatiently.
“Cord’s coming back to town.”
“Wha..at?” I gasped, feeling like I’d been sucker-punched. I grabbed onto the edge of a shelf to steady myself, no longer trusting my legs to hold me up.
Leann nodded solemnly. “I heard it from my mother, who heard it from her neighbor Mrs. Winthrop who’s on the board of the Ladies in Love Association along with the mayor’s wife. Apparently, Mayor Orson’s throwing a big Welcome Home bash at Town Hall for Cord a week from Saturday. The whole town is invited. There’s going to be an announcement about it on the local news station tonight and in tomorrow’s paper.”
“Tell me you’re joking,” I said, refusing to believe the words I’d just heard. “Although if you are, I may have to disown you as family.”
Leann reached for my free hand and gave it a squeeze. “Unfortunately, I’m not, hon. I’m so sorry to have to break the news to you. Are you going to be okay? Do you think you’ll go to the party?”
“Are you kidding me?” My stomach clenched, churning with anger, and I felt my cheeks grow warm with the heat flooding my veins. “I never want to lay eyes on Cord Romero ever again. Do you know he’s never even acknowledged the fact that he has a son? I’ve never asked for a dime from him and in fact I’d throw his money right back at him if he ever actually offered me some. As far as I’m concerned, Cord Romero is dead.”
Grabbing a towel, I wiped my sweating palms and marched past Leann into the café, wondering how on earth I was going to avoid seeing the man who had taken my heart with him after he left me pregnant with his child in Love.
Chapter Three
CORD
