Page 2 of Juan

Juan: Wait, that sounded gross.

She laughed again.

Juan: Have a good time and keep me posted. You and Miguel will rock it today

Her laughter turned to a heartfelt smile. Whatever she did to deserve people like Juan and the rest of the Falcons in her life she didn’t know, but she’d never take them for granted.

Amber: Thank you and will do

She slid the phone into her purse and started toward her car, but a voice stopped her.

“Amber!”

She paused and searched for the source. A voice she knew well.

Spotting the lovely, curvy blond heading her way, her summer dress fluttering in the gentle breeze, Amber smiled. “Juliana, it’s good to see you. Aren’t you supposed to be helping with the final touches on the float?” The parade didn’t start for another three hours, but the Hedy Experience float always stole the show. Which meant it was all hands on deck when it came to prepping and building.

Juliana came to a stop in front of her and shook her head with a smile. “I’ve been released from duty. I’m useless with crafts. I tried to tell Olivia that, but she didn’t believe me. After tripping over a stack of lumber and nearly taking out the back half of the float, then she believed me.”

Amber chuckled, picturing Olivia’s horrified look. “Sorry that happened, but I’m guessing there are better uses for your skills?”

Juliana made a face. “You’re now looking at the official assistant float handler.”

“And what exactly does a float handler do?” Amber couldn’t help but ask through a laugh. She loved the tradition of the weekend, but Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade it was not.

“I release the floats,” Juliana replied, waggling her eyebrows. “I have the power to wreak or prevent chaos.”

“Choose wisely, my friend.”

Juliana laughed. “That’s what Simon said.” Simon, or “Stone” to pretty much everyone but Juliana, was a member of the Falcons and Juliana’s fiancé.

“I don’t want to keep you,” Juliana continued, her eyes darting to the tote. “But I wanted to ask if you’d be willing to draw up a menu for a dinner Simon and I are hosting at our place in six weeks. I don’t want to ask you to do the cooking, because we want you to enjoy it with the rest of us, but everyone knows your menus are the best.”

Amber arched her brows. “Celebrating anything in particular?” She dropped her gaze meaningfully to the ring on Juliana’s finger.

“There’s a lot to celebrate right now,” Juliana answered vaguely. “We thought it might be nice to be intentional about that. Mantis and Charley just got married, Callie and Philly have the baby on the way, and Helia is moving in with Monk and Kendall permanently in two weeks.” She paused in her recitation of all the changes in the Falcons club. Through marriage, birth, partnerships, and other means, lots of new “family” members were joining the original fifteen.

“I’m so glad Helia is coming when she is,” Juliana continued. “Kendall will be off for six weeks to that coding camp she got into. Someone will need to keep Monk from driving down to San Jose every other day to check on his sister. Oh, and Viper and Lina got new bikes. Although admittedly, I don’t think that rises to the same level as everything else, but Simon assures me it does.”

“And Hawkeye is officially done with his reserve duty, Marley’s mom is coming for a visit, and Superman and Stein just negotiated the purchase of that apartment complex the club plans to turn into low-cost housing for the seasonal workers,” Amber said, then added, “And how could we forget Lovell moving in with Daphne?” Callie’s sister, Daphne, had come to Mystery Lake to visit, fallen in love with another Falcon, and recently made the move permanent. Much to Amber’s delight as the two had been close years earlier and she loved having her friend back in her life.

She also hadn’t put all the changes and events together in one list, and Juliana was right, they did have a lot to celebrate. No one deserved it more than the remarkable group of people who’d landed like a bomb in her life just over a year ago. The good kind of bomb, of course. Her life had needed blowing up, had needed to be destroyed so she could build something new.

“Of course,” she said. “I’d love to design the menu. Who’s doing the catering?” Amber knew a few of the caterers in town, and they each had different strengths and weaknesses. Depending on whom Juliana and Stone picked, she’d work with them to tailor the menu to their forte.

“Her name is Simone Dupry. She’s new in town but comes recommended by my bonus parents.”

Amber knew enough of Juliana’s story to know she referred to Emmanuela and Rocco Rivabianchi, parents of her best friend, Chiara. The couple owned an Italian restaurant in San Francisco—a local institution really—and if Ms. Dupry came recommended by them, Amber looked forward to meeting her.

“Great, can’t wait to meet her. Can you put us in touch?” Amber asked.

Juliana nodded. “Yes and thank you. Once the weekend is over, I’ll send you each other’s contact info.”

After promising to stop by and pick up lemonade for the parade crew, Juliana hurried off to the coffee shop on the other side of the grocery store. Amber watched her for a moment, then turned and headed to her car. As the late-spring sun hit her shoulders, sending a sting of warmth through her body, she marveled at how much her life had changed in the past fourteen months. She didn’t like to think about the situation she’d left behind, but what she had now? It was incredible. Safety, security, and a new job starting in two months. A job that never in a million years would she have thought she’d not only want, but know she’d be damn good at.

She’d been little more than a broken shell—breathing, eating, and sleeping, but doing little else to stay alive—when the Falcons brought her to Mystery Lake. Slowly, she’d found purpose in helping Dottie, the Falcons’ house manager and surrogate mom, in the kitchen. Then she discovered the healing powers of growing her own garden. Those two things eventually melded into a love of creating menus and cooking. And in eight weeks, she’d officially be the first consulting chef for the new eleven-room inn the club was launching in Napa Valley. As a business, it was an outlier to the Falcons’ other companies, all of which were based in Mystery Lake. But Monk had inherited the property from his father, and rather than sell the large estate and winery, he and his half-sister, Kendall, had opted to turn it into an inn. An inn that would give people like her—people who’d managed to escape horrendous relationships—a chance for a new start.

She paused in the parking lot, gesturing for a royal-blue SUV to back out of its spot. She didn’t mind the wait. The day would be busy; a few moments of the sun on her skin and the gentle caress of a mint-scented breeze…well, there were worse ways to spend ten seconds.