Charlie was there. Talulah saw his car as she pulled in and wished it wasn’t too late to cancel. What had she been thinking, accepting this invitation? She should’ve had Averil over to her place so they could talk alone. But the opportunity to finally offer an apology to the people who’d hated her for so long, people who’d been such a big part of her life as a child, had been too enticing.
Besides, she still didn’t know for sure that she’d end up with Brant. It’d be a shame if she told everyone she was in a relationship with him, then went back to Seattle and decided not to give up her life there. If that happened, she’d blow her chance at reconciliation for nothing, and she wanted to put her past behind her at last. She’d come to realize just how much she’d missed her hometown and no longer wanted to feel like an outcast.
It was unfortunate that she couldn’t put Averil on hold for a few months until she figured out what she was going to do with her life. She’d never expected to fall in love with Brant, never expected to be facing the decision before her. But—just like with her prior fiancés—she couldn’t control how she felt. She couldn’t make herself love them, and she couldn’t make herself stop loving Brant.
Gathering her courage, she stepped out of the car, retrieved the chocolate molten lava cake she’d baked early this morning and approached the Gerhart house.
Apparently, Charlie had been watching for her, because he opened the door before she could balance the cake well enough to knock.
Ultra-self-conscious, being under direct scrutiny from only a couple of feet away, she drew a deep breath. “Hello.”
His eyes swept over her with a tinge of contempt, as though he was eager to find any small flaws in her appearance—a wrinkle, a wart, a slight bulge here or there. She wasn’t sure if he found the blemish he seemed to be looking for, but he didn’t return her intrepid smile. He did, however, step back as Averil appeared beside him and exclaimed over the cake. “Oh, my gosh! That looks delicious!”
Talulah let her take it. She was nervous enough that she was afraid she’d drop it otherwise. “Thanks.” Chocolate had been Charlie’s favorite back when they were together. She’d made the cake as a peace offering of sorts, since the carrot cake seemed to have gone over so well.
“Do you serve this one at your diner?” Averil asked.
“I do. It’s one of the most popular items on the menu.”
“Yum! I can’t wait to try it.” She turned to Charlie. “Excuse me. Can you please get out of the way so Talulah can come in?”
Averil sounded slightly irritated with him for standing so close, but he didn’t react to the edge in her tone. He shifted a few feet to the left, and Talulah moved past him into the house, which didn’t appear to have changed much in the past fourteen years. A brick rambler with light blue carpet and drapes, it’d been built in the seventies. Although it was rather dated, Dinah kept everything neat and in good repair, so the house felt lived-in and comfortable rather than shabby.
The scent of rosemary and garlic permeated the air. “Smells good in here,” Talulah remarked, painfully aware that Charlie was still watching her closely.
“It’s my mom’s famous rosemary chicken,” Averil informed her.
Eager to put some more space between her and Charlie, Talulah followed Averil toward the kitchen. “I think I might’ve tried it once or twice in high school.”
“Probably. She’s been making it for years.”
The familiarity of the home and everything in it, including the people, made Talulah nostalgic enough that she was glad she’d come—and once again uncertain whether she should mention Brant. Would Averil bring him up? She wasn’t acting upset that she hadn’t found Talulah at home last night, hadn’t launched any accusations. Maybe she’d only been checking up on things and hadn’t found anything amiss and was, therefore, not suspicious.
Talulah got the feeling that was how it had gone. But she had Mitch’s teddy bear in her car so she could give it back when it was time to leave. She planned to wait until later, though, after they’d had dinner and a chance to talk.
Dinah turned when they entered the kitchen. “Hello, Talulah.”
Although the warmth of her greeting wasn’t what it had once been, she sounded polite.
George, Averil’s father, sat at the table, shucking corn. He looked up and seemed more genuinely happy to see her. “It’s been a while, kiddo,” he said. “How’re you doing?”
Talulah offered him a grateful smile, thankful for his kindness and happy that Charlie hadn’t followed them into the kitchen. “I’m managing, thanks.”
Dinah took a pan of rolls from the oven. “Averil tells us you own a dessert diner in Seattle these days.”
“I do. I wanted to open my own place after I graduated from culinary school, but it took me a few years to make that happen.”
“You did it with a partner, right?”
Considering what Dinah had most likely heard about her, Talulah suspected there could be some subtext in that question, but she decided to take it at face value. “A friend, yes.”
“And he’s there taking care of the place now?”
“He is. I’ll do the same for him next month when he attends a family reunion in Iowa before going on to Europe to hike with some buddies.”
“Sounds like a lot more fun than planning a funeral,” George commented.
“I admit I wasn’t too excited about getting that assignment, but now I’m glad I had the opportunity,” she told him. “Going through Phoebe’s stuff—all the cans of fruit and preserves and other food she put up, the sheet music she collected, the keepsakes and the scrapbooks she made of her childhood—taught me quite a bit about her.”
“Did she keep a journal?” Dinah asked.
“She kept a lot of them. I found a whole trove under the bed when I started on her bedroom three days ago. Whenever I take a break from packing, I read a little more about what it was like for her growing up in Coyote Canyon before her parents had running water and electricity.”
“What happened to your arm?” George asked, catching sight of her stitches. The cut was healing so well, she no longer used a bandage to cover it, but she would’ve done so to come here tonight had she thought of it.
Talulah looked down as though it was the first time she’d seen the stitches, too, as she struggled to formulate a reply. “Um... Someone threw a rock.”
“And it hit you?” Dinah said.
“It shattered the window at Phoebe’s, and a piece of glass landed in my arm.”
“No kidding!” George said. “When was that?”
“A few days after I returned to town,” she mumbled.
“That’s terrible!” Dinah exclaimed, taking her wrist to get a better look. “Does your mother know?”
Talulah shook her head. “I haven’t told her. With Phoebe passing away, and Debbie having the new baby, I didn’t want to worry her.”
“Who would do something like that?” George asked, obviously appalled.
Talulah tried not to look at Averil, who was putting ice in two glasses and acting as though she wasn’t paying attention. “I don’t know. It’s okay, though, really. It’s healing.”
George’s eyebrows shot up high on his bald head. “That’s not okay at all! I hope you called the cops.”
“No.”
“Why not?” he demanded.
Talulah cleared her throat. “Whoever did it probably didn’t realize how badly it could hurt me. They just...picked up a rock and threw it out of...you know...rage and frustration.”
“Rage? Who would be that angry with you?” Dinah asked and seemed to realize the answer to her own question the second it was out of her mouth. “Charlie?” she yelled, calling her son into the kitchen.
He poked his head into the room. “What?”
Dinah gestured at Talulah’s arm. “Please tell me you didn’t throw the rock that hurt her.”
“No,” he said with a scowl. “Of course I didn’t.”
“I sincerely hope not,” Dinah said, visibly relieved.
Charlie shot Averil a look that suggested his mother had asked the wrong child, but Dinah didn’t pick up on it and was instantly distracted when Mitch came running into the kitchen. “Grandma! Grandma! I found a pincher bug!”
Dinah’s expression warmed the instant she saw her grandson. “Did you catch it?”
“I tried.” He wrinkled his nose. “It got away.”
“Well, I promise you there are plenty more where that one came from.” With a chuckle, she ruffled his hair. “This kid loves bugs,” she told Talulah.
“Hi, Mitch,” Talulah said, and he gave her a quick, distracted wave before running off—presumably to find another pincher bug.
Voices in the entry indicated that other people had arrived. From what she could hear, Talulah guessed it was more family. No one had bothered to ring the bell. Charlie had two older brothers and two older sisters who’d been married and starting families when she and Averil graduated from high school. Back then, some of the Gerhart siblings still lived in Coyote Canyon, but others had moved to various parts of Montana. If she remembered correctly, one had moved to California.
As the newcomers filtered into the kitchen to say hello to Dinah and George, Talulah slipped to the outer edge of the party and stood against the wall, grateful that she was no longer the center of attention. But she had only a short reprieve before Bob, Averil’s oldest brother, noticed her. “Wow. What are you doing here?” he asked.
Before Talulah could come up with an appropriate answer, Averil slugged him playfully on the arm. “Oh, stop,” she said. “I invited her.”
Bob didn’t seem mollified. The family had probably been talking viciously about the woman who’d stood up their brother at the altar—and doing it for so long and as recently as the funeral—that he wasn’t willing to welcome the runaway bride back into their circle. “Oh, yeah? What’d Charlie have to say about that?”
“It was his choice to come today,” Averil replied. “I told him she’d be here.”
“You expected him to miss a family meal for her sake?”
“Bob, that’s enough,” Dinah said.
“Charlie comes over all the time,” Averil said in her own defense. “He’s a big boy. Missing one meal wouldn’t kill him. And Talulah was one of my best friends growing up. I haven’t associated with her since we graduated, because of Charlie. I deserve some consideration in this, too, don’t you think?”
Wishing she could simply disappear, Talulah shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry,” she started to say, but Bob spoke over her.
“She didn’t have to wait until the wedding to break up with him,” he said. “There’s no excuse for that.”
Talulah was certain they’d been saying that to each other for fourteen years. And they were right. She didn’t know how to make them understand what went on in her head and heart back then, but she wasn’t willing to let Averil continue to stand up for her, especially against family members. “I owe you all an apology,” she said, loudly enough that even Bob’s wife and two kids, both preteens, suddenly stopped talking and began to pay attention. “I was barely eighteen when I almost married Charlie. It might be easy to say I should’ve handled it differently. And I sincerely wish I had. But... I couldn’t. I didn’t want to disappoint him.”
Charlie had come all the way into the kitchen, too, behind his big brother. When he heard what she said, he made a sound that indicated he was incredulous, but she’d come this far—she could only persevere with her speech. “I didn’t want to disappoint Averil, either,” she continued. “After all, it’s not every day you have the chance to become a sister to one of your best friends.” She looked around at the rest of the family, all of whom were staring at her. “To be honest, I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. I did express some reservations privately to Charlie and suggested we hold off on getting married. But he said we just needed to start our lives together and everything would be okay.”
“I don’t remember saying that,” Charlie grumbled.
“We had that discussion,” Talulah insisted. “What I did—it doesn’t happen out of nowhere. There were signs. You just didn’t want to see them, and I kept trying to forge ahead—for your sake and Averil’s and my family’s.”
“Because marrying me would be so terrible?” Charlie said.
“No. I knew it wouldn’t be,” Talulah replied. “Or I would’ve backed out sooner. What I’m saying is that you deserved more than I could’ve given you. You deserved someone who was madly in love with you and devoted to you and would stick with you through thick and thin—not a woman who had to talk herself into staying in the relationship. I loved you,” she said, and his gaze dropped to the floor. “Part of me still loves the boy you used to be, even after all the years you’ve hated me. But I’ve never been in love with you, Charlie. Not the way I’m in love with Brant.”
His family, most of whom had been unable to meet her eyes as she spoke, suddenly looked up. “Did you say Brant?” Bob asked and focused on Averil for confirmation. “Did you hear that?”
Talulah felt sick inside. Instead of waiting for the right time and place, she’d just blurted out her true feelings before they could even eat dinner.
“That can’t be true...” Averil said, her voice barely above a whisper. “You only want him because I do.”
Closing her eyes, Talulah kneaded her forehead. “That isn’t why, Averil. That’s the reason I’ve been trying to talk myself out of loving him. Do you think I want to disappoint you again?”
Tears instantly filled her friend’s eyes, and she pushed her way through the people crowded around them as she left the kitchen.
“You can’t be serious!” Charlie exclaimed. “What does he have that I don’t?”
She shook her head. “I can’t explain it, Charlie.”
“But...you’re not going to stay here and marry him, are you? I bet you’ll back out at the last minute, like you did to me. You can’t handle commitment. That’s what it is. But I don’t care. He deserves to know what it feels like.”
“We haven’t even talked about marriage.”
“You’d have to give up your dessert diner to move back here.”
“I realize that.”
“And what about Paul? He thinks you’re coming back to him.”
She ignored the “to him” part, even though she knew Charlie had phrased the statement to make her look and feel as bad as possible. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she admitted, and after mumbling yet another apology to the others—who were all gaping at her—she hurried through the kitchen so she could let herself out of the house.
Before she drove away, however, she retrieved Mitch’s teddy bear from her back seat and left it on the doorstep.
It was the first time they’d been together in public as a couple. Brant was relieved that all the sneaking around was over, that he and Talulah could go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted. It would now be much more obvious—to everyone—that Talulah had dropped him just like she’d dropped Charlie if she never returned from Seattle after she went home. But he wasn’t one to worry too much about what other people thought. If she didn’t come back to him, embarrassment would be the least of what he’d suffer.
“You haven’t heard from Averil since you walked out last night?” he asked as he put down the menu. It was a Monday. She’d spent the night with him, but he’d gotten up early and gone to work, and this was the first time he’d seen her today. She’d messaged to see if he had time for breakfast, and he’d taken an hour off. This was her last week in town; he was going to see her whenever he could. He also knew she felt bad about how things had gone at the Gerharts’ and was hoping to cheer her up.
“No,” she said. “Nothing.”
“Do you think they’ve found Mitch’s teddy bear by now?”
“Bob and his family would’ve seen it when they left.”
He leaned back as the waitress brought them coffee. “I wonder what she’s thinking.”
She added a dash of cream to her cup. “She probably hates me more than ever.”
“I feel bad she’s so upset. But neither one of us meant to hurt her. There were times when I sort of wondered if Averil was feeling something I wasn’t, but I never knew it would play out like this.”
“Would you feel differently about her if I hadn’t come back?” she asked earnestly.
“Would you feel differently about Charlie if you and I hadn’t hooked up?” he asked instead of answering.
She grimaced. “Of course not.”
“There you go,” he said. “Stop looking for things to feel guilty about.” He got up and swung around the booth to sit on her side.
“Be careful,” she joked when the waitress looked over as he dragged his place mat, water glass and coffee across the table. “Everyone will know you’re in a relationship with the runaway bride.”
“The cat’s already out of the bag. Besides, I’ve made up my mind, and I’ve been clear and up-front about it. You’re the one who’s undecided.”
“I’d have to give up a lot more than you would,” she muttered.
Taking her hand, he kissed her fingers, and the many nights they’d spent together, the feel of her beneath him, the way her smile made his heart melt, how much he looked forward to being with her again whenever they were apart—it all went through his mind at once. “I can only hope I’m worth it,” he said jokingly.
She took a sip of her coffee. “If I do come back, how do you see things going, Brant?”
He was afraid to mention marriage. He purposely left that out of any discussion about their future. But that was exactly what he wanted. Maybe he was old-fashioned, but he dreamed of building a life with her the way his parents had built a life together. He wanted her to take his name, bear his children and know that he’d always be true to her and protect her no matter what. “How do you want it to go?” he asked, turning the question back on her.
When she bit her lip instead of responding, he said, “We could buy a house together.”
“And not get married?”
“Not if you don’t want to. But if you begged me to marry you, I might consider it,” he teased. “As long as we eloped. No way would I want to be standing at an altar with everyone we know looking on, wondering if I’ll be the one exception to the rule.”
When he started laughing, she almost shoved him out of the booth. “You know I wasn’t in love with those men!”
He righted himself and sobered as he looked into her pretty but troubled eyes. “Do you love me?” He’d promised himself he wouldn’t ask. He wanted her to tell him on her own. But he was terrified of losing her and found himself trying to grab hold of something solid in the middle of all the uncertainty.
“You know I do,” she said. “It’s just...”
“A question of how much,” he filled in.
Her eyebrows furrowed. “No! If not for the diner, it wouldn’t be nearly as difficult a choice.”
He couldn’t fault her for not wanting to sacrifice her business. He picked up his water glass. “Are you excited about going back to Seattle?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to leave you.”
Would her feelings change once she got back into her normal surroundings? “The fact that Averil and Charlie live in Coyote Canyon has to make you less likely to come back,” he said.
“I admit it won’t be pleasant to run into them...”
He frowned as the waitress started toward them with their food. “I have a lot working against me.”
She slid her arm through his and pecked his shoulder. “You have a lot working for you, too.”
He smiled. But he couldn’t help fearing it wouldn’t be enough.