THE LOUISE HOUSE was in a tizzy as Louise inspected the melted ice cream and the whipped cream and milk that had spent the night in a warming fridge.
Grace put Jules in the high chair that Louise kept in the back of the shop. She put a bib on him and placed a small bowl of half-melted vanilla ice cream on the tray. She started to spoon the sweet, creamy concoction into his mouth.
“Oh, for pity’s sake, Grace, give him the spoon and let him dig in. What’s the worst that happens? He gets his face dirty? I have stacks of washcloths. I need you over here.”
Louise was rattled and Grace didn’t blame her. Few people came into the ice-cream shop in winter, especially since it was usually closed during the colder months when Louise went to Florida. Her aunt could ill afford a disaster like this.
“What can I do?” Grace asked.
“I don’t know. Look at these barrels. They’re half-melted. Now that the power is on, yes, they’ll freeze, but the ice cream will be riddled with crystals. The flavors will be off and my reputation will be ruined. I’ll be ruined and no one will ever come here again.” Louise’s eyes darted from the front door to the empty tables and chairs with the festive aqua-and-white-cabana-stripe cushions she’d made.
Grace put her arms around her aunt. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll think of something.”
Louise sniffed but refused to shed a tear. “You’re right. We have to think.”
Just then a snowplow trundled down the road, this time dumping sand and salt on the street. The sun was poking through the dense storm clouds that scuttled off to the east. Grace peered out the window. A stream of SUVs and cars followed the plow, and the street was bustling with business owners shoveling and digging out their vehicles.
“Look, Aunt Louise. People are getting out! I bet Mr. Jenkins is going to build up an appetite with that long sidewalk he’s got.” Grace smiled and then stopped. She tapped her cheek with her forefinger. Then she snapped her fingers.
She went over to the five-gallon barrel of vanilla ice cream. “This one seems to be the worst.”
“The strawberry isn’t much better. Some of the smaller tubs are okay as they were bunched together in the newer cooler.”
Grace beamed and took out her cell phone and started Googling. “Aunt Louise,” she said without looking up. “Does everyone here still listen to the radio in emergencies?”
“Yes...why?”
“How was the milk when you checked on it?”
“Um, fine. If we use it today. Same with the cream.”
“Good. Because we’re going to use it. All of it, I hope. Here we go!”
She punched in the number she found and grinned as the call picked up. “WLOI FM. How may I direct your call?”
“I’d like to place an ad for immediate airing. What are your prices for two lines every fifteen minutes for the next three hours?”
The woman asked her to hold.
Louise frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Posting our milk-shake-and-malt sale. All day. Dollar milk shakes.”
“Only a dollar?”
“We make them short and often. We get rid of the melted ice cream and cram the place with customers. No one can beat our price. You might even sell some of your candy bars, brownies and cookies while we’re at it.”
“You’re a genius, Grace!” Louise whooped. “I’ll put out the Open sign.”
Grace finished her call then put on her coat and gloves. “I’ll shovel the walk, and then we need to call to enlist some help. I don’t think it will take long to fill this place.”
* * *
MICA’S IPHONE RANG as he walked out of the mechanical shed.
“Grace? I was just going to call you.”
“Mica! Thank God. You have to help me. Us, I mean.”
“Again? This is becoming a habit of yours, Grace.”
“Please, Mica. Could you come to The Louise House ASAP? We’re under siege,” she said. “And ask your mom if she has some extra milk you can bring.”
“For Jules?”
“No. For half of Indian Lake. Hurry.” She hung up.
Mica stared at his phone. One thing about Grace? She wasn’t boring.
When Mica reached the The Louise House, he had to park a block away. Cars were lined up along both sides of the street and filled the parking lot in back. The sun was bright, and if it wasn’t for the cold and the dazzling snow, he would have sworn it was high summer.
Carrying two gallons of milk, he rounded the sidewalk hedges, went up the front walk and entered. Malt-shop oldie songs played on the jukebox and each time someone came in or out, Mica heard laughter. And frenzy.
Grace’s voice cut through the chatter.
“Chocolate malt! Heavy on the chocolate. Strawberry milk shake! Make it two!”
Mica edged past the long line of people waiting to place orders. He couldn’t believe it. Every seat was taken. People were standing along the walls, drinking milk shakes and talking about the storm. By the time he made it to the front counter, he’d heard several stories about the power outage.
He’d bet none topped his night of warming bricks and stoking a fire. A sleeping baby son on his stomach...
His eyes shot to Grace, who shoved a wayward strand of glistening blond hair out of her face as she dipped a scooper into a vat of ice cream.
“Grace?”
“Mica! Thank heaven you’re here. We need an extra hand. Take off your coat. You can run the milk-shake machine.” She sounded like she’d been running the shop for fifty years.
“Here’s the milk,” he said to Louise, who was pouring a pink concoction into a paper cup.
“Just in time.” Louise smiled.
“Grace? Where is our son?” Mica asked, his voice a mixture of accusation and concern.
“Holding court.” Grace jerked her head toward the center of the shop. “Sarah’s watching him. No worries.”
Mica looked over and sure enough, Jules was sitting in a high chair, his face covered in ice cream and chocolate syrup. He was laughing and giggling, trying to shove his spoon into Annie’s face as she smiled and teased him. Next to him was Sarah’s baby, Charlotte, who was almost as big a mess as Jules.
“He’s okay like that?” Mica asked.
“Yes, Mica.” Grace rolled her eyes. “He’s having the time of his life. Now, here, take this stainless-steel tumbler and put it under the stem of the mixer. Everything is in it. Then give it to Louise. She’ll serve it up. We need you.”
“I see that,” he said, taking the cup from Grace. Their fingers touched just long enough for him to feel the electricity between them that never failed.
No power outage there, he thought.
Within minutes, Mica had mixed up four shakes.
“We’re out of chocolate syrup,” Grace told Louise.
“No, there’s another five-pound can in the storeroom. Would you get it, Mica? Middle shelf to the right. Next to the Carnation Malted Milk and the Ovaltine.”
“Sure,” Mica said and wove through the crowd. He couldn’t believe it. Who were all these people? There were dozens of faces he’d never seen around town or at the usual parties. But then, Mica hadn’t come to town all that much in the past few years. Maybe not all that much since high school. He’d kept to the farm—injury or no injury.
Was his mother right? He’d been a self-righteous brooder for a long time.
He went into the storeroom and found the chocolate. It was one of those industrial-sized cans that could keep a shop like this going for a week. Though at this rate, they’d need more by the end of the day. He scooped it up in his right arm and used his elbow to turn off the light as he exited. That storeroom would be a good place for him to install a motion-activated light.
Yeah, he should do that for Louise.
Once again, he felt needed.
As he walked back to the counter, he saw Scott Abbot and his two kids come in the front door. He lifted his chin to Scott. “Hey, buddy. How’s it goin’?”
Scott waved, holding three-year-old Michael’s hand as he walked over to Mica. “We heard the ad on the radio. After we shoveled snow and the kids made a snowman, I figured they deserved a treat. What a great idea. A buck a shake.”
“Yeah. Great idea.”
“I shoulda thought of something like that for the bookstore. Cocoa. Coffee. They’d all work. I missed out on this one, though. Was that Louise’s idea?”
Mica glanced at Grace, who was chatting with Cate Sullivan and six-year-old Danny. “I’m thinking it was Grace.”
“Yeah? Boy. I should hire her for my PR,” Scott said. “Well, good to see you. Tell your mom that was a fantastic party the other night. Isabelle was bowled over, and for my event-planner artist wife, that’s saying a lot.”
Mica nodded. “I’ll tell Mom,” he replied and turned away. His smile melted.
Wife.
Scott had a wife.
All his brothers had wives. Gabe had a wife and a son.
Mica had a son now. But no wife.
The thought took his breath away. He had to think about inhaling. Think about calming the thoughts in his head.
He slid behind Louise and put the huge can of chocolate syrup on the back counter. He found a metal pump that he’d seen Louise use, stabbed the tin can and inserted the pump. He threw away the empty can of chocolate and placed the new can next to Grace. Cate and Danny had moved on, and now she was digging vanilla ice cream from a vat.
Though she looked tired and a little frazzled, she kept smiling while the customers talked to her. Mica wished he had the use of both arms so he could twirl her around and kiss her.
Instead, he leaned close to her ear, where he could smell her heady jasmine-and-rose perfume. “Grace. Chocolate syrup is ready to go.”
She turned. Their noses nearly touched. Her eyes locked with his and when she smiled he felt the warmth all the way to his heart. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “You’re the best, Mica. Thanks.”
Mica was mesmerized. He’d been feeling the voltage between them since she’d come back to town. Since she’d told him about his son. But her voice, her expression, held such longing and earnestness...
He didn’t know how she did it or if she was aware of what she was doing, but each time he was with her, something was different. Something changed.
Mica was beginning to realize that he was changing.
“You really think that, Grace?”
“I do, Mica.” She turned back to the ice cream and filled another stainless-steel tumbler. “Lots of people do.” She lifted her blue eyes to him. The undisguised trust in them made his heart twist. If they weren’t in a roomful of hungry patrons, all in need of sugar, he’d pull her to him and kiss her until they were both breathless.
“Thanks” was all he could say, and that took some doing. His mouth had gone dry.
On the one hand, he knew they might never see eye to eye on how and where to raise Jules. Together or separately. And at the same time, when he was with her, he wanted to kiss her. Didn’t want their time together to end. Last night, with her curled by his side...
It was all so complicated. He and Grace. Why couldn’t it be simple for them, like it was for his brothers and their wives?
Uh. On second thought, he remembered that Liz had confronted Gabe with a shotgun when they’d first met. When Nate had come back to town after eleven years away, Maddie had socked him in the belly. Maybe it was a Barzonni curse that all the men had to overcome some serious challenges to be with the women of their dreams.
His mother was right. He’d messed this up. But he could fix it. He was an engineer. He could make this work.
It was a matter of making the right connections. And voilà. Ignition.
He smiled to himself and put the tumbler on the Hamilton Beach mixer and turned it on. The machine churned the milk, ice cream and chocolate syrup.
He was thinking long into Jules’s future, whereas Grace was only focused on the short-term. Her latest designs. Her next show. She needed to think of every aspect of Jules’s life, now and later. Jules deserved to know his Barzonni family, to benefit from their love and support. If Mica and Grace continued to lead separate lives, Jules would lose out. Either he’d spend his childhood being passed back and forth across an ocean, or he’d be cut off from one parent and one world he could be a part of. Mica had to convince Grace that they needed to live together. Stability and a sense of family was best for Jules.
If only Mica could make Grace understand.
His thoughts skidded to a halt. How could he make Grace understand, when he couldn’t figure out what was happening in his own heart? All afternoon, he’d worked alongside her and though the shop was filled with half the people he knew in town, he was focused on Grace. He’d watched her. Laughed with her. And he’d felt something bloom inside him. It went beyond friendship and caring.
Something was changing inside him. It was more than the love he had for Jules.
This feeling had the kind of power that could alter his plans and goals. It could remap his future.
And it was all about Grace.