Chapter Nineteen

Hannah…

The minute Ruth calls me granddaughter, my heart swells with emotions, the tears flowing of their own accord, and I know why. My grandmother died when I was five. Ruth was always next door; she was my other grandmother, the only one I really know at all. Marrying Roarke would have made that all the truer. Losing Roarke meant losing her, too, only right now, it doesn’t feel like I lost her at all, though I know I have. It’s not fair to put her in the middle of me and Roarke. I wouldn’t do that to her, but for now, it feels good to have her back, if only for a little while.

“Why are you crying, honey?” Ruth demands, pulling back to inspect me, her crystal-blue eyes so like Roarke’s, beautiful, intelligent, kind. They also see way too much. “This is supposed to be a happy homecoming,” she adds.

“It is,” I promise, swiping at my eyes. “It is happy. These are happy tears.”

“They better be,” she chides. “We’re thrilled you’re here and part of the festival, and if you ever go silent on me again, I’ll hunt you down. That’s a promise. Let me get a look at you.” She inches back a bit farther to give me a once-over, while I note that she’s still slender and fit. I think I need to try Pilates. She looks good.

“You are beautiful, honey,” she declares, when she’s the one who is beautiful, inside and out, her long silver hair and elegant features having aged like a fine wine. Her inner light, still so ever present. “My boy was a fool to lose you,” she declares.

My cheeks heat with that awkward comment. Roarke seems to respond, stepping to my side, the place I used to believe he’d always stand. “As you can see,” he says, “Grandma still knows how to get right to the point.”

Ruth points at him. “And how to keep you in line, boy.” She takes my hand. “Now, you go away. We’re going to do some girl talk and catch up.”

She means she wants to drill me about me and Roarke. “I’d love that,” I say, at least about the time with her, not the talk about Roarke. “But,” I add, “I need to talk to everyone about the festival, and I think Roarke needs to be a part of that talk.”

She crinkles her nose. “Fine, then. He stays for cookies and coffee and leaves for the girl talk. I’ll take you to my little cabin behind Roarke’s house if that’s what it takes to get some alone time.”

“You’re still there?”

“You betcha, honey,” she says. “Till the day I die. A perfect girl hideout.”

In other words, I’m not getting out of that girl talk, even if I dodge it today. She wants to know what happened between me and Roarke, and she won’t stop until she gets answers, a conversation I’d avoided years before, and with reason. What do I say? Do I tell her he cheated? No. No, I discard that idea immediately. I won’t do that to Roarke. I loved Roarke. God, I still do. I won’t hurt him or talk badly about him ever. “I’d love to have some time with you and Martha, Ruth. It’s been a long time.”

“I’m really not sure how I feel about being left out of the girl talk,” Roarke comments, “but Hannah promised to help me with Snowflake. You know how good she is with the forlorn animals.”

“Oh my, yes,” Ruth says, looking at me. “You used to sing to the sick animals, and you just have this way with them that soothed them, like another Horse Wrangler! You two were going to be Mr. and Mrs.—”

“Ruth,” I say softly, warning her to stop, and it’s enough. She gives me an understanding look, purses her lips, and wraps her arm around me. “Let’s get you inside and get you fed. What have you eaten today? You look thin.”

“Today? Coffee and two cake pops, since Nick ate the other two. I’d get mad at him, but he towed my car. I owe him a million cake pops.”

“I’ll have Martha bake him some goodies for helping. We need to get you some real food before we feed you cookies.”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll take the cookies. Last night I ate most of a pizza by myself. I feel like I’m having theme days. Yesterday, I lived on pizza. Today, I live on cookies. It’s really a fantasy feast to be envied. Tomorrow, however, I’ll live on vegetables. It all evens out. It’s all about balance.”

Roarke laughs and opens the door to the house for us, his eyes lighting with mischief. “Vegetables make everything better, right, Han?” he teases, and it’s an inside joke that has my cheeks heating. It’s about me and him in a field of vegetables. It was after a fight. We were no longer fighting once we left that field. It’s not the kind of story you share with anyone, but it is one that you remember.

“The problem is that vegetables come with a short shelf life,” I reply. “The benefits only last so long.”

“It’s true,” Ruth says. “You have to feed your body with good things every single day.” She nudges me. “And cookies and cake pops.”

“And pizza,” I add, and as she tugs me forward into the house, my gaze catches Roarke’s with a warning in my stare, one that I forget as soon as I enter the living room of Jason’s house; only when I was here before, it belonged to his parents. This realization, the finality of their deaths, steals my joy at the scent of Martha’s baked goods permeating the air.

“I can’t believe they’re gone,” I whisper.

“I know,” Ruth says, squeezing my arm. “It never feels right, but Jessica has brought new life to the place and to Martha.”

Roarke steps behind us, and I can feel his presence pressing against me, the past that is lost, heavy in the room, in every possible way. “Come,” Ruth says, taking my hand and leading me forward, down a hallway.

It’s not long before I’m walking inside a large, beautiful kitchen where Martha and Jessica stand behind the center rectangular island with icing bags in hands and cookies in front of them. “Oh my God!” Martha exclaims, dropping her bag to run toward me, spry like she’s years younger than her seventy-something years, her gray hair much shorter and more old-fashioned than Ruth’s.

I’m swept into a hug by my “other grandma,” and this time, it’s Martha who cries, and her emotion pounds into me. She’s still living with the loss of Jason’s parents and her daughter. I’m a piece of the past connected to them, and suddenly, any past I have to overcome feels like nothing.

Before long, I’m hugging Jessica, too, and hearing all about the Flying J bakery that Martha and Jessica have made hugely successful with cookies in a major restaurant chain and a series of cookbooks.

I’m also recruited to help ice their new carrot cake cookies, as is Roarke, and the two of us end up at opposite endcaps, facing each other with icing bags in hand. “Is Jason around to talk about the festival?” I ask.

“He’s at the new field throwing balls,” Jessica says. “He spends a couple of hours a day out there, but shoot your ideas at all of us.”

“This is for the town with the camp as a press point, right? And maybe the bakery? We want adults and kids at the camp, correct? And I assume opportunities to donate to the charity benefiting from the camp?”

“Exactly,” Jessica says. “Exactly.” Her eyes light. “What if we could become like the Christmas festival in the state? Or even beyond the state. Like Santa’s Workshop has nothing on us. I know that’s a big order for this year, but a girl can dream, right?”

“We can make it pretty special,” I say. “We’ll get booths and snowblowers. We’ll decorate like crazy. The big thing is getting people here, which means using our assets.”

“My baked goods?” Martha asks. “I can donate.”

“Baked goods by the famous Grandma Martha is good,” I say. “But what if we hold a bachelor auction and recruit baseball players, and even firemen from local stations, even from Dallas, to be a part of it? Of course, we’ll make them all wear Santa hats.”

“We have to have Santa hats,” Jessica laughs.

“Yes,” I agree primly. “We do. And we also have to act fast to make this happen, but I believe this would bring in big money for the charity. And if the players don’t want to agree to go on dates, they could auction off a dance, a kiss, or lunch. They could pick some prize that is their choice. We could also ask them all to donate an item to the auction—a ball, a signed shirt, or whatever.” I don’t breathe. My mind is working fast and I keep going, changing topics only slightly. “I’m already thinking about agreements with nearby hotels.” I laugh. “I’m talking a million miles an hour. Feel free to hate the idea but—”

“I love it!” Martha says. “How about one winner gets to bake cookies with Jason and ask him questions?”

“They might rather do that with just you,” I say. “You’re becoming a star in your own right.”

“Agreed!” Jessica and Ruth chime in.

Roarke’s eyes warm on me. “Agreed.”

“Oh, you all,” Martha says. “I’m no star, though the Food Network did ask me to be a judge on Cupcake Wars. It’s very exciting!” She waves it off, though. “Enough about me. Getting back to Jason. We could let the person who wins try to hit a pitch Jason throws, or play ball with him, or just have coffee. We’ll have to get Jason in on it. Roarke,” she continues, looking at him, “no date for you, but you could introduce the winner to your horses or take a lady on a horseback ride.” She then glances at me, and I have a feeling a bombshell is coming, even before she says, “Of course, you could supervise, Hannah. That’s why I said he’s not up for auction for a date.” She glances between Roarke and me. “Because you two are a couple. We all know it, even if you two aren’t saying it yet.”