What the heck was Rosemary thinking?
Anna replayed that thought over and over and over. It started with the moment she first came face-to-face with the fair-haired and slightly hunchbacked Simon, who greeted her with earnest eyes and a smile that made the room stop. She tried not to let her gaze linger on the retainer, even when he pulled it free of his teeth and set it on a bread plate right next to his water glass. She told herself Rosemary must have had a reason for choosing Simon specifically; after all, he had made his feelings for Anna known over the years, and he stopped in to the café five mornings a week, making sure to linger near the counter, grinning slyly as he slowly stirred creamer into his to-go cup.
Despite his overt interest in her, they had nothing in common, but even this didn’t seem to deter his pursuit. She’d tried to hide her shock when he handed her the sad bouquet of red carnations and then escorted her proudly to her chair, right in the center of Piccolino’s, for all of Briar Creek to see. She kept the conversation neutral, purposefully chatting about old classmates and school memories, but as he began listing his food allergies, then informed her he was a strict vegan and politely asked her if she planned to go to a real college someday, Anna decided that Rosemary had officially lost her marbles.
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
What was this? An interview? “Oh, running Fireside, I suppose.” She didn’t mention that she saw it doubled in size, with a full dinner service seven nights a week, and a handful of sous chefs helping her in the kitchen. The image brought a faint smile to her lips, despite how disastrously the evening was going, or how lonely the prospect of her future was if she stopped to think about it.
“What about kids?” Simon pressed, and Anna nearly choked on her water.
She set the glass down. This was getting a little too personal for a first date, but seeing that Simon had known her forever and had asked her to dance at every school event since the fifth grade, she couldn’t exactly say they were strangers.
“What about them?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“Do you want to have children?”
Anna froze. “No,” she said simply.
Simon paused for a moment. “No?”
“That’s right. No.” She reached for her water glass again, noticing the way her hand shook. She couldn’t expect him to understand, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell him her reasoning. She’d had her child and now it was gone. Nothing could bring her baby back; nothing would ever replace it. The thought of having another… it was too much. It wouldn’t bring back what she had lost. And it wouldn’t be Mark’s. She would have no way of knowing what their baby might have looked like, and no amount of searching the face of another child would make that image any clearer than it was now.
She had nothing to hold on to. Not even a picture. But she wasn’t ready to let go.
She scooped the rest of her tiramisu from its dish. It was a sloppy effort, lacking richness of flavor. Frank should have added a bit more mascarpone, and she questioned the strength of the espresso he’d used to soak the ladyfingers, but she wouldn’t be saying anything. She’d worked for Frank Piccolino her first summer out of culinary school, and she could still recall with vivid clarity his reaction after she’d merely suggested they add more cream to the vodka sauce. Frank had an ego; he considered himself the best chef in town.
She hoped to kick his butt in the contest.
“I should probably get going, Simon,” she said, breaking the silence. “I have more work to do tonight.”
He nodded, and after settling the bill, they walked to the car in silence. Maybe I’ve officially turned him away, she considered, but the thought did little to perk her up. Most men would want children, a family, a future. There really was no hope for her.
But now, as Simon’s lips curled and a flash of his metal retainer reflected off the parking lot lamp, Anna felt the first true prickle of panic.
God help her, he was going to try to kiss her.
She inched closer to the car, forcing a tight smile. “I really need to get to bed. Four o’clock rolls around pretty quickly!”
“I thought you said you had to work tonight,” Simon said.
Anna gave a nervous laugh. “Oh, did I? See? I’m so tired I nearly forgot. Chef’s hours and all that.”
“It’s Saturday night,” Simon insisted. “Why don’t we take a stroll through the town square?”
Anna darted her eyes to the left, where the dimly lit gazebo sat in the center of the park. On the other side of the square, she could see the darkened storefront of Fireside, and a few blocks to the north, the faint glow of lights at Hastings farther up Main Street. Mark was probably with Nicole Johnson right this very moment, doing God knows what with her, while she was standing in the parking lot of Piccolino’s with the local pharmacist, who happened to have had a crush on her since she was in the second grade.
Oh, Rosemary.
“I’ll see you around, Simon.” She flashed him an easy grin, and quickly unlocked the car. “Thanks again for dinner. It was fun catching up!”
Simon’s frown deepened, and she scrambled into the car before he got any notions. “Maybe we can try it again sometime,” he called out.
“Maybe,” she said, waving.
She pulled out of the parking lot. Honestly, what had Rosemary been thinking? Simon had asked her out a dozen times in high school, and she’d had to turn him down every time, lest she lead him on. Now she feared she’d done just that.
Anna tutted under her breath as she rounded the town square, slowing her pace as she crept down Main Street, which was dark and quiet at this time of night aside from the pub at the end of the strip.
She stopped the car at the corner of Second Avenue and unlocked her seat belt. The glow of the lampposts lit the new large paned window at the front of the café, hidden behind scaffolding. She rounded the building slowly, peering through the windows and into the darkness, trying to see inside. Progress was being made; that was something. The new front window looked exactly like the old. That was reassuring. She worried about her kitchen, though. Even though it would be just as functional, if not more so than the original, she liked the comfort of her ways. She knew which drawers stuck and how to set the timer on the ovens without even looking at the screen. She could move swiftly through the room without even stopping for consideration.
Change was good, she reminded herself. Some change.
A rustling caught her attention and she turned, jumping at what she saw.
“Mark.” She gasped when she saw him sitting on the bench at the corner of the sidewalk. He was in the shadows, under the shade of a big oak tree that lined the street, and even in the dusk she could see the lines in his face, the fatigue in his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and speared her with a look that caused her breath to catch. After everything they had been through and all that he had done to her, her body still reacted to him all on its own.
“I was just thinking,” he finally said. He heaved a sigh that rolled through his broad shoulders and paused, tenting his fingers. “Just thinking about… Tavern on Main. My dad’s place.”
She nodded slowly, not quite knowing what to say. He rarely opened up about his father, and she’d gathered it was not something he wanted to discuss. It was a sensitive subject, Anna understood, even if a little part of her wished he had felt he could confide in her.
There was a long pause. “Well, I was going to check on the progress in the kitchen.” Jingling her keys, she stepped toward the tarp covering the door, but Mark straightened with sudden interest.
He leaned back against the bench. “I thought you had a date tonight.”
Oh, that. Anna mentally rolled her eyes when she thought of the glee he’d take in learning that Simon had finally gotten his way after all these years.
“I did,” she said breezily, shifting under the heat of his gaze. She wished he would stop looking at her like that. Like he was enjoying this. Like he saw right through her. Like he knew things hadn’t gone well. Or as planned.
When did they ever?
His eyebrow cocked. “Over so soon?”
She hadn’t even looked at her watch, but something told her it was barely eight thirty. Any chance she had of passing her so-called date off as a success would be in vain.
“I have a lot going on right now, and I have to be up at four o’clock.”
Mark nodded slowly, doing a poor job of suppressing his grin. “Who was he?”
“Oh…” She could hardly say he was no one Mark knew. It wasn’t true, and in a town this small, he was bound to find out. “It was just… Simon.”
Mark hooted in laughter, clapping his hands together with boyish glee, while Anna felt her anger stir.
“How’s that for an obvious selection?” Mark continued. “And here I thought Aunt Rosemary was going to hand select you some mysterious stranger.”
That makes two of us, Anna thought bitterly. “Well, now you know.”
Mark spread his arms wide on the back of the bench and grinned. “Where’d he take you? Piccolino’s?” He caught her eye and chuckled. “Of course.”
“It was informative, actually,” she said, edging closer. “I made a point of stopping in to see Frank.” As an excuse to break away from the table for ten minutes, but Mark didn’t need to know that part. “He’s entering the contest, but I don’t think we have anything to worry about there.”
“We have a fair shot at this,” Mark replied. “I wouldn’t have partnered with you if I didn’t think so.”
She stiffened. Of course that’s why he wanted to partner with her. Because she was a sure bet. Not because… Nonsense.
Motioning to her car, she said, “I should get home. I have to get to the kitchen early tomorrow, and later I’m meeting with your mom to go through some more of the plans with the contractor.” She started to go but his voice stopped her.
“Do you ever wonder…” He paused, shoving his hands into the pockets of his chinos as he stood. “Do you ever think about how things might have been if we’d opened that place we always talked about?”
Her throat locked up as she held his gaze, feeling in that moment like he could see straight through to her soul, unlock every private thought she’d ever experienced, every tear she’d ever shed. There was no point in denying the truth.
“Sometimes.”
If he’d stuck to the plan, if he’d stayed the course, then they could have had so much more than their restaurant. They might have had their child, too.
She gripped her keys tighter in her hand, pressing the jagged edges into her palm, wanting to feel a pain deeper than the one in her heart. Losing Mark had been terrible, but losing their baby had been so much worse.
And it all could have been avoided.
She didn’t want to hear his words, his weak apologies. It didn’t make a difference now. She just wanted to win this contest, get back into her own kitchen, and get the hell away from him.
“We could have put Piccolino’s out of business.” Mark grinned, but Anna didn’t find any of this amusing.
She glared at him. “It was your choice. You were the one who had to throw it all away. I was invested. I was committed.”
Mark closed his eyes. “I know you were.”
Was that regret she sensed in his expression? His eyes were flat, his jaw tense, and all at once she had an urge to ask for the answers she had never received, to know exactly why he had tossed her aside, given up their dreams for something bigger for what… a diner?
“Well, it all worked out fine for me. I love Fireside.” She wouldn’t go there, not now, not ever. She didn’t want to hear how it could have been. To know for sure that life could have been different. That Mark regretted his actions that cost her much more than some restaurant. It was too late for regrets.
He dragged a hand through his hair, his expression turning pensive as he stared up at the building. “I still can’t believe you chose to take over my father’s old place. Of all the locations, Anna.”
His tone succeeded in silencing her. She stared at him, aghast, knowing there was truth in his words; she could see the pain in his eyes. It was the most emotion he’d ever revealed about his father, and she hated to see him like this, beaten down and rejected, so far from the smug guy who strutted into the bar with his latest fling. For a moment, she almost missed the swagger, even the damn smirk, if it meant she didn’t have to see the hurt in those deep brown eyes.
He’d been her friend once, and despite everything that had passed between them, every injury he’d caused her, a part of her still cared, damn it. Cared enough to not want to see him like this, hunched over, his jaw tense, his eyes far away.
“I know how much your dad meant to you, Mark. I hope you know that I wasn’t trying to take this from you. You’d been back at Hastings for a year; I was just trying to move on with my life. There was nowhere else in town. What other choice did you leave me?”
Mark stepped toward her. “I shouldn’t have done what I did all those years ago, Anna. I—I should have handled it differently. I thought I was doing the right thing by letting you go. You have to know that.”
She turned away. “I want to believe that.”
“You have to know how much you meant to me, Anna. You were one of the closest friends I’d ever had before we starting dating.”
“I know,” she said quietly. She stood at his side, feeling the heat from his body in contrast with the cool night air, sensing the musk of his aftershave, the awareness of his presence. A wave of emotion rolled through her when she thought of how much time had passed and how much had been lost along the way. Not just a plan for a restaurant, not just a dream of a future, but a friend. A good friend. A great one, really.
The best.
Now she stood in front of the rubble, the pieces of the life she had tried to build for herself, all on her own.
“You know where we went wrong, don’t you?” She slid him a sad smile. “We should have just stayed friends.”
“I thought that, too. Sometimes I still do. But I know that wasn’t possible.” His eyes locked with hers and her heart skipped a beat. “We had something, Anna. More than a friendship. More than an attraction. We had a connection. We still do.”
“Please,” she scoffed. “You have a connection with half the women in the state of Vermont. You showed up to my family’s home last night, to my sister’s engagement party, with your latest fling.”
His eyes sparked. “Says the woman coming back from a date tonight.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you sound jealous.”
“And what if I were?” His gaze rested on her mouth. He was suddenly close. Too close.
She took a step backward. “I’d say it wouldn’t matter.”
But it did matter. A lot.
“Do you know how often I’ve watched you across a crowded room, or from a few blocks down the street? It’s taken everything in me not to shout out your name.”
She blinked back the tears that threatened to spill. He was telling her everything she had wanted to hear, words she had never thought would ever be voiced, thoughts she’d never dreamed he would share, but it wasn’t enough. It didn’t change the past. It didn’t change a damn thing.
“What about Nicole?” she pressed.
He shook his head. “We’ve just gone out a few times. She’s not looking for anything serious.”
“And you are?” Anna gave him a withering smile.
He looked her straight in the eye, finally breaking the distance between their bodies. “I don’t know what I’m looking for, Anna.”
She gritted her teeth. “Of course not,” she said bitterly, angry at herself for thinking for one fleeting, glorious moment that he did. She wrapped her arms around herself as a breeze tore down the street.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for, Anna,” he said again, and something in the insistence in his tone made her stand to attention. “I just know that when I was with you, I was happy, and I haven’t felt that way since.”
She stared at him, forcing herself to stay strong, to focus on the pain. The hurt. The loss. “You dumped me, Mark.”
“Please don’t use that word.”
“Why not? It fits, doesn’t it? You tossed me aside, chucked all our plans. Left me alone to deal with the fallout.”
He looked at her sharply. “What fallout?”
Her breath caught. She’d said too much.
“What do you mean, Anna?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head forcefully, backing up. Her heart was hammering, and the chill was gone, replaced with a rush of heat that flooded her face. “Nothing.”
She could tell by his expression that he didn’t believe her, and she didn’t trust herself to keep her secret to herself right now.
“I should really go,” she said.
He showed no signs of turning to leave, or saying anything at all. He looked lost, like a shadow of the man she’d seen at the party last night, gloating as he did the rounds with Nicole Johnson on his arm.
She opened her mouth to speak, to ask him what was really wrong, where his head was, why he was staring through the rubble of this old place like he was staring into a grave. It was her loss to bear, but from the pain that furrowed his brow, she wasn’t so sure anymore.
She stopped herself. Letting Mark in would only lead to more disappointment. She’d gotten a taste of that last night. It was time to start moving forward once and for all. She’d opened Fireside to show him she could do it. That she didn’t need him. But she’d rebuild it for herself. Anna turned and walked away without a word.