7

Well, this changes things.

Jessie couldn’t keep the smile from his face as they walked to the bistro. He searched for a conversation starter. He’d been given a second chance. This time he would be pleasant and engaging. He would be enthusiastic, without seeming desperate. “Wendy got the house sold pretty quickly. It must be good to have that off your plate,” he said.

“It is, in most ways. A five-bedroom house was too big to manage on my own. The apartment has plenty of space for just me. I may call for your services sometime though. The last tenant lived there for twenty years. It could use some serious updating.”

“Any time.”

Inside the bistro, the combined scents of coffee and cinnamon, along with a dozen other scents he couldn’t identify hung in the air. As they studied the chalk board announcing the day’s specials, he detected a smile behind her mask. “What?”

“Nothing. I just wouldn’t have pegged you for a latte man.”

“I’m not a latte man.”

“But you had a key from here, so you must have been in at some point.”

“It wasn’t technically my key, it was my daughter’s. She couldn’t come tonight, so I brought the key in her place.”

“Ahh.”

“I mean she could have come, but she chose not to. Izzy is out on her first date tonight. At the movies with a boy from Brooklyn with green hair. I was making myself sick with worry, so I came to town to get my mind off it. After I went to the movie theater to spy on her.”

“Are you serious?”

He’d been trying for open and honest and now she thought he was an idiot. Outstanding, Wainwright. “Unfortunately, yes.”

Laughter bubbled out of her. The smile that was definitely beneath her mask caressed him like summer sunshine. “Jessie, that is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

He shrugged.

“That seems like something my father might have done.”

He shrugged again. “Maybe he did.”

She laughed again. “Maybe so.”

As they waited in line, Jessie tried to decipher the names of all the different items on the chalk board. Macchiato, affogato, and café au lait. Crème Brule, spicy churro, and maple cinnamon. Nicole had loved these kinds of places, with their lattes and cappuccinos and espressos. Jessie didn’t want to work that hard. He scanned the list looking for something that might translate to good, old-fashioned coffee.

“Have you eaten?” she asked. “Their pozole here is excellent.”

The burritos he’d had just a couple of hours before still sat like rocks in his stomach. And even if he was hungry, pozole wouldn’t be his first choice, or even his second. But he would have eaten a mud pie if it meant spending a little more time with Alexis Crossman.

Over pozole and lattes, they talked about his construction business, and her furniture store.

“The store has always been a part of my life.” She sipped her drink. “I started out my career at Crossman’s at age twelve, dusting the furniture on Saturday mornings. At age eighteen I became a salesperson. When my mother passed away five years ago I learned the ins and out of how to help Dad run it. But I won’t lie, it’s kind of scary being its sole proprietor.”

“You’ll do great, Alexis.”

She smiled. “I’m glad you have faith in me.”

“I remember your mother. Nice lady. My wife and I bought a love seat when we got our first apartment. We wanted a sectional, but the love seat was all that would fit in our living room. Your mother said it would last forever and she wasn’t lying. We’ve gone through two living room suites since then, but the loveseat is still in Izzy’s bedroom.”

“I was sorry to hear about your wife.”

“Thank you.”

He didn’t want to talk about that, not tonight, so he steered the conversation to safer waters.

“Your parents did a lot for the town. And for the Festival. The keys, and all. It’s become the highlight of Christmas in the Village.”

“The contest was Mom’s idea.” Her gaze was all at once far away, as though she’d been transported into a memory. She sat quietly for a moment, and then explained. “When I was little, maybe seven or eight, my father surprised us with tickets to the Nutcracker Ballet in New York City. My mother had always wanted to go, but needless to say, Dad wasn’t exactly a ballet man. My mother turned thirty that year and he wanted to do something special.

“Mom and I were so excited. She bought me a frilly pink and white dress and these pink sparkly shoes. I felt just like a princess. We took the train to New York and spent the day window shopping on Fifth Avenue, then we ate lunch at a fancy restaurant. At least it seemed very fancy to me, with chandeliers and white tablecloths and all. The business was just getting started then and we didn’t have a lot of money to eat out, and never in places like that.”

Jessie was swept up in her descriptive memory, imagining a little girl.

“I didn’t really understand what the ballet was about, but I loved the music and the costumes. But mostly I loved being there with my parents. Though Dad fell asleep about halfway through the performance.” She chuckled. “Years later, they visited a nutcracker village and Mom came up with the idea for the contest. Dad agreed to build the wise men for her…if he never had to sit through another ballet.”

Jessie laughed, remembering in time to tone it down and not cause an earthquake. “That sounds as if it’s a very special memory.”

“It is. We had so many good times together. It was hard to let go of the house and all of those wonderful memories. The apartment is kind of a fixer- upper, but I love the thought of a family living in the house again. I hope they’ll be as happy as we were.”

She was so enchanting, her eyes misty with unshed tears, so sweet and vulnerable. Maybe she’d take a chance on another fixer upper. On him.

“Why are you not married?” he blurted without thinking.

“I was,” she said with a soft shrug of her shoulder. “It didn’t work out.”

“Oh.”

As though remembering her pozole, she swallowed a spoonful. “So that’s my life story. Now tell me yours.”

“There’s not really much to tell. I’ve lived in Charlee Falls my whole life. I took over my father’s contracting business when he retired, I have an average house on an average street. I have a sister, whom you’ve met. And I have a sixteen-year-old daughter.”

“Losing your wife had to be devastating. I mean, I lost my husband to a divorce, but that’s not at all the same thing. How did you get through it?”

“I’m still getting through it. A day at a time. Some days I do all right. And some days my guilt eats me alive.”

“Your guilt? I thought she was killed by a drunk driver?”

“She was.”

This was where it got hard. Saying it out loud. He swallowed the last of his drink.

“We’d spent Black Friday shopping at the mall. When we got home, Izzy wasn’t feeling well and went to bed with a fever. Nicole started wrapping her gifts and halfway through she ran out of wrapping paper. She didn’t want to leave Izzy, so she asked me to run to the store and buy some more. After an entire day at the mall, I was tired. And more than a little grumpy. I told her the rest of the wrapping could wait for another day. We had an argument and she stormed out. Twenty minutes later she was dead, killed by a drunk driver.” Exactly 13 months and seven days ago today.

“Eighteen years together, eighteen years of love, and the last words to pass between us were angry ones. That’s where the guilt comes in. It took a long time to stop blaming myself. If I had just gone to the store for her… And then there was the bitterness toward the man who took her life. I wanted him to suffer like Izzy and I were suffering.” He blew out a breath. “But I’m learning to let it go. All of it. What would holding onto all that garbage teach my daughter?”

“I’m so sorry, Jessie.” It was all Alexis said, but coupled with the soft brush of her hand on his, it was enough.

“Nicole was the one with most of the faith and all of the parenting skills. I just kind of hung onto her coattails and went along for the ride. But after she was gone, I realized it was just me now to raise Izzy, and I’d better get it right. So, I turned to God. Who better than my heavenly Father to help me learn to be one?”

“That makes sense.”

“Raising a teenager is not for sissies. And a daughter, no less. Nicole always knew just the right thing to do. I’m fumbling my way through it. And I have to tell you, this dating stuff will take some getting used to.”

“It sounds to me as though you’re doing a wonderful job of raising her. As for the date, after sixteen years of being the only man in her life, it’s got to be hard to compete with someone else for your baby girl’s attention.”

That was it exactly. Not even a parent, and Alexis had nailed it.

“From what I’ve seen, it’s usually the parents who don’t care enough that run into trouble. Not the ones who care too much.” She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, then withdrew it.

“You had a pretty good set of parents, yourself. I was really sorry to hear about your dad. Pete was a good man.”

“Thank you.” She sighed. “Talk about feeling guilty. For a couple of weeks before he died, Dad had all the symptoms of heart trouble, and I never put two and two together. He was tired, his color was off… I guess I was too busy to notice. Maybe if I’d made him go for a checkup…”

“It would be amazing if we could go back in time and do things differently. But we can’t. All we can do is move forward the best we can and trust God’s plan.”

They talked as though they would never run out of things to say, as though they were making up for every word neither had said the week before at the Crawford Inn, and as they talked, time seemed to evaporate.

Their server hovered nervously, asking if there was anything else they needed.

“I think they want us to leave,” Alex whispered with a smile.

“Why?”

“The bistro is closing.”

A glance at the wall clock told him it was after ten o’clock.

“That would explain why they’re turning off the lights.”

They stood and gathered their coats.

Jessie paid the bill. He threw down an extra big tip before they headed back out to the street.