Page 49 of Beachside Kisses With My Enemy

And when we were done and tasted our creation, I didn’t even care that it wasn’t the best thing I’d ever eaten. (It was fine—but come on. Nothing compares to chocolate cake!) All I cared about was the memory we made.

Which is how I find myself here, in my kitchen at nine p.m. on a Monday night, an hour after wishing my family a good night and just twenty minutes after arriving home with a trunkful of groceries.

The good thing is, Al’s is open until nine, and they had all of the ingredients I needed.

The bad thing is…oh, yeah. I CAN’T COOK OR BAKE TO SAVE MY LIFE.

The recipe I found online looked so simple. Pound out some nuts, add some dashes of sugar and cinnamon, and then create a dough.

This is where I run astray. After blinking at the instructions for a few minutes and making sure I have the ingredients lined up on the counter in front of me, I realize I don’t have the faintest idea what a flour sifter looks like. Or where one would be. I could ask Mare, but she’s asleep, and Blake isn’t home from work yet.

I blow out a breath and shake my head. No backing out now. I may not have Mama here with me, but I can try to channel her cooking expertise. To pretend I got even an ounce of her genetic cooking abilities. Something—anything—to feel like she’s given me more than just a lousy postcard or two and a handful of short visits since she left me here.

The backs of my eyes burn. No, no, no. I will not cry.

Instead, I will bake. And I will be glorious.

Two minutes later, I am anything but glorious.

I’ve added salt to a mountain of flour in one of Marilee’s purple, plastic bowls. Then I create a well in the flour. Actually, it’s more like a crater, but how is someone supposed to know how deep a “well” is when it comes to recipe lingo?

Next, I crack five eggs into the well. My nose wrinkles at the instructions when they say I’m supposed to mix it with my hands, but I plunge them in anyway. That’s when I realize my hair, which I normally keep pulled up and out of my face, is hanging loose and long today, and there’s a piece that’s shorter in front that careens into my eyelashes. I try to blink it away, but it doesn’t budge. Closing that eye, I try to read the instructions, but it’s harder to do than you might think with only one working eye. Not only that, but apparently I’m supposed to add warm water and olive oil to the mix.

I know for a fact that the water sitting in a measuring cup on the counter is no longer warm. It’s taken me way too long to get this far and it has to be cold by now. How much will that affect the result?

Why am I so stupid and bad at this? Why didn’t Mama take the time to teach me more before she left? It’s not like Aunt Bea didn’t try, but there are certain things that mothers should do, right?

And there’s a lot that Mama and I didn’t get a chance to do before she left.

Without warning—with my hands plunged into a flour-y, eggy mess—long-suppressed tears start to stream down my cheeks. I want to wipe at them, but that would leave a terrible mess on my face instead. So I let myself cry into the flour.

And then there’s a noise behind me—the creak of the front door, the clink of keys sliding into the small metal tray in the entryway.

Great. Just great. Of course I’d have a witness to this moment of uncontrolled emotion.

Stiffening, I quickly sniffle in an attempt to clear away evidence of my utter meltdown, but my nose honks and my throat emits one loud hiccup like it’s going out of style.

“Lucy?” Then I feel the heat of Blake next to me. “Are you okay?”

I turn to face him, shrug. Attempt a smile. “Sure, why do you ask?”

“I…” He lifts his hands like he wants to take my arms, to feel that I’m solid, that I’ll be okay. But he doesn’t touch me. He glances back, toward the hallway, and I can only imagine he’s dreaming of his escape from the crazed lady in the kitchen with dirty hands, streaming tears, and flour all over her tank top because she forgot to put on an apron.

But—for better or worse—Blake is too good of a guy to abandon a crying woman. “Did someone hurt you?” The words come out a bit of a growl—which is strangely comforting. “Tell me what’s wrong, Sunshine.”

There he goes with that nickname again. I think about April’s warning a few hours ago, but at this moment, I feel broken open, raw, and it’s almost a relief to show him that I’m not always fine. “No one hurt me,” I manage, my voice wobbly. With my hands still plunged into the wet bowl—the so-called “dough” beginning to harden and cake on my skin—I nod to the postcard resting on the counter. “I just got that and…it made me kind of weepy.”

He picks up the postcard, turns it over. Frowns. “Does she send you these a lot?”

“Off and on.”

“When was the last time you talked with her?”

“She texted me last week, remember?”

“So you talked to her after that?”

My silence is my answer.

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