Page 45 of Meet Me at the Grand

“Yep.” They stepped into Donna’s Delights, where only a few patrons currently took advantage of the warmth inside the 1950s-style shoppe with its high-class red booths, checkered floors, and gleaming black tabletops. Behind the counter, a twenty-something woman greeted them and offered them samples of a dozen different flavors. “The peanut butter pretzel is my personal favorite,” he said.

“Sounds amazing. I’ll try that one, please.”

The woman handed Dani a tiny spoon containing some of the creamy delicacy, and Liam couldn’t help the dryness in his throat as he watched her take it between her lips, close her eyes, and sigh. “Oh my goodness, that’s amazing. I will definitely have one of those, please.”

“Make it two, but I’ll take mine in a waffle cone.”

“Right away, Mr. Stone.” The woman set to work getting their ice cream served up, and within minutes, they were tucked away in a corner booth.

Somewhere above them, a speaker played an Elvis Presley ballad.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever had ice cream in April.” Dani dipped her spoon into her cup and held it up, as if examining it from every angle. “But I’m highly in favor.”

“You and my mom both.” Liam licked his cone, the bits of chocolate finding the sweet spots on his tongue. “She always said ice cream should be a year-round thing.”

“Sounds like my kind of woman.” Dani cocked her head. “Her name wouldn’t happen to have been Donna, would it?”

How had she figured it out? Liam stared at every ridge of the cone. “Every hotel we renovate gets a Donna’s Delights. It’s part of our normal contract. Kind of our signature thing. Of course, our contract for the Grand is a bit outside the norm, so no worries about being forced to add one.”

“I’m not worried.” Dani reached across the table and placed her hand on his forearm. Squeezed. “I think it’s amazing that you’ve found such a great way to honor her memory.”

His gaze shifted to her fingers, each one long and thin. Her teal fingernail polish was chipped around the edges, but it didn’t seem to bother her. He knew plenty of women back home who had their nails done every week or so, but he’d never seen a hand as beautiful as hers. “Thanks, Dani.”

They ate in silence for a few long moments, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. More like she was sitting with him in the memories. Then she finally spoke. “I’d love to hear more about your mom. If you don’t mind telling me.”

Liam inhaled a shaky breath. “I don’t mind.” But what could he say to really describe how amazing his mom had been? How could he really do her justice? “She…” He watched a drip of ice cream slide down the side of his cone and plop onto the table. “She always had a snack waiting for me after school. We’d sit and talk about my day, or about her day. She was a freelance editor. Really smart. And she was always doing things for other people, you know? Taking them meals when they’d had surgery, watching their kids for them when they had doctor’s appointments, that kind of thing. And she loved me and my dad like…” His words choked him. He coughed. “Like we were the best things in her life. Like we mattered more than anything. She’d drop whatever she was doing and just be with us. And she made our house a real home. Decorated it with all of these knickknacks she’d get garage saling. Drove my dad crazy, and he’d tease her about it.”

Liam blinked against the memories. Oh man. He hadn’t meant to talk for so long. His ice cream had dripped more than once all over the table, and he grabbed a fistful of napkins from the silver dispenser. Wiped away the mess before he got the courage to look up at Dani.

Her eyes were watering. Was she crying?

“You okay?” he asked.

“Sorry, yeah.” She tugged a clean napkin from his pile and dabbed her eyes. “It’s just really beautiful to hear about her.”

“She was a really great mom. And she gave me a great childhood home. Things were never the same after she died, you know? Dad and I moved from the suburbs to downtown L.A. A friend of his and our biggest client owns a hotel there and lets us rent the penthouse for dirt cheap.”

“You live in a hotel?”

Her question didn’t come across as judgmental, just curious. Maybe with a touch of surprise too.

“It’s weird, I know. But not so bad. I’m not home much anyway. Always running off to manage the next job. I’m never in one place for very long. Though I do hope to change that.”

“You mentioned something about that last week. How are you hoping to change it?”

“I’ve got a project in the works with a buddy of mine. We’re hoping to get Dad to buy a hotel and renovate it ourselves.”

“So you’d be your own client?”

“Basically. It’s in Los Angeles, and it would be a strong asset to add to our portfolio. I’m thinking that once we have one under our belt, maybe we can buy others in the area. Kind of create a new revenue stream, you know? And that would keep me there, in one place. I could maybe get Dad to retire.”

“Does he want to retire?”

“He should, for his health.” Liam took a bite of ice cream. “But I need to be in L.A. for him to even consider it.”

“Hmm.” Dani swirled her spoon in her ice cream cup. “So, your mom. How…how did she die?”

He shifted in his seat and set his cone down on the dirty napkins. His appetite had fled. Because after all the memories came the dreaded emptiness—the memory that Mom had gone and taken any semblance of home with her. “Um, childbirth. It was…” The words got stuck in his throat.

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