Page 23 of A Taste of Christmas Magic

He slowly turned the pages, and she heard him murmur, “Food is love.”

For someone who’d grown up poor and started washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen at Millie’s for money and meals for his family before he was in his teens, food probably had felt like survival and a hard slog, not love.

“Food is love.” His finger touched each handwritten word.

“That resonated with me too,” she said softly. “I remember no matter how tough school was or what was going on, I could go to Millie’s Diner and get a cup of soup, a biscuit, and a kind word, and the day was instantly better.”

She stared at her toes as she spoke, not wanting to see his curled lip of disdain or impatience flash like lightning in his eyes. He had often been at the diner, and that had always soothed every hurt. Still, her troubles had been nothing compared to his.

“Millie’s felt like home to me too,” Rustin said after a long silence, still leafing through the book, one page at a time. “I often wished it was my home. If I hadn’t had my family to help, I would have snuck back in after closing and slept there surrounded by warmth and the comforting scent of biscuits baking. Then I would have been up at dawn firing up the grills.”

Sorrow pierced her.

“So, you came home and bought a part of your history but changed everything.”

*

Rustin heard thequestion but ignored it. He’d given Chloe Maye Cramer too much already and was now poised to give her more after seeing the book. She had no idea of its history. Value. Power. And he wanted total access. Ideas and plans and recipes shuffled through his brain like a pack of cards under the hands of an expert Vegas dealer.

Hungrily he read the recipes. The notes. The corrections. Written in different hands. Ink faded. And then as he read more deeply into the book, a few times he saw more personal notes. Some sketches. Romantic advice. That was unexpected. Notes on health and herbs. A couplet—or was it a haiku?—here and there. A smile teased. That, at least would interest Chloe. He’d heard she’d become a teacher.

“There’s a whole personal and family history here,” he said. “Like it was handed down, used, enjoyed, and added to. But why would anyone shove this obviously treasured book into Miss Millie’s mini library?”

He finally tore his gaze from the pages to look at Chloe, who rocked up and down on the balls of her feet. She’d done it as a kid, and he remembered she’d been teased by kids who’d asked if she was trying to fly. Knowing what a fey, free spirit Chloe had been she probably had thought she could fly.

“Sure it’s not Miss Millie’s?”

“I don’t recognize any of the handwriting,” Chloe admitted. She too was puzzled.

“No,” he said definitively, as Miss Millie had left him many notes over the years by way of lists of tasks, notes on recipes. “And I don’t recognize any of the recipes but the biscuits.”

He closed the book and faced Chloe ready to negotiate.

An idea niggled. Traditions. Heirloom recipes. Modern twist. Fusion elements from countries of origin. Themes.

“What’s your theme for the Moveable Feast?” he asked, knowing there was a theme every year.

He knew the event was the weekend following Thanksgiving, and it kicked off the holiday celebrations on Belmont’s busy Christmas calendar. Of course, he’d never attended, but from the age of twelve he’d helped Miss Millie’s crew pull it all together and cleaned up after, hidden away in the kitchen because no one would allow a Wildish to be a guest in their elegant, historic homes that perched like jewels ringing the crown of Maye Downtown Park.

“Last night after finding the book, I looked through it and Grandma Millie’s binder on all the previous feasts,” she said and cleared her throat. “I thought maybe Southern holiday traditions or…” She nibbled on a thumbnail and looked at him doubtfully.

“Roots.” His ideas coalesced. Usually, he only let his ideas roam freely in his kitchen when he was alone. Or sometimes he brainstormed with Rebekah because she was brilliant and thought in terms of marketing and monetizing, which was not his strong suit.

He brought out his phone and hitVOICE MEMO. “I could have a roots section on the menu, changing weekly. No, monthly. Seasonally aware, holidays when appropriate. Farm-to-table emphasis or a section. Beef up research on local food sources.” He paused, a little embarrassed for Chloe to hear him brainstorm.

“I love the roots idea, Rustin,” she said and bounced up on her toes. Her eyes shone, and her high, round cheeks pinked. “For your menu and the feast, but you probably want to keep your menu sacred. Perhaps a sample for the feast, and then you could experiment with something else at the Christmas Market the following weekend? You definitely should have a food truck there or…” And she was off, ideas flowing like a river sweeping him away.

“We could theme the Movable Feast ‘Back to Our Roots,’ and you could have a ‘Southern Roots’ section on your menu that rotates with recipes and perhaps roots from around the world.”

Not a bad idea.

His finger twitched onRECORD, but he hesitated, hearing again the first word in her sentence. “There is no ‘we,’ Clo Beau.”

She flushed Barbie pink, and he shoved down the guilt and unwanted need to protect her.

“Youare going to cook, Chloe. I’ll guide you through it.”

*

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