Page 38 of Whisking It All

“Genius? Ha!” Lindsay cackled and cast a fond smile in his direction. “You always were a flatterer.” She turned to Tessa. “You got a special someone in your life, Tessa Jayne?”

Tessa glanced at Jamie warily, taking a step away from him so his hand fell away. “No. No one special.”

He wanted to eliminate the distance between them, to keep his hands on her, to show her that he could be someone special… none of which was okay. Because he couldn’t be someone special to Ethan’s daughter, and when she walked out of that hotel room two weeks ago without so much as a goodbye note on the pillow, she’d made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want him to be anyway. He needed to remember that no matter how much she haunted his thoughts, she would always be someone who had decided she didn’t want him around for more than one night.

More than that, she would always be his best friend’s daughter.

So maybe she was right. Maybe where Tessa was concerned, he really was no one special.

Chapter 13

“Coming!” Tessa hollered at the incessant knocking on the front door. What is it with small towns and people just dropping by unannounced?

She pulled open the door to find a quartet of white-haired women on her front steps, each grinning wider than the last.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

The woman closest to the front clicked her tongue. “TJ! Look at you!”

Tessa grimaced as the woman prattled on about some silly thing Tessa had done as a six-year-old. She was really getting tired of the non-stop walks down memory lane from every person she met, each one seemingly remembering everything about her even though she had no memories of them. Granted, she’d worked pretty hard over the years to block out thoughts of Aster Bay and her mother had hated discussing her hometown, but still…

“So that’s why we’re here!” the woman concluded with a satisfied smile.

Shit. What did she say?

“I’m sorry. I think I missed something…”

“We’re taking you to dinner,” the woman on the end said. She pointed to each of them in turn, starting with herself, “Dot, Ruth, Helen, Judy. Don’t worry. We won’t hold it against you if you don’t remember right away.”

“Speak for yourself,” Ruth said.

“So? Ready to go?” Judy asked.

“Go where?” Tessa said, struggling to keep up.

“To dinner,” Helen repeated. “We heard you were here in this big house all by yourself and we thought, that’s no place for a young woman on a Saturday night. So here we are. We’re taking you to dinner. Our treat.”

“Oh, I couldn’t—”

“It wasn’t a request, dear,” said Dot.

That is how Tessa Cordeiro found herself at dinner at Lemon and Thyme on Saturday night with four elderly women, all of whom had apparently taught both her mother and father in elementary school.

“Then there was the time your father caught a frog at recess and chased your poor mother all around the schoolyard trying to get her to kiss it,” Judy laughed between sips of her pinot grigio.

“And did she?” Tessa asked.

“Heavens no!” Judy laughed. “When he caught up to her, she turned and planted one right on Ethan’s lips. Surprised the hell out of him.”

Tessa smiled. She’d never heard these stories of her parents’ youth together. Her mother hadn’t liked to talk about Aster Bay—other than to tell her how judgmental everyone was—and her father… well, she’d never asked him.

“They were always circling each other. For years,” Helen said with a chuckle as she dipped her bread into the plate of seasoned olive oil in the center of the table. “We all knew they’d end up together. Even when she dated Mikey Greenhall.”

“That was only for a few weeks,” Dot said, as though it was hardly worth mentioning.

“You certainly know a lot about the love lives of two teenagers,” Tessa chuckled.

“Oh, sweetheart, we know everything that goes on in this town,” Helen said. It felt like a warning.

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