Lucy’s smile turns wistful. “I do.” Her voice catches and she drops her gaze.
Instinctually I take a step forward, before reining in my desire to comfort a woman I hardly know.
My grandma catches Lucy’s change in demeanor as well and somehow knows exactly what to do. She pats her hand. “Bring it along if you want. No pressure to, or to come at all. Just know it’ll be a night of fun and flavor. Dress comfy to dance. They’re bringing in an instructor for us.” Gram shimmies her shoulders.
“Easy, dear. Don’t throw out your back,” Pa deadpans.
Gram clicks her tongue. “You watch that mouth, Martin, or there’ll be no kisses for you.”
Lucy’s lips tick up, and I’m grateful to my grandparents for diffusing the moment. I’m not sure what it was about, but I’m glad Lucy is smiling now.
“Alright, then.” Pa claps me on the shoulder. “We’ll leave you two be. Come on, Loretta.”
My grandma says goodbye to Lucy before she scuttles back across the room toward me, pulling me down into a hug. “Your pa is right. Idolike her,” she whispers into my ear. “I can tell you do too.”
Without giving me a chance to confirm or deny it, she sweeps out the door.
Chapter 15
Lucy
You will not cry in the canned vegetable aisle. You willnot.
I stare down at the text message from my stepmom, Ruby.
Ruby
Attaching the picture of the recipe card here for you, Lu. Is everything going okay? Need anything? Offer still stands if you want us to cancel or postpone this season so you can come home. Here for you. Kisses!
Not only is my stepmom’s kindness causing tears to sting behind my eyes, but when I tap the image she sent and see my dad’s handwriting and the splatters of chili on the recipe card, a lump forms thick and fast in the back of my throat. My vision blurs with unshed tears.
I swipe at my eyes and take a shuddering breath. I’m in the heart of the local grocery store in downtown Cashmere Cove. “Jingle Bells”is playing through the overhead speakers. Shoppers are milling about, so I’ve got my winter coat zipped all the way up and my hood pulled over my head. I’m trying to keep most of my face tucked down into my collar as I shop around, but now that I’m feeling emotional, my body temperature is soaring, and I’m going to overheat if I don’t get some air circulation going.
I unzip my collar to let my neck breathe, blowing out a long exhale.
I’m fine. Everything’s fine.
The chili cook-off at TJ Wilson’s grandparents’ senior living community is tonight. I wasn’t sure I was going to go. I’m still notsure what made me ask Ruby to send Dad’s recipe. I made a deal with myself that if she sent it in time for me to make a batch, I’d go. If she didn’t get back to me, then it wasn’t meant to be.
I should have known Ruby would be on the ball. The woman is freakishly organized, and she’s worried about me, so when I reach out, she’s always quick to respond.
Armed with Dad’s recipe, I set off for the grocery store before I lost my nerve, but now, here I am, and I don’t know if I can do this.
I stare at the ingredients in my cart. Celery, green pepper, onion. I’ve got my tomato soup and tomato juice, and I’m standing in front of a wall of canned beans, and it’s ridiculous that this is going to be my undoing.
I find the kidney beans, and my stomach turns. I remember sitting on the counter in our house in California, Dad whipping up a batch of his mom’s chili. I was probably about eight years old. It was a month or two before he met Ruby, so it was just him and me at home. I was complaining about the kidney beans he added to the mixture. I told him they tasted like dirt and that the texture made me want to throw up.
“Why can’t you leave them out?”I’d whined aloud.
“Lu,” he’d said, chuckling. “If I leave out the beans, it’ll change the flavor of the entire soup. You don’t have to like them—you can be disgusted by them—but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a purpose.”
I’d complained some more, and my sweet dad had shaken his head, leaned over, and pressed a kiss to my temple. “You can always pick them out of your bowl if you must.”
I miss him so much it hurts sometimes. Like right now. I’d eat kidney beans for the rest of my life if it meant I could spend one more afternoon with Dad in the kitchen.
About a month after that memory, he met Ruby. They fell hard and fast and were married six months later, and we became a big, blended family, with Ruby and Kait and Hilary, her two daughtersfrom her first marriage. Less than a year after that, right before my tenth birthday, Dad left to get groceries and never came back.
“Are you okay?” a kind female voice stirs me from my memories.
