“Maria Delmonico makes a fantastic dough and she tops it with fresh local ingredients. She even has a local farmer provide homemade mozzarella.”
“Yum.”
“The next time you order, you’ve got to try her hand-mixed ice cream. She has a salted caramel that is divine.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. I love anything with salted caramel.”
“Same.”
He picked off the mushrooms and took a bite of the delicious pizza. As she took a bite as well, she made a small sound of appreciation that felt oddly arousing.
He cleared his throat. “What are you doing back in town, Emma? I never thought you would return to Wood Briar. You always seemed pretty determined to stay away.”
She took a sip of water. “While Grandma is on the injured list, my mom needs me. Or at least she says she does.”
“She does,” he assured her.
“I am hoping this summer will be good for Olive. I would like her to have a closer relationship with my mother and grandmother. I’m also hoping my schedule will be more flexible here than it was in Las Vegas so I can spend more time with her.”
“Where is she tonight?”
“With my mom, who sent me a couple of pictures from the beach earlier. They went tide pooling apparently and ran into our new celebrity author and his kids.”
She took another slice of pizza. “What about you?” she asked. “Why have you stuck around Wood Briar all these years? I always had the impression you couldn’t wait to leave either.”
He hated thinking about the kid he had been in school, embarrassed about his chaotic homelife and filled with shame because learning had been so tough on him.
“I couldn’t wait to leaveschool. I like the town fine. I had... reasons for staying.”
“Let me guess. A woman?”
“In the literal sense of the word, yes, but probably not what you think.”
He weighed how much to tell her then decided he had no reason to keep it a secret. She would find out soon enough, if she didn’t already know.
“My mom is not well,” he finally said, doing his best to keep his voice emotionless. “Early onset dementia. She’s in a nursing home up in Lincoln City. I’m all she has, so I haven’t felt like I could go far, even if I wanted to.”
Her face tightened with shock and sympathy. She hadn’t known, apparently.
“Oh man. That’s rough. I remember your mom from elementary school. Wasn’t she a lunch lady for a while? She was always very kind.”
He took a swig of water, aching for the woman Terri Kendall hadn’t been for a long time. And would never be again.
“My mom hasn’t had an easy life, I’m afraid. From childhood on, things were rough for her. Some of the things she’s had to deal with were out of her control, but she also made some pretty poor lifestyle choices. After my dad left when I was ten, she did whatever she could to ease the pain. Drugs. Alcohol. Men.”
He paused, then admitted what he had told no one else. “Intellectually, I know this isn’t possible but sometimes I wonder if her dementia is simply another way for her subconscious to help her escape her demons.”
Her eyes flashed bright and glittery, as if she were blinking back tears. “Oh, Bryce. I’m so sorry. I never realized you were dealing with all of that. I can’t imagine how tough that’s been for you to handle by yourself.”
“Don’t make me out to be some kind of a hero,” he said, his voice low. He could give her an earful about the frustrationof those early years after his mother’s initial cognitive decline and about all the times he had railed against God or fate or biology or whatever was slowly stealing away his mother.
“You stayed in town to take care of your mom. I call that pretty heroic.”
“It’s not as if I’m doing the hands-on care. She’s in a good facility. I visit her every Sunday for a few hours and that’s about the extent of it.”
She gave him a long look, her expression still drenched with compassion. “Is your mom the reason you bought a coloring book and all those magazines that first day I saw you here in the store?”
He shrugged. “She likes all the colorful pictures in magazines, especially the celebrity ones. Sometimes she cuts out pictures she likes and tapes them up on her wall. I never know exactly what is going to grab her interest. She had a John Deere tractor ad up for about three months, for reasons I still don’t understand.”
