Dean nodded, not wanting her to feel bad about being the bearer of bad news. It wasn’t her fault that things had happened the way they had, and he knew that she wasn’t going to brush off her responsibilities and move slowly when it came to restoring her business—both for her own sake and for the sake of her customers.
“It’s okay,” he assured her, even though his stomach was twisting with disappointment. “We’ll just hope for the best, I guess. That seems like all we can do at the moment.”
He worked on accepting the bad news as they continued to collect water in the buckets. After another couple of minutes had passed, Margaret’s cellphone began to ring.
“Ah, that’s the pump, thank goodness,” she said, recognizing the caller as soon as she looked at the screen. “I’ll go let them in.”
“Thank goodness, my back was starting to hurt,” David said, leaning back and stretching.
Dean smiled. “Same.” Internally, however, he felt a flutter of happiness. The truth was that he only felt a little stiff, the way he would have felt years ago before his osteoarthritis had appeared. The surgery truly seemed to have done wonders for his body, and he felt incredibly grateful even in the middle of his upsetting circumstances.
He and David had just put away the buckets when he saw someone enter the room out of the corner of his eye. At first, he assumed it was Margaret, but when he turned he saw that it was Noelle.
His heart skipped a beat as he saw her look around the room in dismay. She looked as though she was on the verge of tears, and he scolded himself for not texting her sooner. He knew that sometimes bad news was better than suspense, and she must have been so worried that after a while she’d decided to come down to the venue herself to see what was going on.
He hurried to her side and folded her into his arms. “I’m so sorry I didn’t call you or text you, sweetheart. We’ve been trying to clear as much of the water as we can using buckets. Margaret isn’t sure what’s going to happen with the venue, but we’re going to figure it out, okay? Everything will work out fine, don’t worry.”
Noelle shook her head, and he saw tears glistening in her eyes. “It’s not even this,” she said, her voice shaky. “I came down here to find you because I got some other bad news.” She took a deep breath. “I just got a call from the wedding dress shop. They said that my dress, along with a whole bunch of other ones, got destroyed when their storage room downstairs flooded.”
Dean’s jaw dropped, and for a moment he could hardly believe that something so unlucky had happened to the woman he loved. He knew how excited she’d been about that dress, especially since all of the Owens women had helped her pick it out. She’d declared that it had been absolutely perfect, althoughshe’d refused to give him any more details than that, wanting it to be a secret until he saw her on their wedding day.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, holding her tightly. “They can make another one, can’t they?”
Noelle shook her head. “She said she wasn’t sure. The whole company really took a hit because of all this damage. She isn’t sure that they’ll have the ability to make another one in time.”
“I bet they will,” Dean said. “Or… well, I’m sure we’ll be able to figure something out. Don’t worry. It’ll all work out, I’m sure of it.”
Despite his reassuring words, his heart was broken by her news. They’d already experienced several setbacks when it came to their wedding, and he was afraid that all of the damage caused by the storm was going to wreck their plans once again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hazel took a deep breath as she set down her potato peeler. She was sitting in a back corner of the kitchen at The Lighthouse Grill, and she’d been busily peeling potatoes for the past half hour. Although her hands felt stiff and a little sore from all the repetitive movements, she was glad to be able to do something productive. Ever since she and Jacob had first taken a tour of Rosewood Beach’s damage, her heart had been aching for her community.
It’s just like Mom to give out free meals at a time like this,she thought, looking up and watching the bustling kitchen with a smile.She’s losing money by closing the restaurant so we all have the time to do this and giving away free food on top of it. And I bet she would have done it even if Julia hadn’t assured her that the pub can afford it.
She smiled, feeling a glow of love for her mother. Vivian had always been kind and generous, and a woman who was such a good mother to her children was inevitably a kind of mother to her community.
The food they were making wasn’t gourmet, but they’d chosen a recipe that would offer good hearty food that didn’t take too long to make. The potatoes that Hazel was peelingwere going to be turned into mashed potatoes, which would be smothered in a sauce made of beef, chicken, and vegetables. Tom Norris, The Lighthouse Grill’s best chef and a dear friend of the Owens family, had come up with the recipe, which was fairly inexpensive but would provide good nourishment and also avoided a lot of common allergens, such as gluten and soy.
“How’s it going?” Alexis asked, stepping inside the kitchen with a bag of canned vegetables in her arms. She flashed an energetic grin at Hazel, and Hazel marveled that her sister had so much energy even with a baby strapped to her back. Cash gurgled happily from his harness, seeming to think all the hustle and bustle was pure fun.
“Good.” Hazel laughed, catching Alexis’s good mood as if she’d been thrown a dose of sunshine. “I’ve never peeled so many potatoes in one sitting before.”
“Terrence is bringing in more, I’m afraid.” Alexis chuckled. “But I can take over potato peeling duty. You can help Tom put these vegetables into the sauce he’s making.”
“I think it’s fair to call it a soup at this point,” Tom said with a grin. “I’m making it in a soup pot, and it’s filled with soup-like ingredients. It’s basically a soup.”
“Hmm, soup on potatoes,” Hazel said. “Sounds yummy.”
“It is, I’ve had this plenty of times,” Tom said with a grin. Hazel knew he also loved helping people and that being able to lend a hand to their community probably meant as much to him as it did to her. “It’s delicious, healthy, and filling.”
“A perfect recipe for the moment,” Vivian said, looking up with a smile from her station at the stove, where she was browning another package of beef in a saucepan.
“But I still wouldn’t call it soup,” Alexis said with a playful glint in her eyes. “The main liquid of this sauce is essentially gravy. So not soup.”
“Why not gravy soup?” Hazel protested.
Their jocular argument was cut short by the arrival of Terrence, who brought in a wooden crate filled with potatoes. He set it down on the table next to Hazel with a thump.
