The Tea Shop on Lavender Lane

“I did at first,” he admitted. “But it’s good for the environment and good for the budget, so I adjusted.”

It seemed that he’d had to adjust to a lot of things, probably the hardest being the loss of his wife. How did he manage to stay so cheerful? Wired the same as Bailey, obviously. Those two should have been a match.

But there was no understanding the heart. After all, she shouldn’t be the least bit interested in Todd Black.

She wasn’t, she told herself. Not anymore.

“I think, in the long run, your sister will be glad she came back here,” Luke said.

“Now you sound like Samantha. According to her, Icicle Falls is the center of the universe.”

He smiled. “Isn’t it?”

“Well, there are other places in the world,” Cecily said.

“But not like this one.”

She laughed. “Just how many other places have you seen?”

“Seattle.”

“Well, there you go.”

“Paris.”

The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the perfume factories! Paris was a city Cecily had always wanted to visit. “You were in Paris?”

Now his smile wasn’t quite so happy. “My wife and I went there for our honeymoon.”

“Oh.” Cecily tried to think of something else, anything else, to say, but couldn’t.

“I have great memories of our time in that city, but it has more to do with her than the spots we visited. I have this theory. Any place can be great if you’re with people you care about.”

Oh, melt. This man was too good to be true. “So, that’s why you like it here?”

He nodded. “All the people I care about are right here in Icicle Falls. Plus, I like rock climbing and hiking and fishing. And chocolate,” he said, giving her a wink. “And the family who owns the chocolate company.”

“You’re sucking up to the wrong woman. Samantha’s the one in charge,” Cecily pointed out.

“Yeah, but there’s only one Sterling woman I’m interested in,” he said.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a tiny zing hit her. Luke Goodman had just hit her zing-o-meter. Maybe not as hard as Todd but she definitely felt it. Maybe, if she gave him a chance, he could hit it even harder.

* * *

Okay, Bailey told herself, you can’t sit around all night watching TV and eating junk food. Well, she could, but if she ate any more Oreos she was going to end up looking like a cookie jar.

So what? Cookie jars were cute. Everyone loved cookie jars. She popped another Oreo in her mouth.

If Mama could see her now, she’d say it was a waste to be eating store-bought cookies when she was such a good baker. Yeah, homemade was better.

“Except nobody ever got food poisoning from an Oreo,” she muttered and gobbled down another.

Okay, this really wasn’t helping. And it sure wouldn’t help to spend money she didn’t have on a whole new wardrobe. She shoved away the comfort food and turned off the TV.

Then wondered what to do. Whenever she was stressed or bored, she always found herself in the kitchen. Except the last thing she needed was more food. She’d be right back to the problem of developing cookie-jar hips. Anyway, if she went to the store for supplies, she was bound to run into someone she knew. Not any of her close friends, though, since they’d all moved away, but someone.

She thought of her girlfriends Mitsy and Bitsy still living it up in L.A. They were probably getting ready to go dancing at some trendy club while she sat around her sister’s place like a bored babysitter. Only boring people are boring, she reminded herself, quoting her mother’s favorite response when, as a child, she’d complained of being bored.

Quoting her mother made her remember the book she’d tossed on the guest room dresser. Other than cookbooks and Bon Appétit, she wasn’t a big reader, but her mother had obviously wanted her to read this newest book of hers. Well, she had nothing else to do.

She fetched the book and settled back on the couch with it. She ran her fingers along the gold-embossed script. New Beginnings. That was her.

She studied the artsy photograph of a red rose blooming in a blurred black-and-white garden. “Looks like a gardening book,” she muttered as she opened it to the first page. But her mother wouldn’t have given her this if she didn’t think there was something in it for her. She began to read.

Death in Winter, Growth in Spring

A garden is God’s constant reminder to us that we live in a world of change, a world of birth, death and rebirth. What happens to us is often exactly like what happens in our gardens.

What had happened to her had been nothing like what happened with the little garden she’d been growing in pots on her apartment patio. She’d lovingly watered her basil, rosemary and mint, and everything had thrived. She’d worked hard to grow her business, and that should have thrived, too.

Winter comes and the garden dies. But in reality it’s not dead. It’s merely dormant, waiting for the warmth of a new spring to bring back to life those perennials we so enjoyed the year before.

Bailey frowned. There was no bringing back her catering career.

It’s often the same with our lives. We plan for certain things and hope for positive outcomes, dream big dreams, only to see our plans crumble and our dreams die.

Now Bailey felt as though her mother had written this just for her. Was Mama psychic?

You may be mourning the death of a dream, but you don’t have to mourn without hope. Like a flower in winter experiencing a period of dormancy, use this time to heal and gather strength for spring, when a new dream will crop up.

Bailey frowned and tossed the book on the coffee table. She wasn’t going to be a caterer again, so she didn’t see how any new dream could “crop up.” Anyway, it was already spring, and she was all dead and shriveled.

What was on the Food Network now?

* * *

Luke did manage to register higher on the zing-o-meter dial later that night when he kissed Cecily at her door. It started as a soft kiss, with his fingers threading through her hair, and then got a little more adventurous with his tongue teasing the corners of her mouth. Okay, that was nice.

But was it as nice as Todd’s kiss?

Todd Black was a practiced seducer. Comparing the two men, Luke, who was Mr. Upright and Noble, and Todd, who was... Well, it was like comparing Superman and Jack Sparrow.

But she liked Jack Sparrow.

You are not going to get your heart broken again, she informed herself.

Except she didn’t know for sure that Todd was going to break her heart.