Starting Over On Blackberry Lane

“The Linds put one on this summer, and it cost them thirty thousand dollars.” She didn’t have that kind of money in savings. She supposed she could take some out of her retirement fund. Or get a home equity loan. Ugh.

“Ralph’s Roofing,” Dan said with a knowing nod. “They’re not cheap.”

Devon shrugged. “At that price it’d be blue tarp city for Tilda and me. Thank God that’s not on the list.”

Devon and Tilda had a fixer-upper and they’d been putting in a lot of work into it. Lucky girl to have a man to help her with her home repairs.

“I can recommend someone who’ll help you,” Dan told Cass. “My dad.”

“He a roofer?” Cass asked.

“He’s an everything. There’s nothing he doesn’t know about houses. He started Masters Construction.”

“So you worked for your old man?” Devon asked.

“Yep. He taught me everything I know. Left me the business when he retired.”

Before her pal Charley married Dan Masters, Cass had never heard of Masters Construction. They had worked primarily in Wenatchee and its close environs.

But then Charley had needed her restaurant rebuilt after a fire, and Masters Construction won the bid. After that the construction company was very much in demand in Icicle Falls. They did good work—and they looked good, too. Women came into Gingerbread Haus talking about the “hunky construction guys.” Dan fell for Charley and was almost instantly off the market, but his employees were all single. They were also in their twenties and thirties—cougar prey.

Cass wasn’t exactly cougar material. Those guys soon all had girlfriends anyway.

“Is your dad gonna come back and work for you?” Devon joked.

“Nope, but he is coming back to work. I knew that whole early-retirement thing wouldn’t last.”

Cass had met Dan’s dad when she went to Las Vegas for Dan and Charley’s wedding. Her jaw had dropped at the sight of him. He’d been happily married back then, to a woman who had found her husband’s effect on other women more amusing than threatening. Of course, she’d been pretty and obviously secure in herself, sure of his love.

There was no wife now.

A sudden fantasy of herself getting pulled into the arms of a bare-chested man sporting jeans and a tool belt invaded Cass’s mind and she felt instantly guilty. The man was a widower, for crying out loud.

How long had his wife been gone? She couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter anyway. He probably wasn’t interested in pudgy bakers.

Oh, well. At least she could now drool over him with a clear conscience.

“He went down to Mexico,” Dan continued. “Got tired of it and now he’s on his way up from Cabo. Planning on starting a new business—repairs and handyman stuff.”

“Repairs?” There was the magic word.

“He’ll be more affordable than Ralph,” Dan said.

Anyone would be more affordable than Ralph. The big question was, could she afford anyone?

And was Grant Masters seeing anybody?

Oh, stop, she scolded herself. Not gonna happen. Anyway, the man thing hadn’t worked the first time around. She didn’t need a man to be happy. She had her business, her kids and her friends. And no sex life.

Oh, well. A girl couldn’t have everything. Darn.

* * *

Griffin woke up Monday morning, still sleeping on the left side of the bed, leaving the right side empty for...the man who wasn’t with her anymore. It was weird to wake up alone. She felt a little like an orphan, which was rather silly considering the fact that she’d orphaned herself.

She couldn’t help feeling sad. She and Steve had been together for so long, made memories, made plans. She’d crumpled up five years just like that and thrown them away. And she’d hurt him in the process. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him.

She was also tired. She hadn’t slept well, kept hearing noises, noises she’d never been aware of when there was another body next to her in the bed. Once she’d gone as far as getting up to tiptoe to the bedroom door and peer out. Of course, she’d seen nothing. Burglars were hardly a common occurrence in this town. Anyway, what self-respecting burglar would bother with a place in need of paint and repairs? It didn’t exactly scream money.

She went into the bathroom and it seemed naked without Steve’s razor and toothbrush in there. She showered and dressed, made her morning mug of coffee. Then she sat down at her old wooden kitchen table, looking out the window at a sunny day. A robin was hopping around in the backyard. The apple tree was beginning to bloom. Very idyllic.

And a little lonely. Still, she knew she’d done the right thing breaking up with Steve. The fact that he hadn’t stuck around to fight for her was proof that what they’d had was more habit than grand passion. He’d be fine without her, was probably already ensconced in his parents’ basement, absorbed in testing a new video game. And she’d be fine without him.

But they’d been together so long, she couldn’t help feeling slightly adrift. What was she going to do now?

For the moment, work, although she certainly wasn’t making her fortune as a food photographer. Not for lack of trying, though. She had pictures for sale on a couple of stock-photography websites and was putting a lot of effort into her own website, offering pictures for sale there, as well. She had a food blog and some followers. She’d even managed to sell a couple of pictures to local magazines. But so far the kind of success she’d dreamed about had eluded her.

In the world of pictures, competition was stiff, and trying to stand out in a sea of internet images was no easy feat. It seemed that the most successful food photographers worked with food stylists in New York, where all the big magazines and advertising companies were.

At least she was making enough to live on (or had been until Steve left), and she was slowly developing her own unique brand, which focused on outdoor living and entertaining—things she had easy access to here in this small town.

During the summer, many of her pictures had featured not only local goodies but local people—like Cecily Goodman’s daughter in pigtails and coveralls, poised over a bowl of fresh blackberries (plump and perfectly ripened with the help of a few dabs of black shoe polish). And Mia Wright, wearing an old-fashioned apron and holding a harvest of late-August apples (made extra-shiny with glycerin).

She loved taking pictures, always had. She felt more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it, and capturing special moments of life for posterity had quickly gone from a hobby to a passion. She’d started taking photography classes in college, and the next thing she knew, her passion had become her trade.

There wasn’t much you could do with a major in literature anyway, not unless you were a writer (which she definitely was not) or you wanted to teach. Standing in front of a room full of high school students trying to pull them away from their cell phones to imagine Ashley Wilkes rather than look him up on the internet didn’t appeal to her at all.

Anyway, taking pictures was art. She couldn’t tell a story with words but she could with a snapshot. Like the saying went, one picture was worth a thousand words.

Now she was working with Beth Mallow, who had put together a cookbook featuring favorite recipes of her deceased mother, Justine Wright, and wanted to add pictures. Griffin had never met Justine, but from what she’d heard, the old woman had been one of a kind and much loved by everyone in Icicle Falls. She’d certainly known how to cook. So did Beth, who was creating her mother’s recipes for Griffin to photograph.

Griffin finished off her coffee and headed out the door to Beth’s house. Today they were going to be using natural light, and she wanted to get there while it was still streaming in through Beth’s kitchen window. Apple scones were the subject of the day, and when Beth let Griffin in, the aroma that wafted out to her from the kitchen was enough to make every taste bud in Griffin’s mouth spring a leak.

“I put out the red-checked tablecloth,” Beth said as she led Griffin into the kitchen, which was serving as their work studio. “And I picked up some apples at the store in case we want to use them. I’ve got three cake stands. You can see if any of those will work. Or, if you prefer, I also have a cute basket we can put them in with a cloth napkin.”

Who needed a food stylist when you had Beth? “I’m sure we can come up with something great.”

“By the way, I’m sorry I missed the shower.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Griffin said and hoped they could drop the subject.

“I’ve got a little something for you, though. Did you get lots of nice gifts?”

Okay, there would be no subject-dropping today. “I did, but I didn’t keep any of them.”

Beth blinked at her. “You didn’t?”

“We’re not getting married.”