Second Chance at the Orchard Inn, page 16
Aurora’s heart danced in her chest, reminding her of the feeling from years ago.
Giddy anticipation.
She wanted Jude to kiss her again, as unwise as it may be. She could forget about his offer, the changes and choices coming her way, and simply exist in his arms.
“Hello, Aurora?”
“What?” Aurora dropped her hand from her lips.
“I said, the girls’ weekend group. They want a hearty breakfast every day before they head out on their adventures, and they said family style works great. Is that good for you?”
“Yeah, sure. That’d be easy,” Aurora said.
“Great. Thank you. Just let me know what you need as far as ordering.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Something on your mind?” Cece asked, cocking her head to the side.
“Nope.”
“Moving on.” Beth stopped the sidetrack before it could begin. “Regarding Erica’s wedding. She’ll be here in a bit, but there won’t be much to go over with her. She’s having an early wedding, with just cake and a champagne toast after. We need to make sure we have the cake request correct and show her the gazebo to go over the layout, but that’s it. I think it’s only immediate family coming.”
“I’m sorry, I know I’ve said it already.” Aurora held up a hand. “But I can’t believe this is the same Erica. I saw her last night at Lucky’s, but—”
“You did?” Cece leaned forward, eager for some dish as always.
“Yes, with her fiancé. He’s…different. Anyway, she mentioned her appointment, and still has that passive-aggressive vibe about her, but I don’t know. Something seems off with them. And this small, casual wedding plan seems way off from the Erica I knew.”
“People change,” Beth insisted. “Ten years is a long time.”
“Do people change that much?” Aurora raised an eyebrow.
Look at her and Jude. Ten years apart and they’d drifted back together like two magnets. They’d changed, but so much remained exactly the same.
“I’m with Aurora. This wedding doesn’t seem very her.” Cece shook her head. “I know folks have said she’s changed, but maybe she’s also become a conscious consumer and has a less-is-best mindset. That’s very popular nowadays. Reducing consumption and focusing on the people and memories.”
“Yeah.” Aurora shook her head too. “Not Erica. I don’t buy that for a second.”
“Regardless of what we think, this is what she said she wanted.” Beth stood up. “So, let’s stop talking about her in case she walks in on us.”
Beth had gotten burned while planning her best friend’s wedding, when an overheard conversation with the mother of the bride brought on a whole kerfuffle with the groom’s brother.
But now, Beth was engaged to said brother, so it wasn’t really a bad thing.
They heard a car pull up and moved to the foyer.
Sure enough, it was Erica. Right on time.
“Hello!” She made a show of greeting them, air kisses and all.
This was the Erica that Aurora knew.
“Welcome, welcome.” Beth, the ultimate hostess, thankfully took over and gave Erica a tour of the place.
Aurora and Cece hung back, sharing their skepticism.
“This is so cute,” Erica commented as they rejoined them in the sitting room. “And quaint. It’s just darling.”
Her compliment managed to come across a bit snide. It was quite the talent.
“Now.” Beth had Erica sit on the sofa and sat across from her in a chair. “Let’s go over the toast and cake.”
The two of them spoke for a while, and Aurora contributed just enough not to seem rude. They were wrapping up the meeting and showing her out, and Aurora was just about to do a happy dance that it was over, when Erica turned to her.
“Could I talk to you for a second?”
“Um, sure.” A pit opened in Aurora’s stomach, but she followed Erica outside to the front porch and down the steps.
“I won’t keep you long.” Erica turned to her. “But I wanted to talk to you for a moment, alone. After seeing you and Jude together last night, back together after all this time—”
“Oh, we aren’t—”
“I know what I did all those years ago. To you.” Erica clasped her hands in front of her and fiddled with the business card Beth had given her. “I know how awful I was about things our senior year. All anyone could talk about was the two of you and I just…I guess I got sick of hearing it. I’m embarrassed, thinking back on it now.”
She really didn’t want to relive that part of the past with Erica.
“The two of you were just so happy together.” Erica rolled her eyes. “It was kind of disgusting.”
“Thanks,” Aurora deadpanned.
Erica looked surprised that she’d said anything.
“Sorry. I…anyway, maybe I was a tiny bit jealous of how happy y’all were. But now I’m happy.”
She sounded as though she was trying to convince herself.
Aurora nodded, uneasy about her insistence. “That’s— I’m glad.”
“Anyway, I just wanted to get that off my chest.”
Aurora stood there a moment.
Was it an apology? Of sorts, maybe. Erica regretted the past, but Aurora wasn’t sure any apologizing had happened. More like a polite, and a little patronizing, statement. Nice with a side of snide.
Quintessential Erica.
“Well, I have a lot to do.” Erica stepped away.
“Sounds good.” Aurora put up her hand to wave, but Erica had already turned her back and was on her way to the car.
She watched her drive off, still wondering what—exactly—had just happened.
Her phone buzzed inside her back pocket.
It was a series of texts from Sloane.
Hey good lookin! Whatcha got cookin!
I meant to text you the other day. The pic of you and your sisters on IG is gorgeous! You guys look amazing. Guess all that fresh air really is good for the soul.
Aurora had posted a picture in the gazebo, showing off Cece’s new setup in there.
Thank you, she texted back. Might be all the decent sleep.
Sleep? What’s that?
Aurora tapped on her phone and looked at her latest picture on Instagram.
It wasn’t only the fresh air and sleep that gave her a healthy glow and bright smile.
No longer being completely stressed out, day in and day out, working sixteen-hour days, did wonders for a person. The pressure of climbing higher, faster—she’d left all of that back in L.A., and now she could breathe.
Think.
About her career and ambition, the future. And her heart?
She’d made peace with Jude, and they were friendly again. Okay, more than friendly. This feeling was nice, even if it was dangerous in the long run.
What if she compartmentalized? Set boundaries, and made it clear their encounters were merely embers of an old flame. Comforting, yet thrilling. Maybe kissing Jude was for the here and now, not for her future.
The notion curdled in her stomach.
Aurora scrolled down to her pictures in L.A.
While the people were fabulous, she looked exhausted, a little gaunt, and unhappy.
And of all the people in her pictures, she missed only Sloane.
Funny, because she remembered every picture, and swore, at the time, she was living her best life. Fulfilling her dream. In the rat race, she’d felt full of purpose and drive. She’d told herself she was happy, but was she happy or merely insisting she was happy in the hope of making it real?
Now, being back in Texas, she felt more awake. Aware. Alive.
Was it possible she’d gotten so caught up in the idea of chasing big city success that she never stopped to make sure it’s what she really wanted?
When she’d finished college and set her sights on California, she told herself a big city was the only way to go. Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego. No one cared about a brilliant chef in a midsize town. And it needed to be anywhere other than Texas.
Her family was in Texas, but so was her past. Jude. Her mother. All the emotions and unresolved issues. But now she was beginning to resolve them. Sometimes, she was even happy here.
She’d left Texas to live life on her terms, find out what she wanted in this world. She’d done exactly that, so why did it now feel like her traitorous heart was nudging her back home?
“What are you still doing out here?” Cece joined her on the steps of the inn. “We thought you’d left.”
“Just thinking.” Aurora climbed the porch and made her way to the swing.
Cece followed and sat beside her, swinging them gently. “Anything you want to talk about?”
“Not really.” That was a lie.
Beth popped her head out the front door, wide-eyed and a little ruffled. “Is Erica gone?”
Aurora chuckled at the sight of her sister popping out like a ferret looking for its predator. “Yeah, she’s gone.”
“Okay, good.” Beth joined them on the swing, squeezing in on the other side of Aurora. “She was nice enough, but…”
“She’s a lot,” Cece offered.
“Yes. Like handling a cute porcupine.”
“I think she tried to apologize to me,” Aurora confessed.
Beth shifted. “Really?”
“She didn’t do a great job of it, but she did say she felt bad about all that stuff our senior year. I mean, I think she feels bad? It’s hard to tell with her.”
Beth nodded. “I bet. She kept complimenting the inn and commenting how much she’d heard about our weddings, but they weren’t exactly compliments. They were more—”
“Backhanded,” Aurora finished the thought for her.
“Yes. I feel like I’ve been tromped on, but politely.”
Cece laughed. “That sounds about right.”
“Honestly, I think that’s just how she is,” Aurora added. “I don’t know that she can help herself. Her mom was like that and I remember her coming to middle school functions and talking to Erica that very same way.”
“Goodness.” Beth pushed off with her feet, swinging them a bit more. “Our mom was perfection in comparison.”
“Mom isn’t so bad,” Cece said.
Aurora patted her leg. “No one said she was bad.”
“She had a lot on her, raising three girls after Dad took off, and dealing with his fraud scandal. Maybe she wasn’t the most attentive or affectionate, but she wasn’t mean.”
“No, she wasn’t.” Aurora closed her eyes, enjoying the back-and-forth lull of the swing. “Her priority was keeping a roof over our heads, food on the table, and us between the lines. She did a good job, considering.”
“And we had one another,” Beth added. “For the attention and affection.”
A laugh burst out from Cece. “Sometimes too much attention. Remember when y’all went as chaperones to my middle school dance?” She used air quotes on the word chaperones. “Y’all just wanted to see the boy who’d asked me to the dance.”
“Kyle Duncan,” Aurora mused.
“He was so cute.” Cece nodded.
“Whatever happened to him?”
“No clue. His family moved away our freshman year. Remember the drive home from the dance?”
Beth had driven them, but she wasn’t that seasoned of a driver. Aurora had gone along out of a fear of missing out. On the way home, Beth had overcorrected the car to dodge a kamikaze squirrel, and they’d spun out on the side of the road.
“I thought we were going to die.” Aurora sat up.
“We were not going to die.” Beth huffed. “You two were so overdramatic. Cece wanted to call the cops.”
Cece began giggling too. “Why did I want to call the police?”
“You swore we’d done something wrong.” Beth rolled her eyes. “Meanwhile this one”—she stuck her thumb toward Aurora—“was all Go! Go! Like a SWAT team was about to pop out of a cow field and arrest us for a minor incident.”
Cece swiped the laugh tears from her face. “That’s probably the real reason Kyle moved away. He told his parents three crazy girls tried to kill him after the eighth-grade dance and they should probably split town.”
“Remember the dresses we wore?” Aurora asked.
Cece hid her face behind her hands. “I don’t want to! So poofy. So much taffeta.”
“I think mine had holes at the shoulders.” Beth snorted.
“It did! You thought you were so daring. Ohhhh, bare shoulders.”
Beth shoved at Aurora’s arm.
Her face hurt from smiling at the memories. She’d missed this so much over the years. Sloane was great, but no one was like her sisters. No one fought with her like them or understood her like them.
And while she had so much on her mind, she didn’t have to handle it all alone.
Her sisters were here, with her. She could talk to them about everything that’d happened lately, and they would understand.
They might give her a hard time about it, too, but she expected nothing less.
“Listen.” Aurora sat up to face them both. “I need to talk to y’all. I, um…well…”
Cece leaned in impatiently. “What is it?”
“I’m going to tell y’all something, well some things, and I don’t want you to say anything until I’m done, okay?”
They both nodded.
“I mean it, Cece.” She looked pointedly at her younger sister. Cece struggled with containing her commentary as much as Aurora did.
Cece mimed zipping her lips and locking them.
“I kissed Jude last night.”
Cece gasped.
“I said no comments!”
“I didn’t say anything! I can’t help it if I breathe heavy.”
Aurora shook it off. “Anyway, I kissed him. And…it might’ve been the second time.”
Cece covered her mouth to hold in another gasp, but Beth studied her quietly.
“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if we were caught up in the moment or if it means anything. The other big thing is, he and Jenna want to open a restaurant. At the farm. And he kind of offered me a job, but not really.”
Beth’s eyebrows creased together. “What does that mean, not really? It’s an offer or it isn’t.”
“He kind of blurted it out and I froze, so he said he was kidding.”
Cece’s eyes asked why, but Beth did an amazing job of showing no reaction or emotion.
“Anyway, then we mainly talked about plans and ideas, and it’s probably going to be a really great restaurant and dining experience. And—”
Cece dropped her hands, unable to contain herself any longer. “You might really want the job offer?” she blurted.
And there it was. The million-dollar question.
Did she? How could she? Why was she even considering this?
“I should be hearing from my manager soon. I’m supposed to leave for California soon. I have a life there. But, turns out, I still have a life here as well and it’s just…”
“It’s a lot,” Beth finished.
“Yeah.”
Beth nodded solemnly.
“So…what if you didn’t go back to California? What if, instead, you stayed here and worked on Jude’s restaurant?”
“If the job offer is legit.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“I don’t think it’d even pay. Not at first. And it’s Jude’s project. This is my ex we’re talking about.”
Cece tilted her head to one side, seeing straight through her. “Is he your ex though? If y’all are kissing. And would the project really be all his if you’re involved?”
Leave it to Cece to give voice to the questions inside her.
Jude would back the restaurant and fund it, but he’d need someone to lead it. He and his sisters weren’t restaurateurs. They were farmers. They’d need someone to handle the table part of the farm-to-table.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea, us working together,” Aurora voiced her concern.
“He kissed you,” Beth stated.
“Actually, I kissed him the second time.”
“I’m sure he protested bigly,” Cece teased.
“Exactly.” Beth shifted to face Aurora. “Look, I know you and I know Jude. If he’s told you about this restaurant, and asked you to be involved, in any way, and now he’s kissing you? Come on, Aurora. He doesn’t just want your advice or your help. He wants you.”
Aurora shook her head. “It’s not like that. After all that happened, and as far as he knows, I’m leaving soon. And it’s not like Jude and I haven’t been down this road before. We dated, we were in love, and it didn’t work.”
“You were kids.”
“He broke my heart.” Aurora choked back the surprising emotion in her voice.
Cece’s arm went around her immediately, and Beth placed a hand on her arm.
“I can’t go kissing the man who broke my heart and thinking about involving myself in a business venture with him. Can I?” She swallowed hard. “How did this happen? This is crazy.”
Beth brushed back her hair and waited until Aurora breathed through some of her emotion. “Have you talked to him about all of this?” she asked gently.
Aurora shook her head. “No, not exactly.”
“When Sawyer and I had to deal with his issues with Shelby, it would’ve been so much better if we’d just talked about it. Sooner rather than later. If I’d known all that was going on in his mind and in his heart, we could’ve avoided a lot of heartache. I think you should talk to Jude. You may not know exactly what you want to do yet, but it’s okay to confide in him. Tell him that you’re torn.”
“If you had to decide right now, which would you rather do?” Cece asked. “Best-case scenarios all around, head chef in L.A. or head chef at Jude’s new restaurant. Which would you prefer?”
Aurora sat in silence.
The truth was, she didn’t know.
Chapter 17
Papers and boxes stood in stacks like towers on Jude’s desk.
The business side of the farming industry was attempting to go paperless, like so many other businesses, but they had a long way to go.
“We need to talk.” His dad burst into the office with Jenna in tow. Outside his office, Bonnie and Meredith stood wide-eyed.
