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To top that off, her cake, though deliciously sinful, will make you feel so good you won’t think twice about treating yourself to the extra calories. Her customers swear on their Bibles it’s the best health food since God created kale. It’s no surprise, as Sorrel has traveled the world looking for the best ingredients and has studied with one of New York’s finest pastry chefs. I would say the protégée has become the master.
However, all of this isn’t what truly makes Sorrel special. What makes her unique is her ability to treat every customer like they are her best friend and her community like they are her family. I was privileged to join her one sunny afternoon while she delivered her specially-made tea that helps with seasonal allergies to half the residents of the sleepy town of Riverhaven. You would have thought that the Queen of England herself was visiting the lucky recipients of Sorrel’s kindness by the way they revered her. I heard story after story of how Sorrel had helped them in their time of need, whether it was her cure-all soup or just a hand to hold after losing a loved one. Though she wouldn’t like the praise or recognition, she deserves every bit of it. I for one will always count myself a lucky man for being able to meet her. And though my time with her was brief, I’ll never forget it. But don’t take my word for it. Visit Love Bites yourself and see if Sorrel doesn’t have you believing in magic.
I wiped my eyes and set down my phone. To see myself through his eyes made me want him all the more. Yet it made me wonder what I had done to cause him to fall off the face of the earth. As odd as it sounded, I felt as if a piece of me were missing with him gone. That was more than odd. It made me sound downright certifiable, but it was true. Ever since he’d walked into my life, something inside of me had changed. I couldn’t put it into words, but I certainly felt it.
Josie interrupted my pity party. I was a terrible friend. I hadn’t even noticed that she’d quit singing. She pulled up a chair next to me and rolled her eyes at my phone. “Why don’t you just contact him?”
I clicked out of my app. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
She crossed her long, lean, mostly bare legs. “I don’t, but I get the appeal. Heck, if you didn’t like him, I would totally have a one-night stand with him.” She wagged her brows.
“You’re so romantic,” I teased.
“Romance is so overrated.” She stared at the newlyweds groping each other near the buffet table while people wished them congratulations. “No matter how good the relationship is in the beginning, eventually you wake up one morning and have to stop yourself from smothering him with your pillow. And that’s only because you don’t want to share a shower with a dozen women in prison.”
“All relationships can’t be like that.” I played with some of the heart-shaped confetti scattered around the table.
She shrugged. “It’s all I’ve ever known. Though I might not be the best example. I did, after all, marry a man who was required to wear a hot dog costume to work and greet every customer by saying, ‘We have the best wieners in town.’ To make it worse, he thought he was talking about himself.”
I laughed. “You could always date Mateo.”
“And have a normal relationship? I’m not sure what I’d do.” She tilted her head. “Why haven’t you ever dated anyone? And don’t try to sell me that malarkey that it’s because you’re saving yourself for Mr. Right. There’s no such thing.”
“What if there is?”
She patted my hand in that Oh, you poor naive girl way. “Honey, there are billions of men in this world. Odds are that more than one of them can make you happy.”
“What if I want more than someone who can make me happy? Happiness is fleeting.”
“What more do you want?”
I wasn’t sure I could put it into words. And honestly, I basically had zero experience, unless you counted my very brief—all of four hours—relationship with a handsome Swiss man on the train from Zurich to Saint Moritz. And when I say relationship, I mean we’d made out for two of those hours, and I never saw him again. “I just want to feel connected. Like I’m his person and he’s mine.”
She puckered her lips and narrowed her eyes. “And you think Eric Knight is that person?”
Yes. “No.” I waved off her ridiculous, spot-on insinuation.
“Good. Though I have to give him props for how beautifully he captured you in his article. If someone wrote about me like that, I would probably marry him . . . and then divorce him after a few months.” She giggled. “But you deserve someone as good as you.” She pointed near the open bar. “Speaking of which, the best man has been eyeing you all night. I hear he’s a doctor from Nashville.”
