“The surgery went well.” Tom set his keys on the small dish by the door. “His hip is set, and when I left, he was sleeping. The surgeon is confident George will make a full recovery. He did say that rehab is going to be a long road, and they’ll need to put a cane in his hand once the cast is off, but he’s going to be all right.”
“That’s good news.” Lila nodded, relief flooding her. She knew how much George meant to Tom. They were like brothers. George and Tom’s late wife’s family were the only family Tomhad. “Thank goodness for that. I’ve been thinking about him all afternoon.”
“Thank you.” Tom ran his hand tiredly through his hair. “Linda and the kids arrived. She took them to Heart House and left them with Rosa before going back to the hospital. I think Maggie is going back as well.”
“You must be so relieved that they are here,” Lila said, sorting the receipts neatly.
“Yes. I always worry when the kids are on the road,” Tom admitted. “Linda and the kids are going to be staying the whole summer.” He walked toward the counter. “She said that Michael is bringing Lilly here in a few weeks as well.” He watched what she was doing. But Lila could see his mind was elsewhere. “They were going to the lake for the summer. Linda had rented the cabin there as she’s now completely moved out of her house.”
“It’s never nice leaving a home you’ve lived in for most of your adult life,” Lila acknowledged softly, her heart squeezing as she remembered selling her home after her husband passed away. “On one hand, it’s like this big weight has lifted, but at the same time, the house holds half a lifetime of memories.”
“For me, my heart has always been here.” Tom glanced around the bakery. “And this small town.”
“So you’ve never lived anywhere but here?” Lila asked before she could stop herself.
“I moved away from Sweet Blossom Bay when I went to college,” Tom told her. “I moved to Boston, where I studied. After college, I got a good job as an engineer at a development company. Then my father got ill and never recovered.” His eyes darkened, and Lila’s heart ached for him. “He was my only family. This bakeryhas been in my family for generations. I couldn’t let it go, so I packed up in Boston and moved home.”
“You were an engineer?” Lila looked at him in surprise.
“Yup.” Tom nodded. “But that was a lifetime ago.” He laughed. “I’m a baker now.”
“And a very good one,” Lila noted.
“That was thanks to Eleanor.” Tom laughed, his eyes darkening as they always did when she was mentioned. “She was the baker and helped me revive my talent.” He ran a hand through his hair again. “I learned to bake when I was a boy. Just like my father and grandfather before me had. But I’d always been fascinated by engineering. My father never tried to stand in my way. My mother passed away when I was in high school.”
“Well, maybe that’s why all your baked goods are perfect,” Lila pointed out. “It’s your engineering skills combined with your baking ones.”
“Trust me, I have a lot of flops,” Tom assured her. “I just hide them well.” He winked at her, and it did that thing to her heart again and made her stomach all fluttery.
Lila shook it off and changed the subject as her stomach took that moment to remind her she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “Tom,” Lila said, “when did you last eat?”
“Breakfast.” Tom rubbed his jaw. “I think.”
“Then come and sit down. Let me make you something.” Lila bit her lip, thinking about what all she saw in the refrigerator that she could turn into a dinner.
“Lila, you’ve been on your feet since five o’clock this morning. The last thing you need is to be cooking for me,” Tom said.
“You’ve been at the hospital all day. I need to eat too.” Lila crossed to the kitchen door and pushed it open with her hip. “So if you don’t mind company, I can make us both something to eat. I would have to do it if I went home anyway.” She smiled. “There’s bacon in the cold room, half a dozen eggs, and the last of today’s sourdough. I’ll make us breakfast for dinner.”
“Sounds good,” Tom called after her. “Let me help.”
“You can help by finishing cashing up.” Lila lifted her voice over her shoulder. “I had only just started. The book is open. The takings are in the drawer.”
“Deal,” Tom agreed.
Lila walked into the kitchen and got started on their meal. Her hands shook as she lit the stove and got the skillet. Had she just asked Tom to have dinner with her? Lila shook the thought away. No, she’d merely offered to cook herself and her boss some dinner. She took a deep breath and concentrated on preparing their meals.
TOM
Tom stood at the register with the cash book open and tried to make the day’s takings line up properly while every nerve in his body was distracted by the warm domestic sounds coming from the kitchen behind him. The soft hiss of bacon meeting hot iron. The gentle click of the gas burner. The small clatter of a wooden spoon against the side of a pan. The swoosh of Lila moving from the cold room to the counter to the stove and back again, the small, efficient choreography of a woman who knew her way around a kitchen the way she knew her own breathing.
Tom had stood in this bakery at this hour on every working day for the last five years, missing that sound. He swallowed the lump forming in his throat as memories of similar nights with Eleanor swamped him. He closed his eyes for a few seconds as the loneliness, pain, and grief of the last five years hit him hard.
Tom took a few moments to steady himself, taking some long, deep breaths and pinching the bridge of his nose as he pushed it all away.Concentrate, Tom.After a few more seconds, and getting his emotions under control, he bent his head over the cash book and forced his eyes to focus on the columns. The day’stakings had been good. He counted the small piles of bills, ticked the figures into the book in the tidy hand he had learned from his own father, sealed the takings in the small cloth zip bag, and slid the bag into the floor safe beneath the counter. He turned the dial twice and rose slowly to his feet.
Tom’s back complained. His knees complained. His very tall, seventy-five-year-old body had spent the day on hospital chairs and the floor of a back staircase and was not pleased about either.
Tom crossed to the front sink and washed his hands. The framed wedding photograph above the sink caught the warm yellow light from the small overhead lamp. It was Eleanor on the day they had relaunched the bakery after a major revamp. Tom slowly dried his hands on the small linen towel hanging beside the sink and looked at the photograph for a long moment.
