Hazel began to tug at the first ball of pizza dough, coaxing it into a flatter shape. She asked Camille for her help, even though the little girl didn’t do much besides mark the dough with her fingerprints. Samantha watched them for a few minutes, and a thoughtful expression came over her face. After a while, she stood up, looking as though she had an idea.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. “Good luck with the pizzas!”
She darted out of the kitchen, and Hazel chuckled. She still could hardly believe how much energy Samantha had all the time.
She finished rolling out the pizza crusts with Camille, and together they “decorated” them with the sauce, cheese, and toppings. Camille had a lot of fun with that part, and even though the table looked messier than it had in ages, Hazel didn’t mind. She’d had more fun making pizza than she had in a long time.
She had just finished popping the pizzas into the oven when she heard Samantha clattering down the stairs again. She turned expectantly to see her daughter enter the kitchen, and when she saw her, Hazel’s mouth popped open in surprise.
Samantha was holding an old pink basket full of dolls, some of her favorite toys from when she was little. As soon as Camille saw the basket of dolls, her face lit up.
“I was thinking we could play with these for a while,” Samantha said, setting the basket down on the end of the table that wasn’t covered in flour, cheese, and stray pieces of pepperoni. “Would you like that, Camille?”
The little girl nodded eagerly, her eyes lighting up. Samantha handed her a doll—a little rag doll with black yarn hair and blue button eyes—and Camille’s smile widened when she saw it.
Hazel tidied up the kitchen and kept watch over the pizzas while Samantha and Camille played together in the corner. Her heart swelled with pride as she watched her daughter give some of the dolls silly voices and goofy lines, making their little guest giggle hysterically.
She’s making her feel right at home,Hazel thought with a surge of joy.And she’s so natural with her. I had no idea she was so good with little kids.
Hazel couldn’t wait until Jacob came home so that she could tell him all about how kind Samantha was being to Camille. Sheknew that having the Fishers stay in their home was going to strengthen the bond within her own family even more, and that thought kept her smiling for the rest of the night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Faith closed her laptop with a sigh of satisfaction. She picked up the stack of sticky notes resting in the corner of her desk and quickly jotted down a note reminding herself to put posters around town the next day for a marketing event that the McCormick Brewery planned on hosting in the coming weeks. She chuckled, since the sticky note was shaped like a smiling little cheeseburger with big eyes and it never failed to amuse her.
She stood up, downed the last of her coffee, and slid her laptop into her work bag. She glanced at her watch, noting that Ryan was probably still in the brewery somewhere. A quick glance across the hallway told her that he wasn’t in his office, but she knew it wouldn’t take her too long to find him somewhere in the building. She wanted to give him a quick kiss before heading home and moving on to her next list of tasks.
She slung her bag over her shoulder and began to wander through the brewery. When she didn’t see Ryan, she made her way to the bustling, scent-filled kitchen, where she located him training one of the new hires.
She was about to slip quietly away, since she didn’t want to interrupt him while he was working with someone else, when he caught sight of her and grinned.
“Hey! Come on over here, honey. Brandon, this is my fiancée, Faith. Faith, this is Brandon, our new server.”
“Nice to meet you.” Faith shook Brandon’s hand warmly. He was a freckled, enthusiastic-looking teenager, and Faith had a feeling he was going to be a great addition to the team. She turned to Ryan. “I’ll get out of your hair. I just wanted to say hi before heading home.”
“Hi.” Ryan gave her a quick kiss, which made Brandon blush slightly. Faith repressed a small chuckle. “But why don’t you stick around here? We’ve got some day-old slices of that amazing cherry pie we’re trying to get rid of. Why don’t you have a slice on the house?”
“Okay, sold.” She laughed. “Cherry pie sounds amazing right now. And I have a little more work to do on my computer, so I might as well do that here.”
“Perfect.” Ryan gave her another kiss, in complete disregard to the embarrassment of poor Brandon. “I’ll swing by your table later and say hi again.”
Faith grinned at him, told Brandon it was nice to meet him, and went to get herself a slice of the cherry pie. She added a generous dollop of whipped cream to the top and carried it out to one of the small tables placed in front of the dining room windows.
This is the best part of the day,she thought with a thrill. Now I get to just concentrate on the kind of work I really love.
Tapping her toes under the table with excitement, she began to use the touchscreen of her laptop to sketch out her ideas for how to decorate the balconies and banisters in the barn for Dean and Noelle’s wedding. Noelle had asked her to sketch out a plan for the decorations since she was so busy with the other details of the wedding, and since Faith had dabbled in florist work just after college, Noelle trusted her to come up with a beautiful design.
Faith would have relished the task regardless, but the fact that she and Ryan were getting ready to be married made it all that much sweeter. Every time she helped out with Noelle and Dean’s wedding, she got more excited for her own. Her mind buzzed with ideas for decorations, both for Dean and Noelle and for herself and Ryan.
Once she’d sketched out three different options for arranging lights, greenery, and fabric on the balconies and banisters in the Turners’ barn, she turned her attention to the centerpieces, which needed to be reorganized since there would be more tables in the Turners’ barn than Noelle and Dean had been planning on in their original venue. They still had the same number of guests coming to their wedding, but the tables in the Turners’ barn were smaller, allowing for fewer chairs at every table. Although they planned on mixing and matching different centerpieces at every table, they were still six centerpieces short with the new table arrangement. Noelle had asked Faith to scout out a new centerpiece that they could buy six of, which would work with the theme of the other three types of centerpieces they still planned on using.
Faith felt thrilled as she explored a wedding decoration website, looking for centerpieces that were both beautiful and on the more affordable side. She also wanted find options for Noelle that fit her and Dean’s personalities. Their wedding already felt like such a beautiful representation of the two of them, and she wanted to be able to honor that by finding them centerpiece options they would both adore.
She gasped when she saw a centerpiece that was made to look like a miniature pine tree. Although she could tell that the centerpiece had originally been intended for Christmas weddings, she knew that it would fit beautifully with both the color scheme and the rustic theme of Dean and Noelle’s wedding.
I love this,she thought, leaning forward and peering at her computer screen.It’s so charming. Instead of ornaments, we could put little lights on the branches, or maybe even little love notes or pieces of candy.
Delighted, she added the link to her list of items that she wanted to show to Noelle. Then she returned to the website and continued to browse, on the lookout for other rustic centerpieces that would fit with everything else that Noelle had planned for the wedding décor.
