The Reunion(65)

“Thank you for making dinner.” I take a fork from her and dip it in the pot, pulling out a very cheesy piece of rigatoni.

“It was my pleasure. It really made me think of my dad, which was exactly what I needed on this rainy day.”

“Are you missing him?” I ask.

“I always miss him, but he used to love storms. He’d sit out on the deck and just watch the lightning and thunder roll through. Water would seep through the cracks of the covered porch, but he wouldn’t care. He’d just rock in his chair and enjoy Mother Nature at her finest. I’d join him whenever Mom allowed it, and we’d spend hours just rocking back and forth, getting wet, and listening.”

“Sounds peaceful.”

“It was. One of the many things we would do together. But when we were camping, just like this, in a small tent, right next to a firepit, Dad would make this meal the first night, and he always dumped in a huge block of cheese. Beau, Dad, and I would hover over the pot and eat, knocking at each other’s forks and trying to eat the most. Beau always won.”

“Are you competing against me now?” I ask, playfully knocking her fork away. Her eyes light up, and she knocks back at mine.

“No, but I can compete if you want. You’ve never seen me shovel food in my mouth, but there’s a first time for everything.”

I chuckle. “As much fun as that seems, I’d rather enjoy this. It’s really good.”

“It’s the cheese,” she says on a sigh.

“Was your mom ever into camping?”

Larkin shakes her head. “Not really. She wasn’t much of a nature person. She was also sick for most of my freshman year in high school, so she would stay home and encourage us to go camping. Beau would sometimes stay home with Mom, and it would just be me and Dad, but I remember Mom saying she didn’t want us hanging around the house, worrying about her. Life is short: she wanted us to experience it, and that was the best gift we could give her.”

“She sounds amazing.”

“She was. Dad was too.” She chuckles. “God, he would be so thrilled to know that I work with the Chance family. He really admired your store and your family. He always said he loved how you all worked together for the greater good of the store. He saw you and Palmer and Cooper always helping out. He’d tell me what great parents you had to instill that kind of comradery.”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “It seems as though we’ve kind of lost that along the way.” I fork a piece of pasta. “I guess I don’t remember Cooper and Palmer helping out as much because I was always in the back.”

“Cooper was the folding king.” Larkin plops some pasta in her mouth, her eyes focused on the fire. “He told me that once, when I was in the store. He was folding an endless pile of shirts and refused to use the folding board; said he was better than any board because he was the folding king. I remember that day specifically because my dad bought a shirt and knocked over a large pile that Cooper had just finished folding. His face turned bright red, but he reassured my dad it was okay because, like he said, he was the folding king.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. I know our families never mingled, but I had small moments with your family as a customer. From behind, I always thought Cooper was you and that I was about to catch a glimpse of the elusive Ford Chance, but when he turned around and I saw his younger face, I knew it was Cooper.”

That surprises me. “You were trying to catch a glimpse of me?” Kind of like how I try to catch glimpses of her at the office.

She opens her soda and takes a sip. After a roll of her eyes, she says, “Come on, every girl in town was trying to catch a glimpse of you. You were Ford Chance, with the devastatingly light eyes and contrasting black hair. Both you and Cooper were so different from anyone else on the island; everyone was hoping for a sighting.”

“And if you had caught a glimpse, what would you have done?” I ask, my voice defying me when it cracks.

Her eyes bounce to mine, and I catch the flicker of the fire in her pupils. “Blushed, probably, and then told my friends about how I saw you. How you emerged from the back for a second and graced us with your presence.”

I chuckle. “Are you saying that you might have had a thing for me back then?”

I don’t know why I ask it.

But hell, now that it’s out there, I really want to know. Did she have a thing for me?

And why the hell does it matter so much?

Why am I holding my breath?

Why am I leaning a little closer to her now?

Why the hell did I just wet my lips?

“Had a thing for you?” she asks, all of a sudden looking nervous, and I realize from the tic in her jaw that I’m her boss, she’s my assistant, and I should never have asked her that. What the hell was I thinking?

“Sorry.” I clear my throat and stab a piece of pasta. “I shouldn’t have asked—”

“I wouldn’t say a ‘thing’ necessarily,” she starts. “More just fascinated. You might not know it, but the town was very enamored with the Chance family.”

“Because of the store?”

“Because of the dynamic. You’re a blended family, but you never would have known—it was beautiful to see. Beautiful to see all these personalities and circumstances come together to show that love really does win out . . . every single time.”