Where Your Heart Is (Lilac Bay Book 1) (14 page)

“It
has
always made me sad to walk by and see the place all boarded up,” Libby offered from her end of the table. “It has such a prominent place on Main Street.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Edward said, leaning forward, his voice losing some of the awkwardness as he warmed to the subject. “It’s a great piece of real estate, right by the square, with those views of the water.” He turned to me. “You deal with stuff like this all the time, don’t you, Iris? Isn’t this property worth a lot?”

I didn’t need to draw on my years as a real estate developer to answer the question. I had seen my grandparents’ books. I knew exactly how much the property appraised for. “It definitely is. You could make a huge profit on the property alone. Adding in the established restaurant on the premises…” I looked at my grandmother. “It could bring in a lot of money.”

“You think we should sell it?” she asked, eyes wide.

Edward responded before I could open my mouth. “No! Of course not. That’s not what I’m saying at all.”

“Then what are you saying?” Uncle Frank asked, frowning a little at his son. The mere mention of selling the property had the entire family silent, every eye trained on my cousin and me. My grandmother, I noticed, was sitting ramrod straight in her chair, her hands in fists against the linen.

“I was thinking more like, you know,” Edward trailed off under the sudden tension in the room.

“I think what Edward was trying to say,” Zane said gently, “is that it might be worth trying to reopen the place. Permanently.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Mimi said, relaxing immediately. “It’s a beautiful idea, it really is. But there’s no way your grandfather is up for that, not yet at least. And I have my hands full with—”

“I was talking about us,” Edward said, and she went silent. “Zane and me. And Iris. And whoever else wanted to help.”

She stared at him for a long moment, her mouth opening and closing. “You want to run Rose’s?”

He didn’t look so awkward anymore, his shoulders straightening. “Mimi, I think I could be good at this. Running a restaurant.” His mother started to say something, and Edward held up a hand to stop her. “I mean it. You know I don’t want to work in the fudge store forever. This is something I could be good at.”

“A restaurant is a lot of work, sweetheart,” his mother said gently. She didn’t point out the fact that Edward had never had a job managing anything, ever. The highest he’d ever climbed on the career ladder was as head chocolatier at Fran’s Fine Fudge and Treats in town. But there was a fire in his eyes as he turned to her.

“I know it won’t be easy. I know I will need a lot of help. But why the hell else do we have this massive family?” He grinned over at Zane, who squeezed his hand. “Zane has tons of experience running a dining room. And Posey knows about ordering and inventory and all that stuff. She’s been doing it at the café. Andrew can help me figure out payroll. He does that stuff for the city all day. And Iris,” he shot a quick glance down the table toward me, not really meeting my eye, “could tell me everything I needed to do to get the place running. Maybe help me come up with a business plan, figure out some marketing.”

“You seem to be forgetting one pretty big piece, Eddie,” Posey said. “You don’t have a chef.”

“So we hire someone,” Edward said, and everyone at the table glanced down toward David, who was studiously staring at the tablecloth. “I mean, there are plenty of chefs on the mainland, right?”

“Eddie,” Mimi said, reaching a hand toward him. “I’m not saying this isn’t a lovely idea, sweetheart. It’s just that… well, I think it might be a bit harder than you’re imagining.” She looked over at me. “Iris, you have lots of experience with this kind of thing. Tell him.”

I glanced across at my cousin, his eyes intense, challenging me. “It is a lot of work,” I said. But there was something building in my chest. Something like excitement. “But I don’t think it’s impossible.”

Edward and Zane both beamed at me. “See?” Edward exclaimed, smacking his hand lightly on the table. “Even Iris thinks it’s doable.”

“And you would help us, wouldn’t you, Iris dear?” Zane asked in that sweet, flirty voice I had heard him use on my grandmother a dozen times since arriving.

“Of course I would,” I said immediately, trying to ignore the stream of objections gathering in the back of my mind. They sounded something like,
Are you crazy? You know this means more time on this island, right?

“Well what about the start-up costs?” Uncle Frank asked. As the owner of his own business—he owned the town’s largest construction company—my uncle knew better than most of us at the table what would go into making the venture viable. “This place has been sitting vacant for years. There was that burst pipe a few winters ago, the upstairs bathrooms were never really fixed. Have you looked at the roof lately? At the very least it needs a lot of new shingles. Cleaning out one room on your own is one thing. The entire place—that’s going to take some cash. Not to mention you’ll need cash on hand for hiring staff and starting payroll.”

“Isn’t that what business loans are for?” Andrew asked, earning a smile of thanks from his brother.

My uncle glanced between his two sons fondly and tried again. “Boys, I think—”

“Maybe it’s time to hear what Mimi thinks,” Posey interrupted her uncle, looking over at our grandparents. “It is Rose’s, after all.” Mimi watched Edward closely, Pops’s attention on his wife, waiting for her reaction before responding himself, the way he always did.

“You’re the one who’s always telling me I need to find a purpose, Mims,” Edward said. I could tell he was nervous, but his shoulders were back, his head held high. “I want to try to do something real. Something important. I think I could be good at this.”

My grandmother’s responding grin made her look about twenty years younger. “I have absolute faith in you, dear.” Her eyes flickered around the table at all of her grandchildren. “In all of you, if you’re willing to help him. And I can’t think of anything nicer you kids could do for this family.”

Edward beamed at her as Zane took his hand. “Thank you, Mimi.”

“But don’t be naive,” she said, holding up a finger. “It’s going to be a lot of hard work.”

“Hey, we did it,” Pops said, wrapping an arm around her. “And it was only the two of us. At least Edward and Zane will have some help.”

Zane focused his attention on me. “We’re going to need it. You sure you’re up for this, Iris?”

Those voices of objection were back in my head. Why in the hell would I agree to something that was going to keep me on the island longer than planned? I had already been here two weeks. Getting a restaurant off the ground could take months. I was supposed to go back to Chicago. I was supposed to go back to my life.

But as I looked around the table at my family, the arguments seemed to mute, as if they were coming to me from a far off place. What did another few weeks matter? It wasn’t like I had a job lined up in Chicago or anything. This was something meaningful I could do, something real. Something to help my family, to contribute in a way that I never had before, being the one who always lived so far away.

I caught sight of David across the table. He was looking at me, his eyes questioning.
He thinks I’m going to bail
, I realized.
He thinks I won’t stick around to help.

I straightened my own shoulders and looked back at Zane. “Of course I’m up for it.”

* * *

A
n hour later
, my cousins, Libby, and David joined me in the kitchen to package up the last of the dishes. The night had been an unqualified success, everyone agreed. My grandparents had been thrilled at the surprise, thrilled at the food, at the chance to return to their restaurant, even for one night. And Edward’s bombshell had been the perfect end to the evening. I hadn’t seen my grandfather so animated in years as he talked with Zane about improvements to the building. That same hum of excitement seemed to thrum through the entire family as the idea of reopening Rose’s took shape over second helpings of dessert and third and fourth glasses of wine.

“I’m beat,” Posey said, stretching as a yawn overtook her.

“We’re just about done here, Pose,” I told her. “Why don’t you head on home?” She had, after all, been working just as hard on the restaurant as I had, in addition to her teaching duties.

“Really? You wouldn’t mind? It’s just that I have a giant pile of book reports to grade tomorrow.”

“Go on,” I said firmly. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

“Okay, cuz.” She pulled me into a tight hug. “Thank you for this, Iris. They loved it.”

“Hey, we all did this.”

She pulled back, her eyes searching my face. “Yeah, but it was your idea. We never could have done it without you.” I got the feeling she wanted to ask me more, maybe get confirmation that yes, I really had lost my mind and said I would stay to help reopen Rose’s. But she glanced over at David and seemed to think better of it, releasing me to hug him, as well. “Thank you so much for all of your help,” she said, kissing his cheek. “I’m pretty sure you made my grandfather’s whole month with that garlic sauce.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said, patting her shoulder.

“Hey, Iris, I’m going to get these chairs back into the attic,” Edward called. “Then we’ll head out. You want me to wait to lock up?”

“Nah,” I said. “I’ll do it. Have a good night.”

“We’ll talk more tomorrow, right?” he asked, face eager. “About how to get started?”

I laughed at his enthusiasm. How wasn’t he more tired right now? “Absolutely.”

Zane and Edward called out their goodbyes, and then it was just David and I, together in the kitchen. He was meticulously packing my grandfather’s best pots and pans while I did the same with the china, neither of us talking. It was kind of nice, working together in the quiet.

“Guess she gave you that code after all, huh?” he asked, making me start in surprise.

“What?”

“Your grandmother.” He shot me a quick little grin. “Gave you the security code.”

I remembered our battle of wills over the code back on my first day at the café and snorted. It seemed like so long ago.

“You probably thought I was such a jerk,” he said, his voice a little wistful, a little amused.

“I did. But then again, I have lots of experience with the jerky ways of David Jenkins.”

“Me?” he cried in mock outrage. “I have always been a prince among men.”

I held his gaze for a long moment, one eyebrow raised as if to say, “Seriously?” until we both laughed. “I guess I wasn’t much better,” I told him, taping up the last box of china. “I probably seemed like a pretty big snob, huh?”

He stopped what he was doing to look at me. “Well, I have lots of experience with Iris Holder.” He was throwing my words back at me, but somehow he gave them a different edge. And the way he was looking at me, grey eyes intense, trained on my face, had me shivering. “You about finished?” he asked. When I nodded, he slipped off his chef’s coat, revealing a plain white undershirt. It clung to the lines of his body as if it had been painted on him. God, he looked good. I swallowed, my throat feeling tight, and David slung the coat over his arm, covering some of those perfect muscles. A shame.

“I’ll walk you home,” he said, and the tight feeling in my throat grew.

I turned off the lights as David gathered our jackets from the break room. He met me at the front door and helped me into my coat, standing awfully close to me in the darkness of the restaurant. I found I couldn’t look up at him, couldn’t meet his eyes. My skin felt prickly and hot, my entire body aware of him as I punched in the code to set the alarm, hoping he couldn’t see the way my fingers trembled on the key pad.

“Shall we?” he asked. Was I imaging how rough his voice had gotten? I followed him out into the dark street beyond the restaurant and locked the door behind us.

David paused on the sidewalk, looking up at the sky. “Beautiful night.” It was true—the air was crisp but not freezing, the wind from the bay calm for once. High above, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and I could see a multitude of stars, so many more than you could ever make out in Chicago.

We looked up at the stars for a long moment, standing close enough to touch, but separate. Finally, David cleared his throat and stepped off the stoop onto the sidewalk, and I followed. We walked in silence for a few moments, Main Street quiet and lifeless around us.

“Your grandparents seemed very pleased,” he finally said, breaking the silence.

I felt a swell of pride. “I think they were.” I bumped his shoulder with mine, and tried to ignore the way the contact made it feel like little sizzles of electricity shooting down my arm. “Your food is what really won them over.”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. In fact, he didn’t speak again until we reached the end of Main Street, turning off onto Pine away from town.

“I haven’t had that much fun in years,” he said, his voice soft.

“Well, it sounds like there might be a chef position opening up on the island pretty soon,” I pointed out.

“I don’t know about that,” he said quickly, but he looked down at me pointedly. “And what about you?”