Chapter Sixteen
Batch number sixty-five of Lamont Family Fudge?
A bust.
Just like batch number sixty-four, sixty-three, sixty-two...
“How’s it going?” Jax asked, and she met his eyes, tried not to let him see how frustrated she was. He’d said all those pretty words to her, and then he’d walked her to the shop and into it. He’d been there for an hour and a half, holding Miracle, handing Willow ingredients, and doing everything she’d expect a good friend to do.
Except she didn’t want a good friend.
Or a hero.
She wanted Jax to step into her life and become something she couldn’t even put a name to. Not a boyfriend or a lover or her other half. Not something so big it took over everything. Or something so small that it didn’t matter.
She wanted what he’d said—the guy who ran to her because she was and he was and they were meant to be together. Not just for big dramatic moments but for all the moments in between.
“It’s going about how it looks like it’s going,” she responded, glancing down at the mess she’d created.
“It looks like . . .” He leaned over her shoulder, peering into Granddad’s favorite fudge pot.
It wouldn’t be his favorite if he could see it now. Coated with chocolate and cream, bits of nuts and sugar and caramel seared to its sides.
“The portal to fudge hell?” she asked. “Because I’m beginning to think that’s what it is.”
She stabbed at the hardened goo in the bottom of the pot. “I followed that recipe exactly, and this still looks like a big pile of dog—”
He pressed his finger to her lips, stopping the words.
“Little ears,” he said, gesturing to Miracle.
She lay against his shoulder like she belonged there, her blond hair and dark lashes so similar to his, they looked like a matching set. Father and daughter spending time together while the mother . . .
Nope.
Not going there.
Sure, Jax had said a lot of really great things, and she wanted to believe them. God knew she did! But they’d both been riding an adrenaline high, and they’d both probably said things they didn’t mean. Well . . . she hadn’t, but that didn’t mean the same was true of Jax.
She stabbed at the chocolate goo again. “I was going to say crap.”
“You think that’s appropriate for a kid to hear?”
“My grandfather said it the whole time I was growing up, so . . . yeah?”
“So Byron has become the standard by which you judge appropriateness? You must be really frustrated.” He lifted the pot and set it in the sink, then ran hot water into it.
She’d done the same three times already.
Every time she’d started over, she’d tried to instill a little more gusto into the fudge-making process. She’d hummed while she’d added the ingredients. She’d thought good thoughts about things like butterflies and flowers and spring. She’d envisioned beautiful, glossy streams of fudge pouring from the pan.
She’d even tried to think of magic and happiness and family, hoping that it would help her capture the essence of what the fudge tasted like.
The stuff still tasted like a pile of dog vomit.
Maybe not quite that bad, but it sure wasn’t good enough for a bridal shower. It wasn’t good enough to sell as yesterday’s fudge or last week’s. It wasn’t good enough for anything but the trash can.
So...
Yeah. She was frustrated, but she didn’t want Jax to know it, because they were friends, buddies, two people who’d shared a beautiful kiss after a really scary moment.
No pressure.
He could be what he wanted to her, and she’d be okay with it, because in a few weeks, Miracle would be with her family and she’d be back in Seattle, living in her cute little rental and throwing herself into the cases she had on the docket for the spring.
“What’s wrong?” Jax asked as he scrubbed the pot one-handed. She should have nudged him out of the way and taken over, but she’d scrubbed so much fudge out of so many pots, that her hands were raw and her wrists were tired.
She took Miracle instead, smiling as the baby sighed with contentment. “Nothing.”
“I’m surprised.”
“About?”
“You not being honest. Usually, when you’re not sidestepping or avoiding my questions, I can count on you for that.” He didn’t look up from the pot, and she was glad. She didn’t want him to see the sadness in her eyes.
She’d thought she’d hate her time in Benevolence.
It had been a means to an end, a way of trying to shake off the talons of the past. She hadn’t expected to enjoy it, but she had. It was everything she remembered, but without the thread of terror running through it. Sure, she still got spooked. Sure, the hallway was still the place she hated most.
Slowly, though, slowly she was learning to be okay.
And while she was learning that, she was relearning what it meant to be home.
“I am being honest. There’s nothing wrong. Except the fudge.”
“Willow?” He stopped scrubbing and met her eyes. “I’m a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. You’ve been on a mission since we walked into the shop, and I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the fudge.”
“It has everything to do with the fudge. That shower—”
“Is Sunday. You need fifty pounds of fudge. We’ve already established that. Now, how about we move on to something more interesting?”
“Like?”
“Like why you’re tiptoeing around me like I’m a giant pile of crap that you’re trying not to step in.”
“Do you think that’s appropriate language to use in front of the baby?” she joked, because it was easier than answering the question or avoiding it.
Jax didn’t crack a smile. “I’m not in the mood for jokes.”
“I’m not in the mood for games, but we were playing one all week. You coming over for quick visits, acting like we were buddies and then leaving. If that’s what you want, I’m cool with it. I just don’t want to get my hopes up that there’s going to be more. I don’t want to start pinning dreams on all those things you said upstairs, because I don’t think you want what I do, and I don’t want to have both of us be disappointed in what we get.”
There. How was that for honesty?
Jax eyed her for a moment, then grabbed another pound of chocolate bits from the pantry, a half gallon of heavy cream from the walk-in. Butter. Sugar. Vanilla. Salt. Evaporated milk.
“What are you doing?” she asked, irritated by his silence as much as she was by her tripping heart and churning stomach.
He hadn’t denied the friendship thing.
He hadn’t said he wanted more.
He was leaving her to come to her own conclusions, and none of them were as pretty as his words had been.
“You’re holding the baby. I’m making the fudge.”
“You can’t. The recipe is top secret.”
“I watched you make it four times, Willow. It’s not a secret anymore.”
“Fantastic. Not only can I not make the darn stuff, I’ve leaked the recipe. Granddad is going to kill me.”
“Only if he finds out.”
“Am I going to have to pay a price for your silence?” she asked, the words grumpier than she’d intended.
She’d wanted them to be a joke, but she guessed she was all joked out, too frustrated and tired to do anything but stand there holding Miracle.
“If I made you pay me to keep your secret, that would be extortion. I’m an officer of the law, so that’s out of the question. I only need one thing, and it’s not money.”
“Okay. I’ll bite. What do you need?”
“You.” He grabbed her hand, pulling her close to the stove. “I know the ingredients, but I don’t know the method. You’ll have to coach me.”
“Uhm, Jax?” she said as he scooped sugar and cream into the double boiler, then added evaporated milk to it.
“Yes?”
“You did see my last four tries at this, right?”
“I did.”
“And you still think it’s wise to ask me to coach you?”
“Here’s what I think, Willow,” he responded, grabbing a wooden spoon and stirring the mixture gently. “You’ve got fifty pounds of fudge to make. There are three people in the shop. One of them only knows how to eat and sleep.”
“And poop,” she muttered, and he finally smiled.
“That, too, but I don’t think it’ll help with our mission.”
“Which is?”
“Fifty pounds of fudge? You seem to be losing track of the conversation.”
“I’m not losing track. I’m protesting. You’re not supposed to be helping me, because this is a family recipe and—”
“Byron is going to kill you if he finds out I know it?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“First, Byron wouldn’t hurt a fly. Second, this is a family recipe, and maybe we’re not family, but you need the help. I’m here. It seems to me, you may as well let me lend a hand.” He was still stirring the fudge base, his movements slow and smooth. Just like . . .
Byron’s?
“Did my grandfather show you how to do this?”
“He showed me how to melt chocolate. Is that the same thing?”
“About as close as the rain forest is to a desert climate,” she responded, grabbing the salt and adding a pinch of it. “But whatever he taught you, it’s paying off. The base is looking good.”
“Is it?” He sounded pleased, and that pleased her.
She didn’t know why.
Or maybe she did.
“You know it is. It looks about sixty times better than anything I’ve made.”
“Can you grab the evaporated milk? I think it’s time to add it.”
“Not yet,” she said, moving closer, Miracle snuggled in her arms, the scent of sugar and cream drifting in the air.
It reminded her of her childhood. Of all those early mornings standing on a footstool, helping her father or grandmother or grandfather, stirring the base with the same slow, deliberate movements Jax was using.
“Smells good,” he murmured, his free hand sliding around her waist, and then she was right up against his side, watching the base start to bubble, reaching for the milk, pouring just the right amount in.
She didn’t measure it.
She knew exactly how long it took for the right amount to pour. How long the mixture had to bubble, and how it looked when it was time to add the vanilla.
She inhaled deeply, letting the sweet, rich smell fill her nose and replace the scent of sweat and alcohol, mint and tears that seemed to be there every time she worked in the shop.
“It really does,” she responded, her body shaking just a little, those memories never more than just a thought away.
“You okay?” he asked, dropping a kiss to her temple, his lips lingering just long enough for her to feel their warmth.
“I will be.”
He didn’t question that, just continued to stir, and she finally reached for the spoon, planning to take it from his hand, stir it a little herself so she could feel the thickness of the base.
Only, he didn’t move his hand, and hers just enveloped it. Her fingers curved around his, and they were stirring together. She could feel his pulse thrumming beneath his skin. She could feel her own heartbeat jump in response.
She could feel the hallway behind her, and all the old memories that lingered there. She could feel the weight of Miracle in her arms, and the weight of the past trying to pull her down.
But she was here. In the moment, stirring silky cream and sugar in her grandfather’s favorite pot, and she thought that maybe it was time to let it go, to release the sadness that had been inside her for so long, she’d almost stopped remembering it was there.
“Don’t cry,” Jax whispered, his free arm tightening around her waist.
“I’m not.” Only she was, a few tears slipping down her cheeks as the cream and sugar bubbled and thickened.
“It’s done,” she said, and she didn’t know how she knew. She just did, the memory of the way it was supposed to look and feel and smell filling her heart, chasing away everything else. And she thought that maybe it wasn’t just the fudge base that was done. Maybe her old life was done too. The one where she stayed in Seattle and avoided Benevolence, and tried to pretend that there wasn’t still a scared little girl living inside the trappings of a confident adult.
“You’re sure?” he asked, but he was already removing the pot from the stove, reaching for the chocolate bits.
They added them together, and he stirred them in, the scent rich and heavenly and just exactly right.
“Good?” Jax asked, and she nodded, watching as he poured the silky mixture into a prepared pan.
“Perfect,” she said, and she almost couldn’t believe it, because it was perfect.
She didn’t have to taste it to know.
She could see it and smell it and feel it, all the contentment of a perfect batch of fudge sitting on the counter.
* * *
The fudge?
It looked about as perfect as any fudge could be.
Willow? She looked perfect too.
She stood a few feet away, the baby in her arms, her cheeks still damp from tears she’d said she hadn’t been crying. Of course, she had been, and he knew why.
They were in the shop, and he didn’t think she could be there without remembering.
He frowned, cleaning the pot and starting a second batch of fudge.
After watching Willow struggle with the first four pans, he’d thought it would be impossible to get it right. It probably would have been impossible on his own, but with Willow there, it had been a breeze, the ingredients coming together into something she seemed pleased with.
She wasn’t going to be pleased when she heard what he’d done.
He knew that, and he’d been trying to think of just the right way to tell her. It had been easy enough to avoid the subject when he was trying to keep his distance.
He could still avoid the subject.
She’d find out eventually, though.
The lawyer Jax had contacted was going to send a copy of Eric Williams’s will and a copy of his father’s. There was a confession somewhere in there, scribbled on a piece of paper that Eric had stapled to the document. Willow’s name was mentioned. It was mentioned again in Derrick Williams’s will. He’d left twenty thousand dollars to three women who’d grown up in Benevolence. That was about all James Rhodes had said. That and that Derrick Williams had died a year ago. Liver cancer.
An old friend of the family and the executor of the will, James had been charged with the task of tracking all three women down and giving them what Derrick had set aside for them. Including notes that he’d handwritten before his death.
The messages Willow had gotten? They’d been from Derrick.
The guy had had a screw loose.
That was Jax’s opinion, and if he could have his way, he’d have kept the Williams family from ever touching Willow’s life again.
“You’ve gone quiet,” Willow said, shifting her hold on Miracle and murmuring something he couldn’t hear. The baby quieted, her little fist pressed to her mouth.
“Just thinking.”
“About?” She dropped butter into the pot and added a few dashes of salt. She’d been convinced she couldn’t make the fudge. That had been the problem. He’d watched her and known that she knew it like she knew her own heartbeat. Every ingredient, every stir of the spoon, she’d had it in her, but she’d been too tense and too worried to let it out.
Now?
Now she scooped in sugar one-handed, poured in cream, did it all like she’d never struggled with it before.
She met his eyes and smiled. “Why don’t you just tell me, Jax?”
“Because you’ve been hurt enough, and I don’t want to hurt you more.” That was the truth, and he wasn’t going to sugarcoat it.
“I thought you didn’t want to be my hero?”
“I don’t.”
“Then stop trying to protect me.”
“I will always try to protect you,” he responded.
“Stop trying to protect me from things I need to know. Is that a better way to say it?”
“I contacted James Rhodes.”
She stilled, something dark flickering in her eyes. “I was hoping you’d forgotten about that.”
“Did you really think I would?”
“I guess I didn’t.” She handed him the wooden spoon, and he stirred the thick mixture. “What did he say?”
“That Eric’s father left you twenty thousand dollars.”
“Why?”
“Eric had a will, and he left a confession. There were at least three names in it. James is going to black those out in your copy of the document.”
“That’s really swell of him,” she said, and he could hear the bitterness in her voice.
“Willow—” he began, but she raised her hand, stopping the words.
“What else did he say?”
“Derrick died a year ago. His will stipulates that each of his son’s victims receive twenty thousand dollars. It was his way of apologizing for what—”
“You know what, Jax? I actually don’t want to hear this.”
“Will—”
“Call Rhodes back. Tell him where he can stick that damn twenty-thousand-dollar check.”
“I already told him.”
“Tell him that I don’t want to see the will. I don’t want to see the confession. I don’t want any of it.”
“He has a legal obligation—”
“His client had a moral obligation. He should have contacted me as soon as he read the confession.”
“I know.”
“And he should damn well have known that twenty thousand dollars wasn’t going to pay for what was stolen from me.” She was crying again, holding Miracle close, her arms wrapped around the baby and around herself.
And, God! He wished he could take the pain from her, erase the memories, give her back the things she’d lost.
He touched her arm, and she jerked away.
“I wish you’d just listened to me, Jax. I wish you had just put that check back in my purse and let me deal with it.” She swiped tears from her cheek and took a deep, shuddering breath.
“I’m sorry.” It was all he could say, and it wasn’t enough. Because he wasn’t sorry about calling Rhodes. He wasn’t sorry about getting the answer that Willow had been too afraid to seek. He was sorry for the little girl she’d been, the child who’d walked into her favorite place on Earth and had every bit of her innocence taken from her.
That’s what he was sorry about.
That’s what he wanted to fix.
But, of course, he couldn’t.
Because he wasn’t a damn hero, and he’d said he didn’t want to be. Maybe, though, for Willow, he did.
She was walking to the door, her shoulders straight, her muscles taut, and if he hadn’t been part of the reason why she was crying, he would have gone after her.
“You still have forty-five pounds of fudge to make,” he said quietly, and she stopped her hand on the door.
“I’m . . . tired,” she said, her face averted, the tears glittering on the column of her throat. “My mother will be here in ten minutes to take care of Miracle, and then I have work to do. Lots of it. I don’t have time to waltz down memory lane or to try to make sense of things that will never be logical. Thanks for your help, Jax. You can go ahead and turn off the stove. I’ll finish the fudge when I get back.”
She stepped outside, closed the door, left him there with his unfinished pot of top-secret fudge and a baseball-sized knot in his stomach.
“Damn!” he spat, his eyes on the closed door, his hand still on the wooden spoon. He was stirring the fudge base. Just the way he’d done before, mixing the ingredients together in slow, gentle circles.
Maybe that was the way he needed to approach things with Willow.
Slowly.
Gently.
There was no need to rush.
No need to force everything into the light before she was ready to see it. No need to do anything but let their relationship grow into exactly what they both wanted.
And what he wanted?
It was more.
More than friendship. More than a few evenings spent together. It was more than one dance or one kiss or one minute of shared laughter. He’d already told her that, but maybe not in a way she could understand.
So he’d tell her again, and he’d ask if she wanted the same.
Right now, though, he was going to give her time.
He was going to make the fudge.
He was going to do what little he could to save the day.
He wasn’t a hero, but he was a man who loved a woman, and he’d do just about anything for her.
Even make forty-five pounds of Lamont Family Fudge.
He heard a car pull into the parking lot, heard a door open and close. He heard footsteps on metal stairs and the soft murmur of voices above his head.
They were the sounds of normalcy, of family, of life, so he kept stirring the fudge, waiting for it to bubble and for Willow to return.