MIA PARKED IN her driveway behind Aunt Nancy’s purple Chevy truck and stared at the turquoise butterfly painted on the tailgate. An updated vintage flower-child makeover for the 1967 truck. She didn’t know what prompted the unannounced visit, but if it had to do with that jerk who’d stood her up not once, but twice, Mia didn’t want to hear it.
In fact, she hadn’t wanted to hear it the first time her aunt conspired with Caden’s aunt Taffy to get them together. They insisted Caden was nothing like the last four guys she’d dated. All of them handsome eligible bachelors looking to get laid, with nothing much to say and nothing more important planned for their future than wasting away in an office job they hated and watching the next big game on TV.
It’s not like she was picky. Okay, maybe a little picky.
She expected her dates to show up on time, dressed in clean clothes that fit well, and at the very least run a comb through their hair. She expected a guy to carry on a conversation with more than monosyllable answers. They needed to believe that chocolate anything was an acceptable meal at any time of the day. And manners. For God’s sake, they should pay for dinner instead of sticking her with the tab. She dropped one loser boyfriend who made one excuse after the next for losing one job and then another, begging her to “help a guy out.”
It would be nice if someone did something nice for her.
She took care of herself, had since her mother ran off six days before her sixteenth birthday. It took Mia about ten seconds to figure out her mother had stolen all the money Mia had stashed away and this time she wasn’t coming back. Too wild at heart. Too much a free spirit to care about consequences. Too self-centered to care what happened to her only child. Too caught up in the notion that there was always something better around the corner.
Luckily for Mia, she had Aunt Nancy to fill the gaping hole in her heart. If God had his eye on the ball, he’d have put her soul in Aunt Nancy’s hands in the first place. Then again, she’d ended up with Aunt Nancy as the mother of her heart anyway, so maybe he was watching out for her after all.
The mail practically spilled out of her box at the end of the drive thanks to the many gardening, decorating, and cooking magazines she subscribed to and pored over during the lonely hours she spent home alone. All she needed was a dozen cats to complete her old-maid-living-in-the-garden-cottage reality.
She walked up the path. So many of the late-summer blooms had faded. The colder temps would soon send her garden into another long winter’s nap. She had her beloved greenhouse, but she really loved coming home to the flowers blooming in the garden, their sweet scent on the breeze. A couple more weeks and they’d be buried in snow.
She walked in the door and caught Aunt Nancy kissing Aunt Taffy on the sofa in front of a fire. The two women pulled apart, their eyes wide. Both of them blushed and smiled at getting caught. Aunt Nancy ran her fingers through her wild mane of blond waves. Aunt Taffy pressed her lips together and looked away.
“You know, I thought one day I might catch my teenage son making out with a girl on the couch. I never thought it would go down like this,” she teased her two favorite people. At least they’d found that special someone to love and be loved by. Mia was beginning to think if everyone had someone, her Mr. Right was MIA and wanted to stay that way.
“You can’t have a teenage son if you don’t get yourself a man,” her aunt scolded.
Mia walked into the living room and fell into the chair next to the sofa, smiling at the way the two ladies held hands and smiled back at her. “There are clinics for that now.”
“There will be a man waiting for you tonight at the Blue Pearl restaurant,” Aunt Taffy said.
Not fair. She loved that place. As a chef, she appreciated a great meal by her fellow chefs, even if they were competition to her restaurant.
Mia held up a hand. “Oh no. Not again. Being stood up twice is humiliating enough. I don’t intend to let him do that to me again, especially at a place where I’m known.”
Aunt Taffy tilted her head, her eyes filled with sympathy. “Caden is really sorry. His work, it makes it hard for him to have a personal life.”
“Exactly. He doesn’t want a personal life.” Which is why he’d made his aunt apologize for him. Again.
“Yes, he does,” Aunt Taffy defended.
“If he did, the least he could do is call, a text even, to let me know he couldn’t make it. Instead, he completely forgot he was even supposed to meet me.”
Aunt Nancy leaned forward, her long more-white-than-blond hair falling over her shoulders and framing her face. “Mia, dear, give the man a break. His brother was shot and almost died.”
As excuses went, completely forgivable. But if Caden truly wanted to meet her, he’d have made an effort in some way, shape, or form instead of this silence and absence he gave her. “I’m very sorry his brother got hurt. I’m glad he’s okay. But let’s face it, Caden is doing this to please you, Aunt Taffy, not because he’s interested in meeting me.”
“That’s not true, Mia. He asked me to come here and convince you to give him a second chance.”
“He blew his second chance the last time I sat in a restaurant and had dinner alone. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that is when the restaurant staff knows who I am?” She was the executive chef at her own restaurant, Cream of the Crop. She’d made a name for herself and her restaurant for her creative farm-to-table menu, partnering with local farms and ranches to get the very best organic produce, cheeses, and meats.
“He’s really sorry.” Aunt Taffy’s sweet voice didn’t soften Mia up one bit. Not when the humiliation still burned in her gut.
“Really? I haven’t heard a word from him.”
“He wants to make it up to you tonight.”
“Right, I’m sure you two set this whole thing up.”
Aunt Taffy leaned forward and put her hand on Mia’s thigh. “I mean it. He asked me to convince you to come tonight. As upset as I was by what he did to you, I agreed, because he was sincere. I’ve never seen him so . . . I don’t know . . . he wants this date with you. He’s a good man. He feels really bad about what he did.”
“Give him a chance,” Aunt Nancy coaxed. “Don’t you want to meet him after we’ve told you a million times how perfect we think you two could be together?”
Mia couldn’t deny she was curious about the man. The aunts had been stingy with the details, because they wanted Mia to make her own decision and let things happen naturally, but they always said that she and Caden would be a perfect match because they both used their tough sides to keep people at a distance, but they both longed for something more in life. Caden’s work consumed his life. She used work as an excuse to not put herself out there and get hurt, the way her mother hurt her. She got it, but she hadn’t done anything to change it until she agreed to the first date with Caden, vowing she’d give him a real chance and make an effort to really get to know him. Then he stood her up, proving her point that putting her heart on the line only meant she’d get hurt. His rejection stung. He hadn’t even met her, and he still didn’t want her.
“Get out of your head, dear,” Aunt Nancy scolded. “Stop talking yourself out of this. You said you wanted to settle down and have a family, catch your teenage son making out. Time’s a wastin’. You’re supposed to meet him in an hour. You don’t hurry up, you’ll be late.”
“He deserves to sit there alone and see how it feels.” Actually, she hated being late. She found it rude. Which was why Caden’s behavior irritated her so much.
“Go. Put on something pretty to knock his socks off and make him regret standing up a woman like you.”
Mia scowled at her aunt.
Aunt Taffy’s eyes were so full of hope and anticipation, Mia couldn’t do anything but acquiesce because deep down she was a marshmallow and hated disappointing anyone.
“Fine, but if he doesn’t show, or is a total asshat, I’m getting knocked up by a sperm bank and adopting a dozen cats.” Mia stood and stormed off down the hall to her room and slammed the door, but she stopped in her tracks when she spotted the sexy blue dress hanging on her bathroom door. Damn her aunt for knowing just how to get to her. She loved to dress in pretty things. Even better when someone noticed. Despite her resignations, she hoped Caden noticed. If not, he could go suck it. She wasn’t giving him another shot if this didn’t work out.
Yeah, the dress helped to set her mind on a second second chance with Caden. Mia wanted to show him she was worth showing up for even if they didn’t hit it off. Or maybe she needed to prove it to herself.