call Mom after Ally goes to bed.”
“It’s important,” he added.
She didn’t want to be alone with him ever again, especially not at night, without Ally as her shield. She had to be up early. She had a headache. She had a friend coming over. Half a dozen other pitiful phony excuses entered her mind.
Finally, she lifted her lids and met his gaze. His blue eyes bored into her in a breathtaking way and all of his charming sincerity hit home. Oh, man. She couldn’t wiggle out of this without looking like a liar. Except for calling her mom to check in and say hello, she had no plans tonight. It was the same old, same old. She sighed. “Okay.”
On a solid nod, he rose from his seat and pointed to the boxes. “Where do these go?”
“In my minivan.”
“I’ll help load them.”
“No, it’s not necessary.... Don’t you have to be somewhere?” she asked. He was dressed to kill. He must have a zillion more important things to do than load up her cupcakes and muffins.
He shrugged and carefully lifted a box in his arms. “Let me worry about that. Is your van in the garage?”
“Yes, uh, thanks.”
He headed toward the door leading to the garage.
With Ally beside her, she grabbed a box and followed him. The garage smelled musty and contained the heat of summery days. It was dark inside until she pressed the garage door opener. Daylight poured through and she squinted as she walked to the end of the van. Balancing a box in one hand she opened the back hatch with the other.
Casey peered inside the van. “Nice set up,” he said. “Did you buy it this way?”
“No. It was converted for me.”
When she didn’t say more, Casey probed, “Your boyfriend do it for you?”
She pursed her lips. Heavens, she didn’t have time for a boyfriend. Dating was a thing of the past. “My mother.”
She guided her box onto one of the metal shelves and Casey did the same with his. His elbow brushed the slope of her breast where her Sweet Susie’s apron met her blouse. Her breath came up short, but she continued on, trying to ignore the warm buzz rippling through her.
“Mom gave me the van on her wedding day. She had the back converted with shelves for my cake boxes and then commissioned a designer to paint my logo on the sides of the van.”
It was a ten-year-old minivan, all that her mother had apologetically said she could afford, but it was in good enough shape for her purposes. Her mom really splurged on the logo design and on the day of her second wedding to Chip Huffman, a man who loved her to distraction, she’d taken Susanna outside, to show her the van. “Accepting this is the best wedding gift you could ever give me. I think your dad would think so too,” she’d said to Susanna.
There was no way to deny her mother the pleasure. Her mom had seen her struggle to get her pastries to customers by stuffing her cake boxes in the trunk and backseat of her beat-up sedan. Often, Susanna would pray to the pothole gods and drive as slowly as eighty-five-year-old Mrs. Simpson from five houses down to deliver her pastries in one piece. Eleanor Hart had skimped on her own wedding just to be able to surprise Susanna with the gift. Susanna had been so grateful and overwhelmed, she’d cried for five full minutes.
“Your mom is a special lady,” Casey said, his smile easy.
Well that was something they both agreed on. Her mother had tended to her dad for years, pretending his declining health hadn’t taken a toll on her as well. But Susanna knew what it had cost her mother. Several years ago, her mom met Chip Huffman through a mutual friend and she’d fallen in love with the Georgia peach grower. Susanna had encouraged the relationship—her mom deserved some happiness in the second half of her life. And now, her mother was living in Georgia, soon to celebrate her third wedding anniversary.
“She is...thank you.”
After that, they worked like a team to get the rest of the boxes loaded, Casey refusing to take no for an answer. He waited while Susanna buckled Ally into her car seat and hoisted herself into the driver seat. As she backed out of the garage, he followed her on foot along the driveway. The garage door closed behind him and he waved. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Shoot. For a minute, she’d forgotten about that.
Her fingers dug into the steering wheel and she sighed as the van ambled down the street.
One thing was certain: Casey Thomas wasn’t coming over tonight to talk about the dog.
“Morning, Susie and Ally,” Miranda Fillmore’s voice boomed as she walked out the back door of The Coffee Connection. Dressed in a chocolate-brown apron, the forty-something coffeehouse manager greeted them with her usual cheerful smile.
Ally waved to her from the car seat. “Hi!”
“Good morning, Miranda,” Susanna said, bounding out of the minivan. She had to make five deliveries this morning, all before eight o’clock, so she’d learned how to work fast.
Miranda hid something behind her back as she approached Susanna. Away from Ally’s line of vision, she whipped a bright pink coloring book and a new box of crayons under Susanna’s nose. “Can she have these?” she whispered.
“Oh, of course.” Three fairy-tale princesses wearing tiaras and frilly gowns adorned the coloring book cover. “She loves anything with princesses.”
Susanna appreciated Miranda asking about giving her the gift. Being new to mothering, Susanna made daily decisions for Ally she wasn’t used to making. Most of them seemed like common sense, but she’d still gone online and read books, researching child rearing tips and techniques regardless. She didn’t want to slip up and do something wrong when it came to Ally.
“I thought so.” Miranda said. “What little girl wouldn’t? I was hoping it would brighten her day.”
“Spreading a little joy is always a good thing.”
Miranda walked to Ally’s side of the minivan and opened the door. “Here you go, Ally. These are for you. I hope you like to color.”
The little girl’s eyes lit up as she reached out to claim the unexpected gift. “Princesses!” She hugged the book to her chest, and then studied the slender new box of washable—thank you, Miranda—crayons.
Susanna’s heart warmed. Since Ally had come to live with her, her clients had been overly accommodating by allowing her a little later delivery time and sending someone out to help her unload the boxes. All of them seemed to understand the plight of a working single mother, and were very kind and attentive to Ally. “What do you say, Ally?”
“Thank you!”
“It’s very sweet of you, Miranda,” Susanna said.
“You’re both very welcome.” Miranda walked over to her. “But what’s sweet are these lovelies.” She reached for the
