smile brought a twinkle to his eyes evident even from behind his Elvis Costello-style glasses. “You haven’t changed at all.”
Bess laughed, feeling self-conscious. Her turn to blush. “Oh, sure.”
Eddie shook his head. “No, I mean it.”
She touched her hair, left loose around her face today. She wasn’t going to point out the silver threads there, or pat the extra curves in her thighs and ass. She looked around Sugarland. Eddie’s daughter was still goggling.
“What are you doing here, Eddie? Don’t tell me you’re still working for Mr. Swarovsky!”
Eddie tipped his head back to laugh, and Bess marveled at his easy self-confidence. “No. I bought the place from him about five years ago. Oh, this is my daughter, Kara.”
Kara wiggled a few fingers and went back to looking bored. Eddie laughed. “She’s thrilled to be here, can’t you tell?”
Kara rolled her eyes. Bess gave a commiserating smile. “Your dad and I used to work here together.”
The teen nodded. “Yeah. He told me all about it, oh, about a million times.”
Bess and Eddie laughed together at that.
“Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself,” Eddie said. “I haven’t seen you since that last summer you worked here.”
Bess started to speak, stopped, laughed. “Oh, you know. The usual. Married, kids. Nothing exciting.”
Eddie glanced around the empty shop, then back at her. “Hey, let me buy you a cup of coffee and we’ll catch up. Can you? Do you have time?”
For an instant Bess caught a glimpse of the old Eddie, the one who’d never been able to look her in the eye. It was endearing, that hint of times past, and she nodded. “Sure. That sounds great.”
“Watch the shop, Kara. I’ll be back.”
Kara rolled her eyes again and shooed them with her hand. “Whatevs, Dad. Go.”
Eddie gave Bess an apologetic look as he held the door open for them both to leave. “Sorry about Kara. She’s not too thrilled about having to work in the shop.”
“Don’t worry about it.” They paused to let a car go by before crossing the street to the coffee shop. “I’ve got two boys. I know how teenagers can be.”
Eddie opened the door for her at the coffee shop, too. His manners gave Bess both a little thrill and a pang of regret that such courtesy should be somehow notable. He even stepped back to let her choose the table, and asked her what she wanted, then went to the counter to order for both of them. It seemed a little old-fashioned but definitely flattering. Bess couldn’t help studying him as he gave his order to the counter staff with confidence. Not much like the stammering, blushing Eddie she’d known back then.
“Thanks,” Bess said when he brought her café mocha and a plate of chocolate-dipped biscotti. Her stomach rumbled and she bit off the end of a dry, crumbly cookie. “Wow, good.”
Eddie dipped his into his coffee before nibbling. “Yeah. I swear I should buy stock in this place. I’m here every day.”
“Maybe you could set up a trade agreement. So many cups of coffee for so many tubs of corn.”
Eddie gave that infectious laugh again. “Yeah, sure. Except sadly, nobody’s interested in my popcorn since Swarovsky’s opened up down the street.”
Bess hadn’t followed, and her face must have shown her confusion.
“When I bought the place from old Mr. Swarovsky,” Eddie explained, “I wanted the rights to the secret recipe, too. The old man was willing to sell me the store because Ronnie supposedly didn’t want to take over, but when it came time to give up the family recipe, the old man hemmed and hawed. I tried telling him Sugarland wasn’t worth much without the caramel corn. He died while we were in the final negotiations. I got the store for a song…but not the recipe.”
Bess made a face. “Ouch. And then Ronnie opened up his own place?”
“You got it. Just down the street.” Eddie shrugged. “Apparently he had plans to do it for a while, but he and his dad didn’t see eye to eye on it. When his dad died, Ronnie got the recipe and I got the old shop.”
“Eddie, that’s too bad. I’m sorry.” Bess reached automatically to pat his arm. He glanced up at her touch, for another fleeting instant looking the way he used to. She took her hand away.
“It’s okay. I’m doing a nice business with the ice cream, and I do sell a couple different varieties of popcorn, but we can’t really compete with the genuine Swarovsky’s. Even if I wanted to be a jerk and use the recipe…which would be stealing. You know how people are about that stuff, Bess. You remember.”
“Loyal,” she said with a nod. “Yeah, I remember.”
Eddie rapped the table with his knuckles. “Hey, enough of that. Tell me about you. Your life. What grand and exciting things did you go on to do?”
Bess’s laugh wasn’t quite as vibrant as his. “I wish I had a lot of stories to tell you, but I don’t, really. I went to school. Got married. We had two boys, Connor and Robbie. Connor’s eighteen. Robbie’s seventeen. They’re going to be coming down here in about two weeks, as soon as school lets out.”
“If they need jobs, send ’em my way,” Eddie said seriously. “Right now it’s me and Kara, but once the season really gets going I’ll need a couple other kids.”
Bess smiled. “I’ll let them know. Thanks.”
Eddie sipped more coffee and eyed her over his mug. “What about your job?”
Bess turned her mug around in her hands. “Oh, that. Well, I worked for a little while, but when I got pregnant with Connor I quit and just never managed to go back.”
“You were going to be a counselor,” Eddie said. “That’s too bad you had to quit. Not that staying home to raise your kids isn’t an important job,” he added hastily. “God knows someone should stay home and raise the children. I just meant…”
“I know what you meant,” Bess said quietly. “I wanted to do a lot of things I didn’t. Having Connor changed a lot.”
She and Eddie stared at each other over their cooling coffees and biscotti crumbs. He sent her another smile, not so broad or wide, but sweeter for being so tentative.
“Kara’s mother, Kathy, and I never got married. We, umm…well, I can’t even say we dated,” Eddie admitted. “The year after your last one here, I shot up about four inches, lost the braces. My face cleared up. I wasn’t Quasimodo anymore.”
“Oh, Eddie.”
He shook his head. “I know what I looked like, Bess. Anyway. I guess the sudden transformation sort of went to my head. I got cocky. A little careless. Kathy was the daughter of one of my mom’s friends from church. Both our moms tried to hook us up, but I wasn’t really interested in marrying a preacher’s daughter.”
Bess
