Love Finds You in Hershey, Pennsylvania (3 page)

While she hung her jacket on a peg, her mind hummed over how to best conquer the problem of Dmitri Velichko’s interference in her life. She usually listened for the sounds of Kylie and Jasper’s chatter as they played or finished homework or started dinner, but, preoccupied as she was, Sadie didn’t pay much attention to the fact that the house remained strangely silent in the wake of her arrival.

“Jas? Kylie?” she called absentmindedly as she stepped from the hall and into the kitchen.

No dinner preparations. No boiling water or preheated oven. No salad fixings out to slice. She often brought dinner home from the restaurant for them to eat, but she thought she’d told Jasper that wouldn’t be the case tonight. She frowned as she reached for the mail and began flipping through the layers of thin white envelopes.

“Jas?” she mumbled distractedly.

He appeared in the doorway, his disheveled blond hair brushing against his eyebrows, as she tossed the remains of the mail onto the counter. She smiled at his boyish features. Jasper’s appearance never failed to tickle her in an odd way. He had never quite managed to refine a specific look and so forever had the appearance of a surfer dude gone country.

His skin bronzed lightly in any weather, and his wheat-colored hair never stayed neatly combed. His features were masculine with a strong jaw and an angular chin, but his lips pouted in an adorably childlike fashion. He was muscled and lean and, at the moment, dressed in his typical after-work attire of a T-shirt, faded jeans, and bare feet.

“Hey,” she greeted him with a grin.

He smiled back, but there was something uneasy in the gesture. She cocked her head for a moment and waited, but he said nothing.

“
He
came in today,” she volunteered, to begin conversation.

“He?”

Sadie stepped to the fridge and opened it, reaching inside for a bottle of apple juice. She affected a Russian accent as she replied, “
Da. Dmitri Velichko.
” She pulled out the juice and opened the cupboard for a tumbler.

She reverted to her regular speech as she continued. “He was in twice today, if you can believe it. For breakfast—strawberry pancakes with fresh cream and a side of sausage. And coffee, of course,” she added as she poured the juice into the glass. “And again for dinner—creamy shrimp tart with a side salad. Russian dressing.” She raised her juice in salute before sipping. “What else? He’s a patriot, that’s for sure.”

Sadie drained the juice in seconds and rinsed the tumbler in the sink. “Who does he think he is, anyway, breezing into town like this and assuming he can just start taking over? I was born and raised here—
born and raised
,” she repeated emphatically, “and even I knew better than to assume I could make a go of it just like
that
.” She snapped her fingers.

“Maybe he doesn’t know he can make a go of it,” Jasper suggested. “Maybe he’s just holding onto a dream. Kinda like you.” He winked at her.

She refused to be charmed. “Oh, don’t even, Jasper.” She screwed the lid tightly onto the apple juice bottle and jerked the refrigerator door open to deposit the container inside. “Don’t even bother comparing Dmitri Velichko to me.”

“Why not?” way of his. “Moving from the big city and attempting to make a go of a restaurant on his own? Sounds a
little
familiar, doesn’t it?”

Sadie slammed the refrigerator door shut. “For your information, wise guy, I was raised
here
—Dmitri Velichko was
born
in the big city. Or so Mrs. Jones claims.”

Jasper raised an eyebrow. “You’re basing this entire vendetta on information from Mrs. Jones?” He clicked his tongue in an uncanny resemblance to the very woman in question. “You and your sources.”

“I would hardly call it a
vendetta
. And Jones and Smith are unimpeachable sources.”

“Oh, just like when they claimed that
your
restaurant was going to be a huge flop since no one around here would want to eat ‘fancy, TV-style cooking’?”

Sadie couldn’t help but smile maliciously at that comment. “Hmm. Yeah. Crazy old biddies.” She shook herself. “But in this instance, I believe they are
dead-on
to something.”

“Oh, they’re on something, that’s for sure. I’m just not sure if it’s the Valium or the Prozac that’s doing it.”

Sadie turned her back to Jasper so he couldn’t see her grin. No use in letting him know she found his commentary amusing. His head was big enough as it was.

“Like it or not, my friend,” she said as she began rummaging through the cupboards for dinner ideas, “Dmitri Velichko isn’t going to get the best of me. I’ve worked too long and too hard to be ousted by some reformed KGB wannabe chef.”

Jasper frowned. “Come on, Sadie. That’s harsh.”

Sadie pulled a couple of chicken breasts from the freezer and stuck them in the microwave to thaw before opening the refrigerator once more. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time in this business, it’s that all may be fair in love and war but nothing’s fair in the food industry.”

Jasper snorted.

“You’re staying for dinner, right?” she questioned with her face to the lettuce crisper.

Jasper and Sadie had worked out an arrangement following the opening of Suncatchers. Jasper worked as a teacher at Kylie’s school, Agape Christian Academy, and each day when classes let out, he picked up Kylie from her kindergarten class and drove the three miles to Sadie’s house. They spent the next few hours playing, working on homework, or doing chores until Sadie was able to get away from the restaurant and come home to join them. In exchange for this, Sadie usually cooked Jasper dinner (if he hadn’t already cooked it for her), and he often spent the evening at Sadie’s playing board games or watching
Beauty and the Beast
with Kylie (their favorite) or simply chatting about old times with Sadie. All this was done out of the goodness of his heart. Sadie had offered to pay him a couple of times for his help, but he always refused.

Now there was sudden silence in the kitchen following her offer of dinner. She pulled her head from the crisper, her arms loaded with salad ingredients, and glanced over her shoulder.

Jasper’s face had paled beneath his sun-bronzed skin, and his arms remained crossed over his chest. Sadie frowned and noticed, for the first time, that her daughter hadn’t come to greet her yet.

She dumped the salad items onto the counter.

“Where’s Kylie?”

“Upstairs in her room.”

Sadie immediately found that odd. Kylie didn’t usually linger in her bedroom, especially not when Jasper was around. Where Jasper went, Kylie followed. She practically attached herself to his hip.

“Oh?”

He shifted from one foot to the other. “Need some help?” He gestured to the carrots.

Sadie looked carefully at him. “What’s Kylie doing in her room?”

Jasper attempted an expression of nonchalance, something he usually achieved with considerable ease. But now he simply looked as though he were in pain.

“She got the Barbie dolls out. You know I hate that. Ever since Malibu Ken lost his leg and Kylie accidentally flushed it down the toilet and said it got taken by the volcano…it’s just not the same.”

Despite his obvious attempts at distracting her, Sadie had to laugh at this.

“Taken by the volcano?” she repeated skeptically.

He nodded in all seriousness. “Yeah. Mount Thousand Flushes.”

She choked and then coughed.

“Not to be confused with the Scrubbing Bubbles Lagoon,” he added. Then he leaned in and quietly whispered, “That’s the bathtub.” He made a face indicating that this admission could cost him his very life and then mouthed, “Shh! Don’t tell!”

Sadie covered her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. When she was able to control herself, she removed her hand and whispered, “Your secret is safe with me. I wouldn’t want the locals to know you were telling island secrets.”

“You’d better not,” Jasper soberly agreed. “Or it could be my leg that’s taken by Mount Thousand Flushes next.”

She smiled. “You
do
look a little like Malibu Ken, though.”

“That’s what Kylie said. But I told her the resemblance stops at the hair.”

Sadie grinned, shook her head, and pulled the defrosted chicken from the microwave.

“Um, Sadie…there is something you should know.”

Finally he comes out with it
, she thought.

But following this statement, Jasper once more fell silent. She glanced at him.

“What’s wrong?”

A slow-working dread began to steal along her nerve endings, causing her skin to tingle. Jasper took several steps toward her.

“It’s about your dad,” he softly said, his breath brushing her eyelashes.

Sadie’s stomach dropped several inches.

“What’s happened?”

“Nothing’s happened.” Jasper quickly tried to calm her. He reached out to smooth the layers of her long brown hair behind her ears. “It’s just that…” He took a breath, and she wanted to slug him.

Out with it!
her mind screamed.

“He’s here.”

“What?”

Before Jasper could repeat himself, Sadie sensed movement. Jasper’s hands lay gently on her shoulders, but she shifted out of their reassuring embrace to see past her best friend.

There, in the doorway of her kitchen, stood an older man with thinning brown hair and watery eyes. Her father.

“Hello, Sadie,” he greeted her.

She sighed. “Great.”

“Just
what
are you doing here?”

Not exactly the greeting Mac Cameron was looking for, Sadie was sure. But she couldn’t help herself. On her fifteenth birthday, it had finally dawned on her that Mac really wasn’t planning on being a regular figure in her life. Ever since that day, Sadie had assembled walls around the memories of her father. Nothing got out, and Mac never got in, no matter when he showed up or for how long.

Noting the tense set of her shoulders, Jasper took a side step. “I’ll give you two some privacy.”

Sadie whirled. “Oh no. Stay. You’re as much family as he is.” She gestured with contempt at the man before her. “More, in point of fact.”

Jasper glanced at Mac. Mac nodded.

“It’s all right, Jasper. You can stay.”

Sadie’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse you? Jasper is
my
best friend. I’ll be the one to tell him if he can stay or not.” Her gaze remained trained on her father. “Maybe you’d better give us a minute, Jas.”

Jasper shook his head but didn’t say a word as he turned and strode down the hall.

“Still taking him for granted, are you?”

Sadie’s lips pursed together. “What do you want?”

Mac swallowed and lowered his head for a moment. “I heard about your mother.”

“What about her? That she had cancer and was dying? Or the part where she
did
die and I had to bury her? Without you.”

When Mac’s head lifted once more, there were tears in his eyes. “Both, actually.”

Years of practice prevented Sadie from weakening at this sign of remorse. “And when did you find out, exactly? It’s been two years since her funeral.”

“I’ve known for a few months,” he admitted. “She sent me a letter… .”

Sadie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “A letter?”

Mac swallowed, his soft brown eyes—the same eyes both Sadie and Kylie had inherited—staring a hole into the linoleum.

“I guess she sent it before she died—mailed it to the last known address… .” He swallowed again. “But I wasn’t living there anymore.”

Sadie felt her face flush, thanks in part to a surge of anger. “Surprise, surprise.” The sharpness to her tone stung even her.

Mac raised his eyes. “I did a lot of thinking after I got that letter.”

Sadie turned her back on him and sliced open the plastic bag of carrots with unnecessary force.

“Oh?”

“I did a lot of soul-searching,” he said.

“Uh-huh.” She rinsed the carrots thoroughly before subjecting them to her full fury. A dull
whack
,
whack, whack
drowned out whatever Mac might have continued to say, and bits of orange confetti flew through the air.

After a moment, Sadie realized what she was doing and laid the knife aside. She turned and faced her father once more.

“My daughter turns five years old in two days. Did you know that? Do you even realize how much time has passed? It’s been over four years since the last time you saw her, after all.
Four years
. I mean, when
was
the last time you decided to drop by?” Sadie made an exaggerated gesture of pressing her forefinger to her lips and then snapping her fingers. “Oh, that’s
right
! It was after my husband’s funeral! Good to know you could make it for that—missed the wedding, but you got to the funeral, so I guess that’s what counts, right?”

She whirled, and carrot pieces filled the air around her once more.

“Sadie.”

She stopped her mad dicing and cocked her head. She’d heard Mac say her name before, of course, but never like that. Something lingered in those two simple syllables. Something like…regret.

Sadie turned to look at him again.