Love Finds You in Hershey, Pennsylvania (6 page)

Dmitri was not in the least offended. “That’s because my family is from Russia,” he explained.

“Oh.” Kylie chewed her lip for a moment. “Is that where Sesame Street is?”

Dmitri faltered. “Excuse me?”

“You know. Where Elmo lives?”

“No, Kylie,” Jasper jumped in, “Sesame Street is in New York.”

“Then where’s Russia?”

“It’s across the ocean,” said Dmitri.

Kylie’s eyes lit up. “Like Belle?”

“Mmm, sort of. Belle lives in France, yes? And Russia is several countries over. Closer than America, though,” Dmitri explained.

Sadie was impressed that Dmitri was familiar with the Disney story. Kylie, on the other hand, was eyeing Dmitri Velichko with a whole new form of awe.

“Can you take Kylie there?” she asked.

Her use of third person confused him. “Take who?”

“Kylie.”

“You?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, well, it’s a very long way away.”

“That’s all right,” Kylie assured him. “Kylie doesn’t mind.”

“Yes, but Mommy does,” Sadie at last intervened.

Kylie looked at Sadie with her “not-now; stay-out-of-this” expression. “Kylie wants to go.”

Jasper sniffed and affected a look of pure distress. “But if you leave, Kylie…who will play with me?”

Kylie grew alarmed. She hadn’t thought of that. “
Oh
,” was the only response she could utter.

“Poor Malibu Ken,” sighed Jasper. “First his leg and now this.”

It was too much. Kylie grabbed Jasper’s hand. “It’s all right, Jasper. Kylie will stay.”

He looked down at her. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t want you to regret it later.”

Kylie released his hand to wrap her arms around his legs. He grabbed onto the Keebler elf cutout for balance.

“Can’t leave Jasper! Won’t!”

Jasper glanced up and mouthed, “She’s going to break my legs!”

Sadie inserted her hands in between Kylie’s arms and Jasper’s legs. “Let go now, baby.”

Kylie released Jasper and promptly held her hands upward. “Lift Kylie! Lift!”

Jasper hoisted her up, where she promptly tightened her arms around his neck. He choked and Kylie loosened her hold.

“Kylie wants to pick ice cream now. Jasper promised.”

“Yes, Jasper did…I mean, I did.” He turned to Dmitri. “It was nice meeting you.”

Dmitri said the same. As Jasper was toting Kylie away, he gave Sadie a warning expression and mouthed, “Be nice!”

Deciding to give Jasper’s advice a spin, Sadie gestured to Dmitri’s leg and smiled apologetically. “Sorry about whaling you with my cart.”

Dmitri smiled. “It’s all right.”

An awkward silence fell, and Sadie shifted from foot to foot. She noted the Keebler elf grinning smugly and felt the urge to topple him.

She cleared her throat. “Well…if you’ll excuse me…I need to get some yellow food dye.”

“For the cake,” he clarified.

“Yes, the cake.”

She licked her lips and mentally cast about for some sort of graceful good-bye.

“It was, uh…nice seeing you.”

Brilliant
.

If only he didn’t look so self-satisfied. Him
and
the Keebler elf.

“Likewise.”

“So, I’ll…see ya around.”

He nodded.

Just walk away, Sadie. Just…walk…away.

She swung the cart away from him with an exaggerated amount of force. It knocked into a pyramid of cereal boxes and sent the entire display crashing to the floor. A box of Fruit Loops landed at her feet, and Toucan Sam stared up in shame, his feathered finger outstretched and pointing at her. Sadie hung her head and sighed.

She was too embarrassed to even look at Dmitri.

A voice blared over the loudspeaker: “Clean-up on aisle 14.”

Sadie finally glanced at him. “It’s all right. They know me here.”

He looked as though he were going to burst out with laughter at any moment. She wheeled her cart down the aisle and attempted to hold her head high, ignoring the
squeak, squeak, squeak
that had suddenly developed in the cart’s wheels.

“Ms. Spencer?” his accented voice called her name.

She swallowed and turned. “Yes?”

“I believe the allergy medication is in aisle 7.”

Sadie blinked.

“Thanks.”

Sadie nearly sank through the floor the next morning when Dmitri Velichko entered Suncatchers and sat in his regular booth. The waitress on duty (a tall, waifish specimen appropriately named Willow) instantly inserted a menu in his hands and smiled with enough radiance to illuminate several city blocks.

Willow had poured him a mug of coffee and taken his order before Sadie mustered enough courage to approach his table.

“Morning,” she offered with what she felt was the appropriate amount of contrition.

He smiled a greeting, which she took as a promising sign. She slipped into the seat across from him.

“How’s your leg this morning?”

He laid aside his newspaper, which Sadie noted was once more open to the business section. A competitive wave of jealousy bit into her, and she had the unexpected urge to swing her foot under the table and into the same shin she had rammed with her cart the evening before.

“It’s a little stiff, but I’ll live.”

“Oooh. That’s a shame.”

Dmitri raised an eyebrow at her tone. She sounded anything but sorry.

“So…the business section, huh?” She gestured to the paper.

He was eyeing her warily again. She seemed to have that effect on him. Sadie thought he probably wondered how many personalities she possessed.

“I was a business major in college,” he tentatively offered.

“Really?” She affected an air of detached interest while mentally filing away this new information. A business major. He probably knew all about running a restaurant. And then she brightened as another thought occurred to her.

Sure, he knew about business. But did he know about
food
?

“Listen, Dmitri…may I call you Dmitri?”

He nodded.

“Okay then, Dmitri. About last night. I just wanted to apologize again for—for—well, for everything.”

He seemed to relax once more. Sadie decided it must be her friendly personality in control today.

“I would feel so much better if you’d accept your breakfast on the house this morning as my way of making it up to you.”

He held up a hand. “That’s really not necessary—”

“Please.” She smiled as sweetly as she could manage.

That’s right, Sadie. Honey, not vinegar, remember? Kill him with your kindness and then take him out at the knees.
Well, actually, she’d almost succeeded in doing that just yesterday.

“I’m not usually so…accident-prone,” she explained. “At least not
that
accident-prone. I just…yesterday was just a bad day.”

His blue eyes softened with compassion. “I’m sorry to hear that.” His warm voice was so genuine that she felt her heart give a momentary flutter.

“Yeah, but it’s…” She suddenly felt the need to elaborate. “It’s my father. He sort of abandoned my mom and me when I was a kid, and ever since then, he’s been this kind of off-again/on-again type of figure in my life. And he showed up yesterday, talking about making amends and regrets and God and…” She waved her hands helplessly. “What’re you gonna do, you know?”

She sighed, but Dmitri actually appeared to be quite interested in her story. She found herself babbling on. “And then the chicken burned, and Kylie wanted pizza, but there were germs in the ball pit, and Kylie’s birthday party is this Saturday, and I needed stuff for the party. So Jasper drove us to the grocery store, and I nearly took off your leg, but Kylie picked the cake design she wants me to duplicate, which requires an
insane
amount of yellow dye, which will probably stain her intestinal tract
permanently
, but it’s okay because she only turns five years old once, you know? And I want her to be happy so she can grow up and get into a decent college and have a good life.”

These words came out in a rush of thought, but Dmitri seemed to be following her just fine, so she went on. “I mean, why is being a mother so hard? Why doesn’t anyone tell you how many things there are to worry about? How did my mom do it? And the thing is that she did it without my father, which is why I was so upset when he showed up yesterday. Who does he think he is to just sail back into town and expect everything to be like old times? And anyway, who said our old times were really all that great?”

Dmitri blinked several times. “I can see why yesterday must have been difficult.”

“You have
no
idea.”

He frowned. “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but are you always this…” He seemed to be looking for a word that wasn’t offensive.

“Psychotic?” she inserted for him. “I used to think it was just temporary, but Jasper has assured me that after twenty-nine years, it’s probably permanent.”

Dmitri took a sip of his coffee and proceeded to ask a question that caused Sadie’s jaw to drop.

“Jasper’s your husband?”

“
What?
No!”

Now it was Dmitri’s turn to look surprised. He set his coffee cup back down. “Oh. But I thought…well, last night…with your daughter, Kylie. I just assumed…”

“Oh, no! Jasper is my very best friend in the entire world, but we’ve never been like
that
.” She abstractly wondered why she made “
that
” sound like such a bad thing. “Jasper is like…well, like…”

“A brother?” Dmitri attempted to help out.

She frowned. “Well, no. Not exactly.”

She’d never thought of Jasper as a brother, strangely enough. He was her best friend. Did it really require further description?

Dmitri, however, appeared to be very confused.

“Jas and I were nearly born on the same day. His mom and mine shared a room at the hospital. They were good friends, so we spent a lot of time together growing up. After his mom passed on, my mom practically adopted him. So yeah…I guess he grew up like my brother, but…not.”

Well, so much for clarification.

“We went separate ways when we got out of high school. He left for college to get his teaching degree, and I went to culinary school. I got married, signed a contract for two cookbooks and a television show, had Kylie, finished the cookbooks, lost the television show, and came back to Pennsylvania when my mother was diagnosed with cancer three years ago. Jasper and I reconnected when I came back home. He’s been such a huge help to me the past couple of years— especially with taking care of Kylie.”

“And your husband?” Dmitri questioned. “You’re divorced?”

“No.” She swallowed painfully. “Widowed.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.”

She licked her lips and looked away. “It’s been almost five years. It was a car accident—a drunk driver. Kylie was only a few months old when it happened.”

She stared out the front windows of her restaurant and watched the suncatchers there make cherry rivers on the glass. Like a bleeding heart. She shook her head.

“So that’s
my
life in a nutshell. And as for Jasper—a girl couldn’t ask for a better friend. He even plays with Barbies when Kylie asks him. How many guys do you know who would do that?”

Dmitri cocked his head and studied her with a strange expression. “Sounds like he’d make a great father.”

Sadie thought that was an odd remark, so she decided to ignore it.

“And yourself?” she asked.

Now he looked startled.

“You wonder if I’d make a good father?”

She coughed. “No…I meant, what’s your story?”

His expression of relief struck her as extremely comical. She bit back her laughter.

“Oh… My parents are Russian immigrants. I grew up in a Russian neighborhood in the city and decided to give small-town life a try.”

Hmm. Not very detailed, is he?

“And your parents?”

“They still live in the city.”

“Friends? Girlfriends?” she pushed for more information.

He smiled somewhat bashfully, and Sadie found it cute.

“No,” he whispered shyly, “nothing like that.”

“Not even friends?”

He glanced up. “A few.”

“You’re not much of one for sharing personal details, are you, Dmitri Velichko?”

To her surprise, he blushed. “It doesn’t come naturally to me.”

“Meaning I’ve probably shared enough for both of us?” It was cruel to tease him, perhaps, but she found a perverse glee in it nonetheless.

“No, no! That’s not what I meant!”

“Oh, calm down. I’m not offended, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

An expression of relief washed over him once more. If she persisted in these encounters with him, she was very likely to give him ulcers. Which he’d probably blame on the food she served, thereby provoking a lawsuit and putting her out of business. She narrowed her eyes.

“Start simple, then. What are your hobbies?”

“Hobbies?”

“Yes, hobbies. You know. Things one does for fun? Such as running people over in grocery stores and babbling incoherently to restaurant patrons?”

“I believe those are quirks, rather than hobbies,” he corrected her.

“Touché. Score one for the Russian.”

“We’re keeping score now?”