Wishing on Willows: A Novel (26 page)

“And that man who wants to buy your café?” Judy covered her lips, as if self-conscious about her teeth. “I don’t know how you talk to him without getting all tongue-tied.”

Amanda bent over the counter, set her chin on her fist, and nodded emphatically. “I completely agree, Judy. How
do
you talk to him without getting all tongue-tied, Robin?”

The residual anger from her sister-in-law’s betrayal moved to Robin’s foot. Just like usual, Amanda thought everything was a joke. At times it drove Robin so nuts, she wanted to give Amanda a swift kick in the rear. Right now was one of those times. Judy pulled a twenty from her purse and slid it across the counter. Joe handed over the lidded cup while Robin counted out the woman’s change.

Once Judy left, Robin returned to the kitchen to finish her dough-whacking. Unfortunately, Amanda tossed the envelope next to the register and followed, the corners of her mouth tiptoeing into a smile. “I give you permission to ask.”

“I just hope you aren’t telling him anything about Willow Tree.”

“What? Like insider secrets? C’mon, Robin, don’t be ridiculous.”

“You leaving town with him in the first place is a little more than ridiculous.”

“I asked and you said you didn’t care.”

The intercom buzzed, indicating another customer. Joe would take care of it. “Of course I cared.”

“Aha! So you are attracted to him.”

Attraction had nothing to do with it. Robin picked up the rolling pin and brought it down on the dough. “I care because you’re supposed to be on my side. I really don’t understand why you want to date the one man in town bent on undoing all we’ve done with Willow Tree.”

Robin hit the dough again. She would bake until her hands cracked with flour. Until her counters spilled over with blueberry crumb coffee cake.
Dulce de leche
cheesecake squares. Maybe even peanut butter cupcakes frosted with chocolate glaze. And when she finished, she would play the piano until the music swept her away to someplace calm, someplace peaceful, someplace where Ian McKay did not exist.

“First of all,” Amanda said, “I will always be on your side. Second of all, if you cared, you should have said so when I asked. Third, I like spending time with Ian. I’m sorry if that upsets you.” She sat down on the stepladder and examined her nails. “And fourth, Ian is hardly the enemy you’re making him out to be. He’s actually a pretty nice guy if you’d get to know him.”

“I know him plenty well, thanks. Standing there all the time with his crinkly eyes and his hands in his pockets.” Robin gave the dough a couple more whacks and set the roller down.

“Come on. It’s not like he thought,
Whose life can I ruin today?
then picked your name out of the phone book and started plotting. These plans he has for condominiums, they would actually be good for the town.”

Robin wiped her palms against her apron. “I’m not convinced Ian’s condominiums are going to do half the things he claims they will. I think he’s leading everybody on.” Including the woman sitting on Robin’s stepladder.

Amanda looked up from her nail, a bored expression on her face, as if she was done with this conversation. “What movies are playing at the theater tonight?”

“I … I have no idea.” The last grown-up movie Robin had gone to in the theater was
Enchanted
, more than five years ago. She’d dragged Micah against his will. He’d moaned and groaned, pretending not to like it, but Robin knew better. She caught him smiling pretty big when Giselle and Robert twirled around the dance floor. “Why?”

Amanda picked off some of her raspberry-colored polish. “I’m taking Ian out tonight. We’re going to Val’s and probably a movie afterward.”

Robin poked the tip of her finger into a corner of the dough. Throwing unsuspecting men at her was one thing, but dating Ian? This pushed past annoyance. It was hurtful and humiliating. “He’s trying to buy my café.”

“I know.” Amanda stood from her perch. “Stop taking it so personally.” She walked out of the kitchen, leaving Robin alone, rolling pin dangling by her side, door swinging on its hinges.

When the swinging stopped, she attacked the dough with short, frantic movements until it spread across the floured prep table in a thin, misshapen circle. She snatched the tin of cookie cutters, cut and plopped the uniform shapes onto a metal sheet, stuffed them in the oven, and grabbed a loaf of sourdough bread from the cooling rack. She sawed at it with the bread knife, cutting off chunks in angry slices.
Stop taking it so personally?
How could she not take it personally? Of all the—

Pain seared through her pointer finger.

She jerked her hand back and hissed. The knife clattered to the floor and blood gushed from the injury. The blade had sliced into her finger deeply. Really deeply. She grabbed a nearby towel, wrapped it around her hand, and cradled it to her chest. She hated blood. Cuts made her squeamish. And the mental image of that flap of separated skin … She shuddered and forced herself to breathe and blink away the dancing spots darkening her vision.

She needed Joe.

She pushed through the door and knocked right into him.

He caught her shoulders. “Whoa, Robin, that’s a lot of blood.”

She looked at the towel. Big mistake. Big, big mistake. The floor tilted beneath her.

“She needs stitches. I’ll take her to the doctor.” That voice … it didn’t belong to Joe. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to force away the spins. When she opened them back up again, Ian McKay stood in front of her.

Robin’s cakey skin beaded with sweat. “Joe can take me.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Ian stepped closer, much more unsettled by Robin’s blood than he should be. “If Joe takes you, you’ll have to close down your café before noon. Do you really want to do that?”

Without giving her time to protest, he placed his arm behind her back and ushered her out of the café and into his car. Somehow, the entire towel wrapped around Robin’s hand had gone from white to red.

“This is absurd. You can’t just kidnap me.”

“Buckle your seat belt.” When she didn’t respond, he reached across her and snapped the seat belt into place, ignoring the warmth of her body and the brown-sugar smell clinging to her skin.

“I’m not a little kid,” she said.

“Then stop acting like one.” He pulled the car out of the parking lot and glanced at the blood-soaked towel cradled in her lap. How much could one finger bleed? “Are you in a lot of pain?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, chest puffing up and down in an uneven rhythm, her face whiter than chalk. She looked two seconds away from passing out.

“Do you need to put your head between your legs or something?”

“I hate blood.”

He wasn’t a fan of it either. Especially hers. Ian curled his fingers around the steering wheel and pressed harder on the gas pedal.

Dr. Dotts finished the last stitch on Robin’s finger. The tugging sensation nauseated her so she pressed the knuckles of her good hand against her abdomen and kept her eyes closed. Of all the people in the world to sweep in and rescue her, why did it have to be Ian? And why had she acted like such a lunatic? An absolute raving lunatic. All because of a stupid cut.

Dr. Dotts wrapped the injury in gauze, then patted her knee. “All better.”

Robin held up her hand and stared at the clunky bandage. “How am I supposed to do anything with this?”

“It’ll be tricky.” The doctor jotted something on his clipboard. “You came very close to severing the tip of your finger. You must have been cutting something pretty hard.”

The nausea came back. Along with a horrible realization. How could she play the piano? She brought her wrapped hand onto her lap. “When will I get the stitches out?”

“I’ll have you come back in ten days. We’ll take a look and see how things are healing. Until then, I need you to be careful with that finger, which means no piano. I know how much you enjoy playing, but you’re going to have to wait until you’re healed.” Dr. Dotts handed her a plastic bag filled with gauze and a small tube. “Clean it every night, but very lightly. When you’re finished, dab on a generous amount of ointment and wrap it back up, at least for the first couple days. After that, you might want to let it breathe a little. Tylenol should help the throbbing once the Novocaine wears off.”

Robin tried to listen to his instructions, but ten days? With no piano?

The doctor said something, but Robin didn’t hear. She wanted to get home, away from this disaster. When Dr. Dotts finished talking, Ian held open the door. She frowned and walked past him. Joe should have taken her. So what if she had to close her café? At least she wouldn’t be with Ian.

Once they reached his car, he opened her car door too, that crinkly-eyed smirk on his face. “Do you need me to buckle you in this time?”

She grabbed the belt and clipped it into place, then clutched her hands in her lap while Ian got in the driver’s side. She examined his profile from the corner of her eye. Thick lashes. Straight nose. Strong jaw. Tan skin, with crow’s-feet that somehow added to his attractiveness in that annoying man-way. He wrapped his hands around the steering wheel and pulled onto the road, his fingers reminding her of his cooking and the deep, rich sound of his laughter that night in her kitchen. Her heart thudded against her eardrums.

Lord, what is going on?

Ian’s lips curled into a slow grin, like he knew she was staring. She turned toward the window and thumbed her ring finger. Only instead of smooth platinum, her thumb met warm skin. She looked at her hand. Where was her ring? She put it on this morning. She knew she did, so where was it? She pulled out her pockets and found nothing but lint.

“What’s wrong?”

“My ring is missing.” She leaned forward and scanned the floor, trying to remember the course of her day. Had she taken it off before she started baking?

“Relax.”

“Don’t tell me to relax.” Panic stirred in her gut. She knew she was overreacting, but she couldn’t seem to control herself. Being banned from her piano was bad enough, she had to lose her ring too? Everything felt too big, too important. She needed to get out of the car, away from this man who made her feel things she didn’t want to feel.

Ian pulled over to the side of the road. “Robin, I have your ring.”

Her frenzied searching stopped.

“Dr. Dotts took it off before he examined your hand. Don’t you remember?”

No, she didn’t remember at all.

He reached inside his pocket and pulled it out. The ring sparkled on the tip of his pinky finger, speckled with blood. Her heart drummed against her sternum. He reached across the console, took her bandaged hand in his, and slid the ring in place. “There. Everything’s right with the world again.”

She pulled away from his touch, pressing herself against the door.

“You might want to get it cleaned.”

“I will.” She fiddled with the bandage wrapped around her finger, embarrassment replacing the empty space the panic left behind. “I’m sorry for freaking out. It’s just …”

“Your husband bought it for you. Trust me, I get it. You don’t have to explain.”

But he didn’t get it, not completely. Robin opened her mouth to clarify—that the ring belonged to her mom long before Micah ever put it on her finger. It was one of the reasons she rarely took it off. But the explanation didn’t come and the two of them sat there in Ian’s car, sandwiched between the park where Micah had proposed and the café Ian wanted to buy. She couldn’t decide if she should fling open the door and leave, or stay and talk to this man who looked so defeated. “Ian?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you come to my café this morning?”

“Honestly?” He looked out the window, past the streetlamps and the railroad tracks and the Mississippi River, as if whatever he searched for lay beyond the horizon. “I’m not sure.”

Micah was supposed to propose in Chicago at the Navy Pier. He had it all planned out. We were going to ride the Ferris wheel at twilight, that romantic hour in between day and night, when everything looks beautiful and calm. We would ride to the very top, and while I was mesmerized by the darkening Chicago skyline, he would take the small, velvet box from his coat and wait for me to turn around.