Back for Seconds (Lone Star Second Chances Book 1) Read online

  “I don’t… I just… um,” she stammered, trying to wrap her brain around it.

  “There were customers buying several note cookies each. They wanted to give them away to other people, which in turn will make them give them away to other people. The marketing is built right in. It’s really quite perfect.” He smiled wider. “So what are you waiting for? Let’s go. We’re burning daylight.”

  “I can’t go to Dallas,” she said, as if he should have known.

  “Why not?” he said, as if it never occurred to him that she might say no.

  “I have three kids I need to pick up in,” she glanced at her watch and groaned. “Four hours.”

  “Let Lillian pick them up. She’ll understand. This is business.”

  “The kids won’t understand,” she pointed out as she handed him back his cup of coffee.

  “Kids are extraordinarily resilient,” he pointed out, refusing to take it. “And it’s a good lesson for them to learn. An empowered mum who sees what she wants and goes after it.”

  “They just lost their home and their safe, secure family environment, Xander. I can’t just disappear on a whim. They’ll think I’ve abandoned them.”

  “We’re talking about a day trip, Joely. You’ll be back in time to tuck them into bed.”

  “It won’t feel that way to them.” The one commitment she had made to herself when going back to work was that she’d never do anything that made her kids feel like they came second. She’d be there for them in ways Russell had never been. In fact, that was the very reason she had to… because he never was.

  “They’ll get over it,” he assured her. “Especially when your hard work pays off and you can get your own place and stand on your own feet, which is what you want to do anyway.”

  “And I will. But not at the expense of my kids, Xander. I’m a mother first.” He was incredulous as he stared at her. “Haven’t you ever dated a woman with kids before?”

  “Dating?” he repeated. “Is that what you think we’re doing?”

  Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t know how to respond to the question. Had she horribly misread the situation? Had he really been flirting out of pity after all? “I… I don’t know what we’re doing.”

  “I mean, the idea does sound like a lot of … fun,” he said after a slight pause. “Although I should be upfront with you and let you know from the start that I’m not exactly a dating kind of guy.”

  Her heart sank a little, though she didn’t know why. “So what has all this been about?” she asked, gesturing to her outfit and the coffees.

  “I told you. I go after what you want. I’m trying to teach you to do the same.” That rubbed her the wrong way. “So come on. Let’s hit the road. Do something for yourself for once. Right here, right in this moment.”

  At that moment she wanted to slap the crap out of him. She handed the flyer back to him and sat the coffee cup on the glass table standing against the wall. She brushed past him and headed upstairs. She didn’t stop until she closed her bedroom door behind her. She stood at the window overlooking the driveway. A tiny part of her hoped that he’d follow her up the stairs.

  She hated to admit that her heart fell when she saw him walk back out to his car, get in and drive away.

  She hadn’t expected to do any work that Monday, given that she thought she would be preoccupied with Xander. After he left, however, she changed out of her clothes and headed back downstairs to the kitchen. Her thoughts returned over and over again to his Greeting Cookie idea. She set up her laptop in the kitchen to reference a few generic greeting cards for her first batch. Only one had been salvageable, mostly because it only had a simple three-word sentence: “Get well soon!”

  Frustrated, she got in her car and drove to a local crafts’ supply store. Now that she had a little money in her pocket, she could browse around for new gadgets to help her sell her goodies. She bought stencils and brushes as well as new cookie cutters. She headed back home with two bags of supplies which she placed on the table as she whipped up a new batch of the butter cookies she had perfected.

  She only had time for one more batch of cookies before she picked up the kids from school. Hannah was over the moon when she realized that Lilah went to the same school that she went to. Despite not sharing a class, they sought each other out at recess, so Hannah was full of stories how they’d spent their time together. It made her happier than she’d been since they moved out of the house, which made Joely glad she splurged on a coloring book from the craft store. Hannah was up the stairs like a shot to color some pages for her new best friend.

  Since Chris had given Nash one of his old video games, Nash bailed for the family room the minute they walked in the door. As disconnected as that seemed to be, it was refreshing to see him excited for something, even if it was just a video game. There was a spark of light struggling to catch in those dark brown eyes, and Joely was going to do whatever she could to stoke it.

  In need of a snack, Kari shadowed her to the kitchen, which was a complete disaster area. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Just something new,” Joely said with a wave of her hand. Kari picked up one of the discarded attempts. It was pink, with a teddy bear and a pacifier. No words really were needed. Joely had conveyed the message with her art. “They’re greeting card cookies.”

  Her eyes travelled to her mother. “Greeting card cookies?”

  “Yeah, you know… greeting cards. They’re a relic from the old days,” she joked, but Kari didn’t smile. “It’s silly I know, but it was Xander’s idea.”

  Kari’s eyes widened just a tad. “Xander?”

  “He said the note cookies sold really well. He thinks there could be a market for this. What do you think?” she asked her daughter, although she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  Unbeknownst to Joely she had used the magic word: Xander. “I think it could be cool.” Joely warmed instantly to the reluctant praise. “You know what you could do? You could make sets. Like the nursery theme, or flowers for a wedding. That way you can sell packages, rather than just one cookie.”

  Joely was pleasantly surprised by her daughter’s insightful suggestion. “That’s a brilliant idea, Kari.” She took an uncertain step forward. “Did you want to, I dunno, try painting one?”

  Kari immediately shook her head. “I’m not artistic,” she said at once, purposefully omitting the “like you,” she had almost blurted without thinking. She was still mad at her mother. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t soften.

  “I didn’t think I was either,” Joely confessed. “I just couldn’t give up once I started.”

  “Why?”

  Their eyes met. “Because I wanted to make it work.” Kari didn’t have a reply for that, so Joely walked into the kitchen to prepare another batch. “And you’re more artistic than you know. I can replicate images pretty well, but you’ve got the lettering down pat. My writing sucks,” she confessed with a grin. “Hazard of being a doctor’s wife,” she added, her long-standing joke fading off into awkward silence. “Anyway, I was thinking that we could make some Texas cookies. A lot of customers are on their way through to somewhere else, so we could give them a little taste of Texas to take back home. I mean, if I’m making greeting card cookies anyway, why not postcard cookies?”

  Kari offered a nonchalant shrug but she sat at the table anyway. Joely suppressed her smile. Kari watched her mother as she lovingly and efficiently prepared a new batch of cookies, which she cut out in a larger rectangle with scalloped edges. She brought the cooled cookies to the table, where she turned her computer around for both of them to see, doing an Internet search for Texas postcards so they could have a frame of reference.

  Kari watched as Joely quickly and delicately iced the cookie, creating the background they would use for their ‘postcard.’ It unfolded like a magic trick. She leaned on the table as she watched her mother artfully blended colors to create what looked like a gorgeous Te
xas sunset. Kari had already started to place the letters in her head, and could hardly wait to get started.

  “So how was school?” Joely asked.

  Kari shrugged. School was school. She hated the new one she was forced to attend, something for which she’d normally rake her mother across the coals. Joely had unwittingly, or unthinkingly, disrupted her entire world by withdrawing her from her old school, where she had reigned supreme as a Queen Bee, popular and beloved by her many friends. In her new school, that spot was already taken by Emma McClure. She had already instructed all her flunkies to regard the new girl with snarky disdain, which made all these stupid changes even harder to make. The last week had been especially hellish. Kari had tried out for a musical as part of her drama class, but Emma got the lead role Kari had coveted. “Don’t worry, Kari,” she had said, deliberately mispronouncing her name. “You can be my understudy,” the preening teen had told her with a big, fake smile that only made Kari hate her even more.

  But Joely’s work was so delicate that Kari didn’t want to mess up the process by spreading her misery like she was wont to do. She could yell at her later, preferably when it would sting the most. “Okay, I guess.”

  “Make any new friends?”

  Kari hesitated for a brief moment, thinking about Emma with a slight curl of her lip. Finally she said, “I’ve met a guy.”

  Joely was surprised by the admission. Her daughter rarely let her in to her innermost thoughts like that. “Yeah? What’s he like?”

  Kari leaned on her elbow on the table, wearing a silly smile. “He’s gorgeous. And smart. And funny. I don’t think he knows I exist though.”

  Joely empathized. “Been there. Have you talked to him?”

  Kari nodded. “Yeah. I mean, he knows who I am and he’s nice enough. But I don’t think he takes me seriously. He’s older,” she added softly, watching her mother’s face, who barely registered the comment, probably assuming she meant a sophomore. “How do you get a boy to like you?”

  Joely wanted to snort at the irony. If she were with anyone but her kids, she might have said, ‘Ask someone whose husband didn’t just cheat on her with a twenty-something floozy.’ Instead she chimed in with Mom-advice. “You shouldn’t have to do anything, Kari. Just be yourself and the right boy will love you.”

  Kari rolled her eyes. That advice was useless to her. She was an idiot to bring it up. Her mother would never understand. “Yeah, I guess,” she said, just to close the topic of conversation.

  Joely sensed her shutting off. “At least you don’t have to spend your afternoons at the restaurant anymore. Maybe you can join some after-school program or something, get to know him as a friend, find some common ground.”

  That was exactly what Kari hoped to do. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. I think I want to keep my job at the restaurant.”

  Joely was so stunned by the admission she stopped what she was doing immediately to blink in disbelief at her daughter. Thanks to the privileged life that she had always led, Kari had always been a little more entitled than other girls her age, certainly more than Joely herself had been at fifteen. Needless to say it shocked her silly that the girl who wouldn’t clean a toilet without a major hissy fit would gladly hang around the restaurant, picking up after complete strangers. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I mean, it’s fun to hang out with Grandma and Granny Faye. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to do that before. They’ve always been so busy.”

  “Running a business takes a lot of time and energy,” Joely murmured as she returned to her task. She herself hadn’t realized exactly how much until her cookie adventure began. She had newfound respect for both of them herself.

  “Plus, you know, it pays. That way I don’t have to come to you or Dad for stuff.”

  Joely peered at her daughter across the table. That last little bit was curious. Kari Morgan had never had a problem asking for anything, and even less of a problem demanding her needs were met. Wanting to be more self-sufficient felt like such a huge step towards maturity that Joely wouldn’t have been able to say no to the unexpected request, even had she wanted to. “Sounds good to me. You’ll have to run it through your grandma though.”

  “I already talked to Xander,” Kari said, feeling a little possessive when she said his name.

  Joely’s hand grew still for a moment. “You did? What’d he say?”

  “He said that he’d see what he could do. I mean, it makes sense, you know? I’m up there all the time anyway. Might as well put me on the payroll.”

  “If you can work and maintain your grades, I see no problem with it.” Joely slid the cookie across to Kari. Kari glanced down at it, instantly intimidated that she would have to add anything to the picture perfect cookie. She would have hated to mess it up after all the hard work her mother put into getting it just right. She said as much to Joely.

  “I don’t think I should do this. What if I mess it up?”

  Joely smiled as she grabbed another plain cookie. “That’s the great thing about mistakes. Even if you can’t undo them, you can always start over.”

  By six-thirty, Nash emerged from his gamer coma to see about dinner. The kitchen was still a disaster so Joely broke down and ordered pizza delivery, which was always a big hit with her kids. After dinner they all sat together at the kitchen table in a makeshift assembly line. Hannah placed the cookies carefully in plastic wrap, while Nash tied ribbons on each and every one.

  It was nearly nine o’clock by the time they finished their task. They created twelve perfect postcard cookies for Texas, with one greeting card cookie thrown in for good measure. The rest of the cookies were shaped like giant cheerful suns, which she decorated in bright orange, yellow and white icings. Some cookies had smiley faces in the center, others had little messages she painstakingly painted on with a steady hand and a tiny brush. With Kari’s magic touch with lettering, they were a perfect blend of the both of them. Honestly they were Joely’s favorite cookies of all that she had done.

  The kids all retired to the family room to watch a movie while Joely packed up the goodies to take them to the restaurant. She wanted them there when business opened the next day.

  More specifically, she wanted one cookie on Xander’s desk when he walked in his office. She placed the greeting card there and smiled at the message he would come into work to find. “Thinking of you,” it said.

  And she was. She totally was. So much so, in fact, that she tossed and turned all night long, wondering how he’d react to his special greeting.

  She was dropping Kari off to school when her phone chimed in her purse. She waited till Kari had exited the car and disappeared into the crowd of children walking toward the entrance of the high school before snatching her phone to see who it was. Her heart raced as she glanced down at the message. “Loved the card,” it read, which was frustratingly vague. She was just about to put her phone back in her purse when it chimed again. “And ditto.”

  She held her phone to her chest with a dreamy smile.

  Chapter Ten

  As if she wasn’t busy enough making the dozens of cookies, tiny pies and pastries she needed to sell every day, that week was the first one where she met with a client to finalize details for a customized order. At Xander’s request, they set up the meeting in his office, with him sitting in on the meeting as the informal consultant. She didn’t know who she was dressing to impress as she got ready that Wednesday afternoon.

  It was another mod-inspired design harkening to a 1950s homemaker. It was a sleeveless sunny yellow number, gathered at the waist, flared at the knee, and covered with big bold polka dots. She tied her hair back with a matching yellow headband, which highlighted her new bangs. Though the whole look was retro chic, it made her feel younger and sexier. She might have been insecure about showing extra skin, given the extra pounds she carried, but it had been a dress that he had picked out. She had to believe that he would have known how she’d look in the darned thing and made his ever
so brilliant marketing/branding decision accordingly.

  He wore an appreciative look on his face when she entered his office about fifteen minutes before their client was due to arrive. It made her flush as his eyes scanned the way the dress hugged her body. “You look lovely,” he murmured. She stopped next to the chairs across from him as he rounded the desk to greet her with a gentle touch on her arm and a warm, lingering kiss on her cheek. Their eyes met and held, which made her gulp down a fresh new batch of butterflies.

  “I’m nervous,” she squeaked.

  He chuckled softly, which gave her a delicious chill all the way through her body. “Well, you look beautiful. Every inch the successful baking maven.”

  It was her turn to laugh as she sat in the chair. He took his place behind the desk. The nervous tapping of her foot drew his attention to the folder in her lap. “What’s that?”

  She was even more embarrassed. “It’s a proposal,” she said as she handed it to him. “They want cookies for a baby shower and I’ve been working on different ideas. I included some photos of samples, along with drawings of what I’d like to do for the whole dozen, so that everyone gets their own individual cookie. There are photos from the Internet, cookie designs for teddy bears and pacifiers, all the extras I could serve with the customized cookies. It comes to about three or four dozen. I also included the cost analysis in the back, to give them an idea what they’re paying for.”

  He smiled as he flipped the clear folder over, removing the plastic binding and taking that last page from her proposal. “That’s the first question they’ll ask you. And that’s the last question you should answer.” He glanced over her figures. “Besides, you sold yourself short. You have about six hours of work here. This comes out to,” he said as he consulted his adding machine, “about sixteen dollars an hour.”