Ultimate Cedar Cove Collection. Debbie Macomber
ol’ Pancake Palace,” Grace laughed. Some things never changed, and for that she was grateful.
The last week of June, Olivia suddenly realized she hadn’t heard from Jack Griffin in more than a month. Not since she’d returned from California. It wasn’t until she started planning her mother’s birthday celebration that she noticed it’d been so long. Between her work in family court, the problems with Justine, James’s new family, her mother’s obsession with Tom Houston and Grace’s troubles, Olivia had been caught up in everyone else’s life. She’d nearly forgotten she had one of her own.
Home from court early on a Monday afternoon, Olivia was in a rare domestic mood and prepared a batch of her favorite breakfast muffins, a family staple.
Since Jack hadn’t seen fit to phone her, she decided to call him. It wasn’t her habit to contact men, but this time she had a perfectly good excuse—an invitation. She didn’t have a home number, so she called him at the office.
“Jack Griffin,” he snapped, answering as soon as the receptionist had rung through.
“Hello, Jack.”
“Oh—Olivia.”
He sounded as if she’d knocked him off-balance. “I guess you weren’t expecting me,” she said.
“You could say that.” His voice softened.
It was probably best to get to the point right away. “Have you got plans for the fourth of July?”
“Depends,” he said cautiously. “What do you have in mind?” He didn’t wait for her to answer before he offered his own suggestion. “There’s an article I’ve been meaning to write about a nudist colony out by Home. Are you interested in tagging along?”
Her laugh was answer enough.
“That’s what I thought.” He muttered in a resigned voice, and Olivia laughed again.
“Actually, it’s my mother’s birthday on July fourth,” she said, “and I was planning a small surprise party.”
“How small?”
“You, me and Mom.” Justine had been invited, too. She would likely make an appearance without Warren, but Olivia doubted her daughter would stay long.
“Can I get back to you?”
“By all means.” They ended the conversation soon after that, and Olivia hung up with a sense of disappointment. Perhaps she’d offended Jack, although she couldn’t imagine when or how. She’d had to cancel their last date, because of a Bar Association meeting, but he’d sounded almost relieved and she hadn’t heard from him since.
Five minutes later, the doorbell chimed. When Olivia answered, she was astonished to see Jack Griffin leaning against her doorframe, doing his damnedest to look like Cary Grant in His Girl Friday.
“Jack? What are you doing here?”
“I thought it over,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “I’d love to come to your party.”
“Great.”
“Are you going to invite me in?”
“Oh, of course.” She moved aside and he stepped into the house, following her into the kitchen, where she’d brewed a fresh pot of coffee. The muffins were just out of the oven. “This is a family recipe,” she told him as she set a warm muffin on a plate. “Mom frequently reminds me how good bran is for the older person.” She rolled her eyes on the word older.
“Bran apple muffins? Your mother included the recipe in one of her first columns.”
“The very ones.” Olivia reached for a muffin herself and joined him at the table.
“I’m glad you called,” Jack told her. “It’s been a while since we talked.”
“You could’ve phoned me, you know.”
He hesitated. “I, uh, wasn’t sure that was such a good idea.”
“Why not?” she asked, her tone forthright.
He hesitated again, weighing his words. “I know you’ve been divorced a long time, but it seemed to me—and I could be wrong—that you and your ex are—”
“Friends?”
Jack’s gaze held hers. “More than friends,” he said. “Are you still in love with him, Olivia?”
It was a question she didn’t need to consider long. “Stan and I had three children together. We’ll always be linked through them.”
“That wasn’t what I asked you.”
“I know.” She wished she could explain what she felt for her ex-husband, but her feelings were complex and something of a mystery even to her. She took a deep breath. “You’re right, we’re divorced. I do love him, but it isn’t the same kind of love we had as husband and wife.”
Jack looked away as if he didn’t understand the answer. Or perhaps he did understand, but didn’t like what he’d heard. Olivia felt her words were woefully inadequate. The bond between her and Stan was more than the children they’d brought into the world, more than the child they’d buried. It was everything they’d shared. There were things they knew about each other that no one else could possibly know.
Legally they were separate. Stan had a new wife and a new family, but a court decree hadn’t completely divided their hearts.
“I don’t really get it,” Jack said, his face darkening. “Basically I’m wondering, seeing how you feel about your ex, if there’s room in your life for someone else.” He straightened and threw back his shoulders. “Actually, I should be a little more specific. Is there room for me?”
“That shouldn’t be such a difficult question to answer,” Jack muttered, when she didn’t speak right away.
“It isn’t,” she tried to assure him. “I’d very much like there to be.”
He stared at her. “Really?”
Olivia laughed. She found Jack Griffin smart and funny and in some ways almost childlike in his enthusiasm, his sense of adventure. She loved the spontaneity she saw in him.
“I like you, Jack.”
He beamed at her. “I like you, too. A lot. It’s probably not good strategy to admit it at this early stage, but what the hell do I know about strategy anyway?” Having said that, he leaned forward and kissed her.
Olivia was sure his original intention had been a friendly peck, a short kiss to seal this new understanding. However the moment their lips met, moist and warm with freshly brewed coffee, the kiss became…real. Passionate. Jack wove his fingers into her hair and he rose to his feet to lean closer. Olivia reached for him.
The intensity of the kiss heightened as his mouth expertly molded against hers. It’d been years since a man had touched her like this. She’d ignored that sensual part of her, let it grow dormant, and now Jack had brought it back to life.
A discordant sound drifted toward her, and Jack abruptly broke off the kiss. “Someone’s coming,” he whispered.
“Mom!”
Olivia jerked back and nearly fell off her chair. “Justine.”
“Oh, hi.” Justine stood framed in the kitchen doorway. She looked sharply from Olivia to Jack. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“No!” Olivia shouted. “I mean…” She glanced at Jack and—damn it all—blushed.
To her surprise, her daughter laughed. “Honestly, Mom, it’s no big deal. If you two want to continue whatever you were doing, go ahead, with my blessing. I’ll come back at a more convenient time.”
“Ah…”
“I think