Cooking Up Romance (The Taylor Triplets Book 1) Read online

  Later, as she cleaned up the food truck preparing to drive home, her hands still trembled as she thought through what he’d implied. So, what if a woman looked just like her?

  Would it automatically mean they were related, or was it just a fluke of nature, the kind that popped up in the big wide world from time to time. Surely people looked alike without being...sisters.

  Or could her living, breathing double have anything to do with that change in her birth certificate? It had occurred a month after she’d been born and made her mother the legal adoptive parent. Her mother. Not her birth mother? If the one person she’d known for ten years as Mom wasn’t actually related, then who was her real mother? And who was this person out there making people think it was her?

  Lacy’s head started to spin with wild thoughts. Maybe she should have one of those DNA tests that were so popular these days. What would she do with the results if she discovered that she did indeed have a sister? The container of mixed egg salad she held slipped through her fingers and splattered onto the truck floor.

  She dropped to her knees to clean up, but her thoughts wouldn’t stop coming.

  Dad, I need you to answer these questions.

  With the dearth of living relatives, all she could do was hope the answers were somewhere in the remaining manila envelopes from the attic.

  * * *

  Zack wouldn’t describe Wednesday at the Gardner house as strained, but it sure wasn’t like things used to be when lovely Lacy came over to give Emma cooking lessons. Still, he kept his mouth shut and his thoughts to himself, because he couldn’t very well have a frank talk with Lacy about their personal relationship with Emma right there.

  He planned to do that later, after he put Emma to bed. He’d make sure there was no pressure, just an open invitation to fill him in on what was going on inside Lacy’s mind, and to see if there were any updates since Saturday night.

  Zack’s favorite cook had taken an abrupt step back and it felt awful. She hadn’t even bothered to offer a reason yet, other than some concerns about papers she’d found at home. Just as his thoughts and actions had started heating up she’d pulled back. He didn’t want to make a federal case out of it, but under the circumstances, he could refer to his cheating wife and let that general lack of trust in women be reinforced. Mona had gotten tired of him and looked around for something more exciting. Could he be that kind of fool twice?

  He didn’t want to go that route of thinking. Not with Lacy. She was different. He swore she was.

  Earlier, Emma had asked Lacy if she’d come over on Saturday, too, but Lacy had bowed out with the excuse that she had to work a wedding in Santa Barbara. Zack thought she’d given up those gigs since working his sites five days a week. He could tell Emma was sad about their standing Saturday lesson being canceled for the second time, which, of course, upset him. Was it time to protect his daughter first, put the relationship second?

  Instead, he went out of his way to stand up for both of his favorite girls. “Shortcake, last week you had plans with Meghan, well, this week, Lacy has to work. Sometimes things just work out that way. There’s always next time, right?” He cautiously glanced at Lacy, wondering about a next time, and she gave an unconvincing nod, which made his stomach sour a bit, regardless how great the food looked and smelled.

  Zack hated looking at Lacy with suspicious eyes, yet he couldn’t help but notice her having conversations with Ben at the Santa Barbara site last week. And those conversations seemed intense.

  He was also aware of her frequent texting tonight while cooking, which may or may not have had anything to do with the other thing, but his mind was spinning into new territory. She’d never carried on a separate text conversation at his house before. And Lacy acted secretive when she answered those texts.

  Without trying, while Emma and Lacy put a casserole together, and before Lacy had dropped news about working a wedding on Saturday, he saw her phone light up on the counter. It was lying faceup. It wasn’t like she was hiding it, and he couldn’t help noticing the name that flashed. Ben Greywater. His employee. And his heart had dropped to his gut.

  Zack tried to brush it off as none of his business, but Lacy had changed so drastically toward him this week. She refused to talk about it, and something had to have prompted that change. Later, after he put Emma to bed, he would ask her again what was bothering her. That promise got him through a strained dinner. He was worried that even Emma had noticed. Not good. The kid had been through enough already.

  Later, after Emma and Lacy said goodbye, and he’d gone into his daughter’s room to say good-night and tuck her in, when he’d come out, Lacy was gone. Without even saying goodbye to him.

  So wrong, and completely unlike her.

  Frustrated, he immediately called her, but she didn’t answer. It was probably a good thing because right that minute he’d wanted to give her a piece of his mind.

  Seriously? Was this how she handled relationships? He’d had enough of sketchy women, and he really didn’t want to add Lacy to the list.

  After he’d cooled off a bit, he thought more. Instead of sitting on the verge of telling her he had feelings for her, he needed to be more cautious now. But this taking off without saying goodbye was unacceptable and made him angry. Part of what he’d liked about Lacy from the start was she didn’t play games. Who had time for that? So her slipping off, avoiding saying goodbye to him, was wrong, and she needed to be told. He never planned to be taken advantage of again.

  Being a dad, he couldn’t very well drop everything, run off and confront Lacy. If he valued what they had, he didn’t want to completely blow it by forcing her to explain why she’d suddenly gotten cold feet—if that was what was going on. Who knew, since she wouldn’t talk to him about it.

  He paced, and thought, growing only more confused.

  He needed to tread lightly and spontaneously; racing after Lacy was not the way to go. Even if that was exactly what he wanted to do, and even if he could. There was someone else to consider—Emma. Whether he liked it or not, there were three hearts wrapped up in this new, and currently malfunctioning, relationship.

  The problem was, it was too late. The damage had already been done with Mona’s infidelity, and Lacy waffling only reinforced that old insecurity. Lacy refused to admit anything was wrong, yet she was acting like the entire landscape of the earth between them had changed. It completely baffled him, and feeling baffled made him defensive. She was acting squirrelly and had something going on with Ben, too. He wasn’t going to jump to an irrational conclusion without confronting her first, but he needed some truth.

  He called again. No luck. If only she’d answer her phone!

  By changing her mind so quickly about him without explanation, Lacy had found his weakest spot.

  Trust for women. Or the lack thereof. Ben was as solid as they came, but something odd was going on between Lacy and him. There had to be a logical explanation. If only she’d talk to him.

  Her not answering her phone only added to it. “Lacy? Why not pick up? I’m worried about you. Call me so we can talk.” The message probably sounded desperate, but damn, she’d pushed this to the limit.

  Instead of Lacy calling back, all he got was a text from her.

  I got home okay. Just need some time to think.

  And how long would that be? The thinking. Because by his calculation it had been an entire week so far. Was this what he’d heard his guys talk at work about as ghosting? Suddenly being dropped by a woman without explanation. Left with unanswered texts and nothing else?

  After the crazy night she’d put him through, he needed time to think, too! And ticked off about her putting him through all this drama, he didn’t bother to reply to her text.

  Chapter Ten

  Evangelina DeLongpre liked to take her baby for a walk in his stroller to the Starbucks on Coast Village Road in Montecito on Sunda
y afternoons. The barista there knew her drink and immediately started to prepare it as Eva found a table outside and got situated. When her Grande Nonfat Latte was ready, she picked up Noah and headed back inside.

  “Eva?” a voice from the rear of the coffee house called out.

  She turned. “Hey, Suzanne.”

  Her acquaintance approached, one of the other long-term baristas, an over-sixty type who made up for what social security lacked by working in a coffee house. “Were you at the Natural History Museum wedding last night?”

  Eva shook her head. She hadn’t been to a wedding for ages, and she’d spent her Saturday night like all the rest since adopting her son, alone watching Hallmark movies on TV.

  “I could have sworn I saw you.”

  “Not me.” She picked up her drink and, with Noah on her hip, headed for the door to sit outside in the sun where the parked baby stroller reserved a table.

  Suzanne beat her to the door and pushed it open. “Well, there’s someone out there who looks exactly like you, then.”

  “I seriously doubt that,” Eva insisted as she avoided the barista’s conspiring stare and passed through the door, heading for the table. As though she lived a double life and had finally been found out. She’d been accused of looking like any number of redheads over the years, so this was nothing new.

  “Wait!” Suzanne followed her, digging into her purse, then pulled out her cell phone. She thumbed through a series of pictures until she found the one she was looking for. “Check this out.”

  There was a long-distance shot of a bright pink food truck called Wrap Me Up and Take Me Home, and behind the serving window was a redheaded woman. Eva squinted and looked closer, then used her fingers to enlarge the picture to better see the woman’s face. Suzanne hadn’t been kidding. There was a strong resemblance, but the magnified picture was extremely pixilated and blurred the features. Still, seeing a near look-alike, instead of the usual “in the ballpark” person, jangled her nerves enough for her to question the wisdom of adding espresso to the mix. After placing her drink on the table, she studied the picture again and fought the raw reaction—this really does look like me—forcing composure.

  “If you want to convince me that I’ve got a double walking around out there,” she said, taking the deny-and-lie route, “you’ll have to do better than this.”

  Suzanne straightened her thin spine and narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to take that as a personal challenge,” she said, pocketing her phone in the green Starbuck’s apron and heading back inside.

  * * *

  Zack was still completely baffled by Lacy’s sudden change of heart. She’d run off after the cooking lesson without saying goodbye last Wednesday, had sent exactly one text, and hadn’t returned his subsequent phone calls with offers to talk things through for days. He assumed this was indeed a ghosting breakup. But why?

  Because he’d looked into her eyes and sung along with Michael Bublé on a romantic song. Telling her in a roundabout way that he loved her.

  He’d been at the Little River Valley site on Thursday, instead of in Santa Barbara, and Friday he’d had a morning meeting with investors that ran until after lunch, so he’d missed her again. Part of him was grateful he hadn’t had to face her on the job.

  That Saturday he’d kept busy running Emma around town collecting items for a school project—a diorama of her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time. By Saturday night, it took total willpower to keep from calling Lacy again. Who needed the humiliation? He didn’t want to come off pathetic, though he also needed to get to the bottom of what had mysteriously happened between them, especially since everything had seemed to be going so great.

  Sunday morning, he did yard work while Emma worked on her project, and after his shower, in the late afternoon his cell rang.

  “Hi!” he said, surprised yet cautious when he saw Lacy’s name pop up on the call screen. “What’s going on?”

  “Sorry I left the other night, and that I haven’t called before now, but I got a message that kind of threw me that night, and there are other things going on.”

  Other things? Was that enough to go incommunicado for days and days?

  “From who?” Concern swirled through his thoughts, though he was still angry at her for going AWOL on him without explanation.

  “What?”

  “Who was the message from?” Didn’t he have a right to know if his employee had told her something that had made her take off without saying goodbye?

  “Who isn’t important, but the message is what rattled me, and I should’ve said good-night Wednesday. I’m sorry. I needed to get home and look into stuff. Then that all led to other things.”

  Could she sound more vague?

  “Want to come over and talk about it? We could all have dinner together.” Yes, it was a sneaky tactic luring her over with the promise of Sunday dinner, family style, with Emma, because that was where his self-esteem had slipped over the last several days. Using his daughter as bait. Sad and sorry.

  “I’m sorry, Zack. I’m not ready to talk. Please try to understand.”

  What was going on, and why was Lacy being so evasive? He measured his voice, but it was getting harder and harder to do, because a deeply wronged feeling was taking hold in his thoughts. “If you say so. I’ll try,” he said, short and clipped.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, before saying goodbye and clicking off.

  At least she’d called, so maybe this wasn’t a case of ghosting. But what the hell? After tucking the phone in his hip pocket, old suspicions came flooding back. He’d seen Lacy talking to Ben, and there was that text last Wednesday from him. Now, apparently, she didn’t want anything to do with him, and was quite possibly letting him down easy with “stuff going on” and “I’m not ready to talk.” Worse yet, “please try to understand.” Well, she needed to understand something, too.

  Why did it seem that when he let a woman under his skin—in Lacy’s case, into his heart—she couldn’t be depended on? Did he have a knack for picking the wrong kind of woman?

  He threw together a makeshift dinner for himself and Emma, with a couple cans of this and that, then added boiled potato and called it a stew. It was probably a good thing Lacy hadn’t accepted his invitation. But during dinner, the worst possible thoughts invaded his mind. Was history repeating itself? Doubt had rushed in and blurred the fact that Lacy was completely different from his ex-wife. Yet there was the blaring assumption taking center stage. She’s probably interested in Ben.

  “What’s wrong Dad?”

  “Nothing, Shortcake.” He couldn’t have sounded phonier. Here he was panning Lacy for keeping tight-lipped about what was bothering her and doing the exact thing with his daughter. But she was a kid and didn’t deserve the angst. He hadn’t been the only one to suffer when his wife cheated. Emma had felt betrayed, too, but, being not quite eight, she was too young to express it in words. As she stumbled through the tough days of her mommy and daddy separating, and her mother moving out, she’d started wetting her bed again. For a sweet little girl who loved to give hugs, she’d withdrawn, started biting her nails and knuckles, often drawing blood, and she’d had more than her share of tummy aches. He never wanted to put his Shortcake through anything like that again.

  Fact was, Emma adored Lacy. That was obvious. So why was Lacy doing this to both of them?

  His chest squeezed at what it might do to his daughter if Lacy quit coming around and he didn’t have a believable reason to give. The kid could get a complex. Probably because Emma had gone through the divorce along with her parents, she had a truth-o-meter that could always read when a person lied. So he avoided bringing up the subject of Lacy with Emma.

  After dinner, he let Emma watch a popular kid’s movie so he could have more time to think.

  He paced, trying to keep it together where Lacy was concerned, knowing that where he was goin
g in his mistrustful head was nuts. He needed to find a balance, yet he was unable to stop the growing doubt. He walked to the kitchen and filled a tall glass with water, forced himself to drink every drop to help clear his mind.

  He kept busy, puttering with his car in the garage. Eventually, Emma said she was going to bed.

  “I’ve got to be at school early tomorrow,” she said. “The diorama project is due in the classroom before we line up outside.”

  Tomorrow was Monday. Lacy would be at the construction site. Or would she? The thought rattled him.

  “What time?”

  “Seven thirty.”

  Would he be able to face Lacy if he didn’t talk to her tonight? Not the way he was feeling now.

  “What’s wrong, Daddy?”

  He shook his head as if that would clear out the mess of emotions. “Nothing, Shortcake. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Are you worried about Lacy?”

  The kid had great intuition and he couldn’t lie to his daughter. “Yes.”

  Emma knew only how to tell the truth, and on this touchy subject she’d zeroed in on the problem. “I am too,” she said, barely audible.

  She hugged him, and he kissed the crown of her head, wanting to hold her there and protect her for all time. He avoided wishing her sweet dreams like he always did, because she’d call him on it. Truth was, his night was doomed unless he got to the bottom of Lacy’s mysterious retreat.

  Instead of letting emotions take over, he thought things through. There had to be a logical answer because he knew Lacy. He had to trust his gut on that, not old and rotten experiences. Besides, Ben was a newlywed. Zack had been at his wedding, had seen how crazy about each other Ben and his bride were. He’d seen how out of her head with worry she’d been at the hospital the day Ben broke his arm and lost his finger, too. Zack also knew from interacting with Lacy that she was nothing like his ex. If Lacy and Ben were keeping in touch about something, both being straightforward types, there was a logical reason behind it.