“Me, too.” And I meant it. Jack punching Stu out for me was a sign of the old protective Jack. “I’ll tell Cooper tonight at dinner. You and Joey are still coming, right?”
“Someone else cooking dinner? Yes, we’ll be there. My poor kid doesn’t eat anything nutritious unless someone other than his mother is cooking.”
I laughed. “Then I’ll see you tonight.”
Just as I was hanging up, the inn door opened and Iris poked her head around it. “Heard what happened, gonna kill that Devlin, Ira and I are worried about you so we’ll be at dinner tonight, too, to make sure you’re okay, I gotta get back to the restaurant.”
And then she was gone.
Warmth suffused me.
I didn’t need Vaughn Tremaine to care about me.
I had a whole town that did.
Strolling into the kitchen wearing a satisfied smile on my face, I produced a suspicious look from my head chef, Mona. “Two more for dinner tonight.”
She stared at me through her oversized black-framed glasses. Her bright lips were pursed in annoyance. As always she wore a patterned headscarf instead of a chef’s hat over her dark hair. “It’s a little late notice.”
“I got attacked last night. Some people actually care,” I teased. “They want to have dinner with me. What can I say? I’m kind of awesome.”
Mona gave me a reluctant smile. “Fine. But I’m only letting you off the hook because of the whole attack thing. You can’t milk it forever though.”
I grinned because Mona not giving me shit for a last-minute meal change, a meal she was already cooking along with a separate dinner for guests, was her way of saying she cared about me, too.
To my disappointment Cooper didn’t react the way I wanted him to regarding the whole Jack thing. I’d pulled him aside when everyone had arrived and informed him what his old friend had done.
“I heard,” he’d said. “And?”
“Well don’t you think it means something?”
“I think it means that Jack doesn’t know who the hell he is anymore or what side he’s really on. I think it means he’s old enough to work that out for himself. I think it means I’m just getting on with my life and I don’t need any more of his drama.”
“But Coop—”
“Bailey, don’t you think after what he did to me, he should be the one to come to me and not the other way around?”
And since I knew he was right, I reluctantly let the issue go.
Instead I’d settled my guests into the dining room. They weren’t put out by the packed dining room. In fact, my loving, energetic group of friends added a warm ambience to the dining room that evening. While the guests were seated at their individual tables, I’d put together two to host my friends. Seated at the back of the room were Jess, Cooper, Emery, Dahlia, Cat, Joey, Iris, and Ira. And me of course.
Considering she had the dinner menu to cook for our inn guests and a different dinner for my private guests, Mona did an amazing job. With the help of Jay, her sous chef.
“Why don’t we eat here all the time for Aunt Bailey’s dinners?” Joey said to his mom. “It’s so good.”
“Are you trying to say you prefer Mona’s cooking over mine, kid?”
Joey thought about this carefully. “It’s just . . . different.”
We roared with laughter at his answer while Cooper curled a hand around his nephew’s neck and pulled him toward him so he could kiss the top of his head.
“We’ve got a diplomat in our midst.” Ira grinned at Joey.
Smart as a whip, it wasn’t a surprise to us that Joey understood the word. “Maybe I’d make a good politician.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Iris groaned. “There are no good politicians.”
“Iris,” I admonished, “we have a good one sitting in our mayor’s office.”
She nodded her head, accepting that. “Okay. There are very few good politicians.”
“I could be a good one,” Joey insisted.
“With diplomacy like that, I’m sure of it.” Cat looked around the table. “I don’t know where he gets that from. It certainly isn’t from me.”
“And he hasn’t learned it from me,” I said.
Dahlia snorted. “That’s a given, sweetie.”
I kicked her playfully under the table. “Watch it, brat.”
“So, any word from Tom?” Cooper said abruptly.
Silence fell over the table.
Then Jessica let out a chuckle. “Apparently, Joey doesn’t get it from his Uncle Cooper, either.”
We laughed while Cooper threw me a look of apology.
“It’s fine.” I shrugged. “Really. Tom emailed me. He’s staying in Philly with family. He uh . . . well he quit his job in Dover and has decided to try to move on elsewhere.”
“How do you feel about that?” Cat said. “I mean, you guys were together a long time.”
“I’m okay with it. I don’t want him to be unhappy. I’m kind of glad that we’re starting over fresh away from one another.”
“So you haven’t told him about the break-in?” Emery asked.
“No. There’s no point. I . . . Maybe in a while we’ll be able to do the friend thing but I want time apart for now.”
“God, you’ve had a terrible few weeks,” Iris stated the obvious. “Things can only get better, Bailey.”