I smiled bravely, determined to see how this played out. I’d promised Leo I’d try.

Pushing through the swinging door into the hustle and bustle, I spied Polly sitting at the end of the counter. Taking a deep breath, I sauntered out like I owned the place—which technically, in my mother’s will, I did—determined to show no fear.

“Hey there, Polly, how’s it hanging?” I asked. I actually asked a kid how’s it hanging. And I know this because the words were flashing in the air, enclosed in a bubble like in a comic strip. A comic strip titled “Things to Never Say to a Child.”

I looked over my shoulder to see if Leo had caught it, and he was just staring at the ceiling, shaking his head.

Polly looked confused. “How’s what hanging?”

Flailing, I said, “Your ponytail, of course!” I smiled so widely I could feel my lips stretch.

She smoothed her ponytail with her fingers. “Fine, I guess.”

“Well, that’s just great. So what can I do you for?”

“I’m starving,” she announced, sitting primly on her counter stool.

“Then, you’ve come to the right place. I was just getting ready to make myself a grilled cheese. You like grilled cheese?”

“I don’t like grilled cheese,” she said. As I started to think of other options, she leaned across the counter and said in a dead serious voice, “I love grilled cheese.”

“Fantastic,” I replied, deadpan as well.

“Hey, Rox? She likes her grilled cheese with Velvee—”

“Hush,” I said, which made Polly giggle. “You want the regular grilled cheese or you want the Roxie Special Grilled Cheese?”

“Roxie Special!” she shouted. Then, as though she’d caught herself having fun, she repeated “Roxie Special” in a nonchalant manner.

“Coming right up,” I answered, shooing Leo onto the stool next to her.

“Aren’t you going to ask if I want a Roxie Special?” he asked, just as Maxine came around the corner with a wet dish towel.

“Another one?” she asked with a wink and a snap of her towel.

Leo’s mouth fell open, then closed when he saw Polly studying his reaction.

“What did she mean, Daddy?” I heard her ask as I backed into the kitchen, laughing to myself. Facing the grill, I commandeered a corner for myself from Forever Grumbling Carl, and went to work.

Ten minutes later, I slid three piping-hot grilled cheese sandwiches onto plates and carried them out front.

“Oooo,” Polly breathed as I set the sandwich in front of her.

“Oooh,” Leo breathed as he looked at the sandwich in front of her. “Wow, Rox, that’s beautiful, but—”

“This doesn’t look like my regular grilled cheese,” Polly said, looking at the sandwich, then me, then the sandwich again.

“No, ma’am,” I replied from my side of the counter. I picked up half of my sandwich, and a string of ooey gooey fontina followed.

Fontina, layered with mozzarella and English cheddar, topped with thin slices of Granny Smith apple, and the barest hint of fresh sage. The bread? Thickly sliced caraway rye, buttered on both sides and blackened with grill marks. I took a huge bite, rolling my eyes up to the heavens as I enjoyed the fuck out of my sandwich.

“What’s that sticking out of the side?” Polly asked.

“Apple.”

“On a grilled cheese?”

“Oh yeah.” I nodded through a mouthful.

“My dad always says you’re not supposed to talk with your mouth full.”

I shot right back, “My mom always says to eat what’s put in front of you.”

She thought about that a moment, head tilting to the side in the spitting image of her father. “My dad says that too,” she agreed, and picked up her sandwich. She sniffed it, wrinkled her nose, then took a tentative bite.

I noticed that Leo wasn’t breathing. I noticed this because I was also not breathing. Which is why when Polly’s face lit up with a huge grin, her bangs were ruffled in the breeze as we tandem exhaled.

Rather than make a big deal out of it, I just picked up my sandwich triangle, clinked it with Leo’s, and the three of us ate lunch together. But every time he caught my eye, his eyes were smiling. By the end of the meal, I’d learned that Polly loved the color blue, she wanted to be a horse trainer or a meatologist (aka someone who did the weather on TV) when she grew up, and that the Roxie Special was her new favorite sandwich. It was “lots more grown-up than the sandwich Daddy makes. His favorite cheese is string. Mine was spray can but not anymore!”

Oh for God’s sake, this kid was making me a little funny around the edges. By the time the sandwiches were just crusts, Maxine offered to let Polly pick out the next few songs on the jukebox, and Leo and I were left alone.

“So that went well,” he said, reaching across the counter and stealing the last pickle from my plate.

“Yep, grilled cheese is my specialty,” I said.

“Not just the grilled cheese; I meant—”

“Oh, I know what you meant,” I interrupted, feeling a little funny around the edges now for a different reason. “You just happened to be in town, and just happened to come in here for lunch.”

He dropped that slow grin on me, and I wobbled slightly. “Hey, we had to eat, right?”

Rolling my eyes, I nodded yes, they had to eat.

“You going to Chad and Logan’s housewarming Saturday night?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Of course.” I started clearing the plates, bending down to put them in the plastic tub under the counter.

He leaned across the counter a little. “Want to go together?”

I popped back up. “Wow—bringing his daughter around, inviting me to parties . . . look who’s making things official all of a sudden?” I gave him a toss of hair over my shoulders to soften my words slightly, but no matter, the words landed.

“Hell, yes, a housewarming party makes it official,” he said lightly, pretending to toss his own hair over his shoulder. He’d peeped my game, and wasn’t having it. “It’s a party, Rox. I’m just asking you to go to a party; it’s not till death do us part.”

Have you ever been in a room filled with ambient noise, and you know can have a private conversation that no one can possibly overhear, because of all the background chatter? But then suddenly—usually during the juiciest part—all the side noise falls away, and everyone hears what you’re saying?

Now imagine that in a small-town diner, when there’s a break in the jukebox playlist exactly as Leo Maxwell, the town’s most eligible bachelor, says till death do us part to Roxie Callahan, runaway daughter and least eligible bachelorette?

Maxine and her cohorts had a banner day at the condiment station. A banner day.

Chapter 20

That week went from weird to weirder. I stayed super busy at the diner, was baking cakes after we closed for the orders that were pouring in, and was starting to realize that even with the artisanal bakeries, the mom-and-pop joints, and the local locavore diet, people were flat-out clamoring for cakes made the way their grandma used to make them. I was knee deep in red velvet, up to my eyes in bourbon cream, and more often than not, went to bed at night with coconut in my hair.

What I wasn’t going to bed with was a certain farmer whom I’d become used to having at my disposal whenever the need (which was always) arose (which on him was always). But when you add a kid to the mix, especially one as precocious as Polly, it became less summer lovin’ and more summer talkin’. And textin’. And oh my goodness, could Leo sext.

It wasn’t like I’d seen him every night before Polly popped onto the scene. But more often than not, sometime around six I’d get a call asking if I’d eaten (code for “can I come over and will you feed me your delicious food”), or a text around ten asking what I was up to (code for “can I come over and will you feed me your delicious puss”—strike that, I’m keeping that code under wraps). And eventually, after the rocking and the rolling, he’d fall asleep and I’d fall asleep, tucked into his side or enveloped entirely, as he liked to do.