Page 10 of The Ampersand Effect

Her love for food started with LoLo, and grew into an artistry of its own. She used cooking as an outlet, a means to decompress. She could cook or bake with stress as well as she could with joy. She cooked as an extension of herself, implying, through gifts of carefully tended meats, braided breads, and artfully plated accompaniments, what she struggled to verbalize. Food was her love, and therefore, it had a language all its own.

“Yes, she is. I’m grateful to have her around, but I think we both appreciate when the other is working. We get the best of both worlds—it works.”

“Yes, well—eventually you both will find partners. Hmm?” Elodie’s tone shifted, hinting that she already suspected the reason behind Tobin’s evasiveness tonight.

Tobin didn’t respond. Because she knew it was a trap. It was always a trap, and Elodie always got the last word. Probably because she was usually right.

“Still not taking the bait. Okay. We can wait. But I’m going to get it out of you before you leave.” She extended her spine enough to look into the bowl Tobin was beating. “Those are ready. Start putting them into the stew. I’ll set the table.”

Tobin complied, plopping heaping spoonfuls of dough into the simmering stew, allowing her tastebuds to salivate at thescent as they cooked in the broth. She heard the oven timer ring behind her, and LoLo moved to take the pie from the oven.

They ate in silence, Tobin withdrawing further into her thoughts, LoLo granting her the space she needed. After they cleaned up, Tobin headed out to the porch, taking residence in one of the Adirondack chairs her grandfather had made decades ago, and enjoying the view of the blooming cherry trees in the fields surrounding the farmhouse. How did this doctor break into her mind so thoroughly? Their interaction was so brief, minutes in the reality of the day. But Eddie wasn’t wrong about going out of her way to arrange a private tour. She had done that. And she had wanted it to impress the doctor. She had enjoyed the flirtations, too—if she was being honest. She felt a part of her chest unbind when she allowed herself that small glimpse of excitement, the adrenaline rush.

And,damn, she was cute. She knew she was toeing the line when she said it out loud, muttering it under her breath to be carried away on the wind. But the rebel in her took a chance and raised her voice at the last second, allowing Dr. Savage to hear her.

She felt a slow ember ignite in her core, remembering how she watched the doctor look at her niece with so much love while she played in the box office, all the while using her unfairly deft fingers to play with that pendant, taunting her from the sensual hollow at the base of her throat. Tobin wanted to kiss that pendant, right where it sat, far enough above her cleavage that it didn’t have the right to be as enticing as it was. But that’s just where she wanted to start kissing, softly lapping at her sternum, running her hands through the doctor’s mane of loose chestnut waves, trailing her tongue lower until she found herself nestled between her breasts and looking up into a pair of sultry amber eyes.

Tobin clenched her hands, frustrated with her mental ramblings. She didn’t need these thoughts, distracting as they were. It didn’t matter. Cute. Confident.Sexy. It was irrelevant. She needed a cold shower and to refocus on her future as a mother. She needed to stay on the path she’d plotted. She was thirty-seven and running out of time. It didn’t matter that she still felt like she was twenty-five. Her body was telling her another story, and she needed to push herself to start the fertility process if she wanted to have a child of her own before her hormones ended her chances.

The screen door creaked behind her.

“Drink this.” Elodie handed her a mug.

“I have to go home tonight, LoLo. I can’t drink with you.” Elodie grunted as she lowered herself into the opposing

Adirondack chair, the ice clinking in her glass of straight bourbon. “It’s chamomile tea, child. For your nerves.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Talk,” Elodie commanded, looking out at her orchards, offering Tobin a rare gift of indirectness.

Tobin inhaled deeply, and slowly let the air escape through her lips as she watched the steam rise from her mug. “My arm seized on me during some of the tours today.”

Elodie remained silent.

Her grandmother was infuriating, demanding Tobin bare her soul and forcing her to lead her own way. She looked over at Elodie, who was still staring out at the orchards. Tobin followed her gaze and saw through her grandmother’s eyes the fields and trees she and her grandfather had planted and tended for decades. The trees were blooming, and the scent of blossoms in the air was light and invigorating. It was full of memories.

She was practically raised right here in these fields, spending almost her entire summer each year with Harrow, tending the trees and hand-picking the sweet cherries, eating their filleach day. The memories were palpable, and soothing to her soul. It eased her into a gentle rhythm as she confided in her grandmother.

“A doctor worked on me between flights. A very attractive, infuriatingly flirty doctor.” She paused as she formed her thoughts. “My arm feels the best it has since the accident. I honestly mean nothing short of miraculous. It feels fantastic, LoLo.”

Deep breath. Keep going,she coached herself silently.

“And it felt just as amazing to flirt back with the doctor… Eddie said she could see a part of me that has been locked up since Talia. And… she’s right. I locked that part of myself away. I don’t want to hurt anyone again. I don’t want to hurt again. I want kids. More than I want a partner. And my ovaries are drying up. I only have a couple years of viability left. I don’t want to risk putting a baby on hold while I entertain the possibility of a relationship that could be just a time-consuming fling.”

LoLo’s silence was pervasive.

“Please say something, LoLo.”

“I find that you eventually answer your own questions if I keep quiet and you keep talking.”

Tobin faltered, studying her grandmother. “What’s my question, LoLo?”

“That, child, is what you have to figure out. It seems to me this doctor has awakened a part of your spirit you thought you’d sufficiently stifled—after your accident, and after Talia. My question is this: Do youwantyour spirit stifled?”

Where did her grandmother earn her wisdom? Tobin could feel adrenaline seeping into her bloodstream.

“No.”