The Forget-Me-Not Bakery

Chapter 6

Cohen

It was almost midnight, but Cohen couldn’t fall asleep. Spending a few hours in the fading sun with Bryce, Jazz, and Paige after a full day’s work should have left him exhausted, but every time he closed his eyes he could still see the way the sunlight danced as it reflected in Paige’s sapphire eyes, and he could still hear the full-blown laughter erupting from Bryce as he joked and enjoyed himself out on the pier.

It wasn’t the first time they had gone to the pier after a workday, but it was the first time they’d brought someone else along with them. Usually, Bryce and Cohen were content in each other’s company, as they had been for the past eight years. And until today, Cohen believed he was content with the little life he had with his son and the vet clinic.

Until today.

Now, he lay in bed, the covers still pulled back and the bedside lamp still shining dim light across the room, listening to his son’s soft, even breathing from across the hall. This was the life they had, the routine they had fallen into. It had served them well, despite being forced into it by tragedy. Work and school, evenings filled with homework and walks, nights spent in bed by ten o’clock at the latest so they could both get up and do it all again tomorrow.

It was simple and easy. And until today, Cohen had thought it was enough. He’d been a slave to his routine for so long he found it hard to remember what it had been like when Stacey had been with them. Not that he couldn’t recall the things that mattered – her smile and her warm gaze, her adoration of her son and her unabashed love for him. Those things came to him with a vivid clarity. It was the minutes and days and time spent apart he couldn’t remember. Like his tangible distance from Stacey was the deciding factor of what was important enough to remain etched into his brain.

He thought he had coped well following the car accident that took her from him. As well as a man in his twenties with a toddler son could cope. There were days he didn’t see how he could continue on, how he could survive one more second with the knowledge of knowing Stacey was gone. But there were more days, as his grief transformed into a simmering bitterness, that Cohen had awoken in the morning, determined to prove to Port Landon’s residents that he didn’t need their sympathy or charity or help to raise his son. He threw himself into his role as a single father, desperate to prove to them, and to himself, that he could raise Bryce in a way that would have made Stacey proud. He could do right by her through their son, even if he hadn’t been able to protect her from the accident that ripped away the life she’d worked so hard to build. The life they had built.

It had been eight years – years that seemed on one hand to have been long and drawn out, and on the other hand had gone by in the blink of an eye – and Cohen was proud of the boy Bryce had become as a result of his efforts. He had wanted so damn badly to make Stacey proud. Of Bryce. Of him.

And he had achieved that, Cohen knew it. What he didn’t know was if his own complacency and contentment in being just the two of them had hindered Bryce in some way. His son had talked of nothing but Paige the entire way home after they’d walked her to her apartment door beside the bakery storefront. The boy had relished in having someone else to show off to, someone to tell his jokes to and be a kid around. Bryce and Paige had also bonded over Jazz, and the dog seemed to love Paige just as much.

It had been the perfect evening – ice cream and walking along the boardwalk while the sun disappeared behind the trees, with his son and his new friend.

It had been a long time since Cohen could say he had one of those. Not unlike her, he had spent the bulk of his time intent on running his business and raising Bryce. There had been no time for close friendships. Acquaintances, sure – he had a lot of those in town. But no one he could remember spending time with outside of work hours.

Even now, Cohen wasn’t sure if he was being truthful to himself about his reasons for his inactive social life. Maybe it wasn’t so much that he hadn’t had the time to build one, as that he hadn’t made the time to have one. He wasn’t even sure he’d realized he needed one. It was just another thing in the long line of revelations that were coming to him tonight.

The wailing of sirens ripped him from his thoughts. With the window open, he knew the emergency service vehicle was heading right past the front of his house. Cohen was one of those people that never could tell the sound of a police siren from a fire truck or ambulance, so he hoisted himself from the bed, clad in blue plaid pajama pants and a white T-shirt, to see if he could catch a glimpse of whatever was coming.

Cohen’s little bungalow was situated behind the clinic, and it faced the opposite way, out onto Hemlock Street, which ran parallel to the downtown stretch on Main. When he saw the fire engine careen past, with its red and white lights blazing and its sirens screeching in the silence of the night, another revelation hit him deep in the chest.

Maybe Paige’s life in New York City had been hectic and chaotic, but he’d bet that when she heard sirens scream in the city, she didn’t end up with acid burning in the pit of her stomach because of it. That was both the blessing and the curse of small-town life – when something happened to someone, it happened to everyone. And when something affected someone, it was a given that if Cohen didn’t know the afflicted party personally, he would know someone who did. No one was an unknown face in the crowd. People had names, and families, and history within the town limits.

Living in a small town was simple and as good as it got on most days. During nights like tonight, however, it was downright scary, and Cohen doubted sleep was on the cards anytime soon.

The appointment schedule at the clinic was back to back all day. The day started off with two routine surgeries, then progressed on to a series of appointments that all seemed to carry Cohen further and further away from what he deemed a typical day as each hour passed. He wasn’t sure if the disconnect he felt from his brain was due to the challenging cases he was being presented with, or the lack of sleep he’d managed to get the night before. Either way, it felt like there wasn’t enough caffeine in the world to get him through the remaining three hours his clinic was open.

‘Dr Cohen, there’s someone here to see you.’ Alice, the receptionist, broke through his train of thought as he stood against the pharmacy counter, reading the lab work results that had just been printed off. ‘And she’s got coffee in her hand, so I’m thinking you might want to go at least get that from her. You look like you need it.’

‘Are you telling me I look awful, Alice?’ But even as he joked about it, Cohen set the sheet of paper down and made his way toward the waiting room. If he looked half as bad as he felt, he needed that coffee. Stat.

‘Not a chance,’ she assured him. ‘Just that you look like you’re asleep standing up.’

‘So, I do look how I feel.’ He patted Alice on the shoulder on his way past her. ‘Thanks for letting me know. Tell my next appointment I’ll be right in.’

In the waiting room, Paige stood in the middle of the marble tiled floor with two paper cups in her hands, steam billowing from the hole in the plastic tops.

‘I know you’re busy,’ she blurted immediately. ‘I just thought—’

‘You have no idea how happy I am to see you.’ Cohen reached out for one of the cups in her hand just as Paige held it out to him. God, did I really just say that out loud?

‘Me, or the coffee?’

‘Both,’ he replied, glad for the chance to play it down. ‘But I won’t downplay how thrilled I am to see this cup. Come on back.’

Cohen led her through the pharmacy and into the lunchroom. It was organized chaos. Magazines littered the top of the table, and the chairs hadn’t been pushed back into place when the staff used them earlier in the day. There was a desktop computer in the corner on a portable desk, where Cohen attempted to get his notes done throughout the day. It was booted up and displaying a screensaver of a litter of bulldog puppies that had been born in the clinic last year. That litter was the result of a long, drawn-out birth, requiring an emergency caesarean section, but every puppy had lived and the mother was just fine. Rhonda, the veterinary technician, had even adopted one of the puppies when they were old enough to leave their mother. Purses and backpacks were tossed along the far wall where the staff members had left them when they came in that morning.

‘It’s not the tidiest spot, but I hope it’s okay.’ Cohen pulled out one of the plastic chairs closest to the table, gesturing for Paige to have a seat.

‘It’s great,’ she assured him as she sat down. ‘I won’t stay long. I just wanted to say thank you for yesterday. The walk to the pier with you, Bryce, and Jazz was the most fun I’ve had in a while.’

Cohen pulled the chair away from the computer cart, straddling the back of it as he leaned forward against the backrest. ‘Well, thanks, but I feel like I should be thanking you. I think that’s the most fun the three of us have had in ages, too. Bryce couldn’t stop talking about it last night, or this morning. You’ll probably be the first thing he mentions when he comes home from school in about forty-five minutes.’

‘I’m glad you all had a wonderful time.’ Paige fidgeted with her coffee cup, but she offered him an easy smile.

‘We’ll have to do it again sometime.’ Cohen said it as more of a polite gesture than a concrete invitation, but there was enough uncertainty in his tone that it came out sounding more like a question. The moment the words left his lips, he wondered if he’d made a mistake, if he had been too presumptuous, if he’d made it sound like a—

‘I would like that,’ Paige replied.

Cohen fought to keep his expression neutral, a battle of relief and hesitancy warring within him. ‘Great. Me too.’ He let that sink in between them, taking a sip of hot coffee and letting it burn down his throat. ‘I know someone else who’d like it as well. Come here, I have to show you something.’

He pushed his coffee cup onto the lunchroom table, knowing the perfect distraction from the awkward conversation that was sure to follow. He led Paige out the open doorway into a hallway at the back of the clinic. To the right, the hall led to the prep room and the surgery. To the left, it led down a flight of four stairs. They went left. Cohen was shocked to discover the temptation he had to reach out for her hand as she descended the stairs. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

‘Yesterday, you saw the bouncy, crazy Jazz that acts like a typical five-year-old child,’ he explained, his lips curling upward. ‘But let me show you the real Jazz. The one that no one sees unless they live with her.’ Cohen slowly pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs, which had been left open a crack.

The sound hit them before they could even see her.

‘Is she … snoring?’ Paige covered her mouth, holding in her laughter.

Sure enough, with the door opened wide, there was Jazz, sprawled out across the biggest, most luxurious dog bed Cohen had been able to find online, snoring like a freight train. Her lips puffed out with each loud exhale of breath, and her eyes and paws twitched as she slept heavily.

‘Oh my God,’ Paige whispered. ‘She’s so adorable.’

Jazz’s eyes squinted open at the sound of her voice, and she lifted her head, the tip of her pink tongue sticking out as she glanced around, dazed, and tried to reorient herself. Cohen could see the moment of recognition. Instantly, the excitement of Paige’s presence took over. Jazz scrambled awkwardly to her feet just as Paige crouched down in front of her. The dog wasted no time in allowing herself to be enveloped by Paige’s arms, her tail wagging at sonic speed like a little propeller.

‘Hi, Jazzy girl,’ Paige cooed, running her fingers through her brown and black fur, nuzzling into the dog just as much as she was nuzzling into her.

‘I still maintain she likes you,’ Cohen attested with a knowing grin. ‘A lot.’

‘You told me she likes everyone, so stop it,’ Paige said with a laugh. ‘Do you still have appointments?’

He had completely forgotten while in Paige’s presence. Damn it. ‘Yes, a few. But no one will bother you in here if you want to stay. It’s the payroll administrator’s office and she isn’t working today, so this room is yours for the taking.’

‘Hmm,’ Paige said, dodging Jazz’s tongue as she tried to lick her face. ‘I can stay for a few minutes. There’s something I’d like to talk to you about, anyway.’

‘That doesn’t sound ominous at all.’ Cohen narrowed his eyes, a thousand ideas whirling around in his mind of what the topic could be. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

Cohen closed the door behind him, leaving Paige and Jazz in their glory with each other. It wasn’t lost on him that he felt as though he could have left the room for only a second, and yet he still would have been gone from her for too long.

His remaining appointments got dragged out, stretching well over the course of an hour and a half before Cohen had the chance to step away from the exam rooms and check in on Paige and Jazz downstairs. As he bounded down the steps, he knew he was already too late.

The office door was open, and Paige was gone. So was Jazz. The sight of the empty room and even emptier dog bed deflated Cohen, replacing his anticipation with disappointment. But when he saw the note scrawled on the back of one of the blank sheets of paper pulled from the printer on the desk, Cohen’s disappointment quickly vanished.

Cohen,

Sorry, I had to head back to The Cakery, as the note I’d left on the door said I’d only be gone fifteen minutes. Jazz wanted to come with me. Bring Bryce over once the clinic is closed and you’ve had supper. I’ll handle dessert.

- Paige & Jazz

She had drawn a little pawprint beside Jazz’s name as her signature. It was a cute touch, he would give her that.

He knew Bryce was going to be elated about their impromptu dessert plans. If Cohen was honest with himself, he was as well. And while he was on an honesty kick, the truth of how happy it made him was, quite frankly, petrifying.

There were a lot of things that scared Cohen Beckett in Port Landon lately. He just never expected Paige Henley to be one of them.

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