Free Take the Long Way Home by Judith Arnold

handsome as Quinn ever
turned out to be nice. But he was. Really, truly nice.
    Her lobster roll tasted delicious. She
hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she’d taken the first bite
and her body had hummed with gratitude. She’d been working the
entire day, and other than the fruit and cheese she’d packed for
herself that morning, all she’d eaten had been a peanut-butter
cookie that had fallen off the spatula and broken while she’d been
transferring it from the cooking tray to a container, and a
date-nut bar that gotten burnt around the edges. She drank her
coffee black, so no nourishment there. For most of the day, she’d
been on her feet, fueled only by caffeine and those few small
snacks.
    Now, at last, she was sitting, relaxing, and
eating something substantial. The mayo in the lobster salad had
been spiced with a touch of curry that added zing to it, and the
roll had a deliciously crunchy crust. Honestly, though, she would
have been happy to sit here eating dry saltines and drinking clam
juice. Everything tasted delicious when you were in good
company.
    To her amazement, Quinn Connor was good
company. In high school, she had never even said hello to him.
She’d assumed they were alien species, unable to cross the gulf
that separated his tribe from hers—if, all by herself, she could
qualify as a tribe. He’d spoken the language of success; she’d
spoken the language of despair.
    She’d also assumed she’d been more or less
invisible back then. At least she’d tried to be. She hadn’t wanted
anyone to notice her, since any attention she received had usually
brought pity with it. She’d hated being pitied.
    “All we’ve done is talk about me,” he said
after polishing off the last of his sandwich. “Tell me about you.
How did you wind up becoming a champion cookie maker?”
    “I don’t know if I’m a champion,” she said
with a modest laugh. “I used to bake with my mother, though. It was
a special thing we did together. After she died, I found a
loose-leaf notebook of hers, filled with cookie recipes. She would
take traditional recipes and add her own twists. Butter-nut cookies
flavored with coffee, or lemon cookies sweetened with honey. Some
of her experiments worked better than others, but she took notes on
everything and put them in her book.”
    “Kind of like a lab notebook,” he said, then
reached across the table and gave her hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry
about your mother. I didn’t know.”
    His touch surprised her, yet it also felt
right. His hand enveloped hers, large and warm. She supposed
football players needed large hands in order to hold and throw that
strange-shaped ball. But the warmth—that was unexpected. And
welcome.
    After a moment, he withdrew his hand, as if
he’d suddenly had second thoughts about touching her. He smiled
hesitantly. “So your store is like a tribute to her. You’re keeping
her alive by baking her cookies.”
    “I hadn’t thought about it
that way,” Maeve admitted. It was a lovely notion, though. “The
store…” Should she tell him? Would he think she was nuts? If he
did, so what? She’d long ago stopped caring what people thought of
her. “The store came about because I was selling my cookies through
a café where I was working in Seattle, and this man—Harry—loved
them. He thought I should have my own store, so…” What Harry had
done for her did sound nuts. But here she was, because of him. “He bought the
shop on Seaview Avenue from the Torellis and gave it to
me.”
    “Wow! I wish I had friends like that.” Quinn
laughed.
    “Harry was special. He was always telling me
I should come back to Brogan’s Point, I really didn’t belong in
Seattle, my father was here. And he was—well, I didn’t realize how
rich he was until he died. He left me the shop and some start-up
money in his will.”
    “Wow.” No longer laughing, Quinn sounded
thoughtful. “This guy must have been really significant in your
life.”
    She