“Didn’t you have dinner with her at your house? And you went to the farm together?”

  “We went to the farm because we were exploring options for the wedding food,” Bonnie explained, intentionally keeping her voice pitched low. She really didn’t believe she was shrill when she talked about Taryn, but she didn’t want to take a chance of letting her feelings slip through in her voice. “And after that business trip, we ate some of the produce we bought as a taste test.”

  “A private taste test just two days before the actual tasting with the couple.”

  “Yes.” Bonnie didn’t mention that the produce they tasted had an extremely short harvesting season and would be a mere memory come October.

  “So, you call the two of us having brunch a date, but when you take a drive out to the country with an eligible woman to whom you’re obviously attracted, and then you take her to your house and cook dinner for her, you’re determined not to call it a date?”

  Well, when she put it that way, it sounded romantic. Which it hadn’t been.

  Bonnie was glad she had carefully omitted the part where she had her hands in Taryn’s lap when she had recounted the story to Viv.

  “It was leftover quiche. I just heated it up.”

  “Oh, leftover quiche. Why didn’t you say so? Then obviously it wasn’t a date. I thought you maybe had filet mignon for two, followed by chocolate-covered strawberries and whipped cream. Then it would have been a date.”

  Viv rolled her eyes, as if her sarcastic tone wasn’t enough to get her point across, and took another tortilla out of the clay dish.

  Bonnie wrestled with the two options of changing the subject entirely or asking Viv about something she’d had on her mind since her evening with Taryn. The need to figure herself out won.

  “She did say something that got me thinking about the café and how much effort I put into it.”

  Viv put down her fajita. “Are you kidding? Did she say you don’t work hard enough? Because I’ve never known anyone who put as much time and love into an endeavor as you have in your café.” She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. “What’s her number? We need to have a little chat.”

  “She didn’t call me lazy, so put your phone away,” Bonnie said with a laugh. “But thank you for leaping to my rescue. She wasn’t talking about what I do there, with all the baking and taking care of the cats. She meant the way I treat the business. She thinks I’m sabotaging its chances to make much money.”

  “Do you make much money?”

  “No. Enough to get by, though.” Barely, some months. And unexpected vet bills or unplanned appliance repairs usually managed to wipe out the occasional higher-than-usual profits. “Taryn thinks it’s because of my parents. I didn’t tell her the real reason why I don’t want to push for more publicity.”

  “Oh, she believes you’re trying to be unsuccessful just to prove you’re not them? I guess that does make sense. They believe it’s important to make a lot of money, so you’re determined not to. That might be why you’re holding on to past embarrassments and using them as a shield.”

  Bonnie shook her head firmly. “It’s a simple matter of not wanting that damned GIF to go viral again. It has nothing to do with my parents.”

  Viv shrugged. “The reasons behind our actions are never as simple as we like to think. I’m surprised to hear about all this, though. I assumed your café was doing well because I saw what you did for those nonprofits you worked for after college—not counting the last one, of course. I know the first two you worked for were about to close their doors when you stepped in and turned them around. They’re still going strong today because of you. I figured if you were such a success at marketing other people’s ventures, you’d work miracles for a business you personally owned, especially since you weren’t putting any effort into your love life and had all that energy to spare. I guess it’s been the opposite, then?”

  Bonnie stayed silent, staring at her plate and picking her fork through a pile of guacamole.

  She really had done a great job for those nonprofits. All of them, even that damned last one. She wasn’t always comfortable bragging about her own achievements, but in these cases, she had made a difference in a very measurable way through her aggressive marketing and her relentless brainstorming sessions with the staffs as they searched for unconventional opportunities for income, as well as more traditional ones like grants that the groups weren’t taking advantage of to the extent she thought they should.

  They had been failing, and she not only saved them but helped them thrive.

  When she had opened her café, it hadn’t even occurred to her to apply the same rigorous approach to the management of her own business. She couldn’t explain why without at least partially including Taryn’s reasoning.

  “You do realize that you’re missing the other half of the equation, don’t you?” Viv asked gently.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You always put the two concepts together, but now you’re not. You always phrase it in some variation of how your parents wanted you to get married and have a lot of children or get a job that made a lot of money. You repeat it often.”

  Bonnie wanted to claim that she rarely said those words or any similar ones, but she couldn’t deny that Viv was merely repeating a familiar refrain of hers. “Well, I heard it often enough when I was growing up.”

  “I know. Those two things are always linked in your mind. And now you’re recognizing that you might not be living up to your café’s full earning potential because you haven’t put your heart into it. But you also need to consider that you aren’t putting your heart into finding love, either. Not the marriage and huge family kind of love your parents expected, but a partnership that’s right for you.”

  “I told you. I don’t date because once people who don’t know me well find that GIF, that’s all they see when they look at me.”

  “Simple as that, hmm? Maybe it’s time to let all those reasons go and take a chance on the future instead of the past.”

  Bonnie propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. This was getting exhausting. She was thinking more along the lines of making a few changes to the way she managed her business, not overhauling her whole life.

  “Self-reflection sucks,” she said.

  Viv reached across the table and patted her on the head. “I know, sweetie. Trouble is, once you start, it’s impossible to go back to ignoring what you’ve learned. Just don’t rush into anything, and you’ll be fine.”

  Bonnie could do without the head-patting, but the advice was sound.

  She’d start with the adoption event. As Taryn had observed, Bonnie was perfectly comfortable putting her full effort into making the event a success because it would benefit Nancy and the other rescue groups involved. Then she’d slowly look for ways to get her café onto the more comfortable side of the bottom line.

  As for love…she wasn’t sure what to do about that. Doing nothing sounded appealing. She didn’t know what a love that was just right for her would even look like.

  She picked up the chili pepper garnish from their plate of nachos and took a bite, letting the searing heat in her mouth drive away the image of Taryn that had just come unbidden to her mind.

  * * *

  For the next few days, Bonnie threw herself into preparing for the event. She and Taryn talked on the phone a few times, but each time Taryn called, she had a specific question to ask and didn’t spend much time on small talk once it had been answered.

  Their relationship turned virtual, which was even less date-like than reheated quiche. Taryn sent photos of the venue—Sumner’s new community rec center near Loyalty Park, the construction of which had been one of the cornerstones of Marty’s campaign. Bonnie visited the center with Marty and texted Taryn with her thoughts about the themes for each room. Taryn was in charge of ticket sales and deposited money into Bonnie’s account for buying ingredients and decorations, while Bonnie emailed the images of her menu and the order of serving each dish.

  They might as well have been planning the event from opposite sides of the globe and not a mere ten minutes apart for all they saw each other.

  And Bonnie missed her.

  Not that she had much time to spend thinking about Taryn, though, with the adoption event looming ever closer. Bonnie wasn’t bringing many of her own cats, which should have made her life easier, but instead had the opposite effect. She not only had to set up the space for the cats from the three participating groups, but she also had to make sure her café had a strong presence at the event, even without many of its residents in attendance.

  She had made a display using blown-up versions of Jerome’s photos, and she was using the rec center’s large screens to project the café’s two webcams in the reception area. She hadn’t wanted to expose the kittens to so much unaccustomed activity—and besides, most of this batch of babies were already spoken for, and they’d soon be going to forever homes or filtering in with the other café cats, to be replaced by more of Nancy’s orphaned litters—but at least everyone would be able to watch them play.

  Jonah had happily agreed to bring her two young nieces to sit in the room and have a staged children’s tea party with the kittens. She and Jerome had carefully planned how their little party would be arranged, so the cameras would capture it to the best effect. She had to admit, the final result was likely to be cringingly cute. Her PR self figured she’d be booked out for at least the next six months of Kitten and Cream Teas after this.

  Nancy and the other two rescue groups were thrilled with the opportunity and had sent her detailed lists of all their cats along with current vet certificates, recommending which of the rooms would best suit each one and adding personal notes about how sweet or wonderful or has-some-special-needs-but-is-very-loving every single one of them was.

  Trying to shuffle the feline adoption prospects into a safe configuration was proving to be an almighty headache of a chore. She did her best to keep cats that were familiar with each other together, and she was using every ounce of space in the rec center to keep from overcrowding any one room. She felt as if she was planning a wedding reception seating chart for a family full of divorces and feuding relatives.

  It was worth every ounce of the stress it caused, though. These groups didn’t have the consistent public exposure her café did, so the chance to get their cats seen by a horde of visitors was a real gift to them. There was already talk of having her organize this as an annual event, so maybe it was a good thing Taryn wasn’t coming within kicking distance these days.

  But she’d better not let Taryn or Viv hear her complaining about the amount of work this was taking or her wariness about committing to doing this all over again next year and the next. The ticket sales were generating far more cash than she had expected, which was likely because Taryn had taken charge of setting prices and advertising the event. Bonnie was able to focus on decorations and food and scheduling.

  Which had brought her to a nearby pet store with plenty of money to spend, which was a welcome change from her usual visits.

  Taking her cue from the wedding decorations for Marty and Lex, she was using new beds and toys to adorn the rooms instead of adding irrelevant frills. She had considered variations on some elaborate themes but had finally settled on simply assigning each room its own color. Cat paraphernalia and human place settings would match, which made it easy for her to color-code information about specific cats and each room’s general type of feline in the information packets each guest would receive.

  Bonnie pushed her cart toward the cat section of the store but stopped next to several large clearance bins full of Valentine’s Day toys and plushies. A lot of them were meant for dogs but would still brighten the room. And one of the groups participating also rescued dogs, so they’d be able to put the toys to good use after the event.

  Bonnie sighed and stopped trying to convince herself when she already knew what she had to do. She emptied the bins into her cart and continued toward the nonseasonal merchandise. She wasn’t sure how she had come to this—running a massive adoption event, planning a wedding in her café, getting back to her old ways of designing marketing material.

  And now, pushing a cart full of heart-shaped toys and little cupid plushies through the pet store.

  Jerome was going to have hysterics when he saw this.

  Bonnie blamed Taryn for all of it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In the days after the tasting, Taryn tried her best to keep its embarrassing details from Angie.

  She would have succeeded, too, because she definitely did not want to talk about it, and she had absolutely no trouble keeping herself quiet on the topic. Unfortunately, she hadn’t counted on Marty showing up at her office to deliver the finalized guest list, which he could easily have sent by email. He seemed determined not to avoid the subject, as he called out to her from the reception area in his booming politician’s voice.

  “Hey, Taryn, where’s your better half?” He laughed and made a placating gesture with his hands when she appeared in her doorway. “Calm down, calm down. I’m talking about Sasha, not Bonnie.”

  “Oh, did you finally ask Bonnie on a date?” Angie asked as Taryn reluctantly dragged herself out of her office. “I told you your flirting would improve. Just like riding a bike, you know. But who’s Sasha?” She turned back to Marty. “From no love life to two women in only a couple of weeks. Our Taryn doesn’t do anything by halves.”

  “Sasha is a cat,” Taryn said, wondering why she had gotten out of her bed this morning. It had been so nice there. Warm and cozy and gloriously free of both Marty and Angie. Free of Bonnie, too, which was its most disappointing feature lately, but Taryn let that thought flit through her mind without lingering because she didn’t want Marty or Angie somehow seeing it displayed in her expression. “And Bonnie and I are not dating. We’re working together in a very professional way on the adoption event and on the wedding I was planning, but just now decided to quit.”

  “Wait, you have a cat?” Angie asked, with even more disbelief in her voice than when she thought Taryn was dating two women.

  “I don’t, but I could if I wanted,” Taryn said indignantly. She’d be a great cat owner. Well, maybe not great, but certainly borderline mediocre. She had watched a lot of cat videos online, after all. “She just sits on me when I go to the café.”

  “Ah, yes, I’ve noticed white fur on you lately. She’s been spending a lot of time at that café.”

  The last was directed at Marty again, and he nodded. “I know. She pretended it took three tries to get Bonnie to agree to have the wedding there, but I think we all know why she kept going back, and it had nothing to do with a rental contract.”

  “It was only two tries, and she really…Oh, I give up,” Taryn said when her protests only made them laugh louder. “I’m going back in my office where there are no cats, and I would prefer that neither of you follow me. Angie, you’re on probation for insubordination. Marty, my fees just doubled.”

  “You put me on probation last week, too. Is this double probation, or have I finished the first one?” Angie called after her as she walked back to her office. Taryn shut the door without answering. She would have liked to slam it, but she was far too mature for that.

  She sat at her desk and opened the latest email from Bonnie, laughing out loud at the picture she had sent. It was a huge pile of the red, ribbony Valentine’s Day pet toys with Pepper curled up on top, sound asleep. Bonnie’s brief message said I’ve told him not to get too attached since these are NOT staying in my house.

  Taryn covered her mouth with her hand to muffle her laughter. The toys were perfect for the speed dating theme of the event and would be an interesting visual addition to the simple color schemes of the rooms, but Taryn knew it must be grating on Bonnie to have a cartload of love-related items heaped in her house. She doubted any of the toys would be allowed back into the café when the adoption day was over. She sent a reply that she’d warn the Sumner Fire Department to expect calls about a disturbing heart-shaped bonfire behind the café after the event finished.

  She could hear voices and laughter coming from the other room, and she figured Marty was telling Angie every detail about how she and Bonnie had misunderstood Lex’s words. She had a feeling he was embellishing quite a bit—he spent enough time with the press that he knew how to sell a story. She’d have been better off just giving Angie the bare-bones version herself. Now, she’d never hear the end of it. She had to come up with a more effective threat than probation.

  Taryn tapped her fingers on her desk, watching her inbox and waiting for a reply from Bonnie, but her café would be in the midst of the lunch rush now, and she was unlikely to stop what she was doing and check her email every few seconds. Taryn missed just talking to her, without all the virtual space between them. She wasn’t even clear on her reason for avoiding Bonnie in the first place. Part of her was simply embarrassed by how defensive she’d gotten when the topic of love had come up. If any other person besides Bonnie had been next to her in the same situation, she’d have laughed it off without any fuss. When it came to Bonnie, her feelings were bordering on something more intense than mere friendship, and she had reacted to the mention of love with the same level of intensity.

  The other reason she had stayed away from Bonnie and the café was because she was certain Bonnie’s overreaction to the same situation was caused by a very different reason. Bonnie was prickly about the topic of love, especially when it was connected to her café, and she had protested only because she thought Lex was bringing up the cat-café-as-dating-site issue again, not because she shared any unresolved feelings for Taryn.

  Taryn worried that if Bonnie put in the same amount of time analyzing Taryn’s reaction as she had Bonnie’s, then she might realize…