Sooner or Later by Elizabeth Adler Page A

She’d kept herself on the straight-and-narrow workpath for over a year now and the thought of a date and a little fun, away from the daily grind of the cafe, made her feel the way she used to when she was a kid and Saturday morning rolled round, with no school and a long, lazy weekend to look forward to.
    It was only one evening, but a beach house and a barbecue and Dan Cassidy sounded like a great recipe for relaxation to her. Though, of course, with her tough work schedule and single-minded quest for success, right now, romance was out of the question. Subdued, she hurried back into the kitchen to check on the chef and find out why the food was emerging so slowly. If she weren’t here, the whole place would go to hell in a night, she just knew it.
    Much later, after Maya had left and the cafe was closed, she set up the tables for the next morning’s breakfast, enjoying the temporary peace and quiet. The traffic had slowed on Main Street, and the few passersby never even glanced at the darkened cafe.
    Ellie poured a cup of coffee, then went and sat at a table by the window, gazing into the quiet night. The fog promised by the weatherman was rolling in, as it often did at this time of year, muting the streetlights and muffling the city noise, drifting, silent as smoke. She found it soothing after her noisy, hectic day.
    Her conversation with Dan Cassidy floated through her mind and she wondered if he’d heard about the jinx on Running Horse yet. She’d hate to be the one to tell him, but no wine had been produced there in years and they said it was a bad-luck place. She hoped for Dan’s sake it wasn’t true.
    Sipping hot coffee, she thought of her mother, wondering wistfully if she would have approved of Dan. It was silly, she told herself, to still long for a mother to share things with. A mother she could ask “Am I doing the right thing with the cafe, and my dedication to success?” Or “What d’you think about this guy?” After all, she was twenty-nine years old, independent and far more worldly-wise than Romany had ever been.
    When she was a child, Ellie never realized they were rich, not until she went to school, that is. It seemed normal to her to live in a house with forty rooms, to have a butler and a cook, a housekeeper and maids, a chauffeur and a team of gardeners. She’d never known anything else. Besides, Maria and Gustave the butler and the rest of the household staff were her friends, a substitute family for the parents she’d lost, and the aunts and cousins she’d never had. There was just this big tearing gap inher life, where once there had been security. A mother and father. Romany and Rory.
    For a long time, after the accident, when she closed her eyes she would see their smiling faces again, hear her mother’s light gay laugh, her soft voice telling her she loved her; and her father’s deep one, singing her to sleep with a favorite Neapolitan song. But gradually, their sharp images had faded, and all she was left with were their photographs. She would pore over them, alone in her room, reminding herself of her mother’s smile, and her father’s red hair, knowing she was losing them. And it hurt, all over again, because she wanted so badly to keep them with her, forever.
    Even now, a grown woman, she missed them. She wondered how different her life might have been had they lived. It was a big unknown and she sighed, thinking about it. Not that her life had been terrible, far from it. Miss Lottie had been a wonderful companion. She’d been grandmother, mother, father, friend and loyal supporter. She’d shown up for the PTA meetings along with the young parents; she’d cheered on the sidelines at the Softball games; sent her off to camp and written faithfully every day. She had even bailed her out when she was acting like an idiot, that time at college. Miss Lottie hadn’t missed a trick in the parenting book. No one could have done it better.
    But there was still something inside