Southern Heartbreaker (Charleston Heat 4)

“If those tacos you made the other day are any indication, people are gonna lose their minds over this food,” Ford says. He extends a hand to my dad. “Mornin’, Mr. Lacy. Good to see you again, sir.”

Dad shakes his hand, adjusting his hat. “No need for the ‘sir’, Ford. We’re all grown-ups now. And it’s good to see you, too. Evie said this whole thing was your idea. Gotta say I’m impressed.”

Seeing two of my all-time favorite men shake hands, the warmth of familiarity flowing between them, makes my insides go soft.

Lordy I’m in trouble.

“Least I could do for someone as talented as your daughter,” Ford replies easily. “Food is kind of what I do for a living, so when Eva told me she was working on a new cookbook, I knew I wanted to help out. Here, let me get that.”

He takes the tray of grit cakes my dad was pulling out of the truck. At the same moment a voice calls out, “Daddy!”, and the little girl wraps herself around Ford’s leg in a whirl of messy hair and glitter.

“Whoa!” my dad says, laughing. “Who is this?”

Ford smooths the girl’s hair away from her face. “Mr. Lacy, this is my daughter, Bryce. Bryce, you remember my friend Miss Eva, right?” His eyes flick to me. “This is her daddy, Mr. Lacy.”

Bryce looks at us for a beat before she smiles, tucking her head into Ford’s hip.

“Hi, y’all,” she says. Then she looks at me. “Are you the world famous author daddy was telling me about?”

It’s my turn to laugh. “I wouldn’t say world famous. But yes, I am an author.”

“That’s neat,” she replies, still clinging to Ford’s leg.

Ford looks at me again. “Bryce, why don’t you take Miss Eva to the barn? Show her all the decorations you’ve been working on.”

“Decorations?” I smile. “Did you make them yourself?”

Bryce nods.

“Then I definitely want to see them. I bet they’re beautiful.”

She untangles herself from Ford’s leg and grabs my hand. It’s small and sticky, and for some reason this makes my smile grow. “The most beautiful. Come on, I can show you. Miss Gracie and Mr. Luke helped me put them up. But you can help with the glitter.”

“Because of course there’s glitter,” Ford murmurs.

Bryce scoffs. “Daddy, what’s a party without glitter?”

My dad laughs “You’ve got a bossy one, Ford. I like that.”

“You have no idea,” Ford says. He nods at Bryce and I. “Y’all go on inside—we’ve got the food handled.”Chapter EighteenEvaI don’t know what I did to get Bryce to warm up to me so quickly, but she is a little ball of energy as she tugs me through the barn. Grip firm on my hand, she shows me the drawings she did of fish—“daddy says you make the best”—corn, trees, and, a bit puzzlingly, gnomes.

“Am I missing something with the gnomes?” I murmur to Ford as he passes by, arms laden with extra trays.

“It’s just what we’re into this week,” he says, winking at Bryce. “Better than last week’s obsession with Emojis. Of course she got fixated on the eggplant one—purple is her favorite color—which was super fun when she kept drawing these gigantic phallic shapes at school. We had a great chat with her teacher about that, didn’t we, bun?”

Already I’m smiling so much my cheeks hurt. My nerves recede just the tiniest bit. In the midst of the stress and hurry of all the prep work required to cook for an event like this, I forgot that today might actually be fun.

That bringing people together with my food is actually a really cool thing. In the past, I’ve kicked around the idea of hosting cooking classes, but I never really got around to doing it. Maybe now is a good time to start. It’d be cool to create this sense of community on a more regular basis.

After she’s done showing me her decorations, Bryce asks me to help her sprinkle all the tables with tiny pieces of confetti and handfuls of glitter. When I see the confetti is gold and shaped like pineapples, I just about die of cuteness overload.

“Did you pick these out?” I ask, holding my hand up high over a table as I let the confetti sprinkle down onto the tablecloth.

Bryce tries to do the same. Half the confetti ends up either in her hair or on her crocs. I decide to let her run with it. A little extra sparkle never hurt anyone.

“I did,” she replies proudly. “My daddy helped, though. He said pineapples mean ‘welcome.’ Like, they are saying hello to your friends.”

My heart skips a beat. Ford is busy. But he still took the time to not only organize this whole shindig, but to also incorporate cute, thoughtful touches like pineapple freaking glitter.

Delighting his daughter in the process like the rock star dad he is.