I Give You My All {n.h.}

Chapter Ten

Brooke Spencer

I hurry inside from the cold elements and stomp my feet on the mat. The cold rain is coming down heavy this morning and I'm afraid that if temperatures drop too low, we might be expecting frozen roads before too long. I call out for Norma but she doesn't answer. I call out to her again as I pull my coat and scarf off of me and hang it up by the door. I set my keys on the counter and look around. It's quiet in here.

"Norma?" I walk around the kitchen, into the freezer and into her office but don't see any sign of her. I begin to grow a little nervous. She is almost ninety years old and sometimes, I fear coming into the bakery to find that she has fallen and couldn't stand or could even be dead. I rush out of the double doors and into the dining section and still don't see her. I call out to her again and wait for a response but I still don't receive one. I make my way to the hallway that leads to the bathrooms and nearly break into a sprint as I approach the door to the women's bathroom. Before I can make it there, the door open and out walks Norma.

"Oh, good morning dear." She says with a cheerful spirit and walks past me back into the dining area. I shake my head and blow out a breath. My heart is beating fast and I know it needs to slow down. I follow Norma back to the kitchen and to her office where I take a seat in one of the chairs. She looks up at me as she places a stack of paperwork onto the desk with a concerned expression. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I decide against telling her about my momentary fear of her possibly laying dead in the bakery. She always tells me the same thing. If I die in this bakery, then I will have died doing what I love. There's no way that could have caused me any kind of pain.

"That weather out there is going to be the death of me. It's far too early for these kinds of temperatures, don't you think?" I nod.

"I know. I was thinking about that this morning. It's usually this cold around the beginning of December. We haven't even made it to Halloween. I'm scared for the winter this year." She agrees and continues moving around her office for a few minutes until she suddenly stops. I look up to see her staring at a coffee mug in her hands. She smiles down at it as she dusts it off.

"Well, would you look at that." If you were just looking at the smile on her face, it would look as if she had just come across some kind of golden treasure. She turns toward me and with a shaky hand, hold the mug out for me to see. It's a little yellow mug covered in pictures of fish and hooks. If I had just seen this sitting around, I certainly wouldn't have given it any thought. "This was Charlie's favorite mug. He would wake up every single morning and would make his coffee in this thing. It could have coffee stains from the day before and he wouldn't even care. If we were home, he wouldn't drink out of any other coffee mug. It was always this one." She laughs a little and shakes her head. "My oh my, it's things like this that remind me that he's always watching over me. He might be gone but he's never really gone." I smile at her and watch her as she just smiles down at the thing. She sighs after a moment and looks back at me. "Would you like some hot cocoa? I think this find and this weather calls for a mini celebration." I take her up on that offer and follow her into the kitchen. She begins to dig around in the cabinets and pulls a pot and lid out. I offer to help her but she insists on doing it herself. Who am I to stop the woman?

"So, are you going to share with me what's got you glowing like the sun this morning?" She asks with her back toward me. I immediately smile to myself. Is it that obvious?

"Well," I pause, trying to figure out what I should say. Norma still doesn't look at me as she tends to the cocoa. "I invited Niall and his friend over for dinner last night. It was meant as a thank you to him for literally saving me. It was a good night." Silence falls between us and I can't help but to go on. "I cooked my family's spaghetti recipe and we also had Hayden and Amanda over. Niall seemed to really like everyone. And we," I pause again as those familiar butterflies seem to erupt in my stomach. "We almost kissed last night." At this, she finally turns around to look at me. I sheepishly smile at her and she places her hand onto her hip.