His Surprise Son. Wendy Warren

attempts to scare up some new customers for the aged deli. “The Pickle Jar has quarter-done, half-done and full dill pickles, all homemade from a secret family recipe. You can take some home in a collector jar, too.”

      According to her online class, Branding is Your Business, having a mascot emphasized the idea behind the product, built connections with customers and humanized the company. Although one could argue that a pickle was not human.

      It wasn’t as if she enjoyed dressing as a giant briny cucumber. Once upon a time Izzy had imagined herself in college, studying business, then having an office of her own and wearing beautiful professional attire. Of course, once upon a time she’d imagined a lot of things that had turned out to be nothing more than fantasies. She’d learned several years back that you couldn’t move forward unless you were first willing to accept reality. So with The Pickle Jar losing potential customers every day to the newer, hipper eateries in town, Izzy had succumbed to desperate measures, even going online to purchase this warty green pickle suit, only “slightly” used.

      It was swelteringly hot and dark inside the costume, and the cylindrical interior could use a good steam cleaning. None of the other deli employees would even consider putting it on. But she did, because the costume was a marketing tool and allowing the business to close was not an option.

      The tourist to whom she’d been speaking, dressed in the same Keep Portland Weird T-shirt as his wife, crossed his arms. “Can we really get a joke and a pickle for just a nickel?”

      “Absolutely.”

      She spared one last glance across the street, but the tour bus was still in the way. With perspiration trickling below the wimple-style head of the pickle suit, she swiped her brow. The man she’d thought she recognized was probably gone, anyway. Believing she saw Nate Thayer was nothing more than a weird function of her overanxious mind. For some reason, it was almost always in times of personal stress that she would imagine she saw him. Probably because she could think of few things more stressful than having to confront him again.

      Focus on business, she counseled herself. Business is real.

      The Pickle Jar wasn’t only her place of employment; it was her home. It was where she’d discovered family for the first time in her life. She was the manager of a failing restaurant, but she could fix it. She would fix it.

      Forgetting about everything else, Izzy returned her focus to the tourists and gave them her most gracious smile. “I’ve got a million jokes, but the pickles are even better. Follow me to the best little deli west of the Hudson.”

      * * *

      So far, Nate Thayer’s trip down memory lane was proving bumpier than anticipated. Seated across from Jackson Fleming, who’d quarterbacked for Ridge High back in the day, Nate listened with half an ear as his former teammate complained about...ah, pretty much everything, from the boredom of driving a milk truck for a living to the pressures of raising four kids who sucked up every penny he made, to the slowness of the service at The Pickle Jar, where, in fact, they hadn’t been seated for more than a couple of minutes and were currently perusing the plastic-coated menus.

      In Thunder Ridge on business, this was Nate’s first trip home in fifteen years. It had been his suggestion to have lunch here, and while Jack griped about life post high school, Nate allowed his attention to wander around the deli. On the surface, not much had changed. He remembered sitting at that chipped Formica counter, studying for his final high school exams, nursing a drink and eating his fill of mouth-puckering pickles until Sam Bernstein started sending over free corned beef on rye. “Eat,” the older man, short of stature but huge of heart, had insisted when Nate refused the gratis meals at first. “I see you in here all the time, studying hard.” Sam had nodded his approval. “The brain needs food. I’m making a contribution to your college education. You’ll thank me by having a good career.”

      He did have a good career, a great career actually, as a commercial architect based in Chicago. Over the years, when he’d thought of Thunder Ridge, he’d found himself hoping the Bernstein brothers would approve. Today Nate didn’t see either of the two old men who owned the deli. The force of his desire to find them alive and well surprised him. He had written once or twice after he’d left for college, but there’d been a lot of water under the bridge, too many complicated feelings for the communication not to feel awkward; soon it had fallen away altogether. Nate wouldn’t be in town long, but it would feel good to mend that particular fence.

      His relationship with the brothers was not the only casualty from his past, of course, but the other issue was unlikely to ever be repaired. Isabelle Lambert had left town shortly after he had. In high school, he and Izzy had been in different grades and had run with different crowds; he hadn’t so much as heard her name in a decade and a half. More than once he’d thought about looking her up but had always talked himself out of it.

      Nevertheless, it was impossible to return to Central Oregon and not think about the girl with the caramel hair, skin soft as a pillow and lake-colored eyes so big and deep Nate had wanted to dive into them.

      When he noticed his fingers clutching the menu too tightly, he forced himself to relax. After fifteen years, his feelings still had jagged, unfinished edges where Izzy was concerned.

      “Are you ready to order?”

      Distracted by his thoughts, Nate hadn’t noticed the waitress’s arrival. She filled their water glasses, then set the plastic pitcher on the table and stood looking down at them. Her name tag read Willa, a good name for the petite, fair beauty whose long auburn waves and serene appearance made her look as if she’d emerged from another era.

      Jack grinned at the waitress. “What’s special today? Besides you?” Despite being married and having a houseful of children, he was obviously smitten.

      Nate winced, but the woman remained unfazed, her cool expression revealing nothing as she responded. “We’re serving a hot brisket sandwich on a kaiser roll. It comes with a side salad. The soup today is chicken in the pot.”

      Quickly Nate ordered the sandwich, hoping his friend would do the same without further embarrassing himself, but Jack had other plans. “I’ll take the sandwich, and bring me a cold drink, too, gorgeous. ’Cause the more I look at you, the hotter I get.”

      “Jack,” Nate began in a warning undertone, but the former Thunder Ridge Huskies football hero—emphasis on former—clearly thought he still had the goods.

      Jack grinned at Nate. “You’re in town awhile, right? Maybe Willa’s got a friend, and we can double-date.”

      Willa picked up the pitcher of water, murmuring, “I’ll get your sandwiches,” but Jack, who had clearly lost his mind, patted the woman’s butt, then reached for her wrist. The redhead tried to jerk away. Jack held on.

      What came next happened so quickly Nate wasn’t sure exactly what had occurred. He was aware of a voice hollering, “Hey!” and the next thing he knew, a large green...cucumber?...appeared at the table concurrent with a tidal wave of ice-cold water washing over him and Jack. Mostly Jack.

      Jack yelled, the cucumber yelled back, and then it slipped in the puddle of water, falling in a heap of flailing green arms and legs.

      “Pickle down!” a busboy shouted.

      Ah, it was a pickle.

      Nate rose to help.

      “You threw that water on purpose,” Jack accused.

      “Shut up,” Nate suggested as he knelt next to what appeared to be a life-size vegetable mascot. “Don’t move,” he said, unsure of where to check first for injuries. At least there was an abundance of padding. “Let’s make sure you’re not hurt before you try to get up.”

      Ignoring him, the irate dill pointed toward Jack. “You need to leave this restaurant. Now.” Then it turned back to Nate. “And you. You—”

      She stopped—it was definitely a she.

      Half a lifetime fell away.

      “Izzy?”