Special Delivery

by Abby Tyler

  Special Delivery

  Applebottom Matchmaker Society

  Abby Tyler

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Applebottom Meeting Minutes

  Gertrude & Maude’s Blackberry Pie

  About Abby Tyler

  Summary

  When Applebottom’s bachelor police chief gets custody of a newborn baby, the town knows exactly what to do. Pair him with Louisa, the pizza baker who worries that the time spent caring for her elderly parents meant that the chance for love and family has already passed her by.

  Copyright © 2019 by Abby Tyler. All rights reserved.

  * * *

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  * * *

  AbbyTyler

  PO Box 160116

  Austin, TX 78716

  www.abbytyler.com

  * * *

  Paperback ISBN: 9781938150883

  * * *

  Edition 3.0

  Chapter 1

  Louisa Temple had just sold her last pizza.

  She took a moment to make sure the crust was centered in its cardboard box. It was her best pizza ever, without a doubt. Perfectly sauced. Evenly cheesed. The pepperoni was spaced as precisely as the beads of a wedding dress. Chopped olives sprinkled across the surface as beautifully as a cascade of black stars.

  This was definitely one for the books.

  She folded down the cardboard corners and tucked them in. She admired the empty shelf where her stacks of boxes had once waited for orders to come in. It was the end of an era.

  She slid the box into an insulated case for the delivery. She took her time. She wasn’t a major chain. She didn’t promise that a pizza would arrive in thirty minutes. And this final one was important. Louisa didn’t want to rush it.

  She still needed to wash the battered metal discs she used to bake the pizzas, but that could wait for when she got back. She should find a place to donate them. Maybe one of the churches that hosted dinners could use them.

  Certainly, no other household in Applebottom would need fifteen specialized pizza pans. She would keep her favorite, though. It would be a reminder of how she once supported herself by providing fresh, hot pizza to a little town that had no other way to get it without driving to a bigger city.

  On her way to the door, Louisa stopped by her mother’s old bedroom, achingly empty now that she’d finally donated the hospital bed that had filled it for almost a decade. There hadn’t been a regular bed there in forever, and Louisa wasn’t sure she wanted to fill it now. It was quite likely that she would end up selling the house and moving somewhere else.

  But those were decisions for tomorrow. She flipped off the light and carried the pizza out to her car. She’d only been delivering them for the last three months since her mother passed away. The whole enterprise had started as a way to supplement her mother’s Social Security checks while Louisa cared for her. She continued the business even after the funeral, not sure what else to do, and added a delivery option that had become extremely popular.

  Now that was ending, too. She’d finished her typing and basic computer skills courses online, and a company in Branson had promised her temp work that would hopefully lead to a permanent position before too long.

  After all these years of devoting herself to her parents, her time had finally come to fly. And none too soon, since she’d turned forty last summer.

  Her car rumbled down the quiet street. Louisa knew the man who was receiving the pizza quite well. Officer Jack Stone had been in charge of the Applebottom Police Department for five years, and had been a deputy under Officer Tatum for ten years before that.

  He was only a year older than her, graduating from Applebottom High School when Louisa was a junior. They’d never particularly taken to each other. Officer Stone was a stick-in-the-mud. Louisa was a smart aleck, show off, and a prankster.

  She might have pulled more than one doozy of a joke on him.

  In fact, back in the day, Jack Stone told Louisa that one day she would pull a prank so vile, or so illegal, that when he became a police officer, he would be the one to arrest her.

  Louisa giggled as she turned onto his street. That had certainly never happened. She’d been too good to get caught in her youth, and then, of course, she’d been busy caring for her parents. Those crazy prankster days seemed way in the past.

  Unless she revived them now.

  Her life had been so serious for so long. She’d been called back from college halfway through her degree to care for her father while her mother worked to try to keep them afloat. Then her mother had been diagnosed with cancer.

  Meanwhile, her baby brother got off scot-free, moving to Brussels of all places, and only visiting at Christmas. But he’d done the right thing by signing his half of the house over to her, giving her the opportunity to sell it and start her life again, which she would do.

  As soon as she delivered this one last pizza.

  Jack was in over his head.

  The baby cried and cried and cried. Her diaper was swollen, but he’d used the last one from the open package and hadn’t unearthed the other box that he knew was buried somewhere.

  He held her on his shoulder, a bath towel draped over his shirt. He’d run out of clean clothes two days ago, and for the first time, realized why people had washers and dryers at home. Getting to a Laundromat with a two-week-old baby was next to impossible.

  At least for him.

  Every surface in his house was covered in towels to manage the torrents of spit-up this baby could produce. When the caseworker had dropped her off, along with the diapers, formula, and a few essentials, she told him the baby had reflux and not to worry if she vomited a lot.

  He was scheduled to take her to the pediatrician in Branson in a few days, although he didn’t know how he was going to manage that. He hadn’t even walked to the mailbox since she’d arrived.

  “Come on, Ella, sleep a little.” He’d given her a bottle an hour ago, but he wasn’t sure how much of it had come right back up. It seemed too soon to feed her again. The caseworker said every three hours.

  He should focus on finding the rest of the diapers.

  Where was that pizza?

  He’d never ordered from Louisa before. She wasn’t his favorite person. Not even a few of his memories of her from their youth were pleasant.

  He did hate that she’d been stuck for years in that little house near the elementary, caring for first one critically ill parent, then the other. But that didn’t mean he sought her out.

  Until, of course, he ran out of food and had no choice but to call the only delivery option in town.

  The baby still wailed. He felt helpless. He’d watched YouTube videos of mothers patting their babies’ backs while spreading them over their knees to
ease their colic. But this only seemed to make Ella more upset.

  The only thing that seemed to work was to walk.

  If he used one of those Fitbit things that were so popular, he’d be killing everybody’s stats just by the circles he made through the living room. As it was, he’d finally started wearing tennis shoes, even on the carpet, because his hours upon hours of pacing with the child had made his feet hurt.

  This was embarrassing to admit. He was a big tough guy, the head of the police department. He could bench press the weight of an average person.

  Of course, he hadn’t worked out since Ella arrived, either.

  He’d have to figure something out soon. His two weeks of vacation would end in six days, and none of the nanny candidates were taking the position once they found out his work schedule. Nobody wanted to drive forty-five minutes to this small town just to work six a.m. to six p.m. one day and then midnight to noon two days later. Daycare was out, obviously.

  But Applebottom only had three officers, and they had to work around each other. Right now, the other two were suffering, trying to cover his time off.

  He hadn’t told anybody why. He hadn’t even left the house.

  This pizza delivery would be the first time anyone would have any contact with baby Ella.

  Of course, it would have to be Louisa Temple.

  Chapter 2

  Louisa parked on the street in front of Jack’s modest house on Murray Street, just a few blocks down from where young Lorelei set Linda’s front yard on fire almost a year ago.

  It was a good street. Many of Applebottom’s finest citizens lived on it. Arnold, who owned the barbershop on Town Square, was also just up the road.

  Jack probably had no idea that this was her last pizza. Louisa would have preferred it be someone she actually liked, maybe Maude at the pie shop. Or Savannah and Boone out at the animal shelter. Or her best customer, Mayor T-bone. But, no. When she’d gotten down to her last box, the call that would come in just had to be Jack Stone.

  She grabbed the order and headed up to Jack’s front door. She’d never been inside his house. He’d never actually ordered her pizza before. She assumed that he still hated her over the incident, her most heinous prank on him. She almost wished she had booby-trapped the pizza box. She could’ve really gone out with a bang.

  She was actually considering going back and adding habanero juice to the pizza when she heard a baby crying inside.

  What was Jack doing with a baby?

  As far she knew, Jack no longer had family in Applebottom. His parents had retired to Florida. And his sister, well, everyone knew she was a hot mess. One of the ironies of Jack being a police officer was that his sister had been in and out of jail on drug charges half a dozen times since the age of twenty.

  In fact, Louisa wasn’t sure whether Jenica was currently in or out.

  But if he had company, Louisa was glad she hadn’t done anything stupid with his pizza.

  Still, it would’ve been funny.

  She rang the doorbell.

  The cries of the baby grew louder as someone approached the door. Interesting. She couldn’t picture serious, stoic Jack holding an infant whatsoever, so he must be tied up while his guest came to the door.

  But when the door opened, Louisa couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  The Jack she was used to, with a perfectly crisp police uniform, impeccably trimmed hair, and a perpetually stern expression was completely gone.

  The man before her looked like a harried housewife. He wore baggy sweats that hadn’t been changed out in days, judging by the stains. He had an old towel slung over his shoulder, covered in white goo. A thick, uneven growth of stubble had sprouted all over his jaw and upper lip.

  In his arms, he cradled a baby wearing a shirt that was clearly made for regular humans, not an infant. The diaper was so swollen it had to be holding a quart of something.

  Louisa was dumbfounded. “Jack? Are you okay?”

  His eyes were on the pizza box. “Thank God for food. I ran out yesterday, and I haven’t been able to go anywhere.” He stepped aside so Louisa could bring it in. “Sorry I don’t have a free hand. Can you set it on the coffee table?”

  Louisa had always imagined Jack’s house as streamlined and tidy, but that’s not what she found.

  Towels were draped everywhere, as if Jack was trying to protect his furniture. Several empty diaper boxes were strewn about, plus formula bottles, pacifiers, and all manner of crumpled clothes.

  A black Doberman lay in a bed in the corner. His ears pricked up at Louisa’s arrival, but his nose stayed down on his paws. He didn’t seem too happy about the situation either.

  Louisa tried to set the box on the coffee table, but there really wasn’t space.

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said. “It’s a mess. I know.”

  “That’s okay.” She realized the situation was serious. “Why don’t I help you clean up a little?”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “It is if I’m going to set this down.”

  She pushed aside a dozen empty formula bottles, crumpled energy drink cans, and protein bar wrappers. When she made enough space to set down the pizza, she started gathering up everything that was clearly trash.

  The infant howled mercilessly. It was really tiny. Louisa wasn’t around many babies anymore, but this one couldn’t be even a month old. Its cry was small, but something about it struck her straight in the soul.

  “Who’s that you’ve got there?” Louisa asked.

  “Never mind that,” Jack snapped. “Let me find you some money for the pizza.”

  He rummaged around in a pile of clothes, finally extricating a pair of pants with pockets. The wallet must’ve been stuck, though, because it wouldn’t come loose.

  Meanwhile, the baby continued the jagged, heart-rending cries.

  Louisa stuffed all the trash she had gathered into an empty plastic bag. “Don’t worry about the money. Why don’t you give the baby to me for a second? You look like you could use a breather.”

  Jack hesitated for a moment, his jaw clenching, then passed the infant over. “If I could just walk into another room for about five minutes, that would be incredible.”

  When he got close, the smell hit her. She wasn’t sure if it was the baby, the man, or the two of them together, but it was strong.

  “You know what? I’ll change the baby.” She glanced around, hoping she could figure out where the diapers were. “And you hop in the shower for a minute. I’m sure someone like you doesn’t take more than three minutes in there because you don’t want to waste water.”

  Jack let out a grunting laugh. “I don’t know. I might stay in there for a century.”

  “We’ll be all right. I can handle this for a few minutes. You go on.”

  She thought he would argue, but he just nodded and disappeared down the hallway.

  Louisa paced the floor of the living room, jiggling the baby up and down.

  What a mess Jack had gotten himself into. She kicked aside trash and bags, looking for a box that still had diapers in it.

  She spotted his prized football on the shelf, and her belly flipped. Of course he’d still have it. Even as the baby howled in her ear, she stepped close to peek at it.

  Yep, it still showed the shine of the Vaseline Louisa had spread on it right before the big pep rally twenty-three years ago. It was the end of Jack’s junior year, and he was about to be thrown the ceremonial football that symbolized the passing of leadership from last year’s captain to next year’s.

  Louisa had been a sophomore, and in prime prank position as one of the pep squad leaders out on the floor. She offered to hold the football during the coach’s speech and applied the coat of Vaseline while she waited.

  Thomas, the old captain, had frowned when he’d taken it from her. But the entire school was yelling, “Throw it, throw it!”

  So he did.

  Louisa had felt a zing of anticipation as the ball sailed across
the length of the basketball court where the pep rally was held. Jack stood at the other end, waiting to receive it. She recalled wondering if it wouldn’t be slippery enough, and her work would go unnoticed.

  Oh, no. It was plenty slippery.

  Thomas had thrown a little high, so Jack had to reach up to snatch the ball. His fingers grazed it, but couldn’t get hold. He bobbled it through his hands, bringing it down in front of his chest, then catching it between his elbows.

  Still, it shimmied down, and he’d crouched, trying to trap it against his belly. Photos were snapped of his awkward pose, and a particularly silly one got placed in the school yearbook to be remembered forever. Despite his efforts, the ball hit the floor.

  The entire student body roared with laughter as their new football captain failed to catch a simple toss in the gym.

  When he scooped up the ball, the hilarity resumed as it shot out of his grasp a second time.

  Louisa had almost felt bad.

  And today, sitting here with the baby crying, and witnessing Jack’s distress, she did feel a little twinge.

  But she needed to find diapers. And formula. Where would that be?

  Maybe in the kitchen.

  She moved to the next room, and it was even worse. Jack had clearly been completely out of his depth for some time. The sink was a mound of dishes. Every counter was covered in pots and pans.

  She opened the fridge, wondering if there might be some milk in there to warm up, and grimaced at the empty interior. He was down to condiments and pickles.