by Sarah Fox
“Did you remember to pick up the cake?” she asked as I opened the door at the top of the stairs and stepped into my cozy living room.
“Yes, it’s in the fridge.” I went straight to my bedroom and grabbed the blue wrap dress I’d left hanging on the back of the door.
My white, long-haired cat was lying on the corner of my queen bed, watching me with his blue eyes. I paused to stroke his silky fur.
“Hello, Wimsey. Did you have a nice snooze?”
He purred and closed his eyes. I gave him a quick kiss on the top of his head and kicked off my shoes.
“Guess who I saw on my way over here,” Shontelle called from the other room.
“I have no idea.” I shed my clothes and slipped into the dress.
“That delicious Grayson Blake.”
I poked my head out the bedroom door. “Don’t you mean Grumpy-Pants Blake?”
“What did you do to make him grumpy?”
“Why do you assume I made him grumpy?” I asked, heading for my dresser and the jewelry box sitting on top of it. “I strongly suspect he was born that way.” I switched out my silver stud earrings for a set of small hoops.
Shontelle appeared in the doorway and leaned against the frame. “I’ve never known him to be anything but a courteous gentleman. And one tall glass of delicious.”
“Hrmph,” was all I had to say to that.
I slipped past Shontelle and headed for the bathroom, where I set about touching up my makeup. My friend’s opinion of the craft brewery owner matched that of my Aunt Gilda and pretty much every other woman in Shady Creek. Heck, I hadn’t heard a man say anything negative about him either. Sure, he was attractive, and he brewed award-winning beers, but my business—and only—dealings with him hadn’t been pleasant experiences. I found him brusque and as prickly as a porcupine. If not for the fact that his beers were so popular with both the tourists and locals, I wouldn’t have bothered to sell them at the Inkwell.
Pushing thoughts of the brewery owner out of my mind, I added some color to my lips and fastened my red hair into a twist at the back of my head.
“All ready?” Shontelle asked when I emerged from the bathroom. She’d retrieved the cake from the fridge and held the bakery box in her hands.
“Almost.”
I slipped into a pair of heels, grabbed my handbag, and pulled on my coat. I reached for the door but then spun around, almost smacking Shontelle across the face with my bag.
“Sorry!” I hurried into the kitchen. “I’d better feed Wimsey before we go.”
Wimsey came trotting out of the bedroom when he heard the spoon clanking against his food dish. I set his dinner on the kitchen floor and gave him a quick scratch on the head as he dug into his food, purring away.
“Okay, this time I’m ready,” I said as I returned to the door.
I locked up, and we headed down the stairs. As we reached the landing halfway down, Mel opened the door to the pub. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder and then slipped through the door, closing it behind her.
“Everything okay?” I asked, continuing down the stairs, noting that Mel appeared uncharacteristically hesitant.
“There’s someone here looking for you.”
“Who?” I made a move to go around her.
She put out an arm to block me. “I’m not sure it’s someone you want to see.”
I halted, suddenly apprehensive. “Who is it?” I asked again.
Mel gave me a sympathetic look. “It’s your ex.”
Chapter 2
“Eric?” I took a step back, bumping into Shontelle. “He’s not supposed to be here.”
Shontelle shifted the bakery box into one hand and put an arm around my shoulders. “Does he know Sadie’s here?” she asked Mel.
Mel shook her head. “I told him she was out for the evening, but he seems determined to wait.”
“Let him,” Shontelle said with authority. “We’ll go out the back way.”
“Thanks, Mel,” I managed to say as Shontelle guided me along the narrow hallway that led to the back door.
It wasn’t until we stepped out into the cooling evening air that my stunned mind started working again. As soon as it did, my shock morphed into annoyance and frustration.
“Why can’t he let me move on?” I fumed as we hurried around the back of the mill. “I’ve got a new life now, and he doesn’t belong in it.”
“Do you think he’s here to ask for another chance with you?”
“I can’t think of another reason why he’d come all the way from Boston to see me.”
We paused, and I peered around the corner of the building. The coast was clear, so we continued on, walking briskly past the pub’s front door and across the bridge. I worried that we’d hear Eric calling out to me at any second, but we managed to cross the street without that happening. I chanced a quick glance over my shoulder and saw with relief that there was no one behind us. We followed the road past the wide driveway on the left that led up to Grayson Blake’s brewery, and soon we turned right onto a residential street.
Now that we were out of sight of the pub, my shoulders relaxed, and we slowed to a more sedate pace.
“Do you think he’ll give up and go home if you avoid him for the rest of the evening?” Shontelle asked.
“After coming all this way? That’s probably too much to hope for.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have whisked you out of there then. Did you want to talk to him and get it over with?”
“No. That would only make us late for Aunt Gilda’s dinner, and I’m not letting him interfere like that. If he wants to wait, he can wait, but I’m not rearranging my schedule for him.” I inclined my head toward a small house on our left. “This is it.”
I led the way up to the front porch and knocked on the door.
“Please don’t mention this to Aunt Gilda,” I requested. “I don’t want her worrying about me when she’s supposed to be celebrating.”
The door opened then, putting an end to our conversation. My aunt’s gentleman friend, Louie Edmonds, greeted us and ushered us into his house. Gilda was already there, along with her friend and coworker, Betty.
“Happy birthday!” I gave my aunt a hug.
“Thank you, honey. I’m glad you made it.”
I relieved Shontelle of the bakery box so she could hug my aunt and wish her happy birthday too.
“I brought cake,” I announced once we’d all exchanged greetings.
Shontelle removed a bottle from her large handbag. “And I brought you some sherry.” She handed the bottle to Gilda. “I’m told it’s your favorite.”
“You were told right. That’s sweet of you both.”
Louie took the cake and sherry to the kitchen, and soon we were all seated at the dining table, eating the delicious lasagna Louie had baked for the occasion, each of us with a glass of wine.
“How’s that sweet little girl of yours?” Aunt Gilda asked Shontelle once we’d all had a chance to taste the food.
“She’s great, thanks,” my friend said with a smile. “My mom’s looking after her this evening. They’re going out for pizza, so Kiandra’s excited about that.”
We chatted a bit longer about Shontelle’s daughter before Louie turned to me.
“How’s business going at the pub?” he asked.
“Really well,” I said, trying my best to sound upbeat and unconcerned.
I hadn’t lied—the business was going well at the moment, thanks to the influx of tourists—but I couldn’t rid myself of the knowledge that Eric was over at the Inkwell, waiting for me to return. As much as I was trying to stay engaged with my present company, it was as if a dark cloud were hovering over me, refusing to release me from its gloomy shadow.
After answering another couple of questions from Louie, I managed to turn the conversation in a different direction, and soon we were chatting and laughing about things that had nothing to do with the pub or my ex-boyfriend.
When we’d all had o
ur fill of the delicious lasagna, I helped Louie clear the dishes away.
“I’ll look after the cake,” I assured him after we’d stacked the dirty plates on the kitchen counter.
He left me with a set of dessert plates and a knife for cutting the cake and returned to the other room. Alone in the kitchen now, I closed my eyes and tried to banish my ex from my thoughts. It didn’t work.
“Want to tell me what’s troubling you?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin, whipping around to see Aunt Gilda standing in the kitchen doorway. She wore her dyed auburn hair in an up-do, and the rubies hanging from her ears winked in the light while her brown eyes remained fixed on me.
“Nothing’s troubling me.” I turned back to the counter. “I’ll have the cake ready in a minute.”
Gilda crossed the kitchen to stand next to me. “You’re not fooling me, honey. I can see plain as day that there’s something weighing on your mind.”
I cut a slice of cake and set it on a plate. “I don’t want to cast a cloud over your party.”
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll spend the rest of the night worrying, so you’d best be out with it.”
I sank the knife into the cake again, knowing she wouldn’t let the matter rest until I told her what had me preoccupied. “It’s Eric. He showed up at the Inkwell earlier.”
“He came all the way from Boston unannounced?”
“He probably knew I’d tell him not to come.”
Gilda’s disapproval showed clearly on her face. She knew all about Eric and our relationship troubles. She’d provided me with a shoulder to cry on more than once after I’d left Boston for Shady Creek.
“Let me guess,” she said. “He asked for you to give him another chance.”
“I haven’t talked to him yet. Mel told him I wasn’t there, and I left through the back door so he wouldn’t see me. But my guess is the same as yours.”
She watched me closely. “And what are you going to tell him when you do see him?”
“The same thing I told him when I broke up with him four months ago. This time we’re done for good.”
“From what you’ve told me before, he’s not so good at listening.”
My shoulders sagged with the weight of my past. “No, he’s not. I’m sure he’ll tell me that he’s changed, that he’s attending counseling and won’t ever gamble again.”
“All of which you’ve heard before.”
“And all the other times it was a lie. Even when he told me he was going to see his counselor, he was really going to the casino.” I set the knife down on the counter, unable to focus on the cake. “I tried to help him. I really did. But all the lies . . . they became too much.”
Aunt Gilda put an arm around me, giving me a squeeze and patting my cheek. “You did the right thing for yourself by walking away. He had more chances than he deserved, and don’t you forget that, no matter how much he tries to sway you.”
“I won’t,” I said, my resolve strengthening. “I love my new life, and he has no place in it. I’ll tell him that and send him on his way.”
“That’s my girl.”
I smiled at her. “I’m glad we live so close now. My life is better with you in it on a regular basis.”
“Right back at you, honey.”
Still smiling, and feeling more positive than I had since learning of Eric’s arrival, I finished doling out the dessert, and we both returned to the party.
The cake, layered with chocolate buttercream, was nothing short of scrumptious. I’d ordered it from Sofie’s Treat, Shady Creek’s only bakery, located at the eastern end of the village green, next door to Aunt Gilda’s hair salon. The owner, Sofie Talbot, worked magic in the bakery’s kitchen, as far as I was concerned. Her cakes tasted like heaven on a fork, and in my opinion, her pecan pie ranked second only to Aunt Gilda’s, which was high praise, considering that Gilda’s pecan pie was legendary in our family.
I indulged in a second slice of cake, and by the time I licked the last bit of icing from my fork, I could practically feel the sugar rushing through my bloodstream. It was worth it, though.
After the table was cleared, I helped Louie load all the dirty dishes into the dishwasher.
“Dinner was great,” I told him as I slipped the last plate into an available slot. “Thanks for cooking and hosting. I can tell Gilda’s enjoyed herself tonight.”
Louie smiled his perfect retired-dentist smile and added a handful of cutlery to the dishwasher. “Making Gilda happy makes me happy, so it was my pleasure.”
He urged me to go join the others while he finished tidying up, so I wandered into the living room, where everyone else had gathered. I stood by the front window looking out into the darkness of the night, thinking about Louie’s relationship with my aunt. He was older than her by several years, and his neatly trimmed hair was completely silver-gray, but he was still active and in good health, often taking Gilda out for a round of golf or an evening of dancing. I knew my aunt enjoyed his companionship, but I didn’t know how deep her feelings for him ran, and whenever I’d tried to fish for that information, she’d deftly dodged the subject.
Maybe she was in the same boat as I was—not yet ready to give her heart to another man. I wasn’t ready to trust again after Eric’s lies, and Aunt Gilda had known a love that would be hard—if not impossible—to ever match. She and her late husband, Houston, had married at age nineteen and had stayed madly in love right up until Houston’s death from a heart attack thirty-three years later.
Looking at Gilda now, though, as she smiled and laughed with Shontelle and Betty, I knew she was happy, and that was what really mattered. I was happy too, generally at least. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Eric, but once I got that out of the way and sent him back to Boston, I could go back to being content, only having the health of my business to worry about.
For the time being, I left my spot by the window to rejoin the others.
“Shontelle and Sadie,” Betty spoke up, “I’ve been meaning to ask if either of you could step in as a judge for the pumpkin pie baking contest at the Autumn Festival. Judith Webster has been judging for years but she’s in the hospital with a broken hip.”
“That’s on Tuesday, isn’t it?” Shontelle asked. When Betty confirmed that, she continued, “I’m afraid I’ll be minding my store, and my mom has Zumba on Tuesdays, so she won’t be able to cover for me.”
“Sadie?” Betty turned her expectant eyes to me.
“Sure,” I agreed. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Great!” Betty beamed at me. “I’ll get the details to you in the next couple of days.”
As the conversation veered off in another direction, Shontelle hooked her arm through mine and tugged me to the far corner of the room.
“You do know what you’re getting into, right?”
“Um, tasting lots of pumpkin pie?” I said. “Sounds pretty good to me.”
Shontelle gave me a pitying look and patted my arm. “You’ll see.”
“I’ll see what?” I asked before she could leave me to return to the others.
“The competition is fierce, and when I say fierce, I mean sometimes the claws come out.”
“It’s really that big of a deal?”
“Especially among those who’ve been entering for years and years.”
Maybe that shouldn’t have surprised me after what I’d heard about the pumpkin catapult competition. “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said, although my confidence wavered with my last words.
“For your sake, I sure hope so.”
After a few seconds, I decided not to worry about the baking contest. After all, how bad could it really be?
Back across the living room, I let myself get swept up in the good cheer and conversation, and the time seemed to fly by. It was after ten o’clock when Shontelle got to her feet and announced that she needed to head home.
“I should relieve my mom of her babysitting duties for the night,” she explained.
>
“I’ll walk with you,” I said, fetching our coats from the foyer closet.
It took several more minutes for us to actually get out the door, between the wrapping up of conversations and the exchanges of parting words.
Gilda gave me a hug before we left, squeezing me tightly and saying quietly into my ear, “Tell me tomorrow how things go with Eric.”
I promised her that I would, and Shontelle and I took our leave. Instead of retracing the route we’d taken to get to Louie’s house, we turned onto Hillview Road, following it to the village green. Shontelle and her daughter lived on that street, in a two-bedroom apartment above her gift shop.
The crisp air of the afternoon had turned downright chilly now that night had fallen, and I was glad I’d worn a warm coat. I hadn’t thought to wear gloves, though, so I shoved my hands in my pockets to keep them from freezing. Despite the cold temperature, the night was beautiful, with the sky still clear and the stars glinting brightly overhead.
The businesses around the green were closed for the night, their storefronts dark, but the old-fashioned streetlamps lit our way, casting pools of yellow light on the road and walkways. I wished I could simply enjoy the walk out in the fresh air, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Eric was in town. I glanced across the green toward the mill, but all was dark and quiet over that way.
I sniffed the cool air. “Is that smoke?”
“Maybe someone’s having a bonfire.”
It didn’t quite smell like bonfire smoke, but I put the matter out of my mind. A minute or so later, we reached Shontelle’s shop, the Treasure Chest, but instead of heading for the door to the side of the shop that led to the apartment’s stairway, Shontelle paused in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Here comes your favorite person,” she said, a hint of amusement in her voice.
I followed her line of sight to see a figure heading in our direction. The shadowy shape took on more definition the closer it came, and I stifled a groan.
“Evening, ladies.” Grayson Blake paused on the sidewalk before us. He offered Shontelle a brief smile but barely glanced my way.
“Evening,” Shontelle replied as I forced a smile. “It’s a lovely night for a walk.”