Sugar and Spice: 3 Contemporary Romances

by Jenny Jacobs

  Well, damn. At least the two people involved would never have to know how badly Rilka had miscalculated.

  “Over here is my workroom,” Marilyn said. “Through here. Watch your step. This is my current work-in-progress.” Hands on hips, she stared up at the towering pile of metal, beaming proudly.

  “Is this all found material?” Rafael asked curiously.

  “Oh, yes. I’m known as the scrap-metal lady around town. You should see the junk people drop off. I did an installation last year, a series of dead refrigerators.”

  “Grab Me a Cold One?”

  “That’s it! You saw it!” Marilyn said delightedly.

  “I did. I thought it was ridiculous.”

  “Exactly.” Marilyn grinned.

  “So when Reston said you might do a piece on commission of course I agreed,” Rafael said. “What’s this called?”

  “Your Tax Dollars at Work,” Marilyn said. “But I think it may be too obvious.”

  How it could be obvious, Rilka did not know.

  “Pork Barrel Politics,” Rafael tried.

  “Inside the Beltway,” Marilyn said.

  Apparently they were speaking in tongues now.

  “Marilyn, will you allow me to take you to lunch?” Rafael asked. “I’d love to talk with you a little more.”

  • • •

  “I finally did it right,” Rilka said to Jeremy. She was calling him at work, which she had never done before and which meant … what?

  “Congratulations,” he said cautiously. “What did you finally do right?”

  “Marilyn and Rafael really hit it off.”

  “Marilyn? Wait a minute. She was pretty clear that she didn’t want you matchmaking.”

  “She never knew what hit her,” Rilka gloated.

  “Huh,” Jeremy said. The Marilyn he knew had seemed, if possible, even less interested in a relationship than Rilka did. Which meant … what?

  “I did it! I really did it. I cleared them all.”

  “Not all,” Jeremy said.

  “So I can do anything I want.”

  She wasn’t listening. “Okay,” Jeremy said and gripped the phone tighter. That meant sabbatical. That meant she was leaving. And she still hadn’t helped Jeremy with this problem, which wasn’t, he admitted, about getting laid — or at least not entirely so.

  She sounded drunk with happiness. “But I did it, I made a match!”

  “Go, you,” he said because he had to say something. Sabbatical. Leaving. What if she didn’t come back? What if she matched him before she left? He could just imagine her setting him up with someone great and then beaming at him, saying, “My work here is done,” when actually it hadn’t gotten started yet.

  “Umm,” he stalled, trying to figure out what to do now. “Why don’t I treat you to lunch? To … celebrate? We can go somewhere nice.”

  From the other side of the garage, Nate was looking at him like he’d lost his mind, and Jeremy realized he was covered with grease and grime so maybe not his smartest move ever. “Or I can bring pizza,” he added.

  “Pizza’s good,” she said, and hung up.

  He stared at the phone for a minute before hanging up.

  “That had to have been Rilka,” Nate said, opening the door on an 88 Plymouth.

  “It was.”

  “I suppose you’re taking lunch now. Even though I’m starving.”

  “Yes,” Jeremy said.

  “And I’m guessing you’re going to take more than half an hour.”

  “Yep.”

  “Good luck, bro.”

  “Shut up.” Jeremy ignored Nate’s chuckle as he rolled into the bathroom to wash up.

  • • •

  Rilka hung up the phone and looked at it for a minute. She had called Jeremy at work to share the good news, which she didn’t really do with other clients. And she was looking forward to seeing him in a way that she didn’t look forward to seeing her friends. So it wasn’t that he had moved from client to friend.

  Her heart stuttered and she found herself in her bedroom, looking through her closet for the lavender shirt because she looked good in lavender.

  That made her sit down on her bed and put her head between her knees.

  The bastard had snuck up on her when she wasn’t looking. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t fair.

  She thought about Davis, her last boyfriend. If you had asked her if she’d loved him, she would have said yes. But that had been affection and laziness. Until he’d moved on, she’d been willing to overlook the blindingly obvious truth: theirs was not a partnership. It wasn’t even a love affair.

  Oh, boy. She was going to have to say something to Jeremy. She was going to have to say — well, maybe she could get out of it. Maybe she could just go on her sabbatical and move to Bangkok with her mother.

  The doorbell rang and she pulled the lavender shirt on, ran a comb through her hair, stopped for a second in the bathroom to check her makeup, and darted down the hall to get the door.

  It was Jeremy, pizza on his lap. She scooped up the box and brought it into the kitchen, feeling flustered. The chair that she usually moved out of the way for him had permanently been placed in a corner, and Sugar was snoozing on it. She said in a rush, “Water Diet Coke tea?”

  And he said, giving her a strange look, “Water’s fine,” the words coming out in a rush for him, too.

  She brought the glasses to the table, her hands shaking a little, and sat down next to him.

  “So,” Jeremy said. “Congratulations. You did what you set out to do.”

  She had to concentrate for a minute to remember what she had set out to do because that success seemed like a month ago now.

  “Yep,” she said.

  “So now what?” he said, opening the box of pizza and not looking at her.

  She fell back in her chair. “So here’s the weird thing.”

  “You don’t want to stop,” Jeremy said.

  “Right.”

  Okay, so far so good. He had stopped fiddling with the pizza box.

  “Really? You’re going to stay?”

  She nodded, wiping her slick palms on her jeans. She didn’t have to tell him. Well, she did. But maybe not this minute. Maybe she could take a month or so to get used to the idea.

  “What happened?” he asked, giving her an intense look.

  “Happened?” Her throat was suddenly dry and she licked her lips and grabbed his glass of water. She swallowed hard and came up gasping.

  “That made you change your mind,” he clarified.

  “I figured out Gran’s secret.”

  “Oh?” He leaned forward. She was going to have to tell him. Okay, maybe she didn’t have to name names.

  “So, Gran had been in love,” Rilka said.

  Jeremy nodded, and seemed to expect more. But that was all; that was everything. After a minute, Jeremy seemed to realize she had nothing more to say so he said, “Gran had been in love, which, what, made her believe in love?”

  “Exactly.” Rilka was having a hard time breathing.

  “And she wanted other people to experience that.”

  “Right,” she said, trying to go for cheeriness and only sounding desperate. “So she could be patient, and not feel like she was lying when she said love was worth waiting for, love was worth finding. That it was worth looking for.”

  “Okay,” Jeremy said. “And that means you’re going to keep matchmaking because?”

  “Because I’m in love,” she blurted out and felt her cheeks turn bright red. She hoped he wouldn’t ask the obvious question.

  He didn’t, or at least he didn’t ask the question that was obvious to her, which would be Who’s the lucky guy, but the one that was obvious to him, wh
ich was “Good, because you haven’t actually cleared your client list. When do I get my match?”

  She looked up at him, at the grin on his face. He knew.

  “Oh, shut up,” Rilka said. “You know as well as I do that you’ve met your match.”

  “Thank God. Does that mean I’m finally going to get laid?”

  “Pretty sure,” Rilka said, and leaned in for a kiss. She didn’t have to go far, because he was already leaning in for one himself.

  More From This Author

  (From The Winter Promise)

  Lady Imma slipped out of the side door and into the garden, darting a glance over her shoulder to ensure she remained unobserved. She crept toward the towering oak in the center of the abbey’s courtyard, where she had arranged to meet the messenger who had promised to send her painfully gathered secrets to her king, back home in Cymru, which these English called Wales.

  In the opposite wing, the kitchen door opened and for a brief moment, she saw the silhouette of a broad, beefy man in a monk’s robe framed in the doorway. Then he stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind him and returning the courtyard to twilight. Imma waited for him to make his way to where she stood and announce himself. A few simple Welsh phrases, the passing of parchment from one hand to another, and her duty would be done.

  “There you are!” a familiar high-pitched voice trilled.

  Imma whirled in time to see her friend Helen hastening up the garden path toward the oak. With a sharp gesture, Imma warned the monk from the kitchen to stay back. Helen might seem foolish, but she missed little and she talked about what she saw.

  Knees trembling from the near-discovery, Imma sank onto one of the stone benches surrounding the oak as if she had merely intended to spend a few quiet moments alone out here before the evening meal.

  “This is a peaceful spot,” Helen said approvingly, sitting next to Imma and patting her hand, the very hand in which Imma clutched the folded piece of parchment that would cause the lord of Wessex to hang her if she were discovered in possession of it. Not even Helen would forgive her for it.

  Her throat suddenly dry, Imma did not have to pretend the cough that came. She covered her mouth, then slipped the parchment into the bodice of her gown, hoping nothing dislodged it from its hiding place. Affectionate Helen gave many spontaneous, unexpected hugs. Ordinarily, Imma appreciated this quality in her closest friend. But not tonight.

  “The abbot is so pleased,” Helen said, squeezing the hand she had previously patted. “He was just telling me how much he admired your dedication to your duty.”

  “Mmm,” Imma said, the parchment burning against her skin. Did these English never ask themselves to whom she owed her duty?

  They had set out from Canterbury a few days before Michaelmas, the pleasant fall weather ideal for traveling. A company of forty strong, including a retinue of the king’s soldiers, they had spent several days at Glastonbury, the shining city, so that Imma could accomplish her mission and fulfill the final request of her dead husband.

  The abbot’s appreciation for the books would have pleased Imma’s husband Simon but Imma felt the abbot’s gratitude out of proportion to the act. The books were merely on loan; they would be returned to the library at Canterbury once the abbot’s scribes had made copies. The English king, Edward, called the Confessor for his religiosity, encouraged the copying of religious works.

  Imma always knew her duty, and did it, and did not complain — to other people, at least. She had frequently expounded at length to her cat on the subject of the iniquities of the English and her cold, elderly husband — but Prys (the cat) had remained behind at Canterbury in the care of Helen’s cook. Imma understood the impracticalities of traveling with cats but she would have given all of Simon’s books for the chance to talk to someone who understood.

  “Your duty to Simon is fulfilled,” Helen said, a tone of approbation in her voice. To Helen, Imma had closed the door on one part of her life preparatory to opening another. Could it be that simple? Did one merely move from man to man, father to uncle, uncle to husband, husband to husband?

  She knew what was next, after winter ended. Despite being barely twenty-one-years old, she felt ancient, battered, and sad, the promise of youth and happiness gone, a future only to be endured, not embraced.

  The parchment pricked her skin, reminding her how close she was to discovery, and for all of her dread of the future, she wanted one. Which meant none could ever know her true reason for undertaking this task. She could have sent the books to Glastonbury by messenger — no one would have criticized that — but she had had another purpose in coming herself. So she had arranged to accompany her friends, Helen and Helen’s husband, Sir Harold, on their separate mission for the king. Helen had been delighted to have her companionship and whatever Helen liked, Harold liked, too. That was a good husband.

  “I am pleased to have accomplished what I set out to do,” Imma said.

  “Won’t Elizabeth be surprised?” Helen asked happily. Imma noticed that she did not mention her nephew, Robert, the lord who ruled these lands in his brother’s stead. She gleaned from the facts and gossip that Helen let drop that while Lord Robert might also be surprised at their turning up, he would not be nearly as pleased about their arrival on his doorstep as Elizabeth would be. But Helen would never let a little problem like that dent her happiness.

  Now in her late sixties, Helen, plump and elderly, could never believe her good fortune. She delighted in everything — Imma and her Welsh accent; the mission that had brought them here; the city of Glastonbury itself, tucked in its cluster of hills; the abbot and his long stories about the founding of the monastery by Joseph of Arimathea, who had brought the holy grail here before it had gone to its final resting place. Above all these delights, Helen was thrilled to have the chance to spend time with her sister, Lady Elizabeth.

  Upon reaching Glastonbury, Helen’s servant, sent to announce their unexpected arrival, had discovered that Elizabeth now resided at the nearby island keep of Athelney instead of the castle at Glastonbury. Elizabeth had ordered and supervised the household’s move from Glastonbury to their winter quarters for Lord Robert, while he fought the armies of the Welsh king. October was battle month; the English sensibly kept warring to a minimum during the sowing, growing, and reaping seasons, but once the harvest was in, the blood-let began.

  Imma had once believed her uncle when he said he thought she could help stop the war. She no longer believed anything could stop the blood-let.

  And she was under no illusion that Elizabeth, ruling Lord Robert’s keep in his stead, would not hold her race against her. From all accounts, the formidable lady possessed a virulent dislike of the Welsh, and for very good reasons. Her only son had died on a Welsh sword and her beloved nephew had lost countless thanes to the armies of Imma’s uncle. Lord Robert would be no better pleased at a Welshwoman’s appearance in his household upon his return from battle. If he returned. Perhaps the Steward of Wessex would fall against the might of Imma’s uncle. The thought cheered her.

  “Lord Robert will take no notice of you,” Helen said reassuringly, which did nothing to ease Imma’s concerns. Lord Robert would most certainly be well aware of each and every member and guest of his household. From what the abbot had said, the keep at Athelney was not that large, and Lord Robert was a good steward. He would notice.

  She did not know how she would tolerate living in the household of her uncle’s greatest enemy. But it was possible she would learn something there, something that would help her uncle demand peace.

  “Surely it is not so dreadful as that?” Helen teased her.

  “What?”

  “You look quite fierce, dear Imma,” her friend replied with a smile. “Is it the necessity of having a meal with the abbot that makes you look that way?”

  Imma smoothed the expression from her face as
the years of her marriage had taught her to do. Helen knew full well that she had not been brooding about eating at the abbot’s table, but one of the ways Helen remained cheerful and ever-delighted was not to allow the grimmer truths of the world to intrude upon her.

  “I long for a joint of beef,” Imma replied, matching Helen’s light tone. “Or even a piece of mutton.” The abbot of Glastonbury monastery did not serve meat at his tables, not even for an atheling.

  “I would pledge my manor house at Sandwich for a meal of venison and duck,” Helen admitted. “Or a slice of goose or wild boar — ”

  “Stop!” Imma held up a hand, laughing. “You’re making my stomach growl when no doubt tonight we will dine on bilberries and beans.”

  Helen leaned forward and touched her cheek. “It is good to hear you laugh. Oh, Imma. If only you could be as happy as I am.”

  “That is your gift,” Imma said. When she was a young girl, her father had died in battle, covering himself in honor, and her mother in childbirth, bearing another son who would not survive to adulthood. Her uncle, the ferocious Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, then a widower himself, had fostered her, not knowing what to do with a tiny girl among his tall sons. Perhaps he had not reared her as gently as he might have, but he had loved her full well. There had been happy moments: the laughter of Gruffydd when his female bard, Efa, told a story; the blossoming in Imma’s heart at a young boy’s kiss; moments like the gift of a ring, not often received but treasured all the more because of it.

  Lately there had been no such moments of happiness, only a bleak emptiness that Imma did not know how to fight. Even as she clasped Helen’s hand, tears blurred Imma’s sight. She would not have a kind husband like Harold, who loved his Helen and indulged her whims and sacrificed his own desires and comforts so she would not lack. No, Imma would be married off to a stranger in want of a fortune. It would be an older man, with sons grown or nearly so, impatient with the young wife who came with the treasure, just as Simon had been. She had wanted to rail against him when he complained of her untried youth. Her youth would disappear in time, and he had known her age when he had decided upon marrying her.