The Pancake Club
Anthology
Jennifer Conner-
JW Stacks-
Marilyn Conner Miles
Table of Contents
Title Page
The Pancake Club Anthology
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Copyright
The Pancake Club Anthology
Books to Go Now Publication
Copyright © Conner-Stacks-Miles 2015
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First eBook Edition May 2015
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Love on the Airwaves
Jennifer Conner
Chapter One
“The storm’s going to be a bad one tonight, Dolan. You better watch yourself out there.” Lola’s familiar voice echoed over his police radio. “It’s darker than the bottom of a well. They’re predicting seventy-mile-an-hour winds by one a.m.”
“Thanks for the warning. Just for tonight, would you like to change jobs?” he kidded.
“No. Thank. You.” Lola laughed and then coughed. “You guys wouldn’t have a clue what to do or where to go if you didn’t have me here at the station to field calls and point you in the right direction.”
“You’re right.” He chuckled. “You’re the most important one at the station. What’s going to happen to us when you retire in a few months?”
“Heaven knows. I’m not ready to give it up completely. I’m still staying on part-time. On the hours I’m gone, you’ll probably end up in Idaho after you get a call. Gotta go, there’s another call coming in. Talk to you later, sweetie.” The radio clicked off.
Dolan could barely see out the window of his patrol car as the rain beat down like a heavy drumbeat. He finally gave up the fight and turned the windshield wipers on high. Even then, the road was difficult to see. Thank goodness, there were only a few cars out braving the elements.
He gripped the steering wheel a little tighter as lightning followed in a blinding flash. A crack of thunder crashed over him and he swore under his breath.
A night not fit for man or beast, his mother used to say.
He spotted an outline of a vehicle alongside the road and he slowed to see if the car pulled back on the road. It didn’t. He slowly drove past and saw a woman alone in the front seat. She didn’t have a cell phone to her ear, so she hadn’t stopped to make a call. Her car, half in and half out of the road, straddled the white line.
Dolan looked for a driveway, turned in, and then backed out on the road. As he approached the car again, he hooked his black and white around and came up behind the car. He sighed, as he lifted his hat off the seat. Dolan buttoned his rain slicker up to the neck and slapped his plastic encased trooper’s hat on his head.
As he opened his driver side door, the blast of wind nearly whipped him out of the car and into the road. Pulling himself up, he slammed the squad’s door and then leaned into the wind as he moved forward. He felt like he was in one of those silly silent movies where the lead tried to battle against hurricane winds as things blew past. The weather was usually mild in Washington State, and hardly ever this bad.
We aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto, though it feels like it tonight.
He rapped his knuckles against the glass. The woman put her window down six inches.
“I can’t imagine why you would be sitting out here on a night like tonight unless you’re having a problem with your vehicle,” he said, as he tried to ignore the cold water running down the back of his neck.
“Yes, officer.” She nodded. “My car made this weird noise and then stopped. I could only get partially off the road before it completely died.”
“I’d take a look, but I’m not too good with cars. Do you need to call a tow truck and or someone to come and pick you up?”
“I would have done it myself, but I don’t have a cell phone. I was trying to convince myself to walk back to town, but the lightning...I thought it might be safer to stay here.”
“Let me call for a tow.”
“Thanks, officer.” She looked up. Her eyes flashed dark blue from the overhead light inside her car and she gave a half-hearted smile.
“There is only one tow service in town. I can call for a friend to pick you up. What’s the number?” He had to shout to be heard over the howling winds. The rain pelted his cheek like tiny needles.
“I’m new in town.” She frowned. “I don’t really know anyone to call, especially this time of night.”
“Let me go back to my squad car. I need to light some flares. It’s bad out here and I don’t want any drivers running into us.”
She nodded and rolled her window up.
Dolan walked a few steps toward his car when another tremendous blast of wind hit him, nearly knocking him sideways. There was a crack that sounded like breaking bones, and a creaking groan. His head snapped up as the large poplar alongside the road tilted. He only had time to put his arm up over his head and squat in front of the stranded woman’s bumper before the tree fell his direction.
With a thunderous crash, the tall tree landed squarely in the middle of his patrol car nearly cleaving it in half. The sound of metal and broken glass could be heard even over the roaring storm. The engine stuttered to a stop, the lights dimmed, and then went out.
He slowly rose to his feet and stared in disbelief as the woman jumped out of the car to stand beside him.
“Are you okay?” she asked in a panicked voice.
“I’m fine...but my...” He walked back toward the mess that a few seconds ago was his patrol car. He touched one of the branches of the fallen tree. “We were lucky this was a poplar and not something with larger branches. It would have hit your car and you could have been hurt.”
“I could have been hurt? You were the one out here in this mess trying to help me when it fell.” She didn’t have a hood on her coat so the rain soaked her hair against her head. The droplets ran down her face as she tried to blink them out. “Lucky? If you hadn’t stopped, you would still have a car. I’m the worst luck.”
“No. I figured you were stranded. I still would’ve stopped.�
� He turned and looked at her. “And you are lucky, because if I’d left a few seconds earlier and headed back to get the flares...I would’ve died.”
Her eyes widened as the reality of the situation hit. With all the rain on her face, he couldn’t tell if she was crying, but her eyes looked red.
“I’m going to see if I can get over or around this tree.” Dolan looked back. “Now we need the flares even more to warn other drivers. Get in your car, and I will be back in a minute.”
“Be careful !” she cried.
“I will, but tonight I have my guardian angel here with me.” He smiled, though she didn’t return it. “I’m going to get so much grief over this from the rest of the station.”
Dolan picked his way around the twisted tree until he made it to the back of his car. With a little effort, he managed to wedge open the trunk of his crushed car and lift out the flares. When he ignited the sticks, the red glow filled the dark, churning night. He walked back and tossed the flares on to the wet pavement.
He pushed the mic button on his collar. “Officer needs a supervisor and another unit with a camera.”
“Dolan, what’s going on?” Lola asked.
“You won’t believe it, but a tree just uprooted and smashed my patrol car flat.”
“Are you okay? Do you need an ambulance?” Always concerned, Lola was like a second mom.
“I was out of my car assisting a stranded vehicle. Can you call Bucky’s and see if he can send two trucks? We’ll need a tree service out here too to get this tree out of the middle of Westhills road just south of 45th. Also, possibly a utility truck to check for downed power lines.”
He climbed back over the tree trunk and looked up the road. The woman stood next to her car, soaked and shivering. He returned to the trunk to grab a blanket stashed there. If he wasn’t so rattled, he would have remembered it the first time.
He tucked the blanket under his arm and made his way back toward the young woman.
“You had best get in your car. Help will be here soon.”
“Only if you get in too. I’m not leaving you out here for anything else to fall on you.”
There was another flash of lightning. It was definitely a better offer than standing in this horrible weather. He nodded and went around to the other side of her car. When he slid into the passenger seat, he waited until both doors closed and then handed her the blanket.
“Thanks,” she said and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“My name’s Dolan Nash. What’s yours?”
“Tessa...Sh...Sheldon,” she answered through chattering teeth.
“It’s good to know the name of the woman who saved my life. You can’t pay it forward without it.” He smiled but she looked at him like she wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not.
Red and blue lights came from over the hill and then stopped. Two deputies jumped out of the car.
Dolan put on his hat and went back out into the rain. He heard his friend, Raymond, laugh.
“What the hell happened here?” Raymond shouted over the wind, as he pushed his hat lower and buttoned his coat.
“What does it look like? There’s a storm going on, if you haven’t noticed,” Dolan mumbled.
“Hope the chief doesn’t take this out of your paycheck.” Ted, Raymond’s partner laughed too.
Dolan started to say something, but stopped. He’d never had anything like this happen and they were a small town station with a small town budget and lots of cutbacks. They aren’t going to make me pay for the damages, are they? He thought a moment before reasoning kicked in.
No... it was an accident. Bad things happen to good people... His mom was always full of these sayings.
By the time the tree service removed the fallen trunk, he looked back at the stalled car. With all the commotion, he didn’t realize the woman’s car had been towed and he assumed she’d left with the tow truck.
Damn... he hadn’t had a chance to find out anything about her.
Chapter Two
“Okay, okay, get it out of your systems.” Dolan chuckled and took an exaggerated bow in the middle of the Memories Diner. The place erupted in applause with a few horse whistles thrown in. “I see that news travels fast in Mercy Ridge.”
“There has to be an easier way to get a new squad car than having a tree fall in the middle of it.” Jennifer grinned as she scooted to make room for Dolan to slide in beside her.
“There is no ‘easy’ way to get a new car. I think my penance was when I had to come in early this morning after pulling a long shift and fill out a mountain of paperwork about what happened. The captain did not look happy when I handed in the report, even though I kept telling him it was an accident!” he exclaimed.
“But you weren’t in the car, right? Of course you weren’t, that wouldn’t have been good.” Barb said as she frowned into her coffee cup. “A friend of mine was killed when a tree fell on his car.”
“I’m fine. I stopped to help a stranded motorist. I was on the way back to get flares out of my trunk when bam!” Dolan slapped his hand on the table with a crack.
Sami, the main waitress at the diner came over and took out her order pad. “What can I get ya, Dolan?”
“Full stack of your amazing pancakes and coffee.” He turned his cup over for her to fill.
“I’ll remember the extra syrup this time. We’re all just glad you’re safe,” Sami said as she tucked her pen behind her ear and patted him on the shoulder in a motherly gesture.
“Thanks. I had my guardian angel with me last night.” Mercy Ridge was a small town on most people’s radar, and everyone knew everyone’s business, but nice that others were concerned about him. This was definitely different than the feeling from all of the years he’d lived in L.A.
“The storm was a bad one. My power was out for hours. I’d almost read a whole book by a battery powered lamp when the electricity came back on ,” Chad said. “I don’t mind the power being out, but I hate not having water to drink or being able to flush the toilet.”
“I agree. When the power goes out it’s fun for about ten minutes, and then it’s a pain.” Barb turned to Dolan and asked, “Did you go to Seattle last weekend?”
“No.” Dolan frowned. “Why would I do that?”
“The other day when we were having breakfast, all you chatted on about was that new relationship talk show on KBJW. You rattled off a numbered list she gave over the airwaves of ways to meet that special someone in your life. You said that you were going to use that list, go to Seattle, and try and find a date.” Barb popped a large slice of French toast in her mouth.
“I didn’t go. I’ve been busy. And besides, I don’t like going into the city that much. I changed my mind.” Dolan thanked Sami as she slid the steaming plate of flapjacks in front of him. He spread a thick layer of butter on the pancakes with a knife, and then poured on the warm maple syrup.
“How are we going to meet anyone here?” Chad chuckled. “None of us want to date each other and the pickings are slim in Mercy Ridge.”
“Maybe your guardian angel has an idea of the perfect woman for you,” Jennifer said with a wink. “Why don’t you ask her?”
Dolan’s fork stopped half way to his mouth. The syrup dripped off his fork and back on to his plate as the vision of the cute brunette he’d met in the stalled car filled his mind. Why was he thinking of her? He’d only met her for a few minutes.
Tessa Sheldon. At least I remembered her name after everything else that happened that night.
He hated the fact that she’d tried to blame herself for what happened. There had to be a story there. He knew about self-blame all too well.
“That’s not a bad idea,” he finally said and then shoved the forkful of pancakes into his mouth.
“Your guardian angel is running a dating service?” Chad laughed. “Sign me up. I could use someone when I come home who’s happy to see me, other than my dog.”
“Don’t know,” Dolan said and shrugged. “You need to
ask your own angel, you can’t have mine.” Chad couldn’t have the woman whose vision kept popping into his head.
“How long will it take to replace your squad car?” Barb asked.
“Who knows?” Dolan rolled his eyes. “You know the old white panel van the station usually uses for parades and community events? They’re making me drive the paddy wagon until they can get the insurance cleared and buy another squad car.”
“Ohhhh... that’s harsh,” Chad said as he looked out the window of the restaurant and broke out laughing when he saw the van parked by the curb.
“I just wish they owned more than three squad cars and maybe had a backup, other than the paddy wagon. It’s bad enough I got the hand-me-down car that’s a ten year old Crown Victoria, but the paddy wagon... I feel stupid. Talk about a complete non-babe magnet.”
“It’s hard to be taken seriously in a panel van painted with the Monopoly cop on the side,” Jennifer said and covered her mouth as she tried not to laugh.
“No kidding.” Dolan chuckled. “I feel like I should be giving out ice cream from the back.”
“Do you wish you were back in L.A. where they have more than three cars, and not in this one-horse town?” Barb asked.
“Never.” He shook his head. That was the complete truth. He’d never go back to a big city. “I’ll drive the paddy wagon with a smile on my face.”
Jennifer turned toward him and grinned. “You are such a liar.”
“I’m a policeman. We can’t lie.”
Dolan ate breakfast with Barb, Chad and Jennifer at least twice a week. Being single, like the other three, the diner was a nice place to start your morning with a conversation and to eat the best breakfast in town. For over a year, they’d met so many times at the Memories Diner, the four of them took to naming their morning group, ‘The Pancake Club.’ He considered these people to be his closest friends since he’d moved north from L.A., but even they didn’t know the real reason he’d moved to Mercy Ridge.
Policemen did lie.
As hard as Dolan tried, he couldn’t clear his head of the girl from the storm. When he drove around town that morning, all he thought of was the fact he didn’t get more of a chance to talk with her. At two o’clock, he swung his van into Hank’s Towing. Hank could give him some missing information. He’d checked the CPD report, but found no address. He looked up her name. The last name came up tied to a Marion and Carl, but not Tessa.
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