Love in a Pickle: A Silver Fox Small Town Romance (Green Valley Library Book 9)

by Smartypants Romance

  Chapter 4

  Halloween Round Table

  [Scotia]

  October

  Admittedly, autumn is not the height of pickle season, but a good fried pickle works anytime, anywhere. Especially when our newest account is a chain of bars in North Carolina, and I’m in a dither when something goes wrong with the order.

  “What do you mean it didn’t arrive?” I bark into the phone. When my husband was killed—God rest his spirit—I inherited money I didn’t know the penny-pinching pediatrician had set aside for a rainy day. That rainy day arrived when he died, and I decided to enter my fried pickles in a contest.

  And I won.

  Take that, Diane Donner-Sylvester.

  My former best friend thought her daughter was always all that. Banana Cake Queen, my yoga-toned backside. She wanted to live vicariously through her prize-winning, baker daughter and look where it got her—on the run from police with a motorcycle man named Repo.

  Me, on the other hand . . . I won that contest. Me! And I’ve been nicknamed the Fried Pickle Princess by Roadside Rumblings, a television program hosted by a famous foodie. I’d like to be considered a queen because princess has a coquettish and juvenile connotation, but royalty is royalty, and I won’t give up my newfound status. By marrying a Simmons, I shed the history of growing up a Winters—the product of religious fanatic parents in a small armpit of the mountains. I didn’t disapprove of my upbringing—Daddy loved me best—but I didn’t want to be poor my entire life. When I met and married Karl Simmons, sealing my future to protect his, I fell into a different type of royalty—small-town society.

  Don’t get me wrong. Diane had been a good friend as far as friends go when you’re a member of the Green Valley upper crust. We had a love-hate relationship. I loved to hate her and vice versa, and nothing fed our competitive spirit more than the comparison of our daughters.

  Her daughter was a beauty queen.

  Mine was valedictorian.

  Her daughter was a master baker.

  Mine went to medical school.

  Whereas my girl, Darlene, dodged a bullet by not ending up with one of those Winston boys—her sight originally set on Beau—Diane’s daughter seemed to feel it was a badge of honor to become one of them and eventually married that oddball Cletus.

  In my opinion, intelligence outwitted beauty. Clearly, my daughter won.

  However, over the past few years, I have come to an understanding with Diane’s daughter, Jennifer Winston. She’s lost her mother, and I’m missing my daughter something fierce. Being that I was one of her mother’s best friends, despite our competitiveness, I’ve grown fond of the younger woman who has a kind spirit and trusting nature.

  “I trust you today, Mrs. Simmons, but I’ll be checking in on that trust tomorrow.” Bless her heart, she’s too cute for her own good some days. And with age comes reflection, and I’m coming to appreciate that kindness trumps smarts. Perhaps, Jennifer Winston wins after all.

  “I want a delivery update stat,” I bark into the phone to my assistant, Gideon. He’s my fifth assistant in as many years, and he’s lasted the longest.

  Hanging up, I toss the device on my desk where it instantly rings. “Yes,” I snap.

  “Hey, Scotia, just reminding you of our plans tonight.” My sister Beverly’s chipper voice grates over my current nerves. Apparently, finding true love can make you happy.

  “Look, Beverly, I’m having a situation here, so I don’t—”

  “Great, Naomi will be there at five.”

  “Beverly, I don’t— Hello? Hello?” The line is dead. I pull the phone away from my ear, glaring down at the screen.

  “Did you just hang up on me?” I growl at the technology in my palm, cursing my sister. Despite Beverly being only two years younger than me, we weren’t close as children. She always sought my approval, but I didn’t eagerly give it. We were just too different. She wanted happily ever after, and I wanted status. It’s been almost thirty years since we were teenagers, and we’ve slowly begun to rebuild our sisterhood. Especially after the showdown with her no-good ex-husband, Howard, last fall.

  Age brings wisdom on who should be important in your life.

  Our relationship rehab includes mandatory once-a-month meetups, and this month is our youngest sister Naomi’s turn to decide on a location, which means she will be driving us.

  I glance at the clock on my phone and see I have forty-two minutes to get my pickle order processed properly before the sister cavalry arrives and forces me to go with them to wherever we’re going.

  “Once upon a time,” Naomi begins.

  “This isn’t a fairy tale,” I quickly interject as we sit in some biker bar almost forty-five minutes away from Green Valley. My youngest sister’s nose scrunches in displeasure at my interruption. With hair that is a mix of white and silver, she wears it in a long, intricate braid over her shoulder and looks like a magical witch more than a fairy.

  “I love a good fairy tale,” Beverly adds, which I ignore while watching Naomi sympathize with our middle sister. Once upon a time, none of us Winters sisters had anything close to a fairy tale in matters related to romance. Then Nathan Ryder and Jedd Flemming appeared, and my sisters each fell down their respective rabbit holes of bliss.

  “We need an idea for the Halloween party,” Naomi reminds me.

  “Remind me again why we are going together,” I mutter into my wine glass. My lips purse at what I consider a terrible idea, even though I promised to go along with it. Naomi recommended we attend the annual Green Valley community center Halloween party at the end of the month. That is, we attend collectively, as in the three of us together, as in sisters in coordinating costumes like we are still children.

  “A fairy-tale theme works. We could be three fairies, like from Sleeping Beauty. Fauna, Flora, and Merryweather,” Beverly offers, and my nose wrinkles this time, not caring for the suggestion. My sister has snow-white hair cut short to her chin in a tumble of loose waves. She’s tall and wiry thin and more similar in appearance to a wise elf than some fluffy fairy in a pastel dress.

  “We are not fairies.” I scoff, recalling us as children in princess nightgowns.

  I take a moment to allow my gaze to roam the layout of the bar. A clientele of bikers and tourists surround us. The Fugitive was Naomi’s idea. My sister’s new husband has connections here. Nathan’s older brother and his best friend run the place. I have nothing against Nathan Ryder, other than taking my sister’s virginity—once upon a time—and causing a family ruckus because of it, but that’s old news and happened twenty-something years ago. Time passes on what we can no longer rectify.

  “What about symbols? Like the Deathly Hallows? A triangle, a circle, and a wand.” Naomi’s lips curl upward on the last word, and her eyes dash across the bar to Nathan sitting on a stool talking to his older brother playing bartender.

  “How very Harry Potter,” Beverly beams.

  “I’m not going as a square,” I grumble.

  “Not a square. I just said a triangle, a circle, and a wand,” Naomi repeats and bites the corner of her lip as though she’s holding back a secret. She and Beverly exchange a glance, and I’m reminded again of when the three of us were children. Naomi and Beverly, while six years apart, were closer to one another than Beverly and me.

  You’re our promise, Scotia, Daddy used to say to me, making me feel special and unique from my siblings.

  Our mother wanted more children, fulfilling God’s mission to procreate, but I believe the act of procreation was an excuse to get Daddy to conduct some husbandly business. I used the same excuse on Karl until we had Darlene. One child was all God would provide to us.

  “No shapes, then,” Beverly states, trying to pacify Naomi and me. Ever the peacemaker that one, which is ironic, considering her past.

  “We could go as three witches,” Naomi suggests next. She looks like a witch with her silver and white hair in riotous waves. Our Irish bloodline cursed her and Beverly with
premature white hair. I was blessed from birth with this unusual pigment defect, giving me a permanent white strip of hair on the right side of my head. Some people say I look like Stacy London, the What Not to Wear fashionista, who I consider beautiful. Others have called the colorless locks the mark of the devil. Some days, I equally take that comment as a compliment.

  “Like Hocus Pocus, the movie?” Beverly excitedly questions.

  “No hocus pocus,” I interject, shaking my head. My youngest sister is a tree-hugger with religious practices I consider strange and bordering on witchcraft. She’s a Wiccan.

  “We could be like the legendary Irish sisters: the maid, the matron, and the crone.”

  “And who is who?” I question, eyeing my youngest sister.

  “I’d have to be the maid,” Naomi says, nodding once.

  Right, the eternal celestial virgin. I don’t say it aloud, but Naomi’s watching me and replies.

  “There’s nothing wrong with holding out for the man of your dreams.” Naomi defends herself and her honor in remaining a virgin until she was almost forty. Well, almost a virgin, as she’d done the deed once—but only once—back when she was young and ironically at this bar.

  “But there is an issue when the man of your dreams holds out against you,” Beverly adds, and my chest squeezes at my sister’s words. Her husband rarely had sex with her, preferring the beds of other women.

  I suffered on both counts. I’d saved myself for my husband, who then held out for most of our marriage, preferring the beds of others as well.

  “I could be the matron.” Beverly clarifies, “As I’ve been married.” Beverly’s ex-husband was a worthless philanderer who didn’t deserve her kind heart or youthful innocence.

  “So I’m the crone?” I shriek a little louder than necessary. Turning my head, I notice others in our proximity have heard me. “What are you looking at?” I snap at a man dressed in head-to-toe leather. Twisting away from him before he can respond, I lift my wine glass for another sip. The flute is narrow, and I bet I’ve only received half a standard pour at the price of an entire bottle. The Fugitive isn’t a winery but a biker bar. Their drink specials include whiskey or domestic beer.

  “Think of us as representing the Emerald Island in the Green Valley,” Nathan’s brother teased when he took our drink orders. I don’t believe Todd Ryder could find Ireland on a map, and we aren’t in the valley but up and over the mountain in North Carolina. I can’t believe I let my sister convince us to travel that treacherous highway. The same road that claimed our brother and could lead us home, if home still existed.

  Green Valley is your home, I reminded myself as we passed Cedar Gap’s old turnoff, where our house and church once stood. When I married Karl Simmons, I swallowed the proverbial Kool-Aid of Valley society and shunned my upbringing as if it had never occurred. I never wanted anyone to think I didn’t deserve my position among the Green Valley elite.

  “How about the three Fates of Greek mythology?” Naomi suggests, hoping to refocus our attention and defuse the ugly glare weighing on us from the biker at the nearby table.

  “Isn’t that almost the same as the three sisters?” Beverly asks. Her hands fidget with a paper napkin.

  “Why don’t we just go as the Three Little Pigs? The idea is just as ridiculous.”

  Beverly clamps her lips, refusing to engage in conflict as we try to restore our sisterly relationship which was once strained and distant.

  “Because the big bad wolf is already one of us,” Naomi says, twisting her lips, sizing up how I will react to the implication. I’m the hotheaded, quick-to-judge, eager-to-huff-and-puff one among us.

  “I thought I was your wolf.” A deep masculine voice interjects from behind me, and I spin to face Nathan, Naomi’s husband. He’s a jovial guy despite his large stature and leather jacket. His smile and the dimple hardly hidden under perfectly manicured salt-and-pepper scruff give his biker appearance a softer look. He appears mischievous in a good way as though he’s a guy who just wants to have fun. He addresses Naomi when he asks, “Need anything, sweetheart?”

  Next to Naomi, the slump of Beverly’s shoulder is almost like a full-body sigh of awe. When did my sister become the romantic? Beverly suffered a failed marriage like me, yet I don’t consider mine a complete failure. Karl and I had some success, including his medical practice and our daughter. My marital secrets will go to the grave with me. Thinking of gravestones, cemeteries, and death—

  “So, Halloween?” I circle back as Naomi shakes her head at her fine husband.

  “We could be the sisters of Native American legends. Winter squash, maize, and beans,” Beverly suggests. Of course, she’d mention agriculture as she’s a farmer.

  “I am not dressing up as some vegetable raised on a pole,” I definitively state.

  “You could be a pole dancer,” a rugged male voice suggests nearby, and all three of us turn to stare at the man dressed in leather at the next table. His white mustache reminds me of a sinister stalker. He looks like the poster child for motorcycle Santa minus a stocking cap. In its place is a red bandana over his thick skull.

  “I beg your pardon,” I drawl in that voice I reserve for gum under my shoe, scum of the earth, and those I believe have wronged me.

  “Begging is what you’d do with me, honey.” He winks at me, and my breath hitches, like a hiccup. Sitting taller in the backside-aching seat, I widen my eyes at the innuendo.

  “I’d do no such thing,” I state to the stranger as my gaze roves over his body, and I decide I’d rather drink raw sewage than solicit him for anything. “I beg for nothing.”

  For the flash of a second, I recall when I did plead with a man for something.

  He told me I didn’t need to beg him, though.

  “You just begged my pardon,” the man counters.

  A deep chuckle hums behind me, but my eyes remain on the vulgar man who has no business interrupting our private conversation. Biker dude twists at the waist, providing himself a better view of my seated position, and he blatantly scans my body.

  “Then again, I suppose with that tight ass, you don’t need to beg. You need the pole removed from it.”

  My mouth falls open.

  I take pride in my body, which is nearing fifty. My daily gym routine includes alternating yoga classes and circuit training, but I wasn’t going to accept this questionable gentleman’s compliment of my assets when he was insulting me in the next breath. Heat rushes my skin, and the flame of my tongue ignites, prepared to put this biker in his place.

  “Bless your heart, but the only pole that needs to be taken down a notch is yours.” My eyes roam over his leather-clad body before I add, “Then again, it probably shouldn’t get any shorter.” My implication of one particular body part of his is evident.

  The man’s chair slides back, loudly scraping against the wood flooring as his body shifts, and I sit taller, bracing for his verbal assault while his body language suggests physical harm.

  “All right, Herbie, that’s enough. Don’t make me call your old lady.” The distinct male voice behind me sends a ripple up my spine while my entire body trembles with agitation, which includes wanting to fling more condemning words at the insulting biker. However, the rugged voice at my back forces my attention away from the biker. I spin and look up.

  And up, and up, and up.

  A solid man with thick arms crossed over a barrel chest glares at the opposite table, holding his protective stance directly behind my chair. I’d forgotten his presence for a second, or perhaps it emboldened me to speak as I did to the neighboring table. Ready to question the man behind me who was defending my honor, my mouth freezes at the sight of him. My tongue thickens, and I literally cannot find the words to address this male specimen who looks like a grizzly bear with his bushy beard and sex-roughened hair, both the color of midnight. His eyes are deep and equally dark, but I can’t get a good look at them from this angle. Something about his stature screams not to mess with him. In
some ways, he reminds me of Vernon Grady from Grady’s Seed and Soil, but this is not Vernon. This man is . . . someone else.

  Someone familiar.

  But that can’t be.

  I’m imagining things because I just thought of him, and that night and the not-begging beg.

  I’m imagining a man who never called me. I hadn’t expected him to. That wasn’t part of our arrangement. Still, I’d wanted to hear from him again. I wondered if he ever thought of me as I thought of him often.

  His soulful, sad eyes. His powerful hands and tongue. His tender but hard kisses.

  “Hey . . . Big Poppy,” Naomi stammers, addressing the man whose glare does not leave the pole dancing requester at the other table.

  “Naomi.” His voice softens. “Brought some friends tonight?” His eyes drop to Beverly, and my heart races. Why is he looking at her? Beverly is taken as is Naomi. They both have a man. Then again, why do I care? This man is not my type. With his thick limbs and tall stature, a too-tight Henley and rips in his jeans, not to mention unruly hair and that beard, he is not a man of interest. If I had an interest in men, which I currently do not. I’m happily living the life of a single, productive businesswoman, taking full advantage of the freedom of my widowhood. Even to me, the thought feels crass, but I admit I don’t miss Karl. We were partners, not lovers. We had an image to uphold, and we upheld it, but at the end of the day, our life was exhausting.

  Glaring at my sister before turning my attention back to the grizzly creature, I come eye to belt buckle with his . . . belt buckle. I gaze up at him once more. His beard. His hair. He looks as if he could be . . . but that would be impossible. This man looks a little unruly, wild, and dangerous.

  Swallowing thickly, my blush deepens, and I turn away again, facing my sisters. Naomi’s eyes land on mine, and her brows furrow in question.

  “Scotia?”

  A heavy silence falls around us for a second, and then the man at my back speaks.