She wanted her little boy, Kenny, who had turned into a man, alive, and not only managing his own family but also helping with hers. Instead she was staring at a stranger in her daughter’s body, opening doors and windows in November, and discovering new uses for duct tape nearly every day.
The big, monstrous house her daughter-in-law had bought, though situated on a beautiful piece of property overlooking the bay, was being held together with duct tape, Gorilla Glue, and prayers. The fire department’s number was on speed-dial, and they had gone through two handymen since moving here a couple months ago. To top it all off, the hot water lasted for only three-quarters of a shower, no matter how fast she washed.
Dorothy was very thankful when Coop, the UPS man, stopped by the other night and fixed the hose on the washer. But little alarm bells were starting to go off in her head. She hadn’t noticed any hanky-panky between Coop and Jenni, but she was watching them closely. The man had practically pushed Dorothy off the basement steps racing her to the top when she’d invited him to dinner the other night.
Either Coop had been starving, or he had been looking forward to the company.
It was bad enough trying to keep her eye on Felicity and Sam when the high school football star came visiting. Both Coop’s and Sam’s visits were becoming more frequent. Although she knew what Sam was after, her little girl, she wasn’t too sure about the UPS guy.
The saying, “What can brown do for you?” was starting to take on a whole new meaning.
Felicity loved her nephews, she really did. She just couldn’t stand them most of the time. Today she wanted to murder one, and his name was Tucker James Wright. The kid wouldn’t see his fifth birthday, in two weeks, if she had any say in the matter. She’d be doing the world a favor. He was going to end up in the prison system living off the taxpayers’ hard-earned money and making license plates anyway.
Tucker had all the earmarks of becoming a drain on society.
Her sister-in-law, Jenni, didn’t appreciate Felicity’s opinion of Tucker. Of course, the kid’s mother hadn’t been arguing Tucker’s virtues too loudly.
The little delinquent didn’t have any.
His only redeeming quality was that he was cute and favored Jenni in appearances. Felicity was pretty sure that the prison system was filled with cute guys.
“Are you still upset?” Jenni sat a tray of bayberry oatmeal soap down on the opposite side of the workstation and then perched herself upon a stool. By the stubborn tilt of her sister-in-law’s jaw, Felicity knew she would be staying awhile. Jenni looked like she wanted to talk.
“Wouldn’t you be?” Felicity wasn’t in a forgiving mood. It seemed all she ever did was forgive her nephews for one thing after another. After another. Today might have been the final straw. Tucker not only had ruined most of her makeup, written on walls, and totally trashed her closet. The little brat also had destroyed her favorite dark green tank top—the one that not only matched the color of her eyes but also pushed up her boobs and made her look like she had some cleavage for once.
Sam had really liked that top.
Felicity cracked a smile as she remembered the way Sam’s tongue seemed to get tangled up in his words every time she had worn that particular top. She wore that stretchy green top at least once a week just to watch Sam sweat.
“See, it isn’t that bad.” Jenni gave her a bright, big smile back and started to wrap the bars of bayberry oatmeal soap with Mistletoe Bay labels. “We’ll go shopping this weekend for a new blouse and we’ll replenish your supply of makeup while we’re at it.”
Felicity mulled that over and continued to wrap the bars of the newest fragrance produced by the Mistletoe Bay Bath and Body Company: Snowflake. She loved the fresh, clean smell of the soap and had already confiscated a few bars for her friends at school. Jenni looked at the freebies as free advertising and test marketing. Everyone at school loved Jenni’s products, and a couple of the local shops were now stocking Mistletoe Bay merchandise to cater to the new, younger customers.
“The last time I went shopping with you, I ended up wearing Corey’s chocolate ice cream cone and we lost Chase in the bookstore for half an hour.” She would rather do sit-ups in front of the entire boys’ gym class in a two-piece bathing suit than go to the mall with her nephews.
“They’ll behave this time.” Jenni refused to meet her gaze. Felicity’s sister-in-law kept her head bent and her fingers busy wrapping a label around each bar of soap before placing it into the appropriate box.
“Coop isn’t going to find you nearly as attractive if your nose keeps growing.” Felicity thought it was cute the way the UPS guy kept coming around. She just wished he wouldn’t come around as much when Sam was visiting.
Over the past several months Felicity had become used to being ignored by her mother, who never seemed to have enough time for her anymore. Her nephews terrorized her and invaded her privacy every chance they got. Only Jenni paid her some attention, when her sister-in-law had a minute to breathe, like now. Sam, on the other hand, had been all hers. Or at least he had been until the former high school football star started showing up on their doorstep and talking about stupid things like shovel passes and flea-flickers.
Whatever in the hell they were.
She missed her friends at her old school and on most days hated the fact that she’d had to move to the coast and away from everyone she knew back in Augusta. If it wasn’t for Sam, she would seriously consider asking her mother if she could go live with Brittany and her family back in Augusta until she went to college. Kara’s family, or even Michelle’s mom would take her in.
“I’ll ignore that comment about Coop, and my nose isn’t growing.” Jenni rubbed her nose, as if she was checking to see if indeed it had grown. “What I meant to say was, I would try to make them behave.”
“How? Are you packing a Taser stun gun I don’t know about?”
Jenni tried to cover up her chuckle with a cough. “I don’t believe in using violence to control the boys.”
“That’s your first mistake.” She got up and reached for another tray of Snowflake soap to wrap. Jenni must have been busy today cutting all the bars. It was her job to apply labels not only to the bars of soap but also to the assorted body creams, cranberry hand wash, and brown sugar body polish. All of Jenni’s products were made from 100 percent natural ingredients, and the entire state seemed to be on a going-back-to-nature kick.
By the looks of things she was going to be busy until way after Christmas.
“You would have me hit the boys?” Jenni stopped wrapping the handmade soap and stared at her in horror.
“Of course not.” She felt terrible for even kidding about such a thing. Her nephews owned her heart and she would personally rip anyone apart who so much as laid a finger on them. She set the tray down and perched herself back on the stool.
She still couldn’t resist teasing Jenni. “Leather restraints should do the job.”
“You’re horrible.” Jenni laughed as she closed the first box of twelve bars of soap and started on the next.
“And you’re ignoring the truth.” Felicity brushed silvery glitter off her hands.
The labels for Snowflake had silver sparkles all over the printed snowflakes. Jenni had gone all out for the three holiday fragrances she was producing this year. Goodness’ Sakes smelled like vanilla sugar cookies and had golden, glittery poinsettias on the label. Naughty and Nice was done in a retro pink and black argyle print with the sparkles on the pink diamond shapes, and it had a sexy flower scent.
The glitter had been a really cool marketing idea, and she had encouraged Jenni to go for it. Who knew it was going to be a freaking pain in the butt to work with. Her hands sparkled, her jeans sparkled, and her sweatshirt sparkled. Even her hair sparkled. Hell, yesterday when she was done working, she looked in the mirror and there had been golden glitter on her teeth.
Jenni had refused to work with the glittery labels. Her sister-in-law claimed that was what she was
paying Felicity the big bucks for. Ha! Felicity was making the same amount as some of her new friends who scooped ice cream down at Bailey’s. At least they got to see and talk to other people while they worked. She got Jenni.
Then again, the shop was totally off-limits to the boys and Jenni usually let her play whatever kind of music she wanted to. There were some perks.
“What am I ignoring?” Jenni looked around the crowded shop as if trying to find a clue as to what Felicity was talking about.
Felicity shook her head hopelessly. “You know, he’s about six-foot-two, brown hair, and deep chocolate eyes. Has a habit of dressing in brown a lot.”
“Coop?”
“Is there anyone else I should know about?” She’d never thought about Jenni’s love life before Coop showed up on the scene. Her sister-in-law was only thirty years old. People in their thirties dated all the time. Kenny, her brother, had been gone for two years now. In all that time she had never seen Jenni so much as look at another man. Jenni had been too busy raising the boys, taking care of every little thing for Dorothy, moving, and starting the business.
She didn’t think Jenni was supposed to stop living because Kenny had.
“What about Coop?” Jenni continued wrapping soap.
“You tell me.” Felicity wasn’t positive, but there might have been a blush sweeping up her sister-in-law’s cheeks.
“There’s nothing to tell, Reds.” Jenni used the nickname Kenny had bestowed upon Felicity only when she was trying to score some points or change the subject. “He’s the UPS man. It’s his job to come here to pickup and deliver boxes.”
“What about eating dinner here the other night?”
“Your mother was the one to invite him, not me,” Jenni said.
“He helped you clean up the kitchen afterward.” She hadn’t been born yesterday. She had noticed the way Coop seemed to purposely avoid looking at Jenni all through the meal. There was no way he, or any other man, would think Jenni was so repulsive he would turn to stone if he so much as looked at her. That avoidance, to her way of thinking, showed he was interested.
Jenni had that fresh, clean-scrubbed appearance of the girl next door that Felicity envied. Not a freckle marred her face, and her thick, long, nearly midnight-black hair had never seen a frizzy day in its life. From a distance, her sister-in-law still looked like a teenager. It was once you were close enough to see the sadness in her gaze that a person realized Jenni wasn’t some college co-ed playing at being some mad scientist while stirring her pots of soap and smelling like vanilla sugar cookies all the time.
“Coop was being polite.” Jenni rolled her eyes.
“Being polite is when you say, ‘Thank you for dinner. It was delicious.’” She grinned at the look on Jenni’s face. “Being interested is when you help the lovely widow with the dishes once the kids are out of the room.” Poor Jenni—she didn’t stand a chance at finding a boyfriend with Tucker around.
“Lovely widow, my butt.” Jenni gave a snort. “I had just finished mopping up the basement floor, if you recall.”
“What, you think I didn’t notice that you changed before dinner?” She was the one who’d had to help her mother set the table while Corey climbed all over Sam. “If I’m not mistaken you also applied some lip gloss and ran a brush through your hair.”
“I even took the time to wash my hands to get the stench of basement mildew and Tide detergent off me.” Jenni shook her head. “I think you’re reading more into this than it is, Reds. Cooper Armstrong is just a very nice man who has taken a fancy to your mother’s cooking.” Jenni wiggled her eyebrows. “Maybe he’s after Dorothy. Do you think he’ll make a nice stepdad?”
Felicity was glad she didn’t have any food in her mouth. She would have choked to death. “That would be the day. Mom’s going crazy as it is, with her opening windows and constantly crying at TV commercials. Can you picture her dating, especially a younger man?”
She tried not to visualize what her fifty-year-old mother would do on a date. “Who would want to take out an old lady having hot flashes?” The mere thought of her mother out on a date was beyond her imagination. It was creepy. Disturbingly creepy.
“Shame on you. Dorothy’s not even fifty yet. She’s not old.” Jenni gave her a stern look. “Don’t you think she gets lonely?”
“Lonely?” Felicity snorted with laughter. “In that house?” The house had about eleven rooms, and there wasn’t a quiet corner in any of them. Most of the time her mother was begging for peace and quiet so she could enjoy a television show or a book.
“You know what I mean.” Jenni stopped what she was doing. “Don’t you ever wonder why she doesn’t date?”
“First off, someone would have to ask her out.” Felicity couldn’t imagine that possibility. “Second, she’s a grandmother. Grannies don’t date. They bake cookies and knit sweaters.”
“Your mother doesn’t knit, and of course they date.” Jenni laughed and shook her head. “You can’t be that naive, Reds. And just for your information, I know for a fact that Dorothy has been asked out.”
“By who?”
“Joe Clayton.” Jenni smiled.
“Who’s Joe Clayton? And more important, what planet was he from?”
“He owns the garage on the outskirts of town. Your mom had to drop her car off there for a brake job last month. I witnessed the whole exchange. Joe asked her to dinner.”
“Mom said no, right?” Surely she would have noticed her mother going out on a date.
“Right.” Jenni started labeling the next box of soap. “When she picked up the car the next day, Mr. Clayton asked her to go to a movie with him.”
“What is he, desperate?” The whole town was going crazy along with her mother. Maybe there was something in the town’s water supply.
“No, he seemed like a very nice man. He’s one of the volunteer firemen in town and he was one of the ones who came out here when Tucker got his head caught in the heating duct.” Jenni shuddered at that particular memory. “He even owns his own business.” Jenni grinned and wiggled her brow. “He even gave your mother a discount on the brake job.”
“Isn’t that illegal or something?” She remembered getting a free cotton candy from a cute boy over at Sullivan’s amusement pier when she’d first moved into the area. She had been tempted to stick around until he got off work, but then she had noticed he gave away three more to other girls while she was watching him. One had to wonder how many brake jobs this Mr. Clayton discounted.
“It’s his business; I’m guessing he could do what he wants.”
“Not with my mother, he can’t.” She wasn’t about to let some guy play tonsil hockey with her mother in the front seat of his pickup truck. Yuck. It was just too gross to think about.
“Felicity, she’s your mother, the grandmother to my three sons, and my dearest friend. She is also a woman, a very attractive woman. Why shouldn’t she date if she wants to?” Jenni looked determined to press her point. “Don’t you enjoy being in the company of Sam sometimes? Doesn’t your mother deserve the same opportunity to have a life outside of you, me, and the boys?”
She understood Jenni’s point, but she didn’t like it. “The same thing could be said about you, Jenni.” As Sam always said, the best defense was a great offense. “Wouldn’t you like to spend some time in the company of a cute guy? You know, go see a movie or have a dinner where you wouldn’t have to cut someone’s meat up for them.”
“I walked into that one, didn’t I?” Jenni chuckled while shaking her head.
“With both feet.” It wasn’t very often that she got to turn the tables on her sister-in-law. “So when are you going out with Coop?”
“I’m not.”
“Why not?” She thought they made a cute couple, but more important, Coop had met Tucker, and he’d still stuck around for dinner the other night.
“Let’s start with that he hasn’t asked me.”
“It’s the twenty-first century, ask him.”
“I will not.” Jenni looked appalled by the very thought. “I’m not ready to date, Felicity. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Because of Kenny?” It still hurt to think about her brother and all the might-have-beens. But all their pain, misery, and grief couldn’t bring him back. Life went on, and although Jenni smiled more now, she wasn’t totally happy.
Before Jenni could answer, the door to the shop was flung open and Corey ran into the room. “Mom, Mom, Mom!”
Jenni dropped the soap she was holding and ran for Corey. “What’s wrong?”
Felicity was out of the chair and across the room in a flash. Corey knew not to enter the shop unless it was an emergency, but it was the absence of Tucker that gave her the bigger fear. Her nephew must have really done something this time.
“Tucker’s on the roof, and Grandmom keeps crossing herself.” Corey’s words ran together while he gasped for breath.
Jenni felt her heart plummet to her knees as she sprinted for the door. Tucker was on the roof! By God, the house was three stories high. He would break his neck if he fell. She dashed down the woodland path to the front of the house. She could hear Felicity urging Corey to run faster behind her.
She sprinted around the front of the house and took in the scene. Her heart started to beat again once she saw Tucker was indeed on the roof. The porch roof. Coop Armstrong was standing below, with both feet planted in Dorothy’s garden, calmly talking to her son.
“Now I want you to scoot closer to the edge, Tucker, but stay on your butt. Do not stand up.” Coop’s voice was steady and calm.
She watched as her son moved closer to the edge. Tucker’s gaze was on Coop, who was standing directly below him. If Tucker should fall she was positive that Coop could and would catch him.
Dorothy spotted her and Felicity and came running over. “Should I go call the fire department?” Dorothy was frantic, and though Tucker wasn’t exactly smiling, he didn’t look scared. Her son had the look of someone who was the center of attention—and liking it.
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