Take a Walk With Me

by Marcia Lynn McClure

  Copyright © 2011

  Take a Walk with Me by Marcia Lynn McClure

  www.marcialynnmcclure.com

  All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, the contents of this book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed in any part or by any means without the prior written consent of the author and/or publisher.

  Published by Distractions Ink

  P.O. Box 15971

  Rio Rancho, NM 87174

  Published by Distractions Ink

  ©Copyright 2011 by M. Meyers

  A.K.A. Marcia Lynn McClure

  Cover Photography by ©Hlphoto/Dreamstime.com

  Cover Design by Sheri Brady

  First Printed Edition: August 2011

  All character names and personalities in this work of fiction are entirely fictional,

  created solely in the imagination of the author.

  Any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.

  McClure, Marcia Lynn, 1965—

  Take a Walk with Me: a novella/by Marcia Lynn McClure.

  ISBN: 978-0-9838074-6-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011936836

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Weezy, Danielle, Lisa, June , and Stacey—

  Barnes & Noble never was so fun.

  Thanks for the laughter, love, and friendship!

  “T.D. and W.”

  Chapter One

  Cozy Robbins exhaled a long sigh. She was tired, and her eyelids felt droopy. Yawning, she leaned back in her chair, running her fingers up through her long hair and stretching her arms over her head. Glancing to the clock on the wall, Cozy wondered how she had managed to finish thirty more Christmas tree ornaments before midnight. Of course, these were only tiny clay mice tucked snuggly beneath hand-stitched quilts in walnut shell cradles. They weren’t as tedious to make as the hinged walnut halves with Christmas tree and fireplace scenes depicted inside them. Still, they were far more difficult to craft than the simple gold-paint-dipped walnuts with ribbon loops Cozy also made.

  She shook her head, wondering how in the world she had gotten herself into taking so many orders again. Things certainly had escalated in the past five years. It seemed difficult to fathom—the hundreds of ornament orders she still needed to fill—when just five years previous, she’d been astonished at having sold sixty ornaments total.

  Cozy closed her eyes and sighed once more in thinking back to the November she had been sixteen—to the first series of finely crafted walnut ornaments she’d made to sell. She’d wanted to purchase something nice for her Grandma Robbins for Christmas that year—a beautiful set of bookends she’d seen in a specialty shop, knights in armor posed in kissing princesses. The moment she’d seen the bookends, she’d known they were just what her grandmother had been looking for to adorn the bookshelf in her entryway. But they were costly, priced at nearly three hundred dollars for the set.

  At sixteen, three hundred dollars was hard to come by, especially when it was to be spent on only one gift. Still, the bookends were ideal for her grandmother, and Cozy had begun to ponder ways she could make the three hundred dollars—for in truth, how often did the perfect Christmas gift present itself? Ironically, it had been her Grandma Robbins who had suggested Cozy make and sell her charming walnut Christmas tree ornaments. Though she had no idea why Cozy wanted to acquire three hundred dollars, Dottie Robbins (the very person for whom Cozy was inspired to earn the money) suggested her granddaughter sell the delicately crafted Christmas ornaments.

  Cozy’s grandmother had always adored Cozy’s walnut ornaments. In fact, Cozy had begun making them for her grandmother in the first place. She’d been ten years old and wanting to give her grandma something special. She had seen a plastic walnut ornament in a bin at a second-hand store. The plastic half walnut shell had a little plastic mouse nestled in it, nibbling on a piece of cheese and wearing a Santa hat. Cozy thought it was the most adorable thing she had ever seen and begged her mother for fifty cents to purchase it. The little Christmas tree ornament had fast become Cozy’s greatest treasure. To some, it may not have been worth even the fifty cents, but to Cozy it was priceless.

  Consequently, Cozy had spent an entire afternoon cracking open walnuts and hollowing out the insides until she found just the perfect shells to make her own ornaments. She used gray molding clay to form little mouse heads. Carefully she’d painted tiny black eyes and noses and nestled them into the shells. With old fabric scraps her mother had given her, she then cut and stitched tiny quilt tops, tucking them snugly around the little clay mice. She had figured out how to fashion a way to hang the ornaments by using lengths of gold thread so that the walnut cradle would hang perfectly from any Christmas tree branch.

  Cozy had presented these first walnut ornaments to her grandmother on Christmas Eve that year. Dottie Robbins had been delighted to literal tears, claiming Cozy’s walnut cradle ornaments were the most wonderful gift she’d ever received. After that Christmas, Cozy worked on improving her ornaments. Every year she presented her grandma with several new walnut ornaments, and Dottie was always just as excited as she had been the day she received the first ones. Gradually, Cozy began to diversify her craft. She hollowed out walnuts by the hundreds. Some she would glue back together, painting them gold and adding a red ribbon at the top to provide a means of hanging it. Her favorite ornaments, however, were the ones with two walnut halves hinged together. When opened, they revealed either a miniature nativity scene or a miniature Christmas scene—one half having a tiny Christmas tree with gifts at its base nestled within and the other boasting a little fireplace, complete with stockings hanging from the mantel. These required a lot more work with clay and detailed painting, but they were Cozy’s favorites. Yes, her walnut ornaments had become quite popular around town.

  As Cozy tucked one special ornament into a small white box with her gold embossed logo (two robins sitting on a holly branch, their heads lovingly pressed together and the trade name Cozy Robbins beneath them) stamped on the top, she wished she could see the look on the girl’s face when her boyfriend handed her the ornament and told her to open it. The young man had contacted Cozy about a making a specialty ornament. She had agreed to do it, of course—to hide the diamond solitaire engagement ring inside a gold, red-velvet-lined walnut.

  “How romantic!” she sighed, smiling and setting the box aside. She glanced at the clock again, even though she already knew the time. She had to get to bed. Her shift started early, and she didn’t want to be too tired.

  Exhaling another sigh of weariness, Cozy rose from her chair. Two more semesters and she’d have her degree. Surely she could stop waiting tables at the café then. She glanced at the table covered with Christmas ornaments made from walnuts. She could hardly believe she’d managed to pay for every one of her winter college semesters with the proceeds from selling such a little thing. Oh, it was a ton of work—no doubt it was. Still, the whole concept that walnuts could pay for a college education was almost unfathomable.

  Reaching over to the electrical outlet nearby, Cozy unplugged the Christmas lights she’d strewn over the ceiling of the basement. She blew out the pumpkin-spice-scented candle on the table and turned off the old stereo, and the soothing music she listened to while working at night was silenced. The basement room that had seemed so warm and inviting a moment before was dark and cold and quiet now. Cozy smiled, amazed at what a few Christmas lights, an aromatic fragrance, and some soothing music could do to brighten up a dark space.

  Hurrying up the stairs, Cozy brushed her teeth, threw on a pair of pajamas, and fell into bed. Morning and the early birds who frequented the café w
ould arrive all too soon. Still, Cozy smiled, for a vision of her grandmother’s delight at seeing the new ornaments Cozy had made for her lingered in her mind like a comforting dream. Grandma Dottie always brightened Cozy’s day. Therefore, Cozy decided to look on waitressing at the café the next morning as a means to a happy end. She hadn’t seen her grandma in almost a week and could hardly wait to leave work and drive over to see her the next day.

  She loved spending time with her Grandma Robbins—she always had. As far back as Cozy could remember, her grandmother had been one of the most wonderful things in the world to her. Cozy knew Dottie Robbins’s affection, influence, and love had helped shape her life—still did shape it—and she could not imagine an existence without her.

  With one final sigh, Cozy’s mind wandered toward sleep with the tender memory of being two or three years old and her grandmother pushing her in the old swing that still hung, faded and worn, from one T-bar under the clothesline in Dottie Robbins’s backyard. In her mind, she could still hear her grandma singing “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” as she gently pushed the swing and then attached a sheet to the clothesline with a clothespin from her apron pocket. Cozy could almost feel the warm breeze on her face as it billowed the clean white sheets hanging on the line—still hear the birds as they twittered around her grandmother’s bird feeder—still smell the sweet perfume of freshly mown grass…

  ❦

  “Cozy!”

  Cozy turned to see Mindy hurrying after her.

  “Have you got any extra ornaments?” Mindy asked, rushing toward Cozy’s car. “I know I already put my order in, but I forgot a couple of people.”

  Though the question rather deflated her enthusiasm, Cozy smiled at her friend. A sale was a sale and meant more money for tuition—whether or not she was getting tired of walnuts. She felt a giggle tickle her throat as Mindy characteristically puffed at the blond bangs on her forehead.

  “Sure,” Cozy answered with more enthusiasm than she really felt. “How many were you wanting? I’m still making them right now…so if there’s something special you want…”

  “I want four nestled mice cradle ones and four hinged nativities, if it doesn’t stress you out too much,” Mindy answered. Again she puffed at her bangs. Cozy felt her heart lighten even for having to make eight more last-minute ornaments. Mindy was too sweet—too kind and supportive of Cozy as a friend and a customer—for Cozy to deny her anything.

  “Eight? That’s a couple?” Cozy asked.

  Mindy shrugged. “I guess it’s more like a few, right?”

  “I guess,” Cozy giggled.

  “Do you mind?” Mindy ventured. “I know you like to have the orders before now.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Cozy answered with a just little less than perfect honesty. “Are you sure you want to spend that much though? That’s eighty bucks…I mean, forty.”

  “I’m sure,” Mindy confirmed. “Can I bring some cash tomorrow?”

  “Yeah…but why don’t you just make it twenty.”

  “Cozy Robbins,” Mindy scolded. “You have got to quit underselling your stuff! Your ornaments are so charming, and they’re hard to make, I’m sure. Ten dollars apiece is a steal, and you should quit cutting your friends and family that crazy five-dollar discount on each one. I’m paying eighty.”

  “No,” Cozy argued. She hated charging her friends and family anything at all, and she certainly wasn’t going to let them pay full price. “I’ll take twenty…or I won’t make them for you.”

  “Cozy,” Mindy scolded.

  Cozy sighed, relenting, “Okay then. Forty. Dang! That’s like four movies at the theatre…or a new pair of shoes…or—”

  “Stop it!” Mindy giggled. “They’re worth it, Cozy. They are the most adorable things in the world! People are willing to pay for adorable…so let them. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Cozy shook her head, still unable to believe someone would drop even a dime on Christmas ornaments made out of walnuts. Her smile for Mindy broadened—for if there was one thing her ornament sales had taught her, it was who her true friends were. So many people asked for freebies because they knew Cozy personally. Yet she found that her real friends understood she made the ornaments as a supplement to her income. Her genuine friends never tried to take advantage of her or haggle her down. It was a valuable life lesson to her—and an example she followed in her own dealings with friends. Still, she absolutely loathed letting them pay for anything. But she knew it was important to Mindy that she take some kind of remuneration.

  “Good. I’ll bring cash tomorrow,” Mindy said, smiling.

  “If you must…but it’s still a waste of forty bucks,” Cozy giggled.

  “Shut up!” Mindy laughed. “I have to get back…so have fun with your grandma. I know she’ll love the new ornaments.”

  “Thanks,” Cozy said. Nodding toward the café, she added, “And good luck tonight.”

  Mindy’s eyebrows arched with understanding. “Thanks. I hate the dinner shift.”

  “Sorry.”

  Mindy shrugged. “I’m fine. Just thankful to have the job, you know?”

  “I do know,” Cozy agreed.

  “Okay then…have fun.”

  “You too.”

  Cozy watched Mindy return to the café, silently reminded herself how glad she was not to have the dinner shift, and felt guilty.

  Opening her car door, Cozy turned when she heard a familiar rustle. The leaves of the cottonwoods were quickly changing from green to gold as autumn descended in its full beauty. She paused a moment, for she had promised herself a long time before that she would always, always take the time to watch the leaves transform in the fall—that she would never, never be too busy with ornaments or work or anything else to miss it.

  She lingered in watching the breath of the breeze cause the green and yellow leaves to tremble. The air was crisp and refreshing. The moment soothed Cozy even more than punching out from work had, and she felt her smile broaden.

  She got into her car, turned the key in the ignition, and pulled out of the café parking lot. She hoped her grandmother had planned meatloaf and mashed potatoes for supper; she loved her grandma’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes. In fact, it was the only meatloaf she really liked. There was something special about her grandma’s meatloaf—something nostalgic and old-fashioned—and Cozy’s mouth began to water as she drove toward the bridge.

  “Over the river and through the cottonwoods,” she said aloud to herself. With a delighted giggle of anticipation, she began to hum the familiar words to the song that had prompted her thoughts. Secretly, she loved the fact she had to drive over the river and through the cottonwoods to get to her grandmother’s house. Cozy thought of the way her mother used to sing the song every time the family traveled to her grandmother’s house when she was a child. It was a wonderful little sentiment—a wonderful memory—and it added another measure of joy to her already happy mood.

  ❦

  “Grandma? I’m here,” Cozy called as she closed the front door behind her. “Grandma?”

  “In here, sweet pea!” Dottie Robbins called from the other room.

  Cozy smiled. Her grandmother’s voice was like music. How she loved the happy sound of it.

  Setting a basket of new walnut ornaments on the entryway table, Cozy hurried toward the kitchen. She could already smell the meatloaf cooking. Supper would be delicious—as was always the case at her grandma’s house.

  “Hi, Grandma,” Cozy said as she entered the kitchen to see her grandmother peering out through one of the windows.

  “My angel!” Dottie said, turning from the window and drawing Cozy into a warm embrace. Cozy smiled as the light fragrance of rose perfume tickled her nostrils. “It seems a coon’s age since you’ve been here.”

  “I know,” Cozy agreed. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been so busy that I—”

  “I know, sweet pea,” Dottie said. “But you’re here now, and we’re going to have a wonderful evening!”


  “As always,” Cozy said as her grandma released her.

  “I’ve got a meatloaf in the oven, and…” Dottie began, clasping her hands together just like an excited child, “and I’m hoping you brought me some new ornaments today.”

  “I certainly did.” She frowned as uncertainty washed over her. “I hope you like them this year. I did a few things differently and—”

  “I’ll love them, and you know it!” Dottie laughed.

  Cozy studied her grandmother for a moment—her smiling, twinkling blue eyes, the sweet little wrinkles on her face. Her grandmother’s hair had once been a dark, dark chocolate-brown like Cozy’s, but it had faded to a beautiful snowy white. Cozy thought it was very becoming and hoped her hair would do the same—but not until she was in her sixties like her grandmother was.

  Dottie Robbins glanced to the window she’d been gazing through when Cozy had entered the room. Cozy frowned, curious—wondering what could be so interesting.

  “What are you looking at, Grandma?” Cozy asked, going to the window.

  “The handsomest hunk of burning love I’ve seen in a long, long time…that’s what,” Dottie sighed.

  “What?” Cozy giggled. She looked out the window to see an elderly man raking leaves in the backyard next door. “Who’s that?” she asked.

  “My new hunk of burning love neighbor, that’s who,” Dottie answered.

  “Grandma!” Cozy exclaimed. She laughed. Her grandma was so funny sometimes.

  “Well, just look at him!” Dottie said, nodding toward the window. “Isn’t he just the dreamiest man ever?”

  Cozy gazed out the window once more, giggling as she studied the man. He was tall, silver-haired, and as tan as leather. He wore an old barn jacket and worn-out work boots, and Cozy shrugged, thinking he was indeed a striking figure. She couldn’t see his face very clearly, but it was obvious he was a hard worker.

  “He moved in last week,” Dottie offered, “and I’ve been watching out my windows every day since. He’s got the deepest blue eyes. They just set my heart to palpitating!”