Second Chance at the Sugar Shack

by Candis Terry

  As she walked toward her mother’s beast of a car, she breathed in the pungent scent of wood smoke. A fresh breeze caught the ends of her hair and whipped it across her face. The only winds she was familiar with anymore were the suffocating hot Santa Ana’s. Winds that seemed to harbor a taste for fanning flames that transformed expensive Malibu mansions into matchsticks.

  Realization crept up on her and caused her heart to do a funny little flip. She’d missed the scents of home—the miles of open pastures, pine needles dampened by a warm rain, the aroma of home-baked meatloaf or pot roast wafting through open kitchen windows. And the bouquet of fresh bread or cookies baked in the ovens in her family’s bakery.

  She dug her keys from her jacket pocket and noticed the quiet. Instead of the high-level traffic sounds she’d grown used to in L.A., there were only the muted sounds from the bar and the tap-tap of her boot heels against concrete.

  She stuck the key in the car door, wondering again, why she bothered to lock the old heap. She slid onto the front seat and reached to turn the key in the ignition. But when she looked up through the windshield and couldn’t decide whether The Smoke Shop sign had one pipe or two, she knew she couldn’t drive. She’d have to call her sister or walk. At least the nip in the air would sober her up.

  From the radio Tom Jones began to croon. A strong sense of déjà vu fell over her and she hoped the prior events were a one-time hallucination.

  It’s not unusual. . .

  “You are not driving this car, young lady.”

  Shit.

  Knowing it was useless to look in the mirror, Kate turned in her seat. And there she was—red plaid shirt, denim overalls, messy gray bun on top of her head, hazy glow floating all over the backseat. “Mother.”

  “Katherine.”

  No need to acknowledge the scowl marring her mother’s face either. It reached all the way into her words. Kate turned around in her seat, dropped her head back to the headrest and stared out the bug-splattered windshield. She wondered briefly when the men with the nice white jacket would arrive.

  “Young lady, you are in no condition to drive.”

  “I’m not driving. I’m sitting. Besides I only had two beers.”

  “Three. And they were Guinness. Much more potent than a Coors Light.”

  “You were in the bar?” Kate asked. Great. Now she was being spied on? By a ghost? In the space of a pause, the air in the car grew heavy. The pressure pushed on her chest, squeezed the breath from her lungs.

  “Not exactly.”

  Kate closed her eyes and rubbed her fingers against her temples. “Then if you weren’t exactly in the bar, how do you know how many beers I had?”

  “A mother just knows these things.”

  “So . . . ghosts have ESP too?”

  “So . . . daughters never stop being smartasses?”

  Kate flinched. That was the second time tonight she’d been labeled. Maybe it held some merit.

  “This is so unlike you, Katherine.”

  The tone in her mother’s voice sounded exactly the same as the time Kate had taken on a dare and gone cow tipping with a group of friends after they’d bowled at Strike-Out Lanes. The cow had tipped over all right. On her. In a field overflowing with cow pies. Her friends had had to wake up the farmer to get her rescued from her bovine imprisonment. It had taken three showers to get the stink off. Her restriction had lasted an entire month.

  “Not really,” she said. “You just don’t know me very well anymore.”

  “A mother always knows her child. Always knows what’s best for her.”

  Right. If she’d left her life up to her mother, she’d either be putting buns in the oven or have one in her oven.

  “Why do you think I’m here?” her mother asked. “For my health?”

  Kate’s eyebrows shot up her forehead and she couldn’t help but glance in the mirror. “Am I supposed to laugh at that?”

  Her mother hooted. “No, but you’ve got to admit that was pretty good.”

  “Hysterical.”

  “And still you have no sense of humor,” her mother said. “Well, that’s why I’m here.”

  “To make me laugh?” Kate asked, getting more confused by the minute. For Pete’s sake, if she was going to lose her mind by seeing dead people, they could at least have the decency to make sense.

  “Not to make you laugh. Although that might be a nice side effect.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Her mother paused as if searching for the right words. “Well, since I blew my chance to make amends while I was living, I’m here . . . ummm . . . to . . . help you. Yes, that’s right. To help you find the meaning of your life.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “It’s difficult to explain.”

  Just what Kate didn’t need, a confusing and meddling ghost. “Look, Dr. Phil,” she said, “how about you just tell me how to help Dad. He’s lost without you. The meaning of his life is gone. We’re worried about him. And I’m just not sure how to handle all this.”

  “My Bobby will be just fine, Katherine. Don’t you worry about him.”

  “I think you overestimate him, Mom.” She breathed in a gulp of thick air and it clogged her throat when she thought of her heartbroken dad. “He wanders around the house like he’s looking for something. He won’t sleep in your bed. And he’s already thrown himself back into work.”

  “What would you expect him to do? Sit around and rot? That’s my job. Ha! Get it?”

  Kate cringed at the thought. “Not funny, Mom.”

  “See. There you go again. No sense of humor.” Her mother paused again as though pondering some miraculous discovery. For a woman who seldom was at a loss for words, she sure seemed to be searching for them in her afterlife.

  “What you need, Katherine, is to put a little spark in your life. But right now you’ve got your head so far in the clouds that he could fall right into your lap and you wouldn’t even recognize him.”

  “He? Him?” Kate’s brows lifted. “I’m not looking for a boyfriend.”

  Her mother released a heavy sigh.

  Was that even possible?

  “Boyfriend! I’m talking about soul mates, Katherine. That’s what my Bobby and I are. That’s why he’s going to be just fine. He knows I’m waiting for him—not that I want him to hurry up. But he knows our love reaches far beyond earthly boundaries. And that’s what you need to find.”

  Kate shook her head and the vinyl seat squeaked. What she needed was another Guinness. She and her mother had barely spoken for ten years and the woman was worried about Kate finding a man? What about the argument they’d had before she left home? Sheesh. Still, if her mother wanted to discuss men, she’d try to comply. Arguing had never gotten them anywhere except estrangement.

  “Mom. I barely have time for a dinner date let alone a soul mate. What I need to find is a way to help dad get his life organized so I get out of this hick—”

  A sharp rap on the window startled her and sent her heart racing.

  Kate looked up.

  Through her side window, the white neon light from Bill’s Barber Shop reflected off a shiny pair of handcuffs that swung like a pendulum from a very large, very masculine hand.

  Matt had just about finished his shift and decided to make another round past the bars to make sure everything was in order.

  Okay, that was a lie.

  He’d made another round past the Naughty Irish to see if Katie had gone home or if she was still perched on that bar stool with her group of pool-playing, camo-wearing admirers still gawking at her like she was a ten-point buck on opening day of hunting season.

  Some things never changed. Especially in Deer Lick. New blood meant new challenges for the bored twenty-something-year-olds, the newly divorced, and those who didn’t quite take the sanctity of marriage as seriously as they should. When that new blood was in the form of a shapely firecracker like Katie, it was hard to tell what would happen. Usually someone ended up
in cuffs.

  Looked like tonight was the firecracker’s turn.

  When Katie rolled down the window, Matt flipped the cuffs into his palm and took perverse pleasure in the frown that pulled at the corners of her luscious lips.

  “You scared me,” she said with a squeak that told him she was about fifty percent pissed off and fifty percent amused. Police training hadn’t been necessary to figure out that one. Just personal knowledge.

  Gravel crunched beneath his boot heels as he took a step back, peered down into her mama’s car, and tried not to laugh as he gave her his regulation cop glare. “May I see your license and registration, ma’am?”

  She craned her neck to look up at him. Her smoky green eyes narrowed. “I’m not driving.”

  He scanned the car from the front bumper to the back.

  “The car is not running. The car is in park,” she informed him in what he now called her big-city tone.

  “You’re behind the wheel. And I have every reason to believe you were about to drive home.”

  “And that’s illegal?”

  “How much have you had to drink tonight, Ms. Silver?” he said, using the name she’d tossed at him yesterday. Did she think she was too good to use her real name? Or had she shortened it because people in Hollywood had only learned to spell two syllable words?

  “One beer.”

  “How many?”

  “Ummmm . . . two?”

  He leaned a little closer, slapped the handcuffs against his palm. “I didn’t quite hear you.”

  Her eyes widened and she sighed. “Maybe three.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I swear.” She lifted her hands and clasped the steering wheel. “That’s all I had. And I wasn’t going to drive.”

  “You always sit in the car and argue with yourself after only three beers?”

  “I wasn’t arguing with my—”

  “Would you mind stepping out of the car, please?”

  “Seriously, Matt, I—”

  “Step out of the car.” His request had little to do with police maneuvers. He just wanted to see her again—the tight jeans hugging her slender thighs, the way the oversized leather jacket fell across her small shoulders, the way the emerald sweater beneath dipped low and hugged her breasts.

  Yeah, he was a glutton for punishment. No doubt about it.

  She glared up at him from the driver’s seat. Seemed to weigh her choices. Then with an exaggerated exhale of breath she yanked the keys from the ignition.

  “Fine.” She pulled back the handle and pushed the door open.

  Had he not stepped back, the metal would have crashed into a certain part of his anatomy he’d like to keep intact, healthy and ready for action.

  She stumbled her way out of the car and glared up at him. “I am not drunk.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m not.” She weaved just a little and leaned toward him. “So you . . .” Her long slender finger poked at his chest. “. . . just put those handcuffs away.”

  He took a step closer, crowding her. To intimidate her? Or just for his own damned pleasure? “Or what?”

  She probably wasn’t as drunk as he’d first thought, but she was definitely in no condition to drive. Standing this close her scent drifted up and caught him off guard. Surprisingly she didn’t smell like a brewery or heavy bar smoke like most people he pulled over under suspicious circumstances. Instead she smelled like wintergreen gum, aged leather, and warm woman. An enticing combination that had him fighting the urge to tangle his hands in her silky hair and haul her against him.

  “Or . . .” She looked up and gave him a lopsided grin with that soft luscious mouth. “. . . hey, do you flirt with all the people you pull over, Deputy Ryan?”

  “I don’t flirt when I’m wearing a firearm.”

  “Seriously?”

  She moved closer. So close her breasts were nearly pressed against his chest. Her heat radiated through the fabric of his uniform. She lifted her hand and traced the shape of his badge with a manicured nail. His heart rate kicked into overdrive and he fought back urges he hadn’t had to suppress in years.

  “Because I’ve seen that look before,” she continued. “And unless you—heeey!”

  The click of the cuffs securing her wrists echoed in the clear fall night.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her mouth gaping like a fish.

  “You seemed to be intrigued by my handcuffs.” He circled his palms around the metal, making sure they weren’t too tight. But all he really felt was her soft skin against his calloused fingers. He thought the move clever, a distraction. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Touching her was like touching fire. Unfortunately he’d always been a man who didn’t mind getting a little singed now and then. “Thought I’d show you how they’re used.”

  “Am I . . . under arrest?” Her body tensed. “You didn’t even read me my . . . whatchamacallems. It doesn’t work like this on Law & Order.”

  “And this isn’t a reality show either, sweetheart.” He slid his hand beneath her elbow, led her to his patrol SUV, and helped her up onto the front seat. He reached across her to fasten her seatbelt and made another too-stupid-to-live error that pressed her warm breasts against him. Oh sure, he could remove the cuffs, make her more comfortable, but right or wrong this was a whole lot more fun than putting the cuffs on most of the drunks he came up against.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to call me sweetheart. Isn’t that sexual harassment? Aren’t you supposed to shove me in the backseat?” she asked acidly, her green eyes narrowing. “Isn’t that where hardened criminals like me go?”

  “God, you are drunk.” He wasn’t about to spoil the fun by telling her the only place he planned to take her was home. He closed the door and then went around to slide into the driver’s seat. The dashboard clock verified his shift was officially over so he made a quick radio call to log out. The code numbers he used forced her brows together.

  “What’s that mean?” Katie asked. “Are you telling them to get the drunk tank ready for me? Which, by the way, I am not.”

  “Harvey Tittlebaum and his nephew Buddy are already occupying the drunk tank tonight. Course, they might like a little female company.”

  “You cannot be serious.”

  Matt started the engine and drove off down Main Street. “Naw, that would be cruel and unusual punishment for the two of them. So I guess we’ll have to find someplace else to stick you.” He glanced across the cab and managed to keep a straight face. “We usually cuff our additional drunks to the commode. Unfortunately the tile floors do have a tendency to get cold this time of year.”

  “Great.” She slumped in the seat and dropped her head back against the headrest. “Just what my father needs, to have to bail his drunk daughter out of the slammer restroom.”

  Matt looked over at her, the storefront lights flashed across the misery darkening her beautiful face. To her credit, she didn’t start blubbering like most of the drunks he picked up. Suddenly he didn’t have the heart to tease her anymore. And he wasn’t exactly ready to take her home either. “I’m not taking you to jail.”

  “You’re not?” She sat up. “Then where are you taking me?”

  “Somewhere to sober up. Your dad has enough on his plate. You want him to see you like this?”

  “Oh! No. You’re right. I can’t go home.” Her tone spiraled into panic. “Not smashed like this.”

  “Thought you said you weren’t drunk.”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “Maybe a lot,” he said.

  “No. A lot was that party-till-you-puke Friday night after the Deer Lick Destroyers won the state title. After you scored the winning touchdown.” She chuckled. “God, I spent the entire next day hugging my knees and worshiping the porcelain king. And trying to convince my mom that I had the flu.”

  “Did she believe you?”

  “No.” Her nose wrinkled. “I had to scrub the mixing pots for a week. Do you remember that nigh
t?” she asked.

  He did. But his version was quite different. While he vaguely remembered scoring that touchdown, he did remember Katie dancing by the bonfire near the back of Old Man Carver’s plowed alfalfa field. He remembered how she’d come to sit on his lap, her body warm from the fire. He remembered her breath sweet from the wine when she kissed him. And he remembered wanting her so bad he’d ached.

  Kate had been an affectionate drunk back then. He glanced at her across the SUV and wondered if she’d be just as amorous now.

  The patrol vehicle rolled to a stop in a dark alley. Kate knew she’d had a bit too much to drink, but she wasn’t disoriented and that was definitely the back entrance to the bakery. “What are we doing here?”

  “You said you wanted to sober up.” Matt turned off the engine. “I hear this place makes the best coffee in town.”

  She looked across the interior of the SUV. The red, green, and yellow dashboard lights bounced off the star pinned to his shirt. “Maybe so, but I don’t have a key.”

  He got out of the SUV and came around to open her door. “I do,” he said as his big warm hand reached beneath her elbow and he helped her down from the seat while tingles slid from her heart and into her stomach.

  With her hands cuffed and the Guinness weaving through her bloodstream, she lost her balance and bumped against his wide chest. The alley was dark, the night sky darker, so when she looked up she missed the expression on his face. What she didn’t miss was the tension in his arms, his hands, or the solidness of his strong body. “Sorry,” she said.

  They might have stood like that—chest to breast, thigh to thigh—for a minute or five hours. Kate wasn’t sure. She was only sure her heart fluttered like hummingbird wings against her ribs and his matched hers beat for beat. Of course, she could be misreading all those cardiac rhythms.

  As though he recognized they were in a dangerous position, he quickly uncuffed her. Though the metal bracelets hadn’t been tight at all, she rubbed her wrists. She just needed a distraction from the devastatingly handsome man standing in the dark alley with her, who, despite his outward antagonism, was obviously interested in her. Or at least parts of him were.