“Jake, how many times did you make this pie?”
He shook his head. “I don’t even know. At first, I never even got to the insides, because I had to keep remaking the crust. But I knew I had to get it right. I tried different recipes until I found one that was sturdy enough to roll. And then I made it two more times.”
A little joy shot through her. “You spent some time considering the crust.”
“That’s the foundation for the pie. That’s what one of the videos said. And isn’t the foundation everything?” He reached over tentatively and laid his hand on top of hers.
She got the feeling he wasn’t talking just about pie anymore. “Yes,” she whispered.
He nodded. “I considered other things, too. The ghosts. The forgiving. Turns out you have time to think when you’re making pie.”
“It’s true,” she agreed. “Maybe that’s why I overthink everything.”
“You do just the right amount of thinking.” He squeezed her hand and she didn’t pull away. “The insides part was easier, though I had to learn some new words. Sauté. Béchamel.” His eyes were huge. “Evie, I promise you I have been in chicken pot pie hell. I didn’t know if it would be enough, if it would prove anything to you. But I had to try. I thought I was going to wear that poor pan out. And, as much as it cost, that ought not be easy to do.”
“It’s a little late to be complaining about how much that cookware cost. I tried to talk you out of it.”
He nodded. “I couldn’t be talked out of it. I bought it because it made you so happy that I wanted to see you cook with it.”
The bottom fell out of her stomach. “You mean to say, all that talk that night about someone coming over to cook—you meant me?”
He nodded. “Well, yeah. I hadn’t quite figured things out then, but I knew I wanted to be with you. What did you think?”
“Never mind. Let’s just say I was jealous of ghosts.”
“All I’m asking for is a chance. If you find you can’t forgive me, can’t trust me, I swear, all you have to do is say the word. I’ll go and never come to you with this again. We’ll be friends.”
Was it possible? This chance he spoke of? Again, did she owe him? Or was a better question did she owe herself?
If it went bad, they would not be friends. There was no going backwards. She either had to give him a chance for more, or they would smile and exchange niceties when they ran across each other until one of them attended the other’s funeral.
She laughed a little to herself over the melodrama in her head—but still. It was sad. So sad.
“I was afraid you were bringing me jewelry.”
“It crossed my mind, but I decided it would take more than jewelry to impress you.”
“And Miss Violet wouldn’t have approved.”
“I know that’s a fact. ‘Ladies!’” Jake tried and failed to imitate the woman. “‘You must nevah—nevah—accept a gift of expensive jewelry from a gentleman, unless you are engaged to marry him.’”
“Don’t think we’re anywhere close to that.” She had to bring him and herself back to earth.
His face went serious. “I know that, Evie, but I can’t help thinking—someday. I’ve spent a lot of time missing you and wondering why I’ve missed you so much. It’s the liking. All my life I have taken for granted how much I like you. I like you with the kind of like that can grow into love. And it has. I like you more than anyone. And I love you more than anyone. And that’s always going to be true.”
He loved her. For so long, she’d wanted to hear those words, would have thought they would send her heart skyrocketing. That didn’t happen. It felt like something better—like being cold and having someone cover you with a warm blanket.
“Oh, Jake.” She rose and, though she never saw him move, they were suddenly in each other’s arms. “I’ve loved you for so long.”
And they kissed. And again. And again.
When they parted, he leaned his forehead against hers. “So how about it? Does this mean you’re willing to, maybe, eat dinner with me sometimes? Watch me play hockey? Ride home with me for Thanksgiving?”
“Why, Jake Champagne, are you asking me to go steady with you?”
They both laughed at her use of the phrase from a bygone era.
“Yes, Evans Arlene, I believe I am.”
“Only if you’ll teach me to ice skate.”
And they kissed again.
Epilogue
Thanksgiving afternoon
“You cannot still be hungry,” Evans said when Jake pulled his new Suburban into the parking lot of Fat Joe’s. He’d said he wanted to “get away for a minute” since they’d barely had a second alone all day.
“Yeah, well.” He parked, cut the engine, and turned to sparkle at her, but it wasn’t his old sparkle—the kind he still used on everybody else. It was her own special sparkle. “I have to make the most of this quick trip. Hockey pays no mind to Thanksgiving.”
They’d left Birmingham last night—with Robbie, Hyacinth, and eight pies in tow—and had to head back first thing in the morning because the Yellowhammers had an afternoon practice and a game on Saturday.
“Who knows when we’ll have turkey day in the Delta again?” Jake reached across the space and took her hand. We’ll, he said, like he believed they would always have Thanksgiving together. It had been a little more than a month now, and Evans had come to believe it, too.
“It’s been a fun trip.”
Jake let his mouth land in a pout. “One thing I did not like...”
“What?” Evans asked, but she knew.
“It was bad enough sleeping by myself last night, but you were in a whole different house. First night we’ve spent apart since the fall fest.” They’d never made it to the party that night. They’d had unfinished business to take care of—glorious business they’d been taking care of ever since.
Evans laughed. “It is not. How many road games have you had?” They’d made a lot of pregame chicken pot pie, too. Sometimes he made it. Sometimes she made it. Sometimes they made it together.
“That doesn’t count,” he grumbled. “Those couldn’t be helped.”
“You knew it would be this way. Just because the Delta Queens are happy about us doesn’t mean they were going to ‘let us sleep together under their roof.’”
“I guess I just forgot there for a minute that I’m a grown-ass man.”
Evans hid her smile. “Not in Christine’s house, you’re not. Are you saying you wanted to sit across the breakfast table from my daddy with bedhead?”
He shuddered a little. “Well, when you put it that way.”
“They did go to some trouble to have a combined holiday meal, so we didn’t have split up for that.”
“That,” Jake said emphatically, “was not going to happen.” He looked at her, all soft. “You’re a miracle.”
“That’s what I am!” She grinned at him.
“Well, my lady”—he opened the door—“your table awaits.”
She opened her door, but he was there to help her down. “I don’t know how you can eat tamales after all that turkey.”
“I’m going to try.” He led her to the picnic table they had sat at for so many hours, so many times.
“What’s this?” There was already a sack of Fat Joe’s red-hot tamales and two Abita beers on the table. “I’ve never known Joe to serve a table.”
“I called ahead.” This time—for the very first time—Jake sat down beside Evans instead of across from her. The spirit of her sixteen-year-old self appeared and whispered, “You go, girl.”
“Joe’s mellowed, making exceptions for big hockey stars.”
“Are you kidding?” Jake slipped an arm around her. “What I want cuts no ice with Joe. He only did it because I told him I was bringing you here for a little reminiscing and
romance. Said it was about time.”
“I’m not having sex with you on this picnic table.”
“That wasn’t the kind of romance I was talking about.” He looked heavenward. “Although...”
She laughed. “Just a couple more days.”
“I guess,” he grumbled. “I brought you a present.” He laid a small box on the table.
“What’s this?”
“Open it and see.”
What was inside left her speechless. “Your puck?” The letters were almost worn away, but it was the Miracle on Ice puck.
He nodded. “After finding out Blake had given it to me, Robbie’s been relentless—but so have I. I forfeited fair and square, and I wouldn’t take it.”
“Then how?” She held up the puck.
He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “He brought it to my mother for a hostess gift. Can you believe it?” Evans began to laugh. “And I am here to tell you, Robbie is one thing, but Christine is another. There’s no telling her no.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
“I’ve sworn off magic and good luck charms, but I believe in miracles. You’re my miracle, so I thought you should have the Miracle on Ice puck.”
Her heart warmed like the late fall Delta sun on her face. “That’s very sweet, but can’t you just think of it as a memento from Blake?” She pushed the puck toward him.
He looked at the puck, then back at her. “Maybe it could be community property,” he said in a whisper, with all the hope in the world in those blue eyes.
It took a beat for it to sink in. “But community property is—” she began.
He nodded. “Assets shared by a husband and wife.”
She waited for the fear, the doubt, the panic to move in. But it didn’t.
He put his hand over hers. “I don’t mean to rush you. I didn’t even come here to propose. I just wanted to sit at this table again with my friend, who is now also my whole heart. It just came out. Evie, I don’t want to be without you—ever. Maybe you could just begin to consider...”
“Yes,” she said.
His eyes were wide with confusion. “What? You’ll consider? Or—”
“Or.” That sixteen-year-old Evie was doing cartwheels. “I’m saying yes. Right now.”
“Right now?” He pulled her closer.
“Let’s go back and tell everybody,” she said.
“Or not...” he whispered in her ear.
She pulled away. “What?”
“Or not.” He smiled. “We could not go back to that place where we have to sleep in different houses. We could go back to Laurel Springs right now and be at the courthouse first thing in the morning. Saturday night, my wife could watch me play hockey.”
His wife. It wasn’t like she hadn’t imagined it a million times, but the word had never come out of his mouth before. “That’s crazy,” she said, but everything inside her screamed yes!
“Is it?” he asked. “Do we need to know each other longer? When we come back here next month, do we want to wake up Christmas morning in different houses?”
It was sounding less and less crazy. “But how would Robbie and Hyacinth get home? Hyacinth only agreed to come because we promised she’d be back by midday on Black Friday.”
Jake shrugged. “Somebody’ll lend them a farm vehicle or broker a business company car. I think my old Pilot is still kicking around. Or Robbie can rent—” He stopped abruptly. “I’m sorry. I got carried away. It’s probably too soon for you.”
Was it? Was it too soon to have everything she’d ever wanted?
She rose. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Home—home to Laurel Springs.”
He got a faraway look in his eyes. “Yeah. Home.”
“Don’t forget the tamales.” And she held out her hand to him.
“Not a chance.”
And they ran back to the car, toward their new life, taking the smell of tamales with them.
* * *
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to super agent Tara Gelsomino, who has been with us through every phase of Evie and Jake’s story from concept to fruition.
About the Author
USA TODAY bestsellers Stephanie Jones and Jean Hovey write together as Alicia Hunter Pace.
Stephanie lives in Tuscaloosa, AL, where she teaches school. She is a native Alabamian who likes football, American history, and people who follow the rules. She is happy to provide a list of said rules to anyone who needs them.
Jean, a former public librarian, lives in Decatur, AL, with her husband in a hundred-year-old house that always wants something from her. She likes to cook but has discovered the joy of Mrs. Paul’s fish fillets since becoming a writer.
Stephanie and Jean are both active members in the romance writing community. They write contemporary romance.
You can find them at:
AliciaHunterPace.com
Facebook.com/AliciaHunterPace
Twitter.com/AliciaHPace
Email: [email protected]
Keep reading for an excerpt from Smooth as Silk, the second book in the Good Southern Women series by USA TODAY bestselling author Alicia Hunter Pace.
Smooth as Silk
by Alicia Hunter Pace
Thanksgiving Eve
One of the best things about living in the American South was that you could eat ice cream in November. Not that it was banned in the Highlands of Scotland, in Switzerland, where Robbie had gone to prep school, or in New England, where he’d played junior and college hockey. You just wouldn’t be as inclined.
“Best one yet.” He raised his towering cone of mocha praline fudge and smiled at Constance, the owner of Double Scoop.
“That’s what you say every day.”
“Not every day.” He licked his cone and headed for the door.
“Near enough.” Constance laughed. “Not that I’m complaining.”
He was probably eating too much ice cream, if there was any such thing. Double Scoop made their own and had new flavors every week. The cheery little bell chimed behind him as he stepped out onto Main Street. The Laurel Springs shopping district didn’t look too different from his village in Scotland—pretty little storefronts with harvest decorations on the sidewalks.
The other thing he liked about the American South was Southern women. Really, he liked all women, but there was something intriguing about how Southern women wore pearls with blue jeans, drank straight bourbon, and put their initials on everything they owned.
And the sunglasses. Never had he known women who had sunglasses appear like magic in their hands the second they put foot to threshold. Maybe it wasn’t magic. Maybe it was more like those claws that shot out of Wolverine’s hands when he needed to fight, except these women were only fighting the sun.
He hadn’t had much female company of late—at least not like he’d had when he was in Nashville. He’d left the Nashville Sound for the new Birmingham, Alabama, team when his best friend, Jake, had, figuring they’d continue on as they had before—keeping company with charming companions, exploring bars, and shutting down parties.
It hadn’t turned out that way.
First off, Jake had, for reasons Robbie still wasn’t all that clear about, decided he was tired of his partying ways. Then, before the season started, the head coach had been fired for sexual harassment, and Nickolai Glazov, the acting head coach, had threatened Robbie with benching if his bad boy ways showed up on the pro hockey gossip blog The Face Off Grapevine. Even if those things hadn’t happened, nightlife wasn’t exactly hopping here. The Yellowhammers’ practice rink and offices had been built in this little outlying village rather than in the thick of downtown Birmingham, and most everyone connected with the Yellowhammer organization had settled here because it was more convenient.
<
br /> And now Jake had started keeping steady company with his childhood pal Evans—and he was fair besotted, too, from the looks of things. Sure, Robbie could have scared up some excitement if he’d wanted to, but it was too much trouble. He’d lost his running buddy and, after skating and working out, he never felt inclined to drive all the way downtown to hunt a good time that was likely to get him in trouble anyway.
So he was bored.
Apart from some right fine victories on the ice, the most fun he’d had lately was playing piano at the bridal shop for the Laurel Springs Fall Festival last month right before Halloween—even if Hyacinth had gotten her dander up at him. Or maybe that had been part of the fun. He hadn’t seen her since that night and wondered if she’d gotten over it yet.
Her shop was just up ahead. Maybe he’d pay her a little visit, see if she was still all wound up. He didn’t have anything else to do. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving and Glaz had called practice off this afternoon to give a head start on the holiday, since they had to report back midday on Friday. Hockey didn’t pay much mind to Thanksgiving and the Yellowhammers had a game Saturday afternoon.
He crossed the street right in the middle. You could jaywalk in Laurel Springs without getting run over.
The window of Trousseau could use a little work. There were two headless mannequins wearing wedding dresses, and that was the first problem. He hated headless bodies—they gave him the heebie-jeebies. The pumpkins and leaves were okay for this time of year, but Hyacinth needed something that would catch the eye, like blinking lights or an animated scarecrow. Maybe a turkey or two, though he could never understand why Americans decorated with the thing they were going to kill and eat. Santa Claus had better be on guard. Cannibalism might break out anytime.
Speaking of the right jolly old elf... If Robbie put his mind to it, he could think of some really good window decorations for Christmas—silver trees, twinkling stars, and maybe a snowman or some unicorns with flashing horns. People loved unicorns these days. His little nieces fancied them above all else.
Sweet as Pie Page 31