“No,” said Ian.
“Yes!” said Kelsey at the same time, her eyes lighting up.
Her father gave her an incredulous look. “You don’t even know who Tim Burton is.”
“Somebody who likes zombies, right?”
“Let’s forget the walking dead, Kels.”
“But you said I could decide what we painted!”
Ian set his coffee cup down on the counter and rubbed his head as if it ached. “Yes, honey, but I figured the fact that it shouldn’t be anything that gave the neighborhood kids nightmares was understood.”
Trish didn’t quite catch whatever it was Kelsey muttered under her breath, but she thought it sounded something like “serve ‘em right.”
Her eyes met Ian’s over the head of his daughter, and her unexpected sympathy for him caught her off guard. He looked utterly bewildered and at a loss as to what to suggest next. There was something about the sight of a helpless male that brought out her nurturing instinct, so despite the fact that she didn’t have any bright ideas either, Trish plunged ahead. “So your dad says you’re an artist,” she said to Kelsey, praying she would throw Trish a bone.
The girl glanced at her father, who nodded encouragingly at her, and then back at Trish. “I’m not an artist. I’m just a kid.” But her voice lacked conviction.
“That’s the way most artists start out. Can I see some of your stuff?”
Kelsey stared at her for a long moment, and then she finally said, “Okay” in a voice that was much softer than anything Trish had yet heard from her. Sliding off her chair, she slipped silently from the room.
Ian took a deep breath and then let it out slowly as if dazed. “My baby girl likes zombies? How did that happen?”
“Give it a few years.”
“What?” he asked, startled as he turned his attention fully onto Trish. “Why?”
“Because then it’ll be body piercings and tattoos, and zombies will seem like nothing in comparison.”
He blanched at her words and looked suddenly ill. “That’s not even funny.”
This time it was Trish’s mouth that quirked upward as it fought against the urge to smile and lost. She tried to hide it by taking a sip from her coffee cup.
But Ian spotted it anyway. “You have a sadistic streak in you, don’t you, Miss Acker?”
“Little bit,” she agreed, unrepentant.
He stared speculatively at her for a moment as if surprised at the flicker of humor in her—she was fairly surprised herself—and then grinned a slow, appreciative grin that sent a peculiar sort of tingle through Trish. Picking up his coffee cup again, he raised it in mock salute and took a drink.
His daughter reappeared in the doorway clutching an assortment of papers in all different sizes. She hovered there for a moment with a shy look on her face that instantly made Trish forgive her for her earlier attitude. “May I see?” she asked the girl, setting her coffee aside and giving Kelsey her full attention.
Kelsey shuffled forward and placed her collection of pictures on the table in front of Trish.
Trish leaned forward to examine them, lifting them up one at a time with the care and respect she remembered craving so much when she was not much older than Kelsey. They were done in crayon, pencil, marker, paint—one even looked like it was done with colored chalk—and they showcased some of the standard little girl fare like animals and flowers along with occasional firework bursts of random color. No zombies that Trish could tell, but there were a fair number of dragons and elves, judging by the pointed ears. “These are great. Lots better than anything I did at your age. You must practice a lot, huh?”
The girl looked at her as if trying to determine whether or not she was sincere. Something in Trish’s manner must have satisfied her, because she finally relaxed and nodded.
“Look, maybe we could do some kind of compromise,” Trish suggested. “You take zombies off the table, and I’ll promise not to paint any snowmen or reindeer, okay? Maybe we could do a Christmas in Fairyland theme instead—” She retrieved her pencil and notebook and started sketching roughly. “—with a castle over here, and maybe a dragon and a couple of elves…”
Kelsey’s face brightened with interest, and she moved closer to examine Trish’s drawing. “And a wizard?”
“Sure, if it’s okay with your dad.”
“And a griffin? Could we have one of those?”
Trish blinked and tried unsuccessfully to summon up an image in her head. “A what?”
“A griffin,” the girl repeated, her enthusiasm growing by the second. “I like those best.”
“I…well, I’m afraid I don’t really know much about those.”
“That’s okay,” Kelsey assured her, taking the pencil from her and starting a sketch of her own. She frowned in grim concentration and bent over the paper. “I do. I’ll teach you.”
“Oh. Okay,” Trish agreed, willing her amusement not to show on her face for fear Kelsey would interpret it as mockery. “Thank you.”
Kelsey nodded but didn’t look up.
Biting her lip to keep from smiling, Trish glanced up and met Ian’s eyes. There was a softness in his gaze as he shifted it from his daughter to Trish, and out of view of Kelsey, he mouthed the words thank you.
Trish felt that odd sort of tingle again and turned her attention back to Kelsey’s drawing. “Well, then,” she said with mixed emotions swirling inside her, “I guess we have a deal.”
Chapter Four
“I think we may have gone overboard with the elves,” Trish said a few hours later as she examined the results of her handiwork and Kelsey’s on the front window. “Looks a little like a Tolkien fan convention.”
“It’s perfect.” Kelsey eyed the fairyland scene before them with a look of almost smug delight on her face, her paintbrush carefully held aloft so as not to drip. “Wait until Dana sees it.”
“Friend of yours?”
“No,” the girl returned so emphatically that Trish turned to look at her in surprise. “She’s in my class.” Kelsey gestured vaguely down the street. “Lives over there. I hate her.”
“Hate?” Trish repeated. “Why?”
“She’s mean. So are her friends.”
Memories of junior high and a young Ian swirled to the surface of Trish’s memory. “How are they mean?”
Kelsey looked away from the newly painted window and played idly with the paintbrush in her hands. “They just are,” she said softly.
Feeling a pang of sympathy, Trish took the brush from the girl and set it out of the way with her own so she could begin putting away the paints. “They pick on you, huh?”
“They say stuff about me.” The child’s voice dropped further so that Trish barely heard her. “And about my mom.”
Trish frowned, wondering now about Ian’s reference to his ex-wife and her absence in her daughter’s life. With a little imagination and a lot of spite, some kids could take something like that and run with it. “That stinks,” she said finally, wishing she could think of something more profound to say. “Did you tell your dad about it?”
“My teacher called him.”
“She did? That’s good.”
“No, it isn’t. She called him because I punched Dana in the nose. Then I got in trouble.”
“Oh.” Although her first instinct was to high-five the girl, Trish managed to maintain a solemn expression. Encouraging vigilantism in the first grade was probably not the best idea. “Well, you’ve got more guts than I did when I was a kid, I’ll give you that.”
Kelsey just shrugged and pressed her lips together in a tight line.
Woman and child stood silently side-by-side, contemplating the window art as snowflakes began to fall around them.
“It will get better,” Trish said finally. “The whole Dana thing.”
“It will?”
Trish turned her head to look down at the girl and found her looking back up at her earnestly. “Yeah. I promise. Hang in there.”
Kelsey turned her face back toward the window.
“In the meantime,” Trish continued, moving closer to the window and studying it, “I’ll bet we could sneak one zombie into this picture if we made it real small. Right here, behind this tree. What do you think?”
“Really?” Kelsey brightened. “Could we give it long, blonde hair?”
“I take it Dana’s a blonde, huh? Okay, blonde it is. Hand me that yellow, would you?”
Someone cleared his throat, and both Trish and Kelsey jumped and looked up to see Ian standing on the porch, watching them. “How’s the painting going, ladies?”
“Fine,” Trish and Kelsey both said at the same time, a little too quickly. They exchanged a furtive look.
“Mmm,” he said noncommittally, and Trish thought his lips might have curved slightly. “Weather’s taking a turn for the worse—and you two both look like Rudolph anyway. Why don’t you call it quits for the day?”
The dismay on Kelsey’s face struck Trish as rather touching. Maybe she was growing on the girl after all despite her earlier efforts to foist snowmen and reindeer on her. Seeing Kelsey open her mouth to protest, Trish hastened to speak first. “He’s right, we probably should. I don’t know about you, but I can’t feel my toes anymore. I’ll come back in a couple of days to do the other window, okay? And maybe a few last minute details on this one.”
“Can’t you come tomorrow?” Kelsey asked, her disappointment obvious.
“Got a shift to work at my bakery.” Trish saw the gleam of sudden interest in Kelsey’s eyes and made a mental note to pick out some pastries to bring with her next time.
“Go on inside and thaw out, honey,” Ian told his daughter. “I’ll help Miss Acker clean up.”
“Can I watch cartoons?”
“One hour.”
The arrangement must have met her approval because Kelsey nodded and hurried up the steps, pausing just long enough to wave goodbye to Trish—almost shyly—before disappearing inside the house.
Ian turned back to Trish.
“It was just going to be one zombie,” she said. “Two, three inches tall, tops. No one would even know—”
“Miss Acker.”
“—that it was—Yes?”
“You gave my daughter a wonderful day today. Thank you for that.”
“Oh. You’re welcome.”
Ian took the steps slowly as he approached her, and as he closed the distance between them, Trish noticed he must have shaved off his earlier stubble at some point while she was working outside with his daughter. The thought ran through her mind that maybe he had gone to the trouble because Trish was there, and she was disconcerted to realize that the possibility intrigued her.
He stopped a couple of feet away from her and examined the wintry fairyland scene on the window. “Nice,” he commented. “I like the troll lurking with the candy cane under the bridge.”
“Thanks.”
“Sort of a blend between ominous and festive.”
“Totally what we were going for.”
Ian turned to look at her and grinned. “She likes you,” he said after a moment, the humor in his smile fading as he studied her.
Trish was suddenly very curious about what he saw when he looked at her that way, or at least what he thought he saw. “I like her, too.”
“And what you said to her, about Dana—” Ian stopped, distractedly running a hand through his hair and leaving it just tousled enough to look inviting.
Inviting? Where had that come from?
“I know she appreciated it,” he finished finally. “I appreciated it, too.”
“How long were you standing there?”
“Not long, but long enough.”
The two of them stood there for a minute, not quite looking at each other, until Trish finally cleared her throat. “I should probably get these things put away.”
“Right, let me help you with that.”
They both reached for the same paint jar at once, drew back to let the other go first, and then repeated the whole routine again before Ian coughed behind his hand in what might have been a smothered laugh. “I’ll start on the other side,” he suggested, and Trish could only nod.
He carried her buckets of supplies to her car for her despite her assurances that she could manage just fine, and then walked her into the house so she could rinse her brushes out in the kitchen sink. They stood beside each other there, Trish rinsing each brush’s bristles until the water ran clear over them, and Ian pressing them dry with a paper towel as she handed them over. Neither said a word, and the only sounds were from the running water in the kitchen and the television in the living room as Kelsey watched her cartoons.
“So…Tuesday, then?” Ian asked her finally as they finished, and he handed the brushes back to her.
“Sure,” said Trish, trying to ignore the way the brief contact of his fingers with hers made her skin feel warmer. “Back window’s smaller, too, so it shouldn’t take as long.”
“Thank you again, Miss Acker. I mean it. It was wonderful to see her smiling today.”
“Trish,” she heard herself say. “You can call me Trish.”
Ian started to open his mouth as if to say something more, then seemed to think better of it.
Good idea, Trish thought, and then she nodded a quick goodbye and left.
Chapter Five
“Trish?”
“Yes?” Trish answered absently, staring out the bakery’s front window at the busy city street but not really seeing it.
“Since when do apple-pumpkin turnovers have chocolate chips in them?”
“Huh?” Turning, Trish saw Nadia in the kitchen doorway holding a tray of said turnovers in her oven-mitted hands, a bewildered look on her face. She did a double take. “Did you say chocolate chips?”
“Well they sure aren’t raisins, girlfriend. Too bad. Raisins would have tasted better.”
Dismayed, Trish took one of the offending pastries and tore it in two to taste it. She made a face and threw the rest away uneaten. “How did I manage to do that?”
“That’s the kind of thing that happens when you can’t get a guy out of your head.”
“You’re nuts. I’m not thinking about Ian.”
“I never said it was Ian.” A slow grin spread across Nadia’s face. “Interesting that you did, though.”
Trish frowned and turned to pick up a towel and wipe down a counter that was already spotless.
“You’re starting to like this guy.”
“No. I’m just…confused.”
“About what? Which end of him to start nibbling on first?”
Trish wadded up the towel and threw it at Nadia, who avoided it easily and continued grinning. “You’re not helping.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You’re right, I’m not.” Nadia came over to lean against the counter beside Trish and give her a companionable nudge. “Okay, talk. What’s eating you?”
“It’s just that he used to be such a jerk, and now he’s…” Trish trailed off, feeling her cheeks growing warmer. “Not. And I wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”
“But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? I mean, that he’s turned out to be a nice guy after all?”
“Sure, but it was a lot simpler to just hate him from afar.”
“And he’s gone and ruined that. The creep.”
“Well, he kind of has. How am I supposed to act around him now? He’s being all nice and funny and likeable, and now I’m starting to be nice back to him, and what’s that supposed to lead to?”
Nadia delicately raised a single eyebrow, something she did much better than anyone else Trish had ever met. “I can think of a few things, including one or two that involve whipped cream and finger painting. How is this a problem?”
“Well, for one thing, he thinks my name is Trish Acker.”
“So tell him the truth. He’ll probably laugh.”
“And just sweep the past under the rug?
Somehow that doesn’t feel right. Like I’d be letting down victims of school yard bullies everywhere.” Trish rubbed her head and sighed. “I don’t know. Like I said, I’m confused. And I’m getting a headache now. See? Nothing but trouble already.”
“Go take some aspirin and lie down.” Nadia gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the kitchen and its back room. “And don’t overthink things. Life’s too short to let your past screw up your future.”
“What is that, Zen wisdom?”
“L.L. Cool J, I think.”
“Ah.” And then Trish headed off to find the aspirin.
* * *
It was silly to waste time analyzing the situation, Trish decided the next morning as she pulled a carefully wrapped plateful of cupcakes from out of her fridge—the ones she had made yesterday just for Kelsey and decorated with leftover Halloween accents like plastic spiders and vampire teeth. Analyzing things to death served no useful purpose since she planned to finish the window painting today and would therefore have no reason to see either Ian or Kelsey again. She could make a graceful exit and wish them well, and then that would be that. No more headaches, and no more confusion.
She sighed then, feeling a whole lot less relieved by that thought than she had expected.
Ridiculous, she told herself, hastily grabbing a paper she had printed out from her computer the night before, a very special paper, and thrusting it into her pocket as she put her coat on.
Her cell phone rang, startling her. It was a little early in the morning to be receiving calls from anyone she knew. She frowned in confusion at the phone number displayed on it before recognizing it as Ian’s. “Hello?”
“Trish? There’s a problem.”
Twenty minutes later, Trish stood beside Ian outside his house and stared at the mess that someone had made of his front window. Parts of the scene she and Kelsey had painted the other day were still visible, but most of it was masked behind what appeared to be random splatters of paint and—“What is that, raw egg?”
The Heavenly Bites Novella Collection Page 3