November Rains (A Year in Paradise Book 11)

by Hildred Billings

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Keep Up With Hildred

  November Rains

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  November Rains

  A Year In Paradise #11

  Hildred Billings

  BARACHOU PRESS

  November Rains

  Copyright: Hildred Billings

  Published: November 10th, 2019

  Publisher: Barachou Press

  This is a work of fiction. Any and all similarities to any characters, settings, or situations are purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  Keep up with Hildred’s latest releases by joining her mailing list! Behind the scenes, first looks, and even some free snippets!

  November Rains

  Chapter 1

  FRANKIE

  The hardest part of being a small-town business owner wasn’t maintaining customers while figuring out how to pay the rent.

  No, that stuff was easy if you had the right business and a thick skin.

  The hard part was keeping one’s cool when certain customers got up to their usual BS.

  Frankie Delacour entertained many fantasies throughout her day. While some entrepreneurs may have thought about what they would do when they went home, what their kids were up to, or what celebrity they’d like to bed, Frankie stood at the front of her delicatessen and imagined punting half her customers out the window.

  “But is it gluten free?” Cindy Smith, who was old enough to know better, pawed at the display case and left behind a set of greasy fingerprints. “I got my vitals back from Dr. Meyer, you know. She tells me I really need to start doing an ‘elimination diet’ to figure out my intestinal distress. Have you ever heard of such a thing? First she wants me to cut out dairy. Then I’m supposed to cut out gluten. Gluten! I thought that was for celiacs and Millennials!”

  Someone looked up from the corner of the room. Frankie refused to make eye contact with her little brother, the resident Millennial.

  “No, it’s been lightly breaded,” Frankie explained on more time. “The breading is full of wheat. Now, I have some salami over here that has only been lightly seasoned.” Or, if you’d like, I’ve got unseasoned meats out my ass! Most of her customers wanted their food as dry and unseasoned as humanly possible. If Frankie’s mother knew what she was slinging in Paradise Valley, she’d have another stroke. “What? Don’t they at least use pepper in their food there? They know lettuce isn’t a seasoning, right?” There was a reason Frankie didn’t eat out much. Even the pizza was bland in Paradise Valley.

  Cindy dithered over two different selections of salami. Her lips wibbled as she almost asked one question, then held back, snorting a quick “No, no,” to herself. She had come into the deli searching for those “quality” lunchmeats Frankie insisted on selling. Unfortunately for Frankie, the number of people who actually appreciated her connections with farmers and ranchers all over Oregon was pathetically small.

  The older her business got, the blander the meats became as well!

  That’s why I’m still in business, though. Frankie was an adapter. She saw the writing on the wall and got out her industrial eraser. Like hell I’ll let them run me out of town. This business was the difference between moving back in with her parents – at forty, no less – and having some semblance of independence. She hadn’t kept Frankie’s Deli open for several years because she didn’t adapt. Now that her little brother was not only living with her, but helping her out around the deli while going to community college, the stakes were higher. The boy was studying marketing. If Frankie played their cards right, she could move her business to the valley, where profits were higher and more people appreciated seasoning.

  “I guess I’ll take the Italian kind,” Cindy finally announced. “Two pounds, please.”

  Two whole pounds, huh? Fantastic.

  Frankie silently pulled two pounds’ worth of salami out of the case. Cindy pretended to not watch. Whatever. Enjoy my party trick. Frankie had the weights of her meats down to an exact science. If she couldn’t eyeball it within half an ounce, she scolded herself for the rest of the day. Didn’t stop people like Cindy from watching the scales like hawks, though. Used to be that Frankie offered a 5% discount anytime she was off more than an ounce, but people took it way too seriously. If they weren’t questioning her ability to do her job correctly, they were nickel and diming her with false claims of inaccuracy. From then on, it was a game she kept to herself.

  Cindy paid and placed her wrapped-up lunch meat into her large straw bag. “Do you know anything about that new place opening up down the street?” Although she looked outside, Frankie had a feeling Cindy wasn’t staring at Heaven’s Café across the street. “They say it’s going to be another café. How many do we really need in this town? Heaven’s is plenty. Oh, and this place is nice, too,” she quickly amended.

  “No offense taken.” Frankie wiped her hands with a towel she kept by the register. “I’m not offering a chic hangout spot.” Pfft. Yeah, right. She offered hot sandwiches, coffee, and some sides, but people hung out for as long as it took them to eat. She only had five small tables out, and one of them was usually taken up by Dominic and his study materials. The only thing to put off my customers more than my seasonings is the presence of a studious boy. Most of her customers hadn’t touched a college textbook in their lives. “No, I haven’t heard much. Get really busy this time of year. Too busy to really snoop as I may like.” She glanced at her brother, hunched over a notebook, and continued, “I’m always up for more business on Main Street, though.”

  “Oh, me too!” That awkward laughing chased Cindy away from the register. “We can’t be showing the children that there’s nothing for them here, after all! Isn’t that right, Dominic?”

  He jerked up, pencil clattering against his notebook. “Uh…” he began, checking the facial expression he presented to Cindy Smith. “Sure. I’d love to be able to help Sis with the business when I graduate.”

  “That’s not happening until he gets his full four-year degree, though,” Frankie said.

  “Have you decided where you’re transferring?” Cindy asked, that fake nicety making anyone with the last name Delacour want to throw-up.

  “Nah. Not yet. Maybe PSU.”

  “Portland, huh? Doesn’t the UofO have a decent marketing program?”

  “Sure, but do I want to indulge my dad’s fervent fanning of the Ducks?”

  Cindy cleared her throat. “Guess it’s a good thing you’re not considering OSU, then.”

  She showed herself out, leaving Frankie and Dominic to share a glance of mild amusement. He popped his earphones into his head and went back to studying, while Frankie cleaned up her workstation and thought about the orders she needed to make.

  A whole two-minute reprieve.

  “Looks like I showed up at the right time!” The door flung open, bell jangling and the atmosphere instantly slamming into overdrive. Dominic gripped the edge
of the table and visibly sighed to realize it was only the town deputy, Candace Greenhill – a woman who knew how to make an entrance. “Am I beating the lunch rush? Or did I miss it?”

  Frankie folded her towel and met Candace at the front counter. “Been kinda slow today. If there’s gonna be a rush, I guess you’ve missed it. What can I do for you?”

  “I got a somewhat big order, hon.” Candace pulled her notepad out of her front pocket. Instead of going over notes from a crime scene, however, she read off a small list of sandwiches, which included a la carte and bundles that came with drinks and chips. Frankie didn’t need to write it down for herself. She basically had a photographic memory when it came to orders, no matter how many or how special they were. “Sorry. We’ve got half the county down at the station right now. I volunteered to come get us some food because I need a break from everyone shouting over each other.”

  Frankie didn’t usually butt her nose into personal business, but she figured town business was fair game. “I heard about what happened on Halloween. Caught those kids red-handed, did you?”

  “Oh, I dunno about that.” From the way Candace blushed, however, Frankie knew she had stroked the deputy’s ego. What she had of one, anyway. Every cop has an ego. You have to if you wanna stick with it. That was a lesson her uncle taught her, and Frankie had never seen it play out otherwise. “Those kids aren’t at the station anymore. They got ported to the county juvie detention. Man, it’s a bit of a mess. We’ve got officers from all over in our station right now. Lawyers up our asses and something about the FBI getting involved because one of the kids may be up for some fires in Camas. Washington, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Contrary to what some may believe, the woman who had moved down from Olympia actually knew a thing or two about Washingtonian geography. I know. It amazes me, too. Yet most people in Paradise Valley couldn’t be bothered to remember where Frankie and her brother were actually from. Much easier to assume Portland. “So it’s true the FBI get involves when crimes cross state lines, huh? Good luck with that.”

  “Ah, it’ll be out of our hands soon, but I kinda apprehended them, so I’m… ah, never mind. How much do I owe you?”

  Frankie pulled out the papers she needed to make and wrap her sandwiches. While she flew through prep work, Candace continued to prattle about the goings-on around town and how these kids were networking with each other over apps and websites, which went completely over her head. She wasn’t sharing anything that wasn’t openly available in the news, but Frankie still wondered if she was supposed to be hearing this.

  “Be glad you’ve got a good kid over here.” Candace jerked her thumb toward Dominic as she withdrew a large stack of dollar bills. Some of them had seen better days than others. Hell, some of them looked like they had been wadded up in a police officer’s shoe for at least six years. Lovely. “What’s the most we ever talked, Dominic?” Candace called over her shoulder. “Gave you a talking to about a party you were at back in high school?”

  “He can’t hear you with those things in his ears,” Frankie said. “Keep telling him he’s gonna go deaf, but he keeps telling me it’s worth going deaf for that ‘Old Town Road’ song.”

  Candace looked up from counting her money. “The whatnow song?”

  “It’s that song that broke all those number one records. The kids love it.”

  “Huh. Now that you mention it, my son Tucker was really all about some song with Billy Ray Cyrus in it. Thought it was kinda weird. Billy Ray was my generation. We used to kick it at the tavern to ‘Achy Breaky Heart.’”

  With a smile that said, “That’s nice, Deputy,” Frankie gave Candace her change and bagged up the sandwiches. The drinks were placed in a separate carrying container, and Candace helped herself to a variety of chips to take back to the station.

  As soon as she was gone, Dominic pulled out his earbuds and said, “Gonna take my horse…”

  “Don’t you start.” Frankie wetted her fingers in the sink and flecked water in his direction. “Look at you, gettin’ talkin’ tos from our fine female deputy.”

  “What? You got a crush on her? Come on, Sis, we all know how much you love a lady in uniform.”

  “I said don’t you start!”

  A lady in uniform! Frankie had only dated a couple of them, years and years ago. I dated an Army girl, then I dated a security guard… Both relationships fizzled out for reasons Frankie still didn’t quite understand. Because she grew tired of them? Because her plans simply did not include being an Army wife? Who knew. It didn’t matter anymore. Those women were gone, out of her life. She had a new life now.

  When she finally got a break an hour later, Frankie sat at a table near her brother’s and scrolled through her phone. Much to her sweet surprise, she had a message from an old friend.

  “Thought of you today!” Her friend, Z, had attached a photo of a meme she probably ripped from Facebook. It was a four-panel hand-drawn comic about living in a small town, and the punchline was the locals hearing the tsunami siren and running down to the beach to “Get a good seat for the show.”

  Frankie chuckled. “Nice one,” she responded. “I live too far from the tsunami zone to think about that, but sounds about right. I bet if you told people here there would be a tornado, they’d go rushin’ to see that too!” She said that as if the people back in Olympia wouldn’t do the same thing.

  “Right? Hope you’re having a good day. I’ve gotta get back to work! Can you believe it? I’m finally opening my first store!”

  Frankie bid her friend adieu for the time being and got back to her own work. I remember when I was that excited. It always faded.

  Chapter 2

  ELAINE

  Three days. Elaine was three days away from the biggest day of her life.

  Forget graduating college. Forget the birth of her niece! Forget the day she swore she was in love with the ex-girlfriend who offered her the sun and the clouds, only to yank them away again a whole two weeks later.

  This. This was the biggest event of her thirty-five years on Earth.

  Elaine had two major dreams in life. The first was the one completely within her control. She needed to save. She needed a good business plan… and she needed to study the markets to figure out where it was best to park her teashop and pastry abode. Bonus points for a small, Main Street, USA aesthetic!

  Okay, so Paradise Valley wasn’t the best place, from an economic standpoint. It serviced fewer than a thousand people at any time, although research said the populations still swelled a few times a year. But there was already one popular café in town. If Elaine’s goal was to head to the town where she had spent many a Pride and destination lesbian wedding, then she needed to really consider her business strategy. It wasn’t enough to open a café on Main Street. She had to market herself better. Tea. High quality yet affordable tea. Homemade pastries and the kind of lattes that made people swoon. Her atmosphere was as important as the sustenance, too. After perusing half the empty storefronts in Paradise Valley, Elaine had settled on a restaurant space near the edge of town. It afforded plenty of outdoor terrace seating for the few months a year when that was feasible, but the inside was bright and airy, with lofted ceilings and big, wide windows that she had restored to their original panels. Elaine sprung for a French bistro aesthetic, with wrought-iron furniture, signs, and accents. Sofas lined one side of the room and she had a small meeting space people could reserve for free. She had personally perused thrift shops for the right materials to sew her own seat cushions and tablecloths. When she wasn’t sampling teas created in Portland, she was heading down to Eugene to taste their versions of Marionberry pie and fluffy croissants. The cookies and breads would be handmade, but she wasn’t opposed to outsourcing the seasonal pie.

  All she needed was a catchy name that summed up everything she had to offer. Elaine’s was her #1 choice, but that didn’t tell people what they would get. Nor did it market well against locations like Heaven’s Café. Too on the nose
. Her friends had agreed that she needed something to help her stand out. Something self-explanatory. Something that was catchy and personal, while advertising her wares.

  Tea & Thyme was the final sign to go up three days before her grand opening. The sign guys came down from Beaverton, unveiling her big baby in the back of their rig before getting to work putting it up. The green and white striped awning she unfurled to cover the front tables by the sidewalk added the romantic touch she had been imagining for the past few years, ever since she realized her calling as the matron of a lovely little café in a small town.

  Naturally, the new sign stopped people walking – and driving – by. More than one person shielded their eyes to read the words written out in a scripted bronze. “Tea and thyme,” they sounded out, before shrugging and continuing on their way. Elaine offered fliers to anyone who could take them, but she was so wrapped up in her sign that she missed the lunch rush heading down Main Street.

  Didn’t matter. There was still plenty to do inside!

  Elaine was not completely without outside interaction, however. Around three in the afternoon, she was greeted by a not-so-familiar face in her doorway. By then, the sign was hung and the truck gone from her tiny parking lot. It was replaced by a respectable Hyundai that held one middle-aged woman and her teenaged daughter.

  “Hellooo!” The woman sauntered into the café space, unfurling her scarf from her neck and running her hand through her hair. The girl behind her was far from peppy, although Elaine always appreciated a person who showed her real feelings instead of hiding behind a fake smile. “Are you here, Elaine? I’ve brought a special someone to meet you!”

  Elaine recognized the mayor, although they had only met a couple of times before. She personally gave me my business license! Can you believe it? Straight from the mayor! Elaine offered her a big grin and a warm – if not slightly standoffish – hug. Karen stood back with one hand on her hip and a gander to give the renewed café space.