From Scratch

by C. E. Hilbert

  “Yes, I know this is Gibson’s Run. I do live here. But just because this is a small town in the ‘Heart of it All,’ doesn’t mean you can’t try something a little unique.” She mirrored his crossed arms and let out a sigh. “And who thinks nuts in chicken salad are exotic?”

  “I didn’t say exotic.” He chuckled.

  “Well, regardless. You need to broaden your horizons beyond mustard and white bread. There’s a whole foodie world out there just waiting to be nibbled on.” She thrust a half of the chicken salad sandwich within centimeters of his face.

  He took a bite, brushing her fingers with his lips. The combination of flavors burst through. He could taste basil and a hint of garlic, softened by the juicy grapes and sweet pecans. The combination was held together by a rich dressing that was creamy, but not heavy. Maggie had created a taste of heaven in between the softest pieces of bread he had eaten since his mother was alive.

  ~*~

  His eyes closed as he devoured the monster-sized bite from the half sandwich she held. Small murmurs of pleasure escaped his lips.

  Her fingers tingled from where his lips had touched her. She was paralyzed by the wave of desire-laden guilt rolling to her toes. She lowered her hand to the desk, the half-eaten sandwich barely in her grasp.

  He seemed to be enjoying the salad. His eyes remained shut and his mouth stretched into a soft smile as he chewed.

  She was thankful for the relief from his intense scrutiny. She had been a bundle of nerves when she crossed the street. Jane and Millie convinced her that Sean wasn’t eating properly, that he was consumed with discovering who broke into the station, and would forget to feed himself. When she lowered the front shade for the night and saw the light in his office still burning, she decided she owed him more than a simple apology for nearly slitting his belly. Within twenty minutes, she had bread sliced, dressing mixed with chopped chicken, and warmed chutney all packaged nicely. Crossing the street, her stomach began to question her spontaneous decision.

  And now, staring at the slight dusting of five-o’clock shadow on his square jaw, reeling from the barest touch of his lips to her skin, she wasn’t sure spontaneity was wise. Where had the impulse come from? She wasn’t exactly a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of woman. She was strategic and planned. She was thoughtful and organized. She knew escape routes and tactical maneuvers. Uncle Jack had taught her well. When was the last time she had done something—anything—on a whim?

  Sam. Ten years ago. Sam Riegle, the red-shirt junior running back for the University of Maryland, with his sweet Southern drawl and knack for showing up at her dorm at two in the morning to go for a coffee or on a moonlit stroll through campus. He was joy-filled and ruggedly handsome with his over-long brown hair and his deep-set, gray-green eyes. He’d made her laugh until her sides hurt. He’d enjoyed the simple pleasure of holding hands while walking to class and watching an old horror movie in a dark room. He was what every girl wished for in a first love and more than anyone could have created in her imagination. Her stomach twisted as the echo of what might have been floated through her mind. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temple.

  “Earth to Maggie.” Sean’s voice broke through, zooming her back to the present.

  “I’m sorry. What were you saying?” She shoved down the overwhelming desire to drown in the welcoming warmth of his chocolate-brown eyes.

  “I was saying that you may have turned me into a foodie.” He grabbed the half-eaten sandwich from her hand and took another generous bite. “This chicken salad is the best thing I have eaten in more weeks than I can count.”

  Her heart warmed as he devoured the food. Maybe spontaneous wasn’t such a bad idea. She slid the remaining half of the sandwich in front of him, shifting the untouched ham and Swiss to her side of the desk. “I’m glad you like it.” She lifted the sandwich to her mouth. Before she could take a bite, his hand touched hers.

  “What, no sharing?”

  The slight challenge in his face caused the tension to drain from her body, slamming the door to her memories. Possibilities filled her heart. “Well, I guess since you asked so nicely.”

  He chomped a quarter of the half in one bite. His eyes fluttered shut again while the groans of pleasure escaped his lips. “Wow…”

  Slouching in her chair, she munched on plain, salted potato chips and enjoyed the show.

  His complete surrender to the pleasure of eating melted more of the ice protecting her heart. Anyone who became swept away in her food couldn’t possibly be too much of a distraction.

  She crunched on a chip.

  Maybe this one impulsive dinner wasn’t a bad idea.

  9

  “So there is Mr. McArthur banging on his front door at two o’clock in the morning in nothing but blue and white polka-dot boxer shorts and black socks.” Sean’s eyes twinkled as he turned to lock the door of the station.

  Laughter bubbled in Maggie as the image of the balding, slightly overweight, high school band teacher took center stage in her mind. “What did he do?”

  Zipping his jacket, he took the canvas bag from Maggie’s hands and slung it over his shoulder as they began walking along the sidewalk. “We approached him from behind and he called out over his shoulder, ‘Sean, this isn’t any of your concern. Wanda’s fallen off the wagon again.’ And he starts banging on the door, screaming for Wanda to open up.”

  “So you just left him there?”

  “Nope, we cuffed him and brought him down to the station for drunk and disorderly. Seems Wanda wasn’t the only one whose wagon had tipped over. It was all cleared up in the morning, no formal charges or anything. But now when we get a call after midnight, I call it a WandaMac and generally send Alvin over to check it out.”

  “That doesn’t seem very fair to make Alvin do all of the night calls.”

  He looked down into her upturned face and grinned. “Well, it doesn’t seem very fair that Alvin sleeps through most of his shifts, either, but life isn’t always fair, is it?”

  She nodded her head and tugged her coat tighter. The chill seeped in through the opening, nipping at her neck. She’d looked all over her apartment for her favorite blue scarf—one of the only gifts from her parents that she’d kept—but it was missing. She probably left it at church on Sunday. It wasn’t like her to be so forgetful, but with the events of the past few weeks her mind was stretched thin.

  “Cold?”

  She lifted her gaze to Sean and shook her head slowly. “Just a little. I wish I wasn’t so absentminded. I couldn’t find my scarf. It wasn’t with my coat where it normally is. Who knew the temperature would drop so quickly.”

  “Welcome to Ohio. Our weather is nothing if not inconsistent.” His head tilted slightly. “Are you missing anything else? You know, from the break-in?”

  A chill raced up Maggie’s spine. Swallowing against the lump in her throat that formed as quickly as instant oatmeal, she shook her head. “I don’t think it’s missing. I probably just left it at church.” She flashed him a grin and was thankful for the darkness that hid her growing fear. “Nothing’s missing, but I’ll keep a look out.” Burrowing her hands into her pockets, she shifted her attention to the small pool of water at the base of the elaborate fountain gracing the center of town.

  Water rarely flowed from its spigots, and the exterior needed a good scrub against the mildew that had wall-papered itself over the ornate structure, but people loved the old thing, even placing the structure on the flag designed for the town’s sesquicentennial celebration last month. She withdrew a penny, kissed Abe Lincoln’s face, and tossed the coin into the dank water with a plunk.

  “Did you make a wish, Miss Maggie?”

  At this particular moment, she desperately wished she could chuck the pieces of her past and her mounting anxieties into the shallow water along with her one-cent piece. To not allow a missing scarf send chills of fear through her body or to not greet a simple friend’s visit with a knife wielded in terror. If only it was as eas
y as tossing a coin in a fountain to rid herself of the ugliness of her past. “Even if I made a wish, I couldn’t tell you. Wouldn’t come true, would it?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  She enjoyed the casual silence that lingered between them, creating a private cocoon against her worries, allowing her to just be in the moment.

  Then Sean cleared his throat. “So, this morning when I stopped by your kitchen…” He leaned his hip against the wrought iron fence surrounding the fountain.

  Her stomach rolled into her heart and she waited for the rest of the question. What would she say? I thought you were a psychopath stalker who was released from prison. I’m sorry. We cool now? Nope. They certainly wouldn’t be cool if she dropped her past with a splat in his lap.

  Her past held consequences well beyond the answers to deceptively simple questions. Knowing her past, he would no longer be safe. He would end up like Sam, or worse. And Sean would just be the start. She had to keep her new friends and her new town safe. She needed another solution, another story. Think.

  “I was just wondering…”

  “You were wondering why I tried to slit your belly open like a fish?”

  His mouth lifted and his shoulders relaxed as he crossed his arms. “Naw, I get you were freaked, and when you’re ready you can tell me why.”

  Relief washed through like a tidal wave. Her cheeks burned. Once again, she was thankful for the shadow of night. “Oh, OK.”

  “I was wondering where that voice has been hiding.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maggie,” he said as he lifted his hand, brushing a loose curl behind her ear and sending a trail of tingling heat down her cheek. “I don’t think I have ever heard a voice more beautiful than yours. I know I’m not a great judge of talent, but even I could tell the last place you should be headlining is a broken-down kitchen behind a bakery in a town no one outside of Columbus, Ohio has heard of.”

  She tried to recall anything prior to the stranglehold of terror when she looked up and saw thick rimmed glasses and jet black hair superimposed over his face; his hands clapping with the same slow, eerie, nauseating rhythm that haunted her for nearly a decade. “I was singing?” She stared at the pool of water below and squeezed her arms around her middle.

  “You don’t remember singing?”

  “Sometimes I sing when I am alone.” She kept her attention on the murky water. “It’s not a big deal. I bet you sing in the shower.”

  He moved to her side, leaning his elbows on the fence. “What I do in the shower is not defined as singing. Screeching, maybe, but definitely not singing. What I heard you doing…honey, that was ethereal.”

  Ignoring the gentle flip of her heart at the easy endearment, she lifted a single eyebrow. “Ethereal? What am I, the singing dead?”

  “No. I meant angelic.” He chuckled.

  “Chief, you should know by now, I’m no angel.”

  “I know. Even more reason for my surprise. How could that voice come out of you?”

  “Hey!” She punched his shoulder.

  “What I meant to say was that I was surprised that someone so beautiful on the outside could also generate such beauty from within.”

  “Nice save.”

  “I was a closing pitcher. Saves are my specialty.”

  The last thread of tension broke and she was once again at ease. “Pitcher, huh?”

  “Yep, my sinker got me through college and a couple years in the minors.”

  “Did you ever play in the majors?”

  “Nope. I wasn’t that good. I was just an OK college player, but pitchers get some special looks, so I was drafted out of school and spent a couple years in the minors. My shoulder was fairly shot by the time I closed out season number two playing for this Double A team in the Carolina League. I knew if I ever wanted to comb my own hair when I was forty, I should hang up my cleats and try something else.”

  “I’m sorry. Did you always dream of playing baseball?”

  “I guess. My dad was a big baseball nut. He used to play catch with Mac and me all the time. I guess baseball was something we kept doing to keep his memory alive.” He dropped his gaze. “To this day, if I hear the clean snap of a fastball in a catcher’s mitt, I can still smell my dad’s cologne.”

  “What a wonderful gift.” Her heart puddled at the image of a little tow head with a mitt bigger than him sitting at his daddy’s feet learning all about their game.

  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “So you played in college. Did your brothers keep playing?”

  “Joe still plays. He was the one with all the talent. Broke into the majors about five years ago. He’s a centerfielder.” Sean named the team and Maggie, despite her teaspoon worth of baseball knowledge, was suitably impressed.

  “Mac was really good, too. He was a catcher, so he could see the game better than Joey and me. He made it longer in the minors. He was what they call a journeyman ballplayer. I think he played one or two games in the ‘Show,’ but he found his true passion on the business side. The owner of the last team he played for became a mentor to him. Mac now runs the baseball operations for that team as well as acts as general counsel for the guy’s holding company.”

  She knew that the youngest Taylor was a professional athlete. Anyone who’d ever spent more than ten minutes in Gibson’s Run knew about the legendary Joe Taylor, but she’d never heard much about the elusive Mac Taylor. “Lawyer, huh? I guess baseball worked out for him.”

  “Hey, don’t get too impressed. I can still rev up some heat and throw a fastball past him. Emphasis on a single fastball. He’s just a pudgy old suit now.”

  “Noted. Maybe I should watch out for that fastball myself.” She gazed at him. “Regardless of what your brother is doing, I think you have achieved something quite remarkable here. You can feel the vote of confidence this place has in you. You have to be the youngest chief this town has ever had, and yet, I never hear anyone mention your age. They just talk about how good you are at what you do. For the whole town to be blind to your age is quite a testimony to your achievement.”

  “I don’t know about youngest, but it is a nice, safe little town and I like to keep it that way.”

  “Well you do a fine job, Chief.”

  “And I am smart enough to know when someone is purposefully shifting the conversation away from herself. Weren’t we talking about your singing ability before we got side-tracked on the talented Taylor brothers?”

  She turned toward her apartment. “It’s getting late. I should get home. Early morning,” she spoke with an exaggerated yawn. She began walking, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jacket.

  “Hey Maggie, wait up.” His hand squeezed her shoulder, stopping her forward direction.

  She turned.

  He lifted his other hand to her shoulder, softly caressing her upper arms.

  The wall she kept rebuilding in her heart began to crumble once again.

  “Maggie, why won’t you talk about yourself? Why don’t you trust me?”

  She wanted to tell him everything. She wanted to close the space between them and wrap her arms around his waist, rest her head on his chest and sink into his protective embrace. She wanted to pretend for a few minutes that her whole world wasn’t held together by of the barest thread. But life—her life—wasn’t about getting what she wanted. She couldn’t afford to give people her trust. Her life was about survival, and despite her weakness, she had to keep the secrets. She pivoted away from him and unlocked the door to her shop. “I trust you just fine, Chief. I just don’t feel like recapping my life story. History is history.” The tinkle of the welcome bell echoed through the empty space. “Thanks for walking me home.” She turned to face him with a practiced, over-bright smile. “I can take the bag.”

  He came into the shop and leaned against the long table. Why wasn’t he moving? He needed to go. At that moment, she craved being alone like it was the last brownie in the pan. She needed space to rebui
ld the protective barriers that her dinner companion had eradicated. Her shoulders dropped. She closed the space between them and yanked on the handle of the bag, but he didn’t release his grip.

  With the flip of his wrist, he tugged her toward him. She landed awkwardly against his chest, the air thrust from her lungs. He tilted her chin up, forcing her gaze to meet his, the warm, welcoming depths offering comfort and something beyond her understanding. His thumb traced the soft line of her jaw. “Maggie, I like you. You are a beautiful, exasperating, fascinating woman with more layers than a wedding cake. And, I am interested in all of them, the ones I can see and the ones hidden beneath the surface. Regardless of how long it takes, you will trust me. God sent you into my life, all loud and demanding, and I’m not about to let you shut me out because you are scared of something you won’t share with me.”

  A shiver shimmied through her as his hand slid to the nape of her neck, gently drawing her face closer.

  “Maggie-girl, this is fair warning. I am not backing off. I am officially playing the game and I always play to win.”

  Her lids fluttered shut as she waited for his lips to drop to hers. As the bag’s sudden weight dropped into her hands, she stumbled forward in the space he’d just filled. She struggled to open her eyes and saw the long table in front of her. She slowly spun on her heel, dragging the bag in her wake. She looked up and her foggy brain cleared.

  Sean shoved his hands in the pockets of his GRPD jacket. A twinkle of a smile twisted at the corner of his lips. “Goodnight, Maggie.” He went out her door, crossed the street, and then disappeared around the corner of the police station.

  “Oh, dear. I’m in trouble with a giant, capital ‘T.’”

  10

  The boom of the tribute cover band completing their sound check trailed behind Maggie as she elbowed the swinging door that connected the ballroom and the back prep room. She dropped the three empty pans into one of the multiple crates she had used to transport all of the individual desserts to the party.