by Lexi Eddings
Granted, a smack alongside Peter’s head with that sock would be an extreme reaction to his ham-handed offer. But a girl had to protect her heart as much as her physical safety, didn’t she?
“Hang out” at his place. Honestly, he’s as big a jerk as Tad Van Hook.
The only difference was that Tad was a self-involved teenage boy whose brain, according to scientific research, hadn’t fully developed yet. Peter’s gray matter was supposedly firing on all cylinders.
She sighed and put Seth’s pizza into the oven to warm. Loaded with pepperoni, sausage, peppers, olives, and smothered with cheese, it promised to be filling. The savory smell began to fill her little kitchen. With a glance at the clock, she realized he wasn’t supposed to arrive for another fifteen minutes.
Those stupid strawberries were calling to her. Trust Peter to remember they were her weakness. She’d have just enough time to enjoy one before Seth arrived, but she’d have to be sure it was gone or she’d have to offer him one.
And that would never do. It would be weird to serve him something another guy had given her. He’d know she hadn’t run out and bought them for herself. Or for him.
Chocolate-covered strawberries were so decadent. Sensual, almost. The kind of thing lovers gave each other.
If she trotted out the strawberries while Seth was there, she’d have to deal with his questions and general surliness on the subject of Peter and she didn’t want that.
It was too much drama for her. She preferred to keep all the angst in her life between the pages of her books, where it belonged. Which reminded her that with all the excitement of bumping into Peter, she’d forgotten where she’d left her copy of Sense and Sensibility.
With a sigh, she gave in, took a strawberry from the fridge, and bit into it.
Ah! Nirvana . . .
It was a good thing they were wrapped in milk chocolate. If the berries had been drizzled with dark chocolate instead, they’d have to be labeled a controlled substance.
Despite the milk chocolate, all the tension drained from her as she sank into sugar bliss. Everything would work out okay.
Even the book would turn up. Sooner or later.
* * *
Seth pulled his truck to a stop behind Angie’s building, turned off the engine, and listened to it sigh and click as it cooled.
He wished he could cool off as easily.
Last evening he’d narrowly resisted the urge to circle the Square to check when Angie made it home. Because that seemed more than a little stalker-ish, he forced himself to go back to his place instead.
It didn’t stop him from stewing.
He’d tried watching a pay-per-view fight on TV, but it didn’t hold his attention. He put on some loud music and lifted weights for an hour. All it got him was sweaty and sore. Finally, he showered, collapsed into his La-Z-Boy, and decided to try reading Angie’s book.
Not just her notes. The actual story this time.
Seth had read the book for a couple of hours last night. It was sort of a record for him. He didn’t stop until the print started blurring and he found himself rereading the same sentence two or three times.
He didn’t have to get very far into the story to realize he seriously disliked that Willoughby character. And he wished Colonel Brandon would get over himself long enough to say what he was really thinking.
Willoughby had no hesitation about speaking his mind. The way he described Brandon, as someone people thought well of but didn’t much care about, rubbed Seth raw. According to Willoughby, Brandon was the kind of guy “whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to.”
“Jackass,” Seth said to the fictional character who lived in the book on his truck’s passenger seat. He should probably take it back to her, but he was into the dumb thing now. He kind of wanted to see it through, if for no other reason than to find out if Willoughby got what was coming to him.
The book would end up hurled at his wall if John Willoughby didn’t come to a bad end.
Seth left Sense and Sensibility in the cab of the truck and headed up to Angie’s apartment.
When he knocked, he heard a muffled response almost immediately and the door opened a moment later. Angie’s face looked a little pinched, as if she was trying to swallow something quickly and it wasn’t going down well.
“You all right?” he asked.
She gulped and nodded.
“You’ve got a little something on . . .” He reached over and wiped off the dark brown smudge at the corner of her mouth with the pad of his thumb. She jerked back at his touch, but he got it all anyway.
“It’s chocolate,” she admitted.
“In that case.” He licked his thumb and grinned at her. “Never woulda figured you for a chocoholic.”
“I’m not. I just like a little once in a while.” She waved him in. “Besides, they say the type of candy you like says a lot about you. What’s your favorite? Snickers or Almond Joy?”
“Are those my only two choices?”
“For the purposes of the online quiz I took the other day, yes,” she said with a grin.
Seth shrugged. “What’s the difference? Snickers and Almond Joy both have nuts.”
“Yeah, but coconut makes Almond Joy the more exotic choice.”
“Snickers, then.” The last thing he wanted to be considered was exotic. “What’s your favorite?”
“Anything with dark chocolate.”
That wasn’t dark chocolate he’d tasted on his thumb. Seemed strange that she wouldn’t buy what she liked.
Her oven made a dinging sound.
“Pizza’s ready.” She indicated that he should sit at the counter where she’d already set out real plates on place mats, cloth napkins, and most surprisingly, flatware, all perfectly lined up as if she was hosting a dinner party in a Jane Austen novel.
“Paper plates would do,” he said. And who uses a knife and fork for pizza?
“I’m not really big on paper plates. They always get so soggy and icky,” she said. “And besides, this is my way of making up for last night when—”
“When you stood me up,” he finished with a grin.
“When I rescheduled you,” she corrected.
He sniffed the air appreciatively. “Gotta confess I’m half starved,” he said as she sliced the pizza with a serrated knife instead of a round slicer. She obviously didn’t eat pizza often. “Didn’t get much time for lunch on the job site.”
“I noticed that you and your crew were working pretty hard.” She filled two glasses with ice and set them next to the side-by-side place settings.
“Where’s your classroom located in the high school?”
“East side, second floor. Why?”
“No reason.” The high school’s addition was going up on the north side of the building. That meant she must have made an effort to find a window where she could look out and see what he was up to. Seth smiled as he settled onto one of the barstools. Effie occupied the other with a surly expression on her feline face that would put the internet star Grumpy Cat to shame.
“Hello, Effie.”
She gave him a staccato-like “meh” of a meow, showed him her tail, and hopped down. Evidently, the good will he’d earned by feeding her tuna yesterday had evaporated.
“Nice to see you again, too.”
“Thanks again for taking care of her last night,” Angie said.
“No problem. How’d your dinner go?” He hated himself for asking, but the words seemed to flow out his mouth without conscious volition.
“It was okay.”
“Just okay?”
She shrugged. “It was dinner. What can I say? The Cobb salad was perfect. I had the rib eye, but I really wanted the trout. The crème brûlée was to die for. Anything else you want to know?”
Yes, but knew he shouldn’t ask. He shook his head, then plowed ahead anyway. “How long is he hanging around?”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand whom he meant. “Peter will be in town a few days, le
cturing at the college. Not that it’s any of your concern.”
“Who said I’m concerned?” He so wanted to ask if they were seeing each other again, but he settled for. “Manny just seemed like . . . the careless type.”
“Manning,” she corrected. “Careless how?”
“Well, the guy did bring a poisonous spider into your home.”
“But—”
Before she could start defending Peter Manning, he headed her off with, “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
That made her close her mouth abruptly. Then she tucked a wedge-shaped spatula under the edge of one slice of pizza and set the whole pie on the counter before him.
“What do you want to drink? I’ve got beer and coke, thanks to you, or sweet tea or water.”
“A coke is fine.”
She got one for him and one for herself from the fridge and sat down in the other barstool next to him. Without preamble, she served him a slice, put one on her own plate and started eating.
Seth had been raised to pray before his meals, but Angie must not have. So he just shot a silent prayer skyward. God would understand.
“Thanks for bringing this over, Seth,” she said between gooey, cheesy bites.
“You’re welcome.” He noticed that she cut her pizza with her knife and a fork, never touching her food with her fingers. He couldn’t bring himself to follow suit. “What’s with the silverware? Most folks eat pizza with their hands.”
She set her fork down and shrugged. “I don’t like touching my food.”
“My uncle George always says fingers were made before forks.”
“Yeah, well, if we weren’t supposed to use forks, Martha Stewart would be out of a job.”
“You don’t eat anything with your fingers?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“How about French fries?”
She wagged her utensil in the air. “Fork.”
“How do you eat an apple?”
“I wash it, cut it into wedges, put it on a plate, and . . .” She waved the fork again.
“Bet you’re fun to take camping.”
“Hey, they make portable mess kits complete with a knife, fork, and spoon,” she said, with a bite of the pizza dripping cheese from her fork. “So, I can’t be the only one who doesn’t want to eat like a Neanderthal.”
“You callin’ me a caveman?”
“If the loin cloth fits . . .”
He picked up his fork and cut a bite off his slice of pizza. No way he was going to let her think he was a Neanderthal.
“Even warmed up,” she went on, “this pizza is pretty good.”
Peter Manning might have taken her to the most expensive restaurant in town, but all he got was an “okay.”
Pretty good was better than okay.
“So how come you had a steak last night if you really wanted fish?” Seth asked.
“Peter ordered for both of us.”
“That’s weird.”
“No, it’s sort of a throwback. There was a time when gentlemen always ordered for the ladies. Peter’s old school that way.”
“Sounds more like he has to be in control.”
She gave a head-bob of a nod. “Yeah, that’s one of the things I don’t miss about him.”
Seth was more curious about whether there were things she did miss, but forced himself to take a pepperoni-laden bite instead of asking. He’d chew it until the urge to dwell on her ex passed.
He might have to chew a long time.
Chapter 10
It’s pretty hard to fix something if you don’t know what’s wrong.
—Seth Parker, who knows there must be more to Angie Holloway than a walking dictionary
“So have you had a chance to look at the pageant book?” he asked.
“A little. To be honest, I think I’ll throw out most of it and start fresh.”
He snorted in surprise. “Don’t tell my aunt Shirley.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure someone else will beat me to that,” she said wryly. “I’ve been here long enough to realize gossip is an art form in Coldwater Cove.”
“Yeah, but folks mean well,” Seth protested. “The only reason everybody’s all up in everybody else’s business is because they care.”
She made a hmph-ing noise. “Yeah, well, once I start dismantling their Christmas traditions, they may care me right out of town on a rail.”
“No chance of that. I got your back.”
She smiled at him. It was a shy, thank-you sort of smile. Still not the one he was after, but it would do.
“So what’s out for sure?” Seth asked.
“We need new actors to start. If we hold auditions for the parts—and I think we definitely should—we’ll probably also need all new costumes. Do you know someone who could take care of that?”
“Not big on sewing circles myself, but I’ll ask around.” His aunt Shirley would know. It might also be something he could delegate to Marjorie Chubb. She was more than the captain of the prayer chain. She headed a couple of serious quilting circles and a local group that styled themselves the “Fabric Guild.”
“Even though the Methodist choir usually provides the music, I was thinking it ought to be a community choir for a community pageant, not just people from one church.”
Seth nodded. “That’s a good idea, but the Methodists do have the biggest choir in town, so you can’t shut them out.” He forked up another bite of pizza. Not eating with his fingers wasn’t so bad. “Talk to Mr. Mariano about it.”
“The high school music teacher?”
“Yeah. He also directs the Methodist choir, so he’d be the logical person to ask about including other singers in the group.”
“Okay.” Angie hopped up from her place at the counter and padded over to a small desk in the pint-sized living room. She returned with a yellow legal pad and pen. After writing the number one, she wrote Contact Mariano re: expanded choir in an easy, flowing script. “When I first started teaching at Coldwater High, there was a rumor swirling around that Mr. Mariano was actually a Mafia don in witness protection.”
Seth chuckled. “That rumor’s been around since I was in school. The witness protection bit is new though.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
“Naw, I think Mariano started it himself just to keep his students in line. I mean, think about it. Who’s gonna cross the Godfather?”
“Wish I’d thought of something like that. But to be honest, the young people here are pretty easy. They’re so polite. My first week of teaching here, I’d never been ‘ma’am-ed’ so much in my life.”
“Being respectful to your elders is kind of drummed into your head early in this part of the world.”
“Not being an ‘elder,’ I didn’t take it well at first,” she admitted. “No woman wants to be called ma’am. Especially not before she turns thirty.”
So she was a year or two younger than he. “Don’t worry. I’d never call you ma’am.”
“What would you call me?”
“Pretty.” The word was out of his mouth almost before it registered in his brain. He probably should have said beautiful, but she wasn’t classically lovely. Pretty was more accurate. The way her nose tilted up ever so slightly made her face insanely cute. She parted her hair on the side, but it always seemed to fall forward so she had to keep it tucked behind her ear. He liked it better when she left it alone and the dark cascade swept over the outer corner of one of her brown eyes. It made her seem mysterious.
Sexy.
He’d been so sure she wasn’t his type. Boy, was he wrong.
He glanced at her to see if she was looking back at him. She seemed to be totally absorbed by the pizza on her plate. But her lips were curved in a small smile.
Two little smiles in one day. Not bad.
“I want the script rewritten, too,” she said as if they hadn’t just had a moment. “The characters in the current version sound as if they’d swallowed a King James Bible.”
>
“Isn’t that kind of like Shakespeare?”
“Yes, the English is from the same period, and nobody loves Shakespeare more than me,” she said. “But we’re not living in sixteenth-century England. Don’t you think it makes more sense for the Christmas story to be accessible to a wider audience?”
“Guess so.”
“I know so.” She pointed with her fork for emphasis. “I can’t even imagine what Junior Bugtussle would make of ‘forsooth’ or ‘anon.’ ”
“So who will you get to write the new script?”
“I was thinking there must be someone at the college who writes.”
“Yeah, for sock puppet theater,” he said with a laugh. The curriculum at Bates was the town joke.
“I’m sure someone in the English department could write a little Christmas play,” she said.
“You should ask my cousin Crystal,” Seth suggested.When she arched a brow in question, he explained. “Crystal Addleberry. She used to be an Evans. Now she’s the dean of admissions at Bates. She’ll know who to ask about writing a script.”
She added the number two and another note to herself to the list.
“Of course, you could write it yourself.” If the pithy little things she’d penciled into the margins of her copy of Sense and Sensibility were any indication, Angie was a terrific writer. “Your stuff is fresh and funny. Not that the Christmas story is funny, but I think you’d do great.”
She frowned at him in confusion. “How could you know that? You’ve never read a thing I’ve written.”
Busted. “Well, you’re an English teacher and all. Stands to reason you can write. Probably better than those eggheads at the college.” He needed to change the subject pronto. “So it sounds like you’re tossing the pageant notebook my aunt Shirley gave you out the window. Is there anything in there you are keeping?”
She grimaced. “Just the donuts, I think. She seemed so set on having them for the cast party. That’s probably one tradition that needs to stay. But I’m having a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I can’t make sense of the recipe.”
“Well, Aunt Shirley did say you should make a practice batch.”
She shook her head and started clearing away the remains of the pizza. “I can’t very well make a practice batch if I can’t even read the recipe.”