by Annie Jones
Everyone in the whole room, including Nathan in his portable playpen in the corner, fixed their eyes on him. Mouths gaped open.
He paused in the open doorway. “What? Can’t a man face the day with a song in his heart?”
“If it stays in his heart,” Jed grumbled.
“Once it starts spilling out past his teeth and starts getting stuck into the ears of innocent bystanders, them innocent bystanders got a right to make a comment.”
“And your comment is?” Adam asked.
The two older fellows exchanged glances before they spoke as one, saying, “Shut your pie hole!”
“Aw, leave him alone. I like this side of him. Better than that strong, silent type skulking about on that noisy motorcycle,” said a woman standing at the table of coffeepots, pouring cream into a steaming thermal cup.
“I like the other side of him,” Warren gruffly proclaimed.
“The other…” Adam looked over his shoulder at his supposed “other” side.
Now all eyes moved to Warren.
“What are you talking about?” Jed shifted his weight to one stool away from his regular spot at the counter.
Warren coughed. “I’m talking about the side of him we all see when he’s heading out the door.”
Jed grunted to show his disbelief.
“Seems that’s what them Burdetts do the best, anyway. When things get tough they turn tail and save themselves.”
“That’s not fair, Warren.” Josie came through the kitchen door wiping her hands on her apron.
“Ain’t fair that after twenty years at the Crumble my wife now has to work all hours catering to teenagers in a bowling alley in another town, either.”
“Have you ever stopped to think how much time each of the Burdetts has spent trying to keep the business afloat?” she asked. Her gaze flicked up to meet Adam’s, then just as quickly she looked away.
“Afloat? That explains a lot.” Jed snorted and retook his regular seat. “We thought they was making snack food, they thought they was building bass boats!”
“Hey, hey! Paychecks from that factory paid for most of the bass boats sitting in driveways around this town. They didn’t plan for things to go sour out there.” Josie threw the towel down.
“Maybe they should have.” Warren swiveled around to look at Adam head-on at last. “Sour snacks were a big trend for a time. Maybe if the Burdetts had just once considered adding to the line of products…”
“Well, I have heard of backseat drivers and armchair quarterbacks, Warren, but never diner-stool business-men. You haven’t even taken into account—”
“No, Josie, don’t feel you have to defend us.” Adam held his hand up. “I agree with the man. The Burdetts could have done better by this community.”
Adam could have gone on about how he felt the Burdetts had treated him personally or taken this opportunity to tell the townspeople about his hopes for turning things around. But since he could not, in his own heart, untangle the two, he did not trust his motives for saying anything.
Funny, a few days ago, before meeting Josie and seeing the way she tried so earnestly to live her faith, Adam would never have questioned that. He’d have spoken his mind, no matter who it hurt or why he said it. “I guess if that means y’all would rather not have me around while you have your breakfast, I’d understand.”
“Naw. I’ve had to stomach Jed’s ugly mug all these years.” Warren jerked his thumb toward his old friend. “I can stand a Burdett for a few minutes, I reckon.”
“That’s his indirect way of saying he appreciates your honesty,” Jed translated.
“Thank you very much.” Adam gave a nod, then launched into his song again.
“I appreciate your honesty, pal, but not your singing,” Warren tacked on good and loud.
Everyone laughed.
Josie put her hands over her ears. “Would you stop making all that racket?”
She caught his eye and smiled.
He did not know if the redness of her cheeks came from their gazes meeting or from the heat of her defending his family name or from her work in the kitchen where she had just been baking. She cocked her head, and her topknot of curls wobbled. She batted away a loose strand of hair and left a smudge of flour on her nose.
Adam had never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.
She stooped to pick up Nathan and settled the fat baby on her hip.
No, Adam amended his original conclusion, now she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“Assistant pie chef reporting for duty.” Adam gave her a snappy salute.
“You?” Jed scoffed.
“Yeah. Me.” He lowered his hand slowly.
“But this is baking.” Josie waved her hand, scattering a fine puff of flour through the air. “It’s not something I associate with a Harley-riding bad-boy type.”
“Bad boy?” On one hand he wanted to point out neither adjective fit him. On the other, he found it kind of cool that she saw him that way. Women loved bad boys, right? “Does that mean you want to tame me?”
“Hmmm.” She put her hand on her hip and cocked her head. Her curls bounced against her head. “Maybe if you traded that motorcycle in for a minivan.”
“Hold the phone, Sweetie Pie. What goes on here?” Jed swiveled around on his stool. “Most women wait until they’ve got a fellow’s ring on their finger before they go trying to change him.”
Minivan?
Ring?
Whoa!
He’d come back to Mt. Knott to claim his kid and show his detractors exactly what he was capable of—succeeding where they had failed. Not to go the home-and-hearth route with…
Adam looked to the woman setting his son down. Yeah, he had wanted to show everyone just what he was capable of. Why did he suddenly think he might be capable of so much more than he himself had ever suspected?
“I grew up in a food-prep industry.” He approached the counter, spotted Nathan standing in his playpen, bent down and said to his son, “Explain to your mom, please, that I can manage to turn out a few edible pies.”
“Edible? I hope my pies are a little better than just edible.”
“You notice they never touched the marriage and man-changing issue?” Warren stroked his chin.
“Completely tap-danced all the way around it.” Jed waggled two downward-pointing fingers to demonstrate the deftness of the pair’s maneuvering.
Adam held both hands up. “Hey, I came here and volunteered to handle freshly baked pies, not hot potatoes.”
Warren laughed. “You’re all right, Burdett.”
Jed joined him. “He has our stamp of approval, Sweetie Pie.”
“Great. Then why don’t y’all stick that stamp on real tight, take him down to the post office and see if you can send it off to parts unknown for a while. Because nobody gets in my kitchen while I make pies.”
“She’s afraid you’ll learn her secret ingredient,” came the jovial voice of an older woman at Adam’s back. The aroma of coffee curled up in the steam from her mug.
“If I was her I’d be afraid he’d steal more than that,” a younger woman pouring sweetener from a pink packet chimed in.
Josie’s face went a deeper shade of red.
Adam chuckled.
Neither of them denied her statement.
“I think we’d better add Josie’s name to the prayer list, then.” The older woman clamped the lid down on her thermal cup and headed toward the wall.
Adam turned to look at the column on the blackboard wall. He opened his mouth to make a joke. Then closed it, humbled, and simply read the requests in silence.
“Please, please, pray that my mom keeps her job. Kyle”
“Remember those who have lost health insurance, that we all stay well. Elvie”
“Please pray I find work.” That followed by not one but an entire list of names.
After so many selfish and anger-blinded years, the problems of the Burdetts and Mt. Knott suddenly felt b
igger than Adam’s pain. That was Josie’s doing, he decided. No, that was so much bigger than Josie.
He scanned the list again, and found something that made his breath still.
“Please pray for Adam Burdett.” No signature.
Yes, he had felt lonely and rejected, ignored and unloved. Well, welcome to the world. So many hearts bore those burdens and yet they stopped and took the time to pray for others, to come together, to help each other.
“You don’t have to add our Sweetie Pie to any list,” Jed said softly. “She’s always in our prayers.”
The rough older men narrowed their eyes at Adam.
He twisted around to meet their silent admonition with a somber look. He got it. And he wanted them to know it.
Jed nodded in acknowledgment first.
Warren took longer but when he raised his cup to recognize the promise that had passed between them, it warmed Adam to his gut.
Then Josie clapped her hands together. “All right. That’s enough of that. Everyone fill your cups, add your sugar and cream and settle up your bills, please. I’m ready to lock up for the rest of the day.”
“Which side of the door do you want me on when the lock slides into place?” Adam asked quietly.
Josie frowned, well, as much as she ever frowned. It was more a cross between a pout and a playfully sour face.
Adam grinned at her.
She sighed and shut her eyes.
He didn’t know if she was saying a prayer, gathering her strength to do what she had to do or blocking him from view so she could think straight. Maybe all three. But when she finally opened her eyes again, she was smiling.
“I want you on this side.” She pointed to the spot beside her.
“Fantastic! Get me an apron and call me the Mt. Knott doughboy!”
“Oh, you can have an apron but you aren’t getting anywhere near my dough.”
Josie hit a button on the cash register, and the drawer popped open with a ding!
“So what job do you have in mind for me? Cherry picker? Apple slicer? Peach peeler?’
“I was thinking more gopher.”
“I know this is the South but I don’t think even here that anyone will want gopher pie.”
“The gopher won’t be in the pie—the gopher will be in your apron.”
“Won’t that make it more difficult for me to get any work done?”
“Going for things that I need will be your job. That and watching Nathan.”
“Never thought I’d see the day,” Jed laid down his payment plus a little extra. He made a sign to Josie to indicate she should keep the change. “Nope. Never thought I’d see the day when a Burdett would do the bidding and get ordered around by one of their own laid-off workers.”
“Sorta gets a guy right here.” Warren pounded his chest as he headed out onto the street.
“So does indigestion,” Adam called as he held the door open for the departing customers.
“Yeah. But there’s a tonic for indigestion,” Warren said. “For what you’ve got, son…?”
He and Jed both shook their heads.
“…ain’t no remedy on Earth for that,” Jed concluded. “Nothing to take for it.”
“Oh, I don’t know. He could try taking some vows.” Warren laughed.
Adam gulped. Vows? He cared about Josie, even having only recently gotten to know her. But vows? “Look, I admire Josie’s pluck and appreciate the job she’s done with Nathan, but…”
“Don’t underestimate what it means to find a woman who is a good mother to your child.”
“And your child ain’t actually her child.”
“It don’t hurt when she’s prettier than a speckled pup.”
“And cooks better than your own mama.”
“Josie’s a good woman.”
“And we expect you to be good to her.”
“I will. But I’m not ready for marriage.”
“Apparently you wasn’t ready to be a daddy, neither, but here you are.”
“Here I am.”
“Maybe you ought to take a good long look at yourself before you settle your mind on what you are and are not ready for.”
Adam turned and looked at himself reflected in the glass door.
Apron.
Baby.
Giving up an entire day to spend time with a woman giving him orders and turning up the heat and turning away his advances.
And he didn’t mind any of it.
Well, he would have liked it better if she’d let him kiss her. But he understood and respected her choices.
That fact alone gave him pause. Maybe those older fellows had a point. Maybe he did need to take a good long look at himself before he made up his mind about himself and Josie.
Chapter Eleven
“Do me a favor?” Josie stepped to the doorway, the first of many freshly baked pies in her silicon-mitted hand.
Adam looked up from a rousing round of a game that might be called “see Daddy scramble after every toy Nathan throws on the floor” and made the bugeyed bear in his hand squeal with one well-timed squeeze. “Anything.”
“First, stop chasing down everything he throws.”
“Just trying to make myself useful.”
“As what? A Labrador retriever?”
Adam looked at the bear then back at Josie. “Woof.”
She laughed. “You’re supposed to be the one in charge. Do you really think that if you go after everything the instant he tosses it overboard you are teaching him the way things work in the real world?”
“The real world?” Adam scowled. “He’s a baby. Why does he need to know about the real world?”
“Because that’s the world we are all born into. We have so little time to get his feet on the right path, with so many things trying to get him to stray…”
“What if straying comes naturally to him?” Adam flipped the bear over and over in his hands.
Adam was testing her and she knew it. Just as Nathan might push something away or even throw it aside.
“Straying comes naturally to all of us.” She glanced around her at the tables and chairs that would, on a normal Friday, be just now filling up with the lunch crowd.
She had served her friends, her fellow townspeople and strangers day in and day out. She had sat next to many of these same people in town meetings and church services. But here, where they had not always been on their best behavior, they had taught her something more precious than any of them knew.
Her eyes went to the prayer list and she managed a slight smile. “Isn’t that why Jesus is known as the Good Shepherd? We need Him to watch over us and bring us back into the fold when we lose our way.”
“Why, Miss Josie, I didn’t expect a Sunday school lesson from you today.” His mouth quirked up on one side, half in humor, half in challenge to her. Another test.
Would she pass it? Would she stand up to him? And, more important, stand up for her beliefs?
“Didn’t expect a lesson, but I notice you didn’t say you didn’t appreciate getting one.”
“You are a wonder, Josie.” He laughed.
“Takes one to know one,” she joked.
“Me? A wonder?” He dropped the toy into the playpen with the baby, then took a few steps toward the counter. “Only if by that you mean I wonder if I’ll ever get the hang of this Daddy stuff.”
“I think you will.”
“Do ya?” he asked softly, his eyes dark and his smile a very masculine mix of smug and wistful.
“Yeah, maybe by the time he goes off to college,” she teased.
Adam opened his mouth, probably to protest or to at least boldly proclaim his belief in his own parenting abilities when Nathan let out a “Ph-th-th-th-ppp-ttt” and sent the bear sailing right at the side of Adam’s head.
The bear hit its mark then slid to the floor.
He gazed down at the thing then at the baby, who stood with his pudgy fingers flexed and wriggling in the direction of the bear.
&
nbsp; “Sorry, kiddo. Game over.”
Nathan grunted in anger and stretched up on his toes, his arms rigid and his cheeks red.
Adam plopped the bear on the counter. “Next time maybe you’ll realize that if you really want something you have to hang on to it. Don’t let it go. And certainly don’t throw it away and assume you can have it back whenever you want.”
Nathan shrieked.
Adam did not budge. “Listen to your ol’dad. This is a subject he knows something about.”
Josie froze. What exactly had Adam thrown away, then wished he could get back again? Not Nathan, as he had never known about the child. Ophelia? She held her breath to think of it.
“Okay, got that.” Adam now turned his full attention on her. “What else can I do for you? You just name it.”
Fall in love with me and become Nathan’s father in every sense of the word forever and ever. She leaned against the door frame and sighed over her indulgent little fantasy. Her and Adam and Nathan. Their own patchwork of a family. Visiting with the other brothers and their families, if any of them ever had any, on holidays. Watching Nathan grow and perhaps giving him a sister or brother or both. Sharing a home and a future. Going to church together. Going to…
The smell of pies ready to be taken from the oven brought her back to reality. “Um, if you don’t mind, would you taste this pie?”
“I don’t mind. But I have tasted your pie before. It’s delicious.”
“When I bake a few at a time, it’s delicious. But trying to make enough for this barbecue? I’ve never tried to mix up that much pie crust before. I’m not sure I got the right ratio of flour to—”
“Yes?” He arched an eyebrow.
“Oh, no. You are not getting my secret recipe out of me that easily.” She slid the pie pan onto the counter, then turned around to retrieve a knife and a pie server. “Not unless you can figure it out for yourself.”
“If I do—” he sat himself at the counter and picked up a fork “—will you finally tell me your secret, Josie?”
“I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours.” It came out before she could stop herself. And then she was glad she had not stopped herself. Because of all the things she wanted from Adam, knowing his secrets, knowing the undeniable truths upon which he based his decisions was right up there.