by Annie Jones
“Thank you.” She bowed her head, started to climb in, then stepped back and asked, “By the way, how do I look?”
It’s a trap. He could hear Jed growling out a warning.
A no-win situation. And Warren, too.
Adam shut his eyes and kissed her so lightly on the temple that he wasn’t sure he hadn’t simply kissed a wayward curl. Then he whispered, “You always look perfect to me, Josie.”
“That’s so sweet.” She glanced a feather-light kiss of her own off his jaw then got into the truck. “Let’s go out to the Crumble, then.”
The Crumble. How many times had Adam snickered cynically over the aptness of that tag for the place he intended to bring down once and for all? Now it sounded like one of the sweetest places on earth.
He drove down the town’s tree-lined street waving as he did to the people bustling out to their cars. They carried blankets and baskets, folding chairs and portable playpens, outdoor games for the kids and at least one wheelchair for an elderly member of the family. This was a big day in Mt. Knott. The Burdetts were finally giving something back, and no one wanted to be left out.
He rolled through the streets of Mt. Knott, past the post office with the American flag—the largest of many that hung from the handful of businesses still operating in the old downtown area—fluttering overhead.
Bingo pulled up on the sidewalk alongside Adam’s truck, waved from his scooter and hollered out, “I’ll be out to the Crumble soon as I finish up my route. Don’t let Jed and Warren eat all the choice cuts and leave me with nothing but bones and gristle!”
“Jed and Warren are nothing but bones and gristle,” Adam joked. Still, he hated to think about the kind of trouble he’d bring down on himself if he actually tried to get between Josie’s best patrons and the buffet table. “So you’d better kick that scooter into high gear and don’t waste any time getting out there yourself.”
“Will do!” Bingo gave a salute with the packet of mail in his hand then, true to his word, zoomed off down the sidewalk at top speed leaving Adam in his proverbial dust.
“Admit it.”
“What?” Adam scowled.
“This place is starting to get to you.”
“What? I’ve lived in Mt. Knott all my life.”
“No, you never lived in Mt. Knott, not really. And now that you’ve got a taste of it, it’s gotten to you. You’re starting to care about these people.”
“Some more than others,” he said almost under his breath.
She leaned back against the gray-and-brown upholstery and looked out the side window. “I’ll tell Bingo you said so.”
Adam barked out a laugh.
Josie shifted her shoulders so that her upper body faced him, and she smiled, clearly pleased with herself.
But over what? The joke or because she thought she had him figured out? Had the people of Mt. Knott “gotten” to him all that much? How could that be when he had known them, or known of them, or known they existed at least, all his life? “I want to go on record as not accepting that I haven’t lived in Mt. Knott all my life. Except for college I’ve been right here.”
“You have that right. You said so yourself, you spent most of your life right here.” She made an open-handed gesture toward the slightly rusted sign proclaiming, Carolina Crumble Pattie Way. “On this road, at the Crumble or at the big ol’ Burdett mansion.”
“It’s hardly a mansion.”
“Compared to most of the houses around town?” She waved at some kids who had twisted around and were making faces from the back window of the car in front of them. “It’s a mansion.”
He tucked his chin down and squinted at her a bit sideways, so as not to take his eyes completely off the road. “You’ve been there?”
“Well, no. I just always imagined.”
“It’s not a mansion,” he insisted. “It’s a home. My home.”
He had never thought of it that way, not even as a kid, but suddenly it was the only way he could see the large craftsman-style residence with secondary ranch-and cottage-style houses for the brothers on adjoining lots. Home.
Josie had never been there, and he wanted to take her.
“It’s more of a compound, actually. You know, a big piece of land with one big house and some smaller ones. Burke has a ranch-style. Jason has a smaller version of the big house. Cody and Carol have a bungalow, or, uh, is it a cottage? Do you know the difference?”
She shook her head.
“Neither do I,” he admitted.
“And where did you live when you were out there? The barn?”
Actually he had a log house. Strong and sturdy and set apart from the rest, but lacking anything to make it personal inside, anything to give him a reason to have gone there to stay or even visit on this trip back. “Yeah. Me and the other lost sheep, we bunked out in the barn. Baaa-aaah.”
“Except you’re not lost anymore,” she reminded him. “You found your way home.”
Adam started to refute that, or maybe ask Josie what role she had played in bringing it about, but just then he realized they were at their destination.
“Stop.” She held her hand up flat. “I’m going to get out and go on ahead. See that big white tent over there?”
“Sure.” How could he miss it?
“You make your way to that and I’ll figure out the best place for you to park to unload.”
“Can’t you just ride over with me?”
She frowned at the slowly moving line of cars ahead of them. “Adam, I’m supposed to be in charge here. I can’t do that from the back of the crowd.”
“Okay.”
“See you in a minute.” And out she got.
Cautiously he made his way through the old rutted parking lot toward the open area where the barbecue would be held. Partly because he didn’t want to arrive with a single one of Josie’s pies damaged and partly because he wanted to savor every moment leading up to…
Well, that was it, wasn’t it? He had no real idea what he was going to find at the Crumble. No idea what recommendation Dora might have for him. No idea how his brothers would react to his suddenly showing up. No explanation for how his father could be so welcoming to him after a lifetime of treating Adam like an outsider and then more than a year of Adam behaving like an outsider.
Josie’s warning to know what he wanted rang in his ears.
When he had arrived in Mt. Knott he thought he’d had such clear goals. He had planned everything, step by step. First step, get out from under his family once and for all. Second step, make anyone who had wronged him pay for not accepting him, not believing in him, by taking over the Crumble and making everyone accountable to him. Third step…
He really hadn’t gotten beyond the second step. Two steps then nothing? Now there was a surefire way to get nowhere.
He supposed he could still make a run for it.
Then he saw Josie with the baby in her arms, standing by the large white tent.
The instant she saw him, her face lit up. With her hair that wild knot of curls, her cheeks red and a crowd surrounding her demanding her attention, she looked frazzled but happy. She pointed to a parking spot just the right size for the bakery truck and gave a weary but grateful smile.
Adam wasn’t going anywhere but right where she needed him to be.
He parked, hopped out of the truck and went straight to her.
It was perfect outside, as if the weather itself were connected to the mood in Adam’s heart. Bright and sunny, but not blazing. Breezy enough to keep the bugs away but not strong enough to fan barbecue smoke into everyone’s eyes and effect the taste of all the food.
And Josie looked perfect, as well. Fair as the day and just as gentle, but with just enough energy and bluster to keep him on his toes. Adam reached out and took Nathan from her, bending as he did to place a kiss on her cheek. It seemed the most natural thing in the world. His way of both thanking her for doing all this and of reassuring her that he would be there for her should i
t start to overwhelm her.
It wasn’t until he heard the subtle gasps and chuckles from the crowd around them that he realized the larger implications of what he’d done.
“What?” He looked around them, challenge in his tone, his posture and his words. “Just my way of thanking Josie for doing such a good job with the pies and all.”
“Oh? Is that how it’s done?” Jed moseyed up to the forefront with Warren at his side. “Here me and Warren been rubbing our bellies, saying ‘Mmm-Mmm’ and leaving generous tips when we pay our bills.”
“Didn’t know we could accomplish as much with a Yankee dime.”
Adam scowled at the old expression. The way he understood it a Yankee dime was a stolen kiss that meant nothing to the one doing the kissing. He didn’t like the implication. A week ago he’d have glared at the old guys and told them just what he thought.
A week ago he’d been a “Stray Dawg” who had both bark and bite. Now?
Now he knew how to play the game.
“Hey, I was just following orders.” He raised his shoulders and dropped them.
“Someone give you orders to go slopping sugar on our Sweetie Pie?” Warren studied the crowd as if the guilty party might just step forward and save him the trouble of having to sniff him out.
“Yeah.” Adam folded his arms over his chest. “You did.”
“Me?”
“You told me to take special care of my precious cargo. I did just that. And here she is, signed, sealed and delivered.”
“You said that, Warren?”
And if he needed more proof that he was, indeed, a stray in this town no longer, Adam brought the joke home. “He did. But then he also said that I shouldn’t tell you that you look fi-i-ne in that outfit.”
It wasn’t a lie. But Adam did feel a twinge of guilt that drawing out the word fine like that did give it a bit of a different spin, implying he thought she looked great instead of merely suitable.
“You don’t like this outfit?” She turned on Warren.
“No. I never said—”
“No?” She pulled out the fluff of pink holding her hair up on top of her head. “I knew I shouldn’t have changed out of the patriotic one.”
“No, I meant yes.”
“Trap,” Jed muttered.
“Yes?” Josie worked her fingers through her hair trying to get it to…well, no telling what she wanted it to do. What it was doing was falling around her shoulders and sticking to her cheeks. “Yes what? That I should have changed?”
“No.” Warren shot Adam a look that would have melted butter.
It didn’t affect Adam, of course, especially when he caught a glimpse of a short black haircut darting through the clusters of picnickers at Dora Hoag speed. “If y’all will excuse me, I’ll be right back.”
With that he took off after the woman, trying his best not to appear to have just taken off after anyone, least of all a woman. Didn’t want to give the town anything to gab about tonight over pie.
He glanced back over his shoulder at Josie, who kept bobbing up and down on her toes, trying to peer over people to find him.
Correction. He didn’t want to give the town anything else to gab about over pie and coffee tonight.
“Ms. Hoag?” Somehow he managed to shout out her name without getting his voice beyond a stage whisper.
It must have worked because the woman whirled around just as he came up to her and practically jumped out of her skin. “Burdett. You’re here.”
“Of course I’m here. I’m the guest of, um, honor.”
“Not to hear your brother tell it.” She smiled slow and sly.
Adam had no idea his boss was capable of that kind of smile, or of making a joke. Or dressing as if she truly belonged at a Carolina barbecue. “You look, uh…”
“Hold the small talk, Burdett.” She flashed her palm outward to keep him from making a fool of himself trying to keep his compliment businesslike. “I know what you want.”
“You do?” Adam snorted out a hard laugh. “Wish you had told me that months ago. Would have saved me a whole world of heartache.”
“What? I don’t…”
Adam dropped the jest and became all business again. “You’re talking about your recommendation, of course.”
“Yes, I’ve…I’ve gone over the preliminaries and—”
“Maybe we should go somewhere more private for this.” He looked around them. They stood in the shade of a tree that Adam had remembered being big enough for climbing even when he was a kid. It was huge now, but somehow it seemed smaller than it did back then. And while it offered cool, pleasant shade, the soothing rustle of thick leaves and the smell of earth and bark mingled with the tangy smoke from the barbecue, it also seemed too casual a place to hear this kind of news. Besides, between the tree and the passing knots of family and friends, it seemed too out in the open. A place where they could be too easily spotted, too easily overheard.
“We don’t need to go anywhere.”
“But—”
“Because I am meeting your brother here any minute and because there is nowhere on these grounds that are going to make this any easier to say.”
Adam’s heart leaped. What was the expression, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure? Dora Hoag thought she was delivering bad news but that “bad news” was exactly what Adam had been hoping for. “You are going to recommend Global pass on the Carolina Crumble Pattie, lock, stock and lousy building.”
“Just the opposite.”
Adam froze halfway to high-fiving his very proper boss. “What?”
“I am going to recommend that Global buy the Carolina Crumble Pattie lock, stock and lousy building. Then tear it down.”
“Tear it…what?”
“Down. To the ground.” She jabbed one finger in the direction of the roots of the old tree. “Take the recipe and put it in a vault and leave it there while we try to come up with a cost-effective alternative. And in a few years, when people get nostalgic for the old snack cake, we will bring it back with a fanfare and sell it internationally.”
“Cost effective? Meaning inferior?”
“We can’t go on using the best ingredients, Burdett. If we did, we’d have to charge as much for a single patty as we normally charge for a whole box of snack cakes.”
“Have you ever tasted a Carolina Crumble Pattie? They are worth a dozen boxes of those flavorless globs of chemicals Wholesome Hearth calls snacks.”
“I know.” She shifted her feet, twisted her hands together, then craned her neck, all signs she wished Burke would show up and rescue her from having to talk to Adam about this. “That’s why I’m saying we have to vault the recipe and give it some time before we come out with our version.”
“Under the Carolina Crumble Pattie name?” Adam kept his gaze trained in hers even though out of the corner of his eyes he could see his oldest brother approaching.
“Of course. We need to own the name. It has thirty years of great marketing behind it.”
“It has a lot more than marketing behind it, and that’s the part you can’t buy or keep in a vault.”
“A family’s life work? A product made with care, the pride of a whole community? A standard of excellence?”
“And more,” Adam said.
“We don’t want those things.” Dora batted her eyes and waved her hand. “We just want the perception of having those things. And that’s what we get by buying your family out and using their reputation and product branding.”
Adam sighed. He’d been through this before with other products and had always convinced himself that, as Dora had often reminded him, it wasn’t personal.
But this? This was personal. “What about modernizing the facilities? Adding new snack lines? Giving stock to employees? Given enough time, work and money, I could make the Carolina Crumble Pattie an international moneymaker.”
“Of that I have no doubt.”
“But?”
“But you don’t work for Carol
ina Crumble Pattie, Burdett. You work for the Wholesome Hearth Country Fresh Bakery.”
“I’d gladly step down and take on a different position in order to oversee this project.”
“You would?” She tipped her head to one side, clearly not sure what to make of that.
“You would?” Burke rounded the old tree. His tone was far more disbelieving than that of Adam’s boss.
“Yes, I would.” Even Adam hadn’t known he was going to say that until it was out of his mouth. But now that it was out there…“Gladly.”
Dora acknowledged Burke’s arrival with nothing more than a shift of her head. Her focus remained on Adam. “That’s all well and good and perhaps even leans slightly to the noble, Burdett.”
“Thank you.” Adam puffed his chest up a bit.
She put her hands on her slender hips. “But we don’t need nobility at Global.”
“What?” He exhaled and leaned against the tree.
“We need you. We need your sharklike instincts. We need you to ferret out small places like this so we can move in and do whatever we have to do to help keep Wholesome Hearth at the top of Global’s international food chain.”
Adam replayed that message in his head once, then twice, each time gleaning new bits of information that led him to conclude, “First I’m a shark. Then I’m a weasel. Finally I’m just something at the bottom of the food chain?”
“Up to you.” Dora shrugged. “You can be whoever you want to be.”
Be whoever he wanted to be? In his whole life no one had ever believed that of him.
From somewhere in the crowd he heard Josie’s laughter.
His whole life no one had ever believed he could be whoever he wanted to be: that he could be more than a stray dog; that he could be a better Christian; a better businessman; a better citizen; and Nathan’s daddy.
Except…
“There’s just one thing I have to ask you, Dora.”
She arched a pencil-thin eyebrow, though Adam didn’t know if the subtle but slightly spooky affectation was in reaction to his demand to ask her something or to his using her first name so casually.
“I’m listening,” she said, finally.