by Natalie Ann
She grabbed his hand and held it loosely in hers, and it felt…right. Perfect almost. Not juvenile like they were in school, but adult, like they were…more.
“I know just the place.”
He let her lead him through the people milling up and down the street. She stopped in front of a gourmet popcorn store. Not just popcorn, but ice cream and coffees, brownies and fudge. Pretty much anything homemade and all smelling delicious.
They stood in line and he ordered, “Peanut butter fudge.”
While he watched it being cut, Amber said, “Ice cream cone. One scoop of vanilla and one scoop of cookies and cream, please.”
“Ice cream?” he asked, wondering what she could be thinking.
“Yes. Ice cream isn’t just for the summer, you know.”
Then she proceeded to lick the cold creamy dessert in front of him. At the bottom of the ice cream scoop, where it met the cone, the tip of her tongue stayed out while she twirled it in a circle leaving a grooved pattern.
Amber was nothing if not thorough and repeated the same thing over both scoops, watching him the entire time, her eyes sparking a slow fire.
He was almost afraid to touch his fudge right now, fearing it’d melt on contact.
“Do I get a taste?” he asked, his eyes searching hers. Maybe he was thinking about more than ice cream at the moment, and he figured she knew that.
“You wanted fudge. You get what you want, and it seemed you didn’t want ice cream.”
“So you’re a cone tease, aren’t you?”
She giggled, then licked the cone one more time for good measure. “Maybe.”
He went to step closer and help himself, but she turned a quick shoulder. “Did you just cone block me?”
She burst out laughing, then pulled out a chair and sat at a little table they’d been making their way toward.
“You’re a piece of work, Zach. Cone block. Yeah, I guess I did.”
Twice in one night, he wanted to say, but didn’t. He was okay following along with her suggestion for the moment, knowing that when he did get his dessert—his real dessert—it was going to be all the more pleasurable.
***
Amber was trying to keep a straight face, but finally gave up. There was no use at this point. Zach was just too funny and too quick.
She’d always been told she had a quick wit, but really, nothing like him. He might be a worthy foe for her. Sharpening her senses on more than one front.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked.
“Eating at Nick’s. It’s a late dinner.”
“Cole is working,” Amber said, “I know. Rene was upset because she didn’t want to wait that long to eat.”
“Is she really eating as much as everyone says? Little Rene?”
“She really is.” Amber stopped, then pushed her cone closer to Zach for him to have a taste. He did, his tongue wrapping around it and then resting on her fingertip toward the top of the cone…sucking just a bit.
“Even better than ice cream,” he said.
She cleared her throat and pushed thoughts of Zach’s tongue out of her mind. Because thinking of that would surely put a wrinkle in her program to reassess this situation with him before they did their bedroom tango again.
“Pregnancy seems to agree with her. That and Cole. He’s been good for her.”
“I have to say I never expected her to end up with someone quite like Cole, but he seems like a great guy.”
“He is,” Amber said. “I was a year behind him and Celeste in school. They’re both just great people. Both of them deserve the best in life.”
“What about you? Don’t you deserve the best in life?”
She stopped believing that so long ago. “I’d like to think so, but I know that it doesn’t happen to everyone.”
“Sure it does. Sometimes people like you and me, we have to work harder to get it. Not everyone has a golden ticket handed to them at birth.”
She frowned. “Celeste is the last person who was handed a golden ticket. Cole either, for that matter.”
“I didn’t mean them. I know a little about her history. Bits and pieces I’ve picked up from Nick and Mallory. They’re both an example of having to work harder. Us too, right? We’ve had to work for what we’ve got.”
“Yeah. More than people realize, I’m sure.”
“So…tell me about it?” Zach said.
She wanted to, but wasn’t sure she could. Not yet. But maybe a little. “Being a minister’s kid comes with baggage. Or I should say labels. The problem is, I’ve never been good at conforming to a label someone wanted to slap on me.”
“Same here. Remember, teenage mom, raised by old-fashioned grandparents. Different labels, but not much different in the bigger picture.”
He was right, so maybe he’d understand more. More than anyone else she’d known in her life.
“It’s hard being lectured all the time,” she said. “Tiring is more like it. Nothing was ever good enough. There isn’t a lot of money to be made running a church, but there was a lot of work to do. All those foster kids and kids in need, Sally and I, we all had chores. And lots of them.”
“Did you have to earn your keep?” he asked frowning. “Did they?”
“Not like you think. Things had to be done. Someone had to do them. The kids that were given a roof over their head, they did it willingly. They were grateful and that was how they showed it. Or at least most of them did. The real troublesome kids didn’t last too long. I guess there were times I didn’t show I was grateful enough, either.”
At least in her parents’ eyes.
“You’re supposed to be grateful that your parents cared for you?”
“No. Not like that. I don’t know. Let’s not talk about it.”
This was going down a road she had no intention of driving on.
“You want to get to know me more, this is part of it. But I’ll tell you some about myself. I was grateful that my grandparents took me in, but I didn’t always show it either.”
“How’s that?”
“I was snotty at times. Didn’t want to listen. Talked too much when I should have known my place. Under it all, I knew I was loved, but I lashed out. Wished I had more. Wished I could have fit in better. You name it, I probably felt it.”
“Because your mother wasn’t around?” she asked.
“Pretty much. I had a lot of confusion when I was younger. Who was my mother, who was my father, who were these old people? Why were they treating me better than my own mother? Where was my mother half the time?”
“How did you deal with that?”
“I just did. I was my mother’s little doll to her friends for years. I remember those things as a toddler. They say you don’t remember things from when you’re really young, but I did. I remember my mother bringing me to her friend’s house because my grandparents were working. My mother’s friends playing dress up with me. Then pretending to play house while my mother sat off to the side talking to her friends and ignoring me.”
“That had to be hurtful.”
She really couldn’t remember much at all from when she was younger. There were lots of kids around of all ages and learning early on how to clean up messes and do small chores. Nothing more specific than a feeling of not always being able to just play.
“It was. I finally figured it out in time. Then as my mother got older, she had less interest in me being a plaything, or I should say, her friends did. She’d work and then go out. It would be days before I’d see her or interact with her, even though we lived in the same house. I’ve always lived with my grandparents. My mother never moved out on her own. She’d stay the night places, but she always came back to my grandparents’ at some point.”
“What about your father?”
“Don’t know anything more than a name. Just some boy that passed through the school that year and then moved on.”
“Where is your mother now?”
“Right now, she’s at my g
randmother’s with her two other children. Bri is seventeen and Seth is fifteen.”
“Living or visiting?” She couldn’t tell by his answer, but either way he didn’t look thrilled over it.
“Visiting, and I hope that’s all it is. Anyway, my mother and Scott—Bri and Seth’s father—decided to move away when I was fourteen. They didn’t want me to tag along any more than I wanted to go. It seemed best for everyone that I stay with my grandparents and that is what I did. They eloped and had the kids a few years later.”
Zach’s fudge was all eaten at the moment, her cone nothing but a soggy mess in her hand. The urge to tease him melted away with her dessert.
“Do you want any more of this?” she asked, standing up from the table.
“No, I’m good. Sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“For putting a downer on things. Maybe we should go back to sex. That made us both happy.”
She laughed and leaned down to kiss him lightly on the lips. “It did. But there has to be more.”
He tilted his head back, looked at her deeply and said, “There already is for me.”
It Was Right
Thanksgiving morning, bright and early, Amber walked into the church hall just like she had for her entire life.
Zach talked about having memories as a child, a young child. She’d said she never did, but that was wrong. Maybe her memories weren’t as detailed, or rather dimmer, but she still had them.
Lots of people, lots of noise, and the smell of food. Having to help when she could, or sit off to the side when she couldn’t.
What she remembered most was a feeling of resentment, though. Why did she have to spend her holidays working? Why did she have to get up earlier than if it was a school day, sweat for hours, then clean up when it was over? More tired than any other day during the year.
Why did her friends get normal holidays and fun, and she didn’t?
As an adult now, she realized how wrong she was to feel that way. Not every kid had fun on a holiday. No, some kids were right there with her. Some working. Some there to eat because they were hungry.
There was no fun in being poor or needing a helping hand.
Deep down, she knew all of those things when she was a kid working alongside everyone else, but it didn’t stop the frustration. Or the bitter jealousy she often felt.
But it was for family and she’d been lectured enough that family helped each other and they helped those in need.
Obviously all those lectures she’d hated her whole life stuck because here she was, ready to do it again. She would next year and the following and the following, until she couldn’t physically do it again.
Without her parents needing to ask or remind her. She just came.
She hung her coat up in the little closet off the kitchen, knowing when she left the smell of turkey would cling to her clothes, her hair, and even be absorbed in her pores.
“How are you feeling, Dad?” she asked when she saw him peeling potatoes. More potatoes than a soldier would have to peel on kitchen duty.
“I’m fine. I’ve been fine all along, no reason you need to keep checking on me.”
She picked up a peeler next to him and got to work. “I need to check on you because you’re my father and you had shingles. I know you were in pain.”
Nothing ever slowed her parents down. Ever. Not sickness, injury, pregnancy, or death. They were on call for the community and the community knew it.
“There is nothing wrong with a little bit of pain in life. Keeps you grounded for the better days.”
His voice was gruff so she let it go. Her father had never been an overly emotional person. Giving, sure. Loving, to a fault. Emotional, almost never.
Her older sister, Sally, came in with her husband and five-year-old son, Brady. It wasn’t long before everyone had a job to do. Even Brady sorted coloring sheets and crayons for the younger ones to choose as a form of entertainment.
Everything around her was donated. The food, the paperware, the toys and entertainment for the younger ones. Even the man-hours.
People would donate cash, but not as often. She’d fill the gaps when she knew there were some to fill. But her parents often wouldn’t tell her, so she’d help when or where she felt they needed it.
Once the potatoes were all peeled and chopped, some sitting in water for when they were ready to go, Amber looked around to see what else needed to be done.
Multiple turkeys were cooking in the rectory’s oven, more would be brought over all cooked and ready to serve by those that wanted to help. Veggies were being sorted, pies were all starting to line up along the wall.
With everything in the kitchen looking to be under control, she made her way to the hall and helped her father and brother-in-law, Bob, set up tables.
Another hour of moving and lifting, arranging just right. Everyone would be accommodated somehow, even if they had to find a seat on the stage.
“Amber?” she heard, then turned her head to see Nadine. One of the many foster kids that was in her home when she was a kid.
“Hi, sweetie. How are you doing?” She reached out to hug Nadine, then her two kids, both in their early teens now. “Coming to help?”
“Of course,” Nadine said. “We wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
Most of the faces were familiar. Maybe they didn’t show up every year, but they came when they could.
“Let's go see what else Mom has for us to do.”
“How’s work going?” Nadine asked while they made piles of paper plates, napkins, silverware, and cups.
“It’s good. Always busy, and lots of fun.”
“You look good. I bet you get to do all sorts of free things there on yourself, don’t you? Does family get a discount?”
It wasn’t the first time she’d been asked that. Even with a discount, most of the services were well beyond the reach of people from her childhood. But she put a smile on her face and said, “You don’t need anything. You look fabulous.”
“We know that isn’t true and you shouldn’t be lying in a place of worship.”
“I’ve been the black sheep my whole life. Why change now, right?”
Nadine laughed. “You weren’t as bad as your parents made you out to be.”
“Maybe you should go tell them that,” Amber whispered. “And for that nice statement, I’ve got some samples of lotions and creams in my purse. Catch me before you leave. If there is one you like, let me know. We’ll work something out.” Even if it meant giving up her commission on top of a discount.
“Thanks, Amber. You’re too good to us. The kids always appreciate your birthday gifts. You really don’t need to send anything.”
“We’re family,” Amber said.
“I lived in your house for a year when you were in elementary school. That doesn’t make us as much family as you think. You’d be broke if you bought gifts for everyone and their families that came through your house when you were a kid.”
“You’re right, I would be. But I don’t do that. Only for those that meant something to me back then.”
Nadine had been older and pretty wild herself. Amber remembered that even as a child. Almost looked up to her as a rebel back then. It was probably wrong, but Amber still felt a connection to Nadine. One that let her stay in touch through the years.
As wild as Nadine was, she turned out pretty decent, too. She was here just like Amber without being asked, but doing it because it was right.
***
“Hey, Grandma! Happy Thanksgiving,” Zach said on Thursday morning.
“I figured I’d call you. I know you’ve been leery about calling with everyone here.”
His grandmother knew he hated to call, fearing that his mother would pick up the phone before his grandmother could get a chance.
“I’m glad you did. You aren’t working too hard, are you? Is Mom helping you?” He knew the answer to that, and didn’t know why he bothered to ask.
“I’m not work
ing too hard. Your mother is still sleeping. Are you enjoying your time there?” she asked, changing the topic.
He could hear pots rattling around. Familiar sounds that he looked forward to as a kid on holidays. Sitting in the kitchen chatting with his grandmother while she cooked. Helping her when she allowed him to. He obviously didn’t get that from his mother.
“I am. I’m getting a lot of work done. Bugging Caleb left and right, and getting plenty of enjoyment out of that.”
“You shouldn’t be so mean to him. Not everyone is outgoing and likes people as much as you do.”
He heard the laughter mixed in with the scold. “He’ll survive.”
“What time are you going to Nick’s to eat?”
“Dinner is around six thirty when Rene’s fiancé gets out of work. I’ll get some work done before I head over later.”
“It’s a holiday, Zach. You shouldn’t be working.”
The scold in her voice again, a sound he actually missed. “It’s what makes me so good at what I do. Don’t worry about me.” And because he didn’t want to talk about his situation right now, he changed the subject. “Any word on what my mother’s motive is?”
“Nothing. The kids are pretty close-lipped, too. Maybe it was nothing more than my imagination. Maybe they were talking about something else.”
“Hopefully.” But he didn’t think so. “I’ll let you get back to cooking. I sure am going to miss your pecan pie this year, though.”
“I didn’t make it. If you aren’t here, no one is getting it.”
He smiled. She just made his day with that statement. “You’re the best, Grandma.”
“I’ll make one when you come home.”
“Even better. Tell Grandpa ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ too. He’s in his shed hiding, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is. He’s got Seth out there with him.”
“Oh,” Zach said, not feeling too much jealousy over that.
“Seth seemed to show some interest, so Grandpa brought him out back. Not sure if it was genuine interest or he was bored, but Grandpa is enjoying the bonding time.”