High Plains Hearts

by Janet Spaeth

  “But no one can be too stuffed for a serving of tiramisu,” she amended after the server left with their orders. “I’ve been on a tiramisu binge since October when I first tasted it.”

  “I like tiramisu, but I’m going for that cheesecake concoction—what did he say it was? Cherry almond? It sounds wonderful.” He sipped his coffee and grinned. “It’s hard for me sometimes to enjoy a dinner at a different restaurant because I’m always comparing everything to Panda’s, like this coffee.”

  “This decaffeinated is good.” The brew was so rich and full she couldn’t tell it was decaffeinated.

  “It should be. They buy it from us. We bring a fresh roast over every other day, sometimes every day. It’s one of the areas we’ve been branching into, doing wholesale to restaurants.”

  “Really. I didn’t know that, but it makes sense. This coffee is terrific.”

  “Thanks. See, having a local roaster makes all the difference. I hope this is a wise move, moving into wholesale, but it’s hard to know. I can only do so much before I burst. I’m wondering when my limit will come and what will happen.”

  “Are you trying to do all this without an assistant?” she asked, suddenly concerned. She was hearing an exhaustion in his voice that either hadn’t been there before or she had missed.

  “I’m trying to be conservative about this while it’s in the trial phase. I’d hate to get someone involved and then have the whole thing fall down around our heads like a pack of cards. It’s my risk now. It has to be, until I know if it’ll be a success or not. Then, and only then, will I hire someone.”

  “But if you need the help now—,” she said, feeling protective of him.

  “Tess,” he said earnestly, “I can’t in good conscience hire someone only to have to let him or her go within a couple of weeks. I want to be able to offer that person a good job, a stable job. And I’ll wait until I can.”

  “I admire that, Jake—I really do. I can’t help but think you’ve chosen a suicide course, though.” She couldn’t keep the concern from entering her voice. “The human body can do only so much, you know.”

  “I know. That’s one of the reasons I spend so much time at Panda’s and hardly any at my home. Every waking minute I spend down there. Until I get established enough, until I feel confident in this new venture, that’s the way it’ll have to be.”

  A wave of suspicion washed over her. “You’ve spent most of today with me. This morning you were in church. How much time have you spent at Panda’s today?”

  “Some.”

  “How much?” she demanded. “In hours and minutes. How much?”

  His brow furrowed. “Well, I went in early—”

  “How early?”

  “Five-ish.”

  “Five in the morning?” She couldn’t keep the amazement from surfacing in her voice. “I’m just starting to dream deeply at that time. Okay. You went in a little after five—”

  “Uh, before five.” He spoke almost guiltily.

  “Before five. Which means you got up at—?”

  “Four or so.”

  “And you went to bed when?”

  “Around midnight.” At her glare he modified it. “All right, twelve thirty.”

  She totaled it up. “So you’ve had a whopping three-and-a-half hours of sleep. Jake, that stinks. Big-time. And now you’ve spent the day with me when you could have been catching a nap.”

  “But I’d rather be with you.”

  “Sweet, and I appreciate it, but that’s not the point.” A new worry struck her. “We’re still supposed to tour this part of town and check out the lights. And then what—what are you going to do?”

  “I didn’t have any particular plans.” He avoided meeting her eyes and toyed with the linen napkin, folding it first one way and then the other.

  “You were going back to Panda’s and work, weren’t you?”

  When he didn’t answer, she repeated the question. “Tell me the truth, Jake.”

  His chin lifted. “Yes.”

  She touched his hand and took the napkin from his edgy fingers. “Do me a favor,” she pleaded. “Take the rest of the evening off. Let’s go for our drive, and then we’ll go to my house and make sure Cora hasn’t starved to death in our absence. We’ll sit and talk, and then you will go home—do you hear me?—go home and get in your jammies and go to sleep.”

  “But they expect me at Panda’s,” he objected. “What if something needs my attention?”

  “I have a phone at my house. Hey, you even have a phone in your car. Call Panda’s. See how things are going. Who’s in charge right now?”

  “Well, I guess that would be Todd.”

  “He’s capable, right?” she persisted.

  The uneasiness began to fade from his face. “Yes. He’s good, a little flaky but good.”

  “Do you trust him?” She felt as if she were leading him, step-by-step, along this path.

  “Sure.” He shoved back his chair. “I know where you’re going with this, and I get your point. But you know what it’s like to own a business.”

  “I know that since I’ve owned Angel’s Roost I’ve been the strictest boss I’ve ever had. I understand what you’re feeling, but, Jake, you need to take care of yourself, or all you’ve accomplished won’t matter.”

  He stared at her, and she watched as the challenge drained from his face. When he spoke at last, his words were so quiet she had to strain to hear him.

  “You’re right.”

  The relief that flooded through her body made her weak. “Let’s pay our tab then and go. More Christmas lights await us.”

  Main Street had been decorated earlier the week before. Great ropes of silvery lights and green garlands looped across the road, hooked on to the old-fashioned street lamps that lined the street.

  A few businesses had decorations in the windows or a strand of lights draped over a door. But for the most part their only bow to the season were signs advertising loans to help with Christmas shopping or a holiday sale on washers and dryers.

  She saw it for the first time through new eyes. “If it weren’t for the city’s decorations, this whole area would be bland, bland, bland.”

  “Maybe they need some encouragement,” he suggested. “Like what we did out in the End, but modified, of course. I’m not trying to say the downtown merchants and businesses are low income, but maybe if they had some incentive …?” He left the sentence hanging.

  “What a great idea. We do a lot with First Night, but even that doesn’t involve too much decoration of individual stores. It’s not a business festivity, so many aren’t really involved.”

  “Are you going to First Night?” he asked, referring to the city’s gala downtown celebration of New Year’s Eve. This would be the fourth year the town and its businesses, churches, and offices had put on the nonalcoholic festival as a way to salute the change of the year, and it had already become a treasured tradition throughout the community.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. What about you? Do you go?”

  “I haven’t so far,” he confessed. “As you might imagine, that’s a fairly busy night for us. People consume a lot of coffee. And the pastries, too. It’s like the last caloric blowout of the year.”

  She must have looked disappointed because he added, “But this year I think I’ll try to go. It’ll depend upon how the help list looks.”

  When she looked confused, he explained. “The help list is something I use for holidays when we’re open, as well as special times. My workers use it to tell me if they can work that night, so I don’t have to call through the entire list when I need someone. If enough people are on the help list, I’ll take in First Night … or at least part of it,” he qualified at the end.

  They drove to the residential section next to the city center. The houses were small and close together, but they rose tall.

  “The houses along here remind me of the people who must have built these houses, needing each other for warmth and com
panionship, so they huddled together, like these houses. And they’re tall because on the prairie you can see forever, but first they needed to see over the trees that lined the riverbanks.” She couldn’t keep the pride out of her voice as she spoke of her neighborhood.

  “Their height may also have made the upper floors, the sleeping areas, easier to heat,” Jake commented pragmatically, “because hot air rises. That way they could take advantage of the stored heat from the day’s activities. If they’d been spread out, the outer corners would have been icy on a night like this without additional heating and thus cost.”

  She made a face at him. “I like my version better. It’s more poetic.”

  “It is,” he acceded, “but mine is more practical, more realistic about why the houses are built the way they are. Don’t you agree?”

  She tried not to let her face reveal the truth, that she had never thought of it that way. Her vision of how the community had grown and shaped itself had always been a romantic one. Never once had something as everyday as heating the homes entered her thoughts.

  “I’m somewhat embarrassed,” she confessed. “Heating was too prosaic, I’m afraid, for my fanciful mind. Of course you’re right.”

  The houses seemed immediately smaller, dingier, grayer, just tall scrawny buildings lining a river.

  He glanced at her. “And I’d never seen them with such an artistic eye. These houses suddenly have character, personality, and a quiet steadfastness about them I’d never noticed before. Thank you for sharing this with me.”

  The holiday decorations were simple on most houses. Some had decorated their homes traditionally, while others had used modern themes and colors, like the one house that was lit with purple and turquoise bulbs.

  The fresh snow in the moonlight made the houses that lined the street look homey and Christmassy. Her heart warmed as she surveyed the area where she had lived her entire life.

  As Jake pulled up in front of her house, she realized she hadn’t put up her own lights this year. She mentioned it to Jake, and he immediately seized upon the opportunity.

  “I’ll do it.”

  She took his arm in her mittened hand and pulled him toward her door. “Not tonight. This is our time to relax and take it easy.”

  Cora met them with a chorus of meows and complaints that let them know she’d been alone the entire evening, it had been horrible, and she had almost starved to death.

  While Tess refilled her dish with Meow Meals and replaced her bowl of water, Jake picked Cora up and talked to her. Tess had to turn her face to hide the grin on her face as he cooed to the cat. “You poor baby cat. Were you all alone in this big old house and not a thing to eat? Poor, poor baby cat. Don’t worry—Tessie is home now.”

  She couldn’t stop herself. “Tessie? It makes me sound like that Loch Ness monster.”

  “What’s that, sweetums?” Jake bent his ear to Cora’s mouth, then reported, “Cora says you are the Loch Ness monster.”

  “Cora is a flat-out opportunist who will say anything for a treat. Remember that you’re the one who gave her Giblet Niblets. You rank right up there with the guy who invented salmon takeout. In fact, as far as she knows, you might be the guy who invented salmon takeout. I’m getting her some Meow Meals, tuna flavor, by the way, and some water. May I get you anything?”

  “Sorry, no. If you have any of those Giblet Niblets left, though …” He pretended to look hopeful.

  “No, thankfully. The piglet ate them all—bless her little heart. I do have some brownies.”

  “Okay, you’ve convinced me.”

  They went into the living room with the plate of brownies, Cora trailing after them. When she realized she wasn’t getting any tasty tidbits from them, she curled up on her blanket in front of the furnace vent.

  Jake walked around the room, checking out the decorations there. “These are your grandparents, I assume?” he asked, picking up a black-and-white photograph of an older couple.

  “Yup. Those are the sweethearts. I miss them a lot, but I know they’re in good hands in heaven.”

  He sat down on the overstuffed couch draped with a few of her grandmother’s crocheted afghans. “Do you believe in angels?”

  Her answer was simple and direct. “Yes.”

  “Have you ever seen one?”

  She weighed his question. Some people asked her the question, searching for the answer as some reliable indicator that a spiritual force was truly at work in human lives. Others asked it with disbelief, their minds already made up that angels were no more real than, say, leprechauns.

  What was his motive?

  He seemed to be asking it honestly, wanting to hear the answer.

  “Yes,” she said at last. “Perhaps.”

  Many would have stopped her there. How could her answer be both yes and perhaps? But he considered her reply and seemed to understand.

  “Do you mind telling me more?” he continued.

  “I have seen children escape injury by what could only be an angel’s hand. I’m talking about suddenly stopping midfall and missing the corner of a table by no possible physical means.”

  She took a deep breath. “I’ve heard stories of people who have, during times of stress and spiritual trial, had someone with them who, upon later investigation, could not be verified as existing. The extra nurse in the hospital who talked someone through a difficult recovery. The roommate at the recovery center who kept a fellow from crashing mentally. The woman who pulled a child from a burning car and then vanished.”

  She paused, studying his face for his reaction. She couldn’t read it, but he didn’t appear to think she was insane.

  “Now none of these instances I’ve mentioned proves the existence of what we call angels,” she went on. “A strong spiritual force is at work in each of these stories, and whether you call them angels or spirits or simply God’s intervention, they’re visible signs of the strength that comes from God.”

  “Have you ever seen an angel?” he repeated.

  “I’ve seen a child’s fall stopped. Jake, it was the strangest thing. A little boy was standing on a chair in the kitchen at church. It tipped over backward, and suddenly he was falling, the back part of his head aimed right at the sharp corner of the counter. No one could get there fast enough; but apparently someone did because he stopped falling, only a fraction of an inch from the corner. We all watched as his head moved over just far enough to miss the corner, and he fell the rest of the way without hurting himself. He sort of sat down, too—he didn’t even get a bump.”

  She shivered at the memory. It was still so real. She had thought they’d be going to the hospital with him, and instead he wasn’t harmed at all.

  “And there’s one other time. This happened when I lived in St. Paul, going to college. I hadn’t been to church for a while—I was in my rebellious period—and I finally decided to go back, to see if it was what I was searching for.”

  She paused. This, too, was vivid.

  “I walked into the sanctuary, and as I stood at the door, wavering about whether or not I’d stay, an elderly woman said, ‘Here—sit by me.’ She shared her hymnal, and when she sang, Jake, it was the sweetest sound. I’ve never heard a voice as clear and sweet and pure as hers was. Her caring made me give church a second chance. And when I tried to find her the next Sunday, to tell her what she had done for me, I couldn’t find her. I asked the minister, and he said there wasn’t anyone like her in the church. To me, she was an angel.”

  He didn’t speak right away. Then he said, “Those stories are pretty convincing to me. I’ve never seen an angel.”

  “That you know of,” she said. “My favorite Bible verse is from Hebrews, and it goes: ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’ You may have encountered an entire host of angels and not known it.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Think about the dinner on Thanksgiving. Any one of those people could have been an angel. How would
you have known it? An angel could be symbolic, too, I suppose.”

  “Explain, please.” His head was cupped in his hands, as he waited for her answer.

  “I’m not sure about this, but maybe it could be that a human being could act as an angel, too. Like that woman in the church in Minnesota for me. Maybe she truly was a human being; maybe she was just visiting, and that’s why no one knew her; but she performed God’s deeds.”

  “That’s an interesting theory. Actually, that is probably the most logical explanation. Well, except for that falling child thing—but I suppose there could be some theory about reactive neutrons or something.”

  “Reactive neutrons?” she repeated. “What are reactive neutrons?”

  “Made up,” he replied cheerfully. “I just made it up. I’m simply saying there might be some physical response we haven’t identified. But that’s not to deny the possibility of angels.”

  “You can’t quite believe in them.”

  “But I can’t quite not believe in them,” he countered. “I think I’m too pragmatic, though, to accept this angels thing totally. I guess I want proof. You know, pictures on the ten o’clock news. Full coverage by Newsweek with photographs and scientific capitulation. The New York Times carrying the story on their front page with an in-depth explanation that will answer once and for all whether there is such a thing as an angel.”

  “They exist whether you believe in them or not,” she said. “In some form or some fashion they do. Call them what you will, but they exist. They don’t flap down with gigantic wings, although that would make identification much easier, and they’re not wearing halos nowadays. But I believe in them.”

  “Are you upset with me?” he asked, his warm brown eyes studying her.

  “No.” It was true. At the basis of the ability to believe in angels was the ability to believe in God. And she wasn’t yet sure of where Jake stood in his faith journey.

  “I guess that surprises me,” he said. “You know, as heavily invested as you are with angels and all.”

  “Invested? Financially or emotionally?”