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Authors: Marilyn Pappano

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BOOK: A Summer to Remember
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As they pulled her away, Cadence glanced back over her shoulder. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Smith. I'll ask Aunt Marti about the horses.”

He responded with a nod as he watched them go. The older blonde chattered, the little one bobbed her head enthusiastically, and Cadence smiled through a very thin veil of anxiety.

As they disappeared into the shade of a broad oak, he shifted his gaze across the yard until it reached Marti Levin. She was laughing with some of her friends, her posture as erect as any ballerina's without being rigid. Her white dress was modest enough for church—sleeveless, curve-hugging, barely brushing the tops of her knees—and it made a pretty good contrast to the olive tone of her skin and her black hair.

The resemblance between her and her niece was faint but there: Both were cool, controlled, pretty, and elegant. From their few interactions in the past, he'd never figured Marti the sort to do the kid thing, but Cadence was a teenager, and the situation was temporary, only for a year.

But a year could fly by in the blink of an eye, leaving good memories and contentment, or it could crawl one damn hour at a time, taking a man's strength, his courage, his self-respect, his dignity.

Dillon knew that from experience.

E
lliot had job hunting down to an art. He started with the ads in the Sunday paper and found they were typically sparse for the kinds of jobs he was qualified for. He had better luck finding
Help Wanted
signs taped to store windows or asking everywhere he went who was hiring. It was, in general, a demoralizing process that he'd been through a few times too many. He'd occasionally considered using his Veterans Administration benefits to get a college degree, but the idea of sitting behind a desk, working more with computers and phones than with people, and wearing a coat and tie just didn't set well with him.

After making sure the shirt he'd taken from the clean pile in the backseat really was clean, he tugged it on and tucked it into a fresh pair of jeans. He fastened his belt, pulled his damp hair into a ponytail, and turned toward Mouse, watching from the passenger seat. “How do I look?”

The pup yawned, unimpressed. Elliot rubbed her ears anyway.

It had taken a long time for Sunday to pass after Fia had turned down his invitation. He and Mouse had walked, played, snoozed, caught enough fish for dinner over an open fire, and slept well. Now it was Monday; he'd showered and shaved at the campground's facilities, and after breakfast somewhere, he was starting his job hunt.

Job hunt. Sounded so easy. Employers needed employees. The problem was, just being available and willing to work hard didn't always count for much. Some people looked at his list of jobs, scattered all over the country, and lost interest. Some saw his service in the Army and lost interest even quicker. The facts that he was single and had no ties to the town were a negative, too, since it made it awful easy to pick up and move on. And damn it, he hadn't yet found a classified ad that said,
Wanted: Sniper.

He'd had enough of that job anyway.

So he would look at the
Help Wanted
ads in the local paper over breakfast, then drive around town for the third time, make note of signs taped to the windows of businesses. He would be charming and pleasant and politely persistent and flexible—any job, any hours, pretty much any pay.

On his other trips through town, he'd noticed a little bakery on North First named Prairie Harts that reminded him of a place back home—the only place to eat out back home: a squat cinder block building, large windows, a crowded parking lot on Saturday. Usually, nothing indicated good food like a full parking lot.

He drove into town, bought a newspaper at QuikTrip, then traveled a few more blocks to Prairie Harts. There were only a handful of cars this morning, but given that the workday had started more than two hours ago for most folks, that was pretty good.

He rolled down all four windows a few inches, then gave Mouse a pat. “I won't be long. You behave, and I'll bring you a treat.”

Her nose quivered—he'd bet she smelled every good scent on the air—and though she remained sitting, her tail wagged double-time.

The aromas when he stepped inside the bakery just about stopped him in his tracks. Whoever ran Prairie Harts definitely knew his or her business. There were savory smells, too, but he focused on the sweet: sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, almond. Add strong rich coffee, and what more could a man ask for?

A beautiful woman to share it with.

And a
Help Wanted
sign in the window.

Hallelujah, God had chosen to smile on him.

The bakery had a happy, homey feel to it, if home happened to be somewhere near a beach. The tables and chairs would be a great place to settle and listen to the waves; the pastels and pops of hot pink and turquoise brightened the dining room and made it look bigger; and the iron flowers clustered around the room were cool. There was even a flamingo in the corner, complete with sunglasses, Hawaiian shirt, and flip-flops.

None of which would matter if the food in the display cases wasn't worthy. He didn't even need a taste to know it was. There was no way something that smelled and looked that good could possibly not taste good.

A half-dozen customers sat around the room, each at their own table, each immersed in their laptop or cell phone. Remembering the hundreds of times he and Emily had met their friends at Rosey's without a single electronic device in sight made him shake his head as he walked to the counter.

“Welcome to Prairie Harts,” the woman behind it greeted him. “What can I do for you?”

Breakfast or application first? The rumbling of his stomach made that decision easy. After scanning the rows of fresh-baked muffins, biscuits, cookies, turnovers, and more, he chose a cinnamon roll the size of a dinner plate, drizzled with cream cheese frosting, and a cup of coffee.

“Is this your first time here?” the woman asked as she scooped the roll onto a plate. As soon as she set it on the display case in front of him, he drew a deep breath, causing his stomach to rumble again.

“Yes, ma'am, it is. I just got into town on Friday.”

Her gaze skimmed over him, stopping for a moment on his ponytail. “I'm guessing it wasn't the Army that brought you here.” There was a gleam in her eyes when she put a flip-flop-decorated porcelain mug of steaming coffee next to the plate.

“No, ma'am. I'm looking to settle down.” He offered her a ten-dollar bill, and she counted the change into his palm.

“Well, I hope we see you again. By the way, I'm Patricia.”

“Elliot.” He returned her smile and would have tipped his Stetson if he was wearing it just for the added charm factor, but instead he picked up his breakfast and carried it to a table near the front windows, where he could keep an eye on Mouse.

His first bite of roll was enough to make him moan if he hadn't been in public. His first impression was sweet and walnutty and chewy, thanks to the raisins in the filling, followed by a moment of pure sensory pleasure, then the explosion of the cinnamon: heat and spice and bite. Incredible.

A customer left, and Patricia came out from behind the counter to retrieve the dishes and wipe the table. “How's that roll?” she asked.

He gave her a thumbs-up before wiping his mouth. “Ceylon cinnamon or Vietnamese cassia?”

“You're the first customer who's ever asked that. Vietnamese cassia.” She rested one hand on the back of the chair opposite him. “Are you a baker?”

“I learned to make biscuits when I still needed a footstool to reach the counter. Cakes came after that, but piecrusts had to wait until I started fifth grade.” If Emily were there, she'd point out that he hadn't grown much since then, but Patricia was too polite to comment on his lack of height.

“Aw, my kids would help me in the kitchen sometimes, but none of them grew up to like cooking. Luckily for me, they still like to eat.”

He sipped the coffee, hot enough to scald his tongue, and nodded appreciatively. “Excellent coffee.”

“It's kind of an Oklahoma product. We try to source locally as much as we can. The coffee is shipped straight from the estates in El Salvador to a roastery in Tulsa. Lucy, my partner”—she gestured toward the kitchen—“drives to Tulsa every Saturday to pick up the beans, and we grind them as we need them.”

“The only way,” he said with a grin, though if he was in bad enough need of caffeine, he would chew the beans and be happy.

She shifted position, folding her arms across her middle. “Are you married, Elliot?”

“No, ma'am.”

“From southern Oklahoma?”

“Texas.”

Her grin was sly. “That's what I said.” She winked, then pulled out the other chair and sat. “Do you have a job here?”

“No, ma'am, I'm looking.” His gut tightened. He'd never worked in a bakery a day in his life, but instinct said he would like this place, just as he'd known right off he was going to like Fia. He couldn't think of much he'd rather do job-wise than spend his shift working with food: making it, serving it, cleaning up after it. If he could get a job here, if it might pay a living wage, it would be the best damn luck he'd ever had, other than surviving his tours in combat.

It, and meeting Fia, would be like coming home.

He nodded at the
Help Wanted
sign. “I was figuring on putting in an application when I finished here.”

Patricia's smile widened, and she went to the counter, where she could see her partner through the pass-through. “Lucy, do we have application forms?”

A younger woman, face framed by dark hair, appeared at the window, looking perplexed. “Um, no. I didn't think…It was on my list…” After a moment's search, she called, “Let me see what I can find online.”

Elliot hid his grin behind the coffee mug. He liked the informality of their approach. If he had his own place, he would get sound advice for financial matters and depend on gut instinct for everything else. He'd spent a lot of years honing his instincts. Why not use them?

“We just put the sign up this morning,” Patricia confided as she sat down again. “We opened in February and didn't plan on hiring anyone at least until summer, but things have been pretty busy. Lucy's trying to plan her wedding in June, and I can't run the place alone while she's honeymooning, so we decided we'd better get moving. So, Elliot, do you cook, or is baking your talent?”

“Bread is my talent, but yes, ma'am, I'm a pretty good cook, too.”

Delight spread across her face as Lucy hurried out from the kitchen. “His specialty is bread, Lucy. How cool is that?”

“Great! I make a killer no-rise bread, but I can't do a decent loaf of anything else to save my life.” Lucy extended her hand. “Lucy Hart.”

“Elliot Ross.” He shook hands with her, then she thrust out a sheet of paper ripped from a spiral notebook. “My printer doesn't want to print today. We really just need the basics anyway.” As she was walking away, she said, “Can't stay. I'm making crepes.”

He took the sheet, and the ink pen Patricia offered, and scanned the page. Lucy hadn't been kidding. In a column down the left she'd scrawled
Name
,
Address
,
Phone
,
Date of Birth
,
Social Security Number
, and
Hours Available
. There were no blocks for the twenty or so jobs he'd held in the previous couple years, no block for his Army service, so it took him only a couple minutes to fill out, even with his hesitation over the address line.

“Like I said, I just got into town Friday, so I don't have a permanent address yet, but the cell phone's always on.” He slid the paper and pen across to Patricia. “Anything you want to add?”

She skimmed it and returned it. “An emergency contact, please.”

“Yes, ma'am.” He wrote Emily's name, cell phone, and identified her as his sister.

“I'm impressed that you know her number from memory. My kids are lost without their smart phones. When I tell my grandkids of family reunions where we ate and played baseball and hide-and-seek, they say, ‘Oh, Grandma, what about the Internet?'” She snorted. “I think our youngest generation is losing its ability to communicate face to face.”

“I agree, ma'am. But on the good side, my sister lives in New Mexico, and I've spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I still get to see my nieces and nephew grow up, read to them, sing to them.” It was the only way he could be a regular part of their lives without moving to New Mexico, whether it suited him or not.

She squeezed his hand. “I know. I've gotten to do the same with my grandbabies. Oh, and forget the
ma'am
, Elliot. I spent twenty years as an Army wife, and I have been
ma'am
'ed enough for a lifetime.”

Lucy called Patricia from the kitchen, and she stood. “Though I have to admit,
ma'am
from a handsome Texas cowboy has a whole other appeal than when it comes from an eighteen-year-old private.”

He'd been one of those eighteen-year-old privates, too, so he'd gotten a double whammy of respect drilled into him. He wasn't sure it was even possible for him to call a woman his mother's age by her first name.

While Patricia took care of business in back, Elliot scooped what was left of his roll onto a napkin, picked out the raisins, and ate those himself. With the uncanny sense she had, Mouse's head popped up above the dash, and her tail and everything else began quivering. Good dog, though: She didn't bark. She knew she would get the treat, sooner rather than later, and would wait patiently for it. In the meantime…

“She's gonna drool all over my truck,” he murmured.

“I hope you're talking about your dog and not your girlfriend,” Patricia teased as she returned.

“My girlfriends don't drool.”

She gave him a long look head to toe, then murmured, “I may be from a whole different generation, but I know that's not true. I've got a few single friends who would very much appreciate looking at you, seeing that grin, and hearing that voice. But don't worry. We'll give you a chance to meet someone on your own before we start matchmaking.” She patted his upper arm the way Emily often did, but without the force of a full-fledged punch behind it, the way Emily's often had. “We're about to get busy here, so you go give that pretty little puppy a treat and come back around two thirty. Lucy will have time to sit down and talk with you then. Does that sound good?”

“You bet, ma—Patricia.” He stood and reached for his dishes, but she brushed him away. Picking up the napkin-wrapped roll, he thanked her, then went to the truck. By the time he got the door open, Mouse was standing in her seat and, yep, there was drool trailing from there to the console to the dashboard.

“Man, you're lucky I'm such a sucker for cute,” he said as he handed her a chunk of roll, then reached in back for baby wipes and paper towels. She inhaled it, then sat—barely—for the next. He was pretty sure she would have eaten the napkins and licked the seats if he hadn't been faster, scooping her into one arm while he cleaned her mess.

BOOK: A Summer to Remember
11.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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