Éclair and Present Danger (11 page)

She loved her elderly friends. Loved them with all her heart. But she hated the sadness that seeped into their respective worlds as the end drew closer.

“Look who I found?” Bridget reappeared in the kitchen doorway with a wide-eyed brown and white cat in her arms. “Lovey, look, it's your new mama.”

Without really thinking, Winnie stepped forward, arms outstretched.

Hiss . . .

She dropped her arms to her side in defeat. “Well, I see some things haven't changed . . .”

“Give her time, dear. She'll come around.”

“You sound like Mr. Nelson right now.” She stuck out her tongue at Lovey and then headed into the hallway with Bridget in tow. “Mr. Nelson?”

“In here, Winnie.”

“It's time to go,” she called, stopping to look in each room as she passed—Bart's study, the dining room, and, finally, the living room. Mr. Nelson stood beside a table near the window, deep in thought. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out how to get Bart out of the predicament he got himself into.”

“Don't you think you're a little late for that, Parker?” Bridget asked, her voice tinged with boredom. “As in four days too late?”

“Shhh . . . I'm—wait. I got it.” Mr. Nelson bent forward across the table, his hand moving forward rapidly. “Checkmate!”

Confused, Winnie peeked around his shoulder only to smile as she saw the chessboard in the center. “Well done, Mr. Nelson.”

He puffed out his chest, smiling triumphantly as he did. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“Can we please go?” Bridget prodded.

Winnie waved Bridget and Mr. Nelson toward the door and then fell into step behind them as they crossed the room. Four steps from the foyer, the middle body in the parade stopped, necessitating quick braking action from Winnie to avoid a body-to-body collision. “Mr. Nelson? You okay?”

When the man didn't answer, she followed his gaze to the mantel and the series of framed photographs lined up along both the left and right side. In all but one of the pictures, Bart was depicted with either Ethel or Ethel and
Mark. In the one to the far left, she recognized a younger Mr. Nelson sitting next to Bart, fishing.

“You miss him, don't you, Mr. Nelson?”

“I do.”

“When was that fishing trip?” she asked.

“Fifteen years ago, maybe.” Mr. Nelson's Adam's apple bobbed with a swallow. “It was a good trip. We had a lot of laughs that day. But what I miss most about him is the way he told everyone he could about his coin.”

This time, she followed the man's finger to the glass case in the center of the mantel—a glass case that sat empty now. “It came to him from his father, right?”

“From President Franklin D. Roosevelt . . . to a member of his Secret Service detail . . . to Bart's father . . . and finally to Bart, yes,” Mr. Nelson corrected. “A story that could make Bart smile no matter what.”

She slipped an arm around her friend and rested her head on his shoulder. “Remember him that way, Mr. Nelson. Remember him that way always.”

“I will. You can count on that.”

G
liding her hand across the logo emblazoned on the side of the ambulance, Winnie couldn't help but marvel at everything she'd accomplished in such a short period of time. Granted, the Emergency Dessert Squad was really just a mobile version of Delectable Delights, but it was different, too.

Her desserts had been tweaked and, in some cases, changed completely.

Her creativity was being tested on a continuous basis.

Sleep, which used to be hers the second her head hit the pillow, was suddenly elusive thanks to the aforementioned creativity that had her reaching for a pen again and again throughout the night.

And suddenly she was very concerned with knowing how many Silver Lake residents actually read the
Herald
's weekend edition. If readership was good, maybe the phone would actually ring in twenty hours. If readership was bad—

“Wow. You really go all out, don't you?”

Winnie popped her head over the roof of the ambulance
and made a valiant effort to curb the surprise she suspected was written all over her face. “Oh. Greg. Hi . . . What are you doing here?” She cringed at the question and then stepped around the hood of the car. “I mean, I didn't expect to see you. Here. In my driveway.”

He ran his hand along the side of the ambulance. “I grew up on the whole don't-show-up-unannounced thing, you know? Even heard my mother's voice in my head the whole way here.”

“And here you are, anyway . . .” she said, laughing.

“And here I am, anyway.”

Focusing again on the vehicle between them, Greg made his way down the driver's side, around the back end, and up the passenger side, deliberately leaving enough space to take in every detail, every nuance. As he walked, she made a few notes of her own.

No paramedic uniform . . .

A button-down collared shirt (chocolate-colored flannel—a perfect match for his eyes—with the top two buttons undone) looked oh so good on his toned upper body . . .

“I love the logo. It's smart. It's sleek. It's classy.” He stopped when he reached the hood, smiled at Winnie, and then retraced his steps toward the back end. “Can you open it up so I can see what you did inside?”

“Sure.” She came around the vehicle, unlatched the back panel, and stepped back as Greg swung it open.

“Whoa! Nice!”

“I obviously don't have the room you do in
your
ambulances, but that's okay. I'm really just using it to deliver desserts.”

“Nice stretcher,” he said, gesturing inside. “The white covering looks good and—whoa . . . you got the collapsible drip pole already?”

“Overnight shipping is a wondrous thing.” She reached into the back of the rig, grabbed hold of the pole, and rolled
it toward them. When it was at the edge, she pulled it down, set it on the ground, and expanded it to full size. “I also found some heavy-duty clear bags that will be perfect for whatever icing or drizzle I may need on-site. They work well because they can be kept warm en route and then hung on the pole for application when I bring the dessert up to the door. Right now, the desserts that will require the drip pole will be my Seeing Red Velvet Cake and my Hot Flash Fudge Sundae.”

“Hot Flash Fudge Sundae?” he repeated.

“Uh-huh.”

“Let me guess . . . For those suffering through menopause?”

She grinned. “Right again.”

“And Seeing Red Velvet Cake? What's that for? Anger management?”

“Sort of. I'm envisioning it for those times things just don't go your way. Or your loved one's way, if you're ordering it for someone else.”

“You're really good at this,” he marveled as he turned his attention to the back of the rig once again. “Is your friend from the bakery going to go out on the calls with you?”

She collapsed the pole back to its compact size and returned it to its original spot inside the rig. “Renee? No. At this point I see her staying back, taking calls from customers and scheduling delivery times. She's also adept at gathering everything I need to make a particular dessert—something that will prove invaluable, no doubt, in a business that will hinge on my ability to respond within a set time frame.”

He took one last look inside and then swung the door shut. With a double pat on the latch, he turned, the smile she'd been glimpsing on his face for the past ten minutes or so now fully trained on her. “Excited?”

“About this?” she asked, sweeping her hand toward the ambulance. At his nod, she backed herself against the
closest tree for support and looked up at the puffy white clouds dotting the early afternoon sky. “I'm excited, hopeful, anxious, scared, you name it. I just want this to work. To be every bit as successful as Renee and Bridget seem to think it will be.”

“And me. Don't forget me.”

Slowly, she brought her gaze back down to his, an odd and unfamiliar feeling skittering up her spine. “And you.” She tugged the end of her ponytail across her shoulder and fiddled with the ends. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

He ventured across the gap she'd created, but stopped short of the standard personal space bubble. “For what? Knowing this business of yours is going to be a smashing success?”

“Something like that.”

“I'd be a fool not to.” Swooping down to a squat, he picked up a rock and played with it between his hands—turning it over again and again. “So how long have you lived here? In Silver Lake?”

Something about the innocuous question helped lighten an atmosphere that had become suddenly charged. Grateful for the change, she slid down the tree until she, too, was sitting on the grass.

“A little over two years.”

“What brought you here?” he asked, looking up from his rock.

“I wanted to give my own bakery a go. And when I was looking around for a place to open one, everything about Silver Lake seemed perfect.” She ran her fingers across the recently awakened grass and tried not to think about yet another season of fighting with a lawn mower that had seen its share of better days long before Winnie was even born. “And it was.
Is
.”

He dropped the rock and glanced in her direction. “I imagine closing down your first place had to be tough. But
honestly, I think what you're poised to do with this Dessert Squad is so much cooler.”

“Thanks. It
is
cooler, I'll give you that, but whether that will translate to success remains to be seen.” She leaned her head against the tree and lifted her face to the sun.

“And what brought you here? To this house? This street?”

“Luck.” At his answering laugh, she lowered her chin and met his eyes once again. “No, really. Mr. Nelson, Bridget, Gertie, Ethel, and Bart made me feel at home the second I moved in. Within a few short weeks, I not only had neighbors, I had friends—
true friends
. A person can't get any luckier than that, in my opinion.”

He let himself fall backward out of his squat, plucking a blade of grass from the ground as he did. “That's awfully sweet of you to take all these folks under your wing the way you do.”

“I'm not sure I know what you mean . . .”

He pointed the blade of grass over her shoulder at her house and then over his own at Bart's. “The elderly on this street. It's good they have someone looking out for them.”

“We look out for one another,” she corrected.

There was no mistaking the way his left brow lifted at her response and no ignoring the hint of disbelief in the way his head shook ever so slightly. There was also no mistaking the anger she felt rising up inside her chest.

Bracing the ground with her hands, she stood. “When I came home after my very first day at the bakery, Mr. Nelson met me at the door with a bottle of champagne. Inside his place was Bridget—my next-door neighbor—with a teddy bear dressed in a baker's apron she'd had personalized with the name of my bakery. Ethel and Bart were there, too. And so was Gertie. They were all so happy for me that they took what had been a great day and made it a million times better. That wasn't an isolated incident, either. Those five have cheered me on from the sidelines,
offered hugs and encouragement when I needed it, and loved me like family every step of the way. So trust me, Greg, when I say that the people on this street have looked after me every bit as much as I've looked after them.”

Depositing the blade of grass back onto the ground, he, too, stood, his hands splayed—waist high—in front of him. “I wasn't trying to offend, Winnie. I was just trying to understand. I'm not used to seeing someone who looks like you spending the majority of her time with old people.”

Old people . . .

A familiar creak over her left shoulder let her know Mr. Nelson was on his way outside even before the man ever said a word. “Winnie Girl? Can I let Lovey out? She's been scratching at the door trying to get to you for quite some time now.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Nelson.” Then, swinging her focus back to Greg she said, “There it is again.”

“What?”

“Lovey
hates
me, Greg. Despises the very ground on which I walk, quite frankly. But Mr. Nelson just said she's trying to get out here to me.”

“I don't understand.”

“True friends, regardless of their age, lift you up and make you a better person than you were before. They help make things right.”

Lovey beat Mr. Nelson to the tree and then waited by Greg's foot for the elderly man to catch up. Once he did, the animal moved on to the ambulance.

“I was just thinking you need a light, too. A great big honkin' flashlight that you can use to get those desserts of yours up to people's front doors.”

It took her a moment to find the man's veer-off point, but she did. “I didn't say
light
, Mr. Nelson. I said
right
.”

Mr. Nelson's shoulders rose in level with his ears as he turned and acknowledged Greg. “I remember you, young fella. Met you yesterday at Bart's repast, didn't I?”

“Yes. I'm Greg Stevens.” Greg reached out, took Mr. Nelson's offered hand, and then nodded at Winnie. “Well, I better be heading out, Winnie. Good luck tomorrow. Give me a shout if you need anything.”

And then Greg was gone, his long jean-clad legs transporting him up the driveway and over to a dark blue Mustang parked on Bart's side of the street.

“I didn't mean to make him run off, Winnie Girl.”

She heard the car start up, heard the wheels start to grip the road as Greg went by, but she kept her focus on the man standing by her side. “You didn't, Mr. Nelson. That was all him.”