Éclair and Present Danger (12 page)

S
he was in the middle of a mental debate on the pluses and minuses of smacking Renee's hands with a flyswatter, when the seemingly ceaseless finger drumming finally ceased.

“So?” Renee said, pulling her focus from the clock above the sink and planting it squarely on Winnie. “Are you going to tell me, or are you going to make me drag it out of you?”

“Tell you what?”

“About Master Sergeant Hottie.”

Pushing her chair back from the table and the telephone they'd been hovering over for nearly an hour, Winnie stood and wandered over to the open window that provided a fairly uninhibited view of Serenity Lane. To her right, she was able to identify Cornelia Wright and her sheltie, Con-Man, embarking on the first of what had to be a dozen daily walks. To her left, Harold Jenkins was sitting on his motorized scooter trying not to get caught watching Cornelia. “There's nothing to tell.”

“That's not what I heard.”

She whirled around to find Renee now tapping her finger against her chin. “Excuse me?”

Renee moved her finger around to the wispy pieces of hair that fell against her ear and smiled broadly. “Mr. Nelson told me about yesterday.”

“And what did he tell you?”

“That Master Sergeant Hottie was here. To see you.”

Moving away from the window, Winnie crossed into the tiny living room and dropped onto the overstuffed armchair that had become another bone of contention between her and Lovey over the past few days. Fortunately for Winnie, Lovey was in the bathroom (drinking from the toilet, no doubt) at the moment rather than napping. “He stopped by to see the ambulance. That's all.”

“Mr. Nelson said he was here for close to an hour.”

“Apparently Mr. Nelson's vision is far more accurate than his hearing,” she droned. Then, in the interest of putting the whole conversation to bed once and for all, she filled in the gaps Renee apparently wanted filled. “I showed him the back of the ambulance, we talked about a few of the items on the menu, and that was it.”

“I hear you sat on the grass together.”

Groaning, she lolled her head against the back of the chair. “Okay, here's the breakdown. I admit, I was a little—a
little
—jazzed to see him here. But then he messed it up.”

Renee left the table to join her in the living room. With a not-so-gentle push, she removed Winnie's feet from the ottoman and sat. “How?”

“He's clearly uncomfortable with my crowd.”

“Your crowd?”

She plucked a piece of cat fur off the cushion and stuck it on Renee's pants. “That's right. My crowd. He doesn't get them. Or me.”

She waited for Renee to say something, to offer some sort
of excuse for Greg or some cheerleader-like encouragement to Winnie about sticking it out, but there was none of that. Instead, Renee merely sighed.

“I just want to focus on the Dessert Squad right now, Renee. If we have a chance at all with this thing, it needs to come first in my life.”

“You mean like Delectable Delights always did?”

“Exactly.”

“And you think that was a good thing?” Renee pressed.

“I take it you don't?”

“I just don't want to see you end up alone, Winnie. You're far too special for that.”

She added a second and third piece of cat hair to the pant leg collection and then gently leaned her forehead against Renee's. “But I'm not alone. I have you . . . I have Mr. Nelson . . . I have Bridget . . . I have this new business—”

Hisssss . . .

Parting company with Renee, Winnie peeked over the armrest of her chair to find Lovey looking not so pleased about the loss of her napping spot. “And, yes, for better or worse, I have Lovey now, too,” she added.

Renee invited Lovey onto her lap with a series of quick pats. Lovey, of course, jumped up, turned her back to Winnie, and began to purr. “Is that really enough for you?”

“For now? Yes.” And she meant it. Her life was full.

Still, she couldn't help but rejoice inwardly at the staccato ring of the kitchen phone. Whoever was calling had certainly put a much-needed stop to a conversation that had already gone on far too long for Winnie's taste. Rising, she strode into the kitchen with Renee on her heels.

“Do you think it's a customer?” Renee asked, staring down at the phone.

“There's only one way to find out . . .”

With an audible inhale, Renee lifted the receiver with her right hand and reached for the pen-topped order pad with her left. “Emergency Dessert Squad. What's your emergency?”

She hadn't realized she was holding her breath until Renee began writing. Moving closer, Winnie tried to decipher the woman's self-proclaimed chicken scratch, but it was no use. All she could make out was
cookie
and
college
. The rest may as well have been Greek.

“Well, we got it!” Renee declared as she returned the phone to the counter and pumped her fist into the air. “Our first order!”

“Tell me,” she said, her voice breathless.

“It's for a sixteen-year-old girl named Caroline. She just passed her driving test, and her dad”—Renee looked down at her notes for confirmation—“Jay Morgan, wants a giant cookie with either white chocolate chips or butterscotch chips delivered to his office at the college. Room 405 in the Cully Business Building. He said it's most easily accessed by the Murphy Street entrance.”

“The Murphy Street entrance—got it!” Winnie met Renee's waiting hand with her own and then headed straight for the kitchen and the cabinet of baking ingredients. “Okay, Renee, let's get to work. There's a new driver in need of some special treatment.”

*   *   *

W
innie pulled into the closest visitor spot she could find to the Cully Business Building and cut the engine. Two years earlier, when she'd opened the bakery, she'd been nervous, but the realization of a nearly lifelong dream had helped her power through.

Today, the squad of butterflies flapping their wings inside her stomach felt different—like they knew, somehow, that this delivery could very well be a do-or-die moment. And they'd be right. If the Dessert Squad didn't take hold, she'd be forced to hang up her apron and find a new profession.

Removing the key from the ignition, she peeked into the rearview mirror for one last look at her hair (in its trademark ponytail), her eyes (Renee's insistence she wear
mascara might actually have been a good idea), and the unexpected reddish tint to her cheeks that was a result, no doubt, of the way her heart was beating double-time inside her chest.

I can do this . . .

I can do this . . .

“I. Can. Do. This.” Her mind made up, Winnie pushed open the door, stepped onto the pavement, and made her way around to the back of the ambulance and the giant cookie-topped stretcher visible through the vehicle's narrow rectangular window. Once the cookie and its mode of transportation were safely on the ground, she guided them in the direction of the white-columned brick structure most heavily utilized in Silver Lake College's recruitment brochures. Along the way, she earned a few odd looks, starred in a handful of hastily snapped photographs, and even handed out menus in response to three separate requests.

For her business-owning self, the attention was thrilling. For her quiet, demure self, the attention was downright overwhelming. Somehow, she had to find a way to make the two coexist.

Humming softly to herself, Winnie maneuvered the stretcher around a handful of construction projects and entered the Cully Business Building on the south side, not far from the bank of elevators tasked with moving students and teachers from floor to floor. The first floor, according to a sign in the elevator, housed a small cafeteria, several large lecture halls, and an atrium. The second floor boasted classrooms, group study rooms, and a business library. The third and fourth floors were dedicated to faculty offices like Jay Morgan's.

She glanced down at the index card in her hand and noted the limited information on her first customer. He was a teacher at the college, with a driving-age daughter, but, beyond that, there wasn't anything of any real consequence.

The elevator lurched to a stop, and she exited onto the
fourth floor. A receptionist stationed behind a desk looked up from her book long enough to point to an office at the end of one of four hallways. “Should I let Mr. Morgan know you're coming?”

She started to nod but caught herself just in the nick of time. “Actually, in the event his
daughter
doesn't know I'm coming, would it be okay if I just knocked myself?”

The woman shrugged and returned to her book.

Placing her hands on the side of the stretcher once again, Winnie wheeled the cookie down the hallway indicated by the receptionist and stopped just shy of the one and only open door on the whole wing. A black and gold nameplate affixed to the wall confirmed she'd found the right office.

Anxious to burn the image of her first Emergency Dessert Squad customer into her thoughts, Winnie peeked around the corner and felt her mouth go slack.

Jay Morgan was, in a word, classically handsome. (Okay, maybe that was two words, but who's counting?) In his late thirties—maybe his very early forties—the business professor had light brown hair with a sprinkling of gray near his temples, a strong chin, and a thoughtfulness about his seated demeanor that made her want to know what he was reading . . . what he was thinking . . . what he was—

Suddenly, the eyes that had been engrossed in the pages of a book were now on her, their blue green color, combined with the hint of a sparkle in their depths, bringing a swift end to the pounding in her chest.

Now, if she could only breathe . . .

“You must be with the Emergency Dessert Squad,” he said, rising. “Welcome. I'm Jay. Jay Morgan.”

“I—I'm Winnie. Winnie Johnson.”

He walked around his desk and extended his hand. “I recognize you from the picture in the weekend paper.”

Reluctantly, she pulled her hand from his and ran it nervously down the sides of the simple blue hospital scrubs
Renee had worn as a Halloween costume one year. “Um, we're, uh, still working on our uniforms.”

“This works.” She swallowed hard as his gaze traveled from her head to her feet and then returned along the same path. “Maybe you could add an emblem of some sort in this area”—he pointed at the left side of his chest—“or on the upper arm.”

With his eyes back on hers and her feet on comfortable ground, she allowed herself to focus on the moment in a much broader sense. “You know how real paramedic uniforms often say
PARAMEDIC
across the back in big, bold letters? Well I was thinking about doing the same with the word
RESCUER
.”

He rubbed his chin between his thumb and forefinger and nodded. “That could work.” And then, after a beat of silence, “Yeah, I like that. A lot.”

She gave in to the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth, any and all apprehension over her first rescue dissipating in the process. “You're my first call.”

“I'm honored.”

For a brief second she wondered if the slight husk she heard in his voice had truly happened or was a figment of her imagination, but she let the question go. This was her first call. The one that could serve as a springboard to others if she didn't mess it up . . .

Focus, Winnie. Focus.

“I understand you have a new driver in the family,” she finally said.

“I do. Her name is Caroline.”

A quick inventory of Jay's office netted no places in which a sixteen-year-old could be holed up. “You know, I'd be happy to deliver to wherever Caroline is. That way she could enjoy the whole effect.”

“Now this is probably going to sound awful, but my daughter passed her driving test four months ago.”

“Oh.” She resisted her shoulders' natural impulse to sag
at the disappointment and, instead, shrugged. “It's still a sweet gesture.”

“And I'm sure she'll enjoy the cookie when I give it to her. But I really called and placed the order for me.”

“F-for y-you?” she stammered.

“That's right. I wasn't blue, so the pie was out—although, truth be told, I love blueberry pie. I'm not angry about anything at the moment, so the red velvet cake wouldn't have worked. I'm not having any hot flashes, so that nixed any notion of a sundae. And, well, the cookie seemed the best fit.”

“I still don't understand.”

He navigated his head around her and into the hall where the stretcher and the cookie waited. “I'm a business professor, Winnie. I spend my days talking to students about business—what works, what doesn't. But mostly it's the same old stuff all the time. But this”—he gestured from her to the hall and back again—“and you . . . It's incredibly creative. I guess I just wanted to see it up close and personal. Your delivery, your presentation, your . . . all of it.”