The Angel Tasted Temptation

by Shirley Jump

  She'd deal with that, and what he meant—later. For now, Meredith had one goal and a short timeline. Rebecca could have the baby early or Meredith's own obligations could come knocking, and Meredith would be back on her way to the cornfields before she had a chance to work a life transformation. She was afraid if she left Boston too early, she'd slip back into that complacent life she'd led before and end up married to Caleb, passing out Kleenexes and grave-site plans for the rest of her life.

  "So," she said, drawing in a breath, "shall we get started?"

  Travis took a look around the bar, filling up now that the hour was getting late. "Now?"

  "No time like the present." She smiled. That was exactly how a city girl would act. Confident, sure ... and ready anytime.

  Travis, though, shook his head, deflating her confidence balloon a little. "Nope. No can do. You want to do this, you need to do it right." He trailed a slow, sure finger along her lower lip, teasing her with a taste of what had been there earlier. Need tingled inside Meredith for more, for a firmer touch, for... anything. Travis traced her lips, then drew back, leaving her feeling like something had been half-started between them. "You want to do this right, don't you, Meredith?"

  She gulped. "Oh, absolutely." If doing it right meant more of that kind of touch, she'd do it right many, many times.

  "Good. Then I'm going to make damned sure you get what you asked for."

  And with that, Meredith knew she was no longer in charge of her destiny. Not tonight.

  Cordelia's True-Wealth-Is-in-Your-Friends Oysters Rockefeller

  4 tablespoons parsley

  2 shallots

  4 tablespoons celery leaves

  1-1/4 pounds fresh spinach leaves

  1/2 cup butter, softened

  1/2 cup fresh white breadcrumbs

  Salt and pepper

  Tabasco, to taste

  Rock salt or kosher salt

  24 fresh oysters on the half shell

  2 tablespoons Pernod or other licorice-flavored liqueur, optional

  Lemon wedges, optional

  Just because you aren't wealthy doesn't mean you can't live like those who are. It's all a matter of perceptions, dear, starting with your own. If you see yourself as rich, well then, you are. Just don't go acting that way with your Visa too often. The banks don't quite see the fantasy the same way, silly gooses.

  Preheat your broiler. Then chop the parsley, celery leaves, shallots and spinach, nice and fine. Melt the butter in a pan and cook the shallots first, then add the spinach and the other veggies, just long enough to soften them up for the next step. Sort of like how you'd soften up a man to ask him for a really big favor.

  Add the breadcrumbs and cook for another few minutes, melding those flavors like a happy little group (not at all like one of those society parties where you have the parsleys over here and the spinaches over there; how I despise those cliques). Season with salt, pepper and as much Tabasco as your mouth can take.

  Now, nestle those pretty little oysters in a bed of rock salt on a baking sheet. Spoon the stuffing onto the oysters. If you're feeling decadent, drizzle each with a little Pernod. Then pop them under the broiler, a couple spaces below the top so you don't end up with a three-alarm fire instead of a gourmet treat.

  Be sure to watch them, instead of tending to your company. I know, it's hard to be a proper hostess then, but believe me, when guests taste this, they'll be friends for life (of course, some may just be mooching for the free oysters; kick them off your Christmas card list right away, dear). Serve with lemon wedges and martinis.

  And lots and lots of good friends.

  Chapter Five

  The naked woman stood tall and proud, breasts thrust forward, generous hips tilted back, emphasizing a roundness even J. Lo would envy.

  "That's not natural," Maria said. "No one looks like that."

  "Apparently Mrs. Kingwood does," Candace said. "Her husband said he gave us her exact dimensions. Scaled down to a manageable size for a piece of candy, of course."

  Meredith readied the cellophane wrap for the Kingwood female form, made for them by a local chocolatier since naked women were out of the range of Gift Baskets to Die For's talents ... and the shop's candy mold collection. "Why do you suppose he'd want her cast in chocolate?"

  "Apparently he never outgrew his fascination with hollow Easter bunnies." Maria winked.

  "That's just... weird. A chocolate replica of your wife? I mean, what's he going to do with it?"

  Maria raised a brow. "Let her melt in his hands?"

  "I am not even going to entertain that with a response," Candace said, laughing nevertheless.

  "My dears, this one takes the cake. And the cake stand. Is that woman naked?"

  All three women turned toward the voice. A small elderly woman stood in the doorway of the kitchen, a tiny pink pillbox hat on her salt-and-pepper hair, set slightly askew, perfect for the matching Jackie O-style suit she wore. She had to be close to seventy-five, Meredith guessed, but she wore pale cream pumps and hose, her appearance as precise as the First Lady who'd inspired her look.

  "Good morning, Ms. Gershwin," Candace said. She indicated Meredith with a wave of her hand. "This is Rebecca's cousin, Meredith. She's come to work with us while Rebecca is home on bed rest. Meredith, this is Ms. Gershwin. She owns the antique shop next door."

  "Cordelia Gershwin," the woman said, taking Meredith's palm in her own, "of the Gershwins, but not the Gershwins."

  "Meaning, she comes from money, not show tunes," Maria said.

  "But I have a distant cousin whom we suspect was a member of the royal family," Cordelia said, releasing Meredith's palm with a wink. "I could be a princess in disguise."

  Maria laughed. "You already are the queen on our street."

  The older woman's bright coral lips spread across her lined face in a wide grin. "You girls are too sweet by half. Must come from working around all that chocolate." She motioned toward the naked torso. "Speaking of which, what is that?"

  "A chocolate version of one of our customer's wives," Maria said.

  Cordelia raised a brow at the perfect ten shape. "Are you sure she's the wife?"

  Maria chuckled. "We don't ask the questions. We just melt the Ghirardelli."

  They finished assembling the basket, complete with the chocolate missus in the center. They surrounded her with candy flowers peppered over a green-tinted coconut base. While they worked, Cordelia grabbed a cup of coffee and watched their progress, amusement clear on her face. "Quite the ... odd creation," she said, admiring their finished product.

  "What's weirder is he's sending this to himself for Sweetest Day," Maria said. "Mrs. Kingwood is out of town."

  "Oh, I almost forgot!" Candace said. "Speaking of Sweetest Day, something arrived for you today, Meredith." She crossed to the opposite counter and picked up a clear glass vase filled with cranberry roses and baby's breath. The roses had just begun to open, releasing their sweet fragrance into the room. "Here."

  Meredith took the vase, inhaling the sweet, heady fragrance. For a second, she wondered if Travis had sent them. Was he even the type to send flowers? Or did his idea match that of the boys she'd known back home, where romance meant letting her have first dibs on the bowling ball selection at the Heavendale Bowl-a-Rama?

  Clearly, none of the men in her hometown had ever opened up a romance novel.

  She'd left the bar last night while she was still able to walk and think, handing Travis her cell phone number and receiving a promise of a date for tonight Anticipation had been singing inside her, ever since she'd woken up.

  Or maybe it had just been the shock of finding Rebecca's beagle at the end of the bed, licking her toes like rawhide bones.

  "So, tell us, dear," Cordelia said, peering over her shoulder and making no secret of her curiosity. "Who's Caleb?"

  Disappointment plummeted to the bottom of Meredith's stomach. She took a step forward and read the card attached to the plastic holder. "My one and true l
ove," she read aloud, "though miles may separate us, even death can't keep my heart from beating for you. Forever, Caleb."

  "That's uh, sort of poetic," Maria said. "Almost Shakespearean, if you leave out the reference to being dead."

  "That's Caleb's specialty," Meredith said. "Working a reference to the hereafter into all his correspondence."

  "How ... er ... romantic."

  "He's a mortician," she explained.

  "As in, he sees dead people?"

  "As many as there are in Heavendale, considering we have a population of three thousand. We don't exactly have a high turnover rate."

  Maria choked back a laugh. "Rebecca said you and she came from a small town, but she didn't say it was that small."

  "Everything about my life was small... until I got to Boston."

  Cordelia peered past them, out the plate glass of the front of the shop. A nattily dressed couple in their mid-forties waited under the brightly striped green awning of Remembered Pasts Antiques. "Oh, dear. Time to open," she sighed. "I suppose I'd best get next door."

  "You sound down this morning," Candace said. "Everything all right?"

  Cordelia brightened, straightened her pillbox hat and adjusted the little purse on the crook of her arm. "Perfectly fine. Why wouldn't it be?" Then she was gone, off to her little shop.

  Maria draped an arm over Meredith's shoulders. "Well, it's a damned good thing you came along. Things around here were getting pretty boring now that Candace and I are both engaged and Rebecca is working on baby number two. With you, we have a new mission."

  "A mission?"

  "Yep. We're going to show you the town and help you get out of that small-town life."

  Meredith hadn't expected Maria and Candace to accept her so readily, or for their immediate friendship to leave her feeling choked up.

  In Heavendale, she and all the other kids had been stuck with each other from grade school on up. Friendship wasn't so much a necessity as a requirement, following math and before recess. With the nearest town dozens of miles away, there wasn't much worry about anyone running to a better party or finding a new cow-tipping gang.

  But here, Meredith was sure Maria and Candace had a thousand other people to choose from besides herself. And yet, they wanted to be friends with her— and not because they shared the same smell on their shoes.

  "I'd love that," Meredith said. "Do you think we could start with my clothes?"

  It was, of course, the most obvious place where she didn't fit in. It had taken her about five seconds after landing at Logan to realize she wasn't quite city-girl material in her homespun Country Woman attire. What was fine for the county fair wasn't good for the city of Boston.

  "What's wrong with your clothes?" Maria glanced down at Meredith's outfit. "You look nice."

  "That's the problem." She lifted the long paisley skirt that hung past her knees. "I look like a quilt."

  "You've come to the right women to fix that," Maria said. "If there's anything we love to do, it's shop."

  Candace nodded. "Shopping is the city girl's therapy. Probably a lot more expensive than a session with Dr. Phil, but it sure looks better than some bald guy in a suit."

  Larry Herman was holding court in the conference room again. He stood at the head of the faux cherry table, palms down on either side, and stared down his two-member team, assembled on either side of the oval table.

  Travis had no idea why Larry bothered to hold these theatrical meetings every morning. No one in the office took him seriously. He was their boss, yes, but beyond that, Travis and Kenny had little use for their department manager. As the cousin of the owner, Larry had a secure position as vice president of Belly-Licious Beverages and a superiority complex that added a fashion faux pas touch to his middle-age paunch and balding head.

  Everyone knew he was bald, though he tried really hard to disguise it. A lifetime member of the Toupee of the Month Club, Larry had a collection of hairpieces even Cher would envy. Unfortunately, despite sixty months of "real" fake hair, Larry had yet to hit on a set of strands that matched his own strawberry blond, or what was left of it.

  "I need a miracle, men," Larry said, nodding as he spoke. October's ash blond hair fluttered with the movement, as if it were waving agreement. "A miracle with No-Moo Milk."

  "It's Monday, Larry," Kenny said. "We're flat out of miracles until Friday."

  "Ha ha. Very funny. We don't have until Friday. We need an ad campaign for No-Moo Milk by Thursday at five."

  "We? Or you? Last I checked, you took the meeting with your cousin, leaving us sitting outside his office like a bunch of truant kids," Travis said. "You weren't thinking of stealing our ideas and passing them off as your own again, were you?"

  Larry let out a short, dry, nervous laugh. "Why would I do that? We're a team here. There's no I in team."

  "There's no recognition either. At least not in your idea of a 'team.'" Travis leaned back in his chair. The faux black leather crinkled with the movement and the base squeaked in protest.

  "Listen, you guys go to bat with me on this and I'll be sure to put in a good word for you with the boss."

  As the head of both marketing and research and development, Larry's motto was that it was "everybody's ass" on the line. When it came to taking care of asses, though, his was the only one he ever worried about.

  Travis had woken up Monday morning determined to turn over a new leaf of his personal life. While he was in the woods of change, he figured he might as well rake up a few new things at work, too.

  Like Larry's hair, which could use a comb and a can of Ronco spray-on color.

  "We busted our butts on Choco-Carrot Juice," Travis reminded him. "And you were the one who ended up with a company car and your own parking space."

  Larry's laugh was almost a choke. "I tried to get something for you guys—"

  "You call a subscription to Dog Fancy a bonus?" Kenny asked. "Larry, I don't even own a dog."

  Larry shrugged and put up his hands. "You might someday. I'm only thinking of your future."

  Travis muttered a few choice words under his breath.

  "Anyway, we need to make No-Moo Milk the leader in the beverage industry. If we can get people to buy that instead of real milk, we'll corner the market."

  "And put a lot of farmers out of business," Travis said.

  Larry waved his hand. "They'll still have cheese. Now, give me something on No-Moo Milk that will convince those mustached lunatics to buy it, and I'll take care of you both."

  "Mustached lunatics?"

  "Yeah, those idiots in the dairy ads who are always talking about how good milk is for you." Larry snorted. "Like a synthetic product that's chemically fortified isn't more nutritious."

  "And it's up to us to make them see the error of their ways." Travis shook his head and vowed to crack open the classifieds the minute he got home. He'd had enough of Larry, his hair fetish, and the insane products he worked with. Now that he was sober, Travis Campbell had a hell of a lot less enjoyment for his job.

  He'd get the hell out of here, just as he and his brother Brad had vowed long ago. Their jobs were a joke, a way to pay for beer and dates. Now that Travis wasn't funding either for a while, he could afford unemployment. Either way, it was better to be poor and sober than drunk and working for Larry and his hair one more day.

  Brad, who worked in R&D for Belly-Licious, had developed No-Moo as a lark, a sort of ha-ha back at Larry, who was lactose intolerant but refused to admit it. Everyone in the office suffered after one of Larry's daily "I can still eat ice cream" trips to Dairy Queen.

  Brad and Travis had had a big laugh about the test product, thinking there'd be no way anyone would take Brad's chemical version of nature's finest beverage seriously.

  Clearly, they'd been wrong.

  "Travis, I can see that look in your eyes. Don't you even think about letting me down on this one."

  "Larry, don't you find it even remotely disturbing that we're trying to encourage people to not
drink milk, one of the healthiest natural beverages around?"

  "Uh, no." Larry lowered himself into the claw-footed chair at the head of the table and crossed his hands over his notepad. "Now, who's got an idea?"

  Kenny looked at Travis. Travis looked at Kenny.

  "This is what I pay you two for, in case you forgot."

  "No offense, Larry, but that No-Moo Milk tastes like my grandmother's toilet water." Kenny shook his head. "How the hell do we sell that to people?"

  "Old ladies can be very convincing salespeople. That Clara dame worked wonders for Wendy's." Larry said. "I can see it now." Larry spread a hand across an imaginary billboard. "Where's the No-Moo?!"

  Travis groaned.

  "What, you guys have something better? Something before payday?"

  Kenny glanced at Travis, then back at Larry, then did a damned good job of avoiding Travis's gaze. "Well... we do have one ace."

  "An ace?" Larry's eyes brightened behind his tortoiseshell rims. "What kind of ace?"

  Travis suddenly knew what Kenny was talking about. He remembered the conversation in the bar, his brilliant idea last night that no longer seemed so brilliant, not in the light of day. "Kenny—"

  "A woman from Indiana," Kenny went on. "A farmer's daughter."

  Larry's grin spread from sideburn to sideburn. "That's not a woman, that's a focus group."

  "Larry, she's a nice woman." Travis shook his head and gave Kenny a glare. "We shouldn't use her."

  "Travis, might I remind you that she's using you?" Kenny said. "Quid pro quo, as I always say."

  "Since when do you speak Latin?"

  "Since my ex got her alimony upped. Remember?" Kenny leaned in close to Travis and lowered his voice. "I’m asking you this as a friend in debt and in need. I need this job and whatever raise I can squeeze out of Larry if No-Moo Milk is a success."

  "Come on, Kenny, this is wrong."

  "And since when did you grow a conscience, pocket-book boy?"

  Since he'd met a woman who seemed damned determined to make sure he didn't think with anything remotely conscientious. But he kept that to himself.