The Angel Tasted Temptation

by Shirley Jump

  "You have brought ruin upon our town, your father's business and the entire dairy industry," her mother said, giving her daughter the Evil Eye she'd perfected years ago. "How could you?"

  "Momma, I told you. I had no idea there would be a photographer there when I went in for the No-Moo tasting. I was just doing a favor for a—" She cut herself off, unable to voice the word "friend." Travis wasn't a friend, especially after all that had happened.

  "Your father said it's all over the papers back home. J.C. has about tied himself in fits. Caleb won't come out of the guest bedroom at Aunt Gloria's and the Lincoln County Dairy Farmers Association is talking about taking away your crown."

  Aunt Gloria stepped forward, picking up the copy of the Herald that Maria had left out earlier. "Martha, I don't see a thing wrong with this."

  Momma's face went from red to purple to white, her jaw muscles working up and down. "Have you seen the picture?" She slapped the newsprint image of Meredith's fleeing tail.

  Aunt Gloria waved her pink manicure in dismissal. "If there's one thing Heavendale can use, it's a little hell to shake things up." She chuckled at her own pun.

  Momma gasped. "How could you say that? You grew up there. You know what the town is like."

  "Exactly. And that's exactly why I left it."

  "You moved because of Mike's promotion," Momma said. "You had to leave."

  "Mike asked for the transfer, Martha. Do you honestly think I wanted to be penned in by that town my whole life?" She planted her hands on her bright red hips. "Look at me. Do I look like Heavendale material to you?"

  A shadow fell over Momma's face but she washed it away by thrusting her chin upward. "You used to."

  "I used to be a lot of things. Then I realized I wanted more. And in my mind, there's nothing wrong with that," She turned toward her niece. "I bet all Meredith wants is a little more, too."

  Momma looked from her sister to her daughter. Confusion knitted her brows, as if she no longer recognized either one of them. "That little bit more is costing some of us an awful lot," she said, then turned and left, a plain woman in a faded denim jumper who suddenly didn't know her family anymore. Meredith wanted to run after her, to somehow make this right, but didn't know what words could undo the damage she had done.

  Vernon and Ray Jr. watched Momma go, then with a glance over their shoulder at Meredith, made their allegiance plain and followed their mother out of the shop. Clearly, Momma's chicken pot pie still held an appeal a baby sister couldn't match.

  She'd gone too far. Her plan had backfired. She hadn't become a city girl at all. Instead, she'd become someone her own mother didn't recognize anymore. Tears stung at the back of Meredith's eyes. This wasn't what she'd wanted. Not even close.

  A good portion of the blame rested on Larry and Travis's shoulders, but also on her own. She needed to do something—something drastic—to fix this. But the energy she needed to get angry with them, to do something, seemed to have left with her mother.

  "Don't worry about it, sweetie," Aunt Gloria said, drawing her into a one-armed hug. "Your mother will come around."

  Meredith shook her head. "I don't think so."

  "What, you think she doesn't understand you?"

  "I don't think we're on the same planet. Since I left Heavendale, I've screwed up every single part of my life."

  Aunt Gloria shook her head, smiling. "That's what growth is all about. You screw up until you get it right. Sort of like learning to apply makeup."

  Meredith glanced at Aunt Gloria's blue eye shadow and bright pink cheekbones. Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to take advice from someone who wore cerulean below her brows.

  "I've got to find a way to fix this," Meredith said. "My dad, the town, everyone's counting on me to make it better. Somehow."

  "That's a big load for such small shoulders," Aunt Gloria said, giving Meredith's skinny deltoids a squeeze. "You'd better keep the cow suit on, dear. You're going to need all the extra bulk you can get."

  Brad's Settling-Down-Is-a-Piece-of-Crab-Pie

  2 tablespoons butter

  1/2 red bell pepper, diced

  1/2 green bell pepper, diced

  2 tablespoons onion, diced

  2 cups crabmeat

  8 ounces cocktail shrimp

  1/2 teaspoon salt

  1/2 teaspoon pepper

  1 cup milk

  1 cup heavy cream

  4 eggs

  1 cup Parmesan cheese

  1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

  1 ready-made pie crust

  There's nothing better than coming home to a warm meal, a warm bed and a hot woman. Trust me on this. You might think marriage is as much fun as being a research rat in a maze with no treat at the end, but you're wrong. There are a lot of treats. Some sweeter than others.

  This is one of them. If you want your wife to ... well, owe you one, you can make this yourself. It's easy, even for a guy who doesn't cook. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Melt the butter in a pan, then cook the peppers and onion until softened. Mix them and everything else in a bowl.

  Yeah, major exertion there. This is the kind of cooking you can do during the half-time show. Put the pie crust in the deepest pie plate you can find (this makes a lot of pie. You're a man, you need a lot of pie). Then pour in the mix, put the pie plate on a cookie sheet in case you overdid it, and bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

  If you cook dinner and do the dishes, she'll be showing her gratitude for days to come. Believe me, marriage has perks that bachelor life can't come close to matching.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  "Hey, Travis, wait up." Brad's voice carried down the hall, catching Travis as he was about to exit the Belly-Licious building at the end of the day on Tuesday.

  Travis turned and saw his younger brother coming at a slight jog down the carpeted hall. "What?"

  "Let me follow you out to talk."

  Talk? He and Brad didn't talk. They traded shoulder jabs in the break room, e-mailed each other bawdy jokes, slammed back a few beers after work. But talking? There wasn't much need for that. Never had been. They'd both figured they'd lived through enough hell that a conversation about it was pretty much redundant.

  If Brad wanted to talk, though, it had to be important. Travis held the door for Brad to pass through first. The setting sun had cast the parking lot in lengthening shadows. Travis hated fall and the inevitable approach of the killer cold of Massachusetts's winter. For the four hundredth time, he thought of chucking it all and moving to Florida.

  Meredith, however, didn't live in Florida.

  Then again, she didn't live in Boston either. One of these days she'd go back to Indiana. He'd best remember that before he got in any deeper than he already was.

  "I want to talk to you about the wedding," Brad said as they put some distance between themselves and the building. "And why you're so dead set against me getting married."

  "I'm not dead set against you getting married. Just marriage in general." Travis grinned to take the sting out of his words.

  "Just because Dad was a jerk who made marriage into a contact sport doesn't mean we're all going to do that."

  "It's not about Dad," Travis said. "I'm simply not a marriage kind of guy."

  Brad paused on the pavement by a Lexus. "Bullshit. Don't lie to me, Travis. I lived there, too. I watched him run through women like some people flip channels with a remote." He lowered his voice and took a half step closer. "Hell, you were bound to be affected. You were the older one; you saw more of it."

  Travis scowled. "Don't go Dr. Phil on me. I'm an adult. I'm past all that."

  "Oh yeah? Then why aren't you going after that pretty girl I saw you drooling over behind Big Ike the other day?"

  "Meredith?" Travis started walking again. He reached in his pocket and pulled out his keys, a hint to Brad that he was going home, not continuing the conversation.

  He'd forgotten how stubborn Brad was.

  Brad fell into step beside Travis as they made thei
r way to the back of the lot, a grin on his face. "If I've ever seen a guy who was falling for a woman, it's you. Every time you looked at her, you were like Steve Irwin with a new crocodile species."

  Travis raised the remote on his key ring and clicked it in the direction of his convertible but he was too for away to unlock the car. "You're imagining things."

  "And you're"—Brad scooted around the front of Travis and got right in his face—"chicken."

  "I am not."

  "Bawk, bawk," Brad mocked. "Fall in love, big brother. It won't kill you. Some studies say it will make you live longer."

  Travis shook his head and started walking again, skirting Brad's bad imitation of a mother hen. "There are a lot of days when I wish you weren't a scientist."

  Brad chuckled. "Come on, you're twenty-nine. It's time to grow up."

  "I am grown up."

  "Sure you are. That's why you haven't been able to commit to a damned thing except your car. Hell, even your car's a lease." He gestured toward the silver convertible. "Not to mention a bachelor cliché."

  "Hey, it was a good deal."

  Brad arched a brow at that. "You're on a month-to-month with your apartment and you're a frequent flyer at Rent-A-Center. Then here I am, your baby brother, plunking down money for a Dutch Colonial in Newton."

  "A mortgage is a thirty-year chain."

  Brad waved a hand at him. "See? That's Dad talking. I'd like to believe you could be different."

  "You're nuts."

  "Nah, just eternally optimistic. Now stop being such a chicken and go after that woman." He tipped his chin at his older brother. "I dare you."

  "What are you, ten?"

  "You need someone who can keep you grounded." Brad clapped him on the shoulder, a touch that had the roughness of a brother but edged with the softness of caring.

  Something thick filled Travis's throat. He shrugged it off. "You're just jealous I got the looks in the family—"

  "And I got the brains.''

  Travis gave Brad a light jab in the upper shoulder. "Brains or not, I'm not going to fall in love."

  "You want to bet?"

  "Bet? Now I know you're crazy. You never bet, you Republican, you." They started walking the last few feet, reaching Travis's car a second later.

  Regardless, Brad reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. "I bet you a hundred bucks," he said, withdrawing two fifties, "that you fell in love with Meredith Shordon before my wedding."

  "That's a bet you're going to lose. And I really hate to take money from a guy who's about to enter prison," Travis said, grinning.

  "Hey, it's the kind of cage I want. And it doesn't have bars."

  "You've been in that research lab too long, little brother. The fumes are starting to affect your brain. If there's one thing marriage is, it's a prison. For one person or the other." Travis thumbed his remote and unlocked his car doors.

  Brad leaned one arm on the roof of convertible, preventing Travis from opening the door. "Do you know why tigers pace in their cages at the zoo?"

  "What? What the hell are you talking about?"

  "When they first get to the zoo, they think they've got it made. It's like the ultimate bachelor pad. No pressure to be the king of the pride. Or to take care of their women. They get three squares, a bed at night and a few visitors every day. Sounds like heaven. But pretty soon, they start to go crazy because they realize that the cage at the zoo is really fighting their natural instincts. Nature wants that tiger to pursue a female, settle down in a cave and have a few cubs. Not live the life of a sloth."

  "Marriage is the cage, Brad, not bachelorhood."

  "Uh-huh. And tell me how much you've been pacing lately, big brother." Brad didn't wait for an answer. He grinned and clapped Travis on the shoulder again. "Speaking of feeling constricted, be sure to leave next Wednesday open."

  "Why?"

  "That's when you're getting fitted for a tux."

  Meredith left Gift Baskets after an especially long day at the shop on Tuesday and started walking in the opposite direction of where she'd parked the car she'd borrowed from Rebecca, hoping to avoid any news stalkers who'd been waiting for her.

  It was after seven and night had already fallen. The street was quiet, bare. No reporters in sight. Good. Maybe some celebrity had done something stupid today so the media would be off on another trail.

  She kept walking, not ready to go to Rebecca's yet. Going to Rebecca's meant facing her mother, her brothers and Caleb, all waiting for her in the house next door. They'd be expecting her to fix this mess. Meredith didn't have a solution. Not for this milk fiasco and not for the mess her life had become.

  "I believe I still owe you a lobster."

  She pivoted at the sound of Travis's voice. He stood on the sidewalk beside his parked car, dressed in jeans and a light blue T-shirtm topped by a weather-beaten denim jacket. He looked as comfortable as freshly washed linens and for a second, Meredith wanted to curve into the space between his arms and forget the events of the last few days.

  Then she remembered who had gotten her into this predicament in the first place.

  "I don't want to see you or talk to you," she said. "And I certainly don't want to eat a meal with you." Her stomach grumbled disagreement, though, and voted for lobster. And Travis. Together. Now her own body was turning traitor against her.

  "I know you hate me right now, and probably rightly so, but if you'll give me a chance to explain—"

  "Explain what? How you tricked me into representing No-Moo? How you helped me ruin my town, my father's livelihood and my relationship with my entire family, all in one day?"

  "I had no idea Larry was going to do that." Travis came closer, his features defined by the moonlight. "You have to believe me."

  "Why?"

  Everything within Meredith told her to back away, to not listen. Yet she remained where she was, her gaze going to his as if an invisible tether controlled her. The connection she'd felt since that first night in the bar strengthened with every step he took.

  "Because up until I met you, I wasn't exactly anyone's version of a model citizen." He rubbed the back of his head, a wry grin on his face. "You might not believe it, but you bring out the best in me."

  She wanted to believe him, to allow his words to melt the wall in her heart, but she couldn't. Travis had brought her into Belly-Licious. Travis had asked her to do the No-Moo tasting. "Does the best of you involve using your friends to further your career?"

  "No. I swear. I had no idea he was going to do that." Travis had moved closer again and now stood only inches from her.

  Should she trust him? She had no idea if her instincts about people were good. Until two weeks ago, her entire world consisted of people she'd known all her life.

  Clearly, she'd gotten that all wrong, considering most of the Shordon family had stopped talking to her.

  "Give me a chance to explain. Five minutes, that's all." He took a step closer, reaching up to cup her chin. "I miss you."

  She jerked back, out of his grasp. "You miss me? That's why you haven't called me in five days? You left me to the wolves? Was that part of the plan, too?"

  "There was no plan, Meredith, at least not from me."

  "I'd like to believe that, Travis. I thought I knew you, but from the start, you haven't done a single thing I expected you to do."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "You won't sleep with me, but you're perfectly willing to use me in other ways." She took a step closer to him, tilting her chin until she looked him square in the eye. "What exactly do you want me for Travis?"

  "For more, Meredith. Much more than a tumble in bed."

  "Bull. You told me yourself that you're the king of non-commitment. There's no more, Travis. And you wouldn't want it if there were."

  "What if I told you I'd changed my mind?"

  "I'd say you were looking for a nice spread in the middle of Boston magazine."

  A shadow washed over his eyes and
he took a step back, as if she'd slapped him. Had she gone too far? Could he possibly have been telling the truth?

  "I care about you, Meredith, whatever you might think about me. And somehow, I'm going to make all this up to you."

  Then he leaned forward, placing a quick, chaste kiss on her lips before turning and walking away.

  Leaving her as confused and distracted as a Golden retriever in a tennis ball factory.

  Caleb's Ordinary-Isn't-so-Bad Panfried Fish Fillets

  2 pounds cod or other firm fish fillets

  1 teaspoon salt

  1/8 teaspoon pepper

  1 egg

  1 tablespoon water

  1 cup cornmeal

  Butter for frying

  You don't always need fancy to be happy. Sometimes, a plain man in a dark suit who always has a Kleenex for you can be just as good. Best of all, he knows how to cook. Think that man in Boston knows how? I don't think so.

  Start by sprinkling both sides of the fillets with salt and pepper. Beat the egg and water in a pie plate until blended, then dip the fish in the egg mixture. Coat with the cornmeal, then fry in the butter until brown on both sides and the fish flakes easily with a fork, sort of like your crazy relatives.

  See, no need for spices and crazy concoctions. Just ordinary cooking from a regular guy who can handle a hearse with one hand. It's not something you find every day, so before you choose a man, think wisely about who will be there for you now... and in the hereafter.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  When Meredith had been a little girl and gotten lost in the Great Corn Maze at Cecil's farm, she'd gotten hysterical, sure she'd never find her way home again. Her father had pulled her aside, dried her tears with the corner of his worn denim shirt and told her to go back to the place where she last remembered getting lost. "Start from there," he said, "and soon it will all make sense again."