A Coldwater Warm Hearts Wedding

by Lexi Eddings

  “Ever the wise woman.” Lacy stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “I’m sorry Mike’s so late. If he doesn’t arrive with a dozen roses in apology, I will personally kick him in the nuts for you. Or better yet, I’ll have Jake do it. Titanium packs quite a punch.”

  “Not necessary, but I may threaten him with it so he won’t be late again,” Heather said, forcing a smile. She was past irritation over Mike’s tardiness and beginning to worry in earnest that he was lying in a ditch someplace. “If you’re sure Jake doesn’t mind playing the enforcer . . .”

  “My Marine was born to kick butt and take names. He’d be happy to teach my idiot brother some manners.”

  Jacob had returned from Afghanistan with part of his left leg missing, but he still had protective masculine instincts in spades. Heather was happy to be included in the circle of those he defended. She appreciated Lacy and Jake’s support.

  She just wished she didn’t need it.

  Lacy waggled her fingers in farewell and closed the door behind her.

  Heather slumped down on the couch, not caring if she rumpled her “right out of Cosmo” outfit.

  Minutes ticked by.

  Hours.

  She didn’t want to call the hospital to see if any emergency cases had come in. Depending on who answered the phone, she’d be grist for the gossip mill in short order if they found out she was looking for a missing date. She narrowly resisted the urge to call Dan Scott, an old classmate of hers who was now a sheriff’s deputy, to see if there’d been any accidents reported in the county.

  Michael was beyond late. He wasn’t coming.

  Finally, she stripped out of her clothes, letting them lie where they fell, and climbed into bed buck naked. She’d told him things she wished she hadn’t. She felt so hollowed out, she didn’t care enough to put on a pair of pj’s.

  She’d let herself hope. She’d let herself trust.

  “Michael Evans, of all people.”

  She covered her head with a pillow. The walls were thin between her place and Lacy’s. She didn’t want anyone to hear her sobs.

  Chapter 15

  An uncluttered desk is the sign of a diseased mind.

  —Words to live by from

  Wanda Cruikshank’s coffee mug

  Standing in front of the Coldwater Gazette office, Judith shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Her second-best heels were a little shorter than her beloved and now ruined stilettos, but she’d still had to tread carefully over the brick pavers as she made her way from the motel to the newspaper at a ridiculously early hour. The only activity around the Town Square seemed to be people heading into the diner with a sign over the door that read GREEN APPLE GRILL.

  Wonder if they realize the initials spell “GAG?” If that doesn’t scream “greasy spoon,” I don’t know what does.

  The manager at the Heart of the Ozarks had told Judith she ought to try the Green Apple’s Green Plate special.

  “The Hungry Man Grits and Gravy they serve on Friday is my favorite. But don’t let the name fool you. You also get two eggs anyway you want ’em with fresh side, which is frankly the best thing this side of heaven.” The manager laughed. “Side this side of heaven, that’s rich.” She chuckled again at her own very small witticism. “You ever had any, honey?”

  Judith had shaken her head.

  “Well, let me tell you. It’s thick-sliced pork belly. Sort of like bacon that ain’t been cured yet. Make sure Jake Tyler’s doing the cookin’ if you decide to try it. He’s that hunky guy who owns the Green Apple and whoa, baby, if I was thirty years younger, I’d be getting myself some of that, yessiree bob. Where was I? Oh, yeah, the way Jake cooks the side is he rolls it in flour and fries it up in Crisco with a little salt and pepper and the cookin’ magic that drips from his fingers and I’m here to say, it’s good eatin’.”

  Judith hadn’t been able to find a retort that wouldn’t be considered “unlikeable.” Wearing a hidden camera meant she self-edited. A lot.

  “Anyways, you also get homemade biscuits so light they practically float away. And the grits and gravy, of course,” the manager had finished up. “Think about me while you’re havin’ it!”

  Just thinking about such a heavy breakfast was enough to give Judith a full-blown reflux attack. She had no idea what “grits” were and was afraid to ask. Breakfast in Manhattan was a light meal on the run, croissants or Greek yogurt, for choice, washed down with a Styrofoam to-go cup of the most bitter coffee she could stand in line for.

  “No self-respecting croissant would be caught dead in this town,” she muttered.

  She checked the time on her phone. Five minutes to seven.

  What an ungodly hour!

  Judith was a night person. Her creative juices didn’t really start flowing until well after midnight. It was torture to force herself out of bed and into her “visiting academic” persona so early, but she did it to accomplish her goal. The only strawberry in the situation was that she wasn’t the only one who had to brave the chill of a foggy fall morning.

  It was a comfort to know she was inconveniencing someone else as well.

  She’d heard that the farther south one traveled, the more likely the people one encountered were to take a la-di-da approach to things like appointments and schedules and wasting other people’s time. She was ready to deliver a scathing setdown to this Lacy Evans person when she turned up late, but just as her phone alarm beeped a reminder that it was 7:00 a.m., a disgustingly cheerful-looking young woman in sensible but cute, ballet flats came jogging up to her.

  “Hello. You must be Dr. Hildebrand.” She stuck out her hand, forcing Judith to shake it. “I’m Lacy Evans, a reporter for the Gazette. Call me Lacy. Wanda asked me to take care of you this morning.”

  “I do not need to be ‘taken care of,’ you patronizing little twit” complete with air quotes almost tumbled out of her. Just in time, Judith remembered the small camera pin on her lapel and adjusted her expression, if not her attitude.

  “If by taking care of me you mean you’ll be providing coffee,” Judith said, “my caffeine-starved brain thanks you.”

  There. Tell me that’s not likeable. Years after the fact, Louise’s criticism of her as being unlikeable still stung. And after the maid at the Heart of the Ozarks had left only decaf in her room, Judith thought her behavior this morning had been not only likeable, but pretty fricking gracious, too.

  “Oh, sure! We always have coffee,” Lacy Evans said as she fiddled with the lock on the office door. After a few gyrations and a considerable bit of yanking and twisting, the door shuddered open. “Wanda says a newsroom runs on caffeine. Give me a minute and I’ll fill up the pot.”

  Lacy opened an antique wardrobe that stood in mahogany majesty along one wall. It had been repurposed to hold a coffeemaker and small refrigerator. The shelves stored not only assorted sweet and salty snacks and bags of coffee beans, but real cups—not the Styrofoam kind—and a mismatched set of spoons thrusting up from an oversized mug.

  “How do you usually take it?”

  “From Starbucks,” Judith said without thinking. Her eyes widened. Even to her ears, that sounded pretty snarky, but instead of being offended, Lacy laughed.

  “Oh, gosh, me too! It’s one of the things I miss most about Boston. Of course, there it’s more Dunkin’ Donuts than Starbucks, but I learned to love both their brews. Still, we make do here in Coldwater.” As if to prove her point, she dumped some whole beans into a grinder and hit the switch.

  “You mean you left a real city for—” Judith stopped herself. There was no way to finish that sentence without slamming Lacy’s home. And sounding unlikeable.

  “For a sleepy little backwater like Coldwater Cove?” Lacy Evans finished for her.

  “Well, yes.”

  “I understand. I felt that way about it, too, at first. In the beginning, Coldwater Cove was just a soft landing after my business in Boston hit a rough patch, but I’ve grown to love being here again.”

/>   “Why? Forgive me, but there’s no theater or culture or nightlife.” Or anyone important who can grease the wheels for your career. “What on earth do you find to do here?”

  “I live,” Lacy said simply. “The people I love are here. I’ve made or rekindled more friendships in a few months than I made in years back in Boston, though that’s probably my fault. Not that there’s anything wrong with a city. I used to really feed off the energy of so many lives intersecting.”

  “I know what you mean.” Against all expectation, Judith began to feel she’d finally met someone with whom she could have an intelligent conversation.

  “But there’s a certain anonymity in a city.” Lacy’s tone made it seem as if that were a bad thing.

  “What’s wrong with that?” Judith was never happier than when she was blending in with a crowd. Preferably an upscale, mover-and-shaker-type crowd.

  “The facelessness of a city is sort of like the Internet. People say hateful things to strangers online that they’d never say to someone’s face. They may be nice people in person, but being able to hide behind their computer lowers their inhibitions, and they start spouting the first thing that pops into their heads, without caring how it affects the one they’re directing the meanness toward,” Lacy said.

  In Judith’s experience, people were the same, whether in person or online. Given a chance, they’d all be mean to her. It paid for her to be mean first. Lacy was eyeing her with speculation. It was time to say something that sounded like sociology was her thing.

  “Interesting. The sense of anonymity would explain why cyberbullying has become such a problem.”

  “Exactly. In a city, you likely won’t see the people you meet ever again,” Lacy went on. “It has the same lowering effect as hiding behind a computer screen. If someone cuts you off in traffic, why not lay on the horn, and yell, and flip them off?”

  Reacting to idiots who shouldn’t be driving made sense to Judith. It was a point of honor not to suffer fools gladly. “People don’t do that here?”

  “Sometimes,” Lacy admitted with a self-deprecating grimace. “But if I do, someone will likely tell my mom, and trust me, I don’t want that. Or I’ll run into the person I yelled at in the grocery store or at church, and because I’m no longer upset over being cut off, I’m embarrassed by my bad temper. So I end up apologizing.”

  “Why? You were the wronged one in that scenario.”

  “I’m still responsible for me. If I let someone else’s actions change mine for the worse, I’m in the wrong. Living here has reminded me not to get upset about the small stuff and to give others the benefit of the doubt.”

  When Judith tried that, it only made it easier for others to steamroll over her. But she was supposed to be a visiting sociologist, so she said, “An insightful take on causality of inappropriate behavior in rural and urban environments.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. There are great things about living in a city. For one thing, people aren’t all up in each other’s business. Sometimes, it’s nice to keep your private life . . . private,” Lacy said. “Here, you can’t set foot out of your house without someone wanting to know where you’re going and what you’re up to.”

  “I couldn’t stand that.”

  “You get used to it. Here in Coldwater Cove, we’ve elevated nosiness to an art form, but we mean extremely well.” Lacy set out a matching sugar bowl and creamer set. She filled the creamer with half-and-half from the refrigerator. “If the trade-off is that small-town living tends to help me behave a little better, I’ll take it. I need all the help I can get.”

  “Don’t you miss the opportunity for advancement?”

  “A little. There are exciting things happening in cities. In fact, a design firm in Cambridge has been trying to woo me into moving back East and to tell the truth, sometimes I’m tempted,” Lacy said wistfully.

  “Design? But you’re a journalist.”

  “By accident. Not by trade,” Lacy said. “And wait until you’ve read a few editions of the Gazette before you decide there’s anything remotely like journalism going on around here.”

  The coffeepot stopped belching, and Lacy poured a cup for herself and Judith.

  “I think you’ll like this,” she said, handing a steaming cup to Judith. “Mr. Bunn went to Jamaica with the Royal Order of Chicken Pluckers last month to help rebuild a church after it was demolished by a tropical storm. He came back with dozens of bags of Blue Mountain coffee for all his friends.”

  “Excuse me. The Royal what?”

  “Order of Chicken Pluckers. How they got their name is a long story, but they’re basically a Lutheran men’s service club. They help the ladies bake chicken pies to raise money for missions, but they lend a hand with a hammer when it’s needed, too.”

  Judith needed a hand with her coffee. “I don’t suppose you have artificial sweetener.”

  “I’m sorry. No one in the office uses it. We sort of go natural around here. We have brown sugar, if you’d prefer that. Unless you’re diabetic, why don’t you try a little of the real stuff?”

  Judith hadn’t consumed any real sugar in the last twenty years. At least, not knowingly. She forced herself to smile at Lacy. “I’ll just drink it black. You know what they say. You can never be too thin.”

  “They don’t say that around here,” Lacy told her with a grin and a quick once-over. “In fact, my dad would say you need to weatherboard up a little. But you’re not here for dietary advice. What can I help you find in the dungeon?”

  Now we’re getting somewhere.

  “Our conversation about city versus country has been quite helpful because I’m researching the sociological impact of small-town life. On young people specifically and particularly males, aged fifteen to twenty.”

  “Hmm. Comparing the rural experience to that of urban youth would make a fascinating study,” Lacy agreed. “Come on. I’ll show you where everything is.”

  Judith remembered to say thank you, both for the camera’s benefit and because she felt small-town etiquette seemed to demand it.

  When in Rome . . . or its rustic outskirts.

  Judith’s guide opened the door next to a Victorian-style bathroom. She flipped a switch that was probably from the same era and led her down a rickety staircase.

  Judith was expecting a dank, foul-smelling space, but the basement was pleasantly cool and dry. Rows of unusually deep filing cabinets lined the walls. A table long enough to seat a small army of country bumpkins was situated in the center of the room under a bank of fluorescent lights. An old microfiche machine dominated one end of the table. Its electrical cord, which was not connected to any power source, had been wrapped with duct tape in several places. A tired-looking Hewlett-Packard PC was plugged into an electrical socket mounted to an exposed floor joist above their heads.

  Judith was willing to bet there were all kinds of building code violations in that basement.

  If there are such things as building codes in Coldwater Cove.

  “Wanda said you were interested in going back a decade or so. The microfiche sparked out on me last week. I haven’t had the heart to tell Wanda yet. She’s on a cost-saving rampage of late.” Lacy turned on the computer, which emitted a low whine. “It takes a while for this dinosaur to wake up, and the files on disc only go back a few years. But in paper, we have every edition of the Gazette since its first one in 1898. I recommend starting with the paper documents.”

  “Agreed. Let’s go from oldest within my parameters to newest.”

  Lacy crossed the room to the appropriate file cabinet. “You’ll probably find the ‘Fighting Marmots Notes’ most useful.”

  “The what?”

  “Fighting Marmots Notes. It’s the special section, usually an entire page, for news about our high school. And yeah, I get how weird it is for school teams to be named for a rodent. But people laughed at the Mighty Ducks, too, until they made a movie.” Lacy lifted a ten-year-old copy of the Gazette from its place in the file. It
was still draped over the wooden dowel that allowed it to hang instead of being folded. After laying it out on the table, she checked the time on her cell. “I can only give you until nine this morning.”

  “You don’t need to stay.”

  “Yeah, I do. Wanda’s rules. She wants to make certain everything is filed away exactly as it was.”

  “Then maybe you can direct me to the most pertinent information,” Judith said. “Societal change often follows upheavals. Have there been any . . . catastrophic events involving the young people in this town?”

  “When I was a little girl we had a tornado come through. I guess that’s usually catastrophic, but this one only touched down on the edge of Lake Jewel and took out the marina.” Lacy directed Judith’s attention to the wall-sized map of the town that had been découpaged onto a moveable blackboard on casters. “Mr. Simmons—he owns the place—said it was a blessing in disguise because the old restaurant and docks were about to fall into the water anyway. He rebuilt with the insurance money and now it’s a real showplace. The construction provided a lot of jobs, but . . .” She ground to a stop like a wind-up monkey on its last twist. “I’m guessing that’s not the sort of thing you’re looking for.”

  “How perceptive.” A little flattery might get Judith what she wanted sooner. Plus, it made her seem more likeable. “The events I mean are of a sociological nature—gang turf wars, for instance. Maybe involving, oh, I don’t know . . . knife fights?”

  If Michael Evans got that scar fighting for some motorcycle gang, well, that would make for a spectacular exposé.

  “There aren’t any gangs in Coldwater Cove. Not yet, thank God. There was a bit of a dustup a few years ago when some drugs started making their way up from gangs in Texas, but the sheriff and his deputies ran them off before they could get a toehold.”