Along the Cane River: Books 1-5 in the Inspirational Cane River Romance Series

by Mary Jane Hathaway

  She waved her hands at a passing car and realized she wasn’t even sweating. For the first time she’d been in the suit that year, she wasn’t completely miserable. She could even see a little of the blue sky if she looked across the road and above the trees. A movement caught her eye and Roxie froze.

  Andy stood across the street on the other corner, headed for the bakery. He didn’t look like he was making any move to come any closer. He must know it was her, or the anonymous person he’d met before. She thought of how she’d tried to run from him and how horrible he’d felt when she’d fallen off the curb. It wasn’t his fault, but he carried the guilt.

  She raised a hand and he waved back. He still wasn’t changing direction, but headed right for the doors. Roxie realized that he might be looking for her, maybe needing to change the time of their date, or cancel. She imagined him going inside and asking for her, then being told she was in the suit. Panic clawed at her throat. She wanted to be the one to tell him, not anyone else.

  Waving with both hands, she gestured for him to come closer. He hesitated, then finally changed his trajectory. In a few seconds, he stood in front of her. He was wearing a black Tshirt with a big yellow Pac Man on the front.

  “How are your knees?”

  She gave a thumbs up.

  “I’m really sorry―”

  She put a hand on his arm. Or meant to put it on his arm but hit his chest instead. It was hard to get her arms in front of her with so much foam in the way. Now was the time to tell him. She took a breath, steeling herself for the moment she had to look in his eyes and see… what? Surprise. Condemnation, maybe. Of course, she couldn’t see his face so it might easier this way.

  “I probably scared you with all my oversharing.” She tried to wave away his comment, but he went on. “You were such a good listener.”

  He lifted a hand and she wondered if he was rubbing his forehead or his eyes.

  “Isn’t that terrible? Such a good listener because you can’t talk. What does that say about me? I feel a real connection to someone who can’t speak and maybe that means I’m an egomaniac who just wants to control the conversation.”

  Roxie started to laugh. Andy couldn’t be an egomaniac if he tried. She put up a hand and patted his chest, right over his heart. Then she lifted a finger and drew a line to her own chest. Or somewhere chest high on the front of the cupcake, patting the area with her palm.

  “You, too?” He sounded surprised. “That’s what I hoped, but the more I thought about it, the crazier it sounded in my head. A connection between two people who can’t really communicate…” His voice trailed off. “I sound like people who don’t know my brother. He’s mentally handicapped. Maybe you’ve seen him in the bakery. He likes the cookies.”

  Roxie gave a thumbs up. She really needed to take off the hood. She was right back where she’d been before, letting him talk to her without knowing who was in the suit.

  “Anyway, people think he can’t communicate, or have a meaningful conversation, and I’m not saying we’re discussing complicated technical concepts but we definitely connect on a deep level.” He sighed. “I’m doing it again, where I talk and you stand there like a verbal hostage.”

  She waved her hands. Not at all.

  “You remind me a lot of a new friend of mine. Have you ever felt that when you’re talking, people are already thinking about what they want to say, and most of the time they don’t even let you finish your thought before they jump in?”

  Roxie’s stomach rolled. She hadn’t ever noticed she interrupted a lot. She felt her face go hot in shame.

  “This friend, she lets me say what I’m thinking, and sometimes she takes a second to respond because she’s actually considering what I said.” He laughed a little. “I’m not saying she’s a slow conversationalist at all. Roxie’s actually pretty quick, very clever. I wouldn’t want to cross her. She’d probably burn me so hard, they’d only find my ashes.”

  Even if they had been face to face, she wouldn’t have known what to say.

  “But I probably wouldn’t even mind it.” He sounded like he was smiling. “And I’m sure she’d be right. She’s one of those people who’s just so straight forward you never have to worry where you are with her.”

  Uh oh.

  “Since I know she’s completely straight with me, I feel like I can trust her. I don’t feel like that around a lot of people.”

  For just a moment, Roxie wondered if Andy already knew. He knew and he was saying all that to prove a point, to make her feel even worse than she already did. But then Roxie thought of the kind of person Andy was, and how he wouldn’t get revenge that way. He wasn’t the kind of man to get revenge at all.

  As if noticing she hadn’t responded, he cleared his throat. “Anyway, I should let you get back to work. I’m going to pick up a few cookies ―”

  Maybe it was the sharp intake of breath against his teeth, or the way he stepped backward as if someone had swung a fist, but Roxie turned, trying to see what Andy had seen.

  “Oh, no,” he whispered.

  Roxie frantically swiveled, trying to get a good view, and then was shocked into immobility by the wrongness of the scene. The café’s bright yellow paint job and cheery awning were in direct contrast to the black smoke billowing out one of the kitchen windows. A small crowd of people stood on the sidewalk, staring into the foyer as if watching a Broadway show.

  Mamere. She broke into a run.

  Andy was already ahead of her, she could see his running shoes for a few seconds, and then they were gone and she could only hear his footsteps fading in the distance. Roxie wiggled her arms into the top of the suit, her heart pounding. As she ran, she fumbled at the sides of the costume, trembling fingers searching for the snaps inside. Her breath came sharp and fast.

  She reached the front of the store and bumped into the crowd. Pulling off the top of the cupcake, she tried to nudge the onlookers aside. Usually, the air felt wonderful against her skin as she lifted off the cupcake suit, but this time she felt only more heat.

  “Excuse me, ma’am. Excuse me. So sorry, y’all. Excuse me,” she said. It occurred to her that for all her years in a big Northern city, she still wasn’t able to shove people out of the way. Southern manners were not a thing one could shuck off like an old coat, even when one’s bakery was clearly on fire.

  The air inside was dark gray with smoke. The black and white checkerboard tile weakly reflected the overhead lamps. The display cases at the front counter were the only bright spot, the rows of pastel colored cupcakes and glazed doughnuts perfectly preserved behind glass. Cups of dark coffee and plates of half-eaten desserts lay abandoned on every table like a Halloween tableau. The haunted café.

  “Mamere!” There was no answer. The place was deserted. Or it seemed so. She couldn’t be sure. “Mamere!” she called again. Maybe her mamere was stretched out on the floor, invisible from where she stood. The smoke was billowing from the kitchen and she knew that it was the first rule to never go into a fire, but she had no choice. Lifting the flap at the end of the counter, she stepped around the corner and saw Andy battling his way through the smoke.

  She bent low to get as far out of the smoke as she could, scanning the tiles for any sign of a stocky figure in a long white apron. She took a breath and started to cough. “Ma― Mamere?”

  “Where’s the fire extinguisher?” Andy crouched low, waving a dish towel as he looked through piles of small containers and empty plastic buckets. He tripped over a bundle of dirty table cloths on his way to the long metal counter that ran the length of the kitchen. “Is there a fire extinguisher? There has to be.”

  He looked up and for a second, didn’t move at all. His face was blank with shock, his mouth half open. Then he seemed to snap back to attention. “Where is it?” he called again.

  She was only able to cough in response and simply pointed at the far wall. She’d never realized that the wall near the ovens was probably the worst place to attach the fire exting
uisher. Andy leaned down, sucked in a deep breath, and stood up into the smoke. He squeezed between the brick wall and the burning steel of the side of the oven. Wrenching it from the wall, he hauled open the oven door and sprayed the contents inside.

  Fresh air. Or would that make the fire spread? Deciding that their need for oxygen was greater than the risk, she pulled a chair toward the other end of the kitchen. Imitating Andy, she sucked in a deep breath and then climbed up, the top half of her body enveloped by smoke. The latches on the windows were old and rusted. She pounded the base of her hand against the metal handle until it came unstuck. Yanking it open, she dragged in a deep breath of fresh air. There were only four windows in the kitchen but they were several feet wide, and as she moved from one to another, the air lightened to a dark gray.

  Turning, she finally met Andy’s gaze. His shirt was smudged with grease and soot, he held a kitchen towel in one hand and the extinguisher dangled from the other. He lifted an arm to wipe sweat from his face and said nothing.

  “Have you seen Mamere?” Roxie asked. It was a ridiculous question. Unless she was under the buckets or the pile of towels, she wasn’t in the kitchen.

  “Is she outside? There was a crowd in the front when I got here.”

  “I didn’t see her go out, but then I didn’t have the…” She gestured at the top of her. The other half of the suit, the frosting part, was somewhere on the sidewalk. The bottom half was still attached, the wrapper hanging there like a half-eaten cupcake held on by suspenders.

  “Roxie, why didn’t you―?” he asked. He held up a hand. “No, it’s not the time. We need to find Miss CeeCee.”

  “I don’t understand why she’s not here. I saw her about an hour ago when I went out to the corner.” Panic made her throat close up and she forced herself to take several deep breaths, closing her eyes. All she could smell was smoke and all she could feel was fear.

  “Here, sit down.” He led her toward a chair and set the extinguisher on the ground. She tried to perch on the chair but the cupcake suit wouldn’t let her. She stood up, pulled off the suspenders and shook the suit down, trying to step out without falling over. Andy took her arm, pulling the suit out of the way as she got out.

  It was strange. She’d been trying to stay out of the cupcake costume since she arrived in Natchitoches. She’d hid that identity from Andy from the first day they’d met, and spent hours worrying about how to tell him the truth. But as she stood there in her T-shirt, shorts and running shoes, she felt naked. She wanted to crawl back in the cupcake where it was safe, where she didn’t have to look into Andy’s eyes and see his confusion and hurt.

  He got down on one knee and took her hand.

  “I’m so sorry. I meant to… I should have―”

  “Let’s talk about that later.” He said it kindly. “Is there someone you can call? Someone to help us look for her?”

  “My aunt doesn’t live very far away. About half an hour. But Edilia Moore might know where she is.” She was up and rummaging through her pockets before he could respond. As she took it in her hand, it rang. She nearly dropped it in surprise.

  “Mamere?”

  “Cupcake, I’m glad you’re there. I forgot to put the brownies in the oven. Could you do that for me, sha?”

  She stared at the oven. The inside was coated with chemicals from the fire extinguisher and four large pans smoldered weakly. “Where are you?”

  “I just walked over to Lorena’s Grocery to get some powdered sugar. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Walked?” Lorena’s was three blocks away and her mama’s car was in the side lot. She turned her head and saw bags of powdered sugar neatly stacked on the shelves. She opened her mouth to say the café had been on fire when she’d arrived, but stopped. “Okay, I’ll see you in a few minutes, then.”

  She ended the call, slumped back into the chair, and it was a few seconds before she realized the Andy was there, his hand resting on hers. She sat up, trying to shake the shock and fear from her brain. “She walked to the store for sugar.”

  She could tell by his expression that he understood how serious that one decision had been. “What can I do to help?”

  “Thank you. But I don’t think there’s anything left to do.” She could hear the sirens in the distance. She thought of how Mamere had always kept the café spotless and running like clockwork. The smoke damage would break her heart, but more than that, she’d have to explain why she’d walked away from the café in the middle of the morning rush hour, with brownies in the oven.

  Closing her eyes to block out the sight of the kitchen, she wished the last five minutes had been nothing but a bad dream. In fact, she wanted to click her heels and wake up back in her bed, ready to start the day.

  She felt Andy stand up and opened her eyes to see him grabbing oven mitts from a hook. Reaching into the oven, he withdrew the pans, and set them in the industrial sink. Turning on the water, he stepped back as the brownies hissed angrily, steam rising to join the lingering gray smoke.

  “You weren’t the one to burn the food for once.”

  “It’s a backwards kind of day, isn’t it?” Turning off the water, he picked up a few towels and started wiping down the side of the wall near the oven. The fire extinguisher had worked exactly as it was supposed to, but it also made an incredible mess.

  She didn’t know what to say. The sirens cut off sharply and the sound of a truck rumbled outside. Roxie picked up a damp rag and joined Andy near the oven. They worked in silence until footsteps sounded in the café.

  “Anyone need help in here?”

  Roxie turned to see a fireman in full gear. “I think it’s under control.” She pointed toward the pans in the sink. “Thanks for coming so fast. It was nothing, really. Just left something in the oven.” She carefully avoided saying who had done the leaving.

  Another fireman joined the first. “You’ve got a mess to clean up, that’s for sure.” He flipped up his visor and squinted at her. “Cupcake? Is that you?”

  Andy glanced at her. Bix and Mrs. Turpin had both called her Cupcake in front of him but he hadn’t caught on. It was another reminder of how many opportunities she’d had to tell Andy the truth.

  “Yes, sir,” she said brightly. “That’s me.”

  “It’s me, Joey Abernathy.” He stepped closer. “Remember me? We went to prom together. You wore that pretty pale pink dress and when you got shoved in Chauncey’s pool it was completely see-through and I had to give you my jacket. ’Member that?”

  “Oh, sure. Good times. Well, great to see you again, Joey.” She half-turned toward the oven. “I’d better get―”

  “We should go out sometime. You know, catch up.”

  She opened her mouth but nothing came out. The bakery had almost burned down, Mamere was going to get a terrible shock when she got back, and revisiting a bad prom date was at the very bottom of Roxie’s bucket list.

  “Thanks for showing up, guys. Are there any papers Roxie needs to fill out? A report, or anything?” Andy had an aura of friendly authority even though he was holding wet kitchen towels and had a smudge of soot on his cheek.

  “No, sir. We’ll take care of it.” The first fireman nodded at them both and started to shoo Joey back out of the kitchen. He turned back at the last second and said, “We sure appreciate your support of the Natchitoches fire department, Mr. McBride.”

  “This is why we need you and believe me, it’s an honor to be part of your team, even if it’s only at the mopping up stage.” He held out his hand.

  There was some manly handshaking and shoulder slapping and then they were gone.

  Andy turned back to the mess around the ovens. She followed, starting at the opposite end and wiping the foam from the knobs on the front.

  “Where’s Mark?”

  “With Ruby. I think she’s trying to get him to watch Casablanca.” His tone was light but he didn’t meet her eyes.

  “Andy―”

  “I should have known,” he
said softly. “By your shoes.”

  Roxie looked at her feet. She always wore her old blue running shoes with pink laces when she spent the day on the corner. “You shouldn’t have to look for clues. I should have said something.”

  He turned, the rag in his hand dripped blackened suds down his arm. “There’s a moment when something perfectly normal turns into a secret, isn’t there? And then another moment when a secret turns into a lie.”

  Roxie tried to say something, anything, but her mouth wouldn’t open. He was right. She’d created the secret, which had turned into a lie, all by herself.

  “Sha?” Mamere’s voice rang out in the café.

  “In here,” she called back. She dropped the rag in the oven and ran to her grandmother, wrapping her arms around her soft, reassuring self. “Everything’s okay. Everybody’s fine.” It was another lie, said in a moment of sadness and grief.

  “My bakery,” she whispered, gazing around.

  “Miss CeeCee, if there’s anything I can do, be sure to let me know,” Andy said quietly. He touched Roxie on the shoulder, and then he was gone.

  “Oh, sha.” Mamere fell into a chair, shock and horror in every line of her face. “I did this, didn’t I? I forgot what I was up to, and ran off to get somethin’ we didn’t even need.” She shook her head. “It’s been comin’ on for a while. A long while.”

  Roxie felt tears burn in her eyes. “I know,” she whispered.

  “I’m gonna have to close the bakery, and move into one of them homes for the elderly.” Mamere started to cry.

  “No,” Roxie said, pulling up a chair next to her. “No, we can work around this. We just have to be more careful. We’ll… make notes and a schedule. I’ll help you. I’ll be your reminder.” She put her arm around her shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Mamere. I wish―”

  She straightened up. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” Then next moment she was up and headed for the ovens. “What a right mess this is. My, my.”

  Roxie watched her, hope rising in her chest. Mamere wasn’t a woman you could keep down. She’d keep going as long as she could, making adjustments, working around the tragedy that was happening in her head. A surge of pride rushed through her. The Hardy women got back up, over and over and over, no matter how many times life tossed them into the mud.