“How about a lunch break?” Lorelei said.
“Don’t tell me—she wants to meet you for lunch.”
Was Mia psychic? “How’d you know that?”
“It’s got to be past noon by now.”
“You go ahead and eat,” he told Lorelei. “I’ll catch up with you when I can.”
“I can wait,” she said.
At the rate they were going, she’d starve. “You could be waiting a long time. We’re in the middle of something.” They sure had been. He felt a guilty flush creep up his neck.
“We?” There was a whole sentence of ragging on him packed into that one word.
“Me and Mia. It’s going to take a while to get back.”
“Where are you? This town isn’t that big.”
“We’re not in town. We’re in the woods.”
“In the woods.” Lorelei would have made a great lawyer. She was really good at repeating innocuous testimony and twisting it to sound suspicious. In the woods? A likely story. And what, pray tell, Mr. Wright, were you doing in the woods?
“For crying out loud, Lorelei, give me a break. It’s where one of our clues was.” I never pulled the trigger, Judge. I’m innocent.
“This is all pretty dumb if you ask me,” Lorelei grumbled.
Nobody had. Fortunately, he stopped the words before they escaped his big mouth.
“If you don’t want to meet me for lunch, just say so,” she huffed.
Actually, he didn’t, not when he was busy trying to solve a very important puzzle.
That’s all? Look a little deeper, said his conscience.
“I do,” he insisted to both her and his pesky conscience. “It’s just that I don’t know how long I’m gonna be.”
That was true. Man, all this wandering around town with Mia was making him crazy. They had to hurry up and finish their treasure hunt.
But part of him didn’t want it to end. The stupid part. Don’t screw up, he warned himself. Don’t try to haul the past into the present.
Yeah, right. It was impossible not to with all the places Gram was sending them.
“I guess I’ll do some more shopping,” Lorelei said. “Call me when you’re back in town.”
“Okay,” he said, resigned.
“You guys seem to fight a lot,” Mia observed as he ended the call.
“No, we don’t. Not usually. She’s having a hard time with this. So am I.” Okay, why had he said that?
“How?”
“It’s just weird, is all, you and me hanging out together again. And... Never mind. Read the clue,” he finished and shoved the envelope at her.
She took it from the plastic and read, “‘Run, run, as fast as you can. To the place you can buy a gingerbread man.’”
“Well, that one’s easy. Let’s stop by Gingerbread Haus on our way to the restaurant.”
Mia raised an eyebrow. “Oh. Am I invited?”
“We’re in this together,” he said, and started back down the trail, wondering if Lorelei would have read some hidden meaning in that remark.
They made it across the river without either of them falling in and drove to Gingerbread Haus to see if Cass Wilkes had a pink envelope kicking around.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said when they came in. “I’ve been waiting for you two to show up.” She took in Colin’s wet clothes. “You guys having fun with this treasure hunt?”
So far he’d been stung by wasps, fallen from a tree, soaked himself in the river, had some uncomfortable moments with his libido, and some equally uncomfortable moments with his girlfriend and his conscience. Define fun.
“We are,” Mia answered for both of them.
“Justine sure enjoyed putting it together for you. I’m surprised your dad went along with it, though,” Cass said to Colin.
“I don’t think he was happy about it.”
“He can be a stick in the mud sometimes,” Cass said, “but someday someone’s going to come along and unstick him.”
Colin doubted that. And he didn’t really want to stand around discussing his dad’s love life. “Uh, how about that clue?”
“Sure. It’ll take me a minute to put it together.”
Colin and Mia exchanged glances. “Put it together?”
“What do you suppose she meant by that?” Colin asked as Cass disappeared into the kitchen area.
“I have no idea,” Mia said. She drifted along the display case, eyeing the various offerings.
“I must’ve bought a hundred gingerbread boys in here,” Colin said.
“I always loved those cream-puff swans. I haven’t had one in years,” Mia added with a sigh.
“I’ll get you one.” He reached into his back pocket for his wallet.
“Oh, no. Those things are deadly. I think I already gained a pound just looking at them.”
“You don’t need to worry about that. You look great.” Should you be saying that to your first love when you have a girlfriend? scolded his conscience. Probably not, but it wasn’t a lie. She did. “Give us two of the swans,” he told the girl behind the counter.
“No, really, I’d better not.” Mia’s protest was halfhearted.
“You know you want one,” he teased as the girl boxed up two.
He handed over a ten-dollar bill and received change and the box with the cream puffs. He opened it and held one out to Mia.
“Get thee behind me, Satan,” she said, raising a hand and turning her head away.
That didn’t stop him. He brought it up to her mouth. “One bite. Just take one bite.”
She did, getting whipped cream on her upper lip and chin. He watched as she closed her eyes and gave a little groan, and he almost groaned, too.
“Mmm,” she said. “Delicious.”
And how delicious would it be to lick the whipped cream off her lip and then...
Stick with the cream puffs, he told himself and took a bite. “Oh, man, that is good.” She reached for it and he moved it away from her. “You said you only wanted one bite.”
“I changed my mind.”
She reached for it and he turned, holding it high. “We’re gonna have lunch. You’ll spoil your appetite.”
“Life’s uncertain. Eat dessert first.”
“You’ll gain a pound,” he joked.
“I don’t care,” she said, jumping for it. “Give that to me.”
He held it higher. “Say please.”
“Give me that cream puff,” she growled. She was practically climbing up him now. Oh, yeah, this was fun.
She suddenly stopped, as if sensing how very close their bodies were. She frowned and stepped back.
Reality had set in and the fun was over. “Okay. Here you go,” he said and passed the rest to her.
“Thanks,” she murmured, pink cheeked, and took it.
He pulled out the other cream puff and chewed on that, a much wiser choice than nibbling Mia’s lip.
They were just finishing when Cass returned, carrying a large bakery box.
“Oh, yeah,” he said as she handed it to Mia. “She put our clue inside something to eat.”
“Not exactly.” Cass winked. “There is something edible in here, but it’s not your clue.”
“Not our clue,” he repeated.
“It’s what you have to do to get your clue,” Cass told him.
Now what sort of posthumous trick was Gram up to?
Mia opened the box and they looked inside. All it held was pieces of gingerbread.
“What’s that?” Colin asked.
“A gingerbread house,” Cass answered.
“It’s pieces of cookie.”
“Everything you need to assemble a house. No frosting, though.”
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“Where’s that?” Colin asked.
“Your grandma wants you to make it yourself.”
“Seriously?” he said in frustration. This game of Gram’s was never ending.
“And she wants you to pick out the decorations, too,” Cass went on to say. “It shouldn’t take you more than an hour. When you get done, bring it back and I’ll give you your next clue.”
“Okay,” Colin said to Mia, “let’s get going.”
“What about Lorelei?”
“She’ll be fine.”
“You should call her.”
Probably good advice. He called Lorelei. “We’re out of the woods but we have one more thing to do.”
“What?”
“Just... I’ll tell you later, babe,” he said and pushed End before Lorelei could demand that he explain further. “Okay, we’re fine,” he lied.
“Sure you are.”
“Like Cass said, it shouldn’t take that long to put together a few pieces of cookie.”
“You go have lunch. I’ll do it,” Mia offered.
It was a sincere offer, not something born of one-upsmanship. And decorating gingerbread houses was sure more up her alley than his, but he realized he didn’t want to miss out on this.
“No, I’m in,” he said, and that made him think of Gram.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” she used to say.
“What does that mean?” he’d asked her once.
“It means if you’re going to do something you may as well jump in and do it with your whole heart,” she’d replied. “I think you kids would say go big or go home,” she’d added with a grin.
Well, he wasn’t going home until he found what Gram had for him, no matter what. He was going for it—but only the treasure, not the woman. He already had a woman.
They stopped by his dad’s house and Mia waited in the car while he changed into dry clothes. Then they went to the grocery store to load up on gumdrops and peppermint discs. “And M&M’s,” Colin said. “You gotta have M&M’s.”
“Okay, that should do it, then.”
“What about frosting? That stuff comes in a can, doesn’t it?”
“Frosting in a can won’t hold everything together. We need to make royal icing.”
“What the heck is royal icing?”
“It’s this frosting you make that pretty much turns to cement once it dries.”
“Cement, that sounds good.”
“It’s not bad. Anyway, it doesn’t have to taste good since we’re not keeping the gingerbread house.”
“Oh. Yeah.” That was kind of disappointing. He’d been looking forward to eating a gingerbread wall lined with M&M’s.
Mia shook her head. “I swear you’ve got the worst sweet tooth. Why aren’t you fat?”
“Clean living.”
By unspoken consent, they went to Aunt Beth’s kitchen to work on their project. They could have gone to Dad’s, but he didn’t have much of a functioning kitchen. Other than making a sandwich or having a bowl of cereal, neither Dad nor Colin had spent much time in there. What was the point when there was always something good getting served up at Gram’s or Aunt Beth’s? Anyway, Colin knew Mia had never felt comfortable in Dad’s house, especially after the fiasco in the orchard.
Aunt Beth and Uncle Mark were nowhere to be seen when they got to the house. “They’re probably out running errands,” Mia said. “It is Saturday, after all.”
Saturday. Normally, Colin would be at the climbing gym with some of his buddies, or riding bikes onto the ferry to Bainbridge Island with Lorelei. Or filling the day with any number of physical activities, like working out at the gym or going hiking. It was all fun, but in the end, looking at his life in light of the ones his grandparents had lived, it could hardly qualify as meaningful. Aunt Beth had raised Mia and helped raise him. Dad did pro bono stuff. What was he doing? No one ever came right out and said it, but he suspected his family was disappointed in how little he’d accomplished so far.
Assembling the gingerbread house was tricky. Who knew it would be so hard to get those walls to stick together? And after the house collapsed, they had to start over putting on the roof, and that had him holding his breath.
“This is hard,” he said. “No wonder Cass charges so much for these things.”
“I think we’ve got it, though,” Mia said and stepped back to admire their handiwork. She cocked her head. “Well, it’s a little sloppy. Maybe I should scrape off some of the frosting.”
“No, let’s not do anything that might make it collapse again.”
“All right, then, I guess we can decorate.”
“Sounds good to me.” He ripped open the M&M’s bag, poured out a handful and popped them in his mouth.
“They’re for the house, remember?”
“Sure, I remember,” he said, and stuck one along the roofline. “Hey, Christmas lights,” he said after he’d added a few more.
“Not bad,” she agreed, lining gumdrops along the base of the house.
“Not bad? It’s downright artistic,” he said, and tossed an M&M at her.
“Hey,” she protested, and retaliated with a gumdrop.
Which of course, called for another M&M assault.
She giggled and threw a second gumdrop.
Somehow, those opening volleys devolved into an outright candy war, and soon Colin had her cornered with what was left of the royal icing.
“Don’t,” she warned. “That’ll make a mess of my hair.
“All right.” He set it on the counter.
The moment he did, she dipped into it and got him in the face, and then they were off and running again.
Finally, with candy everywhere and royal icing on their clothes and faces, they called a truce.
“We’d better get this cleaned up before Aunt Beth comes back,” Mia said and grabbed a dishcloth.
Colin fetched the broom and dustpan and got to work sweeping. “When was the last time we had a food fight?”
“Thanksgiving weekend, your senior year. With the whipped cream.”
He remembered. He’d just wanted to see if she did. That had ended with a mess in the kitchen, too. And a kiss. He missed those days. Did she?
He dumped the candy and walked over to where she stood at the counter, suddenly very busy mopping up icing. “Mia.”
She stopped scrubbing and looked out the kitchen window. “Sometimes I really miss our old life. I miss Grandma Justine.”
“I know,” he said, and put an arm around her. “I do, too.”
She turned into him and he hugged her. It still felt so right. They should’ve been together. He should never have let her go, should have fought for her.
Before he could say as much, his cell phone demanded his attention, bringing him back to his senses. Lorelei was the present. Mia was the past.
She stepped away. “I bet that’s Lorelei. She’s probably starving,” he said and answered. “Hey, babe.”
“Okay, I’m at some place called Zelda’s,” Lorelei informed him. “Are you done yet?”
“Almost,” he assured her.
“Great! I’ll get us a table. For two.”
“Make it for three,” he told her and she hung up on him.
No more was said about Lorelei as he and Mia cleaned up and then drove back to Gingerbread Haus. No more was said, period.
“That’s quite the creation.” Cass smiled, checking out their slightly lopsided gingerbread house.
“Right up there with the Charlie Brown ugly Christmas tree,” Mia said. “I don’t think either of us is going into the gingerbread house business anytime soon.”
“Good. I don’t want any competition,” Cass joked.
“No worries there. Nobody can com
pete with you,” Colin told her.
“What a flatterer you’ve become,” she said, waving away his compliment. “Now I’ll get your clue. You can keep the house, by the way.”
“Hey, thanks,” Colin said, and broke off a piece of the roof. Gentleman that he was, he offered it to Mia first.
She shook her head.
“Fine. More for me.” He took a bite. “Mmm.”
“Stop that.” She broke off a piece for herself. “You’re a bad influence,” she said and stuffed it in her mouth.
He wouldn’t mind being a bad influence. Earth to Colin. You have a girlfriend waiting for you at Zelda’s.
Man, he was screwed up.
February 16, 2003
Dear Emmaline,
I hope your knee is healing well. I’ve heard knee replacements are painful, but in the long run I’m sure you’ll be glad you had it done. It was so nice of Joey to call and let us know you came through the surgery okay. I have a little something from Sweet Dreams coming your way. It may not speed your recovery, but I promise it will make you feel better.
I was sorry to hear about J.J. losing his job. How awful to get laid off after fifteen years with the same company! I hope he’ll find a new job soon.
We all had a lovely Valentine’s Day here. Gerald took me to Schwangau for a candlelight dinner. It’s such an expensive restaurant. I always feel a little guilty about spending that much money on a meal. Gerald told me he’d spend ten times that to give me a romantic dinner. Wasn’t that sweet? I swear I love that man even more than I did when we were teenagers. Bethie and Mark spent the night at a fancy hotel in Seattle, and our Colin and Mia went to Herman’s Hamburgers and a movie. She made him Valentine cookies, and he bought her a long-stemmed pink rose. They’re such a cute pair and so enamored of each other. I’m sure it would have pleased Anna no end to see them together. Who knows? Maybe this will turn into a lifelong love like Gerald and I have enjoyed. Dylan has been in Seattle all week. On business, he claimed, but I wonder if there’s a lady over there. I don’t ask anymore. He seems happy as a bachelor so there’s no sense in worrying about him.
Well, dear, there’s not much else going on here to report. I do hope you’re up and around again soon.
Love,
Justine
Home on Apple Blossom Road (Life in Icicle Falls) Page 12
