Angel Lane

by Sheila Roberts

“I will,” said Emma with a decisive nod. “It can go right next to the one I just put in.”

  “Oh, for what?” asked Jamie.

  “I’m going to have a Thanksgiving sale: forty percent off. Tell everyone.”

  “Whoa, that’s quite a markdown. Don’t you want to wait and do that in January?” suggested Jamie.

  Emma’s perky smile faded. “Not if I want to still be in business in January.”

  “You will be,” Sarah said.

  “You really think so?” Jamie asked her as they left the shop, laden with fabric.

  “I hope so.”

  “We need to find her a sugar daddy,” Jamie said.

  “A man isn’t always the answer. You know that,” said Sarah.

  “Not for me,” Jamie agreed. “But Emma’s different. She’s a believer.”

  Jamie was once, too. Sometimes she wished she could turn back the clock and start her love life over again. Would she have been any wiser in the choices she made? Who knew? One thing she did know for sure, she was going to be smart from now on.

  Whatever her motives for starting her girls’ baking class, Sarah was determined to finish it with a big heart and a big smile.

  Big heart, big smile, she repeated to herself on Monday afternoon as she dealt with spilled pumpkin on the floor, Beanie dropping a hot pad on the heating element and catching it on fire, and Damaris declaring their finished product, pumpkin cookies, “Okay.”

  The only silver lining in the afternoon’s cloud was that Sarah would be getting rid of Damaris on time thanks to a dinner invitation from Lissa. “Go with God,” she said to George.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I survived Desert Storm. I should be able to survive this. If I’m lucky.”

  “Just remember how fast they grow up,” Sarah told him. “It will all be over sooner than you think.”

  They were still talking when Leo Steele sauntered over from across the street. “Looks like a party over here,” he said with a wink. “Thought I’d join in.”

  “I wouldn’t call having a bunch of kids running around my place a party,” said George. “More like a bad case of insanity.”

  “We’ve been having a cooking class,” Sarah explained. “George is here to pick up his granddaughters.”

  Leo stuck out a hand. “Nice to see ya again.”

  George shook hands with him, but Sarah could tell by his cool reception that he had no desire to become buddies with Leo. That made two of them.

  “I came over to see if you had a can of tomato soup I could buy,” Leo said to Sarah. “I’m all out.”

  “I do. And you certainly don’t need to pay me. I always keep extras on hand to use in my spaghetti sauce.”

  “I should get going,” George said. “Come on, girls,” he called. “Time to go get hamburgers.”

  That was all it took to send the girls squealing to his car. He gave a casual wave and followed them. He was just driving away when a familiar white truck pulled into the driveway. Out stepped Sam. Her husband’s easy, sanguine nature had earned him the nickname Smilin’ Sam, but today he wasn’t smiling.

  “Hi,” she called. “What are you doing here?” He’d made it abundantly clear he wouldn’t be stopping by on baking-class day.

  “Just came home to check on a few things,” Sam said, looking at Leo.

  “I guess I’ll shove off,” Leo said.

  “Wait. Your soup,” said Sarah.

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks.”

  She hurried into the house and fetched soup from the pantry. Both the men remained on the porch. It wasn’t like Sam not to invite someone in. She was glad he hadn’t stayed true to form today, though. She was pooped.

  “Well, I got my money on the Seahawks,” Leo was saying. “Ah, there’s what I need. Now I can eat tonight. Tomato soup and grilled-cheese sandwiches.”

  That was all he was having? She had leftover pot roast in the fridge. She opened her mouth to offer him some, but Sam was already bidding Leo good-bye and towing her into the house. What was going on? Was her husband suddenly sex-starved?

  “Okay, why are you here?” she demanded as soon as the door shut behind them. If it was bad news of some sort, she wanted it now.

  He frowned at her. “I just thought I’d come by and see how you were doing.”

  “An in-person visit instead of a phone call? What’s with the new-and-improved you?” she teased.

  “I want you to stop being so friendly to that clown across the street,” Sam said firmly. “Every time I turn around the guy is on our porch. And now you’ve added this George Armstrong.”

  “George!” she protested. “What do you think I’m going to do with George with his granddaughters running around?”

  “They’re not around all the time,” said Sam. “All these men over when I’m gone, it doesn’t look right. Especially Leo.”

  “Oh, Sam, for heaven’s sake,” Sarah said in disgust. “Please tell me you didn’t decide to stop by to check up on me.”

  If he hadn’t been so serious, she would have laughed. The expression on his face was a mixture of chagrin and anger. “No. I just needed to get something.”

  Did he really think she was buying that? Sam never bothered to come home to get anything. He was always suckering her into dropping things by the station for him. “Yeah? What?”

  “This.” He grabbed her and kissed her. Hard.

  He hadn’t kissed her like that in years. “Sam.” Where have you been hiding?

  Who cared? She grabbed his face and kissed him back, the memory of her frustrating afternoon completely forgotten.

  Sam’s unneighborly attitude also went forgotten when she came home from the store the day before Thanksgiving, loaded with groceries, and found Leo Steele at her side, offering to help her lug them into the house. Leo was going to be alone on Thanksgiving.

  “The boys are going to their mom’s.” He shrugged. “She’s a better cook. But what the hell?” he said cheerily. “I’ve got one of those TV dinners—turkey, stuffing, and all the fixings, and there’s the football game to watch.”

  A TV dinner? That was pathetic. The football game would be on here at their house, too, and there would be other men to watch it with. “Come here for dinner,” she urged.

  “Nah, that’s okay. I wouldn’t want to impose.”

  “Don’t be silly. Dinner is at two.”

  “Well, okay. If you’re sure,” said Leo.

  “I’m sure,” she said. Sure that Sam would probably not be happy about this newest guest. She should have thought before she spoke. But no one should be alone on Thanksgiving, and making Heart Lake a better place to live meant reaching out to everyone in the community, including Damaris and Leo.

  He was barely gone when Sarah heard the front door open, followed by her husband’s voice. “Hey, babe. I’m home.”

  “Out here,” she called, and began sorting through possible options for how to tell him about their newest guest.

  He came into the kitchen, carrying a newspaper and wearing a smile. “Dad’s coming over tonight to play some cribbage. I figured you’d be too busy baking and messing with the table to do anything.”

  “That’s fine,” she said, “but first will you help me put the leaf in the table?”

  “Sure. How many are coming, anyway?”

  “Mom, Dad, us, Jamie . . .”

  “Your friend and his family,” Sam added. “That makes nine.”

  Sarah wasn’t sure she liked the way he’d said “friend” when referring to George Armstrong. It didn’t bode well for Leo. “Actually, we’ll have one more,” she said, keeping her voice light as meringue.

  “Oh, yeah? Who?”

  “Leo Steele.” This would be a good time to put away the eggs. She opened the refrigerator and hid behind the door.

  From the other side she heard her husband’s voice, angry and incredulous. “Who?”

  SIXTEEN

  My ears have got to be broken,” said Sam. “I can’t have heard right. You’re invi
ting that clown over when I told you I didn’t want him hanging around here?” He walked around the fridge and positioned himself on the other side of Sarah where she could have a good view of his angry face.

  She shut the door and went back to her grocery bags, hauling out sugar and flour. “That look may work on those kids at the station,” she informed him, “but we’ve been together too long for it to scare me.”

  He downgraded from angry to exasperated. “Damn it, Sarah. You’re carrying this good deed thing too far.”

  “How could I not invite him?” she protested.

  “Easy. Keep your mouth shut. I don’t like the guy.”

  “Well, I don’t, either,” said Sarah, “but he’s alone. And by gumballs, no one in my neighborhood is going to eat Thanksgiving dinner alone as long as I can stand at a stove.”

  Sam heaved a long-suffering sigh and pulled her to him. “Okay, you win.”

  She slipped her arms around his neck and offered him a teasing smile. “You know I’m right.”

  “You always are,” he said, and kissed her. “But if Steele gets too friendly with you I’m going to stuff him like the turkey he is.”

  “He’ll have to catch me first, and I wish him luck with that.” On holidays she was always either busy in the kitchen, surrounded by other women, or taking food and plates to and from the table. Leo would be no problem. “It will be fine,” she assured Sam. “I just wish the kids were going to be here.”

  “We’ll have ’em both back at Christmas.” He shook his head. “What an invasion. Your sister and her family . . .”

  “Your folks, half the fire department.”

  “Ain’t it grand?” he said with a grin.

  She grinned back. “Yes, it is.” And they were on the same page again. It never took long, because she was always right. And Sam knew it, which was what made him the world’s best husband.

  Jamie arrived early at Sarah’s house on Thanksgiving Day, bearing a plate of truffles and the chocolate mint pie that had always been her mom’s specialty. “Put me to work,” she said. “What do you need done?”

  “How about setting the table for me?” suggested Sarah as she popped a tray of herbed biscuits in the oven. “I only got as far as putting on the tablecloth.”

  “You got it. How many plates this year?”

  “Just ten.”

  “Just ten?” Sarah amazed her. “Who are the extras this time, half the fire station?” asked Jamie.

  “Odds and ends of Thanksgiving orphans,” said Sarah, “including our neighbor across the street.”

  “You mean the lech who keeps coming to the bakery?”

  “I think he’d use the term ‘ladies’ man.’ ”

  “Ladies’ lech,” Jamie corrected. “So, who else?”

  Sarah dumped a cube of butter onto a silver butter dish. “John and Edna. Here, you can take this out to the table when you go.”

  Jamie didn’t leave. There was something mildly evasive about Sarah’s behavior. “Okay, it’s not like I was missing when the brainmobile came. Who else have you invited?”

  “Just George Armstrong and his son and grandkids.”

  George Armstrong. The name didn’t ring a bell at first. But it didn’t have to. Son, two kids, no wife mentioned. This was a setup. And then she remembered. “The cop,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

  Sarah stopped mashing potatoes long enough to point the masher at Jamie. “Now, look. I’ve already had to whip your uncle into shape. Am I going to have to do the same with you?”

  That shit didn’t work on Jamie. “I already have a mom. Remember?”

  “I’m not being your mom. I’m being your aunt—your sweet, loving, taking-you-in-on-Thanksgiving—”

  “Matchmaking, meddling aunt,” Jamie finished for her.

  “Look,” Sarah said, switching from combat to negotiation, “they were two men alone for Thanksgiving. I’d have invited them anyway. And the girls need a mother figure.”

  “Just so it’s you they’re looking at,” Jamie said. She grabbed the butter and marched to the dining room to take Sarah’s Wedgwood plates out of the china hutch. Sarah could say what she wanted, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. She was matchmaking.

  Jamie sighed inwardly. There was a time when she’d have enjoyed flirting with a man, especially a hunkalicious one like Josh the cop. In her twenties, flirting had been her specialty. Then she’d met Grant and decided to specialize. He had seemed like the perfect man, good-looking and generous. And the money he spent on her while they were dating—it made her feel like a princess. She’d envisioned a perfect future with kids, backyard barbecues, and family vacations, but it was too late for all that now. The old flirt muscle had dried up from lack of use, just like other parts of her. Sex was overrated anyway. That’s what she heard. Somewhere.

  She had just finished setting the table when Sam’s parents arrived. John had the ancient-lizard skin of a longtime smoker. He was as thin as the cigarettes he loved and smelled like an ashtray. Edna still kept her hair dyed crayon yellow and was as skinny as her husband.

  “Hey, kid, how’re ya doin’?” he greeted Jamie in his gravelly John Wayne voice, and gave her a one-armed hug. Then, without waiting for an answer, he ambled into the living room where Sam already had the TV on with the football game playing.

  Edna handed over a pie to Sarah and asked, “What can I do to help, dear?”

  “How about keeping the boys under control?” Sarah said. “We’ll put you to work when it’s time to dish up.”

  Edna nodded, pleased with the arrangement, and followed her husband into the living room.

  “They’re going to be fighting over that,” Jamie cracked, nodding at the pie when she and Sarah were back in the kitchen. Edna’s baked goods always smelled like cigarette smoke and tasted worse.

  “Sam and I will eat a piece,” said Sarah. “And John. He’s got no sense of smell.”

  The next to arrive was Leo Steele, who came bearing a can of black olives and a bouquet of fall flowers from Changing Seasons Floral for Sarah. “I never like to show up empty-handed,” he explained. “Want me to put these olives in something?” he added, his gaze sneaking to Sarah’s boobs.

  Mr. Disgusto. “I can do that,” said Jamie, pulling the can out of his hands.

  “Why don’t you go make yourself at home and watch the game,” said Sarah.

  “You’re sure you don’t need any help?” he asked.

  “Leo, I had the distinct impression that you don’t cook,” Sarah teased.

  “I don’t. But I’m good at doing what I’m told,” he retorted.

  “Wow, that makes you quite a catch,” said Jamie sweetly. “How is it you’re single?” Sarah gave her a look that threatened a spanking with a wooden spoon. She just smiled.

  “This is my niece, Jamie Moore,” said Sarah.

  “Nice to meetcha,” said Leo genially. Obviously, a man not easily offended. Or else too thickheaded to know when he was being offended. “Guess I’ll go check out the game.”

  “Try to behave yourself, will you?” Sarah scolded when she and Jamie were back in the kitchen alone.

  “I’ll try. In fact, if you want I’ll make up for my rudeness right now and go invite Mr. Steele in here to open these olives. You can show him where the can opener is. I’m sure he’d like to get in your drawers.”

  “Keep this up and I’ll tell Josh it was your idea to invite him here,” Sarah countered.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll be good,” Jamie promised. “What do you want me to do next?”

  “Whip the cream. That should keep you out of trouble for a couple of minutes.”

  Jamie was at the sink, whipping cream, when the doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of the last guests. A tingle of excitement threaded its way up her spine. She told herself it was dread.

  The low rumble of male voices, accented by the little-girl excitement, drifted in to the kitchen. A moment later, two little girls were entering alongside Sarah, who was saying, “I
’ll bet you’re just in time to lick the beaters.”

  Mandy the Fairy had taken Sarah’s hand and was skipping beside her while the older girl walked carefully, bearing a casserole dish in front of her as if it were frankincense. “We brought green bean casserole,” she announced.

  “You can put it right on the table,” said Sarah, pointing to her old drop-leaf kitchen table.

  She’d had that table ever since Jamie could remember. They’d played countless games of cards at it and probably eaten enough pizza to fill Heart Lake. Jamie and her sister, Krysten, had sat there opposite each other, licking beaters laden with everything from chocolate frosting to whipped cream. She stopped her whipping and pulled out the beaters. “You’re just in time,” she said, and handed one to each girl. “Make yourselves at home. That’s what I did when I was a kid.”

  “Yum,” said Mandy, taking hers with eyes as big as her smile.

  “Are you Mrs. Goodwin’s daughter?” asked Lissa.

  “Almost,” said Jamie. “I’m her niece.”

  “Our mommy’s an angel,” said Mandy, taking a big lick of whipped cream.

  It was a good thing Jamie wasn’t holding the beaters anymore, she’d have dropped them. Dead? His wife was dead? She’d assumed he was divorced, screwed up.

  Like he wouldn’t be screwed up from having lost his wife? The poor guy. The poor girls. Jamie felt a sudden nearly overwhelming desire to grab them both and hug them.

  “Grandpa says maybe someday we’ll get a new mommy,” Mandy continued.

  “Maybe you will,” Jamie agreed. They were sweet girls. They deserved another mommy. She could see Emma as their new mom, teaching them to quilt, dunking them in hydrogen peroxide when that demon cat of hers scratched them. But she couldn’t see Emma with Josh. Odd.

  “Girls,” said Sarah, “would you like to help us put the food on the table?”

  “Sure,” said Lissa as if she’d just been offered a special prize.

  Maybe for a little girl who was being raised by men—rather like being raised by wolves—the company of women was a prize. It was easy to take family for granted. You never realized what you had till you lost it.