Just Like Heaven

by Lacey Baker

  “I don’t know if I can live in a blue house,” Preston said.

  He stood in front of the little riverside cottage, hands in his pockets, looking the place up and down. He looked at the white trellis on both sides of the porch—rungs were missing and would need to be repaired, and they could use a coat of paint. Two brand-new cedar-planked benches sat beneath the windows on both sides of the door. She’d just bought them from Duke Cramden. He’d been crafting handmade furniture since Preston was a little boy. And from the looks of it, still doing a damned good job.

  The house really was blue, like the water in the Caribbean islands. He looked around to the huge oak tree on the left side, its base covered in a thick brush of hostas. There was no fence like the ones around most of the houses in Sweetland, but a brick wall about three feet high instead. On the inside, up against the wall, were flowers—tall ones, shorter ones in bright yellow and orange and soft pinks and blues. They hugged the wall like they were related, stopping only for the walkway with its cobblestoned path inviting visitors inside.

  That had invited Preston inside because the owner of the little blue house was standing in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, eyes fixed on him in a serious glare.

  “You don’t live here,” was her curt reply.

  Okay, so he knew this wasn’t going to be easy. In fact, Ryan, Quinn, and Parker had warned him she wasn’t going to run to him with open arms. Michelle had told him to beg. He was prepared to do that and then some.

  “We could build an extension over here,” he said, walking through the front yard to the left side of the house. “Offices, for both of us, with a separate entrance over here so clients wouldn’t have to trek through the house.”

  She came out to follow him. He’d hoped she would.

  “I already have an office inside,” she stated from behind.

  “I hope not upstairs because we’ll need those rooms for the kids. Besides, it’s better to have our offices down here so when we’re finished with work we can just go to the other side of the house. Yours can go in the back so you can see the water while you write.”

  “It’s research writing, not creative. I can do that just as easily upstairs.”

  “But you love the water, and this way you can see into the yard where Coco will be. I know you like to keep your eye on her.”

  Speak of the devil, Coco barked from her spot on the back porch the moment Preston rounded the corner.

  “Hey, girl, you miss me?” he asked, stepping up onto the porch and instantly rubbing behind her ears.

  The way she jumped into his lap, licking all over his chin was answer enough, and Preston chuckled. He fell backward against the wall letting Coco have her way with him, inhaling deeply of the crisp late-summer air, the scent of the river and a faint tinge of the flowers that seemed to be everywhere. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed Heaven.

  She leaned against the side of the house, not at all fazed by his reunion with Coco.

  “Come here,” he said to her when he was sitting upright on the step.

  She didn’t move.

  “Please, Heaven. Sit next to me for a minute,” he implored.

  She moved, albeit reluctantly, to sit on the step next to him, being very careful not to let their bodies touch.

  “You know I love you.”

  “What I know, Preston Cantrell, is that you are one stubborn, hardheaded man. No matter what anybody says to you, it has to be your way, all the time. I can’t live with a man like that. I won’t live under those stringent circumstances ever again.”

  He leaned over and touched his fingers to her lips, closing them.

  “I love you. I’ve never loved anyone in this world the way I love you.”

  She tried to say something but he kept his fingers in place and shook his head.

  “I thought I wanted to live in the city defending the falsely accused—or the accurately accused, either or—for the rest of my life. I thought I never wanted a family and a home in Sweetland because my father had thought he’d had all that. My mother was a selfish woman, but I figure she had to love my father an awful lot to stay in Sweetland as long as she did when she’d been itching to get away. I never wanted that type of life.

  “But my apartment in Baltimore seems so small now, so quiet. Coco could never live there. And when I’m at the office I feel like the walls are closing in around me. After imagining that bastard felon with his grimy hands on you, I can’t imagine looking at another jail cell or possible criminal client again. I still love the law, but I think my criminal days are over.

  “The bottom line is nothing I did before, nothing I had before that day you stumbled into The Silver Spoon, is enough anymore. It’s just not enough, Heaven. And I’m not happy.”

  Preston sighed, searching for the smoothness he’d once had a reputation for. He racked his brain for words that would make her melt in his arms, beg to be with him. But none came.

  “A very smart woman once told me that she planned to find her own happiness. Well, it took me a while to figure this out—I can tell you anything about the law, but this love thing has really got me stumped,” he said with a nervous chuckle that died quickly as he looked once more into her soft hazel eyes.

  “I’m not happy without you. I can practice civil law from a home office and go into the city for court cases. I can help rebuild the trellis and have Drake Sheridan get started on the addition. I can take care of Coco when you have to go away to lecture and be waiting for you when you return. I don’t want to say I can make you happy, Heaven. But what I will say, what I know without a doubt is that you’re the only woman who can make me happy. You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to spend my life with, to have children with, to start a family with. To even live in a little blue house with.”

  Her eyes were brimming with tears, but Preston didn’t know if they were the good or bad kind. He hurriedly moved his fingers from her lips and apologized. Then he looked down at Coco, at her rich brown fur and eyes, and nuzzled the dog as close to him as he could.

  Preston didn’t know what else to say, and she was being too damned quiet. Coco’s back paws moved with her as she licked at his face and the bag Michelle had given him pressed into his thigh. He readjusted Coco and reached into his pocket. Taking Michelle’s advice, he gave it to Heaven without even opening it.

  Her hands were shaking as she opened it and pulled out a sterling-silver ring with one huge pearl in its center. She ran her fingers over it for a second as Preston remembered seeing this ring on his grandmother’s finger when he was a young boy. In her later years she hadn’t worn it, but it was something he would never forget.

  When Heaven looked up at him again, it was with tears in her eyes. “I don’t see why you have a problem with a little blue house. You lived in a big yellow one all your life,” she said quietly.

  He looked at her then, a smile spreading quickly across his face as tears streamed down hers.

  “It will be just like heaven living here with you,” he told her, then leaned forward to kiss her lips. “Just like heaven.”

  The Silver Spoon Recipes

  Adorable Almond Croissants

  Ingredients

  4 teaspoons instant dried yeast

  ½ cup lukewarm water

  3½ cups bread flour

  ½ cup milk

  1/3 cup granulated sugar

  3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

  1½ teaspoons salt

  1 cup butter, softened

  ½ cup Sweet Almond Filling (recipe follows)

  1 egg

  2 tablespoons milk

  ¼ cup sliced almonds

  Preparation

  1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water for 5 minutes. Add the bread flour, milk, sugar, melted butter, and salt to the dissolved yeast and water. Mix the dough on medium speed for about 2 minutes. If the dough is sticky, add extra flour ½ tablespoon at a time until it’s is firm enough to fold.

  2. Shape the dough
into a ball and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. Roll dough into a 10-inch by 15-inch rectangle, and then cover it loosely. Let it rise for up to 40 minutes.

  3. Brush the rectangle with the softened butter and then fold the dough into thirds. Roll the long, thin rectangle back into the original 10-inch by 15-inch shape. Fold it into thirds again, and then cover the dough with plastic wrap. Rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Repeat this process once.

  4. Cut the dough diagonally with a sharp knife to make 20 triangles. Pull the tip of each triangle taut, spread a small spoonful of Sweet Almond Filling across it, and then roll the croissant up from the base, curving the ends slightly to make a crescent shape. Arrange on a lightly greased baking sheet at least 1½ inches apart. Cover them loosely with plastic wrap. Let rise for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until they are nearly doubled in size.

  5. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Whisk the egg and 2 tablespoons milk together to make an egg wash. Brush this across the surface of each pastry and sprinkle with sliced almonds. Bake for 14 to 16 minutes, until the croissants are puffed and golden brown and the almonds are toasted.

  Makes 20 servings

  Sweet Almond Filling

  Ingredients

  ½ cup ground almond meal

  ½ cup granulated sugar

  1 egg

  3 tablespoons butter, softened

  ¾ teaspoon almond extract

  1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

  Preparation:

  1. Using a food processor, combine all the ingredients until a smooth, creamy paste is formed.

  Smith Island Cakes

  Effective October 1, 2008, the Smith Island Cake became the state dessert of Maryland (chapters 164 & 165, Acts of 2008, Code State Government Article, sec. 13-320). Traditionally, the cake consists of eight to ten layers of yellow cake with chocolate frosting between each layer and slathered over the whole. However, many variations have evolved, both in the flavors for frosting and the cake itself.

  Smith Island Cake, Smith Island, Somerset County, Maryland, 2008

  Read on for an excerpt from Lacey Baker’s next novel

  Summer’s Moon

  Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  He’d waited months to get his hands on her again. Damn if those months hadn’t seemed like years. And even if the touch was as simple as his hand on her waist, it was enough to send blood soaring through Parker’s body, resting soundly in his groin where an erection was inevitable.

  His attraction to Drewcilla Sidney had hit him hard one night, and he’d presumed it was the result of the trio of rum and Cokes Charlie had served him. But the next day, when he was completely sober and he’d been on his way to the bar, he’d seen her going into The Crab Pot. Of course he’d followed, he’d had no other choice. Watching her work that night, bringing drinks to tables, leaning over said tables to roll out paper for the customers having crabs, laughing so that her eyes were alight with joy, her hair hanging in lazy curls down her back, had proven one point. His desire for her was not alcohol-induced and it wasn’t going away easily.

  This evening her hair was pulled back from her face, giving Parker an unfettered view of pretty brown eyes and elegantly arched brows. She licked her lips, then nibbled on the bottom one for a split second before squaring her shoulders and looking directly at him. If he wasn’t a man, a decorated homicide detective at that, he might have said her actions made him just a bit dizzy with desire.

  Instead of actually admitting to that, Parker cleared his throat. “You look really pretty tonight” were the words that tumbled from his mouth.

  They sounded so juvenile, so spontaneous, and possibly contrived. He mentally kicked himself for not coming up with something better. For weeks he’d been waiting for the moment, to not only get his hands on her again, but to have the chance to speak to her. And now that the moment seemed to have arrived, this was what he’d said?

  “Thank you,” she said about a second before she took a step back so that his hand fell from her waist.

  “You act like you two have never met,” Louisa said to Drew, “which I know can’t be true since I specifically remember seeing you climb onto the back of that noisy monstrosity he drives around here like he owns the town.”

  Parker was used to Louisa’s abrupt candor, or at least he’d become reacquainted with it in the weeks he’d been back. Louisa and Marabelle frequented The Silver Spoon restaurant at least twice a week. He suspected it was equally for the food as it was to fuel more of their gossip. In the times he’d seen them there he’d also overheard some of their conversations, where no one was exempt. His family was one of their hot topics, so Louisa’s comment was no shock to him.

  As for Drew, well, the completely mortified look on her face said she was feeling differently.

  “I’m always available to give a young lady a ride home when needed, Mrs. Kirk. You wouldn’t have wanted me to leave Drew to walk home alone would you?” he asked, tearing his eyes away from Drew only long enough to lock gazes with Louisa. If not, the woman would most definitely believe she had the upper hand.

  Louisa shook her head. “She has a car. A very bright little thing looks like a buggy. She keeps it parked in her back yard all the time, but I see it whenever she zips up Main Street on her way down here to help her uncle out at The Crab Pot.”

  And Parker needed to know all that information. It was a good thing he already knew the details Louisa had just divulged about Drew’s personal life and an even better thing he wasn’t some deranged stalker. If he were, that information could have put Drew in danger. Of course that was his cop’s mind thinking but that didn’t make it any less true.

  “I think it’s good that a couple have a practical car and then something completely whimsical and a little dangerous,” Marabelle said with a smile to Parker. “Besides that bike of yours is kind of hot.”

  She whispered the word “hot” as if it might have actually been a sin to say it and if heard she would burn in the fiery pits of hell.

  “We’re not a couple,” Drew stated adamantly, her eyes widening as she looked from Marabelle to Parker pleadingly.

  Parker cleared his throat. “She’s right, we’re not a couple, Mrs. Stanley. But I think my bike’s kind of hot, too.”

  Marabelle smiled at that. Louisa frowned, and Drew, well, she looked like she might actually faint. A hand went to her neck, fingers shaking, and another brushed past her stomach, then fell to her side. But it was the clammy look of her skin that really concerned Parker and spurred him into action.

  “Ladies, it’s been lovely visiting with you, but I really need to get Drew alone for just a second.” He thought about how that comment would be perceived by these two women and decided to add, “Michelle’s looking for her to talk about purchasing more flowers for the inn.”

  “Oh yes, the bouquets in the church sanctuary are beautiful, dear,” Marabelle told Drew. “You two run along, I can’t wait to see what you come up with for the inn. Tell Michelle we’ll be there tomorrow night for dinner as usual.”

  “I will,” Parker said with a nod. He stepped toward Drew then because she hadn’t moved.

  “You look sick, Drewcilla,” Louisa spoke up from behind Parker. “Maybe you should call your brother over here, Parker. Instead of trying to drag the girl off somewhere.”

  Drew shook her head then. “No. I’m fine, really I am,” she said, attempting to pull away from Parker’s grasp once more.

  This time Parker leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Either go along with me and make an easy escape from these two, or stand here and try to fight whatever is bothering you and them at the same time. It’s your choice.”

  She clapped her lips shut and swallowed deeply.

  “Let’s go, Parker. I don’t want to keep Michelle waiting,” Drew said finally.

  With an arm resting around her waist once more—a position that felt oddly comfortable to Parker—they walked down the pier away fro
m the town gossips. The wind blew, and he inhaled the sweet scent of her perfume, a scent he remembered well from their night together. The night he’d dreamt of for the past few months, wondering, hoping, and quite possibly needing a repeat.

  Obviously that was not Drew’s intention as she’d been dedicated to keeping her distance from him since that fateful night.

  “I’m fine,” she said in a soft voice.

  So soft he almost didn’t hear her over his own thoughts.

  “Let’s go over here and have a seat. You were looking a little off so I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he told her as he steered them towards a duo of red painted benches situated on the side of Amore between huge shrubs and a quaint little fountain.

  The benches faced the water so they had a good view of the waning sunlight as they sat. Drew immediately went to the far end of the first bench, resting her elbow on the arm and holding her head down.

  Each time, since the first time, that Parker had seen Drew, she’d been laughing or smiling or otherwise looking as if living life was the most precious thing to her. She had this kind of carefree spirit that he’d admired, at first from afar. Whether it was her Uncle Walt or the group of older men who sat at his counter for a good part of the evening shooting the breeze and joking with her, or Delia and Pia having drinks with her—as they had the night they’d spent together—she always looked to be enjoying herself. And others looked as if they enjoyed her company. Parker had wanted to be part of the number who were lucky enough to spend time with such an affable and attractive female. Especially since he felt lately like his life was on a downward spiral.

  However, Parker did not like the look Drew had now. She was breathing deeply as if each breath was a struggle and tiny beads of sweat had peppered her forehead, causing the wisps of hair there to stick. And when she looked up at him, her eyes were wide, excitedly, but her shoulders sagged like she was carrying a tremendous weight. He was confused and he was worried and he wanted to know what the hell was going on with her.