by Lisa Bingham
That thought made Bronte groan again when she realized she had a yard full of people and—except for staples—her grandmother’s cupboards were nearly bare. As she slid her feet into flats and hurried down the stairs, Bronte prayed that she had enough flour, sugar, and eggs to at least whip up a batch of cookies.
But as she rounded the corner into the kitchen, she saw P.D. unloading groceries from the mound of sacks piled on the table.
“I hope you don’t mind that we made ourselves at home,” P.D. said.
Bronte could only shake her head in confusion.
P.D. grimaced. “After last night … well, I figured you were running on fumes, so I wouldn’t let anyone go into your bedroom. I insisted everyone tippy-toe around, especially if they came into the house. But then the damned cement truck showed up. I hope it didn’t wake you.”
“No. I was already up.” Bronte didn’t add that it was Kari’s insistent questions that had dragged her to consciousness.
Bronte moved to the back door and peered through the window. “What’s going on?”
P.D. grinned. “The grapevine has been hard at work.”
Bronte’s brows creased in confusion.
“Annie’s been a part of this community as long as anyone can remember—she taught half the people out there,” P.D. said, gesturing with a bunch of celery. “As soon as folks heard about her accident, they wanted to find some way to help. Thank heavens, someone managed to channel their energy into something productive.”
Bronte felt her stomach twist into knots. When she’d shown Jace the list of improvements that she’d hoped to make, she hadn’t planned on doing them all right away. She had less than two hundred dollars left in her wallet—and that would have to last until she could come up with a job. The trips to the hospital in Logan would probably eat most of it up in fuel.
Some of her unease must have shown because P.D. touched her arm. “Hey, you don’t need to worry about any of this. Bliss has a habit of pulling together and volunteering their time and a few odd supplies when someone needs it. Last year, there was a fire in my restaurant and when I first saw all the damage, I was sure it would take months to rebuild. But the next day, there were dozens of volunteers helping to remove the debris and scrub the place from top to bottom. They did in a day what would have taken weeks—and probably more than I could have afforded—to get things started.” P.D. offered her an encouraging smile.
“But all of these supplies—”
“The lumber came from surplus piles in countless barns in the community. The shingles are left over from those used to replace the damaged roof at Vern’s.”
“But the cement—”
“Donated by Enid Wilkerson, matriarch of the Wilkerson family and CEO of Wilkerson Cement. She and Annie are part of a quilting group that meets at the Civic Center every Wednesday.”
“So what can I do to help?”
“My friend Helen and her husband Syd have already got their famous Dutch ovens cooking outside, but I thought we could throw together a couple of salads.” P.D. frowned. “A lot of boys showed up with the Scout groups, and I don’t know if the bread I brought and Helen’s cherry chocolate cake will spread far enough, so maybe I should send someone to the store for more rolls and some cookies.”
“No!” Bronte said hurriedly. She rushed to the fridge, opening it to find cartons of eggs, milk, and orange juice had been pushed to one side on the top shelf. “Let me do that. How long before lunch is served?”
“Probably an hour, an hour and a half?”
“Perfect.”
As she pulled ingredients from the cupboard and began arranging them on the counter, Bronte felt more in control of her circumstances than she had since arriving at Bliss. She might not be able to hammer nails or drive a backhoe, but she could supply bread and dessert—and she could do it with her eyes closed.
After uncovering her grandmother’s mixer, she began measuring flour and sugar into a stoneware bowl. Bronte would be the first to admit that she was far from being the expert in the kitchen that P.D. was, but she’d always loved to bake—probably due to summers spent in this very kitchen learning how to make cookies, doughnuts, and cake. None of Annie’s recipes were complicated. But they were down-home favorites that were as satisfying to the soul as to the taste buds.
Within twenty minutes, she had mixed up a sweet biscuit dough, rolled it out on the table, and spread butter and a thin glaze made of powdered sugar, orange juice, and grated orange zest in the middle. Then she rolled it into a log and cut slices, which she placed in several greased pans. After placing dish towels over the biscuits until it was time to bake them, she washed out the mixing bowl and paddle and began making oatmeal raisin cookies from another recipe she knew by heart.
P.D. had long ago finished unloading the groceries and was making piles of chopped purple onions, olives, and marinated vegetables for a pasta salad. A huge pot on the back of the stove was bubbling away, churning multicolored rotini in a fragrant roiling tide while the timer marked the last few minutes of cooking time.
“You know your way around the kitchen,” P.D. said.
Bronte shook her head. “Nothing even close to what you do. But I’ve mastered some of the baking that Annie taught me as a kid.” She allowed herself a self-satisfied grin. “I paid for part of my first year of college by selling cookies in the student union building.”
“What was your major?”
Bronte felt her smile falter. She’d wanted to teach English literature and write poetry. But after only a year of school, she’d married Phillip. He’d insisted there was no need for her to continue her education since he would support her for the rest of her life. For a while, she’d continued to fill journals with scrawled lines of blank verse—but even that had fallen by the wayside when life intruded.
“English and secondary education. But … I-I didn’t finish.”
P.D. nodded matter-of-factly. “So when are you going back?”
Bronte eyed her in surprise, a teaspoon filled with warm, fragrant cinnamon suspended over the mixing bowl.
“What do you mean?”
P.D. set down the knife and propped her hips against the counter. “It’s obvious that you regret not having a chance to finish. Why don’t you go back now? There are several excellent universities within commuting distance from here.”
Excitement spilled into Bronte’s veins, building up steam until it thundered through her body. But just as suddenly, reality doused it with an icy wave. Turning back to the mixer, she blindly dumped the cinnamon into the bowl, her mind frantically trying to remember if she’d added one teaspoon or two.
“There’s no way I could go back right now.”
The buzzer went off and P.D. punched it into silence, then lifted the heavy pot from the stove and carefully dumped the water and pasta into a waiting colander.
“Why not? I bet you could qualify for a scholarship. You’re a single mother looking to finish your education. There’s got to be financial aid available.”
Again, Bronte was tempted by a spurt of adrenaline, but she firmly pushed it away. “Maybe in a year or two.” Why did the words taste more like never in her mouth. “Right now, things are too … unsettled. Too …”
She didn’t even know how to finish the sentence. How could she plan something as definitive as an education when she didn’t know how she was going to pay for the next round of groceries?
Turning the mixer on high—and hoping it masked the note of disappointment in her voice, she said, “Right now, I’ve got to get my kids in school, find a job …”
P.D. nodded. “About that. I might have an idea, if you’re interested.”
But before she could say anything more, the door to the kitchen opened and Kari stomped inside.
“That man sent me to get you,” she said, her arms tightly crossed, her expression thunderous.
“What man?”
“Jace. He needs you outside.”
Before Bronte could ask a
ny more questions, she stormed through the door again.
Embarrassed by her daughter’s behavior, she turned to offer an apology to P.D., but P.D. was laughing. “You’ve got your hands full,” she murmured, then gestured to the pans. “The oven’s hot. Do you want me to put these in while you see what Jace needs?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“How long do they need to cook?”
“Twenty minutes.”
Bronte hadn’t realized how steamy the kitchen had grown until she stepped outside. A balmy breeze buffeted the grass and teased at the strands of the willow tree. The air was warm, hinting at the hot, dry summer that was around the corner.
Bronte paused on the stoop, automatically searching for her daughters. Kari—whose bad mood clearly extended only to Bronte—was standing next to several teenagers near the old barn. She was twisting and untwisting a lock of hair around her finger while she peered under her lashes at Tyson, Jace’s hired man. Something he said made her laugh. The kid must have had superpowers, because when he held out a shovel, Kari took it. Then, still laughing, she began using it to pry hunks of weed-choked sod out of the flower bed.
Will wonders never cease?
It took a little longer to find Lily, but finally, Bronte saw her huddled in the corner of the tree house, her chin on her knees.
“Do you want to come down and help, Lily?” Bronte said, her hand shading her eyes.
Lily shook her head, her gaze darting over the crowd below.
More than anything, Bronte wanted to rush to her daughter’s side and encourage her to mingle, but the rigid line of her back was a sure sign that now wasn’t the time. Once again, Lily had shyly crawled back into her shell. Even Barry, dressed in his Scouting regalia, couldn’t seem to tempt her to join him on the grass. So he scrambled up the ladder, sitting next to her.
Bronte’s enthusiasm drained from her, leaving her limbs clumsy and heavy as she descended the rickety steps and circled the house. What must Lily be thinking? That Bronte had invited all these strangers to the house? Too late, Bronte realized that most of the workers were men. To be surrounded by a sea of people she didn’t know—especially those of the opposite sex—must be overwhelming to her. But thankfully, Barry seemed to know what to say because Bronte saw her daughter’s lips tip in a shy smile. Maybe she needed a friend right now, rather than a mother.
Sighing, Bronte rounded the house, then came to a standstill. She’d guessed that the cement truck had been brought in to replace the front steps, but what she hadn’t foreseen was the complete overhaul that was being made.
The entire front porch had been removed, the roof above supported by a network of two-by-fours temporarily nailed to the wall and stakes pounded into the ground. Everything else had been dismantled to make way for a much wider staircase, a sitting area, and a wheelchair ramp. Even as she watched, a thick stream of concrete was being pumped into molds made of plywood and two-by-fours.
Jace was carefully overseeing the process while Elam and a younger, more mischievous version of Jace smoothed it into place with shovels. Was that Brodey … no, Bodey?
Jace must have sensed her regard because he turned, then grinned at her. And that smile—that damned, no-holds-barred smile—caused a stampede of butterflies to take wing in her stomach. Sinking his shovel into a pile of concrete, he walked toward her, sweeping the hat from his head and wiping at the moisture beading his brow before replacing it again.
“Hey, there.”
Her knees grew weak at the warmth of his tone. There was something … intimate about his greeting. As if the two of them shared a secret that no one around them would ever know.
What had she done after she’d fallen asleep?
“Hi.”
“Did you sleep well?”
She nervously folded her arms, one hand casually straying toward her hair to make sure that it hadn’t escaped from the braid.
“Yeah. Yeah, I did. Thanks.”
He was looking at her closely, his eyes rich with warmth and a spark of something more. Bronte braced herself, sure that he was about to let her know how much she’d embarrassed herself by falling asleep and then … what? Had she snored? Drooled?
Dear sweet heaven above, she hadn’t grabbed him, had she?
“What do you think?”
It took her a second to realize he wasn’t referring to last night at all, but to the new stoop.
“You really shouldn’t have, Jace—”
“You don’t like it?”
“No. Yes!” She gazed at the project and could already envision what it would look like finished. Not only would it be safer for Annie to negotiate, but there would be room for chairs and a table so that her grandmother could come outside and enjoy the sunshine. “I think it’s … fantastic! I just …” She bit her lip and said truthfully, “I don’t know how I’m ever going to repay everyone for all they’ve done.”
Jace laughed. “You don’t have to do a thing, Bronte. Folks have been wanting to help Annie for years, but she wouldn’t hear of any of us stepping in to lend her a hand when, in her words: ‘There were other folk needing it more.’” Little lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. “Everyone figured they could blame you if Annie got mad, so it wasn’t hard for the folks in charge to get a few people to come help.”
“A few? There’s probably fifty people here.”
Jace nodded, his own gaze sweeping over several groups of Scouts pulling weeds, giggling girls scraping and painting the wooden trim around the windows, and the clusters of men shouting and hammering on the roof as loose shingles were removed and replaced.
“We wouldn’t have had nearly so many if it weren’t for you.”
Her brows rose. “Me?”
He nodded imperceptibly to a spot behind her and she twisted to find Kari glaring in their direction.
A wave of guilt washed through Bronte, dousing the warmth Jace had inspired. But that guilt was quickly submerged beneath a healthy dose of pique. Damnit, she was the adult in this situation, not Kari. She and Jace hadn’t done anything but share a kiss.
So why was Bronte feeling so defensive?
“We probably would have had only a half dozen people here if it weren’t for the rumors.”
Bronte’s head whipped away from Kari’s inspection as she was filled with a rush of horror. “What rumors?” she demanded.
Damn, damn, damn. How was it possible that a single stolen kiss could spread through a community like wildfire?
Jace leaned toward her, close enough that his breath stirred the sensitive tendrils of hair near her ear, but not close enough for Kari to think that Jace was being anything but “friendly.”
“That Annie’s beautiful granddaughter from Boston has come to visit.”
Bronte braced herself, waiting for the rest of the dire rumor. But when Jace backed away, it was clear that he had nothing more to add. Nothing but a wicked grin and an intimate sweep of her frame, head to toe, then up again.
Then he was turning back to the men directing the cement.
It took several minutes for her to realize that Jace was keeping to his promise. To anyone who watched them, he was nothing more than her friend.
She turned and hurried toward the side entrance so that she could finish the cookies. But she paused when her phone chirped in her pocket. Sighing, she retrieved it, seeing that she had a text.
Sit w/ me @ lunch?
A frisson of sensation caused gooseflesh to pebble her skin. Glancing behind her, she saw Jace striding toward his truck. He looked back at her for only a second. One hot, hot second. Then he bent over the toolbox built into the vehicle’s bed.
Bronte glanced at Kari, who had finally gone back to her chores, then the wary curve of Lily’s smile as Barry sat beside her and handed her a sticky dandelion.
She should concentrate on them. Only on them.
Even as the words popped into her head, Bronte knew it wasn’t enough. For too long, she’d focused all her energies on Phillip and
her kids. She’d starved herself of every scrap of joy, knowing that there was none to spare. But now that she’d been given a morsel of kindness—a tiny bit of hope—there were parts of her that were waking from her self-imposed stasis. As her mind and her soul returned to complete sentience, she was consumed with a raging hunger to feel.
To feel.
Happiness, joy, anger, and yes, even pain. She didn’t want to numbly stumble through life any more. For the first time in years, she wanted to make her own decisions. She wanted a house that was a home, not a museum. She wanted kids who laughed out loud, argued at the top of their lungs without fear of reprisal, and tracked dirt in from the yard. Damnit, she didn’t want a job. She wanted an education and a career.
Her fingers hovered over the glowing keypad of her phone.
Most of all, she wanted to be courageous enough to admit that friend was only a small part of the description she wanted applied to her relationship with Jace.
As soon as the thought appeared, the inner voice she’d grown to hate began its incessant nagging, telling her that she was making a mistake. It was too soon to even think about dating or even a close friendship with someone of the opposite sex. But as the familiar warnings began to flood her head, her fingers were already flying over the illuminated letters.
Is that good idea?
Seconds later, she had her response.
I’ll B friendly.
Bronte laughed out loud.
CU there.
ELEVEN
BRONTE had no time to wonder if she were playing with fire. As soon as she stepped into the kitchen, the buzzer on the oven rang. She quickly checked on the biscuits, taking the pans from the oven and replacing them with a sheet tray of cookies.
“Those look wonderful,” P.D. remarked as she leaned close to inhale the heady combined scents.
“When they’re cool, I’ll put another layer of glaze on top. If I’d had more than a single orange, I would have used fresh-squeezed juice for the glaze. But these will do.”
“Yum. And the cookies?”
“Oatmeal raisin. Normally, I’d freeze the dough in a log and slice off pieces to bake.” Bronte grinned. “When we were kids and Annie made these, the dough would rarely make it to the oven. We would sneak into the kitchen and cut off hunks of frozen dough and eat it raw.”
