“Are you mad at him?”
Was Cody really as innocent as he sounded? Or was this all an elaborate ploy to prod her into doing what she’d been putting off for days?
“I wish you and Pete would be friends again.”
“All right then. Enough is enough!” Patsy shook her head. “Are you sure Pete Roberts called me an apple?”
“Yes, and of all the fruits, that’s my favorite one. Except for oranges. And watermelons. And also peaches.”
Sighing, Patsy walked over to the tea area, where the women were already gathering for the meeting. She took down one of the two antique teacup sets that Pete had given her to replace those he’d broken when he first moved in next door. After filling the cup with tea, milk, and sugar, she selected two chocolate-chip cookies and put them on the saucer. Cody had followed her, nearly stepping on her heels the whole way.
Patsy swung around and poked him in the chest with a long, pink, acrylic fingernail. “You stay here.” She frowned to emphasize her point. “I will do this myself.”
“And it’s about time you did.”
Rolling her eyes, Patsy carried the teacup across the salon and out the front door. Leave it to Cody to push her into something she didn’t want to do. It might be the Christian thing to do, but forgiving a person who had wounded you deeply was just plain hard.
Worse, Pete hadn’t asked for forgiveness. That made things doubly difficult. If a person got down on bended knees and apologized and said how wrong he was and how bad he felt, then pardoning him would be a lot easier. But that shaggy ol’ bear of a man wasn’t the type to say he was sorry. No, he just told Cody and everyone how spiteful Patsy was being toward him, and then he stopped going to church just to rub it in even more. Now he was going around comparing her figure to an apple, of all things.
Well, she was woman enough to handle a man like Pete Roberts. No doubt about that.
Pushing open the door to Rods-N-Ends, Patsy noted that the store was empty. She groaned. If she could have left the teacup and cookies on the counter and made a speedy getaway, that would have been easier. Now she would have no choice but to speak to the man. Especially since he was coming straight toward her.
“Hello, Pete,” she said, trying not to sound snippy. “I brought you a peace offering.”
He looked her up and down and then grinned sheepishly. “This is the teacup I left for you outside your salon. I guess you read my note.”
“As a matter of fact, I did not. I was too upset. But now that I’ve had time to calm down and consider the situation, I’ve made up my mind to do what the Bible teaches. I am here to speak plainly about the problem between us and get it over with. Now, as I recall the situation last Fourth of July, I was helping Opal Jones arrange her relish tray when you marched over, grabbed my arm, dragged me across the grass to where the men were grilling pork steaks, and pushed me down into a lawn chair that immediately broke. I was mortified and humiliated and even a little bit hurt, but thank goodness for Derek Finley, who helped me out like a gentleman should. I don’t know why you treated me like you did, Pete Roberts, but I have decided to forgive you. So I do. I forgive you. There.”
Pete stared at her for a moment. “Is that in the Bible too? The forgiving part?”
“It certainly is. It’s all over the place.”
“Huh.” He scratched his chin for a minute, his fingers disappearing into that awful beard.
Patsy finally figured she’d done her part, and she’d had about enough of his dawdling. “Well, I’m heading back to the salon for the TLC meeting. See you later.”
“Hold on, now, woman. I’m from Halfway, Missouri, and I’ve only got this thing halfway figured out. You need to give a fellow time.”
She stood at the counter, tapping her nails on the glass and studying the window display, where Pete had neatly arranged a collection of wading boots, fishing nets, rods, reels, and water skis. He wasn’t dumb, so why was this confusing? If he wanted to say something, he should just get to it and let her go to the meeting.
So far, Pete hadn’t taken a sip of tea, and the chocolate chips in the cookies were melting from the heated cup. Maybe she would just pick one up and eat it while he continued the second half of his thought process.
As she lifted the cookie, Pete reached for the cup. Their hands brushed for just a second, and Patsy jerked hers away as though she’d been shocked. And in fact, she almost felt she had been. Pete Roberts was ornery, bullheaded, somewhat hard on the eyes, and maybe even a little bit mean. So why did she feel that shiver every time she got near him? The very idea that he affected her in such a way bothered Patsy half to death.
“Good tea,” Pete said, setting the cup back in the saucer after taking a sip. “Earl Grey. My favorite, of an afternoon. I prefer Irish breakfast in the morning.”
Patsy felt a smile tickle the corners of her lips. “I guess a man can learn some things after all.”
“Yep, and here’s what I have learned today. First of all, circumstances are not always what they seem. You see, on the Fourth of July, I was trying to prevent major fireworks between the two Finley women—Kim and Miranda. I figured you, being the prettiest and kindest-hearted of all the ladies in Deepwater Cove, would be the best person to intervene. Seeing as the fuses on those two women are mighty short, I was in a hurry to get you over to where they were facing off with their bowls of dip. So I hightailed it across to where you were arranging Opal’s relish dish, fetched you, dragged you back to the grills, where it was high noon between the Finley women, and set you down in the lawn chair I had recently vacated, which had already demonstrated its cracked and frayed webbing beneath my own personal backside. At which time, that chair up and tried to swallow you—an event that took away any need for defusing the conflict between the Finleys.”
Blinking in astonishment, Patsy hadn’t even managed to take a bite of the cookie as she listened to Pete. “You mean … you didn’t push me into that chair to poke fun at me?”
“Now why would I do that?”
“Why would you start up a chain saw next to my tearoom?”
“Patsy, I might tease and pester you till kingdom come, but I will never, ever do anything to embarrass you. I would swear on my honor as a gentleman, but I don’t think I qualify.”
“Well—” she considered for a moment—“that’s not what I thought happened.”
“So here’s another thing I learned today. Christians sure are different from what I first believed about them when I moved to town and started going to church.”
Feeling about as low as she’d ever been, Patsy put the uneaten cookie back on the saucer. “I don’t know what you thought, but now it’s my turn to apologize. I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you lately, Pete. I shouldn’t have quit talking to you, and I wish you would come back to church so we could go out to Aunt Mamie’s Good Food for lunch on Sundays.”
“Are you sure it’s not so you can be a fisher of men and lure me into getting born again?”
“I won’t deny that I would be very happy for you to be born again, Pete. But I really have missed talking to you and sitting with you in church. I feel awful that I ruined your good opinion of Christians.”
“Well, you did. I used to think Christians were perfect—like you. You always look all gussied up, and you’re so nice to everyone, and even when you used to take offense at my chain saws, you were always a lady about it.”
“But I’m not perfect. I never was.”
“I see that. And now I understand that Christians are just like everyone else.”
Patsy started to worry that she might cry. She had marched into Rods-N-Ends as high and mighty as a queen determined to absolve a lowly peasant for his dishonorable deed. As it turned out, she was the one in the wrong, and she felt just awful. Worse than awful.
“Christians are flawed like everyone else,” Pete said. “Except for one difference. And here’s the third thing I learned today. Christians are different because they try harder than
most folks. They read their Bible and go to church and pray and do their dead-level best to be as perfect as God wants them to be. And then when they mess up, they try to make right whatever they did wrong.”
“We do try, but we fail a lot. If you want a good example, you’d better look at Jesus and not at Christians. I love Him, but there’s a few of us I can barely tolerate.”
Pete chuckled. “I reckon you’re right on that one.”
“In this situation, you behaved better than I did, Pete. You gave me a china cup and saucer.”
“And you filled it with tea and brought it over here.”
Patsy smiled. “You’d better drink it before it gets cold.”
“You gonna sit with me in church next Sunday?”
“Only if you promise to take me to Aunt Mamie’s for chicken-fried steak afterward.”
“All right. You’ve got yourself a deal,” he said, holding out his hand.
Patsy reached out and gave it a firm shake. But before she could move away, he turned her hand over and kissed it. Beard, mustache, and warm lips brushed against her soft skin. The zing went right up Patsy’s arm and shot straight down to the tips of her toes. She gasped as Pete lifted his head and grinned.
“See you later, Patsy Pringle, the sweetest gal in eleventy-seven counties.”
Unable to speak a word, Patsy turned and fled straight back to the salon. Barely breathing, she threw open the door, stepped inside, and sank into a chair in the waiting area. This was a very bad situation for a woman who knew her mind and always spoke it. For once in her life, Patsy felt completely bamboozled.
“Did you talk to Pete?” Cody asked. He had a smudge of black paint on his cheek and a brush in his hand as he sat down beside her. “I hope you apologized for getting mad about the chair even though Pete thinks you’re as beautiful as an apple.”
“I forgave Pete, and he forgave me,” she said. “So it’s all okay now, Cody.”
“That’s good. Pete would never do anything to hurt you, because he loves you, Patsy. Everyone loves you. I think you’re the best person in the whole world … along with Brenda and Steve. And also Esther and Charlie. And Kim and Derek. And maybe some others.”
Patsy glanced across to where the young man had been working on the latest version of Jennifer Hansen. “What about that pretty girl you’ve been painting on the wall?” she asked. “That young lady must be very special to you.”
Cody studied his work. “That is a picture, Patsy,” he said. “Pictures can’t be special. They’re made out of paint, and that’s all there is to it.”
Slightly more relaxed and able to breathe again, Patsy decided it was time to make her way to the TLC meeting. Wanting to make double sure her appointment book was still clear, she stood and crossed to the front desk.
“I realize what’s on the wall is only a picture,” she told Cody as he shuffled along behind her. “But whose picture did you paint? I think she must be someone awfully important to you, because you’ve painted her at least four times. In fact, I’m pretty sure I recognize her. That young lady comes in here to get her hair trimmed.”
Cody leaned across the desk. “Don’t tell,” he whispered.
“I won’t,” Patsy whispered back. “But you’re such a good painter that one day someone besides me is going to figure out who it is.”
“Okay,” Cody said. “That’s when I’ll tell her that I love her, and I want to get married with her.”
Patsy drew closer and whispered in his ear. “She’s going to be a missionary in Africa. Even if she likes you a lot, I don’t think she’ll want to live in Deepwater Cove.”
“I don’t have to worry about that,” Cody said. “God will figure it out.”
Patsy sighed as she shut the appointment book. Why couldn’t her own faith be as simple as Cody’s? Things were always so complicated, and she got herself into such tangles. Look at how much time and energy she had wasted being furious with Pete Roberts. And his opinion of Christianity had suffered as a result.
Disappointed in herself, Patsy tidied the pamphlets she kept by the cash register. All the religious tracts and Christian music and Scriptures painted on the salon’s walls didn’t amount to a hill of beans if a person was as hard-hearted and unkind as Patsy had been.
As she turned toward the tea area, she spotted the envelope Pete had enclosed with the teacup set he’d given her during their spat. At the time, she’d been too angry to read it. She had tossed the card onto an open shelf under the desk along with some stray curlers and a can of hair spray. But now Patsy knew she had no choice but to find out what Pete had written to her. This would certainly put the icing on the cake of her own humiliation and shame.
Patsy opened the envelope and slid out a greeting card she had seen in a turning wire rack in Pete’s store. It was a photograph of a fisherman holding up a bass as long as he was—one of those silly “fixed” pictures made to look real but clearly fake. She opened the card and read the inscription: “Just wishin’ we was fishin’! I MISS YOU.”
Down at the bottom, Pete had scrawled a message. “Dear Patsy, I’m sorry you think I humiliated you on purpose at the July 4 th BBQ. I didn’t mean for that chair to break, and I hope you didn’t think folks was laughing at you. Surely you know that everyone admires you, including me most of all. In fact, I think you are sweet and kind, and let me just go ahead and say that I very much admire your—”
Here Patsy had to turn the card over to continue reading.
“—ample figure. I looked it up in the dictionary, and ample means ‘generous, full, and abundant.’ To tell you the truth, in every way I think you are ample. Love, Pete Roberts.”
Patsy lifted her head and gazed into Cody Goss’s blue eyes. “Ample,” she said.
He nodded. “I told you before. That’s what Pete called you.”
“You said apple.”
“Yes, I did. And now I’ve decided to change my mind about tea. Let’s go have some.”
Solemnly taking her hand, Cody started across the room. Patsy began to chuckle. When she caught sight of herself in a mirror at a nearby station, she paused a moment, studied her generous bosom, slightly smaller waist, and abundant hips. She decided Pete was exactly right. She was ample. Or apple. Whichever.
By the time she and Cody had filled their teacups, Patsy was giggling as she settled into the empty chair between Kim Finley and her mother-in-law.
“Well, you certainly are in a good mood,” Miranda Finley observed. “Maybe it’s because you missed Esther’s recitation of ‘old business,’ which included the lawn chair incident at the Fourth of July barbecue.”
Kim reached out and laid her hand on Patsy’s. “Esther confessed that Charlie had hauled that chair and a couple of others out of their attic. She said those lawn chairs must have been at least twenty years old.”
Patsy smiled. “Well, it gave everyone a laugh, and we all need that now and then. Pete and I talked it over. There are no hard feelings between us.”
“I doubt that I could ever forgive a man who had made a fool of me,” Miranda said. “You were lucky Luke’s diabetic crisis came right on the heels of your calamity.”
Patsy drew down a breath for fortification. She could see what Kim was up against. A tongue like Miranda’s sure could spit barbs. No wonder Pete had felt compelled to come between the two women when he saw a fight about to break out.
“I wouldn’t call my son’s crisis lucky,” Kim was saying, her voice stilted. “Luke’s condition was very serious. That wasn’t lucky. I don’t see how you can even think such a thing, Miranda.”
“Oh, I don’t believe in luck,” Patsy spoke up, leaning between them to take a sip of tea. “I think the good Lord permits everything that happens to us—and even the bad things can turn out all right in the end if we use them for His glory. Luke made it through his problem, and we all learned a lesson about how to be more watchful. And as for Pete Roberts and me, well, I would call our friendship … ample.”
CHAP
TER TWELVE
Here’s the tomato sauce,” Luke said, pushing the jar down the counter toward his grandmother. “Mr. Moore grows tarragon in his garden, and he gives us some every summer. We always put extra in our pizza sauce.”
“And we don’t buy the sauce with tomato chunks.” Lydia was unwrapping a package of pepperoni. “I hate tomato chunks.”
“We know,” Luke retorted.
“You won’t have to worry about that tonight,” Miranda told the twins. “My pizza doesn’t have tomato sauce.”
Kim turned from the refrigerator in surprise. She had been searching for the mozzarella cheese, but now she saw that Miranda had produced a shopping bag and was setting out ingredients she must have purchased earlier in the day.
Every Friday night, Kim and the twins baked homemade pizza. Since she’d been staying with them, Miranda had participated in the process of building the pizzas, and then she ate with the family. But this evening, Grandma Finley had asked to treat Kim and the twins to something special. She was going to teach them how to make Derek’s favorite meal—her unique gourmet pizza.
Miranda had spent most of the afternoon outside on the deck, meditating near the collection of items that she believed fostered spiritual enrichment—crystals, a small brass Buddha, a length of sandalwood beads, and a Native American dream catcher. When her stick of incense had burned down to ash, she came inside. Still smelling vaguely of patchouli, she wore an ankle-length turquoise cotton tunic and several silver bangles, which clanged as she began measuring ingredients into a saucepan on the stove.
“To make a good white sauce,” she was telling the twins, “you must have whole milk. And here we have cornstarch, salt, pepper, three cloves of garlic—”
“Wait a second,” Lydia cut in. “Did you say white sauce? Where do you put that?”
“Right onto the pizza crust.” Miranda waved her hand over the other ingredients, as if flourishing a magic wand. “Garlic salt, onion powder, oregano, and basil.”
“Where’s the tarragon?” Luke asked. Staring at the collection of containers on the counter, he was frowning. “I don’t get it. How can you have pizza without tomato sauce and tarragon?”
Summer Breeze Page 16
