by R. L. Syme
“Holy crap, girl. They’re really taking a left.” Emma put her finger on the window, pressing it in between two painted red hearts. “There she goes.”
I stood behind her, watching the black car turn up the road. An old, beat-up pickup pulled in behind it, headed in the same direction. Away from Saint Agnes. I watched until the black car disappeared into the canyon. “Yup. They’ll be at the stoplight in Rolo in about fifteen minutes. Teach her a lesson.”
“What lesson is that?” There was a touch of sarcasm in her bright tone. She already knew, of course. It was the same lesson everyone learned eventually.
Karma occasionally wore a clergy collar and called itself the Matchbaker. At least, it did in Saint Agnes.
Chapter Two
The lunch rush turned out to be as disappointing as the breakfast rush had been. Just Nadine Winters with a couple of the coffee ladies, a tourist family who asked for the full Matchbaker treatment—eye roll—and Peter Mayhew, parish councilman, stopping by to see whether the Ash Wednesday service had been added to the calendar.
By the time the place cleared out again, the sun was starting to peek through the silver sky. It looked like there might be a little warmth headed our way, if the Chinook stuck around. The townspeople talked about these Chinooks like they were the Eucharist. We just called them warm spells, back home.
Because of the wonderful Valentine’s Day mural, I didn’t see Leo until the bell was already ringing, which caught me off-guard. The tall, lean, dark-haired young man had been my first staff hire—an effort to catch the after-school crowd that dispersed as soon as the final bells rang at all the Saint Agnes schools. Leo Van Andel was one of the local high-school heartthrobs, and he drew quite the crowd of female admirers.
Smart marketing, that’s what I called it.
“Sorry I’m late,” Leo called out, breezing through the front door, dressed in a dark T-shirt and light jacket, looking like an Abercrombie & Fitch ad. Behind him lurked his usual companion, Austin Krantz, the quiet but deadly quarterback of the Saint Agnes high-school football team.
“You’re always late.” I smiled at him from behind the counter, then made eye contact with the fair-haired young man in thick-rimmed glasses and a black letter jacket. “Hi, Aussie.”
“Hey, Miss Vee.” He at least returned the smile this time. Austin was serious and focused, and used the afternoon to do his homework while his mother was at work. He was a good kid who, by virtue of his football status alone, kept some of the female attention off his best friend.
Leo threw his backpack somewhere in the kitchen and reemerged coatless, tying a white apron around his waist. He had thick, dark eyebrows and an easy smile. He also happened to be seriously interested in baking, and he’d recently turned eighteen, so I felt comfortable leaving him in charge when I needed to run errands.
“I have to go to the bank,” I said, taking off my own apron. “Austin, make a fresh pot if you want. Emma’s next door, if you need anything.”
“We’ve got this, Miss Vee,” Leo said, putting his thumbs behind the straps of his apron. “Oh, and if you need help prepping for the weekend, my mom said I can come in early on Friday morning.”
“You’re a doll, kid.” I grabbed my purse and pulled out the little cylinder of Febreeze I used to cover up bakery odors that clung to my clothing when I had to go out into the real world. Not everyone liked the smell of macarons like I did.
“What time on Friday?” he asked.
“Let’s make it 3 a.m.? We’ll whip up some more macarons to give you practice.” I clicked open the cash register, picked out the deposit envelope from under the drawer, then waved at both the boys. As I turned toward the exit, Austin was rinsing out the coffee pot while Leo wiped down the counters.
The little bell over the door dinged, and I looked up to find the significant wattage of a familiar James Bond smile smacking me like a hand to the face. I’d been feeling mildly guilty all afternoon, wondering on and off about how Miss Georgia and her husband had fared on the road to Rolo.
“Well, well, well,” Henry said, his face plastered with happiness. “That was a treat, if I do say so myself. Better than the macaroons.”
“Macarons,” I couldn’t help correcting. I gripped the thick strap of my purse. “Sorry. I mean. I really am sorry.”
“I’m happy to report, no one was injured in the commission of your little crime, and I had quite an enjoyable afternoon watching Scarlet implode, if I do say so myself.” He leaned on the wooden wall near the door, looking impossibly hot and—I reminded myself—indubitably married.
“At least you were entertained.” I tried to walk around him, but Henry blocked my path.
“Yes,” he said, nearly purring out the word like a predatory cat as he moved toward me. “I was…entertained.” He leaned in so close it made all the fine hairs on my neck rise, and I found myself stepping back, even though what I really needed to do was to slip past him.
“Watch out for her, man,” Leo’s voice called out from the back of the bakery, full of both warning and laughter. “She’s what you would call a vicar.”
Those perfectly-manicured eyebrows rose right on cue, and Henry stepped back, nearly into the wall. “A vicar? Really?”
“Well, I prefer ‘pastor’,” I said, tightening the grip on my purse. “Since we’re in America.” And you’re clearly not British, anyway.
“But…” Henry looked from me to Leo and back, his dark brown eyes confused and wide open. “I thought… Aren’t you the Matchbaker?”
“Part-time.” I shouldered past him, ready to be on my way. “Thanks, Leo. Bye, Austin.”
If I told him the whole story, we’d be there for hours. Even the cliff-note-version was messy and long. I preferred to leave it at: I took the job no one wanted, they would pay my student loans, and in exchange, I agreed to stay out of the papers. It wasn’t quite all that neat, but that was as neat as I could make it. Still, I would’ve rather watched paint dry than talked about home.
“Bye, Miss Vee,” Leo yelled after me as I scrambled out the door. Unfortunately, Henry didn’t take the hint, and he stepped out right behind me, his shoes scraping on the sidewalk.
“Now I’m the one who’s sorry,” he said, grabbing my arm. “Please, let me apologize. I get…” He tripped over the edge of a large rock that had also appeared, along with the mural, but kept his feet. There was now a cluster of filled-in truck tires sitting against the building between Emma’s door and my door, painted in bright colors and thick with dirt in the center. Around the edges were some large, boulder-like rocks, filling in the gaps, looking like the oddest garden I’d ever seen. I shook my head at Emma’s decorating and stopped, letting Henry walk around me before he really took a dive over the thing. I owed him.
“It’s fine, really. Leo’s just protective of me. Like a little brother.”
“No, I shouldn’t have been…looking at you…like that.” Henry stuffed his hands in his very fashionable pockets, raising his shoulders. “This afternoon with Scarlet. It just got me on edge.”
“Is your wife okay?” I asked, looking around the parking lot. “I don’t see her.”
“Wife?” Another brow-raise. “Good heavens, no. Scarlet’s not my wife.” He gave a tiny shake of his head. “Definitely not.”
I cocked my head to one side, studying him. My first impressions of people were almost never wrong, but I had been so convinced he was married, even when he wasn’t wearing a ring. Was it possible he was lying to me?
Not that it mattered. He had a plane to catch, and I was not interested in anything romantic with anyone for a long—long, long, long—time.
“She’s at this bed and breakfast we had to find,” Henry nodded back toward town. “We missed the appointment and the man I need to meet had to get a crown put on at one o’clock, so we’ll have to stay the night. Meet him tomorrow.”
A pang of regret caught me hard in the chest. “I’m so sorry for sending you to Rolo,” I said, letting
the words tumble out. “I don’t usually do things like that, but she was so—”
“Really. It’s fine,” Henry said, putting his hands out to calm me, but he didn’t make contact this time. “She is impatient on her best day. It’s part of what makes her a good agent. I wouldn’t have brought her at all if we hadn’t met with one of her director friends in Madison Falls.”
A truck drove by and the driver waved two fingers at us, the typical Montana-road greeting. I returned the gesture and Henry glanced after the vehicle.
“You know that man?”
“No.” I took the purse off my shoulder, digging for my keys. “People are just friendly around here.” I looked around the parking lot again, recognizing Leo’s old, beat-up Datsun truck, and the Tank, of course, but I didn’t see another vehicle. “Where’s your car?”
“Back at the B&B,” he said, thumbing over his shoulder. “Scarlet went down for a nap, and I needed to get out and stretch my legs.”
I glanced through the big, muraled front window of the bakery and saw Leo standing behind it, his arms crossed, staring at us. He gave me a crook of his head, like he was asking if I needed him to come out and kick some fake British butt.
Henry followed my gaze and clucked his tongue behind his teeth. “That one has got a look, as Scarlet would say.”
“A look?”
“It’s what she says right before she pounces on someone.”
“Well, that’s just gross.” I took a big step toward the Tank. “Epic gross. Leo’s only eighteen.”
“Not like that,” Henry said, laughter lining his tone. “She’d want to see if he had representation. Hand out her card. That sort of thing.” He followed me, standing near one giant front wheel while I opened the creaky door. “I really am sorry about the…” He gestured back at the mural. “I didn’t mean to hit on a vicar.”
I waved a hand, stepping one foot up into the Tank. “Don’t mention it. I’m only part-time at the church, anyway. It’s not big enough to need a full-time pastor. They barely use me fifteen hours a week.”
“You don’t strike me as the vicar type.” He took another step forward, and I hugged back against the frame of the vehicle.
“I’m sorry, but I really do have to run,” I said, inching my way up into the seat. When I finally landed in it, I reached for the door, but Henry held it. He had this look on his face…one I’d seen before. When someone needed to talk, but didn’t want to admit that need, they looked stoppered up, like a cartoon pipe holding back gushing water. A little of their desperation always leaked out onto their features. That’s how Henry looked. A little desperate, but trying to hide it.
“Well, if you have to run…” Henry released the door, but I still didn’t pull it closed.
“Do you need a ride?” I heard myself asking. “It’s pretty cold out here.”
“I forgot how cold Montana can be in February.” He lifted his shoulders, and his impeccably cut suit moved with him. “Would you mind dropping me back at the B&B?”
“Sure. I’m just on my way to the bank.” I pulled on the door and looked up to see Leo still in the painted window, joined by Austin. Both boys were shaking their heads at me in slow motion. But I still felt guilty for making Henry miss his appointment at the bank. I had to make up for it somehow.
“Great.” He settled into the passenger seat, giving me another dazzling smile. “I really do appreciate this.”
We drove through the small town, barely long enough for the Tank to fill up with Henry’s crisp, clean scent. Saint Agnes was a tourist center, on the edge of one of the country’s largest National Parks, and everything had that alpine look to it. The grand mountain vistas in the background dwarfed all the buildings, but there were moments when I thought I was in the Alps—or, rather, in a kitschy-theme-park version of the Alps—instead of in a little tourist town in Montana.
Henry pointed to the auto shop on the corner of Mockingbird Lane, and I turned. Down at the end of the street, yellow school buses had lined up, waiting to be boarded by the students.
“Is that the high school?” Henry asked, losing just a touch of his accent again.
“Yeah, although it serves the whole county now. There used to be a school in Rolo, too, but they had to close, I guess. Now, all the students from three or four towns bus in to Saint Agnes. Bedford, Rolo, Four Buttes. They call it a co-op school.”
“I’m right here,” Henry said, pointing to a Victorian-style, green-paneled home with a little sign out front that read Mockingbird Bed and Breakfast.
The black sports car with the small rental company sticker on the windshield sat in the well-manicured driveway. Neat piles of snow lined the sidewalks, and the streets had been cleared all the way to the curb. Likely by hand, given the precision of the rounded little banks.
“Thank you for the ride, Miss Vee,” he said, opening his door. “Or should I call you Vicar?”
“You can call me Vangie.” I pressed on the brake pedal and gripped the shifter, trying to ignore the little twinge of regret that he’d left my vehicle—and probably my life. Something felt unfinished, still. “And I am really sorry about sending you to Rolo.”
“No, you were right to do it.” Henry leaned down, looking effortless and breezy. “She can be horrid, on her worst days, and today was…” His brows tightened. “Well, let’s just say, she deserved it.”
“I hope things go well for you in Saint Agnes,” I said. The trick I’d pulled on Scarlet had caused Henry some grief, too, and that wasn’t what my life was supposed to be about.
I was supposed to be doing penance, not vengeance.
“Thanks, Vic,” he said with an easier smile, and all the tension released from his face. “I hope you don’t mind me calling you that. It’s short for Vicar. Somehow, Vangie just doesn’t suit you.”
A tickle of amusement bubbled up through me. I’d never been fond of the name my parents had chosen for me. Evangeline, like they were branding me for the mission field. I’d chosen urban ministry over foreign ministry, and preferred Vangie to Evangeline and whiskey to wine. I excelled at letting my parents down.
“I’ll answer to it,” I said, still not shifting the car into drive.
“Look. Vic…” He paused and I somehow, I knew what was coming. This man had something on his mind. “What are you doing for dinner tonight?”
“Probably reading sermons and watching Sherlock.”
“Would you have an hour or so to chat with me? I’ll pay for the meal.”
The words set off a little warning bell in my head. Typically, I didn’t make a habit of doing pastoral counseling one-on-one in restaurants. But being in the same room, alone, with him…that wasn’t safe, either. He was too…handsome? Charming?
No.
Smooth.
But dinner was the least I could do. It was my fault Henry and Scarlet were stuck in town for the night. So when I pulled up in front of the Rocky Mountain Bank, I had a phone number in my pocket for one Henry Savage, and a promise he’d walk back to the Matchbakery without a coat, again, if I didn’t call.
I walked into the bright lobby of the hometown bank, envelope in hand. Austin’s mother, Nikki Krantz, glanced up from her teller counter and motioned me forward. Our daily ritual.
The woman was straight-up beautiful—the kind of stunner who drew your eye from across the room. I’d never met Austin’s father, Auggie Krantz, who had been killed in action years ago, but there was something to the adage that beautiful parents made beautiful children.
I placed the envelope on the plastic pad emblazoned with the bank’s logo and smiled at Nikki. “How are you today?”
Nikki Krantz didn’t answer me, clearly focused on her task. With elegant fingers, she began to sort the checks and count the cash, and her mouth drew into a thin line.
“Have you heard?” said a voice from the next half-boxed, half-private counter. A pretty young blonde with a loose, low bun hovered over the top of Nikki’s space. “Henry Savage is in town!”
My breath slowed almost to a dead stop. I tried not to let any emotion show on my face, but the little blonde’s eyes flashed when she spied interest.
Nikki shook her head with a tiny exasperated sigh. “Tessa, you made me lose count.” The words were just clipped enough to get the other teller to back up, but Tessa’s didn’t stray from me.
“I saw him in the bank, here, myself.” Her brows accentuated the myself and she looked around, carefully sneaking the edge of a smartphone over the top of the counter. “Don’t tell anyone, but I got a picture of him and that woman.”
“Which woman?” I asked, trying to remember if Henry said he’d dropped Scarlet off before or after they went to the bank. Not that it would have mattered… Nikki looked up with another sigh. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to make you lose count again.”
“No, you’re fine,” the teller said, moving to the side counter so she could tap the pile of checks back into order. “It’s been a tizzy in here, I’m afraid.”
“I’m gonna put it on Instagram. Hashtag hottie,” Tessa whispered to me, drawing her lips to one side. “If Nikki and I hadn’t switched lunch breaks, I would have followed him and gotten his autograph.”
“Wait,” I said with a shake of my head. “Autograph?” I’d guessed he was some sort of actor, but famous was a whole different ball of beans.
“Of course.” The blonde smirked with a roll of her eyes. “I love him in that TV show. The Western one, with all the pelts. He’s like a fur trader or something.”
“Oh, for Lord’s sake,” Nikki said, slapping her hand over the checks. “Tessa, will you just shut up?” She offered a consoling look to me. “I’m so sorry about that, Pastor Vale. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, no. It’s fine.” I raised my hands apologetically. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve said much worse.”
“Still. I don’t like to say those things.” The dark-haired beauty glared at the young woman at the next booth until Tessa slid off her stool and walked over to the little cluster of staff standing next to the drive-through banking tubes. “They have no sense of decorum.”
