From Scratch

by C. E. Hilbert

  He slid a chair away from the table and slowly lowered his long body onto the seat. Leaning back, his arms casually draped across his legs, he waited.

  She dropped her focus to the mosaic table top and traced the tiny lines of grout holding the intricate picture together. Her mind raced as she tried to develop a story. Something to appease the questions she could feel brewing behind his focused, police-worthy stare. She should be better at it now, creating new stories. She had been telling stories for most of her adult life. Her finger stopped following the pattern, and she leaned back in her chair, matching his pose.

  Shifting forward in his seat, he rested his elbows on the table. “Do you have any idea who would want to break in to the bakery?”

  A flash of thick glasses and a twisted grin shot through her mind. She hugged herself tight, shook her head in the negative, while her heart screamed, “Yes!” She shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe someone was super hungry and couldn’t wait until I opened?”

  A grin lifted Sean’s lips and deepened his left cheek dimple. “I haven’t had much of your baking, not being your favorite person and all, but I can’t imagine committing a crime for a loaf of bread or a muffin.”

  “Jean Valjean did.”

  “Who?”

  “Jean Valjean, Les Miserables, the Hugo novel? They turned it into a musical and a movie and it won all kinds of awards?”

  “Not much of a musical theater guy.” He shook his head and winked.

  “Oh.” Biting her lip, she tried to think of a reason to kick him out. She needed time alone. Time to review her plan. Strategizing and scenarios would grant her the peace she required. “Guess you have a busy day tomorrow?”

  He nodded and again with the furrowed brow. She was tempted to offer him advice on an anti-wrinkle cream she just discovered. At this rate, he would need a vat of the stuff before he reached his next birthday.

  “I don’t want to keep you.” She moved to stand.

  He reached out his hand to stop her. “Maggie, I would like to clear the air.”

  A bubble of panic seemed to expand to dome-size, causing her breaths to shift from slow and steady to a short staccato rhythm. Clear the air? She relied heavily on her air being just a bit foggy. “What do you mean?”

  “You and me.”

  At warp speed, her panic bubble burst as her resident swarm of butterflies dive bombed her stomach. “You and me?”

  Releasing her wrist, he lifted his hand to his neck, kneading it as if he was trying to press the air out of a batch of twelve grain bread. “Well…what I mean is that you and I, we don’t seem to get along very well.”

  A subtle, soft mist of sweet calm washed over her.

  He wanted to talk about their business relationship.

  She relaxed against the back of her chair. “You could say we don’t always see eye-to-eye. Sometimes you make me a little, what’s the right word, angry?”

  “Just a little bit.” His smile stretched into his eyes, again deepening the dimple in his cheek. “How about we start from scratch? Truce?” He extended his hand to her and waited.

  She fought against the tremor of delight that shimmered through her as his strong fingers wrapped around her hand. In his warm grasp, her hand felt tiny, as if he could crush every bone with the slightest squeeze. And yet, with the simple touch, she felt his protective strength race through her. This was a man who protected women. She had almost forgotten about his species.

  “Truce,” she said, lifting her gaze to meet his. Those chocolate brown eyes melted the last block of the wall of ice she raised around her heart, a makeshift fortress against her attraction to him. She was in trouble.

  His grin deepened. He released her hand and stretched his long legs under the table, linking his fingers at his waist. “It’ll be nice not to have to drive to a fast food joint every morning to get my coffee.”

  She stood and moved to the display case, breathing deeply, thankful for the separation a few steps gave. “You go to a drive-through every morning instead of buying a cup coffee from me? Now I am offended.” She slid open the door to retrieve the plate of salted caramel brownies, the last dessert standing in the refrigerator case, forgotten with his arrival an hour earlier.

  With her free hand, she shifted a French press under the hot water tap attached to an elaborate coffee and espresso machine, and flipped the lever to a slow stream. With a plop, the ground coffee settled on top of the water and she stirred. She placed a brownie on each of two small plates. Balancing the plates and forks in one hand and the French press and mugs in the other, she crossed the half-dozen steps to the table and set the coffee in the center.

  “The coffee will take a couple more minutes to brew, but then it will go perfectly with these.”

  Placing one brownie in front of Sean, she slid onto her seat, the other decadent dessert wooing her. She pressed the tines of her fork into the soft gooey texture. With the small bite of brownie, her eyes closed as the symphony of sweet and salty flavor melted over her tongue and reminded her of why she selected pastry arts over savory cuisine. “Mmmm.” Everything was better with a little chocolate and caramel. She opened her eyes and stared straight into wide, dark brown ones. She could feel her cheeks grow warm. “Sorry. I really like brownies.”

  “I guess.”

  She reached for the French press and swallowed against the thickness in her throat that had little to do with the brownie. With a hiss of air, she lowered the plunger filling the small area with the delicate aroma of the dark roast. Pouring coffee into each of the cups, she handed one to Sean, before picking up her own and leaning back in her chair.

  He lifted the mug to his mouth, taking a tentative sip. A deep sigh escaped his lips. “Amazing.”

  “No more drive-through coffee, agreed?”

  “Agreed.” He took another deep drink, and then set the cup beside his plate. Grabbing his fork, he drove it into the brownie and shoved a bit into his mouth. A slow smile stretched across his lips. “Awesome,” he said. “Simply, awesome.” He pointed to the brownie with his fork. “What do you put in these things?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Just chocolate and some caramel.”

  “That’s a straightforward lie. You must get some special ingredient from heaven because this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. And that’s saying something, since my mom used to own this place.”

  “Your mom owned this place? I thought this was just a building you and your brothers owned together.”

  “She was the last one to have a bakery here. I’m surprised someone in town hasn’t mentioned it to you.”

  “They may have tried, but I usually change the subject or find another room to be in when you or your family becomes the topic of conversation.” She lifted her coffee cup and drank deeply, averting her gaze.

  He chuckled, “That bad, huh?”

  Flush burned her cheeks. “Sorry. I know it’s a sin to be angry, so I just tried to avoid sinning too much.”

  “Well, I’m glad we called a truce then. I wouldn’t want to be the source of your daily confession to Jesus.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Well, you are sitting in what used to be Taylor’s. Just one word. My mom wasn’t big on fancy. She always said if people in this town didn’t know who the Taylor was or that she baked, then they weren’t from Gibson’s Run. When my dad died, Mom was all alone with three boys. I was twelve and Joey was only five. We were both too young to do much. Mac was sixteen and tried to keep the farm going, but she knew it was a futile battle. She tried to sell the farm land to Henry Grey, your friend Jane’s dad, but he refused. He didn’t want us to lose our ‘legacy’. Instead, he leased the land from my mom.

  That money was enough for her to buy this building and a small house in town. She rented out the upstairs apartment and went to work doing the only thing she ever truly loved doing, besides being a mother. She worked six days a week in the bakery, from the time I was thirteen years old, until the cancer made it impossible.
Closing the store was the hardest thing my brothers and I had to do after her death. It was like losing her and Dad all over again.”

  Maggie stretched across the table and brushed her fingers across his hand. “I am so sorry, Sean. I had no idea.” She glanced around the shop. “This was your mom’s bakery? Huh. I figured it was a little café or coffee shop or something. I just thought I was super blessed to have the industrial mixer and dishwasher already in place.”

  “We’ve had a few cafés try to start up in the space over the last ten years, but nothing has lasted more than a few months. We’ve never had any problems renting out the other spaces, but then again, we were more flexible with what we would let go into them. Mac, Joey and I always said this needed to be a bakery. That’s what mom would’ve wanted. But it’s kind of hard to find bakers who want to locate in Gibson’s Run.” The corners drew up on his mouth. “Then you came along.”

  She sighed and withdrew her hand. “Then I came along.”

  ~*~

  Through the high-performance wide-angle zoom he could see her stuff a curl behind her ear. The rapid-fire click-click-click of the camera was the only sound in the tiny car. Her hair was different, but he would fix it. Once he had her back where she belonged, he would fix everything. The hair, though irritating, was a minor inconvenience. He lowered the camera from his face and could almost hear her laugh. The musical quality of it had transfixed him when he first met her nearly a decade earlier.

  That stupid cop was laughing through whatever mundane story she was feeding to him.

  His hands tightened against the lens. He would teach her that she couldn’t talk to other men like that, igniting their lust. But he would be fair.

  She would have her lessons, and if she resisted she would have to suffer the pain of her sin. There were always consequences when one sinned. She would eventually bend to his will. Women were supposed to submit to their mates, God ordained it. Once she learned how to be obedient, they would be happy together. God sent her to him. She was meant for him.

  He set the camera on the console and twisted, lifting a three-ring binder from the passenger seat of his rented car. He gently turned the plastic covered pages filled with pictures of her, his Mary Margaret.

  He hated that she called herself Maggie now, such a common name.

  Who was Maggie? Did Maggie sing like an angel or listen to him as if his words came directly from God? No. No, Maggie lived in this backward town, in a backward state in the Midwest. Maggie dressed in a tent and looked as if she belonged in a refugee camp. His Mary Margaret was a lady. She was a beautiful vision from God. She belonged to him. He would just have to remind her. God had given her to him, until parted by death. She would learn that they were forever; he just had to teach her the proper lesson.

  Patience. Good things came to those who wait.

  And Mary Margaret was a very good thing.

  3

  The following morning, Sean walked into the station and found the other officer on duty already at his post; with his feet propped up on his desk, he snored like a bear in hibernation.

  Alvin Murray was an OK guy, but he was the kind of cop that required Sean to be on duty simultaneously. Alvin had been counting down the days until he could cash in his retirement benefit check and move to his houseboat on Buckeye Lake since a week after graduating the academy. On Alvin’s best days, protecting and serving the residents of Gibson’s Run was an afterthought. Thankfully, the town didn’t require any real police work beyond the occasional traffic ticket.

  The door clicked closed behind Sean. Crossing the four steps from the main entrance to Alvin’s desk in two seconds, he set two cups of coffee and a bag of muffins from Only the Basics on the paper-strewn surface.

  Alvin’s response was a snort and a soft whistle through his lips.

  Should I wake him? He looks awfully peaceful.

  The ring of the main phone line interrupted his thoughts. He glanced at his deputy.

  Alvin didn’t budge.

  Sean reached across the desk to answer the phone. “Police.”

  “Hello. Chief, it’s Sissy Jenkins.”

  Sean knocked Alvin’s feet off the desk with a thump and rested his hip against the now open space.

  The deputy rubbed his face with the back of his sausage-fingered hand and scratched his belly as he looked at Sean.

  Sean rolled his eyes, focusing his attention on the caller. “How’s it going, Sissy?”

  “Well, Chief, I’m a little worried.” Of course, Sissy was worried. She was born worried. At least once a day she called to inform him of her latest worry. He always felt as if Sissy should have business cards created: World’s Biggest Worrier—will worry for you, about you, with you, and because of you—free of charge.

  “What is it that’s got you worried?” Today.

  “Well, there’s been a strange car parked down the street all morning.”

  “All morning, you say?” Sean looked over the stack of reports sitting in Alvin’s in-box and found two on top that had little more than the date typed. He slid the reports across the desk to Alvin, who was sipping from one of the cups of coffee, and lifted an eyebrow.

  Alvin rubbed his hair and sniffed at the coffee’s lid.

  Sissy chattered in his ear. “Why yes, Chief. There’s been a gold foreign sedan with Maryland plates parked a block up the street for over an hour.”

  Sean closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not sure that an hour is really something to get worried about, Sis.” Opening his eyes, he glanced at the disarray of papers. He shuffled them and spied a complaint filed by Sissy a week earlier. He yanked the paper from the pile, snatched a pen out of the Merry Christmas Dad mug, drew a large question mark on the top of the page, and shoved it in front of his deputy.

  Alvin sucked in a mouthful of coffee with a shrug of his shoulders and turned to boot up his computer.

  Dropping the report back into the pile, Sean rubbed the base of his neck. He could feel a headache building. Maybe he was allergic to Sissy Jenkins. He seemed to get a headache every time she filed a citizen’s complaint. Listening to Sissy was similar to sitting through his high school World History class—he knew the words coming from her mouth were important, but every last one of them ran in one ear and out the other.

  She prattled on for countless minutes. And then there was a pause, just the sound of her breath coming through the phone.

  Aww, man. She’s waiting for me to say something. What was she even talking about?

  He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. What did you just say?”

  Sean could almost feel the heat of the Sissy’s sigh before she rewound her soliloquy. “What I was saying, Chief Taylor, is that I filed a complaint last week about the very same automobile. It was parked across the street all night last Sunday evening and I saw it two weeks ago for two days straight just sitting in the parking lot of the bank.”

  Sean shifted on the desk and looked out the large picture window overlooking Main Street toward the bank. “Did you ever think that someone may have moved to Gibson’s Run from Maryland?”

  “Well, I would know if someone moved to town.”

  “Yeah, I guess you would.” He puffed out a breath. “Maybe this person is on an extended visit with someone who lives on your street?”

  “Chief, I am not an alarmist, but I do keep track of what is going on in my neighborhood. Trust me, if someone was visiting from out of state I would know about it.”

  Sean thought he heard the faint tinkle of drapery hooks in the background. “I’m sure you would.”

  “Chief, I do not like your tone of voice. You forget I was friends with your mother. She would be very disappointed knowing you are treating me like this.”

  The mother card always worked on Sean. “Sissy, I’ll send Officer Murray over as soon as we get off the phone. He can take your statement and check out the car. How’ll that be?”

  “Well, I guess it’s better than nothing. Sean,
I am not crazy. There is something not right about that car. If you have a pen and paper I can give you the license number right now.”

  “Alvin will be over in fifteen minutes. He can get all of the details then. We’ll keep all of the important information together that way. OK?”

  “I guess that’ll do. I just know something is amiss.”

  He drew in a long breath. “I believe you. We’ll look into it. Have a good day.” Sean hung up the phone before Sissy could discover something else she wanted to share.

  Sissy Jenkins was a kind enough woman, but she accounted for nearly fifty percent of the paperwork at the police station.

  “Alvin. Sissy Jenkins is seeing some suspicious behavior in her neighborhood. I need you to go over and take her statement.”

  Alvin swiveled his chair and faced Sean. “Seriously? I have a stack of paperwork to get through. Can’t you go take her statement?”

  “Nope. You volunteered yourself when you were taking a nap this morning.”

  Alvin released a long sigh and thrust himself away from his computer, the wheels of his chair wobbled as they spun. He yanked his city-issued, deep blue windbreaker off the hook. He thrust his arms in the sleeves, and the GRPD embroidered above the chest pocket threatened to pop threads as he tried to zip up the front. Failing, he glared at Sean. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you just like giving me stupid work.”

  “If you didn’t fall asleep at the office, you wouldn’t volunteer yourself so often. Have fun.”

  Alvin jerked open the door and stomped away without a word.

  Sean couldn’t suppress the pull of his lips as he watched Alvin wriggle behind the wheel of one of two GRPD police cruisers. Turning his back to the window, he nudged open his office door with his foot, and quickly scanned the tidy contents of his desk. The in-box was empty. His pen holder held seven black ink pens and a monogrammed coffee cup rested on a cork coaster. Dropping the bag of muffins in the center of his desk, he gulped a quarter of his coffee before swapping the ceramic mug with his to-go cup from the bakery.