by Lexi Eddings
Seth signaled to Lester, who was ambling toward their booth, order pad in hand. “We’ll have three hot fudge sundaes. You want coffee, too?” he asked Angie.
She shook her head.
“Water all around, then, I reckon,” Lester said as he wrote down their order.
“Lester Scott, you don’t need a notepad to remember three sundaes,” came a voice from a barstool near the kitchen. The quavering tones belonged to Ethel Ringwald, the geriatric wonder who’d been the sole waitress at the Green Apple Grill for years until Lester joined the staff. Now that she had an underling to boss around and the leisure to sit and rest her feet while she did it, Ethel was feeling fine as frog’s hair.
“I just want to make sure I get the order right, Miss Ethel,” Lester said.
“If you want to get it right, you don’t ask them do they want coffee. Everybody wants coffee, so just bring it to ’em. And tell that handsome Seth Parker I think he wants a piece of blueberry cobbler, too,” Ethel said loudly. “Winter’s comin’. That tall drink of water needs to weatherboard up a bit.”
Seth might not be as sophisticated as Peter, but he was definitely the sort of man women noticed. No matter what their age.
Ethel was right. Seth was handsome. And tall. And . . .
Not for me. So not for me.
Lester turned back to Seth and said in a whisper, “Have the cobbler, man, or she’ll be all over my a—” He noticed Riley watching him intently and quickly amended, “my back. She’ll be all over my back.”
“Sure, Lester. Don’t want you to get in trouble,” Seth said. “Bring me some cobbler, too.”
“Thanks, man.” Lester slapped a hand on Seth’s shoulder and then headed back to the kitchen to relay the order to the cook. Jake Tyler, the owner of the Green Apple, was still in culinary school in Boston, so his sister Laura was working the grill and baking the cobbler these days.
“You didn’t come here for cobbler. Are you always so easily led?” Angie asked.
“I’ve learned not to sweat the small stuff. If it’ll help Lester out, a bite or two of cobbler won’t hurt me.”
“That must be how Heather roped you into doing the pageant. She told you a little civic duty wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Naw. She didn’t have to twist my arm very far because I don’t mind doing my bit where I can,” Seth said. “Are you still grousing about being drafted for it? If you’re so bent up about directing the pageant, call Heather and tell her you don’t want to do it. Otherwise, give it a rest, would you?”
Angie flinched. Had she really been complaining that much? She didn’t think so, but at least his curt words meant she didn’t have to worry that Seth was interested in her. Because if he was, he’d just proved he was the worst boyfriend material in the world.
Besides, it wasn’t the pageant she minded so much. It was spending all this time with him. Couldn’t he see how uncomfortable he made her? Since she didn’t much like his tone, she turned to the six-year-old between them.
“So, Riley,” Angie said, “how do you like school?”
“I dunno. I wonder how I can like it my own self sometimes,” came the quick reply. “My teacher makes me sit still a lot. Did you like school, cousin?”
“It was okay,” Seth said.
“But you didn’t like it much,” the six-year-old observed shrewdly.
“He did his best and got an education. He graduated.” Angie had to promote the value of school no matter what Seth might have felt about it. “That’s the important thing.”
“Well, I almost didn’t graduate,” Seth admitted. “Not officially anyway.”
“What happened?” Riley asked.
“Well, there I was at my graduation ceremony and my name was called so I was supposed to go up on the stage and get my diploma. But when I got there, Mr. Whittle—he was the principal back then, too. He’s been at Coldwater High since the Flood,” he added as a quick aside to Angie. “Anyway, he couldn’t find a diploma with my name on it. So he tried to hand me a blank one.”
“That is not good,” Riley said with a solemn shake of her head. “Almost as bad as getting a frowny face on your paper. Or a note sent home to your mom when you weren’t doing nothing. Much.”
“A blank diploma is pretty worthless,” Angie agreed.
“That’s what I thought.” Seth’s easy smile almost made her forget the setdown he’d just given her. “Anyway, Mr. Whittle whispered to me that I should go on back to my seat. They’d find my diploma and mail it to me later. In the meantime, everyone in the auditorium was getting all antsy, waiting for me to take the blank paper he was trying to hand me.”
“What did you do?” Angie asked.
“I said, loud enough for folks in the last row to hear me, ‘No, sir, Mr. Whittle. I earned a diploma with my name on it and I’m not leaving this stage till you give me one.’ ”
Angie chuckled, imagining her boss with his cheeks like flame and his eyes all bugged out. “Bet that went over.”
“Like a lead balloon,” he said. “But since Mr. Whittle could see that I meant it, everyone on stage started combing through the stack of diplomas on the table. I finally found the one with my name on it and waved it in the air.”
Riley giggled and waved her own hands in imitation of Seth’s triumph.
“Well, everybody in the auditorium started clapping and hooting and before you know it, I got myself a standing ovation,” Seth said with a self-satisfied nod. “I may not have been the valedictorian, but I’m the one who made the front page of the Coldwater Gazette.”
“Don’t break your arm trying to pat your own back,” Angie said. “It’s pretty easy to make the Gazette. All you have to do is be the first person to see a robin in the spring, you know.”
“Hey, it was my fifteen seconds of fame,” Seth said. “You can’t take it away from me.”
“It’s not nice to take stuff.” Riley’s grin suddenly flattened and her face crumpled in a worried frown. “Somebody taked my dad away from me.”
Seth sobered in an instant. “What’s that about your dad?”
The child shot him a quick look and then pulled her knees up to her chest. “I don’t know where him is. Him and Ethan been gone a couple of days. Ethan, that’s my brother and he’s ten,” she explained to Angie. “He’s kind of a poopy-head most of the time, but he’s my poopy-head. I wanna know where he is.”
Angie’s gut felt suddenly hollow. She knew something of what Riley was going through. This was eerily like the time when one couple in her long string of foster parents split up. One day, she had an older foster brother who alternately played with her or tormented her, and the next, the boy and the man who served as their foster father were simply gone. She never learned what became of either of them. Thirty days later, her overwhelmed foster mom had shuffled her back into the system, where she waited in the county group home to be farmed out to a new family.
Again.
She was suddenly expected to call another set of strangers “Mom” and “Dad.”
Again.
Angie looked back at Riley, who was studying her knees with absorption. The girl’s bottom lip trembled. Riley’s family was disintegrating, just as Angie’s foster family had, and she didn’t understand what was happening.
Children can’t be expected to take this kind of punch to the heart. And a dissolving relationship is no picnic for the adults involved either.
No wonder the normally pulled-together Crystal Addleberry had seemed rattled.
Angie met Seth’s gaze. Change the subject, she mouthed to him. She couldn’t bear to see Riley upset. The child had no control over what the adults in her life did, but she probably secretly blamed herself for the family’s crumbling.
Angie always did.
Seth dutifully changed the subject, talking to his little cousin about what she wanted for Christmas. He soon had Riley giggling and trying to figure out how he did a little finger play.
“This is the church,” he said as h
e clasped his big hands together with his fingers laced so they were tucked inside. Riley followed suit. Almost. Her fingers lay across the backs of her small hands.
“This is the steeple.” He made a point with his index fingers. Riley did, too. “Open the doors and see all the people.” Seth turned his hands over to show his palms and there were all his other fingers lined up like folks in their pews.
Riley tried to do the same, but because she had clasped her hands wrong and her fingers were on the outside, there were no “people” in her little church. She stared at her hands in puzzlement for a moment. Then her mouth formed a perfect “oh!”
“I know what’s wrong,” she said. “It must be Saturday.”
“Must be,” Seth said with a laugh. Then he hugged Riley and the little girl snuggled into his embrace.
He’s really good with children.
This could be a very attractive quality in a man. But it wasn’t for her. Angie never planned to have any kids. Why bring a child into the world if there was a chance you might leave it?
Then Lester came back with their treats and for a blessed little while, all hurts and disappointments were forgotten, or at least submerged for a bit in a swirl of gooey hot fudge and homemade vanilla.
Angie was glad Seth had insisted she have some ice cream, too. It was always tough when memories from her childhood bubbled to the surface. She needed the treat as much as Riley did.
They passed a pleasant hour eating their ice cream and doodling on the paper place mats Lester delivered too late to be used under their ice cream bowls. Riley drew a picture of a lopsided star and gave it to Angie.
“If you hang my picture on the foot of your bed,” Riley told her, “you can look at it while you’re sleeping.”
When Lester brought out the blueberry cobbler, he included three spoons and they all dived in. When the last of the cobbler was just a memory and a blue stain on Riley’s collar, Seth declared it was time to take his little cousin back to her mom.
There were no lights on in the administration building and when Seth tried the door, it was locked.
“Well, little one,” Seth said when he climbed back into the cab of the pickup. “Looks like somebody gets to go see their grandma.”
Riley swiveled on the seat between them. “Is it you, Miss Holloway? Do you get to go see your nana?”
“No,” she said softly. “I don’t have a nana.”
“That’s okay,” Riley said, patting her on the forearm. “You can use mine.”
Chapter 15
It’s hard to say what tears a couple apart. It’s not always something big. Sometimes it’s the constant drip of little things that wears out a relationship. A single leak can crack the strongest foundation if you ignore it long enough.
—Seth Parker, who wasn’t all that surprised
about Crystal and Noah’s breakup
Seth tried to keep the conversation light as they bumped around town in his truck, but it wasn’t easy. Riley was understandably upset that her mother wasn’t where she was supposed to be, and Angela was alternately cheerful toward his little cousin and grumpy toward him. He probably shouldn’t have come down so hard on her at the Green Apple, but honestly, he couldn’t take the way she sometimes turned negative all of a sudden.
And he never knew when she’d take a turn either. Angela Holloway was the most unpredictable person he’d ever met.
When they reached the Evanses’ home, they discovered his uncle George puttering around in the front yard. The old gentleman dropped to one knee to welcome his granddaughter, who scrambled out of the truck and zipped into his arms like a dart into a bull’s-eye.
Seth felt a little less sorry for the child. Riley might be about to lose her father, or at least not have him in the same house, but she wasn’t short of adults who cared about her. She had her mom, or would have once Crystal found her footing again. Seth had never seen his cousin so shaken.
Now he knew why.
But George and Shirley Evans were the best of grandparents, so Riley would be okay. Seth promised himself he’d start looking in on her and her brother Ethan. He figured wherever Noah had taken the boy, he’d be bringing him back soon. Noah had never been all that present in his kids’ lives, according to Crystal, but Seth wasn’t sure her take on things was unbiased.
Unless Crystal and Noah could find a way to mend their fences, things were likely to get worse for them and their kids before they got better. Taking Ethan smacked of a preliminary move in a custody battle that would shatter the kids.
Seth hated the whole idea of divorce. Like the Bugtussles, his parents “didn’t hold to it.” His dad had often claimed folks got divorced over things he and Seth’s mom wrangled about with regularity. Commitment to the relationship trumped everything else and they found ways to work out their disagreements.
It was respect for the institution of marriage that had kept Seth from getting too serious with any of the women he’d dated. There was a reason they called it wedlock. And a life sentence in an unhappy one was a long, long time.
But it seemed to work for his folks, and for his uncle George and aunt Shirley, so maybe there was hope.
“What are you up to today, Uncle George?” Seth asked, as much to get a fresh set of thoughts as anything.
“I’m setting a few squirrel traps.” He picked up a cage-like contraption and positioned it under one of the hundred-year-old oaks that dotted his front lawn.
“My uncle has been fighting the War of Squirrel Insurgency since I was a kid,” Seth said to Angie, softly enough so that his uncle couldn’t hear.
With a puzzled expression, Angie mouthed, War of Squirrel Insurgency? back to him.
“That’s what he calls it.”
“The darn things rip off twigs from my oak trees and throw them everywhere just for the heck of it,” George complained as he bent to scoop up a handful of twigs.
“Is that legal? To set traps in town, I mean?” Angie asked. “Not to mention cruel,” she muttered softly to Seth.
“There’s nothing cruel about these traps.” Evidently, George’s hearing was sharper than Seth figured. “These are the catch and release kind. I figure I’ll take the varmints I catch up into the Ouachitas and release them into the hills.”
Coldwater Cove was almost encircled by an ancient mountain range that had eroded over the years into softly rolling green peaks.
“Besides,” Seth said, “I’ll bet Aunt Shirley would never let you tan the hides anyway.”
“True, though I tried to convince her that a few hides tacked up on the side of the garage might be a deterrent to the wily little bas—devils,” he quickly amended, remembering Riley, who was circling his legs.
“You know, I’ve always sort of admired squirrels,” Angie said, peering up at a couple of sleek brown fellows who stared down at them from the safety of an oak limb.
George sucked in a surprised breath. “Bite your tongue!”
“No, I mean, think about it,” Angie went on. “Squirrels are really pretty smart, the way they store up food for the winter months. There aren’t a lot of mammals who plan ahead.”
“I never thought about them like that,” Seth admitted. Several of the guys who worked for him never planned for tomorrow and they usually came to grief. He’d lost track of how often they’d come to him with one sad story or other, asking for an advance on their pay. Unless it was an unforeseeable emergency, Seth always said no. Then he counseled them to start living by his “10/10/80” rule. Give ten percent. Save ten percent. Spend the rest with thanksgiving. Over time, it worked. “Squirrels may be a nuisance, but they actually are kind of enterprising.”
“Not you too!” George said as he raised the lever to set his trap. “They’re a crafty bunch, I’ll give them that, but that doesn’t mean we have to form an admiration society for them.”
“Uncle George has tried plenty of different tactics to get rid of his squirrels over the years,” Seth told Angie.
“So far, th
e furry rats are ahead, but this method is a game changer. It’s sure to work,” George said. “I baited the traps with peanut butter. They won’t be able to resist.”
Just then, the metallic snap of a trap being sprung came from around the side of the house.
“Got one!” George took off at a surprisingly quick trot and rounded the corner ahead of the rest of them, but Angie, Seth, and Riley were at his heels. “Oh, no!”
Angie stopped short, and Seth nearly plowed into her. She covered her eyes with her hands, afraid of what she might see. Perhaps the catch and release trap was not as humane as advertised.
“It’s okay, Angie.You can look,” he bent to whisper in her ear.
“That’s not a squirrel, Grandpa,” Riley said with a giggle. “That’s Fergus!”
The Evanses’ little Yorkie was caught fast in the cage-like trap, a glob of peanut butter on his whiskers and a sheepish expression on his furry face.
“Come on out of there, you silly old thing,” George said as he knelt to remove his dog from the trap. Fergus was unharmed, but he trembled like an aspen in autumn until he was freed. Then he bolted around to the front door and scratched at it to be let in.
“Brr!” Angie said, hugging herself against a sudden gust of wind. “The dog’s got the right idea.”
“This’ll help.” Seth slipped out of his quilted jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
She pulled it close around her and inhaled deeply. It occurred to Seth that the jacket probably smelled like him, which meant a combination of sawdust, leather-based aftershave, and warm man. Judging from the way she snuggled into it, she didn’t seem to mind.
It was a dangerous thing for a guy to let a girl wear his jacket. Especially since the girl in question was trying mightily not to let the guy into her life.
But maybe it would work. He’d heard about things called pheromones and such. Seth wondered if smell was really that important in developing an attraction for someone. He already knew he liked the way she smelled, all soap-clean and fresh without the need for fussy florals.
Though she did totally rock that spicy, earthy perfume she wore the night she went out with Peter Manning.
