Imagine That

by Kristin Wallace

  “Who said something about cookies?”

  Nate’s fourteen-year-old brother, Zach, lolled into the living room. Lolling seemed to be the only speed his brother operated at these days. Nate knew if he dug up pictures of himself at fourteen it would be hard to tell the two apart. Another couple of months and he and Zach would be the same height.

  “How was school today?” their mother asked.

  A partial lifting of shoulders was the teen’s only response. He flopped onto the couch, his book bag landing on the floor with a thump. A hand reached out for the plate of cookies.

  “Those are for mom,” Nate pointed out.

  “Oh, Zach can have some,” she said.

  Zach didn’t need further invitation. He swooped in like a hawk dive bombing a mouse and snatched a cookie from the plate, scarfing it down in one bite. Then his eyes bugged out. “Bro, what did you put in these?”

  Nate frowned and took a bite, gagging himself. “Ugh… too much salt.”

  The corners of his mother’s mouth pulled up. “Poor Nathan, baking may never be your strong suit.”

  “I must have misread the recipe,” he muttered.

  She patted his hand. “It was sweet of you, honey.”

  “I’ll buy some at the bakery when I get off tonight.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she said, with a flick of her wrist. “I probably won’t be able to eat them anyway.”

  A giant fist squeezed his heart, and the gag reflex threatened to choke him again. He wanted to fling the plate of toxic cookies across the room. It wasn’t fair. His mother had struggled most of her life after his father walked out. She’d handled the burden without complaint, only to come up against an even more frightening and deadly adversary.

  Nate knew the roiling storm reflected in his kid brother’s eyes simmered in his own.

  Zach jumped up and grabbed his backpack. “I’m meeting the guys at the park.”

  “Zach!” Nate’s bark brought the teenager to an abrupt halt.

  Zach returned to the chair and kissed his mother’s cheek. She squeezed his hand and whispered something in his ear. Zach nodded. As he walked away, Nate saw his brother swipe a fist across his cheeks.

  A second later the door slammed shut.

  “You’re going to be all right, Nathan,” his mother said. “You’re both going to be all right.”

  Nate swallowed but couldn’t conjure up any comforting words to support his mother’s assertion. “I have to get back to my office. Anna’s out doing a little shopping. You’ll be okay on your own until then?”

  She smiled. The same one she’d given him when he’d been sick as a little boy. The one announcing everything would be fine. “Of course. It’s a pretty good day, all things considered.”

  Nate kissed the top of her head. He inhaled and recoiled at the unfamiliar smell that had invaded his mother’s body as surely as the malignant cells. Antiseptic had taken over lilies and cocoa butter.

  “I’ll see you later,” Nate whispered.

  “I’ll pray for you today,” she whispered back.

  ****

  Nate made a detour on his way back to the office. He pulled into the near-empty parking lot of Covington Falls Community Church. He stared at the stained-glass windows marching along the side, the aged brick and enormous, arched oak doors guarding the entrance. For most of his life, his church had brought him comfort at the worst of times. He hoped he could find some peace today.

  The doors were unlocked as always. He headed for the sanctuary and sat down in a pew near the back. Leaning forward, he rested his arms against the pew in front of him.

  God, I don’t know what to do here. I don’t know how to get over my anger. Don’t know what to do with Zach. What do I say when I can’t deal with it myself? How can this be Your plan?

  He prayed for what seemed like hours. When he lifted his head, fear still remained, but he supposed one impassioned plea wouldn’t be enough. He did feel a touch of renewed strength, though.

  “Afternoon, Nate.”

  Seth Graham — the pastor and a longtime friend — stood by the pew.

  “Hey, Seth. Did you come in here to practice your sermon?”

  The pastor shook his head and let out a small chuckle.

  Nate cocked his head. “Something funny?”

  “No, I just had a nagging urge to take a walk, so I decided to give in.”

  Seth slid into the pew next to Nate. He didn’t say anything but sat and waited.

  “My mother’s cancer is back,” Nate said. “It’s… everywhere.”

  A moment of silence from the minister. Then, “How soon?”

  “A couple weeks, a couple months if we’re lucky.”

  Seth raked a hand through his hair. “Guess I know why I had to come in here now.”

  “We told Zach yesterday. He’s having a tough time.”

  Nate saw compassion, wisdom, and also an abiding sorrow reflected in Seth’s gaze. He knew the pastor understood cancer. Seth’s first wife had died a few years before, so he knew about the hopelessness, the anger, and the terror that clawed at one’s belly like a tiger tearing apart its prey. The fact that Seth had found love again and was about to be married hadn’t completely erased memories of the loss.

  “I’m sure Zach’s not the only one having a tough time,” Seth said. “It’s been the three of you for so long. Have you told your dad?”

  “We don’t even know where he is. How did you handle it? How do you get through—” his voice broke.

  The pastor put a hand on Nate’s back. “You treasure each day. Take care of her. Love her. You cry when you have to. And when it’s time, you tell her it’s okay to go.”

  Nate couldn’t imagine such a thing. “How?”

  “By remembering the parting is only temporary. Everything here is simply leading to the day we all go home for eternity.”

  “It’s easy to say, but not so easy to live it.”

  Seth chuckled, but it was not an amused sound. “No. Not easy at all. But your friends will be here. For all of you. Remember that.”

  Chapter Four

  Dusk had begun to settle as Nate pulled open the door of Jessie’s Treats. The familiar smell of vanilla, chocolate, and a thousand other mouth-watering aromas wafted around him like a delicious blanket as he stepped inside. Several small tables with gingham cloths dotted the dining area. Only two were occupied at the moment. A long glass display offered up sinful desserts of every variety, from cakes to tarts to cookies.

  Nate didn’t see Jessie, however. He walked over to the counter and rang the bell by the register.

  A feminine voice rang out from the back. “Hold on! Right with you! I’m just — Ow!”

  Metal clanged against cement.

  “Blast it!”

  Nate jumped and lunged through the doorway into the kitchen. He stopped short. Emily Sinclair. In Jessie’s kitchen.

  She stared down at the floor with the most forlorn expression he’d ever seen. A metal tray lay at her feet, and cookies were scattered all over the place. She shook her head.

  “Blast it!”

  Then she reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. She counted out a few and laid them down on the counter.

  For the first time today, Nate laughed.

  Emily gasped and her head flew up. She stared at him in shock for a moment. “Heath… er… Nate.”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  She glanced down at the floor again. “Making a mess obviously. I heard the bell as I was taking the cookies out, and then the oven pad thingy slipped, and I thought I was going to burn myself, so like an idiot I reached for the tray with the other hand, and then I did burn myself.”

  He took a step closer. “Are you okay?”

  She gazed up at him and his breath hitched as her blue eyes sized him up. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she liked what she saw, too.

  A dangerous thought.

  “I’m fine. I’ve dropped
plenty of trays already today.” She inspected her hand. “It’s not the first time I’ve burned myself either.”

  The bell by the register dinged again.

  She grimaced. “Every time a bell rings, Emily gets her hand burned.”

  For the second time, Nate let out a genuine laugh, and the dark clouds hanging over his heart parted to allow in a bit of sunlight.

  Cheeks flaming, she waved him back. “Do me a favor. Tell whoever it is I’ll be out in a second. I have to clean up.”

  When Nate emerged from the kitchen, he found three young girls standing at the counter. All of them were holding hardcover books clasped to their chests.

  “Is she back there?” the one on the left asked.

  “We heard she’s working here,” the middle one said.

  Nate had no clue what they were talking about. “Who?”

  The last girl gave him a what-planet-are-you-from glare of amazement. “E.J. Sinclair!”

  Right. Emily was some kind of children’s book author. “She’ll be right out.”

  The girls shared a glance and squealed.

  Nate sensed her in the doorway behind him. “Your fan club is here.”

  He went back around the counter and watched as Emily greeted her young fans. She seemed flattered by their obvious devotion. Her eyes glowed as she signed their copies and answered a barrage of questions with more patience than he would’ve ever had. Then she gestured to the display case, and all three bought a treat.

  “Emily Sinclair is a disaster in the kitchen, but she’s brought in more customers today than I’ve had since Christmas.”

  Nate found Jessie herself standing by his shoulder. He hadn’t even heard her come in. Jessie McNichol looked more like a defensive lineman than a baker. She was six feet tall and broad-shouldered. Everyone in her family claimed giant status, from her father Big Ben, who towered over everyone at six-six, to her mother and three brothers. Jessie had never been athletic, but fortunately she’d discovered a gift for creating sinful desserts at an early age.

  “She can’t be that bad,” Nate said.

  “If there’s something here she hasn’t burned, it’s only because she hasn’t had time yet,” Jessie replied. “I probably wouldn’t have hired her, but she kept babbling something about signs and seemed desperate for a chance.”

  “You couldn’t resist,” Nate said, knowing exactly what Jessie meant about Emily’s endearing charm, not to mention her off-the-wall babbling.

  “I happened to get two customers when Emily came in to apply. A mother and daughter. The girl took one look at E.J. Sinclair and started hyperventilating. I figured I could teach Emily anything she needed to know, if it meant more customers.”

  Nate understood Jessie’s bottom-line reasoning, but what about Emily? What in the world was she still doing here? He’d have thought she’d be long gone by now. Humming along in her little convertible, her evil white cat hissing the entire way.

  Emily didn’t belong behind a counter in a bakery. Nate didn’t read much, but even he knew about J.K. Rowling, and if Emily was being compared to her, she must be a big deal. So, what was she doing here? Even as he wondered, he told himself to let it go. He didn’t have time to think about why she would choose to take a minimum wage job in a nowhere town like Covington Falls.

  If only she didn’t make him smile.

  ****

  As Emily finished ringing up the sale, she hoped she wouldn’t do something stupid like trip and fall into the display case. She could picture cakes flying in the air and tart goo all over her face. Normally, she wasn’t clumsy, but for some reason, putting her anywhere near a kitchen turned her into Calamity Jane. To top it off, Nate was standing across the room with Jessie. She wondered if they were having a good laugh while Jessie told him about the flour incident that morning — she’d managed to repeat her childhood mistake within minutes — or the great chocolate raspberry muffin disaster.

  As she served her young customers, Emily covertly studied him. His pants were splattered in paint, and he had some kind of brown smear across his shirt. His hair could only be described as unkempt, and a faint shadow of a beard covered his jaw.

  He looked scruffy. Scruffy and delicious.

  Oh yeah, her mind had gone bye-bye. She didn’t go for scruffy. At least not anymore. Her scruffy loser phase had gone out with the last of her post-teenage rebellion.

  Emily finished up with her preadolescent fans, and they left the shop on a wave of excited chatter and laughter.

  Jessie clomped over to the counter as soon as they’d left. “You do all right while I was gone?”

  “Perfect.”

  Coffee-colored eyes gleamed with silent laughter. “Nothing’s been destroyed at least, right?”

  Emily bit her lip and shook her head.

  “I’ll go start another batch of cookies,” Jessie said with a sigh of resignation.

  “I could help—”

  “Why don’t you stick to the customers for now?” she tilted her head toward Nate. “Like our handsome painter over there? I’ve got a feeling he’d much rather have you serve him.”

  Jessie disappeared into the kitchen, and Emily had no choice but to turn back to Nate. He was watching her with an ain’t-she-cute grin, which she was coming to recognize. She swallowed as he approached. The closer he got, the more she fought not to back up.

  “What are you—”

  “Why are you—”

  They both sputtered to a halt.

  “You first,” Emily said, waving him on.

  A smile ghosted across his lips. “I thought you’d be halfway across the state by now.”

  “Me too. I don’t know what happened. I had to wait for Cletus to get Bessie out of the drink and—”

  His head tilted like the old RCA dog. “Huh?”

  Emily fought a shiver. Why was his every action so sexy? He’d only tilted his head.

  To distract herself, she started rearranging the goodies in the display shelf. “The tow truck driver was out rescuing a stuck cow, so I went to the little diner up the street. I took a walk after lunch, and then I saw the sign and ended up in here.”

  “A sign?”

  Her head bobbed as she lined up the key lime tarts in a neat row. “A Help Wanted sign. A baker’s assistant seemed like fun, so I applied.”

  “Just like that?” His brows furrowed. “Don’t you have someplace you need to be?”

  Mini-strawberry shortcakes spaced evenly. So far the task wasn’t helping to distract her much. “I told you, I’m traveling, hoping to find something to spark my imagination so I can write again.”

  “When did you tell me that?”

  “Yesterday when you stopped to help me out. Although maybe you didn’t understand me, since I wasn’t exactly coherent. You made me so nervous.”

  “Why would I make you nervous?”

  “You know,” she said, hand fluttering. “Girl alone in the woods? Ted Bundy?”

  “You weren’t in the wood,” he pointed out.

  “Close enough. Isolated roads are ripe for attracting monsters of all sorts. Scary human ones and big, bug-eyed creatures with tentacles and better-to-eat-you-with-my-dear teeth.”

  Nate leaned against the counter. “Are you sure we’re from the same planet? I don’t understand half of what you just said.”

  “Well, if you were up on your classic children’s literature you’d know. Or Stephen King novels.”

  “I’m not much of a reader.”

  Something about his tone caught her attention, and she stopped arranging the shelves.

  “So, you’re looking for an idea for your next book?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, trying to understand the strange shift.

  “You seem pretty popular.”

  “An author is only as popular as his or her last book,” she said. “As it happens, my last book fell far short of popular and skated on the thin ice of obscurity.”

  He shook his head in confusion.

&n
bsp; Chest aching, Emily admitted the truth. “My first book was a huge success, but the second flopped. Then all my ideas seemed to dry up, and I haven’t been able to get them back.”

  “You think working in a bakery will help?”

  She shrugged. “At this point I’ll try anything. I doubt my namesake would be proud of how hard I’ve fallen, but desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  “Namesake?”

  “I’m named after Emily Brontë,” she said with a grin. “Guess my parents hoped her literary talent would rub off on me. On all of us. My older sister is named Charlotte, and my poor brother got saddled with Virgil. Although it could have been worse. My mother wanted Homer, but Dad put his foot down.”

  “Who are they?”

  The effect of scruffy deliciousness disappeared as she regarded him in astonishment. “Haven’t you ever heard of Emily and Charlotte Brontë?”

  Nate shifted on his feet and coughed.

  Amazement flooded through her. “Wuthering Heights? Jane Eyre?”

  His mouth pulled back in a tight line. “Oh, right. I remember my mom watching them on the classic movie channel.”

  “The movie channel?”

  Nate rubbed the back of his neck. “I told you, I don’t read much. No time.”

  “Yeah, but those are classic pieces of literature. How’d you get through school without reading some of them?”

  Nate muttered something about not having much use for school, either.

  For once Emily didn’t know what to say. No wonder he thought she was from a different planet. His feet shuffled again, and she sensed his embarrassment.

  “So, why did you come in here?” she asked, trying to get back on even footing. “I’m sure you had a plan in mind.”

  “Cookies,” Nate said, careful to avoid any real eye contact. “I messed up the recipe this afternoon.”

  “Ah, so you’re a disaster in the kitchen, too. Nice to know we have something in common.”

  The self-deprecating humor worked. His head came up, and a small smile formed. “I guess so.”

  Emily gestured to the display case she’d just finished organizing. “What’s your poison?”