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Sweet Hearts

Page 14

by Connie Shelton


  “I love you, darlin’.” The half-wink and special smile warmed her.

  “Love you too. And I’d rather spend Valentine’s Day alone with you.” He patted the side of her van and walked toward his vehicle.

  His cruiser pulled away from the curb before she remembered that what she’d started to say was that they should plan some time to talk about rescheduling their wedding. And she knew that talk would need to include her telling him about the powers of the magic box.

  Chapter 20

  Sam ran through her mental checklist of duties for the day. The shop was in pretty good shape, with the girls keeping up the cookie and cupcake supply. Before closing time she would have them pre-make more cookie dough and bake additional layer cakes for the last minute shoppers. Women would do their buying today; tomorrow it would be the men.

  With her own wedding on hold, the hours she might have spent having her hair done, putting together her accessories, or making last minute phone calls were suddenly free. Almost on its own, the van made a left turn at Kit Carson Road and headed toward Zoë’s house.

  Lights glowed from two windows at the adobe B&B but the visitor parking area out front was empty. Zoë and Darryl’s winter guests were normally skiers who slept there but vacated during the day, spending their hours on the slopes nearly twenty miles away at Taos Ski Valley. Sam pulled around back and parked beside Zoë’s Subaru near the kitchen door.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Zoë said, looking up from a ball of bread dough that she was kneading into submission.

  Sam dropped her jacket over the back of one of the tall chairs at the breakfast bar.

  “You okay?” Zoë paused and gave her friend a firm look. “With the wedding cancellation and all that?”

  “I’m fine. A lot more relaxed, actually. I just feel bad that we gave you such short notice. Had you already made a lot of preparations?”

  Zoë plopped the ball of dough into a bowl and covered it with a white cloth. Wiping her hands on a towel, she smiled. “Nothing that won’t keep for another day.”

  Sam drew little circles on the shiny tile with her fingertip. “Beau and I need to figure things out.”

  “Problems between the two of you?”

  “Oh, not at all. It’s scheduling. We’re both absolutely swamped right now. My shop will slow down after tomorrow, but then I’ve taken on this other thing.”

  Zoë sent her a puzzled glance as she turned on a burner under the tea kettle.

  “A lady who ordered a cake . . . we’ve become friends, and I learned that she’s very sick. And of course there’s a mystery to be solved. Her son disappeared a few years ago and she’d like for him to come back before she . . .”

  Zoë made sympathetic murmurs as she pulled tea cups from the cupboard. “Too bad you couldn’t send this lady a big dose of that healing energy you used on me that time.”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah. But Marla’s case is a lot more serious than a pulled muscle. I wish I could . . .”

  “Earl Grey or Chamomile?” Zoë asked, holding up the boxes.

  Sam pointed at the Earl Grey automatically, her mind zipping off on the tangent that her friend had just suggested. What if she could send some kind of healing power toward Marla Fresques? Bertha Martinez, the old curandera who’d given Sam the wooden box, said that its powers were many, that it could be used for good purposes.

  “. . . with just a few days’ notice.” Zoë’s words came to Sam and she realized she’d missed something.

  “The wedding?” Zoë said. “Just give us a heads-up and we can have everything all set up for you.”

  Sam realized her tea was gone, and when Zoë got up to check on her bread Sam shrugged into her jacket.

  “Thanks. I appreciate the understanding.”

  “You do seem a little distracted right now. Better to wait until you can give Beau your full attention. I’d guess that’s what he would prefer anyway.” Zoë laughed and gave her friend a hug.

  Sam found her mind zipping forward as she started her van and turned toward the street. It might work. She got to the end of Zoë’s lane and looked both directions. She really should turn right and get back to the bakery. But a little stop by home first . . . A quick visit . . .

  It wouldn’t take very long.

  She turned left, made the jog over to Elmwood, and was in her own driveway within minutes. In her bedroom, the wooden box sat in its usual spot on her dresser, the finish dull and lusterless in the dim room. Sam slipped her jacket off and picked up the box.

  Rarely had she ever specifically called upon its powers; far more often she just happened to touch it and then was amazed at the results. Amazed, or frightened. Sometimes this little object’s powers could get pretty spooky. She sat cross-legged on her bed and held the box in her lap, placing both hands over its top.

  She closed her eyes and fixed a picture of Marla Fresques in her mind, visualizing her friend well and energetic. She saw Marla in her home, bustling about the kitchen preparing a big meal. And at the table she saw a man—Tito. He sat across from Jolie, and the young girl had such love in her eyes. Marla brought food, first some freshly baked warm rolls with butter, then she pulled a ham from the oven and began slicing the succulent meat and handing slices of it to her family.

  All at once the box became fiery hot. Sam’s hands shot back, her palms burning. She stared at the object. The wood glowed with an intensity she’d never seen, its normally dull brown surface changing from golden brown to orange to yellow-white. The small inset stones shot blazes of light, like gems under an intense lamp. Her hands burned and she blew on the reddened palms.

  They cooled almost immediately, and when she pressed them to her cheeks there was only a pleasant warmth. She rose from the bed and placed the glowing box back on the dresser. The wood and stones immediately began to settle down, losing their burning intensity in minutes.

  “Okay.” Sam said to the box. “I have a purpose. I’d better get busy.”

  During the drive to the hospital she refused to analyze what she was about to do. Doubts tried to work their way into her head—Would this do any good? Could she possibly harm Marla with this power?—but she refused to let them take hold. And when she walked into her friend’s room and saw her lying semi-conscious on the bed, Sam didn’t think twice. She rushed to Marla’s side and picked up the cold, still hand that lay on top of the blanket.

  Marla moaned, half asleep.

  “It’s okay. It’s me—Sam.” She ran her fingers up the arm that felt thin as a skeleton’s.

  “I want you to get well, Marla,” she murmured. “I want to give you the power to feel better.”

  Three times she coaxed warmth into the right arm and shoulder, then she circled the bed and did the same thing with the left side. She placed her warm hands on either side of Marla’s emaciated face and held her skull firmly and gently, willing the energy to enter Marla’s entire system.

  The dark eyes opened and Marla stared at her. “Sam? Why are you here?”

  “Shush now, just relax. Just let your body heal itself.”

  Marla’s thin eyelids drooped halfway closed. “That feels good, Sam. Thank you.”

  Sam stared at her own hands. They still felt tingly; the palms remained abnormally pink. What more could she do? She pushed the bedcovers aside and took Marla’s chilly left foot between her hands, performing the same strokes up to the knee and back. Same for the other side. When she finished, her hands had cooled down.

  She tucked the sheet and blanket snugly around her friend and sat in the chair beside the bed.

  Marla’s breathing was steady, and stronger. Sam watched her. It seemed that much of the wan, gray hue had left her face.

  “I feel like I could sleep now,” Marla said in a low voice. “Without pain.”

  Sam glanced at the monitors near the head of the bed. One machine whirred to a stop, but the patient’s breathing became even more tranquil and stable. She reached out and laid her hands once more on Marla’s shoulders.<
br />
  “I’ll leave you to your rest. Be well.”

  She stepped out of the hospital room and took a deep breath. What was done was done now. She could only hope for the best. The hum that had reverberated through her for the past hour had completely dissipated and she walked calmly out of the hospital.

  Chapter 21

  Sam was about halfway back to Sweet’s Sweets when her cell phone rang.

  “Samantha Sweet?” She didn’t know the male voice.

  “My name is Jonathan Ernhart. Beau Cardwell said I should speak with you regarding information about Tito Fresques.”

  “Yes, Jonathan, he told me about you.” Sam steered to the right and pulled into the parking lot of a small Chinese restaurant. “Is there new information about Tito?”

  “Not much. But Beau said you had a list of places he’d been, where he’d sent mail to his family?”

  She pulled the page from her pack and read off the locations and dates from the postmarks.

  “Do you have these greeting cards in your possession?”

  “No, I don’t. His mother is gravely ill and it seemed important to her that she be able to see them. I took them to her in the hospital.”

  There was a short pause on the line. “That’s okay. I’ll work with this data. I’m having a hard time getting the DEA to cooperate with us. They may have hidden him in a sort of witness protection system or sent him on assignment to another part of the country, so deep under cover that he’s not even allowed to contact his family. I don’t know.”

  Sam chafed, thinking that it should be easy for two federal agencies to agree to share information but apparently that wasn’t the way it worked.

  “The man I’m talking to at DEA is Clyde Jonah. He’s in the New Mexico division. You may hear from him, or you may hear from his supervisor, a man named Wells.” He cleared his throat. “Neither of them is going to share much with you, understand, but I’m asking them to let you know if there is any way to get in touch with Tito Fresques. I’ve told them there’s a family emergency behind the request.”

  “Thanks, Jonathan. I appreciate anything you can do.”

  The agent clicked off the call before she could quite formulate the question that nagged at the back of her mind. She folded her phone shut and it rang again immediately; Kelly, wanting to let her know that she’d be out again this evening. She’d no sooner ended that call than Jen called from the bakery.

  “I’m on my way,” Sam said. “Five minutes.”

  The ‘emergency’ would have been laughable if the young woman hadn’t looked so absolutely stricken.

  “A wedding cake on two hours notice—I don’t think we can do that,” Jen was saying when Sam walked in.

  “But Jorge and me, we’re going to the judge at five o’clock. And then to my sister’s for the reception.”

  The desperate bride probably wasn’t more than seventeen. Sam got the feeling it was sort of a last-minute wedding. “I make it a policy never to tell a customer no, but this will be a stretch.” She took the girl’s elbow and led her to one of the bistro tables. “Let me see what we can do.”

  She left the customer with a cup of tea and went to check the refrigerator. A quarter-sheet and one small six-inch round were the only cakes that were already frosted.

  “Are these committed to anyone?” Sam asked.

  Becky shook her head. “They were going toward tomorrow’s stock.”

  “Bake a couple extras for the displays. I’m taking these.” Sam picked up her sketch pad and headed for the front.

  Sitting at the table with her young customer, she quickly sketched an idea for using the small sheet cake as a base and stacking the little round tier on top.

  “I’ll put roses around, like this. What color would you like for them?”

  “Pink. And can you write ‘Congratulations Jorge and Christine’ on it? And maybe put a little bride and groom on the top?”

  Sam remembered a little plastic topper left over from the days when they were more popular. “I’ve got you covered. Give me thirty minutes.”

  Jen’s eyes widened as the girl stood up, but Sam ignored her and squelched the knowledge that she would normally spend twice that time on the simplest of wedding cakes.

  The girl pulled out a wad of bills and began counting ones and fives.

  “Five dollars,” Sam said. “That’s the price.”

  Now Jen’s eyebrows went straight to her hairline, but Sam placed an arm around her young client’s shoulders. “We’ll make you a beautiful cake.”

  “That was nice of you,” Jen said, once the girl headed toward the bookstore.

  Sam shrugged. “Those kids need some kind of a break. Might as well give it to them now.”

  She dashed to the kitchen and began stacking layers. Luckily, with the Valentine’s Day hubbub, she had plenty of shades of pink buttercream already made up. The roses flowed from the tip of her pastry bag, and it took no time at all to pipe borders and add little embellishments to personalize the cake to the young bride’s content.

  “Twenty-eight minutes,” she said, raising the pastry bag in a sign of triumph.

  When three pair of eyes stared at her, she realized she’d just revealed one of the magic box’s effects.

  “Well, it was probably actually longer than that,” she backtracked. “You know how time flies when I get wrapped up in something.”

  When she heard the chime on the door, she boxed the cake and took it out front.

  “That was close,” Sam told Jen as they watched the happy bride carry away her prize. Jen smiled at her.

  “Okay, back to the real world.” Sam handed out assignments for the rest of the day: bake layers and heart cakes in chocolate, vanilla and red velvet. Blend up a triple batch of dough for cut-out cookies and get it into the fridge. Make sure there was plenty of tinted fondant and buttercream for the two wedding cakes that would be delivered tomorrow afternoon. Her three kitchen staffers set to work, and when the last two left at six o’clock, Sam surveyed the suitably stocked shelves.

  As Jen handed Sam the bank bag with the day’s receipts, the phone rang.

  “Thanks, Jen. Don’t worry about that—I’ll get it if you’ll lock up the front.” She turned to sit at her desk. “Sweet’s Sweets, how may I help you?”

  “Sam, hi, it’s Marla.” Her voice was strong and cheerful.

  “My gosh, Marla, you sound so much better.”

  “I am better, Sam. I don’t know how, but I feel wonderful.”

  Wonderful, as in, slightly better than dying?

  “My doctors can’t explain it, but they sent me home.”

  “What? You’re at home?”

  Whatever Sam thought she might have gotten from the wooden box, this was way beyond. Way beyond anything.

  “Isn’t it amazing? They came into my room this afternoon and I was sitting up in bed. After that little nap, when you were there? Well, I felt pretty chipper and I was just about to try taking a walk down the hall. The nurse was supposed to draw some blood, I guess, and when she saw me sitting up she called Doctor Caulder in. He tested the blood and came back after an hour or so. He said my white count was so much better, he couldn’t believe it.” Sam heard something metallic in the background. “I told him I wanted to come home, that I wasn’t sick enough to be in that bed. He thought I should stay a few more days and have some more tests. But I didn’t want any of that. I called Diane. She and Jolie came and picked me up. We’re at my house now, making dinner.”

  Making dinner. Sam remembered her vision of Marla cooking for Tito and Jolie. She felt her mouth flap open but words wouldn’t form.

  “So, I just thought I’d let you know, in case you went by the hospital and didn’t find me in that room.”

  “Well, you sound . . . you sound amazingly good.”

  “I am good. I’m great, in fact.” She let out a little giggle before she said goodbye.

  Ohmygod, what have I done? Sam leaned back in her chair and stared at the sc
reen saver on her computer. Was there any way that her touch had brought such a change in her friend’s condition? She pictured the nearly skeletal woman in the bed shortly after noon today. Was there any way that her touch had not brought this change? What she would give right now to have a chat with Marla’s doctor.

  She pulled out the phone directory and looked up the number for the hospital. There was always a chance he might still be on duty. It took a few transfers, a little explanation and some outright lies but Doctor Caulder finally believed that he was talking to Marla’s niece from Colorado.

  “I recommended against her release,” he started out, covering his liability right from the start. “The turn-around in her condition was so absolutely sudden that I can’t rule out a quick and equal relapse.”

  “So, the cancer isn’t gone?” Sam asked.

  He rattled off some numbers that Sam didn’t begin to understand but the gist of it was that Marla’s cancer was still there, although the tests showed huge improvement. “I’m recommending another round of chemotherapy,” he said. “Even though she is resistant to the idea, it’s my opinion that it would prolong her life.”

  When baffled by good news, stick with standard medical procedure. Sam wanted to snap back at the man but held her tongue.

  “It would be a good idea for the family to keep a close watch,” he cautioned. “If you notice any signs of fatigue, loss of appetite, a downturn—I want you to call me. It will be very important to get her right back here.”

  Sam thanked him and set the phone down. The cancer wasn’t completely gone, true, but the change in Marla was startling. Despite the doctor’s pessimistic attitude about the temporary nature of the upturn, as long as Marla felt well enough to be at home there was hope. One thing about it—this development bought Sam more time to work on finding Tito.

  Something Jonathan Ernhart had said earlier on the phone continued to nag at the back of her mind but she couldn’t pinpoint it. Glancing up from her desk reminded Sam that she was facing one of the busiest days of the year tomorrow. She checked her supplies and reassured herself that they had plenty of everything. Her earlier burst of energy as a result of handling the wooden box seemed to have evaporated and she remembered the phenomena from other times. When she transferred vitality to someone else, it was as if she’d used it up and left none for herself. Which was fine—if she could make Marla well, it was worth it. She should go home and get a good night’s rest to be ready for the full day tomorrow.

 

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