by Joanne Fluke
“Oh,” Hannah gave a soft little cry. Mike was willing to sacrifice his own happiness to keep her from making what he thought would be a dreadful mistake. She felt like running after him, throwing her arms around him, and…
The feel of warm fur brushing against her ankles brought her out of her imaginings and back in touch with reality. Was Mike putting her on? Was this a little game he was playing? Did he want her to feel so sorry for him, she’d race after him, tell him it didn’t matter, and melt into his arms?
Hannah pondered the questions for a moment, and then she sighed deeply. There was no way she could know for sure. Thank goodness Norman was coming back soon! Of course she’d never ask Norman for advice on her relationship with Mike, but just knowing that Norman was there, steady and loving, gave an anchor to her confused emotions.
And that was when she saw that the red light on her remote phone was blinking rhythmically. She’d missed a call working late at The Cookie Jar and she hadn’t noticed it when she’d come in with Mike.
Hannah took time to reach down and pet the two cats, and then she headed for the end table by the couch to play back her message on the remote phone system she’d bought when her old-fashioned answer machine had finally given up the ghost.
“Hi, Hannah. It’s Norman.” At the first sound of Norman’s voice, Cuddles jumped up on her lap and tried to lick the phone. “It’s your daddy,” Hannah said, holding the phone a little closer so that Cuddles could hear.
“It’s almost seven and I guess you’re out somewhere for dinner. I’m just getting ready to leave the hotel and meet my friends for dinner.”
Hannah frowned slightly. Norman’s voice sounded strained, but perhaps that was the connection.
“If it’s not too much trouble, can you keep Cuddles for another night? I’m going to stay over one more day. I have a couple of things I have to do and it’s going to take me longer than I expected. I’ll be back on Thursday and I’ll pick up Cuddles on Thursday after work.” There was a pause and Norman cleared his throat. “Oh, yes. I already talked to Doc Bennett and he’s coming in to work for me, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
Hannah’s frown deepened. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but Norman didn’t sound very happy. And he should have been happy meeting up with all his friends from dental school again.
“I guess that’s it.” Norman cleared his throat again. “Have a nice evening. ’Bye.”
No I love you? No I miss you? No I’m thinking about you and I wish you were with me? Hannah replaced the phone in the charging station with a frown. She wasn’t sure what had happened to Norman in Minneapolis, but something was definitely wrong.
Of course she couldn’t go to bed, not with one boyfriend confusing the dickens out of her by wanting to marry her but claiming he was saving her from herself by pushing her into another man’s arms, and the other boyfriend suffering with an unknown problem in Minneapolis, a problem that made him sound like a stranger instead of a man who could hardly wait to get back to her. In a situation like this, there was only one thing to do and she knew exactly what it was. She had to bake.
Hannah hurried to the kitchen and opened the pantry to survey the ingredients she had on hand. She’d received a recipe last month from a friend she’d known in college. History major Katie Strehler had always attended class with a to-go cup of coffee in her hand. She’d been an even bigger coffee drinker than Hannah, and if Katie said her Mocha Nut Butterballs satisfied that coffee urge, Hannah certainly wasn’t about to doubt her. She’d already stocked up on the ingredients she needed to make Katie’s cookies. They were on the top shelf, along with the recipe. Hannah read it through again to make sure she had everything, and then she carried it all out to the kitchen counter.
It didn’t take long to mix up the dough, and within five minutes Hannah had the first pan in the oven. Since it was silly to try a new recipe without at least tasting it, she put on a fresh pot of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table to wait for the cookies to come out of the oven. She’d just slipped the second pan into the oven and was preparing to roll the cooled cookies in powdered sugar when the door opened and Michelle came in.
“It’s almost midnight!” Michelle said, spotting Hannah at the kitchen counter. “Can’t you sleep?”
“I can’t sleep quite yet. I have to wait for another couple of pans of cookies to come out of the oven.”
Michelle sniffed the air appreciatively. “They smell great. What are they?”
“Mocha Nut Butterballs. Do you want to try one?”
“Sure.” Michelle tossed her purse on the table and went to the coffee pot to pour herself a cup. “I’ll help you bake the rest. I’m too mad to go to sleep.”
“Why are you mad?”
“It’s Lonnie. He’s being a real pain about wanting to get engaged right away. I think he’s afraid I’m going out with someone else.”
“Are you?” Hannah asked the important question.
“I was, but I’m not right now. It’s just that I want to keep my options open. I don’t want to be tied down at this point in my life.”
“Mmm,” Hannah commented, keeping it neutral as she filled a plate with cookies. “Have a cookie and tell me what you think.”
Michelle took a cookie and bit into it. She gave a little moan of delight and popped the remainder into her mouth. “I’ve got three words to describe them.”
“And they are…?”
“Mocha. Butter. Yum!”
“That’s good enough for me,” Hannah said, taking a cookie for herself. “So what are you going to do about Lonnie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you love him?”
Michelle took another cookie. “Yes, I love him. But he’s demanding too much of me. Maybe next year, or the year after. But not right now. I’m still trying out my wings.”
“I know,” Hannah said, hoping those wings weren’t flapping anywhere near Bradford Ramsey. One broken Swensen heart was enough.
“Men!” Michelle muttered around her third cookie. “You can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them.”
“That’s true, but it’s okay.”
“It is?” Michelle turned to stare at her.
“Sure it is…as long as the Mocha Nut Butterballs hold out.”
MOCHA NUT BUTTERBALLS
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
1 cup softened butter
(2 sticks, ½ pound)
½ cup white
(granulated)
sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 Tablespoon instant coffee powder
(I used espresso powder)
***
¼ cup cocoa powder
(I used Hershey’s)
¼ teaspoon salt
1 and ¾ cups all-purpose flour
(no need to sift)
1 and ½ cups finely chopped pecans
****
—————
powdered sugar
(that’s confectioner’s sugar)
to coat the baked cookies
*** - If the only instant coffee you can get comes in granules or beads, crush them up into a powder with the back of a spoon before you add them to the cookie dough.
**** - Mother likes these with chopped walnuts. Andrea prefers pecans. I think they’re best with hazelnuts. Tracey adores these when I substitute flaked coconut for the nuts and form the dough balls around a small piece of milk chocolate.
Soften the butter. Mix in the white sugar, vanilla extract, instant coffee powder, cocoa, and salt.
Add the flour in half-cup increments, mixing after each addition. (You don’t have to be exact. It won’t come out even anyway! Just make sure the flour is added in three parts.)
Stir in the nuts. Do your best to make sure that they’re evenly distributed.
Form the dough into one-inch balls (just pat them into shape with your fingers) and place them on an ungreased baking s
heet, 12 to a standard sheet. Press them down very slightly (they’re supposed to look like balls, but you don’t want them to roll off on their way to the oven.)
Bake the cookie balls at 325 degrees F. for 12 to 15 minutes, until they are set. (Mine took 14 minutes.)
Move the cookies from the cookie sheet to a wire rack. Let them cool on the rack completely.
When the cookies are completely cool, dip them in powdered sugar to coat them. (If you roll them in powdered sugar while they’re still warm, they have a tendency to break apart.) Let them rest for several minutes on the wire rack and then store them in a cookie jar or a covered container.
Yield: Makes 3 to 4 dozen simply amazing cookies.
Hannah’s 1stNote: After Michelle ate almost half a batch, she had a suggestion. She’s going to try making them and rolling them in sweetened powdered chocolate instead of powdered sugar. She thinks Ghirardelli makes a sweetened powdered chocolate that will work.
Hannah’s 2ndNote: I think these cookies would be incredibly tasty dipped in melted chocolate. Too bad there aren’t any left so that I can try it.
Chapter Seven
Hannah put on her sleep shirt, rested her head on the pillow, shut her eyes, and the alarm went off. At least that was the sequence as she perceived it. A little subtraction, not as simple as one might think this early in the morning, proved her wrong. She’d actually gotten a grand total of four and a half hours sleep. It wasn’t enough. Her eyes still felt scratchy, and all of her muscles ached, not entirely because Moishe and Cuddles had tried to commandeer the entire mattress.
She forced her feet to cross the room and step into the tiled bathroom. Then she willed her hand to turn on the water in the shower. Seconds later, she was sputtering under the forceful spray, alive and awake enough to realize that she’d forgotten to turn on the knob for the hot water and she was still wearing her sleep shirt.
Hannah turned off the water, peeled herself out of the wet garment, and adjusted the temperature of the spray. After she’d taken her shower, she hung up her soggy sleep shirt on the showerhead to dry. Five minutes later, dressed in jeans and a blouse, she padded into the kitchen in her slippers only to realize that the coffee she’d set to go off automatically last night was half gone.
“Good morning, Hannah. Sit down. I’ll get your coffee.”
Hannah turned toward the voice. She blinked. Once, twice, and then she gave a half-hearted wave. Michelle was sitting at the kitchen table holding a mug of coffee, and she looked as fresh as a croissant that had just come out of the oven. Her eyes were clear, her hair was glossy, and she was dressed in a pair of white slacks and a crisp yellow blouse.
As she watched, Michelle jumped up and headed for the coffee pot. Hannah sat down on a chair and pondered an important question. It was obvious that Michelle had been up for a while. She’d curled her hair and put on makeup. How could anyone look so beautiful after so little sleep? Michele was lovely in the morning, and that made Hannah feel old and ugly in comparison.
“I made breakfast,” Michelle said, carrying Hannah’s coffee to the table and setting it down. “It’s just scrambled eggs and cheese. Would you like some?”
Hannah nodded. She was incapable of speech. Michelle had gotten up so early she’d had time to make breakfast. Not only was she beautiful at this ridiculously early hour of the morning, she was also organized and energetic.
“Is something the matter?” Michelle asked.
“Why?”
“Because you’re staring at me.”
“I’m just envious.”
“Of me?” Michelle looked shocked.
“Yes. It’s only a few minutes past four-thirty in the morning and you went to bed the same time I did. I’m still dragging around, barely awake, and you’re dressed with your hair done. Not only that, you’ve already cooked breakfast, and you look stunning. If you weren’t my baby sister and I didn’t love you so much, I’d probably hate you.”
The day was busy, as all days at The Cookie Jar were, and Hannah was relieved when they locked the front door at five in the evening. No sooner had they thrown the lock when there was a knock at the back door, and Marge, Jack, Patsy, Herb, and Dillon came in. While they set up at the workstation in the kitchen, Hannah arranged the BLTs she’d made on a platter and carried them to the coffee shop. Then she called everyone in to eat, including Dillon who stretched out on the floor between Herb and Lisa and munched on the extra bacon that Hannah had made for him.
Once they’d finished eating, they went back to the kitchen to make turnovers. They’d worked steadily for what seemed like at least an hour when the phone rang. Lisa hurried to answer it and after listening to the caller for a moment, she motioned to Hannah. “It’s for you,” Lisa told her, holding out the receiver.
“Coming.” Hannah dried her hands on a towel and glanced at the clock. The apple turnover assembly line had been working longer than she’d thought, because it was almost seven in the evening.
“I’ll be right back,” Hannah told Jack and Herb, who were operating the apple peeler to core, peel, and slice the apples, while she’d cut the apple slices into smaller pieces. Patsy was next in line, and she was mixing the apples with flour, sugar, and spices. When Patsy was through, she handed the bowl to her twin sister, Marge, who had rolled out puff pastry dough and cut it into squares. Marge spooned on the filling, folded the dough, sealed the edges with a fork, and then passed the cookie sheet to Lisa, who was responsible for brushing the tops with egg wash, cutting slits to let out the steam, and then ferrying the cookie sheets to the oven.
“Who is it?” Hannah asked Lisa, wondering who could be calling her at The Cookie Jar this late.
“I think it’s Andrea,” Lisa told her, covering the mouthpiece with her hand. “It’s hard to tell, because whoever it is sounds really upset.”
Uh-oh! Hannah’s mind shouted a warning. Bill took the job in Florida! But thinking that way was borrowing trouble, something she tried very hard not to do, and she forced herself to think positively as she took the phone.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hannah! I…I tried you at home and you didn’t answer, and I’m so glad I caught you at The Cookie Jar!”
Lisa was right. It was Andrea and she sounded on the verge of panic. “We’re staying late baking apple turnovers,” Hannah explained. “Is there something wrong?”
“Yes! Tachyon offered Bill more incentives and I think he’s beginning to waver, Tracey needs a homemade snack for her bus trip to Alexandria tomorrow, and Grandma McCann is at a baby shower for a friend’s daughter so I can’t ask her for help. I’m stressed, Hannah. I’m really stressed!”
“I know you’re stressed. I can hear it in your voice. Try to calm down, Andrea. I’m sure we can work everything out.”
“Can you come over? Bill’s working late, and Bethie’s got a runny nose, and I can’t find the listings I wrote up for the Journal yesterday, and…and I just can’t cope anymore!”
That was unusual. Andrea could usually cope with anything…with the exception of cooking, of course. Andrea was the worst cook in all of Minnesota’s eighty-seven counties.
“Will you come over, Hannah? Please?”
There was a desperate note in Andrea’s voice that Hannah had never heard before. “Just hold on. I’ll be there just as soon as we get our apple turnover count for the night,” she promised.
“Go now,” Lisa said, and everyone else nodded in agreement. “We can finish up here without you.”
“But that’s not really fair. I could…”
“Go,” Marge said, and it was a command. “There’s nothing more important than family. We’ve got the turnovers under control.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Hannah said to her sister. “Tell me what kind of snack Tracey needs and I’ll bring some ingredients with me.”
“Anything she can eat on the bus without making too much of a mess. And she has to bring enough for two. The kids are going to team up in pair
s, eat one snack on the way there and eat the other on the way back home.”
Hannah thought fast. Sally made a snack at the Lake Eden Inn she called Imperial Cereal. She sent it along in the box lunches she packed when her guests went for walks around the lake. “How about some of Sally’s Imperial Cereal?” she asked.
“That would be perfect. But do you have time to run all the way out to the Lake Eden Inn?”
“I don’t have to run all the way out there. Sally gave me the recipe and I’ve got it in my book. Hold on a second.” Hannah hurried to the book of recipes in sheet protectors that she kept in a three-ring notebook. She located Sally’s snack and ran through the list of ingredients. “What kind of cereal do you have in the house?”
“I’ve got Multigrain Cheerios. They’re Bill’s favorites. And I picked up a box of Rice Chex for Bethie. She likes the way they crunch.”
“Those will do just fine. How about frozen orange juice?”
“I’ve got some. I just made up a whole quart and it’s in the refrigerator.”
“I need some that’s still frozen. You have extra, don’t you?”
“There’s another two cans in the freezer. Is that enough?”
“More than enough. All I need is a quarter cup. How about brown sugar?”
“Yes, but it’s got big lumps. You’ll have to pick them out before you can use it.”
Hannah was surprised that Andrea knew about the lumps in her brown sugar. As far as she knew, Andrea didn’t sprinkle it on anything and she certainly wouldn’t have tried to use it in baking. “Did Grandma McCann tell you it had lumps?” she asked, latching on to the most likely scenario.
“No, Bill did. He complained about it yesterday morning when he tried to sprinkle it on his instant oatmeal. He asked me to buy fresh at the store, but I haven’t done my shopping yet.”
“Why don’t you just keep molasses on hand? Then you could mix up your own brown sugar with white sugar and molasses.”
“But then I’d have to mix it up every time Bill wanted it. It’s easier to just keep brown sugar in the house.”
