Angel Lane (17 page)

“At least it's not a burglar,” Josh told her.

“I'm calling an exterminator first thing tomorrow,” she said as she walked him to the door. “Thank you for coming out, and thank you for believing me. I'm sure I sounded crazy.”

He hadn't, and she had, but he sure wasn't going to tell her. “We're here to serve, ma'am,” he assured her. And sometimes the best way to serve was to be willing to listen.

He couldn't help wondering if this widow had anyone to listen to her these days. On his way out he noticed that the shutters on the living room windows were hanging loose. Did Mrs. Kravitz have kids? And if she did, where the hell were they?

He got back in his car and drove downtown for a quick patrol before going to run radar over by the high school. Driving by the Chocolate Bar gave him a hankering for some candy. Too bad it was closed for the night. Maybe he'd pop into Safeway and get a Snickers.

As if what he really wanted could be found in Safeway. You're a fool, he told himself. No guy in his right mind would stoke the hots for a woman who continually sent buzz-off vibes. Well, he hadn't been in his right mind since Crystal died, so no surprise. Maybe he never would be again.

Life had been perfect before a drunk driver plowed into his wife's car as she was coming home from a Tupperware party. A damned Tupperware party. She'd wanted extra containers to store her Christmas cookies in and some asshole with fresh divorce papers wanted an escape. He'd escaped all right, staggered out of the wreckage with nothing more than a broken arm.

Josh stopped the patrol car with a sigh. He knew that life wasn't fair, that bad things happened to good people, but what happened to his family was beyond unfair. It was wrong. His girls shouldn't have to grow up without a mother.

There was only one way to fix that problem.

Except finding the right woman to help him fix it was a daunting task. Don't be in a hurry, he counseled himself.
The girls don't need any more grief and neither do you
.

And he sure didn't need to eat Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of strangers. “Why the hell didn't you ask me?” he demanded when his dad told him the next morning about their dinner engagement.

Dad scowled at him, the same scowl that used to scare the shit out of Josh when he was ten. “What are you getting so damned pissed about? We've got to eat.”

“Yeah, with our own family. That's what Thanksgiving is for.”

“So? There'll be families there.”

“I don't want to go out,” Josh said. He knew he sounded like a sullen fifteen-year-old, but hell, he had a right. “You know, it's great you came to live with us, but I'm the dad in this house. I get to make the big decisions.”

The scowl deepened. “You may be the dad in this house, but I'm still your father. And I want to go to the Goodwins' for Thanksgiving.”

“So go. No one's stopping you,” Josh snapped. He turned his back on his father and poured himself another cup of coffee.

A moment later he felt a big hand on his shoulder. That hand
on the shoulder had been a comfort when his team lost the championship game, when his first girlfriend dumped him, when he stood bewildered in the church foyer, trying to think of what to say to people after Crystal's memorial service. Now it called up a lifetime of memories: his dad swearing over a leaky inflatable boat that ended their fishing adventure on an ill-fated camping trip, his dad holding him on his lap while they watched a scary movie, his dad in trouble when Mom came home and discovered Dad letting him watch a scary movie.

“Oh, hell. If you want to go, we'll go,” he said.

The old man was smart enough not to gloat. “Sarah said bring whatever you want as long as it's not dessert.”

Fine. He'd bring something. But not his enthusiasm.

 

By four o'clock in the afternoon exactly three customers had come through Emma's shop door. The first was Shirley, who had managed to skip off with two yards of fabric she'd never pay for. Emma had chalked it up as her good deed for the day.

But these last two—well, one, really—were enough to drive her to close up early. She'd been trying not to eavesdrop as the women talked in a corner over by the hundred-count fabric, but the shop wasn't exactly buzzing with activity.

“This is nice,” said the short, middle-aged woman with the dark hair.

Her friend, a tall, frosted blonde with perfect makeup and expensive clothes, took the cloth between well-manicured fingers and inspected it. “It is. Overpriced, though. You know, you can get the same thing at the Savemart for fifty cents a yard less.”

“Really?” said the short woman.

“All my quilting friends shop there.”

So that was where all Emma's potential customers were. Panic and defeat began to play ring-around-the-rosy in her stomach.

“Still, it's nice to support local shops,” said the short woman.

“I suppose,” said her friend, who could obviously afford to do the same.

“I think I'll buy this,” the short woman decided. “And this.”

Bless you, thought Emma. She set aside the work she was pretending to do and donned her cheeriest smile as the two women approached the counter. “How are you ladies doing today?” she asked, trying to sound cheerful.

“Fine,” said the short woman.

Her friend just stood next to her and said nothing. Emma was willing to bet she hadn't gotten that fancy suede jacket at Savemart.

The short woman laid two bolts of cloth on the cutting counter. “Can I have two yards of each of these?”

“Of course,” Emma said, and cut the cloth. She wished she could think of something else to say, something friendly and inspiring that would prove to these women that shopping with her was worth an extra fifty cents a yard. But all she could think of was how she wasn't going to be able to make her rent either here or at home this month unless her fairy godmother or the patron saint of quilters showed up. And then there was the small matter of the eighty-thousand-dollar bank loan she'd taken out to buy her inventory. Her parents had matched her savings with another ten thousand and cosigned for the loan. With all of
forty-six dollars left in her savings account, she was in very deep doo-doo.

Didn't these people understand about community loyalty? Hadn't they ever watched
It's a Wonderful Life?
“Are you ladies new to Heart Lake?” she asked. They couldn't be from around here. Otherwise they'd understand the importance of supporting their local merchants.

“I've been here for ten years,” said the woman in the suede coat.

Even though by Heart Lake standards that made her a newcomer, ten years was still long enough to figure a few things out. But judging from what Emma had overheard, a lot of people in town were just as clueless.

“I'm new here,” said the short woman, “and I love it. Everyone is so nice and friendly. And I love the idea of doing good deeds. I saw the article in the paper,” she added, beaming at Emma.

“Well, you've just supported a local business and done your good deed for the day,” Emma said as she rang up the purchase.

“You do know you're overpriced,” said the other woman. Did she consider sharing that information to be her good deed for the day?

Her friend blushed, and Emma felt a sizzle on her own cheeks. “I try hard to keep my prices competitive. Unfortunately, I can't always offer the same discounts as the big chains. But I make up for it in service.” She slipped a flyer announcing her upcoming quilting class in the bag along with the fabric and
handed it to the short woman. “Classes are free when you buy your fabric here.”

“Now, that's a good deal,” said the woman.

“And there's something to be said for shopping right here in town,” Emma continued. “Think of the money you save on gas.”

The short woman nodded thoughtfully. “You're right.”

But as they walked out the door, Emma heard the tall one say, “Savemart's not that far away, and the amount of money I save on everything there, including my groceries, more than makes up for what I spend on gas.”

Emma wanted to scream after them, “But does Savemart care about you? Do they care about the community? DO THEY OFFER FREE QUILTING CLASSES?”

After the depressing encounter she felt too sick to keep the shop open. She closed up and went straight home. Pyewacket was her welcoming committee. He came trotting out from her bedroom and followed her into the kitchen, rubbing against her legs as she dialed her mother. “In a minute,” she told him. “And what were you doing in my bedroom?” She could have sworn she'd shut the door.

“Hi, sweetie,” said her mom. “Why are you calling me from home?”

“I'm sick. I'm not coming over for dinner tonight.”

“Oh, no. What have you got?”

A bad case of discouragement. “Nothing really, I'm just . . . my stomach's upset. I'm going to have some tea and then go to bed.”
And consider smothering myself with a pillow
.

“Do you want me to bring you some chicken soup?” offered her mom.

“No, thanks. I'll be okay.”

“Maybe it's a simple case of exhaustion. You've been working too hard.”

She wished. If she'd been working hard it would have meant she had customers and could pay her bills.

“Get a good night's sleep,” said Mom. “And if you're still sick tomorrow I can man the shop.”

The ghost shop. The last thing Emma wanted was her mother there all day, seeing no one coming in and nothing happening, but she murmured her thanks. Then she hung up and went to see if her bedroom had survived a day of Pye.

The quilt on the bed was her first concern. She'd made it when she was thirteen, and Grandma Nordby had helped her. Her parents had been busy building their house on the lake and she had stayed with Grandma. She'd been convinced she'd be bored with no friends around, but Grandma had introduced her to the magic of creating beautiful patterns out of bits of fabric, and between that and watching old movies together, the summer had flown by.

Now, seeing the quilt, she wanted to cry. “Oh, Pye!” She held it up to survey the damage. One whole side looked like Freddy Kruger had gone on a binge.

The cat had followed her in, probably to remind her that he expected his food dish to be filled immediately, as always. She glared at him. “Look what you've done!”

He could have cared less about looking. He already knew. Unlike a dog, who would have realized how he'd disappointed
his master and come slinking over to her to offer an apology, Pyewacket simply scatted.

Emma slammed the bedroom door after him. Then she fell on the bed and indulged herself in a good cry. No good deed went unpunished. She was living proof.

 

 

 

 

J
amie had enjoyed a great week. The shop had been busy and so had the town. It really looked like Heart Lake was rediscovering its small-town spirit and getting into doing good deeds. She and Emma had finished their design for the T-shirts, adding a red heart with an angel perched on top to their
KEEP THE HEART IN HEART LAKE
slogan, and a shop in Seattle was printing their first batch of shirts. Now one of her customers who had gotten into the gift-jar idea was in buying chocolates to fill another Mason jar.

“I started a game of front porch tag in my neighborhood,” she reported.

“I was always It when we played tag,” Clarice said. “That sucked.”

“This is much more fun,” the woman assured her. To Jamie
she said, “I left one of your truffle jars on my neighbor's porch along with a note to go tag someone else, and I just saw a jar at a house at the end of the street on my way here.”

“If it meant getting chocolate, I wouldn't mind getting tagged,” said Clarice.

Like she needed to. Clarice was a two-legged chocolate mouse. If she didn't stop sneaking into the inventory Jamie was going to have to hide a mousetrap in the display case among the white chocolate– blackberry truffles.

“That is awesome,” Jamie said to their customer.

“Looove in a jar,” crooned Clarice. “Hey, that almost sounds like a commercial.”

“Or at least a headline,” said Jamie. “Want to be in the paper?”

“Really?” The woman was grinning like a jack-o'-lantern.

“I think that would be a yes,” said Clarice, so Jamie sicced Lezlie Hurst on her.

On Wednesday the paper's Lake Living section ran an article dedicated to the art of goody jars with all kinds of suggestions for turning a Mason jar into a good deed.

“Those gift jars are really catching on,” Sarah said when the three friends met.

“I'll bet the baking classes are, too,” said Emma.

“They are,” Sarah said, “but I'm not sure the real thing is matching up to what I envisioned.”

“Reality sucks,” said Jamie cheerfully. “What happened?”

“Nothing that bad. The girls are a handful, that's all.” Sarah stared into her empty mocha cup. “I may not have had the purest of motives when I started this baking class.”

“You? You're joking, right?” scoffed Jamie.

Sarah shook her head. “I think I was expecting those girls to magically turn into granddaughters. I was doing it more for me than to help someone.”

“You shouldn't be so hard on yourself,” said Emma. “Of course you miss your granddaughters, but part of why you miss them is that you don't have anyone to do nice things for. Isn't that why you really started the baking class?”

“Yeah,” put in Jamie. “You weren't being a selfish grandma. You were a good deed looking for a place to happen.”

“I don't know,” said Sarah. “I hope you're right.” She looked at her watch. “I should get going. I've got a lasagna to deliver to the firehouse.”

“You spoil those guys,” Jamie told her.