High Plains Hearts (2 page)

“Smell it,” Tess suggested.

“Wow! This is great! What is this stuff called?”

“ ‘Angel’s Breath,’ ” she answered. “Potpourri. The manufacturer calls this little package a sachet, but to me a sachet is something you put in a drawer to scent your clothing, and this is too potent for that. One little packet will scent an entire room. Some people buy it for their cars too.”

The potpourri was one of her best-selling items. She even used it in her bedroom.

“Well, it’s wonderful, whatever it’s called.” He put it back and asked her directly, “How do you like being downtown?”

He had touched on one of her favorite subjects. “I love it! It has a special ambiance that, quite frankly, the newer development doesn’t have—yet,” she added hastily, recalling that was where his business was located. “I really do like it. I suppose it’s not for everyone, but it works for me.”

He nodded and picked up a terra-cotta angel, which he studied with casual interest. “But hasn’t it gone to street people?”

She warmed to her topic. “Actually, downtown has always catered somewhat to street people. Not too long ago people strolled up and down Main Street, window-shopping even at midnight.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“You’re right. It’s not. But what I’m getting at is that the downtown has always had a nightlife that other parts of town haven’t had. It’s part of the downtown identity. And,” she acknowledged, “as time’s gone on, those people on the streets at night have changed. That’s true.”

“It’s not safe.” His statement was blunt.

“It’s not totally unsafe either. But the mayor’s renewal project has taken this into account, and I’m hopeful about seeing changes down here.”

“You know a lot about this.”

“I’m a member of the task force.”

“Do you think Panda’s would fit in downtown?”

Before she could respond, a large gray cat sauntered in. Its plumed tail waved back and forth, dusting dangerously near a set of fragile china angels that hovered protectively around and over a detailed porcelain nativity set.

She scooped the cat up as it began to weave through the display and affectionately rubbed her face in the cat’s fur. “This is Cora.”

“Hi, Cora.” Jake reached out and scratched the cat’s nose. A loud purr rewarded his efforts.

“You must be a cat person,” she said as Cora wiggled free to wrap herself in and out of Jake’s ankles.

“I adore cats.” Cora investigated the puddles of melted snow that had dripped off Jake’s coat. He stood still, exhibiting the instinct of a cat lover not to move quickly and startle an investigating cat. “And this one is terrific.”

“She’s been with me since I moved in here.” After two years Tess was finally able to tell the story without tearing up. “This was my grandparents’ house, although I grew up here, too. When Grandma died—Grandpa’d died about a year before—she left me this house. I came back here after the funeral, and Cora was waiting. Sunning herself right in this front area, as if she’d always been here.”

“Was she your Grandma’s cat?”

Tess shook her head. “No. Grandma loved cats, but she’d been living in a nursing home since Grandpa died, and she couldn’t have a cat there.” As she remembered, she couldn’t help smiling. “Grandma always said there’d be a cat waiting for her in heaven, a cat the color of pussy willows.”

Jake knelt and stroked Cora’s gray head. “The color of pussy willows, huh? What an extraordinary story!”

The cat meowed imperiously and meandered over to the large angel with the rakish halo. Jake watched her. “Cora’s got good taste. I truly do want to buy this wonderful angel. Are you going to tell me how much she is?”

She paused, and he pulled out his wallet, clearly misunderstanding her hesitation. “Oh, I suppose it really doesn’t matter. I’ll take her at whatever price you’re asking.”

“I really didn’t have a price put on her,” Tess said. “To be honest, she’s been here since I opened, and she’s almost a fixture in Angel’s Roost.” She made some quick mental calculations and named a price she almost hoped was too high.

He didn’t flinch. “No problem.” He handed her several bills, and Tess tried not to let her eyes widen at the amount of green she saw in his wallet.

Then he smacked his forehead. “I can’t take her!”

Tess breathed a mental sigh of relief, and she turned from the old-fashioned cash register.

“Here’s your money back, then.”

He shook his head. “Oh no. I still want her in Panda’s, but my car is packed with boxes I have to mail. For once in my life I’m ahead of the game with my Christmas shopping. Too bad too, because I see lots of things here that would have been great. My mother, for example, would adore that angel with the emerald green wings, and—”

“Would you like me to deliver the angel?” She tried not to wince as she spoke. Parting with the angel was hard enough; having to take her to her new home was almost unimaginable.

“No. No need to. I’ve decided I want to come back and do a little more Christmas shopping. When do you close?”

She had to smile. “Around five, but it doesn’t matter. I can stay—”

He scratched Cora’s neck as he thought. “No. You probably want to get home.”

“I am home.”

He looked up, startled.

“I live here.”

“I didn’t realize this was an apartment building,” he said.

“It’s not. It’s a house—my house. As I say, I live here. Well, Cora and I live here.”

Cora looked at Tess as if challenging her words. Jake caught the glance, too, and his chocolate brown eyes twinkled with amusement.

“I have the feeling that you live here only through her largesse.”

“Basically. In exchange for vast amounts of tuna and Cat-Cat Yums, I get all the kitty kisses and snuggles I could ever want.”

They exchanged laughing glances.

“In other words she tolerates me.”

He grinned as the cat happily scraped the side of her head on the big angel. “She’s a character, that’s for sure. So may I pick up Faith tomorrow?”

“Faith?” Tess was at a loss.

“That’s what I’m naming this angel. Faith. Doesn’t it fit her?”

Tess tilted her head and studied the wayward angel. “I don’t know. I always thought of faith as being light and airy and pure, not crazy like this one.” Mechanically she once again straightened the angel’s halo. “But let me think about it.”

“When I come back tomorrow, let me know what you’ve decided. But Faith seems right for her, so Faith she is.”

“Well, she is your angel now.” The words cost her dearly.

“As a matter of fact, let’s put a
SOLD
sign on her,” he said. He took one of the business cards from the angel-wings holder near the cash register and scrabbled in his pocket until he found a pen.

“SOLD!” he proclaimed as he wrote the word on the back of the card. He bent over and tucked the card into the angel’s raffia grasp.

As he stood up, he looked out through the prism edges of the piano window that graced the front of the store. “Still snowing. Not that that’s any big surprise, right?”

She nodded mutely, relieved he didn’t seem to expect much of an answer.

“I’d better be going,” he said, wrapping the muffler around his neck again and settling the sodden cap back on his head. “The snow isn’t stopping, and I want to get to the post office before it closes.”

His warm brown eyes met hers. “By the way, I didn’t get your name.”

“Tess Mahoney,” she said, somewhat breathlessly. Had her heart always beat this irregularly? Maybe she should get a checkup.

“Tess Mahoney,” he repeated. “Sounds a bit Irish.”

“You’ve got it right with ‘a bit.’ The name is Irish, but the rest of me is a mishmash of everything.”

“Well, Tess Mahoney, I’m very glad to have met you and your angels, and I’ll be back tomorrow to pick up Faith and do some more shopping.”

“I’ll be here.”

With a wave he opened the door and left, the cold November air swirling in to replace the warmth that left with him.

Cora leaped up to the counter and leaned against Tess, her body heat welcome as the chilled early night air invaded the cozy store.

“Well, Kitty-Cat,” she said as she locked the store’s door and turned off the light, “thanks to Mr. Cameron you’ll be in Cat-Cat Yums for quite a while.”

There was nothing to take her from her snug house that night—no choir practice, no urban renewal meetings, no shopping to be done. So she curled up on the couch under one of the many colorful afghans her grandmother had crocheted, with Cora cozied in beside her and a cup of spiced tea heating her hands.

It had been a long time since she’d gone out with anyone. She smoothed Cora’s already silky fur. Thoughts crowded her mind.

He wasn’t married. He liked cats. He didn’t seem to think her store was silly.

But one major question was still unanswered, and she posed it aloud to Cora: “Does he believe in angels? What does he believe?”

The answer made all the difference in the world.

Cora’s even purring became hypnotic, and Tess felt herself drifting off to sleep after she’d downed the dregs of her tea.

Her last thoughts were of Faith. Why would he think Faith was an appropriate name for an angel who seemed to be always challenging her? No, he was wrong. Faith was constant, unchanging, not an angel whose halo refused to stay put.

T
ess woke as a thought broke into her dreams with the clarity of a fire alarm. She had told Jake Cameron to come back for the angel today. But this was Thanksgiving! She was going to help serve dinner at her church.

She found his phone number in the telephone book and whistled at the address. Panda’s must do a fairly decent business, she realized, for him to be able to afford a home in the Pines. It was the newest housing development in town, far down along the river, and houses there began at more than she could make in fifteen years even if she saved every penny she earned.

She waited until ten o’clock to dial the phone. He answered on the second ring, but his voice was thick with sleep.

“Oh, I’m sorry—I woke you up,” she said, her words falling over each other.

“No, well, yes, but that’s all right. I had to get up now anyway. What time is it?”

“And how do you know you have to get up now if you don’t know what time it is?” She couldn’t resist teasing him.

“The sun is up,” he responded, the grogginess clearing from his voice. “I’m always up at the crack of dawn.”

“Well, dawn has cracked. About four hours ago.” She grinned at Cora, who lifted one exhausted eyelid in response.

He muttered something she couldn’t understand and probably didn’t want to. “The roaster blew a bearing last night around midnight. Wouldn’t you know it, just as we head into our biggest season. So I stayed up to work on it.”

“Did you get it fixed?”

“Oh, I cobbled it together to last until I can get a replacement part.” His voice softened. “So how are you today, Angel Lady?”

“You recognized my voice!” Tess couldn’t hide her astonishment.

“Sure. Even the combined voices of the guy at the post office yesterday, telling me that ‘Sorry, sir, these boxes need extra tape,’ and the college student at Panda’s, notifying me that ‘Hey, dude, your big machine has just gone blooey,’ couldn’t erase the memory of your angelic tones. Seriously, I do have a good ear for voices.”

His dead-on imitation of the postal worker and the Panda’s employee caught Tess off guard, and she laughed. “Have you considered comedy?”

“Some people say that’s what I’m doing at Panda’s, but they’re just jealous. So how’s my angel doing? Is Faith’s halo askew again?”

“I don’t think it would stay on straight if you glued it on,” she said. “It seems destined to go off to the side no matter what I do.”

“I’m anxious to get her here.”

“That’s what I called about. I said you could take her today, but I forgot—this is Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, that’s right. I guess I could pick her up tomorrow, but I’d kind of hoped to have her already in place when I opened on Friday.”

“You could take her this afternoon,” Tess suggested, “unless you have other plans.”

“No, I don’t. I was just going to loll around the house and watch ball games on TV, but now I’ll probably go in and tinker with the roaster. I don’t want to interfere with your plans.”

“Well, I do need to be at the church by three.”

“Church? They have services on Thanksgiving afternoon?”

“We serve an open dinner. I’m in charge of salads and desserts this year. Plus I’ll be going in to make sure everything is in place and set the tables, put up the chairs, that kind of thing.”

“Sounds like fun. Can you use an extra pair of hands?”

“You’re volunteering?” Tess couldn’t believe her ears. “Of course we can! But what about your roaster?”

He laughed softly. “It’s undoubtedly safer without my hammering and fiddling around on it. I’m not exactly Mr. Handy, unfortunately. All around, the best choice—the wisest choice—is for me to help out at your church. It’ll make me feel useful.”

“Fair enough. Can you be here at Angel’s Roost shortly before three?”

“With bells on.”

She hung up the phone and swept Cora up and whirled her around until the cat meowed a clear complaint. “He’s coming to my church! He’s coming to my church!”

She hugged Cora to her chest and buried her face in the soft fur as her thoughts led into prayer. “Dear God, I sense something is moving here by Your power. Guide me in the way I should go.”

She felt the soft glow of prayer heard and answered, and her heart relaxed.

Cora’s impatient wriggle reminded her of the earthly demands of a cat that needed to be fed.

The rest of the morning and the early afternoon sped by. Tess had just slipped into her favorite sweatshirt, a bright yellow one festooned with angels in rainbow colors playing musical instruments, when she heard a car pull up in front of the house. She flew to the front door and motioned him around to the side, where the outside entrance to the house was.

He hadn’t even reached the door yet, and her heart was already singing. Did he have any idea how happy he was making her this day?