On Lavender Lane (2 page)
Again, to all the men and women of the U.S. military—and their families—for their service and sacrifice.
To the Ladies of Orcas Ridge, for the warm
welcome and fun lunches.
And, as always, to Jay—who once bought me a bag of saltwater taffy at the Oregon coast, where Shelter Bay is set, then proposed.
Here’s to many more years of memorable
beach days together.
As always, with heartfelt appreciation to my fabulous agent and cheerleader, Robin Rue. And her assistant, detail goddess Beth Miller.
Again, with thanks to the supersupportive team at NAL, who make writing such a joy. Between moving back to my beloved Pacific Northwest and coming home to my first publisher, my life is now pretty much perfect.
With gratitude to Paul Janovsky, for creating such beautiful watercolor art for
One Summer
and
On Lavender Lane
. And who (yay!) has signed on for future Shelter Bay covers.
And last but definitely not least, I was remiss in not acknowledging our own dear Shadow, eldest brother of our three current rescued dogs, and the model for Marine photojournalist Gabriel St. James’ dog in
One Summer
. As Gabe learned, rescues rule!
1
Madeline Durand was braising short ribs in an Omaha department store when her husband’s sex video went viral.
The day, which would go down as one of the worst in her life, hadn’t exactly begun on a high note. Her early-morning flight from New York was delayed for three hours because of a late-spring storm that had barreled into Nebraska, bringing with it tree-bending winds, snow, and ice.
Lots and lots of ice.
On the plus side, when she finally did arrive in Omaha, she was greeted by a sixtysomething woman wearing a puffy down coat the same color as her weather-chapped cheeks, and a red knit hat pulled down over salt-and-pepper hair. Her down-to-earth midwestern friendliness gave Madeline hope that her luck may have taken a turn for the better.
“Hi, Chef Madeline! I’m Birdy Hinlemeir,” she said enthusiastically, pulling off a red and white striped mitten and thrusting out her hand. “Head of the store’s special events department. We’re all so excited about hosting your cooking demonstration today.”
“I’m happy to be here.” Which was the absolute truth. After holding her breath while the pilot landed in what appeared to be near whiteout conditions, Madeline was infinitely grateful to be back on solid ground.
“Sorry about the weather,” Birdy said as they walked
out into air thick with swirling white flakes. “We tend to have four seasons here: almost winter, winter, still winter, and wow, this has gotta be the hottest summer ever!”
“I take it we’re in ‘still winter.’ ” Madeline sucked in a breath as a freezing mix of snow and sleet pelted her face.
“Yep. We don’t tend to get snow this late, but the weather’s been really strange the past couple years. I guess Mother Nature had one more storm up her sleeve.”
“You needn’t apologize. Fortunately, I won’t be cooking outdoors.”
“Oh, the store will definitely be warm enough,” the older woman assured her. “Your dish for the finished part of the demonstration arrived this morning, all packed in dry ice, so my assistant’s heating it up for you.”
“I appreciate that.” Short ribs took three hours in the oven, so, following Julia Child’s motto that a few simple steps ahead of time could make all the difference in the end, Madeline had preprepared a dish to serve to the audience.
“Good thinking, going with beef, since we’re definitely a meat-and-potatoes crowd out here. It’s not that often we get a celebrity at the store—usually it’s just some local selling homemade jam or sausage—so we wanted to do it up right.”
“I appreciate the effort. But I’m not a celebrity. I just cook.”
“Well, to us you’re certainly a TV star. I’ve never missed an episode of
Comfort Cooking
, but your new show,
Dinner at Home
, got my family sitting down at the table together again.”
“That’s always lovely to hear,” Madeline said through teeth she’d clenched together to keep them from chattering.
“Of course, my own three kids have left the nest,” Birdy confided. “But my daughter got laid off from her management job at ConAgra. The same week, her cheating husband
left her for the woman who claimed to be her best friend. Yeah, right. That’s a real good friend.” She shook her head in disgust. “Anyway, with money tight right now, she and her kids have moved in with me until she gets back on her feet.”
“I’m sorry about her marriage.”
“Oh, in the long run, it’s probably for the best. He was a no-good louse from the get-go. I tried to warn her, but what can you do?” She shrugged well-padded shoulders as she clicked a remote, causing a tomato red SUV a few cars away in the lot to chirp. “They never had anything in common. Nothing like you and that sexy French chef you married. Is it true one of his ancestors cooked for Napoleon?”
“So they say.” Maxime had never been shy about mentioning that bit of family history.
“It’s good to know your roots. One of my greats, going back several generations, came here to Nebraska on a covered wagon from Philadelphia. She had a baby along the way, and both mother and son lived to carry on the family line.” She opened the hatch of the SUV, took Madeline’s carry-on bag, and tossed it into the back.
Desperate for warmth, Madeline scrambled into the passenger’s seat, only to find the inside of the car as cold as outside.
“We’ll get the heat going right away,” Birdy promised as she switched on the car, causing icy air to blast out of the dashboard vents. “Does your husband ever come with you on any of these trips?”
“Not so far. But running all his restaurants involves a lot of traveling of his own. He’s currently in Las Vegas.” And probably lounging by the pool while she was in danger of becoming a Popsicle.
“Small world. My Heather and Tom, her ex, got married there,” she said as they headed out of the parking lot. “By one of those Elvis impersonators, which should’ve been Heather’s first clue that they weren’t exactly compatible.
Tom’s into all the typical outdoors stuff. Hunting, ice-fishing, four-wheeling…”
“I imagine those would be popular activities here.”
“True enough. But Heather prefers reading and going to museums and such. She volunteers at the library. I don’t think they have a cookbook she hasn’t read. She’s the one who got me watching cooking shows. Two years ago, Hamburger Helper and a green-bean casserole were about as fancy as I got. Now I can whip up a three-course meal from what I find in the pantry.”
“That’s a useful skill to have.” It was also something Madeline stressed on both her shows.
“You betcha. That’s our
Dancing Cranes.
” Birdy pointed toward a huge statue that was barely visible through the horizontally blowing snow. “It’s the largest bronze statue in North America.”
“That’s impressive.”
“We like to think so. I realize that a lot of people on the coasts never think about us out here in the flyover heartland, but we’re not all hicks in sticks. Kool-Aid and the Reuben sandwich were both invented right here in Nebraska.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“It’s true. Too bad you’re not going to be here longer. There’s even a Kool-Aid exhibit in the Hastings Museum, just a couple hours from here. Did you know that during the Depression, one of those little packages cost more than a loaf of bread?”
“I had no idea.”
“It sure enough did. But people bought the stuff anyway. Imagine that. Hastings got an offer from some marketing folks to change the name of their town to Kool-Aid, Nebraska, but they declined the honor.” Her dry tone suggested how ridiculous she’d found the suggestion.
“I think they made the right choice,” Madeline said. “I haven’t always lived in New York. I spent my childhood in
an Italian village with my parents, and then, when I was thirteen, moved to an Oregon coastal town that’s kept its small-town flavor.”
Shelter Bay was also where she’d given her teenage heart to a rich “summer boy,” only to have it shattered by Labor Day. But she’d tried, with not always successful results, to put that dark day in the past.
“I read all about that.” The pom-pom on her hat bobbed as the woman nodded. “After your folks died in that plane crash, which was a crying shame, you went to live with your grandmother on her lavender farm.
“You can find anything on the Internet these days,” she clarified at Madeline’s surprised glance. “I even found your wedding photos. You sure were a picture in that white dress.”
“My wedding photos are on the Internet?”
“The photographer has them in his gallery.”
“I hadn’t realized that.” The idea of her personal photos out there on the World Wide Web was more than a little unsettling. Unlike her celebrity-chef husband, who thrived in the spotlight, Madeline had always been a private person. It had taken a lot for her to get comfortable in front of the TV cameras.
“Well, you needn’t worry, because they’re beautiful. Did you make that pretty flowered cake yourself?”
“No. I’m not much of a baker.” Unlike the creative freedom and improvisation allowed by the comfort food she’d become known for, baking required precision, a strict attention to measurements, and much more patience than Madeline possessed. “My husband’s pastry chef made it.”
“I stick to cookies when it comes to baking,” Birdy said cheerfully. “They’re a lot harder to mess up than cakes or pies, and the grandkids love them.” Her comfortable way with a total stranger reminded Madeline of her grandmother Sofia. “My mother-in-law’s from South Dakota, so,
now that she’s passed, I get the job of cooking her kuchen for this year’s Easter dinner.”
As she launched into a lengthy explanation of the pressures of duplicating the recipe, which used raspberries atop a custard base, an oncoming car fishtailed on the icy road, then headed directly toward them.
Birdy twisted the wheel and braked at the same time. Although she managed to avoid impact, the SUV went into a skid.
As Madeline clutched the door handle, they skated on what felt like an ice rink beneath the tires, bumping over the rumble strip in the middle of the road.
“Hold on,” Birdy advised with what Madeline found to be remarkable calm. “We’re about to come to a stop.”
Which they did as they plowed, hood first, into a frozen, exhaust-darkened snowbank.
“Don’t you worry.” After trying to back up only sent the rear wheels spinning, the woman, who seemed to have sturdy pioneer blood flowing in her veins, dug into her coat pocket and pulled out a phone. “We’ll get you to the mall on time. Not that they can start without you.”
She punched a single number on the keypad. “No point in calling for a tow truck since we’re not all that stuck. The police will be here in a two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“You have the police department on speed dial?”
“My youngest boy, Jeb, is on the force, so I keep his number handy. He’s the one who’ll pull us out.”
And, sure enough, before Madeline’s feet could turn completely to ice cubes, a huge black SUV with white doors came up behind them, blue and red roof lights flashing.
The officer who climbed out of the driver’s seat was large enough to have played linebacker on the Cornhuskers football team. He was wearing sensible snowpack boots, thick gloves, a parka, and a fur hat with earflaps. While his partner jumped out of the shotgun seat to set a flare and
direct traffic, he crunched along the plowed snow at the edge of the roadway.
“Third time this week, Ma,” he greeted her. Although his expression was resigned, his blue eyes revealed relief that the accident hadn’t been worse.
“It wasn’t my fault,” she said. “The driver of the other car, who didn’t even stick around to see the trouble he caused, went across the line first.” She turned toward Madeline. “Tell him.”
“Your mother did a lot better than I would have under the circumstances,” Madeline said.
“Driven in a lot of snow, have you, ma’am?” he asked.
“No, but—”
“You must be the celebrity chef from New York City,” he said, cutting her off.
Madeline was about to explain again that she wasn’t a celebrity, but decided it wasn’t germane to their situation.
“She is. And we need to get her to the mall on time.” Birdy might be a good foot shorter than her son, but that didn’t stop her from pulling out her mom voice. “Jebediah, meet Chef Madeline Durand. Chef Madeline, this is my baby boy. Who I’m usually super proud of.” She drummed her mitten-clad fingers on the steering wheel. “Except for when he wastes time scolding his mother when she has important things to do.”
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” he said politely to Madeline. “And I worry about you,” he told his mother.
“Well, that makes us even for all the years I’ve worried about you,” she shot back. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’re going to be late if we don’t get this show on the road.”
“That’s very good,” Madeline murmured after Officer Jebediah Hinlemeir trudged back to his Omaha Police SUV.
“One of the perks of being a mother,” Birdy said cheerfully, as snowflakes began to pile up on the windshield.
“You get to boss around people bigger than you. Jeb’s about to become a father himself in the next month or so, but he’ll always be my baby. You and your husband planning to have kids anytime soon?”
“I do want children—someday—but we’re both occupied with our careers right now.”
Madeline wasn’t prepared to share the fact that she and Maxime weren’t exactly on the same page when it came to starting a family. Admittedly, the timing wasn’t right now, when she was forced to give every waking moment to her work and supporting Maxime’s far-flung enterprises. At twenty-eight, she had years left to convince her husband that she could, as her own mother had, successfully combine work and a career, despite Maxime’s fear that a child would take her focus off her career. Or, more likely, as she often suspected, off him.
