Simple Gone South (Crimson Romance) (24 page)

Okay. Pumpkin still cooking, dough chilling, pie pan out of the cabinet, new rolling pin washed and ready to go. It was going to be fine. There was time to mix the sugar with the spices, measure out the milk, and beat the eggs. At this rate, she’d be done in no time, certainly in plenty of time to talk to Brantley when he called later.

And he would call, wouldn’t he? He hadn’t said he would, but after last night . . . yes, he would. Certainly. Probably.

The baking pumpkin smelled good, which reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since her BLT at lunch. The crust had seven minutes left to chill, but it could go a little longer while she heated a Lean Cuisine and ate. A little extra would probably be even better.

She got distracted with a magazine while she ate her sesame chicken, and the pastry had enjoyed a full forty-five minutes in the refrigerator by the time she took it out and laid it on the floured wax paper. She picked up her rolling pin and started to roll, except it wouldn’t roll so she patted it for a while with her hands. The recipe said not to handle it, but how else were you supposed to get a pie out of this shit? Maybe she needed to dump it back in the bowl and add some more water. But did that mean she needed to chill it some more? She grabbed up the recipe with her greasy fingers and started looking for a loophole, though there was no point. She’d practically memorized it and there was no advice for when things went wrong—no advice from this greasy piece of paper and no advice from the no-cell-phone-coverage-having-Missy, who’d given her the recipe from hell and left town.

The good news was Brantley didn’t know what his surprise was supposed to be. She could throw it all in the garbage and he’d never know. She’d get a different surprise. Maybe a lemon icebox pie. Graham cracker crust, lemon juice, Eagle Brand Milk, eggs, Cool Whip—you got pie and a darned good one. He’d never know—except, damn. She’d told Charles.

Okay. Calm. Calm. Calm had always worked for her. Millions of people did this all the time, many of them dumber than she. Okay. Flour the rolling pin and roll. Short careful strokes. Yes. That was better. Hey, this wasn’t so hard after all. It was becoming a sheet of pastry! Just a little more. Yes. That looked big enough to fit in the pie pan. Now all she had to do was carefully, carefully, pick it up and transfer it. Yes, yes. There.

Hell and double hell! It fell apart in her hands.

And the doorbell rang.

Damn, damn, damn. She looked down at herself. Somewhere along the way, getting the pie crust in the pan had become more important than anything else in life—certainly more important than neatness. There was flour on her sweater, flour handprints on her bottom, and flour on her shoes. With Tolly and Missy gone, there was no one in this town she was all right with seeing her like this except Aunt Annelle and Lanie. Please let it be one of them or someone she didn’t have to let in.

She pushed her hair back as she walked toward the door. She was already swinging it open when she caught sight of herself in the hall tree mirror and saw the flour on her face and in her hair. Too late to pretend she wasn’t here.

And there stood Caroline Brantley, every hair in place, lipstick on, rust colored turtleneck tucked into brown wool pants, beige cable knit wool cardigan thrown around her shoulders.

“Oh, my,” Lucy said.

Caroline smiled. “Charles told me you were making a pie and you were starting with a fresh pumpkin.”

She did not know a word bad enough to describe this situation.

“Yeah.” Might as well admit it. “It’s not going all that well. Come in.”

“Let me get something out of my car first,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

So much for being Charles’s baby girl. He’d told on her. She tried to rub some of the flour off her face. What was that smell? Oh, damn. She’d forgotten about the pumpkin. There was smoke pouring out of the oven by the time she got there.

“Damn it all to hell!” she said as she threw the pan of blackened pumpkin in the sink. The smoke detector went off and she turned to see Miss Caroline standing behind her holding a Big Starr bag. She set the bag on the table, calmly opened the back door, turned on the exhaust fan over the stove, and started fanning the smoke out. After a minute or two, the ear splitting wail stopped.

“Well,” Lucy said, leaning on the counter that held the ruins of her piecrust. “Now you’ve heard me cuss.”

“Sweetheart, if you weren’t already a cusser when you got tangled up with my grandson, you were bound to be soon.” The woman actually looked amused.

“It’s not that I can’t cook,” Lucy said. “Now, I’m no Missy but I can make good lasagna and chicken and dumplings, and more than passable enchiladas. I’ll put my cheese grits up against anybody’s and I can fry a chicken. I can make a Coca-Cola cake from scratch. But this pie thing has defeated me.” She gestured to the kitchen. “Though not all pies,” she hastened to add. “I can make lemon ice box with the vanilla wafers around it.”

“Hardly a pie has been invented better than that one.” Miss Caroline took off her sweater and started cleaning up the mess. “What do you say we claim a victory where this pumpkin pie is concerned?”

“I’m not sure.” She looked doubtfully at the pumpkin in the sink.

“Oh, that’s history. I’m going to clean up here and I want you to unpack what I brought.”

Lucy opened the Big Starr bag. There was a box of Pillsbury piecrusts, a pound of dark brown sugar, a bottle of maple syrup, a carton of whipping cream—and a can of Libby’s solid pack pumpkin. She picked up the can of pumpkin for a closer look.

“Missy didn’t tell me about this.”

“Read the recipe on the back.” Miss Caroline bent over and wiped flour and bits of raw dough from the floor. “I assumed you have eggs and spices.”

Lucy nodded as she read.

Why, there was nothing to this. All you did was mix this can with a few things and you had pie! It didn’t even want nutmeg, freshly grated or not. With that box of piecrusts, this was no different from lemon icebox.

“Is this how you do it?” Lucy asked. “This is the one Brantley likes?”

“It’s not exactly how I do it. I substitute cream for the evaporated milk and brown sugar for the white. I add two tablespoons of the maple syrup. You just let that piecrust warm up on the counter for a few minutes and then fit it into your pan.”

“I can do this.”

“Of course you can.”

“You must think I’m the dumbest woman to ever walk.”

“I don’t think that. I think you want to make my grandson a pie and I think you want to do it by yourself. Else I would have sent Evelyn over. She might have intended to coach you through it, but she would have taken it over.” She moved to clean the pumpkin out of the sink. “I’ve made you a clean spot. Make your pie.”

Lucy mixed the filling while the rolled up crust warmed up a little. “So Charles didn’t think I could make this pie?”

“Charles doesn’t know a thing about pie, beyond the eating of it,” Miss Caroline said. “He just bragged that you were going to make Brantley his favorite pie. When he started talking about baking a pumpkin and buying a pastry blender, I thought there might be a little trouble. You never end up with a crust on the same day you buy a pastry blender.”

“There.” Lucy held up the pie plate with the perfect crust. She’d even crimped it, like it showed on the box.

“No one will ever know the difference. I love those crusts. The ones in the foil pans will give you away.”

Caroline finished restoring order and went to sit at the kitchen table. Lucy slid the pie into the oven, set the timer, and went to sit across from Miss Caroline.

“Oh.” She jumped up again. “I have no manners. Would you like some iced tea? Or I could make coffee. That is, if you trust my tea and coffee making after this mess.”

“Iced tea would be lovely and I trust you implicitly. Remember, I had your curried fruit.”

Lucy set about putting ice in glasses and cutting a fresh lemon.

“And, Lucy,” Miss Caroline said. “I trust you with Brantley. That’s not something I could have said to many young ladies.”

That warmed her and scared her all at the same time.

She didn’t know what to say, so she broached another subject, one she had been toying with for a few days.

“Miss Caroline,” she turned to face her. “I’ve been going through that box of pictures.”

“Have you found much that will help you with the restoration?”

“Oh, yes, so many great ones. But there are lots of family pictures too. I was thinking of making Brantley a photo album for Christmas.” Surely they would last until Christmas. “I’d get copies of the pictures I use, of course. But I didn’t want to do it without asking your permission.”

“Oh, my dear!” Caroline smiled broadly. “What a wonderful thought. And you must use the originals if you like. There are so many wonderful ones of him with Eva. With Alden. With all of us. What a treasure.”

Lucy wasn’t sure if Miss Caroline meant the book would be a treasure or if she was talking about Lucy herself.

• • •

Brantley called just as Lucy was crawling into bed, just when she thought he wasn’t going to.

“Lucy Mead,” he said. “I am not a happy man.”

Warmth spread though her.

“Do you know why I am not happy?”

She snuggled under the covers. “Because Will wouldn’t take you to Six Flags Over Georgia?”

“Close. I am missing my own personal amusement park that is Lucy Mead.”

“That isn’t the most flattering comparison I’ve ever heard,” she said. “I don’t believe I want to be thought of as a funnel cake and log ride. Maybe I’ll cancel your surprise.”

“No! Don’t take back the tall boots. Please. Anything but that. What if I compared you to something else—say, a rose garden? A perfume shop? How am I doing?”

She laughed.

“Ah, I’ve been waiting all day to hear that.” His sweet caramel voice was so warm, so sexy, and so convincing that for the first time she actually considered looking into tall boots.

“How was the salvage store?” she asked.

“Great.” The flirtation left his voice and took on the professional down to business tone. “Will called ahead and they stayed open late for us. That’s why I haven’t called before now. I’ve got to say, you were right about Will. He knows his stuff. And he entirely understands that we want to use period materials where we can. He even said he would install the salvaged materials in prominent places and use his reproductions, say, near the ceiling. Though he is pretty sure of himself. He said I wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other. I told him I doubted that.”

She laughed again. “Did you get some of the things we talked about?”

“Yes. Three doors, and they are going to be on the lookout for more. Will suggested that, though that’s taking money out of his pocket. For every door they find, that’s one he won’t make.”

“Will stays busy. I doubt he’s worried about that. What else did you get?”

“Some flooring. Woodwork, but not near enough. No light fixtures, but I gave them the pictures you sent.”

“Sounds like you did pretty good.”

“It’s a start. And there’s one more thing. You remember the picture you found of how the reception area looked originally? The fireplace they covered up?”

She shuddered. “How could I forget?”

“I wish I had brought that picture, but I think there’s a mantle and some tile here that would satisfy you.”

That would be a fantastic find. “I could scan the picture and send it,” she said.

“No. I am not making that judgment call, even with a picture. That’s for you to decide. I took a picture and I’ll send it to you when we hang up. If you want it, we’ll pick it up first thing in the morning. If not, we’ll head on back.”

He trusted her professionally.
They were not far enough into the work that she had been sure he would. It would have been easy to gush about that but she didn’t.

“I’ll look at it and text you.”

“Just give me a yes or a no and I’ll take care of it.”

“Is it in good condition?”

“Fair. Nothing Will can’t set to right.” He paused. “I wish you could have come.” His tone told her that wish had nothing to do with fireplaces.

“I wish you were here,” she said.

“I will be. Probably by five without a mantle or by six with.”

He had calculated the time. Against her better judgment, she started counting.

As soon as Will dropped Brantley at the carriage house, he picked up his car and drove straight to Lucy’s—where he had every intention of staying until morning.

In the instant before he closed in for a kiss, he noticed that her color was high, and she had an excited-looking little smile. That might have something to do with the surprise she had been taunting him with or that he was back. Maybe both. The two days and night had seemed like a month.

He would have kissed her a month’s worth if she hadn’t pushed him away, gestured to her body, and said, “What do you think?”

No! Oh, how he hated a question like that. One of the things he liked best about Lucy was that she never did that. What was the answer?
I like your body? That’s a great new hairdo?
Or was he supposed to say something about that pink fuzzy sweater and that gray skirt that hit her about mid calf?

Then she put one foot out and raised her skirt to her knee.

She was wearing knee high black leather boots. The heels had to be all of three inches high and there was as thin strap around the ankle decorated with a few small silver studs and a delicate little buckle.

No doubt she had gotten them at the mall.

Now her smile had a little wicked edge to it and she was doing her best to leer at him. And she was blushing.

She was so proud of herself, thought she was being so bad. His heart positively melted at her innocence and because she was trying to please him.

Trying? Hell, she
had
pleased him. And something stirred in him that no thigh high vinyl boots, with platforms, eight-inch heels, and studs from top to toe ever could have.

She thought she was being bad and she expected him to respond in kind.

He’d show her bad.

He grasped her to him and pulled her skirt up. “Are you my naughty girl?” he asked, tangling his hand in her thong. “Oh, a thong too? You aren’t just naughty. You’re all the way to the
bad
zone, Lucy Mead.”