Sugar And Spice (24 page)

“He’s incredible,” Katie told Kim. “And he makes me feel incredible.”

“You’re in love with him!”

Mack held his breath.

“Yes, I am. God, Kim, I’m crazy in love with him. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight, but pretty darn close.”

She was in love with him! Mack’s gut tightened.

“I’m so happy for you. I knew that sooner or later, the right man would come along and help you get over losing Darrell.”

Silence.

“I’ll never get over losing Darrell,” Katie said.

Mack clenched his jaw.

“But Mack understands. At least, I think he does. He said the right man would be able to accept the fact that I’d always love Darrell, that he wouldn’t feel threatened by my memories but would be grateful that I was the kind of woman who can love that deeply and completely.”

“My God, can your Mack actually be that wonderful?”

“He is pretty wonderful,” Katie said.

“Oh, sweetie, you’ve got it bad, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. I’m so in love with Mack that if he asked me to marry him today, I’d say yes and run off to the far ends of the earth with him.”

“Don’t you think you two should date for a while and get to know each other just a little bit better before you—”

“I’m not sure Mack loves me. Not the way I love him. I don’t know if…well, he might not want marriage and children.”

“Then take your take time with him and see where it leads.”

“I guess.”

Mack heard the uncertainty and the underlying sadness in Katie’s voice. Without making his presence known, he slipped back down the hall and found the powder room.

A few minutes later, as he made his way back to the basement, Mack wondered what he should do.

When he left to go home tonight, should he ask Katie for a date? Should he give her the time and space her sister thought she needed? Would it be fair to sweep Katie off her feet before she changed her mind, before she realized that maybe he wasn’t Mr. Right, that he wasn’t as wonderful as she thought he was?

Greg and Kit were in the middle of another pool game when Mack returned. David Brown sat on a barstool at the far end of the room, his gaze switching back and forth from a sports channel on the TV to the game between his son and son-in-law. He glanced up, saw Mack, and waved him over his way.

Here it comes, Mack thought. The old man is going to warn me off, tell me I’m not good enough for his little girl, that I’m not half the man Darrell Hadley had been.

After crossing the room, Mack sat on the stool next to David.

“Want another beer?” David asked.

“No, thanks.”

David grunted.

Silence.

“It’s taken Katie a long time to come to terms with losing her husband,” David said. “He was a good man, and they had a good marriage.”

“Yeah, she told me.”

“It’d take a real man to accept the fact that his woman had loved someone else and that a part of her always would.”

“Are you trying to tell me something or ask me something?” Mack understood that this man loved his daughter, that it was not only his duty but his right to look out for her.

“Just how do you feel about my daughter?”

Mack took a deep, closed-mouth breath and released it through his nose. Truth time. “I’m in love with Katie.”

“Does she know how you feel?”

“I haven’t told her, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Hmph. You should have told her before you told me.”

“She didn’t ask. You did.”

“So, you love my daughter,” David said. “What do you plan to do about it?”

“We discussed dating for a while.”

“Hmm…Is that what you want to do?”

“No, I don’t want to spend the next year dating Katie,” Mack said. “To hell with the fact that Darrell proposed to her on Christmas Day. What I want is to go upstairs right now, tell her that I love her, and ask her to marry me just as soon as we can get a license.”

David chuckled. “So what’s stopping you?”

“Katie and I just met a few days ago.”

“If you ask her to marry you and she says yes, then nothing else matters. Janice told me that she knew I was the man for her the first day we met. If Katie’s chosen you, and I think she has, then the results will be the same if you get married next week or next year.”

“Are you giving us your blessings?” Mack asked.

“If Katie says yes, then you’ve got my blessings.” David reached over and grasped Mack’s shoulder.

“There’s just one thing I need to ask you to do for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t wait too long to give me a grandson,” David told him. “I’ve got two granddaughters and another one on the way. If we don’t do something soon, the females are going to take over completely.”

Mack grinned. David laughed out loud and slapped Mack on the back.

Katie had to get away from her mother, if only for a few minutes. She’d thought Kim had been relentless in her questions and advice, but no one knew how to put a person through an inquisition the way Janice Brown did.

“If you love Mack, you should tell him,” her mother had said. “And let him know that he has no reason to be jealous of Darrell.”

“But Mom—”

“I know you loved Darrell. We all did. He was a fine young man. But you’re not an in-love-with-love young woman now. And I do think you were as much in love with love as you were with Darrell.” Her mother had held up a restraining hand. “Don’t argue with me. I see the way you and Mack are together.

My goodness, hon, your whole family is aware of the electricity between you two.”

“Oh, Mom, I do love Mack and it’s different from the way I loved Darrell. Is that wrong? Should I be—”

“You should be happy,” Janice had told her.

Needing a break from her well-meaning mother and sister, Katie went outside and found solace in her mother’s backyard greenhouse. The moist warmth inside was a drastic contrast to the crisp, cold outside, as was the lush green of numerous plants surrounding her to the barren ground covered in spots of melting snow.

Just as Katie leaned over to sniff one of her mother’s hothouse rose bushes, the greenhouse door opened, letting in a whoosh of cold air. Katie turned to face the intruder and found Mack walking toward her.

“How did you know where I was?” she asked.

“Your mother told me.”

“Oh.”

“She said you came out here to do some thinking. What are you thinking about—me?”

“Why, Mr. MacKinnon, what a big ego you have.”

Mack moved in on her, backing her up against a table lined with pots of herbs. She looked up at him and saw something wild and unnerving in his eyes.

“Mack?”

He grabbed her shoulders.

She gasped.

“I love you. I love you so much it hurts.”

“You do?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do. And what’s more, I don’t want to date you for months and months. I don’t want to spend one more day without you.”

“You don’t?”

He gave her shoulders a possessive squeeze. “Marry me, Katie. Marry me just as soon as we can get a license.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “You just asked me to marry you.” On Christmas Day.

“Yes, ma’am, I did, and I want an answer.”

Katie felt as if she’d burst with happiness. Was it possible to die from sheer joy?

“Oh, Mack!” She threw her arms around him and kissed him. “Yes, yes, yes, I’ll marry you.”

“Does this mean you love me?”

Spreading kisses all over his face, she said between smacks, “I love you more than anything in this world, more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone.”

Mack devoured her and she him. Finally, both of them breathless, he said, “We’d better stop now or we’ll wind up making love, and I’m not quite ready for your father to find me ravaging his daughter in her mother’s greenhouse.”

Katie became Mrs. Mack MacKinnon on New Year’s Day. They married in a small private ceremony at the Browns’ home and honeymooned at Mack’s cabin in the mountains. Two weeks later, Mack and Destry moved to Cleveland, but Mack kept the cabin for weekend getaways.

The following Christmas, one-month-old David Hobart MacKinnon—Davie—stayed in his grandparents’

rec room with his father, grandfather, and two uncles, while his mother, grandmother, aunts, and cousins went to Grandma Brown’s to make cookies Christmas Eve morning. Then that night, he attended church with his family, and afterward, his parents showed him off proudly to all the relatives at Great-Aunt Rebecca’s Christmas Eve get-together.

Christmas morning, his father recorded the event while he sat propped in his mother’s lap as she opened the twenty-five presents Santa had left for him. By noon, the threesome drove up to Grandma and Granddaddy’s to celebrate the day with Katie’s family, who was now Mack’s family too.

The memory of a long-ago marriage proposal on Christmas Day lay deep in Katie’s heart, something to be treasured, and her love for Darrell would always be a part of her. But just as Mack was the love of her life, the man she was destined to grow old with, his Christmas Day proposal was the one that brought joy to her heart and had fulfilled all her dreams.

If you enjoyed reading about Hannah Swensen and the gang at The Cookie Jar, I’ve got some wonderful news. Hannah has her own cozy mysteries series that revolves around cookies, crime, and local color in Lake Eden, Minnesota. Filled with two scoops of love, a heaping cup of humor, a sprinkling of suspense, and a delightful assortment of nuts, I think you’ll agree when Romantic Times Magazine calls Hannah’s books, “A calorie-laden delight…comfort food for the reader’s soul.”

There are eight Hannah mysteries on your bookstore shelves. From the first to the most recent, the titles are: Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, Strawberry Shortcake Murder, Blueberry Muffin Murder, Lemon Meringue Pie Murder, Fudge Cupcake Murder, Sugar Cookie Murder, Peach Cobbler Murder, and Cherry Cheesecake Murder. I’m currently working on Hannah’s ninth adventure, Key Lime Pie Murder, to be released in hardcover by Kensington Books in March 2007.

If you’d like to find out more about Hannah, her life, her loves, and her recipes, drop by www.MurderSheBaked.com—you can e-mail me through the website, or directly at [email protected].

Sorry, but I’ve got to run. My stove timer’s about to ring and I have two dozen Black Forest Cookies to take out of the oven. If they’re perfect, the recipe will be in a future Hannah book.

One more thing…you never know what’s waiting for you around the corner, so…

Eat Dessert First!

Joanne Fluke

It was a mild day by Minnesota standards. The temperature was in the low teens, and there was no wind to kick up the foot and a half of snow on the ground. The skies were leaden gray and more snow was predicted before the day was over, but Julie Jansen didn’t have time to think about the weather.

She fairly flew across the quad, sprinting for the oldest and most impressive brick building on the campus. Only the corrugated rubber soles on her snow boots kept her from wiping out as she hit the patch of ice that always formed near the flagpole. Julie was breathing hard as she pulled open the heavy door to the main building and stopped at the cloakroom to make a lightning-fast switch from boots to shoes. Then the race was on again and she dashed down the hallway, breaking the school rule about running in the halls, her dark blond ponytail whipping from side to side the way it had when she’d been a cheerleader at Jordan High. There’d been no time to braid her hair and put it up in the elaborate style she wore in the classroom to make her look older. She’d slept through her alarm, and there had been barely enough time to dress. It was departure day at Lakes Academy and Julie was late for the final faculty meeting before Christmas vacation.

Julie skidded around the corner, the ends of her silk scarf flapping, and headed into the home stretch.

Perhaps they hadn’t started yet. Maybe Dr. Caulder had gotten a last-minute call and she could slide into her chair before he came in. But her hopes died a quick death as she neared her destination. The door to the conference room was standing open and she could hear the headmaster’s stentorian voice.

His head was turned away from the door and Julie did her best to slink in unnoticed, but just as she thought she was going to succeed, he turned to look her way. Julie sank into her chair, her cheeks hot and her breath coming in little puffs from the exertion. Could her students possibly be correct when they claimed that Dr. Caulder had eyes in the back of his head?

“We’re so glad you decided to join us, Miss Jansen,” Dr. Caulder intoned, and thirteen pairs of eyes turned to stare at her disapprovingly. The fourteenth pair, a warm brown color that reminded Julie of melted chocolate, held only compassion for her embarrassment and what Julie hoped was the beginnings of romance. Matt Sherwood, the second-newest teacher at Lakes Academy, knew exactly why she was late. They’d attended the Christmas program in the auditorium and after their students had left, they’d taken a stroll under the tall pines that stood like sentinels outside the main gate of the academy and he’d held her close to his side. Shivering a bit after the cold excursion, Julie had suggested sharing the thermos of hot chocolate the cook always left out for teachers who worked late, and they’d stayed up until almost three in the morning.

Julie tore her eyes away from Matt’s and turned to the headmaster to apologize. But instead of scowling, Dr. Caulder was smiling at her! That was ominous, and Julie clamped her lips shut and let her gaze skitter away. When she’d first arrived at the academy in September, one of the older teachers had told her that the only time Dr. Caulder ever smiled at a teacher was when he was getting ready to put one over on her.

“Ah, the enthusiasm of youth!” Dr. Caulder’s smile grew a bit wider. “I happen to know that Miss Jansen was up very late last night, but here she is, only five minute late, ready to share her love of learning and her zest for life with us.”

Uh-oh, Julie groaned under her breath. Dr. Caulder must have had his spies out last night. It was recommended that teachers retire before midnight and most of the older staff did just that. But someone had spotted her with Matt and squealed on them. If Julie ever found out who the rat with the big mouth was, she’d…