Chapter Seven

 

I wiped my forearm across my forehead, hoping and praying I was almost done baking pies. It was nearly three-thirty a.m. and I never wanted to see another pumpkin or apple pie in my life. In fact, I was regretting my decision to eat the last piece of apple pie when Shep was here. About two hours ago I switched from coffee to Diet Coke, considering the temperature in the kitchen was close to the temperature in hell. What I really wanted to do was go outside and roll around in the parking lot in the skiff of snow that fell while I baked. In lieu of having the cops called to the diner to check on the crazy woman in the snow, I decided to take frequent breaks in the walk-in cooler. I organized, labeled, and checked expiration dates on all the food. I trusted Mason to be on the ball, but I had nothing else to do while the pies baked. I could help him out by organizing the cooler more efficiently for how he cooked.

I counted the pans left to be baked and had four pans of six, which meant one more round with both ovens going. I would be done and cleaned up by my four-thirty deadline easily. I planned to pass out on my bed for a good eight hours once I got home and took a cold shower. Shep would have to work today, so the house would be quiet until I got up in the afternoon, and headed back here to close up for the holiday.

I shut the door to the cooler behind me, making sure it latched, before I checked the batch of pies in the oven. They would be done in less than five minutes, so I moved the cooled ones to the cooler to make room for the next batch of hot ones. I paused when I heard scratching by the back door. When it didn’t happen again I shrugged and finished my work, only to hear it again when I headed back to the ovens to pull the pies.

“Is someone out there?” I called out, standing next to the back door and checking the lock. No one was getting in through the door, if it was a someone.

I got no response and sighed. “It’s probably a racoon, Ivy,” I said, grabbing the four pans from the oven and setting them on the butcherblock table. I slid the last four pans in and set the timer. I no sooner closed the oven door and someone started knocking. Not just on the door, either. They knocked their way up and down the back wall of the diner, as though they knew I was in there.

I grabbed my phone and hit speed dial, praying hard.

“Eh.”

“Shep? It’s Ivy. Someone’s outside the diner,” I whispered, the fear evident in my voice.

I heard rustling as I pictured him climbing from bed, the sleep gone from his body and his feet taking the steps two at a time. “Did you call the cops? Can you see them through the windows?”

“They’re staying behind the building and knocking on the wall. There aren’t any windows back here. I’m scared, but I don’t want to call the cops. It’s probably just some kids. Will you turn the house lights on and scare them away?”

“I’m on my way to the front door. How much time do you have left to bake?”

“I’ll be done in less than an hour,” I answered. “Now they’re scratching on the door again.”

“Don’t open the door and don’t go to the front of the diner, I’m calling the cops,” he said and the line went dead.

I held the phone to my chest and stared up at the ceiling taking deep breaths while I tried to ignore the scratching. I heard yelling and then it stopped, only to be followed by a knock again.

“It’s me, Ivy,” Shep called. “It’s safe to open the door.”

I ran to the back door and fumbled with the lock until I could yank it open. He stepped in, shut the door behind him, and locked it again. He grabbed me and pulled me into him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, rubbing my back.

“My heart is pounding, but I’m okay otherwise. Maybe it was just kids,” I said, but he shook his head.

“If it was a kid, it was a big kid. Easily could have been someone my age. It was a guy, but I couldn’t tell much more. He took off when he heard me approaching.”

There was a knock on the front door of the diner and I froze. “He’s back,” I whispered, swallowing down bile.

“It’s the cops. It’s okay,” he assured me, jogging through the swinging door to the front of the diner to let the officer in. “Thanks for coming so fast, Officer Ensign,” Shep said.

It was weird calling her Officer Ensign, since we went to school with her, but our small town manners wouldn’t allow us to use first name basis when she was working.

“No problem, I was in the area when the call went out,” she answered. “Did you see anyone?”

Shep motioned her to the back again. “When I ran over from the house I chased the guy off. I couldn’t pick him out of a line up, since I didn’t see his face. All I have for you is he was a bit shorter than me, and a few pounds heavier. He was fast and wore a black ski mask to cover his hair and face. I’m not much help.”

She frowned. “Not much at all. Why do you think he was back there?”

I gave her the palms up. “I don’t have a clue. I’ve been baking pies for the community dinner since midnight. It only began a few minutes ago. With the lights on in the kitchen anyone can see I’m in here through the front windows.”

She nodded and went to the back door, unlocking it and shining her Maglite around. “You might want to consider some lights back here. Make them motion sensor and it will scare just about anyone away, man or beast.”

“Trust me, it’s what I’ll be doing bright and early on Friday,” I promised.

“There isn’t enough snow to get a good footprint casting and too much snow to look for much else. I’ll make a report and let the other officers know about the call. We’ll roll a few extra patrols by the next few nights. In the meantime, don’t walk back and forth to the house from the diner alone, even after you install lights. Got it?”

“Got it,” I agreed, nodding my head. “Sorry to drag you out here, but I didn’t know what to do.”

She put her hand on my shoulder. “We’re always here for the citizens and our business owners, and you’re both. You call us anytime day or night and we’ll be here. I would rather come out here ten times for false alarms than not have you call the one time it turns out to be truly dangerous, okay?”

I gave her one nod. “Okay. Thanks again and have a great Thanksgiving.”

She grinned and rested her hand on her belt. “I will. I’ll be serving at the community dinner too, so you better save me some of the pie.”

“Trust me,” I said, giving her the scout’s honor. “There will be more pie than we can give away.”

Shep walked her out to the front of the diner again while I moved pies into the cooler so I had room for the final four pans. I would leave them sit out and Mason would transfer them to the cooler when he came in at four-thirty. I was officially done with tonight and still had to clean up. I rested my hands on the table and took some deep breaths. Why was some guy starting trouble with me this time of night? It didn’t make any sense. Maybe he had mental problems or something.

“Rough night, huh?” Shep asked, rubbing my back where I stood. “How much longer do you have?”

I glanced up at the timer, which was ready to go off in thirty seconds. “I have to pull the pies to cool, clean up my workspace, and take out the garbage. Mason will put the pies away when he gets here in an hour.”

“Why don’t you leave the cleanup for him, too? You’ve been here long enough tonight,” he suggested.

I pushed off the table and caught the timer as it went off. “I would love to, but it would only jam Mason up when he has his own opening work to get done.” I pulled out the first two trays of six pies each, a real trick when the oven is at shoulder height on a normal sized person. For me, it’s more like chin height. “You go ahead home and I’ll be there in thirty,” I promised.

He grabbed a pot holder and shook his head, lifting out the pies from the second oven. “Not a chance. My mom might be a terrible matchmaker, but she did teach me the proper way to take care of a lady. I’m not leaving you here alone after what just happened.”

I smiled and kissed his cheek on my way by to the garbage. “I’m a lady now, huh?” I teased and he grabbed me, encircling his arms around my waist.

“You’ve always been a lady, but you’re also smoking hot, even dusted in flour and sprinkled with sweat,” he said.

I froze and his arms loosened then fell away altogether. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?” he whispered-asked and I nodded.

The thing was, I didn’t feel offended, harassed, or any other emotion he might be thinking. I was excited he thought I was smoking hot, but I couldn’t play it that way.

I brushed my hand at him. “Don’t worry about it. I know what you meant. We’re both a little punch drunk.”

His head was doing some weird shake and nod at the same time. “Right. Good, okay, what can I do to help?”

I was already scraping bits of pie crust and flour into the garbage can at the end of the table. “In a second you can pile the garbage next to the door while I wash down the work area. We’ll take it out when we leave together. It’s safer in pairs.”

He strode over to me and hugged me from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder. “I’m sure the guy didn’t plan to hurt you. Why he was messing with you, I don’t know, but he took off the second he saw me. Don’t let it keep you from running the diner the way you want to.”

I nodded as I paused and closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of his arms around me. “I’m still going to put up lights. I think it’s smart and an easy way to keep people from messing around behind the diner. I’ll get a baton or a stun gun for when I travel between the two buildings at night.”

“I have a mini baseball bat you can use, which will work perfect for it. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. If he shows up again, I’ll beat the crap out of him.”

I laughed and rested my cheek against his. “I have no doubt, Shep.”

 

 

Thanksgiving dinner was dying down and most everyone sat in a turkey induced stupor. Everyone but the kids, anyway. The pie had been consumed in large quantities, leaving me with only one apple to spare. I spent the last hour biting my tongue to keep from laughing at how people gushed over how the pies tasted exactly the same as Lucille’s and I must have the touch.

I have the touch all right, the touch of opening a box and putting them on a pan. I can admit I had a bit of guilt about deceiving everyone, but on the other hand, telling them now would only serve to have them look poorly upon Lucille. I didn’t need to appease my guilt by laying it on Lucille’s sick shoulders. Everyone loved the pie, so every year I would do the same thing. No sense reinventing the wheel, and toiling for hours on homemade crust, when they’re happy with Brownstone Pie Company. Truth be told, premade pies always present evenly, have the right consistency, and don’t take as long to bake as homemade, which is good when you’re making over one hundred of them in a shot.

Wednesday morning, Shep walked me home once the pies were done and sent me up to shower while he made eggs and toast. We sat at the kitchen table and he told me in more detail about his presentation to the city council while we ate. He thought the majority of the council members were impressed with his skills, knowledge, and ability to problem solve the hypothetical situations they presented him with. I knew him well enough to read between the lines to hear what he wasn’t saying. He wanted the job and knew he was qualified for it, but he saw his age as a determent rather than a benefit.

When I pointed out how hiring someone young and training them to know your city isn’t a determent to any business, and the city is a business, it gave him pause. Lucille essentially did the same thing with me. She hired me when I was barely old enough to work, and then carried me along, pushing me to do more, be more, learn more, and tackle each new task she gave me. Without me knowing it, she was training me to be the next owner. By rising to the challenges she offered, I showed her I could take care of the diner she had come to love, and would continue the traditions of the prior owners. I proved to her I was going to be an ambassador to the Nightingale cause and keep the diner open for the people of Bells Pass. Ultimately, that was the reason she deeded me the diner. The customers were what made the business. Without the customers, Nightingale Diner was simply a building. I told Shep he had to believe in his skills, the way I had to believe in mine. He also had to remember he’s done an excellent job in the position thus far, and his interviewing and presentation skills would reflect it. He was discouraged since he hadn’t heard anything from their closed session meeting. I reminded him he had shown up at the diner at nearly ten p.m., which meant they weren’t going to call him at midnight, and he should be patient.

He helped me to bed after breakfast and I fell into a deep slumber while he went to work. When he showed up at the diner again at closing time last night his shoulders were slumped and his face was lined. Over a piece of pie, he told me he’d worked all day and no one had said a thing to him about the interview. He was bummed, and I didn’t blame him. The right thing to do would be to tell him if they weren’t going to hire him. Ultimately, if he didn’t get the new position, he would remain in his old one. He loved this city and leaving wasn’t on the table, even if it meant he would never go further than foreman of the city crew. Shep was nothing if not loyal, and with his whole family in Bells Pass, he wouldn’t leave. I respected his dedication and abhorred it at the same time. I didn’t want to lose him; it would kill me if he took a job in some other city or state, but if it was what he wanted, I would support him completely.

I kept one eye on him through the serving window as I cleaned pans and utensils with the other ladies from the community table. Shep ran around chasing the kids who were too enthusiastic to sit with their parents and learn about city services available to them. He was currently teaching a group of kids how to play hopscotch, a game he and I played every summer day for hours on end. The game was never the same, though. Instead of numbers on the squares we’d use states, countries, continents, cities, animals, food, you name it. We would giggle ourselves silly when we landed on a space and had to come up with some fact about whatever we had written on the spot for the day. I watched him help a little girl throw the soft beanbag forward and then he showed her how to hop to the spot to pick it up. He was my best friend, and I was probably biased, but he had grown into a remarkable man, in character and appearance.

His words from Wednesday morning at the diner ran through my head again, something which had been happening constantly over the past few days. I didn’t mind if he saw me as smoking hot, considering no one has ever called me that before; hearing it from him meant more than hearing it from anyone else would. Maybe it was dumb to say hearing someone considered me smoking hot was important to me, but if you knew how I grew up you’d understand. Add to my past my physical attributes, and I wasn’t every guy’s dream woman. At five feet one, I was an unusually short woman. Sure, a lot of women are short, but most don’t have all their height in their torso. When I wasn’t wearing my work uniform I liked to wear men’s t-shirts because they hid everything from my breasts to my thighs. Speaking of my breasts, I have them, a lot of them, which only adds to the odd way my body is shaped. I once had a guy tell me I resembled a pickle and two basketballs. Guys can be real jerks sometimes.

Shep says I need more self-confidence when it comes to my body. He’s probably right. I have a tendency to hide my body, and my soul, from others. It’s something I learned to do after my mother died and people whispered behind my back as I strode through town. Shep insisted I keep my head held high and carry on my business, but it was never easy. The likelihood I would have stayed in Bells Pass if it hadn’t been for him was slim. I should have left and found a new place to live where no one knew my past horrors. I couldn’t leave him behind, though. I never would have survived in a new town without my oldest and best friend.

“You know, everyone in town can see the way you look at each other,” Mrs. Violet whispered from where she stood at the sink with a turkey roaster. “Everyone but you two anyway.”

I spun around quickly to address her, but also to force my eyes from Shep. “We’re best friends, Mrs. Violet. Nothing more,” I said, scrubbing the pan in my hand. I had to wonder though why I struggled to force those words from my lips.

She nodded as she sprayed out the roaster. “Sure, okay, whatever you say dear, but I would like to go on record as saying you’re probably missing out on a great love story by being only best friends.”

She tipped the roaster pan upside down in the sink, dried her hands, patted my shoulder, and strolled away, leaving me to listen to her words run through my head on repeat. When I spun back to the work table to get another pan I noticed him watching me from the floor of the center. Little kids were hopping and jumping around him playing the game while he was in some other world. I smiled and raised my hand in a small wave. In that moment, our gazes locked as though no one else was in the room.