A Small Town Christmas Part 12

"And you will, one pain in the b.u.t.t at a time."

"Oh, very funny."

The phone rang. "It's probably for you," Sam said, heading for the living room.

"There has to be a reason I married you," she called after him.

"Great s.e.x," he called back.

She almost retorted that it wasn't that great, but decided Sam wouldn't see the humor in it, so she kept her mouth shut. That would be her good deed for the day.

Sam was right. The call was for her, another woman wanting to sign her daughter up for baking lessons.

"We'll be having four after-school cla.s.ses, Monday afternoons, starting November sixteenth," Sarah explained. Only four cla.s.ses. She could manage four weeks of Beanie, dirty fingernails and all. Betty was another matter altogether.

"This sounds perfect," said the woman. "I work swing s.h.i.+ft a lot and my daughter could really use more girl time. What are you charging?"

"There's no cost," said Sarah.

"No cost?" The woman sounded shocked.

"It's my contribution toward putting the heart back in Heart Lake."

"I read about that. Oh, my gosh. You're the baker from the article."

"That's me." Changing Heart Lake one pain in the b.u.t.t at a time.

"It's such a great idea. And it's really awesome of you to do this. I never bake, so this will be a good learning opportunity for Damaris. I know she'll love it."

Sarah hoped so. The thought of shaking Betty off her doorstep every week had only momentarily dampened her enthusiasm. She'd mentally sent Betty packing, and now she could envision herself in the kitchen, surrounded by sweet little girls with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes watching as she took their freshly baked cookies from the oven. The vision sat in her brain like an old magazine ad from the fifties, looking good enough to frame and making her smile as she took down the necessary information.

"Now all I need is an emergency contact number," she said.

"If my husband's not home you can call me at the hospital," said the woman. "I'm a nurse."

Words began to swirl around the back of Sarah's mind: nurse, neighbor, peonies. Oh, no. Say it isn't so. "Do you, by any chance, live near Dawn Schoemaker?" Sarah asked, and held her breath.

"As a matter of fact, we do," said the woman. "She's wonderful. Well, I'd better go. My break is over."

Okay, Sarah decided as she hung up, the cooking cla.s.s was now closed. She only had four girls, but this four would be enough. It will be fun, she told herself. Dawn had probably exaggerated.

Business had been a little slow at the Chocolate Bar the last couple of days. Jamie was sure it was due to the torrential rains pummeling Heart Lake. Who would want to go out in this? she thought, looking out the window at the downpour.

"It's awful out there," said Clarice. "I'm going to have to swim home. In fact, if it gets any worse I bet I won't even be able to drive. Maybe you should let me go home early."

Hope Wells had warned Jamie about Clarice's tendency to come in late and want to leave early, but Jamie was made of sterner stuff than Heart Lake's mild-mannered florist. No way was Clarice leaving until Jamie had squeezed every ounce of work out of her.

Still, there wasn't much work to do at this point without customers, and it was almost four. "Okay," Jamie decided. "First clean the kitchen area while I'm doing my paperwork, then you can scram." There was no point paying for help when she didn't need it.

Fifteen minutes later Clarice was ready to scram. "You know, I think that fudge is starting to get stale."

"Hint, hint?"

Clarice smiled shamelessly. "Soooo?"

"So, go ahead and take a bag home."

"Sweet," Clarice said, and bounced over to the fudge.

"Yeah, we'll see if you're still saying that when the scale goes up," Jamie teased.

"It never does," said Clarice.

Another minute and she was out the door, probably with a good two pounds of fudge. Oh, well, Jamie told herself, there's your good deed for the day. If getting rid of stale fudge counted as a good deed.

It was winter dark when she closed up and dashed for her car. She was p.o.o.ped. Like Sarah, she had to get up early on a regular basis to make her inventory, and the long days coupled with the gloomy weather were making her feel like a bear ready to hibernate.

Heavy raindrops gave her winds.h.i.+eld wipers a fight and deepened puddles in the road. The night sky left the lake looking dark, like a perfect home for the Loch Ness monster's cousin. As she drove, all Jamie could think about was getting inside her cabin, building a fire in the woodstove, and heating up some of the homemade chicken soup Sarah had given her.

And then she saw the car with the flat tire hunched along the narrow shoulder of the road with its hood raised like a flag. It was raining. It was cold. It was the perfect good deed, especially for her.

Jamie had always been the last one picked when her friends were choosing teams for softball or kickball, and she'd never been the one her fellow students fought over when it was time for a group science project. But she was always the one they called to hang out with when they wanted to attract boys. Or when they got a flat tire. Her dad had taught her how to change a tire when she got her driver's license, and had followed up the lesson with the occasional surprise drill. She could still change a tire in her sleep.

Or in the rain. As she pulled in front of the car she saw the driver behind the foggy windows: an older woman-probably not someone who had changed a lot of tires.

As Jamie went to the other car, a cold finger of water slipped down her neck. She did her best to ignore it and the s.h.i.+ver it produced and tapped on the driver's side window. The woman lowered it cautiously. "If you've got a spare in your trunk I can get you back on the road in ten minutes."

"That's sweet of you, but I'll be fine."

"Have you got Triple A or something?" asked Jamie. Although how she'd call them on this stretch of road with its zero cell phone reception was a mystery.

"I do, but I don't have one of those portable phones. I'm sure some man will come along soon and help me."

"Well, there's no need to wait for a man," said Jamie. "I've been changing tires since I was sixteen. Pop your trunk."

"It's so nasty out," protested the woman.

Tell me about it. "It sure is, and you don't want to sit here any longer than you have to," Jamie informed her, and started walking to the trunk.

It popped open and she pulled out the spare along with the tire jack. By the time she had them the woman was out in the rain with her, her gray hair quickly sopped and flattened to her head, her coat collar pulled up around her neck.

"You can wait in the car," Jamie told her. "No sense both of us getting wet."

"What if it tips?" the woman fretted. "No, I'll wait here with you."

Jamie had no desire to get wetter and colder arguing with the woman, so she got to work. There were no streetlights out here, but she managed with the help of her car headlights and the little flashlight on her key chain. She had the car jacked up and the hubcap off and was just wrestling with the second lug nut when a car pulled up behind her, its headlights s.h.i.+ning on her work. Flas.h.i.+ng red and blue lights added extra color.

She knew, before she even looked over her shoulder, who was getting out of that patrol car, ruining her perfect, undiluted good deed.

TWELVE.

Jamie ignored the crunch of heavy male feet on the gravel of the road shoulder and unscrewed another lug nut.

"Could you ladies use some help?" rumbled a deep voice.

"Oh, Officer, thank you," breathed the older woman.

"I think we've got it under control," said Jamie, maintaining her position in front of the tire.

"Obviously, you do," said Josh Armstrong, squatting next to her.

Those big hands of his drew her gaze like a magnet. They were large, capable hands with squared-off fingers. Once upon a time she'd been a sucker for a man with strong, capable hands like those, but no more. And who cared if he had big shoulders? What was so s.e.xy about big shoulders, anyway? His legs were ma.s.sive. (Why was she looking?) There was probably nothing small anywhere on Josh Armstrong.

With that last thought her s.e.x drive took over, driving her crazy. I am not attracted to this man, shouted her brain, trying desperately to call her wandering hormones back to the reservation. And now her nerves were getting into the act. Here it came. No, no, no! She clamped down an upcoming hiccup and about tore apart her esophagus.

"That's a nice coat you're wearing," he said, pointing to her light green raincoat. "Do you really want to get it dirty to prove a point?"

She was being stupid. She stood up and stepped away from the tire. "Have at it." To the woman she said, "I'm leaving you in good hands now." That sounded hokey, but it was probably true. This man really did seem like one of the good guys.

Except you never knew with people. Grant had seemed like a good guy, too. And he was, except when he was stressed, when he was drinking, and when he lost his temper, which added up to about ninety-eight percent of their time together.

"Thank you so much for stopping," the woman said to her. "You're proof that there are still good people in the world. You, too, Officer," she added.

"All in the line of duty, ma'am," he said. He pulled off the tire as if it were no more than a bottle cap. The Incredible Hulk.

"I hope you don't catch cold," the woman said to Jamie.

"I won't," Jamie a.s.sured her. "I'm tough. Good night."

She got in her car and drove off. Josh the cop wouldn't be stopping her for anything tonight. By the time he got done with that tire, she'd be home and in a hot bath. A sudden image of two bodies in a steamy shower popped into her head. She kicked them out to go freeze in the rain.

"Before I take off," Clarice said to Jamie as she settled in for her weekly chocolate fest with Emma and Sarah, "I've got something for you." She laid a small, green envelope on the table and nudged it toward Jamie.

"What's this?" asked Jamie, picking it up.

"Well, remember how Borg's boss was gonna fire him?"

How could she forget? Only the promise of extra hours if she needed them had kept Clarice from self-medicating with all the chocolate in the store.

"He gave Borg one last chance. He said Borg could thank you guys." Clarice beamed. "So, thanks from Borg. And that's from me," she told Jamie.

Jamie opened the envelope and found a gift card for Something You Need, her favorite local gift shop.

"Wow," breathed Emma as Clarice went out the door. "This is working. Slowly but surely, it's working."

"Maybe," Jamie said thoughtfully, and took a sip of her chocolate tea.

It would be nice. She'd never been much of a mover and shaker. In high school she'd been more of a good-time girl, sneaking off to parties where parents cultivated blindness while their teens cultivated a taste for beer, hanging out at the mall, or trying her best to be a surfer girl-not easy when you were a klutz, but she managed to work the bikini part. The way she stuffed a bikini had earned her a string of well-muscled boyfriends who liked fast cars and fast times. By the end of her twenties she'd outgrown her bad-boy phase, but she still remained a sucker for a nice sixpack.

Grant had possessed a superb set. He'd been a real man's man and she liked his toughness as much as he liked her smart mouth-both things they hated about each other when their relations.h.i.+p soured.

Emma was saying something. Jamie pulled herself back to the present. "What?"

"I saw one of your truffle goody jars yesterday. A woman was at Safeway walking up and down the checkstands, handing the candy in them out to the checkers."

"No way."

Emma nodded. "Way. Someone had given it to her and she decided to share. I asked her what she was going to do with the jar when it was empty and she said she was going to fill it with bubble bath and take it to her neighbor who's just about to get a cast off her foot. The neighbor has been counting the days till she can have a bath again. Is that awesome or what?"

Jamie had to admit it was. "You know, this is the best time of my life. I mean, I'm actually doing something with it." She smiled at Emma and Sarah through eyes suddenly teary. "It feels good." Emma opened her mouth, and Jamie pointed a warning finger at her. "And don't you dare turn this into one of your movie moments with some sappy quote."

Emma shut her mouth and frowned.

"Well, I'm almost wis.h.i.+ng I'd thought of something like your gift jar instead of what I'm about to do," said Sarah.

"I think your baking cla.s.s for girls is a great idea," said Emma.

"We'll see," said Sarah. "Some things work better in your head than in reality."

"You don't exactly sound excited. What happened?" asked Jamie.

"Oh, nothing really," Sarah said with a half shrug. "Betty Bateman signed up her granddaughter."

Both Jamie's eyebrows shot up. "The motormouth from down the street? Oh, my gosh. Does her grandkid talk as much as she does?"

Sarah sighed. "I hope not. As it is, I'll be lucky if I can get Betty off my doorstep so I can start the cla.s.s." She took another long drink from her cup. "And I think I may have a problem child."

Jamie made a face. "Lucky you. You should've said you were full."

"Oh, well, it's only four weeks," said Sarah. "If I can't handle four little girls for a couple of hours a week I've got a serious problem."

Jamie didn't say anything. She just got up and made Sarah another mocha.

Sam called Sarah from the station on Monday. "So, are you all set?"

"I think so." In honor of Thanksgiving they were going to make Sarah's raisin pie cookies-sugar cookies pressed together tart-style over a raisin filling. It was an ambitious recipe for a first project (what had she been smoking when she decided to attempt it?), but she had premade the filling and had all the ingredients for the cookie dough standing ready. She hoped that would make the whole process easier.

Now, all she had to do was get away from Betty and into the kitchen. "Are you sure you have to stay at the station?" she pressed.

"Sorry, babe, but yes."