Almost Home (18 page)

“Not really invented. I found a ton of recipes on the Internet. What I’m doing is modifying what I found.” Stef grinned. “Perfecting, if you will.”

“And I will.” Vanessa picked up a clean spoon and took another swipe at the container. “It’s a beautiful idea—not to mention an extremely tasty one.”

“Well, I hope she likes it. It took me forever to come up with the concept. I mean, when you look at Dallas, what do you notice first?”

Vanessa mulled over the question for a moment, then began to nod her head. “Her eyes. Lavender eyes. Lavender ice cream.” She grinned broadly. “Genius!”

“Thanks. I still want to tweak it a bit, but I have a
little time before I have to start making enough for the party. Grant said she’s invited a ton of people, but he doesn’t have the count yet. I told him this morning he really needs to pin this down for me so that I know how much I have to make.”

“Why don’t you just call her and ask?”

“He wanted it to be a surprise.”

“So speaking of MacGregors, we saw a certain Jeep parked in front of your house last night.” Vanessa helped herself to a bottle of water from the refrigerator, then pulled a wooden stool closer to the worktable and sat.

“Wade dropped off a ladder.”

“And …?”

“And … we stripped wallpaper.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “And we made out a little.”

“Nice of him to help …” Vanessa blinked. “Run that last part past me, would you?”

“You heard me.” Steffie grinned.

“Whose idea was that?”

“I guess it was his, but I think the spirit probably moved us both at the same time.” Steffie made a face. “And this after my vow to keep my distance from him. I was going for immunity but that didn’t work out so well. I caved at the first opportunity. Gotta work on that willpower thing.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“Don’t make me hurt you.” Vanessa poked Steffie on the arm with the blunt end of her spoon.

“So it was …” Stef paused to search for the word. “It was one perfect kiss.”

“Just one?” Vanessa frowned.

“Hey, no one was more disappointed than I was,” Steffie shot back. “And there would have been more—probably a lot more—if Jesse Enright hadn’t arrived on the scene.”

“Jesse Enright? The guy we figured out was the handsome stranger we saw around the docks a couple of weeks ago?”

“Right. He’s my mom’s family lawyer, and now he’s mine as well. He handled all the paperwork on the house. His grandfather actually wrote the will for Horace.”

“So wait … I need to picture this.” Vanessa closed her eyes. “You and Wade are getting it on in the kitchen and Handsome Stranger rings the doorbell—”

“Didn’t even ring. Knocked, then walked in,” Stef corrected her. “My own fault for leaving the front door wide open.”

“Oooh, how’d the Brew Meister like that?” Vanessa’s eyes popped open.

Stef shot Vanessa a look that clearly said,
Not much
.

“Fancy that,” Vanessa replied.

“Jesse only stayed for a few minutes. He made some polite comments about the house and then he left. I think he realized he’d walked into a ‘situation.’ ”

“Nice of him to stop by, though. So you think he’s interested?”

“Maybe.” Steffie paused. “Yeah, I think he might be.”

“You?”

“I feel so conflicted about Wade.” She grimaced. “I’ve spent half my life conflicted about Wade. I’ve
waited forever for him to put a lip-lock on me like he did last night, but …”

“But …?”

“But he’s been breaking my heart since I was a kid.” Stef put down her measuring spoons. “Jesse, on the other hand, is really a nice guy. Not the heart-breaker type.”

“I am a fan of the nice guy myself, since I happen to have snagged me a truly nice guy who also happens to be a very hot guy.”

“A nice, hot guy.” Stef nodded. “What every girl wants.”

“So true.”

“Oh!” Steffie remembered the heart on the dining-room wall. “Horace drew a huge—I mean huge—heart on the dining-room wall and wrote ‘Horace loves Daisy’ inside the heart, then covered it with wallpaper. Wade found it when he was stripping the paper in there.”

“Who is Daisy?”

“We don’t know. Mom doesn’t recall ever seeing Horace with a lady friend.” She measured cream for a new experimental batch in a clean ice-cream container. “We’re assuming that Horace drew it, anyway. You need to see it. It’s very cool.”

“I bet Miss Grace would know who Daisy was, if Daisy was from St. Dennis.” She took a sip of water. “Stef, I know this sounds off-the-wall, but you know my Ouija board?”

Stef nodded and measured sugar and added it to the mix, muttering, “Maybe another egg, maybe make this more like a French vanilla …”

“Well, maybe the spirit’s name isn’t Daz, as in ‘dazzle,’ but Daz, as in ‘Daisy.’ ”

Stef looked up. “Huh. Horace’s Daisy could be your spirit guide?” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Listen to me, I’m starting to sound like you.” She laughed and went back to her recipe.

“What? You don’t think I have a spirit guide?”

“No, I don’t. I think at this point you’re subconsciously directing that little plastic triangle to spell out ‘D-A-Z.’ ”

“Stef, I swear, I am not.”

“ ‘Unconsciously’ means you’re not aware you’re doing it.”

“I know what the word means. And consciously or unconsciously or subconsciously, I am not pushing that little …” She paused. “I wonder what that little triangle is called …”

“I have no idea. But your Daz and Horace’s Daisy can’t be the same because ‘D-A-Z’ doesn’t exist.”

“Well, the next time you’re at my house, I will hand over the board and the little thingy and you can try it yourself and then you’ll see.” Vanessa screwed the cap back onto her bottle.

“I know who Austin’s mother was,” Stef confided. She’d known she wouldn’t be able to resist telling Vanessa something—not everything that Wade had told her, but she couldn’t lie to Vanessa and she couldn’t withhold everything.

“We are sitting here talking about ice cream and Ouija boards and all this time you’ve known about Austin’s mother?”

Steffie took Vanessa by the arm and led her out the front door to the tables outside. There was no one in
sight, but still, Stef lowered her voice as she and Ness took seats.

“Listen, if I tell you something, you have to promise—you have to
swear
—not to tell anyone. Not even Grady.” Stef was certain that Vanessa would tell Grady every word, but she had to impress upon her the importance of not passing it on to anyone else and definitely not sharing over coffee.

“I swear.” Vanessa’s eyes were large with anticipation. “So spill already.”

“Her name was Robin Kennedy and she was Wade’s business partner, but we knew that part from Miss Grace.” Steffie took a deep breath. “She was also his best friend, but they’d never been more than friends. Wade married her because she was dying. She had an affair that turned out badly and then she found out that she was pregnant and then she found out that she was terminally ill. Wade married her before she died because she was so afraid of what would happen to Austin.”

“Oh God, that’s so sad.” Vanessa’s eyes filled with tears. “And that’s so noble of him, why—”

“Vanessa, you can’t tell anyone.”

“I know, I said I wouldn’t, but …” She sighed deeply, then sat up straight and asked, “You don’t think Wade was making that up about them just being friends so that he could make a fancy move on you and not look like a tool?”

“No. You had to see his face, Ness. It was obvious that it was killing him just to talk about it.”

“That is just the saddest thing I ever heard.” Vanessa took a tissue from her bag and dabbed at her eyes. “So I guess he sold their business and came back
to St. Dennis because he couldn’t bear to stay in Texas after she died.”

“I guess.” Steffie knew better, but she wasn’t telling that part.

“Poor Wade. Poor Austin.”

“I saw a picture of her,” Steffie said softly.

“He showed you a picture?”

“Uh-uh. I looked her up.”

“What do you mean, you looked her up?” Vanessa frowned. “Looked her up where?”

“On Google,” Stef admitted.

“You Googled Wade’s dead wife? Didn’t that feel a little creepy?”

“A little, yeah. It did.”

“So what did she look like?”

“She was very pretty.”

“Very dark hair, dark eyes, I imagine.”

“You’re thinking of Austin’s coloring. I expected that, too, but no.” Stef shook her head. “She was sort of fair, light brown hair. I couldn’t tell what color her eyes were.”

“Anything else?”

“There were several articles about an accident her parents were in years ago. They were both killed.”

“That poor girl really had the worst luck, didn’t she?” Vanessa’s eyes reflected sympathy. “I’m sorry she had such a bad time of things.”

“I am, too,” Stef agreed. “My heart just aches for her, and for Austin, and for Wade. The whole thing is just beyond tragic.”

“Tragic.” Vanessa agreed as she glanced at her watch. “I have to get back to my shop. I left Nan in
charge and told her I’d be back in a half hour so she could leave, and I’m late.”

“Did you want anything special?”

“Yeah, I wanted to pump you for information about Wade.” Vanessa smiled. “Mission accomplished.”

“But you won’t forget and you won’t tell …”

Vanessa shook her head. “Never. We won’t even speak of it again.”

Steffie seriously doubted that but she let it pass.

“As long as you’re here, take a little of the butter brickle for the road. I made it earlier this morning and it totally rocks. You need to try this flavor.” They walked back into the shop.

“Well, in that case”—Vanessa grabbed a small container from the top of the counter—“don’t mind if I do …”

Steffie was interrupted four more times that afternoon: once by a teacher from the local nursery school wanting to arrange for a class field trip to Scoop; once by several old friends of her parents who stopped in to let her know that they’d registered for Natalie’s Run and how wonderful it was that the family had found such a nice way to honor Nat, who they remembered as a “precocious little thing” before she fell ill; Jesse stopped in right after lunch, and later in the afternoon, Clay Madison popped in.

“Hey.” He poked his head into her workroom. “Am I disturbing you?”

“Why, yes, you are, but since it’s you, I’ll overlook it.” She looked up from the cutting board where she was painstakingly chopping lavender buds. “Thanks
for the apples last week. I know how annoying those last-minute, drop-everything-and-take-care-of-me phone calls can be, because I get them, too.”

“All in a day’s work.”

“I appreciated it.”

“I heard the apple sundaes you made for the Historical Society were amazing.”

“From …?”

“My aunt Emma’s on the board. She hasn’t stopped talking about it since.”

“Good.” Steffie grinned. “Best advertisement is word of mouth.”

“Right.” He placed a brown paper bag on the counter. “Which is why I wanted to thank you for noting on your chalkboard that the apples were from Madison’s Farm.”

“These days, people like to know where their food comes from.” She shrugged. “Particularly, they like to know that it’s from a local source. Can’t get more local than Madison’s.”

“We appreciate it. I was trying to think of a way to thank you.” He handed the bag to her. “This was the best I could come up with, this late in the season.”

She opened it and peered inside, but even before she could look, the scent of fresh mint wafted upward.

“Oh, mint!” she exclaimed. “I love the smell of fresh mint. Thank you, Clay.”

“My sister mentioned that you were making ice cream for after the run. I thought maybe you’d like to toss some mint into the chocolate.”

“That’s so thoughtful of you.” She closed the bag. “I’ll put this through the food processor later.”

“Great. Glad you can use it.” He smiled at her, a smile that went all the way to his warm brown eyes. “Well.” He slapped on hand on the table lightly. “I need to get on back to the farm. I’ll see you on Saturday.”

“Oh, you’re running?”

He nodded. “I’ve run every year. This year, I’ll be running with my nephew, Logan—my sister Brooke’s son—so I don’t know how much actual running we’ll be doing, but it’s for good cause. Logan saw the signs around town and he wanted to participate, so we’ll see how he does.”

“Good luck to both of you.” Steffie walked Clay through the front of the shop to the door. “I’ll make sure we save some of the chocolate mint for you and Logan on Saturday.”

“Great.” He opened the door halfway, stopped, and said, “It’s good to see you, Steffie. It’s been a while.”

“It has been. Fourth of July, maybe.”

“That long?” He frowned. “We’ll have to do better, make up for lost time.”

She smiled as he closed the door behind him, the bell tinkling softly. She turned to walk back to her workroom when she realized that Tina was leaning on the refrigerated case, grinning.

“What?” Steffie asked.

“Nothing.” Tina shrugged.

“What?”

“Oh, it’s just that any number of good-looking men seem to be popping up right and left around here. The MacGregor guy one day, then today that
cute lawyer, then that hunky farmer. Wonder who’s going to turn up next?”

Steffie stared at her for a long moment, then shook her head as if to clear it, and went back to work.

The next morning, when she and Vanessa were leaving Cuppachino together, Stef mentioned that she was making chocolate mint ice cream in addition to plain chocolate, compliments of Clay.

“Oh, where’d you run into Clay?” Vanessa asked.

“He stopped into the shop to bring me the mint. Wasn’t that nice of him?”

“Hmm.” Vanessa looked thoughtful. “And wasn’t it just the other night that Wade brought you a ladder and put a move on you and Jesse stopped in?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, you can thank me now, or you can thank me later.” Vanessa beamed.

“Thank you for what?”

Vanessa sighed with apparent exasperation. “Don’t you see? It’s working.”

“What’s working?” Stef frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“The spell. It’s working.” Vanessa looked triumphant. “It’s bringing all these wonderful options to your door. One of them,” she confided, “is your soul mate.”