Cedar Creek Seasons (6 page)

“N–no.”

“It’s strawberry chili night at Miles’s Mansion.” One eyebrow wiggled. Her voice undulated as if she were luring him into something lascivious. “You know you want to.”

He cleared his throat and tried to loosen his tie. He wasn’t wearing one. “Will the children be home?”

“My kids, my friends’ kids, and an odd assortment of other Cedarburgians.”

“Well, that sounds delightfu—did you say
strawberry
chili?”

Wilson closed the basement door. Star had just given him the five-second tour of the TLC shop. He looked at Willow with a knowing nod. “I understand your motivation.”

Crystal pulled her away from the sympathetic eyes with a hand on her arm. “Willi, this is incredible.” She took another bite and pulled the plastic spoon slowly out of her mouth.

“I’ll second that.” Wilson filled another cup with chili. His third helping.

“Thank you. This might just be it.”

“It? Ah … your entry for the Winterfest chili cook-off. You do have a thirst for competition, don’t you? What’s in it?”

“It’s pretty basic. I just substituted pureed strawberries for half the tomatoes.”

The back door banged open. Ralphy stomped in, splattering a six-foot radius with wet snow. His grin lifted blotchy cheeks framed by snow-crusted hair. “Hill’s ready! Come on!”

The pile of boots by the back door dwindled in the ensuing scramble until only one pair remained. Wilson’s. Willow knew that because he was the only man left. “Well?” She nodded toward the boots.

“I thought sledding was optional.”

“This is Wisconsin. How could sledding be optional?”

He stared out the kitchen window in the direction of the iced-over creek and the newly glazed path leading to it, his face as tight as the canvases he was famous for.

“When’s the last time you were on a sled?”

His Adam’s apple rose and fell. “Thirty years ago.”

She repressed the “Seeeeeriously?” rising in her throat. “Guess we’d better fix that ASAP.”

“It’s dark out there.”

“Look at that moon. Besides, once we start moving it’s best to close your eyes and just go with it.” She gave an uncomforting laugh.

“Are you sure the creek’s solid enough?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Wilson gave a curt nod and put on boots and a well-broken-in leather jacket. “Lead the way.”

As she walked through the door ahead of him, she looked over her shoulder. “I’ll go down with you.”

“Do you doubt my skill or my courage, Ms. Miles?”

“Neither. I intend to shove you off when we catch air off the ramp.” She chose a yellow plastic sled from the pile just off the deck and stepped in line. When Wilson hesitated, she grabbed his hand. “The gloves are off, as you say.”

It wasn’t until she’d positioned herself in the center of the sled that it dawned on her how much of a contact sport this was. Wilson would need to wrap not only his arms, but also his legs around her. Were his arms long enough? Did the thought repel him? She glanced up jean-clad legs, past the leather jacket, all the way to scared-looking eyes. “If you’d rather grab your own sled that’s fine with—”

Plunk
. The plastic skiff quaked as he sat behind her. She squeezed her thighs, but there was no way she could diminish their girth. His legs overlapped hers. His hands laced over her middle.

“Ready?” Star appeared beside them. “I’ll give you a push.”

For a brief, suspended-in-time moment, Willow closed her eyes and let herself feel small in the circle of his arms.

And then they flew as one down the bank, up the ramp, into the air, and onto the glassy surface of Cedar Creek.

Sideways.

The sled stopped. They didn’t. In slow motion it might have been pretty. Wilson’s arms remained clamped at Willow’s waist as they slid on their sides, spoon-fashion, across the ice and into a snowbank. By the time they stopped, his fingers were still laced—this time around her neck. “Are you all right?” she gasped.

Seconds passed. His fingers didn’t move. She felt a rumble but couldn’t identify it until a gut-level laugh erupted from the man who held her life in his hands. “I’m fine.” He released his hold on her neck and tipped her chin so she had no choice but to look up at the man silhouetted against a moonlit sky. “In fact, I haven’t been this fine in a very long time.” He shifted and helped her sit up. “Ms. Miles, I’m going to thoroughly enjoy being at war with you.”

D
on’t get all
star
struck, Star.” Willow parked her repaired van in front of the Cultural Center and wrinkled her nose at the girl clinging to the inside handle of the passenger door. “Just have fun with it, honey.”

“I make mistakes when I get nervous. I’ll squirt him with lead-based paint. I’ll drown him in eraser crumbs. He’ll inhale art gum and die of COPD.” Star gave a sigh worthy of a standing ovation. “He’s just so, so good.”

“Don’t put him on too high a pedestal. Good is a relative thing. Look, you’d go down the thousand-foot toboggan slide at Whitnall Park blindfolded and not flinch, right?”

“Yeah. But what does that—”

“Mr. So So Good was scared to death to get on a little plastic sled in our backyard.”

“Seriously?” The ever-elusive expression bent the corners of Star’s mouth heavenward. “He was scared?”

“Terrified. I had to hold his hand the whole way.” The heat sneaking under Willow’s sweater had nothing to do with the vents pointed her way.

“Yeah. About that. You do know people were laughing at you, right? All cuddled up like sardines at the bottom of the hill. Speaking of
star
struck.”

Willow cleared her throat. “It’s 5:28.”

The van door opened, and Star’s laugh escaped on an icy breeze. The wind fluttered the to-do list clamped to the dashboard.

The last item was in Crystal’s neat, scrolling cursive. An item Willow would have to ignore—unless she ended up in a lovely well-lit shop of her own with orders flying in faster than she could process them.

She crossed the first thing off the list and moved on to the second. Tackling Wilson’s kitchen. Their deal was dusting and vacuuming in exchange for art lessons, but if Wilson did anything to crack the pedestal he balanced on, an hour with Star could end up feeling like twelve rounds with Apollo Creed. It would take more than sucking lint off his carpet to get him to stick to his end of the deal. Willow had every intention of cleaning and organizing her way into Wilson Woodhaus’s good graces.

And she’d start with the cupboards. As she drove out of town and along the tree-lined lane to his quirky old barn, she tried to remember the configuration of cupboards in his miniscule kitchen. She’d come equipped with trash bags and a laundry basket full of dollar store drawer organizers, plastic containers, and lazy Susans. A person could never have too many lazy Susans.

She parked at the foot of the red-painted stairs. As she wrestled the laundry basket up all twelve of them, she pictured Wilson shoveling the rough-hewn steps every time it snowed. A man with his talent ought to have a nicer place. At the very least, an indoor stairway. She balanced the basket on one hip as she turned the doorknob. The door flew open and dollar store plastic skittered across white vinyl. Willow got down on her knees. Chasing a runaway lid, she crawled under Wilson’s sad little excuse for a kitchen table. Her caboose banged a chair, sending a pile of papers snowing down onto the plastic jungle.

Smack-dab in front of her lay a single-spaced document.

Wilson’s essay for the contest. The essay she hadn’t a clue how to write. Was this a gift from heaven or a temptation from the other realm? She tried to avert her eyes.

Could she help it if the paper happened to land, faceup, at her knees?

Wilson sat across the table from the girl who simultaneously jiggled her leg and tapped a pencil on her knee. “Tell me a little about yourself and where you hope to go with your art.”

“I’ve always loved to draw. It’s like an obsession. My mother used to say I was born with a pencil in my fist. After she died, art was kind of my therapy, you know? Willow bought me gobs of paper.”

“Speaking of Willow, how is she doing with preparing for the contest?”

“Great. All because of you.”

“Me?” He couldn’t remember anything he’d said that would have helped Willow with the application process.

“Yeah. She figured if you liked it, it had to be good.”

Ah
. She was referring to the shop space. “It was quite warm and inviting.”

“You should tell her that.”

“I think she understood that I found it more than adequate for my needs.”

Star blinked. “Stick with the warm and inviting thing. She could use that as a slogan.”

“Or
I
could.” He lifted his left eyebrow and smiled at her. “I’m a fierce competitor and I have every intention of winning.”

“You’re entering?”

“Of course. That’s why I was there the other day when she—”

“What?”
Star’s posture turned rigid. “What were you doing? Spying on her? Trying to steal her secrets?”

“Spying? I was there first. What are you—?”

Her chair scraped the floor as she stood. “How could you do that to her? Willow is the kindest, most giving person I’ve ever met in my whole life. She gave up all her hopes and dreams for me and my brothers and she’s always doing nice things for other people and I can tell she really likes you and when you two were sledding together it sure looked like you liked her, too, and—”

“I
do
like her!” Wilson stood and planted his hands on his hips. He was not taking on this wildcat as a student. And where had that profession of
like
come from? He took a calming breath. “Star, this isn’t personal. It would be a wise business move for either of us to get exposure like this.”

“Exposure?
So you’d expose the most kindhearted person in the whole world to heartbreak on the off chance that your stupid chili is better than—”

“
Chili?
What in the world does chili have to do with the price of tea in China?”

Star’s ringed fingers clutched her hips, mocking his pose. “How could chili not have something to do with a chili contest?”

Wilson closed his eyes and sank back into his chair. As the irate girl stared, he dissolved into a belly laugh the likes of which he hadn’t experienced in more years than he could count. What had happened to his boring, well-ordered life? “Sit down, Star. Please.”

He was thoroughly going to enjoy the unpredictability of being at war with Willow Miles. And her daughter.

Depictions of the charm and serenity of historic Cedarburg … from the covered bridge dusted with snow in winter to the familiar silhouette of Cream City brick buildings on Washington Avenue … the gallery of world-renowned watercolor and ink artist Wilson Woodhaus will draw tourists … uniting with the residents of Cedarburg to support our mission: Preserving Yesterday’s Heritage Today …