Sugar And Spice (7 page)

Outside, Cyrus was barking his head off. Gus listened to the tone. It wasn’t a playful bark, or an I-treed-a-racoon bark, or an Okay, I’m-done-and-ready-for-dessert bark. This was a bark that meant there was an intruder on the premises. He reached up and turned on the outside floodlights. The entire backyard was suddenly bathed in a blinding white light and Cyrus was escorting a young woman to his back door.

Cyrus must like her, Gus thought, because his tail was swishing back and forth at the speed of light.

Gus opened the door and stared at the young woman in the purple hat and scarf. She smiled. He smiled—and fell in love on the spot.

His love opened her mouth and spoke. Suddenly he wanted to shower her with diamonds and rubies.

Maybe pearls. “I know it’s late, but is it possible to speak with Mr. Moss?”

“Uh, sure. I’m Mr. Moss. Gus Moss. Come in, come in.”

His love spoke again. “I’m sorry. I meant the other…Mr. Moss senior.”

“Oh, that Mr. Moss. He isn’t here. Will I do?”

Cyrus, never known for his patience, barked and pawed at the kitchen counter where the pie was.

“Excuse me. Cyrus is relentless. He won’t give up until he gets his pie. I was just about to have some. Will you join me?”

Amy stared at the good-looking young man. She thought her blood was boiling in her veins. “You know what, I think I will join you. I have a sweet tooth.”

His love had a sweet tooth. “Me too. All my teeth are sweet.” Gus grimaced, showing his teeth. His love laughed.

“Is that good for a dog?” Amy asked pointing to the pie Gus just put in Cyrus’s bowl.

“His owner refuses to give him dog food. I’m just dog sitting old Cyrus. People food seems to agree with him. Do you want ice cream on your pie?”

“Well, sure. What good is pie without ice cream? Do you have any coffee to go with that pie?” He watched, mesmerized when the purple hat and scarf came off, then the jacket. Lean and trim. Just the right kinds of curves. His love was perfect, and she was standing right there in his father’s kitchen.

“Absolutely. Big slice or little slice?”

His love laughed again, a tinkling sound that sent shivers up Gus’s spine. “Oh, a big slice. If you’re going to eat pie and ice cream, you need a big piece to really enjoy it. I haven’t had pie in a long time. What kind is it?”

“Berry. What should I call you?” Gus said, turning his back on her to cut the pie.

“I’m sorry; my manners are atrocious. Amy Baran. Nice to meet you, Gus Moss. I didn’t know Mr. Moss had a son. I used to come out here every September with my dad to tag a tree. Then we’d come back around Thanksgiving to take the tree home. It was the highlight of my life back then. Dad would always give me ten dollars to spend in the Christmas shop. I felt so grown-up when I’d sit down to eat the gingerbread and cider. Then I really grew up, and we didn’t do it anymore. Your mother always took time with the kids. Where were you?”

“Out in the fields I guess.” Amy Baran. This was the young woman Peggy and Ham Bledsoe talked about.

The same Amy Baran who returned home to help her mother. His competitor. He turned around, his expression blank. “Nice to meet you, Amy Baran.” Gus extended his hand and she grasped it. It was no wishy-washy handshake either. She gave as good as she got.

Gus ate his pie as he tried to figure out what this…spy was doing sitting in his kitchen. He decided his eyes were bigger than his stomach. Suddenly, the pie and ice cream lost their appeal. He set the dish down on the floor for Cyrus. Amy continued to eat. She appeared to be enjoying every mouthful.

“So what did you want to see my father about?”

“To buy some trees. A lot of trees. My mother told me she heard in town that your father is selling all his trees this year for $45 to thin out his fields. We’d be happy to buy about ten thousand. For buying that many we’d like a discount of maybe 5 percent. It’s for the Seniors. No one will be making money off this deal, and that includes me and my mother. My mother asked me to come home to help out and to map out a PR campaign to sell the trees. I have to admit it was all a good idea, but my mother didn’t think it through and made some major goofs. It was left to me to pick up the pieces. When do you think I can talk to your father? Or do you make the decisions? That was certainly good pie. I enjoyed it.”

“The housekeeper made it. I’ll pass on the compliment. That would be a loss of $55 a tree to Moss Farms. I don’t know who started that rumor. Moss Farms is in business to make money, not give it away.

What are you planning on selling them for? A hundred bucks a pop? That’s a lot of money, Miss Baran.

So you would still make a 25 percent return on the investment if I sold to you at $80 a tree.”

“Yes, it is a lot of money, but it’s for the Seniors’ Building. There’s no other place to get funding. As it is, the building was left to the Senior Citizens in a member’s will. Are you following me here?”

“I’m on the same page. Only half the fields will be ready to harvest. The half you’re talking about is overgrown. They haven’t been fertilized or irrigated. There are a lot of dead trees in those fields. I don’t have enough help to get them in shape for this season. Ah, I see by your expression that you aren’t following me. Let me explain. My father let the farm go to wrack and ruin. I came home last week from California to help out. A lot of people his age don’t want to hear from their whippersnapper sons, who think they know more than they do. My father…my father felt the same way. Push came to shove and, Miss Baran, I exercised my option to take over the half of the farm left to me by my mother, that wonderful lady who was always so nice to you. My trees will be ready to cut Thanksgiving week. If my father sells to you, you are going to have a lot of disgruntled customers. As they stand now, I wouldn’t pay twenty bucks for one of them. Business is business, and time is money. I learned that at my father’s knee,” Gus snapped.

Amy’s jaw dropped as she tried to absorb what Gus Moss was telling her. Her back stiffened. “Let me be sure I understand what you’ve just said. As far as you know the $45 per tree is a rumor. Moss Farms is divided into two parts. You own half, your father owns half. You are working your tree fields, and your father’s are nothing but garbage. You’re willing to sell your trees to me for $80 a tree which is a 20

percent discount to the Seniors. Did I get that all right?”

“That’s about it. We’ll trim the base, clip the straggly branches, drill the hole in the trunk and net the trees. We’ll divide the lot into three categories—small, medium and large trees. You can sell them for whatever you want. We’ll even deliver them to your site. That’s all gratis. Labor is expensive. It’s the best I can do.”

“Well, that isn’t good enough, Mr. Moss. This is for charity, for the Senior Citizens of our town. Your father is a senior citizen, and so is my mother. One day you and I will be seniors. Shame on you, Gus Moss. I wouldn’t do business with you if you paid me my weight in gold. Who do you think you are?”

His love was angry. Well, he was angry too. “I’m an architect. I’m not a tree farmer. I came here to help my father and to protect my interest in this farm. I put my personal life on hold to come here to do this and to make it work. And it is working. My fields are ready to go.”

“Helloooo, Mr. Moss. I did the same thing. I’m going to make it work, but for all the right reasons. Not to make money for myself and to protect my investment.”

The purple hat was suddenly on her head, the muffler whipping past his nose as she wrapped it around her neck. “You…you…Scrooge. Shame on you, Gus Moss. I hope you enjoy your ill-gotten gains. Thanks for the pie.” The door slammed behind Amy. Cyrus let out a shrill bark and slammed against the back door as he tried to understand the young woman’s angry tone.

Gus flopped down on the chair he’d been sitting on during Amy Baran’s tirade. Scrooge! Scrooge! She’d called him, Gus Moss, a scrooge.

The Rafters was a secluded restaurant perched high on a hill. In the fall and winter when the trees were bare, the nation’s capitol could be seen in the distance. It wasn’t necessarily the kind of eatery where one went to be seen—just the opposite, as it afforded privacy and small rooms where one could dine without worrying about people stopping by to say hello. It was rumored that more than one senator and congressmen had dalliances in the private rooms. The owners of the establishment, the ladies Harriet and Olivia Neeson, were quick to deny all such rumors.

Sam Moss had called ahead for a reservation and was assured by Harriet, who had been a dear friend of his wife, Sara, that she would reserve the best table in the house.

Sam and Tillie were halfway through the meal when Sam realized he was enjoying himself. He liked the witty, sharp-tongued Tillie Baran. He knew he was going to be sorely disappointed if this outing turned out to be solely about Christmas trees.

It had been ages, years actually, since he’d dined out. He always felt like a fish out of water sitting down in a restaurant by himself. When Sara was alive, they ate out every Saturday and Sunday to give her a break from cooking. He’d liked the fact that they both got slicked up. Sara preferred to say they got dressed up. Before his date with Tillie he’d dithered about what to wear and had trouble deciding if he should get dressed up. Finally, he settled on one of his vintage sport jackets. He was glad now that he hadn’t gone the suit-and-tie route, because Tillie was dressed casually. She smelled so good he kept sniffing her over the delectable aromas emanating from the kitchen. Yes sireee, he was enjoying himself.

Tillie looked up from her pecan-crusted salmon she was eating and said, “I can’t help but notice how you keep sniffing, Sam. Do I still smell like mothballs?”

“No, no. I’m trying to decide which smells better, the aromas from the kitchen or your perfume. It’s been a long time since I smelled perfume. The truth is, I haven’t been out with a lady since Sara died.”

Tillie pushed her plate away. “I can top that, Sam. I haven’t been with a man in twenty-eight years. What I mean is, I haven’t…never mind. It must have been very hard on you when Sara passed away. My husband…it was different. I know you and Sara were very happy.”

Sam saw that his dinner companion was becoming agitated. “That was all a long time ago. Life goes on whether we like it or not. Let’s talk about more pleasant things.”

“How about we get down to business and talk about trees?” Tillie said bluntly.

“I can do it, Tillie, but it’s going to pose a big problem for me. Unless we can come up with some way…Look, I’m on shaky ground where my son is concerned. We’re being civil to one another but our relationship is very strained. He hasn’t forgiven me for a lot of things I really don’t want to go into right now. What that means to you is, he is working his half of the farm. He hired people to thin out the trees.

He did some irrigating and fertilizing. His half. My half of the fields is in poor shape. If we can find a way to get the trees thinned and cut, I’ll donate as many as you want to the Seniors’ fund-raiser.”

“Sam! Really! You’ll donate as many as we can sell? That’s wonderful. We’ll just have to find people to help us. We have over seventy members to our chapter. The members have sons, nephews, grandchildren. Surely we can convince them to help us.”

Sam toyed with his wineglass. “We have to do it at night, Tillie.”

Tillie reared back in her chair. “At night! Right off, I see that as a problem. Why?”

Sam looked embarrassed. “I don’t want Gus to know. Right now the boy doesn’t have a very high opinion of me. Like I said, we’re on shaky ground. He left his business to come here to help me. I reacted like the old fool I am, said and did a lot of things Sara would deplore, but I did them anyway. He wants to prove to me he can get the farm back on its feet. He just might succeed at the rate he’s going. It’s too late to get my fields in shape, so while I’m donating them to you, you won’t be able to charge much for them. That means they aren’t going to be perfect trees. If I donate them to you, whatever you do sell them for will be all profit. Perhaps less than you planned, but you’ll make something. If you can get the volunteers, I think we can make it work. Maybe you can bill them as Charlie Brown trees.” Sam guffawed at what he thought was his witticism.

“Why are you doing this, Sam?” Tillie asked suspiciously. “When I came out to see you weeks ago you all but ran me off your property.”

“I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t in a good place mentally at the time. Then Gus came home with a major attitude. I had to fall back and regroup. At my age it’s damn hard to admit when you’re wrong, especially to your son. There are things…I don’t know if I can ever make right.”

Tillie reached across the table to take Sam’s hand in her own. “I know all about that, Sam. I really do.

Amy and I are in the same position. I think we’re two old fools that stepped off the road and are trying to find it again. My daughter is so…efficient, so smart. She’s detail oriented. She follows through. That’s important, as she pointed out to me. She doesn’t like me, Sam. She as much as said I wasn’t mother material. Do you know how hard that was to hear? Worse, she’s right. She ran my cell phone under water. She said it was growing out of my ear.” This last sentence was said with such outrage, Sam burst out laughing. He squeezed her hand.

“My son doesn’t like me either. He needs to show me up, prove that he can run the farm and make money. He’s trying to show me that even though he hates it, he’s good at it. Does that make sense?”

Tillie nodded. “I understand he’s a damn fine architect and makes tons of money out there in California.

Gets all kinds of awards. Sara would have been so proud of him. He never forgave me for donating ‘his’

tree to the White House. Sara always said when it got to a proper growth, she was going to donate it to the White House in Gus’s name. She was so proud of that tree. Gus thinks I did it for spite.”

Tillie was aghast. “And you never told him?”

“No, I never told him, just the way you never told your daughter about your husband.”

“Not only are we old fools, Sam, we’re stupid old fools. Why do we always think we know best just because we’re older? Do you think we can pull this off, Sam? Won’t your son hear or notice the activity out in your…your half of the fields?”