A Wedding in Apple Grove (10 page)

She opened the wood screen door, knocked on the back door, and waited for Mrs. Winter to answer. When the door opened, she breathed in the welcoming smell of freshly baked cherry pie. “I will do whatever you need me to, as long as there's a piece of that pie in my future.”

“Land sakes, Megan,” Mrs. Winter said. “You surely do love your sweets.”

Meg laughed. “It's a good thing I work hard every day, or else I'd probably be as big as a house.”

The older woman shook her head and motioned for Meg to come in. Happy to follow her nose toward the pies cooling on the Formica countertop, she stepped inside. Mrs. Winter's kitchen always made Meg miss her mom. Maureen Mulcahy used to bake up a storm on Tuesdays. It was something Meg's grandmother had always done too—have a day dedicated to a certain chore. Mondays were for laundry, Tuesdays baking.

Knowing that Mrs. Winter thrived on routine, Meg set her toolbox down on the left side of the back door and walked over to sniff the pies. “What do you need me to do today? I lost my list—”

“Again?”

Meg paused with her hands on the countertop, poised to breathe in the tempting scent of cherries through the slits in the top of the pie. Mrs. Winter knew her too well. “Yeah, so I don't know what needs fixing.”

Mrs. Winter tut-tutted, but Meg was so close to paradise, she leaned close and got a good whiff of the flakiest pie crust in Licking County. Forget the McCormack sister's pie—they didn't use butter in their crust like Mrs. Winter did.

Now that she'd gotten a nose-full of the fabulous scent, it would hold her until she'd repaired whatever needed fixing. “So, what needs my attention today?”

The woman held out both her hands, took Meg's right hand in hers, and patted the back of it. “I do. I haven't seen you in a while and woke up wanting to bake a cherry pie.”

Meg tried hard not to tear up, but she couldn't help it. Mrs. Winter had a way of getting to the heart of any matter… no matter how small. “I need to fix something if I'm going to earn that pie.”

Amelia released Meg's hand and looked around the kitchen. “Everything's still working from the last time you were here, but the igniter on my stovetop is acting finicky and doesn't always light.”

With a nod of understanding, Meg focused on the ten-year-old stove and set about unclogging the tiny holes at the bottom of the sealed gas burners and tried lighting the burners a few times before she was satisfied that all of them were in working order. “All fixed. Anything else?”

“How is that handsome father of yours, Meg? Is he happy with your move?”

She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. “I guess you were talking to—”

“I had my hair done at Honey B.'s this morning.” Mrs. Winter patted the back of her short bob and asked, “What do you think of the color? It's more silver than my usual gray.”

“Gorgeous. Honey B. has a way with color.” Knowing what was expected, she asked, “So what's the shade of the week?”

Mrs. Winter smiled. “Honey B.'s dyed her hair a lovely rich auburn—a lot like your color. I wished my skin tone hadn't faded quite so much, because if I was just ten years younger, I would have insisted Honey B. dye mine the same color. Smartest thing that young woman ever did was to change her hair color every week to advertise the latest shades in her shop.”

“Has she been outside to sweep the sidewalk in front of her shop yet?”

Mrs. Winter's eyes practically danced as she clapped her hands in front of her face. “You'd think with the way it sits catty corner across from the sheriff's office, he'd take a look out his own window once in a while.”

“He is a busy man; keeping the law around here is more than a full-time job.”

Mrs. Winter agreed. “Such a handsome man. Why does he have to be so set in his ways? Honey B. is just perfect for that hardheaded bachelor.”

“The whole town knows it—and so does he,” Meg agreed. “I think he's just scared to make the commitment. Not everyone wants a relationship, you know.”

“Isn't it time you let the past go and focused on someone new?”

Crafty old woman caught her by surprise, changing the subject like that. Meg started to answer, but Mrs. Winter cut her off. “I hear from Trudi Philo that her grandnephew is a very handsome young man, who has a steady job and just bought his first house.”

“Er… thanks for the info, Mrs. Winter.”

She beamed. “Now, why don't we sit down and have a bit of tea with our pie, then you can take home the second one I baked this morning?”

Meg knew then that if she lived to be a hundred, she'd never find anywhere in the world like Apple Grove. Friendly but nosy; small in population but big in heart. “I'd love to.”

“Now,” Mrs. Winter said, sitting across from Meg, “why don't you tell me what prompted your move and why you didn't do this years ago?”

Meg smiled. It was a small payment, in addition to fixing whatever needed it; she always shared news in exchange for her favorite dessert. “Well, it all started at Edie and Bill's wedding.” As she told her friend about the wedding and falling off the fence into Dan's arms, she knew that if she didn't run into him in town, she'd make a point to seek him out. Whether they'd intended to or not, they'd begun something on the side of the road that they would have to take the time to see where it was headed.

Mrs. Winter's eyes were misty as she sipped the last of her tea. “I'm sorry I wasn't able to be there for Edie and Bill. I dropped off a batch of chicken marsala before I left to visit my daughter and brand new grandson at the hospital in Toledo. It sounds like it was a wonderful wedding.”

Meg agreed. “It was.”

“What are you waiting for?”

Meg set down her tea and looked over at her friend. “Excuse me?”

Mrs. Winter got up and wrapped the other pie with tinfoil and then a Turkish towel and set it down in front of Meg. “Edie is the second to last of the young women your age to marry. When are you going to start living again? You're missing out on life when you spend all of it working—and waiting.”

“Honey B.'s still single—”

“She's a year older than you, dear.”

Sly fox that she was, Amelia Winter had Meg in her crosshairs and wasn't about to let her go free. “When I called Bill's mother to hear about the wedding, she mentioned that her younger son, Jack, saw you flirting with Dan Eagan before you brought him over to meet everyone.”

Meg could have fibbed, but the truth always seemed to come out. Whether you wanted it to or not, someone was always ready to share news. The only downside to living in a small town; whether you wanted folks to or not, if they thought what you were doing was newsworthy, it'd be all over town. “Busted.”

Mrs. Winter's smile was hard to ignore, but Meg didn't want to have to spill the rest of the beans and tell her about the emergency call to Dan's house and the amazing-smelling dinner that he'd cooked for his date, because she still didn't know who he'd cooked it for and that was an important part of spreading the news. So she dangled an irresistible tidbit of gossip out, hoping to distract the woman. “Cindy Harrington said that they received an emergency call through the sheriff's dispatch this morning.”

She had the other woman's full attention. Nothing like news from the local law office to attract and distract. “Really? Who was it?”

“Apparently, a couple of the boys from the football team decided to leave their mark on the school by putting tires on the flagpole—”

“That's not news,” Mrs. Winter interrupted. “Every decade or so they do that.”

Meg agreed. “Well, this year's crop of seniors aren't as smart as they think they are, because one of them decided he'd climb the tires, so they could make a video and put it up on the Internet. Halfway up, Joey realized that he was afraid of heights.”

“Sounds familiar.”

Meg felt her cheeks getting red, but she'd rather be embarrassed about something she'd done as a kid than to have to talk about Dan.

“What happened?”

“One of Joey's friends called 911 and our intrepid sheriff had to climb up and rescue Joey.” She was grinning when she added, “The video rescue went viral ten minutes later.”

“About time Sheriff Wallace made the news. How many times has he had to rescue someone from the water tower?”

Meg sighed. “Thirteen.” She'd been the third.

“How many times has he had to climb up that ship's mast at the McCormacks' farm?”

“Only five.” She'd been his first official rescue on the job.

“No wonder he doesn't want to get involved with Honey B.”

Meg was shaking her head when she asked, “How do you figure that?”

“Honey B. has always been vocal about wanting to raise a family—a big one with at least six kids. Can you imagine how tough Mitch Wallace's life would become not only taking care of every kid in town but six of his own?”

Meg's jaw dropped open; she'd never thought of it that way. But she shouldn't have been surprised; Honey B. had always been the first choice of babysitters when they'd been in school. The kids always loved having Honey B. sit for them. Meg never seemed to have the time, spending so much of her teen years watching her younger sisters when she wasn't on the job with her dad.

“Maybe it's time that Honey B. took the bull by the horns,” Meg admitted, “and let the sheriff know that she's tired of waiting and is going to start looking on the Internet for a man who will fits the bill and fulfills all her needs.”

The devilish look in Mrs. Winter's eyes had Meg wishing she'd kept her thoughts to herself. When the older woman got up to get a pad of paper and a pen, Meg was looking for an excuse to leave. But Mrs. Winter wasn't having any of it. “Now then, Megan, I need the names of several reputable Internet dating sites.”

“Oh no.” Meg stood and held her hands out in front of her as if that could stop Amelia when she was on a roll. “I can't do that to Honey B.”

“She'll thank you once she's got Mitch's ring on her hand.”

Would she? Meg wasn't so sure. Out of all the women around their age, they were still single after all these years, and the men they'd loved hadn't had enough sense or money to buy a clue where Honey B. and Meg were concerned.

“What if it doesn't work?” Meg asked.

Mrs. Winter nodded. “What if she finds out that she and Mitch aren't meant to be and that there is another man out there who will love her and cherish her just because of who she is?”

Meg finally acquiesced and wrote down three names for Mrs. Winter. “These are the ones I've heard about and read about, but I can't guarantee anything because I've never used any of them.”

Mrs. Winter nodded. “Agreed. I'll just see about doing a little research, shall I?”

Fifteen minutes later, Meg was in the truck, her precious pie in the basket she kept on hand for valuables received as payment for work, and wondering if she'd just gotten involved where she shouldn't have. “Won't be the first time,” she said with a sigh.

Driving past Honey's Hair Salon, she no longer thought she was doing the right thing. What if someone decided they wanted to help Meg with her love life? She groaned in frustration. She would not like it. Pulling around the corner, she parked, got out, and walked to Honey's shop.

“Well, hi there, Meg.” Honey's smile was as sweet as her name. It was one reason Meg decided they'd be friends all those years ago. Meg looked around at the empty shop, with its three hair dryers lined up like soldiers at attention on the left and the pair of sinks across the narrow shop on the right. Three antique barber chairs sat in front of vintage mirrors in need of silvering, but patrons didn't notice the age or the wear on the interior of Honey B.'s shop; they noticed the warmth. It was just like the shop's owner, Honey B. Harrington.

Encouraged by her friend's warm and welcoming smile, Meg unloaded and told Honey B. the whole plan.

Honey's face didn't give away what she was thinking, so Meg was surprised when Honey finally nodded. “I'm tired of chasing after that man.”

“But, Honey—”

“I have loved that man for half my life.” She sat down and motioned for Meg to do the same. Sitting there in front of the hair dryers, Honey confided, “I didn't want to believe that he didn't return the feelings that were so huge inside of me I thought they would consume me.”

Meg felt a lump forming in her throat, but she ignored it and said, “I know what you mean. I guess I only recently realized that I'd been hanging on to the false hope that Jimmy would ask me to marry him—and stay. I guess it didn't occur to me that maybe what I thought was love had morphed into an obsession.”

“What happened?”

“I didn't say—”

“You didn't have to,” Honey B. said. “I know you.”

“Busted.” Meg didn't want to talk about her reaction to Dan, but once she got started, she realized that deep down, she needed to bounce what she was feeling off a trusted friend who would understand and help her to cope with the rejection that she felt was sure to follow.

“What makes you think he's dating Peggy?”

“She's the complete opposite of me.”

“What's wrong with you?” Honey B. asked.

“I saw the reaction on his face when the McCormack sisters strolled over to meet him… all that blonde hair and those mile-long legs are hard to ignore. Just like my sisters—”

“Oh, give it up, Meg,” Honey B. grumbled. “And get over it. Your sisters take after your dad in height; you take after your mom. Embrace who you are, damn it!”

Meg's ire started to bubble to the surface. “Like you have?”

Honey's eyes widened and then her gaze narrowed as she frowned at Meg. “That's right. I decided long ago that if I couldn't catch Mitch's eye as a blonde, then I would try a different hair color every week until I could.” She waited a beat before adding, “I didn't just step aside and let another woman usurp my rightful place.”