Lemon Pies and Little White Lies (3 page)

Ella Mae nodded. “I know that, but I love him. I’ve loved him for most of my life. Since I knew how to love. And no matter what he said in this letter, I’ll wait. If it takes twenty years, then so be it. I have to hold on to the hope that, one day, I can be completely honest with him and he’ll be able to forgive me for what I did to him.”

“What kind of existence will you have pining for him for twenty years?” Reba asked very softly.

Ella Mae faced her friends. “I don’t plan on pining. You see, I’m going to bury everything I feel for Hugh into this
pie. And then, I’m going to freeze it. I hope it’ll be like pausing a movie—that it’ll give me the freedom to focus on work and the rest of the people I care about.”

Jenny looked doubtful. “Is that possible? Can you really transfer enough of your feelings that you actually stop, well, feeling?”

“When it comes to these particular emotions, I have to try,” Ella Mae said, sounding like her strong, determined self again. “Hugh’s wasn’t the only letter I received in today’s mail. The township committee has accepted my proposal to have The Charmed Pie Shoppe sponsor Havenwood’s Founder’s Day celebration.”

Reba arched a brow. “Why would we want to do that?”

“Because it gives us an unprecedented chance to gather our kind from all over the country. If I can convince Elders from other communities to meet, we can discuss how to unite, grow stronger, and break a very old curse.”

Jenny pumped her fist in the air. “Yes!”

“Founder’s Day is the first of May. Beltane. Our biggest party. A celebration I dream about all year,” Reba said, her eyes gleaming. “And with all these visitors, we’ll have hundreds of magical people in our grove. Good-lookin’, half-naked men from all over the country dancin’ around a bonfire. Tall Texans with cowboy hats, bronze-bodied surfers from California, men from the Dakotas who know how to keep a girl warm at night.” She grinned at Ella Mae. “This is your best idea ever.”

“Make sure to leave a few half-naked men for me,” Jenny said, and then issued a wistful sigh. “Too bad May is weeks and weeks away.”

Ella Mae waved her hand around the pie shop. “Don’t worry. With all we have to do to prepare for this event, the time will pass with lightning quickness.”

“Speaking of which, I’d better zip back to the dining room and check on our customers,” Jenny said and rushed off.

Ella Mae removed the pie dish from the oven and set it on a cooling rack. She then retrieved raspberries, heavy whipping cream, and a bar of white chocolate from the walk-in. She dropped the items on the counter and went to the dry-goods shelves for a bottle of orange liqueur, a package of unflavored gelatin, and a jar of currant jam.

Reba eyed the liqueur bottle warily. “What are you doin’ with that?”

“Mixing it with the gelatin, cream, and chocolate. And I’m not serving it to our patrons.” Ella Mae crossed the first and second fingers of her right hand and held them over her heart. “Promise.”

Satisfied, Reba crossed the room and opened one of the swing doors a crack. “Only two tables are occupied,” she said. “I think the rest of the customers raced outside to watch Mrs. Longwood soak Mr. Jenkins with her garden hose.”

“That poor man,” Ella Mae said, pausing in the act of breaking the bar of white chocolate into small pieces over a heated saucepan. Stirring in the rest of the filling ingredients, she said, “I’m responsible for the damage to the parked cars and to Mrs. Longwood’s gnomes, not him. What if he’s given a Breathalyzer test? He could be in big trouble. He might lose his license. Or worse.”

Reba shook her head. “I called Officer Wallace and told her exactly what happened. She’s going to help us out. Her report will make it sound like Mr. Jenkins’s car malfunctioned. Leak in the brake line or that sort of thing. His insurance company will cover the damage and my buddy at the body shop will mess with those brake lines long before the insurance rep shows up.”

“Thank goodness for Officer Wallace. I never realized
what an advantage it could be to have one of our kind on the police force.”

“She’s not the first person to relocate to Havenwood because of you,” Reba said. “Thousands of folks would give half a lung to live in a place where they can renew their powers anytime they want. You’ve changed the rules, honey. And I have a feelin’ you’re just gettin’ started.” She picked up the bottle of orange liqueur. “You can’t afford to be distracted. Your life isn’t your own anymore.”

Ella Mae knew Reba spoke the truth. “You’re right,” she said. “On both counts. Let me finish with this pie and then I’ll be fine. Really, I will. But I have to do this alone, okay?”

Reba searched her face. “Okay, then. But remember, Jenny and I are just on the other side of those doors if you need us.”

When she was gone, Ella Mae placed Hugh’s letter in the pie dish. She unfolded it so she could see his familiar handwriting on the thin airmail paper. She traced the letters of his name, one at a time, silently pledging to love him as long as she lived. “But the part of my heart that you claimed needs to hibernate. I don’t know when I’ll see you again, and like Reba said, my life isn’t my own. It belongs to the people of Havenwood, and they don’t need a lovesick girl leading them. They need a woman. Fierce and fearless.”

Ella Mae beat more cream, creating picture-perfect stiff peaks before folding the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture. As she gently worked her rubber spatula through the pie filling, she closed her eyes and thought of Hugh. Memories flashed through her mind like a high-speed slide show. There were images from the recent past: Hugh asleep in her bed, his Great Dane stretched out across his feet; Hugh frying bacon; Hugh frowning over a crossword puzzle; Hugh leaning in to kiss her. And then she went back further in time, to the first moment she’d seen him. He was still a boy then, and she, a
shy and awkward girl. Despite her youth, Ella Mae’s heart had tripped over itself when Hugh had turned his bright blue-eyed gaze in her direction. She’d felt a rush of heat, of terror, and a longing she hadn’t fully understood.

“I understand it now,” she whispered and then poured the creamy white filling over the letter.

While waiting for the filling to set, Ella Mae tidied the kitchen and washed the raspberries. She then melted a small bowlful of red currant jam and dropped the berries into the ruby liquid. Using her fingertips, she tenderly coated each berry and then removed the pie dish from the refrigerator. Gingerly pinching a raspberry between her fingers, she inhaled the sweet scents of white chocolate and jam, and as she gently pressed the berry into the filling, she willed her memories of Hugh’s touch to enter the fruit. She repeated this act over and over, transferring into each berry the feel of his hands, the sound of his voice, his musical laughter, the hunger in his kisses, the glint of humor in his brilliant blue eyes, and the way his body moved when he danced. She pictured how he swam like a dolphin, the way he rolled on the ground when he played with his dog, and how he stood, taut and rigid as a steel beam, directing water from a fire hose at a wall of angry flames. She put all the things she felt about this remarkable man—the man she’d loved for most of her life—into the pie.

Feeling oddly vacant, Ella Mae dropped a handful of dark chocolate morsels and two tablespoons of butter in a glass bowl and cooked them in a microwave. Pouring the melted chocolate into a pastry bag, she piped dark hearts over the surface of the berries. The hearts overlapped until they were unrecognizable, but if Ella Mae looked very closely, she could follow the path of the lines and see the shapes she’d created.

She continued to pipe until the chocolate was gone. With a weary sigh, she sealed the pie in an airtight container and put it on a high shelf in the freezer.

By the time Reba returned with the first of the teatime orders, Ella Mae was ready to work again.

“Are you all right?” Reba asked.

“I will be,” Ella Mae said and smiled.

Reba nodded. “I believe it. While you plate this order, why don’t you tell me what you have in mind for this Founder’s Day event? We should focus on the future now.”

“Yes,” Ella Mae agreed. Taking a deep breath, she prepared to leave the past behind. “My idea is for us to host a one-of-a-kind celebration of pie. It’ll be called History in the Baking. We’ll invite cooks from across the nation to participate and encourage them to bring friends and family along. There will be pie bake-offs, presentations, lectures, cooking classes, and large cash prizes.”

Reba’s brows shot up her forehead. “Where’s the cash comin’ from? Not from my salary, I hope.”

“No.” Ella Mae laughed. “We’ll charge every contestant a registration fee, and I’ve already asked the manager of Lake Havenwood Resort about using their kitchen for classes and their auditorium for the presentations. He was willing to waive the fee for these facilities, seeing as our event is likely to ensure new bookings and plenty of advertising for his hotel.”

“I don’t get the history part,” Reba said and started to slice a Leprechaun Pie into even wedges.

“Pies have a long and rich history,” Ella Mae began. “Ancient Egyptian bakers made a form of pie dough, but the Greeks were the first civilization to produce a real pie. Of course, the pies were of the savory variety for centuries. The dough was just a container to hold a protein-packed
filling. It wasn’t until the fifteen hundreds that the bakers began experimenting with fruit pies.”

Reba still looked puzzled. “So the contestants bake an old recipe—a really old recipe—and then talk about that country’s culture?”

“Exactly. You could make a Roman mussel pie, for example. Of course, only the wealthy Romans could afford mussels, so you’d have to explain what the different classes of that period would use as their filling. For extra impact, you could dress like a Roman.”

Shaking her head, Reba said, “Not a chance. You can’t hide enough weapons under a toga. Give me a kimono. Or one of those medieval gowns. Do you know how many throwing stars I could tuck inside those bell sleeves?”

Ella Mae laughed again and was surprised by the levity of the sound. She felt much lighter, as if a burden had been lifted. With a shock, she realized the transfer had worked. She’d used her gifts to store her longing for Hugh in a white chocolate mousse raspberry pie. She could think of him now without feeling that needle-sharp ache in the center of her chest. Her love was intact, but it was a love without pain. It was more like the memory of love. Pure, sweet, and distant.

“Anyway,” she continued animatedly. “The contestants don’t have to restrict their recipes to foods made in ancient times. America has a storied pie-making history. Pie has always been very important to this nation.”

Reba loaded her serving tray with the completed orders. “Shoot, everybody knows that. I bet there wouldn’t have been an America if the pilgrims hadn’t made pumpkin pie for the natives durin’ the very first Thanksgiving.”

“There wasn’t any pumpkin pie,” said Jenny, who’d entered the room in time to catch Reba’s last remark. “That’s a total myth. They ate fowl and venison at the inaugural
Thanksgiving. There might have been a savory pie, but definitely no pumpkin.”

“All right, Einstein. You stay here and trade history lessons with Ella Mae. I need to serve my customers.” With a scowl, Reba left the kitchen.

When she was gone, both Ella Mae and Jenny stifled laughter behind their hands.

“She really hates being corrected,” Jenny said. “And I don’t dare press a point with her. The woman has a whole arsenal of weapons concealed under her clothes. She might be smaller and older than me, but she could kick my butt from now until Tuesday.”

Ella Mae retrieved a plastic bag filled with sugar-cookie dough from the walk-in and began to roll it out on the worktable. “Reba’s been my bodyguard since I was born. I’ve never seen anyone fight like her. She’s almost fifty, but her reflexes are quicker than those of a pissed-off rattlesnake.”

“I’m glad she saves her venom for our enemies,” Jenny said. “Though it would be nice if we didn’t have enemies for a spell. I’d like to enjoy a peaceful spring.”

At that moment, one of Ella Mae’s aunts burst through the swing doors, leaving them to flap wildly in her wake.

“You need to come with me!” Aunt Verena bellowed.

Ella Mae was unfazed by her aunt’s tone and volume. The oldest of the famed LeFaye sisters didn’t possess an indoor voice. She was also accustomed to people leaping to obey her. When Ella Mae didn’t, Aunt Verena pointed at the cookie dough and said, “Put down that rolling pin. We need to go!”

“It’s the middle of tea service,” Ella Mae protested. “I can’t just—”

“Yes, you can!”

Reba entered with another order ticket. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Can you take over for Ella Mae for a few minutes?”
Though Verena towered over Reba and was nearly double her girth, she spoke to her with deference and affection. Reba might not have been a LeFaye, but she was still family. “There’s something she needs to see.”

Reba nodded and turned to Ella Mae. “You’d best listen to your aunt.”

Knowing that Aunt Verena wouldn’t insist unless it was extremely important, Ella Mae untied her peach apron, hung it on a wall hook, and quickly washed her hands. “I hope you aren’t the bearer of bad news,” she said, reaching for the dish towel. “It’s a holiday, after all. We’re supposed to wear green, pick four-leaf clovers, and look for pots of gold at the end of rainbows. We’re supposed to be merry.”

Verena looked pained. “Honey, there’s nothing to be merry about. And there’s nothing to celebrate. This news is beyond bad. And things are about to get worse.”

And with that, she turned and pushed on the swing doors with such force that Ella Mae thought they’d fly right off their hinges.