Once Upon a Misty Bluegrass Hill (26 page)

Jolene shook her head. 
"
Girls, let
'
s not fight.  We have plenty of berries for two pies and a li
ttle bit of canning.  It is hot.  Let
us go get some of
Mata
'
s sweet tea.
"

Jolene
'
s memory tripped over her own blackberry picking trips with her mother.  Every year they endured the vicious spikes of those wild blackberry plants to obtain the delicious fruit for pies and to put up for jam. 
Jolene had found
her mother
'
s
Ball jars in the cabinet just as they were the last time she and her mother had cleaned them and put them away.  She purchased new tops for them to make sure of the seal.

When the jars got
too old
they used them for ice
d
tea glasses.  And her father used them for beer mugs.  The fond memories washed over her leaving
the taste of
bittersweet recollections
. 

Hot summers.  Cold ice tea.  Watermelon.  Blackberries. 

And f
ireflie
s.  They lit the
night
sky like small stars that fell from heaven. 

In the evenings she and her father would try to
capture
them
in jars.  Her father said they were magic and that is why the
y
lit up the night sky with little miniature bulbs in their tails
.

Jolene reached
Patrick
'
s back porch with the girls flitting behind her and playing with the dogs
along the way
.  Leona
was
standing
at the top of the steps
at the back porch of
Patrick
'
s house, looking fresh in her peach colored polo shirt and white shorts. 
"
Mata
will be
preparing something special tonight
when she returns
so keep the girls out of her kitchen. 
Patrick
and I are having important, intimate guests over.  I didn
'
t think you would want to come.
"
 

Why did Leona have to be so blonde and pretty?

Tanned legs that
she w
ould never
possess
because of her fair skin and freckles.

Jolene
brushed
by her
without a smile
and went inside to fetch the flour and sugar
that
Mata
had purchased and left for her to use for the pies and blackberry preserves. 
"
I wasn
'
t planning on
baking here with the girls
nor was I planning to come to dinner.
"

Bea poured the tea into plastic cups and then pulled her sister out of the back door with the tea sloshing over the sides of their cups.

The baking items sat on the large marble counter
waiting for her
.
 
Kind Mata. 
T
he kitchen was clean, cool and sat in air
-
conditioned shadows despite the heat that blazed through the long scenic windows that overlooked the pastures.

"
Well, good.  I need to go up and do my nails for tonight so I trust that those girls will be sent home after they leave your place and not be over here pestering
Patrick
before our dinner party.
"

"
You can certainly trust they will be at my house with me.
"

Leona turned on her sandaled he
e
l and left the kitchen.

The kitchen was
cold and empty
without
Mata
who
left in the late afternoons to pick up her grandson and spend a few hours with him before her daughter came home from
work.

Jolene never cooked here
in
Patrick
'
s house
because this was
Mata
'
s kitchen and Jolene preferred her own kitchen.

B
ut she need not tell nasty old Leona that…let her think what she wanted
. 

Leona… the new intruder to their lives
,
could not know
that all of Jolene
'
s kitchen creations happened in her own house in her mother
'
s kitchen. 

Leona didn
'
t cook a
nd she went out of her way to keep Jolene out of
Patrick
'
s house all the time anyway
,
not just out of his ki
tchen
.  Even a
chipmunk or
squirrel could figure that out. 

Leona
had even demanded that
Patrick
stop calling her
Red
.

Which was okay with Jolene anyway because she wanted to be more than a
Red
to
Patrick
. 
She was certain now that the touching he did
that time
was because he was attracted to her.

Except he already had Leona
so she would never be more to him than
Red
. 

"
I lost the whole basket because Finnegan tipped it over and stomped all over it
and Oliver ate most of them
!
"
  Lacy wailed from the doorway
,
her eyes filled with tears and her face streaked with blackberries.

Behind her Finnegan and Oliver stood looking
guilty and forlorn.  Oliver
'
s tongue
slid along his purple mouth. 
"
Oliver you cannot hide the evidence…you naughty
pups
.
"
  Jolene wagged her fingers at the
pups
and they slunk away back down the back porch steps. 

Jolene smiled
at Lacy
. 
"
Don
'
t worry dearest, we can pick some more.  Let me just put our baking items into a bag and take them to my house then we will go get your basket filled again.
"
 

Lacy immediately brightened
and together they left, meeting up with Bea who had already deposited her berries into a bowl in Jolene
'
s house and was working diligently on her leaking kitchen faucet. 
"
I have fixed this…it just needed to be tightened.
"
  Bea smiled large re
vealing her missing front tooth.  Her
big
pretty
brown eyes
were
wide with pleasure from her handiwork.

Jolene turned the faucet on and off. 
"
Bea you are really excellent with the repairs!
"
 

Bea beamed. 

Jolene pulled her father
'
s ladder from behind the
pantry
door and rested it against the pantry shelves. 
"
Now let me get the rest of the jars down and get them
to a
boil.
"
 

Lacy started
dancing
in the doorway. 
"
Come on we have to get more berries!
"

Patrick
walked up to the porch smiling, his eyes glowing dark blue. 
"
Now what is this I heard about the dogs getting into our berries?
"
  Jolene
'
s heart skipped a beat then lunged to full
cantor
.

"
Patrick
!
"
  Lacy and Bea ran to him fighting each other for a better hug.

Lacy stepped back and puffed out her lower lip. 
"
Finnegan knocked over the basket and Oliver ate them.
"

The accused
dogs
sat on the front porch panting and smiling under floppy ears. 
Patrick
turned to them. 
"
Did you now? 
Fine pair you are.
"
  He turned back to Jolene and the girls with laughing eyes. 
"
Well, I guess I need to step in and help with the picking to protect our baskets from these fiends or we will never get
Jolene to bake us some pies
.
"

Lacy ran to the pantry through the open door and ran around the ladder.
"
Yaaaay!
"
 

Jolene stepped down with an armful of jars that
Patrick
took from her. 
"
Don
'
t go under the ladder
,
it is bad luck!
"

Patrick
set the jars on the counter then put the ladder away. 
"
What kind of bad luck?
"

"
I don
'
t actually know.  I think it is just general bad luck.
"

Patrick
laughed. 
"
You sure have a lot of superstition
s
Jolene, I thought the Irish were bad for it, but I see the country folk here are even worse than us.
"

Jolene glared at him. 
"
At least we don
'
t believe in leprechauns!
"

Patrick
ruffled Bea
'
s hair. 
"
Maybe there are some out in the berry patch and we will find them when we go pick our berries!
"

The girls screamed
and grabbed
Patrick
'
s hand and drug him
through the screened door and
out to the berry patch in the back of the pasture.  Jolene followed watching
,
them her mouth twitching to a smile.

Patrick
would make a really great father.

As soon as the thought hit her, Jolene
sent it over a cliff
and
stifled the pang of sadness
that went with it
.  He would be the father of Leona
'
s children.

The girls chattered with
Patrick
while they picked.  A berry flew into the back of Jolene
'
s head and she turned to find
Patrick
grinning. 
"
T
'
was a bad one," he offered as an
explanation
.

Jolene laughed.  A few minutes later she spied a berry that looked half eaten and picked it and several others that looked deformed or half eaten by bugs.  She gathered them and sent them sailing into the back of
Patrick
'
s head, back and rump. 

He turned around laughing. 
"
Hey now
that means war!
"
 

Jolene lobbed a berry right into his face giggling at his
surprised
expression.  The girls pointed to him and laughed loud then fell to the ground rolling for
the
added measure
of drama
.

Lacy plucked a few berries from her basket and threw them at
Patrick
. 
"
I think it is time for me to attack!
"

Patrick
curled his arms and snarled, stomping his feat like a monster.  The girls squealed and jumped to their feat bolting past Jolene. 
Patrick
bellowed a loud grow
l
, lunging for Jolene. 
"
I
'
ve got one victim left.
"
  The girls screamed and continued running through the pasture.  Jolene was laughing t
o
o hard to run very far before she found herself being tumbled to the ground. 
"
Now that will teach you.
"