The Angel Tasted Temptation (24 page)

"No, because I pulled the kind of stunt she's always doing. She told me she was proud of me for ditching the family, the plans and the whole big hullabaloo to do it my way."

"What about Michael?" Maria asked. "How'd he take the whole surprise thing?"

Candace blushed. "Quite well. You can say he thanked me many times over."

"See? I was right," Maria said. "As usual."

Candace grinned and drew her friend into a second hug. Then she turned and gave Meredith an extra one, too. "Two of us down, two to go."

"Hey, I set a date. Meredith hasn't even fallen in love yet," Maria said. "Or have you?"

Meredith got the distinct feeling they were ganging up on her.

"That's a little hard to do, considering I'm not even talking to Travis." She pivoted away and busied herself with wrapping a box of chocolates to add to the large wicker arrangement they were working on— a thank-you to a local plastic surgeon for a facelift gone right.

"Why? What happened?" Candace headed over to the counter, laying her purse on the opposite side and slipping onto one of the bar stools. "When I left, everything seemed to be going so well."

"
This
happened," Maria said, handing her the copy of the
Globe
with the picture of Meredith in it.

"I thought you promised to burn that," Meredith grumbled, stuffing a nose-shaped paperweight into the side of the basket.

"No, I promised to frame it." She grinned.

"Oh. Wow." Candace quirked a brow in Meredith's direction. "
Miss Holstein?
"

"That can be explained by this," Maria said, handing her that morning's
Boston Herald
. The photographers had gotten in several good snaps of the
Dairy Farmers Monthly
photo shoot, clearly using a telephoto lens to do so, and then another half dozen or so of her fleeing form, all beneath the glaring headline of DAIRY FARMERS' HOPES DASHED BY NO-MOO DEFECTION.

"Oh. That's much worse."

"It was even picked up by the Associated Press," Maria said, waving copies of
USA Today
and the
New York Times
. "Our Meredith's famous."

Certainly not the kind of fame she'd been seeking when she came to Boston, Meredith thought. She kept working on the basket, hoping that if she focused enough on the wireless mouse shaped like a breast (complete with a nipple for a wheel), she'd forget all about the debacle at Government Center.

"Is that why your brothers are out there again?" Candace asked.

Meredith nodded. "They've become my de facto bodyguards. The press won't leave me alone."

"Vernon and Ray Jr. work cheap, too," Maria added, handing Meredith a box of candies shaped like collagen-injected lips. "All it costs is a couple dozen cookies a day."

"Well, we better get baking," Candace said, taking off her jacket and rolling up the sleeves of her silky pink blouse. She grabbed an apron off the hook on the wall and a clean bowl for the KitchenAid mixer, then started pulling ingredients out of the cabinets. "We need to feed those men well if they're going to keep you safe."

Meredith let out a sigh, the gold ribbon bow in her hands drooping like a sad little portent of what was to come. "Maybe it would be best if I went back home."

"What, and miss all this fun?" Maria said. "You said you wanted a change. Well, you got one."

"I didn't want one that would destroy everyone's life getting it. My mother has been holding a vigil at Aunt Gloria's house for the ruin I have brought on our family, Aunt Gloria is trying to soothe everyone by making six different kinds of Hamburger Helper for dinner every night and Caleb won't stop re-reading
Romeo and Juliet
." Meredith stopped working and buried her face in her hands, choking back the tears that had threatened at her for days. "I've ruined everything."

Candace patted her shoulder. "You haven't ruined anything for us."

Relief and a strong sense of kinship washed over Meredith. "Do you mean that? You want me to keep on working here?"

Maria grinned. "Of course we do. You're one of us, like it or not."

Tears stung at Meredith's eyes. "Oh, guys, I like being one of you. Really."

"Good," Candace said. "Now, let's work together on baking some cookies because there's one motto we have here at Gift Baskets."

"What's that?"

"Whatever trouble you get into, we're in it together. It's a lot more fun that way." After a quick group hug, Candace turned and got down some measuring cups, doing her part to help Meredith fix the massive mess her life had become.

For the first time in the past five days, Meredith began to think things might actually work out.

Maybe.

She changed her mind when her mother and Aunt Gloria showed up at the store that afternoon. Candace was out making a delivery; Maria was busy with a sales call, leaving Meredith to face the Shordon wrath alone.

Aunt Gloria strode in first, her white-blond hair poufed out around her face like a sunburst. Despite whatever
Glamour
had said was in for a fall facial palette, her eyes and cheeks were shaded with spring blues and pink. She had on a tight red two-piece sweat suit, with a hoodie and wide leg pants that were only wide from the knees down.

Aunt Gloria—the complete opposite to her younger sister, Martha. If Meredith hadn't seen the family pictures, she wouldn't have been able to pair them up, even in a lineup.

Her mother brought up the rear, clutching a stash of Kleenexes and pressing them to the space above her surgical mask. Momma's denim jumper and pumpkin-print turtleneck were a sign of one thing— she was through with the pity party and about to get serious.

"You have brought ruin upon our town, your father's business and the entire dairy industry," her mother said, giving her daughter the Evil Eye she'd perfected years ago. "How could you?"

"Momma, I told you. I had no idea there would be a photographer there when I went in for the No-Moo tasting. I was just doing a favor for a—" She cut herself off, unable to voice the word "friend." Travis wasn't a friend, especially after all that had happened.

"Your father said it's all over the papers back home. J.C. has about tied himself in fits. Caleb won't come out of the guest bedroom at Aunt Gloria's and the Lincoln County Dairy Farmers Association is talking about taking away your crown."

Aunt Gloria stepped forward, picking up the copy of the
Herald
that Maria had left out earlier. "Martha, I don't see a thing wrong with this."

Momma's face went from red to purple to white, her jaw muscles working up and down. "Have you
seen
the picture?" She slapped the newsprint image of Meredith's fleeing tail.

Aunt Gloria waved her pink manicure in dismissal. "If there's one thing Heavendale can use, it's a little hell to shake things up." She chuckled at her own pun.

Momma gasped. "How could you say that? You grew up there. You know what the town is like."

"Exactly. And that's exactly why I left it."

"You moved because of Mike's promotion," Momma said. "You had to leave."

"Mike
asked
for the transfer, Martha. Do you honestly think I wanted to be penned in by that town my whole life?" She planted her hands on her bright red hips. "Look at me. Do I look like Heavendale material to you?"

A shadow fell over Momma's face but she washed it away by thrusting her chin upward. "You used to."

"I used to be a lot of things. Then I realized I wanted more. And in my mind, there's nothing wrong with that," She turned toward her niece. "I bet all Meredith wants is a little more, too."

Momma looked from her sister to her daughter. Confusion knitted her brows, as if she no longer recognized either one of them. "That little bit more is costing some of us an awful lot," she said, then turned and left, a plain woman in a faded denim jumper who suddenly didn't know her family anymore. Meredith wanted to run after her, to somehow make this right, but didn't know what words could undo the damage she had done.

Vernon and Ray Jr. watched Momma go, then with a glance over their shoulder at Meredith, made their allegiance plain and followed their mother out of the shop. Clearly, Momma's chicken pot pie still held an appeal a baby sister couldn't match.

She'd gone too far. Her plan had backfired. She hadn't become a city girl at all. Instead, she'd become someone her own mother didn't recognize anymore. Tears stung at the back of Meredith's eyes. This wasn't what she'd wanted. Not even close.

A good portion of the blame rested on Larry and Travis's shoulders, but also on her own. She needed to do something—something drastic—to fix this. But the energy she needed to get angry with them, to do something, seemed to have left with her mother.

"Don't worry about it, sweetie," Aunt Gloria said, drawing her into a one-armed hug. "Your mother will come around."

Meredith shook her head. "I don't think so."

"What, you think she doesn't understand you?"

"I don't think we're on the same planet. Since I left Heavendale, I've screwed up every single part of my life."

Aunt Gloria shook her head, smiling. "That's what growth is all about. You screw up until you get it right. Sort of like learning to apply makeup."

Meredith glanced at Aunt Gloria's blue eye shadow and bright pink cheekbones. Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to take advice from someone who wore cerulean below her brows.

"I've got to find a way to fix this," Meredith said. "My dad, the town, everyone's counting on me to make it better. Somehow."

"That's a big load for such small shoulders," Aunt Gloria said, giving Meredith's skinny deltoids a squeeze. "You'd better keep the cow suit on, dear. You're going to need all the extra bulk you can get."

Brad's Settling-Down-Is-a-Piece-of-Crab-Pie

 2 tablespoons butter

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

1/2 green bell pepper, diced

2 tablespoons onion, diced

2 cups crabmeat

8 ounces cocktail shrimp

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 cup milk

1 cup heavy cream

4 eggs

1 cup Parmesan cheese

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 ready-made pie crust

There's nothing better than coming home to a warm meal, a warm bed and a hot woman. Trust me on this. You might think marriage is as much fun as being a research rat in a maze with no treat at the end, but you're wrong. There are a lot of treats. Some sweeter than others.

This is one of them. If you want your wife to ... well, owe you one, you can make this yourself. It's easy, even for a guy who doesn't cook. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Melt the butter in a pan, then cook the peppers and onion until softened. Mix them and everything else in a bowl.

Yeah, major exertion there. This is the kind of cooking you can do during the half-time show. Put the pie crust in the deepest pie plate you can find (this makes a lot of pie. You're a man, you need a lot of pie). Then pour in the mix, put the pie plate on a cookie sheet in case you overdid it, and bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

If you cook dinner
and
do the dishes, she'll be showing her gratitude for days to come. Believe me, marriage has perks that bachelor life can't come close to matching.

"Hey, Travis, wait up." Brad's voice carried down the hall, catching Travis as he was about to exit the Belly-Licious building at the end of the day on Tuesday.

Travis turned and saw his younger brother coming at a slight jog down the carpeted hall. "What?"

"Let me follow you out to talk."

Talk? He and Brad didn't talk. They traded shoulder jabs in the break room, e-mailed each other bawdy jokes, slammed back a few beers after work. But talking? There wasn't much need for that. Never had been. They'd both figured they'd lived through enough hell that a conversation about it was pretty much redundant.

If Brad wanted to talk, though, it had to be important. Travis held the door for Brad to pass through first. The setting sun had cast the parking lot in lengthening shadows. Travis hated fall and the inevitable approach of the killer cold of Massachusetts's winter. For the four hundredth time, he thought of chucking it all and moving to Florida.

Meredith, however, didn't live in Florida.

Then again, she didn't live in Boston either. One of these days she'd go back to Indiana. He'd best remember that before he got in any deeper than he already was.

"I want to talk to you about the wedding," Brad said as they put some distance between themselves and the building. "And why you're so dead set against me getting married."

"I'm not dead set against
you
getting married. Just marriage in general." Travis grinned to take the sting out of his words.

"Just because Dad was a jerk who made marriage into a contact sport doesn't mean we're all going to do that."

"It's not about Dad," Travis said. "I'm simply not a marriage kind of guy."

Brad paused on the pavement by a Lexus. "Bullshit. Don't lie to me, Travis. I lived there, too. I watched him run through women like some people flip channels with a remote." He lowered his voice and took a half step closer. "Hell, you were bound to be affected. You were the older one; you saw more of it."

Travis scowled. "Don't go Dr. Phil on me. I'm an adult. I'm past all that."

"Oh yeah? Then why aren't you going after that pretty girl I saw you drooling over behind Big Ike the other day?"

"Meredith?" Travis started walking again. He reached in his pocket and pulled out his keys, a hint to Brad that he was going home, not continuing the conversation.

He'd forgotten how stubborn Brad was.

Brad fell into step beside Travis as they made their way to the back of the lot, a grin on his face. "If I've ever seen a guy who was falling for a woman, it's you. Every time you looked at her, you were like Steve Irwin with a new crocodile species."

Travis raised the remote on his key ring and clicked it in the direction of his convertible but he was too for away to unlock the car. "You're imagining things."