The Angel Tasted Temptation (6 page)

As she took a step closer to him, years of her mother's neurosis flooded her mind. She didn't know this man at all. She could be wrong about him. Could she even trust her instincts?

The last time she'd done that, she'd been the one girl at day camp who thought the shiny plant with three-leaf clusters was cute and picked some for a bouquet. She'd spent the entire week in the infirmary, covered from head to toe in pink calamine lotion while everyone else canoed and caught fireflies in itch-free comfort.

Travis Campbell wasn't poison ivy. Still, he could be toxic to her in other ways. And she knew a little dab of pink lotion wasn't going to be enough to rid her body of all she'd felt when he kissed her.

She already knew she'd be back for more anyway. Her body still simmered with unanswered desire. Meredith closed the distance between herself and Travis and figured if she didn't take a risk now, she'd never do it.

"Sorry about that," she said, arriving at his side again. "Phone call I had to take."

"The reluctant boyfriend?" He arched a brow.

"No." She ran a hand through her hair. "I'm not exactly on his friends and family list right now."

"Business then?"

"No. I'm not really in the kind of business where my cell phone would be ringing off the hook."

"And what business is that?"

"Well, for a few weeks, I'm working at a gift baskets shop, helping out my cousin."

"A temporary gig? And where will you be after that? At Hallmark, recommending a good thank you card?"

She shook her head. "I'm going back to Indiana."

"Why?"

"Because that's where I live." For a second, it sounded so sad to picture herself going back home. It was the only place she'd ever lived and yet, despite the honking horns and congested streets, she liked Boston. As clichéd as it sounded, she now knew how a bird felt after living in a cage too long. Boston held something Heavendale never had; it felt as if the real Meredith was somewhere here, waiting to be found among the crowded neighborhoods and the slim saplings that peppered the sidewalks, as if Mother Nature was bound and determined to punch through the concrete.

But once she returned to Heavendale, would she be able to go back to the life she'd left? To Petey's? To being Miss Holstein? Or would she find herself displaced and lost in the town where she'd lived all her life?

And be worse off than when she'd left?

Meredith shook off the maudlin thoughts. She was only after one thing right now. Travis. The rest could wait.

Sheryl Crow had segued into the Dave Matthews Band. Across from them, a couple danced in the space between the jukebox and the tables. Another pair was making out at the table beside the juke.

"So, I'm a what, few-weeks stand for you?" Travis asked with a teasing grin. "You're going to love me and leave me?"

Her gaze hit his, hard and direct. "I will leave you, Travis Campbell, but I won't love you."

He grinned. "You think so?"

"I know so."

"Have this pretty planned out, don't you?"

"Down to the last contingency."

"No, you haven't. I'm a contingency you haven't counted on. Me. And what
I
might want from
you
."

She'd deal with that, and what he meant—later. For now, Meredith had one goal and a short timeline. Rebecca could have the baby early or Meredith's own obligations could come knocking, and Meredith would be back on her way to the cornfields before she had a chance to work a life transformation. She was afraid if she left Boston too early, she'd slip back into that complacent life she'd led before and end up married to Caleb, passing out Kleenexes and grave-site plans for the rest of her life.

"So," she said, drawing in a breath, "shall we get started?"

Travis took a look around the bar, filling up now that the hour was getting late. "Now?"

"No time like the present." She smiled. That was exactly how a city girl would act. Confident, sure ... and ready anytime.

Travis, though, shook his head, deflating her confidence balloon a little. "Nope. No can do. You want to do this, you need to do it right." He trailed a slow, sure finger along her lower lip, teasing her with a taste of what had been there earlier. Need tingled inside Meredith for more, for a firmer touch, for... anything. Travis traced her lips, then drew back, leaving her feeling like something had been half-started between them. "You want to do this right, don't you, Meredith?"

She gulped. "Oh, absolutely." If doing it right meant more of that kind of touch, she'd do it right many, many times.

"Good. Then I'm going to make damned sure you get what you asked for."

And with that, Meredith knew she was no longer in charge of her destiny. Not tonight.

Cordelia's True-Wealth-Is-in-Your-Friends Oysters Rockefeller

4 tablespoons parsley

2 shallots

4 tablespoons celery leaves

1-1/4 pounds fresh spinach leaves

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup fresh white breadcrumbs

Salt and pepper

Tabasco, to taste

Rock salt or kosher salt

24 fresh oysters on the half shell

2 tablespoons Pernod or other licorice-flavored liqueur, optional

Lemon wedges, optional

Just because you aren't wealthy doesn't mean you can't live like those who are. It's all a matter of perceptions, dear, starting with your own. If you see yourself as rich, well then, you are. Just don't go acting that way with your Visa too often. The banks don't quite see the fantasy the same way, silly gooses.

Preheat your broiler. Then chop the parsley, celery leaves, shallots and spinach, nice and fine. Melt the butter in a pan and cook the shallots first, then add the spinach and the other veggies, just long enough to soften them up for the next step. Sort of like how you'd soften up a man to ask him for a really big favor.

Add the breadcrumbs and cook for another few minutes, melding those flavors like a happy little group (not at all like one of those society parties where you have the parsleys over here and the spinaches over there; how I despise those cliques). Season with salt, pepper and as much Tabasco as your mouth can take.

Now, nestle those pretty little oysters in a bed of rock salt on a baking sheet. Spoon the stuffing onto the oysters. If you're feeling decadent, drizzle each with a little Pernod. Then pop them under the broiler, a couple spaces below the top so you don't end up with a three-alarm fire instead of a gourmet treat.

Be sure to watch them, instead of tending to your company. I know, it's hard to be a proper hostess then, but believe me, when guests taste this, they'll be friends for life (of course, some may just be mooching for the free oysters; kick them off your Christmas card list right away, dear). Serve with lemon wedges and martinis.

And lots and lots of good friends.

The naked woman stood tall and proud, breasts thrust forward, generous hips tilted back, emphasizing a roundness even J. Lo would envy.

"That's not natural," Maria said. "No one looks like that."

"Apparently Mrs. Kingwood does," Candace said. "Her husband said he gave us her exact dimensions. Scaled down to a manageable size for a piece of candy, of course."

Meredith readied the cellophane wrap for the Kingwood female form, made for them by a local chocolatier since naked women were out of the range of Gift Baskets to Die For's talents ... and the shop's candy mold collection. "Why do you suppose he'd want her cast in chocolate?"

"Apparently he never outgrew his fascination with hollow Easter bunnies." Maria winked.

"That's just... weird. A chocolate replica of your wife? I mean, what's he going to do with it?"

Maria raised a brow. "Let her melt in his hands?"

"I am not even going to entertain that with a response," Candace said, laughing nevertheless.

"My dears, this one takes the cake.
And
the cake stand. Is that woman
naked?
"

All three women turned toward the voice. A small elderly woman stood in the doorway of the kitchen, a tiny pink pillbox hat on her salt-and-pepper hair, set slightly askew, perfect for the matching Jackie O-style suit she wore. She had to be close to seventy-five, Meredith guessed, but she wore pale cream pumps and hose, her appearance as precise as the First Lady who'd inspired her look.

"Good morning, Ms. Gershwin," Candace said. She indicated Meredith with a wave of her hand. "This is Rebecca's cousin, Meredith. She's come to work with us while Rebecca is home on bed rest. Meredith, this is Ms. Gershwin. She owns the antique shop next door."

"Cordelia Gershwin," the woman said, taking Meredith's palm in her own, "of the Gershwins, but not
the
Gershwins."

"Meaning, she comes from money, not show tunes," Maria said.

"But I have a distant cousin whom we suspect was a member of the royal family," Cordelia said, releasing Meredith's palm with a wink. "I could be a princess in disguise."

Maria laughed. "You already are the queen on our street."

The older woman's bright coral lips spread across her lined face in a wide grin. "You girls are too sweet by half. Must come from working around all that chocolate." She motioned toward the naked torso. "Speaking of which, what is that?"

"A chocolate version of one of our customer's wives," Maria said.

Cordelia raised a brow at the perfect ten shape. "Are you sure she's the wife?"

Maria chuckled. "We don't ask the questions. We just melt the Ghirardelli."

They finished assembling the basket, complete with the chocolate missus in the center. They surrounded her with candy flowers peppered over a green-tinted coconut base. While they worked, Cordelia grabbed a cup of coffee and watched their progress, amusement clear on her face. "Quite the ... odd creation," she said, admiring their finished product.

"What's weirder is he's sending this to himself for Sweetest Day," Maria said. "Mrs. Kingwood is out of town."

"Oh, I almost forgot!" Candace said. "Speaking of Sweetest Day, something arrived for you today, Meredith." She crossed to the opposite counter and picked up a clear glass vase filled with cranberry roses and baby's breath. The roses had just begun to open, releasing their sweet fragrance into the room. "Here."

Meredith took the vase, inhaling the sweet, heady fragrance. For a second, she wondered if Travis had sent them. Was he even the type to send flowers? Or did his idea match that of the boys she'd known back home, where romance meant letting her have first dibs on the bowling ball selection at the Heavendale Bowl-a-Rama?

Clearly, none of the men in her hometown had ever opened up a romance novel.

She'd left the bar last night while she was still able to walk and think, handing Travis her cell phone number and receiving a promise of a date for tonight Anticipation had been singing inside her, ever since she'd woken up.

Or maybe it had just been the shock of finding Rebecca's beagle at the end of the bed, licking her toes like rawhide bones.

"So, tell us, dear," Cordelia said, peering over her shoulder and making no secret of her curiosity. "Who's Caleb?"

Disappointment plummeted to the bottom of Meredith's stomach. She took a step forward and read the card attached to the plastic holder. "My one and true love," she read aloud, "though miles may separate us, even death can't keep my heart from beating for you. Forever, Caleb."

"That's uh, sort of poetic," Maria said. "Almost Shakespearean, if you leave out the reference to being dead."

"That's Caleb's specialty," Meredith said. "Working a reference to the hereafter into all his correspondence."

"How ... er ... romantic."

"He's a mortician," she explained.

"As in, he sees dead people?"

"As many as there are in Heavendale, considering we have a population of three thousand. We don't exactly have a high turnover rate."

Maria choked back a laugh. "Rebecca said you and she came from a small town, but she didn't say it was that small."

"Everything about my life was small... until I got to Boston."

Cordelia peered past them, out the plate glass of the front of the shop. A nattily dressed couple in their mid-forties waited under the brightly striped green awning of Remembered Pasts Antiques. "Oh, dear. Time to open," she sighed. "I suppose I'd best get next door."

"You sound down this morning," Candace said. "Everything all right?"

Cordelia brightened, straightened her pillbox hat and adjusted the little purse on the crook of her arm. "Perfectly fine. Why wouldn't it be?" Then she was gone, off to her little shop.

Maria draped an arm over Meredith's shoulders. "Well, it's a damned good thing you came along. Things around here were getting pretty boring now that Candace and I are both engaged and Rebecca is working on baby number two. With you, we have a new mission."

"A mission?"

"Yep. We're going to show you the town and help you get out of that small-town life."

Meredith hadn't expected Maria and Candace to accept her so readily, or for their immediate friendship to leave her feeling choked up.

In Heavendale, she and all the other kids had been stuck with each other from grade school on up. Friendship wasn't so much a necessity as a requirement, following math and before recess. With the nearest town dozens of miles away, there wasn't much worry about anyone running to a better party or finding a new cow-tipping gang.

But here, Meredith was sure Maria and Candace had a thousand other people to choose from besides herself. And yet, they wanted to be friends with her— and not because they shared the same smell on their shoes.

"I'd love that," Meredith said. "Do you think we could start with my clothes?"

It was, of course, the most obvious place where she didn't fit in. It had taken her about five seconds after landing at Logan to realize she wasn't quite city-girl material in her homespun
Country Woman
attire. What was fine for the county fair wasn't good for the city of Boston.