The Cottage on Juniper Ridge (5 page)

Like Tilda Morrison. They’d gone out a couple of times and he liked her. She was buff and tough and she wouldn’t take any shit from a kid who was misbehaving. She probably wouldn’t take any shit from a misbehaving ex-wife, either. He enjoyed playing racquetball at Bruisers with her and he appreciated her no-nonsense approach to life.

But it wasn’t Tilda he kept thinking about as he drove to his mom’s. What was the story with Jen Heath?

Chapter Five

The to-dos on our list aren’t always what
we need to do.

—Muriel Sterling, author of
Simplicity

C
hita Arness only wanted one thing from
Santa— some time to herself. She had no idea how she was going to simplify her
life if she didn’t even have a couple of hours to finish reading a book on
simplifying it. She’d said as much to Cass when they ran into each other in
Johnson’s Drugs.

“I hear you,” Cass had said. “Being a single parent isn’t for
sissies.”

Especially being a single parent this time
of year,
Chita thought as she’d left the drugstore. Christmas was
right around the corner, waiting to pounce on her. Her shopping wasn’t done, the
house was a mess and her washing machine was dying. Her work week at Sweet
Dreams Chocolates was over, but the work at home was just beginning.

“When are we going to make
pasteles?
” Anna greeted her when she walked in the door.

“Oh, baby, give me time to get my coat off,” she pleaded. She
thanked Cass’s daughter, Amber, who’d been her after-school babysitter for the
past few months, and sent her on her way.

“We didn’t make them last year and you promised we would this
year,” Anna persisted.

“Maybe
Abuelita
will make them with
you.” She always hated to ask her mother for favors, though. Not that her mother
wasn’t happy to come over from Yakima and spend a day helping out, but her
assistance carried a price. Whenever Chita put out an SOS, Consuela Medina
couldn’t seem to stop herself from observing how much easier Chita’s life
would’ve been if only she’d married Danny Rodriguez instead of
that gringo.

“Danny would never have broken your heart,” her mother liked to
say.

“Yeah, well, Danny’s been on unemployment for the past eighteen
months. I’d still be working just as hard,” Chita liked to retort.

That usually ended the conversation.

Anyway, work was part of life. What Chita had to do was figure
out how to balance it with the demands of two children and a dachshund who had a
penchant for eating things he shouldn’t, like bottle caps, crayons, Lego bricks
and shoelaces (the reason for their last visit to the vet).

“I want
you
to make them with me,”
Anna said, bringing Chita back into the moment. “You never do anything with
me.”

Guilt and manipulation, a girl’s best friend. Anna must have
learned that from her grandmother. Consuela was an expert.
“You have to go to your sister’s cookie exchange. She’ll be hurt if you
don’t. Family is important.”

Chita thought of the pile of laundry, the cleaning that needed
to be done, the shopping she had to finish and the packages she had to wrap
before the big Christmas Eve celebration at her parents’ house.

“You know, you’re right,” she said to her daughter. “We’ll make
them tomorrow.”

The way Anna’s face lit up put their Christmas tree to shame.
And put her to shame, too. Having a clean house shouldn’t be the most important
thing in her life. At the age of ten, the days Anna would want to hang out with
her were numbered.

Eight-year-old Enrico came racing into the front hall with
Hidalgo chasing him, yapping at the top of his doggy lungs. “Can Bradley spend
the night? His mom says it’s okay.”

What the heck? “Sure.”

“Can we have tostadas?”

She’d planned on heating up leftovers. “Sure.”

“And fried ice cream?”

Life was one big party when you were a kid. Sometimes Chita
wished
she
was still a kid. “We’ll see,” she
said.

Ten minutes later, she was making a run to the store for ice
cream and cornflakes. And on the way home, she picked up Enrico’s friend Bradley
and Anna’s BFF, Emma. What the heck? What was one more kid at this point?

She knew dinner was a success when Bradley announced, “I like
coming here.” Obviously, not everyone cared if a woman’s house was clean. After
they were done eating, she put the kids to work clearing the table while she
cleaned up the stove. After that she could get started on the laundry.

Then she caught sight of her book selection sitting on the
kitchen counter. Forget the laundry. She put on a Disney movie for the gang, got
her blanket and stretched out on the couch to read, barely aware of the TV
blasting.

Sometimes it’s more important to get some rest than to get things
done. I learned early on that when we go, go, go, we never give our bodies a
chance to recharge. Schedule time in your life to relax and recharge and you’ll
find you have more energy and more enthusiasm for the things you need to...

Chita bolted awake when the book fell on her face. Come the new
year, she was going to build in more time to keep her batteries charged...before
they died for good.

* * *

Alma Tuttle opened her front door on Saturday afternoon
and greeted Jen. “It’s about time you arrived. Half my friends are already
here.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jen said, lugging her case full of candles
through the door. “Like I said when I called, I had a flat tire.”

Alma clasped her hands in front of her. With her tacky
Christmas sweater, her tightly permed white hair and her glasses, she looked a
little like Mrs. Claus. But the minute the old bat opened her mouth she ruined
that illusion. “You should plan for that.”

Plan for flat tires? Was she serious? Jen shoved down her
irritation. “I guess I should.”

“Well, you’re here now,” Alma said irritably. “You’d better
hurry and get set up.”

This had been a mistake. Alma was the grandmother of the
hostess at her last party, and she’d pretended she was booking a party to help
her granddaughter earn the special candle set that could only be obtained when
two guests booked a party, but Jen suspected she’d been motivated more by
avarice than sacrifice.

“She’s finally here,” Alma announced, preceding Jen into the
living room where three other senior ladies sat, holding plates filled with
store-bought Christmas cookies.

Two of them looked as if they’d been sucking on the same lemon
as Alma. The third woman, however, gave Jen a friendly smile. “I love candles,”
she said.

Well, that was encouraging. “We have some beautiful ones. And
I’m selling all my Christmas stock for fifty percent off today,” Jen told her as
she started to unpack her case.

“It’s almost Christmas,” Alma said. “They should be
seventy-five percent off.”

What the heck? Profit was highly overrated. “Well, let me know
if you see something you really like.” All she wanted at this point was to get
rid of these candles and this job.

And the financial burden of the condo. The stupid thing hadn’t
sold yet and she’d wanted to move the first Saturday in January. Now she was
beginning to worry that she wouldn’t get to move at all, which was really
depressing because she was so ready to escape the hectic life she’d created in
Seattle. She was so tired of working two jobs, especially these two.

Ever since the office Christmas party, going to work had been
far from fun. People were still grumbling over the fact that there hadn’t been
enough food. (As if that was her fault? She’d only had so much money to work
with.) Leon Eggers, her supervisor’s boss, had made a pass at her at that
ill-fated party and she’d told him to go soak his head in the punch bowl. After
that, she’d somehow found herself with more work in her in-box. Nothing she
could prove, but she knew.

And the candle parties...ugh. It seemed to be getting
increasingly harder to convince women they wanted to make time to host a party.
Yes, the candles were shipped to them and they had to distribute them to their
friends. But so what? They got all kinds of free merchandise as a reward. Of
course, the more everyone bought, the more the hostess got. And the more Jen
made. Sadly, no one had purchased much at the last party. Hopefully, the smiling
woman at today’s event would buy a lot and encourage her friends to do the
same.

Now another woman had entered the room. “All right,” Alma said
to Jen, “that’s everyone.”

Five women. Not exactly a huge group. But that didn’t mean
anything, Jen told herself. All it took was one or two women to go on a spending
spree and Alma could earn her holiday centerpiece. And Jen could earn some
money.

“Okay,” Jen said in her perky candle-lady voice. “Thank you all
for coming today. I know you’ll be happy you did when you see the wonderful
bargains I have for you. Soft Glow candles are the finest on the market,
guaranteed to bring beauty and light to your home. Today, just for hosting a
Soft Glow party, Alma will receive this lovely multipack of pillar candles as a
thank-you.” She picked up the set of red candles and the women oohed and ahhed
and nodded their heads. She had them now!

Jen went on with her spiel, talking up various candles,
candleholders, centerpieces and hurricane lamps. “And, as I said earlier, all
our holiday candles are fifty percent off today.”

“Seventy-five percent,” Alma reminded her.

“Seventy-five percent. So, feel free to come up and
browse.”

“Aren’t we going to have a draw?” Alma asked.

She held a drawing for a free candle at every party. Between
the flat tire and Alma’s irritation, she’d forgotten all about it. Alma hadn’t.
“Let’s do that right now,” Jen said, pretending she’d been about to get to
it.

One of the lemon-suckers won a set of taper candles. “You’re
sure these are dripless?” she asked Jen.

“Absolutely. I use those all the time.”

The woman nodded, but still seemed unconvinced. “I bought some
once that were supposed to be dripless. They ruined my silver candlesticks.”

“These won’t, I promise,” Jen said.

“Well, I hope they don’t.” The woman’s tone of voice promised
big trouble for Jen if they did.

Now it was time to order. The women looked at the candles. They
visited. They looked some more. They ate more cookies. Then the smiling lady
announced she had to get going. She had her bridge club at two.

She took her leave and left her empty order form behind.

One of the lemon-suckers purchased a set of holiday votives.
For seventy-five percent off. Big spender. “Would you like to host a party?” Jen
asked.

“Heavens, no. I have all the candles I need.”

At seventy-five percent off. Jen forced the smile to remain on
her face.
That’s sales,
she reminded herself.
Sometimes you did well, sometimes you didn’t. Anyway, the woman probably didn’t
have a lot of money.

“Well, dear,” the broke lemon-sucker said to Alma, “I’ve got to
go home and finish packing for my cruise.”

The second lemon-sucker purchased a set of tea lights and
called it quits. “I’d have bought more,” she informed Jen, “but your candles are
overpriced.”

“They’re very high quality,” Jen said. Why was she
bothering?

“Well,” the woman huffed, “some of us are on a budget.”

“I understand,” Jen said. And that was why she was working two
jobs and trying to sell her condo. Toni had been right. She shouldn’t have made
a snap decision, shouldn’t have wasted money on a deposit on that cottage in
Icicle Falls.
What
had she been thinking?

She’d been thinking of Garrett Armstrong. And home-canned
goodies. And eating home-canned goodies with Garrett Armstrong. She’d been
thinking of getting away and simplifying her life. Sadly, that was turning out
not to be so simple.

“It was a lovely party, dear,” the last of Alma’s guests said
to her, and slipped out the door without buying anything.

Alma turned to Jen. “Well, that was nice, wasn’t it? What did I
earn?”

“You earned this lovely multipack of pillar candles as a
thank-you gift,” Jen said.

Alma’s smile drooped. “Is that all?”

“Well, you do have to have a certain amount in sales to
earn—”

“I spent all day yesterday cleaning,” Alma said miserably. “And
I had to go to the store and get those cookies with my hip bothering me.”

“How about I throw in the holiday centerpiece?” Jen
offered.

Alma’s smile perked right up.

Jen’s drooped.

She packed up her candles, thanked Alma for hosting the party
and thanked God she was done with candle parties for the season.

Make that forever. Alma Tuttle’s nonparty was the last straw.
She’d keep some of the candles for herself and sell the rest on eBay. Much as
she loved the product, her heart wasn’t in this anymore.

Her heart wasn’t in Seattle anymore, either, even though it was
a great city. What she wanted was life in a small town...a charming mountain
town.

She loaded up her wares and drove back to the condo. Home,
sweet home. She’d been so in love with this place when she first bought it, so
intent on forgetting her unhappy starter marriage to Serge and carving out a new
life for herself.

She’d gotten a new life. It just happened to stink.

There was no sense wasting what was left of a perfectly good
Saturday afternoon moping. She’d find something simple to do, some small
pleasure to give her life sweetness, the way Muriel Sterling recommended in her
book. It was almost Christmas. She’d bake cookies. Gingerbread boys like the
ones she’d enjoyed in that cute bakery in Icicle Falls. She could give them to
Toni’s kids for Christmas. A nice simple present...to go with the more expensive
ones she’d bought with her overworked credit card.

She found a recipe online and got busy assembling butter,
flour, eggs, sugar and spices. These were going to be delicious. Yes, there was
nothing like spending a little time in the kitchen making old-fashioned goodies
to lift a woman’s spirits. Simple pleasures really were the best.

She was sliding a batch of cookies in the oven when her cell
phone rang. Caller ID told her it was her Realtor, Hannah Yates. Hannah had
shown the condo the other night, but Jen had given up hope when she didn’t hear
back that same evening. Maybe the person had decided to buy, after all.