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www.millsandboon.co.uk
Many thanks to Bert and Troy for explaining
all the ins and outs of running a small restaurant.
Not only are they nice people, their restaurant
offers the best-tasting, home-style meals
for miles around. And thanks to Joe for taking
me there to eat so often!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
There were times when days, even weeks, passed without a thought of her past. Then, some little thing would jog Lillie Delaney’s memory and her mind would flit back to Gumption, Arkansas, and the idyllic life she’d once led as a child growing up in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains.
Today, the trigger was a scrap of paper resembling a dry leaf being carried along by the rainwater in a curbside gutter. As Lillie watched, her make-believe leaf became a homemade boat, the gutter a meandering creek and Lillie a seven-year-old seeing her tiny craft sail out of reach.
“Catch it!”
“You catch it. It’s your boat.”
Squealing, Lillie had jumped feetfirst into the stream, slipped on a mossy rock and landed on her back pockets in the icy water while a neighbor boy and his sister had giggled over her plight. She’d been sure she’d be scolded for coming home all wet that day. Instead, Gram had found the incident so funny she’d hugged little Lillie and they’d laughed together until tears had run down their cheeks.
Lillie sighed. Breathed deeply. Brought herself back to the present and hurried across the busy city street as the traffic light changed in her favor. There was something refreshing about the air after a storm, even though the wind off Lake Michigan was cutting through her heavy coat and chilling her to the bone. Here in Chicago she welcomed showers because they cleansed the atmosphere and left behind a temporary respite from the pollution of the bustling city.
Back home in Gumption, the rain always gave the air a heavy sweetness as it nourished the forested hills. This time of year, redbud trees would be finishing their display and dogwoods would be spreading creamy-white four-petal flowers in the dappled shade of the soon-to-leaf-out oaks. Yellowish-green buds would make the forest shimmer in the rain’s aftermath, glistening with the promise of the coming canopy; a roof of coolness beneath the arching azure of a cloudless Southern summer sky.
Shivering, Lillie pushed her way through the revolving door into the imposing stone office building where she’d worked for years. Her heels clacked against the polished marble floor of the crowded lobby. Concerned about the time, she hurried to the elevator and pushed the up button again, even though it was already lit. Slick streets had made her late, not that anyone upstairs would believe that excuse. No one employed there had a passion for his or her job. They simply reported in the morning, put in their required hours behind a desk and went home as soon as possible. That blasé attitude had been hard for Lillie to understand until she’d spent a few months walking in their shoes—or rather, sitting in their desk chairs.
She huffed as she stepped onto the elevator. Months, nothing. She’d been stuck in basically the same job for much longer than that and she was now at the top step in her department. Granted, somebody had to manage the clerks who processed medical insurance records and ordered the authorized payments but if there was a more boring job in the world she couldn’t imagine what it could be.
Three men wearing raincoats and a middle-aged woman carrying a folded, dripping umbrella followed her onto the already crowded elevator. Pressed into a rear corner, Lillie felt nearly as uncomfortable as she had the time she and her girlfriends had crammed together into the janitor’s closet at school, meaning to scare him, and had panicked and nearly suffocated when they’d accidentally locked themselves in. To this day, being in total darkness gave her the willies.
There was no accident involved with her present position, however. She’d come to the city to seek excitement and glamour and had found, instead, boredom and dingy sameness masquerading as job security.
Part of her loneliness was admittedly her own fault. Though she did attend church occasionally, she had never become fully involved in the kind of social life that would bring her into contact with many like-minded people. A few friends from work had invited her to go clubbing with them, years ago, and she had given it a try. In retrospect, she realized they’d meant well but she’d felt about as comfortable in that situation as a newly landed catfish flopping around in the bottom of a fishing boat. Both were clearly out of their element.
The mental picture made her smile. As she removed her scarf and fluffed her shoulder-length light brown hair, she glanced at the woman with the umbrella, wishing she could share her good humor with someone. She was rewarded with a scowl.
“If I wanted to live in a city, I should have gone farther south instead of coming this direction,” Lillie mumbled.
“Beg your pardon?”
Lillie’s smile waned, her blue eyes misty. “Never mind. I was just talking to myself.” The elevator stopped at Lillie’s floor. “Excuse me, please.” She edged toward the open door, bumping shoulders with others in spite of efforts to take care. “Excuse me. I have to get off.”
Someone held the doors long enough for her to exit. They slid closed behind her with a hiss while her last words echoed repeatedly in her mind. I have to get off. I have to get off.
Instead of rushing to her office, she stood in the cavernous hallway, blinking as reality seeped in. Her heart was the only part of her that was still racing and it was galloping laps around her muddled brain. What was she doing here? Why hadn’t she admitted her mistakes long ago, gotten off this figurative treadmill and headed home where she belonged?
The answer was pride. Except for the occasional visit when she had lauded city life as if all her dreams had come true, pride had kept her from going back to Gumption. And pride could keep her locked in the same dead-end job for literally a lifetime if she let it.
She didn’t want to run home to Grandma Darla Sue and admit defeat but she didn’t want to waste what remained of her life, either. There had to be more to a worthwhile existence than she’d found so far. Maybe she was expecting too much. Then again, maybe she’d once lived in the perfect place and had been too dense or stubborn to recognize it.
Lillie squared her shoulders and strode toward her office. There was only one way to find out. She was going to muster her courage, give the two weeks’ notice and head for the only place that had ever felt truly like home.
To Lillie’s surprise her superiors had decided that two weeks’ notice was unnecessary, had accepted her resignation and had told her she was free to leave immediately.
So much for being indispensable!
She’d said a somber if relieved goodbye to coworkers in nearby cubicles and had been on her way home to her apartment to start packing within the hour.
Some of her friends had wanted to throw a going-away party but Lillie talked them out of it by promising to return for her stored furniture and let them have a get-together then, if they still wanted to.
Two days later she was on the road, driving south in a mental haze and wondering what had come over her. There she was, too close to thirty-five for comfort, unemployed and heading for the only place that had ever felt like a real home. The notion of plunking herself back into Grandma Darla Sue’s and Grandpa Max’s lives and making their house her home again, the way she had been forced to as a lonely child, gave her colder chills than the gales off Lake Michigan.
If she used up her savings before she found another job, there was always the value of her furniture to fall back on, she reasoned. She knew her friends would sell it for her and send her the money if she them her to. At least she knew they would if they still lived there. If there was one thing Lillie had learned about life in the big city it was how fast everything could change.
All she really wanted was to reclaim the peace she’d so foolishly left behind when she’d moved North. If that meant she had to bite the bullet and spend a few weeks staying with her grandparents till she got back on her feet, then she would. She figured, as long as she explained to stubborn, reclusive Grandpa Max that she didn’t intend to stay for more than a few weeks he wouldn’t pitch too big a fit about sharing his peace and quiet with her again. Now that she was older and hopefully wiser, she could see that one of the reasons she and Max had butted heads was that they were so much alike under the surface.
Passing through Serenity and entering Gumption on Highway 62, Lillie noticed little difference since her last brief visit, at least not on the surface. The courthouse in the town square and its bordering stores were still the center of activity. Tall, silvery-leafed poplars had replaced some of the old maples on the courthouse lawn and the streets looked narrower than they had when she was a child, but other than that the place seemed pretty much the same. The entire area was sort of stuck in a time warp, which in her case was exactly what she craved.
She sighed. It was truly good to be home. She just hoped her favorite resident wasn’t going to be too disappointed in her for quitting a steady job. The work ethic was strong in Darla Sue Howell. She’d kept her little café going in spite of Max’s lack of encouragement and had made room for Lillie when her parents’ marriage had self-destructed and the ensuing divorce had sent her mother into a bottomless pit of self-pity. Lillie loved Darla Sue more than anything in the world and there wasn’t anyone she wanted more to please.
Eager to surprise her grandmother at work, she parked her blue sedan in one of the spaces surrounding the courthouse, grabbed her purse and a sweater and slid out, resisting the urge to lock the car door. Folks in Gumption trusted their neighbors. If she were to lock the door she’d immediately demonstrate that she no longer fit into this lifestyle. Better to chance losing whatever inconsequential items she’d left piled on the car seats than to be immediately ostracized as an outsider.
Smiling and feeling amazingly free, she slipped the sweater on and crossed the street to the café. The sign over the door had once read, Darla’s Deli, but the red paint on the smaller letters had faded until all that remained were the two capital Ds. For as long as Lillie could recall, the place had simply been “DD’s” and so it still was.
During her Christmas visit she’d offered to climb up and repaint the sign in spite of the freezing temperature but her grandmother wouldn’t hear of it. Darla Sue had said, if folks didn’t know who she was or what she served in the café, they didn’t need to be coming in, anyway. Since business had always been good enough to keep her busy and employ a small staff, Lillie had had to agree.
The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee and homemade biscuits filled Lillie’s senses as she pushed open the restaurant door. Original decor that had remained unchanged for so long that it was now referred to as retro prompted a rush of nostalgia. Framed pictures of old film stars and even older cars lined the walls. Paper place mats and packets of silverware rolled inside white napkins graced the tables and a vase with a single silk flower was carefully centered behind each set of salt-and-pepper shakers. Come summer, when Darla Sue’s garden was in full bloom, the flowers in those milk-glass vases would be real.
Lillie sighed. Coming here was so much like stepping back into childhood she immediately craved a warm oatmeal-raisin cookie and an equally warm hug from her darling grandmother.
Pausing at the entrance to scan the sparse crowd, she garnered a few amiable nods but saw no one she recognized outright. That was the way it had been the last few times she’d visited. Many of the old-timers who’d known her as a child had either passed away or moved to condos in Florida, bless their hearts. Every trip home had made her feel less and less a part of life in Gumption. Perhaps that was one of the reasons she’d felt such a strong pull to return for good.
She crossed the room, heels clicking on the black-and-white checkerboard-tiled floor and peeked in the kitchen door, fully expecting to find her grandmother standing at the grill, wearing a chef’s apron and wielding a spatula.
Instead, she saw a stranger. The middle-aged woman’s washed-out blond hair was pulled back by a rolled blue bandanna and escaped curls were plastered to her forehead and neck by perspiration.
The woman glowered. “What’s the matter? Didn’t like your eggs?”
“No. I haven’t even eaten.” Lillie recovered from her astonishment and extended her hand. “I’m Lillie Delaney, Darla Sue’s granddaughter. I’m afraid we haven’t met.”
“I’m Rosie,” the woman said without shaking her hand. “Do you cook?”
“A little. Why?”
Rosie whipped off the scarf and threw it aside, then untied her apron strings. “Because you can have this job. I quit.”
Lillie instinctively backed up. When she’d wished for gainful employment she hadn’t meant anything like this. Cooking had never been her forte. Eating, maybe. Preparing a meal with more than three ingredients, no way.
“Hold it,” she said, trying to sound amiable in the face of the woman’s obvious distress. “I know exactly how you feel but I didn’t come here to take your job, Rosie. I’m just looking for my grandmother. Please stay.”
She sighed. “Okay. But I warn you, one more complaint from some good old boy who just assumes I’ll know how he wants his stupid food cooked, or what he hates, and I’m out of here.”
“Gram is pretty good at remembering that kind of detail,” Lillie said. “Is she taking the day off?”
“More like the month,” the harried cook answered. “I was supposed to be her assistant. She said she was going to teach me the ropes. We got started fine the first day. Then she stepped out to get a few things at the market and never came back to work.”
“She isn’t missing, is she?!”
“No, no. According to old Rayford Evans she just wandered on home. He was havin’ coffee in here with the other retired farmers, just like he always does, and that waitress, Helen, sent him over to her house to check. He said Darla Sue was bakin’ cookies when he got there and actin’ as if everything was hunky-dory.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Only about two weeks, I guess. Seems like years.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lillie said. “We’ll make arrangements to get you some help, I promise.” She glanced over her shoulder as the back door slammed. “Helen! Thank goodness. I was afraid poor Rosie was stuck here all by herself.”
Helen engulfed Lillie in a smothering, motherly embrace. Lillie couldn’t help noticing that the portly woman’s clothing and hair smelled of vanilla, bacon and cigarettes. Gram used to smell like that, too, except without the nicotine. The familiar aromas tugged at Lillie’s heart.
“I just went to dump the trash and grab a quick smoke,” Helen said. “It’s been crazy here lately. Miss Darla’s gone off the deep end, business is terrible and somebody’s been tryin’ to run off the new preacher at the Front Porch Christian Church. I was just talkin’ to Rayford and a few of the other regular customers about it.”
Lillie blinked, disbelieving. Storytelling had long ago risen to the status of a fine art in Gumption and she didn’t presume for a second that the rumors were true. Still, if Darla Sue was having problems, as Rosie had intimated, maybe there was a grain of truth to Helen’s statement.
“What’s wrong with Gram?” Lillie asked.
“It’s a long story. You plannin’ on stayin’ a spell? Miss Darla can use a shoulder to cry on right about now.”
“Business is really bad?”
“The pits.” Helen glanced at the morose cook. “It’s not Rosie’s fault. She’s doin’ her best. So am I. It’s just that Miss Darla did all the ordering and we’re not keeping up very well without her.”
“Why hasn’t she been coming in?”
The waitress tsk-tsked and shook her head. “That’s for her to say. Personally, I think she had a nervous breakdown or some such thing.”
“Oh, dear.” The last part of Helen’s earlier revelation was echoing in the back of Lillie’s mind. “What does that have to do with a new preacher at Gram’s church?”
“Nothin’. That’s a whole other story,” the waitress said. “Tell you what. Why don’t you go see about Darla Sue first. The gossip about the preacher’ll wait.”
“Are you positive there were attempts to get rid of the man? I mean, things like that just don’t happen around here.”
“Looks like they do now. The minute Brother James started talkin’ about buildin’ a new church, strange things started happening.”
Lillie knew how the locals hated change but she couldn’t picture them resorting to violence to stop it. “Maybe the guy is just accident-prone.”
Helen snorted. “If he is, it’s rubbed off on the church, too.”
Although Lillie was intrigued, she knew her primary duty was to Darla Sue. “Okay. Tell you what. I’ll go say hello to Gram like you suggested and look over the situation at home. When I get back, I want to hear the rest of your story about the new preacher.”
“Take your time,” Rosie said with a stifled yawn. “This is Friday so we’re open for supper, too. We’ll be stuck here till after nine, like it or not.”
Lillie was almost to the door when she heard Rosie add, “And I don’t like it. Man, I hate this job.”
The echo of her own career woes gave Lillie the shivers. Even paradise had its share of problems, didn’t it?
The engine of the massive motorcycle didn’t hum or buzz like those little imported bikes; it thumped in a galloping cadence reminiscent of the old single-cylinder gas engines that had once powered farm machinery and primitive factories from Maine to California.
Pastor James Warner often thought of the sound as the heartbeat of the beast he rode. Though he’d given in to the deacons’ urging that he wear a helmet, he was not about to give up the independence he’d found riding such a formidable machine. The Harley was the only thing he’d salvaged after his former life had fallen apart around him and he intended to hang on to it. After all, it wasn’t as if he had to drive a car in order to ferry family members. Except for God, he was essentially alone. And that was the way he liked it.
Snug in his black leather bomber jacket, he reveled in the sensation of the cool wind on his face, the unfettered freedom of movement, the way the motorcycle seemed to become an extension of his personality. Riding was more than an escape. It put him in tune with nature and that somehow brought him closer to God.
Funny, he thought. There had been times lately when he’d felt so blessed he’d wondered if he’d accidentally wandered into someone else’s life!
He began to grin. Members of his flock had made no secret of their worries that riding the bike would bring him face-to-face with his Maker before his time. He respectfully disagreed. Either he was in God’s hands all the time, or he never was. Psalm 139 said he was “fearfully and wonderfully made” and that God had known him even before he was born, so how could it be otherwise?
He shifted, banked and cornered, passing DD’s café. One of his recent disappointments was his inability to get through to Mrs. Howell. But he wasn’t going to give up. No, sir. Darla Sue Howell had once been a driving force in his church and she would be again. All he had to do was figure out how to inspire her and draw her back into the fold.
James grimaced. The last time he’d paid her a call he’d had to talk to her through a closed door. He knew she’d heard the Harley pull into her driveway because she’d slammed the front door practically in his face.
“It’s me, Mrs. Howell,” he’d called pleasantly, helmet in hand so she could see his face if she chose to peek out. “Brother James Warner.”
“I know who it is,” Darla Sue had shouted from inside the house. “Go away.”
“I’d have called first but your phone is out of order.”
“No, it’s not. I took it off the hook.”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“Right as rain,” she’d answered.
“We miss you at church. It’s not the same without you sitting in the front pew, keeping an eye on things.”
“Bah. Nobody misses me.”
“I do.”
“You’re supposed to miss me. It’s your job,” she’d snapped.
James had been at a temporary loss for words. She was right, yet there was much more to it than that. He did care. Deeply. It was one of the drawbacks of being a minister of the gospel. When the people in his congregation hurt, he hurt for them. Then again, when they were joyful he shared in that, too.
Sometimes, when he caught himself wishing there was more to be happy about, he’d recall the life he’d led before he’d come to Gumption. There was no comparison.
His only regret, at this point, was that it had taken him so long to find the right path and start to walk it. He had a lot of catching up to do and he was looking forward to meeting those challenges.
Chapter Two
Lillie’s grandparents’ home was one of those brick places that had started out as a simple rectangle and had grown into a sprawling megalith over the years. Darla Sue and Max had raised their own five children, seen them off to college or married or both, and then taken in Lillie, their only granddaughter. It had been clear at the time that Max had considered his child-rearing days completed. He had acted far from eager to welcome another youngster into the house but Gram had treated Lillie as if she were the only bright star in the sky.
Back then, Lillie had accepted that love as her due, but in retrospect she could see what a strain her presence must have placed on her grandparents and their marriage. To Darla Sue’s credit, she had never complained or said she wished she was free of the added responsibility of a child.
Max’s pickup truck wasn’t in the drive when Lillie arrived but Darla Sue’s car was. Parking next to a bed of nodding yellow daffodils, Lillie got out and climbed the wooden porch steps leading to the back door. Gram’s latest pair of tattered gardening sneakers had been kicked off and left beside the mat, just as they had been in years past. The familiar sight tugged at Lillie’s memories and transported her back to her childhood. What small feet Gram had. Funny how she’d never noticed that before.
Smiling and sighing, she knocked on the back screen door, got no answer and let herself in with a cheery “Hello? Gram? It’s me!”
The kitchen hadn’t changed in years, either. It was still typical of the 1950s, with homemade cabinets of cedar and a floor covered with worn linoleum instead of more modern vinyl. In one end of the kitchen sat the familiar chrome-and-red-plastic dinette set.
Darla Sue called out her answer from the other room as if Lillie hadn’t been away at all, let alone living in Illinois for years. “Hoo-whee! Lillie, honey. Come on in! You’re just in time. I was fixin’ to make your favorite, fried cherry pies.”
Uh-oh, she thought. Southern comfort food. The answer to any kind of stress. Run for your life Mr. Bathroom Scale, here comes the new, super-sized Lillie Delaney.