Jar Of Dreams Part 6

Crockett had come to Taft when he was thirteen and his parents had gotten a divorce. "They couldn't figure out how to divide me," he'd said, laughing. "I think Aunt Gert and Uncle Mike kept them from slicing me down the middle, Solomon-style."

His mother lived in St. Louis and his father in Charleston. Crockett saw them a few times a year and as far as Lucy knew, seldom talked about them. Gert mentioned his mother, her younger sister, sometimes, but only in the context of their shared childhood, never in connection with Crockett.

Lucy was sure there was pain in him, too, but he kept it buried, hidden behind the dark blue eyes. It was only Father Crockett he allowed out into the open, a loving and giving man unless what one wanted from him was a part of himself.

She remembered a day in Dolan's when he'd sat still and silent for at least an hour, letting his coffee get cold-which he hadn't done in all the times she'd waited on him. When she slid into the booth across from him, his gaze was startled, as though he didn't even know her. His eyes cleared quickly, and he smiled a welcome, but not quickly enough. "Are you all right, Father?" she asked.

"Of course. And how are you today, Miss Dolan?"

"I'm fine, but it's not my coffee that's gone cold." She got up, taking his cup away and coming back with a fresh one. "Are you okay?" she asked again. "From what the customers and the television news say, the flu's taking Richmond by storm."

"No, I'm not sick." He sipped the coffee, sighing appreciation. "Before I was Father Crockett, Lucy, I was Noah, or just Crockett to people I was closest to, and sometimes...sometimes, I miss that. Miss being him. In a lot of ways, he was a better person than Father Crockett is. A more real person."

She'd never thought much about that conversation-it made sense that a priest would sometimes want to be just a person like anyone else. But now, in this house with this tangle of people who loved each other but whose connections sometimes jammed, she wondered if there was more to Crockett's sadness than she'd realized.

The cake was in the oven and Lucy was rolling out pie crusts when the door into the sunroom opened. The others streamed into the kitchen, carrying their dishes. Kelly came to where Lucy stood.

"I apologize for my rudeness," she said stiffly. "I don't think you understand the depth of my concern for Aunt Gert-I owe her everything-but I have no right to condemn you without being in full possession of the facts, which my brother took great pains to tell me. I also wanted to apologize for leaving the mess with the gla.s.s I broke the other day. There's no excuse for that kind of behavior." Tears filled her eyes in a rush, and she grabbed a paper towel to mop them away. "I hope you'll forgive me."

Lucy was a pleaser. A counter-apology- "I'm sorry I upset you"-came right to the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. She nodded, meeting the other woman's turbulent gaze with what she hoped was a noncommittal smile. "I care for her too."

Within a few minutes, the dishwasher was loaded, the leftovers put away, and Kelly was headed out the door. "I have a briefcase in the car just waiting for me," she said, kissing her aunt and her brother and nodding at Lucy and Crockett.

"I'll run over and check the station." Crockett checked the time. "Ethan's fully capable of closing it, but he hasn't done it in a long time. Wanna come along, Aunt Gert? I'll buy you an ice cream. At least, I will if Boone loans me a couple of bucks. I'm broke until I find a friendly ATM."

"Any chance I'll get it back?" Boone asked, reaching into his pocket.

"Nary a one," Crockett said cheerfully. "I took a vow of poverty. I'll take that twenty. If I'm b.u.mming anyway, a big bill's as good as a small one."

"Did you really?" Lucy crimped piecrusts, her tongue between her teeth.

"Did I what?" Crockett asked. "Oh, the poverty vow? Well, no-I'm a diocesan priest and I didn't have to-but it sounded n.o.bler than admitting I'd never remember to pay him back."

When Boone and Lucy were alone in the kitchen, he came over to her, cupping her chin and smiling down into her eyes. "I keep apologizing for Kelly, don't I? But I don't do anything about her."

"She's an adult, Boone. You don't have to apologize for her, much less 'do anything.' We're big girls. We can take care of our own issues." She thought of the apology. It had cost Kelly something to make it, but she hadn't backed away-it had been a cla.s.sy show of reconciliation. But the "issues" were still there, Lucy was sure. She smiled at Boone. "It'll work out."

Lord, she loved his eyes and the way they looked at her, as though she was the only person in the world. She loved the way his lean cheeks curved when he smiled, with a dimple slas.h.i.+ng into one side. And his mouth. She particularly loved his mouth. Especially since the kiss that afternoon on the walkway in Rising Sun.

"I imagine," he said, "you've been a 'big girl' your whole life, haven't you?"

"I guess," she admitted. "You are when you grow up in a restaurant. I had a place in the kitchen where I had toys and books, but it was more fun helping the chef and the pastry chef. I was a whiz at making salads by the time I was five. That was good for the wait-staff, because I liked doing it and they didn't." She gazed off into a sweet memory. "They ordered ap.r.o.ns just for me and had my name embroidered on them. Gladys, one of the waitresses, took them home with her to launder because she didn't think little girls should have to wear things with starch in them."

Boone sat on a stool and watched her work. He didn't have his omnipresent sketch pad close by, and she wondered if he was memorizing her appearance, with her messy ponytail and her ap.r.o.n with cherry pie filling smeared across it. Would someone show up baking pies for Elmer and Myrtle in a comic strip somewhere down the road?

"Coffee?" He took mugs from the hooks above the coffee pot.

"Please."

He brought her a cup, finding himself a pencil and a pad of drawing paper in the process, and returned to his seat.

"Your aunt seems okay," she said. "I was afraid she was wearing herself out, but she doesn't seem to be. She still has the energy to come in and whip us all into line."

"Will it put a serious damper on tearoom business, not having the den for a while?"

"I don't think so, and if it does, that's too bad. This is Gert's home first. I remember that when we were making the business plans, I wanted her to keep one parlor as part of the living quarters. She just laughed at me. 'There's room in there for four tables, girl, and if they're part of the tearoom, I won't have to clean them!' she said."

His hand moved with broad, firm strokes over the pad. "Do you get lonely here?" he asked. "Richmond's a lot bigger than Taft, and you must have left behind everybody you cared about when you came here."

She'd left them before that-scandal takes prisoners, so she'd distanced herself from the chefs and the wait-staff who'd been like family. She missed them, but they'd all gotten good jobs in upscale restaurants in other neighborhoods-some even went to other cities. She wrote references that should have guaranteed them employment anywhere they wanted to go. She made congratulatory phone calls and sent cards with her plans to leave Richmond mentioned as an afterthought. "I don't know where I'm going," she'd told them all. "Don't worry about me. Things will be all right."

And things were. She'd landed on both feet in a town she liked, in a kitchen that matched her personality and culinary needs, with people she...liked being with. More than "all right," things were really good. Life was in balance.

She took the cake out of the oven, replacing it with pies. "I feel out of place sometimes, as though I was on a bus and got off at the wrong stop. I miss delicatessens and specialty stores and public transportation, but I like it here." She went to stand at the window, her back to him.

Jack was working in the garden. He turned as though he felt her gaze, and she waved to him. He lifted a desultory hand, not smiling, and she wondered if something was bothering him. He was a nice kid, could eat a dozen cookies without taking time to inhale, and worked harder and more efficiently than many adults she'd known. In only a few months, he'd become part of the new family she was making her own. She frowned, watching him, and went to open the door. "Hey!"

He lifted his head. "What?"

"You all right? Do you need homework help?"

"Nah, it's going okay." He raised his hands in a shoulderless shrug. "Just stuff."

"You'll let me know if you need anything?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't call me ma'am. I'm Princess Leia in training."

He grinned then, and made a shooing motion. "Princess Leia probably needs to work at making cookies."

She laughed and stepped back inside.

Jack was the little brother in Lucy's family circle, becoming dearer to her on a daily basis. She wondered how Kelly would feel about being placed in the "bratty sister" spot.

Even building a new life in Taft, she still missed the one in Richmond, missed Dolan's and the staff that had been her family, missed her father. But lonely wasn't the right word. At least, not exactly.

Now, if I could only sleep through the night. Or wake up without smelling smoke. Or tell Dad I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

Why didn't she just tell him? Boone was certain the story Kelly hinted at so darkly and caused Crockett to maintain a priestly silence was nothing he couldn't deal with hearing. He'd lost his parents and the woman he loved more than life. What could be worse than that?

He drew and Lucy baked as twilight became darkness and soft cool air came through the kitchen windows. He nodded thanks when she refilled his cup and offered him a piece of pie. They didn't talk much, even though Kelly's cryptic remarks were an elephant in the room, and he was surprised at how comfortable it was being quiet with Lucy Dolan.

When Gert and Crockett came in, Gert went straight to bed. She was nearly gray with exhaustion. "I'm getting so d.a.m.n old," she mumbled, kissing everyone goodnight. "I'll want to leave early, whoever's taking me to Cincinnati in the morning."

Crockett poured himself some coffee and brought the cookie jar to the island. He sat on a stool at the end and offered up the cookies before speaking to Lucy. "You were right, weren't you?"

"Yes."

Her smile was so bright that Boone knew instant and unreasonable jealousy that it hadn't been aimed at him. Crockett was a priest, for G.o.d's sake-it was probably time Boone stopped thinking they were always going to love the same woman.

Not that he loved Lucy Dolan. He didn't. But he had to admit to wanting her, to thinking of leaf-green eyes and b.u.t.terscotch-colored hair at unexpected moments. It was the first time he'd noticed a woman-really noticed her-that he hadn't seen Maggie instead.

He knew a moment's fear that he would forget his wife's face. He had trouble recalling the sound of her voice sometimes, although answering the phone when her sister called could still bring tears to his eyes. In that first heartbreaking moment of familiarity, he forgot every time that it couldn't be Maggie calling. Couldn't ever be Maggie again.

"Right about what?" he asked, when neither of the others seemed inclined to tell him what they were talking about, which he thought was a little bit rude on their parts. He sounded grouchy, and nearly apologized, but didn't-he was grouchy. Their closeness annoyed the h.e.l.l out of him, and he wasn't going to spend a lot of d.a.m.n time examining why. Not now, at least.

Crockett's face registered chagrin. "When I suggested Lucy come here, it was partly because I know as well as anyone that Aunt Gert's a soft place to fall. You do, too, Boone." He laid a twenty-dollar bill beside Boone's plate with a pathetic sigh and heavenward gaze. "It was also because I was worried about her. She's always been so sharp, and it seemed to me she was forgetting things. Leaving us by little bits and pieces." His eyes were gentle when they rested on Lucy. "Unfortunately, Lucy's very experienced with the ravages of Alzheimer's. She's not qualified to diagnose, but she's well able to see the signs."

Lucy took the canola oil to the pantry. "When we were preparing to open the tearoom, we both had physicals. We were going to be working with people's food, so it seemed a good idea to rule out anything infectious. But we checked for other things, too. Maria Simc.o.x, her doctor and mine, almost laughed at the idea of Alzheimer's." She slid the pies onto the shallow shelves in the commercial refrigerator, covered the cake and sat down. She took a cookie off Boone's plate. "However, Father Crockett didn't believe either of us."

"I did," Crockett protested. "Mostly. I just needed a little extra convincing. I got it today when we were coming home from the hospital. When she was giving me h.e.l.l precisely as she did twenty years ago, she wasn't living in the past, she was absolutely up to the minute in her...uh...observations. And believe me when I tell you she didn't forget one little thing."

"Uh oh." Boone shook his head sadly. "When Aunt Gert makes observations," he told Lucy, "we never come out well. Was there any indication my turn was next?"

"No," Crockett said, "and believe me, I tried to steer her that way. If I'd known you were going to really take back that money you loaned me, I'd have tried harder."

Lucy laughed. "She's not even my aunt, but she's 'observed' about me too. She's always right, but I usually don't like it."

"Do you have any sisters or brothers?" Boone asked. She acted like a sister to Jack, and even to Kelly, if sisters didn't get along that was.

Come to think of it, she pretty much acted like a sister to Crockett, too. Boone smiled with that thought. It went well with the cookies.

"No. My parents had been married for years and years when Mom got pregnant with me, and then it never happened again. Dad used to say that as oopses went, I wasn't too bad."

The loneliness of being without Maggie was excruciating, even though time had dulled the razor edge of new sorrow, but Boone couldn't imagine how awful it would have been if he'd been alone as well as lonely all this time. How awful it would still be. Kelly might be a pain in his a.s.s, and they'd lost the closeness they'd shared as kids, but she was always there, as was Gert. Even Crockett, despite the coolness of their relations.h.i.+p, would have come if called. Probably.

"You can borrow Aunt Gert any time you like," Boone offered. And me, too. But tell me the truth, Lucy. Trust me.

Chapter Seven.

"I am not going to sit in this room like some decrepit old man." Sims glowered at Gert and Lucy, his white brows beetling threateningly above blue eyes that were usually full of laughter and kindness.

Usually being the operative word here.

"Listen here." Gert glared back. "You are a decrepit old man. Everyone has bent over backwards to help you. The girls have done all my work so I could spend time with you-which you haven't appreciated a d.a.m.n bit, I might add. The boys have run the station and Jack's mowed your yard and taken care of your garden. The least you can do is behave yourself while the tearoom is open."

"He may as well behave himself at the station." Boone stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. "He can enter the numbers while we count inventory. That work for you, you grouchy old goat?"

"Keep a civil tongue in your head," Sims grumbled. He nodded at Lucy. "That broccoli and cauliflower soup needs to cook longer. The vegetables almost bite back and the cream part is too thin."

She smiled at him, trying to keep the expression sweet while gritting her teeth. "You won't notice that a bit when I dump the whole pot over your head. I'll do it, too. Just ask Jack."

Sims's mouth opened, closed, and opened again. "I may as well go with you," he told Boone grumpily. "Sure can't get any respect around here. But don't be driving over curbs and parking meters. Tom Simc.o.x will arrest me as an accessory."

Gert, sliding meat loaf into the oven, scowled at him. "That might not be all bad. He could take you to jail. See how long they put up with your shenanigans over there."

When the men had gone-a painstaking process involving the handicapped ramp at the side of the house, a wheelchair and a very grumpy old man-Lucy pushed Gert into a chair at the little table by the windows. "I can finish the cooking." She poured a cup of tea and placed it in front of the older woman. "You have to stop doing this. Every time you get upset with Sims, I see your blood pressure rising with every heartbeat."

"It's h.e.l.l getting old." Gert sipped the apple-cinnamon tea and stared out the window. She seemed morose and exhausted, as she had most of the time since Sims's accident. The expression sat out of place on her features.

Lucy refilled her coffee cup and sat across the table from Gert. "So tell me," she said gently, "do you remember being young as a walk in the park?"

Gert glanced at her, then returned her gaze to the window. "There are days when I don't remember being young at all."

Before he'd slipped away entirely, Johnny Dolan lived for hours at a time in his youth. When he looked at his daughter, he saw her mother. For a time, Lucy had felt an unexpected and treasured closeness to the woman she scarcely remembered. All too soon, however, her father had forgotten his wife too. When he was out of the kitchen, he was confused and-more often than Lucy could bear to remember-sad.

She drained her cup, closing her eyes in a conscious effort to push back painful memories. "Memorial Day is Monday. I'm going today to order flowers for my parents' graves in Richmond," she said. "Do you want me to send or get any for you?"

"No, thank you, dear. I've already taken care of it." Gert gave her a weary smile. "I'll be all right. Don't worry." Something sparked in her eyes, a ghost of the twinkle that was usually there. "Of course, you might want to worry about Sims. I may have to hurt him more than he already is."

"Want to pour my soup over his head? We can let it cool some first."

"Heavens, no. Your soup is far too popular to waste."

The phone rang while Lucy was making lemonade, and she tucked the receiver between her ear and her shoulder. "Tea on Twilight. Meat loaf and mashed potatoes today. May I help you?"

"Only if you have spare pies." Jenny Sawyer, the proprietor of Down at Jenny's, Taft's most popular cafe, sounded desperate. "My ovens are down-d.a.m.n technology anyway-and the only thing I have for dessert is ice cream and a cake made from a new recipe I never should have tried. The bakery's cleaned out for the day."

Lucy sketched numbers in the air. "We can let you have six, and half of them will be frozen. That work?"

"Oh, yes, you're a G.o.dsend. I'll run right over and get them. Just let me close up for a few minutes. Wanda called in today-her daughter's in labor."

"I can bring them to the cafe. We're all set for lunch here and I need to pick up some half and half anyway. You have an extra quart?"

"Sure do."

Lucy delivered the pies to the back door of the cafe, accepting a quart bottle of half and half in trade. She was getting into the van when she smelled something familiar.

Familiar and awful.

She backed out of the vehicle and closed its door. Nothing seemed untoward in the alley where she was parked. There were no plumes of smoke or angry tongues of flame shooting from anywhere. Abby, the head librarian, waved at her as she rode away from the back of the library on her bicycle. She was on her way to the tearoom for lunch-she always ate there on Fridays. Lucas Trent, the mostly retired senior partner in the law firm where Kelly worked, walked into the pharmacy at the end of the block. He'd be at the tearoom today, too, but not until one o'clock. Hummingbirds whirred around the feeders suction-cupped to the side windows of the cafe.

Nothing.