The Tack & Feed was heaving with people hard at work and lot of that work had included mopping up after the storm.
The main space looked suddenly bare without Walter’s messy stock displays, but in her mind’s eye, Pepper could see each corner or section showcasing the small businesses that would be creating and stocking their own labels.
Who’d have thought she’d have a hand in this?
Each business would have its own unique space, whether it was a large scrubbed pine dining table to display their wares or a couple of armchairs set out on a colorful rug, with a cabinet of jewelry or artwork for people to sit and admire before deciding on their purchases.
She could practically feel the energy of the newly opened space already.
She glanced behind her, looking for Jack, and no more than two seconds later, he turned from the counter and caught her eye, as though he knew she was calling him.
She’d been so wrong about him being uncomfortable with women. Any woman in his arms would be stunned to incredulity, unbelieving of what he was capable of making her feel. Tender, secure, as he raised passion to heights that hit the ceiling and all four walls.
Not that they’d had walls as such last night, but they’d certainly made the canvas shudder at times.
She gave him a quick, personal smile.
He returned it with a dark, simmering look that made her want to melt to the floor and open her arms to him.
They hadn’t discussed how they might handle this new situation or whether they’d let people know they’d been together—or were together, however long it lasted—but it appeared to be a silent and joint decision to say nothing. To keep their moment to themselves.
He tapped his watch, still looking at her. “Got to go,” he mouthed, tilting his head as though apologizing.
She nodded. He was off to Daybreak Lodge so he could be around for the new cleaning team.
Pepper had managed to fit in a few telephone calls on Marie’s behalf in the last few days, too. Part of her assistant duties. Everything was set for Saturday—the caterers, the people who were going to decorate the barn, the dance floor, and the live band.
She watched Jack move to the back of the store where the new tack & feed area had started operating fully, saddened she was watching him walk away when she’d really like them to be alone together back at their camp.
But onward and upward!
Marie had texted earlier saying there’d been a sudden influx of people asking for invites for Saturday. The press—no surprise there. And Donaldson’s. The developers wanted to come to the party. This was a puzzle. Why show themselves in this manner? Unless they intended to stalk the guests in order to put them off investing in the town’s new businesses.
Commercial and retail facilities outside of the valley would get a blast of additional trade once all three towns were fully operational. Most of them would want in now, at the ground level. They might not be willing to accept any formal contracts yet, but they wouldn’t want to miss out on the multitude of opportunities about to hit the area.
A commotion behind her made her turn sharply.
Winona and Kelly ran into the Tack & Feed.
“This is your fault!” Winona yelled, waving a newspaper at Pepper. “How dare you! We’re Shrimps! That means something!”
“Not anymore!” Kelly added. “Not after this!” She promptly burst into tears.
“What’s happened?” Pepper asked as Winona threw the newspaper at her.
“You’ve ruined us!”
“What are you talking about? Please calm down. Dylan, get Winona a chair.”
“I don’t want a chair! I want revenge!”
Pepper turned away so she didn’t have to look at the outrage on Winona’s face and cracked open the newspaper.
Cops about to hit the defunct little town of Reckless in Calamity Valley.
Haven’t got your Texas Food Handler’s license? Don’t mess with the Department of State Health Services. Food hygiene and safety is serious business in our great state. The prominent Shrimp family is about to find out just how much!
“They’re going to arrest us!” Winona exclaimed.
“Just because we boiled some stupid eggs.”
“Wait a minute!” Pepper said. “This is the Texas Portal. It’s a rag. This is not right.” She slapped the paper but an untoward coil of panic began to twist inside her gut.
They were supposed to be spreading rumors about Pepper, not the townspeople, so what was all this about?
“They don’t send the police out for situations like this,” she told the Shrimps. “You’re not going to be arrested.”
“Nobody panic but we do have a problem!”
Everybody turned at the sound of Marie’s voice.
“The police are on their way,” she said to Pepper. “I just got word from my good friend, Deputy Lewis.”
Winona screamed.
Noah winced and put his hands over his ears.
“They’ll probably only keep you overnight,” Dylan said to Winona in his even, steady tone.
Her eyes widened like a bug caught in a flashlight, and he grinned. “I’m joking. Pepper’s right. They don’t arrest Texans for cooking eggs the European way. Although maybe they should.”
“I’ve spoken to my man at the Amarillo Globe,” Marie said, “and they say they’re not running with anything until they have more information. Problem is, the Portal has gotten wind of names of the townspeople who were dabbling with food ideas. The Shrimps and Miss Matilda.”
The ice cream! Could this get any worse?
“I need to make a statement,” Pepper said. The rumors were supposed to have been all about her, not the people around her but since that wasn’t now the case, she’d need to ward off any more trouble as soon as possible.
“Angel, even the Globe won’t be interested in your statement. This is far more newsworthy, and it’s much more than food safety. There’s a hullabaloo about to hit us. The food inspectors are on alert and the police are coming, which means the press will be right behind them looking for a much bigger story.”
Kelly clutched her stomach and Winona looked as though she was about to be sick.
Pepper pulled a chair out from under a table, and Dylan took it from her, putting both hands on Winona’s shoulders and pressing her down onto it.
“I still don’t understand why the cops are coming,” Noah said.
“What about me?” Kelly shrieked. “I won’t get a chance to wear my yellow dress if I’m in jail!”
Pepper pulled out another chair and pushed it at Noah, who pushed it at Kelly, who sat with a whoosh of her flouncy floral skirt.
“I refuse to be arrested over one small tub of rhapsody rhubarb ice cream!” Miss Matilda marched in from the back of the store, a rolled-up copy of the Portal in her hand.
“It wasn’t a small tub,” Noah said, picking up another chair and swinging it around to offer it to her. “You had gallon buckets. All flavors.”
“Someone said the police are coming!” Mr. Frye said, followed by Mrs. Kenney and the Watsons. “Why?”
“Boiled eggs!” Walter informed him.
“Traffic chaos,” Marie said. “Only in our vicinity for the moment, but all we need is one person who’s been here to take an interstate flight and there’ll be medivac units and helicopters all over Texas and beyond.”
Pepper drew a breath. Oh, crap.
“The Portal is proclaiming that anyone who’s visited us in the last couple of weeks is now queuing up to see their doctor or rushing to the emergency department,” Marie continued. “Deputy Lewis says the panic is already causing traffic congestion from Amarillo to Lubbock.”
Pepper remained completely still as she recalled what she’d said to Jack.
“How can our town have created traffic chaos over a few boiled eggs?” Walter asked, eyebrows drawn.
Nobody had yet made the connection but it wouldn’t take long. What else had she said so flippantly? Medivac units. Resuscitation equipment. Helicopters. E. coli…
It was utter nonsense, but she’d said it. And they’d say she’d predicted it.
“It’s her fault!” Winona wailed. “She’s put a spell on us because we’re better than her!”
Here we go.
“That’s right!” Kelly said. “She told us the Department of State Health Services would be down on us like a ton of bricks. She told us we were poisoning people.”
“That’s not exactly what I said—”
“She told us the police would follow, and now they are!”
“You were going to stop Miss Matilda from handing out her ice cream,” Winona said. “Then you didn’t! You got her in trouble too!”
She had forgotten about the ice cream tasting but that was because she’d been occupied with problems number four, five, seventeen, and ninety-three.
“Everyone!” She held up both hands. “The good news is, it’s only our town that is affected by this nonsense. The valley is still in good shape because we’ve got Hopeless and Surrender still ticking along nicely with lots of tourists spending their money.”
“Actually,” Marie said.
Double crap.
“Lauren told me they’ve slapped an order on the Surrender saloon and Sage Springs Haven—no food, no drink until this is sorted out. Molly’s photography business at the hacienda has been ordered to shut down too, since they offer, you know—food.”
Okay, perhaps this couldn’t get any worse. “Nobody worry. I’ve got a plan.”
The door opened and Jack walked in. His gaze rested on Pepper for a few moments before he said to everyone in the room, “It’s on the radio. It’s online. It’s everywhere. The police are on their way, and because of the havoc on the roads, so is a representative of the health department. They’re going to charge Pep with responsibility for posing an immediate and serious threat to human life and health.”
“Clever little suckers!” Marie said. “They’re trying to pull you down, angel, and they’re not concerned about taking others with you.”
“Like us!” Kelly said, and burst into tears again.
“What sort of licenses do we need?” Winona asked. “Can’t we just go and buy some?”
“Too late,” Pepper said, thinking hard. “Okay, so they are bringing me into the mix, and they’re stuck on the food issue.”
“What about all that picnic food she cooked?” Winona said. “Why can’t they go after her for that and ignore us?”
“It doesn’t affect me because I wasn’t selling it. I’m not a home food business or a cottage food industry. If I was, I’d only be allowed to sell my foodstuffs from my own home. Which I didn’t do. And anyway, I have my food handler’s license, valid for Texas.”
Yet still, there was something she was missing…
“What about the kitchen at Daybreak Lodge?” Miss Matilda asked. “Will they want to check that out because of the party on Saturday?”
“Everything’s regulated at the lodge,” Pepper said. “I checked. It’s all above board. The caterers have all their licenses and whole house is going to be scrupulously clean once the sparklers get to work.” One of her assistant-to-the-gala-organizer duties. She’d fitted it in between everything else.
“Seven persons have reported feeling sick after eating ice cream and eggs here in Reckless,” Jack said.
“Well, they would!” Winona cried. “What stupid person would eat ice cream and eggs together?”
Dylan took her hand. “Let’s all stay calm. Pepper will get us out of this.”
She’d better, because it felt like she’d certainly gotten them all into it.
“Just by making this inquiry, they’re putting us in a bad light,” Miss Matilda said. “Nobody will visit until this has all died down.”
“But you don’t need a permit to start a home food business,” Mrs. Watson said. “I checked a couple of months back when I was thinking of baking and selling cakes.”
“Unless a customer files a complaint.” Pepper glanced at Jack, then Marie. “So who filed the complaint?”
Jack nodded, then Marie.
Axel King. And Donaldson’s. They must have fed the news to the Portal.
“I have to put myself out there,” Pepper said. “I have to take responsibility for the entire problem.”
“I do not agree!” Miss Matilda’s shoulders were set in a more determined manner than usual. “We’re in this together. We must all speak out! We should post on Marie’s blog. Or get our own blog, if that’s a possibility.”
“We can get those up and running in an hour,” Noah said, his eyes alight.
“Half an hour, with the whole geek team,” Dylan added.
“It’ll work.” Marie said. “Community. Spirit. Endeavor. How a small town took on big corporations trying to pull them down. What do you think?” she asked Pepper.
“I’m not at all sure I should be thinking anything.”
“You’re our chief,” Noah said.
“I can’t promise to fix this.”
“What about the gift?”
“I don’t utilize it.”
“Don’t care about the soothsayer stuff,” Dylan said. “You’ve got what it takes to lead us with it or without it. I’ve got money in my pocket now, and that’s because of you.”
Walter thumped the countertop. “I stand by you, Pepper. No matter what.” He stood, pushing from his stool and resting his hands on the counter like some major CEO of big business. “This woman!” he declared, staring down every person in the store, “has already done for us what no other could do. She came back when she didn’t have to. She gave us ideas for development, even though I believed she didn’t know what she was talking about—and that’s my point. Are we going to stand by and let her drown? Or are we going to wade into the ocean with her and stand up and be counted?”
“I’m with you,” Noah said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Her too,” Dylan added, taking a firm hold of Winona’s hand.
“I didn’t actually say—”
“Winona,” Dylan said patiently. “Think, just think about it.”
She closed her mouth and gazed up at Dylan—the man who had suddenly taken charge. She appeared to be dumbstruck, quite taken with his virulent and masculine determination, as though she’d never before thought it possible a man could persuade her any which way.
“All right,” she said, still staring at Dylan. “Just this once.”
“That’s it then,” Miss Matilda said, eyes on Pepper. “We do whatever it takes.”
Pepper smiled her thanks but didn’t say anything. She’d told them she had a plan. Now all she had to do was come up with it.