He waited until Loreen was gone, peering through his office blinds until he saw her drive out of the parking lot before he headed out once more to where Connie sat. He stood over her. “Okay, what is it?”
She glanced up from her computer. “Huh?”
He put his hands on his hips. “’There’s a woman to see you?’ You know every single person in this town and you know for damn sure that I’d want some warning before seeing Edna May Tittlebury or Loreen Ludlow. I assume, if you say, ‘There’s a woman to see you,’ that the woman is a stranger to you. You’re punishing me. Why?”
She sniffed. Pointed balefully at the calendar. “You know what day this is?”
Of course he knew what day it was. It was May 15th. He thought hard. It wasn’t Secretary’s Day was it? Did anyone even celebrate that anymore? And even if they did, was Connie a secretary? He suspected she’d be offended at the notion. Unless there was a raise involved.
His detective’s gaze searched the area for clues, but there were none. She kept her space as clean as a surgeon’s operating table. Connie wasn’t one for personal memorabilia. “Is it your birthday?” he tried.
She huffed. “Of course it’s my birthday. Last chief always remembered. He’d bring in a cake that his wife baked.” She glared. “That woman can cook. She knew I liked chocolate and she’d bake me a chocolate cake. Every year.”
He wasn’t married and he certainly didn’t have time to run home and bake a cake but he could see that if he wanted the office to run with any kind of efficiency today he was going to have to come up with something. Besides, he liked Connie. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know. How bout I take you out for lunch?”
Her sour expression didn’t sweeten the tiniest bit. “My husband’s taking me out for lunch. I’ll need an extra quarter hour.”
“Of course, sure.” Then he thought for a moment. “Maybe you could make me a list of birthdays and help me remember them.”
She seemed slightly mollified. “Okay.”
He went back into his office and shut the door, then he grabbed the phone and called the only woman who could save this day for him, Iris.
He heard the coffee shop phone ring, and then a soft, breathy voice that was not his sister’s answered, “Sunflower Coffee and Tea Company.” Even her voice made him think of things he shouldn’t, brought back memories of a night he’d never forget. He said, “Kim, it’s James. Is Iris there?”
“Um, no. She went home to rest.”
“Oh.” Now what?
“Can I give her a message?”
“Maybe you can help me. I’ve got a problem.” Briefly, he explained his dilemma. “I know you don’t do birthday cakes, but I’m wondering if you could maybe write Happy Birthday on a brownie? Connie said she likes chocolate. I’ll pick it up around one-thirty?”
“Of course. Um, do you have a birthday card to go with it?”
“Birthday card?” Next somebody was going to ask him to dress up as a clown and twist balloons into animals.
“One that everybody signs. People really seem to like those.”
“Okay. I’m on it.” He paused, picturing her holding the phone, wondering if she had thought of him as often as he’d thought of her and then realizing that of course she hadn’t. Otherwise, she might have taken one of his calls. “Thanks.”
Kim stood uncertainly for a moment after James’s call and then, with a tiny nod, went to work. Her employment at any number of bakeries had taught her the importance of celebrating birthdays. Between serving customers out front and keeping the display case stocked, she measured sugar and butter into the big mixer, then the eggs, added flour, a generous measure of the good cocoa Iris used.
When Iris returned, she suffered a qualm of nervousness. What if she’d overstepped the bounds? Maybe she should have asked Iris before she started that cake.
“How are things?” Iris asked, wrapping the apron around her. Without thinking, Kim stepped forward and tied the tapes for her. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Everything’s fine. Um, I’ve done something. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Would it have anything to do with the heavenly smell of chocolate coming from the kitchen?”
She nodded. Briefly explained James’s dilemma. “I probably should have asked you first, but I was in a rush to get the cake ready by one-thirty. I’m sorry.”
Iris put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t be sorry. You did great. It makes me really happy to know that you have good instincts. It’s one cake. James will be thrilled and let me tell you, it’s never a good thing to have Connie on your bad side. That woman has a mean streak a mile wide.” Then she grabbed for the phone. “I’d better call James and tell him to buy a card and have everyone sign it. He’ll never think of it himself.”
“Actually, I did suggest that, when he was on the phone.”
“That man owes you big.”
She would not blush, she wouldn’t… Damn! She felt the heat slide up her face and turned away so Iris wouldn’t see. Though Iris could probably feel the heat coming off her. “I’d better go and check on the cake.”
The cake was perfectly cooked so she took the pans out to cool and when she returned out front, Iris was chatting to a very pretty middle-aged woman. She turned and said, “It’s your lucky day. You got to see my brother, now you get to meet my mom. Daphne, this is Kim, who probably saved James’s life today.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Daphne shook her hand heartily. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Iris really needs the help.”
“Mom, you make me sound like I’m incompetent.”
“Not incompetent, darling, just very pregnant and overworked.” She shook her head. “What were you thinking, having twins your first time out?”
“I didn’t exactly plan it.”
“I didn’t plan James and Josh, either, but somehow we got through it. ‘Course, that wasn’t my first rodeo. I already had what, half a dozen of you little ones? What were two more?”
Her casual attitude fascinated Kim. In fact, everything about James and Iris’s mom fascinated her. She thought of her own mother, worn down from kids and worry and living with her dad. She looked old enough to be Daphne’s mother and she’d had a lot fewer kids.
As though reading her mind, Daphne said, “I didn’t give birth to them all, of course. Some were gifted to me. I’ve been blessed by every one of my children.”
Iris piped up, “And before you ask, we have a family rule that no one ever tells which are Daphne and Jack’s kids by birth and which are adopted.”
Kim heartily approved. “So you treat them all the same.”
Daphne had eyes like sea glass, both green and blue at the same time. “That’s right. Every child should feel loved and wanted.”
“I would have loved to have a mother like you,” she blurted. Then rushed to say, “Not that my mom didn’t do her best, but, well…”
“I think every mother does her best. But it doesn’t come easy to all of us. Kids have to be very forgiving.”
“That’s a good way to put it.”
Daphne turned to Iris. “So, have you heard the news?”
“What news?”
“That your brother’s completely lost his mind?”
“If you’re talking about Prescott, he was born crazy.”
“Not Prescott, and really, I think the term for Scott is eccentric genius.” She turned to Kim who was standing there mystified. “Prescott Chance is one of my kids.”
“Prescott Chance the famous architect is your brother?”
“And eccentric genius,” Iris added.
“Stop changing the subject. I’m not talking about Prescott, I’m talking about James!”
Kim’s attention sharpened. Iris said, “I’d have said he was one of the sanest of the Chances, not that that’s saying much. What’s he gone and done? Given you a speeding ticket?”
Daphne chuckled. “He tried to once. Told him I’d call up the local paper and tell embarrassing stories from when he was a kid. He let me off with a warning.” She turned to Kim, “I can tell you a few of those stories if you like, in case you’re ever in trouble with the law.”
It was said jokingly but once more she felt heat suffuse her cheeks. She wondered if there was an operation she could have that would stop her giveaway blushes. She shook her head and said, “I don't want to know his embarrassing secrets. Thanks anyway.” And she certainly didn't want him or his family to know hers.
“Suit yourself. Offer stays open.”
Iris passed her mom a chai latte and said, “So, how has James lost his mind?”
“He’s asked Edna May Tittlebury to sit on his Fourth of July committee.”
“Really? Doesn’t he know that she’s a trouble-making gossip?”
“There’s more. He invited Loreen Ludlow to be on the same committee.” Daphne sipped from her drink with an air of satisfaction as her daughter stared, dumbfounded.
Finally, Iris said, “No. Not possible. Somebody’s messing with you.”
“If somebody is, it would your brother. James told me so himself.”
“But he skulks around town trying to avoid Loreen Ludlow. You should see him peering in the window before he comes into the bakery, just in case she’s in here. Why would he ask her to sit on a committee that he chairs?”
“He says she needs something to do with her time.”
“We all know what she wants to do with her time, and it involves getting hot and steamy with my brother the sheriff.”
Kim felt an irrational and unwanted spurt of jealousy. She wanted to be the one getting hot and steamy with the sheriff. Except she didn’t. That was a terrible idea and she resolutely put it out of her mind.
“He told me that he’s hoping if she gets involved in the committee that she’ll stop stalking him.”
“Do you think it will work?” Kim asked, sounding doubtful.
“No. I don’t. And I told him so.”
“Then what did he say?”
“Then he conned me into going on his Fourth of July committee to protect him from Loreen.”
Iris started to laugh. “This is one committee that could actually be fun. Oh, my. I’d love to be a fly on the wall at those meetings.”
Daphne laughed a slightly sinister laugh. “Why don’t you volunteer to provide refreshments? That way you can watch the show without having to do any organizing.”
“If I wasn’t seventy-five months pregnant, I would.”
“Try to rest as much as you can, darling.” Daphne picked up her drink and then said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you that Marguerite and Alexei are back from their trip to Greece. They’re coming for dinner Sunday. You in?”
“Of course,” Iris said.
“And Kim, I’d love it if you could come too.”
“Oh. I hadn’t… I mean…” She glanced at Iris and down at the counter uncertain what to say. She wasn’t normally invited to socialize with her employers. But she was beginning to realize that Iris wasn’t like anyone she’d ever worked for, and her family, the few of them she’d met, certainly weren’t like any family she’d ever known.
“Don’t let Mom push you into anything you don’t want to do, but I promise the food will be good and my family is impossible to describe but something you have to experience.”
“Well, thank you. I’d love to come. What can I bring?”
“Bring yourself. And a sense of humor. You’ll need it to get through one of our dinners. Now I’ll stop bothering you two and go sit with my friends.” And she moved to one of the window tables where she was soon deep in conversation with a couple of other women who came in regularly.
Iris turned to her. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, you know. Mom’s mission in life is to keep expanding her family.”
“I like your mom.”
“You have good taste. Everyone does, but she can carry you away with her enthusiasm sometimes.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Kim loved the soothing action of icing a cake, swishing the frosting until it was smooth, then piping a pattern around the edges. She got the feeling that Connie was a traditional woman so she used a rich pink icing to make roses, and white for the ribbon and finally a deep green for the leaves. She wrote the script in careful white. Happy Birthday Connie. And she was done.
She was easing the cake into a box when Iris came into the back and immediately peeked. “Oh, that is so pretty. I wish it was my birthday.”
She smiled at the mildly petulant tone of a constantly hungry pregnant woman. “When it’s your birthday I’ll make you an even nicer cake.”
“I can’t wait.” Then Iris sighed. “We have an emergency.”
“We do?” She didn’t smell smoke, see water pooling anywhere or hear screaming, and Iris didn't look like a woman near panic, so she took her time getting worked up. “What’s the emergency?”
“James claims he was standing in the stationary store looking at cards when he got called out. He’s begging us to help him. He needs a card and Ralph at the stationary store told him they always used to get balloons for Connie’s birthday, so he wonders if one of us could get the card and balloons and drop everything off at the station?”
“Oh.”
“I was wondering if that someone could be you?”
“Me? Go to the police station?” She’d rather stand naked on the North Pole. With Santa and the reindeer watching.
“Is that a problem?” Iris sounded concerned.
She had to get a grip. “No. It’s fine. I’ll be fine.” And she hoped that would be true.
She found, when she got to the stationary store, that Ralph, the guy who ran it, was inclined to be chatty. He showed her the cards, gave his opinion on every one of them, and when she chose, “From all of us on your birthday,” told her, “That’s the same card they got her last year.”
Finally, she asked, “Which one do you suggest?”
He confided that he had a new selection of cards and that he thought Connie would like the one featuring a bunch of cartoon animals. He’d already blown up the helium balloons, so all she had to do was pay for the few items, load them in her car with the cake, and head the short distance to the sheriff’s office.
As she pulled into the civic lot shared with the library, her dad’s voice echoed in her ear. “Stay away from cops, girl. They bring nothing but trouble.”
Still, she forced herself to remain calm as she approached City Hall. She hauled the birthday supplies out, then realized she’d give away how little James had actually done if she marched into the main door with the cake and the balloons. She hesitated, and then saw a chubby man in a uniform getting out of a squad car and heading into the building.
“Excuse me,” she said, “could you tell me where the Sheriff is?”
He looked for a moment like a Jeopardy contestant sweating over the final answer, before he said, “Should be inside.” He gestured to the door that said Sheriff’s Office. She’d felt her familiar dread when she’d seen his uniform but now, given his vacuous expression and the overheated redness of his face, she began to feel more in control. She said, “I have a cake and balloons for Connie’s birthday. I don’t want her to see me bringing them in. Is there a way we can get them in without going past her?”
“Oh, yeah. Good point. It’s her birthday today. She was not happy when she thought we’d forgotten.”
“But you didn’t forget,” she said patiently. “The sheriff ordered the cake and things. All we have to do is get them inside without Connie seeing them. Then you can surprise her.”
He paused for a moment, thinking, then said, “I’ll sneak you in the back way.”
“Excellent.” So, she followed the uniformed deputy around the side of the building to a back door. “I’ll make sure the coast is clear,” he said in a stage whisper, then entered. A moment later he was back and beckoning her inside.
She could feel unease prickle up her backbone, but she tried to stay calm as she followed him inside and down a corridor, a turn and then through a doorway. She’d assumed they were going to a staff room or something, so stopped dead in surprise when she found herself confronting James for the second time that day. “Hey, Sheriff, someone to see you,” the deputy said, before backing out of the room again.
“Hi,” she said.
James rose from behind a computer screen and his smile was warm as he stepped forward. “You are a lifesaver. Iris said you made a cake specially, and I see you picked up the card and balloons. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“It’s nothing,” she mumbled. Placing the cake box on his desk, along with the card and then handing him the balloon bouquet.
She turned to leave but he stopped her saying, “Kim. We need to talk.”
What could she say to him? She couldn’t tell him the truth and she didn’t want to lie. There was so much she wanted to say to him and so little that she could share. She said, “I know. But not right now. I’ve got to get back to the bakery. Another time.”
And then she left quickly, as though her life depended on getting away.