Chapter 6

“Don’t you dare fall asleep, Winnie Johnson!”

Winnie tightened her grip on the phone and willed herself to focus on something other than the hint of warmth on her cheek from the waning sun. “I—I’m not falling asleep.”

“Liar. I just saw your head loll to the side like a rag doll.”

Straightening up on the bench, Winnie darted her gaze left to the empty sidewalk, straight ahead to the front window of Hudson Hardware, and then right to the all-too-familiar Easter egg blue compact car parked no more than a block away. “You followed me?”

“You’re darn straight I did. If I didn’t, you’d be fast asleep on that bench by now, and I’d be wondering why you stopped talking.” Renee rolled down the driver’s side window and made what Winnie suspected was a not-so-nice face. “Besides, I know you. You’re afraid he’s going to bite.”

“Oh, stop it, Renee. Do I need to remind you I’ve owned my own bakery for the last two years?”

“And do I need to remind you that you haven’t gone on a date in all that time, either?”

“I’ve dated!”

“Treating Mr. Nelson to a spaghetti dinner at Mario’s doesn’t qualify as a date, Winnie.”

“I’m going to tell him you said that.”

“Go ahead. It won’t matter. I’m the only one he clips on those bow ties for and you know it.”

She had to laugh. It was either that or run into traffic (if there was any) . . . “I’m just here to gather information for the Dessert Squad, Renee. That’s all.”

“But if he happened to ask you for a date during that process, you would go, right?”

Sinking against the wooden slats at her back, she tried to find the humor in the situation. Her efforts were futile. “Look, Renee, how about we make a deal? I don’t try to analyze your feelings about the divorce, and you don’t try to set me up on dates, okay?”

“I’m not trying to set you up on a date, Winnie. I’m just helping you with your new business. It’s not my fault that in order to fully execute your plan to the best of your ability you need to spend some quality time with Master Sergeant Hottie.”

Master Sergeant Hottie . . .

She felt her eyes start to glaze over as, once again, her head dipped to the side.

“Don’t you do it! I swear, I’ll drag you into that station by the ear, if you do.”

She shifted to the shadier end of the bench and stared up at the sky. “You do realize I haven’t slept since the night before last, yes?”

“Sleep is overrated, Winnie.”

“And in that time, I’ve inherited an ambulance and a cat that hates me . . . closed up shop on something I poured my heart and soul into for the past two years . . . baked a pie and delivered it to my friend, only to find his dead . . . um . . .”

Focus . . .

Focus . . .

Prying her droopy eyes open with her fingers, she tried to remember where they were. At a loss for an answer, she stepped onto an entirely different train of thought . . .

“Is it just me, or did you happen to notice how my eighty-year-old neighbor knew exactly who you were talking about when you referenced Master Sergeant Hottie this morning?”

“Of course she did, Winnie. Bridget is the one who coined the phrase.”

She looked back toward Renee’s car. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. Used it in the first column she wrote after he moved to town. I’m shocked you didn’t see it.”

“I’ve had bigger fish to fry the past few months, I guess.” Slowly, she leaned her head against the back of the bench, the memory of carrying the last box out of the bakery—almost exactly twenty-four hours earlier—still fresh in her thoughts. “I can’t believe Delectable Delights is really gone.”

“The Emergency Dessert Squad is better. Much better.”

She watched a plane dart between clouds thousands of miles overhead, her mind shifting gears as she did. “Do you really think so, Renee?”

“Absolutely. It’s genius, Winnie. The names, the concept, it’s all there. You just need to put the cherry on top.”

“The cherry?”

“Go inside, Winnie. Greg will help you if you ask.”

Lifting her head from the bench, she turned her attention back to the car and the woman now pointing at the one-story brick building behind Winnie’s bench. “You called him Greg.”

“Because it’s the only way you’ll go inside.”

“Am I really that transparent?”

“Yes.” Renee pointed again and then rolled up her window. “I’m hanging up now, but I’m not leaving until I see you get off that bench and walk inside that station.”

“I won’t bother calling your bluff, but—” She stopped at the click in her ear, removed the device from the side of her face, and returned it to the backpack purse next to her leg. There was no denying the excitement she’d felt coursing through her body as she’d brainstormed ideas throughout the night. No denying the excitement she’d felt when Renee had reacted to those ideas with such enthusiasm. The concept was there. Talking to Greg and getting inside a real ambulance could only help.

Winnie stood, hoisted the purse onto her shoulder, and stepped inside the rather nondescript building. A balding man looked up from behind a half wall separating the lobby area from the inner workings of the Silver Lake Ambulance Corps and smiled. “Good afternoon. Are you here for our EMT class?”

“No. I . . .” She took a deep breath and made herself step closer. “I was wondering if Greg Stevens might be in today?”

“Yeah, Greg’s here. Got in about an hour ago. You want to talk to him?”

“If I could. If he’s not busy. If he is, I could just come back another time.”

“Nah, he’s not busy.” Bypassing the intercom system on the desk in front of him, the man whose name tag read “Stan” yelled, “Yo, boss. You’ve got company up here.”

She didn’t need the framed mirror to her left to know her face was red. That just served as irrefutable proof.

A door behind Stan swung open, and Greg stepped out. “I guess you don’t need that megaphone I was planning to buy for you—” He stopped, mid-step, his eyes widening as they came to rest on Winnie. “Oh. Wow. Hey. Winnie, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well this is a nice surprise.”

Stan leaned back in his chair, an amused expression snaking its way across his face. “Should I leave you two kids alone?”

Ignoring his coworker, Greg emerged from behind the half wall to stand in front of Winnie. “You have a price?”

“A price?” she echoed.

“For the ambulance. That’s why you’re here, right?” A flash of something that looked a lot like embarrassment changed his eyes from a milk chocolate shade to one more befitting a darker, richer cocoa . . .

Focus . . .

Focus . . .

“You know what?” he said, changing gears. “How about we step outside for a minute? There’s a bench out front we could sit on.”

She resisted the urge to share her familiarity with the bench and opted, instead, to simply nod.

“If you need me, Stan, I’m outside.”

“You got it, boss.”

She followed him back out to the sidewalk and over to the bench she’d vacated not more than five minutes earlier. A visual sweep of the street to her right showed no sign of Renee. Surprisingly, that didn’t give her the relief she would have anticipated . . .

“By now, Stan is back in the lounge, making up all kinds of stories about the two of us. You do realize this, don’t you?”

She made herself laugh despite the dread rising up in her throat. “Guys do that?”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret, Winnie. Cops, firefighters, paramedics—they’re worse than a group of middle school girls. In every way. Trust me on this.”

“You mentioned that yesterday when you came into the bakery.” Easing back against the bench, she forced herself to relax. “I’m sorry if my showing up here causes any problems for you. In fact, I even told Renee it was probably a bad idea.”

“Renee,” he repeated, his head nodding as he did. “That was the woman with the short blond hair in your bakery yesterday morning, right? The one that seemed to know more about me than even I do?”

“Yup. That’s her. She’s harmless, though. I swear.”

“Good to know.”

Their laughter died away, leaving them with a semi-awkward silence that had Winnie’s face warming despite the sun’s rapid descent behind the hardware store. Hiking his thigh onto the bench between them, Greg was the first to speak. “I’m sorry about your bakery. That really stinks.”

She felt the pain of her loss tickling at her heart and willed it away. “Mr. Nelson reminds everyone who walks by our house that you just need to find a little sun in your day and you’ll be fine. And he’s right.”

“Who’s Mr. Nelson?”

“The man who lives in the apartment below mine. It’s a two-family house—only he lives in his place alone, and I live in my place alone.” Feeling suddenly foolish about her over-the-top chattiness, she inhaled every ounce of courage she could muster and got to the point of her visit. “I’m not here to sell the ambulance.”

The slump to his shoulders was quick but still noticeable.

“I was considering it, I really was,” she rushed to explain. “But then I realized it just might be the ticket to getting my business up and running again.”

“I think you might be overestimating what you can get for it, Winnie. I mean, it’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but . . . it still needs work to restore it to its original condition.”

She, too, swiveled her body so that they were facing each other. “I know. That’s why I’m here. I’m hoping you’ll help me with the details.”

Lifting his hand off the back of the bench, Greg raked it across the top of his head, his minimal amount of hair undaunted by the motion. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m thinking about taking my bakery on the road via the ambulance. I’ve got a name—the Emergency Dessert Squad—and I’m working on creating a menu to reflect that theme.”

“The Emergency Dessert Squad? Are you serious?”

She felt her own shoulders slump. “You think it’s stupid?”

A smile like she’d never seen on a person’s face before suddenly covered his, bringing with it the dimples she remembered from the previous day. “Are you kidding me? It’s awesome!” He leaned the side of his body into the bench and propped his head against his hand. “You can’t run the siren, though. That would be against the law.”

“No siren. Got it.”

“So how can I help?” he asked.

“Well, in order to really make this a success, I think I need to work the whole emergency rescue theme into my presentation.”

“You mean in more than just the name of your business and the name of your desserts?”

“Exactly.” She leaned forward, powered, no doubt, by the notion of getting her dream back on its feet in a new and more creative way. “So I was hoping that maybe you could let me see a real ambulance. And, if it’s okay, maybe I could take notes and see how I might tweak my idea in the name of authenticity.”

“I think that can be arranged,” he said, letting his foot drop back down to the concrete.

She clapped her hands and then stood, her mind already racing ahead to the kinds of things she might see on her personal tour. “Fantastic. Thank you. Just name the day and time and I’ll be here.”

“How about today? How about right now?”

“You can do that?” she asked, stunned.

“I’m not doing anything at the moment, are you?”

“No.”

“Then come on.” Touching his hand to the small of her back, he guided her around the bench and toward a different door than the one she’d used to access the station. “As long as we don’t get any calls, you can look for as long as you’d like. Just know that if you do, Stan’s jaws will be flapping for days to come.”