First Kiss, On the House Read online

  “Hey, didn’t expect to see you today.” Art clapped Tyne on the back. “Thought you stocked up yesterday.”

  “I did, but I came to introduce you to Joel Worth. He’s going to open a microbrewery at the old dairy.”

  “Ah, you’re the one! Glad Tyne brought you in. I stock local specialties in our Hometown Room. We added a wing onto the store for it. Come on. I’ll show you.”

  When they walked through the arch, it felt like they were entering an old-time store. Art had installed an oak-plank floor and wooden barrels, filled with different flavored taffy and candies, clustered around tables displaying breads and desserts. Joel’s eyes widened in surprise. A long meat counter sold the Danzas’ chickens and fowls, as well as Carl Gruber’s beef. Harley’s wine and a local orchard’s cider took up one corner, and Evan Meyers’s cheeses another. There were jars of homegrown honey, apple butters, and all kinds of fresh produce.

  “We get the produce from Ian’s wife, Tessa. She sells it at her farm stand, too,” Art explained. He smiled at Joel. “I’d sure love to stock some specialty beers.”

  They talked business for a while before Tyne tapped his watch. “Sorry, but I’m running out of time. I work the supper shift tonight. We’ve got to go.”

  It was a short drive to Daphne’s stained-glass shop, and when Joel took the stairs to his apartment to check on Adele, Tyne ducked into the shop to see his wife. Joel watched as Daphne looked up to see Tyne, her whole face lighting up. A short stab of pain zinged through him. Someday he’d like someone to look at him like that. And once again he thought of Miriam.

  Chapter 5

  Miriam stopped to look around at all the customers as she walked into Chase’s bar. She wasn’t in need of liquid fortification tonight. She wanted to talk to Chase’s wife, Paula, and luckily, she was sitting at the bar. Miriam slid on to the stool next to hers.

  Paula eyed her warily. “You have that look, the serious one when you have something on your mind.”

  Miriam motioned for a beer. When Chase brought it, she said, “Can I order a burger, too?”

  “It’s better than drinking on an empty stomach.” Chase winked at her. He liked to give her a hard time.

  “Pickles, lettuce, tomato, and lots of mayo,” she told him.

  He slid his pencil back behind his ear and went to deliver her order.

  Paula repeated her question. “What’s up?”

  “I was hoping you could do me a favor.”

  “Probably, if I can. I won’t loan you Chase, though, and Daphne won’t rent out Tyne.”

  Miriam laughed. “This is about hormones.” She explained about seeing Maya in the school parking lot with T. J. “He had his hands under her blouse and she was liking it. Is she on birth control?”

  Paula’s expression changed. The proverbial lightbulb had turned on over her head as she got the idea. “I doubt it. My mom didn’t know she was hooked up with a guy.” Maya lived with Paula’s mother in Ian’s inn. Together, they babysat for Ian’s employees, including Paula’s kids before and after school. Her mom had wanted to keep Aiden and Bailey longer tonight or Paula would be upstairs in their apartment, playing mommy.

  “Would your mom give her the birds-and-bees talk?” Miriam asked. “I would, but the kids tune me out. They know I never get any, so I’m not a good source.”

  Paula grinned. “You’re not that innocent. You’ve had a few guys.”

  “In college, nothing serious. If it’s true if you don’t use it, you lose it, my ovaries are history.”

  Paula had to press her hand over her mouth not to spurt out her last sip of beer. “You always make me laugh. It’s not safe to drink around you.”

  Miriam turned serious again. “I think I’ve lost Maya for a while. She doesn’t want to leave town to go to college.”

  “Hell, she could drive back and forth every day,” Paula said. “Bloomington’s that close.”

  “I’m trying, but her focus is on T. J. right now. I can deal with that. In a year or two she might change her mind, and then she can make the trip—if she doesn’t have a kid to worry about.”

  Paula nodded. “I’ll talk to Mom.”

  “I’ll pay for the Pills. The Shot might be even better, if your mom can talk her into taking one or the other.”

  A car honked, and Paula looked out the glass doors. “There’s Mom now with the kids. Gotta go and corral my hoodlums. I’ll talk to her, though.”

  “Thanks.” Miriam watched Paula go, and as her friend opened the doors to leave, Joel walked through them to enter. He saw Miriam, gave a small wave, and came to join her.

  “Hi again,” he said.

  This time she really looked at him. He gave the impression of being a nice person, and tonight he looked bemused. She frowned at him. “Is everything okay?”

  Her hamburger came and Joel’s stomach rumbled. “Mind if I eat with you?”

  “Go for it.”

  He ordered a bacon cheeseburger with sliced jalapeños. When Chase served his beer, Joel took a long swig. Then he let out a long sigh.

  Miriam cocked an eyebrow. “Okay, you’re starved and you’re stunned. Which came first?”

  He smiled. “I spent the day with Tyne, meeting suppliers and people around town.”

  “And Tyne forgot to stop for lunch.” She’d seen Tyne in action. When the man focused on something, it got done, no matter what.

  “We grabbed some cheese and crackers at Harley’s, but I met everyone he could introduce me to. That was nice of him.”

  “Pretty Boy is at the top of my list, but he’s a little obsessive.”

  “Pretty Boy?”

  “My nickname for him. Everyone else calls him Hot Stuff. He calls me E.T. for English Teacher, and he named Paula Goth Girl.”

  “You must be close.”

  Miriam waited while Chase brought Joel his burger, then said, “He married my best friend. He’s perfect for her and he feeds me when I pop by their place.”

  They both took a minute to bite into their burgers. When they moaned in unison, Joel actually blushed. Pretty sweet really. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Okay, so I know why you’re starved. What’s with the stunned look?”

  He paused to choose his words carefully. “I have a daughter, Adele. She’s nineteen, but she’ll never grow up. Cerebral palsy. At home, my parents took care of her once in a while, so I could go out, do something fun.” He stumbled for a minute. “Not that Adele isn’t fun. It’s just that . . .”

  “. . . once in a while you want to be around adults. Yeah, I get that.”

  His shoulders relaxed. “Anyway, I don’t worry when I leave her during the day for a while. Daphne checks in on her when she can, and then I make sure I’m at home at night. Except tonight, Paula’s mom came and invited her out for pizza.”

  Miriam nodded. “Hazel’s great like that, loves kids.”

  “But she doesn’t know Adele. She said Tyne told her about her and she wanted to meet her. That’s never happened to us before.”

  Miriam reached for a fry. “You’re in Mill Pond. Things are different here.”

  “How different?”

  How could she describe it to him? Finally, she said, “People are nice to one another.”

  “That’s what Iris said, but I thought that meant they smiled and waved.” He looked thoughtful. “Adele was so happy, she almost cried.”

  Miriam felt for him. “It’s tough raising a kid with special needs.” She hesitated, then asked what she was sure he’d been asked many times before, “Does her mother help?”

  He shook his head. “April has enough problems of her own.”

  “Then Adele’s better off not having her in her life.”

  Not everyone understood that, but it was true. “That’s why we moved here.” Joel finished his burger and nodded for a second beer. “April showed up on our doorstep every time she had a problem. When her car broke down. When she forgot to pay the rent. I don’t mind helping her, but I asked her over and over a
gain to just call me, not to stop by the house where Adele would see her. It upset Adele every time.”

  Miriam finished her burger, too, and turned to stare at him. “You don’t mind helping your ex-wife?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “You’re a nice man.” Miriam admired nice. Too many people took it for weakness. She didn’t. “You set boundaries, right?”

  “I have to. I like myself, too.”

  “See? I knew you were smart.” She ordered a second beer and rested her elbows on the bar to yak with him while he finished his.

  He took a long gulp, then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Enough talk about me. What about you? You’re an English teacher. What else?”

  She blinked. “That’s about it. I don’t cook. Suck at it. I spent a fortune on an AGA stove for my cottage on the lake, but that was only because I love Agatha Christie and wanted to pretend I’m British.”

  He laughed. “Good thing you don’t want to be Elizabeth Bennet. She’s fighting zombies right now.”

  “I know! I loved that movie.”

  That made him laugh harder. “What do you do in the summer when you don’t teach?”

  “I garden. I read. I row my boat out on the lake to fish.”

  “You fish?”

  “I let them all go. I have two cats—Tommy and Tuppence.”

  “Agatha Christie again, right?”

  She stared. “Have you read them?”

  “No, but I watched the TV shows when they were on PBS or A&E, I can’t remember which.”

  “You watch British mysteries?” She clinked her glass with his. “You’re a good man.”

  “I can cook, too,” he told her. “Nothing fancy like Tyne, but enough to keep Adele and me fed.”

  “What does Adele like? What are some of her favorite things?”

  “Macaroni and cheese, chicken strips . . .”

  She shook her head. “No, not food. What makes her happy?”

  “She’d watch TV twenty-four hours a day if I let her. Has a thing for every Disney movie ever made. She loves the water. One of the other reasons I moved here. Someday I want to buy a boat.”

  The words popped out of her mouth before she could stop them. “You should bring her to my place on Saturday. We can order a pizza or something. I live on the lake.” Then she wrinkled her nose in a grimace. “Don’t look at the dust, though. If you have allergies, you might die.”

  He shook his head, amused. “That bad?”

  “I dust once a month whether it needs it or not. I’ve been too busy lately, grading papers, so it’s worse than usual.”

  “You sound like my kind of woman. My ex had OCD, cleaned all the time. If I sat a beer on the end table, she whisked it away before I could finish it.”

  His kind of woman. The words stuck in her mind. What would that be like? “Okay, if I haven’t scared you away, bring Adele to my place for supper around six. Does that work for you?”

  He grabbed her tab and added it to his, paying for both of them. “We’ll be there.”

  She walked out of the bar with him and, on the drive home, let a bubble of excitement swell inside her. A man was coming to her cottage of his own free will. He was bringing his daughter with him, but so what? She liked kids. This might be the beginning of something nice—a male friend, even if he didn’t come with benefits.

  Chapter 6

  A boat went by in front of Miriam’s cottage, waking her at nine on Saturday morning. She glanced at the light creeping past the edges of her blinds. No alarm clock. Heaven. Tommy, her gray tiger cat, was pressed against the back of her legs. Tuppence, the gray female with a white throat and paws, was curled near her stomach. She was sandwiched by cats. Could life get any better?

  A second boat passed in the opposite direction. Sounded like a pontoon. An ordinance prevented ski boats from revving their engines until ten a.m. to give fishermen a chance to peacefully enjoy the lake in the early hours. Once ten hit, though, the temperatures rose and the lake became a playground for tubing and skis.

  Miriam turned on her back to stretch. “Time to move it,” she warned the cats. They knew the routine. The king-size bed took up most of the room, but it was worth it. At nearly six feet, Miriam didn’t want her feet to dangle over the end of the mattress.

  She pushed out of bed and opened the blinds to look at the lake. A beautiful day. A robin’s-egg blue sky cradled puffy white clouds and the water sparkled as if filled with sunbeams.

  She padded into the long, narrow kitchen and poured herself a cup of hot coffee. Agatha Christie would probably be ashamed of her and recommend tea, but Agatha was British. She hadn’t enjoyed the kick of caffeine that strong java could give you. Then, dressed in long pajamas, Miriam opened the kitchen door and went on to the back patio that overlooked the lake while she sipped from her mug. The cats followed her, curling at her feet to greet the day. They sat out there, enjoying a slow start to their day, until ten o’clock hit and the first speedboat revved by the cottage.

  “You hungry?” Miriam led the cats inside and filled their food bowls. Joel and his daughter were coming for supper tonight, and she thought about dusting before they got to her house but decided to grade papers instead. She opened the cupboards for sustenance to survive the weary task of pushing a red pen over page after page of term papers, but she hadn’t gone to the store. There wasn’t much to choose from. She ended up making herself three peanut butter sandwiches to stave off starvation and got down to business.

  Miracle of miracles, she finished the last paper before tires scrunched on her drive. Joel had volunteered to stop by to pick up pizzas on his way from town to save her a trip, and the aroma of cheese and sausage followed him into the house when she opened the door to greet him and Adele. She led them into the kitchen at the back of the house and Joel placed the pizzas on the small, round oak table for four.

  He looked at his surroundings. “Nice place. I love your AGA.”

  Miriam snorted. “The AGA and I are incompatible. I always struggle with it.” She grinned at Adele. “Hey, nice to meet you.”

  Adele’s gaze drifted to the view of the lake out the kitchen windows. “You live on water and you have pretty flowers.”

  “Do you like to garden?” Miriam tried to imitate English gardens—planting her beds with delphiniums, roses, and daisies. In the shady spots, she had hostas and daylilies. She could spend hours outside, playing in her flowerbeds.

  Adele pressed her lips together, embarrassed. “I just like flowers.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Miriam asked. “So do I.” She put paper plates on the table and went to the refrigerator. “What do you want to drink?”

  “Do you have beer?” Joel asked.

  “Ah, you need to visit the fridge in the garage.” Miriam motioned him to the door off the living room. “I keep the beer in that.” She led the way and chose a dark beer for herself. Joel chose an ale, and they returned to Adele in the kitchen. “What about you?” Miriam asked. “What can I get you?”

  “Do you have Pepsi?”

  “Sure do.” Miriam handed her a can and they sat down to eat. Happily, Joel and Adele seemed to be as hungry as she was, and they polished off the pizzas in short order.

  “So, how do you like Mill Pond?” Miriam asked Adele.

  The girl pursed her lips. Lord, she was pretty, with golden hair and blue eyes. She must look more like her mom. Miriam never would have guessed she had any of Joel’s genes. They didn’t seem to have anything in common.

  Adele sighed. “I miss Grandma and Grandpa,” she said, glancing at her dad to see if she’d upset him. “They used to live close to us and they’d take me places, but everyone here is really nice.”

  Miriam could tell how much Adele worshipped her dad. She didn’t want to say anything that would disappoint him. That was sweet. She knew how hard it was for kids who had disabilities to fit in, too. Adele was nineteen but wasn’t really an adult. Her mental rating, according to Joel, was t
welve years old, but she wasn’t a kid. She didn’t belong in either world. That made it hard. “You’ll meet more and more people,” Miriam told her. “And there’s lots to do around here.”

  Adele’s gaze went to the water again. “Do you have a boat?”

  Miriam nodded. “I have a pontoon and a rowboat, but the pontoon’s still at the marina. I don’t take it out until school’s out and I have more time. Do you want to go sit on the back patio? It’s warm enough tonight.”

  Joel went to get two more beers and Miriam led Adele to the chairs that circled the fire pit outside. When Miriam opened the door, Tommy and Tuppence appeared from their hiding places inside to dash out with them.

  “You have cats?” Adele bent to pet Tuppence.

  Miriam grabbed Tommy and put him on her lap. “They hide when people they don’t know come, but they love being out here. I don’t have to worry about them. They never wander far and they come inside when I call them. I trained them when they were kittens.”

  Adele’s blue eyes went wide. “You can train cats? Dad always says they do whatever they want to.”

  Miriam laughed. “They’re pretty independent. That’s what I like about them, but I got them from the same litter when they were tiny, and I tied strings to their collars and hooked them to bricks so that when they went too far, the strings yanked them back. Now, they pretty much stay in my yard.”

  “I love cats.” Adele gasped with surprise when Tuppence jumped on her lap and rolled over for her to pet her stomach and chin. “Your cat likes me!”

  “My cats like attention. They’ll drive you crazy if you don’t pet them.”

  Adele was petting away when Joel stepped out of the cottage and stopped to stare at them. First, he looked surprised, and then he looked sappy. Miriam shook her head at him. “Take a load off and give me my beer.”

  He blinked and shook his head. Then he came to flop into the lawn chair next to hers. “You have a nice setup.”