Читать книгу A Slice Of Heaven - Sherryl Woods, Sherryl Woods - Страница 5

Any thought of goal-setting flew out the window that night when a grease fire started in the kitchen in the middle of the dinner rush.

As soon as Karen shrieked, “Fire!” Erik grabbed an extinguisher and started spraying. Meanwhile, Karen raced for a phone and dialed 911, even though the small blaze was already mostly contained.

Assured that Erik had things under control in the kitchen, Dana Sue headed into the dining room to soothe the rattled patrons, then went outside to the patio to explain to customers there and to await the arrival of the firemen, whom she hoped to prevent from dragging their hoses through the restaurant. Thanks to Erik’s quick reaction, there was no need for all those men and their equipment to plow through the place. In fact, by the time the volunteer firefighters arrived on the scene, there was little evidence of the blaze beyond frayed nerves, the lingering scent of smoke and the mess in the immediate vicinity of the greasy pan that had caught on fire.

Though she wouldn’t really be able to tell until morning, it appeared there’d been no smoke damage at all to the dining room, with its pale-peach walls and dark-green trim. A trip to the laundry would take care of any lingering scent in the tablecloths and napkins.

“It was my fault. I am so sorry,” Karen said for at least the tenth time after the fire chief had signed off and let them get back to business.

A struggling single mom in her midtwenties, Karen had tears streaming down her pale cheeks. She’d been a short-order cook at a local diner when Dana Sue discovered her. Seeing the waste of cooking talent, Dana Sue had offered to train her to handle the high-quality meals at Sullivan’s.

“I just turned away for a second,” Karen said. “I didn’t realize the flame was so high. Then I panicked. I’ve never done anything like this before, I swear it.”

“Hey, it’s nothing,” Dana Sue reassured her. “It’s happened to all of us, right, Erik? There was no real harm done.”

“I’ve never had a grease fire,” Erik said, “but I’ve burned my share of pies and cakes and smoked up the kitchen.”

“I’ll stay late and clean up,” Karen offered. “By the time you come in tomorrow, you won’t even know it happened.”

“We’ll all pitch in,” Dana Sue corrected. “We’re a team. Now let’s get back to work before all our customers stage a rebellion.”

“I need to do something,” Karen insisted. “Let me buy a glass of wine for every customer. It’ll take me a while to pay for them, but it’s the least I can do.”

“It’s already done,” Dana Sue told her, “and you’re not paying. The money comes out of our PR budget. Now, cook. We have ten backed-up orders for the grilled salmon, three for the pork chops and five for the fried catfish. Let’s go, people.”

The teamwork on which Dana Sue and her staff prided themselves kicked back into high gear. By nine o’clock all the customers had been fed and most were lingering over coffee and one of Erik’s desserts.

As Dana Sue made the rounds of the tables in the dining room, almost everyone commented on the delicious meal, but most were eager to congratulate her on the way her staff had dealt with the crisis.

“If I hadn’t heard the sirens and seen the firemen myself, I’d never have guessed you had a fire in the kitchen,” the mayor told her. “You handled yourself really well, Dana Sue.”

“Thank you,” she said, surprised. She and Howard Lewis hadn’t always seen eye to eye, particularly during the controversy over Maddie’s relationship with the much-younger Cal Maddox. Now that the two were respectably married, apparently the mayor had forgotten all about the old animosity. Either that or his desire for a good meal had overcome his disapproval of her association with Maddie and Cal.

“Well, of course she handled the crisis just fine,” Hamilton Rogers, chairman of the school board, said. “Those Sweet Magnolias always knew how to wriggle out of a tight spot.” He winked at Dana Sue. “It was a trait they certainly needed growing up.”

Dana Sue laughed. “We certainly did.”

“Just how many times did you and Ronnie get caught trying to play hooky?” Hamilton asked.

Dana Sue gave him her most innocent look. “Why, I don’t believe we ever got caught doing such a thing,” she said.

The school board chairman chuckled. “You can admit it now, Dana Sue. We won’t take away your diploma.”

She shook her head. “Still not talking.”

“Well, you definitely added a little excitement to our meal tonight,” the mayor said. “Things have been a little too quiet in Serenity lately.”

After the last of the customers was gone, Dana Sue joined her staff in the kitchen to do the cleanup. In two hours every surface was spotless, every inch of steel gleaming. Under even the best of circumstances, she was a fanatic about Sullivan’s kitchen being ready for a health department inspection. She’d been doubly exacting tonight. By the time she finally got home, she was exhausted.

Spotting a light on in Annie’s room, she tapped on the door. “Sweetie, you still awake?”

Annie glanced up from her computer and blinked, then looked at her clock. “Mom, where have you been? It’s late. And you smell like smoke again. What did you burn this time?”

“We had a grease fire tonight. It turned out to be nothing, but it created quite a mess in the kitchen.”

Annie’s eyes widened in alarm. “You’re okay? You’re sure? Why didn’t you call me? I would have come in to help you clean up.”

Dana Sue heard the worry in her daughter’s voice. Annie knew that any calamity at Sullivan’s could turn their world upside down yet again, so Dana Sue sought to reassure her. “I know you would have, but Erik, Karen and I were able to handle it. Besides, it’s a school night. I’m sure you had homework.”

“Some,” Annie agreed.

“Did you get something to eat?”

“Mom!” Annie protested, immediately on the defensive.

“It was just a question,” Dana Sue said, her own hackles rising. “You didn’t stop by the restaurant after school, so I wondered if you’d fixed something here.”

“No, Sarah and I went to Wharton’s with some other kids, just to hang out,” Annie told her in a calmer tone.

Dana Sue relaxed and grinned. She perched on the edge of the bed, hoping for the kind of girl talk she and Annie had once shared. “I remember doing that when I was your age. I’ll bet not a day went by that Maddie, Helen and I weren’t there, along with whomever we were dating at the time.”

“You were always with Dad, though, weren’t you?” Annie said, then hesitated, as if trying to gauge her mother’s reaction. When Dana Sue said nothing, she continued, “I mean, you guys were a couple when you were younger than me, right?”

Dana Sue nodded, lost for a second in the good memories. There had been a lot of them, but she’d buried most under the anger she’d needed just to keep going after Ronnie left.

“Dad was a hunk, huh?”

“He was,” Dana Sue admitted. “The first time I saw him, after he and his family moved here from North Carolina, I thought he was the sexiest boy I’d ever seen. He had danger written all over him, from his coal-black, too-long hair to his leather jacket.”

“Was that the only reason you liked him?” Annie asked. “Because he was so sexy-looking?”

“No, of course not,” Dana Sue said nobly. “He was sweet and smart and funny, too.”

Her daughter grinned. “I always thought it was because every other girl in school wanted him and you wanted to prove you could get him.”

Dana Sue laughed. “Did your father tell you that?”

“Nope. Maddie did. She said you were so single-minded when it came to getting Dad to notice you.”

“Yeah, I probably was,” Dana Sue confessed. “He was the first boy who wouldn’t even give me a second look. Naturally, that made him an irresistible challenge. And I knew he would make my folks a little crazy.” She leaned closer and confided, “He had a tattoo, you know.”

Annie giggled. “Maddie said he gave you a tough time on purpose, because if he’d made it easy, you’d have lost interest.”

Dana Sue thought back and tried to imagine losing interest in Ronnie. She couldn’t. Her feelings for him had been all-consuming for a long time. Not even nearly eighteen years of marriage had turned down the heat between them. An affair and two years of separation had only driven her to bury the attraction.

“I don’t know,” she told Annie. “I fell pretty hard, pretty fast.”

“And you never regretted it, did you?” her daughter asked. “I mean, not till the end, when he was with that other woman.”

Dana Sue didn’t like even thinking about the day she’d found out about Ronnie’s affair, much less reminiscing about it, but it was evident that Annie had been wanting to ask these questions for a long time. It was as if she’d been saving them up for the right moment. It was also evident she’d been turning to Maddie to find some of the answers she wanted. Dana Sue felt incredibly guilty that Annie hadn’t been able to ask her own mother for the details of her parents’ courtship.

“No, until the day he cheated on me—or the day I found out about it, anyway—I never regretted a single second with your dad.” She felt Annie deserved total honesty, not an answer colored by far more recent bitterness and resentment.

“So, he made, like, this one huge mistake and that was it?” Annie said, frowning. “None of the rest mattered anymore?”

“That’s the way I saw it,” Dana Sue said. “Some betrayals are just too huge.”

“Do you still feel that way?”

Dana Sue regarded her daughter with a puzzled look. “Why do you ask?”

“I just wondered how you’d feel if Dad came back to town. Could you forgive him now?”

It was the second time in one day that people Dana Sue loved had suggested it might be time for her to get over the past and move on, maybe even with that scum-of-the-earth, cheating ex of hers. She told herself that could only happen if she let her heart—or her hormones—overrule her head. Once Burned, Twice Shy was her motto.

“Sorry, baby. I know you’d like that, but it’s not going to happen,” she said. “When you’re a little older and have fallen in love, maybe you’ll understand why some things are simply unforgivable.”

Before Annie could press her on it, she stood up. “You need to get some sleep, young lady. So do I.”

She brushed a kiss across Annie’s forehead. “Lights out, okay?”

To her surprise, her daughter’s arms came around her waist. “I love you, Mom.”

“Oh, sweetie, I love you, too,” Dana Sue whispered, tears in her eyes. “And wherever he is, I know your dad loves you, as well. More than anything.”

“I know,” Annie said with a sniff. “Sometimes, I just wish he was here, you know?”

Dana Sue bit back a sigh. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I do know.”

There were times when she felt as if someone had carved out her heart and left her aching and empty inside. But that feeling paled compared to the anger she’d felt when she’d found out about his fling with some woman whose name he didn’t even remember. Weighing the two emotions and adding in a healthy dose of pride, she’d had only one choice. Maybe someday she would even get used to living with it.

The phone rang, waking Dana Sue from a sound sleep. She slapped at the alarm, blaming it for the offending noise. When the shrill ringing continued, she fumbled for the phone.

“Where are you?” Helen demanded. “It’s eight-thirty. Maddie and I have been waiting for half an hour.”

Dana Sue sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. “Why?” she mumbled.

“Our challenge,” Helen reminded her. “Our goals.”

“I don’t have any, except to go back to sleep,” Dana Sue muttered, and hung up.

Of course, the phone immediately rang again. “Get up. We’re on our way over,” Helen said crisply. “You have ten minutes to get the coffee brewing. You might want to squeeze in a shower, too. You sound like you could use a cold one to kick-start your brain.”

This time when Dana Sue slammed the phone back in its cradle, she resigned herself to getting up. Helen had a key and wasn’t afraid to use it. Nor would she hesitate to toss Dana Sue into that icy shower herself. Bossy woman!

She didn’t bother with putting a robe on over her oversize Carolina Panthers T-shirt, one of the few things of Ronnie’s she’d kept. She’d told herself she’d simply forgotten to add it to the pile of his clothing she’d stuffed haphazardly into suitcases and tossed onto the front lawn, but the truth was she’d slept in it for a long time after he’d gone because his scent had clung to it. Many washings later that was no longer the case, but some sentiment she didn’t care to identify kept her wearing it every night.

She padded into the kitchen and put on the coffee, then went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth and splashed water on her face. She’d barely made it back to the kitchen when the back door opened and Helen and Maddie strolled in.

“Shouldn’t you both be working?” Dana Sue inquired testily.

“We should be,” Helen agreed. “But we had an important appointment with our third partner at eight o’clock this morning. We thought finding out why you didn’t show up took precedence over work.” She wrinkled her nose. “And why does it smell like smoke in here?”

Dana Sue winced. “Actually, that’s me. We had a little grease fire in the kitchen at the restaurant. No big deal, but I was there late, cleaning up the mess. I haven’t had a chance to take a shower and wash my hair.”

“You had a fire?” Maddie looked dismayed. “Why didn’t you call us?”

“Before or after we called the fire department?” Dana Sue said. “Or perhaps you two have become volunteer firefighters without telling me.”

“Why didn’t you call us later?” Maddie asked. “We could have helped you clean up.”

“My staff did that,” Dana Sue said. “And before you ask, I have not even had time to think about my goals or my action plan.”

“Not a problem,” Helen said briskly. She got out cups and poured coffee for all of them. “We’ll help.”

“But this is supposed to be my goal and my action plan,” Dana Sue protested.

Helen gave her a chiding look. “Surely you don’t mind a little input from the two people who know you best.”

“Do I get to critique your plans?” Dana Sue asked suspiciously.

“Absolutely.” Maddie nodded.

At the exact same moment, Helen said, “No.”

Dana Sue grinned. “I thought so. In that case, Maddie, you can help with mine. Helen, keep your mouth shut.”

Maddie laughed. “You are such a dreamer. Don’t you remember? Helen is the biggest control freak of us all.”

“Which is exactly why I want her to butt out,” Dana Sue said.

“This whole challenge was my idea,” Helen reminded them. “That gives me the right to butt in.” She whipped a legal pad out of her briefcase. “Now tell me what your primary goal is, Dana Sue. Losing weight? Keeping your blood sugar in check?”

“Getting you out of my kitchen so I can get ready to go to work,” she countered. “As you noted when you called here, I’m running late. I can’t send all my customers to McDonald’s just because you’ve set some deadline for getting this challenge of ours under way. Why are you in such a rush, anyway? It’s not as if we haven’t needed health goals for ourselves for months now.”

Helen flushed guiltily. “I promised Doc Marshall I would give him a concrete plan by next week with proof I’m sticking to it, so he wouldn’t insist on starting me on medication to bring down my blood pressure. I figured sworn affidavits from the two of you would do the trick. He’s a little jaded where I’m concerned these days, but he trusts you two.” She grinned at Dana Sue. “Well, Maddie, anyway.”

“It might be more effective if you actually got your blood pressure down a little bit,” Maddie commented wryly. “Have you considered, oh, taking a day off, perhaps? Having a relaxing massage at the spa? Trying a little meditation?”

“How can I do any of that?” Helen demanded. “I have two trials scheduled this month. Should I just hand my clients a note from my doctor, then tell them I’m not prepared because I needed a day off?”

“You know, I was reading about exactly that kind of thing the other day,” Maddie said. “It was about the whole concept of the Sabbath, not necessarily in a religious context, but just in terms of people needing more than ever to take time for themselves to reflect and relax. Remember when we were kids and no one did anything on Sunday except go to church and hang out with family and friends? Now it’s just another day to be crammed with things to do from morning to night. No wonder we never feel refreshed.”

“Maddie’s exactly right,” Dana Sue said. “Your mind would probably be a lot clearer and sharper, Helen, if you gave it a break once in a while.” She pointed at the legal pad. “Write that down. It needs to be one of your goals.”

“We were not discussing my goals,” Helen said.

“Actually, we were,” Maddie stated. “And your need to have them so Doc Marshall will let you off the hook. You want testimony from the two of us, you better write down ‘one day a week of actual relaxation’ and stick to it.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she grumbled, but jotted it down.

“Very good,” Dana Sue said. “Now I really do have to get ready for work, you guys. I promise I’ll work on my goals today and we can compare notes tomorrow, okay?”

“I suppose it will have to do,” Helen said reluctantly. “I’m due at the office in a few minutes myself. I have a new client coming in for a consultation.”

Dana Sue walked the two of them to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” she promised.

They’d already stepped outside when Maddie turned back. “I don’t suppose you had time to talk to Annie about a sleepover, did you?”

“No, but last night we did have one of the best conversations we’ve had in a long time. I’ll bring up the sleepover thing when I see her tonight.”

“Don’t put it off,” Maddie stressed.

“I won’t.” Not only was it important, but as Dana Sue already knew, her two best friends would hound her until she did it. It would be easier just to get it over with.

“Mom, that is so lame,” Annie declared when her mother came up with this crazy sleepover idea. “I mean, how old do you think I am—six?”

“When I was your age, girls got together all the time. We ate pizza and popcorn, experimented with makeup and talked about boys.”

“You and Maddie and Helen?” Annie guessed.

“And a few others,” her mom said. “It was fun.”

“What about boys?” Annie asked.

“We talked about them,” her mother said, looking faintly puzzled.

“I mean, could I have boys over, too?”

“You mean for a couple of hours?” her mother asked.

“No, for the whole sleepover. We’d play music, dance, whatever. It would be really cool.”

“Not a chance! Not under my roof, anyway,” her mom said, as if Annie had suggested some kind of orgy or something. “Are you crazy? That’s just asking for trouble.”

“Mom, it’s not like we’d do anything. You’d be right here.”

“I don’t care. It’s a terrible idea. I can’t imagine the other parents would go along with it.”

Annie studied her mother speculatively. Ever since her dad had left, her mom could be talked into a lot of things if Annie played her cards right. “What if the other parents said okay?” she coaxed. “Would you let us do it then?”

“Absolutely not,” her mother said, holding firm.

“Then forget it! I don’t want to spend the night with a bunch of girls. Like I said, it’s totally lame.”

Now it was her mother’s turn to give her an odd, curious look. “When you went to Sarah’s a couple of weeks ago, were there boys there that night?”

Oops! Annie thought. No one was supposed to find out about that. No parents, anyway. “Of course not,” she lied.

“I will find out if you’re not telling me the truth,” her mother warned.

Annie just rolled her eyes. Her mom was clueless. There were at least a dozen things she’d done that her mom would flip out about if she ever found out about them.

“Don’t give me that look,” her mother said. “I can make a few calls and your goose will be cooked.”

“Not likely,” Annie said. She couldn’t think of a single soul who’d blab. Just in case, though, she probably ought to get her mother off on another track. “Maybe having Sarah over would be okay. And Raylene,” she added. “But that’s it.”

“Friday night,” her mom suggested, looking pleased. “And if you decide to ask a few more girls, it would be okay.”

Perfect, Annie thought. Her mom never got home from the restaurant before midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. If the guys stopped by, she just had to get them out the door by eleven forty-five. And if she could convince Ty to be one of those guys, even if she got caught, maybe her mom would think of Ty as a chaperone or something. Even though Annie didn’t think of him that way, her mom always said she was lucky to have him as kind of a surrogate big brother. As if, Annie thought.

She gave her mother an impulsive hug, noting once again that she’d probably gained another five pounds just since she’d opened the spa with Maddie and Helen. It wasn’t a very good recommendation for the place, in Annie’s opinion.

“Mom, I thought you were going on a diet,” she said accusingly.

“I am on a diet, but at my age it’s harder to lose weight,” her mom said, immediately on the defensive, which was where Annie liked her to be.

“I thought that’s why you guys opened that gym, so you could exercise and kick your metabolism back into gear. I’ll bet you don’t even spend ten minutes a day on the treadmill there, do you?”

“I do when I can,” she responded, her expression tense.

“Well, if you don’t lose it, you’re going to get sick and die like Grandma,” Annie said. “And I will not go and live with Dad.” She said it matter-of-factly, but the truth was the possibility terrified her—not of getting to be with her dad, but of her mom dying.

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” she answered. “I have no intention of dying anytime soon, and we don’t even know where your father is.”

“I know,” Annie blurted without thinking. “He’s working down in Beaufort and living in some dump.”

Her mom looked stunned. “How do you know that? He sends his support checks through his attorney.”

Seeing the dismay on her mother’s face, Annie immediately felt guilty for keeping her dad’s calls a secret. “He’s phoned once or twice,” she admitted, unwilling to say it had been that many times just in the past couple of weeks. It wasn’t like her mom had ever said she couldn’t talk to him, or even see him if she wanted to. But initially Annie had made such a big deal about not taking his calls or visiting him that she hadn’t wanted to admit it when she’d finally started talking to him. It would have felt as if she were betraying her mom.

“When?”

“While you’re at work. He calls me on my cell phone, mostly.”

“I see,” her mother said, looking suddenly weary.

Annie could tell she wanted to say more, but she just turned and left the room…probably to get something to eat, if Annie knew anything about her. That was exactly why Annie had kept the calls a secret.

“I swear to God, if I could have gotten my hands on Ronnie right that second, I would have strangled him on the spot,” Dana Sue declared to Maddie the next morning in the gym. “I know I’m being ridiculous, that Annie has a right to talk to her dad, but I know he talked her into keeping it a secret.”

“Are you sure about that?” Maddie asked. “Maybe Annie was afraid it would hurt you to know they were talking again.”

Dana Sue scowled. “So now my own daughter’s afraid to be honest with me? Isn’t that great. Just one more giant gap between us. And before you ask, no, I have not set my goals. I was too furious to sit down and think about it last night, and I came straight here first thing this morning. You might as well call Helen and tell her, because I’m not up to her bullying me about it.”

“You need to work off some of that anger,” Maddie said, her tone soothing. “Why don’t you tell me the rest while we walk on the treadmills?”

“I hate the damn treadmill!” Dana Sue snapped. “I’m getting a blueberry muffin. I’ll be out on the patio when you finish being noble.”

Maddie merely sighed. “I’ll come with you.”

After they were seated, Dana Sue picked the blueberries out of the muffin and ate them, managing to leave most of the muffin on the plate. “I know I have no business eating this stuff, so don’t even say it,” she muttered.

“Not saying a word,” Maddie responded mildly.

Dana Sue pushed the plate away. “It’s been two damn years,” she said heatedly. “How can the mere mention of that man still get me so worked up?”

“Do you want an honest answer or was that a rhetorical question?” Maddie asked.

“An honest answer, please.”

“You’re still in love with him.”

“Don’t be absurd!”

Maddie shrugged. “You asked for honesty. Try being honest with yourself. And to be brutally honest, I’d say your reaction last night was just plain jealousy.”

Dana Sue stared at her friend incredulously. “You think I was jealous that my daughter has been talking to Ronnie?”

“Weren’t you?”

She bit back her inclination to snap out a denial, then frowned at Maddie. “You know me too damn well.”

Maddie grinned. “Yes, I do.” She studied Dana Sue for a moment. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. Are you nuts? The man cheated on me. I wouldn’t let him back into my life if he crawled on his knees.”

“Yeah, right,” Maddie murmured, her skepticism plain.

“I have my pride,” Dana Sue added.

“In spades,” she concurred.

“Well, then, you know I mean what I say.”

“I know you want to mean it,” Maddie said. “But if Ronnie Sullivan walked through that door right now, looking all sexy and sassy the way he always did, I wouldn’t want to bet against him.”

Unfortunately, if she was being totally honest, neither would Dana Sue. Fortunately, she doubted she’d ever be put to that test. If Ronnie had even half a grain of sense left in that handsome head of his, he’d never set foot in Serenity again.

Of course, if he’d loved her the way he’d claimed to, he never would have cheated on her. And—this was the kicker she always came back to—he would have stayed and fought for her. Sure, she’d made it plain she didn’t want him here. She’d even had Helen lay down all sorts of ground rules about his having only limited contact with Annie, which the idiot had actually agreed to. He should have known she was reacting in the heat of the moment, making outrageous demands because she was hurt. He knew her better than anyone, even better than Maddie or Helen, which was saying something. He knew she blew sky-high when her temper kicked in, then simmered for a while, then cooled down. But he’d gone anyway. He hadn’t waited around to see if she’d give him a second chance. That had told her all she really needed to know. He’d wanted to go. That was the bottom line.

She’d never admit it to a living, breathing soul, but that was what had hurt more than anything—Ronnie hadn’t loved her enough to stay. And that was his most unforgivable sin of all.