Éclair and Present Danger (2 page)

“So reopen somewhere else,” Greg suggested.

Winnie liberated an unassembled box from the top of the pile and began to put it together. “There really is nowhere else unless I want to pick up and move.”

“Which she doesn't,” Renee said emphatically. “There'd be a mutiny of old people if she did.”

Greg drew back. “A mutiny of
old
people?”

“That's right. In fact that's why you've probably never seen Winnie around town before. She prefers to hang with folks over seventy. She finds it more fulfilling.”

Winnie waved Renee off with a tape roll. “It's not like that. It's just . . .” She let the words fall away as she realized an explanation didn't matter. Very few people understood her, least of all men. So really, why bother? “Anyway, if you'd like something from the case, it's yours for half price. Maybe one day, you can say you had one of the last chocolate soufflés I ever made as a bakery owner.”

His gaze lingered on hers far longer than necessary before
he stepped up, pulled a twenty from his wallet, and set it on the counter. “I'll take what's left of the tray. I lost a bet the other day at the station, and the guys have been giving me grief ever since. Maybe if I drop this off for them on my way home, they'll finally shut their traps.”

She rested the tape roll on the edge of the counter and plucked the last to-go box from the shelf below the register. With quiet efficiency born from experience, Winnie placed each of the soufflés into the box and handed it to the man. “I hope they stop giving you grief now.”

“So do I. Though, working with these guys isn't much different than what my sister went through in middle school. Same maturity level, same drama.” Greg reached into his front pocket, pulled out a notebook and pen, and wrote his name and phone number on the first page. When he was finished, he ripped it out and handed it to Winnie. “I know you've got a lot going on right now, but if you think you might be interested in selling that ambulance, give me a call. I'll make an offer.”

Winnie folded the paper and shoved it into her back pocket. “I'll give it some thought.”

“What's an ambulance like that worth?” Renee asked as she came to stand beside Winnie. “Enough to keep a bakery going for a few more years?”

Greg took his box of soufflés and shrugged. “Probably not, I'm afraid.” He retraced his steps back to the door and then stopped to look at Winnie one last time, his warm, chocolate-colored eyes narrowing in on her blue ones. “Even if you decide you don't want to sell, I've been told I'm a pretty good listener on occasion. So if you need a friendly ear, the number will work for that, too.”

And then he was gone, the odd silence that followed his departure quickly squelched by Renee. “
Oooh
 . . . I think Master Sergeant Hottie likes you!”

“Because there's so much to like about a thirty-four-year-old with no job, right?”

Renee's face fell. “I'm sorry, Winnie. I'd really hoped that call from Gertie's attorney would have been the ticket to keeping Delectable Delights open.”

“Me, too. But hey, maybe it's time I find a new dream. Something less . . .
messy
.” Winnie grabbed hold of the box she'd successfully assembled and began loading it with trays and other paraphernalia she'd accumulated over the years, the pain in her heart making it difficult to breathe, let alone think. Still, she trudged on. Stalling the inevitable would change nothing. Her days as a bakery owner were over. “Come on. Let's get this over with. I've got to get Lovey home and fed, and make good on one more order before I hang up my measuring cups and spoons once and for all.”

S
he was halfway up the steps when Parker Nelson, affectionately dubbed Nosy Nelson by all who knew him, poked his head into the hallway below. “Hello? Winnie? Is that you?”

Part of her wanted to keep going, to let the elderly man's eyes provide the answer his ears weren't always capable of catching sans hearing aids, but she couldn't. It wasn't Mr. Nelson's fault her life had just blown up in her face. That honor was hers alone.

Slowly, she turned, bumping Lovey's cage against the edge of the step in the process. “Yes, Mr. Nelson. It's me.”

“Home a bit early, aren't you?”

“Maybe a little, I guess.”

“Whatcha got there in that cage, Winnie Girl?” Parker held tight to the top of his hand-carved wooden cane with his left hand and pointed to the pet carrier with his right.

“Gertrude Redenbacher's cat, Lovey.” She leaned forward, peered into the cage, and was greeted with an exhausted hiss.
“Lovey, I believe you've probably met Mr. Nelson a time or two. Mr. Nelson, you know Lovey.”

Lifting his cane off the ground, he gestured for Winnie to follow him into his first-floor apartment. “Well bring her in here and let me have a look at her,” he commanded. “Can't give her a proper welcome to our home with bars between us, now can I?”

More than anything she wanted to ignore the invitation and simply go upstairs. If she did, she could rustle through her cabinet for something to sustain a cat until morning, and finally give in to the cry she'd held at bay for most of the afternoon. Then again, if she did as Mr. Nelson asked, she could stave off reality a bit longer . . .

Sighing, Winnie retraced her path down the stairs and into her housemate's quarters—a nearly identical layout to her own space with decidedly far more manly touches. She set the carrier on the living room floor and sunk onto the closest end of the plaid settee from which Mr. Nelson viewed the comings and goings on Serenity Lane. Ever the gentleman, he chose the straight-backed chair held together by duct tape.

Once he was settled with his cane propped against the side of the chair, the elderly man leaned forward, unlatched the pet carrier, and lifted a grateful Lovey to freedom. “I wondered what happened to you after Gertie passed on.”

She watched with a mixture of awe and dejection as the cat flopped onto the man's lap and began to purr with reckless abandon. “Charles Woodward's been holding on to her since the funeral, apparently.”

“So how'd she end up here? With us?”

Something about the elderly man's pronoun choice broke through her funk and solicited her first true smile of the day. Sure, she might feel lost at that moment, even down on her luck in a way she never had before, but she wasn't alone. That had to count for something, didn't it?

“Gertie bequeathed Lovey to me in her will,” Winnie
explained. “Lovey
and
the classic ambulance her late husband was restoring until his death a few years ago. I parked it on the street under that elm tree between our house and Bridget's.”

“You've got an ambulance parked on the street?”

“For now, yes.”

“Then Bridget O'Keefe should be coming through that door any minute, sniffing around for a juicy piece of news she can stick into that gossip column of hers.”

A gasp from the doorway met his words. “I do not write a
gossip
column, Parker Nelson! I deliver the news the people of Silver Lake really want to read!” Belying her eighty-year-old legs, the stout, white-haired woman glided across the living room with noticeable ease, planting a kiss on the top of Winnie's head as she passed. Without waiting for an official invite, their next-door neighbor dropped onto the couch beside Winnie and stared at Lovey through her bifocals. “Since when did you start stealing cats, Parker?”

“Mr. Nelson didn't steal Lovey. She's
my
cat now.”

Bridget turned a raised brow in Winnie's direction. “
Your
cat?”

“That's right. I got the news today.” Winnie wiggled her fingers at the semi-comatose cat across the coffee table and, again, was rewarded for her efforts with a hiss. “Lovey is positively thrilled, can't you tell?”

“Gertie always did have a soft spot for you, Winnie,” Mr. Nelson said. “Just like the rest of us, I reckon.”

A soft grunt off to her right drew Winnie's focus back to their next-door neighbor and the pen that was feverishly gliding across a small spiral-bound notebook. “I really don't think Silver Lake cares that I have a cat, Bridget.”

The woman stopped writing long enough to shake off Winnie's words and point to the window overlooking Serenity Lane. “They might not care about a cat, but they will surely care about that ambulance parked out on the street. Any thoughts on why it's here?”

“To cart you away to the looney bin, perhaps?” Mr. Nelson joked, slapping his knee with such glee Winnie couldn't help but laugh.

Bridget turned her infamous stink eye on Parker and then dismissed him entirely to focus, again, on Winnie. “Did you see anything when you came home, dear?”

“
See
anything?”

“You know, an accident, a fall, a seizure?”

“No. The ambulance is mine, Bridget.”

Lowering her pen to the notepad, Bridget took hold of Winnie's hand and squeezed it tightly. “Has your stomach been bothering you, too, dear? Because, let me tell you, mine has been positively awful these last few days. Makes me wonder if I should have a scope done.”

She rushed to head off Bridget's latest list of ailments and to set the record straight before a far juicier version of reality surfaced in the next edition of the
Silver Lake Herald
. “Gertie left the cat and the ambulance to me. In her will.”

Bridget swapped Winnie's hand for the pen and began writing once again. “How wonderful, dear. Now you don't have to walk to work in the rain anymore.”

Work . . .

Just like that, any momentary reprieve from her lousiest day ever was gone, the pain she'd managed to shove aside now back with a vengeance. If she wanted pity, if she wanted coddling and hugs, she knew it would be forthcoming from this crew. But as tempting as that was, it was time to take Lovey upstairs and make good, once again, on the promise she'd made to another deceased friend, Ethel Wagner.

“How's Bart doing today?” she asked in a not-so-subtle attempt to change the subject.

Not ones to disappoint whenever the subject of their still-mourning neighbor came up, Bridget opened her mouth to speak but closed it as Mr. Nelson took the floor. “What's happened to that man is exactly why I never got married. Live with a woman long enough and she'll steal your soul.”

“Oh shut up, Parker.” Bridget's hiss wasn't unlike Lovey's, and Winnie found herself marveling at the similarities while simultaneously trying to process the conversation taking shape between her friends. “Bart and Ethel were married for nearly fifty years, Parker. You don't get over a love like that in six
years
, let alone six
weeks
.”

“Tell that to that nasty little Donovan woman.”

Winnie leaned forward. “You mean Sissy Donovan down the street?” At Mr. Nelson's and Bridget's matching nods, she pressed on. “What happened?”

Bridget crossed her ankles and sat up straight, keenly aware of her role as neighborhood informant—a responsibility the elderly woman took quite seriously. “This was yesterday, actually, but we didn't get to tell you because you went to bed early in preparation for your meeting with Gertie's attorney.”

Ah yes. Naïveté at its finest . . .

“Anyway,” Bridget continued, “Bart had just stepped onto the porch with that new young man from the end of the block—you know, the history teacher at the community college . . .”

“Lance. Lance Reed,” Winnie supplied.

“That's right. Lance Reed. For the first time since Ethel's passing, Bart was actually talking, even
smiling
, when . . . all of a sudden, on their way back from the bus stop—”

“Ava ran through Ethel's flower bed!” Clearly delighted with his information bomb, Mr. Nelson, too, sat up tall.

“Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh is right.” The tall, thin seventy-five-year-old stroked a trembling hand down Lovey's back, his voice booming off the walls as much for his own auditory benefit as anyone else's. “I was a sailor in the navy when I was a young man, and even
I
learned a few new words by the time Bart's tirade on that child was over.”

“I take it Sissy witnessed this tirade?”

Bridget and Mr. Nelson nodded in perfect unison.

She winced. “Oh. Wow. I don't know what to say.”

“You know how Sissy is with that child. Ava can do no wrong. And when she saw me furiously writing in my notebook as everything unfolded, she wasn't pleased. Not one little bit.” Bridget patted her lap and was openly delighted to see Lovey leave Parker's in favor of hers. Smiling triumphantly at Winnie's housemate, the woman continued, her eyes widening with excitement. “But that was only the beginning of things going from bad to worse.”

“Oh?” Winnie looked from Bridget to Mr. Nelson and back again. When it became clear they were holding out for a more worthy reaction, she upped the ante. “So? Don't keep me in suspense. What happened?”

Satisfied, Bridget supplied the rest of the story. “Ava was so surprised that someone was actually yelling at her, she started running. She'd gotten no more than five feet down the sidewalk when she fell and—”

“Popped a tooth clear out of her mouth!” Parker shouted.

Not to be undone at the finish line, Bridget added, “There was blood everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean
everywhere
. Isn't that right, Parker?”

Mr. Nelson nodded, forcing Winnie to raise her instinctual “uh-oh” with a loud, sustained groan. “Oh no . . . Ava's big pageant is this weekend, isn't it?”

Again, her elderly neighbors nodded in perfect unison, prompting Winnie to say what was most surely on all of their minds. “I hate to say this, but maybe Bart's stepson is right. Maybe it's time for Bart to give up the house. The change of scenery might be good for him.”

“Can you imagine what would happen to our street if Mark Reilly got his hands on that house?” Having won the ultimate battle for Lovey's affections, Bridget lifted Lovey from her lap and deposited the cat back in Parker's. “If he
does
, I give it two months before Ethel and Bart's home is turned into one of them gambling casinos or, even worse, a—a . . .
brothel
!”

“A pothole?” Mr. Nelson parroted. “How on earth could someone turn a home into a pothole?”

Winnie shook her head in amusement as Bridget rolled her eyes and repeated her original word at full volume. “I said
brothel
! Broth-el. Turn on your hearing aids, old man. That, or go get yourself a muzzle.”

“What was that?” At Bridget's exasperated eye roll, Mr. Nelson fiddled with his hearing aids and then stared down at the cat, his voice surprisingly quiet. “We're starting to drop like flies around here, aren't we? First Ethel, then Gertie, and now maybe even Bart.”

Winnie stood, walked around the table to Mr. Nelson, and gave him a hug much to Lovey's chagrin. “If Bart goes, Mr. Nelson, it's only to an assisted living facility. Not death,” she said, gently.

“Same thing if you ask me,” he grumbled.

She hugged him again and then headed toward the hallway and the stairs beyond. When she reached the doorway, she glanced back at her friend. “Mr. Nelson? Could you hang on to Lovey for just a little while longer? It sounds like Bart could use his peach pie sooner rather than later.”

*   *   *

N
ot a Tuesday night went by that Winnie didn't cross the street to Bart's home without Ethel's final request looping its way through her thoughts.

“Winnie, promise me you'll bring one of your peach pies to Bart every Tuesday night with a reminder that I love him . . . and that we'll be together again one day when the time is right? I'd be eternally grateful.”

She'd made that promise as she sat next to one of the half dozen or so machines tasked with monitoring various aspects of Ethel's health as her life drew to a close. And it was a promise she'd held true to in the six weeks that had come and gone since Ethel's final breath.

At first she'd worried the edible reminder would be too
hard on a man already paralyzed by grief. But something about the gesture, and the knowledge that it had been requested by Ethel herself, made it the one moment each week Winnie could count on seeing the man smile.

This time, though, Winnie couldn't help but notice the trepidation in her step as she left the porch she shared with Mr. Nelson and headed across the street. Bart was growing increasingly agitated with each passing day. It was an agitation she knew was born of grief, but still . . . If he could feel needed, if he could get back to being Bart, maybe he could stay in the home he'd shared with his beloved Ethel.