Enright Family Collection (19 page)

Sift together the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and sugar in a large mixing bowl. In another mixing bowl, lightly beat the egg with a whisk or fork. Mix in melted butter, then
milk. Stir in the cheese mixture just to combine. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry and fold with a rubber spatula just enough to moisten the flour mix.

Spoon into the muffin pan, filling two-thirds full. Bake 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Cool in the pan for 2-3 minutes and remove from pan.

Chapter 11

“Can I put it on right now and see if Aunt August recognizes me?” Corrie whispered hopefully as she hopped out of India’s car, the bag holding her Halloween costume clutched tightly to her chest.

“Absolutely.” India laughed, recalling a Halloween long ago when she had done that very thing. “Go in through the kitchen door and up the back steps. I’ll try to keep her occupied. Now, are you sure you can get into that costume all by yourself?”

“Pretty sure.” Corri nodded confidently.

“Oh, Corri, before I forget.” India closed her car door and stuck the keys in the pocket of her blazer. “The next time you take one of Ry’s records out to play, please try to remember to put it back, okay?”

Corri looked at Indy blankly.

“The record that you left on my bed last night fell off onto the floor,” Indy explained, “and I almost stepped on it. I’d hate to see any of them get broken. We’ve had them forever.”

Corri took slow steps toward the back porch.

“Corri?” India asked, puzzled at the lack of response.

“I didn’t have any of Ry’s records last night, Indy.”

“Honey, it’s okay.” Indy smoothed Corri’s hair as she fell
in step with her. “I don’t mind that you play them. I would just like you to put them back so that they don’t get broken.”

“Indy, I always put Ry’s records back. Always. Just like he showed me. But I didn’t have one out last night,” Corri insisted.

“Maybe the night before then.”

“No.” Corri shook her head.

“Then how did one get on my bed?” India asked, wondering why Corri would hesitate to tell the truth about something like that.

“I don’t know.” Corri shrugged. “Maybe the ghost put it there.”

“Ghost?” India laughed. “Corri, there’s no such thing as ghosts. And there’re certainly no ghosts here.”

Corri glanced over her shoulder as she went up the porch steps, still holding her precious bag tightly, an anxious look upon her face. India had thought she was about to say something, but instead she simply disappeared into the house.

India stood at the end of the drive, wondering where Corri would get such fanciful ideas. Did she imagine that she saw Ry? Or perhaps it was another Devlin that Corri imagined, Indy mused, recalling how the many old photographs and family portraits throughout the house had once played tricks with India’s mind. Had these same images worked on Corri’s imagination too?

Indy strolled to the front of the house, swinging her shoulder bag like a pendulum as she walked. The pines had grown tall and unwieldy over the past few years, giving the house a closed and sinister look. At least a young child might think it so. Had Corri’s classmates been teasing her about living in a haunted house?

India stepped back to study the overall facade and decided they could live with a few less trees out front. She’d speak with Aunt August in the morning, before she left to go back to Paloma and what she was beginning to think of as her other life.

“Aunt August,” India called from the hallway.

“In here, dear,” came the response from the front sitting room.

India hung up her blazer and crossed the hall to let her aunt know that Corri’s search for the perfect costume had come to a successful conclusion.

The smell of burning logs struck just the right chord on this frosty night, she was thinking as she entered the room.

“Umm, that smells good,” she told her aunt.

“Thank Nick.” August gestured to the chair behind India.

“Hi.” He stood up to greet her, his smile as warm and inviting as the fire.

“I’m sorry,” she said, turning toward him, “I didn’t see you there.”

“Nick brought me some firewood,” August explained.

“That’s very thoughtful,” she noted.

“Well, Ry helped me take a few trees down last spring,” he explained, “and I’d promised him half the wood. I thought with the chill in the air tonight, it might be a good time to bring a partial load over.”

“Coffee, Indy?” Aunt August rose from the cozy wing-chair.

“I’ll get it,” she said, but her aunt was already into the hallway, her heels clicking on the hardwood floors as she went.

“So.” India pulled a large rectangular hassock covered in a green and oyster checkered fabric closer to the fire. It was as close to Nick as she felt she could trust herself tonight; he’d been too much on her mind.

“So,” he replied, looking mildly amused.

“I took Corri to get her Halloween costume today after school,” India mentioned.

“So August said. What is she going to be?”

“You’ll see. She’ll be down in a minute. She’s putting it on. She wants to see if she is recognizable or not.”

“The best costume I ever had was Rocky the Squirrel,” he told her. “I loved the goggles. It made the costume. My sister Zoey was Boris, and Georgia was Natasha. Mom was Bullwinkle the Moose. It was the best Halloween we ever had. What was yours?”

“My favorite costume?” She frowned, trying to remember. “Umm, I guess the year that I had a hula costume and it was a balmy seventy-two degrees that night so I didn’t have to wear a jacket over it. I was so worried about that, that I’d
have to cover up my costume with a coat and the entire effect would be lost.”

“Why did you buy it, then?”

“Because I liked the way the skirt rustled. And I wanted to play the ukulele.” She laughed, remembering. “Ry was a pirate that year.”

“Oh, my, India, do you remember how mad he was when Mrs. Daley across the street wouldn’t let him borrow her parrot to ride on his shoulder?” Aunt August brought in a tray laden with coffee paraphernalia for three.

India laughed again. “I do. He picked that costume with that very parrot in mind.”

“He was just fit to be tied, that boy was.” August shook her head as she went back toward the kitchen. “I’ll just be but a minute.”

“Halloween was a big thing when we were growing up.”

“Us too. I used to take my sisters trick-or-treating. Of course, that was before the days when parents were afraid to send their children out for Halloween without an armed guard.”

“It is sad, isn’t it?” India poured coffee for him, being careful not to touch his fingers when she handed him the cup.

His eyes twinkled as if he knew that she was taking extraordinary pains to avoid touching him, and as if he knew why.

“Indy?” Corri called from the top of the steps.

“Do you need help?” India leaned forward, craning her neck to look up the stairs.

“Umm, I think so,” Corri said softly. “My tail won’t stay on.”

“Oh, dear.” August scooted into the room with a plate of homemade spice cookies and cast a solemn glance in Indy’s direction. “We certainly can’t have that.”

“Heaven forbid.” Indy chuckled and excused herself from the room after liberating a cookie from the plate. She knew they had been baked with her in mind and knew too that if she looked in the kitchen she’d find a whole batch of the fragrant treats all packed up for her to take back to Paloma.

The stairwell felt chilly after the warmth of the little sitting room. India’s hands, so recently cozied by the fire, were cooling rapidly. She found the problem with the tail and took Corri by the hand as they walked down the steps.

“She’ll know it’s me.” Corri shifted the mask on her face, trying to line up her eyes with the slits in the heavy fabric.

“Well, I think that’s unavoidable, don’t you? I mean, sooner or later, she’d figure it out.”

“Umm …” Corri poked her face into the room from the doorway.

“Eeek!” August shrieked. “It’s a giant mouse!” Corri giggled and flew into the room, holding her tail in one hand and peeling the mask off with the other.

“Oh, it’s a mouse child!” August laughed and held her arms open to the child who bounced into those arms and filled them.

“Do you like it?” Corri asked. “Indy bought it for me.”

“I love it.” August beamed. “And you’re the most adorable mouse I’ve ever seen. Don’t you agree, Nick?”

“She certainly is.” Nick nodded.

“I didn’t know you were here.” Corri frowned. “Now I won’t be able to trick-or-treat at your house. You already saw my costume.”

“Hmmm. That is a problem.” Nick pretended to ponder this. “Tell you what. No one is likely to come all the way out to the cabin, so how ’bout if I bring your treat to you, since you already tricked me tonight?”

“Really?” Corri’s face brightened. “Were you surprised it was me?”

She pulled the mask down over her face, once again twisting it this way and that, trying to line up eyes, nose and mouth.

“Corri, that mask is cute, but you’re really having problems with it, aren’t you?” August frowned.

“Maybe we should forget the mask and use face paint instead,” suggested India.

“Ollie has face paint.” Corri remembered. “She is going to be an Egyptian queen and she has face paint.”

“We could do whiskers and do something with your eyes.” Indy nodded.

“But you won’t be here,” Corri reminded her, her little face darkening in spite of herself. “You won’t be here on Halloween night to paint my face or take me trick-or-treating.”

“You’re right, sweetie.” India sighed, feeling an unexpected sting of disappointment. “Maybe Darla can do your face.”

“Nonsense,” August told them. “I can paint whiskers with the best of them.”

“And I’d be happy to take you out,” Nick said. “I can’t remember how long it’s been since I went out on Halloween. But you might have to share a treat or two.”

“Okay. Except for the peppermint patties.” As if lecturing, Corri pointed with her index finger, her face turning solemn once again.

“That’s a deal.” Nick nodded. “Peppermint patties for you, Snickers for me.”

“Sure.” Corri grinned. “I don’t like peanuts anyway.”

“Okay, mouse child,” August told her, “go up and take that off and leave it in the sewing room so that I can put an extra stitch or two in that tail.”

“Can I have cocoa before I go to bed?” Corri asked from the doorway.

“It’s almost bedtime now,” August reminded her, “so if you can get ready quickly, there might be a half cup of something for you.”

Corri scurried out of the room and up the steps.

“It’s like living with a baby tornado, having that child around.” August chuckled. “And yet I don’t know what I’d do without her. She keeps me young and fit and sharp. It’s not possible to feel like an old lady when there’s such youthful energy in the house.”

“Doesn’t it get to be a bit much sometimes?” India turned her face from the fire to study her aunt’s expression. “Don’t you get tired?”

“Oh, sometimes a bit, maybe. But I’d not be without her, Indy. Not for the world. There’s eternity to rest, if rest is what you seek. I’m not in a hurry for it. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I have cocoa to make.”

August scooped up the tray as she passed by

“I really can’t thank you enough for offering to take Corri,” India started.

He held up one hand. “We’ve already talked about this. You don’t have to thank me.”

“I just didn’t feel I could leave without saying it again.”

“When are you leaving?” His eyes narrowed and seemed to darken.

“In the morning,” she told him. “I need to get back to the city. I have a trial slated to begin the end of next week. I have a lot of work to do.”

“When were you planning on telling me?” he asked.

“What?”

“That you were leaving. When were you going to tell me?” He stood up, obviously agitated.

She looked up at him, somewhat confused.

“You were just going to go, weren’t you?”

Numbly, she nodded.

“Why?”

“I guess because I’m just used to coming and going on my own,” she told him.

“Didn’t it occur to you that maybe I’d want to say goodbye?”

She shook her head.

“Or that maybe I’d be interested in when you were coming back?”

She was wide-eyed, watching him try to control his growing anger.

“Nick, I’m sorry that you’re angry. I just didn’t know how to call and say ‘So. I’m leaving tomorrow, I’ll be back in a few weeks.’”

“You just said it. You just said all you had to say.”

“I’m just not used to having anyone to say goodbye to,” she said quietly. “I didn’t know how.”

“You want to know how to say goodbye?” He stood in the doorway, his hands on his hips. “I’ll show you how to say goodbye.”

He crossed the room in two strides and drew her to him, his mouth seeking hers before she could so much as squeak. He kissed her, long and hard, before drawing back and telling her, “And
that
is how you say goodbye, India.”

By the time she came to her senses, he was already out the front door.

“Oh no, you don’t,” she sputtered, and she took off down the steps.

“Nick Enright, don’t you think you can come into my house, and … and …” She stood on the sidewalk, hands fisted in anger set menacingly on her hips.

In spite of his own pique, Nick laughed.

“What is so funny?” she demanded.

“You are,” he told her. “You come racing out the front door like some hundred-pound avenging angel, hissing and sputtering.” He cleared his throat and leaned back against his car. “I’m sorry, India, you were saying something. Don’t think I can come into your house and … and do what?”

She paused, wondering how anyone ever stayed angry with this man.

“Don’t think you can come into my house and kiss me senseless and then walk away.”

“Well then, I believe we’re beginning to understand each other. Yes, that is exactly my point.”

She walked toward him slowly, her arms crossed in front of her.

“Were you? Senseless, I mean?” She raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Totally.”