Pies and Prejudice (4 page)

Ella Mae glanced nervously at the circular driveway leading up to the large brick Georgian, but there was no sign of life in the manicured front yard.

“That’s a relief.” Ella Mae turned away from the house. “Loralyn’s the last person I’d want to run into. She’d do anything in her power to make my life even more of a living hell than it is now.”

Chewy just looked at her from his perch in the bike basket.

“Oh, you don’t even want to know how much I hated that girl. She pulled my hair on the bus, crushed my Girl Scout cookies with a brick, told the teachers I’d pinched her or copied off her or said curse words, put worms in my food, and stole the heart of the only boy I’d ever loved. She was evil then and I bet she’s just as wicked now.”

Distracted, Ella Mae drove over a large stone and nearly crashed into the split-rail fence. Chewy whined and shot her an accusing look.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. See what happens when I think about that girl? She doesn’t even have to be here to do me harm.”

Chewy gave a little sniff.

“You’re right, I’m being silly.” Ella Mae ruffled her dog’s ears. “Loralyn is probably a million miles away from Havenwood and can’t lift a finger against me. It’s nice to think that my childhood bully is busy making someone else’s life miserable.”

Ella Mae began pedaling again, humming a little as she headed for home.

Ella Mae had given Reba the pie she’d made with the wild blackberries. Reba told her the following morning that it was the best thing she’d ever eaten.

“Any, um, side effects?” Ella Mae had asked, trying to disguise her anxiety by focusing on stripping the sagging petals from an arrangement of her mother’s apricot-hued roses.

Reba, who had been filling a pitcher with tea bags and water, looked up and chuckled. “Only if you count me watching
Dirty Dancing
followed by
Top Gun
followed by
Legends of the Fall
. I was so hot for a man last night I almost ordered a pizza just so I could jump the delivery boy!” She shook her head in befuddlement. “Don’t know if it was the pie or my hormones, but there was so much steam comin’ off my body last night that it went out through the chimney and made my neighbors think I’d started a fire in June!”

Reba’s story had made Ella Mae wonder. Had her animalistic attraction to the beautiful stranger from the swimming hole been infused into the pie? Had it burrowed into
the crevices of the blackberries or melted into the sugar crystals of the lemon chiffon?

“Ridiculous,” she’d muttered and dismissed the idea.

Now, two days later, she stood in the gleaming kitchen of The Havenwood School of the Arts, preparing to bake eight-dozen individual tarts to serve at the school’s open house for prospective parents and students. She’d decided to make three different tarts. The first would be a fruit tart of fresh peaches resting on a bed of almond filling; the second, chocolate pecan with a chocolate cookie crust; and for the third, she planned to bake a lemon tart with a shortbread crust.

Early that morning, Sissy had unlocked the school’s kitchen and showed Ella Mae where the cooking utensils were kept. The pair had bought the bulk of the supplies for the open house the day before at the Costco in Kennesaw, but Ella Mae had insisted on acquiring peaches and lemons from the local farm stand.

She was ready to begin her first professional job as a baker. Having never had the chance to complete an externship during culinary school, Ella Mae hadn’t actually made any products for members of the public. She’d baked for her husband and her friends, but never for strangers.

Still, she felt she’d been preparing for this day since she was a child. Ella Mae had helped Reba cook ever since she could reach the counter with the help of a step stool. Even in the unfamiliar kitchen of Sissy’s school, Ella Mae was at home. The chilled dough had been transported to the walk-in refrigerator, the peaches and lemons were waiting to be prepped, and the sounds of “Alla Hornpipe” from Handel’s
Water Music
tripped into the kitchen from one of the practice rooms down the hall.

Sissy swept into the kitchen just as Ella Mae was tying on her apron. She looked as though she had much to do and didn’t want to linger long.

“Do you have everything you need?”

Ella Mae nodded. “I do, thanks. I’m just a little nervous. Everything I’ve made has been for my culinary class. This is the real deal.”

“That it is, but you were
born
to do this.” Sissy paused. “Come with me for a minute.”

“Let me preheat the ovens first.”

Sissy waited until the dual commercial ovens had been programmed and then led her niece to the practice room filled with Handel’s upbeat composition.

“Look at the dancers,” Sissy ordered. “Tell me what you see.”

Six girls, slender as willow branches, were practicing the dance they’d perform for the prospective parents that afternoon. Ella Mae watched them bend and stretch as though they had no bones in their bodies. Each movement was graceful and fluid, flowing into the next like waves curling into the shore. But what was the most transfixing was the rapture on the girls’ faces. Their eyes were distant, as though the dance had transported them from the room, lifting their souls into the air where they could become one with the music.

“I see inspiration,” Ella Mae told her aunt.

Sissy smiled, pleased. “Yes. Picture these girls as you bake today and
your
work will be inspired too.”

Ella Mae did just that. The notes from Handel’s compilation kept her company as she boiled the peaches and then slipped them from their skins like a woman shrugging off a thin coat. She hummed while pouring crushed almonds, flour, melted butter, sugar, and eggs into the industrial mixer. Later, after spooning the rich chocolate pecan filling into tiny tart pans lined with cookie crusts, Ella Mae twirled around and around in front of the ovens, her wooden spoon raised like a conductor’s baton.

Gone were all thoughts of Sloan or of how strange it felt to wake up alone in the guest bedroom bed in the carriage house or that Chewy had gnawed through her one and only purse last night.

She felt weightless, floating on warm, dough-scented currents.

When all the tarts were done, four of Sissy’s current students arranged them on ceramic platters and carried them to tables on the enclosed veranda. The parents and prospective students would conclude their tour of the school by taking refreshments in the upholstered wicker chairs facing Lake Havenwood. By the time they reached the room, they were tired and hungry. Fans turned lazily overhead, greeting them with the tantalizing aroma of fresh, warm pastry, and the visitors loaded their plates and retreated to chairs to sample one of Ella Mae’s tarts.

Within minutes, the restrained and polite chatter increased in volume. A girl seated in the middle of the room began to sing the opening bars of “The Flower Duet” from the opera
Lakmé.
Unbidden, the girl at the next table joined her, their voices intertwining like jasmine vines.

Suddenly, two other girls rose and began to dance while a third opened her violin case and effortlessly accompanied the singers. Ella Mae caught Sissy’s eye and was amazed to see that her aunt appeared calmly amused, as though spontaneous displays of artistic talent occurred at every open house.

Later, as Ella Mae tidied the kitchen, Sissy breezed in, her face glowing. She handed her niece an envelope stuffed with cash.

“This is more than we agreed on,” Ella Mae protested.

Sissy waved her off. “I had to give you a commission. Every
single
family put down deposits to secure a place for their daughter before they left. We’ve never had a full enrollment prior to July first before. Thanks to you, I can actually enjoy the rest of my summer.” She performed a celebratory pirouette.

“Well, I do need to buy a new wardrobe,” Ella Mae said. “And Chewy tore my purse to shreds, so I’d better hit the shops while Reba’s keeping an eye on him.”

Sissy had just opened her mouth to comment when the shriek of an alarm bell echoed through the kitchen.

“What’s going on?” Ella Mae shouted over the clamor.

“Someone pulled the fire alarm! Help me make sure everyone’s clearing out of the building. I don’t know if this is real or a hoax.
My
girls are too well mannered to set off the alarm as a prank, so I don’t know what’s happened!”

Hearing the worry in her aunt’s voice, Ella Mae darted off toward the back veranda. Turning a corner, she tripped over the curled end of a rug and went sprawling. She grunted and eased herself up on all fours, the ringing of the alarm bells reverberating in her head.

“That was mighty ungraceful for someone involved in a school for the arts!” a sarcastic voice yelled near Ella Mae’s ear.

Ella Mae turned and came face-to-face with her childhood nemesis, Loralyn Gaynor.

Her mouth stretched into a hundred-watt smile, Loralyn put out her hand to help Ella Mae to her feet. It was limp and useless as a dead fish. “Where are all the parents and precious progeny? Didn’t get scared off by that little old bell, now did they?”

Rising indignantly to her feet, Ella Mae glowered at the stunning blonde she’d hated for most of her life. “Did y
ou
set off the alarm?”

Loralyn feigned shock, but a spark of malice glimmered in the iris of her eyes. “Puh-lease. I have better things to do with my time.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Ella Mae watched her old enemy’s face closely, searching for signs of mischief.

Mercifully, the alarm ceased as abruptly as it had begun.

“Ah, that’s better,” Loralyn said congenially. “I just stopped by to pick up a brochure for a neighbor’s daughter. She sings like a parrot and dances like a marionette, so she should fit in here just fine.” She fanned herself with the brochure, pivoting her hand so that Ella Mae couldn’t help
but notice the enormous diamond on her ring finger. “Oh, yes, congratulations
are
in order,” she said though Ella Mae hadn’t uttered a word. “Thank you very much. This happens to be lucky husband number three.”

Ella Mae frowned. “And that’s something to brag about? Did you poison the first two? Nag them to death?” She bit back a string of snide remarks. Why was she behaving like some catty teenager?

“Nothing that messy, cupcake,” Loralyn answered with perfect civility. “I simply discovered that divorce could be quite lucrative. Men are so easy to manipulate. Hire a prostitute here or an underage cheerleader there and voilà! The money rolls into my bank account for years and years.” Loralyn’s eyes narrowed wickedly. “But that’s not what happened in your case, now is it? I bet you actually loved your husband, didn’t you? Poor Ella Mae. Couldn’t you keep your man satisfied?”

This is what you get for provoking her,
Ella Mae scolded herself.
But how did she find out about me so quickly?

Loralyn pursed her lips, studying Ella Mae from head to toe. “You’re still slim, I’ll give you that, but judging from the unpleasant smell in the air, you didn’t learn much at that fancy cooking school.”

Ella Mae stood a fraction taller. “Someone should warn your fiancé about what a prize you are. Maybe I should volunteer.”

Loralyn lowered her voice to a serpent-like hiss, her eyes flashing with anger. “You do
anything
to mess with my plans to fatten up my piggy bank and you’ll be sorry. Trust me, I’ve dealt with slyer foxes than you without so much as chipping a nail.” Recovering almost instantaneously, she pasted on a polite smile, turned, and wiggled her fingers over her shoulders. “Gotta run, darling. I just wanted to get a look at you, but now I have a wedding to plan and lots of pretty things to charge to my fiancé’s credit card.”

The
clip
-
clip
of her heels against the bare floor receded
and another set of footsteps, definitely male, stomped into the room from the opposite direction.

“Ma’am? Are you okay?”

Ella Mae swiveled to see a fireman standing just inside the doorway. She took in his molasses brown hair and sea blue eyes, the strong line of his jaw, and the set of his broad shoulders. Her mouth went dry and she heard Handel again, even though the music had been switched off long ago. She smelled cut grass, the damp sand at the water’s edge, and blackberries.

Hugh Dylan! The merman from the swimming hole is Hugh Dylan!
Ella Mae bit her lip, for here was the grown-up version of the boy she’d been in love with her entire girlhood.

The air between them crackled like a summer thunderstorm, and Ella Mae could swear that her blood was growing warmer, surging into her heart, threatening to ignite the oxygen in her lungs. Her skin burned softly as she looked into his eyes, wondering how she could be feeling such a sensation of heat and yet could think of nothing but secret pools of blue green water.

“Is there a fire?” she said, all thoughts of Loralyn Gaynor swept aside.

“False alarm,” he answered in a voice as smooth as waves curling into the shore. “Are you a teacher here?”

She shook her head, disappointed that he didn’t recognize her. “No. I came to make the tarts.”