Hm. Interesting. She walked further into the house and called, “Piper! Hey, girl! Where are you?”
She jumped a bit when Piper stepped out of the kitchen. “Here I am. I was putting together some snacks for us. Come on in here and grab some plates. We’ll take it out on the back patio.”
Harley Ann grabbed a bottle of wine off the counter and raised her eyebrows.
“It’s after five.” Piper said in a defensive voice. “If the boys want to drink tea, that’s up to them, but we’re having wine.”
She shrugged and tucked the bottle under her arm, grabbed two plates of snacks and nudged the back door open with her foot. She was arranging everything on the low patio table in front of some comfortably worn rocking chairs when Piper spoke behind her.
“I guess you met Ian’s buddy, Jesse.”
She nodded, forcing down another blush.
Piper went on as they settled into the rockers, glasses of wine in hand. “He showed up last night. Out of the blue. No advance warning he was coming. Said their boss sent him to find out what’s holding Ian up from getting back to that place in Montana.”
Harley Ann studied Piper’s face.
“Are you the reason he hasn’t gone back yet?” She asked casually. “I know it’ll be hard for you to leave here. You have a lot of history going back generations. Then, there’s your daddy. I know you worry about what’s going to happen to him after that he almost got killed a few months ago.”
Piper fiddled with some of the chips on her plate, took a big gulp from her glass of wine. “I’m not deliberately holding him back. But…you’re right. It’s going to be so hard to leave here.” She turned anguished eyes to Harley Ann. “But I don’t want to be the cause of trouble for Ian with his job. I guess we should’ve discussed all this before we got a wild hair and ran off and got married.”
Harley Ann reached over and squeezed Pipers arm. “Water under the bridge, hon. It’ll all work out. Don’t you worry.”
Piper smiled. “You’re right. So how about that Jesse? He’s quite the hottie isn’t he?”
Harley Ann laughed. “And pretty full of himself in the bargain.”
Piper looked thoughtful. “I think there’s some vulnerability under there.”
Harley Ann choked on a sip of wine. After wiping her mouth with a napkin and checking for wine stains on her shirt, she said. “You’re nuts. That guy’s a player if I ever saw one.”
“Maybe.” Piper said. “But I still feel like there’s something under all that bluster he shows on the surface.”
Harley Ann touched her glass to Piper’s and said. “Here’s to finding out.”
“Harley Ann Sanders! I thought you were a man hater these days.”
Harley Ann laughed. “A girl has to have some fun every now and then. And who better to have it with than someone just passing through?”
Chapter 3
Harley Ann hadthree burners going wide open with her special whiskey infused bacon jam cooking on all of them when the ancient doorbell of her Great Aunt Edna’s Victorian home went off with a grinding noise that scared the crap out of her.
She inadvertently dropped a spoon into one of the boiling posts and scalding hot bacon jam splashed up onto her hand causing her to use a few of the words Aunt Edna told her, more than once, that no lady had in her vocabulary.
Sucking on her burned hand, she eyed the stove. She couldn’t leave all this jam cooking at this critical moment to answer the door. And who the heck could it be? Nobody local used those crazy old time doorbells.
“I’ll get it.” Her aunt hollered from the front parlor. She never shouted like that – a lady never raised her voice – so she must be concerned about all that jam getting scorched and having to be thrown out.
Aunt Edna was her biggest fan of the jam. She’d tried to get Harley Ann to use moonshine in the jam, but since it was an illegal substance, Harley Ann had doubts about using it in a product she sold to the townspeople every weekend at the farmer’s market.
Aunt Edna was in her eighties and used a walker or a cane depending on how bad her arthritis was acting up on any given day, but she was pretty spry. Still, it would take her a minute to get to the front door.
Harley Ann felt a tiny bit guilty about that. She’d come here to live with her great aunt to start a new life and also to help the older woman with taking care of things so that she could stay in the home where she’d been born. Sure as shootin’ though, if she went to the door it would be someone she couldn’t get rid of quick enough to save the batch of jam.
With the kitchen being at the back of the long narrow house, and all that jam boiling away merrily, she couldn’t hear what was going on up front. Nevertheless, Aunt Edna would fill her in if it were anything she needed to know about.
Half an hour later, the jam was done and had been put in the 4 ounce mason jars with the red-and-white gingham cover that were her trademark. She carefully slid them into the extra refrigerator they’d had installed specially to hold her jams until she could sell them.
