Kara Lennox - A Second Chance

Love really was transformative, as Loretta had pointed out on their one and only date. He was certainly a different man from the one he’d been when he’d arrived in Indigo. He’d come here counting the months until he’d be free. Now his freedom meant little. He’d just as soon be tied down to Indigo forever. But what were the chances?

FOR THE FIRST TIME in weeks, Loretta was caught up. She had the vendors lined up for the music festival. They’d all signed the appropriate contracts and returned them to her. They’d finished wrangling over the size of their signs and the locations of their booths, and the fact the festival had an exclusive contract with one soft drink megacorporation and couldn’t serve drinks from the other.

She’d finished baking three pies of different varieties for tonight’s bingo game at the church. They only needed to be boxed up. She’d swept and mopped and polished everything in sight, and she had nothing left to do-except think about Luc.

She alternated between being furious with him, and then all weepy, though she somehow managed to hold herself together whenever a customer came in. One woman had walked out without buying anything after accusing Loretta of having a cold and spreading her germs all over the baked goods.

She was in her own kitchen in the house, washing dishes from last night, when she heard the bell on the bakery door jangle. She quickly dried her hands and hurried out, then stopped short when she saw Celeste Robichaux and Melanie Marchand.

Panic rose in her throat. What did they want?

She schooled her face to reveal no emotion. “May I help you?”

“Oh, Loretta, your bakery is absolutely adorable!” Melanie enthused, coming forward to squeeze Loretta’s cold hands. “I love how you built it onto the front of your house. How convenient, to just roll out of bed and right to work!”

“It is convenient,” Loretta said, warming slightly. It was hard to be cold around Melanie, since she was so friendly herself. And she was doing Loretta a heckuva favor. She would do well to remember that.

“I just came to check out your cooking facilities, for the dinner,” Melanie said, her gaze focused on the wood-burning stove, which dominated one corner of the bakery.

“Please, make yourself at home. Anything you need, it’s yours. And don’t hesitate if you need me to purchase anything special-long as it doesn’t break my budget.”

“Luc’s pretty much got everything covered.” Melanie could resist no longer. The oven drew her toward it. “Where did you get this fabulous oven?”

“My father and I built it. Well, mostly my dad, but I helped. The door is an antique we scavenged from a junkyard.”

“It’s absolutely awe-inspiring. No wonder your breads are so fantastic. I want to buy some before I leave.”

“Please, you can take whatever you want.”

Celeste hadn’t said a word. She’d seated herself at the scarred oak table and watched Loretta with curious, probing eyes.

Clearly Celeste knew what had happened between Loretta and Luc, but Melanie didn’t have a clue.

“Would you ladies like some tea?” Loretta asked. Her quarrel wasn’t with Luc’s grandmother or his cousin, after all.

“I’d love some,” Melanie said, just as Celeste issued a stern, “No, thank you.”

Fine. Of course Celeste’s loyalties would lie with her grandson. But did she have to be so unpleasant about it? Who was the wronged party here? Who’d been deceived?

Or…the thought occurred to her as she moved through the familiar motions of brewing a pot of tea for Melanie, perhaps Celeste didn’t know of Luc’s…escapades. Maybe he had lied to his grandmother about his criminal past, and about their breakup. He could have told her anything.

Loretta tried to give the woman the benefit of the doubt. She set the teapot on the table, along with two mugs, sugar, lemon and cream. “There’s a second mug there, Celeste, if you change your mind.

“Thank you, but no.”

Loretta decided tiptoeing around the subject was too difficult. “Celeste, just because Luc and I are no longer together doesn’t mean you and I can’t be friends.”

Celeste looked startled by Loretta’s direct words, and for a moment she didn’t know what to say.

Melanie just looked uncomfortable.

“Sorry, Melanie,” Loretta said. “You shouldn’t get stuck in the middle of this. Your cousin and I were briefly…an item. But that’s no longer the case.”

“Someone probably should have warned you,” Melanie said. “Luc is a charmer. Women always fall all over him. It must be hard for a guy like that to be, you know, steady.”

“Luc’s steadiness is not the issue,” Celeste said. “There are no other women, and there haven’t been any other women. Not since he moved to Indigo.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Melanie asked.

Now Loretta desperately wished she hadn’t brought up the subject of Luc. “I’d rather not get into it,” she said, but her objection had no effect.

“The problem,” Celeste declared, “is Luc’s criminal record. I advised Luc to be honest with her. He was going to tell her after the music festival, but unfortunately, she found out by other means.”

“Oh.” Melanie busied herself pouring tea.

Just then the front door burst open, and Zara whirled in like a dust devil, head down. “Hi, Mama. Bye, Mama.” She tried to make her escape, not even acknowledging her new friend, “Tante Celeste.”

“Zara, hold on.”

Zara didn’t stop. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Sensing something was up, Loretta practically chased her daughter down, catching her just before she reached the door leading out of the bakery and into the house. She caught her by the straps of her backpack and swiveled her around.

Zara had a black eye.

“Zara, what happened?”

“I’m not telling.”

“You better tell me.”

“It’s your fault!” Zara cried. “You told me I could go fishing with Luc and I told everybody at school and then you changed your mind and I told Kiki and then she told everybody and Thomas said I was a big fat liar and I kicked him and he punched me in the face.”

A host of emotions bombarded Loretta-anger that her daughter was still fighting, fury that a little boy would punch her baby in the face, guilt for being the root cause of the conflict.

Mother’s guilt won out. “Oh, Zara.”

Loretta tried to hug her daughter, but Zara would have none of it. “I don’t want to be hugged right now. I’m mad and I want to be mad for a while.”

This was new. “O-okay, honey.”

Zara stalked out of the bakery, and Loretta let her go.

Celeste and Melanie were pretending not to listen, but there was no way they could have missed any detail of the argument. She returned to them.

“You see what I’m dealing with?”

Celeste stood up decisively. “Loretta, I’m sure you think you’re being a good mother. But the least you could do is make a small effort to find out what happened with Luc.”

“It doesn’t matter. Unless he was falsely convicted. He wasn’t, was he?”

Celeste wouldn’t meet her gaze. “No. He committed a crime. But there were extenuating circumstances.”

“I know all about extenuating circumstances. Jim, my husband, had a basket full of them. He was always blaming someone else for his bad behavior. But excuses didn’t save him from going to prison, and they didn’t save him from being murdered himself.”

“Oh, jeez,” Melanie murmured.

“I’m sorry,” Loretta said. “This conversation has gotten completely out of hand. Can we forget about it and move on, please?” she pleaded.

“Of course,” Celeste replied, ever polite. “But let me pass along a bit of wisdom-and at eighty-five years old, I’m allowed my wisdom. Forgiveness is a powerfully healing emotion. Just think about that for a few days. Melanie, come.” She got up from the table and regally sailed out of the bakery.