Lissa Manley - Small-Town Homecoming

“Oh, that’s rough,” Curt said, his eyes soft. “My grandpa died of complications from Alzheimer’s.”

“So you know how difficult it is.” Putting her grandma in a home had been the hardest thing Jenna had ever had to do. “But she’s happy there, and gets excellent care. I visit every Sunday.” Thankfully, due to Gramps’s careful investing, Grams had the money to pay for her care. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had the head or the heart for maintaining the inn in the past few years, so that responsibility had fallen to Jenna when Grams had signed over the deed to the inn a little over a year ago.

“I’m sure you did the right thing.”

“Thanks.” Jenna wasn’t so sure, but she was trying to deal with all that had happened, and was determined to make a success of the Sweetheart.

Shifting gears, she moved her gaze to Sam, who stood nearby, fidgeting. She gave him a stern look. “Sam, is there something you need to do?”

Sam blinked, looked around, then glanced down at his wet T-shirt. “Change clothes?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “How about you apologize to Mr. Graham?”

“Oh, yeah.” Sam hunched his shoulders and looked at the grass at Curt’s feet. “Sorry I got you wet.”

“You need to look him in the eye when you apologize,” she reminded Sam. She did her best to instill manners and respect in Sam.

He huffed but complied, looking up—way up—at Curt. “I’m sorry I got you wet.”

“Mr. Graham,” Jenna reminded.

“Who else would I be talking to?” Sam said.

Jenna held on to her patience with a thin thread. “No, you need to say, ‘I’m sorry I got you wet, Mr. Graham.’”

Sam rolled his eyes, then stopped himself and looked at Curt again, a smidgen of contrition shining through. “I’m sorry I got you wet, Mr. Graham.”

Curt smoothed his damp hair back. “Well, I was a boy your age once, so I know all about being wild.” He smiled at Sam. “And a little water never hurt anyone. But you need to listen to your mom when she talks to you, okay?”

Sam scrunched his face up. “She’s not my mom.”

Jenna stepped forward. “I take care of Sam after school.”

“Ah, I see,” Curt said.

“Why don’t we go inside, and you two can change and we can get you checked in, Mr. Graham.”

“Call me Curt.”

“Okay.” She gestured to the house. “If you guys want a snack, you can have a slice of— Oh, no! My pies!”

She took off at a run, went up the back stairs and flung open the screen door that led to the kitchen. The second she entered the house, a burning smell drifted her way.

She raced across the kitchen, noting that the oven timer had gone off while she was out on garden hose patrol. Praying she could salvage the desserts, she grabbed an oven mitt off the counter and yanked the oven open. Hot, acrid smoke wafted out.

With a muttered exclamation, she pulled out the rack. The trio of pies sat on the cookie sheet she’d baked them on, only they looked more like blackened lumps of dough than anything remotely edible. She should have known better than to leave the ancient oven unmonitored. The appliance was touchy about maintaining an even temperature, and until she could afford to replace it with a newer, more reliable model, she had to keep a close eye on everything she baked. And a new-model oven would come after a new porch, fresh exterior paint and a new furnace. The list was endless. The money was not.

Sighing, she set the cookie sheet on the stove. She regarded the ruined pastry, shaking her head. She’d followed Grams’s dog-eared recipe to a T, and had wanted these to be as sigh-worthy as Grams’s pies had always been. Instead, Jenna had ended up with ugly blobs of black dough that were far from the ideal she wanted to uphold.

Her grams’s pies always turned out bakery perfect.

She threw the mitt on the counter, then turned and saw Sam and Curt heading into the kitchen, Sam in the lead.

Curt’s eyes went to the pies. “Oh, wow.” He came over and stood next to her, gazing at the burned mess, his hands on his narrow hips. “Guess you didn’t catch them in time.”

“Nope,” she replied, trying to ignore how his damp hair was drying all wavy and touchable. “They’re ruined. Guess I have some more baking to do.”

He furrowed his brow. “They look fine to me. Nicely browned, in fact. That just adds flavor. I’d eat them, no problem.”

“You would?”

“Sure,” he said, shrugging. “Pie is pie.”

She liked his laissez-faire attitude, but too much was at stake for her to share his outlook. “While I appreciate your willingness to eat burned dough, these aren’t up to snuff.” She sighed.

He regarded her, his long-lashed brown eyes steady.

Her heartbeat skipped and she stepped back automatically.

“Hmm. I know what we have here,” he said with a tiny smile.

“You do?” Somehow she was able to make her voice steady when her pulse was going through the roof.

“A perfectionist, perhaps?”

Sam chimed in. “Yeah, Miss Jenna likes everything to be just right.” He frowned. “She makes me redo my homework all the time.”

“Yes, I’m a real slave driver in the homework department,” she said, infusing some dry levity into her voice.

“What’s a slave driver?” Sam asked, his nose scrunched up.

“Someone who makes little kids do homework,” Jenna explained. She’d majored in education, and knew that if Sam fell behind now because of his focus issues, he might never catch up. Early elementary education set the groundwork for the rest of a child’s schooling.

“Sounds like Miss Jenna is just trying to help you out,” Curt said. “And that’s good for you. School is important.”

“Exactly,” Jenna said, giving Curt a grateful look. “And sometimes striving for high ideals is necessary.” She’d know, being the only unperfect person in a family of perfect people, the one who’d always had to work harder for everything.

“I think Miss Jenna should take all the time she needs to make the pies up to her standards.” Curt turned dark eyes her way.

“Thank you. And I need these to be perfect because two of them will be for a wedding reception I’m catering here tomorrow. I have to remake them.” She made all of her dough from scratch, so the process wasn’t as quick as unrolling premade store-bought crust. “I’ll do that later tonight.”

“Remember, I have the play at my school tonight,” Sam piped in, plopping down in one of the kitchen chairs next to the small table set in one corner. “You promised you’d come.”

She arranged her face in a serene expression; she had forgotten about the play, not that she’d let Sam know that. “And I never break my promises, so I’ll be there.” It would be a late night. Unless... She looked at her watch. Still relatively early. “Maybe I could get them done now, before dinner.”

“I thought we were going to work on my model car,” Sam said, his voice bordering on a whine.

Where was her brain? “Oh, yeah, we were. No problem.” She wasn’t about to flake out on Sam, not when so many other adults in his life had done so. Even if it meant staying up late to remake her pies. “Go get it out of your backpack, and we’ll get right on it.”

Curt looked back and forth between them, both brows raised. “Model car?”

“Yeah!” Sam said, jumping from the chair. He puffed out his chest. “I bought it with my own money.”

Jenna smiled. Sam had saved for months to buy the model kit.

“Cool, dude,” Curt said, nodding. “I built a few models in my day.”

Sam’s eyes went wide. “You did?”

“You bet. I’ve always been into cars.”

“You wanna help me?” Sam said.