It hurts to
see a younger version of yourself making the same mistake you did, but if
nothing else, it proves Solomon was right. There really is nothing new under
the sun.
—Angela Holloway, a high
school English teacher who longs for all the drama in her life to stay safely between
the covers of her books.
Chapter 1
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Tucked into the big corner booth at
the Green Apple Grill, Angie set the book aside and took a sip of her coffee.
The rest of the Coldwater Warm Hearts Club would be wandering in pretty soon for
their weekly breakfast meeting, but since Angie joined the group, she’d always
been the first one to arrive.
Punctuality was next to godliness
in her last foster parents’ home. Probably because her dad at the time had been a railroader. She often
joked that she’d rather be caught pregnant out of wedlock than be late
someplace.
As if my getting pregnant wouldn’t
require a miracle of biblical proportions anyway. Kind of need a guy for that.
Lester Scott ambled by and topped
off her coffee without asking if she wanted more.
“Say, Teach,” the old Viet Nam vet
said. “You oughta try the new breakfast special.”
Lester was one of the Warm Hearts Club’s
biggest successes. Before the club members got hold of him, he’d been a
homeless alcoholic. Now he was employed, sleeping indoors, mending fences with
his estranged family and had been sober for nearly a year and a half.
Of course, that had all happened
before Angie joined the group. During her time in the Warm Hearts Club, she
hadn’t helped anyone yet.
But I’m working on it, she told
herself. She just hadn’t found the right project.
“What is the new breakfast
special?” Angie asked.
“Well, it’s sorta my idea, you see.”
A proud smile turned up the corners of Lester’s mouth. “You know how it’s kinda
popular nowadays for folks to say they’re vegetarians?”
“Yeah.”
“So anyways, I convinced Laura that
the Green Apple menu needs a Vegetarian Omelet.”
Angie glanced at the plastic-covered
menu. “I don’t see it listed here.”
“Oh, that’s ‘cuz it’s new. You get
a three egg omelet made with onions, peppers, cheese and your choice of ham or pork
sausage.”
“Ham or sausage?” Angie arched a
brow at him. “You know vegetarians don’t eat meat, right?”
“Oh. Oh, yeah? But I don’t think folks
around here would like a meatless omelet so much,” Lester said with a frown. “How’s
about this? We could call it the Hypocrite’s Vegetarian Omelet.”
Angie laughed. “I love it when
words mean things, Lester. That’s exactly what you should call it.”
The old fellow beamed down at her.
“So, you want one or not?”
Usually, Angie made do with cream
cheese and a bagel, but today was an in-service day for the teachers at
Coldwater Cove High. Since there was no cafeteria when classes weren’t in
session, she’d probably be noshing on junk from the vending machines for lunch
at her desk.
“Sure,” Angie said. “Bring me a
Hypocrite’s Vegetarian Omelet.”
Lester whipped out his order pad.
“Ham or sausage?”
“Both! If I’m going to be
hypocrite, I may as well go all in.”
“Sure thing, Teach. Why go hog when
you can go whole hog?” Lester headed back to the kitchen, whistling tunelessly
through his teeth.
Angie opened her book again, but
glanced up when the trio of bells jingled over the door to the Green Apple. She
recognized the pair of high school kids that hurried in, the brisk wind sending
a dry leaf or two swirling after them. Shivering in the sudden draft, Angie
pulled her old cardigan tighter around her. It was so worn it would have looked
at home in the Matrix movie, but it was too comfortable for her to trash. Plus,
it was warm. Early November mornings in Coldwater Cove always started with a
breath of winter.
The newcomers were students of
hers, Cassie Wilson and Tad Van Hook. She was a JV cheerleader and he was a
power forward on the Fighting Marmots varsity basketball squad.
The jock and the cheerleader. Cliches
exist because they’re true.
Cassie was pretty in a wind-swept
prairie sort of way, with long sandy-brown hair and a dusting of freckles over
her pert nose. Despite the blustery weather, she wore a flirty short skirt and
a gauzy tank topped by a pink denim jacket. Her small feet were snugged into
turquoise cowboy boots. Rawboned and handsome, Tad was head and shoulders
taller than Cassie and had three years on her to boot.
Angie’s lips drew into a tight
line. She’d seen this play before.
A senior and a freshman. It hardly
ever works out.
But things seemed to be going well
for young love at the moment. They were both laughing and holding hands as they
settled into the booth behind Angie without noticing her.
She picked up her book again and
tried to concentrate on the foibles of Miss Austen’s heroines. She didn’t mean
to eavesdrop. Even though nosiness was akin to an Olympic sport in Coldwater
Cove, Angie wasn’t the gossipy sort. It wasn’t her fault she could hear the
conversation going on behind her.
“This is so sweet of you, Tad,”
Cassie said, a smile making the pitch of her voice drift upward. “You’ve never
actually taken me out on a date, you know.”
There was a longer pause than there
should have been.
“It’s just breakfast, Cass.”
“Well, it’s sweet, is all. Sort of
takes our thing up a notch.”
Tad cleared his throat. “Um . . . what
do you mean . . . our thing?”
She giggled, sounding even younger
than she was. “You know, silly. Us. You’re my guy. I’m your girl. We’re a thing.”
The
silence was deafening. Angie caught herself reading the same sentence over and
over. Sense and Sensibility just couldn’t compete with the real life
drama unfolding in the next booth.
“We’re a couple, right?” Cassie
insisted.
“Um, I mean . . . well, sort of, I
guess. I mean, we have fun. What we got . . . it’s like casual, you know. We
hang together . . .”
“Hang together?” A tiny bead of
fear shimmered in Cassie’s tone.
“Yeah,” Tad said with disgusting
cheerfulness, willfully ignorant of her distress. “Hang.”
“But . . . ” Cassie’s voice dropped
to a shaky whisper. “Don’t you think of me as your girl?”
Angie cringed for her. This
conversation was sounding all too familiar. But instead of being a JV cheerleader,
Angie had been several years older, an English major finishing her freshman
year at Baylor. And the guy hadn’t been a jock. He’d been about to graduate
summa cum laude, bound for law school.
Several states away.
“Look, Cass . . . It’s . . . well .
. . no,” Tad admitted. “I don’t think of you like that.”
This time the silence blared from Cassie’s
side of the booth. Finally she found her voice. “How do you think of me?”
“Um . . . as a friend. Someone I
hang with?”
Cassie sucked in a sharp breath and
made a soft sound. Not quite a sob, but more than a snuffle.
Oh, precious lamb. Angie’s
chest ached for the girl. At the same time, she wanted to leap up and give her
a shake.
Give it up, sweetie, Angie
wanted to tell her. He’s not the guy you think he is. He’s not your white
knight. He doesn’t know who you really are and he doesn’t care. You’re a notch
on his belt. Don’t look now, but he’s about to bigger, better deal you. In
fact, he’s already moved on. If you’d ever read Jane Austen, you’d know he’s a
Willoughby, through and through.
If Angie didn’t quit biting her
lower lip, she’d make it bleed, but she couldn’t say anything. It wasn’t her
place.
Cassie kept trying. This time,
though, her voice was frosty.
“Well, if I’m not your girl, if
we’re not a couple, I’d like to know what you think a relationship is. Because
to me, I mean, after all we’ve done . . . well, it seems like we’re the real
thing, whether you want to admit it or not.”
“Look, Cass. Why are you making
this so hard? I like you, OK? I mean, I like hanging with you.”
“And when you say hanging, you mean
. . .” Her voice slipped back into whine mode.
“You know, how we do. We hang. Now
and then.”
Lester swooped by to take their breakfast
order. “So, kids, what’ll it be?”
“We’re not ready,” Tad said curtly.
No joke. Neither
of them was ready for a real relationship. Tad should be considering which
basketball scholarship to accept and Cassie ought to be working on bringing up her
GPA.
Silence reigned again, but Angie would’ve
bet her unused vacation days that neither of them was studying the menu.
“So,” Cassie finally said. “Are we
going to hang at the Winter Dance?”
“Um . . . I dunno. Maybe. Sure. Why
not?”
“Great!” The perky cheerleader was
back. “I’ve already picked out my dress!” She launched into a steady patter, a
running one-sided conversation about the terrible importance of finding the just
right shoes to go with the “totally bangin’” dress she was going to wear.
Oh,
Cassie, can’t you tell he doesn’t care? Not about your dress. Not about your
shoes. Not about you.
Angie was suddenly
glad Tad wasn’t in her Advanced Placement English class. She’d have been
tempted to flunk him on principle. She wished he’d just go ahead and dump
Cassie instead of stringing her along with hopes of the Winter Dance.
Or maybe
Cassie might somehow find the backbone to walk away from him.
Stand up, Cassie. Angie
willed the girl to move, but she didn’t hear the slightest creak from the red
vinyl seats. Come on. Tell him he’s history. Tell him you’re worth so much
more than a half-hearted ‘why not?’ And tell him if he ever grows up enough to
figure that out, he’s going to be sorry he let you go.
But Angie knew she wouldn’t.
Cassie was probably going through
some mental gymnastics. She was trying to convince herself that Tad loved her,
really. He just didn’t know how to show it. He’d come around, though. Maybe at
the Winter Dance . . .
Angie knew these things because she’d
been Cassie.
Once. About ten years ago.
Angie hadn’t wanted to believe that
Peter was slipping away, even though he gave her the same signs Tad was sending
Cassie. She made excuses for him. She refused to believe it when her friends
warned her. Even after he left for good, she couldn’t accept it. She fantasized
about how he’d eventually come to his senses and realize he needed her as much
as she did him. He’d come crawling back, a gorgeous ring in hand. Even in her
fantasies, she had zero pride. She always fell back into his arms.
Angie was halfway through her first
semester of student teaching before she finally admitted to herself that Peter
would never come back, never come looking for her. Only one of them had been in
love and it wasn’t him.
She still wanted to curl up into
the fetal position when she thought about it.
Which fortunately wasn’t often.
Because Angie Holloway was off men
for the foreseeable future. They turned women into soppy little doormats, and
she was done letting someone wipe their feet on her.
“Hey, you the teacher?”
The rough baritone made her look up
from her unread Austen. The rumbly voice belonged to a guy whose dark hair was
thoroughly tousled, as if he’d just risen from bed.
Okay. That’s a totally inappropriate thought.
No good comes from imagining a guy in a bed. Or freshly out of one either.
“You her?” he asked again.
She wondered how he could’ve made
it in the door, set off the bells and stalked up to her table without her
noticing before now. She must have really zoned out.
It’s Peter’s fault. Even
remembering him for a little bit makes me a mess.
Angie couldn’t decide what color this
new guy’s eyes were. A cross between dark gray and deep blue. Despite the brisk
day, he was wearing no jacket. His jeans looked like they’d been worn by hard
work instead of coming from the factory pre-ripped and faded. She could barely
make out the words “Parker Construction” sewn in red thread over the pocket of
his washed-out black t-shirt.
“Lookin’ for an English teacher,”
he said, more forcefully. “Angie Something-or-other. You her?”
“It’s Holloway, not
Something-or-other. And yes, I am she.” She gave herself a mental shake as she found
her voice. “Do you ever speak in complete sentences?”
He shrugged. The man’s shoulders
were massive. “If I have to.” A smile curved his mouth. His teeth were so white
he belonged in a tooth paste commercial. “I’m Seth Parker. Heather sent me for
you.”
As what? A present?
Her friend, Heather, was always
trying to set her up with someone. Heather and her husband Michael had trotted
out computer nerds and local shop owners, a few ranchers and one emergency
medicine resident at Coldwater General who couldn’t keep from talking about the
gory details of his day. Angie had lost count of how many awkward double dates
she’d squirmed through.
Through which I squirmed, she corrected
her own ungrammatical thought. Grammar was order amid chaos. It was her safety
net. She fell back on it with gratitude.
But Seth Parker was still there,
standing by the booth. This was the first time Heather had ambushed her with a
Neanderthal—albeit a smoking hot Neanderthal—who probably wouldn’t recognize a
dangling participle if it smacked him in the face.
Still, something about the logo on
his shirt niggled at her memory.
Parker Construction
The company had just won the bid to
build an addition to the high school. They were known for tackling big projects
all over southeast Oklahoma with a reputation for delivering high quality and
on time completion.
Could this guy be that Parker?
She doubted it. She was all for the strong, silent type, but this man spoke in
monosyllables. How could he run a successful company?
“Come on now.” He turned and headed
for the door. When she didn’t follow, he stopped and cocked his head at her.
“You coming?”
“I am not in the habit of going off
with strange men.”
“Nothing strange about me, miss. I’m
common as an old shoe.” He opened the door and held it wide for her. “Meeting’s
been moved to the courthouse. Like I said, Heather sent me for you.”
So it wasn’t a set-up. The Warm
Hearts Club meeting had just been moved. Feeling foolish, Angie rose and headed
for the door. “Oh. You might have said so.”
“Thought I did.”
“Wait up, Teach!” Lester called
after her. “Don’t you want your omelet?”
“Sorry, Lester. I have to go.”
“I’ll take it,” Tad Van Hook spoke
up. “I need to eat and get out of here. Cassie’s waffles are going to take
forever.”
Cassie slumped a little in the
booth, but Tad didn’t seem to notice.
“I can put it in a to-go box for
you, Teach,” Lester said.
“No, that’s ok. Give it to Tad,” Angie
said as she swept past Seth, who was still holding the door for her. At least,
he was a well-trained Neanderthal.
And no one deserves a Hypocrite’s
Vegetarian Omelet more than Tad Van Hook.
~~~
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