A Coldwater Warm Hearts Christmas Read online

  “Sadly, no.” Since it was an in-service day, she had no classes to teach. Angie could work at the desk in her classroom, but she could just as easily spend the time at home. Her lesson plans were already fleshed out till the end of the semester and had been turned in for approval. The only other thing she might be doing today was providing a lap for a cat who’d be just as happy with a pillow. Effie merely tolerated her.

  Talking to Shirley Evans about the pageant was starting to look like Angie’s best choice.

  “ ‘Lay on, MacDuff,’ ” she quoted, with a palm up gesture to Seth.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s Shakespeare,” she explained. “It means ‘lead on.’ ”

  “You coulda just said so.”

  “I just did.” The irritation she’d felt toward him from the moment she first clapped eyes on him had been simmering all through the club meeting. Now it boiled over. “What are you? Illiterate?”

  He frowned at her. “I read.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Well, lately, this book that says we should treat other people the way we want to be treated.”

  A bucket of cold water would have been less of a shock to her system. He was right. She was behaving badly and, worst of all, she wasn’t sure why.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “That wasn’t like me. Or rather, that’s usually not like me. I mean, I don’t normally say such . . .” Evidently, his lamentable way with words really was catching. Angie’s shoulders slumped. “If you have time to introduce me to Mrs. Evans, I’d appreciate it.”

  Ever a man of few words, Seth nodded. Then he pointed toward a shiny Parker Construction pickup parked in front of the courthouse. “My truck’s over there. Let’s go, Teach.”

  Chapter 3

  Limeberger’s Mortuary. We’ll be the last to let you down.

  —The Coldwater Gazette classifieds

  Seth opened the passenger side door of his big dually for her, wishing he’d been driving something sleeker, maybe a mustang convertible, instead of his company truck. The cab was clean enough, but the vehicle was built for hauling construction materials, not passengers. Especially not ones as petite as the little English teacher.

  Like a cherry bomb, he decided. She may be small, but that mouth of hers definitely packs a punch.

  Seth held out a hand in case she needed help, but she scrambled up into the cab unassisted. He went around the vehicle, climbed in, and punched the start button. The engine roared to life.

  “So I take it you don’t want the job,” Seth said, more to fill the uncomfortable silence than anything else.

  “What do you mean?” she snapped. “I love my work.”

  He’d never met anyone so touchy, and he had no idea what had set her off. “I meant the pageant.”

  “Oh.”

  Her left knee was bouncing up and down like a little jackhammer.

  God save me from high-strung women.

  Still, he wondered why he even noticed how uncomfortable she seemed to be. He usually didn’t pick up on such things, and it bugged him that he might be the cause of her jumpiness.

  “No, I’m not crazy about doing the pageant,” she admitted. “But I guess someone has to if your aunt won’t. And since I have experience with directing, I’m the logical choice.”

  “So the pageant isn’t what got your panties in a bunch?”

  “Excuse me. Did you just make a comment about my panties?” The knee stopped bouncing.

  “Sorry. Guess I coulda said that better. I just meant, it’s obvious you’re not happy about something. If it’s not the pageant, what is it?”

  He glanced at her long enough to catch her giving him a scowl in return. “Hey, you don’t know me well enough for it to be me.”

  “No, but I know your type.” She crossed her arms. Instead of a defiant gesture, it almost seemed as if she were hugging herself.

  “What type is that?”

  “Male,” she said, tight-lipped.

  “Really? You’re at war with half the human race?” Seth rolled his eyes at her. “That’s the snarkiest girl-power type thing I’ve heard in years.”

  She held her ground for a heartbeat or two, but then her tight lips relaxed and she heaved a sigh. “I’m sorry. You don’t deserve that.” She let her arms drop to her sides. “I guess what I’m really upset about is a couple of students of mine. There’s something going on between them that reminded me of... well, an incident this morning sort of set me off.”

  She cared enough about the kids she taught to be upset over them. That wasn’t the worst character trait in the world. “So some problem with your students is what’s making you behave badly?”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “I’m just trying to understand what’s eating you.” Though why he should bother was a mystery to him. He had enough on his plate with the new high school project. Seth didn’t need to add to his growing to-do list by trying to rescue every damsel in distress who stumbled across his path.

  Force of habit, he told himself grimly.

  “Are you studying to be a shrink in your spare time?” she asked, the snarky tone back in spades.

  “No.” Seth turned down Oak Street, planning to drop off the teacher at his aunt’s house on the next block and make a break for it. He felt as if school was about to be let out. “I generally like putting things together, not trying to take them apart.”

  “So you’re like a psychologist, only backward. A shrink takes their client apart to discover what’s wrong before helping them put themselves back together.” When she looked at him this time, it was with faint surprise. “That’s actually a pretty astute observation coming from someone like you.”

  “Someone like me, huh? Bet you think I don’t know what astute means.”

  “That depends.” She smiled at him with deceptive sweetness. “Are you trying to decide if it’s a compliment?”

  “It’s as much a compliment as you’re likely to give.” Dang! She cuts like a chainsaw. “I don’t get you, Teach. Women don’t normally dislike me on sight.”

  “I imagine they don’t.”

  Seth had no idea what that meant, but he was tired of her sniping. He pulled the truck to the side of the street and stopped. Then he turned off the motor and silently counted to ten.

  “Look,” he said, “if we’re going to work together on this pageant thing, let’s settle something right now. I won’t bring trouble from my business to this partnership and you won’t bring whatever brand of crazy is buzzing around in that brain of yours to it either.”

  She blinked at him. Then she drew a deep breath.

  “Okay,” she said softly.

  He waited.

  “I said okay.”

  There was still something bothering her. He read it in the tightness of her jaw, in the whiteness of her knuckles as she clutched that dog-eared book to her chest like a shield.

  Strange that he should be so in tune with the feelings of Angie Holloway, of all people.

  He didn’t like it one bit.

  She really wasn’t his type. He liked women with more meat on their bones and less acid on their tongues. Angie would have to stand twice to make a decent shadow. And he certainly wasn’t used to being insulted right out of the gate.

  But when she turned to look him full in the face, she reminded him of a half-drowned kitten. Beaten down by life, and spitting mad about it. He never could resist a hard case. He’d help her if he could.

  Whatever it was she was dealing with, at least she was fighting back. He was just sorry he’d stepped into her crossfire.

  “Well, okay, then,” he said and started up the truck again. “Let’s start fresh. Tell me something I don’t know about Angie Holloway.”

  “I’d rather you go first,” she said with surprising meekness. “If you don’t mind.”

  He suspected a trap, but someone had to go first.

  “Okay. I got my BS in construction engineering at Texas Tech.”

  �
�You can earn a degree in construction?” Her tone said it was an honest question, not another verbal slap.

  “Construction engineering.” Seth might not be so good with words, but he was a whiz with structural analysis and the geometry of a plumb line.

  “Mr. Bunn said Shirley Evans is your aunt.” She picked at a loose thread on the hem of her sweater. “Does a lot of your family live around here?”

  “Not a lot of them. All of them,” he said. “A few of us have gone away for school or to work in a city someplace for a while, but eventually, we all come home.”

  The gentle Ozark hills, the sparkling lake, the sleepy little town of Coldwater Cove was as much a part of his DNA as his steely eyes and thick, capable fingers.

  “How about you?” Seth asked as he turned into the Evanses’ driveway. “You got family hereabouts?”

  “No.”

  Seth turned off the engine, but didn’t move to get out of the truck. He was waiting for her to follow up her “no” with an explanation of why she’d come to Coldwater, or where she grew up, or something about her family wherever they were. But Angie just stared down at the book in her lap.

  “You know, for an English teacher, you’re not too keen on how a conversation works,” he said. “You know something about my family. What about yours?”

  She raised her head to meet his gaze. Her eyes were the saddest brown he’d ever seen.

  “I don’t have family. Anywhere.”

  Then she opened the passenger side door and slid out of the truck cab. She started walking toward the house, but stopped and turned back to face him when she realized he hadn’t moved yet.

  “Are you coming?”

  Dang. He’d intended to drop her with his aunt and then take off. Now he had to stay. There was no way he’d leave an orphan to fend for herself in the Evanses’ household.

  If George and Shirley discovered she was alone in the world, they’d smother her alive with sympathy and affection. Seth knew without being told that Angela Holloway would hate that.

  He hauled himself out of the truck and dogged her through the open garage door. A collapsible ladder that dropped from the attic space had been folded down and was propped on the cement floor. From the scraping sounds coming from above them, Seth figured someone was rummaging around up there.

  Along with the thumps and bumps, whoever it was also grumbled a few choice words that wouldn’t be appropriate in church.

  “Hello,” Seth called up the ladder. “That you, Uncle George?”

  “Who wants to know?” A grimy suitcase tumbled down the ladder’s rungs and Seth had to jump out of the way. It landed on the garage floor with a thud and a billowing cloud of dust.

  “It’s Seth and—”

  “And Miss Holloway,” the retired lawyer finished for him. George Evans appeared at the top of the ladder and climbed down with his back to them. “Heather called to let us know you’d be coming. Coffee’s on.”

  Seth shook his head at Angie, trying to warn her. The sheer awfulness of George Evans’s coffee was the stuff of family legend.

  “I’d love some, Mr. Evans,” she said, as if to spite him.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Seth whispered.

  “What was that?” Mr. Evans said as he reached the bottom of the ladder and turned to face them. “You want some too, Seth?”

  “Nothing for me, George. Already had my caffeine fix today.”

  A cup of George Evans’s brew had enough caffeine to last for a week.

  “Well, come on in then,” George said. “Shirley’s looking forward to meeting you, Miss Holloway. She’s a great supporter of your students’ plays.”

  That meant Shirley had dragged him to all of them.

  “I’ll be sure to thank her. And call me Angie, please,” she said, all smiles.

  Sure. She smiles at the old geezer.

  “Only if you call me George,” said the old geezer in question as he picked up the suitcase and started into the house. Once they tromped through the laundry room and into the kitchen, he called out, “They’re here, Shirley.”

  A Yorkshire terrier appeared in the doorway to the next room, yapping its head off, as if to herald his mistress’s approach. Then, in a fragrant cloud of Estée Lauder, Shirley Evans waltzed in.

  Somehow, she always manages to make an entrance.

  “Angela Holloway, I’m so glad to meet you,” she said, holding out a hand for Angie to shake. Shirley was so queenly, Seth always wondered if folks should bow and kiss her ring instead.

  His aunt’s smile was dazzling, but then her delicate nose twitched and she looked around Angie and Seth to find the source of her displeasure. Her gaze settled on the dusty Samsonite George had plopped down in the middle of the kitchen.

  “This will never do, George. That old suitcase is filthy.”

  “It’ll clean up okay.”

  She sniffed again. “It’s moldy on the inside. I can smell it from here.”

  “That’s why God invented Lysol,” George countered. “Cleanliness is next to godliness, you know.”

  “I’m sure you think that’s scriptural, but it’s not. It’s—wait a minute. If you think you can distract me from the issue at hand with a theological debate, you’ve got another think coming, George Evans.” Shirley gave him the stink-eye. Seth backed up a pace or two, lest her evil expression spill over onto him. “You just don’t want to spend the money to buy a decent set of luggage.”

  “Why should I when we already have some?”

  “Luggage that hasn’t been used since Nixon was president,” Shirley said. “We’ll discuss this later, George. Get that out of my kitchen, and I mean now.”

  George picked up the luggage and headed for the garage, grumbling a few more of those choice words under his breath. Shirley turned her attention back to Angie and Seth, motioning them toward the doorway from which she’d just emerged. “Why don’t we move to the living room? Oh, say, would you kids like some iced tea?”

  “Mr. Evans already offered me coffee—”

  “But she’d rather have iced tea. Thanks, Aunt Shirley.” He grabbed Angie’s elbow and half led, half dragged her to the living room. “Trust me. You do not want Uncle George’s coffee.”

  “I like to make my own choices, if you don’t mind,” the teacher hissed, then called to Shirley, who was still in the kitchen filling glasses with ice. “I’ll wait on the coffee, Mrs. Evans.”

  “Are you sure, dear? My George makes it pretty stout.”

  “By that she means the coffee’s strong enough to grab the spoon and beat you with it if you try to add cream or sugar,” Seth warned.

  “I’m sure the coffee will be fine,” Angie called back to his aunt, giving Seth a “See? I’ll do whatever I dang well please” grin. “Are you planning a trip someplace, Mrs. Evans?”

  “Oh, yes!” She reappeared with a tray of assorted cookies, a pitcher of iced tea and three glasses. Evidently, she had ignored Angie’s coffee request and was determined to serve her tea anyway.

  For once, Seth could only be grateful for his aunt’s stubbornness.

  “Didn’t Seth tell you?” Shirley offered them the cookies. “George and I won the grand prize in the Limeberger Funeral Home Bucket List Contest.”

  “No, he didn’t tell me about it,” she said. To Seth’s surprise, Angie took three ginger snaps and bit into one with gusto. He’d figured her for a salad grazer, not a sugar fiend. “What’s the Bucket List Contest?”

  “It was all over the Coldwater Gazette. Oh, you must not read the paper. So many young people don’t these days. Anyway, you’ve heard of a bucket list, haven’t you?”

  Angie nodded, her mouth still full of cookie.

  “It’s all the things you want to see and do before you die,” Seth supplied, before tucking into his own sugary treat.

  “That’s right, but hardly anybody gets their bucket list done. So Limeberger’s decided to offer a chance to tick off the things on your list if you prepay for your f
uneral,” Shirley explained. “I had to talk a blue streak to get George to agree to it, but I finally convinced him. After all, the odds are good we’ll need a funeral someday, so we may as well arrange the one we want ahead of time.”

  “That makes sense,” Angie said.

  “It does, doesn’t it? And even that old lawyer of mine couldn’t make a case against it.” Shirley turned toward Seth and said, almost as if Angie weren’t in the room, “I like her, Seth. I think she’ll do.”

  He sent the teacher an apologetic look. His aunt was always trying to set him up with someone. He’d never been able to convince her that he didn’t have time for a relationship. And even if he did, he was sure his aunt’s pick wouldn’t be his. “I suspect Angie’s afraid to ask what she’d do for.”

  “For what I’d do,” she corrected.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. It’s grammar.”

  Her dismissive look said he wouldn’t understand. Seth ground his molars together. He might not be the smoothest guy in the county, but none of his exes had ever made him feel like such a total doofus. All it took with Angie Holloway was a word or two and a roll of her big brown eyes.

  “Go on, Mrs. Evans,” she urged, all sweetness to his aunt.

  “Where was I? Oh, yes. So George and I both picked out our caskets and vaults and bought a joint plot. We went ahead and preordered a headstone—they have such pretty ones nowadays—and then we decided on music and favorite scripture verses and who we wanted to give the eulogy. I’ll swear, it’s almost as much work to plan a funeral as it is to run the Christmas pageant.” Shirley gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “But you’ll find that out for yourself soon enough, my dear. Anyway, as much trouble as it was to enter the Bucket List Contest, it was worth it in the end because we won the grand prize.”

  George joined them, bearing a cup of his vile devil’s brew for Angie. She accepted it from him and wrapped both her hands around the steaming mug.

  But she didn’t take a drink.

  Maybe she believed his warning. Seth hoped so. He wouldn’t wish a mouthful of his uncle’s coffee on his worst enemy.

  “Tell her what the grand prize is, Shirley,” George said.