“Sounds great, but don’t you think Angel’s a little young to be cooking? So far her only recipe calls for dry cereal in a bowl.”
“She may not be much help, but she’s too cute to leave out. The audience will love her.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.” He told himself his eager reply was because he trusted Peggy’s instincts and not because he was desperate to get a few uninterrupted minutes of work done.
“Absolutely.”
“Peggy, before you go, fill me in on whether you and Johnny have resolved your differences over your taking on this new show. We’re at a crossroads. I don’t want to finalize things if there’s any chance at all you’re going to back out.”
“I won’t back out,” Peggy said fiercely.
“And Johnny’s okay with that?”
A smile spread slowly across her face. “Let’s just say I’ve made it worth his while. I—”
Todd held up his hand. “Don’t tell me. I don’t need to know the details as long as your marriage is solid again.”
“Not yet,” she said slowly. “But it’s getting there. Trust takes time. It’ll be a while before I have complete faith that he won’t cheat on me again, and it’ll probably take just as long for him to believe that he’ll always come first with me, no matter how involved I get in this new career. The bottom line is that we love each other, we have a family and a long history, and we want it to work.”
“I’m glad for you.”
She chuckled. “You’re just relieved that I’m not going to bail out on you.”
“That, too,” he admitted.
“Is that it?”
He nodded.
Peggy knelt down in front of Angel. “Hey, sweetie, want to come with me to the kitchen?”
“We bake cookies?” Angel asked hopefully.
“Maybe,” Peggy said.
Angel promptly tucked her hand in Peggy’s and headed for the door without a backward glance. As they left, Todd breathed a sigh of relief.
Megan wandered in just then. “I gather Peggy arrived just in time to save the day.”
“You could say that.”
“Jake talked to Heather yesterday,” she announced, sitting across from him.
Todd stiffened. “Oh? Where is she?”
“He wouldn’t say, but he did say she promised to be back tomorrow.”
That should have filled him with more relief than it did. He should be ecstatic that this little trial by fire of hers was almost over, but for reasons he didn’t care to examine too closely, he wasn’t. In fact, he felt an awful lot like he was about to lose something he’d just barely discovered, something very precious.
24
W
hen Heather got back to town on Tuesday at dinnertime, she headed straight for the diner, convinced she would find Todd and Angel where Henrietta could serve as backup.
“Haven’t seen them since Sunday morning,” Henrietta announced.
Alarm flickered. “What do you mean you haven’t seen them? They haven’t been coming here for dinner?”
“Nope.”
Vaguely unsettled by that news, she sank onto a stool at the counter. “What do you suppose they’ve been doing for food?” she murmured. “Surely he’s not taking her to the fast-food place outside of town.”
“I don’t know for sure, but I heard something about Peggy teaching a bunch of kids how to cook during one of those tapings. Maybe they’ve been eating at the studio.”
Todd had taken Angel to work? Heather was stunned. For some reason she’d expected him to hire a sitter or find a local day-care to keep Angel out of his hair. In fact, she had envisioned him going about the interviewing process to make the arrangements in his usual thorough, methodical way. Of course, maybe he had done just that and deemed none of the candidates suitable. She had a feeling if he ever took to the idea of fatherhood, he would be far more compulsive than even Jake Landers.
“You planning on eating, working or what?” Henrietta inquired testily.
The tone was so uncharacteristic that Heather regarded her friend with concern. “Are you still mad at me for running off the way I did?”
Henrietta flushed guiltily. “No. Sorry. I shouldn’t be taking my bad temper out on you.”
“Has something happened? Are you okay? Has something happened with one of the kids?”
“I’m just plumb out of my mind, if the truth be told.” She sighed deeply, then met Heather’s gaze. “Last night I told the judge I’d marry him. Frankly, I don’t know what came over me. He’s been pestering me for so long I guess he finally just wore me down. It didn’t seem to make much sense to wait for that so-called deadline I’d set. It’s only a few days away, anyway, so what difference does it make if he remembers or he doesn’t? He asked, I said yes, and that was that. I must be crazy, getting married at my age.”
Heather went to her and gave her a tight hug. “You love him, that’s why you agreed to it. Now, stop second-guessing yourself and be happy. You deserve to be.”
“What if…?”
“No what-ifs,” Heather insisted. “Everything’s going to be perfect. You’re going to live happily ever after. Did you set a date?”
“A week from Saturday,” Henrietta admitted, looking shell-shocked. “Once I said yes, we agreed there was no point in wasting time.”
“Good grief, that doesn’t give you any time at all to plan a proper wedding. Why so soon?”
“We don’t need a lot of fancy foolishness at our age,” Henrietta declared, but there was an unmistakable hint of disappointment in her eyes. “We’ll be married at the courthouse. A judge from the next county will come over to perform the ceremony.”
The thought of such a no-frills ceremony appalled Heather. She refused to go along with such a thing, not for these two wonderful people who’d waited so long to be together.
“Absolutely not,” she told Henrietta indignantly. “You deserve a beautiful dress, lots of flowers, an elegant reception, the works. If you want white doves flying overhead and rose petals scattered everywhere, you should have them. Forget about getting married in a stuffy courtroom. You’re going to have a church wedding, just the way you should have had years ago. It’ll be followed by a magnificent reception, so that everyone who loves you can be there to tell you how happy they are for the two of you.”
“All that at my age? It’s a waste of good money,” Henrietta declared.
“If it makes you happy, it is not a waste.”
Henrietta’s eyes brightened. “But the date is so soon. How can we possibly…?”
“Don’t you worry about that. I am not letting my best friend in Whispering Wind get married without doing it up right. You leave the details to me. I’ll get Flo to help and I’ll talk to Todd. He’s an expert at making miracles happen overnight. He’ll want to help. I know he will. This will be our present to the two of you.”
Assuming he was still speaking to her, of course. Then, again, this was about Henrietta, and she knew he would move mountains for her. He would even put aside his anger at
her
for as long as it took to pull the wedding together, and he would spare no expense doing it.
She gave Henrietta another brisk, reassuring hug. “If I’m going to pull this off, I’d better get started, but I’ll be back at work in the morning, if that’s okay.”
“The customers will be mighty glad to see you,” Henrietta said. She hugged Heather back. “So am I.”
Heather tried to think of another time in her life when a homecoming had meant as much, but she couldn’t. She was still basking in the warm feelings when she arrived at the studio. Sure enough, Todd’s pickup was in the parking lot, even though it was after seven.
She looked for him first in his office, but the room was dark. She thought she could hear childish squeals from down the hall, though, in the studio where Megan’s show was taped. The red light above the door was off, indicating they weren’t taping at the moment, so she quietly opened the door and slipped inside. Then she stared at the set in stunned silence.
The usually spotless kitchen in which Peggy taped her segments was splattered with what appeared to be spaghetti sauce. Pots and pans were piled haphazardly on every surface. A half-dozen children, Angel among them, were seated at the kitchen table, along with Todd, Peggy, Johnny, Megan and Jake. It looked like some family gathering, except for the surrounding cameras and technicians, who were evidently setting up another shot.
“One last take,” the director called out. “Everybody ready on one. Five, four, three, two, one, and action.”
A camera light blinked on and he pointed to Peggy, giving her her cue.
“That’s it for this week,” she said. “This is only for the brave. Or those who have maids to do the cleanup.” Then her gaze circled the table. “I take that back. Look at these faces. Not the smudges and smeared spaghetti sauce, but the expressions. Aren’t they worth a little extra cleanup? That’s it for now. See you next time you come to visit
Megan’s World
to see what our budding young chefs can cook up.”
“And we’re out,” the director said, giving them all a thumbs-up. “That’s a wrap.”
Megan pushed back from the table, looked around the set and moaned. “My God, will you look at this? What have we done?”
“We have taught our children to cook,” Peggy said. “I can hardly wait for the next segment. The first two have been terrific.”
“But spaghetti sauce,” Megan whispered. “We had to be nuts.”
Just then her gaze landed on Heather and her expression hardened ever so slightly. “Well, well, look who’s decided to come home.”
Heather heard the censure in her voice, but she drew herself up, squared her shoulders and stepped into the light, her gaze locked on Todd’s face.
“Mama!” Angel shouted with glee, and came running toward her at full speed, holding out her arms.
Heather gathered her up, but she kept right on staring at Todd, whose gaze finally dropped before he turned and moved off to hold a hushed conversation with Megan.
“Chin up,” Peggy murmured to Heather. “And don’t pay any attention to Megan. You know how protective she is of Todd. All that matters is how you and Todd resolve whatever’s going on between you.”
Heather gave her a grateful look. “Thanks.”
“Now, let me get the rest of these hellions out of your hair. I’m sure you and Todd have things you’d like to talk about in private. Johnny, help me round up our kids. The cleanup can wait till morning.”
Peggy cleared the studio in record time. Even Megan succumbed to her urging and Jake’s quiet insistence. She didn’t leave before casting one last scowl in Heather’s direction, however.
Heather stood where she was, listening to Angel’s chatter with half an ear as she watched Todd move around the studio doing whatever he could to avoid her.
“Aren’t you even going to say hello?” she asked eventually.
His gaze shot to hers. “I have a lot of things to say to you,” he said slowly. “‘Hello’ isn’t on the list.”
She drew in a deep breath. “Okay, then, let’s get Angel back to my place and into bed and you can get all those other things off your chest.”
He shook his head. “You go ahead. We’ll talk another time.”
“Why not tonight?”
He regarded her coldly. “Because right this second I am so angry with you I’m not sure we could have a civilized conversation. Just take Angel and go.”
“Todd—”
“Go,” he repeated.
“When will you be ready to talk?” she asked, determined not to let the anger simmer until they couldn’t get beyond it. “Tomorrow? The next day?”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“Make it soon, because I promised Henrietta we’d help her pull off a wedding a week from Saturday.”
He regarded her with a mixture of surprise and delight. “She agreed to marry the judge?”
Heather nodded. “They were planning a quiet ceremony at the courthouse, but I convinced her she deserved more. I told her you’d help whip the details into shape. That this would be our present to her.” She regarded him with uncertainty. “Is that okay? Will you do it?”
“Of course I will,” he said without hesitation.
She should have taken some solace in the knowledge that they would have to spend time together over the next week or so, that perhaps that could bridge the terrible chasm between them as talking might not, but she knew better. Todd would view the wedding as an obligation, maybe even a joy, since it was for two people he cared about. He would behave professionally toward her for as long as it took. After that, there was no telling if he would shut her right back out of his life as he had tried to do moments ago.
“We’ll start making plans tomorrow, then,” she said quietly.
She turned to go, but Angel raised her head. “Daddy coming, too?”
The words galvanized Todd’s attention as nothing else had. For an instant the vulnerability in his eyes tore at Heather, but then his expression closed down again.
“Not tonight,” he said quietly. “You’re going home with Mama.”
“No,” Angel protested, struggling in Heather’s arms. “Want Daddy.” She turned a tear-filled gaze on Todd. “Please.”
He looked as if he might relent and reach for her, but then he shook his head. “No, sweetie, not tonight. I’ll see you first thing in the morning, though.”
Not quite pacified, Angel sniffed and asked, “Where?”
“At the diner, okay? We’ll have breakfast and I’ll bring you your toys.”
“’Kay,” she said, finally satisfied. “You make sure my dolls go night-night?”
“I promise,” he said, then cast a defiant look at Heather as if he expected her to remark on his willingness to do Angel’s bidding.
She said nothing, but she had to admit she was dying to know just exactly what Angel had cajoled him into doing the past few days. She sensed that putting her dolls to bed was only the tip of the iceberg.
Worn out by the busy day she’d had and her brief tantrum, Angel was asleep in her car seat before Heather pulled out of the parking lot. Heather paused before turning onto the highway back into town, gazing at those tear-streaked cheeks.
“Oh, baby, what have I done?” she whispered. Todd was furious. Angel was upset. It seemed to her right then as if everything was far worse than before she’d left. Only Henrietta’s news gave her hope that happy endings were still possible. She just wasn’t sure she could wait years for hers.
Todd would have preferred a close encounter with a spitting mad bull to the prospect of seeing Heather in the morning, but he had no choice. Not only had he promised Angel, but there were Henrietta’s wedding plans to consider.
As exhausted as he’d been by Angel’s visit, he had expected to sleep soundly with her gone, but instead, he seemed to keep one ear attuned all night long for sounds from the guest room. The silence wasn’t nearly the relief he’d expected it to be. The lack of sleep only added to his generally black mood as he approached the diner.
His foul humor improved slightly when Angel caught sight of him and shouted “Daddy!” as if she hadn’t seen him in a month.
“You bring my toys?” she asked at once.
“They’re in the car.”
“Wanna see,” she said, as if she feared he might have left one behind.
“Okay, let’s get them,” he said, using it as an excuse to avoid Heather for another few minutes.
He hadn’t realized just how many they had taken from Heather’s place until he’d started packing them up for the return trip. The books, stuffed animals and dolls filled two large trash bags in the bed of the pickup. Angel waited impatiently until he’d retrieved the bags, then eagerly began tossing everything out of the first one.
“Sweetie, let’s leave them in the bags,” he said. “They’ll be easier to take inside.”
“Have to find my bunny story,” she told him. She poked her little head deeper into the bag, then emerged, triumphant. “Here’s the bunny. You read it to me.”
“Not right this second. We’ll read it later.”
“I didn’t get no story last night,” she said sadly.
“Then I’m sure Mommy will read you two tonight.”
“Want you to read this one now.”
“No, baby,” he said firmly. He was about to reach for her when she jerked away and started howling at the top of her lungs.
“Now! Now! Now!” she chanted between sobs.
“Problems?” Heather inquired lightly, her expression amused.
“Where did you come from?”
“She’s been temperamental all morning. I thought you might need backup.” Seemingly unfazed, she gestured toward their still-screaming daughter. “So, what’s up?”
“I refused to read her a story right this second. She didn’t take it well.”
“Your daughter is into instant gratification,” Heather advised him.
He regarded the still-wailing child warily. “What do I do? She didn’t pull this while she was staying with me.”
“She saves it for special occasions. If you give in, it will only encourage her.”