Peaches in Winter

Peaches in Winter
© 2012 by Alice M. Roelke.  2
nd
ebook edition August 2014 by Alice M. Roelke.  Previously published by MuseItUp Publishing & edited by Anne Duguid, copyedited by Penny Ehrenkranz.  All rights reserved. All characters and events are fictitious. This story is not to be reproduced without permission from the author in writing.  Cover design by Alice M. Roelke with an image licensed through Shutterstock.com.

Dedication

To my mother, with thanks.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Anne and Penny for their hard work helping me edit, and to MIUP for first publishing my story, the writers at LGG and MIU who answered my two questions, and most of all to my mother for believing in me.

About the story:

What does author Jake Watterson need with a secretary?  Nothing, that’s what!

But when beautiful Betty Ann, who can’t type, talks too much
, and cooks like an angel enters his life, Jake begins to wonder how he ever did without her.

Betty wanted nothing more than to be a secretary, to forget the past and a fiancé who jilted her.  But sexual harassment from her old boss left her jobless
, and a new job with grumpy Jake Watterson is the second chance she needs. 

Betty thinks Jake could never see her as anything but a secretary—and not even a very good one.  Jake believes he’s too damaged and could never be good enough for the beautiful farm girl who’s entered his world, talking about life on the peach farm and baking him the most delicious things.

Somehow, being near each other seems to thaw the winter in both their lives.  Will they ever both see with their hearts the love they hold for each other?  Like peaches growing in winter, it seems impossible.

Jake’s friend and publisher gets into the mix when he sees how beautiful Betty is and decides to start flirting with her, to Betty’s shy consternation and Jake’s jealous irritation.

Then Betty’s fiancé who jilted her shows up on her doorstep, hat in hand…

A sweet romance novella

Peaches in Winter

by Alice M. Roelke

Chapter One

Betty Ann faced the secretary pool’s main desk. She wore her best flower-print dress—her only store-bought one. “Please, Miss Johnson, I’ll work really hard. I won’t lose my next job, I promise! It really wasn’t my fault I lost the first one. You’ve
got
to believe me.”

She had brushed her hair till it curled neatly around her shoulders, but her face felt pinched and small, ready to dissolve into tears any minute now. She dearly hoped she wouldn’t. She knew her boss thought her far too young already.

In the background, the sound of typewriters clacking echoed from the back room. Nearby, a radio played, and the swinging sounds of big band music floated out. A telephone rang, and someone answered it. It was another busy day for the Jefferson Secretarial Agency, another busy day in 1957—for everyone but Betty Ann.

Miss Johnson, an elderly woman with her glasses attached to a beaded string, sat behind a big oak desk and answered Betty patiently. “I’m sorry, Miss Keene, but whether it was your fault or not, most of our secretarial jobs require the ability to type—and type well. I don’t know how you graduated secretarial school without that skill, but apparently you did.”

Miss Johnson adjusted her glasses and peered over them. “I don’t think I have to remind you,” she drawled, “that you don’t need to come in every day and ask for work. You were informed the agency would contact you as soon as we received a job offer for you.”

“I-I know,” faltered Betty Ann. Her voice shook. “But—”
I’m not going to cry, but I’ve got to find a job! I can’t go home yet; I just can’t.

“It’s hard to be patient, I know.” Miss Johnson’s voice continued, not without sympathy. “It’s never easy waiting for a job, but maybe you shouldn’t. Take my advice, Miss Keene—
go home
. It’s going to be a long wait if you stay here.

“You’ve got good qualities: you’re cheerful, pretty, and apparently you know everything there is to know about peach farming. It shouldn’t be hard for you to find a husband. Why don’t you go back to the country and marry a nice farm boy, because here in the city, we don’t need— Excuse me.”

The phone rang. She broke off talking to Betty and answered it. She listened for a moment. A look of awe slowly overtook her tired features.

“Yes. Yes, Mr. Armstrong. Cheerful, you say?” Her eyes flicked up to Betty with growing wonder. “I think I have just the girl.” She wrote an address down and nodded. “I’ll send her right over. Thank you for using Jefferson Secretarial Agency.”

She hung up and looked at Betty Ann with a dazed, amazed expression.

“Well, Betty, it looks like you have a job after all. Mr. Anderson is a publisher who wants to cheer up one of his authors. Apparently the man hates winter. Mr. Anderson wants to find him a
cheerful
secretary.”

“Thank you!” Betty Ann clasped her hands together, a huge smile overtaking her face.

Miss Johnson gave her the address, questioned her to be sure she would know how to find it, instructed her not to be late, and with a perplexed frown growing on her face, watched Betty leave.

Betty left her coat in the agency cloakroom. It was ugly and worn and certainly wouldn’t make the best impression at her new job. She hurried to the address Miss Johnson had given her, checking the street signs, and following Miss Johnson’s instructions carefully.

On the walk, she sniffed the air, smelled the heavenly aroma of fresh baked bread. Maybe she could risk spending nearly the last of her money. She hadn’t eaten yet today, and she’d need some energy for her new job.

Her new job! Yes! She clasped her hands together and grinned up at the clear blue sky.

She stopped at a bread store, bought a day-old roll, and crunched it on the way.

Everything was going to be all right, she realized, walking with a little skip in her step, smiling up at the
watercolor-blue sky.

The wind was brisk, and she shivered. But it was only a short walk to the address, and she moved quickly.

She spotted trees in the city park, their tall, empty branches making dark lines against the sky. Remembering something from her life on the farm, she headed over to them, beginning to hum happily.

~*~

Jake Watterson shuffled out of his bathroom, bleary-eyed and scowling, one hand wrapped around a mug of orange juice, the other scratching his chin stubble. He picked up the heavy receiver on what must have been its twentieth ring and snarled, “Yes?”

“Jake, that you? Sounds like I woke you,” said his editor with unwholesome cheerfulness in his voice.

And you sound really apologetic about it
. “Well you didn’t. What do you want? I’m eating.”

“Hire a cook again? Good for you. Listen, I just called to ask how your new book was com—”

With a wordless growl, Jake slammed the receiver down.

Within moments, the phone rang again. Jake ignored it for another twenty rings, by which time he had finished his orange juice and was starting to feel more human. He picked up.

“What do you want, Matt?” he asked.

“I want you to start working,” said editor Matthew Armstrong. “And I have an idea that might help.”

“What?”

“Listen, don’t get mad. I’m having a secretary sent over to help you.”

“Matt—” Jake ground his teeth.

“Hey, don’t interrupt. Let me fin—”

“You know I don’t like giving dictation.”

“—
ish. I know you say you don’t like doing dictation—don’t interrupt—but I also know that for the past three years you haven’t done a lick of work in the winter months. Why, you haven’t typed a single word since October!”

That actually wasn’t true, but Jake didn’t correct him, since none of his typed pages had gotten further than the waste paper basket by his desk.

“Maybe a secretary is just what you need,” said Matt. “Someone to break you out of your gloom. You can at least try dictating something. You couldn’t do any less than you’re doing now if you tried. This is for your own good, Jake, so don’t argue. I just called to tell you so you know what’s going on. And remember to pull on some pants before you answer your door. If I know you, you’re still in pajamas.”

Jake made a strangled sound in his throat and hung up.

He glowered at the phone and ran his fingers back through his hair.

Jake didn’t have many friends—he was too much of a recluse for that—but he considered Matt one of them. Usually. Right now he didn’t.

How dare Matt send him some perfect little secretary? That was just what he needed, someone to sit at his typewriter and stare pointedly at him as he searched for something—anything—to dictate.

Winters were hard enough for him. Every year since he could remember, he’d gotten depressed in the winter months and hadn’t been able to think of a thing worth writing. He installed sunlamps all through his home, the brownstone he inherited from his parents, but it didn’t help. Nor did anything else he tried. Now, he just resigned himself to unproductive, miserable winters.

He would prefer to be unmolested by calls to hurry up and write something, too.

Surely Matt had other writers to depend on in the winter. Even if it was a family owned small press. Hadn’t Jake already written three books last year—two of them respectable sellers?

It wasn’t as though he or Matt would starve if he didn’t work for a few months.

The mere thought of working again made Jake want to curl up under his blankets and not emerge until spring. When there were robins in the air, and a respectable amount of emerald-green grass in the park, then he would emerge, and once again take up the written word.

But right now he just couldn’t.

Matt’s got a lot of nerve
. Maybe he should disconnect his phone during the winter.

Jake shuffled to the bathroom, running a hand over his jaw to check how badly he needed a shave.

Pretty badly, it turned out. It was almost too late to shave.
Maybe she’ll think I always have a beard
. He squinted into the mirror at his gloomy, tired expression. He frowned at the few prematurely gray hairs he saw.

“He’s supposed to be an editor, not a babysitter,” muttered Jake, as he contemplated pulling out those three gray hairs.

He decided against it. It smacked of vanity and primping. No one else would know, but he would know, and then after he got started down that route, he would always feel he was lying to the whole world. Instead, he ran a comb roughly through his hair, squinting as it caught on knots. He didn’t try to cover the gray.

Let her see it and realize she’s working for a washed-up has-been—and quit.

Of course, Jake was only thirty-two, and aside from the hairs, he looked his age. But these were the sort of thoughts he had in winter.

He finished dressing just as the doorbell rang. He stalked slowly across the floor in his stocking feet, glowering all the while. (He’d forgotten his shoes, of course.) If Matt thought he was going to like working with a secretary, he was wrong.

Jake yanked open the front door of his ancestral brownstone home and scowled out.

There on the front step stood a pretty girl with curls so yellow they looked like bottled sunshine. She held a few small broken tree branches and wore a flower-print dress—no coat. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and she looked highly mortified, as if this were the most embarrassing day of her life.

Behind her stood a stern policeman.

Chapter Two

“Do you know this woman?” said the police officer.

“No, I never met her before in my life,” replied Jake. He squinted down at her to make sure he wasn’t mistaken. Nope—he’d have remembered eyes that blue, not to mention those golden curls and the cherubic face, now mortified with blushes.

Her color deepened.

The policeman cleared his throat. He appeared embarrassed by the situation, nearly as much so as the girl, except he wasn’t blushing. “She says she works for you.”

Jake’s frown cleared. “Ah. Well, she might at that. My publisher sent over a secretary today, and she hasn’t arrived yet.” He looked at the girl. She appeared young, not more than twenty. That didn’t necessarily mean she was; he wasn’t certain he could judge a woman’s age with much accuracy. Anyway, she was probably old enough to be a secretary. “
Are
you the new secretary?” he asked her.

The police officer turned to look at her, as well. She nodded, still appearing painfully embarrassed.

“What are the branches for?” Jake asked.

“That’s the problem, sir.” The policeman stood up straighter, squaring his shoulders. “She took them from the park without authorization.”

“Is there a fine?” asked Jake abruptly. “Why are you bothering me about it?”

The officer scratched his head, looking
chagrinned. “She said she wanted to take something to brighten your office. I had to check on her story. You see, we don’t prosecute first time offenders—” He cleared his throat and looked at the girl. He was definitely embarrassed. “But you shouldn’t do it again, all right?” The warning sounded weak as he faced the girl.

The girl nodded, her eyes large and nervous-looking. She spoke with a soft country twang in her voice. “I’m awful sorry. I didn’t know there was a law about it. Back on the peach farm, we always used to pick some branches in the winter. We take them inside, and they start to grow. I’m most awful sorry, and I won’t do it again.”

The officer scratched his eyebrows. Was it Jake’s imagination, or were even his cheeks blushing now?

“I really am sorry,” the girl said. She hesitated and then held out the branches. “Here. You should take them. I know you can’t glue them on the trees again, but I shouldn’t profit from my crime.” She looked sincere when she said it—as if she’d done something as heinous as rob a bank. A smile twitched on Jake’s mouth; he struggled to cover it.

The policeman cleared his throat. “That won’t be necessary. Just—just try to remember next time. I’ll let you get to work now. Sir. Miss.” He cast Jake a slightly apologetic glance and tipped his hat at the girl.

“Oh, thank you!” The girl looked so happy that for a second Jake thought she was going to fling her arms around the policeman. Fortunately, her arms were full.

“Well, all right. I guess I’ll let you get to work.” He looked at the two of them again. “Well.” He raised a hand to tug at his cap and started down the steps, to all appearances reluctantly.

“Thank you, Officer Frank!” called the girl after him, waving and smiling.

The policeman was definitely blushing as he walked away.

“Boy, howdy, I sure won’t make that mistake again,” said the girl, shivering on his doorstep. “I’m Betty Ann Keene, by the way,” she said, extending one hand awkwardly.

Where was her coat? It was certainly too cold to be outside in a thin summer dress like the one she wore.

He held his hand out and shook hers. It was thin and cold. “I’m Jake Watterson.”

“Oh, I know! They told me about you—you’re a famous author!” Her smile sparkled up at him.

He grunted. “You’d better come in.” He stepped back and swung the door open.

“Brr. It sure is chilly out today!” She shivered expansively and cast him a nice smile. “I’m awful sorry about that, bringing a policeman to your door. Not the best way to start a job, is it?”

She looked at him rather wistfully, so Jake was forced to say, gruffly, “Don’t worry about it.”

She looked relieved. “Really? I thought you’d fire me for certain. You sure don’t want an ex-con working for you.”

Jake’s mouth twitched. He worked hard not to smile. “You’re hardly an ex-con. You can only be an ex-con if you’ve been convicted of a crime, served your sentence, and been released back into society.”

“O-oh!” She looked at him, eyes widening. “I’m glad you said! I’d have been going around telling everyone I’d gone to jail!” She seemed genuinely unnerved by the thought. “Thanks, Mr. Watterson!”

He began to wonder if she was a bit short in the intelligence department. “You’re welcome,” he muttered.

“I’ll just put these branches in water,” she said. “I guess I better not waste them after that nice policeman let me keep them. I could’ve gone to jail on account of these!”

“I doubt that,” said Jake.

“Is this the kitchen?” She headed into it, carrying her armful of branches.

He padded after her in his stocking feet, feeling as though he had just let in a stray cat and was about to watch it take over his house.

“Where are your vases?” she asked, looking back at him as she laid her branches in the wide kitchen sink.

“I don’t have any,” said Jake.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” She blinked and then smiled at him again. “It was rude of me to ask. Of course I should’ve brought my own. I mean…you know. If it had been legal to…pick these, that is.”

He watched as she found a selection of canning jars beneath his sink, picked one, and then filled it with water. He hadn’t even known he had any. Estelle Robertson, a woman worth her weight in gold, came in to help Jake with housework several times a week (and made certain his cupboards were full). She must have put them there.

Was it some kind of woman’s sixth sense that led to Betty Ann finding them so quickly?

He noticed she was still shivering slightly. “Why aren’t you wearing a coat?” he asked.

She hesitated before answering. She finished filling the jar with water and branches and then turned to face him.

He caught sight of her blue eyes and the uncertainty in them.

Didn’t she have a coat? Could that be possible, a working girl in the city in the middle of winter, without a coat?

“Actually,
Mr.Watterson…” she said slowly, twisting her lip under her teeth, and hesitating.

“Don’t you have one?” he asked, gruffer than he meant to.

“Oh, no, that’s not it at all!” Her eyes grew rounder. “You, you see—” She took a big breath and launched into a rapid explanation. “My only coat is the one I wore back on the farm. It’s big, old, and mostly red, and that doesn’t go with this dress at all. It’s my nicest dress, and I-I wanted to make a good impression. That obviously didn’t work.” She turned back to the sink, fiddling with the branches, rearranging them, and avoiding his gaze. She flicked a curl of golden hair back from her face with a wet finger.

Jake opened his mouth to answer, but she continued speaking.

“I should’ve thought,” she said. “It’s only a short walk from the agency, only eight blocks with a stop at the park. I didn’t think it would be this chilly. Frank was really kind to lend me his jacket.”

“Frank? The cop?” Jake gaped at her. “He loaned you his coat?”

“Yes, just on the walk over here. He said he didn’t want me to catch cold.”

Jake stared at the girl in wonderment. She was either the most accomplished flirt he’d ever met, or the most clueless and friendly farm girl left in the big city.

“Eight blocks?” he said. “In the cold? What were you thinking?” Surely even a farm girl would know better, unless she had fallen off the stupid wagon on her way from Hicksville, U.S.A.

“Oh, it’s-it’s been really nice out, until today. In fact, I’ve never seen such mild weather this time of year. Don’t you think it’s been nice, except today?”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been out much,” he grumped. Then he wished he hadn’t said it. Now she’d think he was a housebound recluse—which was too close to the truth for comfort. He cast her a stern look, challenging her to make something of it.

It bounced off her cheery expression—if she even noticed. “Oh—” She flashed that white smile again. “You really should! It’s lovely out. Don’t you think winter’s lovely?”

Winter—lovely?
He had half a mind to stalk into the next room and close the door to escape her doe-eyed cheerfulness. Instead, he found himself simply saying, “No.”

“Oh! Well, I do. I think I like spring better, and summer, and of course fall— that’s when we pick the peaches—you’ve never tasted a peach until you’ve had one fresh off the tree—but winter’s all right. I think it’s pretty. It feels like the earth is taking time to catch its breath and just think about things. Like it’s waiting.”

She turned away suddenly and gave an embarrassed laugh, fiddling with the branches in the jar.

“I’m sorry. I talk too much. You just tell me if I start doing that again. Pa says I’d be apt to chew the ears off a bear. Now, you just tell me what secretary work needs done, and I’ll get down to work and be real silent.” She looked at him expectantly.

Which is doubtless silence indeed
. He gave a little snort and turned and walked into the living room. He headed to the phone. He had half a mind to call Matt now and bawl him out.

Of course, it would be rude to do it while the girl was here.

But I don’t want a secretary!

The girl was nice enough, in her way, if excessively talkative and cheerful. But to pretend she could help him with his work…that was begging for problems. He couldn’t work with other people when he was writing. For Jake, writing was an intensely personal and private enterprise.

He turned to shut the door between the rooms, so he could call Matt in peace. He almost collided with Betty Ann.

She looked up at him expectantly, full of innocent exuberance. “Do you want me to take dictation, Mr. Watterson?”

Jake groaned inwardly.

He spoke, making an effort to keep his voice quiet and calm. “No, I do not want you to take dictation. I do not write during the winter, and I certainly don’t need a secretary.”

Her hopeful expression vanished. “Oh. I’m-I’m sorry.” She turned and started slowly for the kitchen, head down.

Now what had he done? She was just a harmless farm girl, young, new to the city, and eager about what was probably her first ‘real’ job. He had no need—no right—to crush her youthful spirits. Even if she did like winter. Even if she talked too much and borrowed coats from policemen.

“Wait, Miss Keene.” He took a deep breath. “I’m—sorry. You’re only trying to do your job. That was—rude of me. I’ll—” He gritted his teeth even as he said it. “I guess I’ll give dictation a try.”

He motioned her, with a swallowed grimace, to his faithful desk and typewriter.

His typewriter was a brand new model, and he kept it well-oiled no matter what else around the house he neglected. It was his pride, his joy, and he didn’t like anyone touching it. He swallowed back his protectiveness and ushered her to his chair.

She sat down, fluffing her skirt out, so it wouldn’t crumple. She positioned her fingers carefully on the keys of his typewriter, as though preparing for a typing exam at school. She looked at him expectantly, still rather subdued.

Sighing inwardly, Jake began to pace the room. He wracked his brain for a plot idea—any plot idea.

He needed to give her something to do before he sent her, firmly but politely, packing. He simply had no call for a secretary, and he’d have to find a way to tell her that. But not yet.

Come on, Jake! Think of something.

He focused on the rich, worn carpet that his parents installed long before his birth. Then he stared at his socks, even at his fingernails, thinking, thinking, trying to come up with even one idea worth writing down. If she hadn’t been here, he’d have given up already.

“It’s no good,” he said at last. He flung himself into a chair and sighed. He leaned his head back, his eyes falling shut with weariness, and ran fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything.”

“Oh!” said Betty Ann, sounding surprised. “Why, I can think of a dozen ideas! Of course, I’m not a writer, and they’re probably not good ones.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. “What?”

A faint flush came into her cheeks. “I-I mean, the world’s such a beautiful place. It must be full of stories, as many stories as there are flowers in the spring.”

She wasn’t real. She just wasn’t. This was all part of some bizarre dream.

Wearily, he said, “I’m listening.”
Let her try it. I’m sick of everyone thinking my job is easy just because they’ve never done it themselves.

She looked up toward the ceiling, a faraway look on her face, her fingers still poised on the keyboard. (She seemed to have forgotten about them.) When she spoke, it was with a quiet, thoughtful voice. “I think if I could write, I’d write a story about a church yard, with the leaves falling, and all the beautiful colors lying on top of the grave stones.”