The First Love Cookie Club (3 page)

“My God!” Benny exclaimed. “Talk about adding insult to injury.”

“It sounds warped, but it worked. Although Gramma Mia got really mad when she found out about it. My mother told me emotions weren’t in your heart, that it was all in your head, and emotions were nothing more than transient reactions to current situations and that they could be managed and dealt with in a rational manner and there was no reason to let feelings define who you were.”

“And I thought my mother was a whack job,” Benny muttered under his breath and rolled his eyes.

“Not really. She made good sense when you think about it. She said I had to stop listening to my Gram and her silly notions about predestined love if I ever wanted to find an open and honest relationship based on mutual interests and shared values like her and my father.” Of course, Sarah had tried that with Aidan, and look how well
that
had turned out. She put a hand to her stomach again.

Benny studied her. “This explains a lot about you.”

“What does that mean?”

“It explains why ever since I’ve known you, you’ve never been in a relationship. Seems like growing up that you received so many conflicting messages about love, you don’t know which way to jump.”

Plus there was the issue of her self-consciousness over the scar, but she’d never told Benny about that. Some things were just too painful to dredge up. “So you can see why I’m not keen on returning to the scene of my crime.”

Benny got to his feet. “But this is all the more reason you have to go. You have to face your fear.

It’s the only way to put it to bed. Plus, who knows, maybe once you face your fear, you might have a breakthrough in your writing.”

Sarah sighed. “Doubtful.”

“Don’t be such a Negative Nelly. It can’t hurt.”

“Easy for you to say. You weren’t the one in the reindeer antlers.”

“Hey, chances are that guy doesn’t even live there anymore.”

“Oh, he lives there.”

“How do you know?”

“His family was one of the town’s founders. The guy’s entrenched in Twilight.”

“Big deal. If you see him, you smile politely, say hi, and keep moving.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“You’re selling yourself short. Everyone is going to be looking at you as Sadie Cool. Look at all you’ve accomplished. A
New York Times
best-selling author, with a movie option to boot, and you’re only twenty-four. C’mon,” he coaxed, hooking his fingers underneath her chin and lifting her face up to his. “Think about how good you’ll feel once you get this over with. No more fears to hide behind. You’re Sadie Cool. You can do this.”

She stepped away from him, rubbed a palm down her face. What if he was right? What if her writer’s block was somehow tied to Twilight? She’d written
The Magic Christmas Cookie
as a catharsis. If she went back and submerged herself in the past, maybe she could recapture that angst—as painful as it might be—and tap into the creative spirit that had spurred her to create that first book.

Her gaze fell to the crayon-scrawled notepaperresting beside her computer.
I am little for my age cause I been sick a long time.
She could feel the child’s loneliness rising up off the page, and her heart wrenched. It was nine lousy days out of her life, but to this kid, her visit to Twilight would mean the world.

Sarah glanced around the room crowded with bookcases overflowing with books and thought about how her book had touched Jazzy’s heart. She and the little girl were kindred spirits, bound by the written word. Books provided an escape, an adventure, a window into another world. Books didn’t judge or condemn. Inside a book, Sarah felt safe. She made no mistakes, did nothing stupid. Books were her refuge, her touchstone. Books had been her friends when she’d had none. Books had even substituted for her parents’ affection. Outside of books, well, she was inept, bordering on antisocial.

She didn’t know how to let down her guard without taking emotional chances. She stuffed down her feelings, stayed detached. Allowing other people to see the real her was just too damn risky by half. So she kept to herself, kept her nose in a book, kept her heart walled up behind an aloof veneer, because it was the only way she knew how to survive.

But now, because of a book she’d written, she was being asked to step outside herself and bring joy to a sick little girl who might not have long to live.

“Damn you,” she told Benny.

He grinned. “You’ll do it?”

“Like you ever gave me a choice.”

“She’s coming to Twilight, she’s coming to Twilight!” Raylene Pringle exclaimed as she rushed through the back door of the Twilight Bakery waving the e-mail confirmation she’d just printed off her computer.

The six other women sat gathered around the long, thick-legged oak table, laden with cookbooks, magazines, and recipe boxes. Every time she saw the table, Raylene thought of a line from the Led Zeppelin song—which someone played almost every day on the jukebox in the Horny Toad Tavern—about a big-legged woman having no soul. Thank God her slender legs were still pinup worthy, even when she was a hairsbreadth away from sixty.

Today, the group had gathered to plan the upcoming holiday events, including the annual Twilight Cherub Tree and the First Love Cookie Club swap that took place the second Friday in December. Each year the group prepared for the Christmas cookie exchange by combing through recipes in search of unique and tasty treats. Over a hundred years of cookie-making tradition imbued the festivities with lore of destiny, soul mates, and grand true loves. The mission statement of the First Love Cookie Club was to preserve, perpetuate, and celebrate the town’s tradition for both sweethearts and sweet treats.

The only one in the current group who had not married her first love—mainly because she had never had a first love—was the owner of the bakery, shy Christine Noble. (Well, okay, there was Patsy Calloway Cross, who hadn’t marriedher high school sweetheart, Hondo Crouch, but she denied he was her first love, so who were they to say she was lying?) The ladies of the club had granted Christine honorary membership when she’d offered the use of her bakery as command post central for all the upcoming holiday events the group was involved in.

The rules of the cookie club were clear. Members were women only. No men, no kids. The theory being that everyone needed a break from the stress of holiday preparation. Drink a little wine, talk a little trash, try out some interesting cookie recipes before the big swap event in December. The meetings got them in the holiday spirit in a relaxed, communal way.

Rule number two. All the cookies had to be homemade. They had to be baked, and the main ingredient had to be flour. No store-bought cookies were allowed. Period. End of story. If you couldn’t fulfill your cookie obligation for some reason— the only acceptable excuse was a serious illness or death in the family—you could call upon one of your First Love sisters to make your cookies for you.

Rule number three. Whatever was said at cookie club stayed at cookie club. The ladies of the club were prone to gossip. Not maliciously, of course, simply out of curiosity and motherly concern for the people involved. But to avoid problems, they’d agreed that whatever was said during the moments of lips loosened over wine, cookies, and sisterhood stayed in the vault.

Rule number four. No chocolate chip cookies allowed. Chocolate chips are not Christmas cookies,no matter how tasty. Save them for the rest of the year.

Rule number five. Festive holiday attire had to be worn for the meetings. Halloween costumes were acceptable for the October meeting, as were harvest outfits for November.

“Who’s coming?” asked Dotty Mae Densmore, the oldest member of the group. Dotty Mae was in her mid-eighties, but had the vim and vigor of a woman fifteen years younger. Her fingers flew over her knitting as she eyed the cookbook,
The Zen of Cookies,
open in front of her. She wore a sweatshirt with a grinning jack-o'-lantern appliquéd on the front.

“For heaven’s sake, Raylene, close the door. It’s drafty with that north wind blowing in,” Patsy Cross scolded. She was on the town council, ran a store just off the square called the Teal Peacock. She wore a black pointed witch’s hat and a stern look on her face.

Appropriate, the witch’s hat, Raylene thought, and closed the door behind her. She and Patsy had been frenemies for fifty years, long before
Sex and the City
made the term popular. To Dotty Mae she said, “Sadie Cool.”

Dotty Mae frowned. Her short-term memory wasn’t what it used to be. “Who’s that?”

“The author who wrote
The Magic Christmas Cookie,
Jazzy’s favorite book—” Marva Bullock started, pushing aside the cornrow braid that had fallen across her cocoa-colored cheek. In concession to the holiday attire rule, her braids were threaded with pumpkin-colored ribbons held in place with black cat clips. Marva was the highschool principal and the most diplomatic one of the group.

“But we found out she’s really Sarah Collier,” interrupted pert, zaftig Belinda Murphey, who owned the local matchmaking business and was the mother of five rambunctious kids, all under the age of ten.

“Mia’s granddaughter?” Dotty Mae asked.

“That’s right,” said Terri Longoria. Terri was dressed in black leggings, a short black skirt, and a white knit sweater with autumn leaves patterned into it. She owned Hot Legs Gym and was married to the chief of staff at Twilight General Hospital.

Their honorary member, Christine Noble, said nothing. She sat at the end of the table wearing a Halloween apron featuring smiling skeletons, RIP tombstones, green-skinned Frankenstein monsters, and broomstick witches.

“Mia’s granddaughter wrote a book under another name?” Dotty Mae looked befuddled.

“That she did,” Terri assured her, “and when we found out, we invited her to Twilight to meet Jazzy. You know she hasn’t been home since she interrupted Travis’s wedding to Crystal Hunt.”

“Oh, that’s a wonderful idea.” Dotty Mae smiled. “I’m glad we invited her.” She looked at Raylene. “And Sarah accepted?”

Raylene nodded. “Yes.”

“So,” Patsy said, “Sarah’s acceptance begs the question, do we tell Travis who Sadie Cool really is?”

“No,” everyone said in unison.

“Why not?”

“Patsy Cross,” Belinda said, “you are the world’s worst matchmaker.”

“We’re trying to hook Travis up with Sarah?” Now it was Patsy’s turn to frown in confusion.

Dotty Mae clucked her tongue. “Don’t you remember that Mia told us Travis was the one Sarah dreamed of in her Christmas Eve kismet cookie dreams? They’re destined.”

Patsy looked skeptical. “Do we even know if Sarah is single? She could be married or in a serious relationship.”

“She’s not,” Raylene assured her. “I asked her agent when I e-mailed him.”

“It seems a bit underhanded to me.”

“Well, you know how Travis is. He’s sworn he’s never getting married again, but he just needs a shove in the right direction. If we tip our hand, he’ll be dead set against Sarah. But if he sees her first and has no time to steel himself against the idea, the magic of first love will take over,” Belinda said.

“Then there’s this.” Raylene pulled an angel ornament from her pocket.

Every year the First Love Cookie Club sponsored the annual Cherub Tree for local children who were disadvantaged in some way. The kids were asked to fill out a wish list for Christmas and then their list was attached to an ornament and hung from the Sweetheart Tree (which in December turned into the Cherub Tree) in Sweetheart Park. Generous benefactors would adopt a cherub from the tree, pluck down their ornament, and make the child’s Christmas wishes come true.

Whenever they saw what Raylene held in her hand, a sigh of wistful sadness went through the group. They all knew what was written on it. A list of Jazzy Walker’s Christmas wishes. She wantedwhat most little girls wanted. A Barbie. New clothes. An iPod. And then there were the personalized wishes. First, she wanted to meet her favorite author in all the world, Sadie Cool, and there, at the bottom of the list, in a childish scrawl, were the words:
I wish for a mommy so my daddy won’t have to be all alone when I die.

“That poor kid.” Dotty Mae sniffled into a tissue.

Marva clutched a hand to the left side of her chest.

Terri swiped at her eyes.

Belinda’s lips moved upward in a forced smile.

Christine sat solemnly.

Raylene met Patsy’s eyes. “Travis and Sarah are destined. We all know it. The kismet cookie prophecy is never wrong. I dreamed of Earl, Marva dreamed of G.C., Terri dreamed of Ted, Belinda dreamed of Harvey. Mia dreamed of Anthony, and Dotty Mae dreamed of Stuart. And whether you want to admit it or not, I was there the year we made kismet cookies at your sleepover and I know you dreamed of Hondo.”

Patsy said nothing, but the expression on her face told Raylene the truth. Her friend was and always had been in love with Hondo Crouch, even if they’d never gotten their happily-ever-after. “Plus, Sadie Cool is Jazzy’s favorite author and honestly, what are the odds of that happening? With the way Jazzy’s health is deteriorating …” Raylene swallowed hard, waved the ornament. “This might be our last chance to make her Christmas wish come true.”

Travis Walker looked out at the intelligent young faces of Mrs. Tilson’s fourth grade class at Jon Grant Elementary and grinned. He loved career day. Heck, he loved kids. They were so open and honest and forthcoming, traits he truly admired.

“Game wardens guard our parks and lakes and shorelines and wildlife preserves,” he said. “We catch poachers and enforce hunting and fishing regulations and we arrest people who break the law.”

“Just like the police?” A boy sitting in the front row scrutinized the duty weapon holstered at Travis’s hip.

“Yes, just like the police.”

“Is that a real gun?”

“It is.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “Awesome. Did you ever shoot anyone?”

Travis thought about the time he’d stumbled onto an illicit marijuana field while tracking a wounded deer through the lowlands around Brazos River Bend and found himself peering up the business end of a 12-gauge shotgun. But that story wasn’t suitable for his audience.

“I’ve never killed anyone,” he said truthfully, sidestepping the question. But he had shot someone.

Another boy raised his hand.

Travis pointed at him. “Yes?”

“How come you took my uncle to jail last week?” he asked, narrowing his eyes defiantly. “All he did was drink a beer on his own boat.”

Travis knew the look. The kid had a chip on his shoulder. Once upon a time he’d been just as petulant toward authority figures. After his mother died and his father crawled inside himself, Travis had been adrift. Angry at life, he’d kicked up a fuss just to see who’d react.

“Jimmy,” the teacher said, “that question is inappropriate.”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Tilson, I don’t mind answering.” Travis trod across the room toward Jimmy, who shrank down in his chair. “I arrested your uncle because he broke the law. My job is to keep the rivers and lakes safe for everyone to enjoy. Drunken boating is the same as drunken driving.”

“He didn’t hurt anyone,” Jimmy mumbled.

“He could have if I hadn’t arrested him,” Travis said calmly and then went on to tell them a cautionary tale in unemotional language about the drunken boater who’d run over a skier and amputated her leg on Lake Twilight the previous summer. Travis had been the first responder on the scene, and the memory was burned into his brain.

“Wow,” said the kid who’d asked him aboutshooting someone. “Cool job. I wanna be a game warden when I grow up.”

“Then study hard, especially in science and math.” Travis glanced around the room. “Any other questions?”

“Can girls become game wardens?” asked a serious-looking young girl with solemn blue eyes and caramel-colored hair.

She reminded him of another serious, blue-eyed, caramel-haired girl he’d once known—little Sarah Collier. He wondered with mild interest where Sarah was now, what she was up to. He’d always liked her and he’d lost touch with her after her grandmother died.

“Absolutely girls can be game wardens,” he said, “but remember, game wardens work outdoors in the weather. We get wet and cold or sometimes sweaty and hot. We slog through swampy terrain and often come across spiders and snakes and bugs and frogs.”

The girl tilted her chin upward, reminding him even more of Sarah. “I like spiders and snakes.”

“Good for you.”

Just then, the door of the classroom opened and a teacher’s aide popped her head in the room. “Officer Walker?” Her voice sounded tense, strained.

“Yes?”

“Could you come with me please, sir?”

Alarm swept through him, but Travis tried not to show it. “Sure. I’ll be right with you.”

“You need to come with me right now.”

Okay, now he was really scared. “Good-bye, class, study hard.” He raised a hand and followed the teacher’s aide from the classroom. “What’sup?” he asked once the door had closed behind them.

“It’s Jazzy,” the woman said.

That was all Travis had to hear. He fisted his hands, felt his pulse spurt adrenaline through his veins. He pivoted on his heel, headed for his daughter’s classroom, the teacher’s aide trailing behind him.

“What happened?” he barked at her over his shoulder.

“She was running—“

He stopped dead, whirled on her. “Jazzy was running?”

“She did it behind our backs, we were—“

“It’s your job to watch out for her,” he snarled, rage exploding inside him. “You know her medical condition.”

Anxiety scrunched up the woman’s features. “You’re right, but Jazzy is headstrong and independent …”

He had no time for this woman or for anger or blame. His daughter needed him. Jazzy was the most important thing. Dismissing the teacher’s aide, he strode toward Jazzy’s classroom.

“Um … Mr. Walker … she’s in the school nurse’s office. I’ll show you.”

He knew where the school nurse’s office was. He’d been there more times than he could count. He barreled toward his destination, pushed through the door without knocking. To hell with civility. “Jazzy!”

“Daddy.” Her voice was weak, wheezy.

He shoved aside the white curtain mounted on an overhead track. Jazzy lay on the table, her lipsthat familiar dusky color, her blue eyes wide with fear, a thin green oxygen cannula snaking from her tiny nose. A nurse in pink scrubs, with brown teddy bears on them, stood beside Jazzy checking her pulse. Travis’s heart constricted.

His daughter held out her frail arms to him and he crossed the remaining space with one long-legged purposeful stride and scooped her up into his arms. “Call Dr. Adams and have him meet us at the hospital,” he barked.

“I—” the nurse said.

“Just do it,” he cut her off.

The nurse nodded and hustled to the phone on her desk while Travis gently removed the nasal can-nula from Jazzy’s nose and then carried her toward the door. Her breathing was quick, raspy, with an elongated whistling noise at the end of each shaky exhalation. A familiar sound he knew all too well. She sounded like someone who’d smoked three packs of cigarettes a day for thirty years.

He held her tight, could feel her delicate little arm bones through the softness of her skin. God, she was so vulnerable, his tough little angel. Travis stalked from the school, headed toward the brown, extended cab pickup truck that the state of Texas issued to him as game warden.

“It’s going to be okay, sweetheart,” he murmured, his mouth pressed close to her ear. “Daddy’s here.”

She clung to him, buried her face against his neck. He could smell her little-girl scent, full of sweetness and innocence. She might be eight years old, but she barely weighed forty pounds. He strapped her into her car seat and then hustled around to the driver’s side. He drove as fast as hedared, torn between getting her to the emergency room and not alarming her.

Jazzy was very sensitive and quickly picked up on the emotions of those around her. They’d been through this so many times that it was almost routine. But he could not afford to view her illness as ordinary. Each labored breath that his daughter took could be her last.

A memory hit him then, sharp and poignant, the way it often did when his daughter was in acute respiratory distress. He thought about his mother, Penelope Walker, who had suffered from severe asthma throughout most of his childhood. It had been a normal part of his life. Routine that her numerous allergies prevented her from taking him to the park like other mothers or attending his Little League games.

But in spite of her condition, his mother had been a Shiny Penny. That’s what his dad had called her anyway. His Shiny Penny. Bright and true, something you could count on. She smiled every day of her life. She was an artist who used anything and everything as her medium. She drew on white butcher paper with charcoal, capturing Travis’s silhouette as he grew from infant to toddler to gap-toothed kid to gangly preteen. She painted murals on his bedroom walls, trucks and airplanes and race cars. She knitted with merino wool and mohair and angora and alpaca, making scarves and mittens, afghans and sweaters, socks and caps in every color of the rainbow. Local women who lacked the talent or time to create their own crafts came to their door every week to buy the wares his mother had created.

Penelope spent most of her days in bed or on thecouch, drawing and painting and knitting in between the times the asthma stole her breath. When he crept up onto her bed as a boy, looking for affection, he had to be careful not to jab a knitting needle in his knee or snap her charcoal in half or crimp her oxygen line. Although his mother had been confined by her disease, she had not been defined by it. She had a glow about her, her whole face round and smooth as a white harvest moon. It was only later, after Jazzy got sick, that Travis realized it was the years of mega-doses of steroids that made her look that way.

When Travis reached the hospital, he thought of the night he and his dad had followed the ambulance there. He recalled how the frowning paramedics had whisked his mother inside on a stretcher, blocking Travis’s view of her. All he could see of his mother were her hands. Hands that had once drawn and knitted and rubbed his back when he was tired or feeling bad, hands now turned doughy with blue-tinged fingernails, hands that would never hold him again.

He shook his head, shook off the memories, parked the truck, eased Jazzy from the backseat, and carried her through the pneumatic doors and into the emergency room bright with fluorescent lights. The front desk clerk spotted him right away and got up from his chair. Travis knew the freckled-faced man from high school. His name was Kip Armstrong.

“We’re putting Jazzy in exam room three,” Kip said. “Dr. Adams is on his way.”

Travis moved through the double doors, past the other patients parked in the waiting room. Jazzygot special treatment. Part of it was the frequent flier aspect. They were in here so often the staff felt like family. Part of it was Jazzy’s bubbly personality. Everyone who met her fell in love with her. And part of it, he knew, was pity. They felt sorry for a single father whose only child had a nasty habit of knocking at death’s door. Hell, if pity got her faster service, he’d take it.

The medical staff converged around him as he laid Jazzy on the gurney in moves so habitual they felt choreographed. As if a silent director was sending out telepathic cues. Nurse One took her blood pressure. Nurse Two put a pulse oxygenation monitor on her index finger. The lab tech drew arterial blood gases, while the respiratory therapist set up the Albuterol nebulizer.

Jazzy sat upright propped on pillows, leaning forward, knees drawn to her chest, struggling to catch her breath between the coughing fits that racked her little body. Travis fisted his hands. He felt so damn helpless.

In his head, he heard his ex-wife’s voice.
Face reality, Travis. She
‘
s going to die.

Not on his watch, dammit. No way, no how.
Get out of my head, Crystal,
he growled silently to himself.
You
‘
re the quitter. You
‘
re the one who gives up on people. Not me. Never me. You forfeited your parental rights when you walked out on us because you were too damn weak to take care of our sick daughter.

Why the hell was he thinking about Crystal? He suspected his subconscious had dredged up his ex-wife as a target for his helpless anger. He remembered standing in this same emergency room with

Crystal four years ago when Jazzy had had her first attack.

“She inherited this from your mother,” Crystal had accused. “It’s your bad DNA that’s ruined her.”

He’d never wanted to slap a woman in his life, but in that moment, he’d wanted to slap her, mainly because she’d pushed the button of his darkest fear. That he was deeply flawed and it was his fault their daughter was so ill. There had been thirty-seven more attacks that year, each one progressively worse.

They’d taken Jazzy to specialist after specialist and spent two weeks at a pediatric respiratory hospital in Austin. One quack had even suggested they remove her right lung, which seemed more affected than her left. Jazzy frequently ran a fever with the asthma attacks and no one could really explain why beyond telling them that colds and flu viruses often precipitated respiratory flare-ups. Jazzy had endured test after test as doctors searched for the asthma triggers and they’d come up empty time and time again.

“Maybe she’ll out grow it,” they’d said hopefully. But she hadn’t. In fact, the older she got, the worse her symptoms became.

Then came the night that Jazzy had gone into full cardiac arrest following a stress test at the children’s hospital and the doctors had been forced to put her on a ventilator and admit her into the ICU.

He and Crystal sat in the critical care waiting room, staring into cups of cold rotgut coffee, while the doctors worked on Jazzy. His ex-wife had raised her head and looked at him like a coyotecaught in a trap. “I’m gonna go home and get a change of clothes.”

He’d stared at her, incredulous. “It’s a three-hour drive back to Twilight.”

“I know, I know. I just need to get outta here, get some air, clear my head.”

“Jazzy needs you.”

Crystal had twisted her wedding ring around her finger. “You’re better at this sick stuff than I am.”

“You’re not going off and leaving her.”

“I can’t take it. I need a break.”

He remembered clenching his jaw and fisting his hands to keep from saying or doing something he would regret. “Fine,” he muttered. “Go have your break.”

She’d fled the room without a backward glance and Travis had never seen her again. When he and Jazzy got back home, all Crystal’s things were gone. She’d left a note on the dining room table.
I’m sorry. I’m just not cut out for motherhood. Forgive me.

Honestly, he’d forgiven her a long time ago. He wasn’t the kind of guy who held on to a grudge. Crystal was who she was and he couldn’t change her. All he could do was love Jazzy twice as much, and that was easy to do. He thought of his daughter with her wide blue eyes and her long, curly blond hair, and his heart squeezed. He’d never loved anyone the way he loved that child. That’s what he couldn’t understand about Crystal. How could she go away if she loved Jazzy? And how could a mother not love her own child enough to stick with her through thick and thin?