Waiting on the Rain by Claudia Connor
2
Luke watched herintently, noted that even in her heels he was a head taller than her. He also noted it wasn’t just her eyes. The lady had a face and she still hadn’t answered him. Finally, she lifted the empty plate she held in one hand and held up the end of a white cane in the other.
“Hard to make a choice when I can’t see them,” she said with a soft smile and a shrug.
Can’t see them? She didn’t seem that drunk, now that he was up close. But there was something… Her eyes looking in the direction of his face but not quite meeting his eyes.
“I’m blind,” she added casually. Like she was just throwing it out there to see where and how it landed.
“Oh,” he said, remaining absolutely still. For a beat, he stared at sky blue eyes that looked perfectly normal before snapping out of it. “So, if I put some cookies on there for myself you won’t notice?”
“Nope.”
She smiled and it was so devastating it nearly knocked him back a step.
“Someone walked me over, then there was a kid emergency and…” She shrugged again. “I’m not quite sure what to do now.”
“I can help with that. Are you familiar with the cookie table phenomenon?”
“No. Well, I’ve heard talk tonight, but I can’t really picture it. I’m beginning to think I should just skip it. If you could help me get back to my table—”
“No.” No way was he walking her back to leave her sitting alone. “I mean, you really shouldn’t skip it. And going on my personal experience from my sister’s wedding last year, the best way to attack this is to survey the choices first, get a game plan. You don’t want to fill up your plate then find something better at the end.”
“Good point.”
“Do you want to… Or should I…”
“It works best if I take your arm.” She slipped the loop at the top of her cane over her wrist and held out her hand. “If that’s okay.”
“Yeah. Sure.” She raised her right hand, touched the sleeve of his shirt at his elbow then found his bicep. Her small hand held him not tightly, but firmly enough that she wouldn’t lose him.
“This good?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“So, evidently,” he said, starting down the row. “This cookie thing is big in Ohio and Pennsylvania. And for some reason, it’s big in the McKinney clan. Since my sister married a McKinney, we’re reaping the benefits once again.”
“Oh. Your sister’s Hannah?”
“Yep.”
“Which makes you brother of the groom?”
“Right again. And even though neither my brother Zach, nor his new wife Nora, is a McKinney, when the McKinney’s hear wedding, they make cookies. And women, being competitive as they are, when one bakes, they all bake.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” she said, smiling.
He smiled back then remembered she couldn’t see it. “My sister talks a lot. Okay. There’s about five, maybe six tables lined up end to end.”
“What do they look like?”
“Um… Let’s see… Well…”
Her body brushed a platter laying too close to the edge and she jerked back. “Crap!”
“No problem.” Luke reached across her to catch it just before it tipped. “As you can see, or tell, the tables are full to overflowing. That’s one thing. There are plates and platters covering the tables, and even more set up on things to make them high.”
“A very manly description,” she said, teasing him.
“Okay, some are on stands about yay high.” He took her hands, raising one to give her an idea of the size. “And there are random little candles in between some of them.”
“Yikes. Glad I didn’t risk my life for a cookie.”
“No, shit. Would have sucked if you’d gone for a cookie and grabbed fire. You, know,” he said, pausing to look at her. “When I first came over here, I thought you were two sheets to the wind.”
“You what? You thought I was drunk?” She laughed. “So you came to save me from myself or save the cookies?”
“Both.”
“Hmm.” She slid her eyes in his direction. “I guess that’s fair.”
“Okay. We’re to the end. Now that we’ve gotten an idea of our choices, we go back to the beginning and load up.”
“All right, but I don’t really have an idea of my choices.”
“Good point. I’ll do a better job on the second pass. You hold the plate and I’ll fill it.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Okay. First up are some long, skinny log rolls. Hard. Maybe filled with some kind of nutty mixture.”
“Sounds good.”
“Okay. We’ll do two of those. We can always come back. Next are some white balls. Looks like they’ve been rolled in powdered sugar.”
“Yum.”
“I agree. Four of those.”
“I like how you describe things.”
“Really? How’s that?”
“Well, not like a food critic, but like…”
“Like a man who eats?” he suggested and got another smile out of her.
“Exactly.”
“Here we have some white things. Round, crispy, maybe some jelly in the center? I think we need more information.” He took a bite. “Yep, jelly. Strawberry. Want to try it?”
She pressed her lips together to hold back a laugh. “I’ll wait.”
“Good thinking. Let’s take three.”
They continued like that, with him describing, sometimes tasting, while she held onto him with one hand and held the plate he filled with her other. She said no to a few, and yes to most.
“No shit,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Ava was staring blankly at the table and he immediately regretted his nothing. Everything, anything, he saw was something. Something she couldn’t.
He grabbed a bag. “Here,” he said, and put her hand around it. She took it, turning it, feeling the thin, onion like paper. She ran a finger along the sides and bottom then the delicate scalloped edge at the top.
“They’re white,” Luke explained. “And right in the center there’s a fancy Z and N in gold. Zach and Nora.”
She smiled and held it out to him. “Cute.”
“Yeah. Cute,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at the bags. “Okay, I bet you’ll go for these. Chocolate, and going by the shape of them I’m guessing maybe chocolate covered Oreos.”
“You’re right. I do say yes.”
He was reaching for the chocolate covered circles when she tripped, let out a gasp and gripped his arm almost upending the plate.
“Whoa.” He gently righted her, catching their plate and barely squeezing it onto the edge of the table between platters. He looked down to see what had tripped her up just in time to see two little feet in white shoes and short white ruffle socks make a swift retreat under the floor length table cloth.
“Ahh. Looks like we have a cookie bandit.” He let go of her arm and knelt then raised the table cloth a few inches. Three pint sized bodies sat, their laps full of cookies, powdered sugar and chocolate rimming their mouths. He chuckled, thinking that’s exactly the kind of thing he and his brothers would have done. Luke couldn’t remember their names, but he did recognize two of them as the McKinney twins, along with another blond headed boy who looked to be around five.
Ava knelt beside him, reached her hand out to touch a small white buckle shoe. “What is it? Are there mice under the table? With shoes on?” The kids giggled. “Smells like mice and…” She sniffed. “Did the mice get into the powdered sugar?”
“Don’t tell,” a little boy said.
“Hmm. Maybe you need to practice your escape and evade tactics,” Luke told him.
“I know how. We play with our dad and I told Caroline not to stick her feet out. Who’s that?”
The boy pointed at the woman kneeling beside him and Luke turned his head. God, she was beautiful. Even if he had known her name, he wasn’t sure he could have answered.
“Ava. I’m Ava.”
“Luke. Walker.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“We did our job anyway,” the kid said, interrupting their slightly awkward and belated introduction. “Mom said after we could have cookies.”
“Did she say to have them under the table?”
“She didn’t say not to.”
The girl drew her feet farther under the table and shoved a small cookie into her already full mouth. Maybe sensing their cookie raid was soon coming to an end.
“Well, number one in evading is don’t get seen which means you have to keep your feet all the way under the table. And when you leave, crawl to the ends so you don’t trip anyone and make them drop their plate. No sense wasting cookies, right? You do that and I won’t tell. Deal?”
“Deal. But why would they be wasted?”
Luke laughed. Good question and one he’d leave to the parents, he thought, and straightened, bringing Ava with him.
“Sweet kids,” Ava said. “Or maybe I should say, smart kids. Did you ever hide under tables eating cookies?”
“I might have. You?”
“Not tables, no. But I did keep a lock on my closet to hide the Cocoa Pebbles from my pig of a brother.”
“Smart kid.”
With Ava beside him, they continued their gathering then took the bounty back to her table.
“I’m guessing you were in the wedding party?”
“Yep. Got the tux, the choking tie, the whole deal.”
“You don’t like weddings?” she asked, as they got back to her table.
“Nothing against it,” he said pulling her chair out. “But I could do without a thousand pictures.”
“You don’t have to stay with me,” she said, taking her seat. “I can manage the eating.”
He respected that, and she genuinely didn’t seem to mind being left alone. Even so, he was in no hurry to leave. “I’m sure you can,” he said and took the seat beside her. “But you’ve got my cookies. Or maybe you came with someone,” he added, again wondering why she would be here alone.
One side of her mouth curved up. “If I did, would you fight him for the cookies?”
God, her eyes were blue. A clear, pure, summer sky blue. Add to that, she had the kind of face that made a man want to straighten his tie if he still had one on. He might surrender the cookies but it would be damn hard to surrender her.