Picnic in Someday Valley (Honey Creek #2)(9)

He watched the baker, Adalee, unlock the door. Her long, curly red hair was tied up in a ponytail, but it was on the side of her head, not the back. Maybe she was a bit strange, but those scones had something in them too good to deny. It seemed the only explanation; they were pure magic. Before long he’d be her mule or whatever folks call people hooked beneath a spell.

Jesse let his imagination run. No telling what she’d have him doing now that she’d pulled him in. Maybe he’d have to kill some animal and drain its blood. Or dig up a body in the cemetery. She might want him to be her sex slave.

Jesse shook his head. He was forty, too old to be a sex slave. He had three kids to raise and a farm where he never caught up on all the chores. He didn’t even have time to cook breakfast most days.

Besides, everyone in town knew the whole Keaton clan was homely as mud and he was a prime example of that. Well, maybe not homely, maybe just plain.

If he hadn’t lived three doors down from Beth, she would have never spoken to him, they never would have married or had three beautiful children. His own mother kidded him that some folks love ugly dogs and Beth must have been a girl who loved ugly men. Lucky for him he was the first one who came along, or she might have married one of the Brigger boys. Some say when the first Brigger was born, he was so homely the midwife tried to push him back in.

Jesse’s people were all tall and thin with hair that went every direction. From the time he started school, he thought his arms and legs were too long and his ears too big. His mother used to say the Lord made the Keaton men out of spare parts but they balanced it with strong hearts. She’d teased her one son, but she loved him almost as much as she loved her grandchildren.

His kids were blond like his wife had been. Angels with sky-blue eyes.

Jesse watched Adalee moving around in her bakery. She didn’t look like a witch, but then he’d never seen one. He’d asked around but the boys at the cattle auction didn’t seem to know much.

Adalee and her sister moved here about three years ago and opened a bakery. They didn’t mix with the locals except to do business. Willie said he saw the little sister dancing in the rain once but old Willie had been drunk since ’97, when his wife left him. One guy mentioned that the older sister was curvy, not the kind of stick figure like most girls in town.

As Jesse watched her, he saw that the man was right. Nice curves.

One of the cowhands said he saw the top button of the older sister’s shirt unbuttoned once, and he swore he saw the curled tail of a snake tattoo. He claimed if that snake went down between her cleavage it would have been crushed for sure.

Hell, the only real evidence Jesse had was that she’d bewitched him with her scones. If he ever saw that snake he’d become a believer. If he went to the sheriff with his theory, LeRoy would tell everyone Jesse finally went mad living out there with the grasshoppers.

Just because Jesse’s great-grandfather rode into town nude once when he was drunk, didn’t mean Jesse would do anything crazy. Jesse figured being homely was enough of a burden to bear.

*

At 6:31 a.m. Jesse climbed out, opened the back door, and lifted Sunny Lyn from her car seat so she could sleep on his shoulder. Zak woke Danny and they headed toward the bakery.

Jesse told himself if he hadn’t had the kids with him, he’d ask Adalee straight out what she put in the scones and then he’d tell her he was never eating another one of her addictive treats.

The baker smiled like she’d been expecting him. He took a deep breath and stepped forward as the heavenly smells slammed into his senses. Baked apples, chocolate pie, blueberry muffins, mixed with the smell of coffee. Jesse swore even his eyeballs were hungry.

“Morning, Mr. Keaton,” she said from behind the counter. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Everyone just calls me Jesse. How’d you know my name?” Mind reader, maybe? he almost said aloud.

“I asked someone when you left last week.” She smiled and winked. She had the greenest eyes he’d ever seen.

Jesse glanced back to see who she was winking at. There was no one behind him. He decided it hadn’t been a wink. Maybe she had a twitch.

He thought about saying “Morning,” but before he could, she handed him a scone.

“First customer gets to sample my newest scone, Jesse. Apple cinnamon.”

He knew she was trying to trick him somehow, but he couldn’t be rude. One bite. Well, two. Darn it, he ordered a dozen while he was still chewing.

As he ate he wondered which she’d make him do first, drain a wild animal of blood, dig up the dead, or be a sex slave, because he had to have another scone.

Then it dawned on him that all he had to do was buy them.

Sunny Lyn raised her head as the baker passed out free clear bags packed with six donut holes. The four-year-old patted the side of his head, indicating she wanted down, then ran to join her brothers at the table by the window.

For a moment he just stared at them as the first light of day shone on his sunshine children. Beth had named Sunny the moment she saw her light, almost white hair. An hour later Beth had been rushed into surgery with complications.

She never came back.

“You all right, mister?” Adalee asked, tipping her head sideways as if her ponytail was pulling her over.

“Jesse,” he offered again, liking the way she said his name.

“Are you all right, Jesse?” she corrected, as if those beautiful eyes could see all the way to his soul.