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Cold Tea On A Hot Day
Curtiss Ann Matlock
Praise for the novels of
Curtiss Ann Matlock
“This is a delicious read for a lazy summer day. It’s not overly sweet, and it has enough zing to satisfy readers thirsting for an uplifting read.”
—Publishers Weekly on Cold Tea on a Hot Day
“Ms. Matlock masterfully takes readers into a world full of quirky characters and small-town simplicity where they will wish they can stay.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Cold Tea on a Hot Day
“A wonderful cast and a perfect setting make for a gentle and reassuring story.”
—Booklist on Sweet Dreams at the Goodnight Motel
“Matlock’s down-to-earth characters and comforting plot will please many.”
—Booklist on Recipes for Easy Living
“Once again, Matlock delivers a gentle, glowing tale that is as sweet and sunny as its small-town setting. Readers will be delighted by this deft mix of romance and…slice-of-life drama.”
—Publishers Weekly on At the Corner of Love and Heartache
“With realistic characters and absorbing dialogue, Matlock crafts a moving story about a woman’s road to self-discovery.”
—Publishers Weekly on Driving Lessons
“This is simply a great read.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Driving Lessons
“This one will warm you.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Lost Highways
Curtiss Ann Matlock
Cold Tea on a Hot Day
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to many people who sustain me
each day, in my writing and in my life:
Leslie Wainger, Dianne Moggy and Kathleen Adler,
who have encouraged me and brought my books
to the bookshelves.
Writer friend Cait London, who has taught me
“Life moves on,” whether we’re ready or not.
Dear friends Lou and Barb, and my long-lost sister,
Sue, most especially on those days I would rather
have stayed in bed and covered up my head.
And the readers whose kind letters embolden me
to keep writing.
Thank you all.
One never knew about the deep secrets of ordinary lives.
—Tate Holloway
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
One
Another Day in Paradise
In the hazy glow of first morning light, a gleaming red Mercedes, a Roadster with its top up, sat on the side of the blacktopped county road. The engine idled gently, and headlights shone on the patchy grass and weeds.
The driver was slumped in the seat, comfortably, as if taking a nap. He was dead.
A dog lay with his head upon the man’s thigh. He had lain there for some time, out of loyal respect to a friend.
In a nearby tree, a meadowlark gave out a shrill morning call.
The dog, perking his ears, sat up and then went over to poke his wet nose out the window, fully open because the man had been driving along in the cool spring night with the passenger window down so that the dog could enjoy putting his face in the wind.
Fairly certain the man would no longer notice being abandoned, the dog hopped through the window with graceful ease and landed on the dewy wet grass.
After a moment of the sniffing the damp, pungent air, the dog trotted off in the easterly direction that the car had been heading. It was pleasant in the cool first light. A little way along he came to a fresh armadillo run over in the road. He sniffed it, but he was yet far above the depths of eating roadkill. An owl perched on a fence post was kind enough to tell the dog that a town, where likely he could find breakfast, was just over the hill.
Sure enough, when he topped the hill, a town lay before him. The dog sat and looked at it. The morning sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon and cast its pink glow upon this world of humans. Where families of buffalo once wallowed and great herds of cattle once crossed on their way to the rowdy markets in Kansas, there now existed a place springing out of the prairie with tree-lined streets and brick buildings and clapboard houses.
The dog had come to the town in the same manner that he went everywhere and to each of his humans, following the direction led by his heart. The day he had come to the large concrete parking lot and to the man with the glasses, he had known that was the place for him and the human for his dog’s loyal work of companionship.
Now, looking down on the town, he knew this was a new place for him and a new human awaited his ministrations.
The dog started down the hill, taking in the lay of the land and ready for any opportunity that presented itself.
The garbage trucks were starting on their first runs, and early risers all over began tuning kitchen radios to the morning weather report and going out on front porches to hang up flags in support of the campaign to keep Valentine’s distinction as the Flag Town of America.
Fayrene Gardner, who had come into the Main Street Café a half an hour early because she had been unable to sleep due to the excitement of expecting a visit from her first ex-husband, came out the café door and set the United States flag in its holder.
A few yards down the sidewalk, at the doors of The Valentine Voice, Charlotte Nation was doing likewise. Charlotte, who was a little dismayed to see Fayrene had beat her to it, thought it important for the Voice to get their flag out first, as they were a leader in the community.
Setting the pole in the slot with some haste, she hurried back inside to get a cup of coffee for Leo, Sr. before he got off on his deliveries. Since their circulation manager quit three weeks earlier, Leo had been handling the job. Charlotte was thrilled, as now Leo was there early each morning, like herself. He got all the other deliverers off, and then was the last to leave on a route of his own.
“Thanks, Charlotte,” Leo said, taking the cup she handed him and sipping. “Well, I gotta get goin’ now.”
“Yes…you do.” She followed him to the doorway and stood there as he slipped into the delivery van and drove off down the alley, watching with the eyes of a woman in love with a man she could never have.
Up on Church Street, Winston Valentine was glad to be able to manage the job of getting out the front door of his house with the aid of a cane, while carrying two folded flags under his arm. One of his lady boarders, a piece of toast jammed in her mouth, came after him.
He told her with poorly tempered impatience, “I’m all right, Mildred…you cain’t help me and eat toast at the same time!”
She had already dropped jelly on her ample bosom; Winston didn’t want her to get jelly all over his flags. He felt guilty for having the thought that she could in that minute drop dead and he would gladly step over her. He was relieved when she got more concerned about her toast and jelly than about helping him.
He got himself down the front steps and over to the flag pole in the front yard, where he raised the Confederate flag, followed by the Stars and Bars. He could still raise his flags, and once more all by himself, thank God, and he wasn’t yet pissing in his pants, so the day looked good.
Across the street, his neighbor Everett Northrupt, younger by better than ten years, was raising his flags, too, only the Stars and Bars of the U.S. of A. was on top and a lot bigger. Everett was from up North.
Both men stood at attention as music, a mingling of “Dixie” and “The Star Spangled Banner,” blared out from speakers from each man’s home. Winston, not wanting Everett to have anything on him, stood as straight as he could and saluted the flags and the day.
Then, as most days, he saw Parker Lindsey jogging down the street. Parker, a single fellow who no doubt had plenty of pent-up energy, would jog from his veterinary clinic at the edge of town, cut through the school yard and behind houses along a path that came out east of the Blaine’s house, then go down Church Street to Porter and make several jogs to get to the highway and back east to his own place. It was a distance of five miles. Winston played a game of judging the younger man’s state of sexual energy by how hard he was running when he went past.
“G’mornin’, Doc,” Winston called to him, remembering what it was like to be a virile man in his prime. He admired Parker Lindsey, who was going at a pretty good clip this morning.
“’Mornin’.” Puffing, Parker raised a hand in a wave and kept on going.
From the opposite direction came Leo, Jr., pedaling past with his teenage legs on his Mountain Flier. “’lo, Mr. Winston!” he said and sent a rolled newspaper flying into the yard and landing two feet away.
“Bingo!” Winston called back with a wave.
He bent carefully to get the paper, considering it exercise. When he came up, he saw a woman in bright pink on a purple bicycle pumping along toward town. It was his niece, Leanne, who sometimes jogged and sometimes rode a bicycle. A professional barrel racer, Leanne worked to keep her legs strong.
“’lo, Uncle Winston!”
Winston waved back, while averting his gaze from the sight of her. Leanne wore the skimpy attire so popular with women these days, and being her uncle, Winston did not consider it polite to stare. Leanne was a fine specimen of a woman. It was a little too bad she liked to display that around a lot. Winston felt women today had forgotten mystique. He liked to watch women on exercise shows on television, though.
Walking stiffly, but grateful to be walking, he went around the side of the house, where he clipped blossoms from his dead wife’s rosebushes. I’m keepin’ on, Coweta. He would miss his wife until his dying day.
Further up Church Street, Vella Blaine, wearing a lilac flowered apron and a big straw hat over her greying hair, was out in her backyard, snipping fresh blooms from her own rosebushes. She held each to her nose to inhale the delicious, soothing scent. Her very favorite were the yellow Graham-Thomas blossoms. She was so proud of her roses this spring.
Hearing a car, she looked up to see her husband behind the wheel of his big black 80s Lincoln as it chugged away, carrying him onward to his twelve-hour day at his drugstore.
