I have a couple of books in which characters bake and eat pies, none of them my favorite. My book, A Family to Call Ours, takes place mostly in the fall. What kind of pies do we think about in the fall? Apple and pumpkin pies. You can find more information about this book here.
In my book, A Baby to Call Ours, a marriage of convenience story, my heroine is trying to learn to cook and wants to make her new husband his favorite foods. His favorite pie is apple. Here's a short excerpt from the book.
Jimmy never talked about his work, but she had a feeling he was trying too hard to please his uncle. But what reason did Jimmy have to rush home at night other than his workshop? Certainly he didn’t rush home to see her. She wasn’t sure why that made her sad.
Now everything was different. She had no baby on the way. Did Jimmy feel trapped in this marriage? She wanted to talk to him about it, but she didn’t know how to bring it up or what to say. He still needed a wife. A divorce wouldn’t look good to his uncle. She wished she knew what Jimmy wanted. She wished she knew what she wanted. Her emotions floundered in a sea of confusion.
Shaking away all the troubling thoughts, Kelsey got out of the car. Jimmy would be home tonight after another out-of-town trip. She wanted to buy some groceries to make him a special supper to celebrate his return. She had surprised herself at how much she enjoyed cooking. Besides fried chicken, Mary had told Kelsey that he loved steak and baked potatoes. That should be easy to fix, if she could figure out how to light the grill.
Kelsey grabbed a shopping cart and pushed it into the store. She headed for the produce department in search of the perfect baking potatoes. After she selected two, one large and one small, she spied the apples. Did she dare try to make an apple pie, another one of Jimmy’s favorites? She would try.
After she selected the apples, she moved on to the large display of cheeses. Jimmy loved cheese in the sandwiches he often took in his lunch, and she wanted to get him something special. While she perused the cheeses, she heard two women talking as they stood on the opposite side of the display. The mention of Jimmy’s name caught her attention.
“Do you know who’s back in town?” asked one woman, not waiting for the other woman to respond. “Whitney Hamilton.”
“She hasn’t been back in years, even to visit. Why is she back?”
“Her dad’s health has really declined in the last six months. I think her mom begged her to come home to help.”
“I wonder what she thinks about both Mitch and Jimmy being married.”
“I don’t think she cares that much about Mitch. She always had her sights set on Jimmy. He was the one she was in love with, even when she dumped him for Mitch.” The woman sighed. “Jimmy Cunningham can sure turn some heads with those good looks of his.”
“Yeah, but then he runs off and marries some young thing that he barely knew.”
“Someone told me they thought she was pregnant, a one-night stand that resulted in a rush to get married.”
“I heard they don’t even live together. Is that true?”
“I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me, if Whitney has her way, that Jimmy won’t be married for long. Those two couldn’t stay away from each other even when she was engaged to Mitch.”
Kelsey wanted to run out of the store. If those women saw her, would they know who she was, or were they just talking about some nameless, faceless woman who was part of the small town’s rumor mill? She would forget the cheese, grab the steaks, and get out of this store.
Hoping the women couldn’t see her, Kelsey kept her face turned away as she found her way to the meat department. Hurriedly she looked over the steaks and grabbed a couple of packages and threw them into her cart and barreled down the aisle toward the checkout lane.
When Kelsey finally reached her car, she tossed the plastic bags containing her purchase on the passenger seat as she slid behind the wheel. While she drove home, she let those women’s comments replay in her mind. Had people guessed about her pregnancy? Well, now there was no baby.
Kelsey’s heart twisted, and the tears flowed. She wasn’t even sure she knew why she was crying. The loss of her baby. All the pretending. The thought of losing Jimmy. Maybe all of it pressed down on her spirit. What had happened to the cheerful college student she’d been last fall when she’d first met Jimmy?
In the last three months she’d cried more than she’d probably cried in her whole life. Her mind replayed the conversation from the grocery store again and again as she drove into the garage. She kept hearing what the one woman had said. Those two couldn’t stay away from each other. Did Jimmy still love Whitney? Did she still love Jimmy and intend to go after him even though he was married, as those women had surmised?
You can find more information on this book here.
Do you plan anything special for Pi Day?
