The Happiness Pact. Liz Flaherty
LIBBY WORTH TAUGHT the primary class at St. Paul’s when Mrs. Miller wasn’t there, tended bar at Anything Goes Grill when Mollie needed a night off and quilted with friends on Sunday afternoons. She made pastries for Anything Goes and the Silver Moon Café because she loved to bake and because sometimes she needed the money. She owned, operated and loved the Seven Pillars Tearoom and lived in a spacious apartment above it with her Maine coon cat, Elijah.
Her very favorite thing was to stand in her backyard and peer into the eyepiece of her telescope. Her knee-trembling, heart-pounding fear of thunderstorms was no match for her fascination with the light show offered by the sky. Besides, Venus was her guardian planet. Other people had guardian angels, she was fond of saying, but her mother made sure she had a whole planet.
She liked country music, high school football and reading travel brochures. She never went anywhere—she’d only been in the states whose borders kissed Indiana’s—but someday she was going to visit all those places. Someday.
Seventeen and a half years ago, on prom night, she’d been in an automobile accident that killed three people and forever changed the lives of the other nine in the church van they’d used for transport. The losses had caused ripples in the small community of Lake Miniagua that could still be felt all this time later. The wreck had come almost exactly a year after Libby’s mother’s death from cancer, and a year before her father’s suicide.
Everything had changed with that painful string of events, naturally enough, but she’d made a life for herself in its aftermath. Although that life was mostly uneventful, she never lost the feeling that any minute now, the other shoe would drop.
Today was New Year’s Eve. It was also the day she turned thirty-four. Looking into the mirror in the corner of the tearoom kitchen that morning, she’d been pretty sure her jaw was softening and the double chin she’d always had a touch of was generating a third tier.
“Yo, Lib.”
The shout from the front foyer of the big old Victorian on Main Street startled her before she could get good and depressed about the life she had a feeling she’d slept through. She looked up at the schoolhouse clock on the wall and flinched when she saw that it was nearly a quarter past eleven. The tearoom had opened for business ten minutes ago and here she was standing in the kitchen with an unbaked quiche in her hands.
She slipped it into the empty oven. “Be right there!” She stopped in front of the mirror again to tuck her brown hair behind her ears—she’d forgotten to put it in its customary braid that morning—and frowned at her round face with its freckled nose and slate-gray eyes. She pushed her wide mouth into a smile, tucking in the corners with her fingertips the way her mother had when she was a child. The memory made the smile genuine, and she stepped through the door.
Tucker Llewellyn, the best guy friend a girl ever had, was at the antique buffet that she really needed to move. While there was enough space for the swinging door to clear the piece of furniture, there wasn’t enough room to keep her from walking smack into him.
He caught her before they both fell, pulling her clear of both the buffet and the door. He gave her a quick hug and kissed her forehead in the process. “We have to quit meeting like this. You know the lake grapevine. We’ll be having kids by sunset.”
She laughed, shaking her head and pushing away from him. “We’ve had that talk. I don’t want kids. I want excitement. Adventure.”
“Hey, look at my nephew, Charlie. Believe me, that kid’s absolutely an exciting adventure.”
“You’re right about that.” Libby handed Tucker his regular to-go cup of coffee. “You want an early lunch?”
“I do, but I can’t. Jack and I are working this morning to keep the office from being such a crazy place when the plant opens back up after New Year’s. I came by to remind you about the party at Anything Goes. Want me to pick you up?”
She quirked an eyebrow at him. “So I can drive us both home?”
“Probably.” His grin was not only infectious, it was gorgeous. As were his cornflower blue eyes, streaky blond hair and the way he tilted his head to one side when you talked to him. It was a pity the man she’d known ever since he was born the New Year’s baby when she was twenty-seven minutes old had absolutely no romantic effect on her. He might be her favorite man in the world—she was closer to him than to her brother—but he was just Tuck.
And he invariably drank too much at their shared birthday party. When it came to liquor, he was a complete lightweight. He probably was about other things, too, but she loved him anyway.
“We’re thirty-four, although you are a day older than I am,” he said, reminding her of what she’d been perfectly content not thinking about. “You’ve been driving me home from birthday parties ever since high school. It’s my turn.”
“At least. The way I figure it, you need to drive me home until we’re in our fifties.” She waved when the front door opened, admitting Marie Williams and her daughter, Kendall. Marie had been in their high school class, and Libby thought resentfully that she still looked seventeen. She could probably still do the splits and be the top tier in a cheerleader pyramid if she was so inclined. “Do you want to take Jack some coffee?”
But Tucker didn’t answer her. His attention had already strayed. He went to greet Marie with a hug, seeming not to be in a hurry anymore. Libby shook her head, ignoring a ribbon of sadness the couple’s seemingly mutual attraction created at the back of her mind. She liked being single, always had, but sometimes it would be nice if someone looked at her the way Tuck was looking at Marie.
“Hey, Kendall.” Libby plastered on a smile for the twelve-year-old who’d gone to stand in front of the shelves holding the tearoom’s collection of cups and saucers. “Choose your cup and we’ll fill it with whatever you want to drink.”
“Can I drink soda out of these cups?” The adolescent reminded Libby of herself at that age. She was a little overweight and awkward in the bargain, and Libby sometimes had the impression she was a disappointment to her busy beautiful-people parents.
“You sure can. I drink water out of them all day long. Help yourself to whatever you want and give Elijah a good rub—I tossed him on the floor this morning when I got out of bed, and he’s feeling neglected. You want quiche when it comes out of the oven? It’s your favorite kind today.”
“Yes, please.”
“Hey, Lib, can I get Jack a cup, too?” Tucker stood near the coffee urn. Marie went to join her daughter at a corner table.
“It’s been a whole three minutes since I asked you if you wanted some for him.” Libby moved to fill a cup for Tucker’s brother. “You picking me up at seven?” She smiled sweetly and tipped her head in Marie’s direction. “Or do you have another date by now?”
“Be nice.” He took the cup from her. “I’ll see you tonight.” He bent his head to peck her cheek as he always did, but she was turning to look at the door at the same time and the kiss landed on her mouth.
It wasn’t a peck, exactly. And Libby felt a little ripple along her spine.
Obviously she needed some caffeine to clear her head.
* * *
OTHER THAN AN addiction to coffee and tea, Libby wasn’t much of a drinker, but she loved the bourbon-laced hot chocolate that was a specialty of Anything Goes Grill. She usually had just one, and even then only on special occasions. Like when the Miniagua High School Lakers had won the football sectional in November or when the tearoom had ended the previous year not only in the black, but in the very black.
Even more occasionally, if she was out with friends and one of the others was driving, she’d have two mugs of the delicious concoction. They always sat at the bar and begged