How Sweet It Is Read online

  “Jed Henning.” He put out his right hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  She guessed him to be about her own age. Thirty or so. Dressed in Levi’s and a blue shirt, he was tall with longish brown hair and a close-trimmed beard—the kind that was just a bit more than a five o’clock shadow. It was a good look on him, she thought as she shook his hand. Not that she cared. Her interest was only in his ability to pay rent. “Nice to meet you too.” She started down the eight steps to the door. “Are you from around here?”

  “No. Not really.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Not really?”

  He smiled. “I was born in Boise but grew up in a town in Washington, outside of Seattle. I’ve been back to Idaho for family reunions over the years. I’ve got plenty of cousins and an aunt and uncle who live around here.”

  “Ah.” She opened the door and led the way inside.

  Built to bring in extra income for the owners—as had been common back in the forties and fifties—the one-bedroom apartment took up half of the basement. It had a living room, a small kitchen, a postage-stamp-size bathroom with shower stall, and one bedroom. It didn’t take long for Holly to show her potential renter around. He asked a few questions, including how much the rent would be, and he didn’t seem concerned about the amount when she answered. She took that as a good sign.

  While staring into the bedroom closet, he asked, “Are you willing to rent on a month-to-month basis?”

  Her heart fell. “I wanted a year’s lease.” I want to know I’ve got money coming in every month.

  “What if I doubled the rent you’re asking?”

  “‘Doubled’?”

  He faced her. “And I’ll give you first and last month’s rent up front, of course.”

  “I’m not sure . . . I don’t know. I—”

  “Ms. Stanford, I’m—”

  “Call me Holly. Please.”

  He nodded as he cleared his throat, then continued, “To tell you the truth, I didn’t come here to rent an apartment. I was just having a look around Boise. But now that I’ve seen your little place, I really would prefer it to staying in a hotel. Even paying twice your asking price, it’ll still cost me less than where I’m staying. Not to mention being able to cook for myself when I’m in the mood. I’d consider it a bargain.”

  Double the rent was tempting. But month-to-month?

  As if he’d read her mind, he said, “How about a three-month guarantee?”

  Three months at double the rent. Half a year’s worth. Better than nothing. And far less trouble than the vacation rentals had been. “All right. It’s a deal.”

  He grinned, and her heart did a little flip in her chest. Not a welcome sensation. She wanted a quiet renter who added no complications to her life.

  He closed the closet door. “I’ll be happy to provide references, of course.”

  “Of course.” She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten the application. Desperation had made her foolish. She knew nothing about this man, and she’d committed to renting to him without checking a single fact. Well, if she found something wrong, she would be within her rights to cancel the arrangement. At least she believed that would be her right.

  “Have you got a form you need me to fill out?”

  That was the second time he’d guessed her thoughts, and she didn’t like it. “Yes. I’ll get it for you.”

  “I’ll wait here,” he said as she hurried away.

  * * *

  After Holly Stanford left the apartment, Jed returned to the living room and sat on the sofa. It wasn’t the most comfortable piece of furniture in the world, but then he didn’t plan to spend a lot of time sitting on it.

  Am I crazy?

  He had no idea how much longer he would be in Boise. Now he’d committed himself to three months of rent. Funny thing was, he’d only come here to see where Andrew and Helen Henning had lived back in 1929. He’d needed to stretch his legs, and he’d been curious. That was all. But for some reason, once he’d stepped inside the apartment, he’d felt an irresistible urge to stay awhile.

  He looked around the living room again. Besides the sofa, there was a coffee table, an easy chair, two end tables, and a small entertainment center complete with a television. The tops of the long, narrow windows were at ground level and had window wells to let in the light. Enough light that the apartment wasn’t grim. The flooring was tile with a couple of large area rugs breaking up the space. The place would suit him for the time it took him to find and talk sense into his brother.

  He heard the sound of Holly’s footsteps on the concrete steps and rose from the sofa before she came through the open doorway. She looked a little flushed, and he suspected she’d rushed to return before he could change his mind. The color in her cheeks matched the pale pink of her shirt. Nice. Very nice.

  She smiled as she held out a pen with her left hand and a clipboard with a form on top with her right one. “Here you go, Mr. Henning.”

  “If I’m supposed to call you Holly, you’d better call me Jed.”

  She nodded as he took the items from her and settled onto the sofa a second time. The form was basic. He wrote his name, Tacoma address, and mobile phone number quickly. For credit references he put his mortgage company and a credit card. For employment he wrote “Self-employed” instead of entering the name of his company, not stopping to analyze why. Finally, for personal references he entered the information for two of his local cousins: Ben Henning in Kuna and Jessica Chesterfield in Hope Springs, assuming that Idaho references would be preferred. For the third name he chose his friend Mike Hanover, who worked for him at Laffriot. At least he hoped that was still the case.

  Finished with the rental application, Jed stood and handed the clipboard and pen to Holly. “My mobile number’s on there. Once you’re satisfied that you want to rent to me, call and I’ll bring you a cashier’s check. I’ll bring it today if I know early enough to get to the bank.”

  “You sound as if you’re in a hurry to move in.”

  “Not so much in a hurry to move in as I am eager to leave the hotel.” He smiled, hoping it might help convince her.

  “I’ll call you and let you know as soon as I can.” She glanced at the form on the clipboard. “It will depend on if I can reach your references right away.”

  “Of course.” He took a few steps toward the open door. “I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for your time.”

  Friday, May 30, 1969

  In southwest Idaho, a person never knew if Memorial Day would be cold, a scorcher, or somewhere in between. This year the weather was pleasant as Andrew and Helen walked across the small cemetery toward the grave of their middle son, Oscar. This was the twenty-third time the couple had made this walk on a Decoration Day, as it used to be called, and although the sense of loss was different after more than two decades, the grief never completely went away.

  Andrew held his wife’s arm close to his side, offering silent comfort. When they reached Oscar’s grave site, Helen handed the jar of flowers to Andrew before kneeling on the ground and sweeping the white headstone—and the grass surrounding it—clean. When she was finished, she held out her hand for the jar of flowers. First she poured the water from the jar into the receptacle in the ground, and then she placed the red-and-white peonies from her garden into the water, arranging them carefully. When she was done, Andrew leaned over to place a small American flag into the ground beside the flowers before helping his wife to her feet.

  “He would have turned forty-two in March,” Helen said softly.

  Andrew nodded, his thoughts shifting to their grandson, Ted Valentine, now serving in Vietnam. Ted was twenty-one, already older than his uncle Oscar had been when he died during the battle for Okinawa. But still young. Too young. The soldiers and sailors and marines were always too young. And this current war, more than any other he’d witnessed in his lifetime, was controversial. The country was ablaze with angry protests, sit-ins, and draft-card burnings. Sometimes it seeme
d to Andrew that the way of life his oldest sons had fought to preserve in the Second World War had been lost already.

  Helen patted his arm. He assumed she’d guessed the direction of his thoughts, as she so often did.

  “Let’s go home,” she said.

  “Yes.” He offered his arm again, and she hooked her hand in his elbow.

  At least they could be thankful that no new graves had been added to this small cemetery because of Vietnam. Not yet. He hoped it would remain that way, just as he continued to pray the war would soon come to an end.

  He glanced one more time at the grave of their son before he and Helen walked back to the car. After helping her into the Jeep—the vehicle she called his late-in-life crisis—he went around to the driver’s side and settled behind the wheel. Pain jabbed his lower back as he reached to insert the key, and a gasp escaped him.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Just a twinge in my back.”

  “Again? You should see the doctor.”

  He grunted as he turned the key, starting the engine. He wasn’t about to waste good money on a few aches and pains. He was in his midsixties. Aches and pains were a part of aging. He’d accepted that. He’d have thought the same was true for Helen. He’d seen her rubbing her hands and fingers at the end of the day, as if to loosen her joints.

  “We should have planned a dinner or a picnic with the family,” she said as Andrew steered the Jeep onto the road.

  “Everybody had plans already.”

  “I should have tried sooner, before they made other plans. It’s good that you and I like each other.”

  He glanced over at her. “What does that mean?”

  “Because we spend so much time together, just the two of us. Our kids and grandkids are always so busy.”

  “I hope you’re not complaining about being stuck with me.”

  “No.” She laughed. “Remember when I used to complain because some days I didn’t have two minutes to myself? Back when all the kids were at home. Glory. That seems so long ago.”

  Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached over and covered her hand with his. “It was a long time ago, my girl.”

  “Funny. As I get older, those times from long ago feel more real to me than what I did yesterday. Am I getting senile?”

  “Not hardly.”

  She turned her hand over and squeezed his.

  Chapter 2

  Holly hated making phone calls to inquire about individuals. She hated it when hiring personnel for the restaurant. She hated it now while trying to discover if she should rent her basement apartment to Jed Henning. It felt intrusive somehow. On one level, she knew it made sense. It was for safety and security reasons. She was protecting her finances and her property. But on another, it seemed a waste of time. After all, would anybody list a reference who would say something negative?

  Nonetheless, she began with a cursory search on Facebook. The name Jed Henning brought up a number of prospects, none of them with profiles that matched her renter. A true investigator could probably find his footprint somewhere, but she wasn’t an investigator. She simply wanted a reliable renter. She reached for the application and dialed the first number, a man who shared the same last name as Jed.

  * * *

  Well before the end of her phone calls—all of them brief and all of them highly positive—she’d made up her mind. She would rent the apartment to Jed. Why wouldn’t she? His references confirmed his character and his financial stability. Plus he’d guaranteed her double the rent she’d requested for three months. He’d promised to pay two months of it up front. Her brain was already listing what she could do with that money.

  Then again, was she making the right choice? What if he wasn’t at all who he appeared to be, who his references said he was? He seemed nice. But appearances could be deceiving. She knew that all too well.

  Only, what choice did she have? She needed to rent the apartment, and he was the first applicant who met her requirements.

  Jed answered her call on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Henning? Jed. This is Holly Stanford.”

  “Yes. Hello.”

  “The apartment is yours, if you still want to rent it on the terms we discussed.” Actually, they hadn’t truly discussed the terms. He’d made an offer and she hadn’t refused. But that seemed to be splitting hairs.

  “Great. I’ll head over to the bank right now. Will you be at your place in about an hour or so?”

  “Yes, I’ll be here.”

  “Should I have the check made out to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great,” he repeated. “See you soon. And thanks. I’m grateful.”

  It was nice of him to say so, Holly thought, but he couldn’t be more grateful than she was.

  With the call ended, she set her phone on the kitchen counter and turned to look at the ancient stove. Replacing it was high on her list of priorities, right after paying her most pressing bills. And if she had a modern range, she would be able to do more baking at home. She missed those times of experimenting with a new idea for a special creation. The restaurant required management skills from her—management skills and money—when what she really wanted was to be wearing an apron and making sweet confections.

  She sank onto a nearby kitchen stool, fighting a sudden urge to cry. Her world had been out of control for so very long. The broken engagement. The death of her dreams. And the debt. The crushing, smothering debt. Sometimes she wanted to throw up her hands and cry, “Forget it!” Sometimes she wanted to run away from everything, to hide from the whole world.

  But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t run away. It wasn’t in her nature to cut and run—sometimes to her detriment. She’d held on to Nathan Estes, her ex-fiancé, long after she’d known, deep down, that he didn’t really love her. Long after she’d known he wasn’t the man she’d believed him to be. But she’d already said yes to the dress, and the invitations had been mailed, and so many friends had said how happy the two of them would be, how perfect they were together. So she’d held on, hoping for something that would never be. In the end, Nathan had left her. Not quite jilted her at the altar but close enough for the label to feel accurate.

  Drawing a ragged breath, she looked around the kitchen and living room. She’d bought the house thinking it was where she and Nathan would make a home and eventually start a family. Thinking it would be where she would start her cake-baking business while Nathan ran Sweet Caroline’s, the restaurant once owned by her aunt and uncle. Looking back, she’d realized Nathan had already decided not to go through with the wedding even while he continued to encourage her to buy the house and update the restaurant. Otherwise, his name would have been on the home mortgage alongside hers. His name would have been next to hers on the bank loan for the restaurant remodel. Funny how his reasoning had made sense to her at the time.

  “I’m an idiot. I was so swept away with the idea of romance that I was blind to what was right in front of me.” She covered her face with her hands, repeating words she’d said often over the past year. “I’ll never do that again. I’ll never put myself at risk that way again. So help me, I won’t. I won’t.”

  She released a sigh. It wasn’t memories of Nathan that had her fighting tears. She’d come to terms with what she’d once felt for him. No, it was the fallout from their doomed relationship that continued to plague her, continued to make her feel stupid and foolish and afraid to trust. She understood it was the weight of responsibilities and debt that kept her emotions on edge. But understanding was different from controlling. It certainly didn’t make the problems all go away. She wished it could. Oh, how she wished it could.

  * * *

  Jed drove toward the apartment, his suitcases and a number of boxes in the back of the vehicle. The two suitcases had come with him from Tacoma. The boxes he’d picked up from one of his Idaho cousins. They contained Henning family photos and letters that had been left to his dad.

 
“Feel free to go through them while you’re in Boise,” his dad had said on the phone last night. “Maybe they’ll serve as a kind of reminder about what it means to be a family.”

  The comment had angered Jed. Who was his dad to talk? Jed loved his parents. He loved his great-aunts and uncles and all the cousins. He loved his brother, too, despite everything. He knew what it meant to be a family. Sure, maybe he hadn’t spent much time with those closest to him in the past few years. Getting Laffriot off the ground had made for long days, long weeks, long months. He’d declined more than one invitation from his mom to come to dinner. He’d missed the last few Henning family reunions. But that didn’t mean he didn’t understand about family.

  Maybe if he wasn’t always trying to clean up after his brother, he would have more time to spend with family. Had his dad thought of that?

  He drew a deep breath, remembering the last time he’d been with his brother.

  “When’re you going to grow up, Chris?”

  “When are you going to stop riding me?”

  “We’ve got obligations.”

  “You’ve got obligations. Not me. I just work for you. Remember?”

  “There’s no way you become a partner until you’ve earned it.”

  “I’ve earned it. You just aren’t able to admit it.”

  That had been the moment when Jed nearly threw a punch. That was also the moment he might have saved himself a world of trouble by admitting Chris was right. At least partially right. His younger brother didn’t know anything about running a successful company, and he didn’t have a lick of business sense. But creativity oozed out of his pores. He was a genius in many ways. He was also irresponsible, undependable, and a gambler.

  If he would just . . .

  An unexpected sense of shame washed over Jed. Sure, he could blame their argument that day on losing his temper, on being fed up with his brother’s careless actions. But there was more to it than one argument, one loss of temper. The anger and resentment had been welling up between them for years.