The Secret Agent's Surprises

Priscilla shook her head. “I left in a hurry. I have no idea what was said after I was gone. With the ill will between them, I’m sure Pete wasn’t thrilled to come home to discover his father was trying to serve up a wife and full family to him on a silver platter.”

“Josiah is a determined man.”

“He is. I’m sure he has his reasons for what he does, but I can’t be a participant in his plans.”

“Is Pete as hot as he was last month?” Cricket asked with a sneaky glance her friend’s way.

Priscilla began wiping down tables. It had been a full day in the shop with plenty of customers who sat and lingered. She loved it when her tea room was busy. It meant a lot that her customers—many of whom were regulars and becoming her dear friends—loved her place as much as she did. Too bad the bank saw it differently. “‘Hot’ is an understatement,” she said. “He’s so hot I don’t dare touch him.”

“Really?” Cricket followed Priscilla, drying the tables with a soft, white towel. “Would you, under different circumstances?”

“No. There is such a thing as too much man. I, for one, am looking for a more down-to-earth, heart-hand-home type.”

“That doesn’t sound like any fun,” Cricket teased.

“Not fun. Safe.” Priscilla glanced around the room, holding her plan to her for one more moment before sharing. “I’m going to go visit the babies in the hospital.”

Cricket nodded. “I figured you would. I’d like to see them, too.”

“Would you?”

“Sure. Who can resist quadruplets?” Cricket shrugged. “Maybe my mommy timer is going off.”

“You’ve never mentioned before that you had one. I thought your work as a pastor kept you too busy,” Priscilla said with a smile, but Cricket shook her head.

“No one is too busy for a baby. My problem is finding Mr. Right. So for now, I wouldn’t mind seeing someone else’s angels.” Cricket began removing the wilted roses from the bud vases, replacing them with fresh ones. “I keep wondering if there’s something our church can do for them. Their care has to be outrageously expensive.”

“True. Maybe we could hold a bake sale or something to raise funds.” Priscilla finished wiping tables and picked up a broom. “That was another thing that surprised me about Josiah’s suggestion. How in the world would I take care of four babies, when I know nothing about babies, much less preemies?”

“I think Mr. Morgan’s intent was for you and Pete to split the duties and learn together.” Cricket smiled. “I’m sure he sees himself in a benevolent role, helping people to do good work.”

Priscilla thought caring for infants was probably best done by people who had some experience. “So when should we go take a peek at them?”

“Soon,” Cricket said. “My baby meter says we should do it soon.”

Priscilla laughed. “You could always sign up for Josiah’s wedding game.”

“With Pete? Nope.” Cricket shook her head. “I’m afraid my eyes are elsewhere.”

“You’ve never mentioned you had a sweetie.” Priscilla stopped sweeping to stare at her friend. “Tell me!”

“It’s not a sweetie, more of an unrequited longing. And I can’t reveal who it is,” Cricket said, “because you’d laugh.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“You would,” Cricket assured her. “Even I know it’s so crazy it could only happen by divine intervention. In the meantime I plan on sewing some little onesies for some tiny friends of ours.”

The bell over the door chimed, and both women looked up. “Oh,” Priscilla said, “is it that time already?”

“What time?” Cricket asked, then straightened as a tall cowboy walked in.

The man looked guarded and suspicious, a trapped animal. He glanced at the two women, then seeing the shop was empty, seemed to relax slightly.

“Hello, Jack Morgan,” Priscilla said. Cricket said nothing at all.

He leaned against a wall, put his hands in his pockets. “I’ve met you two before.”

“We picked you up a month ago when we were out shopping in Union Junction,” Priscilla said.

He nodded, his gaze sliding over Cricket. “You were at the Lonely Hearts Station rodeo, too.”

Cricket nodded. “Yes. I was.”

The tension in the air was like snapping power lines, Priscilla thought; if this man was Deacon Cricket’s secret crush, her friend must have taken leave of her steady senses.

The door swung open again, the bell tinkling to announce Pete’s arrival. “Hey, everybody. It’s starting to rain again, and it’s colder than a witch’s broom out there. I thought February in Texas would be a little warmer.”

His words lightened the tension in the room slightly. “Hello, Pete,” Priscilla said, wondering how a man in jeans, a basic black jacket and boots could be so mouthwateringly handsome. Line up a hundred men dressed just like that, and only Pete would make her knees weak.

He nodded at her. Her heart sank when she realized she wanted so much more than a general acknowledgment from him. This was not a man to nurse a hidden crush for.

“Hi, Cricket. Has my brother Jack introduced himself to you yet?”

“We were getting around to it,” Cricket said, her eyes huge as she looked at the cowboy.

The niceties completed, the two men stared at each other for a long time. There was no hug, no handshake, Priscilla noted, just a steady eyeing.

“Nice choice for neutral territory,” Jack said.

“Thanks for agreeing to meet me here,” Pete replied.

“I’ll just get some tea for you gentlemen, and some cookies,” Priscilla said, and Cricket quickly followed her.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was coming?” Cricket demanded in a rushed whisper.

“You’ve never cared who my customers were before,” she said, gently teasing her friend. “That handsome man wearing old boots and worn-out jeans isn’t anybody you’d be interested in.” She put two delicate white cups on the counter for Cricket to fill. “I have no mugs to serve men with,” Priscilla lamented, and then realized her friend had gone to the mirrored wall in the back of the store and was busily putting on lipstick. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Cricket said.

Priscilla blinked. “You’ve never primped for customers before.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“I see,” Priscilla said, and went back to the cups to fill them herself. Glancing up, she caught Cricket patting her hair. She shook her head. “I vote we declare a moratorium on Morgan men.”

“I agree.” Cricket glanced out the pass-through window. “They’ve at least sat down at a table now, instead of circling each other like wrestlers.”

“That’s a happy thought.” Priscilla put some cookies on a plate. “Maybe we should just stay in here and not break the flow.”

“I’ll serve them,” Cricket said, taking the plate and swiftly leaving the room.

Priscilla smiled and put the cups and pitcher on another tray. A sweet-natured deacon and a restless cowboy—it was never going to happen.

IT WAS NEVER going to happen, Pete realized as he watched his brother walk away from Priscilla’s tea shop, then climb into a brand-new black truck and speed away. Jack had heard “Pop’s sick” and he’d taken off faster than wildfire. Pete couldn’t blame his brother, but he’d so wanted to handle the situation better than he apparently had.

“Where’d your brother go?” Cricket asked as she approached the table.

“Back to wherever circuit-rodeo cowboys go when they’re…” He was about to say pissed , then elected to soften his words. “When they’re not interested in the topic of the day.”

She set the tray down. “Oh.”

The deacon sounded so disappointed that Pete glanced up. “Why?”

“I barely got to meet him, unlike the rest of your family.” Cricket smiled at him. “Priscilla, you can come out of hiding.”

Pete’s brow furrowed. “Hiding?”

“I was trying to give you and your brother some privacy,” Priscilla said, coming in and setting another tray on the table. She sat across from him, as did Cricket. “But we can eat his cookies.”

“Guess we’ll have to,” Pete said, taking one.

“Things didn’t go well?” Priscilla asked, and he shook his head.

“Not a bit. But thanks for letting us meet here.”

“No problem. Wish it had helped.”

“He wouldn’t have come to the ranch, and he avoids me when I try to meet him at a rodeo.” Pete shrugged. “We’re hardheaded in my family.”

“No kidding.” Priscilla poured everyone some tea and put the tray on a nearby table so they’d have elbow room. “So I’ve been thinking about the babies. I’m going to go by and see them.”

“Oddly enough,” Pete said, “I, too, have been thinking about them. I’ve already been by for a visit.”

“You have?” Priscilla said.

Cricket asked, “Are they darling?”

“They’re small,” Pete said. “Tiny. I’ve seen, I don’t know, chickens that were bigger.”

“Oh, boy,” Priscilla said. “Is your father still talking about them?”

“Nonstop. And you, I might add.”

Priscilla blinked. “Outside of a bake sale or donating some clothes, I can’t be party to any plans your father may cook up.”

“Yeah, I know. I told him that. And he said he understood. Then he wanted me to tell you that he respects that a woman like you isn’t interested in money.”

Cricket stared at her friend. “You never said anything about money. What money?”

Priscilla shook her head. “I have no idea. We never discussed money.”

Pete frowned. “Money’s always first on the table with Pop when he wants something.”

“Not this time,” Priscilla said. “He was only offering you, I guess.”

“Hey,” Pete said, “don’t make it sound like you drew the short straw.”

Cricket helped herself to a cookie. “I have to head back to the church. It was good to see you, Pete. I’m so sorry things didn’t work out better for you.”

“Me, too.” He got up as Cricket stood. The two women hugged goodbye, then Cricket left. Priscilla turned the shop sign to Closed and suddenly Pete found himself alone for the first time with the woman his father had proposed to on his behalf.

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