Emma, Mr. Knightley, And Chili-Slaw Dogs Part 1

Emma, Mr. Knightley, and Chili-Slaw Dogs.

Jane Austen Takes the South.

By Mary Jane Hathaway.

For my children: Isabel, Ana, Jacob, Samuel, Edward, and Elias.

It's done. Get your suits on, we're going to the pool!

"Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall." -Emma.

Chapter One.

Utter disaster on a cake platter.

Caroline Ashley stood back and surveyed her creation. The fabulous triple layer fudge cake with light-as-air espresso flavored chocolate frosting did not look like the photo in the magazine. It didn't look much like a cake at all. Listing to the left and shedding gritty brown frosting in ultra-slow motion, this cake wasn't quite what her mother had requested for her Wednesday bridge group.

The recipe looked downright simple. Mix together, bake, frost. How hard could it be? She blinked the sweat out of her eyes and stared around the kitchen, groaning at the sight. Flour, mixing bowls smeared with batter and b.u.t.ter cube wrappers dotted the works.p.a.ce. A purist would have never upgraded from the original Civil War era fixtures but her mama was not a purist. Long marble counters, custom Mississippi oak cabinets and a heated flagstone floor were all top of the line. The hammered copper sink was original but it was obscured by dirty dishes more often than not.

Their cook, Angie, loved to create her masterpiece desserts in here, although Mama had been giving her more and more time off. All the fancy kitchen equipment was going to waste on Caroline's watch. She was trying, and failing, to be a personal chef. Not that it was a role she'd ever wanted.

Lifting the cake platter, she carried it to the freezer, sliding it in between the bags of sweet peas and a carton of vanilla ice cream. An hour before the group showed up and there wasn't time to make another. She could pray the cake would miraculously right itself and set into something more like the picture. Or she could run away from home.

"Something smells good." She whirled at the sound of the voice, even though she knew the speaker before she saw him. Her friend since before she learned to ride a two-wheeler down the long driveway, Brooks Elliot had a habit of showing up at all the best- and the worst- times. At his side stood a golden retriever, mouth lolling open, tongue half-out in a big doggy smile. Brooks looked cool, calm and collected in a perfectly pressed tailored deep blue suit. His spotless white shirt and pale blue silk tie completed the picture of effortless style. It was unbelievably irritating.

He c.o.c.ked his head. "Hiding something?"

Caroline rolled her eyes. "Not from you, Professor." She liked to use his t.i.tle in a chirpy little voice that got on his nerves. Opening the freezer door, they surveyed the cake-that-was-not-a-cake together. "Although I don't trust Absalom within five feet of anything edible." She reached down to scratch behind his ears, loving how the retriever's whole body wagged against her leg.

"Hmmm." He pretended to be choosing his next statement very carefully but as her oldest friend, Brooks knew he never had to watch his words. "Not so sure you need to take precautions."

"Hilarious. You're making fun of my cake, but I saw this dog eat through the leg of your grandpa's best rocker."

"Hey, we don't bring up the past. Right, Ab?" He reached down and ruffled his fur. Those two were thick as thieves. Better not get on the bad side of one, or you'd be on the bad side of the other.

It felt wonderful to stand inches from the frosty freezer. She wanted to crawl inside and never come out. But there was a bridge party to entertain. She closed the door and shrugged. The strands of hair sticking to the back of her neck reminded her she still needed to shower, and the reflection in the stainless steel door didn't argue. Blond hair escaped from her ponytail in several different directions. Her cheeks flushed pink, green eyes just a smudges. Behind her was a wavery image as familiar as her own. A head taller with sandy blond hair and dark brows, he was the kind of man that made women check his hand for a ring.

She met his gaze in the reflection and grinned when he winked at her. Brooks, the consummate flirt. They were related, sort of, by marriage and he always occupied that hazy area between cousin and guy friend. Whatever he was, he was never less than a perfect gentleman.

"I'm sure it will be just fine after it sets." She spun to face him, tugging on the strings of her red gingham ap.r.o.n which seemed to have tied themselves into a knot.

Brooks gently turned her around and brushed away her hands, loosening the ap.r.o.n strings. Absalom wedged his furry body between them, his tail thumping against the back of her legs in a steady rhythm of happiness. "How's the book?" he asked.

Oh, that. "Coming right along."

"I think you should call it The Never-ending Story." His expression in the refrigerator door reflection was completely serious.

"Hardy-har-har." It was just a little bit funny, she had to admit. Her idea of the great American novel had morphed into a Gone With The Wind remake which had become a historical spanning the Russian revolution. Why? Because she was bored. Not a great reason to write a book and it showed. In two years it had never come close to being finished.

"You know, just because your mama asks for a chocolate cake doesn't mean you have to make one."

She stared up at the high arched ceiling, biting back words. It was easy for Brooks to give advice on family matters when he lived a happily independent life. Being a journalism professor at Midlands came with respect, a nice house, and a decent distance from his cranky-pants father. No such luck for her.

"Bravard's Bakery makes a great triple layer cake. You could have asked me to pick one up on the way through town. You know I'm here almost every weekend. Absalom's so used to the drive, we're going to switch places next time. He'll drive and I'll stick my head out the window and yell at pa.s.sing cars."

She snorted at the image but regretted the ungenerous thoughts of a moment ago. He lived a few hours away, but that didn't mean he was immune to the call of the needy parent. "He's lonely without your mom."

"I'm not sure why. Maybe he misses the constant bickering. You know, I don't really mind hanging at the old homestead every weekend, but with our grandmother off on another cruise, Manning needs to step up once in a while."

"They're still in the honeymoon phase." His brother and her cousin were happily ignoring the entire family now that they had subjected the town to an over-the-top Southern style wedding.

He sighed. "It's been a year. Since you take full credit for getting them together, it's up to you to tell them it's time to rejoin the real world. Hard as it is to believe, I do have a life in Spartainville."

"Did you finally find a serious girlfriend?" She knew even before she turned around that he would say no. Girlfriend, maybe. Serious, never.

"You'll be the first to know." He lifted the ap.r.o.n strap over her head and hung it on the peg near the back door. "Why are you cooking on a hot day like this, anyway?"

"Because my mama asked, and I always feel like I need to prove myself in the kitchen."

His mouth twitched. "Finley, a brilliant journalist can't be expected to bake triple layer cakes. It wouldn't be fair to the rest of the world if you were that perfect."

She shot him a look. He would never give up that silly nickname. Caroline Ashley had nothing in common with Finley Peter Dunne, great American political humorist and newspaperman of the turn of the century. Brooks had called her Finley ever since he saw some little sketch she'd made about their high school princ.i.p.al, and that was that.

Brilliant journalist. He was just being kind, but she smiled as the words reverberated in her head. It meant a lot, coming from Brooks. Graduating with highest honors and landing the job of a lifetime at the Washington Post was the best thing she'd ever done.

The smile faded from her lips. It was the only thing, really.

"I'd trade all that supposed brilliance for a decent approximation of that magazine picture," she said.

"And a chili-slaw dog."

"You know me so well." Absalom's head went up at the mention of chili-slaw dogs. The only other creature who loved them more than Caroline was the golden retriever sniffing around the large kitchen, hoping for edibles dropped by the careless cook.

"When you have a big wedding like Manning and Debbie Mae, instead of the cheese straws and hush puppies, you'll have to have one long table of chili-slaw dogs."

She snorted. "First, I'm not jumping on the marriage train. I feel like Pleasant Crump most days but finding a husband isn't the answer."

"Crump, the last Rebel soldier? That's a bit dramatic."

"Maybe to you. As a man you can take all the time you want, but women are groomed for the big white day from the moment the doctor slaps our little bottoms in the delivery room." She wiped her forehead with a kitchen towel and watched Absalom vacuum up all the cake crumbs from the floor. "Secondly, I've seen what happens in a Th.o.r.n.y Hollow wedding, and your version is dead wrong. The bride never gets her way. It's all run by the old ladies, every single detail."

"Probably right."

"Speaking of old ladies, if I don't get showered and spiffed up, Mama is going to have a breakdown when the bridge group gets a look at me."

"And I've got to get home. Come on, Ab." He patted his leg and the golden retriever reluctantly withdrew his nose from under the cabinets. He looked up at Caroline with hope in his bright black eyes and she shook her head.

"Chocolate isn't good for dogs, buddy."

"I don't think that chocolate is the real gastronomical danger here." He cut his eyes to the freezer and bolted out the back door, with Absalom hot on his heels. The kitchen towel she tossed at him thumped harmlessly against the leaded diamond pattern window of the antique kitchen door as it swung closed.

Caroline stood for a moment, listening to the two of them cross the old wooden wraparound porch and head for the car. Brooks had been driving back to Th.o.r.n.y Hollow to fix windows or oil squeaky hinges or even weed the flower beds almost every weekend. The fact that there was a full-time caretaker living in a carriage house a short distance from the main house didn't seem to matter at all to his father. Their marriage had been notoriously acrimonious, but he seemed lonely and lost without Nancy.

Grabbing a clean towel and trotting upstairs to the bathroom, she sighed. Almost three years ago her daddy had pa.s.sed away, leaving her mama in absolute shock. Lonely, lost, and refusing to leave her room. When she asked Caroline to come home, she hadn't hesitated. She walked away the job she loved and the years she'd put in to her career because that's just what good daughters did.

The ornately framed mirror showed a clearer version of the stainless steel fridge reflection, but this one mercilessly highlighted her shiny forehead and sweaty hair. Poor Brooks. He didn't seem to mind the hot mess he'd seen, but a tiny part of her wished he had walked in before the cake, and not after. At least she wouldn't have been drenched in sweat.

She put a hand under the dribbling shower head and tested the water, knowing it took at least four minutes for the water heater to kick in for this part of the house. Her mother had recently redone her private bath in marble and heated stone tile, junking the claw foot tub and built-in antique vanities despite Caroline's protests. Caroline ran a finger along the curved, cool edge of the claw foot tub before her, smiling at the porcelain pink. She'd hated this tub when she was younger, wishing she had a sparkling new shower stall and gleaming fixtures like Debbie Mae's. The 80's had been the age of gla.s.s and chrome, of Robert Palmer video vixens with slicked back hair and bright red lips. It was not the era of pink claw foot tubs and copper fixtures and itty bitty pink octagonal tiles covering one enormous wall.

But her daddy had refused to change a thing about their home, saying it was unnecessary. Just like the tiny gap between her front teeth. He'd said it was the way she'd been made and it was beautiful. The thought of him sent a sharp pain through her. She acknowledged it with a quick prayer of thanksgiving. Grat.i.tude helped the loss, somehow. She was grateful for him, for his quiet humor and stubborn personality. Wishing him here didn't help one bit.

The tepid shifted to warm and she shrugged off her clothes. Stepping carefully into the old tub and drawing the curtain closed, she tried not to focus on the problems ahead. Mainly, the fact her mother was minutes away from welcoming ten of Th.o.r.n.y Hollow's finest bridge players and there was no cake.

"My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry; I must find other people charming-one other person at least. And I am not only, not going to be married, at present, but have very little intention of ever marrying at all."- Emma

Chapter Two.

Brooks strolled out to the car, grimacing as the late spring heat settled over him like a suffocating blanket. Absalom trotted at his side, long pink tongue lolling. He couldn't imagine spending the afternoon baking in this kind of weather. There was air conditioning and then there was reality. Today's reality was this was lay-around-the-house weather.

He slid into the driver's seat with Absalom jumping over the stick shift to the pa.s.senger side. He rolled down the windows of his Saab, letting the trapped air escape.

"Caroline really needs to get out of that old house. She seems perfectly content catering to her mother and whichever group is meeting, but I know her. She's not a complainer. She won't whine about her life. But she's not happy there." He rubbed Absalom's head while he talked. His dog was an excellent listener, almost never interrupting and always making eye contact. Of course, he didn't add much to the conversation, but that was his only fault.

Caroline wrote the smartest, snappiest prose this side of the Mississippi. She could get interviews no one else could. When their friend Shelby Roswell's reputation had been destroyed, she'd reached out to Caroline. More than friendship, it was a very smart move because Caroline still had an 'in' at the Washington Post. Why? Because she was that good.

"As a journalist, it irks me to see her talent languish. As a friend, it makes me crazy." Absalom reacted to the anxiety in Brooks' voice by letting out a soft 'woof'.

He hit the AC and checked the temp. The fan air went from oven-fried to uncomfortably warm. A few more minutes and he could roll the windows back up without risking a stroke. "Mrs. Ashley is trying to make Caroline into someone she's not and we all know how that turns out." He'd have to find another way to encourage her. When he tried to give her advice, Caroline smiled sweetly and went right on ahead with her own plans. She'd walked away from her job with hardly any notice, moved to her old home town, and settled into the kitchen like she was born there.

He let out a long breath and rubbed Absalom behind the ears. He understood grief. Losing a parent was one of the hardest things he'd ever experienced, especially since his mother had spent the last few decades furiously unhappy. He knew Caroline's father never would have wanted her to give up everything and move for him. Brooks had told her that once and never mentioned it again. Caroline's mother had begged her to come home, so she did.

I'm not jumping on the marriage train. Brooks felt a smile cross his face. He completely understood that decision. His parents had spent four decades alternating between utter devotion and fighting over which of them got to file for divorce first. Until-death-do-we-part sounds so romantic unless you've fallen out of love and into something close to hate. It was terrifying as a child. As an adult, it was merely annoying. The constant drama was exhausting.

Caroline would set her own course, he was sure. As much as her mother might wish for her to stay in Th.o.r.n.y Hollow forever, she was going to leave sooner or later.

A miracle of modern machinery, the air conditioner shifted from warm to tolerably cool. Absalom let out a short bark as the windows rolled back up, then sat back against the seat, ready for the trip home. The best dog in the whole world, Absalom didn't mind the drive from Spartainville at all and loved to chase the squirrels in the country. But it would be nice not to pack his food up every Friday and Sunday evening.

Backing into the main drive, he glanced up at the stately Ashley home. "I just can't imagine Caroline living the rest of her life in that big ol' house, Ab. If she's afraid of getting shuttled down the aisle, there were other ways to cut the ap.r.o.n strings than getting married." He needed to help her find one before she wasted another two years making light conversation and bad cakes at the mercy of her mother.

The large living room buzzed with the soft, cultured voices of Th.o.r.n.y Hollow's finest female citizens. The air conditioning was barely keeping up with the humidity and the contrasting perfumes made Caroline's head swim. Bright sunlight glanced off the antique bra.s.s sconces and reflected onto the high ceiling, throwing the intricately carved medallion into a wavery spotlight. Women moved through the room, greeting one another or avoiding one another, depending on past squabbles. To Caroline, it seemed the opposing currents of guests in single strand pearls and high heels created a powerful whirlpool and she was the center of the vortex.

She glanced at the cut crystal punch bowl, with ice floating gently on the surface of the light pink lemonade, and wished she could drink it by the pitcher. She didn't even like pink lemonade. It reminded her of every boring party she'd attended in this very living room in the past twenty five years. But it didn't matter how thirsty she was, there was a rhythm to these parties and it wasn't time for iced lemonade.

A cool shower had helped a bit with her baking-induced hyperthermia. These ladies were of the generation in which you didn't leave the house without heels and full make up. A relaxed spring bridge party wasn't anything like it sounded to an outsider. It was serious business in Th.o.r.n.y Hollow.

"h.e.l.lo, Caroline." Mrs. Gray was at her elbow, five feet of perfectly coiffed Southern womanhood. She smiled the sort of smile that gave smiles a bad name. Her gaze flickered over Caroline's outfit, coming to rest at her throat. She blinked at the multi-colored strand of pearls and green-hued gemstones, her nose wrinkling infinitesimally at the sight of the unorthodox display. Her own lengthy strand of pearls swooped in graceful lines down the bright orange linen of her dress front in unblemished whiteness. "I hear Brooks Elliot stopped by today."

"Yes, he was on his way home." Caroline felt off-kilter. That's what happened when you day-dreamed at a bridge party. Someone snuck up behind you, like a shark zeroing in on the watery trail of blood in the water.

"Marian Birdsong said she invited him to her dinner party tonight but he declined. It's curious that he would have stopped here but he's too busy for a nice home-cooked dinner at Marian's." Mrs. Gray's tiny teeth made another brief appearance.

Not curious at all. Marian Birdsong was determined to marry by her twenty-fifth birthday and had approximately eight months left to snag a husband. The entire town knew her deadline and good, honest men fled at the sight of her. "I think his father needed him to help with some repairs."

She threw back her head and let out a trill of laughter. "Repairs? The Elliots have their own handy-man!" She patted Caroline on the arm and blinked up at her in a kindly way. "I didn't mean to betray his little white lie. Forget I ever said anything. I'm sure he'll bring her to meet you very soon, whoever she is."

Before Caroline could muster a response, Mrs. Gray turned to a knotted group of women. They parted, and absorbed her, within seconds. Caroline could feel her pulse thumping in her temple. The very idea of Brooks lying to her was laughable. First of all, he wasn't afraid of telling anyone the truth. Secondly, she'd be the last person on earth he'd lie to because... She nibbled at her lip, trying to pin down the reason for her certainty. Because they were friends and friends were honest with each other.

"Why, Miss Ashley, I declare you are prettier and prettier every day!" She'd been caught unfocused again. Their long-time neighbor Mrs. Reynolds squeezed Caroline's upper arms as she spoke, her wrinkled hands surprisingly strong. The woman's hair was the shade of a blackbird's wing, which would have been striking if Mrs. Reynolds wasn't close to eighty. Still, her pale blue eyes were bright with warmth.

"Thank you," Caroline said, and meant it. There were worse things than being fawned over by old women. To them, she was charming and pretty and smart. The vision of the ruined cake flitted through her mind and she almost groaned. She was smart until they saw she couldn't bake worth a darn.

"When are you getting married? You need to hurry or I won't be able to attend."

"Are you moving?" Her son had a successful law practice in Memphis, but somehow Caroline couldn't see Mrs. Reynolds in Memphis. She was Th.o.r.n.y Hollow through and through.

"No, dear." She leaned closer, dropping her voice. "But I'm getting older, you know."

She wanted to laugh, but wasn't sure if she should. Apparently, the ever-present marriage harangue had a new twist: hurry and get married before I die. "I'm sure we've got plenty of time. And plus, Mama isn't ready for me to move out."

Mrs. Reynolds dropped her hands from Caroline's arms and shot a glance across the room. "She'll have to let you go sometime. It's not right for you to pa.s.s your best years in this old place."

"I'm perfectly happy here." She was happy, truly. A little bored, maybe. A few personal projects and some close friendships got her pretty close to contentment. If she never had to cook, life would be perfect.

"My granddaughter is moving here next week. You remember Lauren? She's just finished her master's program and is waiting on her teaching certificate. She graduated at the top of her cla.s.s and has her hands full of job offers. You two should go to lunch sometime."

"That would be lovely." Caroline had heard a bit too much about Lauren Fairfield over the years and it was mostly how Lauren managed to amaze everyone with her brilliance. She shook off the niggle of jealousy. How insecure was she to be irritated with Mrs. Reynolds grandmotherly bragging? "Have her call me as soon as she gets to town."

"Caroline dear, could you bring me my pillow?" Mrs. Ashley's green eyes shrewdly catalogued Mrs. Reynolds' every movement as if she could tell they were discussing weddings and moving and the state of Caroline's present happiness.

She beckoned Caroline to her side, as if she could hear the conversation across the room and didn't approve. Smoothing her light plum silk dress over her knees, she gave a tight smile. They looked so much alike, mother and daughter. Caroline knew exactly how her lids would sag as she aged, how her pert jaw line would develop a bit of softness, and how the slight curl to her hair would become nearly unmanageable in time. It was comforting to look at her mother and know there were no surprises in store for her.