Page 14 of Sweet Surprises

She nodded, knowing when she was beaten.

“Good,” he said, his voice a little gentler.

When he reached the door he stopped.

“Try not to hit your head or anything between now and then,” he said over his shoulder before striding out the door, leaving the bells jangling behind him.

Charlotte watched after him in wonder as he headed down the block to the same black truck she’d seen him in before.

Try not to hit your head...

So hedidremember her from the gas station.

And he had just… made a joke?

She was smiling to herself as she headed over to the cash register, wondering if she could get it unjammed herself and save the Lawrences the trouble of a repair bill.

But when she pressed the button, the drawer slid out easily.

She opened and closed it a few more times, but each time the drawer moved as smoothly as if it were brand new.

The image of the sweet little old lady with the purple purse popped into her mind again, and Charlotte remembered her careworn smile, and the threadbare state of her coat.

Our cash register is jammed, so it’s on the house today,Tag had said.

But the cash register was fine, and Charlotte was pretty sure he was only being kind—brightening the day of someone who needed a little taste of sweetness.

She gazed out the front window, thinking about it, and watching the people outside greet each other as they carried packages, pushed strollers, and walked their dogs.

A group of older men had gathered around the big evergreen at the center of the park. They walked around it, talking and gesturing as if they were planning something. Every single one of them looked delighted.

This was still a world where her dad could die, where she could be treated cruelly by a boyfriend she thought would oneday be her husband, and where she could leave school under a mountain of debt and without a degree.

But it was also a world where people were helping each other to cross the street, where children laughed and played, and where the older generation gathered.

It was even a world where a man like Tag Lawrence could do something selfless and kind.

Turning to the big machine behind her, Charlotte decided her people-watching might be better with a maple creemee. Besides, it felt right to celebrate her first day. It might have been a little more exciting than she’d hoped, but she had definitely learned a lot.

As she watched the pale, caramel-colored creemee swirl into the cone, Charlotte imagined an end to her string of calamities, and pictured her heart like the empty cone in her hand, being filled to the brim and beyond with sweet things.

And she definitely didn’t think any more about Tag Lawrence, or the way his deep, gruff voice tickled something inside her chest.

5

TAG

Tag left the ice cream shop and headed down Maple Avenue to his truck, hoping he wouldn’t bump into anyone and get roped into a conversation. He was feeling out of sorts, but not for the usual reasons.

Tag was used to the worries and frustrations of the farm. Those came as regularly as rain, even ifwhatwas going wrong at any particular time was always a surprise. And of course he worried pretty much constantly about Chance and Olivia, and whether he was giving them the life they deserved.

And he knew that he should really be worried about the ice cream shop right now, and the hapless young woman who seemed determined to hurt herself or at the very least, destroy the store.

Instead, all he could think about right now was her smile.

Most people just smiled with their mouth, a tense thing if they didn’t mean it. His mother smiled with her eyes, that twinkle of blue telling you that she was amused or proud.

But Charlotte Kendrick smiled with her whole body.

---