The Blue Door Read Online Free PDF

daddy, and this place was a little piece of home.
    The woman sitting on a stool behind the counter set aside her knitting and smiled bashfully. “You haven’t been by in a while, Prissie,” she greeted. “That sure is a pretty dress! Is it new?”
    “Hello, Pearl,” she replied, beaming under the compliment. Pearl Matthews was a statuesque young woman with warm brown skin and wiry black hair who always noticed the right kinds of things.
    “Are you out doing errands with your momma?”
    “Not today,” said Prissie, her smile faltering. “It’s just me and Beau.” For several moments, she stared at the other woman, wondering if she was really
real …
or if she might be an angel, too.
No.
She shook off the notion as impossible. Pearl had a husband and a little girl, while Milo and Harkenwere both single, with no families that she’d ever heard of. “Is Dad here?”
    “Where
else
would he be?” Pearl teased. “He’s up to his elbows in peaches.”
    “We brought in two crates, and Louise put him to work,” drawled a voice from the corner.
    “Oh, hello, Uncle Lou!” Prissie exclaimed, embarrassed to have overlooked him.
    The quiet old man rarely made eye contact with anyone and spent many a morning camped out in the corner of the small seating area, sipping coffee, reading the paper, and waiting for handouts. His wife was the bakery’s only other employee.
    Louise Cook, a tiny, spunky woman in her late sixties, just couldn’t get the hang of retirement, so Prissie’s father had offered her a place in his kitchen. For the last three years, she’d been turning out dozens of delicious pies on a daily basis. Jayce was fond of saying that he was hard-pressed to keep up with her, and he was only half-kidding. Auntie Lou wore big, floral aprons, handed out cookies to growing boys, and didn’t take
no
for an answer. It didn’t surprise Prissie at all that her father had been roped into peeling fruit.
    Louise’s husband wasn’t really named Lou. Zeke had been the first to mix up their names, and even though Mr. Cook’s given name was Paul, “Uncle Lou” stuck.
    “Is that the afternoon edition?” he inquired.
    Prissie glanced down at the paper still clutched in her hand. “Oh, yes! Would you like it?”
    “If you please,” he smiled, and she hurried to present it to him. “How’s your summer been, young lady?”
    “The usual,” Prissie sighed. “Lots of gardening and canning.”
    The old man shook out the paper, adjusted his glasses,then tapped the lead article on the front page. “County fair’s just around the corner. You planning on entering anything this year?”
    “I am!” she replied confidently. “I can’t compete with Auntie Lou or Grandma Nell, but I’m going to enter a pie in the junior division.”
    “Oh, that’ll be wonderful!” chimed in Pearl. “What kind?”
    “I’m still testing recipes,” Prissie hedged.
    “If you’re looking for inspiration, there are a few beauties left in the case,” prompted Uncle Lou. He shooed the girl toward the display, and she crossed to check out Louise’s pies.
    Pearl joined her in
ooh
-ing and
aah
-ing over a lattice-topped cherry and an old-fashioned buttermilk pie decorated with whipped cream and raspberries. “I want a piece of
that
one,” the tall woman confided, pointing to a nut pie that definitely had chocolate in it. “It’s a new recipe, and it looks heavenly!”
    Prissie cringed at her choice of words, but nodded in agreement.
    Uncle Lou kept his eyes on his newspaper as he nonchalantly said, “Your pa might let us test a few, being as it’s the end of the day.”
    “Are you trying to get Prissie to sweet-talk a piece of pie for you?” Pearl scolded.
    The old man peeked from under bushy white brows. “I wouldn’t object to a wee wedge — or a warm-up?” He lifted his coffee cup hopefully, and Pearl shook her head in mock dismay.
    Prissie smiled as the two entered into their usual routine of polite wheedling and