The appreciation for attention went both ways. "We will!" He beamed. "Promise."
"I can't wait." Hildie was harmless, but no male in Eagle's Ridge was safe from her strings-free cookie offers. "I'll make a fresh batch if you give me a heads-up."
Will's eyes melted as wide as one of Hildie's cookies.
Even Teagan's mouth watered, and she wasn't one for sweets. "Will do."
Sufficiently appeased, Will ran back to the freezer chests and gaped at his options.
Hildie watched him press against the cold glass. "What's for dinner?"
"Pepperoni!"
"Great choice," Hildie praised. "Study all your options, because I want to chat with your mama." Her telltale eyebrows waggled.
Over the years, Teagan had decided there was a Richter scale for town gossip. The more each of Hildie's eyebrows wiggled and danced, the more newsworthy the woman found the conversation to be.
When everyone in town was curious whether Sam Tucker had noticed how Brenda Morgan had started dating again, it was the medium tempo of Hildie's eyebrows and their slight angle that clued the gossipmongers into the not-so-dramatic details of Sam falling for another girl when the money had been on Sam and Brenda to become a couple.
But Hildie's eyebrows had arched into her hairline, cancanning with every word when she recounted how Max Tucker refused to leave his house as the river flooded during Founders' Day weekend.
Right now, in the middle of the frozen food aisle, Hildie's brow action indicated that seismic activity was happening in Eagle's Ridge.
"What do we need to chat about?" At least there was no need to beat around the bush with Hildie. She wanted to share.
"Penny phoned me earlier."
Teagan shook her head. "Refresh my memory."
"Penny. She works 9-1-1 dispatch."
"Oh." Teagan wasn't sure how she felt about gossip that started with an emergency phone call. "Is everyone okay?"
Hildie swatted away her concern like a fruit fly from apples. "You are never going to believe what she told me."
Teagan guessed everyone was okay. If anyone had been rushed to the Coleman Center by ambulance, the conversation would have had a different tone. "What did Penny tell you?"
Hildie flapped her arms and made her multicolored caftan flair. "Well, it involves the fire department."
Oh, the theatrics. It was what this woman lived for, yet there were only so many things that involved a 9-1-1 call that Teagan could consider guilt-free gossip.
Teagan needed to feed Will and decided guessing might speed the conversation along. "The firehouse decided to do a calendar for charity. All proceeds go to fund your museum-"
"Oh. That would be nice." Hildie's face froze, likely lost in the innumerable poses she'd pulled in an instant. "But no."
"Do I have to guess again?" Teagan flicked a glance at her son. "Will might wither away."
Hildie snapped out of her firemen daydream and glanced at Will, pressed against the frozen food case as if he'd never seen food in his life. "No more guessing."
"Great. Give me the goods."
"The fire department is wrapping up a run to the Force house." She pitched forward. "Where Noah Coleman moved back to today!"
"What?" A little gasp caught in Teagan's throat.
"Penny said it was a double whammy while he cooked dinner."
Teagan's eyes couldn't have gotten any wider. "Are you kidding me?"
"Do I joke?" The town gossip balked then pursed her lips as though offended that Teagan had questioned the authenticity of her intel.
"I didn't mean to be rude, Hildie. It's just … " She half wanted to burst out laughing and half needed to check on Bella. "We were just there."
"Right, Will and Bella." Hildie bounced her finger, apparently remembering the friendships of kindergartners. All in the job of the town busybody. "Friends? Something more one day?"
"Never." She shook her head. "They're like siblings. But not. Would be if they could, though."
"Like the Coleman and the Stram-I mean Force-girl. I never saw Lainey as a Force. Always a Stram."
Teagan lifted her shoulder. "I didn't know Davis Force. But I do know I need to feed Will."
"You don't want to know what happened?" Hildie gaped.
Goodness, what Teagan didn't want to do was insult her again. She tried not to laugh at the thought of Noah needing the fire department while he cooked dinner. "I didn't realize you knew more details, Hildie. Sorry. What happened?"
"What happened?" Hildie repeated, flapping the shawl. "Everything happened!"
Hmm. Hildie was to be used only in small doses and for therapeutic purposes. A perfect student might take a nosedive before an impending divorce was announced. Hildie would know. Teagan could come up with actionable steps. But this was starting to look like chin wagging that served zero purpose. "Just the quick version. I can't forget about Will for too long."
Hildie straightened her arms in her shawl then crossed them. "Double whammy."
"I got that."
"He cranked up the heat on the stovetop, but it was the oven that did him in."
Oh good gracious, would she just spit it out? Teagan glanced at Will, now opening and closing the door to the frozen pizza section. "And … ?"
"He tossed a hand towel in the broiler under the oven, thinking it was a storage cabinet. Poof. " Hildie threw her arms in the air, and her shawl splayed brightly. "Fire."
Teagan slapped her hand over the mouth. "Oh my."
"The next-door neighbor called the fire department. Said the kitchen caught fire. Smoke was billowing out the front door and windows."
Oh God. Poor Noah. She didn't want to laugh. This wasn't funny.
"All that smoke?" Hildie shook her head. "I bet half the kitchen in that sweet cedar is gone. Just gutted. Can you imagine what it must look like? Bet the walls are black, the floors too … "
Teagan's mind wandered to Lainey's-no, Noah's-beautiful kitchen. Had he really burned it out? That would be a shame, and if so, she wouldn't laugh any more.
Hildie clucked. "Now that I think about it, maybe that was his plan."
"I'm sorry?" Teagan asked, torn from her worries.
"What better way to up his bachelor status?"
Teagan gaped. "What?"
"Very smart. Handsome man like that, one who needs help in the kitchen but who is trying? Comes from a good family with deep roots?" Hildie's voice flittered. "And have you heard his story?"
"He has a story?" Teagan's brow furrowed. This was why she didn't gossip. She didn't know if the headache pounding in her temple that very second was from irritation, aggravation, or frustration.
"He walked away from the military for Bella." Hildie tilted her head. "Bella and Will are close. Didn't you know that?"
A flash of protectiveness rushed through Teagan. Noah wasn't fresh meat for the single ladies in town to pounce on. He had much bigger things to worry about, like learning to raise a highly intelligent young girl who'd had more than her fair share of traumatic events in a short lifetime. "Yes. I'm aware he didn't re-up his contract as a Navy SEAL."
"Navy SEAL. It has a nice ring to it."
Teagan's chest pounded. "We have to go, but Hildie … "
The busybody's cell phone buzzed, and she perked up as if Prince Harry might be calling. "I have to take this."
"Sure, but hey, Hildie. Before that." Teagan stepped forward, resting her hand on the other woman's forearm. "Give him more than a day to get his bearings before you throw him to the wolves."
Hildie's smile wavered but remained strong. "You know"-she declined the call on her phone-"I forgot to pick up a new bag of chocolate chips. Can't forget that, now can I?"
Then Hildie dropped her phone into her bag, and with as much flourish as she'd arrived into the aisle, she departed.
"No problem. I have to feed Will." But Hildie was already gone, phone pressed to her ear as she hunched over, telling the latest caller of the Eagle's Ridge Fire Department run.
Teagan thought quietly about how Noah must have felt. Maybe homesick. Maybe he missed his team. The last thing he wanted was to be the center of gossip. Either way, she had come at him all wrong earlier, and he didn't need to get another round of muckraking from the rest of Eagle's Ridge.
Teagan bit her lip. Nor did she want a crew of the single and interested showing up at his door. But that wasn't why she'd said something to Hildie. Was it?
She walked over to Will as he dropped his head back and groaned. "I'm so hungry. I don't think I'm going to make it."
"Oh no. That sounds horrible." She put her pointer finger to her chin and tilted her head, humming. "Maybe we should rush home and have leftovers?"
Will snapped to like a soldier with his arms at his sides and his head facing forward. "Just kidding. I'm fine. Can we still have pizza? Please."