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“Why do you ask?” she teased. “Find it steamy—just like the city?”
“A wee bit.” Reddening, he fanned the neck of the white St. Louis Cardinals T-shirt he’d donned for the tour. “What’s our next stop?”
“Well,” Sarah said, stepping out of the bedroom and closing the door. “You’ve now seen the whole place. What do you think?”
“Pretty sweet. I’m still in awe that you did all of this yourself.”
“My parents helped when they had time—and my sister, Sarah. She’s awesome. Very handy with a hammer, nails and paintbrush.”
“She older or younger?”
“Younger, but not by much. How ’bout you?” she asked, leading him down the back staircase. “Have any brothers or sisters?”
“One slightly older brother. And when we were little, he lorded it over me.”
“I know the feeling.” Glancing over her shoulder, she shared a laugh with him, and in that moment something about her smile, her bright eyes, gave him the keenest craving to kiss her. Yes, it was bad for business, as his brother had said, but seeing how the woman need never know of the switch or the review, would just one kiss hurt?
His conscience said yes.
The part of him that was eyeing her sweet derriere screamed for him to go for it.
“There you are,” a sixty-something bottled redhead said from the bottom of the stairs. Not that he was a hair-color expert any more than he was an interior designer, but the orange-pink glow kind of gave it away. “Where’ve you been? If you plan on serving anything beyond peanut butter and jelly for dinner, girl, you’d best be movin’ along.” The woman’s all-white chef’s garb, combined with an ample figure, called to mind the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. But then, he didn’t have a middle-European accent, did he? Did he even speak at all?
“Sorry,” Sarah said. “I lost track of time.”
“Easily done with a good-looking man by your side. Introduce me.”
Heath tried to ignore their proximity in the cramped hall outside the kitchen.
“Helga,” Sarah began, “meet Shane Peters. He’s the current resident of the Mark Twain Suite.”
“Nice to make your acquaintance,” the older woman said, oddly rubbing the center of her forehead. “Are you alone here at the inn?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Then it’s a good thing our Sadie has been keeping you company.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Helga!” Sarah protested. “That’s completely out of line.”
“What?” the woman complained. “My all-seeing eye says the two of you may make a good couple. It never lies, you know.”
“You can’t just go around asking men questions like that,” said Sarah. “And, Shane, just to let you into the loop, Helga comes from a long line of Gypsies.”
“Not just Gypsies,” Helga corrected. “True visionaries who hold the power to see deep into the future. Therefore it is my obligation to tell a man and a woman whether or not they would be suited for marriage.”
“M-marriage?” Sarah sputtered. “Helga, stop this right now.”
“It’s all right,” Heath said, fighting to hold back a laugh. “As a matter of fact,” he said to the older woman, “in answer to your prior question, yes, I am very much single. But what about Sadie here? Seems like I read somewhere that she’s engaged.”
Chapter Three
It took Sarah a good five seconds after Shane Peters had asked the question to remember to breathe. What should she say? Yes, Sadie was very much engaged, but if she said so, there went her opportunity to get better acquainted with a seriously cool guy. Then again, beyond casual conversation, she wasn’t supposed to fraternize with the guests. If she admitted that her sister was engaged, then that gave her a noble “out” to keep things on a strictly professional level, instead of pulling him in for a forbidden kiss.
Something her guilty conscience had been contemplating for at least the past fifteen minutes!
“She was getting married,” Helga said, “but that boy turned out to be no good. I say, Sarah—I mean, Sadie—forgive me, I’m all the time getting them confused. I say, that boy, he’s no good for you. You must break up right away. My eye sees all.”
Nodding, Heath said, “Sounds like sage advice.”
“Oh, it was,” Helga said with a firm nod. “Now you two go drink some lemonade—or whatever it is you do these days.”
“Helga!” Sarah’s cheeks flamed.
The cook, who was like a second mom to her sister, waved off Sarah’s concern. “I thought you were loafing, which is why I asked for help. But if you have romance, then I say focus on that.”
“Helga!”
“Thank you for your concern,” Heath said to the woman, who was clearly deranged. His hand clamped Sarah’s shoulder, giving her a gentle squeeze. Awareness sparked through her. “And also for the offer of lemonade. But I need to make a few calls and take a shower before dinner. After that—” he cast Helga a wink “—I just might take you up on the offer of romance.”
“For Miss Sadie—not me.”
“Aw…why would I want her now that I’ve met you?”
As Helga shot him a dirty but pleased look, then hustled back to the kitchen, Sarah said, “I’m so sorry about that. Usually she reserves all that seeing-eye mumbo jumbo for family. Who knew she fancied herself a matchmaker?”
“Question is,” he asked, “do you want to be matched?” After a quick kiss to her cheek, he was off, whistling his way back up the stairs, as she stared rapturously at his departing backside.
One hand on her hip, the other cupping a tingling cheek, Sarah pondered the question. Helga barging in on them had been both good and bad. While it was annoying and highly unprofessional of her to have stuck her nose where it didn’t belong, she had, in a sense, cleared the way for Sarah to pursue Shane—if that was what she wanted. So was it?
Greg hadn’t just made a mess of her heart but of her head, too. How many times in recent months had she told herself she’d never, ever trust another guy? And yet here she was, unfathomably intrigued by this man whom she hardly knew yet felt as if she’d always known.
Could Helga’s all-seeing eye be right? Was it fate that had led Shane Peters’s date to turn down this weekend, so that the two of them could meet?
Sarah groaned and headed for the kitchen.
After Helga chewed her out for letting Shane go—even temporarily—she assigned boring cutting, chopping and dicing tasks that required no talent and left plenty of time for thinking.
Sarah had spent her entire career exploring other people’s hopes and dreams, doing the necessary math to estimate how much money it would take to make those dreams reality. She’d heard about everything from retiring to a remote tropical island to refurbishing railway boxcars and turning them into mountain or backyard retreats.
She’d always been fascinated by people’s dreams. The secret, giddy goals that drove a person out of bed each morning and into the rat race of modern life. Everyone had a different pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But what was hers?
In the beginning, she had wanted the usual. Hubby, kids, white picket fence. But then she’d gotten burned and her world had crumbled.
Everything that she’d thought was real had turned out to be a lie.
Until now, when a gorgeous, funny, warm guy named Shane had kissed her. And she wasn’t even sure if that was a good or bad thing.
“C’EST MAGNIFIQUE,” Mr. Standridge said, smiling with a flourish of his fingertips to his lips. If Sarah did say so herself—though she hadn’t had a blessed thing to do with it—Helga’s painstakingly prepared flan au saumon et aux asperges tasted divine. Thank God, on her latest trek around the dining room all guests present seemed to agree. “My wife and I have traveled the whole of France, and never have I experienced anything quite so exquisite.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Mrs. Standridge said, placing her hand on Sarah’s arm. “Truthfully, honey, after the slow service at lunch, I was a bit concerned. I see now you must have been having an off moment. Everything all right?”
“Couldn’t be better,” Sarah said with an airy smile, brimming with confidence—easy enough to do with the kitchen in Helga’s more-than-capable hands. Sarah was especially relieved to have spotted Shane with her peripheral vision, wolfing down his meal. At least Helga hadn’t sent him packing. Lord, the man was gorgeous—in a strictly professional way.
“If it’s no bother,” the widow Young asked in a wavering whisper as she pushed aside her plate, “may I inquire as to what’s for dessert?”
“Of course,” Sarah said, giving the Standridges one last smile before moving to the other woman’s table. Schmoozing was much simpler now that she’d relaxed, trusting Sadie’s planning to make everything work. The slow service Mrs. Standridge had complained about had been the result of nerves, but plainly all Sarah’s fears about running the inn had been a waste of energy. “For dessert, we’ll be having fraises à la maltaise, which is a fancy name for strawberries marinated in orange juice and Cointreau.”
“Wonderful.” The widow actually clapped her hands with glee. Sweet as the woman was, Sarah refrained from rolling her eyes. These foodie types took their dessert seriously.
“Perfection,” Mrs. Standridge tossed into the conversational salad.
Eyeing Shane, Sarah caught him grinning. Their gazes met and the result was exhilarating. That shared sense of consciousness. Even though they were a room apart, she felt as if he were right beside her—sharing her happiness in a job well done.
The meal wound on with the guests oohing and cooing over the gorgeous, meticulously carved orange bowls of marinated strawberries garnished with fresh mint. The honest part of Sarah wanted to drag Helga into the dining room to accept the praise she deserved, but instead the portion of Sarah that had sworn to imitate her sister graciously nodded and smiled, acting as if such wonders were all in a day’s work. Which for Sadie, of course, it would have been.
Had Sarah tried something this fancy on her own, the guests would have ended up with results closer to runny Jell-O!
“Lively yet soothing,” Mr. Helsing announced after his first bite.
His wife, after taking her first taste, closed her eyes and sighed. “Utterly dreamy. I agree that after lunch I thought for a minute about repacking our bags, but now I see how everyone who’s raved about this place has been right. How do you do it?”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Sarah said, doing her best to imitate her sister’s modest poise.
“I think what she means,” Heath said, deftly sliding aside his empty plate, then dabbing that gorgeous, sexy grin of his with a white linen napkin, “is how did you manage to turn out a meal like this when you not only look cool and composed but have had so much time to fulfill our every need?”
“That’s my job,” she said, ignoring the way her stomach lurched at the lie. “Over the years, I’ve become a master of prep work. You know, chopping and dicing late every night, to ensure I can present my guests with unrivaled tastes and luxury they won’t soon forget.”
“I’d say you are now fully succeeding in achieving your goals. Well done,” Mrs. Standridge pronounced.
“Here, here,” said Mr. Helsing with a show of applause that his wife joined in on.
“Well,” Mrs. Helsing said, “now that our appetites have been properly sated, would any of you care to join my husband and me for a round of canasta and a liqueur in the game room?”
Sarah crossed her fingers behind her back, hoping that everyone would agree—especially Shane. She’d only known him for one afternoon, and yet her awareness of him was all-consuming. She wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the night—oh, heck, who was she fooling, the rest of the weekend—getting to know him better. Trouble was, she’d also fallen for Greg this fast, and look where that had ended up.
Could anyone say disaster?
After all the inn’s guests had thanked her again for a lovely meal and then chattered their way into the game room where she’d promised to bring an assortment of after-dinner liqueurs, Heath held back.
Once they were alone, he cleared his throat. “You know, Sadie Connelly, I’m liking your smile as much as your fancy strawberry stuff. What was in it again?”
“Grand Marnier.”
“That’s funny,” he said, scratching his head. “I thought it was OJ and Cointreau?”
Pulse racing at her stupid mistake, Sarah said, “Oops.”
“Yoo-hoo! Mr. Peters!” Mrs. Young had found her voice. “I need you to be the other half of my pair.”
“Duty calls,” he said. “I presume your having forgotten your dessert’s main ingredient was a simple mistake?”
“What else would it have been?” Her heart thundered.
“Relax,” he said with a slow, sexy grin. “I’m totally joshing you. But just in case there’s a hidden controversy afoot and there is more you need to confess, how about we meet up later so you can tell all?”
“KNOCK, KNOCK,” HEATH said in the balmy darkness. While his head told him to steer clear of his beautiful hostess, the quickening of his breathing whenever she was near told him full speed ahead.
“Who’s there?”
“I wanna,” he said, strolling around the edge of the back porch, mounting the three stairs.
“I wanna, who?”
“I wanna congratulate you on having a bunch of happy guests.”
From her seat on a padded wicker bench, Sarah laughed. “Congratulations to you for obviously having the great taste to have come to my fabulous inn.”
She was surrounded by clay pots of sweet-smelling white, red and purple phlox. The only light was indirect and golden, escaping the kitchen, casting her in a soft glow. Heath hadn’t thought it possible for her to look prettier than she had while she’d served their dinners, but he’d been wrong. At this moment, her smile shone radiant against the night.
He cleared his throat, then gestured to the wicker armchair across from her. “May I?”
“I don’t know…This area is generally reserved for employees. You know how it is. I don’t like my employees mingling with guests.”
“Fair enough,” he said, sitting anyway, crossing his legs so that his left ankle rested atop his right knee. He’d changed from the suit and tie he’d worn to dinner into faded jeans and a retro black Rolling Stones T-shirt. “But, you know, seeing how I helped with all those towels this morning, I think that qualifies me for back-porch privileges.”
“I think you’d be right. But if you want a raise, forget it. Some of those towels had to be refolded.”
“Ouch.”
“Hey, I am the boss. If folks see me going easy on you, they may want the same special treatment.”
“That means I already am getting special treatment?” He dodged when she tossed a floral throw pillow in his direction. “You are so getting reported for employee abuse.”
The size of her grin said she didn’t care.
Neither did he.
He should have been back in his room, making sense of the hasty notes he’d discreetly scribbled for Hale during dinner. But where was the fun in that? So far, his brother was right in that giving Sadie her five-spoon review was a no-brainer, leaving Heath with plenty of time to better acquaint himself with the brains and beauty behind the inn’s perfection.
“Fan of Mick?” she asked, nodding toward his shirt.
Shrugging, he said, “More old-school than new.”
“Me, too.”
A few minutes’ companionable silence was disturbed only by chirping crickets and an owl’s lonely call.
There were lots of things Heath wanted to ask Sadie Connelly, but should he? After all, he’d already worked out the fact that he wasn’t over Tess. What good would it do him to get to know Sadie better when he still had so much to figure out about himself?
“I know what you do for a living,” she said, her voice quiet in the chilly night air, “but what do you dream about?”
Forehead wrinkled, Heath said, “I don’t get the question.”
“Come on, play with me. Everyone has dreams. Since you’re in computers, do you want to be the next Bill Gates, for example?”
“No,” Heath answered truthfully.
“Then what do you want?” Leaning forward, Sarah rested her elbows on her knees. The pose unwittingly thrust certain womanly parts of her anatomy up and out, making it hard for Heath to focus on those dusky martini-olive eyes of hers instead of the plunging vee neckline of her white blouse.
What did he want?
At the moment, he wanted a fantastic night with Sadie Connelly. Hot and wild. No strings. Because when strings broke, he was the one who got hurt.
Come on, his conscience ragged. What happened with Tess was a one-time deal.
Yeah, he fought back, but that one time, I gave her my heart and soul. I wanted to have kids. Set up housekeeping. Buy a dependable car.
Even worse, Sadie Connelly was off-limits. His brother might love racing on the side, but until Hale made enough cash with his car to quit his day job, Heath owed it to his twin to keep this gig strictly professional.
“I’m waiting,” she said in that throaty tone of hers that was starting to be a major turn-on. “Dreams?”
This was sticky. Not only was Heath supposed to keep it casual between them but he hated lying. And so, on the fly, he carefully crafted a mingling of half-truths and deceptions, saying, “What I want is pretty simple. A few lucky career breaks have landed me more than enough in the bank, so…” He paused a moment to try and calm the nerve that was ticking in his jaw over the entirely true admission he’d decided to make. “Get out your violin, but deep down I guess I just want what lots of folks want. Security. To carry on the species.”
“Kids? You want a wife and kids?”
“You don’t have to sound so shocked,” he said, frustrated with himself for being so honest. Hating to realize that her eyes, her voice wielded such power. Knowing that her disapproval would hurt him.
“No,” she said with a rapid shake of her head. “You misread me. I meant it as a compliment. You’re a good-looking guy, and I had you pegged for a party boy. You’ve probably got gorgeous women lined up to accompany you to glitzy parties all the time.”
“Been there, done that,” he said with a wry grin. “I’m getting old. Like a tortoise. Time to bale hay and mend fences and all that crap.”
“For the record, you’re hardly grizzled or old, and baling hay isn’t crap,” she said with conviction. “Thank you.”
“For what?” Heath looked out to the brick patio, unable to deal with the impossible-to-read emotion that shadowed her expression.
“Being open with me.” She fidgeted in her chair. Sighed. “Since you’ve been so straight with me, I guess I owe you the same courtesy. I used to want the same. Nice house. Two-point-five rug rats. I’d met the perfect guy—tall, dark and handsome, with this little dimple in his right cheek every time he smiled.”
“Uh-oh,” Heath said with a groan. “I’m taking it from your pinched expression that this story has one of those Oscar-type tragic endings—as opposed to the summer blockbuster happy type?”
“You like movies?”
“Love ’em. But back on topic. This guy break your heart? Want me to arrange a fish picnic for him at the bottom of the lake?” He nodded toward the breeze-dappled water that glistened in the moonlight at the garden’s edge.
“How chivalrous of you,” she said with a flirty bat of her eyelashes. “But he’s long gone. Not quite as satisfactorily as the method you proposed. But I suppose the state pen has a certain charm all its own.”
“Prison?” Heath whistled. “Damn, girl. What’d he do?”
“Oh.” She absentmindedly twirled a lock of her hair. “Just a little embezzling on a pretty major scale. Throw in a dash of mail fraud, and he’s vacationing behind bars for quite some time.”
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