And The Winner--Weds!

Two

Frannie thought of little else for the rest of the evening. She was still thinking about it the next morning when she strode into the large sun-filled kitchen, where Aunt Celeste was fussing over the stove.

Frannie smoothed a wayward strand of hair back into the tight bun she’d coiled at her crown, thinking how different her own drab coloring was from her vivid aunt’s. A natural redhead, Celeste had russet hair that became progressively brighter over the years as she fought off the signs of aging. Her current shade was called Autumn Flame, and she’d evidently taken the theme to heart, because she was dressed in a loose yellow shirt over a filmy orange and yellow gypsy-style skirt.

“Ouch!” Celeste dropped a heavy skillet back onto the stove with a loud clatter, then stuck her index finger into her mouth and dashed to the sink, her bangle bracelets jangling.

Frannie hurried forward. “Are you all right?”

Celeste flipped on the faucet and stuck her right hand under the running water. “Depends on your definition of ‘all right.’ That’s the second time I’ve burned myself this morning, and the third skillet of scrambled eggs I’ve nearly ruined.”

“Where’s Jasmine?” Jasmine normally did all the cooking at the B and B.

“That nice young man she went out with last night came by and wanted to take her fishing this morning,” Celeste said. “I told her to go ahead, that I’d enjoy taking a turn in the kitchen. I didn’t know I was going to be all thumbs this morning.”

Frannie frowned. Aunt Celeste might be less than careful when it came to bookkeeping and paperwork, but she was usually the very picture of efficiency in the kitchen. Celeste’s personality was as warm as her hair color, and she was just as nurturing as she was warm. She loved cooking and baking, and was as comfortable around the stove as Frannie was around the computer.

Frannie stepped closer. Her aunt’s complexion seemed paler than usual this morning, and the delicate skin under her eyes was etched with deep blue shadows.

“Are you feeling ill?”

Celeste brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead with her left hand and sighed. “I’m fine, dear. Just tired. I didn’t sleep well again last night. I kept having those awful dreams.”

Celeste had been plagued by nightmares for the past two weeks. All of them involved members of her family, and most of them centered on her sister, Blanche. In one particularly vivid dream, Blanche had warned that the past was about to rise up and greet her. She’d also cautioned Celeste be careful to make the right choices.

“Have you had any more dreams about Blanche?” Frannie asked.

“All of them seem to involve her.” Celeste stared out the kitchen window at the forest. “A couple of them last night were about my brother, Jeremiah. He was angry—horribly angry—but I don’t know why or at whom or what was going on. Another time I woke up with my heart racing, and I’d been dreaming about Blanche. I could see her in the distance.”

Celeste shut off the faucet and reached for a paper towel. “She was trying to tell me something, but for the life of me, I couldn’t understand what it was. She was too far away. I could see her lips moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying.”

Frannie reached for a clean cloth and filled it with ice. She gave it to her aunt. “You’ve been having a lot of bad dreams lately.”

Celeste put the ice pack on her injured finger. “Just about every night. I’m sure it’s a sign.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know. Blanche keeps trying to tell me something. I keep thinking back to the dream where she told me the past was about to rise up. Something’s about to happen. And whatever it is, it’s important.”

Celeste was a deeply spiritual person, but she harbored some odd notions about dreams and ghosts and the afterlife. She’d lived in Louisiana for a year with her late husband, and she’d brought back some strange beliefs from the bayou.

“Sometimes a dream is just a dream,” Frannie commented.

“And sometimes it’s not.” Celeste shook her head. “You know, dreams are nothing to dismiss lightly. Sometimes they contain messages from the other side. The problem is, the messages are often hard to read.” Celeste inspected her finger. “They’re like smoke signals—they can drift away before you get a chance to understand them.”

An acrid odor reached Frannie’s nose. She sniffed, then looked at Celeste in alarm. “Speaking of smoke, is something burning?”

“Oh, dear!” Celeste dashed across the kitchen, grabbed an oven mitt and yanked open the oven door, then reached inside. “Ouch!” she exclaimed, waving her hand.

“Did you burn yourself again?”

“Yes, dadblast it! Frannie, come and take these cinnamon rolls out of the oven before they burn to a crisp.”

Frannie patted her aunt’s back. “Why don’t you go sit down and relax? I’ll get breakfast for our guests this morning. We only have three, don’t we? Mr. Deshaw and that nice couple from Washington?”

“Four. Mr. Deshaw’s friend came by to pick him up, and I invited him to stay for breakfast. I believe Mr. Deshaw said he’s a race car driver, of all things.”

Frannie’s heart unaccountably picked up speed. She pulled on the oven mitt her aunt had abandoned and retrieved the burned rolls from the oven.

“The couple ate an hour ago. They’re out on the lake in the rowboat, fishing.”

“Well, then, I’ll get breakfast for the gentlemen.”

“Why, thank you, dear.” Celeste smiled at her niece. “I believe I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“Are you serving breakfast on the back porch?”

Celeste nodded. “It was too beautiful a morning to stay inside. Since the rolls are burned, why don’t you make some toast? You can serve it with the scrambled eggs. I made enough to serve an army.”

Celeste made her way upstairs and Frannie bustled around the kitchen. In a matter of minutes she’d prepared two attractive plates garnished with sliced cantaloupe and fresh strawberries. She loaded them onto an antique silver tray, her stomach fluttering nervously. Taking a deep breath, she headed out of the kitchen, through the den and onto the screened-in back porch.

The porch overlooked Blue Mirror Lake and Frannie usually found the view breathtaking, but she was too distracted by the sight of the tall, handsome man to notice the scenery this morning. Austin was settled in a rustic twig chair at a wooden table, deep in conversation with Tommy, and he looked even more handsome than she remembered. Her pulse fluttered wildly when he looked up at her and smiled.

He rose as she approached the table. “Good mornin’. May I help you with that?” He gestured toward the tray.

Frannie hesitated, completely flustered. She wasn’t accustomed to guests standing and offering to help when she tried to serve them. “Oh, no. Please take your seat.” She lifted a hand from the tray and gestured toward his chair.

She immediately knew she’d made a mistake. The tray tipped and the plates slid. She watched in horror as they headed toward him, as if in slow motion. Trying to correct the slant of the tray, she jerked it upward, but overcompensated.

“Oh, no!” Frannie gasped. A plate of scram bled eggs hit Austin full in the face, then landed back on the tray with a loud clatter.

Frannie stared, too aghast to move. Scram bled eggs dripped from his forehead, from his eyebrows, from his nose. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

Austin ran his fingers across his eyes, clearing a path through the yellow blobs. Setting the tray quickly on the table, Frannie grabbed a blue cloth napkin and handed it to him. He used it like a washcloth, completely covering his face and wiping the egg away.

Frannie watched helplessly, dying a thousand deaths. “I’m so very, very sorry! Are you all right?”

He pulled the napkin away and opened his eyes. “Fine.” Turning the napkin, he took another swab at his forehead. The corners of his mouth turned up in a wry grin.

“It’s not the first time I’ve had egg on my face, is it, Tommy?”

The large man across the table slapped his knee and chortled. “No, sirree. But usually you’re the one that put it there.”

“I’m so sorry,” Frannie repeated. She grabbed another napkin and began dabbing at his shirt. His chest beneath the blue cotton knit was disconcertingly hard and warm. “Oh, dear, you’ve got it on your jeans, too.” She lifted the napkin, ready to attack his crotch, then froze as she realized what she was about to do.

His hand closed over hers, stopping her. The heat from his hand radiated up her arm, through her shoulder and straight through her chest. She stared up into blue, blue eyes.

His grin was blinding. “I think I’d better take over the clean-up operation.”

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated, her voice a low, mortified whisper.

“It’s all right. It’s no big deal.” Releasing her hand, he took the napkin from her and brushed off his lap. “Looks like you took a bit of a hit yourself.” He reached out and brushed a blob of egg from her cheek.

The intimacy of the touch sent a shock wave curling through her. She jumped away as if he’d gigged her with a cattle prod, only to immediately realize the absurdity of her reaction.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t,” she lied.

“Well, there’s a little more egg right…” He reached out his hand again. Once more she reflexively jumped back.

Something about this man’s touch made her feel hot and bothered and breathless.

“I’m, uh, ticklish,” she lamely explained, vigorously rubbing her cheeks. “Is my face clean now?”

He seemed to be looking at something over her head. He pulled his eyes down to meet her gaze. “Your face? Uh, yeah.”

“Good. Well, I’ll…I’ll go fix you another plate, then come back and clean all this up.”

She fled to the kitchen, feeling as awkward as a three-legged chair. Quickly she made more toast, sliced more melon and plated up two more servings of eggs.

“Here you go,” she said a few minutes later as she hurried back to the porch. She set down his breakfast and backed away from the table, unreasonably worried about getting too close to Austin. “I’ll just go get a broom and dustpan and—” She stopped short and stared at the spotless wooden floor. “You cleaned it all up!”

Austin shrugged. “We found a roll of paper towels by the serving bar in the corner.”

Frannie frowned in dismay. “But you’re guests, and I’m the one who made the mess, and—”

Austin waved away her objections. “We’re used to cleanin’ up crank cases and oil pan spills. This was nothing.”

“That’s right.” Tommy smiled, his widely spaced teeth giving his round face the appearance of a friendly jack-o’-lantern.

But it was Austin’s amused expression that held her gaze. He was looking at her in such a strange way, as if he found her intensely interesting.

Frannie felt her pulse race. She was used to being ignored by men, not treated as an object of endless fascination—especially not by the likes of Austin Parker. She was drab and colorless and average. She certainly wasn’t dressed to rate any undue attention; she was just wearing a faded brown sweatshirt and loose-fitting khakis. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, her hair was wound in a bun at her crown, and her glasses were firmly in place on top of her nose. Austin’s intense scrutiny rattled her down to her toenails.

“Well, uh, thanks for the help. Can I get you anything else?”

“I think we’re all set.”

She beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen, where she tried to drown out her clamoring thoughts by loading the dishwasher and vigorously mopping the floor. She was nearly finished when Austin stuck his head inside the door fifteen minutes later. “Breakfast was delicious. Thanks. And give my thanks to your aunt.”

She heard the men’s footsteps retreat down the hall, then heard the front door close behind them. She leaned against the kitchen wall and inhaled a deep breath, her hand on her stomach.

Thank goodness they were gone. Austin made her feel as if her lungs were too small to draw enough air. And the way he looked at her! His gaze went so…so deep, as if he were seeing things in her that no one else had ever seen.

“You’re being ridiculous,” she muttered to herself. Instead of standing around mooning over an unattainable man, she needed to march herself back to the computer and finish the bookkeeping. She started through the dining room on her way to do just that, then jerked to a halt as she caught sight of her reflection in the mirrored china cabinet.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured.

There in the mirror, staring back at her from between plates of flowered Franciscan china, was the reason Austin had regarded her with such fascination: a giant glob of scrambled egg was perched atop her head like a yellow rubber tiara, supported by the bun she’d pulled her hair into that morning.

“Great. Just great.”

Striding back into the kitchen, she held her head over the sink and dislodged the enormous lump of egg. She pulled a paper towel off the holder and rubbed her hair, heaving a sigh of disgust. Austin was the sexiest man she’d ever set eyes on, and what did she do? She acted like a hopelessly tongue-tied klutz, so skittish that the poor guy didn’t dare tell her that the top of her head looked the inside of an egg salad sandwich.

Summer and Jasmine would never have been behaved so clumsily. They would have known how to talk and behave and flirt. Summer and Jasmine never would have thrown a plate of eggs in a guest’s face in the first place, and they certainly wouldn’t have ended up walking around all morning looking as if an airborne goose had just used them for target practice.

Maybe she should take them up on their offer to make her over. She had no expectations of being as glamorous as her cousins, but maybe, just maybe, she could gain a little of their self-assurance. Maybe Summer was right. Maybe if she quit feeling like such a nerd, she’d stop acting like one.

“What the heck,” she muttered, heading upstairs to wash her hair for the second time that day. It was worth a try. When Jasmine got home, Frannie would tell her she’d agreed to the makeover.

Frannie was still burning with mortification over the egg incident when the bell over the front door jangled thirty minutes later. She looked up from the computer to see a tall man in a tan uniform stroll into the foyer, accompanied by an attractive blond woman dressed in jeans and a white cotton shirt with a large black tote bag over her shoulder.

Frannie rose from her seat and smiled. “Sheriff Rawlings, good morning!”

Rafe Rawlings’s rugged face creased in a friendly smile. “Good mornin’, Frannie. I’d like you to meet my new detective, Gretchen Neal.”

Frannie stepped forward and shook the blonde’s hand. “Nice to meet you.” The woman’s handshake was as sturdy as her tall, athletic build. With her milky skin, light blond hair and blue eyes, she reminded Frannie of the movie star Gwyneth Paltrow.

“Gretchen just moved here from Elk Springs,” Sheriff Rawlings said. “But before that, she worked on the police force in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Miami. We’re lucky to have someone with her experience join our force.”

“We sure are. Can I offer you two breakfast?”

“No, thanks. I’m afraid we’re here on business today, Frannie.”

Frannie raised her brows in surprise.

Rafe’s dark eyes grew serious. “Gretchen’s heading up the investigation into Raven Hunter’s death. I need someone who can devote one hundred percent of their time to the case, and Gretchen’s got the background to handle it.”

“I…see.” Although she didn’t. Not really. That still didn’t explain why they were here on a Sunday morning. “Do you have any other suspects? Other than Uncle Jeremiah?”