by Nancy Naigle
Flynn’s eyes widened and she broke away from him, heading over to the left side of the room.
“This one . . .” She pointed to a tall sculpture. “You did this?”
He’d worked on that sculpture one whole winter. A luxury that selling cases of one of his original designs—a paperweight to one of those home shopping channels had afforded him. Sometimes you just had to pay your dues.
“It’s amazing. And delicate. And so real. It’s like the vibrant color bands are swirling, even though I know they aren’t.”
“That was the idea. Layers upon layers.” The flame-worked borosilicate glass sculpture reached a full forty inches base to tip.
She crossed the room with the grace of a dancer. “I swear that glass seaweed looks like it’s moving too.” She swayed to the left and to the right. “How do you do that?”
“Hours of patient work, but I like that kind of intricacy. It’s a challenge.”
“It looks so fragile like it might break if I even touched it ever so carefully.”
“It’s stronger than you’d think, but the individual stems and leaves of the seaweed are pretty delicate.” He’d repaired and reworked it for weeks. When he’d finally finished the glass seaweed and started working on the individual sea life, it had been like a much-needed vacation. The fish were detailed and involved study and research to get them anatomically and color correct, but it had all been so worth it.
“How’d you get this one?” Ford asked Gary. He knew this piece had been loaned to a museum.
Gary’s eyebrows wiggled. “Can you believe the Monterrey Museum of Glass let us get it on loan when they heard we had you on exhibit, and that you’d be here with us?”
“Cool.”
“It was in a museum?” Flynn took a step back and turned, staring at him. “You really are something.”
And so are you, Ford thought. He loved her enthusiasm. It sent his own emotions zinging.
“Oh, yes, ma’am. Has he been modest with you?” Gary pulled his hands to his hips. “Ford Morton has won more awards and accolades than men who’ve been working glass three times as long as he has.”
She wrapped her hand around Ford’s bicep. “There’s a lot more to you than I thought when I met you last summer.”
“More to come,” he said. And when she looked up at him with interest in her eyes, he’d never been so tempted to kiss a woman right then and there as he was right now.
Chapter Twelve
She had a rule about dating guests, and for a brief moment when Ford had asked her to come with him to PRIZM this morning, she’d thought about saying no. Thank goodness she’d fought that crazy feeling.
Jackson had bragged on Ford like he was some kind of a celebrity, but he and Noah had also given Ford one heckuva a hard time about giving up his real job to play for a living. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t had her own questions about his carefree lifestyle. Fun was one thing. Flexibility was great too, but he seemed to have taken it to the extreme.
How many people gave up a career, a successful career in law, to do art? That couldn’t be very common. She’d said it was brave, but was it? Or was it just downright crazy and reckless to drop everything to live in the wilderness?
She’d been accused of crossing the crazy line for leaving her lucrative career to run the B&B plenty of times. Not by her friends but by old coworkers. They didn’t understand the appeal or the satisfaction she got from making a special occasion a truly memorable moment for someone. She was part of a lot of people’s very favorite memories. That was something you couldn’t study to do. But she’d also done it to be close to friends and family. He’d left everyone he cared for behind.
Gary flipped his wrist to check his watch and then snapped his fingers in the air. “Why don’t y’all come with me? We’ve got some of our advanced students putting on a demonstration. They just got started. You can come and watch from the catwalk.”
Catwalk? Who was she to question? She was just here for the ride, so she fell into step alongside Ford.
Leading them through a long corridor of rooms with glass doors, Gary escorted them to the hub of activity. Artists worked alone in a couple of them, and in others groups of people huddled together. They walked so quickly she couldn’t really see anything. They climbed a set of metal stairs, then walked out across a space where at least a dozen people wearing blue lab coats and goggles engaged a group of onlookers in a set of bleachers.
“This is the best seat in the house.” A wave of heat whooshed by Flynn as an artist dipped a long pipe into a furnace to get hot glass. Bright orange and yellow flames danced in the hole in front of the furnace, leaving spots in her vision as she watched.
The dark-haired man spun the long metal pole into the fiery mass and came out with a wad of what looked like a fireball to her. Alive and liquid.
An hour later the team had each dipped hot glass, then rolled and manipulated, twisted and created what was now a uniform set of glass ornaments. Except for the colors, they looked to be exactly the same size. The student informed the audience that these would go into the cooling process but later be boxed into a twelve-piece set of ornaments that they sold in the gift shop and online.
“That would make an awesome gift,” Flynn said nudging Ford.
He simply smiled, clearly not as impressed as she’d been, but this was her first time seeing any of this.
“They did a good job,” Ford said.
Gary looked on proudly. “This is one of my best classes. I swear they get better and better every year. I can’t wait to see what your influence will inspire with this group,” he said to Ford, making it sound almost like a challenge.
Flynn wondered what this kind of teaching arrangement paid.
Ford didn’t look worried. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Gary walked them down the stairs. “Your lab will be over here, Ford.”
Ford stepped in front of her and went into the long room. This room didn’t have bleachers in it, but it had a lot more equipment.
She hung back, letting him take care of business. He and Gary talked, and she stepped back into the hallway and watched one of the artists work on a glass ball, similar to what the group had just done for the visitors, only this artist wasn’t as experienced. He was blowing and reworking the glass, then gave up and started over. It must be a lot harder to do than it looked.
When she stepped back into Ford’s lab, she found him and Gary walking toward her.
“You ready for lunch?” Ford asked.
“Starved,” she said.
“Our cafe has the best food around. I don’t know what they have on special today, but my wife tells everyone she knows not to even bother with the menu. Whatever they have on special is what you need to order,” Gary said.
“I’ll take that recommendation.” Flynn was looking forward to trying it out. If it was good she’d add it to her list of local fare for her guests to try. The gift shop and gallery had already impressed her enough to make the list.
“We get all of our meat and vegetables locally. I think you’ll like it. You’ll have to tell your guests about us,” Gary said.
“I was just thinking the same thing.” Flynn reached into the front pocket of her purse and handed him a card. “If you ever need special rates for visiting artists, let me know.”
“I’ll do that. Thanks.”
Ford said, “Thanks for letting me stop by today. I’m looking forward to getting started this Friday.”
“We’re ready for you.” Gary pulled out his phone and checked something. “I’ve got to run. Y’all enjoy your lunch.”
“We will,” Flynn said. “Thank you.”
Ford led her down the hall back to the gallery. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re a big deal.”
He laughed. “Tell my dad that, would you?”
“Gladly.” She hadn’t told him about her relationship with her own father, but it seemed that they had one more thing in co
mmon there. Not that her dad wanted her to follow in his footsteps, but he’d been so selfish that after Mom died he never even made the time to find out what she wanted to do. He’d left her with Gran and Granpa and took off. Mourning was one thing, but abandoning your daughter . . . she didn’t know if she could ever forgive him for that. It wasn’t like she was a child—even a teenager needs her parents. She had been mourning too. She wasn’t even sure where he was right now, and most of the time she didn’t even care.
Kaleidoscope’s intimate room, painted in deep jewel tones, was welcoming. They were seated at a large table in the corner, with one of Ford’s glassworks displayed just behind them. It was obvious Gary had given the folks a heads-up that she and Ford were going to be dining there by the way the waitress was fawning over them.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Morton. I’m Beth. I own Kaleidoscope.”
“Nice to meet you.” He reached for Beth’s hand. “This is a good friend of mine, Flynn Crane. She runs a beautiful bed and breakfast over in Boot Creek. One of the best cooks I’ve ever known,” he said.
A good friend? And a compliment. Flynn felt a warm glow flow through her. “Thanks,” she said to Ford.
“That’s wonderful,” Beth said. “We’ll have to swap recipes sometime.”
“Sounds great.”
Beth grinned. “We do all of our own baking right here on-site. I have to tell you that we’re kind of known for our muffins.”
“Then you’re going to want to talk to this gal about giving up her family recipe for Pumpkin Pecan Crunch Muffins. I don’t even like pumpkin, or I thought I didn’t, and I swear I could eat my weight in them,” Ford said.
He hadn’t even said anything to her about that. “I wondered where those last two went,” Flynn teased.
“Guilty,” Ford said with a laugh. “Midnight snack.”
Beth said, “My grandmother used to make those. I’ve never been able to perfect her recipe. I swear she left something out. Man, it’s been way too many years since I’ve had them. We’ve got to talk.”
“I’ll make some and send them over with Ford while he’s here.”
“I’d be happy to pay you for them,” Beth said.
“Don’t be silly. You can just tell folks about my B&B when they need a place to stay. I’m just over in Boot Creek. Neighbors helping neighbors.”
“Fair enough.” Beth turned to Ford. “Will you be using the dorm or staying in Boot Creek while you’re in town.”
He hesitated.
“He’s staying at the B&B,” Flynn said, unwilling to let him get away so soon. If for no other reason than that she owed him for all he’d done, or maybe Beth’s interest bothered her more than she’d care to admit.
He didn’t seem to mind her interruption.
“Great,” Beth said, but Flynn could see a little disappointment in the edge of that girl’s smile. “What can I get y’all today?”
Ford ordered the burger with pimento cheese and bacon, and she went with the flatbread of the day with hand-pulled organic chicken and fresh veggies and herbs. The food was as tasty as it was nicely plated.
“This might be almost as good as your cooking,” Ford said.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She took a sip of her sweet tea. “So good. Your burger looks good too.”
“It is. Sure beats a drive-through.”
“Do they have fast food at all up there?”
“Sure. It’s not like I live in the wilderness. I live in a small town not unlike Boot Creek. We have shops on Main Street that stay open year round and several tourist shops specifically catering to the cruise ships that dock in the harbor nearby. We even have a McDonald’s and banks and churches.”
“I guess when I think of Alaska, what comes to mind are polar bears, ice fishing, igloos, and Inuit. Oh, and mush dogs.”
“The Iditarod.”
“Yes,” she said with a snap of her fingers. “The Iditarod. Saw that on television.”
“You’ll have to come visit me. I’ll show you real Alaska. It’s huge. Makes Texas look like a map dot.”
“Really? Don’t tell the Texans. You know how proud they are of their land mass.”
“We have T-shirts poking fun at them. ‘Ain’t Texas cute.’”
“That’s just wrong.”
“Pretty much. But it’s funny. My property is midway up the coastline. It’s a nice piece of land on good high ground. A view to write home about.”
“I still can’t believe you did most of the work on your house by yourself.”
“My dad’s dad could build anything. I learned so much from him without even realizing it. Just hanging out and helping them. An education that you can’t buy. He and my dad are so different.”
“Did he come help you?”
“Pop-pop? No, I wish he’d been able to be a part of it. It’s just too long of a flight for him to make. I did buy him a smartphone and taught him how to video call. We shared things that way. He’d have loved Alaska and he’d have been right there to help me. I think we could’ve built that whole place in one summer together.”
“Do you have brothers and sisters?” she asked.
“Just sisters. Three of them. I was the baby, so they took good care of me. Also taught me all the ins and outs of how to behave around women. I got more thumps on the head as a teenager than I care to admit. Those girls were ruthless.” He chuckled. “Still kind of are.”
“You’ll probably make a great husband someday.”
“I hope so.”
That was a first. Usually guys seemed to run when you even mentioned the word marriage or even relationship. Too bad he didn’t still have that real job. And too bad he didn’t live closer.
Chapter Thirteen
Flynn stood on the front porch watering the bright purple and orange pansies. They’d taken off, overflowing the planter boxes that hung from the white porch railing. She pinched back a few to put in a vase in Ford’s room.
The rusty wheelbarrow in the front yard still held pumpkins and mums that looked like they’d been on a steroid regimen, the way they overflowed from the sides. They’d looked pitiful when she’d bought them for just ninety-nine cents a pot at the Piggly Wiggly, but boy did they perk up after just a week of loving care and fresh air. The purple, maroon, and gold blooms practically covered the pumpkins now, but it would be perfect for Thanksgiving too.
Ford stepped out onto the front porch. “There you are. Wondered where you were off to so early.”
“Just out here doing my morning chores.”
“Thanks for leaving breakfast for me.”
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I think the time change is finally catching up with me. I never sleep this late.”
“No worries. It’s an Indian summer day today. Perfect day for a little laziness.”
“I’ve never been one to be lazy.” He propped a foot against the bottom rail of the porch. “I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner tonight. Jackson said there’s a nice place up the road.”
“He’s probably talking about Bella’s. It’s really good.”
“Interested?”
She was. Very. In fact, if the beating of her heart was any indication, she was more interested than she should be. She tipped the watering can up and set it down. “I can’t. Sorry.” But she wasn’t, in a way. She knew better than to get interested in him. He’d be gone soon. Thankful for the safety net of an honest excuse, she pasted a smile on her face. “I told Angie I’d watch Billy. He’s going to spend the night. I try to do that once a month. Gives them a chance for a date night. Plus, I love having Billy here. We always have fun. Keeps my ‘favorite aunt’ title intact.”
“That’s nice of you.” He put on his sunglasses.
She liked the way he looked in them, even if she couldn’t see his eyes through the reflective lenses.
“Mind if I hang out with y’all?”
“Not at all,” she said. “It’ll be a far cry f
rom Bella’s, though. If that’s the kind of dinner you had your mouth set on, you’re going to be disappointed. I’m making chicken tenders and mac ’n’ cheese.”
“Sounds good to me. How about I pick up dessert? I mean if you’re sure I won’t be intruding on your time together? I did kind of just invite myself, didn’t I?”
“Not at all. You’re welcome to join us. It’ll be low-key, whatever we do.”
“I like it.” A mischievous grin swept across Ford’s face. “Sounds right up my alley.” He headed down the steps, then spun around, walking backward as he spoke. “I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll be here.” She watched as he drove off, realizing she was still smiling. He charmed her like a boy, but there wasn’t anything boyish about his build or the way his arms felt when he was close.
She went inside and took chicken out of the freezer for dinner. Then she went into the living room and rummaged through the bottom drawer of the built-in bookcase for the goodies she’d picked up at a yard sale a few weeks ago—three toy trucks and a Yahtzee game. She’d almost forgotten about the math flash cards and oversized United States map puzzle she’d also bought.
Last time Billy had stayed, it had been right before school started. He’d been so excited that he’d insisted Angie let him pack his lunchbox and bring it over. They’d had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich dinner on the patio, and then played H-O-R-S-E at the basketball court in the park behind the Baptist church. He’d beat her fair and square too.
After finishing up her chores for the day, she sat down at her desk, delighted to see that she’d received three new reservations in December for the B&B. She’d been worried that after having no vacancies for so long, some of her regulars might have found new favorite places to stay. That didn’t appear to be the case.