“Well, if you change your mind, or think of anyone else who might be able to use the income, let me know. I’ll keep that one, just in case.” She hit save.
“No proposals?” Liz mock-pouted. “I was looking forward to a good proposal. It felt like an interesting proposal sort of day.”
“There’s more email.” Sam clicked to open it. “Free goods for review.” Eyes widening at the huge shiny kitchenware set offered, she hovered her hand over the delete button. “I really should pass these on to you. Come clean and tell everyone you’re the perfect Proverbs 31 woman, not me.”
Liz snorted, a surprising sound from those darling wrinkled-apple lips. “You ask Hiram if I’m perfect! There’s a lot more to being a Biblical woman than baking.”
Sam waved at the screen. “But I’m cheating you out of the chance to get all these lovely things. Emails like this come every day.”
“You’re cheating me out of nothing.” A vigorous headshake sent gray curls dancing. “Can you imagine me trying to do one of those blog things? I can hardly switch on my cellphone, let alone a computer. Besides, I have a perfectly good set of pots and pans next door. I don’t need more. And as for ‘fessing up’, wouldn’t that worry your family?”
“Not Steph.” Planting her chin in one palm, Sam drummed the fingers of her other hand beside the keyboard. “She thinks it’s a huge joke. It’s her mother-in-law I’m worried about. Nancy would be here in a shot to take her granddaughters away from my bad influence. Though she’s too houseproud to tolerate them long. She always makes me feel like Pollyanna, facing her disapproving aunt.”
“Hmm, the girls wouldn’t be happy there. I’m sure they’re glad they got to stay with their fun Auntie Sam for the summer instead.” Mischief lit Liz’s eyes as if she were barely older than five years old herself. “And your parents?”
“They’re away on a missions trip. Dad would understand. He’d just laugh and know I meant it for the best. Mom…?” Clicking delete on the saucepan offer, Sam took another big gulp of her iced tea. “She’d say nothing to me, but I expect she’d secretly be disappointed and embarrassed. Really, I have to keep it going till Steph comes back. But that doesn’t stop it feeling wrong.”
“You’ve never told an actual lie in what you write, have you?” Mischief vanishing, Liz’s shrewd old eyes assessed her.
“No, of course not!” Sam closed her eyes for a moment, examining her conscience. The results weren’t pretty. “Not an out-and-out lie. But isn’t giving a false impression just as bad?”
“You’d need to discuss that with your pastor. Or with the Lord. My opinion — you’re doing it to console a mother’s loving heart and give the girls a happy summer, not to deliberately deceive.” Liz folded her hands on the table and gave a single decisive nod as if she’d made her mind up.
Sam couldn’t feel so sure, but no point protesting.
“Anyway, you really are doing a great job, the way you’re caring for them. That’s no lie. You’re keeping them safe and well, showing them you love them, and letting them be children, which means things get a little messy sometimes.” Leaning back comfortably, Liz resettled in her chair and waved toward the laptop. “But I’m disappointed. This must be the first day with no proposals.”
Best not to utter her thought — Thank the Lord for that! For Sam, this wasn’t nearly the entertainment Liz found it.
“Looks like that’s it for now.” She refreshed the screen. “Oh wait. Another email just came in.”
Opening it, she scanned the blunt words. Her heart sank to her sneakers.
“Your sister or your parents?” Liz leaned forward, squinting to read the text, concern clouding her eyes.
“No, nothing that bad.” Sam rushed to reassure her. “But bad enough. Way worse than a proposal. Worse even than one of those guys turning up here. Another journalist wants to interview me.”
Her shoulders sagged. She’d never pull this off.
Her neighbor’s head tilted to one side like a puzzled sparrow. “But you’ve already done interviews and handled them wonderfully.”
“They were phone or email interviews with other homemaking bloggers and local radio stations. I had the questions in advance, so I had time to find honest but safe answers. I’ve started turning down even those. This instant celebrity thing has gone too far.”
“So what makes this one any different?”
“I’d hoped Sunset Point was a little too far from anywhere for anyone to suggest face-to-face interviews. Seems I was wrong.” She checked the name again. “It’s a guy called Daniel Novak, from the national paper that started all this.”
“And?” Liz prompted.
“And — he’s already on his way to Sunset Point. He wants to interview me lunchtime tomorrow. Here in the cottage. If I refuse, he’s sure to guess something is up. Most bloggers would jump at the chance to get such amazing publicity. But if I agree…”
Panic growing, Sam swiveled from side to side, scanning the cheery but untidy kitchen. The open connecting door into the living room gave a clear view of toys, coloring books, and crayons scattered across the floor from the girls’ morning playtime.
Her neighbor’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
“Right.” Sam nodded grimly. “I can’t let everyone find out through a national newspaper trumpeting to the world that I’m a fake.”
She shuddered. Once Nancy knew, she’d probably quit her cruise and fly right home to rescue her granddaughters, and they’d be miserable for the rest of the summer. Not to mention, she’d disappoint poor Mom again.
To her surprise, Liz settled back with a serene smile. “So, it’s easy. We have nearly twenty-four hours to make the cottage sparkle and work out how to convince this Daniel Novak that you really are a good homemaker.”
Chapter 2
Ten a.m. Two hours before he’d leave for the interview with Samantha Rose. Time for more coffee. Daniel looked up from his laptop, stretched, and yawned.
His room, stuffed full of antique furniture and pieced quilts, with framed Bible verses on the wall like a hangover from the 1880s, would probably please some tastes. He preferred clean-lined modern, himself. And rooms with coffeemakers. He’d have to go to the café downstairs.
It appeared the bed and breakfast also served as the small community’s store and café. As the only other eatery was in a more upmarket resort across the lake, the café would inevitably be his lunch and dinner place as well.
He’d already tried a slice of the huckleberry-apple pie that gave Meg the crazy idea to send him here. One taste explained why the travel writer raved. Except she’d been wrong suggesting it tasted like blueberry pie.
Comparing wild mountain huckleberries to blueberries was comparing a ride on a mustang to sitting on a kid’s rocking horse.
So at least the food seemed good and the bed comfortable. Though the quiet last night kept him awake. Nothing but crickets.
The writing desk under the window looked out onto the lake, glittering in the sunshine. Pine-covered mountains towered behind it. The only sound, besides the occasional murmur of voices from the store porch below and the even more occasional passing vehicle, was birdsong. The air he breathed tasted fresh and clean.
Too rural for him. Give him the roar of city traffic, any day.
And the young couple running the store were far too much in love and far too full of the faith he’d left behind long ago to suit him. To keep his sanity as the four weeks at the lake stretched ahead like an eternity, he might have to start writing that political thriller he’d been thinking about for years.
But first, the lunchtime interview with Ms. Samantha Rose.
His research on her turned up surprisingly little. Unlike many bloggers, plastering their face on every post, only one photo adorned the “About Me” page of her excessively pink and pretty blog, and none anywhere else. That single black and white image showed her face obscured by leaves as if she’d deliberately hidden behind the tree branch. The most he could ma
ke out of her features was fair hair and bright laughing eyes.
Her Facebook profile didn’t help, either. It showed a big-eyed anime-style cartoon caricature, unlikely to resemble any real woman without extensive plastic surgery.
And when he’d questioned his perpetually smiling hostess as she served breakfast, Maddie told him little more. Only that Ms. Rose had rented her cottage for the summer. He’d assumed such a small town would be bursting with gossip about its newly famous resident.
It appeared not. So many contradictions to his expectations set his antennae twitching.
More caffeine would help him think better. He stood to go downstairs and find that coffee.
Before he’d taken a step off the creaky stairs and into the store, Maddie looked up from dealing with a customer and called out. “Daniel, do you want coffee? Go on through to the café and help yourself. I’ve made a fresh jug.” Her voice rang loud with an edge of tension.
The slender shopper at the counter shoved her purchases into a canvas tote with quick jerky movements and hurried to the door. As she opened it, she turned just enough to throw him a nervous glance before exiting.
Blonde hair, big eyes, pretty. And apparently, also afraid of being seen.
Of him?
His Spidey-senses tingled even more. If that was Samantha Rose, this interview promised to be more interesting than he’d thought. She gave the unmistakable impression of a woman who wanted to hide something.
His job — to find out what that something was.
Two hours later, on his way to the interview, his journalism-trained mind catalogued Sunset Point’s Main Street as he slowed his Manhattan stride to an amble, better suited to his surroundings.
Very little “main” about the street, apart from it being slightly more so than the others. On the map he’d picked up at the store, another street curved behind this one, higher up the hill but almost in parallel. A few short roads connected the two.
That comprised the entire town.
Clapboard houses with wide porches lined one side of Main Street. The other side lay open to the lake and the mountains beyond. Only two commercial buildings — the big general store, also serving as café, accommodation, tourist information, and boat hire; and a tiny US Mail office.
Probably bitterly cold and frozen here in winter, but on a July day with the sun shining and a light breeze blowing off the lake, he could think of worse places to be exiled. Siberia? Maybe he should be grateful Meg hadn’t taken her whim to send him to the wilderness back in February.
But despite his suspicions about Ms. Rose, he wasn’t in the mood to be too grateful. A month away from where the real news happened wasn’t ever part of his plan.
He blew out a long frustrated breath. Only honesty compelled him to stay the full time Meg insisted on, rather than hightailing it to the city the minute he’d done his interview. His single act of rebellion was changing his afternoon flights back to the earliest morning departure. That would get him home a whole six hours earlier. Worth the hefty fee to switch.
Twenty-seven days to go.
Yes, he was counting.
He turned off Main Street at the first intersection. Samantha Rose’s email said first on the right, up the hill, then hers was the house on the corner.
The gray clapboard cottage with a bright blue front door and even brighter pink flowers in hanging baskets on the porch looked like the right place for a homemaking blogger with a rose-pink website to live in. The odor of baking wafting through the open window smelled like the right way for her house to smell, too.
Cookies.
The cookie shop he walked past daily on the way to the office pumped that same mouthwatering odor out onto the street, to entice people in.
It worked for them, and it worked for Samantha Rose.
His knock on the door was answered almost immediately. Definitely the woman he’d seen in the store. No makeup, blonde hair in a soft wispy up-do, and a pink flowered apron over her white T-shirt and slim jeans. Instead of the earlier wary glance, she smiled welcome, though the smile didn’t light up her eyes.
And there, in her oven-mitted hand, was the source of the delicious scent. A tray of chocolate chip cookies. They looked as good as they smelled.
“Ms. Rose? I’m Daniel Novak.”
She swung the door wide, revealing an entry hall with braided rugs on the polished wood floors. “Come in. We have a picnic lunch all prepared. As it’s such a lovely day, we can eat by the lake. But I wanted to bake some cookies for the girls to have later. I’ll just set them cooling before we go.”
“Thank you for agreeing to an interview at such short notice, Ms. Rose.”
“Please call me Sam.”
Nodding acknowledgment, though the boyish name didn’t suit her in the least, he followed her into a spacious old-fashioned kitchen. A huge oak table filled the center of the room. As she wielded a spatula to lift the cookies onto a metal rack, he admired her graceful movements and hoped he’d get one of those cookies, too.
He pulled out his small voice recorder and flicked it on. “Do you agree to me recording the interview?”
For a fleeting moment, apprehension gleamed in her blue eyes. He’d been right to suspect she wanted to hide something. He filed the observation away.
Then she nodded. “Sure. That’s standard procedure, right?”
“It makes sure the final article stays factual, which is in your interest. So, the girls are your nieces, staying with you for the summer, correct?” Easy questions he already knew the answer to first, to warm her up.
After that glimpse of her in the store, he’d done more research, read right through her website, Perfectly Proverbs 31. All the pictures were of food, flowers and plants in the garden, or two little girls, usually wearing matching print dresses.
“Yes. Five-year-old twins, Emily and Rose. I’m minding them while their mom is abroad. I started the blog as a record of these months with them, purely for their mother. I never anticipated it would get as much attention as it has.”
Her voice, low and sweet, fell softly on his ear. He didn’t get the sense she hid anything now.
An irrelevant question tickled his sense of the ridiculous. “Rose Rose?”
Samantha Rose gurgled as she deposited the baking tray in the sink and pulled off her floral mitt. “Thankfully, no. Her name is hard enough for her as it is.”
He raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Rose still has a slight lisp, so she says her name as Wose. The girls have a different last name than me. And no, I won’t disclose it, to maintain their privacy.”
She’d answered a question he had no intention of asking. Memories of the way Dad used pictures of him as a kid in mailouts and promotions for his so-called charity still burned in his gut. “Wise. So where are they now?”
Focus on the interview, Novak. Do not reach out and snatch a warm cookie to comfort those memories. No matter how delicious they smell, or how much you want one.
“Next door with my neighbors. As I said, I never expected the site would go viral, and I don’t intend to expose them to any more publicity than necessary. The picnic is all ready to go.” She rested a hand on the large lidded basket sitting on the table. “There’s a perfect spot on the lakeshore.”
“Sounds fine.”
She struggled to lift the basket. “Oops, it’s heavier than I thought since it has everything in it.”
“Let me carry it.” Tucking the voice recorder in his shirt pocket, he took the basket from her and needed to brace himself. No wonder she’d struggled. The thing must weigh thirty pounds. Either her idea of a picnic lunch didn’t involve plastic plates, or she had enough food in here to invite all of Sunset Point.
Or he seriously needed to consider more time in the gym.
Samantha Rose untied her apron and slipped it off, hanging it on a hook behind the door. “I’ll just grab my purse.” She slung a large tote over one shoulder. “I’m ready.”
On the porch, s
he pulled the front door closed but didn’t lock it.
“No locks?” He couldn’t hide his surprise.
A charming chuckle accompanied the smile she flashed him as she pushed the garden gate open. “I thought the same when I arrived. It seems no one in Sunset Point locks up. I’m told it would be considered downright unneighborly.”
Carrying the basket down the hill without pitching forward limited how much breath he had left to talk. “City girl?”
“Mostly.” She grinned. “We moved around a lot for Dad’s job, but Mom always managed to create a home in the new place within days. She’s a gifted homemaker. Since moving away from home, I’ve continued the family tradition by going where my past jobs took me, most recently Seattle.”
Reaching level ground on Main Street made hauling the picnic basket far easier. She turned right, away from the store.
“Right here. I’m glad we could get a table.” She grinned and pointed to the only unoccupied table among the heavy timber picnic settings scattered along the grassy lake bank. “I’m told that mention in the newspaper has doubled visitors to Sunset Point, despite how out-of-the-way it is. Would you put that on the bench?”
Relieved, he hefted the basket and deposited it where she asked, then clasped his hands together and stretched out his arms and shoulders. Time to get back to the interview. “You can take all summer off to mind your nieces? Great employer.”
Again, she flashed him a bright genuine smile as she opened the basket lid and lifted out a blue-checked tablecloth. “My employer is me. Since I quit my last job and started working for myself, my office can be wherever there’s an internet connection. This summer, I’m working evenings, once the twins are in bed.”
Deftly, she shook the tablecloth open, laid it over the table, and clipped weights shaped like dragonflies to each corner. “To stop the breeze blowing it away,” she explained, answering his unspoken question.
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