by Kara Lennox
Reece opened his mouth, but no words came out.
“You’ve never been married,” she continued. That was more of an educated guess than actual knowledge, but she could see the moment she said it that it was true, and she felt unaccountably relieved. “Bret is already married and has two kids, a boy and a girl…Bret Jr. and Jessica.”
“Not bad.”
“You like things neat, and you make your bed every morning even though that’s my job. You get seasick and you have seasonal allergies.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m the maid. I clean your bathroom and I’ve seen the medicine you leave out on the counter.”
“You’re a snoop!” But he softened the comment with a smile. “I bet you wouldn’t want some man looking at your private things.”
She shrugged. “You can look in my bathroom any time you want. Especially if you’re willing to scrub the toilet.” He wouldn’t find anything shocking. The most controversial thing in her medicine chest were birth control pills, which she often forgot to take because lately there hadn’t been any compelling reason to. She and Ike hadn’t made it that far because she’d quickly realized he wasn’t for her.
He’d finally gotten the message, too, thank God.
The antique clock on the buffet chimed the half hour, and Sara realized she needed to get a move on. “The frittata comes out of the oven at six-fifty,” she said. “The muffins, in about five minutes. You’ll need to make the orange juice from frozen-we don’t have any fresh oranges today, but I’ll stop at the grocery on my way home. Is there anything else you need to know?”
“Um, Sara?”
“Yes?”
“How were you planning to get to the hospital?”
Oh, damn. The automotive fairies hadn’t magically materialized a new car for her last night. She gave Reece a beseeching look. “You won’t let me borrow yours?”
His expression told her exactly what he thought of that idea. Some men were a little funny about loaning out their cars, and she didn’t really blame him, since the Mercedes was so new.
“Miss Greer needs me,” she said. “I’m a very good driver. I’ll drive like my grandmother, I swear.”
He wavered, then finally, looking resigned, reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a set of keys.
She took them, then impulsively threw her arms around him and kissed him-on the cheek at the last minute instead of his mouth, since another kiss like last night’s was apt to addle her brains so thoroughly she would drive into a lamppost.
“Thanks, Reece, you’re a peach. If you need anything, my cell number is stuck to the fridge.”
“Tell Miss Greer I hope she’s better soon.”
“I will. Bye!” She got out of there before he had a chance to change his mind.
REECE PEEKED out the lace curtains at the front windows and watched as Sara jumped into his car, gunned the motor and sped off, gravel flying. She hadn’t taken the time to adjust the seat or the mirrors.
Too bad he couldn’t call the Department of Motor Vehicles and check her driving record, but he had a sneaking feeling that being a “good driver” was all in Sara’s mind.
He had no more time to think about his poor car, though. Breakfast called. He remembered the muffins just in time. While they cooled he mixed up some frozen orange juice-luckily the instructions were on the can.
Then it was time to take out the frittata, which he had to admit smelled pretty good. But those little bits of green and red floating around in the eggs were peppers, and peppers were scary.
He poured himself some coffee, then remembered he wasn’t supposed to drink it on an empty stomach, so he located last night’s bread. The golden loaves made his mouth water, but they were unsliced.
He got out a cutting board and bread knife-at least, he was pretty sure it was a bread knife-and started slicing. But his slices were thick and ungainly, nothing like the thin, regular slices he was used to seeing at the Sunsetter’s breakfast table.
The first guests arrived for breakfast right at seven. The Taylors were a young couple who were planning to visit the nearby wildlife refuge.
Reece brought out the coffeepot. “Breakfast will be ready shortly,” he said as he poured the husband’s coffee. But the wife stopped him.
“I’d like hot tea, please.”
“Tea.” Sara hadn’t mentioned anything about tea. “Coming right up.”
“And do you have skim milk for the coffee?” the husband asked.
Blech. “I’ll check.”
Tea required boiling water. A kettle sat on the stove, so Reece filled it and turned on the burner. He found a carton of skim milk in the fridge and started to bring it out to the dining room, but he remembered that both Sara and Miss Greer always put everything in nice dishes. He had to rummage for a cream pitcher.
Then the water was boiling. Oh, God, what should he do with it? Where were the tea bags?
The toast popped up, but he didn’t have time to eat it. He put in more of his lumpy, uneven slices for the guests, brought the whole kettle to the dining room and poured it into Mrs. Taylor’s cup as she looked on, puzzled.
“I suppose you’d like a tea bag,” he said.
Mrs. Taylor pointed at the buffet. “They’re right there.”
Thank God.
He brought out the frittata just as the second couple, the Silversteins, arrived. They, of course, wanted coffee right away, but with half-and-half, not skim milk.
“Could we get something to serve the frittata?” Mr. Taylor asked, when Reece returned with the half-and-half carton-he couldn’t find another cream pitcher, though he knew there must be one somewhere.
“Just scoop it up with your hands,” Reece said in a lame attempt at humor. When no one laughed, he retreated, found a spatula, and brought it to Mr. Taylor.
The third couple, the Benedicts, arrived. They were elderly, and Mr. Benedict started clamoring for prune juice.
Reece realized he hadn’t offered any of them juice. The toast had popped up and was getting cold.
He found the prune juice, poured orange juice, buttered toast and set it on the table. Someone asked for jam, and he had to find all the different flavored jams, put them in jam pots as he’d seen Sara and Miss Greer do a dozen times, and set them out.
Coffee refills. Juice refills. The muffins! He’d forgotten all about them. It took him precious time to find a basket and a cloth to line it with. He dumped the muffins into the basket and set it on the table.
“Do you have any yogurt?” Mrs. Silverstein asked.
“What about oatmeal?” Mr. Benedict asked. “Don’t you usually serve oatmeal with fresh strawberries?”
“No oatmeal today,” Reece said apologetically. “Miss Greer is having surgery this morning and Sara, her helper, is with her. I’m doing the best I can, but I know it’s not what you’re used to.”
“As long as you don’t serve us those cream puffs,” Mrs. Silverstein said with a sniff. The cream puffs were Miss Greer’s specialty, and everyone despised them, though no one had the heart to tell her they weren’t very good.
By the time the guests had eaten their fill and left the table, Reece was exhausted, his stomach burned, and he had a whole new respect for Sara’s skills.
Well, okay, she did have an alarming tendency to spill things on him, but other than that, cooking and serving breakfast appeared as effortless as breathing to Sara.
He still had a lot of work ahead of him, he realized. The dining room looked like the cafeteria scene from Animal House.
He’d just started stacking dishes to carry into the kitchen when the phone rang. He went to answer it. “Hello? I mean, Sunsetter Bed-and-Breakfast, can I help you?”
“It’s me, Sara.”
Reece was amazed at the rush of relief and pleasure he got from just the sound of her voice. “Hey, Sara. Is everything all right?”
“Miss Greer just got out of surgery, and the doctor said it went fine. She’s in recover
y. It looks like I’ll be here a while longer, though.”
“No need to hurry home,” he said. “I have everything under control.”
“Really?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I didn’t peg you for the domestic type.”
“Nothing to it,” he said as he wedged the phone under his chin and started shoving dishes into the industrial-size dishwasher. “Did you have any trouble with the car?”
She greeted his question with a long silence.
“Sara?”
“Define trouble.”
Reece’s stomach renewed its churning. “Sara, what happened to my car?”
“Miss Greer is waking up now, I have to go. Bye!”
Chapter Four
Sara disconnected the phone, her heart pounding. She’d only delayed the inevitable; sooner or later she would have to tell Reece she’d had a wreck in his car.
It was just a minor fender bender, and not her fault, either. She’d been innocently looking for a parking space, and another car had backed right into her. But since she’d been in a hurry, and both cars were drivable, she’d quickly exchanged information with the other driver and gone on about her business.
Reece’s previously pristine car was now caved in on the right side, the passenger door inoperable.
Well, Reece would just have to understand. It could have happened to anyone, and the important thing was that no one was hurt.
She hoped he would see it that way.
Sara dropped her cell phone into her bag and went back inside to check on Miss Greer. She didn’t know if the older woman was waking up yet or not, but she might be. She really ought not to have fibbed to Reece, though. That was a bad habit, telling little white lies. As her father always said, a lie was a lie and the size was immaterial.
Miss Greer woke a short time later, but she was in a lot of pain. Sara spent the rest of the morning tracking down a doctor who could prescribe something that would make the poor woman more comfortable, then hanging around to make sure the nurses gave it to her. After that, when Miss Greer’s lunch was delivered, Sara had to coax the elderly woman to eat a few bites.
It was something of a full-time job, making sure Miss Greer got the care she needed. By the time she was fully awake, adequately fed and reasonably pain-free all at the same time, it was almost dark.
Sara probably should have checked in with Reece again, but she’d aggressively put him out of her mind while she kept busy with Miss Greer. She hoped he was getting along all right taking care of the guests; he’d sounded okay earlier. Breakfast was the hardest part; she was sure he could make up beds and run the vacuum.
Although, come to think of it, she hadn’t reminded him he needed to do those things. Since he’d been a guest for some time, he probably knew the drill. But men were a little dense when it came to housework. Some she’d known obviously thought the elves came in at night and cleaned.
It was almost dark by the time she pulled Reece’s Mercedes onto Magnolia Street and parked it across the road from the Sunsetter, close to some bushes. Maybe the damage wouldn’t look so bad in the dark. Reece wasn’t an excitable type; he would probably be calm and reasonable about the whole thing.
Her hopes were dashed when she spotted him pacing on the front porch, his cell phone glued to his ear.
He saw her then and snapped his phone shut. He had started toward her as she got out of the car, and she quavered a bit at the thunderous expression on his face.
“Sara, where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you. I’ve been calling your cell phone all day.”
“I can’t keep it turned on inside the hospital,” she reminded him.
He stopped inches from her and placed his fists on his lean hips. “You couldn’t check your messages every once in a while?”
“Sorry. I guess I was pretty focused on taking care of Miss Greer.” Yeah, right. She was such a saint. She’d deliberately left her phone off because she knew Reece would be frantic about his car.
“So what happened to the car?” he asked, finally taking his laserlike gaze off her and aiming it at the Mercedes.
“I had a-” she swallowed, her mouth feeling as if it was full of shredded wheat “-a small accident.”
“Accident?”
“Just a small one.”
Reece eyed the car from bumper to bumper and, apparently seeing no damage, walked around to the other side.
Sara knew the moment he saw the crunched-in door. She longed to flee to the safety of her room, where she wouldn’t have to endure his anger. But one thing her parents had taught her-and that had sunk in-was that she had to take responsibility for her actions.
“How did this happen?”
“Someone backed into me in the parking lot.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “So it wasn’t your fault?”
She shook her head. “The guy apologized all over the place.”
“You have a police report?”
Again she shook her head. “We exchanged information.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a rumpled piece of paper onto which she’d written the man’s name, phone number and driver’s license number.
Reece walked back around to the street and took the paper from her. He examined it briefly before meticulously creasing it and placing it in his wallet. “I can’t believe you wrecked my new car.”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“Maybe not technically, but you drive like you do everything else.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Full throttle, damn the consequences.”
He turned and walked back into the house without a backward glance.
His attack was so unfair, and his harsh judgment cut her to the bone. But Sara resisted the juvenile urge to cry. She’d learned not to. When she was little, and her father yelled at her for some sin, real or imagined, she couldn’t help the tears. But crying only made everything worse. If she cried, her father would just scold her for crying, too. He’d told her not to be a crybaby.
Reece was not her father, she reminded herself. But she didn’t like this self-righteous side of him.
He hadn’t even tried to listen or show some understanding. He’d gotten in the last word and walked away.
Now they had this thing between them.
Realizing she couldn’t stand in the street forever, she moved her leaden feet toward the front porch. This hadn’t been the best day of her life, but neither had it been the worst. Stuff happened. She would go into the kitchen, fix up a nice soup and maybe even show Reece she was a bigger person than he was by offering to share. Then she would get everything ready for breakfast tomorrow. She would have to return to the hospital tomorrow morning to make sure Miss Greer was doing okay, but she could wait until after breakfast was served.
She had no idea how she would get to Corpus Christi, but she would figure something out. Maybe Allie would loan Sara her car. She seldom needed it during the day, when she was out on her boat running one of her charter trips.
The B and B guests were all in the living room when Sara entered the house, drinking cocktails and talking about where they would have dinner that night.
Had Reece served them the wine? Miss Greer kept a few bottles of inexpensive wine around, usually to serve the guests on their first night at the B and B.
“Oh, Sara,” said Mrs. Silverstein, who had stayed at the Sunsetter many times, “how is Miss Greer doing?”
“Much better,” Sara answered with a smile. “She’s looking forward to learning to walk with her new hip.”
“I got a new hip last year,” said Mrs. Benedict, doing a couple of shallow knee bends to show how flexible she was. “Best thing I ever did for myself. Miss Greer is going to love it!”
Sara felt cheered by the news. Mrs. Benedict was at least as old as Miss Greer, and she was still active. Hopefully Miss Greer still had several good, productive years to look forward to.
“Does anyone need anything befo
re I head to the kitchen?” Sara asked.
The youngest woman in the room, who by process of elimination must be Mrs. Taylor, gave a sultry smile. “Reece has been taking very good care of us.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Silverstein said. “That new boy you hired is doing very well for himself. The breakfast he served was marvelous!”
Sara stopped herself before she could point out that she was the one who had cooked the breakfast. That would be petty. But it gave her a little pang to realize she could be replaced in the guests’ affections so easily.
Sara entered the kitchen expecting it to be a disaster, but Reece had apparently cleaned everything up after breakfast. That was a first. She’d never known a man who would set foot in the kitchen, much less clean it.
Goodness, he’d even run the dishwasher.
She opened the door of the industrial-size dishwasher, pulled out the lower rack intending to put away the dishes, and let out an involuntary shriek.
Miss Greer’s beautiful Haviland china looked as if someone had taken a hammer to it.
“What?” Reece appeared in the doorway, out of breath. “What happened?” Then he took in the broken china and his face fell. “Oh, no.”
Sara was tempted to tell Reece that any idiot knew not to put fine china into a dishwasher. She experienced a brief, childish urge to make him feel the way he’d made her feel not ten minutes ago.
She opened her mouth, then stopped. Truth be known, this was her responsibility. She knew he had little experience in the kitchen. She should have told him those delicate bone china dishes had to be hand washed, especially since this dishwasher was notoriously brutal.
“Can they be fixed?” Reece removed a shard from the dishwasher and examined it. He looked so forlorn, any irritation she’d felt toward him melted away.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Were they valuable?”
“Probably only to her. It’s her wedding china from her hope chest.”
Reece put a hand to his head and leaned against the counter, looking as if someone had just hit him. “God help me. I’ve destroyed an elderly woman’s girlhood dreams. What kind of a monster does that make me?”