“My uncle is a grown man,” Doyle interrupted her, “and if he wants to see your grandmother, he will. Without you butting in and trying to force things.”
“I wasn’t asking you to hogtie him and drag him down to the nearest wedding chapel. It’s just a dinner invitation.”
“Does Delia know about this dinner idea of yours?”
“Well… not yet,” Aimee admitted. “But—”
“And you don’t think she’d be embarrassed that you’re so obviously trying to pair the two of them off?”
“Not if you and I are there, too. Then it’s more like a friendly neighborhood gathering.”
“Oh, yes. Much more subtle.” Doyle put his hand on his door as if he intended to go inside his apartment.
But she wasn’t going to let him get away that easily. “One dinner, that’s all I ask. If sparks don’t fly, I’ll never bug you again. Well, about this anyway.”
“Find something else to do besides meddle in my uncle’s life, please.” He started to shut the door.
Aimee blocked it with her foot. “Something else, huh? No problem. I hear clog dancing is lots of fun—good exercise, too. I’d have to practice it a lot, probably. Hours and hours. Maybe late at night.” She leaned in closer to glance past him and up at his ceiling speculatively. “I wonder if my bedroom is right above yours?”
Doyle’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would. I love to try new things. Good for the soul. Or don’t you have one of those?”
“The building super—”
“Thinks I’m adorable. Tattling to him won’t work. So what’s it going to be, Professor? One little old dinner for four on Thursday, or private nightly performances starring yours truly?” She paused as her choice of words sank in. “Wait. That didn’t come out right…”
But Doyle only glared icy daggers at her.
“Well?” she prompted, not budging an inch. When he didn’t answer, she added, “You know, I’ve always had in interest in the tuba, too—”
“One dinner?” he said shortly.
“One dinner,” she agreed.
“What time Thursday?”
“Six o’clock.” She moved her foot free of the door.
“Fine.” He shut the door in her face. Forcefully.
Actually, that went better than she expected.
Chapter Four
“They’ll be here any minute,” Gram said, hovering in the kitchen with one hand fluttering at her throat. “Does this necklace look all right? Maybe it’s too plain—or too much?“
“You look great, Gram. Don’t change a thing.” Aimee arranged the chicken piccata attractively on a platter and then crunched up the La Bella Rosa to-go box in which it had come. Cooking was not her specialty. “There,” she said with satisfaction, adding a sprig of parsley to the plate and admiring it. “Martha Stewart would be proud.”
Gram coughed behind her hand with what sounded suspiciously like a smothered chuckle. “Martha Stewart probably would have cooked it herself, dear.”
“Yes, but I was talking about the garnish. See? Isn’t it pretty?”
“Very.” Gram patted Aimee’s cheek. “Everything looks lovely. Can I help with anything?”
“Salad’s on the table, garlic bread’s in the oven, clutter’s temporarily tossed into another room—I think we’re good.”
There was a sharp rap on their door, and Gram’s hand returned to her throat. “Oh,” she said, a slight tremor in her voice but a gleam of anticipation in her eyes, hugely magnified by her lenses. “They’re here.”
Considering how long the older woman had been out of the dating game, it was no wonder she seemed a little nervous. Aimee placed the platter of chicken carefully in the middle of their tiny table and gave Gram’s hand a quick squeeze before going to the front door. She swung it open wide to see Theodore, dressed neatly in another well-pressed if outdated suit and a cheerful bow tie, and Doyle standing behind him in the hallway with a resigned expression on his face. Theodore, however, beamed happily at her.
“Aimee, thank you so much for the dinner invitation.” Theodore reached to take her hand in his gnarled one and pat it for just a moment, and then his gaze immediately traveled past her and landed on Gram. His face lit up. “My dear Delia, don’t you look lovely tonight.” And he shuffled past Aimee to where Gram stood blushing in the living room.
Aimee watched the two white-haired folks smile at each other like love-struck teenagers, and then she turned back to Doyle. “Care to admit now that this was a good idea, or would you prefer to eat your words later with dessert?”
Instead of answering, Doyle thrust a bottle of wine at her that she hadn’t noticed in his hand. “Perhaps we should open this immediately?”
“Well, look at that,” Aimee said, taking the bottle from him. “Finally, something we agree on.”
For Gram, she reminded herself, closing the door behind Doyle and going in search of wine glasses. She was doing this for Gram, and she could surely find a way to get along with their neighbor for a couple of hours.
If the wine held out.
* * *
“…and that,” said Theodore, raising his glass to clink it against Gram’s, “is the true story of how I learned at a very young age that I could not outrun my mother.”
Gram chuckled and clinked her glass back.
Leaning back in her chair, Aimee finished off the last sip of her wine and glanced back and forth between the two of them. They had been so engrossed in each other’s company that neither she nor Doyle had said much of anything other than to request salt or pepper be passed, which suited her fine.
She turned her head toward Doyle, who sat on her right, and saw him watching the older couple. For a moment she thought she saw a curious mixture of softness and tension in his gaze before he realized she was watching him, and then he turned his attention to the last bite of marble pound cake on his plate instead.
Fine, if that was how he wanted to be, let him. Returning her attention to the table, Aimee frowned. A tableful of dirty dishes was hardly conducive to romance. Time to move the evening along. “Anybody want coffee?” she asked, pushing her chair back from the table.
“Please,” Theodore agreed, smiling, and Gram reached for his plate as if she intended to help clear the table.
“I’ll do that,” Aimee said quickly, taking the plate before Gram could. “Why don’t you and Theodore have coffee in the living room? Too many people in one kitchen is just an accident waiting to happen.”
“And leave you to clean it up by yourself?” Gram protested, although she did perk up at the mention of coffee. Or maybe it was at the mention of Theodore.
“Doyle will help. Right?” Aimee turned to look at him expectantly.
In answer, Doyle made a grunting sound and reached for the wine bottle only to find it empty when he turned it upside down over his glass. He sighed.
“See? He’d love to. Go have a seat, and I’ll bring your coffee in to you.” Depositing a handful of dishes on the kitchen counter, Aimee glanced back to see everyone else push their chairs out to get up from the table. Theodore wobbled in the process, and for a moment she worried he might lose his balance. She took an instinctive step toward him, but he recovered quickly and gallantly offered his arm to Gram to escort her into the living room.
There was the briefest flicker of movement from Doyle’s direction, and Aimee realized he’d been prepared to steady his uncle if need be, but the surreptitious nature of his gesture made her think somehow that he hadn’t wanted his uncle to notice. Watching the older gentleman move stiffly but proudly into the other room with his new lady friend on his arm, she thought she could guess why. No man wanted to feel feeble in front of a woman he was trying to impress.
For a moment, Aimee disliked Doyle less than she usually did.
“Stack them by the sink,” she instructed him, nodding her head toward the dishes he was collecting from the table, and then she loaded two cups of coffee along with cream and suga
r on the same tray Gram had used the other day before carrying the whole thing into the living room. The two elderly folks were talking animatedly again and barely seemed to notice her presence, so she set down the tray and backed away without a word, reluctant to interrupt their conversation.
Returning to the kitchen, Aimee found Doyle eyeing the to-go boxes in the trash can.
“I’m not much of a cook,” she admitted.
He gave her an incredulous look. “Don’t you work in a bakery?”
“I mostly man the register. And I do taste-testing. Anyway,” she added, scraping bits of food off of plates and into the sink and then loading the dishwasher, “I did make the garnish tonight. I hope you’re appropriately impressed.”
“I’m exactly as impressed as I should be by that, I promise,” he returned wryly, gathering the last few items left on the tiny kitchenette table and bringing them to the sink as she’d requested.
“I’m going to pretend you meant that as a compliment.” Glancing over her shoulder, she saw him turn in the direction of the living room. “Oh, no you don’t,” she told him, hastening to block his path and brandishing a used spoon before her.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m keeping you in the kitchen so they can have some time to themselves. What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Threatening me with a spoon.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly,” she said with mock solemnness. “Stay put, or I’ll spoon you.”
He stared at her as her deliberate choice of words hung in the air between them.
“That was supposed to be a joke,” she said after a moment.
Grunting in response, Doyle started to sidestep her.
She immediately blocked his way again.
“Would you stop that?” he demanded.
“No.”
“You do realize I’m quite a bit larger than you are, right?” he observed with a pointed glance downward at her and obvious exasperation. “And if I want to, I can pick you up and move you?”
“You could try, but I fight dirty.”
“Yes, you made that abundantly clear the other day.”
Aimee stared back up at him. “You know,” she said finally, “you’re not actually that tall. It’s just that I’m so short.”
“What does that—” he started, and then he seemed to give up on what he was going to say and merely shook his head. “You are a very odd woman, Miss Beasley.”
“Not ‘Miss Beasley.’ Aimee,” she corrected him.
“That’s the part of that sentence that disturbs you? Really?”
She shrugged.
“Well, I wasn’t going in the other room, so you can point that spoon somewhere else. I’m just trying to get a look.”
“Swear?”
“I’m about to.”
Good grief, had he just made a joke? Maybe it was the influence of the wine. In any case, anything remotely resembling humor in him ought to be encouraged, so she relented and stepped aside. Doyle moved just far enough forward to see without being seen.
“You’re hovering,” Aimee said after a minute, careful to keep her voice low.
Doyle made no response.
“What exactly is it that you’re so nervous about?” she asked after another long moment of silence. “I thought you liked Gram.”
“I do.”
“But?”
“My uncle’s not a young man anymore.” Doyle turned away from the open doorway. “And he’s not in the best of health. He doesn’t need disruptions.”
“Disruptions,” Aimee repeated, going to start the dishwasher and then facing him. “Is that what you call it? I call it living life. He’s enjoying himself, Doyle. They both are.”
“At the moment,” he agreed in a voice so soft that she almost missed it.
She studied him, wondering about the distant look that had come over his face. A sudden and distressing possibility occurred to her. “Is he sick?” she asked, her tone more deferential than the one she usually used with Doyle. “You said he wasn’t in the best of health.”
“He’s just…not as resilient as he used to be.” Doyle’s voice grew more clipped, and she couldn’t tell if it was because of her or because of the subject. “And it’s my responsibility to look out for him.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Of course. It’s like with Gram and me.”
He gave her an appraising look, and she got the distinct feeling the final assessment wasn’t favorable. Surely it wasn’t just because of the plum paint incident? No one could harbor that big a grudge over one paint spill. No, his disapproval of her seemed more personal somehow.
“Oh, I get it,” she said, as a sudden realization dawned. “You thought I just moved in with her to mooch off her, is that it?”
Doyle didn’t answer, but his expression suggested that was exactly what he thought.
If he expected her to be offended—which most people probably would have been—he was going to be disappointed. She was more curious than anything else, primarily as to why her downstairs neighbor seemed so determined to think the worst of her. Folding her arms across her chest, she stared at him as if he was some strange new species—which actually wasn’t all that different from the way he seemed to look at her most of the time. “Interesting,” she said finally.
Her response appeared to confuse him, and his brow furrowed. “What is?”
“You are. You and your ability to leap to the wrong conclusion in a single bound. I mean, you really seem to think you have me all figured out. Based on what, Doyle?”
“Years of experience.”
“What do you mean ‘years’? You’ve only known me for a couple of months.”
“You aren’t as unique as you think you are, Miss Beasley.”
She put a hand to her heart. “Ouch.”
Doyle folded his own arms now and showed no reaction to her sarcasm. “I see young women like you every day in my classes, flitting from one interest to another depending on whatever shiny new distraction has their attention at the moment. Blowing off deadlines and responsibilities and expecting to skate through life on charm alone—”
“Why, Doyle—you think I’m charming?”
He did a double take. “I didn’t—”
She gave him a wicked grin to let him know she was playing with him.
Doyle took a deep breath and eyed the empty wine bottle with a wistful look before continuing. “People like you don’t take life seriously, Miss Beasley.”
“Aimee.”
“And the trouble with that kind of attitude is that when things go wrong, other people are left picking up the pieces.”
“Are they?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. So whose pieces did you pick up?”
Doyle froze for a moment, and then instead of answering, he turned back to watch whatever was happening in the living room.
His reaction only fueled her curiosity, but since his discomfiture was so obvious, she let the matter drop.
For now.
Leaving the dishwasher to do its work, she went over to stand beside him. They both watched as Theodore said something that made Gram laugh and then took her hand in his.
Aimee lowered her voice to barely above a whisper and spoke without taking her eyes off the couple on the couch. “You know what, Doyle? I’m going to do you a favor.”
“Are you?” he said wryly.
“Yes. I’m going to pretend you didn’t just try me without a judge or jury tonight. Because we should at least make an effort to get along.”
“And why is that?”
“Because with the way things are going, you just never know.” Aimee looked up at her neighbor and took more than a little bit of pleasure in her next words. “You and I might wind up becoming in-laws.”
Doyle closed his eyes.
Chapter Five
“She wants me to take her dress shopping,” Aimee said three days later as she handed a cust
omer his change and then turned her attention back to her other boss, Nadia, who co-owned the bakery with Trish. “Dress shopping. My Gram. I don’t think she’s bought anything new to wear since before the start of the new millennium.”
Nadia leaned in the open doorway of the bakery’s kitchen and grinned. “Must be love.”
“Must be.”
“So are they going to see each other again?”
“Theodore said something about having lunch, but I didn’t catch all of the details since I was stuck in the kitchen with his nephew.”
“This is the history professor, right?” Nadia asked.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“And he’s a jerk.”
“Not exactly,” Aimee hedged. Fair was fair, after all, and if nothing else, it was clear that he was a more devoted nephew than she would have originally guessed. “He’s just… I don’t know. Prickly. Everything about him screams ‘Do Not Touch.’ Gram likes him, though. Guess that’s got to count for something.”
An oven timer went off in the kitchen, and Nadia straightened from where she was leaning. “Maybe she knows something you don’t.”
Aimee stared unseeingly at the snow falling outside the shop’s windows. “Maybe.”
“So what are you waiting for?” Nadia asked over her shoulder as she disappeared into the kitchen, and she flashed a quick grin. “Go find out what it is. And if he’s got some juicy secret, let me know.”
Maybe she would. Of course, it would probably irritate Doyle enormously to learn that she was prying into his business…
She could live with that.
* * *
Going to the university after her shift at the bakery ended was an impulse decision, but Aimee wasn’t exactly a stranger to those. True, she had plans for the evening, but she also had plenty of time to kill before then, and her conversation with Nadia had left her with Doyle on her mind and her curiosity piqued.
For all she knew, he didn’t even have class today, but—nothing ventured, nothing gained. A quartet of college boys playing football in the campus quad despite the blustery weather was helpful in pointing her in the right direction, and after only a couple of wrong turns, Aimee was strolling through a hallway of classrooms and peeking through the small windows set into their doors as she searched for the right one.
The Heavenly Bites Novella Collection Page 16