Lisa Plumley - [Crabtree 01]

by The Matchmaker

  Her belly fluttered at the thought. No matter how high-handed he was at times, Marcus was surely a magnificent kisser. She probably oughtn’t to like that quality in him so well, but she did. His sure touch, his gentle words, his heated looks…

  Sarah interrupted her reverie. “Is Marcus still pestering you for the matchmaker’s secret? Have you revealed it yet?”

  “‘Yet?’ You say that as though my downfall is inevitable.”

  Her sister eyed her meaningfully.

  “No! Of course I haven’t revealed it yet. I don’t mean to, either.” Disgruntled, Molly picked up the pace. She lifted her skirts above the dusty boardwalk, shaking her head. “If all three of us hadn’t agreed not to reveal the matchmaker’s identity, this scheme could never have worked. I know that as well as you do.”

  “Well, be sure that you remember it,” Sarah cautioned. “Sometimes, a man can have persuasive powers. Powers we’re not even prepared to be on guard against.”

  “That sounds like the voice of experience.” Molly gave her sister an inquiring look. “Has Daniel persuaded you to do more than look after his ‘nephew’?”

  Sarah’s expression turned guarded. An instant later, she pointed to a nearby shop sign that swung in the breeze. “Look! I believe the book depot has changed its hours of business. We’d better stop by before they close.”

  Molly looked. “Sarah, it’s four hours till they close.”

  “But first, some sweets!”

  Sarah opened her sack and extracted a striped candy. She shoved it into Molly’s hand then hurried toward the book depot…leaving Molly to suspect that school-children and men weren’t the only ones her sister applied her philosophies to.

  She was certain she’d just been distracted and rewarded, whether she wanted to be, or not.

  “I have something for you,” Molly told Marcus when next they met. She opened her reticule and pulled out the item she’d brought, then pressed it into his hand. “Go ahead. Open it.”

  “A letter?” Looking mystified, Marcus lifted his gaze from the folded paper she’d given him. His expressive brown eyes met hers. “Surely you can just talk to me, Molly. There’s no need for formality between us.”

  She tilted her head. “Despite my unconventional upbringing, I do retain some vestiges of proper behavior. This bit of correspondence, for instance. And other things, as well. You’ll just have to get used to them.”

  “With you, I’ll need to get used to many things,” he mused, turning over the paper. “I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  He smiled down at her. The warmth in his expression, the deep rumble of his voice, both made her tingle with excitement.

  “I think you delight in confounding me,” he told her. “In keeping me on my toes, unsure of what to expect.”

  Molly shrugged, secretly pleased. She gave a brief, careless wave. “The matchmaker says a little mystery in a woman is a good thing. So is a little propriety.”

  “The matchmaker says that, does she?”

  “Indeed.”

  Breath held, Molly waited for Marcus to pounce upon her mention of the matchmaker, the way he always had before. She braced herself to deflect his inevitable questions.

  Instead, Marcus examined her with clear suspicion and a goodly measure of trepidation, too, if she wasn’t mistaken.

  “Exactly how much proper behavior are you in favor of?” he asked. “How far does this hidden decorous streak of yours run?”

  She smiled. “If you’re asking whether or not I’ll boot you out of my shop for being here alone with me after hours, the answer is not that far. I’m afraid my sense of ambition happens to outweigh my sense of correctness.”

  He looked relieved. Probably that meant he intended to kiss her again soon. Molly could scarcely wait. Filled with anticipation, she fluttered her hands over the stack of ledgers she and Marcus had agreed to work on together. Then she saw him watching her fidgety movements. She made herself clasp her hands serenely instead.

  “Just open it,” she prodded. “Go ahead.”

  He did. As he read, Molly had a perfect opportunity to watch him. Unobserved by Marcus, she savored the masculine angles of his face, the healthy, sun-warmed color of his skin, the jagged patterns his dark hair made as it fell over his forehead. Marcus truly was a wonderful-looking man. More and more, Molly suspected he had a fine heart to go along with his fine countenance, too.

  “This is an invitation to dinner. At your parents’ home.”

  “It’s my home, too,” Molly pointed out. She touched the hand he’d splayed across her bakeshop desk, daringly giving it a squeeze. “Say you’ll come?”

  “But…dinner?” He shook his head.

  “What is the problem? This invitation is as correct as it could possibly be. People share meals every day.”

  “Families,” Marcus agreed. “Families share meals.”

  His inexplicable reluctance confused her. “If you agree to join us, you will share a meal, also.”

  She’d reasoned that inviting Marcus to dinner at the Crabtree residence would serve several purposes. First, it would doubtlessly provide the distraction Sarah had recommended—hardly anything was more chaotic than an evening with her family. Second, it would offer rewards—Cook’s good food and her own good sweets. Third, it would…

  Well, it would give Molly an opportunity to see Marcus with her family. It was as simple as that. She was eager to discover how he would fit in, what her mother and father would think of him.

  As their time together had lengthened and their camaraderie had grown, Molly had found herself envisioning a future with Marcus. A courtship, a togetherness and—dare she imagine it?—perhaps even a proposal of marriage. She didn’t dare tell him as much yet. But if all went well with her family…

  “Will your father be there?” he asked suddenly.

  Her father? Perhaps Marcus felt as she did! Perhaps he meant to seize this opportunity as a means to discuss a potential future between them with her father! Buoyed by the notion, Molly nodded.

  Was this, what she had with Marcus, the beginning of the “true love” her mama had encouraged all her daughters to wait for? In that moment, Molly believed it was. Even better, it had nothing at all to do with her bosoms.

  Marcus truly was a prince among men.

  “Yes, of course,” she said, as coolly as she could. “My father will be there. So will my mother and my two sisters, Grace and Sarah.”

  “Grace and Sarah.” Marcus’s expression brightened still further. He smiled and lay his palm atop her hand, effectively sandwiching her hand between both of his. The resulting sensation was both cozy and intimate. “Yes, I’ll come. I’d be delighted.”

  He squeezed her fingers fondly, then folded her invitation and tucked it away in his suit coat. As he did, Molly couldn’t help beaming. Things were proceeding exactly as she’d hoped! A few evenings hence, she’d test Marcus’s compatibility with her family and uncover his pantry secrets, both at the same time. Her plan couldn’t have been more perfect.

  At least it couldn’t have been…until Marcus revealed what the rest of the night held in store for them.

  “But first,” he said, drawing forward the first of her ledgers, “we have bookkeeping to do!”

  Ugh, Molly thought, frowning as she surveyed the job at hand. Bookkeeping most definitely wasn’t perfect at all.

  Chapter Ten

  Marcus hadn’t expected much when he’d first cracked open Molly’s ledgers. In his experience, most people paid poor attention to detail, something strictly required for proper bookkeeping. Further, they added and subtracted carelessly, wrote in figures sloppily, and usually neglected to double-check their reckonings.

  In Molly’s case, though, Marcus simply didn’t find those faults.

  He found those faults—and many, many more.

  It was beyond him how she’d managed to stay in business as long as she had. H
er ledgers were haphazard, her inventories were nonexistent, and her business practices were nonsensical at best. For nigh on two hours, wreathed in the glow of a lantern in her bakeshop’s back office and with Molly herself by his side, Marcus examined her accounts. In the end, he knew there was only one thing to do.

  “We’ll have to burn these,” he said.

  “What? No!”

  “I’m afraid there’s no other solution.” He shook his head. “These accounts are hopelessly convoluted. Your best chance is to start anew.”

  “No!” Molly flung herself protectively across the opened ledgers. “I won’t do it!”

  She looked at him askance, as though he’d suggested they strip themselves naked and dance on the bakeshop’s tables—an idea that held more merit, Marcus thought, than pointlessly examining her convoluted accounts. At least while dancing they would enjoy themselves. And while naked…well, he knew they would enjoy themselves.

  Molly spoiled his reverie by shaking her head. “You simply haven’t grasped my system yet, that’s all. Be patient. You’ll understand it eventually.”

  She patted his hand encouragingly, as though he were a simpleton. Marcus shook off her touch. He glared at her.

  “I have never seen the like of this,” he said, waving a hand to indicate her morass of ledgers. “Never in all my years in business.”

  She brightened. “My methods are unique,” Molly agreed.

  “That was not a compliment. Your ‘system’ consists of partial ledger entries and a few hasty attempts at inventory. Oh, and these. A few scraps of ribbon.”

  Marcus snatched a handful from the twin boxes Molly had set out along with the ledgers. Scornfully, he let the colorful strips waft from his fingers to the desk, where they adorned the opened pages like lacy, satiny and polka-dotted snowflakes.

  “Stop!” Molly shrieked. “Those are my profit-and-loss markers!”

  She scrabbled among the scraps, hastily sorting them back into their boxes. Marcus watched, puzzled.

  “They’re your what?”

  “My profit-and-loss markers.” Molly stuffed the last few ribbon pieces into the right-hand box. “One box is for profitable days, days when paying customers come into the shop and purchase things. One box is for loss days, days when I have to give away baked goods to the railway workers before they go stale. This way, I can see at a glance how well I’m doing.”

  “Which box is which?”

  “You can’t tell?”

  Marcus shook his head. This whole thing befuddled him.

  “You really can’t tell? It’s so simple!”

  He refrained from an unmanly urge to wipe the gloat from her face. “I—can’t—tell.”

  “The one with the pretty ribbons is the profit box. See?”

  He squinted at the boxes. Shook his head. “No.”

  “This one.” As though he were kidding, Molly grinned and gave one box a little thump. The polka-dotted-and-green grosgrain ribbons inside fluttered. “This is the profit box.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m not sure you do.” Thoughtfully she peered at him, chin in hand. “You’re an intelligent man. I thought you’d be able to grasp my accounting system straightaway. I can see now that I’ve been remiss. I’ll have to explain it to you.”

  He gritted his teeth. “I do not need accounting principles explained to me.”

  “Obviously, you do. Don’t feel bad about it, though. My papa couldn’t understand my methods, either. He was so embarrassed about it, he completely washed his hands of my business.”

  Marcus figured the man had simply gotten out while his sanity was still intact. But he only nodded.

  “All right, then. First…”

  Molly launched into a long-winded explanation of how she’d come to devise her system. It included several tangential musings about her reputation in Morrow Creek, her family’s lack of faith in her business acumen, treatises she’d read on the world of commerce…and a digression he could have sworn dealt with her thwarted attempts at the age of sixteen to become a prize-winning glassblower. Marcus listened, nodded occasionally and tried hard to comprehend it all.

  “For instance,” she said, sunny in her enthusiasm, “most stores in town carry accounts for people. The shopkeepers tally a record of purchases, and folks pay for them when they can. But I figured, why do all that extra bookkeeping? I simply issue my own currency instead, and let people pay for their baked goods with Molly Money.”

  Proudly, she snatched up a demonstrative handful of the stuff. Cut into rectangular pieces slightly larger than typical currency, “Molly Money” was inked with curlicue script, flowers, and its value, then signed with a flourish by its namesake.

  Lord help him. Marcus had been afraid of this ever since encountering the stuff, shoved haphazardly into a hatbox. “You do realize that’s not real money…don’t you?”

  She snorted, still explaining. “Townsfolk who need it receive a Molly Money allowance each quarter. Then, for all the months that follow, they can come into my shop and buy as many of my special-recipe cinnamon buns or whatever else they fancy as they want. And I can avoid unnecessary bookkeeping.”

  Marcus canted his head toward the stack. “You do realize you can’t take that to the bank, don’t you?”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course I don’t take it to the bank.”

  “You merely allow your customers to buy baked goods with pretend money. I see. That’s quite an improvement.” He covered his face with his hands, shaking his head.

  She stopped him. Lowered both of his hands in her own. Gazed deeply into his eyes until she—apparently—felt certain she had his full attention.

  “I’m not daft, Marcus. I’m inventive. It’s not the same thing. Besides—” she paused, releasing him to examine a Molly Money note with tulips at its borders “—don’t you think it’s pretty?”

  Marcus took in her cheery expression, her bright eyes, and knew he couldn’t let her go on this way. “Tell that to your mortgage holder, when you try to make a payment with that stuff. He won’t care how pretty it is. Molly—” He raised his hands to her delicate shoulders, resisting an urge to shake some sense into her. “You’ve got to listen to me. You need better accounting.” And a business sense to go with it.

  She gritted her teeth. “You don’t understand. I don’t use Molly Money. Only my customers do. They purchase it in advance, then spend it over the course of the next several months.”

  “Then you receive actual cash from them?”

  Molly folded her arms. Gave him an exasperated look. “Didn’t you so much as crack the lid of the cookie jar?”

  “What?”

  “The cookie jar. You didn’t even open it, did you?”

  She shook her head in dismay, reaching to drag the ceramic jar across the desk. The movement required her to stand partway. Leaning into the desk’s edge squeezed her breath slightly, but she went on doggedly: “I have given you far too much credit. I can see that now. By any chance does Mr. Smith do your accounting at the lumber mill? Because with your lack of attention to detail—”

  “I have plenty of attention to detail.”

  For instance, Marcus had noticed every intriguing detail of her feminine figure as she’d leaned next to him. But he’d also noticed how nonsensical her business methods were. It was those that he needed to concern himself with now. After seeing Molly’s notions of business, he worried about her welfare.

  “You realize, don’t you, that your father won’t be able to support you forever. To prepare for that day when—”

  “If you pay attention to details as you say you do,” Molly interrupted, “then I fail to see how you missed this.” She removed the cookie jar’s lid, then reached inside and withdrew something. Cash. Wads of it. Which she promptly waved in his face. “This is the result of my system, the same system you find so amusing.”

  He stared at it. “That is a great deal of money.”

  “That’s because I haven’t had to spend mu
ch of it on supplies yet. My regular customers buy their Molly Money allowances in advance, remember?” She gave him an exceedingly patient look as she returned the currency to its jar. “In effect, they are prepurchasing my baked goods, before I’ve so much as beaten an egg or iced a cake. Do you understand?”

  Marcus nodded. “You’ve devised a method of removing most of your bakeshop’s inventory risk.”

  “Is that what it’s called? My, that sounds much more impressive than anything I’ve come up with!”

  She looked delighted. Marcus felt flummoxed. Somehow, flighty Molly Crabtree had come up with an original business plan that worked. He didn’t understand how she’d done it, but she had.

  Taken aback by the realization, he examined the items on the desktop with new perspective. Perhaps he’d been too hasty in dismissing Molly’s methods. Perhaps he didn’t need to worry about her.

  He chose a fancy pen and set of stationery. “What’s this?”

  “I use that to write lists of supplies.”

  “Inventory maintenance materials. I see.” Marcus tapped a pretty volume of botanical prints. “This?”

  “I store my recipes in it. I slip them between the pages. It’s nice to look at the illustrations when I’m searching for a particular cake or sweet roll to make.”

  “Why not just keep your recipes in their own volume? Or in one of those little file boxes?”

  “I told you,” she said patiently, “it’s nice to look at the illustrations.”

  “Fine.” He couldn’t help but grin. As filing systems went, hers was…unconventional. Still it appeared to work for her. Marcus reached next for a pair of glass jelly jars. One stood filled two-thirds to the brim with marbles; the other, larger jar jangled with a quantity rising about halfway. “What are these?”

  Molly flushed. “They’re my method for keeping track of how many folks in town have visited my bakeshop. I know it’s silly of me, but I wanted to know. I found out from the courthouse clerk approximately how many people live in Morrow Creek—that’s all the marbles put together. As each person stops by here or buys my goodies, I move them to that jar.”