by Judy Baer
Jenny and Brady were in the front yard when Marlo pulled into their driveway.
“Auntie Marlo!” Brady’s face beamed like sunshine breaking through the clouds.
She scooped the child into her arms and he clung enthusiastically to her neck. Gently, she pried one arm away so she could breathe. “How’s my favorite boy?” she asked.
“Good.” He put a small hand on each of her cheeks, squished them together and giggled. “You look funny.”
“Thanks a bunch.” Marlo put Brady down on the grass and he meandered off to pick up the large blue ball he and his mother had been rolling across the lawn.
“We’re working on Brady’s coordination,” Jenny said. “It’s coming along.”
“What would you think if I told you there might be another way to help with that?”
“Are you bringing up that horse thing again? Give it up, Marlo. I won’t put my child on the top of some huge beast!”
“Horses are hardly beasts, Jenny.”
“If Brady were yours, you’d have a different opinion.” Jenny’s soft features hardened, the mother lion in her surfacing.
“In a way, he is mine, sis. You know how much I love him.”
Some of Jenny’s ire dissipated. “I know. You’ve been his protector as long as I have, but I’m so terrified that he’ll be hurt.”
“What if you hurt him by sheltering him so much? You’ll make him as afraid for himself as you are for him. You’ve got to give him an opportunity to grow.”
Jenny laid a hand on Marlo’s arm. “If I change my mind you’ll be the first to know. Until then…”
Her sister would never agree, Marlo thought. Not in a million years.
Marlo’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me, Jen, I’d better take this.
“Dining with Divas. Hungry? Let’s dish!” Lucy insisted that they say something clever each time they answered the phone. Marlo felt as witty as a stump, but the clients seemed to think it was endearing.
“It’s Jake Hammond.”
She winced. “Ignore what I just said.”
His chuckle rolled across the airwaves. “Why? It’s kind of cute.”
Coming from him, she almost believed it.
“Dad wanted me to be sure that you’d thought of something to ‘do’ with the children on Saturday. He doesn’t see how he can conduct business with kids running around.” Jake chuckled humorlessly. “If he doesn’t want clients to bring kids to the stables, you can see how enthusiastic he must be about my ‘lunatic idea.’”
“Tell him I’ll make it work,” Marlo murmured, her mind whirring. “If I can’t think of a solution, then I don’t deserve to be a Diva.”
Chapter Ten
Marlo catapulted out of her car and hurried toward Jake, looking so intent and businesslike that he had to suppress a smile. She always made him feel like smiling. Her animated features, expressive blue eyes and unique take on the world gave Jake more pleasure than he’d had in a long time. Her unapologetic candor and genuine unaffectedness delighted him. He’d be willing, Jake realized, to do even more of the entertaining he usually disliked, just to keep her around.
The first thing out of her mouth was “How about a scavenger hunt? Lucy and I will run the hunt while you and your father conduct business.”
“Good morning to you, too.” He watched an attractive pink color wash over her cheeks. “You can do all this?”
“We charge extra for babysitting,” Marlo said cheerfully.
“If you can keep the kids, their parents and my father happy, I’ll pay you double.”
“I like people willing to try new things. It’s a deal.” She made a check mark in the air with her finger.
It probably meant something, Jake thought, but he had no idea what.
“I’m not very well acquainted with horsey things,” she continued. “If you really want the children to feel like they know Hammond Farms, I’ll need your help.”
“I believe we’ll need coffee to get this done.” Jake tipped his head toward the house. “Let’s go inside and work on it.” He took her arm and guided her along the stone paving that led to the home. Someday he hoped to live here, when his father and mother decided that it was their turn to retire. Unfortunately, most of the women he knew wouldn’t love it like he did. Too far out in the country for most, too far from urban life, this place demanded a special person to enjoy a community where the majority of the population had four feet rather than two.
He opened the large carved door that led to the dusky interior. “Perhaps you’d like to step out on the deck while I get some coffee.”
He left her looking at the view and returned with a tray containing a carafe of coffee, two mugs and a plate of sugar cookies. When she heard him at the door she spun around. Her eyes were wide and dancing with delight. “What an incredible view!”
“I know what you mean. It’s my favorite spot in the house. We’ll use the sunroom. It’s perfect in there this time of day.” He led her to the large four-season porch filled with wicker furniture, plush pillows and a greenhouse worth of flowers. Pastures flanked them on three sides.
“Why do you ever leave this place? It’s incredible.”
“It would be crowded, for one thing. As I said, my grandparents live in one wing, my parents in the other. I can’t quite imagine myself caught in the middle of this house, with my father and grandfather offering stereo suggestions as to what I should do with my life. In their eyes, I’ve never quite grown up—and never will.” The thought made him cringe. “That alone was enough to make me buy my own home.”
He put down the tray and began to pour coffee. “I’ve learned to roll with the punches and not let anything bother me too much. The older my father gets, however, the more uptight he becomes. He sees problems behind every tree and bush these days, and wants to control everything around him.”
“I understand. My family is bossy enough, and I’m not even in business with them.” She rolled her eyes and smiled.
“Tell me about your family.” Jake found himself genuinely interested.
“My parents live in Wisconsin, where they run a fishing resort. It’s their dream—Dad gets to fish and Mom gets to cook for fishermen. I learned how to cook from my mother and enjoy it almost as much as she does. I have an older brother in California who has no children, and a sister here in the Minneapolis area. She’s the mother of my nephew, Brady.”
“Are you close?”
“We’re crazy about each other, if that’s what you mean. Of course, they’d all tell you that they are very normal compared to me. They never read the last page of the book first.”
“You do that?” Amusement deepened the smile lines around his eyes. Even the way she bounced all over the map when speaking charmed him.
“They can all read maps and drive better forward than they do in reverse.”
Jake’s curiosity was piqued, and he wanted to ask more questions. Discovering all there was about Marlo could occupy him for weeks, he was sure. Maybe years. Unfortunately, the issue at hand was still Saturday’s luncheon.
“Where do we start with these clues? I have to confess that I’ve never been on a scavenger hunt.”
“Then you suffered a deprived childhood,” Marlo said firmly. “This will be good for you. Just name some spots around the property that could be on the hunt. The kids will get a clue to start the game. When they solve the riddle and go to the spot hinted at in the clue, they’ll find another clue.” Marlo pulled a pencil and a notebook out of her pocket and looked at him expectantly.
Did she know she narrowed her eyes when she asked questions? Or that one corner of her mouth had a comic tilt? Probably not.
He furrowed his brow as he rattled off a string of suggestions. “Riding arena, round pen, paddocks, tack room, water tank, hay loft…”
“What are the half-doors in the barn called? The split doors I saw closed at the bottom and open at the top.”
“Dutch, or stable doors. They were originally mean
t to keep animals out of homes while letting light and air in. Now they’re used in barns.”
“That’s a great place to start.”
She wrote a few words, frowned, crossed them out, tapped the eraser end of the pencil on the table and repeated the process until, finally, she held up the battered piece of paper triumphantly. “Here.” She handed it to him to read it out loud.
“‘We’re not in the Netherlands, but you can find these all over the barn. Look to the west, where outside meets in.’” He handed the sheet back to her. “I don’t get it.”
“That’s because you haven’t thought about it. What are the people of the Netherlands called?”
“The Dutch, of course.”
“And where might the outside of something—like a building—meet the inside?”
Puzzled, Jake felt like a child trying to figure this out, in order to win a game or capture a prize. “Walls, windows, doors…”
“Exactly!” She clapped delightedly.
“I don’t quite see….”
“Dutch doors!” she crowed, as if the fog had been swept away by the sun. “The next clue for the hunt can be found by the Dutch door on the west side of the barn!”
He grabbed the paper and reread the clue.
“‘We’re not in the Netherlands but you can find these all over the barn. Look to the west, where outside meets in.’
“Isn’t that a little difficult for kids to figure out?”
“Lucy and I will be there to help. You’d be surprised what children know.”
“When you were a child, did you know what a Dutch door was?”
“Maybe not, but I knew about the Netherlands, and I knew east from west—sort of. The first thing I’d do with a clue like that is check out the west side of your barn. They won’t even have to know what the rest means, because, if they’re smart, they’ll see the spot to pick up their next clue.”
“Very clever. You just thought of all that?” The energy that bubbled out of Marlo was catching.
“It isn’t hard. In my mind, I imagined a clue being just outside one of the barn doors. That made me think of how they are split, so the bottom can be closed without closing the top. Dutch doors. Then it was an easy leap to the Netherlands. I know it sounds backward, but it works for me.”
“Just let me watch you work. Don’t tell me anything about how you get to the clues. You make very expressive faces while you’re thinking.”
“Lucy says that, because my logic runs backward rather than forward, I have to strain to come up with something.”
“I’m not touching that statement with a ten-foot pole.”
While Jake refilled the coffee carafe, Marlo picked another of the items on his list. When he returned to the room she handed him her notebook. He stared at the clue written in the middle of the page.
It rhymes with a smelly fish but you’ll find horses there.
“A smelly fish? That’s no help. And there are horses everywhere around here. In the stalls, being worked in round pens, in the paddock….” He paused and a big grin spread across his features. “A smelly fish is a haddock, so you’d find the next clue in a paddock!”
“Now you’re catching on.” Marlo beamed at him as if he were an elementary student who’d just seen the light in understanding fractions. “And, no, it isn’t too hard. The kids can work backward. Besides, the harder clues will take more time to solve. They can find all the places there are horses and then ask the stable guys what they’re called. Paddock-haddock will be easy then.”
Jake leaned forward and laid his hand over Marlo’s small hand. It was warm, delicate and oh-so-appealing. “You amaze me at every turn. What more is there to discover about you?” A powerful attraction tugged at him and he removed his hand quickly.
What was it about her that made him feel like the tide, helplessly ebbing and flowing as she, the moon and sun, lured him? That was the last thing he’d expected to be served up by his caterer.
Marlo held on to the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead, radio blaring and her mind even noisier. Spending yesterday afternoon with Jake had done something to her head. Her brain was doing cartwheels as she tried to sort out her feelings. Did Jake think their relationship might continue even if Dining with Divas left the picture, or was he just planning social events for clients long into the future? He’d certainly been friendly, but maybe she was reading something into his smiles that wasn’t really there. What about Sabrina? Marlo wasn’t sure, but it made her uncomfortable. Maybe he was just very good at flirting. He’d obviously had lots of practice.
He’d touched her hand for a brief moment and it had set a crazy avalanche of emotions into action. Mental pictures raced through her head—she and Jake at the barns, brushing colts, laughing over dinner, holding hands, lips touching…. She shook herself like a wet dog, as if to fling the images as far away from her as possible. It was outlandish and unwise to think like that.
Much as she hated to admit it, Sabrina and Jake together made sense. Their families had been friends forever. They were part of the horsey set. Wealth was familiar to them. Their expectations were far different from her own.
Marlo’s idea of success was to own a business in which she did not have to cook, tote, carry, serve and clean up every day. Having an employee sounded like a radical luxury to her. That was a far cry from running an architectural firm and owning a horse ranch that sat on land worth millions.
Forbidden fruit, that was what Jake was. Not only was he involved with someone else, but he was out of Marlo’s league.
No, she’d better accept reality right now, she thought unhappily, and prevent the man from drawing her in. It would save her a lot of pain and frustration in the future. Jake and Sabrina were destined to be Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, and she wasn’t about to interfere with that. Marlo was nothing if not practical.
“We have a Thanksgiving wedding to cater,” Lucy said, when Marlo walked into the Divas’ kitchen on Monday morning. “It’s going to be a big one. Mammoth, gargantuan, colossal.” She leaned back in her chair and tapped her front tooth with the tip of her pen. “And if I’m right, it is going to be one huge pain in the neck.”
“Refuse it.” Marlo picked up a fresh apron and put it on. “We do well enough. If something looks like trouble, we don’t have to take it.”
“Oh, there will be even more trouble if we don’t accept, mark my words.”
“Who are these people, Lucy? What’s the problem?” She poured herself a mug of coffee and topped it with cream.
“It’s Angela’s wedding I’m talking about.”
“Oh, no.” Suddenly feeling leaden, Marlo sank onto a stool. “Angela is the most exacting, difficult-to-please human being on the planet. Her wedding will make a space launch look simple.”
“Exactly. She’s already been on the phone three times this morning, giving me instructions. Edible flowers on every plate. No shrimp in the reception hall because her family is allergic. And could we please consider buying new dishes if we don’t have enough matching china? She wants the tables to be uniform. Oh, yes, she wants us to create centerpieces for the tables, as well. Edible ones. Bouquets of fresh fruit and cookies. And wait until you hear about the ice sculptures.”
Marlo put her head in her hands. “What did we do to deserve this?”
“It’s really nice of her to throw such a big event our way, even though it’s going to be a logistical nightmare. But that’s not the worst of it.”
“There’s more?” Marlo was already trying to imagine how they could keep edible centerpieces fresh. The apples and bananas would turn brown unless they bathed them in pineapple or lemon juice. If Angela wanted fruit and cookies mixed in each bouquet it was inevitable that the cookies would get soggy, unless she could figure out a way to apply a hard frosting…. “How could there be more?”
“She’s asking every one of us from the Bridesmaid Club to be her bridesmaid, as well.”
Soggy brown centerpieces flew out of Marlo’s mind
and were replaced by a new vision. Her, wrestling trays of chicken à la orange and tomato aspic in a shiny purple bridesmaid’s dress with a peplum, two miles of ruffles and a matching hat. Hollywood made entire horror movies out of scenes less scary than that.
For the first time in a long time, Marlo felt vulnerable. Maybe this time, considering her emotions toward Jake, the upcoming scavenger hunt which could easily become a regrettable fiasco and Angela’s unrelenting wedding demands, she’d taken on too much.
Chapter Eleven
“This crazy, harebrained scheme is not going to work.” Randall’s tanned face had darkened to a dangerous beet color. “We have four couples and nine children between the ages of seven and fifteen arriving in less than two hours. You expect me to be able to talk business and show horses while you and those kids are running wild around here on a scavenger hunt?”
He glared at Jake, who, coffee cup in hand, was visibly, at least, unperturbed about the paternal eruption. “Why didn’t you tell me this before now?”
“Because I knew what your response would be,” Jake said, thankful that he’d cultivated the ability to let all his father’s comments roll off his back.
Randall spun on his heel to face Marlo, who was divesting the Dining with Divas van of cases of soda and paper products. “This is your fault. He wouldn’t have had a crackpot idea like this on his own.”
Much to Jake’s delight, Marlo didn’t shrink back as his father had obviously expected, but faced him, her feet firmly planted on the ground. “Excuse me for saying so, sir, but I wouldn’t underestimate Jake,” she said pleasantly. “From what I’ve observed, he has plenty of half-baked ideas of his own.”
Randall blinked at the unexpected reply. Then he threw his hands in the air and stomped off, muttering, “Kids and business do not mix. I should just call this meeting off. I don’t care how wealthy these investors are….”
Jake gave her a thumbs-up. “Good for you. You didn’t let Dad run all over you.”