Ruth Ann waved a finger at her. “Are you planning on dealing anytime soon or you just going to shuffle the cards until dinnertime?”
“My, my, someone is testy today.” Dorothy tsked at her longtime friend. “Trouble in paradise?”
Twirling the long gray braid that hung halfway down her back into a knot at the base of her neck, Ruth Ann rolled her eyes. “Not everything has to do with my love life.”
“I don’t know about that.” Sally May shrugged. “How high you rate on a grumpy scale lately seems to be directly related to how happy you are with Ralph.”
At least one of them, Eileen thought, had a love life. Until Ruth Ann started keeping company with Ralph, Eileen had considered love and relationships something tucked away in the memories of younger days.
“Ralph and I are perfectly fine.” Ruth Ann waved a hand at Eileen. “She’s still shuffling that deck. Much longer and she’ll wear a groove in the sides.”
All eyes turned to the arch of cards one by one falling flatly into place.
Dorothy raised her brows. “Ruth Ann does have a point. By now they may have been shuffled back to where they were in the beginning.”
Slamming the deck in front of her dearest friend, Eileen waited for Dorothy to cut the cards. No point in saying anything, they were right, she’d been a little distracted this morning. That stupid letter that she should have simply thrown into the trash when it first arrived had come flying out of the drawer along with a clean bra. Floating to the floor, the return address boldly stared up at her, taunted her still.
“Eileen,” Ruth Ann repeated.
“You planning on winning big?” Eileen did her best to cover her mind wandering—again, and gathered the deck, dealing out five cards quickly.
“Should’ve let you keep shuffling.” Ruth Ann rearranged her cards left to right then right to left.
Eileen sorted through her own cards. Her luck is not any better than Ruth Ann’s and Eileen had not had a love life in almost 30 years.
“Oh, look.” Dorothy discreetly pointed toward the front of the café under her cards. “Looks like the mayor’s sidekick, councilman Roy Garland, is here for lunch. Alone.”
Waiting to see if anybody joined him, Eileen darted a glance over the rim of her cards a time or two.
“Well,” Sally May leaned forward, “here’s your chance to find out what the one of the council wants.”
Ruth Ann folded her cards in front of her. “Or have you decided Sean is right and to leave well enough alone and let the chips fall where they may?”
“I hope not.” Dorothy tossed aside two cards. “Like it or not, this is politics, and we can’t just stand back and hope the good guy wins. The least we can do is have a nice friendly conversation with one of our town council and see what strikes his fancy.”
“Agreed.” Assured that the councilman was lunching alone and would welcome her company, Eileen played out the end of her hand. The timing was perfect. As she tossed the last of her cards down to the table, Donna set the mayor’s lunch on the table in front of him.
“You fixing to go somewhere?” Holding a pitcher of tea in one hand and a pot of coffee and the other, Abbie came to a stop beside Eileen.
“Yep,” Eileen nodded. “Cross your fingers, girls, I’m going in. Here’s hoping he’s as easy to con facts out of as my nephews were when they didn’t want Sean and me to know what they were up to.”
Sally May gathered the cards in front of her. “Oh for land sakes, he can’t be as gullible as a couple of teens. Hope you’ve got something else up your sleeve.”
“No, but you know what they say?” Eileen flashed a knowing smile. “What separates the men from the boys is the price of their toys.”
****
Every time Abbie walked past Roy Garland’s table she wondered why was Jamie’s aunt still sitting there.
“I’m sure by the time Aunt Eileen is finished with the man she’ll have all of his family secrets.” Jamie looked down at the next order.
“It’s just that he’s so… touchy.”
The double doors swung open and Donna hurried in. “Anyone else wondering what your aunt is doing with the ass patting Councilman Garland?”
Frowning, Jamie looked from one waitress to the other. “Wait a minute. Are we talking about the same man? On the tail end of middle age, slightly rotund, comb-over to hide the bald spot, always smiling?”
Like a matched set, Abbie and Donna nodded.
“He’s from a different era.” Abbie shrugged. “According to the sisters, his nickname in high school was octopus hands.”
“Wait a minute. How touchy is touchy?”
“It’s not that bad. As long as Old Octopus Hands doesn’t take me out on a date, I have nothing to worry about.”
“Has he asked you?”
The growing alarm on Jamie’s face was almost amusing. Abbie had to strain to keep a straight face. “Only in a teasing way. You know, run away with me and you’ll never work another day in your life kind of thing. We waitresses get that all the time.”
“Uh huh.” Jamie’s grip on the paper in his hands tightened.
“Whatever.” Abbie turned on her heel.
“Wait.”
She pivoted around. “What?”
“Grace has been working late a lot with the council members. You don’t think he… you know?”
This time Abbie laughed out right. “No, I don’t. The guy may have itchy fingers, but I’ve never heard him disrespect a married woman, ever.”
“So you agree he’s being disrespectful.”
“Well of course I do. It’s not your backside he likes to pat. I’m just saying we cut the old goat a little slack around here and keep a wide berth and everybody’s happy.”
“Yeah well, I think it may be time for the Farradays to have a little chat with his honor Mr. Councilman.”
“That’s fine with me, but I suggest you wait until after all the permits have been issued.”
Jamie slid a frying pan onto the burner, grumbling something about doing it but not liking it.
One of the double doors swung open, stopping Abbie in her tracks.
Standing under the doorway, his aunt Eileen held the door with one hand and flashed a thumbs up with the other, and whispered, “Sorry to barge in, but I wanted to let you know we’ve got this covered.”
“Oh that’s wonderful.” Abbie leaned forward to hug Eileen and noticed Roy walking toward the kitchen. “We have company,” she whispered.
Aunt Eileen looked over her shoulder. Spotting the councilman, she straightened and plastered on a huge smile. “Roy?”
Giving a brief nod to Jamie in the back, the man smiled at Eileen. “You are sure we are all set for dinner?”
“Absolutely, consider it a date.”
Grinning with an unusual amount of boyish charm she never would’ve expected to come from the old goat, the man smiled up at Jamie and Abbie, then wiggling his fingers, waved goodbye to Eileen. Abbie would’ve bet a month’s wages the guy was going to dance down the sidewalk as soon as the front door closed behind him.
“What have you done?” Jamie turned off the stove and walked around to where his aunt and Abbie stood.
“Don’t look so horrified. I found out what he wants and now he’ll get it.”
Abbie swallowed what little saliva was left in her mouth. “You’re going on a dinner date with the Roy Garland?”
“Of course not.” Shaking her head, Aunt Eileen turned halfway and pushed the door open to the restaurant. “Sally May is.”
“Sally May agreed to go to dinner with him?” Abbie and Jamie echoed.
Aunt Eileen’s smile grew. “No, but she will.”
Before Abbie could say another word, the door swung loudly behind his aunt. She turned to face Jamie.
His jaw slightly open, his eyes still on the swinging door, he mumbled, “We’ve created a monster.”
****
“Well,” Jamie turned back to the cooktop. “One thi
ng is for sure, we can’t let Sally May go on a dinner date with Mr. Octopus just so that the Farradays can open a pub.”
Donna came hurrying in. “Bunch of teams just came in. Get ready to do a lot a hamburgers and fries.” She slapped an order down in front of Jamie and turned, hurrying back out the door.
“I’d better get back to work. We’ll figure something out.” Abbie followed behind the other waitress.
All he wanted to know was how did everything get so crazy. A simple deal. A simple plan. An Irish pub. Now his aunt was negotiating dinner dates with a dirty old man, vegetable gardens with sourpuss temperance ladies, and he didn’t dare consider what she might come up with next.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I definitely can see the charm in Tuckers Bluff. Oh man.” Sitting on a counter stool, Dave slurped a taste of Irish Stew from a spoon. “This is amazing.”
“Let me.” His wife pilfered the spoon and swallowed the last bit of broth. “Oh, amazing doesn’t cut it.”
Jamie couldn’t stop from smiling. It had only taken him four batches to get it right.
“Told you.” Abbie leaned her elbow on the counter. Typical for a Sunday afternoon, the restaurant had been closed for over an hour. She, Jamie, and his friends from Dallas had been laughing, and exchanging stories, and experimenting with recipes.
“I never said I doubted you.” Leaning over, about to plant a delighted kiss on her lips, Jamie realized in the nick of time how inappropriate that would be and diverted to a quick peck on her forehead. “I would have done this recipe from now till doomsday and not recognized that my hands and my great grandmother’s hands are not the same size.”
Dave’s wife swallowed another taste. “I don’t understand?”
“The recipe,” Jamie poured a bowl for each of them, “was passed down from woman to woman in my mom’s family and it went mostly a pinch of this and a handful of that.”
“Ah,” Dave nodded.
“Right. My hands are bigger than any of my maternal ancestors.” He waved a thumb at Abbie. “She figured it out.”
Abbie shrugged, taking a quick taste of the stew. “I remembered reading that somewhere about one of the cookie companies. Don’t remember which one, but it struck me that her problem copying her grandmother’s recipe could have been your problem.”
“So we used Abbie’s hands.” Jamie resisted the urge once again to lean over and kiss her. Instead he took a step back. Anything to keep his mind on the food. “I’m also thinking that Abbie’s pinch and handful are closer to my great grandmother’s because even mom’s stew doesn’t turn out this good.”
Dave’s wife Beverly blew on a spoon. “I wish we were going to be around long enough to try out everything on your menu.”
“Me too,” Dave added.
The overhead bell on the café door jingled. Even though they were no longer open for business, they hadn’t bothered to lock the door. Something that both surprised and delighted him. After Abbie had rehashed all the dark memories, he was glad to see that she didn’t still feel jittery. At least not enough to have been conscientious about the café door.
“Hello,” two female voices sang.
Sissy, a tall willowy redhead led the way. “Meg said we’d find you here.”
“Hello,” Beverly said. “Nice to see you again.”
“Then you’ve met?” Abbie asked.
Dave and his wife nodded.
“Oh, yes,” Sissy answered. “They were in the shop yesterday with Meg and Eileen for a little while. Told us about the new baby. Such sweet pictures.”
“That’s one of the nice things about this newfangled electronic world,” Sissy chimed in. “So many lovely photos at your fingertips on a cell phone.”
“Well,” Sister, the shorter of the two women who still wore her platinum blonde hair as wide as it was high, reached into her purse. “After we spoke yesterday, I knew we had at least one more of the hand carved rattles.”
“The other one belongs to Ethan’s little girl now, but the man who carved it had made a spare and brought it into us not that long ago,” Sissy explained.
“I don’t know how we’d forgotten about it.” Sister produced a lovely handcrafted baby rattle.
“Oh my,” Beverly’s eyes widened. “That’s just lovely. And so light.”
Sissy smiled beside her sister. “The only thing the maker asked of us is that it be given to a special baby.”
“That’s right,” Sister nodded. “While we haven’t met your little bundle, we can tell from our visit with you yesterday that the craftsman would be happy.”
Beverly looked up, passing the rattle to her husband. “How much does he want for it?”
“Oh, he doesn’t want money for it,” Sister said quickly.
“But so much work,” Dave fingered the lovely item. “Surely—”
Sissy cut him off with the wave of a hand. “We’d all be mighty pleased if you’d accept it.”
Dave and his wife looked to Jamie.
He nodded. “That’s the way things are done around here.”
“Yes,” Dave mumbled, handing the rattle back to his wife. The two stared at each other long and hard. Jamie recognized the scene before him as one he’d seen many times in his own household between his mom and dad and often at the ranch between his Uncle Sean and Aunt Eileen. The silent conversation of a couple who didn’t need words to communicate. Then Dave raised one brow, Beverly smiled and nodded, and Jamie knew they’d come to an agreement.
Beverly turned and smiled at the sisters then settled her gaze on Jamie. “Meg took me to her neighbor’s house up the block. It’s just lovely and will be going up for sale soon. The family has outgrown it.”
“Yes,” Sissy nodded. “That would be Ken and Elizabeth Ashridge. Just had their fourth baby, well, fourth and fifth.”
“Such a blessing to have twins,” Sister added. “Even if it was a bit of a surprise.”
“Surprise?” Jamison thought today’s world of 3D sonograms and DNA testing that parents knew everything about their baby short of its IQ.
“Apparently one baby kept hiding behind the other,” Abbie explained to him
Sister nodded. “They’re building a house not too far from Brooks and Toni’s.”
“We drove by that as well yesterday,” Beverly continued. “The Ashridges’ old house would be perfect for a growing family.”
“What my wife is taking the long road to say is, we’d like very much to raise our family in Tuckers Bluff.”
“Yes,” Jamie cheered, practically leaping over the counter, pulling his friend into back slapping hug before turning to embrace the man’s wife. “Welcome to Tuckers Bluff.”
“Our first new residents, and new jobs thanks to O’Fearadaigh’s,” Abbie beamed. “We’ll see what the town council says about that.”
The councilman. One problem solved and another one at his feet. He had no choice, he would have to sit down with Force Eileen for a nice long chat. Then all he had to do was figure out how to break the anticipated date without ticking off one too friendly councilman.
****
“Okay, ice cream and crème de almond tastes way too good to be saddled with a name like Pink Squirrel.” After Dave and his wife had returned to the B&B, Abbie and Jamie worked on the liquor choices for the cook-off event. She took another sip of the concoction in front of her. This sucker was fantastic. “I’ve heard of some crazy named drinks, but why would anyone name something so tasty after a laxative colored rodent?”
“Mom didn’t say.” Jamie rinsed out the blender. “All she told me was that my grandmother Farraday had one every afternoon before dinner. If it’s good enough for my Irish Granny, the name is good enough for O’Fearadaigh’s. So this is a definite for serving the cook-off day?”
Abbie shrugged. “I’m torn between how delicious the thing is and serving something that looks so much like a strawberry milkshake.”
Frowning down at the empty blender, Jamie huffed. “I hadn’t thoug
ht about that. Maybe we should cross this one off the list.
“You can if you want, but I do admit this sucker is fantastic.”
Smiling, Jamie shook his head. “So yes or no?”
“It’s your cook-off.”
“And,” his heated gaze bore into her, “I’m asking your opinion.”
“Oh.” Get a grip Abbie. “Well,” she sucked in a deep calming breath, “yes. After all we’ll be serving beer and wine so it will be obvious that the bar end of the café is not for children.”
His grin took over his face. “There we go. Pink Squirrels it is.”
Abbie took another sip. “They really are delicious.”
“Yeah, well, they pack a wallop if you drink ‘em like milk shakes.”
“Noted.” Abbie saluted him. Not sure why since he wasn’t a Marine like Frank or Ethan.
“These are the beers.” From under the counter, Jamie hefted a large carton onto the top and, one by one, pulled out different beers. “Not all are Dave’s, but I thought we’d pick maybe three or four as a sampling beside the standard tap offerings.”
“Do you think three or four is enough?”
Jamie’s brow shot high on his forehead. “Don’t you?”
“Nope.” Abbie shook her head. “You should out do Hemingway’s in all things. Let the town know their options.”
“Then let’s choose the ones.”
It was fun watching him working in his element. Unlike the first day in the kitchen where he needed some getting used to, here behind the counter, even though it wasn’t set up like a real bar, Jamie opened and poured the beers with just the right amount of froth every time.
By the fifth sample, Abbie decided they should have asked someone else to do the tasting. Not a true beer fan, they were all beginning to taste the same. “I still think my favorites were the first two, though I’m not sure if it’s because they were that much better or now they’re all blending together.”
“The first two were lighter. The last one was a dark ale, not everyone likes the darker brew.”
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