Amazing Gracie (16 page)

“You ever run one of these before?”

“No, but I’ve run several hotels in Europe.”

“In Europe? You don’t say. Which ones?”

“Most recently, the Worldwide Hotel in Cannes, the Maison de Sol.”

“Lovely place. I was there once, years ago, of course, before your time. Any others?”

“Before that, I was at the one in Baden-Baden, and before that in Geneva.”

“And Worldwide, that’s the chain that prides itself on luxurious surroundings, isn’t it?”

“It did,” she said, unable to hide the trace of bitterness.

Mrs. Johnson regarded her intently. “That why you left? Were they paying too much attention to the bottom line and not enough to the comfort of the guests?”

“Exactly.”

“That’s the way the world’s going these days,” Mrs. Johnson lamented. “Fast food, inexpensive motels, economy cars, fake copies of great art. Nobody cares about the finer things in life the way they used to. In my day, it was better to have a few nice things than to load up on cheap knock-offs. My Charles, rest his soul, always wanted the best for me.”

She reached out and rubbed her gnarled fingers over the silver tray. “You see this? He gave it to me on our silver wedding anniversary. How many people do you see nowadays using silver to serve? Not many, I’ll warrant. They fire up their barbeques in the backyard and serve everything on plastic.”

“I won’t be using plastic,” Gracie said quietly. “I want my bed-and-breakfast to have an old-fashioned elegance.”

“Proper bed linens, ironed fresh?”

“Absolutely.”

“Flowers from the garden in every room?”

“Of course.”

“You collecting antique china or using whatever you can get from the department store?”

“I actually hadn’t considered that.”

“Go with antiques. Won’t matter if the sets match. It’ll still be a nice touch. Now, what about the breakfast part? You plan on dumping cereal and sliced bananas into a bowl and calling that breakfast?”

“That depends,” Gracie conceded ruefully.

“On?”

“Whether I can master cooking. It’s not my strong suit. All the hotels had very fine chefs. I never had to learn to cook. Now I’m starting from scratch, and I must admit, my attempts have been pretty disastrous.”

Mrs. Johnson looked appalled. “You can certainly read, can’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Then all you need is a good cookbook and a little daring.”

“I have the cookbook, but you should see the results of my experiments. Most of them are inedible,” Gracie confessed. “Even the cats that wander by turn up their noses.”

“Then what you’re missing is the daring,” Mrs. Johnson declared. “You can’t be afraid. You come over here this afternoon at four o’clock, after my shows go off. I’ll teach you.”

Gracie regarded her with astonishment. “You will?”

“Why not? I don’t have anything exciting going on in my life. You’ll be a challenge.”

“Does that mean you approve of my plans?”

“Can’t say yet. All depends on how quick a learner you are.”

“I may not be quick, but I’m determined.”

Mrs. Johnson gave her a nod of approval. “That’ll do for a start. We’ll begin with blueberry muffins. I’ll pick up the ingredients. You can pay me later.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“No thanks necessary.” She grinned. “I’ll get to keep one or two of the muffins.”

“You may change your mind, after I’m finished.”

“Now, what kind of self-confidence is that?” Mrs. Johnson chided. “Bring a notebook. You can write down the recipe.”

“I can’t just make a copy?”

“Not of this one. It’s all in my head.” She stood up and waved Gracie off. “Now, get along with you. I have to get to the store. You be back here at four and not a minute earlier. I don’t like missing a single second of my shows. Never can tell what Reva and Josh and them good-for-nothing Spauldings are going to be up to.”

“I’ll remember,” Gracie promised. She would be here on the dot of four, notebook in hand and filled with more questions than Mrs. Johnson had ever anticipated.

“She was here,” Bessie Johnson reported to Delia.

“Exactly as I expected,” Delia said with satisfaction. “What’s she like?”

“Pretty, smart, open to suggestions. I think she’ll do for Kevin just fine. Told you that the other day after I talked to her on the phone. I liked the way she didn’t waste time on a bunch of silly questions. She just came straight over when I called about that intruder we invented.”

Delia gave a little nod of approval. She’d thought as much. Gracie MacDougal had struck her as a no-nonsense kind of woman. Clever, too. She’d been smart enough to go down to the courthouse and dig around. Delia had heard that story from Kevin last night. It was too bad Kevin had been one step ahead of Gracie and
even more unfortunate that Etta Mae had seen fit to conspire with him. That silly old woman didn’t have a romantic bone in her body.

Not that Gracie would have gotten the answers she was after, anyway. All the tax records were in Kevin’s name. So was the deed, for that matter, though he’d insisted that as long as Delia lived she would make any decisions when it came to selling or keeping her home.

“Was she asking a lot of questions this time?” she asked Bessie.

“Didn’t give her a chance to,” Bessie replied. “I was asking too many myself. Got her to talking about that bed-and-breakfast. She’s got a head on her shoulders, all right. One thing you ought to know, though. She claims she can’t cook a lick.”

“Oh, dear. Won’t that be a problem at a bed-and-breakfast?”

“I was thinking more of Kevin’s stomach. That boy always did have an appetite. Don’t you worry, though. I’m taking care of it. I offered to teach her. She’ll be back at four to learn how to bake blueberry muffins.”

Delia chuckled at her friend’s deviousness. “Kevin’s favorite.”

“You think I didn’t remember that? He used to beg enough of them off me.”

“You’re not to tell her I own the house just yet,” Delia reminded Bessie.

“You think I don’t know how to keep a secret, Delia? I’ve kept yours all these years, haven’t I?”

Delia sighed. “Yes, you have. You’ve been the best friend a person could ever ask for.”

“Well, then, you just leave Gracie MacDougal to me.
Your job is to work on Kevin till he’s primed to marry the woman.”

“He’s a stubborn one, though. He’s lived his whole life around bad examples. Saying ‘I do’ won’t come easily to him.”

“Then you’ll just have to be a little sneakier, won’t you?” Bessie said. “It’s what you want for him, isn’t it?”

“More than anything,” Delia said wistfully. “More than anything in this world, I want to see him settled before I die.”

“Then we’ll make it happen,” Bessie said confidently. “Make no mistake about it, Delia. Kevin’s days as a bachelor are numbered.”

After she’d hung up, Delia sat back, closed her eyes and smiled. It was all going exactly the way she’d envisioned from the moment she’d spotted Gracie MacDougal with her nephew. She’d seen the way they’d argued, seen the way Gracie had peeked at Kevin’s body when she was sure no one was looking. Most important of all, she’d seen the too-rare sparkle of sheer delight in Kevin’s eyes when he’d talked about her.

Thanks to the mess those in her generation had made of their lives, Kevin had had all too little to smile about. She intended to see to it that he got a woman who could change that.

Kevin pounded on Gracie’s door, then fought disappointment when there was no response. He’d gotten it into his head in the middle of the afternoon that he needed to see her. He’d battled the urge for an entire hour, told himself he was behaving like a lovesick adolescent, then finally stopped pretending it was a battle he could win.

He’d driven into town to see her without bothering to call. He enjoyed taking her by surprise. She struck him as the kind of woman who’d had far too few surprises in life. In some ways, that made them more alike than she probably knew. Most of the surprises in his life had been bad ones.

“So, where are you, Gracie?” he wondered after checking out the backyard to make sure she wasn’t sitting out there admiring her new garden. She was probably sneaking around trying to get information on the property she wanted.

He liked that about her, liked that she didn’t give up, that she was totally convinced she could eventually wear him down—or bypass him completely—and get what she wanted.

He tapped on the backdoor one last time, then turned the knob. She’d left the stupid thing unlocked. Okay, Seagull Point was a small town, but folks didn’t just go off and leave their doors unlocked even here. The locals might be fine people, but a person never could tell who might be passing through.

He stepped into the kitchen, which was the tidiest he’d seen it. Either she’d given up entirely on cooking or she just hadn’t experimented today. Thinking of the mess he’d seen, he hoped for the former, but laid odds on the latter.

Though he wanted to, he couldn’t quite bring himself to venture beyond the kitchen. Everybody deserved their privacy. He had no reason at all to go poking around the rest of her house, not even to see if he could discern what tricks she might have up her sleeve for snatching that house of Delia’s.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t filled with curiosity when the phone started to ring. Probably that guy from France,
the one she was so adamant was nothing more than an ex-boss. He paused beside the answering machine and waited for it to pick up. He figured he could tell a lot just by hearing the man’s voice.

“Gracie,
chérie
, where are you? This is Max. What could there be in that little podunk place to keep you away from home so often?”

Kevin couldn’t help it. He found that supercilious tone very annoying. Without giving the matter any thought, he grabbed the phone. “Hey, Max, this is Kevin Daniels.”

“Who?”

“Gracie’s friend.”

“I was not aware that Gracie had any friends in Virginia,” he said stiffly.

“She does now,” Kevin replied. “What’s up? Another little crisis you need her to solve? I can give her a message.”

“Never mind. I will explain it to her when we speak. Let her know that I will call back later. Tell her, please, that it is very important that I speak with her today.”

“Sure thing,” Kevin agreed. “Who knows, though? Maybe between now and then you’ll figure out a solution all by yourself.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Daniels,” he said, his tone chilly.

“
Au revoir
, Max.”

He hung up feeling decidedly cheerful. He didn’t even bother erasing the partial message Max had begun before Kevin picked up. He figured Gracie wouldn’t be pleased with the derisive little comment about the podunk town she was about to adopt as her home, not if she was serious about staying.

As far as he’d been able to determine, Gracie wasn’t a snob, even if she had jumped rather quickly to the con
clusion that he was little more than a lazy slacker. He hadn’t done much to disabuse her of that notion. He kind of enjoyed the fact that she was starting to like him despite her initial bad impression. Definitely not a snooty bone in her body, unlike old Max.

So where was she? Max was right about one thing. For a stranger, she did seem to get around. On foot, too, since her flashy red car was parked right out front.

It didn’t take a lot of imagination to guess she’d probably headed over to take another peek at Delia’s. Kevin walked the few blocks, fully expecting to find her up on the roof, sneaking in the window again. To his surprise there was no sign of her.

Then he heard her laugh. There was no mistaking that bright, pure sound. It was coming from Mrs. Johnson’s. As he drew closer, he realized it was also accompanied by the familiar scent of blueberry muffins.

Rather than knocking on the front door, he went around to the back, just as he had a hundred times as a kid. Mrs. Johnson spotted him before he could set foot on the back stoop. She was grinning when she opened the door.

“There you are, Kevin. I’ve been expecting you.”

He didn’t doubt Mrs. Johnson’s claim. He’d almost never missed a batch of her blueberry muffins. She baked on Wednesday mornings like clockwork and he always showed up. This was an off day and an odd time, but he just figured luck was with him.

Gracie, however, clearly hadn’t anticipated him turning up. She regarded him with suspicion, then turned her gaze on Mrs. Johnson. “You knew he was coming by?”

“Hasn’t been a time since he could walk that Kevin
didn’t turn up here for my blueberry muffins. Always did have a sixth sense about when I was baking.”

“Is that right?” Gracie said, still scowling.

“Don’t look so suspicious, darlin’. It’s pure coincidence, me turning up.”

“I’ll bet,” she muttered, turning her back on him to open the oven door. “Oh, my.”

“You didn’t burn them, did you?” Kevin asked, unable to keep a plaintive note out of his voice.

“No, I didn’t burn them,” she retorted, sliding the pan out. “They’re perfect.”

“Look good,” Mrs. Johnson confirmed. “I told you you could do it.”

“Must be a foolproof recipe,” Kevin observed.

“If you came by to beg a muffin, you’re getting off on the wrong foot,” Mrs. Johnson chastised.

“Just experience talking.” He regarded the muffins intently. “Could be the tide’s about to turn, though. Those look pretty good. I’ll test the first one.”

“I shouldn’t let you have a single one after that remark you made,” Gracie said. “But maybe it would be better to let you take the risk, rather than one of us. It’ll serve you right, if you get sick.”

“On second thought—”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Gracie said. “You volunteered.” She popped a muffin out of the pan and put it on a fancy porcelain dessert plate, then slid it in front of him. She sat down across from him and watched him anxiously. “Do you need a knife? Butter?”

“If you’ve done ’em right, I won’t need anything,” he said, breaking off a chunk. The texture was light and fluffy. It was filled with plump blueberries. “Looks okay.”

Actually, it looked better than okay. His mouth was watering, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of telling her that. He waited a full minute for the chunk to cool before popping it into his mouth. He closed his eyes. It was heavenly.