She felt calm, satisfied, and accomplished. It had taken her more than an hour to get this dish to the judges. It had taken her a lifetime, really.
And there was nothing to be done now but wait.
ChapterThree
Libby
“You’ve reached Venerable Catering. Please leave a message, and I’ll get right back to you.”
Libby left a message. It was weird, she knew, and Hope was going to feel like the past came out of nowhere. “Hi, I haven’t seen you in thirty years, and you need to get to Irish Hills immediately.” No. That was not going to work. She needed Hope to come to Irish Hills, and she needed to figure out how to make it seem like a logical thing to do.
Hope, they knew her as Hope. In their Sandbar Sister days, she hated the name Marcia, so she went by her middle name, Hope. Hope Benton had become Marcia H. Venerable. Libby wouldn’t have had a clue to search that name on Facebook or the internet. Somehow her aunt had it all figured out.
She found the article on Hope’s recipe win in Cincinnati and that she would be competing in Vegas.
“Go to that competition, make sure she can do what we need, and then make her an offer she can’t refuse.”
“Aunt Emma, I’m not Don Corleone.”
“Well, you’re a high-powered gal. You know how to close a deal. Is it better in person or email with these things?” Aunt Emma had pointed to Libby’s smartphone.
“That’s an easy answer. In-person always wins. Much harder to look someone in the eye and turn them down.”
“And from what you’ve explained, to get the grant money for this downtown Irish Hills renovation, you need a detailed description about what goes in each building. Seems to me the restaurant is the lynchpin.”
“You do understand.”
Libby had been lured back to Irish Hills and had decided to stay due to no small amount of scheming from her aunt. And more than that, she’d agreed to fight for the town against corporate developers.
Somehow, she’d become the leader of the Save Irish Hills Community Development Corporation. It had all happened so fast.
But it was right. Libby knew it. As sure as she knew she looked terrible in small floral prints.
They had an uphill fight, but that was okay. A little incline toned your thighs anyway.
Libby had a stretch of buildings to renovate and fill. There was no doubt that Irish Hills needed a restaurant.
The proposal she’d sent the Small Business Downtown Revitalization Authority included renderings that imagined a restaurant downtown. They had the renderings but not the restaurant.
Hope Benton, aka Marcia H. Venerable, could be the perfect person to take this on.
But Libby hadn’t been able to get a hold of her. This wasn’t something they had months to pull off. It was more like weeks.
They needed this place open soon.
Aunt Emma had pawned an antique necklace, an heirloom, for repairs to the strip of vacant buildings in downtown Irish Hills. She’d spent her actual savings to block out-of-town developers from getting their hands on the town and turning it into a rest stop.
Libby herself pawned her wedding ring to fund the plumbing and electrical work.
They’d done it because Libby was sure they could secure a grant from the Small Business Downtown Revitalization Authority. That was five hundred thousand dollars. That would be enough to make downtown attractive for everything from restaurants to boutiques.
Well, that was the plan, anyway. Unfortunately, another town was in the running. Covert Pier on Lake Michigan also wanted that money for downtown revitalization. And they were farther along. They had more than plans. They had a restaurant already started. They had Lake Michigan.
Irish Hills needed a restaurant opened downtown, now, yesterday really. Aunt Emma said Hope was the person to do it. Aunt Emma’s plan was better than Libby’s, since Libby didn’t have a specific plan for a restauranteur. She’d barely had the time and money to get the roof on, and now she needed a full-fledged business up and running under it.
So Libby’s current mission was to convince her old friend to come back to Irish Hills and open an eatery. It was madness, really, that Libby had returned. She thought the odds of convincing Hope to do the same were low.
Aunt Emma wasn’t worried. And she wasn’t above using good old-fashioned bribery or blackmail to get her way.
