Page 38 of The Sugar Maple Inn

“Sure, you go win that cook-off, honey.”

“Will do.”

He hung up and headed down the hallway toward the kitchen. Margaret was standing with Tressa at the center island, surrounded by ingredients they’d laid out like a general preparing for battle. Grace was leaning against the fridge, arms crossed.

“Right,” Margaret said as he entered. “Twenty people to feed, including yourselves. You’ll each make ten dishes: full portions. Each person gets to taste both dishes so they can make their judgments. They won’t know which of you has baked it, so we can judge fairly.” She gestured to the spread: vegetables from the garden, fresh herbs, a haunch of venison—perfect—chicken, bacon, fish, butter, cream, eggs, flour, autumn produce in abundance.

“Use what’s here,” Tressa said. “This is what you’d have to work with on any given night when the suppliers can’t get across.”

“Ten dishes,” Grace repeated, already moving toward the vegetables, her hands reaching for a butternut squash like she was greeting an old friend.

“And before either of you ask,” Margaret said, her tone brooking no argument, “I won’t stand for any nonsense about gluten-free this or dairy-free that. If people have real allergies, that’s different, but I won’t have my kitchen turned into a restaurant with a menu longer than the Bible. You cook good food, people eat it, and that’s what guests are told before they book.”

Grace and Reese exchanged looks: the first moment of shared understanding since they’d arrived. Looked like both of them had clocked the same issue, that the Blackwells’ approach might have worked in the 1980s, but in the 2020s, dietary restrictions were standard. Something they’d both need to address if either of them took over this place.

Of course, neither said it out loud.

“Two hours,” Margaret said, checking her watch. “Dinner’s at six.”

Tressa poured some wine for them both. “I’ll be in the parlor if you need anything else,” she said.

“But she won’t be holding your hands, she’s got our other guests to tend to,” Margaret added. “This is your show.”

The two women left Grace and Reese standing on opposite sides of the kitchen island, ingredients between them like a battlefield.

Rolling up her sleeves, Grace set to work, pulling out pans, checking the oven temperature, her movements efficient.

Reese watched her for a beat—the way she handled a knife, the confidence in her movements despite the nerves he knew were underneath—then turned to his own station.

He hadn’t cooked for people in years. Usually he ate at restaurants or had food delivered or grabbed whatever was easiest. But his mother had taught him the basics and some of his most vivid memories were of their tiny kitchen, her patient hands showing him how to properly dice an onion, how to taste as you went, how to cook with love even when you were exhausted.

Show them what you’re made of, he imagined her whispering.

Reese reached for the venison, his hands remembering the weight of a good knife, the satisfaction of preparing something real.

Across the kitchen, Grace had already started her prep, her focus absolute.

Game on.

Fourteen

Grace

Grace reached for her knife, breathing in the scents of fresh herbs, good butter…and the chance to show Reese Spencer what it took to create a great meal.

This was her territory. Not boardrooms or pitches or financial projections that could be picked apart by corporate robots with more money than heart. This—the alchemy of turning raw ingredients into something that made people feel cared for—this she knew how to do.

She watched Reese as he moved around the kitchen. She had to admit, there was a confidence to the way he cooked, the way he reached for ingredients without hesitation, like he actually knew what he was doing. A smudge of flour had somehow appeared on his jaw and his dark blond hair was even more disheveled than before, pushed back carelessly with what were probably the same hands that had just been flouring meat.

He looked…competent. Annoyingly, unfairly competent. And attractive in that way that happened when you watched someone be good at something they weren’t supposed to be good at.

Reese caught her staring and she quickly looked back down at her butternut squash.

Stop it. Focus. This is a competition, not a dating show.

“Your presentation was good,” he said. “The sketches, the vision. You made them see what this place could be.”

She looked up again, surprised. But then maybe this was all part of the act, the Ted Bundy of the business world. All charm until he put the knife in. “That’s because I do have a vision for this place, have done for years.”