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“Mmhm. And your concern certainly wouldn’t have anything to do with how delectably they’ve all grownup.”
“All of them? Have you forgiven Damonalready?”
“Five days is long enough to hold a grudge. After that it becomes unseemly, unless the matter is truly dire. And heispossibly the most delectable of thebunch.”
“Well, you can ogle them while I see if I can make up for the jobs their parents lost.” I pushed open the door. “I’m engaged,remember?”
“Oh,Iremember,” Phil said, peeking at me coyly over her fluttering fan. “Anyway, an engagement doesn’t forbid you from admiring thescenery.”
I wrinkled my nose at her and headed down the walk. I’d only made it halfway to the gate when the last voice I wanted to hear reached myears.
“Rosalind, where are you offto?”
I stopped, glancing back. My stepmother was peering out of the house. I willed my expression to stay relaxed. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I even had an excuse all linedup.
“Heading into town,” I said. “I told Derek I’d pick up samples of some decorations I saw that might do for the wedding reception.” The consort ceremony would be a private matter, but our wedding after would be a more typical to-do. “I was thinking of grabbing lunch while I was there too,” I added, just to buy myself more time. “Unless you needed me for something here at thehouse?”
“No, no,” Celestine said, with a smile so unexpected I had to restrain a flinch. “I’m glad to see you so interested in the preparations already. Take your time, enjoy yourself.” She flipped her hand in the air. “You know I can find you if I do needyou.”
She had to get that little jab in, didn’t she? To remind me that if she really wanted to track me down, her magic could do it for her in a matter ofminutes.
Before I had a chance to decide how to answer, she’d disappeared back into the house. “Douglas!” I heard her call out to herassistant.
Philomena raised her eyebrows. “What’s she so pleased about? She looked like the cat that got thecream.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’ll takeit.”
I dodged puddles along the gravel shoulder of the road all the way into town. When I got there, my first stop wasn’t the paper-craft shop, which really did have some nice decorations, but a modest two-story house at the south end oftown.
“Come in!” Mrs. Lennox’s warm voice called when I knocked. I eased open the door. The mouth-watering scent of fresh-baked scones immediately filled mynose.
Snuff my spark, I’d missed that smell. We’d had a good kitchen staff in Portland, but no one who could top Ky and Seth’s mom in the bakingdepartment.
I ventured through the cozy living room to the eat-in kitchen, which took up about two thirds of the first floor. “The woman has priorities,” Phil observedapprovingly.
But it wasn’t just the woman. Mrs. Lennox shot me a quick smile of welcome as she bustled between the cupboards and the thick oak table she was setting. Beyond her, Kyler was prodding a sizzling frying pan with a spatula. He glanced over at me and grinned. “Just intime.”
“Just in time for what?” I said, taking in the spread already covering the table. A basket of those scones and neat little sandwiches on rolls, a platter of fresh fruit, a pitcher of iced tea… “I was supposed to just be stoppingby.”
“Come on now. I can’t have you back for the first time in ages and not give you a proper meal,” Mrs. Lennox chided. She set down the last of the napkins and turned to face me. “What a young woman you’ve grown up into. You’ll make your father proud,clearly.”
“Yeah,” I said, overwhelmed. I hadn’t meant for her to go to any trouble for me. And she sounded awfully upbeat about the man who might have had both her and her husband fired. I fumbled for a less fraught subject. “Since when do you cook?” I askedKy.
“Oh, years now,” he said cheerfully, scooping caramelized onions into a pot that looked like it contained soup. “It’s an awful lot of chemistry, you know. Different materials combined, subjected to heat and motion. Every dish is a newexperiment.”
His mother cupped her hand by her mouth. “And sometimes they taste like onetoo.”
“I heard that!” Ky said, but he was still grinning. He motioned me over. “Here, try thisout.”
I squeezed past the table to join him by the stove. He’d obviously been helping with the baking too. A few of the tawny waves of his hair had a dusting of flour. There was a smudge of the stuff on his high cheekbone. His gray-green eyes sparkled as he held out a spoon tome.
When I opened my mouth to taste, he touched my jaw lightly with his free hand. My pulse skipped in the second before the spoon reached my lips. A sweetly smoky tomato flavor filled mymouth.
“That’s really good,” I said, making myself take a step back in the hopes a little distance would settle my thumping heart. “A successfulexperiment.”
Ky shot a triumphant glance at his mother. “I told you the paprika was the rightcall.”
She waved him off. “You do what you like as long as you don’t mess with mydough.”
