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Alec and Maren sat in two side chairs, moving them fairly close so that they could both consult the tile rack and move around the letters.
The game proceeded smoothly, with the pairs evenly matched. Drinks were refilled and conversation flowed, making for an enjoyable evening.
Mark cheerily advised Dan, “Don’t ever play poker, man. Your face lights up whenever you get good letters.”
At one point, Alec and Maren had on their wooden rack, e, a, o, r, i, u, and h.
Alec leaned over and whispered to Maren, “Five vowels is not good.” Her hair smelled like fresh flowers.
He needn’t have worried about the vowels.
Maren rearranged the letters on their holder—e, u, h, o, i, r, a—and leaned over to whisper in Alec’s ear. “Euphoria.”
Alec glanced at the board, spotting the open and available ‘p’ in the previously played ‘helper’.
Yes, well, her warm breath in his ear and her sweet scent was indeed a certain kind of bliss.
He nodded, pretending he wasn’t at all intrigued by her proximity, or any and every other thing about her that charmed him.
It wasn’teuphoria, but Maren laying downbazaarthat won the game, landing on a triple word score and adding fifty-one points to their total, edging out Mark and Emily by three points. Dan and Rachel weren’t far behind, only six points below them.
Mrs. Adamczyk remarked, “I’ve always thought a lot could be assumed or known about a person by how well they lose at Scrabble—or any board game, or in sports, any competitive thing really. Losing and how they deal with it reveals volumes about a person’s character and resilience. Kudos to all of you, for handling the loss so well. What polite people you are.”
Her husband gently reminded her, while not at all attempting to conceal his smirk, “And to you, dear, since we came in last place.”
“Yes, well, that was your fault for drawing such terrible letters from the bag.”
Chapter Nine
Saturday
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Saturday morning started well and wonderfully, with a clear blue sky. Sadly, little time had they to exclaim over this. By nine in the morning, a wall of thick gray clouds began to move in, visible from any window at the front of the house as those clouds rolled in over the lake.
Despite this, Maren was rather pleased that her guests were decidedly more comfortable, mingling and chatting with greater ease, and convening inside the large airy kitchen with Maren as she prepared breakfast.
“Don’t bother setting up a coffee station in the dining room, honey,” Mrs. Adamczyk suggested. “It’s pretty, but only makes more work for you. We can get our coffee and tea right here in the kitchen.”
Alec, Mark, and Dan strode by, all headed toward the back hall.
“We might as well make good use of the clear sky and relatively windless morning,” Mark said in answer to several raised brows. “We’ll do some more clearing before breakfast.”
“You guys are awesome,” Maren said, moving her gaze from one to the next. “Thanks so much.”
They passed a pleasant hour, Maren and the women. Even Rachel joined them in the kitchen and all four of them had a hand in the cooking of breakfast. Mrs. Adamczyk even put her husband to work, telling him he couldn’t be idle while everyone else was busy, instructing him to set the dining room table for breakfast.
Emily convinced Maren she didn’t need more sweets from the Coffee Loft. “There’s plenty of food here, and we still have leftover pastries, and some of that torte from yesterday.”
The guys returned within an hour, just as those stormy clouds moved in. All three of them had armfuls of wood for the fireplaces. Hal followed them in, announcing there was still plenty of snow blowing to do but he’d already worked up quite an appetite. Maren adored that he felt so much at ease, to essentially invite himself in for breakfast.
Maren had just set down the last platter at the table after everyone was seated when Jean Adamczyk’s phone rang.
“Oh, it’s Jasmine,” she said. “I asked her to call me with an update—how do I put the speaker on?”
Dan, sitting next to her, tapped her screen and then Jean laid the phone in the middle of the table. She leaned forward and proceeded to speak loudly as if the speaker was actually a tin can attached to a string.
“We’re all here, honey,” shouted Mrs. Adamczyk. “We just sat down to breakfast.”
