by Nancy Warren
Of course, there hadn’t been any prostitution practiced under this roof for many years and she wasn’t about to give her body for the sake of the town. Oh, no. The truth was, Joe appealed to her. She hadn’t answered his earlier question about her sex life because his cell phone interrupted her, but when she thought about it, the answer was kind of pitiful.
She loved Beaverton, but finding a man with all his own teeth and all his wits was close to impossible. She’d had a couple of love affairs in college, one of which lasted two years, but she’d wanted to come home and her relationship ended with no hard feelings.
She’d gone along quite happily, putting all her energy into getting the Shady Lady up and running as a bed and breakfast. Then, just when her body was reminding her that she was a young woman in her prime, along had come the new doctor to take over old Doc Gazinski’s practice. Dr. Gordon Hartnell was blond, golden, gorgeous. Alexander Skarsgard with a stethoscope. Unlike poor old Doc Gazinski, he was even competent. Even more unlikely, he was single.
She and the good doctor had enjoyed a very nice, very discreet relationship for a year and a half, when Miss Trevellen’s niece came to visit and then came down with severe tonsillitis. Dr. Hartnell may have taken her tonsils, but in return he gave her his heart. They’d been married six months and Terri was expecting her first child. She was one of Emily’s best friends and it was obvious that she and Gord were meant for each other, crazy in love.
Although Emily missed the sex, she found she didn’t miss Gord. She’d decided some time ago that she was essentially a practical woman. Growing up as she had, sex held no mysteries for her and love made people plain crazy. She’d decided that while she enjoyed sex when it was available with a clean, decent man, she didn’t miss it when it was off the menu. And as for love, she didn’t need any more craziness in her life.
But lately she had been feeling a little twitchy. Time to take another lover twitchy, and her pickings were slim indeed. Enter Joe who’d stumbled into her B&B like a storybook prince to the rescue. A modern hero who was hopefully packing more than a kiss.
Last night it would have felt wrong to have sex with the man since she knew he wouldn’t be leaving the next day -- and he didn’t.
Tonight was a different matter -- if she could ever separate him from his damn cell phone for five minutes.
That phone was driving her nuts. And the way it was permanently stuck to his ear plain gave her the creeps. She never knew from one minute to the next whether he was talking to her or to some overworked minion in Manhattan.
An unfamiliar depression settled over her, in spite of the smell of baking bread, one of the best mood-lifters in the world. Joe’s big deal that involved constant communication with people who sounded unpleasant to her, must be the Beaverton mine. She couldn’t imagine how devastated her friends and neighbors would be when their idyllic town with its pleasant fields was churned up. Because she’d done her own research on the Internet, even called a guy from the Sierra club and discovered that you couldn’t get the phosphate without ripping off the top layer of land.
It was such an insult.
If she could make Joe fall in love with the town as others before him had, then maybe he’d help them fight to keep it. But getting him to change allegiance from the bunch of billionaire corporate sharks who seemed to own him body and soul, to a small town full of people who appreciated a simple life and didn’t yearn for more seemed beyond her.
She glanced out the window and there he was, back on that cell phone, gesticulating in tight circles with one hand as he talked, looking like an uptight coach directing football plays, pacing a track through the wet grass. Did he see how pretty her garden was? Did he even notice his feet were getting wet?
On a sudden whim, she poured a glass of lemonade into one of the pink glass tumblers and took it out to him.
“Right. I get that,” she heard him say. “Run the numbers again with the square footage cost estimates and get back to me.”
He didn’t say goodbye, but he rolled his shoulders and stopped talking so she assumed he was done. He hadn’t even noticed her approach. “I brought you a drink,” she said.
He gave her a tired smile and a curt, “Thanks.”
The sun glistened off the fresh water she’d put in the stone bird bath, and the scent of the moss roses at their feet was as poignant as a lover’s memory. She breathed deep.
Joe could have been in a boardroom for all the notice he took. He was typing into an iPad. She set down the lemonade and walked up behind him then put her palms over his eyes.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice sharp with surprise and irritation. “I’m busy.”
Even his eyelashes felt stiff with tension as they scratched against her palms.
If she hoped to make him human again, she was going to have her work cut out for her. “Name three flowers in my garden.”
“I don’t have time for games.” Still, he didn’t pull away and she was suddenly deeply aware that her breasts brushed his upper back. His muscles felt warm from the sun and she noticed a couple of silver hairs among the thick dark strands at the back of his head.
“Come on. Only three.”
“I’m not a botanist.”
“Okay, fair enough.” She glanced around at the climbing roses resting their red cheeks drowsily against the lattice arbor, while fat bees buzzed their way from blossom to blossom. Joe was surrounded by deep blue hydrangeas and bright yellow day lilies, purple clematis and orange poppies. A person would have to be blind not to notice. “Name three colors of flowers in the garden.”
He huffed. “This is ridiculous.”
“How can you come out here and not enjoy it?”
“Red, yellow, blue,” he snapped.
“Congratulations,” she said, and handed him his lemonade. “You know your primary colors.”
She walked back to the house.
“Hey,” he said, following behind her and sounding completely stunned. “I was right!”
“I give up,” she muttered and continued on her way. One thing was clear, the chances that they were going to convert Joe Montcrief to the importance of saving Beaverton, were about as good as him learning the names of all her roses.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
She walked into Ernie’s to find the aunts there with Ernie and his wife and Napoleon and Madame Dior. The atmosphere was gloomy.
The first meeting of the committee to save Beaverton didn’t seem to be going all that well.
She soon found out why. “With the back taxes and penalties, we’re looking at several hundred thousand dollars to get the sanitarium property back,” Ernie explained.
“Then we’d still have to find a way to keep paying the taxes or what’s the point?” Olive added.
“Where are we going to find that kind of money?” she asked, letting some of her despair out.
It was as hopeless as it ever was to discuss how they were going to pay the town’s back taxes. It had seemed like a boon when Emmet Beaver had willed the town his sanitarium; he couldn’t have foreseen it would end up becoming a Beaverton liability.
“Everybody loves bingo,” Olive offered. “What about turning the place into a casino?”
“Where do we get the money?”
At the end of an hour, they’d moved from the casino idea. She’d swiftly vetoed Olive’s idea to reopen the Intimate Healing practice she so missed. But, as bad as her ideas were, Olive was the only one who had any ideas at all.
What they needed, Emily realized, as the meeting wound down with even less optimism than it had begun with, was an advisor. Like Joe, except that Joe was quarterbacking for the other team.
She and the aunts walked back together along with Madame Dior who’d decided to join them and she felt so bad that she made them all a cup of tea and then spent a good half hour bitching about big business in general and Joe in particular.
The bitch session didn’t solve anything but at least she felt marginally better wh
en she went outside to pick fresh herbs to put on tonight’s roast chicken.
Lydia was still watching Emily’s departing back when Olive said, “I thought we’d never get rid of her. Now, all we have to do is to make Joe and her fall in love. He’s smart enough and rich enough to save the town, and she needs a good man.”
“What about me? Maybe I’ll find someone rich enough to save the town. I got lots of interest from that dating site.”
Olive snorted. “What would you do with a good man? You haven’t had sex in twenty years.”
“Oh, go ahead and laugh. I’ve had people send winks and messages and even want to meet me – and the site’s got my picture.”
“From this millennium?”
“This millennium’s barely started.”
“People think it’s a joke!”
“What do you think I am? Stupid?”
“I bet your suitors are all teenage boys with a sick sense of humor.”
“I’ve got one guy whose handle is Eyes4U. No teenager would remember that song. It used to be my favorite when…” Lydia’s eyes grew misty and Olive, who knew why, reached over to pat her hand.
“I suspect his handle is slipping and his eyes are long gone. Along with the rest of him.”
“We’re supposed to be finding out how to enchant Joe and Emily so zey fall in love,” Madame Dior reminded them.
“Emily doesn’t believe in love,” Olive said, the lines on her face suddenly deepening. “How could she grow up in this place and not believe in love?”
“She’s not a romantic, that’s all.”
“Then Joe will have to throw every romantic trick at her. Because a woman who’s never loved is going to fall hard when she finally does fall.”
Lydia sighed. Wasn’t that the truth. Why had no one ever told her when she was young and so full of herself that one day she’d be old and wrinkled on the outside, but inside she’d still feel like the same girl? That the one great love of her life would be as sharp and poignant at seventy-five as it had been when she was forty. Okay, so she was old and batty. Well, she wasn’t as old and batty as Olive. And she didn’t steal things or pretend she was French. Damn it, she was a bastion of sanity in this crazy place. And maybe she could give Emily what she’d had to give up. The love of a lifetime.
“We don’t want her to get hurt,” Olive said.
“Love hurts,” Lydia said without thinking. She must have sounded sadder than she meant to for the others stared at her. Olive’s eyes got soft.
“Don’t worry,” Olive said. “We’ll make sure they fall in love.”
“And how do you plan to do that?”
Olive smiled and her faded blue eyes twinkled. “Dr. Beaver’s special tonic.”
Lydia nearly swallowed her tongue. “What are you talking about? The last of the tonic was used years ago.”
“I found a bottle a few years back. I couldn’t believe there was one left.”
Lydia felt her eyes bug out so wide she was afraid her eyeballs would pop out and skid down her face. “Why didn’t you tell me? I had a right to know.”
“What would you have done with the tonic?”
“I’d have used it!”
“Exactly. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“Of what are you talking?” asked Madame Dior. When she felt left out of a conversation she got Frencher than frog’s legs.
“There was a sort of medicine that Dr. Emmet used to prescribe for patients. It helped focus their libido. When Dr. Beaver died, the recipe died with him and there were only a few precious bottles left. The stuff was amazing – sort of a love and lust potion in one. If we slip it to Joe and Emily, they’ll have great sex, fall in love, Joe will stay and the town will be saved.”
Madame Dior gasped. “Dr. Emmet Beaver passed away decades ago. You can’t feed that stuff to people now. Why, it could have turned into poison.”
“Well, that’s true.” Olive’s face creased in a frown. “Or it could have got stronger with age.”
“You’d be better to sell the stuff to make money than waste it on Joe and Emily. Why don’t you give it to me?” Lydia suggested. “I could sell it on eBay.”
“Nonsense. You just want the tonic for yourself.”
Damn, that Olive was always too smart for her own good.
“Okay, so we waste the stuff on Emily and they get friskier than a pair of teenage rabbits. So what?”
“You’re thinking small. They fall in lust, they fall into bed. This stuff doesn’t only enhance the libido, it dampens inhibitions and spurs creativity. A little of this mixed with any alcohol and kaboom! They’ll have such a fantastic time, it will hasten the falling in love process.” Olive chuckled. “There’s no time to lose. We’ll feed it to them at dinner. We’ll need our earplugs tonight.”
“There’s only one bottle left,” Lydia complained. “Why can’t I take it down to the bingo hall on my birthday?”
“Which is more important? An octogenarian orgy or saving this town?”
When Lydia didn’t immediately answer, Olive snapped, “Well? Did you fall asleep?”
“I’m thinking.”
“We have to save the town.”
She was right, but it didn’t make Lydia happy to admit it. “Oh, all right. But you’d better come up with a very nice present on my birthday. No more support hose.”
“Support hose are practical.”
“So’s a casket -- maybe I’ll get you one of them for your birthday.”
As Emily walked by Joe, who was arguing with yet another faceless business associate, she wondered if she’d ever find peace again in this garden. It was beginning to sound like the trading floor of the stock exchange.
Unable to resist their lure, she touched the velvet petals of a True Love and on impulse cut a few stems for the dining table. Then she headed for the small brick planter that was her kitchen garden.
The sage was in bloom, its fuzzy purple flowers making her smile. The rosemary was dark, shiny green and she rubbed a piece between her fingers and inhaled the released aroma. Yes, she decided, rosemary. What else? She snipped some garlic chives and parsley. That would do. Simple was best.
As she walked past Joe once more, she said, “Are you eating here tonight?”
Joe said, “Hang on a minute.” To his client, she presumed and actually looked at her for the first time in hours.
“I’ll be working late so if you’re offering, yes, I’ll eat here.”
“Of course I don’t mind.”
“Put it on my bill,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” Like she was the Plaza Hotel. Sheesh. You wouldn’t get garden raised rosemary and Idaho potatoes grown right here in Idaho in some fancy schmancy hotel.
Not that he’d notice. She could feed him his own shoes and he’d eat them.
He was a sad, sad case. Her garden was one of the most beautiful, relaxing places on earth, and did he bother to watch the new petals unfurling? Did he stop to smell the goddamn roses? No. He stared at the grass. His eyes were pinched with fatigue and his shoulders rode high with the stress she could practically see knotting his neck. Pathetic. But then so was she for caring.
It was, however, nice to cook for someone with a healthy appetite. Aunts Olive and Lydia between them ate what she did, minus anything crunchy or chewy in deference to Aunt Olive’s false teeth. Some days she felt that if she ate another mashed vegetable, she might scream.
When guests stayed in the Shady Lady she was always happy to serve dinner on request. And usually after a night sitting around Belle’s kitchen table, or a night of meatloaf and shooting pool at Ernie’s, they did. She didn’t push dinner because she didn’t believe in taking business away from the tavern and Belle, but she didn’t turn customers away if they asked.
Still, it would have been nice to have Joe sound grateful which ‘put it on my bill’ did not.
By the time dinner was almost ready, and the smell of roasting chicken and vegetables filled the kitchen, she decided
Joe couldn’t keep ignoring his senses forever. Something was bound to slip under his guard, and she wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it was her roast chicken.
“Smells great,” Lydia said, echoing her thoughts as she came into the kitchen. “Want me to set the table?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“I’ll use the good stuff. And I’m putting out wine glasses. A sophisticated man like that comes to dinner, you have wine.”
She pronounced sophisticated with the emphasis on so. SOH-phisticated.
“I don’t think we need wine.”
“Yes, we do. He’ll expect it. And we’ll charge him double the price we paid, like in a real hotel. Besides, Dr. Hartnell said a glass of wine is good for my health. Might be good for your health, too.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my health,” Emily protested.
“Dr. Beaver would have said you were blocking all your electric circuits. A young thing like you should be having sex every night.”
“Dr. Beaver was an old quack who charged people a fortune to come down here and think about nothing but sex. What’s so great about that?”
“Plenty, missy. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
For some reason this subject always irritated her, especially when the aunts ganged up on her. She was all around peeved enough today what with Joe treating her like a servant, and not noticing her food or her garden or – let’s face it – her, that she snapped. Stomping into the dining room she yelled, “What are you suggesting? That I never think about sex?”
“Well? Do you?” Lydia was pulling the good wine glasses from the walnut bow front cabinet where she stored them. The crystal glittered as the older woman thumped it on the table. “A nice young man like Joe comes along and all you do is cook for him.”
“This is a bed and breakfast. It’s not a brothel any more.”
“Well it was a hell of a lot more fun when it was! And I bet that nice young man would love to have sex with you if you gave him half a chance.”
Emily felt like baying at the moon. Instead of doing that, she threw back her head and screamed, “My sex life is none of your business.”
