Baked with Love

by Peggy Jaeger

  “I feel the same way, Lucas.”

  He laid his forehead against mine, nuzzled my nose, and closed his eyes.

  “I can’t stay. I wish I could, but I’ve got to head back to the station. I’ve got about a dozen reports I have to file by Monday morning. But I needed to see you, Maureen, hold you, even for just a few minutes.”

  Good Lord. Was it any wonder this man had claimed my heart?

  Lucas’s pager beeped loud and harsh.

  “I’ve gotta go.” He reattached it to his belt after reading the screen. “Pete’s got a situation and needs some help.” He hauled me back into his arms, squeezed, then planted a swift, hard kiss on my mouth. “I’ll call later when I’m free, okay?”

  “You don’t have to ask, Lucas. I’ll see you when I see you, hear from you when you have the time. Don’t worry. I know and understand how busy you are.”

  He cupped my jaw, ran his thumb over my mouth one last, final time, then left.

  Alone again, I took a moment to center myself. The depth of Lucas’s words and the emotion he’d shown me was thought-provoking because their intensity was something I’d never seen from him before. He was a passionate, thoughtful lover, and discovering it had been a top-five event in my life. But his words hinted he wanted more than I could ultimately give him, and I wondered if, by not being honest up front and telling him, this would somehow come back and bite me in the ass at a future date.

  I shook my head and pulled the discarded spoon from the sink. Too many what-ifs about things I couldn’t control would give me a headache, so I went back to making Nanny’s scones and worrying about the fifteen different things I needed to get done before tomorrow came.

  Lucas wasn’t the only one who was busy in this town.

  Chapter 13

  Despite not having any weekend weddings, the next two weeks flew by. I had a full house every day with most of the guests staying a night or two before they were off and another guest checked in. The turnover was akin to what I usually saw during peeping season.

  Lucas had been tied up with police work and was busy as well. It seemed August was a month for kids to get into trouble as the summer wound down and the school year approached. He spent most of his days dealing with recalcitrant, button-pushing teenagers looking for a little trouble and his nights working accidents and dealing with his father who was growing more stubborn and grumpy every day. Our shared time together had consisted of Lucas showing up late at night, spending a few hours in my bed, and then having to leave before dawn to get home and make sure everything was okay before he started his day.

  It was harder to see him go every single time he left, something he commented on, too. But with Robert staying with him, he wanted to spend as much time at home with him as he could, something I understood completely.

  Boyd had come by with the preliminary plans for the bungalows and was all set to start construction at the end of the month. As usual he flirted outrageously with Sarah and me, but I’d finally realized his flirting was as harmless and habitual as my grandmother’s was.

  Speaking of Nanny, I’d taken her to Colleen’s to visit and drop off her baby presents one afternoon when I’d found an hour to take off from the inn. My sister, despite telling us the babies routinely only slept two hours at a clip, looked refreshed and much less tired than she had before their birth. Even Nanny commented on it.

  “For someone with two babes up at all hours, lass, you’re lookin’ almost back to yor normal self. You’ve a bloom in your cheeks and those smudges under your eyes have faded.”

  “From you, Nanny dear…” Colleen laughed. “That’s a huge compliment.”

  Nanny wasn’t wrong. In the span of two short weeks, Colleen’s body had deflated from its pregnancy bloat to the point she was wearing one of her old college sweatshirts. She’d pulled her hair back into a long ponytail and didn’t have a smidge of her usual full-face of makeup on, and still managed to look beautiful.

  “It’s the hormones.” She laughed when I commented on her skin. “A postpartum glow I wish I could bottle. We’d make a boatload of money with it on the open market.”

  I’d brought another supply of food with me, so while I stocked her fridge and pantry, Colleen visited with Nanny, passing the babies back and forth between them.

  “Cathy’s due back tomorrow,” Colleen said as she gave baby Eileen Belle to me.

  “She hasn’t seen the babies since the night they were born,” I said, cradling my niece. “They look so different even in these two weeks.”

  “No lie. Sometimes when I look down at them in their cribs, I think they’ve changed since I put them down an hour ago.”

  “The first year’s a bundle o’ change.” Nanny cuddled her namesake as she sat in Colleen’s rocking chair. “Your father was different from one minute to the next.”

  “Speaking of Daddy”—Colleen lifted her eyebrows at me—“he called the other day to tell me Mom’s doing a bit better, but they’re still not sure when they’ll be able to come and meet their grandchildren. He wanted to know if Slade and I would travel to them instead of them coming here.”

  Nanny mumbled something that sounded remarkably like a curse.

  “You’d think he’d leave her alone for five minutes to come up and see his only grandchildren,” she chided, “but no. You’ll be lucky, lass, if the babes aren’t in college by the time your parents get ’round to coming back here. And I don’t want to hear anything about ya traveling anywhere when the babes are this young. They need stability and constancy, not traipsing hither an’ yon.”

  Colleen nodded. “You, Slade, and I all agree. But it is what it is,” she said, “about Mom and Dad. At least the babies have you around, Nanny, like we did. Cathy and I are blessed you’ll be involved in their lives even if their grandparents won’t.”

  “Ach, lass, that’s a sweet thing to say.” Nanny slanted a sly look my way. “Remind your younger sister, there, I’m not getting any younger though, would ya. I’d like to be around to see her babies, too, but from the looks a things, I’m not holdin’ me breath it’s gonna happen soon.”

  “Sorry to be such a disappointment, Nanny dear,” I said, grinning at her. “You’ll have to make do with only three great-grandchildren.”

  My grandmother is nothing if not devious when the mood strikes her, and from the way she squinted slyly at me from across the room, the corners of her lips lifting into a crooked, wicked smirk, I knew she was up to some devilment. What it was, though, I hadn’t a clue, and because I didn’t, a tiny bit of unease bounced around inside me.

  I was busy kneading bread a few days later when my oldest sister sauntered into my kitchen. It was the first time I’d seen her since she’d come home from her honeymoon.

  “It smells great in here,” she said as she kissed my cheek.

  “You look wonderful,” I told her, taking in the golden tan she sported. “Married life agrees with you.”

  She grinned and poured a cup of tea from the pot I had ready on the stove. With the tin of insomnia cookies in front of her, she filled me in on her two weeks away. My heart sighed at how happy she sounded and how the free and easy smile on her face lit her eyes. If any of us deserved a happily-ever-after ending it was Cathy. With a new husband, a baby on the way, and a rambunctious puppy filling her days and life, she truthfully never seemed better, more relaxed, or content.

  “If you ever take a vacation,” she finished, as she sipped her tea, “you should go to Hawaii. It’s a different world.”

  I laughed. “If I ever take a vacation, I’m gonna spend it upstairs in bed, sleeping. That’s my idea of the perfect vacay.”

  With a shake of her head she said, “You’re too young to be such a fuddy-duddy.”

  “Why is Mo a fuddy-duddy?” Lucas asked, sauntering into the kitchen.

  Like it did every time I saw him now, my heart quickened and my mouth pulled up into happy smile. “Because my idea of the perfect vacation is to spend it in bed and not traipsing
all over the place playing tourist.”

  “I didn’t traipse,” my sister said. “I just didn’t spend my entire honeymoon in bed.”

  When we both grinned at her, Lucas’s eyebrows wiggling suggestively, she blushed, waved a hand in the air, and said, “You know what I mean. Maureen thinks sleeping is the perfect way to spend any free time she gets.”

  “Since she doesn’t sleep more than two hours a night, I can’t fault her for thinking that way,” Lucas said while he reached into a cabinet and pulled out a cup.

  “I just made a fresh pot,” I told him as I formed the bread into the shape I wanted. Then, his statement flittered through me, and a ball of worry sank into my stomach. I sent up a quick prayer Cathy didn’t read anything into his words. We still hadn’t gone public with our relationship, and I didn’t want to give my sister any reason to suspect something was going on between us.

  Cathy accepted the kiss he planted on her cheek, her eyes slitting. “And how do you know Maureen only gets two hours of sleep a night?”

  And here was the reason for my prayer. Thank God Lucas is quick thinking because my mind went blank and I couldn’t conjure an answer fast enough I knew would satisfy her curiosity.

  “You know she doesn’t,” he said, then took a sip of his coffee, his entire demeanor calm and composed as he leaned a hip against my counter. “She’s commented on it more times than I can remember and in your presence, Counselor. Now, how was Hawaii?”

  Cathy is like the proverbial dog with a bone you can’t make let go. “Why are you here? Robert’s not working today. I know because I just saw him downtown as he was going into the library. He told me he’s doing some SAT prep.”

  “Look at you.” Lucas pulled a cookie from the open tin and took a bite, a grin tugging at his mouth. “Heaven’s own lady detective. Maybe I should hire you to ferret out crime in our fair city.”

  Her eyes narrowed even more. Nobody is better at diversionary warfare than Cathy, and even I recognized Lucas was trying to steer her attention away from her own question.

  “You do a fair enough job of it all by yourself. Now, answer me.”

  Lucas took another bite. “If you must know, Miss Nosy—”

  “Mrs., now,” I said.

  His cocky, quick grin made my toes curl in my flip-flops, and I was afraid Cathy would notice.

  “Robert’s the reason I’m here.” To me he said, “I need to discuss a few things about his schedule this week.”

  I placed a towel over the bread and then slid it into the warming tray in my oven to let it rise.

  “Nora called last night, and they’re coming back earlier than planned. Seems her new husband got a job offer, and he needs to start a week from Monday, so since they’re coming home ahead of time, she wants Robert home sooner.”

  “He okay with that?”

  Lucas cupped the back of his neck as he sipped his coffee. “Not really. He told her he wants to stay out the summer, keep working, and stay with me. She wasn’t too happy about it.”

  “Not surprising,” Cathy said as she bit a cookie. “Nora’s not the type who likes when people don’t agree with what she wants. Just saying.”

  “Truth.” Lucas sighed as he sipped his coffee. Dealing with his ex-wife wasn’t a picnic on any day of the year.

  “What’s he going to do?” I leaned back against my counter and crossed my arms in front of me. Lucas’s gaze dropped to the bodice of my apron which today read All this and I can cook, too across the front flap. His lips lifted, and when the smile reached his eyes, it took everything in me not to reach out, grab him, and kiss him silly. The only reason I didn’t was because my older sister would have had heart failure if I had.

  “He convinced Nora to let him stay. But first she’s gonna pick him up Thursday afternoon, take him home for the weekend so they can”—he lifted his fingers in air quotes—“reconnect, then she’s gonna bring him back Sunday so he can finish up his commitment to you. I wanted to let you know in case you need to readjust your worker schedules.”

  “Thanks for giving me a heads-up.”

  He nodded again, and I got the distinct impression from the hungry look in his eyes if Cathy hadn’t been there he would have hauled me into his arms. At least, that was my fantasy.

  He asked my sister about her new husband while he finished his coffee, then glanced down at his pager.

  “Gotta go. Say hey to Mac,” he told Cathy. To me, he reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll…see ya.” When he squeezed it again, I knew he’d left unsaid he’d see me later.

  Silence filled the room in his absence. I shot a look at my sister and knew from the concentrated way she was staring at me she was assessing what she’d just seen. Lucas was her best friend, and she knew him better than anyone else. The way he’d tried to divert her away from asking questions, the subtle glances he’d shot my way—glances filled with what I recognized as desire and wondered if she did too—were characteristics uncommon to him. If I knew it, she did as well.

  Standing there in my kitchen, prepared for a barrage of questions about the man I was hopelessly in love with, Nanny’s voice sounded loud and long in my ear. Whenever one of us had to face something unpleasant in life, she would remind us to gird our loins. Even as a child, I’d known it meant prepare yourself for the worst.

  Heeding her sage advice, I swallowed a deep breath and clamped down on the need to run.

  Cathy sat, her face perfectly composed and her expression blanked. This was the reason opposing counsel in a courtroom was intimidated whenever up against her. They never knew what she thinking; could never guess what would come out of her mouth.

  But I’d grown up with her, and I knew Cathy was never as deadly as when she adopted an air of calm serenity. She was an awful lot like her best friend in that regard.

  And so, I girded my loins.

  “Lucas looks…well,” she said.

  I nodded. Staying silent was always a good tactic with my stealthy sister.

  She mimicked my nod. “Having Robert around is good for him. I know he misses him since they moved.”

  “That’s the truth. He’s smiled more in the past few weeks than in a long, long time, and I know it’s because of his son. He’s such a great kid. It’s sad he doesn’t see Lucas as much anymore. And speaking of—” I clued her in on what Colleen had said about our own parents.

  “Mac and I were talking about maybe taking a long weekend and flying down to see them sometime soon. I want to wait until after the twins are christened, though.”

  “Don’t wait too long, or Nanny will be after you about flying. You know her views on pregnancy and travel.”

  She nodded. “She made them more than clear when I suggested we might go see Mom and Dad. Her exact words were ‘ya don’t want to be poppin’ the babe out on a runway surrounded by strangers lookin’ at your girlie parts, do ya, Number One?’ ”

  Her perfect imitation of our grandmother’s lyrical lilt had me snorting.

  “Colleen does that well,” I said, swiping at my eyes, “but you’ve got her down cold.”

  “A lifetime of listening,” she said. “Well, I’ve gotta get going, too. I haven’t been to the office since I’ve been back, and I can guess what my desk must look like. I’ve no doubt it’s exploding with messages.”

  She stood, her empty teacup in her hand, and walked it to the sink. I let out the breath I’d been holding since Lucas exited, thrilled she hadn’t cornered or grilled me on what—if anything—was going on between us.

  While she rinsed her cup, I slid a few aluminum foil packets of leftovers into a bag for her. “Here. You won’t have to cook later, just reheat.”

  Accepting the bag, she pulled me into a hug. “I’ll thank you on Mac’s behalf since he loves your cooking and on my own since I’m still on vacation mode.”

  I walked her to the front door. Halfway down the steps she turned, grinned at me, and said, “Oh, and Mo?”

  “Yeah?”<
br />
  “I don’t think Robert visiting is the reason for the smile on Lucas’s face.”

  When the import of her meaning broke through, I went stone still, my mouth dropping open. Before I could think of a response, she was in her car and pulling down the driveway.

  Damn.

  For the first time in years, I’d been blindsided. Just because Cathy hadn’t commented on the interaction between Lucas and me didn’t mean she hadn’t noticed it. Since I had personal knowledge of what a cunning tactician she was, I should have realized her silence was meant to throw me off track.

  It had.

  As I closed the front door behind me, my mind flew to different scenarios where I could counter her assumptions.

  It’s been said war is hell.

  That’s a mild way of describing it when it involves family.

  Chapter 14

  Despite my claim I’d spend any vacation time catching up on the missed sleep my chronic insomnia robbed me of, I was actually sleeping better than I had in years, and I had Lucas to thank for it.

  Most nights he managed to come by the inn, routinely between nine and ten p.m. I’d make him something quick to eat, since he always conveniently missed his dinner break, then I’d lock up the inn and we’d go up to my apartment. We’d snuggle together on the couch and talk about our day, watch the late news, and then find our way to my bed where we’d spend a few hours absorbed in pleasuring one another. Sometime during the night I’d fall asleep, Lucas would dress and leave after kissing me awake, and I’d tumble back into a contented sleep for several hours and not the customary two I’d been plagued with for years.

  While sex with Lucas was physically draining, not to mention wildly satisfying, I didn’t think it was the sole cause of my ability to sleep better. In truth, it was because I was happy. Truly happy, for the first time in years. Yes, I still worried about my financial responsibilities for the inn, my sisters’ welfare, and Nanny’s health, but they no longer occupied the top spaces in my subconscious.