When Eric left the room, Robin breathed an unconscious sigh of relief.
“I think Timothy’s mother better start worrying,” Samantha observed wryly. “Things are starting to look pretty interesting around here.”
“What are you talking about?” Robin questioned, even though she already had a good idea.
“You and Eric.”
“There is no ‘me and Eric.’”
“That’s not what I saw from over here.”
“I thought you were reading your letter.”
“I was.”
“Then—”
“I finished it.”
“There is no me and Eric,” Robin repeated.
“Uh-huh.” It was obvious Samantha didn’t believe her, and Robin flashed the girl an irritated look.
Samantha uncoiled from the chair. “I don’t suppose it’s very smart of me to annoy the cook when she’s wielding a knife.”
“Don’t you have some windows to clean or something?” Robin muttered.
“Mirrors,” Samantha corrected her. “I have to clean the mirrors.”
Robin lifted an eyebrow and tapped her foot. It was a signal the line chefs in the kitchen of Le Jardin knew well.
Samantha snapped a mock salute and disappeared into the utility room. A minute later she marched out, glass-cleaning equipment in hand, along with a feather duster which she’d propped over her left shoulder.
Robin started to chuckle, only to turn serious again when her thoughts returned to Eric Marshall. With no one watching, she took her frustration out on the vegetables, making quick work of the remainder of the celery, carrots and onions. In a few seconds she was done.
“Wow!” David said admiringly from the kitchen doorway.
Robin’s head jerked up. She’d thought he was down the street with his French tutor!
He stepped into the room, an awed smile still tilting his lips. “I didn’t know anyone could cut like that! How did you do it?”
In the two weeks Robin had been at Heron’s Inn, she had worked diligently to keep her secret. She tried to make light of the situation. “I didn’t do anything special.”
“Do it again,” he urged her.
Robin collected the cut vegetables into several plastic refrigerator containers. “I have all I need.”
“Aw, come on. Please?”
“I don’t like to waste food.”
He flipped the top from the celery container and reached inside. “Just like one of those machines,” he murmured, letting the uniform slices slip between his fingers.
“You should wash your hands before you handle food,” Robin chastised. She pulled the box away and stored it on a refrigerator shelf.
“Don’t get all bent out of shape,” David said as he leaned against the counter. “I came to ask if you’d like to go for a bike ride.”
“You mean now?” she asked, surprised.
His rare smile was just like Eric’s. That same flash of easy charm. “I didn’t mean tomorrow.”
“I can’t now,” she answered. “I have to make dinner.”
“Dinner can wait.”
“No, it can’t.”
“You’re the cook. Dinner is when you say it is.”
“That’s right. I am the cook. I have certain responsi—”
“You’re beginning to sound like Eric!” he interrupted sharply. “Am I going to have to start calling you Saint Robin?”
“That’s entirely up to you,” she said levelly. “Any other time, David, I’d love to come. But right now I can’t. Please try and understand.”
He continued to look at her, a mixture of emotions passing through his blue eyes. The sentiment he settled on was aggrieved petulance. “If you don’t want to go, just say so. I have other things I can do, and other people I can do them with.”
Robin wondered if she was cutting off all future contact with the boy, but she stood her ground. “That’s not what I said. But if that’s the way you feel, go ahead.”
“I will.” David ground the words out. He pushed away from the counter and disappeared into the hall. Seconds later, the front door slammed shut.
Robin’s frustration mounted. She’d wanted to grow closer to David, to help him if she could. So what did she end up doing? Send him off in a huff the first time he made a substantial move toward friendship. But at least he had reached out. She could only hope that he would do it again.
At the edge of her field of vision, a subtle movement caught Robin’s attention. She turned, wondering if David had come back. But David wasn’t there. Neither was anyone else. She frowned, fruitlessly searching the area again. She would have sworn…
Goose bumps lifted the hair on her forearms and at the back of her neck. A ghost? She swallowed remembering the shadows Eric told her Bridget had seen. She tried to convince herself that she was mistaken. She hadn’t seen anything. But if nothing was there, if nothing had moved, what had drawn her attention?
She reached out to the counter for support. And it was at that moment Eric strode into the room.
SHE WAS PALE AND LOOKED as if her legs no longer wanted to support her. Eric hurried to her side.
Placing a protective arm around her shoulders, he demanded, “What happened? I heard the front door slam. What did David say? What did he do?”
“It wasn’t David,” she replied shakily. She drew away from him and cleared her throat. “I thought I saw—nothing. I saw nothing. I’m perfectly all right.”
“You don’t look perfectly all right to me.”
“I am! I just—”
“Come on,” he urged her. “Sit down before I have to peel you off the floor.”
She allowed him to assist her into the same chair Samantha had used earlier. He waited for her to collect herself. When he sensed that his looming height was uncomfortable to her, he hunkered down on one knee so that their heads would be nearer the same level.
He examined her closely. Something had unnerved her, and he didn’t fully believe the cause not to be David. “Would you like something to drink?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Water,” he explained, unsure if she had understood his offer.
Once again she shook her head. Her brown eyes avoided his.
He brushed a strand of hair away from her face. It was an intimate act that he tried to tell himself was merely solicitous. Still, it released a tumultuous array of emotions inside him. It had been a long time since he’d touched a woman with any feeling of sensuousness. He drew a steadying breath.
“I’m fine…really,” she claimed. “I have to finish cooking dinner.”
When she attempted to stand, he stopped her. “Just stay put for a few minutes. There’s no rush about anything.”
“But I have to have dinner ready on time.”
“Who’s the boss around here?” he demanded with a touch of humor.
“I thought I was—in the kitchen.”
“Most times, yes. At this moment, no. We can’t have you reporting us to the Labor Relations Board as bad employers.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Or picketing the place.”
“I wouldn’t do that, either.” A little of her normal color had returned under his good-natured teasing.
“Or writing to Bridget that I’ve been a bad boss. My life would be hell when she got back.”
“You aren’t afraid of Bridget, are you?”
“I’m terrified!”
She laughed, but she gave an uneasy glance over her shoulder.
After a moment, he prompted her softly. “Would you like to tell me what happened?”
“I think…I may have seen your ghost,” she admitted.
His first reaction was to say “You’re kidding!” But he held back because of the way she’d looked when he first entered the room. She hadn’t been pretending. Instead, he said, “We don’t have any ghosts here, remember?”
“Then your shadow. I saw something. At least, I sort of did. It was…over t
here.” She motioned in the direction of the stove. “I know this sounds crazy. I’d think that myself if I hadn’t seen it. Except…I’m sure I saw something move. Just out of the line of my vision.” She hesitated. “You’ve never seen it?”
He shook his head. “Never.”
She sighed and looked away from him.
Eric found himself wanting to reclaim her gaze. “But just because I’ve never seen it…” He let the sentence trail off, offering another possibility.
Her warm brown eyes returned to his. He’d never seen eyes that same color. Not in his entire life. And they were set in a face that had started to haunt his every waking moment and even some of his dreams. She watched him solemnly, testing the truth of his resolve. His gaze slid to her lips. They were soft and perfectly curved.
“Thank you for not laughing at me,” she said at last.
Eric nodded slowly. He appreciated that she appreciated his attitude. But at that moment, it wasn’t the most important thing on his mind. He was driven by a need to taste those lips, to experience their warmth, to feel them as they moved beneath his. He couldn’t look away. Then he leaned forward, drawn by an inevitability he could no longer resist.
“Robin,” he breathed. It might have been a question, it might not. She sat perfectly still.
Honey…warm, melting honey. Her lips had an addicting sweetness that offered no cure except more of the same. A thousand tiny wildfires burst into life in his veins.
When he pulled back, she looked as stunned as he felt, as caught up in the moment. She didn’t seem displeased.
He leaned forward to kiss her again, only this time he didn’t plan on pulling away so soon.
She blinked and jerked away from the table, escaping his reach. “Why did you do that?” she demanded, suddenly angry.
He stood up, doing his best to call himself to order. “Because I felt like it.”
“I wish you hadn’t!”
His senses continued to swim. The imprint of her mouth still burned on his. “I’ve wanted to do that for at least a week,” he admitted.
She whirled around, presenting him with her back.
If she hoped to discourage him, it didn’t work. He enjoyed every view of her, the graceful curve of spine and hips, the length of slender thigh.
“Well, don’t do it again,” she ordered.
“That’s not the way it works. Are you telling me you didn’t enjoy it?”
“Yes!”
“Liar,” he said softly.
She moved jerkily to the counter and measured out flour and salt into a wide bowl. She then busied herself at the refrigerator, standing in front of the open door. When finally she closed it, her cheeks were a lighter shade of pink.
Once he realized what she’d done, he smiled. She’d stood in front of the open refrigerator to cool off! If anything could help him regain his equilibrium, it was that. His smile grew into an amused chuckle.
“What are you laughing at?” she demanded irritably.
The front door of the house shut loudly, saving him from having to find an answer. Seconds later, Barbara burst into the room, too wrapped up in her own troubles to suspect that she might be interrupting anything between Eric and Robin.
“Everything’s ruined!” she wailed dramatically. “The reception, the wedding…everything!” Then she threw herself onto that morning’s well-used chair and burst into a torrent of tears.
Robin watched as Eric switched from romantic hero to father figure. His focus immediately changed. He brought the matching Windsor chair around the table so that he could sit close to his sister and pulled her into his embrace. It was as if in his arms she could be protected against all the ills of the world. She gratefully accepted his solace, burying her face in his shoulder while curling her fingers into his shirt. He stroked her thick hair, making occasional soft sounds of sympathy.
Robin forgot the piecrust she had started. She forgot her flare of anger. She remembered her own father holding her in a similar way, whether to console her because a beloved pet had died or because someone she thought to be a friend had been unkind. She hadn’t had such comforting since she was eighteen, since shortly before her father’s death. For a moment her body ached to be held by him again in that very special way.
Barbara tried to regain control. She sat back from her brother’s embrace and rubbed at her wet eyes and cheeks. When Eric offered her a tissue, she blew her nose.
“What’s happened?” Eric asked quietly.
“I’m sorry,” Barbara whispered. Her gaze flitted to Robin and away again, embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to cause such a scene. It’s just—I held it in while I was with Timothy and Eileen. She was about to go through the roof. You’ll probably get a call. I’m truly beginning to worry about her. But she won’t hear of scaling things down. And now the people she hired to make the cakes have gone out of business! One of her friends called this morning to tell her the bad news. We rushed over and the place was shut tight.” Tears again welled in her eyes. “There was a Gone Out Of Business sign and no one will answer the phone. Eileen even called the police, but it didn’t do any good. The people have just picked up and left. With our deposit, with our cakes…or what would have been our cakes.” Tears again rolled over Barbara’s splotched cheeks until they became a stream.
Robin edged closer. Eric glanced at her and then back at his sister. She saw nothing in his eyes to indicate that he recalled what had passed between them such a short time before.
“Can’t you call someone else?” he suggested.
“On such short notice? No. There’s only one other bakery Eileen will even consider and they’re all booked up. It’s June. Lots of people get married in June. She offered them double the money, but—” She swallowed. “I tried to get her to ask someone in Vista Point but she doesn’t want to do it. I ended up yelling at her. It was awful!” she wailed. “I was trying to be so careful. Timothy looked at me as if I’d suddenly grown two heads. But I just couldn’t take it anymore! Now I’m not sure if there’s even going to be a wedding. I tried to apologize, but she’s so determined that the wedding be perfect.” Barbara’s shoulders started to shake and she hid her face in her hands.
Samantha had come to stand in the doorway. “I heard,” she said softly.
Robin cleared her throat. “Uh…possibly I can help.”
Everyone looked at her.
“I—I spent some time working in a bakery,” she continued. “I could make the wedding cakes.”
Her claim was met with silence.
She shifted under their stares. “I could make a test cake, if you like, to give you a sample.”
“You’d do that?” Barbara asked, traces of tears still glistening on her cheeks.
Robin nodded.
Hope brightened Barbara’s expression. “We’d pay you,” she assured her.
Robin declined. “If you agree—if Eileen agrees—we’ll make it my present to you and Timothy. I know I haven’t been here very long, but—”
Barbara jumped up to give her a quick hug, and Samantha hurried over to join them. Robin met Eric’s gaze. His pale eyes smiled in appreciation.
The telephone rang. Samantha ran to get it. “It’s Timothy,” she called a few seconds later. Barbara made a trilling sound and rushed away.
Left alone with Robin, Eric said, “Thank you.”
Robin shrugged. “I couldn’t stand by and let the wedding fall apart.”
“You’re a woman of many hidden talents.”
Samantha popped back into the room. “I hate to interrupt,” she said, “but the Whittakers have arrived and would like to be shown to their room. He seems a bit out of sorts.”
“He’s always out of sorts,” Eric said. “Don’t you remember him from last year? I was surprised when he booked again, after all his complaints.”
“Which room are you giving them? I could show them up,” Samantha offered.
“The large suite in front.”
“The one with the o
versize tub for two?” She grinned. “Somehow he doesn’t look the romantic sort.”
“It’s what he requested,” Eric said.
A few seconds later, a voice raised in protest could be heard coming from the entry hall. “My wife and I want a meal now! We haven’t eaten since we left home. I don’t care if this place doesn’t normally serve lunch. Surely you have some bread and some cheese or something. It can’t be all that difficult to produce.”
Eric sighed. “I should have told him we were full up,” he muttered.
“I can make something if you like,” Robin offered.
“Don’t go to too much trouble.”
“Sandwiches, just as the man said.”
He started to walk away but stopped. “Do you think you could find some extremely old cheese? The moldier the better.”
“I’ll look,” Robin promised.
A few moments later she heard him in the hall, sorting out the difficulty. Then several sets of feet tramped upstairs to the second floor.
When Eric returned to the kitchen sooner than she expected—Samantha must have taken the new arrivals upstairs as she’d offered—he grinned, enjoying her surprise.
“I was kidding about the cheese, of course,” he said easily.
Robin made her eyes very wide. “You were? But I thought—” She motioned to the sandwich she had partially constructed.
“Surely you didn’t take me at my word,” he said tightly as he hurried across the room.
He pulled away the lettuce and tomato to expose the cheese below. The thin slices were beautiful examples of their type, a pale, creamy Swiss. Not one spot of mold marred their hole-filled perfection.
“Another of my many talents,” she quipped softly.
An appreciative smile tugged at his lips. For the moment, he conceded, she had bested him.
CHAPTER SIX
AN UNUSUALLY HEAVY FOG enshrouded Dunnigan Bay and the surrounding coast for most of the next day, and the guests registered at the inn stayed close by. Most of them caused little extra work. They seemed to be enjoying a day spent relaxing around the toasty-warm fire crackling in the living room fireplace, reading books, playing games and engaging one another and the Marshalls in conversation. The Whittakers were the exception.
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