by Kara Lennox
“I’ve been dying to ride in this car,” Sara confessed. “Do you like it?”
“So far.” It was the most sinfully decadent car he’d ever bought.
“Why didn’t you hire someone to drive your car down from New York, like Cooper did?”
“I didn’t own a car. With the cost of parking and maintenance in Manhattan, using public transportation or taxis makes more fiscal sense. I’ll probably end up selling this one.”
“But what if you want to take a Sunday drive? Or a road trip?”
“It’s easy to lease a car if you really need one.” But he hadn’t taken a road trip since college, and even back then he hadn’t seen the point in it.
“I miss my car,” she said wistfully. “It had over two hundred thousand miles, and I logged every one of them.”
“Maybe time to get a new one then. Old cars aren’t as safe as the new ones, and not as economical or environmentally friendly, either.”
“Yeah, well, if I could buy a new one I would. I’ll have to settle for a used one, once I save enough money.”
At least she understood the concept of saving money. A lot of people didn’t-they wanted to buy everything on credit.
He wondered how people like Sara made it in the world. She was obviously not stupid. She was pretty-more than pretty, actually-and personable. He knew not everyone had been born with the advantages he had, and maybe her parents hadn’t sent her to college, but there were lots of careers that didn’t require a degree.
She could have gone into sales, or gotten an entry-level job at a company and worked her way up. But instead she’d chosen to drift aimlessly-at least, that was the way it appeared to him. He doubted she had any savings or property. “Have you made any plans for retirement?” he asked suddenly.
She stared at him as if he’d just sprouted an extra nose. “Excuse me? I’m twenty-nine. I haven’t planned for next month.”
“Now is the perfect time to start thinking about it. If you saved just a hundred dollars a month-”
“What is this? You’re not going to try to sell me swampland in Florida, are you?”
Obviously he’d made a conversational gaffe. “I just worry about you.”
“Oh.” She backed down a bit. “Well, that’s sweet, but I don’t worry about me, so why should you?”
“Exactly.”
His answer seemed to flummox her. “You hardly know me.”
“We’ve lived under the same roof for almost three weeks now. I know you better than you think.”
She smiled and cocked her head flirtatiously. “And here I thought you didn’t know I was alive. You hardly ever say anything to me.”
That was because she often made him tongue-tied. It certainly wasn’t because he didn’t notice her. With her swirly, bright-colored skirts and tie-dyed shirts and big, dangly earrings, how could anyone miss her? Not to mention that mountain of curly brown hair and those big, soft hazel eyes.
She was watching him carefully with those incredible eyes, and his mind went blank. Talking about finances, he was in safe territory. Anything else, and it was hit or miss.
“I didn’t mean to shut you down,” she said. “If you really want to tell me about how I should save for retirement, I’ll listen.”
He shook his head. “Never mind. I overstepped. I apologize.”
Neither of them said a word the rest of the way to Corpus Christi.
Chapter Two
Sara knew she’d blown it. She’d finally engaged Reece in a conversation-a real conversation, not just Would you like more coffee? or Thanks for breakfast.
But she’d gotten her back up because he’d asked her about her future, and she had a reflexive defense mechanism built in about that. Every time she visited her parents, they hammered her about how she chose to live her life.
Reece obviously disapproved of her, too. When he’d said he worried about her she’d softened, but it was too late-her reaction had sent him right back into strong-and-silent mode.
She wondered what to do next. She’d never been timid where men were concerned, and if she saw one she liked, she let him know, and she persisted until she found out whether there was any interest in her.
The jury was still out with Reece. She hadn’t flirted openly with him, since Miss Greer would not have approved of her hitting on guests. Yet she felt a certain chemistry at work whenever they were in the same room.
Once they reached the hospital, Sara sat in Miss Greer’s treatment room while Reece took care of the paperwork. He stuck his head in the door once to see how their patient was doing, but then he disappeared again.
Maybe he didn’t like being around sick people. But when he returned a short time later with a doctor in tow, insisting that he take a look at Miss Greer now, she realized he was just doing his man thing-solving problems, making things happen. She had tried to snag a doctor in the hallway-twice-but they’d blown her off. She was doubly glad she’d insisted on Reece coming to the hospital, or Miss Greer might have waited in the treatment room being systematically ignored till the cows came home.
“We need to get some X-rays,” the young doctor declared. “You two can wait out front.”
Reece wasn’t good at waiting, she soon discovered. He spent a lot of time outside the hospital’s glass doors, pacing and talking on his cell phone. He looked at his watch a lot.
Sara didn’t even wear a watch. If she needed to know the time, she could look at her cell phone-if it was charged.
At one point Reece disappeared, but when he came back he brought her an apple and a cup of coffee from the cafeteria. A peace offering, perhaps? Or maybe he just didn’t want her passing out from hunger.
Finally a nurse called them back. Miss Greer had been returned to her treatment room, looking none too happy. A doctor was waiting for them-a different one.
“Your grandmother’s hip is broken,” he said matter-of-factly. “The joint was in bad shape to begin with. If she wants to walk again, we’ll have to replace the hip.”
“She’s not our-” Sara started to say, but Reece nudged her with his elbow. She cleared her throat. “Then of course she should have the surgery. Right, Grandma?”
“I told the doctor just to give me some crutches and let me go home,” Miss Greer grumbled, “but he doesn’t listen.”
“How long will she be in the hospital?” Reece asked.
“Given her age, at least a few days. But once she’s home, she’ll need a lot of help. We’ll assign a home-health aide and a physical therapist, but she still can’t stay alone-not for at least a month.”
“She has me,” Sara said. “I live with her.”
“I can help, too,” Reece said.
“Good. Then you want to proceed with the surgery?”
“Excuse me, Doctor,” Miss Greer said, “it’s my hip that’s broken, not my brain. Stop talking like I can’t hear you.”
Sara bit her lip. It was refreshing to hear her landlady giving someone besides her an earful, for a change. “Grandma, you want the surgery, right?”
“No, but if there’s no other way to get better, I guess I’ll have to do it.” She looked at her own watch. “Oh, Holy Ghost, the guests will be arriving any minute and no one is there to greet them.”
“They’ll let themselves in,” Sara said reassuringly.
An orderly came to transfer Miss Greer to a room, leaving Sara and Reece standing alone in the hallway. She looked at him, eyes full of worry. “Why don’t you go back to the Sunsetter? I want to stay for a while longer and make sure she’s taken care of.”
“How will you get home?”
She shrugged. “Oh, I’ll find a way, I always do.”
Reece could just imagine. Would she hitchhike? Take a bus? “What if I come back in a while to get you?”
“That’s a lot of driving.”
“It’s only forty minutes. I don’t mind.” He really didn’t mind. The woman was exciting to be around, even if she did keep him in a constant state of semi-aro
usal. Anyway, what else did he have to do?
He had already set up the bookkeeping for Remington Charters, the business he and his cousins had inherited from their uncle. He could have gone home a week ago, and really he should have. But he’d been dragging his feet, pretending there was more work to do, and not quite sure why. For the first time in his life he wasn’t eager to return to his office and the numbers he loved.
Numbers were reliable. He understood them. He could rely on them to behave. Beautiful, wild, chestnut-haired women, on the other hand, were a complete mystery to him.
But he now realized Sara was at least part of the reason he hadn’t rushed home to his job, although she clearly was a most unsuitable woman for him.
Relationships were all about compatibility. Having the same interests, the same values. The fact that she got his juices flowing simply wasn’t enough.
“Well, if you really don’t mind driving all that way,” Sara said, “I’d appreciate it. Miss Greer will rest easier knowing someone is looking after the guests.”
“What rooms should I put them in?” Reece asked.
“The Silversteins always like the Orchid Room…no, wait, maybe that’s the Canfields who like to stay there. They’re coming next week…or the week after. But for sure, put the Taylors in the Tea Rose…or maybe it’s the Lilac Room.” She waved a dismissive hand. “It’s in the calendar at the front desk.”
Miss Greer wasn’t kidding about Sara being bad with the details. She was intelligent and well-read. He’d often seen her tucked into the window seat in the side parlor, reading something really dense like Proust or Hemingway.
Yet she was a disaster when it came to numbers and details. Why was that?
“I should go,” Reece said. “I’ll come back around eight o’clock. We can grab a bite afterward, if you want to.” He held his breath. Had he actually just invited Sara Kaufman to have dinner with him?
She surprised him with a warm smile. “I’d like that. Ooh, I heard about this great restaurant not too far from here. I’ve been dying to try it.”
“Okay, sounds good.” And it saved him the agony of coming up with some place to take her that she would enjoy.
SARA WAS WAITING in front of the hospital when Reece pulled up precisely at eight o’clock. She waved and trotted toward the car, jumping into the passenger seat. The car suddenly seemed a more cheerful place, filled with her colors and the scents of vanilla and cinnamon that swirled around her wherever she went.
She looked a little tired, but as usual she was smiling. “Right on time.”
“I hate being late.” Besides, he was hungry. He usually ate dinner early, went to bed early, woke up early. He liked getting to the office before anyone else, when he could really concentrate in the quiet. Just him and the numbers.
“Did you get the guests checked in?” Sara asked.
He nodded. “When I got back I found the Silversteins roaming about the living room a little puzzled by the fact no one was there to greet them. But when I explained about Miss Greer’s accident, they were completely understanding. The other two couples arrived right after. I got them all settled into their rooms.”
Then, because he’d promised Miss Greer, he’d listened to messages, returned phone calls and taken three reservations. Business was certainly heating up as summer approached.
“How is Miss Greer?” he asked as he pulled away from the curb without any clue where they were going.
“Resting comfortably. She’s scheduled for surgery first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, they gave her some pain meds that worked pretty well, though they made her a little bit loopy.”
“Loopy?” That was hard to imagine.
“She thought she was a little girl, and she spoke in German. Did you know she came over from Germany right after the war?”
“I truthfully don’t know anything about Miss Greer. She’s not exactly chatty.”
“Sometimes when she’s baking, she’ll let things slip.”
“Speaking of baking…” Reece said, “I assume you’ll want to be at the hospital for Miss Greer’s surgery tomorrow.”
“Yes, of course,” Sara said passionately. “Someone has to be here for her. But what does that have to do with baking?”
“What about breakfast?”
“I can grab something here.” Then she gasped. “Oh, my gosh, who’s going to feed the guests?”
Exactly what Reece was wondering.
Sara looked at him, her eyes beseeching. “I don’t suppose you’d-”
“Oh, no. I don’t even know how the coffeemaker works. Where are we going, by the way?”
She looked around, orienting herself. “Turn right at the light. Reece, you have to do breakfast. It’s easy. I’ll get everything ready for you. All you have to do is pull things out of the oven. Then there’s just the easy stuff-orange juice, yogurt, toast-oh, shoot, I need to bake bread, too.” She looked at her watch. “Maybe we shouldn’t do dinner after all.”
Reece was surprised at how disappointed he felt. He wanted to take Sara to dinner. “I’ll help,” he said. “I guess if I don’t actually have to cook, I can handle it. As soon as we’re done with dinner, we’ll go back and I’ll help you all I can to get ready for tomorrow.”
Her smile lit up the whole car. “Great.”
Yeah, great. He wondered if he should refund the Silversteins and the others some of their money. Part of the appeal of a B and B was a fancy, fabulous breakfast. But with Reece in charge, he was afraid it would be distinctly non-fabulous. He would shoot for edible.
“Just so you know, cooking was the one Boy Scout badge I never got. And I made it to Eagle Scout.”
“You were a Boy Scout? That’s so cute.”
Cute? He didn’t want Sara to think of him as “cute.” But he supposed “hot and studly” was out of the question.
“Sara, where are we going again?”
She looked around. “Oh, shoot. I forgot to tell you to turn at the last light.”
“No problem.” Reece made a U-turn. “So where is it?”
“I’m not sure of the exact address, but I think I know how to get there.”
“And what’s this place called?”
“I don’t remember, exactly. But I think it’s an Indian place. Or maybe Pakistani. Maybe there’s an elephant on the sign.”
Pakistani food? No, thanks. Despite the fact New York had ethnic restaurants on every corner, he was a meat-and-potatoes man. Spicy, foreign food had never done anything but give him heartburn. He didn’t even like pepperoni on his pizza.
Well, maybe he could get a hamburger. Few restaurants would refuse to cook a hamburger.
“I think you turn left at this next light,” Sara said uncertainly.
“You think?”
“It’s around here somewhere, don’t worry.”
Easy for her to say, but he hated not knowing where he was. It would never occur to him to wander around until he found a restaurant that he sort of knew the location of. If he’d been the one planning dinner, he would have found the name and address of the restaurant, programmed the information into his satellite navigation system and followed the directions.
“Want to look at the map?” He pointed to his GPS, which showed their current location.
“Oh, I can’t make heads or tails of maps. It’s easier for me to find things by feel.”
They wandered around for another fifteen minutes, making what Reece knew were increasingly random turns, until it became clear they were hopelessly lost.
“I saw a steak house back that way,” Reece said. “We could try that.”
Sara wrinkled her nose. “Steak is so boring. I know I can find this place. Give me five more minutes.”
In five more minutes he was going to start eating the leather on the dashboard. But he obliged her and, miracle of miracles, after a couple more turns, they found themselves at a strip shopping center in the middle of which was a sign with a red goat on it. The restaurant was called Sofia, an
d it was neither Indian nor Pakistani, but Bulgarian.
“That’s it!” Sara cried triumphantly. “I told you I could find it.”
“If we drove every street in Corpus Christi, we’d find it by process of elimination,” he grumbled. “Anyway, I don’t see an elephant.”
She punched him lightly on the arm. “Don’t be a spoilsport. We’re here, aren’t we? And that goat looks like an elephant.”
They were somewhere. Which was not cause for celebration as far as Reece was concerned. He would’ve preferred the steak house. Yes, he was set in his ways. But he liked his ways.
“I’m not eating goat meat,” he said, though he did pull into a parking place. He could at least give the place a try, since Sara seemed to be so excited about it.
“You’ve never eaten goat?”
He pulled a face. “Have you?”
“Sure. In Mexico, cabrito is served everywhere. It’s good.”
“It’s goat meat.”
“Well, I’m sure this place serves something you’ll like.”
The restaurant was kind of interesting, he had to admit, reminding him of something you might find in the Village. The décor was dark and red and suitably exotic, and everyone who worked there appeared to be actually from Bulgaria. The mouthwatering smell of grilled meats made Reece’s stomach growl. Maybe this wouldn’t be so horrible after all.
The prices were certainly reasonable. Not that he minded paying premium prices for really good food.
Sara ordered Bulgarian red wine, cold cucumber-yogurt soup, and some kind of pepper stuffed with meat and rice.
“Do you have a hamburger?” Reece asked when the waiter turned to him. “Or a plain beef steak?”
Sara and the waiter wore twin expressions of horror.
“Reece,” Sara said, “you can’t come to a restaurant like this and order hamburger. I’m not sure they even serve beef here. Don’t you want to try something interesting?”
