by Nerys Leigh
Two weeks ago, she would have pronounced it the best thing she’d ever tasted, but that was before she’d experienced Mrs. Goodwin’s cooking. Was every woman in this town a brilliant cook? She was not going to fit in.
“This is delicious,” she said, pointing at her bowl with the spoon.
“It’s very popular in the restaurant so Mrs. Sanchez makes it a few times a week. Her cooking keeps this place going.”
“I can taste why.” She took another spoonful. If she didn’t keep this down, she was going to be very annoyed.
“But I think the enchiladas are even better,” he said casually, as if he hadn’t just presented her with a terrible dilemma.
She looked at him, then at the plates on the tray, then at her soup.
His lips twitched with amusement. “I don’t think there’s any law that says you have to eat tortilla soup and enchiladas one at a time.”
It was all the encouragement she needed. She put her bowl down and picked up the plate.
He was right, the enchiladas were even better.
“How are you feeling now?” he said as they ate.
“Still tired. I didn’t realise how tired a body could get before today. But Doctor Wilson said I’ll be all right. Thanks to you.”
He shook his head. “I was just in the right place at the right time. That was God’s doing, not mine.”
Zach wasn’t like any man she’d met. Most of them would have been happy to take the credit for saving her. It intrigued her. Understanding human behaviour was her stock in trade.
“Can I ask you something?”
He looked up from his soup. “Of course you can.”
She considered her words. “Are you afraid of God?”
His head tilted to one side a little and she got the feeling he was trying to understand her as much as she was trying to understand him. “No, not in the way I think you mean. The Bible talks about fearing Him, but it doesn’t mean fear in the way you’d be afraid of a bear or a pack of wolves or a spider.”
“I’m not afraid of spiders.”
“Oh, me neither. Nope. Love the eight-legged monsters.” He cleared his throat and she laughed. “It’s not that kind of fear the Bible means. It’s a respect kind of fear. I respect Him and I love Him, but I have no reason to be afraid of Him. Why do you ask?”
She gestured with her spoon. “You give Him all the credit for saving me last night. I just wondered if it was because you were afraid of what might happen if you didn’t.”
“Oh no, I do that because it’s true. Just think about it. You’d been walking for hours and you were on the verge of collapsing when you found the hotel, and I was about to lock the front doors. If you’d got here any later, even just a few minutes, you might have just fainted out there in the rain and I’d never have known you were there. I see God’s hand in all that. Don’t you?”
She shrugged. It was all coincidence to her. “I suppose so.”
He studied her for a few moments before looking down at his soup. “Anyway, you’re here now. I’m just glad about that.”
“I’m glad too.”
He raised his eyes to hers again and for a moment she was caught in their sky blue depths.
She looked away quickly, reminding herself again that she was done with men.
Chapter 12
Jo spent much of the rest of the day resting. Amy, Sara, and Louisa came to see her in the evening and she was glad for their company and sympathy, although she was yawning again after they’d only been there for an hour.
She was deliberately vague about what had happened and they didn’t press her for details. She wasn’t ready to tell them the whole truth yet, although she was beginning to wonder if she’d ever be. What they thought of her shouldn’t matter, and yet it did. She was losing her edge. Maybe it was something to do with being pregnant. Yet another obstacle to overcome.
The next morning when she woke her eyes went immediately to the chair by the fire, but it was empty. Not that she was expecting to see Zach there, but she missed him a little anyway.
It turned out to be a vain hope that she’d be sickness free like she had been the day before. As soon as she stood up, the familiar queasiness hit and she was forced to grab the robe and rush down the corridor to the bathroom. At least the hotel had a bathroom, and, wonder of wonders, a flushing lavatory. She’d only seen indoor lavatories a handful of times before, all of them in the houses of the extremely wealthy, so it was still something of a novelty for her. She was convinced the future of civilisation lay in the proliferation of indoor plumbing.
Feeling much more energetic than she had the day before, once the nausea was gone, she washed, put on the dress Mrs. Sanchez had lent her, and ventured out.
She still couldn’t remember arriving at the hotel so she was surprised to find a very grand lobby at the bottom of the stairs. It wasn’t as large as some of the hotel lobbies she’d been in back in New York, but it was certainly as lavish, with wood panelling on the walls, an elaborately patterned tiled floor, and red velvet curtains at the tall windows. Upholstered chairs were tastefully positioned around polished mahogany occasional tables, and a large reception desk spanned the wall opposite the door. Jo could have believed she’d been somehow spirited away to the big city. She almost wanted to step outside, just to check that she was still in tiny Green Hill Creek.
The man standing behind the reception desk smiled at her. “Good morning, you must be Mrs. Silversmith. I’m Art Porter. Mrs. Sanchez said you might be coming down. How are you feeling today?”
Art Porter was maybe a little shorter than Jo, in his thirties, with slicked back dark hair and a neatly trimmed moustache and beard. He wore grey dress trousers with a matching waistcoat over a spotless white shirt, matching the decor for elegance.
Zach had been wearing the same outfit the evening before when he’d brought her supper during his break, although he’d rolled his shirt sleeves up and unfastened the top buttons. And he’d filled out the clothing in a rather pleasing fashion.
Not that she’d noticed overly.
“I’m feeling much better, thank you,” she said, dragging herself from thoughts of Zach and what lay underneath his uniform.
“That’s good to hear. Mrs. Sanchez said to go on through to the kitchen when you were ready.” He indicated a door half concealed beneath the stairs, marked ‘Private’.
Jo thanked him and gave the lobby a final look before heading for the door. She’d never been able to afford to stay in a place like this in New York, and she suspected that if she’d passed out on the threshold of any of the grand hotels back there, they’d have either called the police or dumped her round the back where she couldn’t be seen.
Thank goodness for Zach and his kindness.
The door beneath the stairs opened into a wide utilitarian corridor not nearly as elegant as the lobby, with dull beige painted walls and flagstone floors. Jo walked past three closed doors before she reached one that was open on her right.
Inside was the biggest kitchen she’d ever seen. A huge window high up on the wall to the left bathed the space in light. Half of one entire wall was taken up by a series of ovens, forming a huge built-in range. No less than three sinks were set into a work surface. Cupboards were topped with layers of shelving crammed with copper pots and pans and moulds and kettles. A huge table dominated the centre of the room. It was a kitchen that belonged in a mansion for the supremely wealthy, not a hotel in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. The owner clearly had very large ambitions.
A door opened in the far wall and Mrs. Sanchez walked in, her arms laden with plates and bowls. Jo rushed forward to help her.
“Good morning, Señora Silversmith.” She carried the dishes to one of the sinks and placed them in. “How are you feeling today?”
“Much better, thank you.” Jo placed the small pile of bowls she’d taken from her beside the plates. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Oh no, you sit and have breakfast. I do th
is three times a day, every day except Sundays, although I do have help for lunch and supper. I kept breakfast for you. It’s in the oven.”
Jo looked at the range with its array of doors. “Which one?”
Mrs. Sanchez laughed. “The far right. I know, there are a lot. I don’t need all of them, but Señor Vernon has big hopes for the town.”
Jo found a plate of biscuits and sausages and some kind of red lumpy sauce which turned out to contain tomatoes and spices and was very, very tasty. All topped by a fried egg. She settled at the table with a knife and fork and was soon blissfully immersed in the food while Mrs. Sanchez finished washing the dishes and then left the kitchen.
If only she could stay in the hotel forever. She and her baby, with Mrs. Sanchez cooking and Zach... no, not Zach. Definitely not Zach.
“Good morning, Jo.”
She almost choked on her mouthful of sausage at the sound of his voice. How did he have the ability to appear just as she was thinking of him?
Or maybe it was that she thought of him too much.
He strolled up to the table and took a seat opposite her. “How are you this fine morning?”
He was wearing denim trousers and a blue shirt that matched his eyes and fitted him closely enough to show off his physique, which had just the right amount of muscle...
She snapped her eyes back to her food. What was she doing?
He was smiling, not that that was unusual. Zach smiled a lot, she’d noticed. Far too much, for her liking. Being that happy was unnatural. But this smile was different. He was up to something.
“Good, thank you,” she said, cutting another slice of sausage and slathering it in sauce. “How are you?”
“Fine.” He was still smiling. It was disturbing.
“Have you had breakfast? This is delicious.”
“I ate at home, thanks, but I agree wholeheartedly, Mrs. S’s salsa with sausages and biscuits is one of the best breakfasts in the world.”
She chewed for another few seconds while he continued to smile at her.
“What?” she finally blurted out.
His smile grew even wider. “Oh, nothing. It can wait. Finish your breakfast.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You can be very annoying sometimes.”
“So I’ve been told. Mostly by my friend Will, but he’s annoying too, so it’s okay.”
She went back to eating, although she finished quicker than she would have if she hadn’t been so curious about what he was hiding.
She pushed her plate back. “I’m done, now why are you smiling?”
“I could clean your plate for you...”
“Stop it. I want to know what you’re up to.”
Chuckling, he rose to his feet and held out his hand. “I have something to show you.”
Against her better judgement, she slipped her hand into his. It was warm and soft, just as she remembered it being from when they shook hands the first time they met, and she didn’t like what holding it did to her heart beat. Although she didn’t object when he kept hold of it as he led her from the kitchen.
He took her up a different staircase from the one she’d come down into the lobby, this one going from a little further along from the kitchen and obviously for the staff. They came out into the second floor corridor.
When they reached her room, he let go of her hand and opened the door with a flourish. She walked inside, not at all sure what she would find, and gasped in surprise.
On the bed sat her valise, clean and dry. The wardrobe door was open and she glimpsed her clothing hanging inside. She went to the valise and opened it to find all her belongings in perfect condition. A lump forming in her throat, she pulled out her tiny jewellery box containing the locket her father had given her for her tenth birthday, the one she’d thrown away when he left and her mother had found and brought back to her. The one thing that reminded her they had cared about her, once.
“How?” she whispered, staring at her things in awe.
“I went out yesterday morning, after we had breakfast together. After you fell asleep. It was all wet when I found it, but I managed to clean it up and Mrs. Sanchez washed and dried your clothes. Everything should be there. It hadn’t been disturbed when I found it.” He glanced at the chest of drawers beside the bed. “Mrs. Sanchez put all your... um... underclothing in there. She dealt with all that. I didn’t see anything.”
Closing the box, she swallowed the lump in her throat and turned to face him. “Thank you. This means a lot to me.” He had no idea how much. These things were all she had, all she’d had for a long time. She’d resigned herself to never seeing them again. “I never thought you’d find it. How long did it take you?”
“Not long. Only a couple of hours.”
He pushed his hands into his pockets and shrugged, as if it was nothing. But it wasn’t nothing. Two hours was a long time to search for the belongings of a woman he barely knew.
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
He seemed taken aback at her question. “Do I need a reason?”
“In my experience, people only do things for other people when they expect something in return.”
He frowned. “I don’t expect anything from you.”
“I know, and it’s disturbing.”
His frown turned to a chuckle. “Kindness disturbs you?”
“Yes.” She tried to keep her face straight, but she could feel the corners of her lips twitching. “You disturb me. You’re strange.”
“I’m strange? You’re the one who finds kindness disturbing.”
“Well, that’s just normal.”
“Not around here. You’re in Green Hill Creek, California, now. The people here are given to spontaneous acts of kindness without any thought of getting anything in return. It’s horrendous, I know, but you’ll just have to get used to it.”
She heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Well, if I must.”
“That’s the spirit. I’m sure you’ll adjust, hard as it will be.”
He was funny. Why did he have to be funny? A man shouldn’t be handsome and funny. It wasn’t fair. How was a woman supposed to resist both at once?
She tore her eyes from his face, lowering her gaze to the valise. Away from the handsome, funny man who might be attracted to her. Which she was definitely not pleased about.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you to unpack your things,” he said, turning to leave. “I’ll see you later.”
She reached out to touch his arm. “Thank you for this. I really can’t thank you enough. I thought I’d never see my things again. You’ve done so much for me, I just want you to know how grateful I am.”
And now she was getting sentimental. What was he doing to her?
His lips turned up in a smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle and two dimples appear in his cheeks. Not one, but two. Two.
“It was my pleasure. I’m just glad I could help.”
She nodded and smiled and held her breath until he was gone.
This was not happening again. She was not falling for a man again. It was pointless anyway, because once he found out she was pregnant, his attraction to her would be gone in an instant.
So she would not be falling for Zach Parsons.
Sighing, she began to unpack her valise.
Two dimples.
Some men were just greedy.
Chapter 13
Jo smoothed out her dress and checked her appearance in the mirror on the wall in her bedroom. She felt human again, wearing her own clothes and with her hair washed and pinned up. She looked better too.
She wondered when Zach would be back and if he’d come to see her before he started work. And if he would notice the change in her appearance.
“Don’t you dare!” she berated her reflection. “Stop thinking about him like that. You are done with men. No more men, not even the good ones.” Her traitorous mind instantly conjured up an image of Zach and his heart-melting smile. She glared at herself. “You are so patheti
c.”
Turning her back on herself in disgust, she walked across the room to close the wardrobe door and looked out the window. Her room was at the back of the building and the view stretched across the valley towards the distant foothills where Gabriel lived. Somewhere out there was the route she’d taken through the darkness and rain, every step feeling like it would be her last, terrified she was going to die.
She didn’t remember the words she’d used, but she knew she’d prayed for God to keep her baby alive. Now here she was, safe and well. Did that mean He’d heard her? Did it mean He existed?
Rolling her eyes, she turned from the window. This was what kindness did to her, it made her soft. Next she’d be leaving out stockings for Santa to fill.
A knock at the door made her heart leap. She wanted to slap herself. It shouldn’t make any difference to her who it was, Zach or anyone else. Not one bit of difference.
Very deliberately avoiding going to check her hair in the mirror, she called, “Come in.”
She gasped in an involuntary breath when the door opened. “Gabriel.”
He stood in the hallway, staring at her for a moment before glancing behind him.
She looked around, berating herself for having got so comfortable as to not keep anything she could defend herself with to hand. Her eyes landed on the valise, still on the bed. She hadn’t yet checked the pocket inside where she kept her knife. She hadn’t felt the need. It lay halfway between her and the door. Could she reach it before Gabriel stopped her?
“Good morning, Jo.” He snatched the hat from his head, seeming uncharacteristically nervous. “Um... could I speak with you?”
She sidled towards the valise. “Sure. I can meet you in the lobby.” Where there’d be other people around.
He looked at the two chairs by the fireplace. “What’s wrong with in here?”
Only one excuse came to her. “It... wouldn’t be proper.”
He frowned. “I’m your husband.”
It wasn’t a good excuse.
