“I talked to my grandmother about recipes,” she said.
“Recipes?” Seth repeated, washing his hands. “For the tearoom?”
She nodded. “You know, I’ve rediscovered how much I actually enjoy cooking.”
Seth blinked. “Hold on a minute. You enjoy cooking?”
“Yes.” She rolled her eyes at his feigned shock.
“Answer me this,” her husband teased. “Exactly who was standing over a hot barbecue this evening?”
“Seth Gunderson, flipping a few chicken breasts on the grill is not cooking.”
“It is as far as I’m concerned.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Am not.” He laughed, then caught Justine around the waist.
She laughed, too. Everything was going to be better now. In fact, it already was.
Four
Rachel Pendergast dumped a load of towels in the washer at the Get Nailed salon. Adding the soap, she closed the lid and turned the dial, waiting to be sure the water had started. She was taking advantage of a break between customers to deal with the laundry, a chore that needed to be done every day. When she left the small lunchroom she discovered her best friend, Teri, sitting in the chair at Rachel’s station.
“Teri!” Rachel couldn’t restrain her excitement. It’d been less than a month since she’d seen her but it felt longer. Not only did she miss Teri, but Nate, her navy boyfriend, had recently been transferred to San Diego.
Teri slid off the chair. She held her arms wide and they hugged and giggled like teenagers. The salon just wasn’t the same without Teri’s wisecracks and her caustic but funny view of life. Rachel had missed chatting with her about Nate. And Bruce.
“Thank heaven you’re back at work,” Rachel cried. Looking Teri in the eye, she said, “You are back, aren’t you?”
“We’ll see. I need to talk to Jane first.”
Rachel was sure there wouldn’t be any problem getting Teri on staff again. “Jane’s at the bank. She’ll return any minute.”
Rachel didn’t really understand why Bobby had insisted Teri leave her job. She knew there’d been some kind of threat against Teri, although she assumed it actually had more to do with Bobby.
Two men had confronted Teri in the parking lot, and soon afterward, Bobby had asked her not to work at the salon until he got everything straightened out. Although Jane had hired a perfectly adequate replacement to fill in, the other woman wasn’t Teri.
“I finally managed to convince Bobby that either I went back to work or I’d go insane,” Teri explained, smiling over at Jeannie who was cutting a young woman’s hair nearby.
“Where’s Bobby?”
“At home,” Teri said. “I love that man to distraction, but I couldn’t stand his overprotectiveness.” She paused, glancing over her shoulder. “The only way I could get him to agree was to promise I’d have James drive me to and from work. James is supposed to be my bodyguard.”
“James?” Rachel couldn’t believe it. Bobby’s driver was no bodyguard. First of all, he was as thin as a beanpole without any apparent muscle. If Teri found herself in danger, she’d probably end up saving James.
“So, can you stay this afternoon?”
“I can until I talk to Jane, but after that I’ll need to get back to the house. Otherwise, Bobby’s likely to send out a search party.” She laughed at her own joke. “Bobby isn’t overjoyed about me working, but he understands that I like my job and want to be here.”
“I’m glad he’s decided to be reasonable.”
“Trust me, I am, too,” Teri said with a sigh of relief.
Rachel looked closely at her friend, struck by how lovely Teri was. She’d always been impulsive, gregarious and outrageous. A little cynical, too, especially about men and relationships. And then she’d met Bobby Polgar. She remained her larger-than-life self, but over the past few months she’d changed. She’d become…softer, Rachel thought. More hopeful, less cynical. And it was all due to Bobby.
Only love could explain the way two such dissimilar people had fallen for each other. A deep, true love, the kind that changed people for the better. The kind that offered acceptance and trust. Bobby came alive when he was with Teri. Anyone who’d ever met him or seen him in front of a chessboard would acknowledge that he was a genius and a bit…she cast about for the right word…eccentric. With Teri, he became human—likeable, and on occasion even funny. Although he usually didn’t mean to be. He was simply naive in ways that were endearing.
Whether she and Nate had a love like Teri and Bobby’s, she didn’t know. She suspected they needed more time, and this enforced separation wasn’t making their situation any easier.
“So,” Teri said, sitting down in the chair again and crossing her legs. “Bring me up to speed. You miss Nate?”
Rachel nodded. “A lot,” she said, feeling bereft without him. Talking on the phone helped, but it wasn’t enough. “He calls me almost every day.”
“Like Bobby used to?” Teri asked.
Rachel laughed. “Not quite. Nate phones when he can, and that’s usually in the evenings.” While courting Teri, Bobby had faithfully phoned at precisely the same hour every day, Pacific Standard Time, regardless of where he happened to be.
“What about Bruce?”
“What about him?” Rachel asked, her voice sharper than she’d intended.
“Are you seeing him?”
“No!” she returned vehemently. Bruce, a widower, had become a friend and his daughter, Jolene—well, Jolene was special to her. In many ways Jolene reminded Rachel of herself as a girl. She, too, had lost her mother at an early age; she’d been raised by an aunt who’d died a few years ago. Jolene needed a female influence in her life, and that was the role Rachel played.
“Why do you say no as if it’s the most repugnant thought imaginable?” Teri asked. “You make it sound like dating Bruce is something you could never even consider. We both know that isn’t true. The two of you are just so well suited.”
Rachel frowned. “What makes you say that?”
Teri shook her head, implying it should be obvious. “It’s like you’re already married. That’s what anyone seeing you together would think if they didn’t know better. You practically finish each other’s sentences.”
Rachel dismissed that observation with an airy wave of her hand. Teri was fond of Bruce, which made her partial to the idea of Rachel’s being involved with him. “We’re friends,” she said firmly. “That’s all.”
Teri cocked her head. “He’s kissed you.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Do you have a hidden camera? Are you watching every move?”
“No,” Teri said. “You told me about it.”
“I did?”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but it was a—”
“Friendly kiss,” Teri finished for her.
“Sort of.” In retrospect, she thought Bruce might’ve wanted it to be more. His kiss had come as a surprise, but as kisses went, it was nice. She mulled that over and decided nice was a weak description. Nice sounded so bland, like unsalted popcorn. That wasn’t really how she’d felt about it—but maybe it was all she wanted to feel. “I like Bruce, don’t get me wrong, just not in that way.”
“You mean it?” Teri asked.
“Don’t you remember when I first started spending time with Jolene? Bruce made it abundantly clear that he had no interest in getting involved.” She wasn’t likely to forget the look on his face the day Jolene announced that she’d chosen Rachel to be her new mother. Bruce had nearly swallowed his tongue. He’d wanted it understood that he had no romantic intentions whatsoever. Rachel had taken him at his word. She simply didn’t see him in those terms. Besides, she had a boyfriend.
“I’d rather talk about Nate,” she said, preferring to change the subject.
“I’d rather discuss Bruce,” Teri countered.
“Why?”
Teri shrugged. “For one thing, I find him more interesting than Nate.”
“In what way?” Rachel asked coldly—knowing she shouldn’t have responded at all.
“Well, Bruce is down-to-earth and he doesn’t have an inflated ego and…and he’s a good dad.”
“Right,” Jeannie said, entering uninvited into the conversation. She pointed her curling iron at Rachel as she stood behind her client. “Bruce called her the other day.”
“To see if Jolene could spend the night on Friday.” Rachel wondered how her love life had become the business of the entire salon.
“She was on the line for a l-o-o-ong time,” Jeannie told Teri, dragging out the word.
“It was my cell,” Rachel explained, in case anyone thought she’d been tying up the business line with a personal call.
“You did seem to be enjoying yourself. I heard you laughing.”
Bruce was witty, or he could be. But Rachel ignored the comment. To acknowledge it would only invite further conversation and she was trying to avoid that.
“Whenever she’s on the phone with Nate,” Jeannie went on to say, “it’s like she wants to cry.”
“I miss Nate,” Rachel said, throwing her hands in the air. “We’re in love, and we have to be apart.”
“I still think you should pick Bruce,” Jeannie said stubbornly.
“Why don’t we take a poll?” Teri suggested. She got up and turned in a complete circle, indicating that everyone in the salon should take part in the vote.
“This is crazy,” Rachel said, refusing to listen. Teri could organize her vote, but she wasn’t sticking around to participate. It didn’t matter what other people thought.
She was in love with Nate and had been from almost their first date, which she’d bought at the Dog and Bachelor charity auction three summers ago. Okay, he was younger by five years, but that had never bothered him and it didn’t bother her, either. What did concern her were his political connections; his father was a Pennsylvania congressman with higher political aspirations.
Then she’d met his mother, and that hadn’t gone well. Unfortunately, Nate had been oblivious to the verbal jabs the other woman had directed at her. He thought Rachel was imagining things, but she knew. Although Patrice Olsen didn’t actually say so, she considered Rachel an inappropriate choice for her son.
Teri, who’d obviously abandoned her plan to hold a runoff vote between Nate and Bruce, trailed her into the kitchen. Rachel had just slipped a frozen entrée into the microwave. The washing machine churned nearby, and the sound of sloshing water punctuated her angry thoughts.
“Don’t you remember what it was like when you met Bobby?” Rachel said, whirling around to face her friend.
“I didn’t want to fall in love with him.”
“But you did.”