No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7 (14 page)

“Please, Kim.” He looked at
me with that intense, direct gaze, pleading. “Kimmy....”

“Aw,” I crossed my arms,
“can’t you get your sister to do it?”

“That was the plan until her
mother-in-law had a stroke. Marion is taking care of Ellie down in
Florida.”

“Shoot.” We were sitting at
a table in Panera’s, drinking coffee from mugs. He offered me some
of his chocolate chip cookie, which I declined. I didn’t want to be
bribed.

“I know,” he agreed
earnestly. “I’m a rotten bastard for asking. But I don’t want to
leave my mother with just anyone. I want someone who cares about
her and will keep a good eye on her, someone we can trust. And you
know that you can hire help if you need it. I’ll pay for whatever
you need. I just can’t take off thinking that I’m deserting
her.”

“A whole year?” I wanted to
go places, do things. I had spent three years caring for my mother
before her death two months ago. I needed to get back to work, back
to my career before that door shut on me and my opportunities dried
up.

“Please, Kim. I’ll pay you a
stipend. You’ll have a financial cushion this way. You can take
your time and get yourself on solid footing. Don’t think of it as
losing a year. Think of it as a great opportunity.” I had to admit
it was tempting.

“Stipend?”

“I’m not talking a huge
amount, mind you,” Mac admitted. “But it would keep you afloat
until Adelaide’s estate is settled.”

“I just gave my tenants
notice. They are leaving in the beginning of May, so I can move
back into my condo.” Barry and Jim had been disappointed that they
had to pack up. Was it too late to change my mind? They were so
good at keeping up the place, I hated to lose them.

“Well,” he smiled, “why not
continue to collect rent and cover the mortgage? You can use the
in-law apartment. And you’ll have the run of the house, including
the kitchen. You can come and go as you please.”

“The in-law apartment?” My
heart sank. I had moved in with my mother when she had her first
heart attack, living in the spare bedroom of Adelaide’s tiny ranch
on a quiet cul de sac in Northford. She had sold the house where I
grew up not long after my dad died, wanting a fresh start for her
new life as a widow. She said the big, empty house on Pinnacle
Place just made her too aware of George’s absence, so she found a
home so cozy and cramped, it sometimes felt like you were in a
dollhouse. I never felt at home there. Nothing was really mine. All
of my things were in storage.

The truth is I missed the
condo in Belle Haven I had bought just before I became her
caregiver. It was my big splurge when I finished my third cookbook
of the “Penny Pincher Gourmet” series for Master Chef. I missed my
garden, that little postage stamp plot of land right outside the
front door. But most of all, I missed my newly renovated gourmet
kitchen, where I had planned to putter for hours, revamping old
standard recipes and paring down the fat, calories and cost. To me,
it had been a dream of a home, and her heart disease had kept me
from enjoying it.

Tom and I were still a
couple then. We had been together for less than a year when I
signed the loan for the ground floor two-bedroom unit at Tuscan
Gardens. We were waiting for his divorce to become final. There was
hope and promise in the air, of good things and good times to come.
Was I just trying to get back to where I was when the dream
ended?

Two weeks after I had
painted every room and moved my furniture in, I got the call that
Adelaide lost consciousness in the ladies room of the community
center while clutching her chest. I rushed up here to be with her.
The long, lonely vigil was tempered only by the companionship of
Mae, who stopped by every day to check on Adelaide and
me.

As the weeks went on and her
needs increased, I put aside my career and my romance to be there
for her. Tom moved into the condo and paid me rent, which helped me
cover my mortgage. What I thought was a temporary situation turned
into a more permanent one. Six months later, Tom confessed in a
late night phone call that he was in love with my neighbor. My only
consolation was that Ingrid lasted eight months before Tom moved
on. The only time I had been back to the condo was the week Tom
vacated the condo and I turned the keys over to my new tenants,
Barry and Jim.

“Can I sleep on it?” This
was too important a situation to jump into without thinking it
through.

“Sure. I can wait till
morning,” he replied.

“That long?” Mac smiled at
my attempt at sarcasm.

“Forgive me. It’s just that
I really do need your help. I have no intention of playing fair, so
let me grease the wheels. You’re still a good six months away from
settling your mom’s affairs. It would give you a chance to write
another volume of your cookbook series. You know Mae can’t cook to
save her life, so the kitchen would be all yours. And you’d have a
resident guinea pig for testing your recipes.”

There it was, the carrot.
Mac dangled it just in front of my nose. I had completed the fourth
volume while my mother was in cardiac rehab, and I wrote the fifth
over the last year and a half of her life. I managed to do the
publicity tour online, using my blog and producing a series of
short cooking videos, thanks to a local videographer who found me a
restaurant kitchen I could borrow for the demonstrations. My
publisher had actually approached me about doing a sixth volume
three weeks after Adelaide had died, but this time he wanted me to
do a full tour, including the rounds of the daytime TV and radio
shows, as well as public appearances in major cities. That meant
traveling around the country. I was looking forward to it, even if
it meant living off my savings until the royalties started coming
in.

“Actually, that’s already in
the works, Mac, along with a big publicity tour. Lots of travel.”
So much for the carrot.

“Oh?” There were those brown
eyes again, working on me. He wasn’t giving me a brotherly look. It
made me wonder what I didn’t know about this man I had known almost
my entire life. He had married twice, both times to foreigners,
while he was living abroad. I had never met the women. Mae had
described them as exotic. She was disappointed that he never had
children. His older sister, Marion, had three boys and his older
brother, Sinclair, had a son and a daughter, so Mae had
grandchildren. But she always said Mac was a wild card when it came
to love. He had the heart of an adventurer and risk-taker, and he
was easily charmed by a beguiling woman. I thought he could be
equally persuasive with the opposite sex and I wasn’t about to let
my guard down. He was up to something. I didn’t know what, but Mac
had something more in mind than just a caregiver for his
mother.

“I’ve been to Mae’s house.
And frankly, I don’t know how I can live over the one-car garage
for a year.” There, I said it. After all my hard work and
sacrifices, I wasn’t about to be tucked away in some little
garret.

“Didn’t Mae tell you? We
sold her house. I moved her into my new place at Jenkins Beach last
Tuesday.”

Chapter Two --

“Jenkins Beach?” I was
intrigued. Not only was it one of the most quaint little beach
towns on the Atlantic coast, it was also on just about every travel
show’s top ten list of best getaways.

“Let me drive you down to
Bonnie Oaks and show you the house. I’m sure you’ll see that it
will be a great fit for you.”

“Bonnie Oaks?”

“That’s the name of the
cottage, Kim. I kept it when I bought the place.”

“You bought a cottage?” I
was shocked. Mac had lived overseas for decades. As far as I knew,
he had never owned anything. He was always in some distant land,
doing whatever it was that he did. Mae was always rather vague
about the details of her son’s employment.

“Say yes, Kimmy, at least to
a trip down to see the place. Mae’s off for a visit with her
sister. I’ll throw in lunch at the Crab Hut. Fresh lobster roll and
homemade ice cream.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt
to take a look at the place. But I’m not making you any promises,
MacDonald Tweedie.” I warned him.

“I’m not worried, Kimberly
Sheffield. I have a pièce de résistance that will knock your socks
off.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” Mac smiled. I thought
I saw a glint in his eye as he sat at the table, bathed in late
afternoon sunlight. “I won’t have to strong arm you. In fact,
you’ll be begging me to have you.”

“Excuse me?” For one
fleeting moment, I thought Mac was flirting with me. “I’ll be
begging you to have me?”

“
How about if I pick you
up?”

“Pick me up?” Suddenly the
light changed to shadow as a Panera employee lowered the window
blind and Mac once again looked like the boy I had grown up with
all those years ago. Just plain, old MacDonald Tweedie, the boy
with the funny name.

“It’s about a half-hour
drive,” he announced. “Shall I swing by about quarter to
twelve?”

As I looked into those deep
brown eyes, I felt like I was standing at the edge of the ocean as
the tide rushed in. I knew I should turn around and head for higher
ground, but the pull of the current was too strong. What was
happening to me? Maybe I had been out of circulation too long.
Maybe it was those years of caring for my mother. I must be
imagining Mac’s interest in me. Why hadn’t I ever noticed how
attractive the curve of his smile was?

“That will be fine,” I
managed to say.

“See you then,” he agreed,
standing up. “I’ve got to run. I’ve got a business
appointment.”

I sat there for another ten
minutes, trying to collect my thoughts. I was usually such a
practical, down-to-earth sort of person, not given to flights of
fancy. Was that a spark that passed between us, or just the wishful
thinking of a lonely spinster on the verge of falling into middle
age? After all, I wasn’t getting any younger. My biological clock
may have stopped ticking on having kids long ago, but that didn’t
stop me from finding the scent of a man’s spicy after-shave
intriguing.

Leaving Panera’s, I drove
home the long way, lost in thought. I couldn’t stop thinking about
the last hour. Something was different between Mac and me. Had it
always been there and I just never saw it or was it new? I got busy
at home, throwing myself into activity. I still had a lot of
sorting and packing to do.

My mother was a collector,
and she accumulated a number of items of mixed value over the
years. It was my job to catalog it all for probate court, so an
appraiser could determine its worth. I spent two hours on that
before I took to my laptop and wrote a post on using rhubarb six
different ways for my “Penny Pincher Gourmet” recipe blog. I
submerged myself in writing and came out feeling more like my old
self. I decided I must have just been having a weak moment when I
fancied that electricity pass between Mac and me.

And yet it seemed to follow
me like an enticing aroma, wafting through the air. I still
couldn’t shake it the next morning. Why was I thinking so much
about Mac? I hadn’t seen him since the last time he was around,
just before Christmas. He had seemed so ordinary then, so familiar.
What had changed now? Was it me? Was it loneliness?

I gave my emotions a good
shove to the back of the line and focused on “The Penny Pincher
Gourmet”. After all, I had bills to pay. I did a preliminary
work-up of the new book, focusing on a theme. This was volume six,
and I needed it to sell better than the last two. My editor had
pointed out that part of the problem was that I hadn’t been able to
publicize the books as well as I had with previous volumes. I was
determined not to let that happen this time around. Our plan was to
use the new book to reintroduce the series to a new, younger
audience. What I needed was a great idea, something that would set
me apart from other cookbook writers. This time, we were also going
to offer an ebook version and an app, so folks could download their
favorite recipes on the go. My best sellers were “Healthy Comfort”
and “Grandma’s Best Home Cooking”. I needed a subject with that
same kind of broad appeal to a wide audience of good cooks and
adventurous amateurs.

So lost in the creative
process was I that I lost track of the time. When the doorbell
chimed, I jumped up and made a mad dash into the bedroom for my
sandals and purse. I ran a brush through my shoulder-length hair
and pulled it back before pinning it in a casual twist at the back
of my head. Grabbing my makeup case, I fumbled with a touch of eye
shadow and liner before quickly applying a dab of mascara to each
eye. The doorbell rang again, this time a little more
insistent.

“Sorry,” I apologized, as I
flung open the door. “I’m running a little late today.”

“Don’t apologize on my
account,” said that familiar voice. As he turned around, I
gasped.

“Tom!” Utter disbelief sent
my senses spinning. “Tom!”

“Glad to see me?” He gave me
the benefit of his dazzling smile, lavishing it on me like a
masseuse applying the latest cell-hydrating moisturizer, stroking
my ego with his eyes. In his strong hands was a bouquet of irises,
lilies, and roses. Handing it over to me, he gave me a gentle peck
on the cheek.