Chapter One --

 

“Do this for me and I’ll make it worth your while. Please. Don’t make me beg, Kimmy.” His voice was low, but confident. The eyes were as brown as I remembered them. As he leaned closer, I detected the faint, musky scent of his after-shave. It reminded me of the islands, with just enough spice to perk up my senses.

If it had been anyone else, I would have said no instantly. I would have wished the guy all the best and walked as fast as I could to the door. But this was MacDonald Tweedie, the boy who accidentally tripped me on the playground in first grade and knocked out my front tooth, the same guy who gave me my first kiss on the roof of his grandmother’s porch when I was ten. I had known him forever. When I needed a date for the senior prom after Bobby Roddick dumped me at the last minute for Monica Zellman, it was Mac who rented a tux and escorted me, even though he was dating a cheerleader at NYU. Was I letting my childhood loyalty get in the way of my good sense?

“What do you have in mind?” I asked. So much for moving south to restart my life.

“It’s pretty simple,” he told me. The more he talked about what he needed, the more I saw my well-made plans slipping through my fingers. He couldn’t just leave his mother alone, not when he was headed for Bahrain as the new Manager of Middle East Operations for KLPG Finance. “You know how much Mae adores you. She thinks of you as family.”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. Our mothers were best friends, sisters in spirit, if not by blood. I thought of Mac as the closest thing to the brother I never had. But did I really want to commit myself to taking care of Mae for a year? Sure, she was healthy enough at the moment, and I would be there to make sure she stayed as healthy as possible. But I was hoping to do some traveling.

“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.”