As dismissals went, it was barely polite and quite insistent. Alex watched her give up the drawer search, wrap a napkin around her bleeding finger and resume looking for the correct knife. Not only lovely and independent, but stubborn as hell. He noticed that she’d dropped the plural, not wanting to include Grace in her temper tantrum. Frankly, Grace looked as if she wouldn’t have minded his help.
“As you wish, Mrs. Delaney,” Alex said, matching her formal tone. With another wink at Grace, who grinned at him, he went through the swinging doors.
Bleeding all over the sink, Megan closed her eyes for a moment and prayed for patience. The cut was deeper than she’d originally thought. “Grace,” she said, her voice low with frustration, “where in hell are the bandages?”
“Coming right up,” Grace said, moving to the cupboard. She’d seen Megan Delaney through thick and thin, through sad times and fun days. But she’d never seen her unnerved or flustered by a man yet, guest or not. There was only one reason Grace could think of for her friend’s odd behavior.
Megan was attracted to Alex Shephard and it scared her mightily.
Yes indeed, it was going to be an interesting barbecue.
Stretched out on a lawn chair he’d found in the side yard, Alex had his briefcase on the grass and a pile of papers he needed to go through on his lap when he noticed that the sun was moving into his eyes. Rising, he decided to shift the angle of the chair just as Ryan Delaney came into sight. The boy was wearing a baseball mitt that nearly swallowed his small hand and smacking a softball into it as he cautiously walked over. Alex settled back into the chair.
It was nearly four, so Alex guessed that the bus had dropped him off a short time ago. “Hi, Ryan. How’s it going?”
“Okay.” Slam went the ball into the mitt.
“Uh-huh. What grade are you in? Second? Third?”
“Third.” Two more slams.
“Uh-huh.” What in the world does a grown man talk about with an eight-year-old? He glanced around the yard, remembered the day they’d met. “No puddles to jump in today, eh?”
“Nope.” Ryan dropped the ball, picked it up, kept his eyes averted, wondering how to talk to this guy. He wished he’d had more practice with grown-up men. Maybe he should’ve brought him a cookie. He’d been real happy that time in the kitchen. Maybe he was pretending to impress his mom like that creep, Eddie Jenkins, who came around to fix the washer and didn’t really like boys.
Alex looked down at his papers, knowing he should get back to work, but it was hard to ignore Ryan thunking his ball into his glove. He searched his mind for a kid topic. “You like to read?”
“Not much.” He glanced toward the kitchen window. “I’m not allowed to annoy the paying guests,” Ryan quoted, sounding as if the warning had been drummed into him. But his blue eyes were hopeful.
“Is that a fact? Then I’ll be sure to let you know when I’m annoyed.” He smiled, suddenly anxious to put the boy at ease. He nodded toward the ball and glove. “Are you a ballplayer?”
Pleased not to be sent away and because his mom wasn’t at the window, Ryan plopped down on the grass next to Alex’s chair. “I’m on a Little League team. The Marlins. I’m the shortstop.”
Impressed, Alex raised his brows. “Hey, great. Why’d you pick shortstop?”
“’Cause you get more chances to get the ball, to make outs.” His young face grew cloudy. “Only I don’t get to play that much. Coach said I need more practice.”
A by-now familiar guilt swept over Alex. “I guess your dad used to help you practice, eh?”
“I’m not supposed to talk about my dad.”
More no-no’s. “Why is that?”
“Mom says if you can’t say something nice about someone, you should keep quiet.”
Alex mulled that over, thinking that Megan had revealed a great deal by giving that warning to her son.
Squinting up at him in the sun, Ryan wondered if this guy knew anything about baseball. He seemed neat enough, but maybe he was too busy, like his dad had been. “You like the Dodgers or the Padres?”
“I’m from San Diego. The Padres, of course.”
Ryan grinned. “Me, too. Only I’m about the only one on my team who likes them. Most everyone likes the Dodgers.” He pounded the ball into the glove. “We had pizza day at school today. You like pizza?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Yeah. I build model cars. Neat ones like yours.”
“Really? Takes a lot of patience.” Alex watched the boy chuck the ball and decided to climb out on a limb. While it was true that he didn’t know much about kids, he remembered feeling like Ryan when he’d been a boy, wanting to connect to another male adult when his father hadn’t been available. And Ryan’s father would never again be available. He should by all rights finish updating his file, read the others. Instead, he dropped the stack of papers into his open briefcase. “You want to toss a few?” he asked, indicating Ryan’s ball.
The boy’s face lit up. “Yeah, sure.” He scampered up and walked out a ways on the grass. “I don’t have another glove.”
Estimating the approximate distance between bases, Alex paced it off. “That’s okay. Come on. Throw me one.” The throw was loopy and fell short. Alex scooped it up, ignoring Ryan’s embarrassed face. “Ready? Here it comes.” He tossed one to him, slow and easy, and Ryan managed to grab it, but just barely. “Good. Now throw it to me, only put your arm into the pitch.” Assuming the stance, he waited.
Grace stood at the kitchen window looking past the rows of flowers to the grassy area where a small boy and a tall man were playing catch. Through the screen, she heard Ryan’s whoop of delight when he caught one on the skid, followed by Alex’s cheer. Well, well, she thought, smiling.
Megan straightened from basting the second batch of chicken with barbecue sauce and returned the pan to the oven before walking over to the sink. “What’s so fascinating out there?” she asked, then felt her spine stiffen when she realized her son was playing catch with one of the guests. The meddlesome guest, as she’d come to think of Alex Shephard. “What is with that man?” she asked softly, almost to herself. “First the weeds, then the watermelon, then the chickens and now Ryan. Why doesn’t he know his place like our other guests? Does he stay at a Hilton and offer to do the dishes or change the sheets?”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Grace shifted her gaze from outdoors to the woman beside her. “Remember the McPharlins? They brought you fresh peaches from their orchard in Georgia the last time they stayed with us, and she insisted on baking up a couple of pies right here in this kitchen. And what about that traveling salesman from San Francisco who entertains all the guests by singing in the lounge at least one night of his stay? These are folks who pick this place because they feel comfortable and at home here, and they don’t at a Hilton. So why do you suppose this one guy bothers you so much?” Her long friendship with Megan involved many such questions through the years, and Grace felt no qualms asking now.
Megan narrowed her gaze, watching as Alex stood behind Ryan now, showing him the proper way to wear his glove, how to hold his hands waiting for the throw. The blond head bent to the dark-haired boy. The question was, why was he being so nice to her son, so anxious to please? She couldn’t pigeonhole the man. Handsome to a breathtaking fault, undoubtedly as rich as Trump, yet here he was, playing catch with Ryan. Go figure.
So, why
did
he bother her so much? “He’s different, Grace,” she said quietly. “It’s as if he wants something and I don’t yet know what that is. He’s so confident, so sure he’s right, so...so...”
“Handsome and sexy?”
Frowning, Megan turned. “That’s not at all what I was thinking.”
Liar
, said that small inner voice.
“Maybe it should be. Maybe he’s interested in Ryan’s mother and that’s what scares you.”
Interested in her? She doubted it. A man like that could have most any woman he wanted. He certainly didn’t need a small-town woman who came with a child attached. “I have to think of Ryan.” She swung her gaze back to the unlikely twosome and watched her son leap into the air to try to catch a fly ball. He caught it though he fell to the ground with the effort. Alex gave him a thumbs-up. “He’s going to be here at least a week, he said. Two days and Ryan’s already getting attached. How will he feel when the man leaves?”
“Honey, you can’t wrap that boy in cellophane and keep him from reaching out to people just because they may walk out of his life. Ryan’s dying for male attention. Has been all his life. You don’t give him enough credit. He knows the people who stay here come and go. He’ll handle it. Let him enjoy a little male bonding while he can.” She stepped closer, watching out the window as Alex leaned down explaining something. Ryan nodded solemnly, his face a study in concentration. “If you ask me, he’s doing something for that boy you and I can’t do.”
Hating to admit defeat, Megan sighed. “I suppose you’re right.” The truth was, Alex Shephard was doing something for her that no one else had done in a very long time, either.
At the barbecue dinner table, Alex was seated between Ryan, who’d insisted he sit beside him, and Mrs. Julia Kettering, a widow in her eighties who’d taken a shine to him. A small, thin woman wearing a floral print dress and tennis shoes, her snow-white hair in a long braid down her back, Mrs. K, as she liked to be called, wore granny glasses and smelled of talcum. She could also talk the wings off a butterfly.
“My poor departed husband, Horace, used to make ribs now and again,” Mrs. K went on. “You didn’t need teeth to eat them, they were so tender.” She leaned closer to Alex. “These run a close second.”
Alex set down a clean rib bone and picked up his napkin. “They’re mighty good.” He reached for a piece of chicken. “So, are you staying here for long?”
“You could say that. It’s been over a year now.” The old woman dug into her corn with false teeth clicking.
“A year? You mean you live here?” A permanent resident? Alex hadn’t been aware that a bed-and-breakfast could be someone’s home. “Are you a relative of the Delaneys?”
Swallowing, Mrs. K shook her head. “Might as well be, as good as Megan treats me.” She dabbed at her thin lips with her napkin. “I used to live across the street from Megan and her mama, used to baby-sit her and her sisters a lot. My husband was sick for years and our insurance money ran out. I had to borrow, then sell my little house to pay our creditors when he died. By then, Megan already had this place, and when she heard, she came to get me, moved me in that day. I got no other family.” She gazed at Megan through her thick glasses. “Hardly lets me pay for a thing from my small pension. That girl’s a saint, is what she is.”
Small wonder she had to sell baked goods to make ends meet, Alex thought, if she takes in a poor little widow and puts on free barbecues. There wasn’t that much profit in small businesses. His gaze drifted to the lady in question, his eyes narrowing as he studied the dent in her small, stubborn chin.
But what had happened to the insurance money?
“You like crossword puzzles, young man?” Mrs. K asked.
“Yes, I do,” Alex answered.
“Me, too. The one in this morning’s paper stumped me. What’s a Buddhist movement in ten letters?”
“Hmm. I’ll have to think about that.” Then a noise at his elbow had Alex glancing at Ryan, who was fiddling with his silverware. “How come you’re eating everything but your potato salad?”
“I don’t like potato salad.”
“Really? Too bad. You ever hear of Tony Gwynn, right fielder for the Padres?”
“Sure. Everybody’s heard of him.”
“I hear he eats potato salad three times a day sometimes.”
Ryan’ s expression was skeptical. “You kidding me?”
“Would I lie about potato salad?” Alex took a heaping forkful, chewed away. “Man, this is good. Builds muscles, too.”
From across the table, Megan watched her son gamely take a small bite, then another. She saw Ryan look up at Alex and tell him it wasn’t so bad, he guessed. Mrs. K on the other side of Alex clawed at his arm with her long, thin fingers, wanting his attention again. His fair head bent to the old woman as he listened closely.
All right, so the man was a charmer. Billy the Kid probably had been, too. And Neal. Charming and totally irresponsible. There was something definitely unnerving about Alex Shephard. Whatever it was, Megan imagined it would come out soon. Secrets had a way of being revealed at the darnedest times.
Neal had taught her that.
Grace and Megan got up to clear while the anniversary couple, Walter and Jean, danced on the brick patio to a golden oldie from the portable radio, then held court reminiscing about their wedding day. The Donahues, married only a year, were listening intently, probably finding it hard to imagine being married for forty years. The businessman from Sacramento who was leaving in the morning thanked them and excused himself. The two middle-aged couples from Spokane who were staying in the center connecting rooms upstairs smiled and interjected marital anecdotes of their own.
By the time Grace set out dessert plates and Megan placed the beautifully decorated cake in the center of the round table, everyone was in a jolly mood. Megan lifted her glass of iced tea and gave a warm, sentimental toast to Walter and Jean, and the rest followed suit.