The Single Dad Finds a Wife (12 page)

Chapter Ten

“I
'm glad you invited me to join you,” David said. “It will be nice to be in the company of adults eating real food.”

Spring smiled. “Had your fill of kids' meals and bananas?”

“Just the places that serve them,” he answered. “You were right about his appetite and energy returning. When he went flying into your arms last night, it was like nothing had ever happened.”

“Children are resilient that way,” she said.

He and Spring were en route to the farmhouse for the Magnolia Supper Club's dinner party. A twinge of regret sparked through Spring. She'd invited him to the gathering under false pretenses.

She'd gone to their hotel yesterday to lure him to this dinner. But something had happened to her while in those rooms with David, Jeremy and Charlotte Camden. The invitation she'd extended to him in that moment had been sincere. She really wanted to have dinner with him. But not this way.

Cecelia was right; this wasn't the way to go about getting him to see their point of view on the matter. If anything, it was likely to turn him off, backfiring in her face.

She glanced over at him. “David, I have a confession to make.”

He took his eyes off the road for a moment. Long enough to ensure that Spring had his undivided attention. “No confessions or apologies tonight,” he said. “Let's just enjoy the evening.”

“But...”

He reached for her hand, primly folded in her lap. “No buts,” he said. “Tell me more about this supper club of yours. How did it get started, and how did you all come about the name?”

This was safe territory, Spring knew. And in telling him about the club, she could add that members were frequently involved in town events, all the members being longtime residents of Cedar Springs.

“It started as something of an accident,” she said, twisting in her seat to face him. “There were a couple of us at a charity event. The dinner was the usual rubber-chicken affair, but the caterer got a little overly creative with the asparagus and the dessert was something that was better off left as individual ingredients in the pantry.

“Gerald Murphy, you'll meet him tonight,” she went on, “said something to the effect of ‘I wish there was a place I could go to guarantee a decent meal.' Someone else said, ‘Well, in that case, stay home and cook it yourself.' And somehow that led to three of us getting together at one of our houses and the subsequent times each of us brought a friend. And then since we were a group, someone suggested a formal arrangement and a name. The rest is cuisine history.”

“How about the name?”

“That came from Cecelia. You'll meet her tonight, as well. We were at her place, and she had a lovely centerpiece of magnolia leaves and blossoms. So we became the Magnolia Supper Club. Tonight is a makeup dinner, so to speak,” she said.

“Because of the break-in?” he asked. “You mentioned a burglary. What happened?”

She told him about the incident at Step Back in Time Antiques. “Police still have few leads,” Spring said. “I'm not sure what had Gerald more upset, the burglary or the cancellation of the dinner.”

“Are you...close to this Gerald?”

Something in the tone of his voice, or maybe it was the bit of hesitation she detected, had Spring wondering if maybe he was wondering for personal reasons. So she took care with her answer.

“As close as friends can be. Why?”

He shrugged, and in that movement Spring sensed that there was, indeed, more than idle curiosity on his part.

“When I called you that night, the night Jeremy was sick,” he clarified, “you answered the phone thinking I was Gerald.”

Spring's brow furrowed. “I did?”

He glanced at her. “You answered and just said, ‘Gerald, I'm not giving you a script for Valium.' I figured script was a shortcut for prescription and that you'd need to be pretty close to someone to answer a late-night call with that kind of...specificity.”

Spring smiled. “When you meet Gerald, you'll understand. His business partner's wife calls him her special-needs second husband.”

“He has a disability?”

“Only if the Americans with Disabilities Act has suddenly started classifying chronic persnicketiness and an overactive use and abuse of hyperbole as a protected disability. Gerald is a lot like the neatnik of
The Odd Couple
, the type where everything must be just so or it makes him crazy. We'd clash like oil and water in any relationship other than friends.”

He nodded. “That's good to know,” he said quietly and gave her a sidelong glance.

Spring's insides did a little tumble. “Why is that?” she asked, unable to keep the tremble from her voice.

“Lessens the competition,” he said.

“Oh.”

This time when he glanced her way, there was a smile playing at his mouth, and the butterflies in Spring's stomach took flight. What she couldn't be sure of, though, was the cause of the butterfly swarm. Was it the undeniable attraction she felt toward the man—an attraction that was evident even when she'd thought he was homeless and living in a hotel? Or was it the latent guilt about what she'd set in motion for this evening?

Not too much later, she directed him to the turn off to the farmhouse. Several cars were parked on the grass in front of the house.

“Just pull in wherever you want,” Spring said. “It looks like Gerald and Cecelia are here already. Cecelia has a key.”

“This is beautiful,” David said as he parked.

“Thank you,” Spring said. “The house itself dates to the early nineteenth century. You'll see the rooms that are original and the ones that have been added over the years as the family either grew or grew tired of the original footprint, which was small. The ceilings are lower in the original five rooms of the house.”

David got out of the car and came around to open Spring's door for her. She murmured her thanks.

“Five rooms,” he said. “That was large for the period. We're talking the early 1800s, right?”

She nodded as she slipped her hand into his. “Yes, 1825. There was a kitchen and a front room and three bedrooms. A double outhouse was over there,” she said, pointing to an area near a copse of cedar trees. “They were highfalutin,” she added with a laugh. “Wealthy for the time. The Darlings always had a lot of children. In the case of the great-great-grandparents who built the place, there were the two of them, their seven kids and eventually all of their many children and grandchildren. That's one of the reasons my mother is so frantic about us producing grandchildren. She has a huge house like all of the Darlings for generations and not one of us has presented her with a baby to spoil.”

“Was marriage and kids not something you wanted?”

“It's not that I don't want a family,” Spring said. “I always thought by this age I'd have kids in middle school, that I'd be shuttling little ones to soccer and ballet and piano lessons.”

She stopped talking, and David stopped walking. They were at the base of a large oak tree; its branches provided shade for the side of the house.

“What happened?” he asked, lifting his free hand to tame hair that had escaped her updo.

“It didn't work out that way,” Spring said with what she hoped came off as a nonchalant shrug. “Anyway, I did end up with a lot of kids,” she continued, aiming to put a bright face on the matter. “I'm a pediatrician. I look at all of my young patients as my children. I have their well-being at heart as much as, and sometimes more than, their parents.”

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I see what you mean. But it's not the same thing. Kids change your focus. Instead of I and me, your focus shifts to what's most important for this little person who is depending on you for everything. You pray and hope you don't mess it up, that maybe you learned something from the way you were raised, something that will make it all work out for the best.”

“Jeremy is a good boy,” Spring said.

“He calls you pretty Spring.”

She smiled. “I know. I don't know why he calls me that, but every time he says it, it's just the sweetest thing.”

“When he was sick, you made him better. When he opened his eyes, he saw what I see when I look at you.”

Spring's gaze lifted to meet his. “What's that?”

Her question was just barely a whisper. They were so close she breathed in the musky citrus of his aftershave or cologne and liked the scent that seemed so much a part of him.

“A woman of infinite beauty and grace.”

“David.”

Saying his name was like releasing a cavalcade of emotions she didn't even realize was locked up inside her.

“Spring, I'm going to kiss you now.”

“I know,” she said.

And then his mouth covered hers in an embrace that left her breathless.

Spring wondered at the way her heart beat seemingly in unison with his. Every fiber of her seemed to be saying that this was right, this was what it felt like to love and to be loved.

But her head was sending another message, one that she let drown out the drumbeat of her heart. She pulled away and stared up at him.

“Do you want me to apologize?” he asked.

Unable to speak, Spring just shook her head from side to side.

“I...” She paused, then lifted a finger to his mouth to trace its contours.

David caught her hand, opened her palm and pressed a kiss into it.

“Let's go inside,” he said. “Dinner and your friends are waiting.”

That had the effect of a glass of ice water in the face. Spring stepped back, putting needed distance between them and claiming her hand from him.

“David, this is more than just a dinner party.”

He grinned. “I know.”

Her eyes widened. “You do? But how? Who told you?”

“You did,” he said.

Spring was 250 percent sure that she had done no such thing. She hadn't mentioned it to anyone but the supper club members since she'd concocted this harebrained intervention dinner party. “When?”

“When you told me you wanted me to meet some of your friends,” he said, reaching for and tugging on her hand. “Come on—let's not keep them waiting.”

“That's not what I meant,” she said.

But he either didn't hear or chose to ignore her protestation.

* * *

While the Magnolia Supper Club's dinner commenced at the Darling family's historic farmhouse, another burglary was under way in downtown Cedar Springs.

It was a quick affair, the items to steal pretargeted and the business's less than stellar alarm easy for the two-person burglary crew to overcome. In and out they went. They tucked their goods in the trunk of a dark sedan, a four-door vehicle that looked like many, many others in the city. And then they were off, headed out to Orchard Road where merchandise was stored, repackaged and prepared for delivery to willing buyers.

* * *

The diners were seated following introductions over hors d'oeuvres. Among the supper club members were Roger and Carol Delaney, who owned a bed-and-breakfast; Maddie Powers, who was a retired home economics teacher; and Natalie and Christopher Parker, who were self-proclaimed foodies and hosted an online food podcast. As host of the meal, Gerald explained to his guests what he'd prepared.

“The lovely Cecelia has offered to assist me, and thank you to Spring for opening your home for our little soiree.”

After the group decided on the next gathering's theme and host, Gerald provided descriptions of the meal he'd prepared. “We'll begin with a fennel and apple salad with lemon shallot, followed by a fresh corn chowder with feta and sun-dried tomatoes. Then,” he said, practically beaming with glee and pride, “we shall feast on trout stuffed with salmon mousse in a deliriously light puff pastry along with a yummy yam soufflé.”

“Sounds scrumptious.”

“It is,” Gerald said. “And that's not boasting,” he added to chuckles from his supper club members. “For dessert, well, I'll tell you about that later, but you are absolutely going to die of bliss.”

The courses and conversation flowed around the table, touching on everything from alternative ways to prepare the entrée to an update on the burglary at Step Back in Time Antiques.

“Do the police have any leads?”

“If you mean like something that will lead them to whomever burglarized the store, no,” Gerald said with a huff. “But I have some leads of my own.”

“I'm afraid to ask,” Maddie Powers said.

“You don't have to,” Gerald said. “I'm going to tell you.”

“That's what I was afraid of,” Carol Delaney said, reaching for her water goblet.

Spring and David shared a glance, humor sparking between them. “I told you,” Spring murmured. “Maddie has had a thing for him for years. He's oblivious.”

“Hey, no whispering down there,” Cecelia said. “If you're sharing juicy gossip, I want to be a part of it.”

“Just filling him in on some backstory,” Spring said.

David lifted his water goblet in a slight toast to indicate all was well at their end of the table.

“On the QT, Officer Walters told me that the police are looking into several burglaries in Cedar Springs,” Gerald said, clearly relishing his role as purveyor of news unknown to the others. “And,” he said, lowering his voice as if said criminals might be listening in to their dinner conversation, “they think there may be a ring operating somewhere out here.”

“Out here where?” Cecelia asked.

“In one of the abandoned barns or houses,” Gerald said. “Can you imagine that?”

Spring's eyes widened, and she looked at Cecelia, who was also staring at Gerald.

“There aren't that many abandoned properties,” Spring said. “Many of them are like this house, used as weekend getaways.”

Gerald nodded knowingly. “Exactly. I would assume the crooks have scanned out all of the property out here and know exactly when they're empty. They could be watching us right now.”