Out of Town Bride

“I’ll get rid of the rest.”

“Good idea.”

“So I’m forgiven?” he persisted.

“Assuming you don’t force me to eat any more of those chocolates. Or do anything between now and January 8 to make me mad.”

“Sometimes all I have to do is say ‘Good morning’ to make you mad.”

She stood and gave him an imperious look, but for some reason she was about to laugh and ruin her exit line. “You’ll want to try not to smirk at me when you say ‘Good morning.’”

“I do not smirk.”

“You do. In a really annoying and condescending way like one of those English servants who know everything. Admit it.”

“It’s possible,” he said carefully, “that I sometimes lift a sardonic eyebrow in a sort of Heathcliff-esque way. I wouldn’t refer to it as a smirk, which would involve pursing my mouth in some unattractive manner.”

“You’re getting into semantics now. Whatever you call it, a smirk or a sardonic eyebrow lift, it gets my goat. If you’ll make an effort to stop doing it, I will try not to get mad more often than you really deserve.” And she whisked out of the room in search of some Pepcid.

JOHN-MICHAEL WATCHED HER GO, his stomach lurching in an odd way that had nothing to do with eating too many chocolates. Who was this woman? She certainly wasn’t acting like the spoiled debutante. She’d jumped out of that neat pigeonhole into which he’d had her safely stuffed all these years. And he wasn’t comfortable with the situation, not at all.

A spoiled, petulant Sonya, putting him in his place, was far easier to deal with than a kind, sensitive, funny Sonya. She’d actually shown him her sense of humor just now, something she hadn’t directed his way in forever. First he’d had to accept her cloak-and-dagger activities. Now this.

All right, he was going to have to face the fact. His lust for Sonya was turning into something else, something dangerous. For the first time in many years, he wasn’t sure he could hold himself back, pretend indifference.

But maybe he didn’t have to. Hell, he was soon to be off the Patterson payroll. Sonya would no longer be forbidden fruit. He let himself roll that idea around in his head, intrigued with it.

Whistling, he carried the chocolates into the kitchen, where he found Matilda. Normally the roly-poly Patterson cook was perky as one of her own orange-marmalade muffins. But ever since Muffy’s heart attack, Matilda had been sulking over the fact that she had to completely change the way she prepared Muffy’s meals. Now he found her sifting through her recipe box, sorting cards into “keep” and “throw away” piles. The throw-away pile was much larger than the keeper.

She eyed the box of chocolates suspiciously. “Oh, so it’s all right for you to be peddling this fattening stuff,” she said as she took two candies, “but not me?”

“You don’t have any heart problems, do you?”

“Not a one. Doc says I’m healthy as a horse. Good genes.”

“Well, not all of us were born so lucky. C’mon, Mattie, you can adapt. Think of it as a challenge, a chance to try some new recipes.”

“But those recipes Mrs. Patterson’s doctor gave me are so boring, so tasteless.”

“So, invent your own recipes. Maybe if you and Eric work together you can come up with some gourmet heart-healthy recipes and we can all eat healthier.”

“Healthier, right.” She nodded toward the candy. “Where did you get those?”

“Tootsie. Sensitive soul that she is, she brought them for Mrs. Patterson.”

“Ugh! What’s she trying to do, kill her best friend? Just because she’s a skinny twig and can eat anything she wants. Take those chocolates out of here.”

“Mattie?” said a disembodied voice. “Mattie, are you there?” It was Muffy on the intercom.

Matilda walked over to the kitchen unit, on the wall near the phone. “Yes, Mrs. Patterson?”