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  “Julie Wyatt.” They shook hands. “Don’t you want to know how much the rent is?”

  “Yes. How much is it?”

  “You know what, Oliver? I don’t know what to charge you. I’ve never rented out the cottage before. Actually, I was thinking about doing just that this very afternoon, and now here you are. Why don’t we wait till you see it, then you can tell me what you think it’s worth. Will that work for you?”

  “It will. Are there restaurants around here?”

  “All kinds, but it’s all Southern cooking. I guess you can’t cook, huh?”

  “No, I can’t cook.”

  “I could teach you. I host a cooking show for the Food Network and keep telling myself to write a cookbook, which I never seem to start. If you stay long enough, you could be my new guinea pig and allow me to test on you the recipes that I will probably never include in the book that I will probably never write,” she called over her shoulder. Dear God, did I just say that? For sure, the kids are going to strangle me. She turned the engine on and backed out of her parking space. Mace Carlisle, aka Oliver Goldfeld, followed right behind her.

  Seven minutes later, Julie pulled into her driveway, punched in the code to the electrified gate, and sailed through, her possible new tenant right behind her. She could hear Gracie and Cooper barking. They knew a strange vehicle was invading their territory.

  Julie drove all the way around to the back of the house, parked her truck, and cut the engine. She waited until the man in the fancy car got out with his dog. “There it is!” she said, waving her arms at the guesthouse. “Everything is good to go. My day lady just cleaned it up and put fresh sheets on the beds, and there are clean towels in the bathroom. There is coffee and powdered creamer for the morning to hold you over until you can go to the store to get what you want. Take the tour. I’ll go in and let my dogs out, then you can tell me what you’ve decided.”

  You are crazy, Julie Wyatt. You don’t know this man from Adam. He could be an ax murderer for all you know. The kids are going to blast me. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Her hand went into the pocket of her shorts. They closed around the paper she’d anguished over earlier. She withdrew her hand as if she’d touched a hot coal. She opened the back door, and the two retrievers raced out to run across the yard to where Oliver Goldfeld was waiting for her.

  Julie watched as Oliver panicked when he saw Cooper and Gracie charging toward him. He scooped up his dog and held her in a vise grip. “She’s nervous. I rescued her from the SPCA. They won’t hurt her, will they? By the way, her name is Lola.”

  “Cooper and Gracie? They wouldn’t hurt a fly! All they want to do is play. Put your dog down, and you’ll see.”

  Reluctantly, Mace lowered Lola to the ground. The retrievers sniffed her, circled her, then barked. “That means they like her.” Julie laughed. “See, they’re going to show her the best bushes and trees to pee on, the place where they hide their balls and toys and chew bones. They’ll be back in ten minutes. By the way, this entire four acres is fenced in, so she won’t get lost. I have lights that come on at night, too. So, have you decided whether to take it and, if so, what do you think it’s worth rental-wise.”

  “Is a thousand dollars a month acceptable? I can pay for the utilities, too, if that will help.”

  Julie almost fainted. She hoped she didn’t look too eager when she said, “I can live with that. When the utility bills come in, I’ll show them to you.” Then her conscience attacked her. “No, that’s too much. How about seven-fifty, and you still pay the utilities?”

  “You drive a hard bargain, Julie Wyatt. I never rented anything before, but I’ve seen television shows where the owner asks for a deposit and then first and last month’s rent, so that makes it twenty-two-fifty. If you let me get settled in, I can bring the money over to you.”

  Julie literally swooned. Now she could get the A/C in her truck fixed and pay off her new Wolf stove. Not to mention updating and stocking her pantry, something people involved with cooking at a professional level had to do at least once a month.

  “That’s fine, Oliver. And to welcome you into your new home, I’m going to invite you for dinner. I’ll send the dogs over when it’s ready. They know how to ring the doorbell. Well, at least Gracie does. Cooper just paws at it. And you are welcome to bring Lola. Look! She’s playing with the dogs. I need to warn you, if you let Cooper inside the cottage, he will chew things if you ignore him. He has separation anxiety.”

  Mace waved his arms about, suddenly shy. “I don’t know how to thank you, Julie. You literally saved my life today. Lola’s, too. I would be honored to have dinner with you. Does this come under the heading of Southern hospitality?”

  “Nah. Sometimes I just like company. I can use the money, too, so I won’t lie to you. Hey, it’s win for you and win for me. By the way, I did notice you don’t have any luggage, and I’m not being nosy here, but I don’t think you want to hang out in that designer suit you’re wearing. Upstairs in the closet are a lot of my son’s clothes. You’re about the same size. He has stuff in the drawers, too, and the bathroom is stocked with new toothbrushes and razors. Feel free to use it all. This is just a guess on my part, but do you know how to work a washing machine?”

  Mace gave an embarrassed shake of his head. “Okay, when the dirty clothes pile up, I’ll show you how to use it. It’s behind the sliding door in the kitchen.” Julie whistled for her dogs to follow her. They both ignored her. “Guess you’re stuck with them. Send them home when you’ve had enough of them. Gracie will ring the doorbell. Now, is there anything else you can think of that you might need?”

  “I can’t think of anything. I think you covered it all. I’ll bring the money over when I come for dinner, or do you want it now?”

  “Later is fine. I think you’ll be comfortable in the cottage, Oliver. The beds are really good ones. It’s very peaceful here at night, with the crickets and the trees whispering in the breeze.” She gave an airy wave as she sprinted across the yard and up the steps that led to the kitchen door.

  Inside, Julie sat down on one of the bar stools at the counter and dropped her head into her hands. “God, please don’t let that guy be some kind of mugger or ax murderer.” Satisfied with her pep talk, she got up and started to prepare her dinner for two. Her digital camera was placed within easy reach as she got out her cooking utensils and the food she was going to prepare. Stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, grilled corn she would shave off the cob when it was done. She would photograph all the steps for easy following for the readers of the book she would probably never write.

  Today’s menu highlighted what she called wraparound stuffed peppers, and what that meant was she would cut the bottoms off the peppers, as well as the tops, and set the peppers in a roasting pan. One filling mixture was ground turkey. The second set of peppers would have ground chuck. To both fillings, she would add finely chopped peppers from the cut-off tops along with some finely chopped onion and parsley, a smidgen of garlic, and, of course, salt and pepper. The sauce in both recipes would be a fire-roasted tomato sauce with a good-sized portion of chopped garlic. Cooking time—one hour and fifteen minutes. She spoke into her recorder, which was next to her digital camera, saying she would be using red, yellow, and orange peppers in both recipes, because the green peppers were too bitter in her opinion.

  Julie worked silently and efficiently, her hands working in tandem with what she was saying into her recorder, even when she was snapping pictures of her culinary endeavor. Her ears were half tuned to the television on the counter, which she kept on all day and sometimes during the night. If she did say so herself, she excelled at multitasking, and put all thoughts of her new tenant on a mental shelf for the moment.

  Julie pressed the button on the dishwasher to clean up her cooking utensils just as Cooper slammed his huge body against the kitchen door. A nanosecond later, Gracie hit the doorbell with a look that clearly said this is a woman’s job. Cooper bounded into the ho
use, sniffed at the oven, then planted his paws on Julie’s shoulders, his plea for TLC, which she gave willingly. Gracie was next, nudging her leg, so Julie sat down on the kitchen floor and rolled around, Cooper’s tennis ball, which he slept with, in her hand.

  “Did he kick you out, or did you come home willingly?” Julie gasped when Cooper pinned her to the floor as he tried to get the ball. Gracie barked twice. Twice meant yes, they came home willingly because Cooper was anxious. At least, that’s what she thought it meant.

  “Okay, enough,” Julie said, struggling to her feet. “We have to set the table since we’re having a guest. C’mon, now, Coop, let me up.” Gracie nipped Coop’s ear, and he yelped, but then he moved. “Thank you, Gracie.”

  Within minutes, Julie had the kitchen table set with place mats and dishes she used when she wanted to impress. She loved the vivid blue violets on the plates, the mats, and the napkins. When she ate alone, she usually ate off hard plastic plates and used paper napkins so she wouldn’t have to run the dishwasher a second time. She was into conserving everything on the planet, and that included water. She had a fat blue candle she sometimes used, but decided that might be overkill for such a casual dinner with someone she didn’t even know and who might just be an ax murderer.

  As she folded the napkins, she stopped to wonder what kind of palate Oliver Goldfeld had. Did he eat high-end food like lobster and filet mignon? Did he eat out all the time since he didn’t cook? Was he married? She should have asked, but then, that was none of her business. A rental was a rental. Maybe his wife cooked, or maybe they had a housekeeper. She shrugged. If he didn’t like her dinner, then he would simply not eat it, and she and the dogs would be the judge of whether her food would pass muster so she could include the recipe in her cookbook. Personally, she loved stuffed peppers, especially with the fire-roasted tomato sauce.

  With an hour to kill before dinner, Julie went to the little built-in nook in the kitchen, where she kept her laptop. She uploaded the pictures she’d taken, then opened a new file and typed in both recipes. Such a lot of meticulous, painstaking work, she chided herself. I really have to sit down and write that book one of these days.

  Done!

  Just time enough to wash her face and comb her hair, which she promptly did.

  “Okay, Gracie, go get our guest. You only have to ring the doorbell once,” Julie said, opening the back door to let the big dog out. Cooper waited to see if he was to follow. When he didn’t get his command, he trotted over to the sink and lay down on the rubber mat, his beloved red tennis ball between his paws.

  While the beaters went to work on the mashed potatoes, Julie realized that she was nervous. Just as nervous as she was when she had to look at the paper she’d been carrying around in her pocket for over a month now. Her heart thumped in her chest. When it quieted down, she muttered to herself, “What will be will be.”

  Chapter 3

  Dinner over, Julie suggested they head for the veranda with their second cup of coffee. Mace agreed, and they settled themselves in two of the five ancient—repainted a hundred times—rockers. The paddle fans overhead gave off a soft whisper of a breeze, while the mister sprayed the luscious ferns that hung from the overhang. Julie smiled when she heard Mace sigh.

  “This is so . . . I don’t know what the word is I want to use. Your dinner was beyond my expectations. I can’t remember when I had a meal like that. Probably when I was a kid, and my mother cooked for me. I can’t believe you cook for your dogs. Lola loved the beef meatballs you mixed with her dog food. I didn’t know you couldn’t give dogs turkey or tomato sauce. I never met anyone like you, Julie Wyatt,” Mace said as he held his face up to the mist swirling over the ferns. “I just love all this,” he added, waving his arms about.

  “I guess I’ll take that as a compliment, Oliver Goldfeld. Tell me about yourself. I probably should know something about my tenant. I’m not talking secrets here, just normal stuff.”

  Mace hated lying to his landlady, the same lady who had shared dinner with him, the dinner that she had cooked. Well, she did say not to share secrets.

  “I’m a pretty boring person, Julie. I never married.” That was true, Oliver had never married. “Corporate law is dull and time-consuming. I live in New York. There are times when I love it and times when I hate the frenzy of it. I liked this little town the minute I arrived. My original intent was to drive to Huntsville, but when I walked around your town square, and people—people I didn’t know—said hello to me and smiled at me, I thought this might be a good place to hang my hat for a little while.”

  Julie digested the information. She didn’t know why, but she thought Oliver was parsing his words very carefully. She decided it was the lawyer in him just being careful.

  “The South, Rosemont in particular, is a wonderful place. I had a hard time adjusting to the slower pace down here, slower even than in Vermont, which is not particularly frenzied itself, but I acclimated fairly quickly. I wouldn’t go back to the North for all the tea in China. And our winters are mild. The older I get, the more I appreciate the milder temperatures. How do you like living in New York?”

  “I’ve never lived anywhere else. Never found a place that appealed to me. Until now.” He laughed. “I might decide to retire here one of these days.”

  Julie chuckled. “That’s pretty funny. Everyone who visits me says the same thing. Then they go back home to wherever it is they live and promptly forget about this place.”

  “This is really a big—how should I refer to it?—spread, for one person living alone. Don’t you get lonely?” His stomach churning about the lies he’d told, with more to follow, he hoped Julie wouldn’t ask him too many questions. He’d never been a liar, and it wasn’t coming to him naturally, as it did to some people who just lied for the sake of lying.

  Julie laughed again. “No, not really. I have the dogs. My kids live within walking distance. I keep busy. Friends, that kind of thing. You live alone, or do you have a significant other?”

  Hah. There it was, tossed right back into his lap. “No significant other. To be honest, there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I have to do. I’m rarely home, and when I am, all I do is sleep.” That was true, too. Oliver didn’t have anyone special in his life at the moment. A lie is a lie, he warned himself.

  “And yet, here you are,” Julie said lightly, almost playfully.

  One more lie coming right up. “Yes, here I am. I needed some downtime to prepare for an upcoming trial. Away from interruptions and distractions. It’s a very important trial.” It wasn’t exactly a lie; it was Oliver’s life he was talking about. Somehow, though, he didn’t think Julie Wyatt would look at it like that. To her, a lie would be a lie no matter what. Maybe he needed to quit while he was ahead and go back to the cottage he’d just rented. But he didn’t want to leave. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this much at peace, so contented. The answer was probably never.

  “Do you think you’ll win?”

  “Oh, absolutely. There is no doubt in my mind.” Oliver always won when he went to court. Even though Oliver’s specialty was corporate law, he also happened to be a superlative litigator. Before Julie could ask another question, Mace dived in with a question of his own. “What is it like to host a TV show? And what about the cookbook you say you will probably never write?”

  “I used to do a little locally produced program on cooking for a PBS station in Vermont. It was pretty much of a hobby. I guess some people on the Food Network happened to see my show and asked if I would like to host one of their programs. I said I would, and here I am.

  “When I was a teenager, I used to read romances and thought that maybe I would try my hand at that when I grew up. Never happened. Never actually wrote anything.

  “But as I continue to host cooking shows on the Food Network, I keep thinking about different ways to present recipes in a cookbook. I keep meaning to start the book, but, somehow, it never happens.

  “My lif
e took a change when I started at the Food Network, and, no, it had nothing to do with the death of my husband. He passed away while we were living up in Vermont, a few years after I started hosting.”

  Julie got up off her chair to turn the misters off. When she sat back down, Mace should have been intuitive enough not to ask any more questions, but he didn’t listen to the inner voice whispering in his ear that enough was enough.

  “That’s so interesting. You mentioned that your children live close by. Tell me about them. Do you have any grandchildren to dangle on your knee?”

  Mace knew in an instant that he’d asked the wrong question. Even in the lavender twilight, he could see the pain in Julie Wyatt’s eyes.

  He tried to cover up his question with a statement. “Well, would you look at the time! I hope you won’t think me rude, but I’m really tired, and I think Lola is, too. I know a guest should never eat and run. But all of a sudden, I just can’t keep my eyes open. Hopefully, we can talk about kids and everything under the sun tomorrow or some other day when you have free time.”

  Mace was up and off his chair like he’d been shot in the tail with a load of buckshot. He scooped Lola up and waved wildly as he rushed down the steps to the footpath that would take him to the alpine cottage.

  Julie barely noticed her guest’s departure. She sat a while longer as the solar lights in the yard came on one by one. For some reason, she always thought of the solar lights as fairy lights, something to make her smile.

  Cooper, always more sensitive to her emotions than Gracie, nuzzled her leg and whimpered. She stroked his silky head just as Gracie made her presence known. She hugged both dogs, and the tears she’d held in check were rolling down her cheeks.

  “I don’t think I handled that very well, guys. Even after all this time . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Come on, let’s go in and empty the dishwasher. Then I’ll give you some of that dog ice cream you hate so much.” As both dogs tried to slink off on their bellies, Julie said, “Yeah, well, I’m not wasting my money, so you have to eat it until it’s all gone.” Gracie barked shrilly as Cooper nipped at her tail.