Scarlet Nights (Edilean 3)

“It’s the kind women love.”

Sara turned to look at him. “What do you know about girl secrets?”

“Tess is going to have a baby.”

When Sara’s eyes widened, Mike was glad to think that he’d cheered her up. But then, in the next second, to his utter disbelief, she burst into tears.

Mike sat up, grabbed napkins, and handed them to her as he put his hand on her back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Please don’t cry.”

“These are happy tears,” she said as she wiped at her face with the napkins. “Really, I’m just so very happy for them. Except … Except …” She looked at him. “My two best friends are pregnant, and I’m not even married!”

Mike was learning that Sara had a good sense of humor. “I’d be willing to help you out with one of those predicaments. I’d certainly give it my very best try.”

For a moment she didn’t know what he meant. “You’re horrible,” she said, but she was smiling.

“No, really,” he said with a look of concern. “I’m serious. It’s a creed of mine that I always try to help out a lady in distress.”

Sara was sniffing. “Thank you. You made me feel better.” She blew her nose and began to start packing the dishes away. “I think we should go. It’s getting late. What fabulous things are you going to cook for dinner?”

“Tonight’s your turn. I’ll make the salad.”

“That should go well with McDonald’s.”

“You aren’t serious, are you? All that grease and—”

“You and my mother! You can relax; I was just kidding. Let’s go raid the storage area of my mom’s grocery.” She leaned toward him. “Want to hear a secret from me?”

Mike held his breath. “Yes.”

Sara held up her ring of keys. “I have a key to the back door of Armstrong’s Organic Foods.”

At first Mike didn’t understand why she thought that was a secret, then he remembered that one of the stories he’d been told about Stefan was that he’d demanded free groceries from Sara’s mom. If Mike understood her correctly, she was offering him something she’d denied the man she was going to marry. He didn’t want her to see how much this pleased him. “A key to all that organic food? Forget sex, give me tree-ripened peaches.”

Sara laughed. “So when are you going to tell Mr. Lang that you own the farm that he considers his? His mother gave birth to him in the front parlor.”

“Sure it wasn’t in the barn?”

Before Sara could reply, her cell phone buzzed and she looked at it. “Oh no! You made me forget that I promised to visit Joce this afternoon. This is awful of me! Poor Joce is stuck in bed, trying to keep the babies from wanting to come out too early. Her father died a few months ago, Luke works all day, and Tess is away, so Joce is mostly alone.”

“And you visit her to keep her company. Hey! I have an idea. Why don’t we make dinner for them tonight? Didn’t Tess tell me Luke put a new kitchen in the main house?”

“Yes and no. Luke wanted to gut the old kitchen, but his dad and Joce vetoed him. He ended up repairing the old cabinets and repainting them, and Joce finally agreed to put in”—she sighed—“white marble countertops.”

“Did you just make a speech of love about a kitchen? Between the Virgin Tree and the way you said ‘white marble countertops’ I’m definitely not going to sleep tonight.”

“You almost make me think you’re serious. But yes, I like the idea of making dinner for them. Poor Joce is at the mercy of Luke’s ability to buy take-out and the kindness of the townspeople.” Standing up, Sara looked down at Mike. A dinner party, she thought. How very ordinary, but at the same time how utterly divine. Greg always found fault with every social event they’d been to in Edilean.

At that thought, she frowned. It was far too late to start comparing the man she was going to marry to someone else.

When Mike picked up the picnic basket and offered her his arm, she smiled at him. It had been quite nice having a man swing on a rope, grab her about the waist, and rescue her.

10

SO WHAT’S HE really like?” Jocelyn asked. “Other than being gorgeous, that is.”

“I don’t think of him that way, but then I’m in love with someone else.” Sara enunciated her words carefully to make sure Joce heard them. Earlier, she and Mike had raided her mother’s huge storage room at the grocery, then they’d gone directly home. Sara had already called Joce, who’d said that Luke might burst into tears at the thought of a home-cooked meal.

“Then he can join me,” Sara muttered, but she didn’t explain her meaning. “So it’s all right if Mike and I make dinner in your kitchen tonight?”