LITMIR.BIZ

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gather up the pillows in such a hurry they slid from her hands and scattered across the floor. Manny helped her gather them up again.

      “He doesn’t need breakfast, and we’re really busy. Only three weeks until this place has to be shipshape, remember? It’s nice that you wanted to visit, but it’s really not a great time. We’ll reschedule for next month.” Rosa touched his shoulder. “Come on, Dad. Let’s go.”

      The door slammed open and Rosa’s heart shot to her throat, but it was Cy who barreled in, glistening with sweat from his run, curls tousled wildly by the wind.

      “Pops,” he said, a wide grin obliterating the fatigue from his face. “Did you come to root for us in the contest?”

      Rosa would have kicked him if he’d been in closer proximity. She didn’t want her father involved with their design endeavors in any way, shape or form. “He was just leaving, Cy.”

      “What’s this about a contest?” Manny asked. “I thought it was a regular decorating job.”

      “You can tell him all about it over breakfast.” Bitsy moved toward the kitchen. “Cy, I know you can’t handle bacon without upchucking, but would you mind collecting some eggs? Rocky had to go into town to run an errand for me.”

      “Sure thing, but last time Esmerelda, the chicken queen, took a dislike to me,” Cy said. “She pecked my, er, nether regions. I tried to explain that I don’t even eat her kind, but she wasn’t in a receptive mood. You can’t reason with fowl.”

      “Not a female fowl.” Bitsy laughed. “It was a love peck. That’s the way chickens show affection.”

      Cy raised an eyebrow. “I don’t need that kind of affection.”

      Manny sighed. “We all need a little love, Cy. Even us old-timers.” His gaze wandered over the knotted pine table and came to rest, ever so lightly, on Bitsy.

      Rosa watched helplessly as Cy ambled out to the chicken house and Bitsy, always the graceful hostess, put Manny to work setting the table. Rosa tossed like a ship in the storm. Manny could not—must not—be allowed to stay, her roiling nerves shouted, yet she was helpless in the face of Bitsy’s overwhelming graciousness.

      Breakfast only. Then he’s gone.

      Maybe, if she was lucky, Pike wouldn’t arrive until later in the day.

      Cy returned from the chicken house fifteen minutes later with a clean-shaven Pike in tow. “Look who I found in the henhouse. He’s got a way with Esmerelda. Either that or he threatened her with a lawsuit.”

      If it weren’t for bad luck, Rosa thought, biting back a groan, I’d have no luck at all.

      Pike did a double take when he caught sight of Manny. He shot an irate look at Cy. “You didn’t disclose that your father was here.”

      Cy shrugged. “I was busy guarding my nether regions, and my dad is free to come and go as he likes.” He carried the eggs off to the kitchen where Bitsy and Manny were installed at the stove, frying pancakes. Rosa fired off a preemptive round.

      “I didn’t know Dad was coming. He just sort of appeared.”

      Pike turned to her, brown eyes like liquid chocolate. “He doesn’t belong here.”

      “I’m taking him home right after breakfast,” she returned through gritted teeth. “But why don’t you finish your thought? He doesn’t belong here and neither do his children. The contest is a bad idea, and you wish we would all just go away.”

      He clenched his fists and placed them on his hips, which fit very well in his expensive jeans. “You know how I feel about the contest. I made no secret of it.”

      “That’s not the part that hurts, Pike. It’s....” She broke off in horror. What had she said? Did she just give voice to the deeper issue that rankled inside? Her father’s presence had upset her, loosed her self-control from its moorings, caused a crack in her good sense.

      He cocked his head. “Rosa, I never said you weren’t welcome.”

      She raised her chin. “Hmm. I wonder how I could have confused the welcome mat with the ‘don’t let the door hit you as you leave’ sign.”

      His mouth quirked, and then a smile drifted across his lips like a wave breaking across the shore. He laughed.

      “What do you find amusing, exactly?” she said, her heart thumping at his grin.

      “You. I always liked that quick wit.”

      Rosa’s cheeks warmed. He liked something about her? She took a step back, covering up uncertainty with bravado. “You don’t like anything about me. Let’s not pretend.”

      His smile dimmed. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

      Bitsy called to them. “Breakfast is served.”

      “I’m not staying, Aunt Bitsy,” Pike said, eyeing Manny. “I’ve got some work to do in the office.”

      She frowned. “You need breakfast. Come sit.”

      He raised a placating hand. “No, really, I have to go.”

      “Pike,” Bitsy snapped, her voice sharp. “We’re all going to settle down here around the table and eat like normal people and leave the past behind us for a moment. You can do that—we all can, with a little effort.” She swallowed. “Please.” Her pale skin was stretched taut across her cheekbones. Suddenly, Bitsy closed her eyes and gripped the chair, fingers trembling.

      Pike was at her side in a moment. “Are you all right?”

      She nodded, waving him away.

      “Sit down,” Pike insisted, hovering at her elbow. “Let me get you something. Some water.” Rosa was halfway to the kitchen when Bitsy waved her off, too.

      “I’m just fine,” she said, her soft tone back in place. She pressed a kiss on her nephew’s cheek. “Everyone sit, please.”

      Rosa watched as Pike pulled out a chair for Bitsy. Manny sat next to her and Cy carried out platters of scrambled eggs and pancakes. What had she just witnessed? Was Bitsy ill? Rosa was still lost in thought when she felt someone touch her. She started, surprised to find Pike’s fingers curled around her forearm. He pulled out the chair for her and gently guided her into it. She breathed in the subtle scent of his cologne.

      “Like normal people,” he whispered, a secret smile pulling up the corners of his mouth. His fingertips brushed her wrist and she wondered if he felt the odd uptick in her pulse, which she was at a loss to understand.

      Doing her best to impersonate a normal person, Rosa sat.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      AWKWARD DID NOT come close to describing the painful, stuttering conversation that unfolded at the breakfast table. Cy could not shovel in the food fast enough, and Bitsy conducted a gracious symphony of small talk on every possible subject from tile to typhoons. That was fine with Rosa, as it filled the conversational void while keeping her father from getting a word in edgewise. Cy forked up the last pancake and Manny scanned the table, in search of a refill for his coffee.

      “Okay,” Rosa said, springing from the chair and stacking all the plates within arm’s reach. “I’ll put these in the kitchen and we’ll get going. Thanks for breakfast, Bitsy. It was delicious.”

      Cy mumbled his agreement around a mouthful of pancake.

      Rosa did not give Bitsy any time to consider issuing a lunch invitation. She changed clothes in an eye blink, collected Manny and walked briskly from the inn out to her Nissan, Cy trailing behind into the fog-misted morning.

      “I could have used another cup of joe,” Manny said.

      “I’m

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