LITMIR.BIZ

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few weeks.” He couldn’t remember exactly at the moment, because all he could think about was escaping the Flutterby Inn’s kitchen. If he closed his eyes, he could almost hear the cacophonous symphony of the nightly dinner rush at JD’s in New York.

      “Good, good.” Alice nodded and lifted a slightly trembling hand to smooth a curl above her ear. “Then you’ll be here for the anniversary celebration. It’s going to be quite the to-do, from what I hear. And what kind of work do you do?”

      The truth froze in his throat and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t quite clear it. “I’m between jobs,” he managed and avoided Abby’s suddenly curious stare.

      “Finding yourself, then?” Alice said with a solemn nod. “No place better than Butterfly Harbor to help you figure out life’s big questions. Now, as for you.”

      Alice spun to face her granddaughter so fast, Jason held out his hands for fear the older woman would topple over. Abby reached out at the same time, shooting him a grateful look over her grandmother’s stooped frame.

      “Abby, tell me you haven’t been cooking again.” Alice shook her head and scanned the room, her rust-colored hair reflecting against the ceiling lights.

      “You always told me practice makes perfect,” Abby said in a tone that spoke of lifelong affection and commitment.

      “I also taught you to accept your limitations. You should have learned your lesson when you were six and blew up your Easy-Bake Oven.” She made a face at Jason, who kept his expression neutral. “Bet you didn’t know one of those could fly, did you? Up and tried to launch itself out of the house on Christmas morning, I’m telling you.”

      “I thought we agreed it was a faulty lightbulb,” Abby said without a hint of embarrassment.

      “Your grandfather, bless him, and I thought it best to keep the truth from you. Now that you’re almost thirty, I think you can handle it.”

      “You know me...” Abby stepped in and wrapped her arms around Alice and hugged her close. “I can handle everything as long as I have you. And I’m not going to stop trying to make Matilda’s cranberry-orange scones you like so much.”

      “No scone is worth burning down our home.” Alice clicked her tongue and patted Abby’s back. “You always were an overachiever, Abby girl, but it’s time you wave a white flag and accept when you’re beat. I’d like to go at least a week before hearing that blasted alarm again.”

      “I’ll do my best,” Abby chuckled. “Would you like me to drop you off at Eloise’s this morning on my way to the hospital? I’m going to be leaving in a little bit.”

      “I’m ready whenever you are,” Alice announced. “I’ll go put my lipstick on and we’ll zoom, zoom, zoom. A lady just isn’t ready to go out in public without her red lipstick,” she told Jason as she held out her hand again. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Corwin.”

      “Jay, please. You, too, Mrs. Manning.”

      “Alice.” She smiled, charming character wrinkles around her eyes appearing. “Welcome to Butterfly Harbor. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

      Abby’s amused gaze faded as he caught her eye. “So do I.”

      * * *

      “MR. CORWIN, THERE you are.” Lori Fletcher, Abby’s assistant manager and invaluable right hand, met them in the dining room as Abby led their new guest to the lobby.

      She could feel the cool morning air brushing in through the front door Lori had opened to clear out the smoke. All the better to see Jay Corwin. Abby’s gaze skimmed from his short-cropped, almost military-style brown hair to a neatly trimmed beard down to a myriad of muscles peeking from under a snug black T-shirt.

      He seemed a bit more relaxed now that the smoke had dissipated. Or maybe it was a trick of the light. He’d stopped staring daggers at her and she was glad to see that frown on his face wasn’t permanent. Not that he would win any points for a cheery disposition.

      “Bonnie’s doing a quick once-over on your room,” Lori told him as she handed him the room key dangling from one of their trademark monarch butterfly key chains. “We have fresh coffee and pastries on the buffet in the lobby if you’d like to wait there.”

      “Thank you, Lori. Miss Manning.” He bowed his head as if he were dismissing her. Abby gnashed her teeth. Storming into her kitchen to lecture her? As if she didn’t know how inept she was when it came to cooking? Or that she didn’t know how to silence a smoke alarm? Arrogant know-it-all.

      “Abby, Matilda’s going to have a coronary when she hears about this,” Lori whispered once Jay Corwin was out of earshot. “She almost went on strike the last time you tried to cook spaghetti and over-boiled the sauce so it erupted like a volcano.”

      “If you don’t tell her,” Abby singsonged with a sweet smile as her face went hotter than the oven she’d been battling. She’d never understood how things got away from her so fast. “Then we don’t have to worry, do we?”

      “Uh-huh.” Lori grinned, an expression that lit up her face as they returned to the desk. “I’d ask if this is the last time you plan to burn down the Flutterby, but now that you’re attracting men who look as if they’ve modeled for a firefighters’ calendar, I might start giving you my old matchbook collection.”

      “Not funny,” Abby said. “I didn’t think breakfast and dinner were going to be a problem.”

      “You had a good plan. Matilda’s replacement didn’t have any way of knowing his brother was going to die, and it’s not like Butterfly Harbor is brimming with competent cooks.”

      Butterfly Harbor wasn’t brimming with much of anything these days. “We’ll make do,” Abby tried to sound more confident than she felt. She was just going to have to make it work. “Meanwhile, we’ll have to explain the situation to our guests and get by with them eating at the diner. Unless...”

      “Unless what?” Lori’s tone was hesitant.

      “I could call Matilda and ask for some of her best recipes.”

      “Gee, Five-Alarm Manning, I can’t understand why she didn’t do that to start with.”

      “Are you guys really still calling me that?” Abby sighed as she headed to the über-organized registration desk and pushed aside all thoughts of sending out an SOS to Matilda. “Oh, no. What’s this?” She picked up the large metal showerhead.

      “That,” Lori said, “is a showerhead.”

      “Lori—”

      “Room 206. It fell off when I was cleaning the bathtub.”

      “My own fault,” Abby muttered. “I got sidetracked last week and forgot to check the rest of them.” If it wasn’t the showerheads taking suicide drops, it was leaky pipes under sinks or loose floorboards...everywhere. The Flutterby was falling apart, but she was determined to stay ahead of the collapse. She had to. She didn’t have a choice. “Start me a list of any repairs we need to do. I’ll get going on them after I visit Mr. Vartebetium.” The Flutterby’s owner had been in the hospital for several days now. Her fingers throbbed. It was all she could do not to run back to the kitchen and stick her hand in the freezer. “How are we coming on the reservations?”

      “Working on them now,” Lori told her. “It’s been a while since we’ve had all twelve rooms filled, but we should have everyone’s needs accounted for. That’ll also leave two extra rooms for last-minute arrivals. That producer from the National Cooking Network is a picky one.”

      “New Yorkers,” Abby muttered, casting a glance to her newest arrival, who had taken a seat near the dormant fireplace. “I’m going to check with Matt about helping us get the last rooms in shape so we can have them as well.” The recent Army vet had been doing odd jobs for her around the inn for a while, but his time was more limited now that he’d been hired as one

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