LITMIR.BIZ

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imagine Tucker looking at her that way.

      The women in her family were bred to be hothouse Southern belles, Charleston style, women who could do the debutante thing and have dinner for forty—with fresh flowers and crystal—prepared in an hour’s notice. Garnet wasn’t adopted, although when she was eleven, she’d checked to make sure. Something had gone wrong, anyway. Her sisters and mom—even her grandmother—had gracious beauty and poise without even trying.

      She’d been born plain vanilla. Always had been, always would be.

      The point, though, was that she never got back in the house until nearly six. She’d wanted a shower and clean clothes and a major spiff-up before Tucker got there. Instead, life just kept interfering. Sally needed help with updating Plain Vanilla’s website and Facebook page, which Garnet loved on a par with triple taxes and bee stings. And then Mary Lou cornered her in the backroom, where new herb and spice recipes needed a taste test and review.

      By the time Garnet finally charged back home, Petie had made dinner—peanut butter and banana sandwiches, one of his specialties, followed by fresh brownies. Brownies were one of Petie’s favorite creations. This time he’d added raspberries, blueberries and marshmallows. She never knew what he was going to put in next.

      “Hey, I’d have made you dinner,” she told him.

      “Yeah, well, you were busy and I was starving for peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Mom …”

      “What?”

      “You know that crazy-looking cat that’s been around for the last week or so?”

      “The black-and-orange-and-white one?”

      “Yeah. I think she’s pregnant, because I saw her on the window sill about an hour ago, and her stomach was, like, huge.”

      “No,” Garnet said.

      “I never asked you anything.”

      “You were going to.”

      Petie shot her a look, one of his most endearing. “I understand why you said no. You have to feel like you’re the one in charge. We’ll talk about it later.”

      She chased after him with a dish towel. “Sometimes you sound older than Methuselah.”

      “Just because I’m smarter than you?”

      “Petie. We can’t adopt every single animal who wanders on our porch!”

      “Yes, Mom.”

      “I’m still recovering from the ferret you took in.”

      “Yes, Mom.”

      “And the raccoon babies.”

      “Yes, Mom.” He said consolingly, “It’s okay for you to say no. Really. I won’t feel neglected or deprived or anything like that.”

      She couldn’t shoot the kid. He was the best thing in her world. She loved him more than life. But he was getting a mouth, and their teasing took another twenty minutes off the clock. She charged into the bathroom, took one look in the mirror and knew she didn’t remotely have enough time. She needed a shower, a hair wash, her foot rebandaged, a haircut, a hair style, a wardrobe refurbishing, shaved legs, time to buy some makeup in town, maybe some jewelry and new sandals.

      She also needed to clean her bedroom—not because anyone was going to see it, but because so many things were strewn all over the place that she couldn’t find anything.

      A few minutes after seven, Petie yelled from the living room, “Hey, Mom, Mr. MacKinnon is here!”

      Well, at least she’d progressed from being naked. The cream linen shirt was ancient, but it was softer than silk and had a band collar. It was her lucky shirt. Her feel-safe shirt. Her hair was still wet, but she’d made a makeshift fat braid, used a tortoiseshell comb to pin it off her head. The capris were clean. And that was the end of her grooming.

      She’d have put sandals on, but they were by the back door. She’d put on lipstick, but hadn’t gotten around to the dishes. She’d bandaged her foot, but the coffee table was still heaped with folded clothes that—yet again—refused to put themselves away.

      When it came down to it, just showing up was the best she could manage.

      Petie was doing a far better job of taking care of their guest. He was sprawled on top of the couch as if he was an afghan, lazily slinging a dirty bare foot in the air. He’d served their guest a sweating glass of grape Kool-Aid and opened a package of Oreos.

      “My theory,” Pete was explaining to Tucker, “is that when school’s out, you should get to forget about it. You should get to do stuff you like. Summer should be about not worrying … Hey, Mom. Mr. MacKinnon’s here.”

      “I see him. And I heard when you called me the first time. Welcome, Tucker.”

      He stood up, not the polite way a boarding-school kid learned to stand when a lady entered the room. It was more of a long, lanky stretching up. He went from a nice, reasonable-sized man sitting in a chair, to a six-three hunk of space that instantly stole all the oxygen in the room.

      There was nothing manicured about Tucker. His eyebrows were the same scruffy brown as his hair … and the stubble on his chin. The shirt was clean, no more wrinkled than his cotton pants, and his slow smile looked as lazy as the rest of him. The blue eyes were sexy blue. Laser-riveting blue. Dizzy blue. Or maybe that was just how she reacted to him.

      It certainly wasn’t Tucker’s fault he made her knees want to buckle. She should have matured years ago. She kept meaning to. As soon as she had time. For now, unfortunately, he was the only man in a blue moon who had inspired a completely ditzy, unreasonable, irrational crush.

      “You’ve got quite a place here,” he said easily.

      “It’s a work in progress. Would you like me to show you around?”

      “Sure. That sounds good. Pete, you want to come with us?”

      “Do I have to?” Pete asked her.

      “Nope. Up to you.”

      She wished he’d come. She wanted a chaperone. Not to protect her from Tucker. To protect him from her. She was likely to make a damn fool of herself around him.

      But showing him around the place gave her something to do, something to say. She started with the shop, because the bombardment of scents and textures usually pleased everybody—men as well as women.

      “Wow. How’d you come up with all this?” he asked, almost the minute they walked in the door.

      Naturally her pride swelled like a balloon. All this time, she’d never been able to talk to him, and now she couldn’t stop. First, she explained how she’d arranged the shop, and why. Her herbs were all in pots, set in antique porcelain sinks, located so they’d get east light. The old porcelain added to the country-comfortable atmosphere, but also enabled her to set up a water-spraying system so the herbs could easily be misted.

      Across the room, the west side held cubbyholes with books on medicinal and culinary uses for herbs and spices, with handwritten recipes that Garnet had started but her customers had added to. Color photographs identified what the herbs looked like in different seasons. The north wall had the least exposure to sunlight, so it was a natural spot to put counters and shelves for bottled or burlap-packed spices and herbs, with fresh samples displayed on small trenchers so a customer could smell and taste.

      “Obviously the fresh samples aren’t there now—we clean up at night. But lots of customers don’t know the difference between cilantro and basil. That’s why we have the samples and the books and the recipes … to give them ideas about how to use them.”

      “So what’s back here?” Tucker motioned to a wooden half door leading to a space in the back.

      She unhooked the gate to the half door and motioned him through so he could see. “We have classes back here …

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