LITMIR.BIZ

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away for a second,” Karen said. “I didn’t realize the flame was so high. Then I panicked. I’ve never done anything like this before, I swear it.”

      “Hey, it’s nothing,” Dana Sue reassured her. “It’s happened to all of us, right, Erik? There was no real harm done.”

      “I’ve never had a grease fire,” Erik said, “but I’ve burned my share of pies and cakes and smoked up the kitchen.”

      “I’ll stay late and clean up,” Karen offered. “By the time you come in tomorrow, you won’t even know it happened.”

      “We’ll all pitch in,” Dana Sue corrected. “We’re a team. Now let’s get back to work before all our customers stage a rebellion.”

      “I need to do something,” Karen insisted. “Let me buy a glass of wine for every customer. It’ll take me a while to pay for them, but it’s the least I can do.”

      “It’s already done,” Dana Sue told her, “and you’re not paying. The money comes out of our PR budget. Now, cook. We have ten backed-up orders for the grilled salmon, three for the pork chops and five for the fried catfish. Let’s go, people.”

      The teamwork on which Dana Sue and her staff prided themselves kicked back into high gear. By nine o’clock all the customers had been fed and most were lingering over coffee and one of Erik’s desserts.

      As Dana Sue made the rounds of the tables in the dining room, almost everyone commented on the delicious meal, but most were eager to congratulate her on the way her staff had dealt with the crisis.

      “If I hadn’t heard the sirens and seen the firemen myself, I’d never have guessed you had a fire in the kitchen,” the mayor told her. “You handled yourself really well, Dana Sue.”

      “Thank you,” she said, surprised. She and Howard Lewis hadn’t always seen eye to eye, particularly during the controversy over Maddie’s relationship with the much-younger Cal Maddox. Now that the two were respectably married, apparently the mayor had forgotten all about the old animosity. Either that or his desire for a good meal had overcome his disapproval of her association with Maddie and Cal.

      “Well, of course she handled the crisis just fine,” Hamilton Rogers, chairman of the school board, said. “Those Sweet Magnolias always knew how to wriggle out of a tight spot.” He winked at Dana Sue. “It was a trait they certainly needed growing up.”

      Dana Sue laughed. “We certainly did.”

      “Just how many times did you and Ronnie get caught trying to play hooky?” Hamilton asked.

      Dana Sue gave him her most innocent look. “Why, I don’t believe we ever got caught doing such a thing,” she said.

      The school board chairman chuckled. “You can admit it now, Dana Sue. We won’t take away your diploma.”

      She shook her head. “Still not talking.”

      “Well, you definitely added a little excitement to our meal tonight,” the mayor said. “Things have been a little too quiet in Serenity lately.”

      After the last of the customers was gone, Dana Sue joined her staff in the kitchen to do the cleanup. In two hours every surface was spotless, every inch of steel gleaming. Under even the best of circumstances, she was a fanatic about Sullivan’s kitchen being ready for a health department inspection. She’d been doubly exacting tonight. By the time she finally got home, she was exhausted.

      Spotting a light on in Annie’s room, she tapped on the door. “Sweetie, you still awake?”

      Annie glanced up from her computer and blinked, then looked at her clock. “Mom, where have you been? It’s late. And you smell like smoke again. What did you burn this time?”

      “We had a grease fire tonight. It turned out to be nothing, but it created quite a mess in the kitchen.”

      Annie’s eyes widened in alarm. “You’re okay? You’re sure? Why didn’t you call me? I would have come in to help you clean up.”

      Dana Sue heard the worry in her daughter’s voice. Annie knew that any calamity at Sullivan’s could turn their world upside down yet again, so Dana Sue sought to reassure her. “I know you would have, but Erik, Karen and I were able to handle it. Besides, it’s a school night. I’m sure you had homework.”

      “Some,” Annie agreed.

      “Did you get something to eat?”

      “Mom!” Annie protested, immediately on the defensive.

      “It was just a question,” Dana Sue said, her own hackles rising. “You didn’t stop by the restaurant after school, so I wondered if you’d fixed something here.”

      “No, Sarah and I went to Wharton’s with some other kids, just to hang out,” Annie told her in a calmer tone.

      Dana Sue relaxed and grinned. She perched on the edge of the bed, hoping for the kind of girl talk she and Annie had once shared. “I remember doing that when I was your age. I’ll bet not a day went by that Maddie, Helen and I weren’t there, along with whomever we were dating at the time.”

      “You were always with Dad, though, weren’t you?” Annie said, then hesitated, as if trying to gauge her mother’s reaction. When Dana Sue said nothing, she continued, “I mean, you guys were a couple when you were younger than me, right?”

      Dana Sue nodded, lost for a second in the good memories. There had been a lot of them, but she’d buried most under the anger she’d needed just to keep going after Ronnie left.

      “Dad was a hunk, huh?”

      “He was,” Dana Sue admitted. “The first time I saw him, after he and his family moved here from North Carolina, I thought he was the sexiest boy I’d ever seen. He had danger written all over him, from his coal-black, too-long hair to his leather jacket.”

      “Was that the only reason you liked him?” Annie asked. “Because he was so sexy-looking?”

      “No, of course not,” Dana Sue said nobly. “He was sweet and smart and funny, too.”

      Her daughter grinned. “I always thought it was because every other girl in school wanted him and you wanted to prove you could get him.”

      Dana Sue laughed. “Did your father tell you that?”

      “Nope. Maddie did. She said you were so single-minded when it came to getting Dad to notice you.”

      “Yeah, I probably was,” Dana Sue confessed. “He was the first boy who wouldn’t even give me a second look. Naturally, that made him an irresistible challenge. And I knew he would make my folks a little crazy.” She leaned closer and confided, “He had a tattoo, you know.”

      Annie giggled. “Maddie said he gave you a tough time on purpose, because if he’d made it easy, you’d have lost interest.”

      Dana Sue thought back and tried to imagine losing interest in Ronnie. She couldn’t. Her feelings for him had been all-consuming for a long time. Not even nearly eighteen years of marriage had turned down the heat between them. An affair and two years of separation had only driven her to bury the attraction.

      “I don’t know,” she told Annie. “I fell pretty hard, pretty fast.”

      “And you never regretted it, did you?” her daughter asked. “I mean, not till the end, when he was with that other woman.”

      Dana Sue didn’t like even thinking about the day she’d found out about Ronnie’s affair, much less reminiscing about it, but it was evident that Annie had been wanting to ask these questions for a long time. It was as if she’d been saving them up for the right moment. It was also evident she’d been turning to Maddie to find some of the answers she wanted. Dana Sue felt incredibly guilty that Annie hadn’t been able to ask her own mother for the details of her parents’ courtship.

      “No, until

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