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“Patsy,” Dean said sharply.
“Patsy,” Alan said, as if he hadn’t remembered the name of Dean’s latest love interest all along. “Is she ticked off? Again?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Dean’s voice remained flat. “I haven’t seen her in three months.” And they hadn’t had much of a relationship for at least three months before the final break.
There was a moment of telling silence. “Thank God,” Alan finally said with a long, expelled breath of relief. “She was such a…well, I hate to use the word bitch, but really, what other word is there? I’m glad you finally got smart and dumped her. All she ever did was complain. You’re never home, you’re home too much, we can’t make any plans—” Alan stopped speaking abruptly. “Wait a minute. Three months. You dumped her three months ago and you didn’t tell me?”
Dean continued to study the house across the street. “Actually she dumped me.” Not that he’d cared by that point. Their relationship, if you could call it that, hadn’t been good for a very long time.
“Ouch,” Alan said softly.
“Don’t you need to get some sleep?” Dean asked, anxious to let this tired subject go.
“In a minute.” Alan moved closer, his steps surprisingly soft on a tightly woven rug. “You know what your problem is?”
Dean sighed. “No, but I imagine you’re going to tell me.”
“You’re all about the job,” Alan said in a kind voice.
“So are you.”
“Not anymore.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Alan shake his head. “I love the job. I don’t want to do anything else, ever. But not knowing how to leave it behind at the end of the day cost me my first marriage. These days, when I go home, I leave the job outside the door. If I didn’t, I would have found myself tossed out of marriage number two years ago.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a saint.”
“No, you’re the saint, buddy-boy,” Alan countered. “You have a real Boy Scout complex. Save the world, save the family, take care of everybody and his brother. And all the while, you do everything by the book. Didn’t you ever ask yourself what about me? What about my needs?”
Dean glanced at his partner. “Have you been watching Oprah again?”
Alan blushed. “Just a little. And that new psychologist she has on every week is a pretty smart guy.”
“Go to bed.” Dean returned his attention to the telescope, listening to Alan’s retreating footsteps. It was going to be a long damn stakeout if his partner insisted on dissecting Dean’s personal life along the way.
A woman rounded the antebellum house across the street, her stride slow and easy, and Dean shifted the telescope in her direction. For a split second her face was hidden by a low-lying limb, the leaves dancing this way and that in a soft morning breeze. All he could see was the swish of a full yellow skirt that hung well below her knees, the gentle swing of an arm. And then, two steps later, Dean saw her clearly.
At first glance, he was certain this woman was not Reva Macklin. Her hair was a soft dark blond and had been pulled back into a thick ponytail. Her dress was loose-fitting and simple. She wore little, if any, makeup. But he focused on the face, on the shape of her nose and the curve of her cheek, and with an unexpected thump of his heart he realized this was her. She’d grown up since the picture on the wall had been taken, and she’d discovered a touch of class along the way. She was not what he’d expected, but the woman walking through the grass with a serene expression on her face was definitely Reva Macklin.
She had changed remarkably, but she remained beautiful. Had she always been graceful, or was that new? It was impossible to tell from a photograph if she had always carried herself this way. A photograph only revealed so much. Reva Macklin was more than beautiful. She carried herself with elegance and possessed a femininity that might make any man’s mouth water.
Yeah, sooner or later Eddie Pinchon would show up in Somerset, Tennessee. Dean and Alan would be waiting.
The kitchen was in chaos as usual, but it was the kind of organized chaos Reva was accustomed to.
Most of her employees were older women. Tewanda Hardy was in her thirties, and Nicole Smith—a kindergarten teacher who only worked summers and Saturdays—wasn’t yet twenty-five, but the others were of another generation. They were gray-haired, spry and between the ages of sixty-one and seventy-two. Some of them helped with the cooking, others served as hostesses. A few worked only one day a week, others worked four or five. They all thrived on doing what they did best: cooking, cleaning and telling old friends and tourists tall tales of life in this small Southern town and of the exciting battle that took place just outside the city limits—in 1863.
“Did you hear?” Miss Frances said as she worked the biscuit dough. “Evelyn has rented her apartment to two men from out of state. They come from Georgia, I believe she said.”
Reva’s ears perked up as she recalled the man she’d met last night.
“Really?” Miss Edna said as she peeled an apple that would become part of a huge pot of stewed apples she’d prepare later this morning. “Are they tourists?”
“Evelyn wasn’t sure,” Frances said in a lowered voice. “The gentlemen wouldn’t say exactly why they’d come to town.” She pursed her lips in disapproval. “We have so few tourists who actually stay here in Somerset, especially in the spring. Though there is that nice couple who comes here every fall to watch the leaves turn. Most tourists prefer the hotel out on the highway or one of the isolated cabins, especially the younger folks. It’s very odd, if you ask me. I can’t believe Evelyn would rent rooms in her house to strangers who won’t even tell her why they’re here.”
“Well,” Edna said, leaning in close but not lowering her voice, “she does need the money. And she sleeps with her daddy’s shotgun beside her bed and she knows how to use it, so I feel sure she’s safe.”
Gossip was another pastime Reva’s employees enjoyed. And two strangers in Somerset? This was definitely juicy gossip. Reva decided not to tell them she’d met one of the strangers last night. It would too soon become a part of the gossip, and she preferred to keep a low profile, when possible.
“Perhaps we should have a word with the gentlemen this afternoon,” Frances suggested. “Just to be sure everything’s on the up-and-up.”
Reva smiled as she cleaned and chopped the okra in front of her. No matter who or what Dean and his friend were, she had to feel a little bit sorry for them.
“Maybe one of them will come calling on Reva,” Edna said with a sly smile. “Evelyn said they were handsome young men, though one of them has a bit of a potbelly. Nothing horrible, like that rascal Rafer Johnson,” she added quickly. “Just a healthy sign that he’s been eating.”
“He’s probably married,” Frances observed wisely.
Edna scoffed, “Then why would he move to town in the company of another man?”
The two older women’s eyes met, and they were silent for a long moment. “You don’t think…” Frances said in a soft voice.
“Surely not,” Edna said, and then she pursed her lips.
“Two attractive men, living together, suspiciously silent about why they’re here and who they are…”
“When did they arrive?” Reva asked, knowing the answer. If Dean had been telling the truth, that is.
“Last night,” Frances said.
Reva laughed. “Why don’t we give them a chance to settle in and meet everyone before we make any rash judgments?”
“She’s right, of course,” Edna agreed. “And there is the possibility that the one who doesn’t have a potbelly might come calling on Reva.”
“No, thank you,” Reva said sharply. Men like Dean didn’t come calling, and even if they did, he wasn’t her type. She didn’t have a type!
“Would you prefer the man with the potbelly?” Frances asked. “Is that why you won’t date Sheriff Andrews? I know he’s asked for permission to call on you several times, and you always refuse. I had no idea you were looking for a man with a little more meat on his bones. Sheriff Andrews is not a small man, by any means, but he’s certainly not soft in any way. If you’d like, we can keep taking him food at the station until he grows a nice little round tummy of his own—”
Reva laughed. “No! Please, no. Why can’t you ladies just accept the fact that I don’t want any man to come calling on me?”
“It’s not natural,” Frances said.
“I wish I had a man.” Edna sighed. “I miss having someone to talk to in the evening, since my John passed away.”
“I miss the sex,” Frances confided.
“Well,” Edna said with a wicked smile, “your Billy Joe never was much for conversation.”
The two women laughed, and Reva quietly excused herself from the kitchen.
The women who worked for her had changed all her notions about growing older. They had fun, they enjoyed life. Oh, they battled arthritis and they moved more slowly than they used to, but they embraced life and enjoyed every minute.
But try as they might, they had not changed her mind about men. Pot belly or no, Reva was finished with the opposite sex. She didn’t need a man, didn’t want one, which was why she’d sent every small-town Romeo packing during her three years in Somerset.
She leaned against the wall in the hallway just outside the kitchen, wiped her hands on her apron and closed her eyes. Would they ever give up their efforts as matchmakers? Her life was good now. Settled. She was content. She didn’t want to go back, not a single step. Since she had horrible luck with men, she was better off without one. A man would turn everything upside down, and as for love, there was no such thing. She’d believed herself in love once, but it had been as elusive and fragile as a soap bubble. And when that bubble had burst, she’d been terribly lost.
Never again. Absolutely, positively, never.
Edna and Frances continued to share their suppositions about the men who’d rented a space across the street. As their ideas grew more and more outrageous, Reva almost felt sorry for the newcomers.
He didn’t like this; he didn’t like it at all.
The cars had begun arriving before noon. They parked on the street in the shade of ancient trees, as well as in a gravel parking lot on the far side of the house.
Miss Reva’s was more popular than he’d imagined.
People milled about in the yard, studied the flowers, rocked and swung on the wide front porch. They came and they kept coming. He couldn’t see the side parking lot nearly well enough to suit him. Eddie Pinchon could drive up to the side door and Dean wouldn’t see a thing.
At fifteen minutes to one, as the crowd continued to grow, Dean made up his mind. He grabbed his suit jacket from the back of the chair and pulled it on. No one else at Miss Reva’s was so formally dressed, which meant he’d stick out like a sore thumb, but he couldn’t conceal his pistol if he left the jacket behind.
He didn’t run, but his trip down two flights of stairs was fast. He was ready to make his escape, but his landlady, Mrs. Evelyn Fister, stepped into his path without so much as batting an eyelash. He had to put on the brakes to keep from mowing her down.
“Mr. Sinclair,” she said sweetly, “where are you off to this afternoon?”
“I thought I’d grab a bite to eat,” he said, moving to step around her.
She was quicker than she looked to be and moved with him, so that she remained between him and the front door. “My kitchen is fully stocked. If there’s anything you can’t find there—”
“I thought I’d eat out,” he interrupted.
She blinked, twice. “Out? Where? There’s a bakery downtown, Louella Vine’s place. The sign out front reads Somerset Bakery and Deli, but everyone calls it Louella’s. She’s a good cook, I suppose, but all you can get there are sweets and sandwiches. Why, you have to drive all the way to the interstate to get anything decent.”
“What about the place across the street?” he asked. And why wasn’t Reva Macklin’s restaurant considered decent?
His landlady laughed. “Sonny, you don’t just drop in at Miss Reva’s. You have to have a reservation. Let’s see, you might be able to get a space for next week. That’s not too long to wait. In the summer and the fall, when the tourists swarm all over the place, you need your reservations at least a week in advance.”
Reservations? Somerset was a one-traffic-light town. It was barely a blip on the radar. Everyone knew everyone else, and you had to have reservations to get into Reva Macklin’s restaurant?
“I can see you’re confused,” Mrs. Fister said with a tight smile.
“A little,” Dean confessed.
“Well,” Mrs. Fister said as she took Dean’s arm and led him onto her own front porch, “it’s rather interesting.” From the porch, they could see the crowd that continued to arrive. The patrons were dressed in various ways. Shorts and T-shirts, colorful sundresses, the occasional prim Sunday dress, jeans and neatly pressed button-up shirts. “When Reva came here a few years back, she was determined to make that old place a success. I’m not sure why she chose Somerset, but I suspect it had something to do with the price of the house. We’re a bit off the beaten path, and real-estate values have been dismal the past thirty years or so.”
“I can imagine.”
“In the first year, Reva managed to build a respectable business. Nothing spectacular, not at first, but the woman does know how to cook.” That last was said with pride from a woman who obviously thought this the greatest compliment. “It was the newspaper article that really got things rolling.”
“Newspaper article.”
“Some hotshot from Nashville came through and ate at Reva’s, and he ended up writing an article about the experience. A few months later, there was the magazine article…Better Homes and Gardens. That was almost two years ago, and since then you can’t get a seat at Miss Reva’s unless you have—”
“A reservation,” Dean finished.
Mrs. Fister consoled him by patting his hand. “You can walk on over there and ask to be put on the waiting list. They do occasionally have a no-show.” She cut him a wary glance. “Not often, but now and then. You might get lucky.”
A quick look around would be enough. If Eddie Pinchon was there, Dean would recognize him. All he needed was a moment or two to eye all the patrons.
Dean walked across the street well aware that his landlady watched. This was why he hated stakeouts in small towns; not that he’d ever participated in a stakeout in a place anywhere near as small as Somerset. It was impossible to hide in a town like this one.
Yet at the same time…it was the perfect place to hide. Was that why Reva Macklin had come here? Was she hiding?
An older woman with her hair in a tight bun greeted him at the door as the couple she’d been speaking to walked into the restaurant. She held a small book in her hand. “Good afternoon, young man. May I have your name?”
Sonny from his landlady and now young man. Dean was beginning to feel like a twelve-year-old. “I don’t have a reservation,” he said.
The woman pursed her mouth and glanced down at her list. “Well, that is a problem. Would you like to make a reservation for next week? I believe we have a seat available on—” her eyes rolled up momentarily as she pondered “—Wednesday and Friday.”
Dean started to tell her to forget it. He could mill around, look at the patrons, watch those who arrived at the side parking lot.
And then the smell hit him.
He took a deep breath. “What is that?”
The lady lifted her pert nose and inhaled. A smile broke over her face. “Fried chicken, stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes and gravy, biscuits, fried okra, fried squash, stewed apples, broccoli and rice, creamed corn, green beans and fudge pie.” She leaned in close. “I made the pies today. And the stewed apples.”
“Next week will be fine,” Dean said as his stomach growled. “Wednesday.”
She turned a few pages in her book and poised her pencil above a new page. “And your name?”
“Dean Sinclair. I’m staying across the street.”
The old woman’s head lifted slowly, her eyes sparkled, and she did not pencil in his reservation for the following Wednesday. “Well, now, isn’t that interesting.”
Chapter 2
Reva no longer needed to act as hostess at one of the tables in her restaurant. The ladies who worked for her took care of that duty, joining the guests for a meal and telling them all about the history of the house and the town. That was just as well, since Reva had always been more comfortable behind the scenes. People loved her restaurant, and the food she served was always well received. These days she made a tidy profit from her cookbook, as well as the restaurant.
But no one could eat this way every day and not pay a price.
The guests were being seated when Edna burst into Reva’s second-floor office. “There you are. Thank goodness!”
Reva could not understand Edna’s excitement at finding her; she was always in her office at one o’clock.
“I hate to ask it of you,” Miss Edna said graciously, “but could you possibly take my seat this afternoon? I have table two.”
Reva rose, setting aside her menus for the following week. “Are you all right?” Edna rarely missed a meal. She was one of those lucky people who could eat like this every day and show no ill effects. Her health was fabulous, with a cholesterol count the envy of many younger women, and she never gained a pound.
“I have a bit of a headache,” Edna said softly. “Nothing to be concerned about, but an aspirin and a short nap sounds pretty good right about now.”
