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“Not the right kind of busy,” Rose said. “Have you ever seen her show, Joe? It’s really wonderful. Last week, Suzie showed how to make Christmas wreaths out of corn husks, how to roast a goose with sage leaves stuffed under the skin and how to make cranberry preserves in crystal glasses to give to your friends. Trouble is, Suzie’s apartment has a front door hardly big enough to hang a wreath, she’d never roast a goose for herself alone, and I’ll bet her friends in the city would rather eat caviar than cranberry preserves.”
“There’s no man in your life?” Joe asked bluntly, polishing off the first cookie and reaching for another.
“No. Yes.” Exasperated, Susannah said, “I have a gentleman friend whom I see regularly.”
“You ‘see’ him?” Joe inquired. “What does that mean exactly?”
“He’s her boss,” Rose supplied. “The station manager. It’s not exactly a hot love affair.”
“It’s comfortable,” Susannah retorted. “Roger and I don’t have time to develop a serious relationship with anyone, so we...well, we’re happy associating with each other. Dinner now and then—that sort of thing. Now could we please get back to the subject at hand—”
“They’re going on vacation together,” Rose added for Joe’s benefit, disregarding Susannah’s attempt to terminate the discussion. “But they’re going to plan the next six months’ worth of ‘Oh, Susannah!’ shows together. Can you imagine going to the beach to work?”
“No,” Joe said promptly. “But then, I hate the beach. I’d much rather go hiking in the snow. What do you want to go to the beach for? You’ll just get sunburned and sweaty.”
“I like the ocean.”
“It’s too hot.”
“It’s beautiful!”
“It’s boring.”
“How could anyone be bored at the beach?” Susannah demanded. “It’s so overwhelming and awe-inspiring—”
“I don’t go on vacations to be overwhelmed.”
“No,” Susannah said, studying him cryptically. “I don’t suppose a guy like you is ever overwhelmed.”
From the stove, Rose interrupted. “I hope you like marshmallows, Joe. I don’t trust a man who won’t eat marshmallows.”
“I love ’em,” Keeping his lazy-eyed grin trained on Susannah, he said, “I have a terrible sweet tooth.”
“But that’s your only weakness, right?” Susannah asked softly. She felt uncomfortably warm under Joe’s penetrating gaze.
He laughed. “How’d you guess?”
“Just a shot in the dark.”
“You think I’m a legend in my own mind?”
“If the shoe fits...”
Joe leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table and staring straight into Susannah’s eyes. “And you,” he said distinctly, “are so caught up in your big-city career that you wouldn’t recognize a real man if you ran into one in a dark alley.”
“I avoid dark alleys,” she replied primly.
“Scared?”
“No, just smart.”
“Sometimes even smart people have to take risks. Otherwise, life passes you by, Miss Suzie.”
“Children, children,” Rose cautioned, looking absurdly pleased as she carried two china cups of steaming cocoa to the table. Both cups were crowded with marshmallows. “You’re making assumptions about each other before giving this whole thing a chance.”
Susannah blinked in astonishment at her grandmother. “Five minutes ago you were threatening you’d never speak to this man again! Now you’re practically angling for a marriage proposal! What’s happened?”
Rose set the cups in front of her guests and said smugly, “I was blinded by a brilliant idea. I’ve never known two people who were more ideal for each other.”
“Ideal?” Susannah objected, laughing. “You’re always digging up men with whom I have nothing in common!”
“Hey!” Joe sat upright, feigning offense. “How bad do you think I am?”
“I don’t think you’re bad,” Susannah said quickly, making an effort to be polite despite her frustration. “It’s just that I’m perfectly happy the way I am, and I don’t need a husband to make my life complete.”
“Who said anything about becoming a husband?”
Susannah threw up her hands. “Oh, heavens, how did this conversation get started? Granny Rose, you never seemed to need a man in your life.”
“The right one came along at the right time,” Rose said peaceably, pouring herself a cup of cocoa from the saucepan and adding a generous pile of marshmallows on the top, “but he didn’t last, that’s all. When he passed away, I didn’t feel the need to go looking all over again. I had my happiness. But you haven’t had your chance yet, Suzie.”
“I am happy!”
Rose sniffed. “Drink your cocoa.”
“It’s delicious cocoa,” Joe said to Rose, cradling the cup in one rough hand and slurping marshmallows. “Unique, but classic.”
“Thank you, Joe.” Rose joined them at the table and sipped from her own cup approvingly. “I always add a dash of cinnamon and vanilla along with a pinch of sugar to sweeten the milk. I believe in going the extra step to make everything special...even with little things like cinnamon in cocoa. And I’ve taught Susannah to do the same. Why, you should taste her Christmas eggnog! It’s—”
“You don’t have to sell my wifely skills to Mr. Santori, Granny Rose,” Susannah interrupted dryly. “I am not a prize heifer on the auction block.”
“Don’t be rude, dear, while Joe and I are having an innocent conversation.”
“Must you be so obvious?”
“Obvious about what, dear?”
Susannah began to smile. It was impossible to stay angry with her grandmother, especially in such a ridiculous circumstance. In fact, it was almost a pleasure to be sitting comfortably around the old kitchen table, sharing a snack and laughing with old friends. And that was exactly how she felt about Joe Santori. For some reason, he fit right into the familiar scenery. He was relaxed and funny—surprisingly easy to be with. He bore Rose’s needling in the spirit it was intended. His laughter rang off the ceiling beams and rattled the delicate china cups on their hooks over the sink. His grin was friendly...and ever so slightly wicked. Susannah couldn’t help smiling back at him from across the table.
In a rough, manly kind of way, Joe Santori was very sexy. So sexy that Susannah found herself wondering if she hadn’t missed something in life, after all.
To Rose, Joe said, “So you’re not mad at me after all, Mrs. A.?”
“I’m annoyed, but not mad. I hired you to fix my back porch, not run my life.”
“Well, the porch is almost done, but there are a few other things this house could stand to have fixed, you know.”
“Like what?” Rose asked, drinking her cocoa.
“In layman’s terms, this old place is falling apart.”
Susannah said, “Surely you exaggerate.”
“Not at all.” Quite seriously, Joe addressed himself directly to Rose. “I took the liberty of looking around upstairs a little just now. I notice the roof leaks, for starters.”
“Oh, it’s nothing a few pots and pans can’t take care of when it rains,” Rose answered with a twinkle in her eye.
Susannah frowned. “I had no idea you were having problems with the house, Granny Rose. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Rose shrugged. “Why should I spend my time worrying about an old pile of wood? It just has to last as long as I do. The only reason I had Joe work on the porch was that the posts were rotting.”
Joe said, “You’re going to live a good, long time, Mrs. A., so I think we should make sure your house doesn’t fall down around your ears in the meantime.”
“Oh, Joe, you’re too busy to bother with an old woman like me.”
Despite her objection, Rose looked suspiciously delighted to be the center of an attractive man’s attention, Susannah noted. She said, “Maybe you ought to get some estimates from other carpenters, Granny Rose.”
“Oh, I don’t want anybody but Joe working on my house. If he’s got the time, that is.”
“I’ve got time,” Joe said.
“Aren’t you working on the old lodge for the Ingalls family?”
“It’s coming along fine.” Joe leaned comfortably back in his chair and reached for yet another cookie. “In fact, I think the Ingalls family is trying to decide if they’re going to sell the old place or not. My crew is moving right along on the major renovations while they think about it. The improvements we’ve made should certainly help them get a better price.”
Susannah’s curiosity was piqued by that bit of Tyler gossip. “The old lodge is for sale? I thought it was condemned years ago.”
“Not condemned, just closed up. It was in pretty bad shape,” Joe said, “but Liza has been fixing it up again. Do you know Liza?”
“The youngest Baron girl? Yes, she was several years behind me in school—her brother, Jeff, was closer to my age—but I remember her. She was...well, a little wild, as I recall.”
Joe grinned. “She hasn’t changed. She’s a pistol, but I like her. Liza’s got a real artist’s eye where old buildings are concerned.”
“And,” Rose added with a smile, “she got married recently. I think she’s finally on the right track. Her grandfather is very proud of her.”
The Ingallses were one of the town’s most prominent families, and whatever they did was grist for the gossip mill in Tyler. Old Judson Ingalls had long been a community leader, and his daughter, Alyssa, was respected as one of Tyler’s most gracious and generous ladies. Her good works were well known, and a great many people asked her advice on matters.
Alyssa’s apparently fairy-tale marriage to Ronald Baron had come to a tragic end when her husband took his own life after a financial setback, but Alyssa and her three children seemed to have weathered the tragedy as well as could be hoped. Daughter Amanda was a successful lawyer, if Susannah remembered correctly, and Jeffrey had become a doctor. Only Liza, known for her wild ways, had failed so far to make her mark in the world in a big way. Susannah had always liked the feisty youngest child of Alyssa Baron, and she was glad to hear Liza was finally coming into her own.
She said, “Liza was always very talented.”
“I hope she’s also a good detective,” Joe remarked.
“Why?”
Joe exchanged a glance with Rose. “Well, the Ingalls family has a mystery to solve.”
“A mystery?” Susannah repeated.
Rose’s expression brightened with excitement. “Yes, the whole town’s been buzzing for months. Joe and his men found a dead body buried up at the lodge.”
Susannah stared at Joe. “Whose body?”
He shrugged and appeared unaffected by the gruesome event. “Nobody knows. Whoever she was had been buried for a very long time—more than twenty years, I’m sure.”
“She? How did she get there?”
“That’s the mystery. We don’t know anything, except that it was a woman—the police just figured that out, apparently—and she died under suspicious circumstances.” Joe added, “In fact, I think she was probably murdered.”
Rose set her cup down and said firmly, “I’ll bet you a dozen doughnuts it’s Margaret Ingalls.”
“Judson’s wife?” Susannah asked, astonished by Rose’s revelation. “I thought she disappeared a long time ago. Her disappearance caused a big scandal years back, didn’t it?”
Nodding, Rose said, “Everyone assumed Margaret left Judson and ran off with one of her boyfriends—she had a bunch of them. What a naughty flirt she was! I know where Liza got her spunk. Margaret ran away, but we never really learned what happened to her. The murder story makes sense, don’t you think? Instead of abandoning her husband and never contacting her friends again, she was killed!”
Susannah couldn’t help grinning as she noted Rose’s fascination with the mystery. “That’s what this town needs. A juicy murder mystery to help pass the cold winter nights.”
“It’s been the talk of the town,” Joe agreed.
With even more fervor, Rose declared, “I always knew Margaret Ingalls would come to a bad end.”
“Wasn’t that wishful thinking, Granny Rose? You had a soft spot for Judson, if I remember correctly.”
Rose blushed and got up suddenly from the table. “Oh, that was a long time ago. I never meant for Margaret to get hurt. Judson and I were friends, that’s all, especially after my Henry died. That’s the way things work in a small town. Everybody’s known everybody else since the day they were born, and we look out for one another. Except Joe, of course. He’s not from Tyler, are you, Joe?”
Susannah saw that Rose didn’t want to talk about the details of her romantic past, and Joe must have seen the same thing. He played along, saying, “Tyler is my home now, and my daughter likes it here.”
“Joe has a daughter,” Rose said to Susannah, clearly relieved that the topic had been changed. “She’s a lovely girl. Perhaps you’ll get to meet her.”
Amused, Joe heard the hopeful note in Rose’s voice and knew exactly what the old girl was up to. Practically every woman in Tyler had tried to help Joe’s love life along by introducing him to their daughters, their sisters, their maiden cousins from Chicago—any female who didn’t have one foot in the grave.
And it wasn’t just the women who tried to hook him up with marriageable ladies. A great many fathers, brothers, uncles and even a grandfather or two had made overtures on behalf of their female relatives. A widower like Joe was a prime target in a small town. In fact, Joe figured he’d met every eligible woman within a hundred miles of Tyler.
He liked meeting eligible women, of course. But Joe wasn’t looking for one particular woman in his life. He was having enough trouble with his daughter. Another female around would surely spell disaster.
However, something about Susannah Atkins intrigued Joe, unlike all the other women he’d met since coming to Tyler nearly a decade earlier. He couldn’t help noticing that Susannah Atkins was different.
As she sat at the cluttered kitchen table, her delicate hands cupping her hot cocoa, she looked beautiful, stylish and smart—not the kind of woman Joe was usually introduced to. But he liked the sound of Susannah’s laughter, and he could hardly keep his eyes off her. His insides were churned up, too, with unmistakable physical attraction. And for some reason, he was fighting the urge to reach across the table and toy with her hand. She was that kind of lady.
He tried to figure out exactly why the bells and whistles were going off in his head. It wasn’t just her beauty that drew his gaze, although her fine blond hair had started to come loose, and framed her face in silky, touchable wisps. Her features were more precise than the television camera portrayed. Her eyes were bluer.
But there was something more appealing than good looks about Miss Suzie Atkins. With a start, Joe realized he also liked the fact that she wasn’t making bedroom eyes at him. In fact, she appeared to be downright determined not to start anything personal with him or anyone else.
Susannah was one woman who wasn’t going to chase him, Joe decided.
She’s a challenge, he said to himself.
For once, here was a woman who wasn’t going to bake him cookies he didn’t need or invite him to parties he didn’t want to attend or fuss over him until he paid a compliment. She was cool and lovely and sophisticated, a woman who knew her own mind and could laugh when the moment warranted.
