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“Ah, no. Nothing important.” It sounded as though he was doing something as he replied, “What can I do for you?”
“Sorry to bother you, but, um, I was wondering…um, if you have time today, would you mind stopping by for a little while?” She wouldn’t blame him if he wanted nothing more to do with her. She’d handled his previous offer badly. “I need a few questions answered, and I’m finding I need—”
“Advice?”
“Answers.”
“What time?”
“It’s seven-thirty-five.”
“No…I mean what time do you want me to stop by?”
“Oh.” It was a good thing he couldn’t see the flush that stained her cheeks. Used to accounting for every minute of her day, she’d reacted with her usual quickness. “Sorry.” She took a deep breath. “Anytime. I mean, I’m here all day.”
“All right. I have a ride this morning to take care of. Almost time for it now, so they’ll be here any minute. But I’ll be through in a couple of hours. Could be at your place close to noon.”
“Thanks, Grant. Noon. I’ll…um, treat you to lunch. I appreciate it.”
By noon, she’d sorted through the last of the mail. She’d found stacks of stuff, some of it from years past, but nothing of importance. Nothing to tell her who she could get to look after her docks and grounds. She’d checked the computer, but found little that told her what she should be looking for. Hadn’t her granddad used it?
She’d found a few messages for Nathan, personal messages that she hadn’t the heart to read just yet. She didn’t erase them, but put them in a separate folder for future reading. Maybe she’d learn something of her grandfather’s personality from them. She supposed those people who had written had been given their own notification about her grandfather’s passing.
Would they be shocked to know of her?
She heard a vehicle pull into the parking lot. The office door opened, and Grant swung through. Was it noon already?
For a moment, she stared at him.
She watched his lean body as he came in. He didn’t look like a cowboy now. His tan shorts stopped above his knees and showed long, tanned, sturdy legs. His short-sleeved polo shirt, with a golf emblem on the pocket, displayed his muscular arms to perfection. His hair lay close to his head, dark with dampness. He looked as though he’d just stepped out of the shower.
After all the teasing she’d received back in Minneapolis from her nursing buddies about going to Missouri for a lake cowboy, she just wished she could point them to Grant now. Or take his picture to send back.
Cowboy indeed!
But he did look mighty fine, and she felt her heart ping in a dangerous way.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “The guests lingered about, wanting to talk and look around. But I can give you all the time you need now. Don’t have an afternoon ride today.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She blinked, and rose. What kind of guests? Single females? Females that appreciated his good looks?
What am I, nuts? Who has time for heart patters when I’m struggling to run this old place? It would only complicate things. Besides, I’m only going to be here a year. I can’t get involved with him when I’m planning to go back to Minneapolis…
“I, um, thank you for coming,” she said. “I’ve made sandwiches for lunch.”
“That’s fine.” He stood with his thumbs hooked in his front pockets. “I’m starved. I didn’t have much for breakfast this morning. Wanted to be ready for my riders.”
“I didn’t, either.” She walked through to the living room, leaving open the office door for him to follow. She shoved her personal thoughts into the back of her mind—I’m not into short-term romances—and attempted to think of business. “Can I fix you an iced tea?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“I have it made.”
He took a kitchen chair as she busied herself on the short counter top. He was quiet, watching her fill matching glasses with ice cubes and tea.
Strangely, Grant felt a bit of alertness. Sunny Merrill didn’t like asking for help, he’d noticed. She was uncomfortable with it.
“How’s it been?” he asked by way of opening a subject she had a hard time approaching.
A difficult discussion, to be sure, but it was natural she’d want to know where everything was. Did that include bank accounts? What would she do if she found all of Nathan’s accounts? Take the money and run?
She’s not Heather, a little voice reminded him. She’s entitled to whatever Nathan left her. She could do as she pleased with it all.
He pulled his thoughts back to what she was saying.
“Crazy. I had two calls yesterday to confirm reservations, and one requesting one.” She handled the knife to cut the sandwiches with deft strokes, then put pickle chips on the side of the plates. “I handled them the best I could. But I’ve gone through all the papers and mail on the desk, on the counter, and stuff in the computer. I can’t find how Nathan kept track of anything.”
She glanced at him over her shoulder, her braid swinging. “How can you run a resort or keep track of it all, without a log or files or something?”
“Don’t know. Nathan kept a lot of stuff in his head. He has—had—been doing this so long, he didn’t have to write down everything.”
“But that’s loony. How did he do his taxes?”
“Don’t know, but he had someone do them. I expect you’ll find someone in town to answer tax questions.”
She set a triple-decker sandwich in front of him. She put her own sandwich down, then stood by her chair, hesitating.
He glanced up into her eyes. Her gaze softly questioned him. “What?”
She let her tongue moisten the corner of her mouth. “I’d like to say grace before we eat.”
Shock kept him silent for a moment. His family all went to church, and were faithful to their beliefs, but they’d never said grace at meals. He doubted they knew how.
He certainly didn’t.
And he’d thought Sunny like Heather? Such a thing would have been very foreign to Heather’s thinking. Yet saying grace was an easy enough thing to fake—maybe Sunny wouldn’t really know how.
“Okay.” He let his doubt rest.
Sunny sat down slowly, and bowed her head. Her hands were out of sight in her lap. She appeared tense, as though she didn’t want to let another person—him—in on her personal thoughts. Or she didn’t know what to say.
He watched the flutter of her lashes as she sought to form words. Then her voice softened.
“Father, we thank you for this food and the beauty of the day. Thank you for giving me…thank you…for all this bounty and for the many challenges, as well. Help me to meet them successfully. Please bless Mark Larson. Amen.”
She raised her head, but didn’t look at him as she lifted her glass of tea.
“This sandwich is delicious.” He filled the silence with the first thing that came into his mind. She’d surprised him again. The bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich was exactly as he liked it.
But who was Mark Larson? What did he mean to her? Was he someone waiting in the wings? A boyfriend?
“Thank you. I…hope I didn’t…” she spoke quietly, gazing at her plate. Then her lashes swept up, and she looked directly into his eyes, her irises looking more green than brown. “I realize my faith can be awkward for some people. But in my own home, I can’t ignore the need to ask His grace. And for now, this is my home.”
He hadn’t thought of that. In his mind, it still belonged to Nathan. He’d rattled around the old place for years each summer, and got to know old Nathan like another grandparent. “No problem. I’ve been known to ask the Lord for a favor or two a few times.”
They munched for a bit.
“Now tell me what I can help you with,” Grant finally said, figuring he would open the subject.
“Employees.” She’d been waiting to ask. “I can’t find a record of any, and I’m sure Nathan didn’t handle everything by himself. Did he have someone to help him clean the cabins? And what about the laundry?”
“Hmm…he had several women over the years to do the cabins and the laundry after his wife died,” he told her. “Sylvia and Anne something or other. Sylvia did them a few years till she quit to move in with her daughter. Then there was Anne.”
“I haven’t a record of an Anne. I found an old memo about Sylvia, I think.”
“Well, Anne lives somewhere in town. Anne Newton. Somebody should know her.” He took another bite of his sandwich, getting mustard on the edge of his mouth.
Her gaze settled on the spot, making him aware of his manners. His tongue edged out to swipe it, the taste sharp, and her gaze shifted elsewhere.
He guessed he’d passed muster at some point. She didn’t seem as awkward with him now, or as uptight as she’d been yesterday.
“Okay. Where is the washer and dryer?”
“Oh, they’re in the back of the garage. I’ll show you after lunch.”
“Okay.” She was quiet again. Her hair looked golden in its tight braid, although tendrils of it had escaped and fluttered about her face. He had a sudden urge to brush it from her eyes, but kept his hands busy with his sandwich instead. He wondered what she did with her hair when she was nursing.
“Now, how about the lawns?”
“Nathan kept them up.”
“Right.” She nodded. “The place isn’t big enough for full-time care, but I noticed they’ve been tended to recently.”
“Ah, that was me.” He stopped chewing for a moment, and swallowed. “I thought I’d just keep them trimmed until you turned up. I mean, nobody knew for sure if you’d even want the place, and I had the time. Nathan doesn’t charge me to keep my boat here or anything—I mean, he didn’t—”
“Yes, I see what you mean.” Her gaze was speculative. “I have you to thank, then, huh? It’s very kind of you.”
“Wasn’t much,” he said in perfect cowboy lingo, then repeated, “I had the time. It’s a fair trade. But soon my business will pick up and I won’t have time for anything more.”
Another pause. She appeared to be thinking that over.
“Okay. So now I’ll have to find someone else to do the yard work.” She put down her sandwich to take up her tea glass. “How about the boat stuff?”
“Boat stuff?”
“Yes, the, um…you know.”
“Uh-huh. Well, Nathan took care of the docks, the boat lift, and everything else. He kept them pretty neat, too. I guess you can find everything you need—all the tools for keeping the place are in the garage.”
“Active old guy, wasn’t he?” she mumbled.
“Yep. Active as any ten men his age.”
“Mmm…I haven’t explored the garage yet.” She raised an eyebrow. “Couldn’t find the key to it. Do you know where it is and what’s there?”
“Oh, the truck, I expect,” he said, helping himself to sugar for his iced tea. He spoke without looking at her, and stirred his tea with vigor. “Ol’Winnie. And the lawn mower, wheelbarrow, hand tools. You know, the works.”
“A truck?” Her voice went up a notch as excitement entered her system. She slapped what was left of her sandwich down on her plate, and looked at him with sparkling eyes. “There’s a truck included? Really? What kind, what make?”
“Now hold on, it’s not the Hope Diamond, you know. It’s only a black truck. He always called her Ol’ Winnie. She’s about three years old, I guess.”
“Yes, but I can turn in my rental car now. I won’t have that cost and I won’t have to depend on—I was using my savings—oh, never mind that now. A truck! And only three years old?”
It was the most excitement she’d shown.
“If I had known it would create such unbridled excitement, I’d have told you about the truck the other day,” he said, letting his grin spread wide.
She glanced at him, flushed with embarrassment, and grinned back. Her mouth curved in such a way, it reminded him again of the way old Nathan’s mouth made the same curve.
That was it. She had her granddaddy’s smile.
Only on Sunny, it had a sweetness he hadn’t counted on seeing. It charmed him out of his shoes. In spite of himself, or memories of Heather.
“I’ve never driven a truck, but I can learn. Ol’ Winnie, huh? Well, how hard can it be? And it’s only three years old. My old car barely got me to work and back, and I prayed every day that it would hold out just a little longer.”
She finished her last bite, chewing thoughtfully, her eyes full of stars. Finally she turned to him. “Now what were we discussing? The yard?”
“Yeah, well, um, yard stuff… Nathan couldn’t use a rider mower, you know. Ground isn’t level enough. He walked the whole site, when his knee wasn’t hurting him. The part that is kept mowed anyway.”
“I guess I could manage that.” She was a bit doubtful. Her voice grew pensive. “He had a bad knee?”
“Yeah. He, um, he’d get shots once in a while for it. He saw a doc in town.”
“I see.” Her face took on a still, faraway look again. Her mouth, in repose, was sweetly bowed. “Well, I suppose Sunshine Acres doesn’t have much in the way of grass,” she said, pushing back her chair. “But I noticed there were an awful lot of rocks.”
“That’s right, the soil is far too rocky for a real lawn, I guess.” He chewed the last of his sandwich. “Gotta build up a layer of dirt if you want a lawn. Shirley had a few old flower beds when she was alive and could care for them.”
Sunny turned to stare at him, a vulnerable, lost look on her face that she couldn’t quite hide. “You knew Shirley, too?”
“Yeah, a bit. Not as well as I knew Nathan.”
“What…what was she like?”
“Oh, friendly…worked hard, but she liked to laugh. She had the kindest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. She loved being outside, and would stay out till dark most days. She loved talking with her customers. And she loved those flower beds.”
Sunny was silent a moment, staring at her glass. Then almost as if she didn’t want to ask, she did. “Did you ever meet my dad?”
“No.”
