Home to the Riverview Inn by Molly O'Keefe

Author:Molly O'Keefe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Molly O'Keefe

10

Sunday morning, with Helen at her heels, Daphne opened the door to the Riverview Inn kitchen, and found it full of women: Delia, Alice with Stella, Iris, Josie.

The lone spot of testosterone, Cameron, sat at the butcher’s block like some kind of time traveler in the wrong era.

“Those are ten good menus,” Alice said. “You need to talk to Jonah about the budget and talk to your suppliers—” Cameron was gone, notebook in hand, before she even finished her sentence.

The women all laughed in his wake.

“What’s so funny?” Helen asked her friend Josie, too young to understand how Cameron must have felt surrounded and outnumbered.

“I don’t really know,” Josie admitted. “But I made sure that Cameron had noodles with cheesy peas on the school menu. And no spinach.” She looked at her mom from the corner of her eyes and Daphne bit back a smile.

The girls high-fived and ran out of the kitchen, talking about what else was going to be served at school, hopefully come Monday.

“You guys have been busy,” Daphne said, watching the swinging door shut behind her daughter. None of the remaining women responded and when she glanced around to see if she’d been deserted, she saw Iris, Delia and Alice sharing looks over the tops of their coffee cups.

“What?” Daphne demanded, hating to be the butt of any joke.

“You’ve been busy, too,” Alice said in such a knowing way that Daphne burned with a sudden blush.

Had Jonah told them? she wondered, appalled and embarrassed. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“New York City?” Alice asked, putting down her cup.

“Armani?” Delia asked, with equal parts astonishment and envy. “How did you do it?”

“That is a very good question,” Iris said. “How did you get my son to go to a school picnic? Not to mention volunteering on behalf of a family he hates, to coordinate lunch efforts for a school?”

“Well.” Delia laughed, hoisting herself up onto the counter, “I was really more interested in how you got a man to pay for an Armani evening dress, but—” she waved her hand “—you can answer those first.”

Relief blew through Daphne. “It’s business, that’s all. He helped me and I am helping him.”

“That explains the dress,” Iris said, arching an elegant black brow, “but not his behavior.”

Daphne sighed and decided to tell the honest to God truth that had kept her up too late at night, that had dogged her this morning walking the apple orchards.

Her body, her blood, her lust had all been jump-started, and she couldn’t stop the constant hum in her nerve endings.

About the only thing that had been acting as an effective cold shower was wondering why he’d done it? Why he’d pulled her into that dark doorway? Why he’d put his hand up her skirt? Why he’d torn the carefully protected and iron-clad fibers of her world into pieces?

“I have no idea why Jonah does the things he does,” she said.

Iris laughed. “Welcome to life with my son.”

Daphne jerked at the implied intimacy of her words. Thoughts of Jonah were needles under her skin, constantly poking and abrading.

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