told Maizie it was up for two months.”
Virginia offered her brother a forced smile. “I exaggerated,” she told him.
“To whom?” he asked. “Her or me?”
“Um…”
The time didn’t matter as much as the actual deed. “The point is, Virginia, you put up the webpage without telling me.”
“I was waiting for the right time to tell you,” she answered. It looked as if she had waited too long. With a sigh of surrender, she said, “I guess this is it.”
Virginia took her netbook out of her purse, turned it on and then typed in the appropriate address. Once the website was up, she turned the computer around so that the screen faced him.
“What do you think?”
Stone took in the various photographs he’d taken of his work, work he was very proud of and with good reason. Still, he shrugged carelessly. “Not bad.”
That sounded like typical Stone, Virginia thought. He wasn’t exactly heavy-handed with his praise. Nonetheless, she splayed a hand over her chest, tilting her head back dramatically as she cried, “Oh, be still my heart. I don’t know if I can handle such heady praise.”
Stone got the message. And, in all honesty, the website did look rather impressive. She’d done a commendable job.
“Okay, good.” He paused. “Better than good,” he amended.
Virginia did a rapid movement with her hand, urging him on. “Keep going,” she coaxed.
The phone rang just then. “Later,” he told his sister. Taking his cell out again, he answered the call. “Hello?”
“Is this Scarborough Construction?” an exceedingly melodic voice on the other end of the call asked.
He thought he detected just a trace of a Southern accent in the woman’s voice. He caught himself trying to place it.
“Yes,” he replied, wondering if this was the woman the Realtor had just told him about. Could she have gotten back to them so quickly?
He was all set to doubt it, but then he heard the woman with the melodic voice say, “Maizie Sommers gave me your phone number. I was wondering if we could get together tomorrow evening … if you’re free, that is. I’d like to show you around my home and explain to you what I’d like to have done.”
He felt as if he were standing in the direct path of a city-owned snowplow. “Sure. What time?”
“Any time after four would be fine.”
“Four-thirty?” he suggested.
“Perfect.” She rattled off her address, then said, “I’ll see you then.”
“Four-thirty,” he repeated, confirming the time just before he hung up. Turning around, he saw both his sister and his daughter smiling at him. Widely. “What?” he asked uncertainly.
“Nothing,” Virginia replied quickly.
But she knew if she didn’t say something, he might grow suspicious. Her brother was the type who, upon finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow would look around to see if there was a group of leprechauns somewhere, having fun at his expense.
“I can just hear the sound of bills getting paid,” she answered cheerfully.
“Well, don’t count your checks before they’re written,” he cautioned, thinking of the job that had just fallen through earlier. “You never know how these things can turn out.”
“Sorry,” Virginia murmured. “Don’t know what came over me.” There was a time, Virginia couldn’t help remembering, when her brother was just as optimistic as she was. She missed those times.
I hope you’re as good as Ginny thinks you are, Maizie Sommers, Virginia said silently. I can’t wait for my brother to fall in love again and become human, like he was with Eva.
Chapter Two
Sometimes, when Danielle Everett thought about it, it still took her breath away.
Three years ago, she was living in Atlanta, struggling to pay off not just her student loans but also the mountain of medical bills her father had left in his wake. At the time, she was working at an insurance company, living on a shoestring and feeling her soul being sucked away, bit by bit, with every passing day.
Back then, Danni was vainly trying to keep her head above water and wondering if her utterly unfounded optimism would eventually erode because from any angle she looked at it, her optimism had absolutely nothing to hook on to.
All she wanted back then was to wake up in the morning and not feel as if she were struggling against an oppressive feeling. She didn’t want to feel that if she ever let her guard down, she’d be a victim of the dark, bottomless depression whispering along the perimeter of her very being.
Back then she’d never dreamed that she could actually wake up grinning from ear to ear—the way she did these days.
Granted she was as exhausted now as she had been back then, but then the exhaustion had come from trying to keep her footing on the treadmill she was running on—the treadmill that threatened, at any moment, to pull her under. Now she was exhausted from trying to do ten things at once. The difference being was that these were ten things she loved doing.
Back then she’d been a company drone, an anonymous, tiny cog in a huge machine, expected to perform and make no waves. These days she was her own person. And, in many ways, her own boss as well. She took suggestions, not orders. Which made a world of difference to her everyday existence.
And all because of a skill, a talent she’d never even thought twice about.
Danni cooked like a dream and baked like a celestial being.
It all started innocently enough. She began by cooking for friends, then for friends of friends. Friends of friends who insisted on paying her for her time and skill. Before Danni knew it, she had branched out to catering full-time. There was no room left to squeeze in her day job.
The happiest day of her life was the day Danni handed in her resignation to Roosevelt Life Insurance’s actuarial department. Her second-happiest day was the day she paid off the last of her late father’s medical bills. Her last student loan payment followed a year later.
She was finally solvent and didn’t owe anyone anything!
By then Danni realized that she was doing far more baking than cooking. A few heady connections later and she found herself being courted to star in a brand-new cooking show.
Initially, Danni had some serious doubts about going in that direction and she hesitated about making the commitment, which also meant relocating cross-country. After all, weren’t there more than enough cooking shows already all over the airwaves? Their life expectancy was projected to be somewhere a little longer than that of a common fruit fly—but not by all that much.
By
