style="font-size:15px;"> “Please tell me you weren’t home.”
“I wasn’t. I was at work.”
Her mother exhaled deeply. “I have never been so thankful for that crazy job of yours. Are you going to be okay? Do you need to come home for a few days? Let me feed you and you can sleep in and we’ll have our girl time.”
Ashley smiled. Just a few minutes of talking to her mom had lowered her stress level dramatically. “I would love to do that, but I have to stay and deal with the fire marshal and the insurance company and find a new contractor.”
“Okay, honey. I know you’re busy. I just want you to know that we’re here for you. Always. I’m sure that the fire was a scary thing, considering everything that happened when you were a girl, but you need to recognize that good things come out of bad, too.”
“What good came out of that fire? It was all bad.”
“Actually, a lot of good things happened. It made your father quit smoking. Another decade or two of that and we probably would have lost him to a stroke long before now. Plus, your dad and I weren’t doing that well at the time. Running the farm was hard, and it was driving a wedge between us.”
“It was?” Ashley sat back against the headboard. “You never told me that.”
“You were ten years old. And that was between your father and me. Some things have to stay between a husband and a wife. Nobody else needs to know. Regardless, the fire brought us closer. We realized how much we needed each other. It made the financial problems that came after it much easier to handle.”
“I think of that time as being so hard.”
“It was incredibly hard. But your father got me through it. That’s what love does, darling. It makes all of the bad tolerable. You should know that better than anyone. You go to work and find a lot of people true love.”
“Not that I’m actually able to find it for myself. That would make too much sense, wouldn’t it? For the woman who searches for love all day to actually find it for herself?”
“So tell me what the situation is with you and Marcus.”
If only her mother knew what a long conversation this could end up being. “There is no situation. I mean, I liked him a lot at first, but then I thought he didn’t like me.”
“And now?”
“Now, I don’t really know what to think. He has a very complicated life. I’m just not sure I’m up for that. He’s had a hard time, went through a really painful divorce and is trying to raise his daughter on his own. I’m starting to see why he can come across as a jerk. He closes himself off to everything.”
“Just like you do.”
For a moment, Ashley wasn’t sure of what she’d heard her mother say. “What? I don’t do that at all. You know me. I’ll talk about anything.”
“Maybe when it comes to other people. You close doors when you don’t like what you see. You’ve done that since you were a little girl. If something bad happened, you just learned to ignore it. You were always better at helping other people than helping yourself.”
Ashley’s mind flew back to the palm reading in the limo. She didn’t really believe in that stuff, but Marcus had said virtually the same thing of her. Oh my God. She’s right. He’s right. She’d closed the door on the bad behavior of her contractor. She’d closed the door on the fire, trying to put on a brave face for Marcus so he wouldn’t see her fall apart. She’d closed the door on the reasons James had left. Why wasn’t she ready for a real commitment? For children?
“Mama, can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Do you think I’m too scattered to be a good mom or wife?”
Her mother laughed quietly. “Didn’t I just get done saying that you’re better at helping others than helping yourself? That’s pretty much the first requirement of being a wife and a mom. Being scattered has nothing to do with it. And you’re not scattered. You’re full of life. You aren’t afraid to take on new things, even if it stretches you a little bit.”
“I’m not afraid to take on new things if I think I’m going to be good at them.”
“Or if it helps you help someone else.”
She hadn’t thought about it that way, but that wasn’t far off base. She’d taken on the matchmaker show not completely certain she’d do well at it, only knowing that she had to take the chance so she could help her family.
“So, Ashley Anne, do you like him?”
“Who? Marcus?”
“The man in the moon. Of course I mean Marcus.”
Ashley instructed her clients not to think when she asked them questions like this. It was a time for the heart to take the lead. “I do. He can be a big mystery, but I feel like I find out something new every time we spend time together. I just keep going back, even when things aren’t going well, because I’m dying to know more. I guess you could say he has me hooked.”
“And does he like you?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest. I mean, he invited me to stay at his apartment, so I’m pretty sure he doesn’t hate me.”
“Sounds to me like you need to find a way to his heart. And you know what that means.”
Ashley smiled wide. “You think so?”
“Absolutely. You need to cook for the man. That’s the surest way to figure out how he feels.”
Mama had given her marching orders—cook for the man. A homemade, South Carolina low country, George family dinner. Shrimp and grits—the kind of dinner her mother would have made when there was money for groceries. For dessert, a coconut layer cake, six layers, the way her grandmother had made it. Ashley knew every step by heart.
But first, clothes. The black pencil skirt she’d worn to work yesterday was fine, but the smell of smoke had permeated her silk blouse just from twenty minutes out in the hall. She hoped Marcus would feel okay if she borrowed one of his dress shirts for a little while. She’d take it to the cleaners when she was done with it. Plus she wanted to see his bedroom.
When she rounded the corner into his room, she was greeted with masculine splendor, much like the rest of the house. A tufted brown leather headboard crowned the head of his bed. A white duvet and pillows topped it with a gray wool blanket cast aside. The bed was still unmade, a rumple of sheets. Of course—the housekeeper would be by soon.
Ashley couldn’t help it—she crept over to the side of the bed and turned, perching precariously on the edge of the mattress. Her hand smoothed over the silky sheets. Damn him. He would have to buy bedding with a high thread count. Probably the finest Egyptian cotton. She knew she shouldn’t have been doing it, but there was something so comforting and cozy about sitting where
