This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars #5)(48)

"Well…" She was trembling, and she wasn't sure whether the sound that slipped from her was a choked laugh or a leftover sob. "Gorgeous, if she took after you." Her chest ached, but instead of fighting the pain, she embraced it, absorbed it, let it become part of her. "Extremely smart, if she took after me."

"And reckless. I think today pretty much proves that. Gorgeous, huh? Thanks for the compliment."

"Like you don't know." Her heart felt a little lighter. She wiped at her runny nose with the back of her hand.

"So how come you think you're so smart?"

"Summa cum laude. Northwestern. What about you?"

"I graduated."

She smiled, but she wasn't ready to stop talking about Sarah. "I'd never have sent her to summer camp."

He nodded. "I'd never have made her go to church every day during the summer."

"That's a lot of church."

"Nine years is a lot of summer camp."

"She might have been clumsy and a slow learner."

"Not Sarah."

A little capsule of warmth encircled her heart.

He slowed. Looked up into the trees. Slipped one hand into his pocket. "I guess it just wasn't her time to be born."

Molly took a breath and whispered back, "I guess not."





Chapter 11


? ^ ?



"Company's coming!" Celia the Hen clucked. "Well bake cakes and tarts and custard pies!"



Daphne Makes a Mess





Molly set the alarm clock Kevin had left for five-thirty, and by seven o'clock the smell of blueberry muffins filled the downstairs of the B&B. In the dining room, the sideboard held a stack of pale yellow china plates with a ginkgo leaf at each center. Dark green napkins, pressed-glass water goblets, and pleasantly mismatched sterling completed the setting. A pan of sticky buns from the freezer baked in the oven while the marble slab on the worktable held a brown pottery baking dish filled with thick slices of bread soaking in an egg batter fragrant with vanilla and cinnamon.

For the first time in months Molly was ravenous, but she hadn't found time to eat. Preparing breakfast for a house full of paying guests was a lot more challenging than making smiley-face pancakes for the Calebow kids. As she moved Aunt Judith's recipe notebook away from the French toast batter, she tried to work up some resentment against Kevin, who was still asleep upstairs, but she couldn't. By acknowledging the baby last night, he'd given her a gift.

The burden of the miscarriage no longer felt as if it were hers alone to bear, and her pillow hadn't been tear-soaked when she'd awakened. Her depression wasn't going to vanish instantly, but she was ready to entertain the possibility of being happy again.

Kevin straggled in after she'd given John Pearson his second serving of French toast. His eyes were bleary, and he bore the look of a man suffering from a lethal hangover. "Your pit bull tried to corner me in the hallway."

"He doesn't like you."

"So I've noticed."

She realized something was missing, but it took her a moment to figure out what it was. His hostility. The anger Kevin had been holding against her finally seemed to have faded.

"Sorry I overslept," he said. "I told you last night to kick me out of bed if I wasn't up when you got here."

Not in a million years. Nothing would make her enter Kevin Tucker's bedroom, especially now that he was no longer looking at her as if she were his mortal enemy. She tilted her head toward the empty liquor bottles in the trash. "It must have been quite a party last night."

"They all wanted to talk about the draft, and one topic led to another. I'll say one thing for that generation, they sure know how to drink."

"It didn't affect Mr. Pearson's appetite."

He gazed at the French toast that was turning golden brown on the griddle. "I thought you didn't know how to cook."

"I phoned Martha Stewart. If people want bacon or sausage, you'll have to fry it."

"The Babe thing?"

"And proud of it. You're also waiting tables." She shoved the coffeepot at him, then turned the French toast.

He gazed at the coffeepot. "Ten years in the NFL, and this is what it all comes down to."

Despite his complaints, Kevin was surprised how quickly the next hour passed. He poured coffee, carried food back and forth, entertained the guests, and swiped some of Molly's pancakes for himself. She was a great cook, and he got sparks out of her by telling her he'd decided he'd let her keep the job.

Seeing those eyes flash felt good. Last night's confrontation seemed to have lifted some of her depression, and she had a little of the sparkle back that he remembered from Door County. He, on the other hand, had stared at the bedroom ceiling until dawn. Never again would he be able to think about the baby as an abstraction. Last night had given her a name. Sarah.

He blinked and grabbed the coffeepot for another round of refills.

Charlotte Long peeked in to see how Molly was doing and ended up eating two muffins. The sticky buns had gotten a little burned at the corners, but the French toast was good, and Molly didn't hear any complaints. She'd just downed her own breakfast standing up when Amy appeared.