The Magnolia Inn(12)

“Can you cook?” he asked when she finally wound down.

She nodded.

“And you’ll work right along with me without bitchin’?”

Another nod.

He stuck out his hand. “Then you’ve got a deal. We’ll draw up something on paper tomorrow morning and each of us will sign it. And I don’t need to get a loan from a bank. Got a safe in the house?”

“Just a little one in the utility room,” she answered.

“We’ll put our paper in there when we get done with it,” he said. “So you can cook for real?”

“Yes, why?”

“I’m hungry,” he said.

Even though Jolene looked like she might have traveled a few rough roads, she didn’t sound like she was conning him. And he really was starving. That slice of cold pizza he’d had for breakfast had long since digested. He’d been so busy getting the trailer ready to move that he’d forgotten all about lunch.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I love breakfast for supper. So I’d like biscuits and gravy, pancakes, and maybe an omelet with hash browns on the side.” He straightened up and headed across the porch with Sassy right behind him.

“Are you testing me to see if I can make a good breakfast for the inn when it’s up and running again?”

“Nope. I just happen to really like homemade breakfast food, and I thought I’d push my luck,” he answered.

“I can have it ready in thirty minutes while you do a walk-through of your new property, Mr. Malone,” she said.

“Are you serious? An omelet with some toast would be fine. Just call me Tucker. Unless you want to stand on formality, and then I’ll call you Miss Broussard.” He waited for her to catch up, and then held the door for her and Sassy. “Hope you ain’t allergic to cats.”

“No, sir. Love them, as a matter of fact. Not much into dogs. You go on and see what you think while I get some food going, and I’ll show you that I can put a decent breakfast on the table—Tucker.” She hurried off to the kitchen as he started up the wide, curved stairway.



Jolene’s hands shook as she stirred up biscuit dough from Aunt Sugar’s recipe file. If he had enough money to redo this place, why in the hell was he living in a travel trailer? Why would he want to buy half ownership? And this all had happened in two days—wasn’t that too quick?

Questions upon questions raced through her mind, but there wasn’t a single answer to any of them. She shook flour on a piece of waxed paper and kneaded the dough a few times. Once it was cut into a dozen perfect circles, she stomped her foot. She should’ve only made half a recipe. There was no way two people would eat twelve biscuits.

She slid the pan into the oven and then crumbled half a pound of sausage into a cast-iron skillet. Going back and forth from stove to cabinet, she kept it stirred in between whipping four eggs up in a bowl and dicing up some tomatoes, onions, and peppers for a western omelet.

She glanced out the kitchen window, and a dark shadow proved that he had indeed parked his trailer back there. In the dim light, it looked a lot like the one she’d lived in for a few years when she’d moved out of her mother’s place. Since he hadn’t signed the papers, he might take one look at what all needed to be done and grab his cat, and she’d never see him again.

Jolene’s mind was going in a hundred directions. Jumping from showing him that she’d be a good cook for the bed-and-breakfast to wondering how things had ever happened so fast to just how much money he was willing to invest. She didn’t even hear him enter the room.

“We’ve got a big job on our hands. You got a deadline in mind?” Tucker came into the kitchen and watched her cook from the other side of the kitchen island.

“Not really. Aunt Sugar usually closed up the place a month or so in the winter to do some heavy cleaning. It was kind of slow right after Christmas anyway. We might have a decent year if we could have our grand reopening by mid-April.”

“That sounds doable. Smells good in here. Can I wash up in the kitchen sink?”

She shrugged. “The place belongs to you as much as to me.”

He’d already removed his coat. Now he was rolling up the sleeves of his body-hugging knit shirt and heading toward the sink. When he finished, he glanced around the kitchen. “Paper towels?”

“Real towels.” She tossed him the one from over her shoulder.

“Faucet is dripping. I’ll get on that tomorrow after we draw up a plan. Once this place is fixed up, it’ll be a gold mine. Reuben is an idiot,” Tucker said.

“That’s paying Reuben a compliment,” she said. “He’s worse.”

“Maybe so, but I’m glad he didn’t want his half.” He dried his hands, rolled up his sleeves, and sat down at the table.

“Hey, if this is a partnership, Mr. Malone . . .”

“I told you it’s Tucker. Mr. Malone sounds like you’re talkin’ to my grandpa,” he reminded her.

“Okay, then, Tucker. If I’m going to help you remodel, then the least you can do is get your own plate and fork and pour your own coffee,” she scolded.

He might have agreed to save the inn, but by golly, he could damn sure help out. She pointed at the cabinet door above the coffeepot.