Confessions from the Quilting Circle - Maisey Yates Page 0,44
Anna and herself.
Sometimes there were moments where they were the family they’d started as. Where they could bake and chatter and laugh. And then the reality of where they were at now would creep in and shatter the solidarity.
They did all of their bread baking at the beginning of the week, often prepared the crab cakes for a whole month and then put them in the freezer. And that meant that on days like today, Wendy didn’t need any backup in the kitchen.
But it also meant that she was alone with her problematic guest.
Who was as polite as a man could be, and hadn’t made any untoward advances or anything like that.
No. All of the untoward everything was inside of her.
“Another cup of coffee?” she asked.
He was taking breakfast at the small, round table in the lavender parlor. The small table with the lace tablecloth and floral china set on top of it seemed almost ridiculously fussy in front of this no-nonsense man.
He had a directness to his manner that suggested he was not a man who much cared for lace.
But he also hadn’t complained.
She suspected it would go against his sense of chivalry to do so. He had that air about him, as well. A man who cared deeply about manners and the right way of doing things.
Rare, in other words.
He was a very nice break from real time. A piece of this place she loved brought into the present. A chance to feel something other than grief or sadness, worry over the present state of the family.
“Yes, please,” he said. “Would it be all right if you set down for a spell?”
“Well, I was planning on giving you a history talk once you were finished with breakfast.”
“Does that mean you can’t sit now?”
The thing was, she could. She had one last course to bring out for him, a slice of cake with cherries baked into it, and there was no reason that she couldn’t sit.
Except that... It would be crossing the line between innkeeper and guest. Not that she was inherently opposed to that. If he had been a pleasant woman whom she enjoyed speaking with, she would have done so without thought. Or a pleasant couple.
Truly, if he had been a man that she didn’t feel attracted to, she would have done it.
But she did feel attracted to him. And that was the problem.
“Have a cup of coffee,” he said.
It was a pleasant-enough-sounding invitation, except it wasn’t actually an invitation so much as a command, and she should be annoyed by it.
But she was hard-pressed to be annoyed by him.
“All right,” she said. “Let me go get your final course.”
She returned with cake. Two pieces of it, because if she was going to sit, then she was going to eat.
She couldn’t pretend that she was doing it for any reason other than that she wanted to. Couldn’t pretend that she was trying to be polite because he was a guest and he had asked her to sit.
If she’d been a younger woman with slightly less self-awareness, then perhaps she could have.
But she was too old for games like that. Even in her own head.
She was sitting with him because he was handsome. Because she wanted to be near him.
Because even though she was never going to allow anything to happen between the two of them, it was nice to have someone look at her like he might want something to happen.
She’d spent years avoiding situations like this, but she didn’t feel vulnerable anymore. Didn’t feel like she would lose her sense of self over a man.
What was the harm in a flirtation?
“I’m sure you must find it strange that I am lingering around here by myself,” he said.
“I don’t ponder the strangeness of guests overly much. If I did, I wouldn’t get anything done.”
He chuckled. “I bet you have some stories.”
“Working in hospitality for this long... Yes. A lot of stories.”
“And they are?”
“Honestly, it’s difficult to think of only one. But what I will tell you is that no matter where people come from, no matter what they do for a living, how much money they have, what corner of the world they’re from... People are strange. That is consistent.” She lifted her coffee cup to her lips. “And half of all guests leave a pair of underwear under the bed.”
That earned her a laugh. “Really?”
“Yes. I’m not sure why. Or how they don’t think to look. Because I assume that if they lose that many pairs