So she’d taken advantage of being holed up in her condo by letting Rose’s sidekicks teach her how to cook and tell her about the guys they wanted to meet over at Sunny Beaches. It’d been a lot of fun, kind of like an elderly summer camp, and the best part was she hadn’t been tempted whatsoever to flirt and had consequently crossed three days off her time that she had to go without doing so. From the look of things, next week Jeff would meet with Kitty and Babette would be a successful businesswoman once more. Committed to her job, and proving to Jeff that women—more specifically, she—could commit.
Life was good.
“No, I don’t think she’s up for company,” Rose said, like she’d told him every other time he’d called. “Her lips?” She peeked in at Babette, who smiled broadly. “Well, I think they’re going to be just fine. Her arms started peeling a bit today, but we put some lotion on them and they’re going to be okay.” Rose paused, frowned, and Babette got a tad worried. He’d evidently asked a tougher question. “I guess she’s just being safe, you know, staying out of the sun while her skin is healing and all. And she’s taking it easy at night, hasn’t really felt up to going out after the sunburn ordeal. She says it even hurts her to talk.” Rose nodded, and Babette breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like she’d made it another day, and she was thrilled.
Finally, Rose hung up the phone.
“What did he ask, that last time?”
“He wanted to know why you weren’t at least getting out of the condo at night, since he knows how much you enjoy the beach in the evening. Then he asked again to come see you, and I told him you didn’t want to see anyone until you felt better.”
“Did he believe you?” Tillie asked, while Babette left the bedroom and went back to the kitchen to check on the gravy.
“I think he did.” Rose’s eyes followed Babette as she moved across the room. “But I’m not going to mislead him again, Babette. And I honestly think you need to face whatever is really going on here. There’s a reason you can’t read him, and I think you know what it is.”
Babette started to argue, but before she could get the first word out, someone knocked at the door.
“That’s probably Hannah,” Tillie said. “She was waiting until after Bingo to come over and help with the cooking.”
“I’ll get it.” Babette smiled at the two women taking over her kitchen, then moved to the door to let the third one in. But upon opening the door, she didn’t find the four-foot-nothing eighty-two-year-old who’d proclaimed her cinnamon roll recipe the best ever. On the contrary, she found a six-foot-two thirty-eight-year-old who hadn’t been calling from his office. Jeff held a cell phone to his ear and looked at her as though she’d been . . . caught.
“I thought you were in bed,” he said. “Too sore from your sunburn to get up.” He stepped inside, sniffed, and said toward the kitchen, “At least the part about cooking breakfast for dinner was true, huh, Rose?”
Rose slammed the oven door closed—she’d been checking on the biscuits—and scurried toward Jeff, her black granny shoes working double-time in the effort. “I promise you, she was in the bed when I said she was,” Rose said matter-of-factly. “I told her I wasn’t going to lie. I may spy, but I don’t lie,” she said, nodding for emphasis. “So she got in the bed, and then I said she was there.”
He grinned, and Babette gawked. “Rose!”
“That’s what happened. I told you we wouldn’t be able to fool him that much longer.” Rose shrugged. “Her sunburn isn’t that bad at all anymore, so I guess you did a pretty good job doctoring her on Saturday.”
“Not that I’d have known that from my phone calls,” he said.
Rose muttered something about needing to check the biscuits, looked at Babette in an I-told-you-so manner, then went back to the kitchen.
“You did do a good job doctoring the sunburn,” Babette said. “I’m not even peeling all that much.” She’d hoped that the compliment would take his mind off her deception. But this was Jeff, and he knew her. Well.
“Yeah, I got to thinking about that today at the office,” he said, standing way too near, all tall and gorgeous and intimidating. “And I thought that if the Lidocaine and aloe hadn’t worked,