He glanced away, but she caught a glimpse of his dark expression. So he assumed her mother had been another Mrs. Price, did he? Nothing could be further from the truth.
“They weren’t friends,” she said, stressing the words. “I don’t care what Mrs. Price thinks. As far as she’s concerned, I’ve been highly inappropriate for most of my life. Why stop now?”
Blackwell looked at her again, this time with a grin. She couldn’t help but smile back. Then he sucked all the humor out of the situation by saying, “Am I forgiven for hiring you?”
“No,” she said—not bitterly, as she would have the first day, but with absolute sincerity.
He glanced at the book in her hands. “You can’t tell me you’re not interested in brewing.”
“I am,” she admitted. “But that’s beside the point.”
Something in his expression made her think he would apologize. But he merely sighed. “I’d better get back to the greenhouse—and you’d better leave before I’m tempted to appall Pastor Hattington and make you work on a Sunday.”
Tangential and badly timed though it was, this offered an opening, so she took it. “Speaking of work ... How are youable to pay me if you’re getting none of the usual supports and they’re not even payingyou?”
“Oddly enough, you’re not the first to ask me that,” he said, letting her precede him into the hallway.
“Oh? Who was?”
“Mitchell Gray. Very interested in my affairs, that man. What’s his story?”
“State senator, chairman of a committee—I think he’s fairly influential. Certainly here. The most important man in town.” A thought occurred that nearly made her laugh. “I suppose you’re intruding on his territory.”
“Are you telling me to watch my back?”
“I really don’t know him well enough to hazard a guess about whether he’s the stabbing sort.”
“He had no such compunction against warning me aboutyou.” Blackwell, opening the front door, rolled his eyes. “You are, I am to understand, likely to undermine me in every possible way.”
She could feel her cheeks flushing. That was precisely what her sister and Rosemarie wanted her to do.
“I would have told him to go to hell,” he added, “but it didn’t seem very politic. To answer your question, and his: Your paycheck’s coming from my bank account.”
“Oh,” she murmured in even greater embarrassment before hastening back to church.
Too bad she had no way of confirming that he was telling the truth.
CHAPTER 7
Blackwell might have scruples about putting her to work on a Sunday, but her sister did not. “Would you help me make signs directing people to the hotel?” Lydia asked, hovering in the doorway of their shared bedroom.
Beatrix glanced back at the brewing manual in her lap, wishing she’d had the sense to read in the forest, where she would have been harder to find. “We’ve got more than a month to go—there’s no rush.”
“Everything that can go wrong willgo wrong, so we’d better not leave anything to the last minute.”
Lydia sounded so tired that sympathy overcame irritation.
“All right,” Beatrix said, getting up.
Posterboard and pens waited for them on the dining room table. Her sister sat, rubbing her temples. “Do ten straight-ahead arrows, all right? I’ll make the rights, lefts and U-turns for the inevitable misses.”
Beatrix produced the first sign and shook her head. “I have visions of elderly women wandering around the docks. I wish we could have found a downtown hotel willing to take our money.”
“At least everyone coming from the aeroport should be all right. Youdidgive the shuttle company detailed directions, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Beatrix frowned. “You say that as if I have a habit of not doing what you’ve asked of me.”
Lydia looked up, apology in her eyes. “It’s just that I’ve hardly seen you the last few days.”
