Page 5

Nobody could resist my pumpkin-pecan muffins.

That belief had survived college roommates, office politics, three disastrous client meetings, one Thanksgiving in which my aunt had announced she was “cutting back on sugar,” and approximately every man I had ever watched eat a second muffin while insisting he did not want another one.

My grandmother had taught me the original recipe when I was twelve. I had spent the next twenty years improving it with toasted pecans, extra brown sugar, a little more spice, and dried cranberries softened with just enough bourbon to make people close their eyes when they bit into one.

I added flour, eggs, butter, pecans, dried cranberries, brown sugar, and the spices I had not brought from Chicago. Then I found a small bottle of bourbon and tucked it beside the pumpkin.

This was not bribery.

This was hospitality with strategic timing.

Back at the cottage, I traded my coat and boots for thick socks and turned the little kitchen into my own.

The oven warmed the room while wind rattled dry leaves across the cottage windows. I chopped the cranberries and let them soften in bourbon while I mixed pumpkin, brown sugar, eggs, melted butter, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. The familiar scent pulled a dozen memories into the room with me: my grandmother’s kitchen, flour on the counter, her old yellow mixing bowl, and the first time she had let me measure the cinnamon without watching over my shoulder.

She had believed recipes should be taught properly before anyone earned the right to meddle with them.

I had meddled enthusiastically.

The toasted pecans went in last with the bourbon-darkened cranberries.

While the muffins baked, I stood at the dining table and reviewed Duncan’s old invoices again. The address matched the professional contact information from his contractor years, but nothing in the paperwork told me whether he still worked there, whether the property had changed, or whether I was about to drive into the woods carrying baked goods for a man who wanted nothing to do with me.

That last possibility seemed particularly likely.

The timer chimed.

Twenty minutes later, twelve domed pumpkin muffins sat cooling on the counter, their tops golden-brown and studded with pecans. The kitchen smelled like cinnamon, toasted nuts, pumpkin, and warm bourbon.

I found a cream-colored ceramic plate in one of the cabinets and arranged six muffins on it, rejecting two configurations before deciding the third looked inviting without looking as though I had spent five minutes arranging baked goods for a stranger.

I had, but he did not need to know that.

Once the muffins were cool enough, I covered the plate tightly with plastic wrap and carried it to the front hall.

Then I made the mistake of looking in the mirror.

My lipstick had mostly disappeared. My coat had flattened the back of my curls while the wind had encouraged the front to expand in three separate directions. My fitted sweater had also shifted during the afternoon until the girls were making more of an appearance than I intended for a professional negotiation.

I refreshed my lipstick, tugged my sweater into a more respectable position, and tried to smooth my curls with damp fingers.

They sprang back with renewed enthusiasm.

“Fine,” I told my reflection. “Live your truth.”

At least my makeup still looked decent.

I wrapped my floral scarf around my neck, pulled on my coat and ankle boots, and picked up the muffins.

By then the afternoon light had begun to thin.

The route in my navigation system took me away from downtown, past neighborhoods strung with fake cobwebs and carved pumpkins, then onto a quieter road where the houses stood farther apart. The wind had strengthened, sending dry leaves tumbling across the pavement in rust-colored bursts.

Duncan’s property sat beyond a long gravel drive bordered by dense woods.

The house was substantial without being showy, built of dark wood and stone with broad windows reflecting the gray-gold sky. Farther back through the trees, I could make out the roofline of a separate outbuilding, but from where I parked I could not tell what it was used for.

I carried the plate to the front porch and knocked.