Page 33 of The Sugar Maple Inn

Grace craned her neck and watched her son head back down the hallway, making a beeline for the chair closest to where the pretty teen girl was now writing in a notebook. The girl looked up as Zach approached and even from here, Grace could see the interest in her expression.

Great. Her fourteen-year-old was about to discover flirting while Grace was stuck playing Top Chef against a billionaire.

“Reese, you’re on the other side of Grace. Boys,” Margaret said, peering over at her son and his husband, “you get the room at the end. I’ll leave you to get settled. Come to the kitchen when you’re ready, Grace and Reese. We’ll see what you can do with what we’ve got.”

Margaret strolled away, leaving the four of them standing in the hallway.

“So,” Caleb said, breaking the awkward silence. “This is cozy. Two rivals, forced to sleep in rooms across from each other. It’s very Pride and Prejudice meets MasterChef.”

Grace noticed Reese wasn’t listening, he was instead scanning the floor of the hallway like he was searching for something.

“It’s a hallway, darling, not a Jane Austen novel,” Mikkel said.

“Everything is a Jane Austen novel if you have the right attitude,” Tressa said as she appeared, handing them all towels.

“So true.” Caleb turned to Grace and Reese with barely contained glee. “We should do drinks later. After the cook-off. Maybe a murder mystery? I brought cards. We could play charades? Oh! Or we could do a séance…this place definitely has ghosts.”

“A séance, eh?” Reese said, his eyes playful as he looked at Grace. “Maybe we can get in touch with the ghosts of my past. All the competitors who thought they could beat me.”

“Are you so worried about me as competition,” Grace shot back cooly, “that you’re threatening to kill me?”

His mouth curved, slow and wolfish. “Don’t need to, Grace. You’ll bury yourself trying to catch me.”

“Cute. Do you rehearse these villain monologues in the mirror or do they just come naturally?”

Tressa smiled to herself.

“Forget the séance,” Caleb said as he looked at them both, “you two can provide the after-dinner entertainment with your double act. So, back to the drinks. Mikkel will make his famous aquavit cocktails—”

“I will not—”

“—and I can pretend I’m not trapped in my childhood home during a storm with two people who clearly want to throttle each other.” Then he frowned as he looked between Grace and Reese. “Or maybe I’m misinterpreting that look of hate in your eyes. Maybe it’s desire?”

“Caleb, please stop,” Grace said with a sigh.

“I mean, who doesn’t love a bit of forced proximity?” Caleb continued, ignoring her. “It’s how Mikkel and I got together, you know. Trapped in an airport in Copenhagen for fourteen hours. By hour six, we were going to either kill each other or fall in love.”

“I almost picked the killing option,” Mikkel said dryly.

“But you didn’t and now look at us! Married and happy.”

“Caleb!” Grace said, giving him a warning look as Reese looked on, amused.

Caleb started backing toward his room, hands up. “Fine, fine. See you all at the cook-off. May the best chef win. My money’s on Grace, by the way. No offense, Reese. But have you tasted her cookies?”

“Caleb!” Mikkel hissed as the group froze at the innuendo.

“Nope, I haven’t had the pleasure of Grace’s cookies yet,” Reese said, his eyes on Grace.

Grace escaped into her room before Caleb could suggest anything else ridiculous, closing the door firmly behind her. She took some deep breaths, then moved to the window, watching the storm tear across the lake. Trees bent nearly double, rain slashing sideways, the water a roiling mass of gray and white. It was beautiful in a violent, uncontrollable way. Like everything in her life right now.

She’d done well with the presentation. She knew she had. The sketches had landed exactly how she’d hoped and Margaret’s face when she’d talked about keeping the Blackwell family photos on the walls—that had been a real connection.

But then Reese had started asking questions and all her careful projections had looked exactly like what they were: optimistic at best, delusional at worst.

Her phone buzzed. She looked at the screen to see it was Mabel. Great, now she had to deal with her mom.

“Hi, Mom,” Grace answered, sinking onto the edge of the bed.