skim milk in the fridge and started to bring it out to the dining room, but he remembered that both Sara and Miss Greer always put everything in nice dishes. He had to rummage for a cream pitcher.
Then the water was boiling. Oh, God, what should he do with it? Where were the tea bags?
The toast popped up, but he didn’t have time to eat it. He put in more of his lumpy, uneven slices for the guests, brought the whole kettle to the dining room and poured it into Mrs. Taylor’s cup as she looked on, puzzled.
“I suppose you’d like a tea bag,” he said.
Mrs. Taylor pointed at the buffet. “They’re right there.”
Thank God.
He brought out the frittata just as the second couple, the Silversteins, arrived. They, of course, wanted coffee right away, but with half-and-half, not skim milk.
“Could we get something to serve the frittata?” Mr. Taylor asked, when Reece returned with the half-and-half carton—he couldn’t find another cream pitcher, though he knew there must be one somewhere.
“Just scoop it up with your hands,” Reece said in a lame attempt at humor. When no one laughed, he retreated, found a spatula, and brought it to Mr. Taylor.
The third couple, the Benedicts, arrived. They were elderly, and Mr. Benedict started clamoring for prune juice.
Reece realized he hadn’t offered any of them juice. The toast had popped up and was getting cold.
He found the prune juice, poured orange juice, buttered toast and set it on the table. Someone asked for jam, and he had to find all the different flavored jams, put them in jam pots as he’d seen Sara and Miss Greer do a dozen times, and set them out.
Coffee refills. Juice refills. The muffins! He’d forgotten all about them. It took him precious time to find a basket and a cloth to line it with. He dumped the muffins into the basket and set it on the table.
“Do you have any yogurt?” Mrs. Silverstein asked.
“What about oatmeal?” Mr. Benedict asked. “Don’t you usually serve oatmeal with fresh strawberries?”
“No oatmeal today,” Reece said apologetically. “Miss Greer is having surgery this morning and Sara, her helper, is with her. I’m doing the best I can, but I know it’s not what you’re used to.”
“As long as you don’t serve us those cream puffs,” Mrs. Silverstein said with a sniff. The cream puffs were Miss Greer’s specialty, and everyone despised them, though no one had the heart to tell her they weren’t very good.
By the time the guests had eaten their fill and left the table, Reece was exhausted, his stomach burned, and he had a whole new respect for Sara’s skills.
Well, okay, she did have an alarming tendency to spill things on him, but other than that, cooking and serving breakfast appeared as effortless as breathing to Sara.
He still had a lot of work ahead of him, he realized. The dining room looked like the cafeteria scene from Animal House.
He’d just started stacking dishes to carry into the kitchen when the phone rang. He went to answer it. “Hello? I mean, Sunsetter Bed-and-Breakfast, can I help you?”
“It’s me, Sara.”
Reece was amazed at the rush of relief and pleasure he got from just the sound of her voice. “Hey, Sara. Is everything all right?”
“Miss Greer just got out of surgery, and the doctor said it went fine. She’s in recovery. It looks like I’ll be here a while longer, though.”
“No need to hurry home,” he said. “I have everything under control.”
“Really?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I didn’t peg you for the domestic type.”
“Nothing to it,” he said as he wedged the phone under his chin and started shoving dishes into the industrial-size dishwasher. “Did you have any trouble with the car?”
She greeted his question with a long silence.
“Sara?”
“Define trouble.”
Reece’s stomach renewed its churning. “Sara, what happened to my car?”
“Miss Greer is waking up now, I have to go. Bye!”
Chapter Four
Sara disconnected the phone, her heart pounding. She’d only delayed the inevitable; sooner or later she would have to tell Reece she’d had a wreck in his car.
It was just a minor fender bender, and not her fault, either. She’d been innocently looking for a parking space, and another car had backed right into her. But since she’d been in a hurry, and both cars were drivable, she’d quickly exchanged information with the other driver and gone on about her business.
Reece’s previously pristine car was now caved in on the right side, the passenger door inoperable.
Well, Reece would just have to understand. It could have happened to anyone, and the important thing was that no one was hurt.
She hoped he would see it that way.
Sara dropped her cell phone into her bag and went back inside to check on Miss Greer. She didn’t know if the older woman was waking up yet or not, but she might be. She really ought not to have fibbed to Reece, though. That was a bad habit, telling little white lies. As her father always said, a lie was a lie and the size was immaterial.
Miss Greer woke a short time later, but she was in a lot of pain. Sara spent the rest of the morning tracking down a doctor who could prescribe something that would make the poor woman more comfortable, then hanging around to make sure the nurses gave it to her. After that, when Miss Greer’s lunch was delivered, Sara had to coax the elderly woman to eat a few bites.
It was something of a full-time job, making sure Miss Greer got the care she needed. By the time she was fully awake, adequately fed and reasonably pain-free all at the same time, it was almost dark.
Sara probably should have checked in with Reece again, but she’d aggressively put him out of her mind while she kept busy with Miss Greer. She hoped he was getting along all right taking care of the guests; he’d sounded okay earlier. Breakfast was the hardest part; she was sure he could make up beds and run the vacuum.
Although, come to think of it, she hadn’t reminded him he needed to do those things. Since he’d been a guest for some time, he probably knew the drill. But men were a little dense when it came to housework. Some she’d known obviously thought the elves came in at night and cleaned.
It was almost dark by the time she pulled Reece’s Mercedes onto Magnolia Street and parked it across the road from the Sunsetter, close to some bushes. Maybe the damage wouldn’t look so bad in the dark. Reece wasn’t an excitable type; he would probably be calm and reasonable about the whole thing.
Her hopes were dashed when she spotted him pacing on the front porch, his cell phone glued to his ear.
He saw her then and snapped his phone shut. He had started toward her as she got out of the car, and she quavered a bit at the thunderous expression on his face.
“Sara, where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you. I’ve been calling your cell phone all day.”
“I can’t keep it turned on inside the hospital,” she reminded him.
He stopped inches from her and placed his fists on his lean hips. “You couldn’t check your messages every once in a while?”
“Sorry. I guess I was pretty focused on taking care of Miss Greer.” Yeah, right. She was such a saint. She’d deliberately left her phone off because she knew Reece would be frantic about his car.
“So