Bluegrass Blessings. Allie Pleiter

mother called “loony Aunt Sandy.” The “black sheep” sister of his mother’s well-groomed Massachusetts family—although looking at the woman, “blond sheep” would have been a better metaphor. “Aunt Sandy, I’m thinking I should haul you in for fraud. And I know enough attorneys that I might just do it. Lullaby Lane?”

      Sandy actually managed a look of remorse. “I did not lie. It is the Route 26 extension. That is its legal name. And I knew that my nephew Cameron was just the type of real estate mogul to take on a challenge like Lullaby Lane.”

      “A challenge is something you know about in advance and accept. As in willingly take on. This is more like an ambush. Dangerously close to a con job, if you ask me.”

      “Well, then,” Aunt Sandy said with an indulgent grin, “I suppose I should thank the Good Lord I’m not askin’.”

      She pointed a pink fingernail at Cameron. “You just think about one thing, son. There’s a reason you said yes. Maybe you know it somewhere inside, maybe only God knows it yet, but there’s a reason a detail-focused, suit-wearin’ planning type like you said yes to buying a hunk o’ land sight unseen. You think about that, hon.”

      She sauntered out of the bakery as if that were an acceptable explanation. It was annoyingly true that what Sandy had done was legal, but it was not especially ethical in Cameron’s book. And not at all the kind of stuff he’d expect out of a woman who claimed to have as much faith as Aunt Sandy did.

      Cameron thought perhaps he should just point his BMW east—toward civilization—and start driving. Somewhere between here and the Atlantic Ocean, somebody needed a commercial real estate broker. God just wasn’t cruel enough to make him stay here.

      Chapter Three

      Dinah glanced up from her cookie dough while Cameron negotiated—again—with the oven man. At first she was glad to have Cameron offer to take care of dealing with the repair man—dashing between the bakery and her apartment oven all day was keeping her running—but the minute a dollar sign got involved the man couldn’t seem to turn off the big city tycoon persona.

      “You can’t give me another fifty for the old one? You could get more than that for the scrap metal alone.”

      The repairman, a nice guy from a company that had been more than amiable to her in the past, looked up at Dinah as if to say where’d you find this guy? He pointed to a page on his clipboard. “I got a chart here says what I can give you. This is what I can give you. That’s it.”

      Cameron looked up from the knob he was twisting. “No leeway?”

      The poor man pushed his cap back on his head and exhaled. “Mister, if I had leeway I’d have given it to you the first time you asked. Asking three times ain’t gonna make things any different, okay?”

      “Okay.” Cameron sounded as if he’d lost some kind of battle instead of gotten her one hundred dollars more than she expected for Old Ironsides. As a matter of fact, she hadn’t even thought to ask them about buying the old one—she’d completely forgotten it could be sold as scrap. And that made a whole load of sense—the thing weighed a ton and she was pretty sure they sold scrap by the pound. Still, she thought Cameron was coming on a bit strong.

      “Did you have to go for the jugular?” she asked the minute the repairman left to get his dolly out of his truck. “It’s an oven, not a peace treaty.”

      “It’s not the best deal until the other guy says ‘no.’”

      Dinah cut out another cookie. “He said ‘no’ twenty minutes ago.”

      “Reluctance is not refusal.” Cameron pulled a towel off her counter and wiped the grease from his hands.

      “Is that what you do for a living? Beat other people down until you get what you want? The real estate brokers on television are all smiling guys eager to help families find the home of their dreams. You, you look like you’re going to snarl any second.”

      “My job is to get the best deal between buyer and seller. That’s good for everyone.”

      “Okay, you’re not the bad guy,” she said, holding up her hand. “You’re the good guy. But you have to admit,” she looked straight at him, “you’re mighty tightly strung for a good guy.”

      “You got your oven, didn’t you?”

      “Well, yeah, but I didn’t need it to be the high-level negotiation you made it. I mean, I’m grateful, but you can take it down a notch here, okay?”

      Cameron fiddled with the knob he’d removed from the oven. Even though he had a game face that could scare those with weaker constitutions, Dinah could tell in his body language that he was giving in. Reminding himself to turn off—or at least tone down—the New York biz demeanor.

      “Okay,” he said after a pause.

      She had to give him credit; he was still doing pretty good for a guy who’d uprooted himself and dived head-first into a whole new culture. She’d come here of her own free will (which somehow she knew he hadn’t—or thought he hadn’t), and it had still taken her a while to find her footing. The guy hadn’t even been here half a week. As she loaded a second cookie sheet to take upstairs, Dinah said a quick prayer for rest and peace to visit Cameron Rollings—and maybe a little for herself, too.

      The conversation lulled while the repairman and his buddy went through the huge task of getting the ancient oven out the bakery’s back door. The thing was a behemoth—it astounded Dinah how big a space it left in the kitchen when they hauled it out. Installation of the new one would begin at nine o’clock tomorrow morning and after that, life might tilt back toward normal. Dinah hoped. Although part of her thought “normal” wasn’t really on the radar anymore with Cameron Rollings next door.

      “These are for you. Oven rent.” Dinah appeared at his door thirty minutes later with a batch of macadamia nut white chocolate chip cookies. A stack of large, blueprint-like papers lay strewn out on his kitchen table. The display made it easy to picture him in the corner office of some Manhattan high-rise.

      “Thanks,” Cameron said, taking the cookies and putting them next to the papers. He had an elegant look about him that made him seem so foreign here, even in jeans. There was something in the set of his shoulders, the way he carried himself. A sleekness that came from always having the upper hand.

      An upper hand she was pretty sure he felt he no longer had. That was pure intuition, but Dinah was a mighty intuitive gal and prided herself on her ability to read people. All that carefully crafted city confidence was coming unraveled in a few corners. She saw it in the way he’d overly defended his negotiation. In how he always tapped his left foot. There was a story there, all right. Even Sandy had alluded as much, although Dinah certainly had no idea what it was.

      “I’m warning you,” Dinah pointed to the cookies, “don’t put those within easy reach. If you haven’t eaten lunch, you’re in trouble.”

      “I’ll be fine,” he said.

      “Willpower is no match for the smell of my macadamia nut white chocolate chip cookies. Don’t get cocky or I might come back up here to find you hiding an empty plate behind your back.”

      He didn’t even laugh at the joke. “Baked goods don’t scare me.” He sat back down at the table, all business.

      Dinah headed toward the door, but stopped before leaving. “So, why’d you leave New York, anyway?”

      That made him look up. She knew it would. “To get away from people asking personal questions.”

      If he thought she’d be put off by a few snarky replies, he had a think or two coming. “No, really. What made you come all the way out here?”

      Cameron pulled off his glasses and wiped his hands down his face. “Let’s just say ‘employment issues.’”

      Dinah leaned against the open door.