Meg Maxwell - The Cook's Secret Ingredient

The doorbell rang and Carson perked up. He glanced at the grandfather clock across the room. Not quite six thirty. Could it be the fortune-teller’s daughter? Had she come?

Lars, Leanna’s husband of thirty-two years and his father’s butler for the past five years, appeared in the doorway. “A Ms. Olivia Mack is here.” A short, portly man in his sixties, Lars always stood very straight in his formal uniform.

“Olivia Mack?” Edmund repeated. “Do I know an Olivia Mack? Is she selling something? I wouldn’t mind a couple boxes of those mint Girl Scout cookies.”

“I invited her,” Carson said. “Show her in, will you, Lars?”

Edmund stood and wiggled his eyebrows at Carson. “You invited her? Finally dating? You definitely need a woman in your life.”

“Not dating,” Carson said. “I’m busy with raising my son and working.”

Edmund rolled his eyes. “Your son is asleep fourteen hours a day. And you don’t work twenty-four hours. You have time for romance, Carson.”

Carson wasn’t having this discussion. Luckily, the French doors opened and Lars presented Olivia Mack.

Carson had only had a head-and-shoulders view of Olivia inside the food truck. He’d had no idea she was so tall and curvy. She wore a weird felt skirt with appliqués of flowers, a light blue sweater and yellow-brown cowboy boots. Her hair, which had been up in the food truck, now tumbled loosely down her shoulders in light brown waves. A ring, bearing a turquoise heart on her thumb, seemed to be her only jewelry. Did people wear rings on their thumbs? Fortune-tellers probably did.

Olivia glanced back as Lars shut the doors behind her. She turned to Carson and offered an uncomfortable smile.

“Dad,” Carson said, dragging his gaze off Olivia. “This is Olivia Mack, Miranda Mack’s daughter.”

Edmund Ford stepped toward Olivia. “Miranda Mack, Miranda Mack,” he repeated. “Is she a loyal customer at Texas Trust? I’m sorry but the name isn’t ringing a bell.”

“Her mother was Madam Miranda,” Carson said. He couldn’t help but notice Olivia’s eyes cloud over. She was obviously still grieving over the loss of her mother. Six weeks was nothing. It had taken Carson a good year before he got used to the fact that his mother was gone, that he would never see her again.

“Oh, of course!” Edmund said, hurrying over to Olivia and wrapping her in a hug. “I’m so sorry about your loss, dear. Your mother changed a lot of lives for the better. I understand that I was her very last client before...” He cleared his throat. “She told me the second great love of my life is out there waiting for me to find her. I intend to do just that.”

“Actually, that’s exactly why Olivia is here,” Carson said. “To tell you you’re wasting your time and energy.”

Edmund frowned and turned to Olivia. “Is that right? Is that why you’re here?”

Olivia bit her lip and looked from Edmund to Carson and back to Edmund. “Mr. Ford—”

“Please call me Edmund.”

“Edmund,” she began, “my mother’s gift worked in mysterious ways. That’s all I know,” she added, glancing at Carson.

He grimaced at his son. “Carson begged you to come and tell me I’m wasting my time and energy on a wild-goose chase? Offered you a pile of money to make me see reason?”

“Well, he did, but I didn’t accept,” Olivia said. “He did also express how worried he is that you might be chasing after a fantasy that doesn’t exist. I can understand that. I suppose that’s why I’m here. To tell both of you that I don’t understand how my mother’s abilities worked. I do know that she brought together hundreds of couples. I also know there were times her predictions did not work out.”

“Well,” Edmund said, “I believed in her.”

Carson caught Olivia’s expression soften at that.

“Carson mentioned that you’ve been looking for the woman she told you about,” Olivia prompted.

“No luck so far,” Edmund said. “I’ve called around to a bunch of hair salons in the area, but most folks who answered the phone thought I was some nut and hung up on me. I visited several over the past two weeks, asking for a ‘Sarah who I heard was a great hairstylist,’ but most of the time, no Sarahs. The four times there was a Sarah, she didn’t have green eyes.” He let out a breath. “I guess this does sound kind of silly.”

“Romantic, though,” Olivia said on practically a whisper.

Carson frowned at her.

“I think so, too, young lady,” Edmund said, the gray cloud gone from his expression. “And I may be fifty-four, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a whiz with technology.” He pulled out his smartphone. “I’ve got a map of every hair salon in the county with digital pushpins of ones I’ve visited.” He held it up. “If there’s no green-eyed Sarah, I’ve marked it red. I’ve got nineteen salons to visit tomorrow in two counties.”

Carson rolled his eyes and shook his head. “What about the fund-raiser you’re supposed to speak at tomorrow? What about the board meeting to prepare for?”

“Carson, I’m your father. Not the other way around.”

“Dad, I—”

“Dinner is served,” Leanna sang from the doorway with Danny in her arms. “Danny helped make dessert.”

“Ert!” Danny called out.

“Dessert monster!” Edmund said, rushing over and tickling him and carrying him over his shoulder. Danny squealed with laughter.

This ridiculous quest to find this nonexistent green-eyed hairstylist was just another example of how much his father had changed, especially since Danny was born. For Danny’s sake, Carson liked the devoted, fun grandpa his formerly workaholic, bank-before-family father had become. But this silly search to find a gold digger masquerading as a predicted great love? No. Not on Carson’s watch.

He had about forty-five minutes to shift this conversation back his way. And Olivia Mack was his only hope of stopping his father from ruining his life.

* * *

In the biggest dining room that Olivia had ever been in, she sat across the huge cherrywood table from Carson. At the head sat Edmund Ford with little Danny in a high chair beside him. Watching grandfather and grandson did a lot to ease the tension that had settled in Olivia’s shoulders ever since she’d arrived. Edmund clearly adored the toddler, and baby talk—Who ate all his chi-chi? My widdle cuddlebomb did, that’s who! C’mre for your cuddlebomb!—was not beneath the revered banker. Olivia hadn’t known what to expect from Edmund Ford, but this warm, welcoming man was not it.

The three generations of Fords looked quite alike with their dark thick hair, though Edmund’s was shot through with a distinguished silver. The three shared the same intense hazel-green eyes.

“Edmund, how did you happen to become a client of my mother’s?” Olivia asked. She smiled up at Leanna, who walked around with a serving platter of roasted potatoes. As the woman put a helping on Olivia’s plate, she wondered what it would be like to live like this every day. Maids and butlers and a family room the size of the entire first floor of Olivia’s house.

“When I moved to Blue Gulch four years ago, a year after my wife passed,” Edmund said, “I would hear this and that about a Madam Miranda and didn’t give it a thought. To me, fortune-tellers were about crystal balls and telling people, for a fee, what they wanted to hear.”

“And you were right,” Carson said, fork midway to his mouth.

Edmund ignored that. “But then I overheard a few conversations that stayed with me,” he continued, taking a sip of his white wine. “A very intelligent young equity analyst at the bank was telling another employee that she went to see Madam Miranda about her previous job and whether she should dare quit without having another lined up first. Madam Miranda advised her to quit immediately because an old college friend who worked at Texas Trust would call about an opening there and she would apply, interview and be offered the job with a significant increase in pay. Oh, and she’d love working there. The analyst risked quite a bit by taking that advice. Three days later, an old college friend called. And the rest is history.”