“Well, let’s see. I have a tendency to leap before I look. I always have good intentions, but sometimes I rush into things and they don’t always turn out the way I planned.”
There, that sounded safe enough.
“You’ll fall in love someday, Maggie, and when it happens, it will have been worth the wait. But—” she studied her cuticle some more “—just a word of advice. You mentioned falling for the wrong ones. Nick’s one of them.”
Maggie jumped down from the stool and started to clear things off the kitchen table. “I’m sure you’re right.” She wanted to say, “Give me a little credit.” She might be impulsive, but she always learned from experience. Nick Durrance was definitely one of the many, many men who would never fall in love with her.
But she could be curious, couldn’t she?
She decided to change the subject. “Nick said Aunt Margaret was his English teacher. Were you in her class, too?”
Allison seemed to relax a little. “Yes. And trust me, she could have told you stories about Nick Durrance.”
“Really?” Note to self. Find out what Aunt Margaret thinks of him now.
“Miss Meadowcroft loved Shakespeare,” Allison said. “Of course, you probably know that.”
“Yes. Hamlet was her favorite. Whenever she suspected I was up to something, she’d say ‘Maggie Meadowcroft, something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.’ It was years before I understood what that meant. I used to imagine Denmark filled with piles of rotting garbage. Kind of like New York one summer when the garbage collectors were on strike.”
Allison gave her an odd look. “I doubt that Nick ever tried to figure out Shakespeare. He spent more time in detention than in English class. Or any class, for that matter.”
That opinion seemed grossly unfair. Shakespeare wasn’t for everyone. Just like not everyone could renovate a house. “He must have been good at something.”
“Nick was very charming in those days and he didn’t take anything, or anyone, seriously. Not even himself. From what his sister tells me, that hasn’t changed.”
Everyone had strengths and positive traits. Maggie couldn’t tell if Allison had ignored her point, or if she just didn’t get it. She decided to try a different line of questioning. “You mentioned his family. What are they like?”
“You haven’t heard of the Durrance family?”
“Hmm. No, I don’t think so.”
“I thought you used to spend summers up here with your aunt.”
“I did, but she wasn’t into…” Gossip. “Um, she made a point of not talking about her students.”
“That makes sense. Nick’s father was a judge and so was his grandfather. Everybody assumed Nick would go into law, too. He was at the top of the class when we were freshman, then overnight everything changed.”
“How strange. What do you think happened?”
Allison shrugged. “Well, his father died. It was totally unexpected, but still, most people get over things like that. But it seemed to turn Nick into a different person and he never got back to normal.”
Hello? A young, teenage boy lost his father and everyone expected him to just “get over it”? Maggie had only been a little older when her father died. She’d missed him like crazy, but on another level, he’d still been there with her and her mother. That was when she’d first become aware that she had what Aunt Margaret called “the gift.”
“Maybe he really missed his father,” she said.
“Anything’s possible, but according to Leslie, Judge Durrance was a workaholic. He devoted himself to his career and other than having high expectations of her and Nick, he pretty much ignored them.”
“Who’s Leslie?”
“Nick’s sister.”
“I see,” Maggie said, glancing at the timer. Only a few more minutes. “How does your skin feel?”
“Great. How long does this stay on?”
“Just another minute or two. So, is Leslie older or younger than Nick?”
“A year younger. She’s an attorney, just like everyone expected her to be. Probably her mother’s influence. Lydia Durrance—Nick’s mother—is an amazing woman. She has a beautiful home and she puts on the most incredible garden parties you’ve ever been to.”
Except that Maggie had never been to one. The Village was well-known for its parties, but they weren’t the garden variety.
Allison was still gushing. “On top of that, she does a lot for the community. There’s even a charity named after her.”
“Really? She sounds formidable.”
Allison laughed. “She is, in a way.”
And yet you’d give almost anything to be her, Maggie thought. Interesting.
The timer buzzed. “All right, then. Let’s take this off.” She gently washed the mask off Allison’s face and patted her skin dry. “What do you think?”
Allison ran both hands along the sides of her face. “Amazing. I don’t know how you do this with just the stuff in your kitchen.”
“Chemical-based products dry your skin and then you need more chemicals to make it moist again. Natural ingredients are all about pampering yourself.”
“When you first told me about this idea of yours, I didn’t think it would work. Now I can’t wait for your spa to open. Will you let me be the first customer?”
Maggie walked her neighbor to the front door. “Sure. Any chance you might tell your friends about it, too?”
Allison smiled one of her rare smiles. “You know, I’m tempted to keep you all to myself.”
Maggie laughed. “Then you’d better plan to give me a lot of business!”
Allison gave her an unexpected hug. “I’m glad you moved into your aunt’s house, Maggie. Miss Meadowcroft was a nice neighbor, but I think I’m really going to like having you here.”
Maggie hugged her back. “What a sweet thing to say. Thank you.”
“I’d better get home. John will be wondering what’s happened to me and the kids are probably driving him crazy.”
“Tell him I said hello.” Maggie gently closed the door, then bolted up the stairs to find those yearbooks.
NICK CRACKED OPEN a beer and tossed a frozen dinner into the microwave. After punching a few numbers on the keypad, he leaned against the counter and took a swig from the bottle.
Images of Maggie Meadowcroft and the sound of her silky-smooth voice kept drifting through his mind. She was one intriguing woman. Damned attractive—for all the obvious reasons, of course—and he’d swear she didn’t have a pretentious bone in her body. In spite of the pearls.
He tried to picture his mother and sister at a place that served up skin-care products made of yogurt and mayonnaise.
Nope. Couldn’t do it.
Nothing but the best for the Durrance women, and everyone knew the best came with a hefty price tag and a designer label. Maggie, on the other hand, wanted to sink her inheritance into converting an old house into a day spa.
What had she called it? Inner Beauty?
Actually he kind of liked the sound of that. It suggested that she intended to work with what a person already had instead of trying to make them into something they weren’t. Admirable intentions but not much of a business plan. Especially not for this town, where people like his mother and sister were