At Your Service. Amy Jo Cousins

hear her grandmother’s voice admonishing her. What do you think she’s going to do? Bite you?

      You never know, Grace retorted, and then gave in.

      “Mrs., um,” she began, and then realized that she had no idea what Susannah’s surname was. “Susannah? Excuse me?”

      “Yes? And it’s Mrs. Tyler, but that makes me feel old, so don’t call me that.” Susannah looked up from her chopping.

      “Okay,” Grace said, confused. “Then Tyler is his last name?”

      “Yes.”

      “What’s his first name?”

      Susannah scowled. “That boy. I gave him a perfectly good name and he won’t let anyone use it. His name is Christopher.”

      “I don’t understand. Christopher is a very ordinary—” she saw the frown deepen “—I mean, a very lovely name. Why doesn’t he like it?”

      Tyler’s mother blushed faintly. “Because of his middle name. I keep telling him I was delirious, after eighteen hours of labor with his fat head. His father and I had already decided on Christopher for a first name, but we hadn’t picked a middle name yet.”

      “So what did you decide on?”

      “Robin.” Grace choked on a giggle. Susannah grimaced. “I told you I was delirious. I thought it was charming.”

      “Christopher Robin?”

      “As in Winnie the Pooh, yes. You see why he hates me. He’s refused to answer to anything but Tyler ever since first grade.”

      Grace couldn’t think of anything to say. Moments ticked by in silence until she remembered her original reason for coming into the kitchen. She noticed that Susannah hadn’t put the knife down. No time like the present, she thought.

      “I just wanted to apologize if I offended you earlier. I assure you I meant no disrespect when I questioned your cooking abilities.” She was proud to hear that her voice sounded steady and sincere. Since she hadn’t been thrown out of the kitchen yet, she thought it time to try a little charm. “My mother only goes in the kitchen to use the phone to order take-out. I’ve learned not to make any assumptions about mothers and cooking. But I’m glad you’ll be in charge here.”

      “In charge?” Susannah laughed and the smile carved well-worn tracks in her still lovely face. “You don’t know my son very well if you think anyone but himself is in charge at this restaurant. This is his baby.”

      “I don’t know your son at all, ma’am,” Grace said, letting her frustration show. She caught herself reaching to tug on her hair again and tried to force herself to stay still. But the frustration was pushing at her self-control and she couldn’t quite hide the irritation in her voice. “I don’t know him. I don’t have the hots for him. And I certainly don’t want to get involved with him!”

      She punctuated each sentence with a pointed finger at Tyler’s mother and before she even finished the last words was already horrified by her outburst.

      “So was that someone else I saw kissing him in the office doorway?”

      “Oh, God, I was afraid you saw that.”

      “Of course I saw it. You’re in my kitchen, aren’t you?” Susannah came around the kitchen island and walked up to the prep counter, detouring to pull a heavy steel ladle from a hook on the wall. “I saw you, too, trying to pretend that the kiss was nothing. Was it?”

      Grace chewed on her lower lip for a minute, until she realized that that made her think of Tyler. She wanted to say that it had been nothing, a momentary weakness that had left her untouched when it was over. But I can’t lie about everything, not if I want to be able to look these people in the eye.

      “He knocked my socks off,” she admitted. The blush that raced over her face, as Susannah laughed in delight, threatened to catch her hair on fire. “If your son runs a bar as well as he kisses, he’ll have nothing to worry about.”

      “But you don’t want to kiss him again.”

      Grace didn’t want to anger Susannah, but stuck with the truth—about her intentions, at least.

      “No, I don’t.”

      But because the part of her brain that said to hell with the consequences wouldn’t shut up, she crossed her fingers behind her back.

      “Next time,” Susannah began, and Grace jumped as the forgotten ladle clanged against the steel countertop, “hit him with this.”

      Grace gaped at her.

      Susannah smiled.

      “My boy can be pretty pushy.”

      And with that, Grace knew she could relax a little bit around these women. Tyler still made her tense whenever they were in the same room together, but any mother who’d hand a girl a ladle and advise her to knock her son upside the head with it clearly had a sense of humor.

      A little bit later she spotted Sarah stocking extra napkins up at the bar and took the opportunity to apologize there, too. With the kindness that she was coming to expect from this family, Sarah refused the apology on the grounds that there was no way Grace could have known.

      One last pep talk for everyone, a brief panic because no one could find the chalk for the daily specials board and an argument over who’d been stupid enough to leave the chalk box in the beer cooler, and they were ready for anything.

      At 5:00 p.m., Tyler’s Bar & Grill officially opened for business.