He nodded sheepishly. "Point well taken."
When she got back into her office there was a message
from Barbara Harris explaining that she planned to arrive in
Pine Mountain on Wednesday of next week, and would
Maggie please convey this information to Mr. Abundi and
perhaps arrange a dinner meeting for the following night.
Maggie had already told Michael about her conversation
with Steven's mother but, not wanting to raise his hopes
unnecessarily, she had chosen not to mention the possible Looking for You All My Life105
visit. Now she was eager to do so. Instead of calling Jed to
convey this new information, she decided to leave a message
through Leah. As much as she wanted to hear Jed's voice on
the phone, she knew it would be easier, and probably better
in the long run, to allow Leah to pass the happy news along.
But first she called and made reservations for a table at the
hotel for the following Thursday.
"I'm not sure how many," she told Cindy. "Why don't we
say four just to be safe."
Cindy laughed. "It's not like it matters, Maggie. Most of
the tables are empty every night anyway. If the snow doesn't
come back, and soon mind you, we may cut down to serving
dinner only two or three nights a week."
"I'm sorry, Cindy. I know this is hard on everyone. flow's
your chef taking all this? Hopefully, he doesn't think it's any
sort of personal reflection on his culinary skills."
"Fortunately he's still in the honeymoon stage with us
and Pine Mountain in general. He says the slow pace is just
what he needs to recover from the years of stressed-out city
living. Only I'm worried he'll get all better and want to zip
back to Seattle before we ever have a chance to really take
off here."
Suddenly Maggie felt guilty for not having frequented the
hotel restaurant yet. In truth, she'd been hoping that Jed
would ask her out and her first dinner there would be with
him. But now because they were "putting their relationship
on hold" who knew when that dinner date might actually
happen~r if ever. "Well, if it's any comfort, I think we'll be
coming for dinner on Saturday night. I know Mom and Leah
have eaten there before, but Spencer and I have missed out
on the pleasure."
"Great. Shall I put you down for four then?" She laughed
again. "Not that you need a reservation, but it just makes me
feel better to see the actual names written into my book."
Maggie smiled. ''Yes, there will be four of us-and let's
say about six-thirty."
106Melody Carlson
"Thanks, Maggie. Wow, that's two sets of reservations
with one phone call. I think that must be a record for me so
far."
"Don't worry, it'll get better, Cindy. Someday people will