Major added a last-minute garnish of chopped chives and parsley to the blue cheese mashed potatoes and pulled out the chair for Meredith. Really looking at her for the first time since their meeting last Friday morning, he was surprised by how exhausted she looked.
“Can you stay a few minutes?” she asked before sitting.
“Sure.” He sank into the chair she’d just vacated. “I’m not sure yet how this thing is going to impact the work flow. Steven has been pretty much running lunch service upstairs for the past five months, so he’s ready to step up as chef de cuisine and handle everything. I’m just a little concerned that we only have three and a half weeks until the banquet. Normally, tomorrow would have been my day to start calling vendors and placing orders. I did some of that today, but Monday’s a really bad day for getting in touch with anyone in the food industry.”
Meredith finished off her Caesar salad quickly and started on the blackened lemon fish with the citrus beurre blanc. At the first bite, she closed her eyes and sighed.
Major relaxed. It had been a favorite of his to prepare in culinary school, but he hadn’t made it in years, before Friday night. It was definitely going on the short list for the restaurant menu.
“Is that something Steven can help out with?”
“With vendors for the banquet? I’d rather have him concentrating on lunch service. I’m going to have him do the final inventory and budget this week, as well as have him start ordering for next week. I’m going to work closely with him on it, but it’s something he should pick up pretty easily. He’s a quick learner.”
“He’s got a good mentor.” Meredith gave him a soft smile.
His insides turned into goo. “Thanks.”
“Hey, when are you guys going to sing at church again?” Meredith moved her cleared dinner plate aside and pulled the dish of sliced baked apples forward.
“Forbes said something Thursday night about a few new pieces he’d found for us. It’s just a matter of us all having time in our schedule to get together and practice. With Clay working most nights, George off gallivanting all over the world, and Forbes and me working long hours, we hardly cross paths anymore.”
“That’s too bad. Everyone loves to hear y’all sing. It’s the only time we ever get to see Forbes doing something that seems completely out of character for him.”
Major laughed. “Yeah, he doesn’t seem the southern gospel type. Of course, he’s the main reason we dress in suits rather than just making sure we’re wearing similar color shirts up there.”
Meredith lapsed into silence for a moment, stirring the baked apples around in their sauce. “Major, I don’t mean to pry into your personal life, so tell me if I’m overstepping bounds here, but I’ve always been curious about your family.”
Frozen iron settled in Major’s gut. “Curious about what?”
“Well, you never talk about them. You know so much about mine—have practically been part of our family for a really long time.”
His forearms started twitching from how tightly he gripped his fists. “I don’t talk about my family because there really isn’t much to say.” He should tell her. He would tell her.
Meredith looked over at him, head cocked, a half smile playing about those very inviting lips.
No, he couldn’t tell her. He didn’t want that open, carefree gaze to be tainted with suspicion, wondering when he was going to go off his rocker, too. “I’m an only child who was raised by a single mom.”
“And your mom is...?” She pressed her lips together.
As tempting as it was to let her think his mother had passed away, he couldn’t lie to her. “Still living.”
“Does she still live in Bonneterre?”
“No.” Because technically, Beausoleil Pointe Center was outside the city limits.
“That’s too bad. So you probably don’t get to see her very often.” She looked genuinely sad for him.
Guilt pounded in his head and chest. Why couldn’t he just bring himself to tell her the truth? “I see her as often as I can.” Like every Wednesday evening and Sunday afternoon.
“Well, if she ever comes in town, let me know. I’d love to meet her and tell her how much I ... appreciate her son.”
Wouldn’t Ma love that? Someone to rave about him to. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He refilled her tea glass. “Want me to leave the pitcher? Jeff and Sandra can pick it up when they come down with the snacks for the meeting.”
Meredith’s eyes lit up. “Is Sandra making cookies?”
Major stood and started collecting the dinner dishes. “Yes—that’s why I only brought you baked apples for dessert.” He winked at her.
“You know me too well, Major O’Hara.”
But not as well as he’d like—oh, there was no use in entertaining those kinds of thoughts anymore. He’d created the recipe for their relationship; now he had to live with the product.
Meredith rose and stretched, her back audibly popping a couple of times. “Guess I’d better get back to it.” She leaned across the table and dragged the pile of folders toward her.
“You’ll be careful leaving tonight?” He made sure his expression was as stern as he could make it.
“In addition to my facilities maintenance managers, I’ll have all of my security supervisors here. Do you think any of them would let me walk to my car alone?” She laughed. “I’ll be okay, you old worrywart.”
“If I didn’t worry about you—” An all too familiar ring interrupted his retort. His heart sank as the ringtone he’d chosen for Beausoleil Pointe Center’s main switchboard trilled into the silent office.
Giving Meredith a tight farewell smile, he hefted the service tray up on one shoulder, grabbed the phone with his free hand, and backed out of her office.
“This is Major O’Hara.”
“Danny, it’s Ma.”
Major hurried down the hall to the executive dining room and through to the kitchen. “Ma, what’s wrong?” He slid the tray onto the island and went back to stop the swinging door’s flapping.
“Does anything have to be wrong for a mother to call her son?”
“No, but you don’t usually call me unless something’s happened. So what’s wrong?”
“Well, you see, Joan and I were going into the dining room for supper—but they call it dinner around here, and I don’t know why. You need to tell them that dinner is lunch and dinner at nighttime is supper.”
“Ma, focus. What happened?” Major snapped the lights on, tucked the phone between shoulder and ear, and set to hand-washing the dishes.
“We’d just gotten our trays, but Gene—he’s the one with the daughter I was telling you about, the one that just got married.” She paused, obviously expecting a response.
“Yes, Gene with the daughter who just got married.”
“Right. Anyway, Gene was behind someone else who stopped right in front of him, and Gene ran into her and both of them spilled their iced tea, see?”
“No, Ma. I don’t really see yet. Keep going.”
“So, Joan and I were talking and we weren’t paying much attention to Gene. You know, all he ever talks about is his daughter who just got married. It’s like he’s rubbing it in that his kid is married and mine isn’t. I want grandchildren, Major.”
He needed to bang his head against something hard. “What happened, Ma?”
“I fell.”
His hands stilled—but his heart pounded faster. “Fell? Are you hurt?”
“No. But they’re trying to make me go to bed. I don’t want to go to bed, Danny. Tell them I don’t have to go to bed.”
Head throbbing, he set the clean dishes on the drain board and found a clean towel to dry his hands on. “Put the doctor on.”
“There’s no doctor, just that little boy who keeps saying he is one. But I don’t think he’s old enough. You need to come out here and tell them I don’t want to go to bed.”
“Give the phone to him, please.”
“You’re coming, right?”
“Yes, Ma, I’ll come. Now give the phone to ... the little boy.”