The Cook's Secret Ingredient

He stepped closer to the window, bracing his hands on the sides of the wooden counter. “First of all, my father did ask me to help. But come on. How would trying to find this woman actually help my father? It’s a wild-goose chase and nonsense. Second of all—” He stopped, as if realizing he was about to disclose personal family business to a stranger. He cleared his throat again. “There was one more thing,” he added. “My father asked your mother how he’d know for sure which green-eyed hairstylist named Sarah was his predicted love. Your mother said he would know her instantly, but that she would have a small tattoo of a hairbrush and blow-dryer on her ankle.”

So much for the possibility that Miranda hadn’t been talking about Sarah Mack. Olivia was twelve when her aunt had gotten that tattoo. The brush was silver and the blow-dryer hot pink, Aunt Sarah’s favorite color.

“I’m not sure what I could possibly do or say to help you, Carson. I’m not a fortune-teller. I don’t know how my mother’s ability worked. If she said that his great love was this green-eyed tattooed hairstylist named Sarah, then she truly believed it. And like I said, her predictions were right most of the time.”

He grimaced. “Oh, please. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe any of it.”

Olivia didn’t want to, either. But evidence was walking around all over town in the form of couples her mother had brought together or people who’d changed their lives because of what Miranda had predicted. “She was responsible for over three hundred marriages. She directed people to their passions, stopped them from making mistakes. Sometimes they listened, sometimes the heart wants what it wants even when a fortune-teller says it won’t happen.”

He scowled, then pulled out a checkbook from an inside pocket. “I’ll pay you for your time. One hour, two tops, for you to talk some sense into my father. Five thousand ought to do it.”

Five thousand dollars. Man, she could use that money. And she felt for Carson, she really did. “It’s not about the money, Carson. It wasn’t for my mother, either. I know that’s hard for you to believe, but it’s true.”

He put away the checkbook. He tilted his head back, frustration and worry etched on his handsome face. She could feel it all over him, swirling in the air between them. “Please,” he said. “My father hasn’t been the same since my mother died five years ago. He’s so...vulnerable. I know he’s terribly lonely. I don’t know what made him seek out your mother—if he sought out your mother—”

“My mom didn’t lure clients to her,” Olivia said gently. “She didn’t need to. She had an excellent reputation. People came to her.”

He scowled. “Edmund Ford would not go walking into some fortune-teller’s little velvet-curtained room. He must have been led by something or fed some lies. Your mother ensnared him and then filled his head with nonsense. I can only imagine how much he paid her. My father, as I’m sure you know, is a very wealthy man. Making fraudulent claims, taking money from vulnerable people—that is against the law.”

Anger boiled in Olivia’s belly. “My mother was not a criminal! How dare you imply—”

“Dada!”

Olivia stuck her head farther out the window at the sound of the little voice. She watched a toddler, no older than two, run to Carson, who kneeled down, his arms wide, a big smile suddenly on the man’s face. All traces of his anger were gone.

He wrapped the child in his arms and scooped him up. The little boy pointed at a picture on the food truck’s menu, probably one of the cannoli.

“I have cookies for you at home,” Carson said, giving him a kiss on his cheek.

A woman in her fifties, who Olivia recognized from around town, approached wheeling a stroller, and Carson smiled at her. “I’ll take him from here,” he told her. “Thanks for taking such good care of him, as always.”

“My pleasure, Carson,” she said. “I’m happy to babysit for as long as you’re in town. See you tomorrow, sweetie,” she added to the little boy, ruffling his hair before turning to walk away.

“Bye!” the boy called and waved.

“Your son?” Olivia asked, noting that Carson wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. She smiled at the adorable child. “He looks just like you.”

He nodded. “He’s eighteen months old. Daniel is his name. Danny for short.”

She wondered where Danny’s mother was. Was Carson divorced? Widowed? Never married the little one’s mother? It was possible. Olivia’s mother hadn’t married Olivia’s father or anyone else. Her aunt Sarah had never married. Now Olivia was following in the family tradition.

Danny tilted his head, his big hazel eyes on his father. “Chih-chih tates?”

Carson smiled and pulled an insulated snack bag from the stroller basket. He unzipped it and handed the boy a cheddar cheese stick. “How about some cheese for now and then yes, in just a couple of hours we’ll be going to Granddaddy’s house for your favorite—roast chicken and potatoes with gravy.” He glanced at Olivia. “Chih-chih tates is toddler speak for chicken and potatoes.”

Danny grinned and munched his cheese stick. The boy was so cute that Olivia wanted to sweetly pinch his big cheeks.

Carson put the snack bag away and shifted the toddler in his arm. “One hundred Thornton Lane,” he said to Olivia. “Six thirty. Please come. Please,” he added, his eyes a combination of intensity, pleading, worry and hope.

Yes, please come and talk my father out of finding the woman he’s meant to be with, the very woman Olivia had been searching for six weeks so she could fulfill her promise to her mother.

Oh, heck, she thought. What was she supposed to do? She wasn’t about to tell the Fords that the woman in question was her aunt. But how could she not? And she certainly did understand Carson’s concern for his dad. But what if her mother was right about Edmund and Sarah?

What if, what if, what if. The story of Olivia’s life.

Not that Carson was waiting for an answer. He was already heading down the street, holding the toddler in one arm, pushing the stroller with the other. The boy’s own little arms were wrapped around Carson’s neck. His son sure loved him. That feeling swirled inside Olivia so strongly it obliterated all other thought.

Six thirty. One hundred Thornton Lane. She knew the house. A mansion on a hill you could see from anywhere on Blue Gulch Street. At night the majestic house was lit up and occasionally you could catch the thoroughbreds galloping or grazing in their acres of pasture. Sometimes over the past few weeks, when Olivia felt at her lowest, missing her mother so much her heart clenched, she’d look up at the lights of One Hundred Thornton and feel comforted somehow, as though it was a beacon, the permanence of the grand house high on the hill soothing her.

She didn’t know what she could possibly say to Edmund Ford that his tightly wound, handsome son would approve of. But at least Olivia knew what she was doing for dinner tonight.

Chapter Two

Carson stood by the open window in his father’s family room, watching his dad and Danny in the backyard. Fifty-four-year-old Edmund Ford held the toddler in his arms and was pointing out two squirrels chasing each other up and down the huge oak. Carson smiled at the sight of his son laughing so hard.

“Let’s pretend we’re squirrels and chase each other around the yard,” Edmund said, setting Danny down. “You can’t catch me!” he added, running ahead at a toddler’s pace, which couldn’t be easy for the six-two man.

“Catch!” Danny yelled, giggling.

Edmund let his back leg linger for a moment until Danny latched on. “You got me! You’re the fastest squirrel in his yard.”

“Me!” Danny shouted, racing around with his hands up.

Edmund scooped him up and put him on his shoulders, and they headed over to the oak again. Danny pointed at the squirrels sitting on a branch and nibbling acorns. Carson could hear his dad telling Danny that the squirrels were a grandpa and grandson, just like them.

Who was this man and what had he done with Carson’s father? Carson’s earliest memories involved watching his father leave the house, his father’s empty chair and place setting at the dinner table, his father not making it to birthday parties or graduations or special events. He’d been a workaholic banker and nothing had been more important than “the office.” Not Carson, not his mother, not even his mother’s terminal diagnosis of cancer five years ago, leaving them just four months with her. But then came the moment she’d drawn her last breath, and Edmund Ford had been shaken.

I didn’t tell her I loved her this morning, his father had said that day they’d lost her, his face contorted with grief and regret. I always thought there was later, another day. I didn’t tell her I loved her today.

Tears had stung Carson’s eyes and he gripped his father in a hug. She knew anyway, Dad, he’d said. She always knew.

Which was true. Every time Edmund Ford disappointed them, his mother would say, Your father loves us very much. We’re his world. Never doubt that, no matter what.

Carson had grown up doubting that. But since his mother died, his father had changed into someone Carson barely recognized. Edmund Ford had started calling to check in a few times a week. He’d drop by Carson’s office for an impromptu lunch. He’d get tickets to the Rangers or the rodeo. But instead of Carson’s old longing for his dad to be present in his life, Carson had felt...uncomfortable. He barely knew his father, and this new guy was someone Carson didn’t know at all. Suddenly it was Carson putting up the wall, putting up the boundaries.

Then Danny was born, and Edmund had become grandfather of the year. The man insisted on weekly family dinners with Carson and Danny, making a fuss over every baby tooth that sprouted up, new words, a quarter inch of height marked on the wall. And yes, Carson was glad his son had a loving grandfather in his life. But Carson couldn’t seem to reconcile it with the man he’d known his entire life.

The first week of Danny’s life, when his now ex-wife, Jodie, had still been around, they’d both been shocked when Edmund Ford had come to the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit every single day, to sit beside his bassinet and read Dr. Seuss to him, sing an old ranch tune, demand information from the doctors in his imperious tone.

“Grandparenting is different from being a parent,” Jodie would say with a shrug when Carson expressed his shock over his dad’s suddenly interest in family.

She must have been right because by the end of Danny’s first week, she was gone, with apologies and “you knew I was like this when you married me,” and his father was there. And everything that seemed normal about the world had shifted.

His father’s housekeeper and cook, Leanna, came into the room and smiled at Carson, then walked over to the screen door to the yard. “Danny, want to help me make dessert?”

“Ooh!” Danny said. His grandfather set him down and he came running in.

The sixtysomething woman, with her signature braided bun, scooped up Danny and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Carson loved how much sweet attention his son got at his grandfather’s house. “Twenty minutes ’til dinner,” Leanna called out before heading through the French doors with Danny.

Carson glanced out the floor-to-ceiling windows on the opposite side of the room. If he craned his neck he could just make out the circular driveway in front of the mansion. No car, other than his own. He wondered if Olivia Mack would show up or not. Probably not.

“I could cancel my health club membership with all the exercise I get from playing with Danny,” Edmund said as he came inside. He took a long sip from his water bottle, then sat down in a club chair and pulled a small notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Oh, Carson, I won’t be around tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be on the road, checking out four potential hair salons for my Sarah.”

Enough was enough. “Dad—”

Edmund held up a palm. “Well, it’s what I have to do since my own son, a private investigator, won’t do his job and help me find the person I’m looking for.”

Carson crossed his arms over his chest. And sighed. “The person you’re looking for doesn’t exist, Dad.”

Edmund shook his head. “We’ve been over this. I’m done arguing with you. I’m just telling you I won’t be around tomorrow in case Danny wanted to see the more fun Ford man in his life.”

His father was the fun one. Unbelievable. He shook his head, staring at his dad as though the concentration would help him come up with a way to reach the man, get to him to see how foolish and fruitless this quest was. And how potentially damaging. Edmund Ford was a handsome man, tall and fit, with thick salt-and-pepper hair adding to his distinguished appearance. And he was very, very wealthy. This Sarah, if he found someone who fit the bill, would latch on to him fast enough to get her hands on his bank account, then take off. She’d probably get herself pregnant, too, to keep the gravy train going for quite some time. Yes, Carson was that cynical.

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.”

Carson was doing that thing again where he rolled his eyes and shook his head. The double dismissive whammy.

“I would catch some stories like that,” Edmund said, “and I just sort of tucked them away, not having any interest in paying Madam Miranda a visit.”

“What changed your mind?” Olivia asked, taking a bite of the rosemary chicken. Mmm, that was good. So well seasoned. Olivia hadn’t had a meal she hadn’t cooked herself in a very long time.

“About two months ago, I overheard two young women talking in the coffee shop,” Edmund said. “I was waiting for my triple espresso, and I heard a woman say that Madam Miranda’s prediction for her had come true, that if she’d find the courage to break up with her no-good, no-account boyfriend, she’d find real love with a handsome architect whose first name started with the letter A.”

“Oh, come on,” Carson said, shaking his head.

Edmund kept his attention on Olivia. “The young woman went on to say she’d been dating the terrible boyfriend for two years but Madam Miranda’s prediction gave her something to hope for, even if it was silly and couldn’t possibly come true, despite being so specific. She dumped the guy, and three months later, she struck up a flirtation with a young man doing some work in the new wing of the hospital where she worked as a nurse. An architect named Andrew.”

Carson put down his wineglass. “Madam Miranda probably heard his firm would be working on the new hospital wing. She put the idea in the nurse’s head that she and this guy belonged together and voilà, instant interest when she might have otherwise ignored him.”

“Talk about far-fetched,” Edmund said to his son.

“I have a million of those stories,” Olivia said. “I’ve seen much of it firsthand. And my mother may have been a lot of things, but a liar or a cheat wasn’t among them.”

Carson put down his fork. “Right. So my father’s second great love is a stranger named Sarah standing in a hair salon giving some guy a buzz cut. Come on.”

“Why not?” Olivia asked. “Why isn’t that possible?”

Carson sighed. “Because it’s hocus-pocus. It’s nonsense. It’s make-believe. It gets people to pony up a pile of money for malarkey—and just like that nurse said, it gives hope where there’s none. It doesn’t mean a damned thing.”

“Watch your language,” Edmund said, covering Danny’s ears. The boy giggled.

“Larkey!” Danny shouted gleefully.

“How much did you pay the madam for this fantasy?” Carson asked his father. “Hundreds, no doubt, once she knew who you were.”

“I’ve told you at least three times that she refused to accept money from me,” Edmund said, taking a bite of his chicken. “She told me she thought my bittersweet story was deeply touching and that was payment enough.”

Olivia knew her mother often didn’t charge those who clearly couldn’t afford her services. But Edmund Ford was a zillionaire. His story really must have touched Miranda—or had her mother known that he was destined to become part of the family because of Aunt Sarah? Hmm.