“I’m here already,” Lynne replied, with a laugh that made Hannah smile. “We flew in last night and we’re staying at the Lake Eden Inn. I called to see if you’d like to join me for dinner tonight.”
“I’d love to!” Hannah answered quickly. “What time? And where are we going?”
“Seven o’clock right here in Sally’s dining room. Unless, of course, there’s another blizzard. That’s all anyone can talk about around here. Everybody says we’re just lucky that we didn’t fly in a week earlier or we would have been stuck in the middle of it.”
“The Lake Eden Inn is a great place to be stuck,” Hannah said with a laugh. “Sally’s got huge freezers full of food, and they have their own generator at the inn. When Dick and Sally moved here and opened the inn, Dick told Sally that the weather could be brutal way out there by Eden Lake and they’d better be prepared for anything.”
*
“Tell Lynne hello for me,” Lisa said as Hannah prepared to leave The Cookie Jar and drive out to the Lake Eden Inn. “And take this cake for Sally. I want her to taste it.”
“Stay out as late as you like,” Michelle told her, walking Hannah out to her cookie truck. “I’ll feed Moishe when I get home, and Lonnie’s coming over tonight to watch a movie with me.”
“Lonnie has the night off?”
“Yes, Mike said that he didn’t need him tonight.”
“Since I’m going out tonight, I’m surprised Mike didn’t assign him to my bodyguard detail.”
“He did, but when he told Mike that you were going out to the Lake Eden Inn for dinner with Lynne, Mike said not to worry, that you’d be fine.”
Hannah was a bit puzzled as she started her truck and drove off. Why had Mike changed his mind about the bodyguards? He’d been worried about her safety this morning, but tonight he’d told Lonnie that she’d be fine all by herself. She didn’t understand, but being without a chaperone was fine with her. Mike must assume, or perhaps he knew, that Ross had left Lake Eden and wouldn’t be back tonight.
The sky was beginning to darken as Hannah turned onto the road that led around Eden Lake. She switched on her headlights and gave silent thanks to Earl Flensburg for plowing the county road. Since no one else was on the road, it didn’t take long for her to get to the turnoff for the Lake Eden Inn. This narrow road had also been plowed and Hannah suspected that Dick Laughlin had been out with his truck, which was equipped as a snowplow, to clear the road.
She was about to turn to go to the parking lot when she saw a large sign stuck on top of a snowbank. It read, HANNAH PARK IN DELIVERY SPOT IN BACK. Hannah laughed. It was obvious that Sally and Dick knew that she was meeting Lynne for dinner and they hadn’t wanted her to walk all the way to the restaurant from their parking lot.
Hannah did as she was told and parked in the delivery spot by the delivery door. Then she picked up the Pink Grapefruit Cake that Lisa had asked her to bring and carried it to the door. She was about to press the buzzer when the door opened.
“Hi, Hannah,” Sally greeted her. “I saw you stop to read the sign and I figured you’d be at the door about now. Come in. Now that it’s getting dark, it’s turning colder.”
Hannah gave a little shiver. “You’re right,” she agreed as she followed Sally into the warmth of the hallway. “The wind picked up and it has a real bite to it.”
“I reserved a curtained booth for you and Lynne, and I’ll join you two for dessert if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all!” Hannah assured her. “It’s always a pleasure to have dessert and coffee with you. And speaking of dessert . . .” she handed the Pink Grapefruit Cake to Sally. “Lisa sent this for you. It’s a Pink Grapefruit Cake with Pink Grapefruit Glaze and we’re thinking of using it for Valentine catering.”
“Well, it’s certainly pretty enough,” Sally said, opening the box to peek inside. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a grapefruit cake before. I’ve had lemon cake and orange cake, but never grapefruit. It makes me wonder if you could make a pink grapefruit meringue pie.”
Hannah thought about that for a moment before she answered. “Why not?” she decided. “The juice is certainly flavorful enough, and it would be a little like Key Lime Pie or Lemon Meringue Pie. I’ll have to get some pink grapefruit juice from Lisa and try it. Someone sent Lisa and Herb a box of pink grapefruit from Florida for their anniversary and Lisa zested the rind, juiced the pink grapefruit, and froze it.”
Sally smiled. “Lisa’s got a good head on her shoulders. And if this cake tastes as delicious as it smells, she’s also one heck of a good baker!”
Sally led the way to the curtained booth on the end of the raised platform that contained the row of private booths. She opened the curtain and announced, “Here’s Hannah. I’m going to go get her a hot lemonade to warm her up. It’s getting really cold out there. Would you like one, too, Lynne?”
“Yes, please,” Lynne answered quickly. “Dick makes the best hot lemonade in the world!”
“That’s because he puts really good rum in it,” Sally explained. “I’ll be right back, girls, and I’ll send Dot over to get your dinner order.”
“You look good, Hannah,” Lynne told her as soon as Hannah had taken off her parka and slid into the booth. “After what Sally told me about you and Ross, I expected you to be a pale shadow of your former self.”
Hannah laughed. “Not quite. It’s difficult to fade into a shadow when you’re as mad as a wet hen.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t come to the wedding,” Lynne apologized. “We didn’t get your invitation until we got back from Europe and by then it was too late. Did you get my wedding present?”
“Yes, it’s beautiful. Thank you, Lynne. I’ve never had a beautiful teapot and tea cozy like that before. There’s just one thing . . . would you like it back since I wasn’t really married in the first place?”
“No! Of course not!” Lynne looked shocked at the suggestion. “You thought you were getting married and that’s all that counts! I wish we’d had a chance to talk before you got engaged to Ross. I would have told you what a louse he is! That man broke my heart, and it sounds like he broke yours, too.”
Hannah gave a little nod. “It felt that way at first. There were times when I actually had trouble breathing, I was so upset. I just couldn’t believe he’d left me without a word. And when that feeling left, I began to wonder what I’d done wrong to make him want to go away.”
“I heard that,” Sally said, pulling back the curtain and placing mugs of hot lemonade in front of them. “You did absolutely nothing wrong, Hannah. He deserves all the blame. If you’d told me that you felt that way, I would have come into The Cookie Jar to shake some sense into you!”
“I believe it,” Hannah said with a little laugh. “It’s okay, Sally. And I feel much better now that I told Ross to get out of my sight and stay out of my life.”
Sally looked completely shocked. “You saw Ross again?!”
“Yes, this morning. I got in to work early and he knocked on the back door of The Cookie Jar.”
“You let him inside?” Lynne asked her.
Hannah shook her head. “No, I stepped out. He said he needed the money he’d left in the safe deposit box and I told him it wasn’t there anymore, that I’d deposited it in his checking account. I returned all the money he gave me.”
“You’re a good person, Hannah,” Lynne told her. “I don’t think I would have returned his money. I would have kept it to make up for all the pain and grief he caused.”
Sally began to frown. “Why did Ross need the money? Do you know?”
“All I know is what he said. I don’t know if it’s the truth, but he told me he needed to give it to his wife so that she could pay for a divorce.”
“Good heavens!” Sally looked completely shocked. “That man has colossal nerve! He wanted you to pay for his divorce with the money he gave to you?”
“Yes. And then he said that he still loved me and he wanted to marry me again just as soon as he was free.”
Both Lynne and Sally groaned, and Lynne reached out to take Hannah’s arm. “You didn’t fall for that, did you, Hannah?”
“Of course not!”