Page 64 of Falling for Mr. October

“We broadcast it onto the big screen in the game room. Helen’s got one of those fancy kitchen units. She made us all stovetop popcorn the way he does it on his program.”

I groan and lower onto her sofa, sinking into the soft, worn seat. “So everyone knows?”

“The girls and I have been watching his videos all weekend. It put all of the men into a jealous pout, let me tell you. Even in Stuart’s heyday, he didn’t have near as much hair as that Italian boy. Anyway, we’ve decided to form a new club.”

“Am I dreaming? Because this feels a lot like a nightmare.”

“Imagine being stuck in a wheelchair most of the time and forced to deal with a bunch of young people who don’t know their ass from their elbow.”

A laugh gushes out of me. “Someone’s feeling feisty this morning.”

She purses her lips and nods toward the dresser. “You found my drawer donut. I had big plans for that donut.”

“So did the ants. Look, Luanne, I’m grateful for your advice, but Giovanni thinks I’m using him to keep the farm going. He’s not happy about it.”

“So use him for something that will make him happy.”

I shake my head. “The last complication either of us needs is to start sleeping with the person in the room next door.”

“Sounds pretty uncomplicated to me. You won’t have to go far. If you really think about it, it’s the ultimate in convenience.”

“I think you should stick to romance in books.” I hesitate before adding, “Did Rhett say anything about the apple pie bake-off?”

She turns her eyes skyward. “As if he’d talk about it around me. That man’s been a sore loser his whole life, and he knows my pie is better than any of the Gallagher pies.”

“Giovanni’s needs to be better too,” I say, my heart thumping hard. I lower my voice. “He’s pushing Rhett to hold the bake-off at our farm, but you know how that man holds a grudge. I can tell Rhett’s got it in for Giovanni now. He wants to make him look like a fool.”

“I believe that,” she says with a grunt.

“Luanne, is there any chance you’ll give us your recipe? With the secret ingredient? I’d like nothing better than to upstage Rhett.”

Luanne’s apple pie recipe is the stuff of lore around here, almost as much as the story about the apple seeds and the bench at the peak of Gallagher Park. They say she wouldn’t even share her secret ingredient with the chef who took over The Clean Plate Club, which is why it’s not as good now as it was before she retired.

She watches me for a long moment. “You’re going to leave that donut in here.”

“I see.” My lips twitch as I fight off a smile. “So you want Rhett to suffer and you want the donut. What else?”

Because there’s no way Luanne’s handing over her recipe this easily.

“I’m not giving you the recipe written on paper,” she says, her voice steady. “That’s not happening. If you want me to teach him, you bring the boy here. We’ll do it in Helen’s kitchen. She might just have a coronary, seeing him in person, but she’ll go out happy.”

I lift my fingers to my lips. “I don’t know how he’ll feel about that, Luanne. He’s a little squeamish about old folks’ homes.”

“He’d better get unsqueamish then, don’t you think? He’ll be spending a lot of time here if he wants to win that bake-off.”

“I’ll talk to him,” I vow.

“And you’ll consider enjoying your time with him?”

She pours plenty of insinuation into the words, and I roll my eyes, even though I feel a spark of excitement at the thought.

In some ways, she’s right. It would be easy to carry on with the man in the room next door, especially since most of the town already thinks we’re sleeping together. There are also a million ways it could go catastrophically wrong.

“I’ll think on it,” I say tightly. “Now, when was your last bowel movement?”

“So it’s like that, is it?”

“It is if you want me to leave that donut.”