The Cook's Secret Ingredient. Meg Maxwell
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in her gift. Her fortunes came true eighty-five percent of the time.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know all about the power of suggestion.”
So did Olivia. And she also knew how badly her mother wanted Olivia to find Aunt Sarah. On the day of her death, Miranda had told Olivia she’d written a letter to her sister and that it was her dying wish that Olivia give it to Sarah along with a family heirloom, a bracelet passed down from their mother. Over the past six weeks, Olivia had tried to find Sarah by doing internet searches, but all her leads were for the wrong Sarah Mack. She’d even searched for Sarah Macks in hair salons in the surrounding counties and had come up empty, too. No wonder Edmund Ford hadn’t been able to find her. No one could.
Maybe she should tell Carson Ford he didn’t have to worry, that it was doubtful his father would ever find his “second great love.”
“I’m surprised your father hasn’t asked you to find her,” Olivia said, wiping down the window counter. “I mean, there must be hundreds of green-eyed hairstylists named Sarah in the state of Texas. No last name, nothing else to go on?” she asked, fishing. It was possible that Edmund Ford’s second great love wasn’t Sarah Mack. There likely were hundreds of green-eyed hairstylists named Sarah in Texas.
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