Looking For You All My Life Part 66

He nodded sheepishly. "Point well taken."

When she got back into her office there was a message

from Barbara Harris explaining that she planned to arrive in

Pine Mountain on Wednesday of next week, and would

Maggie please convey this information to Mr. Abundi and

perhaps arrange a dinner meeting for the following night.

Maggie had already told Michael about her conversation

with Steven's mother but, not wanting to raise his hopes

unnecessarily, she had chosen not to mention the possible Looking for You All My Life105

visit. Now she was eager to do so. Instead of calling Jed to

convey this new information, she decided to leave a message

through Leah. As much as she wanted to hear Jed's voice on

the phone, she knew it would be easier, and probably better

in the long run, to allow Leah to pa.s.s the happy news along.

But first she called and made reservations for a table at the

hotel for the following Thursday.

"I'm not sure how many," she told Cindy. "Why don't we

say four just to be safe."

Cindy laughed. "It's not like it matters, Maggie. Most of

the tables are empty every night anyway. If the snow doesn't

come back, and soon mind you, we may cut down to serving

dinner only two or three nights a week."

"I'm sorry, Cindy. I know this is hard on everyone. flow's

your chef taking all this? Hopefully, he doesn't think it's any

sort of personal reflection on his culinary skills."

"Fortunately he's still in the honeymoon stage with us

and Pine Mountain in general. He says the slow pace is just

what he needs to recover from the years of stressed-out city

living. Only I'm worried he'll get all better and want to zip

back to Seattle before we ever have a chance to really take

off here."

Suddenly Maggie felt guilty for not having frequented the

hotel restaurant yet. In truth, she'd been hoping that Jed

would ask her out and her first dinner there would be with

him. But now because they were "putting their relations.h.i.+p

on hold" who knew when that dinner date might actually

happen~r if ever. "Well, if it's any comfort, I think we'll be

coming for dinner on Sat.u.r.day night. I know Mom and Leah

have eaten there before, but Spencer and I have missed out

on the pleasure."

"Great. Shall I put you down for four then?" She laughed

again. "Not that you need a reservation, but it just makes me

feel better to see the actual names written into my book."

Maggie smiled. ''Yes, there will be four of us-and let's

say about six-thirty."

106Melody Carlson

"Thanks, Maggie. Wow, that's two sets of reservations

with one phone call. I think that must be a record for me so

far."

"Don't worry, it'll get better, Cindy. Someday people will