Page 11 of The Matchmaker's Cottage

She didn’t even wait to see if the younger woman had acknowledged her urgent command, instead racing up the stairs to the main floor, glancing hurriedly at the front door—which was thankfully still closed—before continuing up to the bedrooms, taking the stairs two at a time, legs and arms burningwith the added weight of the clean linens, until she reached the room she referred to as Victorian Elegance. Each of the bedrooms had a theme, and Julia had taken pride in carefully constructing each one.

Maggie, to her infinite credit, was close behind, joining her mere seconds later. Both women had to take a moment to recover from the speed with which they had made it upstairs. It was Julia who managed to speak first.

“He’s here,” she gasped, her breath coming out in short pants. “We need to…get these beds made…”

“Here?Now?” Maggie, panting just as heavily, had braced her hands on her knees as she regarded Julia in disbelief.

Julia was happy she wasn’t going to have to explain whohewas or any other context related to her reaction. Maggie just seemed to implicitly get her or, at the very least, feed off her frenetic energy by matching it one hundred percent.

Luckily, Maggie was more often the calm to her storm and a foil to her more ambitious antics. She often did and said exactly the right thing for whatever moment, just when Julia needed it the most, and she would be forever grateful for that.

And right now what she really needed was exactly what Maggie was doing. She needed Maggie to act like there was a fire under her ass propelling her to the next task in a way that promised completion before Ethan opened that front door so that they could provide a semblance of preparedness for the occasion.

“Can you finish making all the beds for me?” Julia asked hurriedly, hand on her pounding heart. Her eyes remained locked on the bedroom door, one ear listening for the sound of the front door opening.

“Yes, I had actually just put the stew to simmer—”

Shit. The stew. “Did you get a chance to finish what you needed to do?”

Maggie was already nodding. “Don’t worry, it needs two hours or so on low heat now, so it’s ready in time for dinner. Let me do these now quickly.” She gestured to the basket of bed sheets.

“I feel bad I’m not helping,” Julia said, chagrined. “Let me just—”

“I’ll get them.” Maggie shooed her away, making it into the doorway with her. “You go stand in the entryway and do your job greeting our guest.”

Both women froze as they heard the front door opening.

“Go,” Maggie whispered, giving Julia one last shove toward the stairs. “I’ll finish these quickly.”

Just as she made her way down on legs that felt a little too shaky for stairs, the front door swung open to fully reveal Ethan. Stepping in, he lifted his suitcase over the threshold and wheeled it in front of him before placing his blazer on top of it. Then he looked up the stairs in time to see her descending the last few steps. At the sight of her, he gave a quick double blink.

“You made it all the way upstairs already?” he asked as she approached him.

“Yup,” she answered with a cheerfulness she didn’t feel. “Just making sure your room was all set to go.”

“Oh, great.” He looked at her carefully, a mix of relief and chagrin on his features. There was something about his careful perusal of her that made her wonder if he was studiously avoiding looking around. When neither of them spoke for a beat, he continued: “Hey, thank you again for agreeing to this, I know it’s a bit crazy—”

“It’s fine,” she interrupted, not really interested in his gratitude or diving too deep into the reasons why shehadagreed. “Maybe after you get settled, you can give me a more detailed rundown on what exactly I can expect from this week?”

He was already nodding before she’d even finished talking. “Yeah, absolutely. I’ll explain everything and let you know what my vision—”

His vision?

“—is for the week and how this place comes into play with all of it. As much as we want to use the cottage—er, bed-and-breakfast—itself as the ‘romantic destination spot’ it clearly is—”

Was he being sarcastic?

“—it would also help to be out and about a little bit in the town, maybe see if we can coordinate some type of subtle, paparazzi-like photos, without actually involving those vultures—”

Julia’s head was spinning at the ideas he was presenting around how to “use” the bed-and-breakfast, as well as the thought of going about town. She had thought the whole point was privacy, anonymity. Now he was encouraging public photographs?

“I mean,” she started, not even sure if he had finished talking yet, but unable to hold in her thoughts, “I figured you wanted to lay low, based on what you said before…” She trailed off as the realization dawned that, despite his initial request and their subsequent conversation, she really didn’t know much of what he was doing there. And by the look on his face, it felt like maybe he wasn’t quite sure anymore, either.

“Listen—” he began, and she braced herself for what he was about to say, when she noticed his gaze shift from her face to a spot behind her.

Turning, she saw Maggie coming down the stairs. “Oh, Ethan, this is Maggie Phillips. She’s my cook and housekeeper extraordinaire.” She gave Maggie a half smile, almost relieved by the interruption as Maggie came to stand beside her in the entryway. The thought of Maggie’s connection to her past, and how Ethan would respond to that, crossed Julia’s mind in that moment. At the same time, she didn’t feel the need to divulge every bit of information she had. It just made things…complicated. Even more than they already were.

“Hi, Maggie.” Ethan reached out his hand, a smile on his face that Julia remembered all too well.