Free In Firefly Valley by Amanda Cabot Page B

understand.”
    As Carmen pulled place mats and silverware from a drawer, Blake offered to set the table. Though she shook her head, Carmen smiled. “You have good manners, Blake. Your mother taught you well.”
    â€œThe credit goes to my dad. My mother died when I was two—complications from measles, if you can believe it.”
    â€œAnd your father never remarried.” She made it a statement rather than a question. When Blake shook his head, Carmen continued. “It must have been hard for him, raising you alone.” Her words reminded him that she was a single parent too.
    â€œDad had help.” If you could call it that. Blake tried not to frown at the memory of his grandfather’s stern and often disapproving face and the sound of his angry shouts. Grandfather was gone, his tyranny ended. Keeping his voice as even as he could, Blake said, “Dad’s father lived with us.”
    Carmen smiled as she arranged the place mats. “So you had both a father’s and a grandfather’s love. You were a lucky boy.”
    Lucky wasn’t the way Blake would have described it. Though he’d come to accept that his grandfather had loved him as best he could,he had spent the majority of his adolescence wishing the man lived on another planet or at least on the opposite side of the continent.
    Eager to change the subject, Blake looked at the two photos on the end table. One showed a very young Marisa standing in what Blake guessed was her backyard. Holding what appeared to be a mason jar, she was the picture of happiness. The second picture showed a far more serious young woman in a cap and gown.
    He might not have paid too much attention to the pictures had it not been for the fact that the Marisa in both of them was a blue-eyed blonde. Blake knew women who bleached their hair and wore colored contacts to transform themselves into the stereotypical California blonde, but this was the first time he’d seen anyone disguise such glorious natural color.
    â€œWow! I didn’t realize Marisa was a blonde. She’s even more beautiful that way.”
    â€œThat’s what I told her.” Carmen placed three glasses on the table and stood back, narrowing her eyes as if verifying that she had forgotten nothing. “She was the spitting image of Eric, her father.”
    Though he was curious about the reason for such a dramatic change of appearance, Blake didn’t want to squander the opportunity to learn more about Marisa’s father. The fact that Carmen still wore a wedding ring made him believe she was a widow. What he didn’t know was how long Eric St. George had been gone and how he had died. “When did your husband—”
    Before Blake could finish the sentence, Marisa rushed into the cabin, a large towel-wrapped container in her hand, her expression so carefree that Blake knew he’d do nothing to destroy the mood. His opportunity had evaporated.
    â€œI remembered the spumoni.”
    Carmen chuckled. “There’s hope for you yet.”

    There was no hope for this system. Marisa glared at the computer screen, as if that would change the display. The fancy salesbrochure promised that it was user-friendly. Reality was far different. It was true that the optimistically named Acme Premier Hospitality System would generate a general ledger, but doing that required too many steps and far too much time.
    And that was the least of its flaws. One of Marisa’s requirements for the system was that anyone could enter a reservation without special training. Acme Premier failed that test. Rainbow’s End needed—and deserved—better than this.
    Fortunately, she had one more system on her short list of likely packages. If that one proved to have substance behind the marketing hype, she’d be able to deliver on her promise to have software selection completed before Kate and Greg returned from their honeymoon. Then she could begin to