Free Love in the Morning by Meg Benjamin Page A

“What about the muffins?”
    Saved. “Right. The muffins. We still have to fix the muffins for tomorrow.”
    Clark grimaced. “How long will that take?”
    Hours. All afternoon. Come back tomorrow. “An hour or so.”
    He glanced at his watch. “Okay, I’ve got stuff to do too. Make it dinner. I’ll come back around five.”
    She exhaled a long breath as he stepped back through the door, letting her shoulders loosen.
    Desi looked at her curiously. “You okay?”
    â€œSure.” She rubbed some sanitizer onto her hands. Surely that would take care of her damp palms. “Let’s get to the muffins.”
    *****
    Clark showed up promptly at five. Lizzy wondered if they’d head for the Blarney Stone again. She wasn’t looking forward to her second encounter with Dick Sonnenfeld, but figured she should get used to it. Other people were bound to be curious about her background and how she ended up in the Praeger House kitchen.
    But Clark steered her in the other direction on Main Street, heading toward a small restaurant at the end of the block. “Italian okay by you?”
    â€œSure.” Anything unaccompanied by Dick Sonnenfeld was great. Of course, there was still that ominous I need to talk to you thing.
    The waitstaff at the restaurant seemed to know Clark, although they were a little surprised to see Lizzy. She suspected that he usually showed up with someone else, who probably looked less like a stranded immigrant. She ignored the slightly leaden feeling around her heart when she considered that. Totally inappropriate.
    After the waitress had taken their orders for lasagna (hers) and pizza (his), he leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping restlessly on the placemat.
    Lizzy’s stomach tightened. This was where the I need to talk to you part would come in.
    â€œSo have you ever heard of the Best Of the Box contest?”
    Her shoulders relaxed. Okay, I can deal with this. She shook her head. “I think I heard you mention it to Clarice.” And of course she’d also heard Clarice’s rejection of the whole idea. “What is it?”
    â€œThe local promo magazine, the one that’s handed out at the hotels and the reservation services, has a contest every year to name the best in several categories in town. You know—best burger, best pizza, best margarita, stuff like that.”
    She frowned. “I’m surprised a promo magazine would do that. Don’t they run the risk of alienating some of their advertisers?”
    He shrugged. “They’ve got so many categories they can take care of a lot of advertisers. But it still means something to win it. The competition is…spirited.”
    â€œOkay.” She nodded slowly. “So how do we fit in?”
    â€œThey’ve got a new category this year—breakfast buffet. We’ve done well in the lodging competition, but we’ve never been able to compete for food service before.”
    She narrowed her eyes. “But isn’t our breakfast just for guests? Would we be eligible to compete with restaurants that are open to everybody?”
    He shook his head. “Most of the people we get are guests, but the breakfast is open to anyone who walks in the door. All they have to do is pay Betsy.”
    Betsy was the cashier who sat just outside the door of the breakfast room, collecting money and meal tickets. She looked like everybody’s high school algebra teacher. Lizzy guessed that nobody would get past Betsy without paying.
    She nodded slowly. “Right. So you want to enter? Do you want me to do something different with the menu?” Scrambled eggs were good for the guests and fast to fix, but they weren’t exactly imaginative. Even an omelet station was pretty standard. She was guessing restaurants with real breakfast buffets probably offered a lot more.
    Clark grimaced, sighing. “Yes, I want to enter. More than that, I