“Just a little one in the utility room,” she answered.

“We’ll put our paper in there when we get done with it,” he said. “So you can cook for real?”

“Yes, why?”

“I’m hungry,” he said.

Even though Jolene looked like she might have traveled a few rough roads, she didn’t sound like she was conning him. And he really was starving. That slice of cold pizza he’d had for breakfast had long since digested. He’d been so busy getting the trailer ready to move that he’d forgotten all about lunch.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I love breakfast for supper. So I’d like biscuits and gravy, pancakes, and maybe an omelet with hash browns on the side.” He straightened up and headed across the porch with Sassy right behind him.

“Are you testing me to see if I can make a good breakfast for the inn when it’s up and running again?”

“Nope. I just happen to really like homemade breakfast food, and I thought I’d push my luck,” he answered.

“I can have it ready in thirty minutes while you do a walk-through of your new property, Mr. Malone,” she said.

“Are you serious? An omelet with some toast would be fine. Just call me Tucker. Unless you want to stand on formality, and then I’ll call you Miss Broussard.” He waited for her to catch up, and then held the door for her and Sassy. “Hope you ain’t allergic to cats.”

“No, sir. Love them, as a matter of fact. Not much into dogs. You go on and see what you think while I get some food going, and I’ll show you that I can put a decent breakfast on the table—Tucker.” She hurried off to the kitchen as he started up the wide, curved stairway.

Jolene’s hands shook as she stirred up biscuit dough from Aunt Sugar’s recipe file. If he had enough money to redo this place, why in the hell was he living in a travel trailer? Why would he want to buy half ownership? And this all had happened in two days—wasn’t that too quick?

Questions upon questions raced through her mind, but there wasn’t a single answer to any of them. She shook flour on a piece of waxed paper and kneaded the dough a few times. Once it was cut into a dozen perfect circles, she stomped her foot. She should’ve only made half a recipe. There was no way two people would eat twelve biscuits.

She slid the pan into the oven and then crumbled half a pound of sausage into a cast-iron skillet. Going back and forth from stove to cabinet, she kept it stirred in between whipping four eggs up in a bowl and dicing up some tomatoes, onions, and peppers for a western omelet.

She glanced out the kitchen window, and a dark shadow proved that he had indeed parked his trailer back there. In the dim light, it looked a lot like the one she’d lived in for a few years when she’d moved out of her mother’s place. Since he hadn’t signed the papers, he might take one look at what all needed to be done and grab his cat, and she’d never see him again.

Jolene’s mind was going in a hundred directions. Jumping from showing him that she’d be a good cook for the bed-and-breakfast to wondering how things had ever happened so fast to just how much money he was willing to invest. She didn’t even hear him enter the room.

“We’ve got a big job on our hands. You got a deadline in mind?” Tucker came into the kitchen and watched her cook from the other side of the kitchen island.

“Not really. Aunt Sugar usually closed up the place a month or so in the winter to do some heavy cleaning. It was kind of slow right after Christmas anyway. We might have a decent year if we could have our grand reopening by mid-April.”

“That sounds doable. Smells good in here. Can I wash up in the kitchen sink?”

She shrugged. “The place belongs to you as much as to me.”

He’d already removed his coat. Now he was rolling up the sleeves of his body-hugging knit shirt and heading toward the sink. When he finished, he glanced around the kitchen. “Paper towels?”

“Real towels.” She tossed him the one from over her shoulder.

“Faucet is dripping. I’ll get on that tomorrow after we draw up a plan. Once this place is fixed up, it’ll be a gold mine. Reuben is an idiot,” Tucker said.

“That’s paying Reuben a compliment,” she said. “He’s worse.”

“Maybe so, but I’m glad he didn’t want his half.” He dried his hands, rolled up his sleeves, and sat down at the table.

“Hey, if this is a partnership, Mr. Malone . . .”

“I told you it’s Tucker. Mr. Malone sounds like you’re talkin’ to my grandpa,” he reminded her.

“Okay, then, Tucker. If I’m going to help you remodel, then the least you can do is get your own plate and fork and pour your own coffee,” she scolded.

He might have agreed to save the inn, but by golly, he could damn sure help out. She pointed at the cabinet door above the coffeepot.

“Aunt Sugar organized her cabinets. Coffee cups are up there above the pot. Plates are to the left of the sink. Glasses to the right. Mixing bowls under the bar. The big pots and pans, slow cookers, and food are in the pantry,” she said.

He chuckled as he pushed the chair back. “Kind of a smart-ass, ain’t you?”

“I am what I am. You’ve got until Friday to live with it or change your mind and pull that trailer off my property.” She started melting butter for the omelet.

“And if I don’t like working with you and leave, are you going to sell me your half? God knows you ain’t goin’ to do much around here with a hundred bucks.” He poured a mug of coffee, got a plate and a fork, and carried it all to the table.

“You ever go to church?” She stirred flour into the skillet with the sausage and then added milk.

“Few times,” he said.

“Ever hear that story about the widow woman who only had enough for one meal until the prophet came along? He wanted the bread she was about to fix, so she gave it to him, and”—she snapped her fingers—“they had enough food to last for months because the oil and flour never played out.”

“I’m not a prophet,” Tucker chuckled. “You think God is going to keep the pantry full for you?”

“Maybe. I went to church in the summers when I was here with Aunt Sugar. Mama wasn’t nearly as God-fearin’ as her older sister.” She stirred the gravy and set it aside while she made hash browns and started the omelet. When those were done, she made half a dozen pancakes and then carried everything to the table.

“I hope you don’t intend for me to eat all this. I’m hungry, but that’s a lot of food,” he said.

“Hey, you asked for it, so here it is. And besides, I haven’t had supper, either.” She went back to the cabinet for a plate and fork.

He split two biscuits and covered them with gravy. “I’m not much of a morning person. Give me a bowl of cereal and two or three cups of coffee and I’m ready to work. But I do love this kind of food for supper.”

“Comfort food.” She nodded. “That’s the best kind. So where do we start on this job and when?”

“I’d say on the second floor,” he answered quickly. “Finish one room completely and go on to the next. I peeled back a corner of the carpet. Did you know there’s oak hardwood under it?”

“Had no idea, but that would sure be easier to clean than carpet.” She flipped two pancakes onto her plate and poured hot buttered syrup over them.

“I’ll get out my notepad, and we’ll set down a plan after we eat. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a home-cooked meal like this, so I intend to enjoy it first.”

“So exactly how much money are you willing to sink into this project?” she asked.

“Enough to finish it,” he said and changed the subject. “If you do cook like this every morning when we have guests, they’ll be booking for another visit before they ever leave.”

“Thank you.” She nodded. “But this is just a sample of what Aunt Sugar did for breakfast. I’ve got her menus and recipes for fancy muffins, waffles, and all kinds of things to vary it.”

“So she was your mother’s sister?” he asked.

“That’s right. Her older sister by a different mother. Aunt Sugar’s mama died when she was a teenager, and her dad remarried a woman named Victoria that next year. They had my mother about the time that Aunt Sugar and Uncle Jasper got married. There’s a picture of my aunt in her wedding dress holding my mother.”

What was she doing? He didn’t need to know about her personal life. Besides, he could easily change his mind and take his trailer and cat away by Friday. Then she’d be back to square one, needing someone to buy half a bed-and-breakfast.

Usually folks told Tucker what they wanted done, and he gave them two or three options. He’d start at the high end and go down to the bare-bones price that the job would cost. But that evening after they’d had supper, he knew he didn’t have to figure in labor, and that was at least two-thirds of the cost of any job.

“Okay, this is what I’ve got in mind,” he said. “The bedrooms are big enough that we can easily take a few feet off each for private bathrooms. People want more privacy now than just two bathrooms at the end of the hall. If we want to keep the plantation feel to the place, then I’ve got a contact down near Tyler that refurbishes old claw-foot tubs. We could probably get a real good deal on half a dozen.”

“That will take a lot of money. It would involve new plumbing and more than one year to pay back,” she said. “I was thinkin’ new drapes and maybe updating the linens, and hopefully the carpet.”

“You got to spend money to make money,” he said. “It’s a long-term investment. We’ll get repeat customers by giving them privacy, comfort, and good food. Maybe when we get rolling we can think about buying half a dozen canoes for the clients to use. The bayou is right behind us. We could also furnish the equipment for fishing.”