Page 61 of Already Home

“The journey is exploration,” Serenity assured her.

“Interesting.”

Beth realized Jenna was taking Serenity’s words and suppositionseriously and was actually considering that the store might not be for her. Shewanted to grab her daughter and tell her to ignore the other woman’s weirdness.She’d barely gotten her daughter back, and now she was going to lose heragain?

She fought back the panic. Nothing was going to happen in thenext few weeks. Everything would calm down.

She managed to slow her breathing and relax enough to smile.But when she looked at Serenity, she found she didn’t like her nearly as much asshe had before.

* * *

Jenna worked frantically in her kitchen. Tonight was herblind date with Ellington of the healing center. Despite knowing it was good forher to get out on a date, she was sorry she’d agreed to be set up. Bad enough togo out with someone she didn’t know, but worse when the results would bereported back to Serenity. No doubt her birth mother would want to dissect theevening in terms of moon placement and chakras.

Adding to the impossibleness of the situation was the fact thatshe’d decided to cook.

Oh, sure, it would have all been fine if she’d decided to crackopen a cookbook and pick a recipe. But she hadn’t. Instead, she was creatingsomething from scratch.

Her first thought had been to make Indian food. Serenity hadmade her think of it, mentioning Ellington liked it. Jenna had never made morethan a few Indian dishes, simple things that wouldn’t impress anyone. But she’dbeen determined to try something new—breaking out of her cooking rut seemed tobe helping.

She’d started with basic Indian spices only to realize Indianflavorings had a lot in common with Mexican food. They both used cumin. Mexicanfood used cilantro and Indian food favored coriander, but they both came fromthe same plant. Could they be blended?

Three hours later she poured sauce on her chicken curryenchiladas and wondered what the hell she’d been thinking. The food could be acomplete disaster.

Or it could be wonderful.

Not sure which, she popped the dish in the oven, offered up aprayer and shook tortilla chips into a bowl. Seconds later, her doorbell rang.She drew in a breath for courage and went to answer it.

The man waiting for her was tall and good-looking, with blondhair and blue eyes. When he saw her, he smiled and Jenna felt a little whisperof anticipation. Maybe she’d been too quick to judge Serenity and her taste inmen.

“Jenna? I’m Ellington.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said. They shook hands and she felt avery distinct spark. Nice, she thought. This could be nice.

“We’re having dinner with friends of yours?” he asked as hefollowed her inside.

“Violet works for me. I’ve never met her boyfriend, Cliff, butI hear he’s pretty great.”

“I like meeting new people.”

He smiled again, but instead of a spark, she thought sherecognized something. No, not something. Someone. She studied him moreclosely.

“Have we met?”

“I don’t think so.” He shrugged. “You might have seen me on TV.I do a lot of interviews, discussing homeopathic healing techniques. I’veappeared on most of the local talk shows and have a regular segment on themorning news.”

“You’re a local celebrity.”

The smile returned. “It’s no big deal.”

Uh-huh. Big fish in a small pond. That described Aaronperfectly. She studied Ellington more carefully and saw all the signs. Goodlooks, nice clothes, an ease with strangers. Her biological mother had set herup with the healing center equivalent of her ex-husband. She sighed. It wasgoing to be a very long evening.

* * *

“Thanks for doing this,” Violet murmured to Cliff asthey walked toward Jenna’s town house.

He smiled at her, then lightly kissed her. “Anything for you.You know that.”

He was so perfect, she thought happily. The past few weeks withCliff had been a revelation. She hadn’t known a guy could be so sweet and funnyand nice.

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