Annabelle loved working with Gray, which was a problem. In four days she would return to Kansas to begin the formidable task of reversing the fortunes of their family farm, but her renewed feelings for Gray were spiraling out of control. Even now, as she watched him at the reference desk, his tall, serious figure was irresistibly attractive to her. He listened intently as the librarian passed him another set of records. His footsteps echoed off the towering marble walls of the chamber as he wended his way through the work tables and back to her. The corners of his mouth tilted in the barest hint of a smile as he set the records on the table before her.

“Two decades of baked bean sales and exports,” he whispered.

“Excellent!”

His face warmed, and he touched her shoulder. “We won’t know until we plow through the numbers.”

“Ahem!” her mother said as she glared at Gray’s hand, and he immediately withdrew it. Maude had been a constant presence for the entire three days. While her father pounced on the extra time in Washington to explore the city, Maude refused to waste money on streetcar fare and insisted on sticking close to Annabelle.

Which was a blessing in disguise. Maude had an encyclopedic memory for the price of every item sold in grocery stores in the entire county of Pottawatomie, Kansas. She knew the price of a bushel of cucumbers, a gallon of vinegar, and a pint of salt, and could therefore estimate how much the Magruders spent to manufacture a jar of pickles.

“Can you cost out the ingredients for a batch of Boston baked beans?” Gray whispered.

“Naturally,” Maude said. Her mother might look grim, but Maude was in her element. All of them were. Working toward a cause wasn’t a chore, it was fun. Yes, her mother could be terse and opinionated, but the moment Annabelle asked for help, Maude was fully committed to bringing honest and affordable food to the working people of America.

In his own way Gray was every bit as patriotic. Their work today wasn’t about advancing Gray’s spice company. Indeed, if they were successful, it would cause additional burdens and regulatory hoops for his business, but his sense of fair play drove him on this mission, and she was proud to work toward this goal with him.

But in four days she would go home. Roy tried to hide it, but he was sweating bullets, being away from the farm this long, and a huge part of Maude’s insane need to pinch pennies was rooted in the farm’s dire straits. If Annabelle could deliver on this one last crusade, she would feel good about returning to Kansas.

At least, that was what she told herself.