by Mara Wells
“I’m sorry,” Commissioner Jackson said to Riley. “I understand where you and the community are coming from, I do. But it’s hard to stand in the way of progress. Or rather profit. Let’s hope the Historic Preservation Board comes through for you.”
“Right.” Riley sighed. Why had she thought any of this would matter? She and Grams were the little guys, and the little guys never won.
Chapter 14
Caleb should be ecstatic. In fact, Grandpa William’s “Good job. It couldn’t have gone smoother. What shall we do to celebrate?” still hung like cartoon bubbles in the air.
But Riley. He couldn’t get her out of his head. Her glum look as he’d presented, her nervous but hopeful energy as she talked about the building she grew up in and loved. Her utter devastation when the board took its informal vote. He should be over the moon happy that things were going his way. Why did he feel like he’d just kicked a puppy? And not even an annoying, ankle-biting puppy but one of those supercute yellow Lab pups with big red bows tied around their necks. Yes, that was who he was. Caleb Donovan, puppy kicker.
“You’ve got the Donovan instinct, that’s for sure.” Grandpa William clapped him on the shoulder, a surprisingly strong jolt that had Caleb fighting for his stability.
Caleb pulled out his phone. “One minute.” He held his cell to his ear and walked around the corner for privacy. That was what he needed, privacy for the phone call he was pretending to take so he could get some for real space.
Behind the building, lush tropical plants sprouted out of planters, sheltering stone benches. Discreetly located ashtrays marked this area as a designated smoker’s paradise, but no one was currently lighting up. Caleb inhaled a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and then enjoyed the whoosh of air as it left his lungs. Finally, a moment of peace. He crossed over to the nearest bench and sat, forearms propped on his knees, and let his head droop.
Sniffle, sniffle. Someone else was having an alone moment on the other side of the planter. The sago palms rustled behind him. The sniffling grew louder. A strangled sob had him on his feet.
“Are you okay?”
Sniffle. “I’m fine.”
He recognized that voice. He rounded the planter and there she was, Riley Carson, in her wilted pink suit, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. A travel-size pack sat on her lap, and a small pile of damp tissues had collected on the bench near her hip. Unlike Grams’ attempts to sway him with fake tears last week, Riley’s real tears made mascara run down her cheeks. She looked like a sad raccoon.
“You don’t sound fine.” He perched next to her, on the tissue-free side, and stared straight ahead. “You gave a good presentation.”
“Not good enough.” Her words were muffled behind the tissue.
“It was good enough. You certainly gave me some things to think about.”
“Like what?”
“The Dorothy was something else back in its day, wasn’t it? Art Deco design is optimistic and futuristic, but that future is now the past. It made me think about preserving the past as a way of preserving hope for the future.” He hadn’t realized what he was thinking until he said it out loud, but it made sense. His father wouldn’t see the value in an old building, would say it’s better for the bottom line to simply start from scratch, but old buildings had memories. They had character. They had people who loved them. People like Riley. Perhaps there was another way forward.
“That’s kind of you to say.” She crinkled the empty tissue holder in her hand and sniffled again.
“I’m not kind. Not generally anyway.” He reached into the inside pocket of his blazer and pulled out a handkerchief.
“Oh, I couldn’t.” She waved away his offering with a watery smile.
He pressed it into her hand. “It’s what they’re for.”
“I’m not going to give it back to you full of snot.”
“Don’t give it back. Throw it away for all I care. My mother gives me a new supply every holiday.” He pulled out another one from a different pocket for emphasis.
Riley’s head tilted, and she quirked an eyebrow. “That’s an odd gift.”
Caleb stretched out his legs, balancing his feet on the back of his heel, ankles crossed. “I had a lot of allergies as a kid, and she thought sending me to school with a box of Kleenex was tacky.”
“That’s sweet.” She folded the handkerchief into a smaller and smaller square.
“Yes, too sweet, I think.” Caleb’s hands rested on his belly, thumb tapping wildly against the muscle outlined by the tight fit of his button-down. “She’s the only one of Dad’s wives to stay with him. Even when she found out he was cheating on her, she didn’t leave. Went with him on every business trip, to ‘help him avoid temptation’ she said.”
“That’s pretty extreme. Guess she’s one of those rare stand-by-your-man kind of women, huh?” Riley used the handkerchief to dab at her eyes.
“Too much so. I’ve always hated how he treated her.” Caleb’s jaw clenched, remembering the fights he wasn’t supposed to overhear, the shattered glass when his dad threw things against the wall, always her things, her Lladró figurines and Swarovski Christmas angel ornaments, the crystal champagne flutes from their wedding.
“I never knew my dad.” Riley fisted the handkerchief, tucking the mascara-stained section into her palm. “He walked on Mom when she told him she was pregnant.”
“I wish my dad had walked out before I was born. My whole life, I wanted to make him proud. Like if I were good enough, he’d ease up on my mom.” Caleb let out a long breath. “What a waste of all our time. He was never who he claimed to be.”
“Is it really worse to know than to wonder?” Riley unfolded the handkerchief, smoothing out the wrinkles with her fingertips. “In a lot of ways, I’m like my mom and Grams, but in the ways I’m different, I always wonder if those parts are from him. Or are they my own? I wish I knew.” Riley dabbed at her newly leaking eyes. “Even if he is an awful human being, I still want to know him.”
“If? He left. There’s no doubt he’s awful.” Caleb didn’t like seeing the tears creep back. It’d been a long time since he’d wanted to comfort someone else. He searched for the right words. “It’s something we have in common, then, their awfulness. Different paths, same result. We both have fathers out there, but neither of us really has a dad.”
“But your dad, or excuse me,” she corrected at his stern look, “father, would be proud of you today. You won.” At least her tears had dried, but she continued to fold his handkerchief into twisted origami squares, doing and undoing them over and over again.
Caleb watched her fingers, long and dexterous, with short work-friendly nails painted a pale pink to match the suit. He’d never realized you could tell so much about a person from their hands, but Riley’s said it all: feminine, competent, sexy as all hell. What were they talking about again? Oh right, her messed-up paternal relationship. And his.
“Grandpa William says I made the family proud, but it’s too late. I don’t care what Robert Donovan thinks of me anymore. He’s going to rot in jail, and I hope I never see him again.”
“That’s pretty harsh.” Riley leaned sideways, and their arms pressed together. Did she crave his nearness the way he craved hers? “Whenever I’d get mad at my mom for being away for her job so much, Grams always told me that the f in family stands for ‘forgive.’”
“That’s a nice saying. Harder to do in real life.” Caleb leaned, too, and her shoulder dug into his bicep. The pressure made him hot enough to shrug out of his sport coat, but he didn’t want to break contact with her. “Would you really forgive your father if he showed and wanted to be part of your life now?”
“I’m not sure, and it’s not likely to happen anyway. But you, you’ll have lots of chances. At least you know where you father is. It’s not like he can run out on you if you decide to have it out with him.�
�� Riley let out a controlled breath, and her head fell against Caleb’s shoulder. “Maybe someday you’ll make peace with your father. You can’t spend your whole life angry at him.”
The muscles of Caleb’s arm turned rigid under her cheek. “Why not? Sounds like a good plan to me.”
“You’re impossible.” She sat up and nudged him with her shoulder. He nudged back, and she sniffed back the last of her tears. “So now you only have to make yourself proud. Are you?”
“Proud? Of what? You made clear in your presentation all that would be lost. If I get final approval, I destroy the Dorothy’s history. But if Eliza gets the Historic Preservation Board to designate it as an historic building, I won’t be able to use my designs. Grandpa William will say there’s no money to be made in the status quo. He’ll think I failed him.”
“I’d say that’s too bad, but well, that would be great. Not the failing your family, of course, but the Dorothy being preserved would be amazing.” Riley tucked the handkerchief into the gold-handled clutch already bulging with girl stuff. If she had that many things to carry, why choose such a tiny bag? It did complement the suit with its subdued champagne shimmer, but it wasn’t a practical choice. Just like trying to keep the Dorothy exactly the same wasn’t practical, either.
“The Dorothy needs renovating, though.” Caleb shifted, angling his body toward hers on the bench. “Even you must see that. It’s not in the same condition you showed in those slides today.”
Riley’s head bobbed in agreement. “Renovation. Not replacement.”
Caleb stared at Riley’s feet encased in closed-toed sling-back heels, wishing he could see her toenails. Same pale pink as on her fingers? Or something bolder? To cover up his odd fascination with her footwear, he changed the subject. To her feet. “How’s your foot? How’s LouLou’s injury?”
“We’re both recovered.” Riley crossed her leg, tucking one foot behind her calf. “She’s running around the dog park like the little boss she is.”
“I’m glad for both of you.” Caleb couldn’t tear his eyes from where the pink skirt hitched up, revealing the skin above her knee. He wanted to trace that inch of skin with the tip of his finger, test the back of her knee for ticklishness, slide his hand up one more inch and then another until the skirt rode her thigh and those knees were around his waist. The image was so vivid in his mind, he had to shake his head to clear it. Remind himself where they were: in public, on a bench. Still, her skin called to him, and he tucked his hand under his thigh to keep from reaching for her.
As if feeling his gaze, Riley tugged her skirt down, and he almost groaned when her knee was once again covered. Great, now he had a thing for knees, or at least Riley’s knees. He searched his scrambled brain for something to say. Something about business.
“You know, if I can’t build the parking structure, there’s no money for anything. Not even renovation. But maybe there’s a compromise.” He let his hands out of their thigh jail so he could gesture at the expanse of green space across the street, a little plot of land too small to be a park but big enough to host a small butterfly garden. “I could build a dog park. A really nice dog park. A world-class dog park.”
Riley folded the handkerchief in her lap and crossed her legs, that skirt inching its way up her thigh again. “Why would you do that?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do?”
“Since when do Donovans care about that?”
Their gazes locked. The image flashed in his mind again: his hand on her thigh, her knees clamped around his waist. He imagined her hair spread out in wild curls around her head while he leaned over her, in toward her, their mouths a breath apart.
“This Donovan cares.” His voice was whisper-soft.
“Cares about what?”
Somehow, the space between them disappeared. His mouth was a mere inch from hers. He could feel her breath, the sigh when he brushed his lips against hers with the softest touch. “About you.”
“You’re going to bribe me with a dog park?” She pulled back but not away. Her hand drifted to his shoulder and smoothed its way down his arm.
“Half the lot for a dog park. The other half for a small parking garage.” His lip twitched at the corner. He wanted to smile. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to make her happy. “Would it work?”
“Probably.”
He cupped her face in his palms and traced her cheekbone with his thumb.
“Then let me build you a dog park.”
She closed the distance, brushing her lips against his with increasing pressure. Her wide brown eyes watched him, wary, and he’d give anything to replace that wariness with trust.
“I’m going to hold you to it.” Her lips whispered across his. Heat flooded him, his heart pounding hard enough to beat itself right out of his chest.
Then there was no more breath left in his lungs for talking. His other hand slid to cup the back of her neck, and he pulled Riley toward him. This. This was what he’d been waiting for since their first interrupted kiss. She parted her lips on a sharp breath, and he swooped in, his tongue dancing with hers. His fingers fisted in her hair, and she wiggled closer to him on the bench, her hands reaching up to twine around his neck.
She kissed him back as ferociously as he kissed her, and he soon forgot where they were. When they were. Who they were. He wanted to get closer to her and closer still. She must’ve felt the same because she swung a leg over his, scooching onto his lap, sidesaddle-style since the skirt didn’t have much give. He groaned his pleasure at the closer contact. She rewarded him by tilting her head back to give him access to the sensitive flesh of her neck.
“Caleb, the car’s here. Are you—” Grandpa William’s cane tapped its way around the corner.
Riley pulled back with a gasp. She struggled to remove herself from his lap, but he locked an arm around her waist and held her in place. She frowned at him. He smiled back.
“Give me a minute, will you, Grandpa?”
Grandpa William humphed. “You’re a Donovan all right.”
Riley pried Caleb’s fingers off her waist and popped to her feet.
“This was a mistake. It should never have happened.” She sprinted away as fast as her borrowed heels would let her, leaving behind her wadded-up tissues and a Riley-sized emptiness in his arms.
Chapter 15
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Riley kicked the toe of her borrowed high heel against the concrete curb and watched Caleb hurry to his grandfather’s side, taking his elbow while they ambled back toward the front of the building. Why did Caleb’s very nearness make her so stupid?
“That was quite a show.”
For a second, Riley thought Grams meant Caleb’s and her private moment, but Grams was just arriving, her sensible Dr. Scholl’s ballet flats adorned with a smattering of rhinestones on the toes she’d added herself. Grams loved her glue gun.
Riley stood, straightened her jacket, and tucked Caleb’s gently used handkerchief into the waist of her skirt. Grams didn’t need to see any evidence of how stupid she’d been, letting Caleb near her again with his dreamy eyes and dreamier kisses. She’d felt good pressed against him, his heat seeping through her sleeveless silk blouse, her hands braced against the firm muscles of his chest. She couldn’t help but wish they’d had a few more minutes and a lot more privacy. God, she was even stupid inside her own head when she thought of him.
A buzz from her purse had her rooting around for her phone. “Grams, we gotta go. Constantine’s got a major leak.”
“I wondered why he wasn’t here today. He didn’t try to fix it himself, did he?” Grams linked her arm through Riley’s and steered them toward the garage where Riley’s Mazda was parked. “You know last time he tried to do it himself, that mess leaked right through my wall, ruined my lovely cabbage rose wallpaper. You never have repapered that wall like you promised.”
“I kno
w, I know. It’s on my list.” Riley’s stomach, such a hodgepodge of rocks and nerves today, growled with what was probably hunger, but she took as a harbinger of doom. Constantine was always so old-world polite to her with his thick Italian accent and ever-present smile. To send an abrupt water everywhere come now please was as unlike him as missing Mass at St. Patrick’s on Sunday mornings.
Constantine’s door was already open when Riley rushed off the elevator, leaving Grams to find her own way to her apartment. But of course she didn’t. She ambled along behind Riley, always with a nose for news, especially the neighborly kind. The hallway carpet outside Constantine’s unit was damp. Definitely not a good sign.
Riley squished her way inside. “Mr. Marino?”
When she didn’t immediately get an answer, she pitched her voice louder. He didn’t like to wear his hearing aids. “Constantine?”
“In the kitchen!”
She followed his voice and found him with shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, holding a dish towel over his sink drain. The sink itself was half full of water. Constantine was barefoot, a sight she’d never seen before, and water gushed from the cabinet directly under the sink. He dabbed the perspiration off his shiny, bald head with a red-and-white-striped kitchen towel.
“This is not good.”
“Not good.” Constantine pumped his elbows for reasons Riley couldn’t figure out, but it clearly made him feel like he was doing something about the situation.
“Why didn’t you call sooner?” Riley squatted in her heels and opened the cabinet doors. Water sloshed onto her borrowed skirt. She really should’ve changed before dashing to Constantine’s rescue. Riley wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking at, but the pipe’s raggedy edge where it should meet the wall but didn’t was probably a bad sign. A very bad sign.
“You said the building doesn’t have a lot of money, that we have to tighten the belts.” Constantine mimed cinching a belt over his own tub of a belly. “So I try to fix it on my own.”