by Susan Meier
So that left her business. If he wanted to do something to help her, if he wanted to do something to make up for the things he’d done wrong, then he had to figure out how she could afford to hire an assistant and buy a van.
Without him giving her money.
* * *
The next morning, Missy got up, put on a pot of coffee, poured three bowls of cereal and three glasses of milk, and sat at the table.
“So what are you going to do today?”
Owen said, “Pway with Wyatt.”
She stirred her coffee. “That sounds like a lot of fun, but he might not come over, so you should think about what you’d like to do with your sisters.”
Lainie’s head shot up and she gave her mom a wide-eyed look. Claire’s little mouth fell open. For the past two weeks, they’d enjoyed a small heaven, playing dolls without being forced to also entertain their brother. Neither seemed happy to have that change.
A knock at the door interrupted them, turning Missy around to see who it was.
Wyatt opened the door. “I brought your cake plate and sauce cup back.”
She rose, wiped her sweating palms down her denim shorts. She took the plate and cup from him. “Thanks.”
He smiled slightly. “Aren’t you going to offer me a cup of coffee?”
Actually, she hoped he’d just go. Like Owen, she’d gotten accustomed to having someone to talk to, to be with. She hadn’t even realized it until the night before, when she’d thought about how everybody came into her life, then left again. Even Wyatt would soon leave. But as they were jointly caring for her kids, and he helped her deliver her cakes, spending entire Saturdays with her, she’d been so preoccupied with her work that she’d been growing accustomed to having him around.
But he’d told her he didn’t want to be in her life, and she had accepted that. She wished he’d just leave, so she could start her healing process.
Still, after years of working at the diner as a teenager, if someone asked for coffee, she poured it. “Sure. I have plenty of coffee.”
He ambled to the table. “Hey, kids.”
Lainie said, “Hi, Wyatt!”
Owen said, “Hey, Wyatt.”
Claire smiled.
Owen said, “Are we going to pway?”
Wyatt pulled out a chair and sat. “As soon as I talk to your mom about some things.” He pointed at the boy’s bowl. “Are you done eating?”
Owen picked up his little plastic bowl and drank the contents in about ten seconds. Then he slapped the bowl on the table and grinned at Wyatt from behind a milk mustache.
Wyatt laughed. “Now you need to go wash up.”
“You can all wash up, brush your teeth and head outside. Wyatt won’t be far behind.”
Missy knew that probably sounded rude. At the very least high-handed. But she’d made up her mind the night of the wedding. Even before he’d seen her dad at her door. If she got involved with him, she wanted something more. He didn’t. Plus, in another day or week, he’d be gone. He wasn’t really her friend, didn’t want to be her lover, except temporarily. She had to break her attachment to him.
The kids scrambled along the short hall to their bathroom. She sat across from Wyatt.
“I’m not going to talk about my dad.”
“That’s not what I came to talk about.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. You know yesterday how I told you I was a thinker?”
“I thought you were just bragging.”
He winced. “I was...sort of.”
Her eyebrows rose, as if she was silently asking him what the hell that had to do with anything.
He squirmed uncomfortably. “The thing is, last night as I thought about your situation...”
“You can’t help me. I have to handle my dad alone.”
“I’m not talking about your dad. I’m talking about your business.”
“And I thought we’d already been over this, too. I don’t want your money.”
“I’m not offering you money. I solve business problems all the time. And sitting there last night, I realized that if I’m such a hotshot, I should be able to solve yours, too.”
She laughed. That hadn’t occurred to her, but it was true. If he was such a hotshot he should be able to muddle through her measly little expansion problem. “Without offering me money.”
“Right. We took that off the table the first week I was here.”
“So. Now you’re going to think about my problem?”
He picked up the saltshaker, turned it over in his hands as if studying it. “Actually, I solved it.”
She snorted a laugh. “Right.”
He finally caught her gaze. “I did. I don’t know if you’re going to be happy with the answer, but I took all the variables I knew into consideration, and realized that if I were in your position, I’d use the house as collateral for a line of credit.”
She gasped. “Use my house?”
“I woke up my chief financial officer last night and had him run some numbers.”
Wyatt pulled a paper from his back pocket. “He checked the value of your house against comps in the area, and estimates your house’s value here.” Wyatt pointed at the top number. “Which means you could easily get a hundred thousand dollar line of credit with the house as collateral.”
She raised her gaze to his slowly. “But then I’d have a payment every month.”
“You’d also have a van and an assistant, and you could take more weddings.”
The truth of that hit her with a happy lift of her spirits. Though part of her struggled against it, her mind shifted into planning mode. “And maybe birthday cakes.”
“And birthday cakes.” He smiled sheepishly. “I ate that whole damned cake.”
“Wyatt! That much sugar’s not good for you.”
“I know, but I’m out of food except for cereal, and I couldn’t go to the diner.”
Her face heated. “You can go wherever you want.”
“I’ll be damned if I’ll give money to a guy who beat his family.”
Owen came barreling into the kitchen. “Ready to pway?”
Wyatt pointed at the door. “You get everything set up outside. I’ll be there in a minute.” Owen raced out the door as Claire and Lainie appeared with their dolls.
“Are you going outside?”
They nodded.
Missy straightened the collar of Claire’s shirt. “Okay. You know the rules. Stay in the yard.”
They left and Wyatt caught her hand. “So? What do you think? Could you be okay with a line of credit?”
The warmth of his hand holding hers rendered her speechless for a few seconds, but she reminded herself he wasn’t interested in her romantically, unless it was for an affair. What he was doing now was making up for talking about her to her dad.
Of course, that was sort of nice, too. If he didn’t think of her as a friend, he’d blow off what he’d done. Instead, he was making it up to her. As a friend would.
She relaxed a bit. It wasn’t wrong to take advice from a friend. Especially a friend who had business expertise. “It’s a big step. I don’t want to lose this house.”
“Hey, who yelled at me for not having faith in you?”
“I did.”
“Then have some faith in yourself. And diversify. I have a couple of people on staff who could look into markets for your cakes. Or you could just go to the grocery stores and restaurants in neighboring towns and offer them a cake or two. Make the first week’s free. When they see the reaction to them, they’ll order.”
Warmth spread through her. A feeling of normalcy returned. “You think I can do this?”
“Hell, yeah.” Wyatt rose. “But it’s more important that you know you can
do it.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
AT LUNCHTIME SHE FED the kids, wondering what Wyatt was eating. Then she saw him leave on his bike. She wouldn’t let herself consider that he might be going to the diner. He’d said he wouldn’t, but in her life people said a lot of things, then did the opposite. She just hoped he’d respect her enough not to say anything to her dad, not to warn him away or yell at him.
Twenty minutes later, when he returned with a bag from the grocery store, she relaxed. From the size of the bag, she knew he hadn’t had enough time to shop as well as visit her dad. Maybe he really was a guy true to his word?
Falling into her normal daily routine, she straightened up the house while the kids napped. She picked up toys and vacuumed the living room and playroom floors. When she walked into the kitchen, she saw Wyatt at the door.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to know you’re a thorough vacuumer.”
She laughed and opened the screen door. “Did you get lunch?”
“I stopped at the store for bread and deli meat. Do you know they don’t have an in-house bakery anymore? They could use some homemade cakes in their baked goods section.”
“You can stop spying for me. Once I get an assistant I’ll investigate every store in the area.”
“So you’ve decided to get the line of credit?”
“Yes. Using the house as collateral.”
He walked to the table. “Can we sit?”
“Why? Are you going to help me call the bank?”
He pulled some papers from his back pocket. “Actually, I’d like to be the bank.”
She gasped. “I told you I don’t want your money.”
“And I told you that I feel responsible for the mess with your dad yesterday. This is my way of making that up to you.” He caught her gaze. “Besides, I’m going to give you a point and a half below the current interest rate at the bank, and my people have worked out a very flexible repayment schedule. No matter what happens with your business, you will not lose this house.”
Her heart tripped over itself in her chest. She wouldn’t lose her house? She didn’t know a bank that promised that. And Wyatt hadn’t gone to the diner. He’d bought deli meat. Even though she knew he was growing tired of not eating well, he’d been true to his word.
“And it’s a loan?”
He handed the papers to her. “Read the agreement. Though I promise not to take the house if you default, a new payment schedule will be created. But if you sell the house, you have to pay me the balance of the loan with the proceeds. No matter what happens, you have to pay back the hundred grand.” He pointed to a paragraph at the bottom of page one. “And you have to take out a life insurance policy in the amount of a hundred thousand dollars with me as beneficiary, if you die.”
Hope filled her. He hadn’t merely stayed away from her dad; he’d listened to everything she’d been saying the past few weeks. “So it really is a business deal?”
“Albeit with very good terms for you. I know you don’t want any special favors, but even you have to admit I owe you.”
She licked her lips. Lots of people had done her wrong, but no one had ever even acknowledged that, let alone tried to make up for it.
“You can take that to an attorney, if you want.”
She smiled up at him. “I could take it to my former boss at the law firm.”
Wyatt rose. “Smart businesswoman that you are, I would expect no less from you.”
* * *
That night, Wyatt sat on the big wicker chair on his back porch, once again wishing his mom hadn’t canceled the cable. He’d dug through more boxes, read a few more of his grandfather’s letters and still wasn’t tired enough for bed. Leaning back in the big chair, he closed his eyes.
“Hey, are you asleep?”
He bounced up with a short laugh. Missy stood at the bottom of his porch steps, holding two bottles of beer and the papers he’d given her that afternoon.
“I guess I was.”
She waved the papers. “Can I come up?”
He rose. “Sure. Your lawyer’s already looked at those?”
She wore a pink top and white shorts, and had the front of her hair tied back in some sort of clip contraption, but her smile was what caught him. Bright and radiant as the closest star, it raised his hopes and eased his guilt.
She handed him a beer. “To celebrate. My old boss squeezed me in, read the papers in about ten minutes and told me I’d be a fool not to sign.” She clanked her beer bottle against Wyatt’s. “He’s read your comics, by the way. He called you a genius.”
Wyatt scuffed his tennis shoe on the old gray porch planks. “I don’t know about genius.”
“Oh, don’t go getting all modest on me now.”
He laughed. “So you’re signing?”
She handed the papers to him. “It’s already signed and notarized. My lawyer kept a copy and made a copy for me.”
Wyatt took the papers, glanced down at her signature. “Good girl.” Then he clanked his bottle to hers again. “Congratulations. Someday you’re going to be the superstar this town talks about.”
She fell into one of the big wicker chairs. “This town doesn’t care about superstars. We’re all about making ends meet.”
He sat, too. It was the first time since he’d been home that she’d been totally relaxed with him. He took a swig of his beer, then said, “There’s no shame in that.”
“I think about ninety percent of America lives that way.”
The conversation died and he really wished it hadn’t. There was a peace about her, a calmness that he’d never seen before.
“So you’re happy?”
“I’m ecstatic. Within the next month I’ll have a van, an assistant and day care for the kids.” She turned to him. “Do you know how good it is for kids to socialize?”
He didn’t. Not really. He knew very little about kids. What he knew was business and comics. So he shrugged. “I guess pretty important.”
“Owen will have other boys to play with.”
Though Wyatt got a stab of jealousy over that, he also knew he was leaving soon. With or without the jewelry, he couldn’t stay away from his work more than a month, five weeks tops.
“That can’t be anything but good.”
Another silence fell between them. After a few minutes she turned to face him. “I don’t know how to deal with someone who knows about my dad.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ve been keeping the secret so long it feels odd that another person knows. It’s almost like who I am around you is different.”
He laughed. “That’s funny, because I’ve been thinking the same thing since I came here.”
“That I’m different?”
“No. More that I can’t get my footing. In Florida I’m king of my company. Here, I know nothing about kids or cakes or weddings. Plus, I’m the guy you remember as a nerd.”
“You’re so not a nerd.”
“Geek then.”
She shook her head. “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?”
He glanced down at his jeans, then back at her. “I wore jeans in high school.”
“Yeah. But not so well.”
He laughed.
She smiled. “It’s like you’re the first person in my life to know the whole me. Past and present.”
“And you’re the first person to know the whole me. Geek and sex god.”
She laughed and rose from her seat. “Right.” Reaching for his empty beer bottle, she said, “Before that little display of conceit, I was going to ask if you wanted to help me van shop.”
“I’d love to help you van shop.”
“See? Old Wyatt wouldn’t hav
e been able to do that.”
“Old Wyatt?”
“The geeky high school kid.”
“Right.”
“But older, wiser Wyatt can.”
He chuckled. No one ever called him old, let alone wise. But he sort of liked it. Just as she had her fortes with kids and cakes, he had his expertise, too. “So you’re going to let me go with you?”
“Yes.” She turned and started down the stairs. “And don’t go getting any big ideas about buying some tricked out supervan. I saw the clause in the agreement where you can raise the amount of the loan to accommodate expansion. I don’t want any more money. I have to grow the business in stages. We get a normal van. I hire a normal assistant. The kids go to local day care.”
By the time she finished she was at the bottom of the steps. She turned to face him.
He saluted her. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
She laughed. “I also like your new sense of humor. Young Wyatt didn’t laugh much.”
He leaned on the porch railing. Since they were being honest, it was time to admit the truth. “He was always too busy being nervous. Especially around you. You’re so beautiful you probably make most men nervous.”
She shook her head as if she thought he was teasing, then pointed at the hedge. “I’ve gotta go. See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”
He pushed away from the railing, smiling to himself. She was correct. He felt odd around her because she was the first, maybe the only person in his life to know both sides of him.
But now he also knew her secret. Instead of that scaring him the way he knew it probably should, because her secret was dark and frightening and needed to be handled with care, he felt a swell of pride. She hadn’t told him her secret, but she clearly trusted him with it. He felt honored.
* * *
“Hi, Mommy.”
Missy opened her eyes and smiled down at the foot of the bed. Claire grinned at her. She never awoke after the kids. She couldn’t imagine why she’d slept so late. Except that being honest with Wyatt about her dad, and accepting the loan, had relaxed her. She didn’t have to pretend that everything was fine around him. She could be herself.