by Hope Ramsay
Is this what Shelly had had to contend with? Willow had heard enough from her friend to know that being David’s wife hadn’t always been the fairytale Shelly had once believed in.
David Lyndon was a handsome and appealing man, but he was also grumpy and Scroogy and he let his mother run roughshod over his daughter. He wasn’t a prince. He hadn’t slain any dragons or rescued any damsels.
This was the problem with modern princes. They could awaken a woman with their kisses, but the rest of the prince thing was utterly beyond them.
Chapter 11
David’s laughter died the moment Willow squared her shoulders and marched off into the woods. Mother had managed to cut her down to size in about a nanosecond, and that pissed him off.
“Why are you here?” he asked, putting his hand on Natalie’s shoulder to keep her from scampering off into the woods after her fairy godmother.
“Roxy stopped by, and I thought it would be fun for you and Natalie to join us at the Red Fern Inn for tea or cocktails.”
David doubted that Roxy had just “dropped by.” Mother had been shoving Roxy in his face for several weeks now. And if Mother had really wanted to meet for drinks somewhere, she would have called or texted. No, she had used Roxy as an excuse to check up on the status of the paint party. Mother was probably hoping Willow’s party would fail, and that Jeff and Melissa would change their minds when they realized how dilapidated the inn had become.
“What on earth made you think that I could join you for cocktails today? You knew today was the paint party.”
“David, dear, I didn’t expect you or Natalie to be painting. Really. If Jeff and Melissa want to get married here in this…place, well, I suppose no one can stop them. But I didn’t really expect you to help them. To be honest, I expected you to go fishing this morning.”
“Mother, like it or not, this is my house, and that makes me the official host of Jeff and Melissa’s wedding reception. You need to accept both of these facts.”
“David, I know this is your house, but not by choice. I mean you—”
“I chose to marry Shelly. That wasn’t a mistake.” He fingered his ring.
“Well, whatever, you know what I mean. Charlotte’s Grove is your home. It’s the house you’ll inherit one day. This place is merely a liability you’re planning to sell.”
He could hardly argue that point, so he didn’t. He let his mother rant on.
“I can understand why you decided to help your cousin. After all, you are both members of the same family. But I will never understand why you hired that woman. You know she has a terrible—”
“Don’t,” he said, his voice going hard.
“Don’t what?”
“Say what you were about to say. I don’t want to hear about Willow Petersen’s reputation.”
“Well, you should. Have you even bothered to read what they’re saying about her in the Wall Street Journal? David, her father was that horrible punk-rock person who killed himself. And we all know what her mother is like.”
“Yep, we sure do,” Linda said from somewhere behind him. “And trust me, Lucas was a good man. A little confused, but his heart was made of gold.”
Mother sniffed. “David, really? I can’t believe you’re spending time with these people.”
“Why? You’re the one who is always telling me I need to get out and connect with the people if I’m going to run for Congress. So, here I am, connecting with folks. I want you to look around at the people assembled here. Some of these people are Jeff and Melissa’s friends. Some of them are Poppy’s friends. Some of them are friends of the inn. Willow got them all here together. And that’s a good thing—for Jeff and Melissa and even for me.”
“David, really, don’t take that tone—”
“Stop. I don’t want to hear it.” He clamped his mouth shut before he spoke his mind too clearly. He was exhausted by his mother’s antics. She had been calling him daily complaining about the wedding, trying to set him up with Roxy, talking trash about Willow, and nagging him constantly about his congressional run whenever it served her purpose.
She glared at him. He glared right back.
“You’re behaving like a child,” she said.
“No, Mother, I’m behaving like a grown-up.” He nudged Natalie behind him and got right up in his mother’s face. “It’s time for you and Roxy to leave,” he whispered.
“David, really, you—”
“What part of ‘leave’ did you not understand? Get it through your head, Mother, Jeff and Melissa are getting married at Grace Presbyterian and the reception is going to be here, at my house.”
“David, don’t—”
“Go now, before I lose my temper.”
They stared at each other, blue eyes to brown, and finally Mother turned around, took Roxy by the arm, and guided her back to the SUV.
“Daddy?” Natalie said in a small voice as Mother peeled out of the parking lot.
He turned and squatted down to be on his daughter’s level. “Don’t worry about what Grandmother said. You don’t have to stay clean all the time. I’m very proud of you for all the painting you’ve done. And we have more to do. Why don’t you help Melissa organize these folks to get busy painting the outside while I go find Miss Willow and tell her I’m sorry about what Grandmother said to her?”
“Is she really my fairy godmother?”
The tight coil of anger eased a little. He even managed a smile that felt rusty and out of shape. Maybe he needed to practice smiling more. He gave Natalie a little kiss on one paint-smeared cheek. “Miss Willow is your godmother, sweetheart. She’s not a fairy, and I don’t think she can do magic like changing pumpkins into carriages or mice into horses.”
“Yes, but she’s going to get me a beautiful green dress with a hood.”
“Yes, I guess she is.”
“So that’s sort of like a fairy godmother, right?”
“Uh…”
Melissa came to his rescue. She stepped down from the portico and squatted down too. “Yes, Natalie, it’s exactly like what a godmother does. And while Willow isn’t exactly a fairy, she’s definitely magical.”
David opened his mouth to argue, but when Natalie’s face lit up, he shut it tight.
“Really?” his daughter asked, her big brown eyes wide.
“Absolutely,” Melissa said. “She’s more than that; she’s a miracle worker. Now, why don’t you come help me paint? I’ll paint the tall parts and you can paint the short parts. How does that sound?”
Melissa stood up and gave David a big smile. “Thank you,” she said. “For standing up to Pam and for hosting my wedding, and for hiring Willow too. She’s been amazing, David.” Melissa glanced at the woods. “You should go find her and bring her back. What your mother said to her was mean.”
David nodded. “I’ll be back in a minute. In the meantime, you’re in charge.” He glanced up at the sky; clouds were beginning to roll in. “We need to finish before the rain comes.”
“I’ve got this,” Melissa said. “You go find Willow and bring her back. Tell her we all love her.”
We all love her. The thought pounded in David’s brain as he turned and jogged through the woods. Did he love her? No, certainly not in that way. But Willow had been a friend for a long time. And recently she had gotten way deep under his skin.
He knew the way to Laurel Chapel this time. In early winter, the meadow stretched away brown and dead, punctuated by dry wildflowers. The cemetery looked dark and dreary as the clouds rolled in. The chapel itself brooded like some ancient relic out on an English moor.
Willow wasn’t hiding inside the chapel like Natalie had done. So it took him a moment to find her, lying facedown in the grass.
“Willow!” He said her name sharply. Like everything here, she looked dead. He fell down on his knees by her side. “Are you okay?”
She turned her head in his direction, her eyes puffy, her nose red. She’d been crying. Hard. The look on her face left him fe
eling hollow and angry at the same time. How could the mother he loved be so cruel?
“Willow,” he said, fighting through the anger to find an island of calm. He pulled his handkerchief from this pocket. “Here, blow your nose.”
She rolled over and stared up at a sky that had turned from bright endless blue into rolls of gray flannel. “Of course you carry a handkerchief,” she said, bypassing his offering and wiping her nose on the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
He tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket. Willow had always been good at drawing lines between them, of pushing him away. She’d been doing that all week, and he understood why. But suddenly he was exhausted by it.
“Come on, sit up. Mother’s gone, and I’ve been deputized to bring you back. Melissa told me to say that everyone loves you.”
She barked a laugh and curled up from the ground, blades of dry grass sticking to her shirt and tangling in her honey-colored hair. He reached to brush the grass away, and a carnal heat surged through him the moment his palm slid through her hair. He inhaled sharply, reveling in the erotic rush. He deepened his touch, tangling his fingers where once the blades of grass had been. He cupped her skull and drew her toward him.
He expected her to push him away. Instead, she stretched into his touch like a cat demanding attention. He indulged her, stroking and fondling as she pressed against his hand.
A deep longing settled down in his gut, prickling along his back and down to his butt. Arousal. He’d forgotten how good it felt, and like a crazy teenager, he wasn’t about to stop now. She’d initiated that little nothing of a kiss the other night at the Jaybird, and she’d been running from him ever since. If he wanted more, he would have to take it.
He slanted his mouth across hers.
Oh, man, she had killer lips. Soft, plump, mobile, sexy. He explored her mouth with his tongue and then his teeth. He wanted her mouth on his body, and she obliged, nipping his cheek, kissing down his neck, and then coming back, opening for him.
He stopped thinking, stopped worrying, stopped trying to resist. He wanted this woman in the worst way. And he would have her.
He pushed her back onto the grass. She fell willingly, and he covered her body with his own.
* * *
David Lyndon smelled like an exotic spice that came from a faraway place: piquant and unique and hot. So very hot. All of him, his mouth, his stubble, his scent made her a little crazy.
And then he kissed along her jaw and laved the spot right below her earlobe.
“Oh, yeah, right there,” she whispered, when he hit the magic spot that made her whole body flash to attention.
She could have sworn she heard a rumble of laughter, or maybe it was just the earth moving or something. He pressed his hips against her, and there was no doubt that David Lyndon was enjoying himself. And just thinking about David being hard and naked turned her on a little bit more. She wanted to strip him bare and ride him.
But wait, that would be stupid. And dumb. And complicated. And wrong.
Okay, maybe not wrong, exactly, but not right either.
Her brain was making a valiant effort to take over from the hormones that had suddenly found themselves in control. And for an instant her brain almost won the battle.
But then David touched her nipple through the fabric of her old sweatshirt and thinking became impossible and highly overrated. Except for those thoughts about getting him naked.
She found the edge of his sweatshirt and pulled it up. Oh, yeah, that was better, his skin was so hot and silky smooth. But touching him unleashed a maelstrom of want. She wanted to feel his warm body sliding across more than her hands. She wanted him to sit up so she could take the sweatshirt off. She wanted to roll him in the grass until he begged for mercy.
She’d never rolled in the grass with anyone before. And suddenly a tumble in the grass moved up to number one on her bucket list.
Oh, crap, was that a raindrop? It was. There was another one.
A second later the unseasonably sunny November day turned bad. Abysmally bad.
“Crap,” David said as the skies opened up. He grabbed her by the hand and tugged her from the ground. They were soaked to the skin by the time they found shelter in the one corner of the chapel where the roof remained intact.
They stood facing each other in the storm gloom. David’s hair hung over his forehead in a wet tangle, and the look in his dark eyes said it all. Like her, he’d come to his senses. The cloudburst had definitely put a chill on the mood.
“Uh, um, I didn’t come here intending to do that,” he said.
“Neither did I,” she said.
They stared while the rain beat down heavily on the roof above them. A cold wind rattled the trees and made Willow’s skin pucker. She wrapped her arms around herself, a small part of her wanting David to pull her toward him again and envelop her in all his masculine warmth.
But it wasn’t going to happen, and that was probably wise.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, looking away through the broken window at the sudden storm, then down at his sneakers. Anywhere but directly at her. “I came here to apologize for what my mother said. And the dumb things I said this morning. I didn’t intend—”
“It’s not your place to apologize for your mother. She needs to apologize for herself. Not that I ever expect her to do anything like that.”
He looked up then, water dripping down the side of his face. She wanted to push his hair back, dry that trickle that almost looked like tears. “Why do you say that?”
“Your mother doesn’t consider me worthy of an apology. Hell, she probably believes what she said. There are plenty of people out there who believe that I purposefully set out to ruin Restero’s reputation because Corbin Martinson jilted me and I wanted to get a big payback from him.”
“You were involved with Martinson?”
“Come on, David. I know you read the exposé in the Wall Street Journal.”
“I don’t think so. I’m not a big fan of the Journal. And even if I were, I’d rather hear your side of the story.”
“I was in love with Corbin, okay? I worshipped the ground he walked on. He was my mentor and then my lover and I thought…Well, stupid me, I thought he loved me. But I learned pretty quick that wasn’t the case when I discovered that Restero had knowingly sold defective hip replacements. Corbin was the first person I went to with that information. And he was also the first person to tell me to shut up about it.
“And you know what? I did shut up about it, because I stupidly thought Corbin was going to fix the problem. But he didn’t. Instead, he covered things up. So I had to go to the Feds and tell them the whole story. I needed to do something about all those patients who will need additional surgery when their Restero hips fail. I owe each and every one of those people an apology. I may have ultimately told the truth, but before that, I told a lie. It was a lie of omission, but it was still a lie. And I lied because I loved a man who wasn’t worthy of love.”
“Do you still love him?”
She wasn’t about to answer that question. “Look, let’s not talk about Corbin, okay? Let’s talk about you and me. I don’t want to be attracted to you. It’s crazy. It’s wrong.”
“Is it?”
“You’re Shelly’s husband. It feels wrong. And besides, your mother punctuated the point this afternoon. We come from different worlds and we’re going different places in our lives. Us getting together, even for a quick little affair, would be complicated. So let’s just say that we both got a little out of control and then came to our senses, okay? I don’t know about you, but I for one am not looking for a roll in the grass with you.” Although ten minutes ago that was exactly what she’d wanted.
“Holding out for true love, huh?” he asked, that patrician eyebrow of his arching just so.
“True love? Really? Geez, you princes are all alike, aren’t you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I’m not Shelly, David
. She believed in fairytales. I never have.”
She turned her back on him and left the sheltered corner of the chapel. It was a long, cold, wet trek back to the inn. Luckily, David had the good sense to give her a head start.
* * *
“Now, Poppy, I don’t want you worrying about the paint on the portico,” Walter said late in the day after all of the volunteers had departed. Poppy and Walter were alone in the solarium together drinking cocktails—a bourbon on ice for him and a gin and tonic for her. David and Natalie had gone home to the caretaker’s cottage to clean up. David was taking Natalie up to Charlotte’s Grove for dinner as a peacemaking gesture.
Willow had come back from her walk soaked to the skin, and Poppy had told Linda to take her home. The bridge club offered to help with the cleanup. Faye and Harlan, Viola and Bud, and the Ingrams had left fifteen minutes ago.
The party had been a complete success as far as the inside painting was concerned. But the grand portico looked like it had cancer, with its splotches of scraped paint.
“We’ll get it finished,” Walter said. “It was just bad luck that the weather turned so sudden. But you know how it is this time of year. It can’t make up its mind whether it’s winter or fall.”
“I’m not worried about getting the house painted, Walter. Although I imagine Melissa is having a fit. I suppose you care, since you’re the listing agent.”
“Now, don’t be that way, Poppy.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry. The truth is, it was fun today seeing the inn come alive with people again. I’m so tired of living in this house as if it were a mausoleum. You know, I don’t really care if David sells the place.”
“That’s a lie too.” He put his drink on the coffee table. “You’re just grumpy because your plan to match up David and Willow fell apart on you.”
“Well, you didn’t help it any when you encouraged Willow to stay while David drove off to get the pizzas.”
“Sorry. I wasn’t yet in the loop. I guess it’s because I don’t have Barbara anymore to fill me in on the gossip. You should have given me a full explanation before the fact.”