“He’s not leaving now, son,” Patrick said, smiling sadly. “So let’s go easy on him until he does.”
Gabe shook his head in disbelief. Alice stood, the baby on her shoulder, to kiss his cheek. To smile at him with love in her eyes.
Again, Jonah felt as if there was a wall of glass he pressed against. Watching, always watching.
“Come on,” Alice said to Cameron. “Let’s get started on those recipes. The sooner those kids get lunch, the better.”
The rest of the family followed into the inn as well, until it was only Max, Mom and Jonah left.
And Max was in his Clint Eastwood mode.
“Daphne is our friend,” he said, and Jonah had to give the guy points for cutting to the chase.
“She’s my friend, too,” he said and Max laughed. The laughter almost had Jonah telling the truth—they were friends despite his best efforts to make them something more.
Still, this little warning of Max’s was the height of ludicrousness considering Daphne had no intention of letting Jonah near her body, much less her heart.
“Sure she is. But I’m telling you, if you hurt her, I don’t care that you are my brother.”
The threat of bodily harm didn’t need to be spoken aloud.
“And I’m telling you,” Jonah said, not backing down, even though Mom was there. The word brother sent something sharp through his nervous system, electrical spikes that made him see stars. “It’s none of your business.”
“Max,” Delia called from inside. “Josie needs help with her math homework.”
“Be right there,” Max said. “It’s cool what you did,” he said to Jonah. “Speaking up for us like that. Gabe’s just mad because he wasn’t there to be the hero.”
Then Max was gone before Jonah could insist that he was no hero.
“Well, well,” Mom said, her eyes twinkling as she crossed the grass. “This is quite a development.”
“Nothing’s changed, Mom. I did what I had to do.”
“So acknowledging your connection to the Mitchells was just a means to an end?”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s it exactly. But what are you doing, Mom?”
She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“Sitting here, pretending like you belong here?”
Pain flickered in her eyes and he was sorry about that, but things were getting out of control.
“Are you saying I don’t?”
“The guy didn’t want you, Mom.”
“Maybe he does now. Maybe they all do.”
“Are you forgetting that you have a life in Arizona?”
“What life?” She laughed and Jonah felt a serious panic gripping him. She sounded as if she was already putting distance between herself and the real world.
“Your friends, your pottery, your—”
“Loneliness? My empty nights? My empty bed?”
“Mom!” he cried. “You cannot mean to have a relationship with this man—”
“I already do.” She laughed slightly as if the situation were all so absurd to her. He had to fight his instincts to pack her into his Jeep and drive away, leaving this place and these people in the dust, before his mother lost any more of her mind. “This man is my husband.”
“Right, because the bastard couldn’t be bothered to divorce you. That’s how little he thinks of you, Mom. That’s what we mean to him. We’re afterthoughts, Mom. We’re nothing to him.”
She held up her hand and it shamed Jonah to see it tremble. He’d never spoken to his mother this way.
“Stop,” she said in a burning whisper. “Before you say something you’ll regret.”
“I don’t want you to be hurt.”
“I’m already hurt.” Her voice sounded rough and foreign.
He closed his eyes on a curse. He didn’t mean to do this, insult two wonderful women in one day.
What is wrong with me?
“There is no reward without risk, you know that,” she said, touching his cheek. “It’s the same thing in love.”
He shook his head. It was a bad ratio in love—too much risk and, from what he’d seen, not enough reward.
But he’d said enough for one night, so he pulled his mother close and apologized. For the second time in fifteen years—both in one day.
Somewhere, pigs were getting ready for takeoff.
10
Sunday morning, with Helen at her heels, Daphne opened the door to the Riverview Inn kitchen, and found it full of women: Delia, Alice with Stella, Iris, Josie.
The lone spot of testosterone, Cameron, sat at the butcher’s block like some kind of time traveler in the wrong era.
“Those are ten good menus,” Alice said. “You need to talk to Jonah about the budget and talk to your suppliers—” Cameron was gone, notebook in hand, before she even finished her sentence.
The women all laughed in his wake.
“What’s so funny?” Helen asked her friend Josie, too young to understand how Cameron must have felt surrounded and outnumbered.
“I don’t really know,” Josie admitted. “But I made sure that Cameron had noodles with cheesy peas on the school menu. And no spinach.” She looked at her mom from the corner of her eyes and Daphne bit back a smile.
The girls high-fived and ran out of the kitchen, talking about what else was going to be served at school, hopefully come Monday.
“You guys have been busy,” Daphne said, watching the swinging door shut behind her daughter. None of the remaining women responded and when she glanced around to see if she’d been deserted, she saw Iris, Delia and Alice sharing looks over the tops of their coffee cups.
“What?” Daphne demanded, hating to be the butt of any joke.
“You’ve been busy, too,” Alice said in such a knowing way that Daphne burned with a sudden blush.
Had Jonah told them? she wondered, appalled and embarrassed. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“New York City?” Alice asked, putting down her cup.
“Armani?” Delia asked, with equal parts astonishment and envy. “How did you do it?”
“That is a very good question,” Iris said. “How did you get my son to go to a school picnic? Not to mention volunteering on behalf of a family he hates, to coordinate lunch efforts for a school?”
“Well.” Delia laughed, hoisting herself up onto the counter, “I was really more interested in how you got a man to pay for an Armani evening dress, but—” she waved her hand “—you can answer those first.”
Relief blew through Daphne. “It’s business, that’s all. He helped me and I am helping him.”
“That explains the dress,” Iris said, arching an elegant black brow, “but not his behavior.”
Daphne sighed and decided to tell the honest to God truth that had kept her up too late at night, that had dogged her this morning walking the apple orchards.
Her body, her blood, her lust had all been jump-started, and she couldn’t stop the constant hum in her nerve endings.
About the only thing that had been acting as an effective cold shower was wondering why he’d done it? Why he’d pulled her into that dark doorway? Why he’d put his hand up her skirt? Why he’d torn the carefully protected and iron-clad fibers of her world into pieces?
“I have no idea why Jonah does the things he does,” she said.
Iris laughed. “Welcome to life with my son.”
Daphne jerked at the implied intimacy of her words. Thoughts of Jonah were needles under her skin, constantly poking and abrading. And she worried that life with him was something she, like an idiot, wanted.
Stella fussed, lifting her fuzzy black head from her mother’s shoulder. Upon seeing Iris, the baby smiled and it was as if Iris broke open and sunlight shimmered from within her.
“Come here, baby girl,” she said and Alice handed Stella over with a grateful smile.
“She’s been eating around the clock,” Alice said. “And Gabe is in a conference call with a bride and groom for next year.”
“Well,” Iris cooed at Stella, “let’s just give you a break. I’ll take her for a while.” Iris waved halfheartedly at all of them as she left the kitchen. Her eyes were for Stella and Stella alone.
“Iris is so good with her,” Daphne said.
“Yeah, yeah.” Alice jumped up on the counter next to Delia. “We can talk about that later. Let’s talk about you—”
“Me?” Daphne asked, stalling for time.
“Yes,” Delia agreed, her Texas accent more pronounced than usual. “Let’s talk about you and the Environmental Bastion.”
“There’s really nothing to say,” Daphne said and wondered how long she could keep this act up. She wasn’t good with secrets. Or lies. Or pretending that yesterday her world hadn’t been utterly rocked. For the first time in long, long years.
“Riiight.” Alice jostled Delia. “You’ve got a funny look in your eye, Daphne Larson, and something tells me it’s not vegetables that put it there.”
“We’re friends,” Daphne protested, her voice sticking slightly on the word. “That’s all.”
“The guy is hot,” Delia said. “And from the way he told Max off last night, he’s feeling something more than friendship toward you.”
“What did he say?” Daphne asked far too fast, and far too eager. Alice and Delia, the she-devils that they were, laughed. The jig was up.
“I knew it!” Alice crowed. “What happened? Tell us. We need details.”
Daphne groaned. “Nothing.” She smiled, watching them from the corner of her eye. “Much.”
They leaped off the counter at her, but Daphne held firm. She would have died if Jonah had told anyone and she could imagine the überprivate Jonah would feel the same way. “The important thing is that it’s not going to happen again.”
“Why not?” Delia asked.
“Because there’s no point. He’s leaving.” It made perfect sense to her, but they stared at her as if she’d just said he was a donkey.
“It’s not marriage,” Delia said, and she had some serious issues about marriage. “It’s a night. I mean, I’m not telling you to go out and sleep with the guy if you don’t want to.” She paused. “Do you want to?”
Daphne couldn’t quite put her urges into words so she just nodded. “But what’s the point, if nothing comes of it?”
“Oh, sweetie.” Delia pulled on Daphne’s fat braid. “You don’t get out much, do you?”
Daphne stuck her tongue out at Delia.
“It’s just fun,” Delia said. “A man like Jonah. A night in the city—”
“You are going to New York with a man you want to sleep with,” Alice interrupted, taking charge in her practical list-making way. “Overnight, in a fancy hotel in a spectacular dress and you’re going to wave good-night and sleep alone?” Alice demanded. “Are you nuts?”
“No. I’m—” Careful. Scared. “—nervous,” she finally admitted. “I’ve slept with two people in my life and one of them was my husband. I’m so out of touch, I’m afraid that I’ll get caught up in everything, the romance of it all. And I’ll forget that it’s not for real. And I’ll get hurt somehow.”
“But you said it yourself—” Alice rubbed her shoulder “—the man is leaving. There’s no way you can forget that.”
That stroke of insight exploded in Daphne’s brain, reorganizing things. Reducing these mountains to molehills.
“You’re like Cinderella, honey.” Delia stroked her hair. “A night so far removed from your regular life, why wouldn’t you just go with it?”
Right. Why not?
Reasons pounded in Daphne’s brain—but they seemed silly, sort of, now.
It was a night at a ball, in a fancy dress, with a sort of prince.
“He’s leaving,” she said, as if just discovering it herself.
“That’s right,” Delia said. “Probably, never to be seen again the way things are going around here.”
“It wouldn’t kill me to have some fun?” Daphne didn’t mean it to come out like a question, but it did.
“No,” Alice said, “it wouldn’t. In fact, I think it would do you some good. Drink champagne, be gorgeous, have sex with a handsome man. Remember what it’s like to be a little out of control.”
Daphne sucked in a deep breath. Out of control did not sound fun. Champagne did, though. And so did the sex.
I can do this. I can do this and still be in control. Laughter burst out of her like a geyser. “I can do this!” she cried.
“Atta girl!” Delia agreed. “Now, what’s the dress like?”
“I don’t know. I’m supposed to talk to his assistant tomorrow.”
“Ask for something red,” Delia told her.
“And strapless. You have arms and shoulders most women would kill for,” Alice said and Delia nodded in hearty agreement.
“You’ll need a facial,” Delia said, her own alabaster skin practically glowing. “We can reduce some of the chapped skin on your cheeks. And even out the sunburn.” Delia grabbed her hands and clucked sadly over the calluses and blunt nails. “Ask his assistant for gloves. High ones. Black.”
“Ooohhh,” Alice cooed. “That’ll be sexy.”
Daphne felt sexy just thinking about it.
“Now—” Delia got very serious “—sweetheart, times have changed since you were married.”
“Tell me about it.” Daphne laughed, though she was slightly nervous about the look in Delia’s eye.
“Have you ever gotten a wax?”
Daphne looked to Alice for clues. “A waxed what?” she finally asked.
Delia’s eyes twinkled with devilish delight as she tugged Daphne toward the spa. “Come with me. It won’t hurt a bit.”
Daphne shot a panicked look at Alice in time to see her wince.
It was remarkably easy. In fact, putting together lunches for twenty kids was exactly as easy as Jonah had thought it would be when he opened his mouth at the picnic on Saturday.
Two days later he had a budget, dairy, meat, fruits and vegetables coming in at a discount. He’d even woken up early on Monday morning in case Cameron didn’t show up and he had to open a couple of boxes of macaroni and cheese.
But the kid was there. And since he was up and the coffee was on, Jonah cut up fruit to go alongside Cameron’s pasta with ricotta cheese, lemon, ground turkey and peas.
Daphne roared into the parking lot with her truck at about eight o’clock but she left soon after, getting a ride back to her farm from Max.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Jonah. He was mesmerized by the dirt across her nose. “I wanted to go with you, but we’re having some problems with the irrigation in the greenhouse.”
“Can’t have that,” he said, washing his hands free of grape juice, terribly aware that he smelled like fruit. He was even more terribly aware that she smelled like grass. Warm, sweet grass.
And that smudge across her nose… He wanted to take her to his cottage, climb into a hot shower with her and scrub her down. All over.
Overkill for a smudge, but what was a guy to do?
“It’s fine,” he told her when she hesitated. “I can deliver the food on my own.”
“Okay.” She smiled and for a moment she seemed balanced precariously on some decision, hesitant and careful. He thought, maybe, she was going to kiss him.
God, yes, please. Kiss me.
In the end she only squeezed his shoulder, her hand strong, her finger brushing the flesh of his arm under the sleeve of his T-shirt.
Better than a good-buddy punch, but not quite like the dreams he’d been having about the woman since Saturday.
Not at all like those.
So, he and Cameron loaded up the truck with the pans of food. Two small pans, dwarfed in the truck bed. He could have carried them in his lap. It seemed ridiculous, all these problems for so little. Forty cups of food. One cup of pasta and one cup of fruit for each kid.
Then Cameron checked his watch, swore and ran over to the crappy hatchback he babied as thou
gh it were alive—or at least made in the past ten years.
“I’m late for school!” he cried. “Alice will kill me if I’m late again.”
Then he, too, was gone.
It was just Jonah, the truck and the food.
He knew where the school was. He just didn’t know where it was from here.
“Problem?” It was Gabe, standing in the kitchen doorway, holding a cup of coffee and wearing a smirk. Sunlight hit the guy’s hair and practically gave him a halo.
Crap. Gabe was the last guy he wanted to ask for help, but there was no one else available. He chewed on his tongue, swallowing everything he wanted to say, concentrating on the sacrifices everyone had made to get them to this point and—
“You are one proud SOB,” Gabe said, draining his cup and setting it in the kitchen. “Come on, I’ll show you where the school is.”
He held up his hand and Jonah tossed him the keys over the truck bed.
Yep, it had all been easy up to this point.
“Did Cameron get to school on time?” Gabe asked after they’d pulled away from the inn. Jonah noticed a big splotch of baby spit-up on Gabe’s black shirt, ruining his hard-ass act.
“Yeah,” Jonah answered. “He said Alice would kill him if he was late again.”
Gabe smiled but didn’t elaborate.
“What’s the story with the kid?” Jonah asked.
Gabe glanced at him then back at the road. “What do you mean?”
“I understand he’s employed here, but between here and school when does he ever go home?”
“This is home,” Gabe said. “Not officially, but he’s got a place in the lodge whenever he needs it. He worries about his dad so he goes home most nights to make sure the guy hasn’t finally drunk himself to death.”
Jonah sucked in a quick breath and gazed out the window, the pieces coming together. Hot lunches. Mom gone. The ludicrous hourly wage he’d wrangled out of Jonah. The kid was practically on his own. Except for the Mitchells.
I will not like these men, Jonah told himself.
Gabe’s laughter turned his head.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was telling Alice last night that you would be so much easier to deal with if you weren’t turning out to be a nice guy.”
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