Her Savannah Surprise (The Savannah Sisters Book 3)

by Nancy Robards Thompson

  Aidan knew what a mess it was when all Daniel did was sit there and nod. Squint at him and nod some more. Aidan didn’t expect his brother to have the answer, but he would have loved some positive insight.

  “I don’t know what to say, man,” Daniel said.

  Aidan waved away the comment as if he could clear the air with the gesture. “Look, it is fine. I don’t expect you to solve my problems. You’ve got enough on your own plate.”

  Daniel held up his hand. “But I like my plate. My plate does not include a house of cards. So if you’re saying you want to make this marriage work, maybe you need to stop looking at it as if it is a problem. Try to put a positive spin on it.”

  There was that word again. Spin. As much as Aidan hated to hear it, his brother was right. He had been turning this issue around and around, looking at it from every possible angle. He needed to spin it in the right direction.

  “I guess you have a point,” Aidan conceded. “I don’t know why the word spin bothers me so much.”

  “It is just semantics, dude,” Daniel said. “Call it whatever you want. Situations live up to the way that you see them. Is the glass half-empty or is the glass half-full?”

  Aidan shook his head. “This is surreal. Between the two of us, I’ve always been the more positive one. Here we are and you’re giving me lessons on optimism.”

  Daniel shrugged. “A good marriage can change a man.”

  But what did a bad marriage do to a person? Or even more apt, what happened if one person was happy in the marriage, but the other person felt trapped?

  The unspoken questions hung in the air. Aidan knew he could be happy making a life with Kate. He would move mountains to make her happy and make the marriage a good one. But he certainly could not make it work if Kate didn’t try too.

  “You have to concentrate on the good, not the problems,” Daniel continued. “If that’s spin, then I don’t know why it is such a bad word. It is worth it. You love Kate, don’t you?”

  Aidan took a moment and let the words of wisdom sink in. He thought about his brother’s question. Did he love Kate? Since Veronica had walked out, he hadn’t let himself love anyone except his daughter.

  He’d been open to seeing women and the possibility of relationships. But love?

  “What does love even mean?” Aidan deflected. “It is just a word. Veronica promised she would love me until death parted us and look how that ended up. Kate promised the same thing in Vegas and then she didn’t even remember what she’d said. The next day, she wanted to pretend like it didn’t even happen. Love is a disposable word. I think it’s nothing more than a fleeting feeling.”

  “But you love Chloe, right?” Daniel said.

  “Of course, but a father’s love for his daughter is different than the kind of love we’re talking about.”

  “Or is it? I can see that you believe in love. You just don’t like the word.”

  Aidan shifted in his seat, bracing his forearms on the desk. “I believe in walking the walk, not talking the talk. Love is just a word. Actions mean a lot more than words. And when did you become a shrink?”

  Daniel wasn’t just talking the talk, either. He was probably tapping into something that Aidan had buried deep in his psyche. Even if that wasn’t the case, Daniel and Elle were an example—living proof—that a couple could overcome seemingly insurmountable odds and come out the right side of love after Daniel caused Elle’s former fiancé to leave her at the altar.

  Aside from romantic love, in the familial arena, Daniel had been the one to brood over the losses they had sustained when they were younger. Aidan had always taken the view that the random hand that fate had dealt him would never define him. Though he had mourned the loss of their parents who had been killed in an automobile accident, leaving them alone, he had been able to believe in love until Veronica had abandoned Chloe and him.

  She had left him with a newborn baby and hadn’t looked back. Aidan had been too busy to brood over the loss. He had been too in awe and a little afraid of the beautiful little life that had been left in his inexperienced hands. Maybe subconsciously he had been determined to be unfazed by Veronica’s walking out because he didn’t want Chloe to feel any less loved or like it was her fault. He had channeled all his time, energy and love into his baby girl.

  “It doesn’t take a PhD to see that you’re more affected by the past than you’re admitting,” Daniel said. “If you don’t love Kate, how do you expect this marriage to work? Is it even fair to her? It is like you’re saying, Be my wife, but by the way, I don’t love you.”

  The words hit Aidan in a vulnerable place. In his mind he heard her voice and the question she had asked him that day they had been packing up her house.

  “I didn’t say I don’t love her. I just don’t like saying... I just don’t—” Aidan made a growling sound and scrubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes. “Just because I don’t live in the past doesn’t mean I haven’t come to terms with it. Maybe I’m better at the spin than I gave me credit for. Because rather than moping, I’ve moved on, but I just refuse to repeat the same mistakes—”

  Like tying the knot with a woman who doesn’t want to be married to me?

  A litany of words that Aidan had conditioned himself never to say in front of Chloe exploded in his head like a long string of fireworks.

  Okay. Fine. That was exactly what he had done by marrying Kate in Vegas. He had repeated the exact same frigging mistake.

  At least Daniel, who sat there with a knowing look on his face, had the good sense not to point out the obvious.

  This conversation was going nowhere. Or at least nowhere he wanted to go.

  “You know, you’re right,” Aidan said.

  Daniel’s brows arched, and he could virtually read the Glory, hallelujah sounding in his brother’s mind at Aidan conceding the fight.

  “If my marriage is going to work—and I’ll be dammed if it won’t—I need to come at this from a more positive place. Kate’s aloofness is not a problem. It is a challenge. Love is a ridiculous word and it has nothing to do with this. I need to make a big gesture to show her that I’m in this for the long haul. I’m going to get her an engagement ring and propose the right way. I know she will love that, and we will start planning that wedding she wants to have with her family and friends. Before we told the family about the marriage, she told me she was worried about losing herself if she got married. She’s independent and that’s one of the things I love about her. I think it might help if she had something that was just hers. Something in addition to the salon. And I know exactly what that thing is.”

  “Do tell,” Daniel said.

  “At Gigi and Charles’s party, Zelda pulled me aside and said they were ready to move forward with the spa at the Forsyth Galloway Inn. She asked me to draw up plans for the building. Which also means we need to get Anna to put the project on the schedule.”

  Anna Nolan was their very part-time, very capable office manager. When Aidan and Daniel first opened the doors to Quindlin Brothers Renovations, they had handled all aspects of the business themselves, including scheduling and planning. But as their company grew at a rate faster than they could have ever expected, they’d brought in someone who could keep them organized and on the right track in the two days a week that she came into the office.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Daniel said.

  Aidan explained the projected timeline. “Keep it on the down low for now,” Aidan said. “I want to surprise Kate with it. I think I’m going to get her a ring and make this a reverse proposal.”

  Daniel laughed. “What does that mean?”

  “We’re already married. But she never got the down-on-one-knee proposal, and since we’re going to have another wedding for the family, why not do it right and propose the old-fashioned way?”

  “And the spa business is part of this old-fashioned pro
posal?”

  Aidan smiled. “Sure. What’s wrong with that? It will be an engagement present.”

  * * *

  When Kate let herself in the kitchen door of the Forsyth Galloway Inn, she was greeted by her mother yelling, “Don’t let the puppy out!”

  “What in the world?”

  A tiny red-and-white corgi puppy appeared at her feet just as she shut the door. For as long as her mother, sisters and she had lived at the inn, her grandmother had staunchly insisted there would be no pets allowed. That was the reason why growing up, the girls had never had a puppy despite how much they had begged and pleaded.

  Now that Gigi had retired, had Zelda lifted the no-pet policy?

  “Whose dog is this?” Kate asked as she set her tote that contained the shampoo, conditioner, hair cape and curlers she used for Gigi’s weekly hair appointment. Usually Gigi came into the salon, but she had asked Kate to come to the inn today. It was such a beautiful day that Kate had been happy to have a valid excuse to get out of the salon. She had even walked the short distance from downtown to the inn.

  She squatted down and took the puppy’s sweet face into her hands, taking care to scratch behind the ears and on the fluffy white chest. The pup returned the favor by alternating licks and gentle nips on Kate’s hands.

  “That’s your mother’s dog,” Gigi said, her voice tight with disapproval.

  “What?” Kate asked as she stood up to face Zelda. “Seriously? When did you decide to get a dog? And a corgi—” Kate’s voice went up an octave as she drew out the last syllable of the dog’s breed. She was unable to contain her excitement.

  Zelda looked sheepish. Not at all like Kate expected her to look after pulling rank on her grandmother so victoriously. After all, Gigi was officially retired and Zelda was in charge, which meant she made the rules.

  “Well, I didn’t exactly decide to get a dog—”

  “It was a gift,” Gigi said with a scowl and lowered her voice. “Ask her about it. Go on. Ask her. It is a gift from that man.”

  The way Gigi uttered the words that man, as if it was sinful, made Kate laugh out loud.

  “What? Really?” Kate asked. “What man?”

  “Yes. Really,” Gigi answered. “Apparently, your mother has a boyfriend that she’s been keeping a secret.”

  Zelda rolled her eyes. “Oh, Mother. Can you not—”

  “The only reason I found out was because of this thing.” Gigi curled her lip and pointed at the dog with her slippered foot. The puppy immediately mistook the gesture for an invitation to play and pounced, yanking the slipper off Gigi’s foot and doing a victory lap around the kitchen with it in his mouth.

  Gigi shrieked. Kate laughed. Zelda called after the puppy, “Bear, come here! Give that back. Give that slipper back to Gigi and play with your own toys.”

  The puppy’s name was Bear?

  Awwww. Be still, my heart.

  That was exactly what he looked like, a tiny mischievous bear up to no good and winning over every single heart at the same time. Well, except for Gigi’s.

  As Kate watched her mother laughing and chasing the little dog around the kitchen, in pursuit of Gigi’s slipper, Kate realized she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her mother look this happy. She looked young and beautiful and...in love.

  Obviously, this boyfriend knew her mother well enough to know a corgi puppy meant more to her than gold and diamonds.

  “Okay, so, I’m away from the inn for—what?—three days? And suddenly Mom has a puppy and a boyfriend? What alternate universe have I fallen into? Wait, is this who sent you those flowers?”

  Hands on her hips, and trying hard to hide her smile, Gigi tsked.

  “Seriously, Mom, who is this mystery man and when do we get to meet him?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Kate. We’ll have to see. I want to wait until I know where things are going with him. Right now, I’m not sure.”

  * * *

  “Can I tell my friends that you’re my new mommy?” Chloe asked, as Kate helped her get out of her car seat at her friend Beatrice’s house. She and Aidan had decided that Kate would take Chloe to the rock-painting group that Doris had invited them to join.

  Kate smiled at the little girl. “I would love it if you called me that.” She kissed the little girl on the top of her head and smoothed her curls away from her pretty little face. Chloe smiled up at her as she put her hand in Kate’s, and they started up the cobblestone walk toward the mansion that was situated on Monterey Square.

  Nice neighborhood.

  Kate felt pinpricks of nervous energy as she worried about exactly what sort of situation she was walking into, meeting all the young mothers.

  Doris’s mansion was within walking distance of the Forsyth Galloway Inn. But while Kate’s family had been forced to open their home to travelers to afford keeping the big old house, Doris’s people had obviously had the luxury to retain it as a private residence. Although, despite the various setbacks, each generation of Kate’s ancestors had discovered creative ways and means to keep the house in the family and pass it down.

  Actually, Kate couldn’t imagine the inn being anything but a bed-and-breakfast. The family had always had their private quarters, and the guests who’d stayed with them over the years had left behind interesting stories that had become part of the house’s rich tapestry of history.

  As a native daughter of Savannah, Kate had passed by Doris’s house dozens, if not hundreds, of times in her twenty-six years, but she had never known who lived here. She had certainly never been inside. She made a mental note to ask Gigi and Charles what they knew about it. Between the two of them, they knew practically everyone in the historic district.

  Based on the address, Doris wasn’t hurting financially as a single mother. Because places like this—even the grand old houses that had fallen into the worst of disrepair, and this one looked impeccably preserved—didn’t come cheap. Suddenly Kate wondered about Doris’s story.

  Kate hadn’t allowed herself to think too much about the woman since meeting her last weekend. Because that would have forced her to examine the fact that Doris obviously had a crush on Aidan. If she had thought about it too hard, she would have had to talk to Aidan about it and that would have made her seem jealous, or needy and territorial.

  The only time Doris had come up in conversation was when Aidan had asked Kate if she would be willing to take Chloe to the afternoon gathering. It was her day off. He had said it would be a good chance to meet Chloe’s friends and their moms.

  If Aidan had been interested in Doris, he could have gone to the gathering himself or come along with the two of them.

  Because of that, she had pushed back the little voice that nagged in the dark corners of her brain—that beautiful, wealthy Doris Watson had a lot to offer a man.

  But obviously, Aidan had had his chance to be with Doris if he had wanted to.

  He swore he had been in his right mind when he had married Kate in Vegas. He was the one who had been determined to stay in the marriage and make it work.

  Funny, as she walked up to the grand front entrance of Doris’s house, Kate realized, for the first time ever, that she wasn’t worried about being the one who was like her father. She was worried that Aidan might pull a Fred.

  Actually, no. She wasn’t worried about that. Not at all.

  Aidan Quindlin was nothing like Fred Clark.

  When Aidan married her, he had promised to be faithful—she knew this because she’d revisited the keepsake book from the Elvis wedding chapel that contained a copy of the vows they had supposedly exchanged.

  And he would remain faithful unlike her father, who, after cheating and leaving her mom, had returned years later to sue her for half of everything, left them in financial ruin and had broken Zelda’s heart, though he’d lost the case.

  No. Aidan was nothing
like Fred Clark.

  She wasn’t going to insult him by letting petty insecurities make her doubt him.

  She and Aidan were married now. Even if the marriage wasn’t based on love—even if he had just married her so that Chloe could have a mother—he had married her. Not Doris.

  Kate lifted Chloe so she could used the lion’s head door knocker to knock on the large double doors that were painted in candy apple red lacquer.

  Right away, a petite older woman dressed in a crisp white tunic blouse and cobalt blue pants that skimmed her ankles answered the door. Her small, manicured feet were encased in bejeweled thong sandals. Her jet-black hair was styled in a sleek bob. She looked as if she had stepped out of a Talbots ad featuring mature women.

  “Hello! You must be here for Beatrice’s rock-painting party,” she said. “I’m Candice Watson, Beatrice’s grandmother.”

  It didn’t escape Kate that the woman hadn’t called herself Doris’s mother. Same last name. Was Candice the paternal grandmother?

  “I’m Kate Clark. This is my daughter, Chloe.”

  “Of course, I know Chloe. She’s been over here to play with Beatrice many times since the girls moved in.”

  Since the girls moved in?

  “Come in, come in,” Candice said. “The party has started already. Everyone is in the kitchen.”

  Were they late? Kate had made it a point to be here right at the time stated on the invitation. She could hear the sound of children laughing and female voices in another room.