Susan Mallery Bundle: The Buchanans

by Susan Mallery

  Dani’s eyes narrowed. “You sure did.”

  “I don’t need you taking me on, too,” he told her. “I feel like shit.”

  She socked his arm anyway, which, fortunately, was one of the only spots that didn’t hurt. “Why didn’t you tell her you were moving back east? What kind of moron has a relationship with a woman and doesn’t mention that at least once?”

  “At first I didn’t think it mattered. Then I didn’t think about leaving at all. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking that maybe I wouldn’t now.”

  “Maybe?” She socked him again.

  “I won’t go,” he said as he rubbed his arm. “I know I should have told her. I never meant to hurt her.”

  “Too bad. If you had meant to, you could be happy you’d accomplished your goal. As it is, her heart is broken and you’re an ass.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “I mean it, Cal. You’re better than this. You don’t play with other people’s feelings. You’ve never been mean.”

  He went from feeling like slime to feeling like slime was only something he could aspire to.

  “What do you want me to say?” he asked.

  “To me? Nothing. I’m not the problem.”

  He knew that. But Penny had been so angry—not without cause, he admitted. “I should have told her,” he muttered. “I should have made it clear.”

  “Not many people get a second chance,” Dani told him.

  “I know. I lost Penny before. I’m not going to lose her again.” He couldn’t. She’d come to matter too much to him.

  Three months ago, he’d been eager to leave Seattle, to try something new, but now…

  “Is she all right?” he asked. “She was upset, and with the baby and all.”

  “Upset? You call that upset?”

  His insides clenched as he swore. “I should let Reid beat on me some more.”

  “That will only help you. There’s someone more important to worry about.”

  “How much have I blown it?” he asked.

  “A lot, but Penny isn’t unreasonable. Lucky for you, she’s especially vulnerable right now. Naomi’s leaving.”

  “What? Leaving for where?”

  “Ohio. But that’s not important. What are you going to do?”

  Beg and crawl, he thought. Hope the words came to him and if they didn’t, he was going to camp out on her doorstep until she finally agreed they belonged together.

  He stood. Every muscle in his body complained loudly. “I’m too old for this crap,” he muttered. “Tell Reid and Walker I went to see Penny.”

  Dani glanced at her watch. “She’ll be there the rest of the night.”

  “Good. Don’t let her know I’m coming. I have another stop to make first, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take me.”

  Dani glared at him. “You’re not going directly there?”

  “No, and get off of me. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Oh, that’s clear. We should all allow you to run our lives. You’re doing such a great job of your own.”

  He bent down and kissed Dani’s cheek. “I love you, too.”

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER Cal walked into Gloria’s office. His grandmother took one look at him and jumped out of her chair.

  “What on earth happened?” she asked. “My God, you have stitches and a black eye. Is your lip cut?”

  He waved away her questions. “Not important,” he said. “That’s not what I’m here about.”

  “All right.” Gloria sank back in her chair. “Then why are you here? Not that I’m not delighted to see my oldest grandson.”

  She even smiled, he thought in amazement. As if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t tried to destroy Penny and any chance he had with her.

  “You crossed the line,” he said, doing his best to stay calm. Gloria might be the devil, but she was still old and female. He had to respect that, if not her.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said easily.

  “Bullshit. You know exactly what’s going on and don’t pretend you don’t.”

  “Callister, I will not allow you to speak to me that way.”

  He leaned forward and braced his hands on her desk. “I don’t give a good goddamn what you will or will not allow. You’ve had more chances than you’ve deserved and I’m through with you. You screwed up, Gloria. You messed with Penny and I won’t have anyone doing that.”

  She sniffed. “Is this all about that woman? She left you, Callister, a fact I remember, even if you don’t.”

  “This is about me protecting the ones I love. I’m through with you.” He straightened.

  She stared at him. “What are you talking about? You can’t be through with me. I’m your grandmother. Your family.”

  “We might be related by blood, but you’re not family. You don’t know how to be. You don’t know how to be anything other than an emotional vampire. You take and you take. You always have to be in control.” He shook his head. “We’re not kids anymore. You can’t make us do anything. You have officially meddled and per the contract I’m out of The Waterfront.”

  She stood. “You can’t leave. The restaurant needs you.”

  As always, business came first, he thought grimly. “The restaurant will be fine. Randy will take over and you’ll still have Penny as the chef. But don’t screw with her too much. I put an escape clause in her contract, too. If you start micromanaging, not only does she get to walk, but she takes all her recipes with her. You wouldn’t want that.”

  “How dare you?”

  “I dare because you don’t give me a choice. I wanted to care about you, Gloria. But you make it impossible. You want to own us and we weren’t about to let that happen. One by one, you’ve driven off your grandchildren until only Dani was left. But you refused to accept her and now she’s gone as well.”

  “You can’t leave,” Gloria insisted. “This is who you are. This is your heritage.”

  “This is not who I am. This is never who I’ve been.” He looked at her for a long time. “I thought I’d hate you, but I don’t. I feel sorry for you.”

  He walked to the door.

  “I’ll bring you back,” she called after him. “All of you.”

  “Not in this lifetime,” he said and left.

  PENNY LAY CURLED UP on the sofa, wishing she could find a way to put the pain in a box. If only she didn’t have to deal with it right now. In a few weeks or months, she could take it out and feel it for a while, then put it away until she was strong again.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. So all she could do was endure the pain that filled her and wait for the horror to ease just enough for her to function.

  She ached—every part of her felt as if she’d been run over by a car. Even her bones were sore. Every time she figured she’d finally cried herself out, new tears spilled down her cheeks. At some point would she simply run out of bodily fluids? Dani would come home and find her flat, cracked body on the floor.

  She gave a half laugh, half sob and wondered if she was slipping over to the dark side.

  Someone knocked on her front door. It could be anyone, she thought. Reid, even Walker. Dani had a key and Naomi was gone.

  Penny struggled to her feet. Bad enough that Cal had turned out to be a major candidate for jerk of the month, but Naomi had left.

  “Because I insisted,” she reminded herself aloud. Keeping Naomi in Seattle to watch Penny suffer had seemed selfish and wrong. So she’d urged her friend to start the drive back to Ohio and had made her promise to check in when she got there.

  She pulled open the door and stared. Cal stood in front of her, but not the same man she’d seen earlier that afternoon. He had a black eye, a bandage by his temple and a split lip.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, not able to believe his injuries.

  “Nothing important.” He stepped past her into the house, then closed the door behind him. “Penny, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how
sorry I am. I don’t know the words. I never meant to hurt you or not tell you about moving. I never thought about it. With everything else going on, the move wasn’t important.”

  She started to speak, to protest that it was very important, but he touched his finger to her lips.

  “Please,” he said. “Hear me out. I know the information itself is important, but I never actually thought about leaving. I didn’t get involved with you thinking that I was going to cut and run. I didn’t think much at all. You were there and so incredible and I found myself falling for you. Then Lindsey got sick and there was that, and the restaurant and you again. I’ll accept that I was stupid and thoughtless, but I never, ever kept the information from you as a way to trick you.”

  Part of her thought he actually spoke the truth, but he’d hurt her so much she wasn’t sure that mattered.

  “Okay,” she said quietly. “Thanks for telling me.”

  He moved closer and touched her chin. “I’m not done. Not even close. You were right, what you said about me. That I never risked my heart. I was never willing to go all out because that meant there was a risk of losing everything. I couldn’t face that. I loved Lindsey and I felt guilty. It was a bad combination. I wanted our marriage to work, but I wasn’t willing to be there. I let you down again and again. Holding back, about the baby.”

  He swallowed. “I swear, Penny, I was never glad you lost the baby. It hurt, but I was afraid to admit that. I was afraid it would mean I didn’t love Lindsey enough. You were right. I let you go. I should have come after you. I should have begged.”

  “The news flash doesn’t change anything,” she told him. No way was he going to sweet-talk her into believing him when he’d already broken her heart twice. Although it was nice of him to finally admit he’d been wrong in letting her go.

  “I get it,” he told her. “I get that I can love you and Lindsey and your baby and my brothers and Dani. I don’t have to just love one person. I don’t have to pick. I want to be the kind of man who loves with every fiber of his being.” He took her hand in his and held on, even when she tried to pull away. “I know we could be great together, Penny, and I think you know it, too. We’re good for each other. I always thought the best families were born and I was just screwed on that front. But it’s not true. Families can be created consciously. It’s not about bonds of blood, but bonds of the heart. I want to build a family with you.”

  Her breath caught. “What are you saying?”

  “That I love you. I want us to be a family together. You, me, the baby, Lindsey, my brothers, Dani. All of us.” He shrugged, then said, “Not Gloria.”

  “Good. She wouldn’t exactly be welcome in my world right now.”

  “Please,” he said softly, staring into her eyes. “Give me a chance. I’m willing to work to prove myself. I’m willing to pay. Whatever it takes to make you believe I love you and that I’m not going anywhere.” He kissed her fingers and smiled. “Except I quit my job earlier. Which you can do, if you want. I wrote an escape clause into your contract with the restaurant.”

  There was too much information, she thought as the room began to spin.

  “I need to sit down,” she said.

  He led her over to the sofa.

  She drew in deep, steady breaths and tried to clear her head. This wasn’t happening, she thought. He couldn’t be saying all those things to her. Love her?

  Before she could ask him to clarify, he went down on one knee. Just like that. In her living room.

  “Penny Jackson, you are the brightest light in my life,” Cal said. “I love you and need you with a desperation that defies words. Give me another chance. Marry me again.”

  She felt her mouth drop open.

  “I don’t expect you to answer me right now,” he told her. “I suspect I’ll have to do some crawling first, but that’s okay. I’m not afraid of proving myself to you. In fact, I look forward to it. I want you to know without a doubt how much you mean to me.”

  She didn’t know what to say.

  “I can keep saying it,” he told her with a smile. “I love you. Remember, before when we were married, you complained that I never said it enough? That’s because I was holding back. I was afraid of opening up to you. Not anymore. I’m never holding back. You’re my world and I love you.”

  The pain faded as if it had never been. Penny stared into his eyes and saw down to his soul. The truth was there—shining so bright it nearly blinded her.

  “Say yes,” he pleaded. “Marry me and have babies with me. You know we’re great together.”

  She felt tears fill her eyes, but these had nothing to do with being alone and everything to do with finally finding her heart’s desire.

  “I’ll still want to open my own place,” she said.

  “Of course you will. You’re a great chef. But you’re more than that. You’re the woman I love.”

  She threw herself at him and let the tears escape. “Yes,” she whispered. “Always yes. I never stopped loving you.”

  He held her tight. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  She sniffed and straightened. “I could say the same about you.”

  He touched her cheeks. “Hormones?”

  She nodded. “And I’m happy.”

  “Good. So you want to get married?”

  She laughed. “I do.”

  Turn the page for a look at

  IRRESISTIBLE

  the next Buchanan family novel

  coming from HQN Books

  July 2006

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE GREAT UNWELCOME TRUTH IS that there are times when a woman needs a man…or at the very least, an unnatural level of upper body strength. Unfortunately for Elissa Towers, this was one of those times.

  “Something tells me you won’t be impressed by my to-do list, or the fact that Zoe has a birthday party at noon. Birthday parties are very important for the five-year-old set. I don’t want her to miss this one,” Elissa muttered as she leaned all of her weight into the lug wrench.

  She had been lamenting the extra ten pounds she carried for at least three years. One would think they would come in handy now, say for leverage. But one would be wrong.

  “Move!” she yelled at the lug nut on her very flat tire. Nothing. Not even a whisper of budging.

  She dropped the lug wrench onto the damp driveway and swore.

  This was completely her fault. The last time she’d noticed the tire getting low, she’d driven to Randy’s Brake and Tire center where Randy himself had patched the nail hole. She’d sat in his surprisingly tidy waiting room indulging herself in gossip magazines—a rare treat in her world—not even giving a thought to the fact that he was using some stupid machine to tighten the lug nuts. She always asked him to tighten by hand, so she could take off the flat herself.

  “Need some help?”

  The question came from nowhere and startled her so much, she sat right in a puddle. She felt the wet seeping through her jeans and panties. Great. Now when she stood up, she would look as if she’d wet herself. Why couldn’t her Saturday start with an unexpected tax refund and an anonymous chocolate delivery?

  She glanced at the man now standing next to her. She hadn’t heard stealth guy approach, but as she looked up and up further still, until their eyes met, she recognized her semirecent new upstairs neighbor. He was a few years older than her, tanned, good-looking and at a first casual glance, physically perfect. Not exactly someone who tended to rent an apartment in her slightly shabby neighborhood.

  She scrambled to her feet and brushed off her butt, groaning as she felt the wet spot.

  “Hi,” she said, smiling as she carefully took a step back. “You’re, um…”

  Damn. Mrs. Ford, her other neighbor, had told her the guy’s name. Also that he had recently left the military, kept to himself and apparently had no job. It wasn’t a combination that made Elissa comfy.

  “Walker Buchanan. I live upstairs.”

  Alone. No
visitors and he didn’t go out much. Oh, yeah. Good times. Still, she’d been raised to be polite, so she smiled and said, “Hi. I’m Elissa Towers.”

  Under any other circumstances, she would have found another way out of her dilemma, but there was no way she could loosen the lug nuts herself and she couldn’t just sit here praying to the tire gods.

  She pointed. “If you could be burly for a second, that would be fabulous.”

  “Burly?” The corner of his mouth twitched.

  “You’re a guy, this is a guy thing. It’s a natural fit.”

  He folded his impressive arms over a rather impressive chest. “What happened to women wanting to be independent and equal in the world?”

  Hmm, so there was a brain behind those dark eyes and maybe the potential for humor. That was good. Neighbors of serial killers always said the guy was so nice. Elissa wasn’t sure Walker qualified as nice, which was, in a twisted way, a bit of a relief.

  “We should have worked on our upper body strength first. Besides, you offered.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  He picked up the wrench, squatted down and in one quick movement that left her feeling both inadequate and bitter, loosened the first nut. The other three followed just as fast.

  “Thanks,” she said with a smile. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “I’m already involved,” he told her. “I can put on the spare in a couple of seconds.”

  Or so he thought. “Yes, well, that’s a funny story,” she said. “I don’t have a spare. It’s big and bulky and really weighs down the car.”

  He straightened. “You need a spare.”

  His statement of the obvious irritated her. “Thanks for the advice, but as I don’t have one, it’s not very helpful.”

  “So what do you do now?”

  “I say thank you.” She glanced pointedly at the stairs leading to his apartment. When he didn’t move, she added, “I don’t want to keep you.”

  His gaze dipped from her face to the large nylon bag on wheels, lying next to her on the driveway. His mouth tightened in disapproval.

  “There is no way you’re going to carry that tire somewhere yourself,” he said flatly.