Harlequin Superromance February 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: His Forever GirlMoonlight in ParisWife by Design

by Liz Talley

  She wondered who looked out for Grant’s emotional well-being.

  Keeping up with him, she said, “It’s a good thing you’re doing, Grant. Not only caring for him, but protecting his confidence in himself, as well.”

  “He’s still my big brother. So do you want to check with Lila and the board and see if we can get the go-ahead to remodel the Garden of Renewal?”

  They were done talking about Darin. She got the point.

  “Based on how you described things, I know they’d love the idea,” Lynn said, attempting to switch gears as rapidly as he did. “But I’m afraid the cost of such a thing is out of our league right now. The initial design work on the grounds was donated several years ago when the concept of The Lemonade Stand was first devised. It takes everything we have budget-wise just to keep it all up.”

  “I wasn’t planning on charging you,” Grant said with a sideways look at her that made her insides dance as they walked toward the park. “I work in exchange for Darin’s time here, remember? In case you hadn’t noticed, my brother is practically living here during the day.”

  Darin had already progressed to therapy twice a day but had been helping out in the kitchen—of his own volition—during the lunch hour.

  “We can’t even afford the supplies....” Which was a shame. The rock fountain, the ambiance he’d described...Lynn could even see herself gravitating toward the area for an occasional respite from the emotional traumas of life.

  “Darin and I can build the benches ourselves. And, with your permission, I’d like to hit my suppliers up to donate the plants and the rest of the materials. I bring them more than a million dollars of business a year—I think they’ll carry me on this one. But for the initial rock work, I’ll need to bring in Luke and Craig—my two full-timers. They’re good guys, as your background check will show you. As I said before, Luke’s been with me since college and Craig’s someone he met working at Habitat for Humanity.”

  Very familiar with the volunteer organization that built homes for needy families, Lynn’s mind was reeling. She was used to being the one most on top of things, of taking control and making things happen.

  Grant was...impressive.

  The oasis he was describing would be a godsend to their work. Grant was talking about providing a place of serene beauty, of aesthetic wonder. A place that could help heal the soul. And that was the part of these women that was damaged most of all.

  They’d made it back to the area where Darin had left Grant.

  “I’ll talk to Lila tonight,” she told him. “But I can pretty much guarantee she’ll be delighted.”

  “As soon as you get an official go-ahead, let me know and we’ll get started.”

  Just like that.

  He was watching her watch him. She moistened her lips with her tongue, and his gaze lowered to them, then rose back up to meet hers.

  What were they doing here?

  “How long do you think it will take?” Her words were a little too slow. Too soft.

  “A week. Tops.”

  She said something appropriate. Told him she had to get going. He glanced at her mouth again.

  And Lynn fled.

  * * *

  LATE THE FOLLOWING Monday, after putting in a full day as owner and CEO of Bishop Landscaping, Grant was in the Garden of Renewal with design software opened on his tablet, measuring off distances and envisioning finished results. With the help of the software, which would take his inputted measurements and choices and display outcomes, his idea would materialize into a working plan.

  “Darin said I’d find you here.” The voice startled him. Turning, Grant almost dropped his tablet.

  “Wow!” He’d said the word out loud before realizing he was doing so. In a pair of tight black jeans, high-heeled black leather sandals and a button-down, tapered white blouse, Lynn looked...nothing like a nurse. Her hair, loose and curling around her shoulders, was longer than he’d suspected. She was wearing makeup.

  And not meeting his eyes as she handed him a manila folder. “This is the signed letter with our nonprofit tax ID that should be all your vendors need for their donations,” she said, her tone unusually subdued.

  She seemed to be looking right through him. Or over him.

  Taking the folder, Grant wanted to touch her hand. Her face. To bring her back to him. She was at the Stand for a reason. Had left her job at the hospital to live here.

  Because she’d been abused? He knew for certain she’d been wearing a wedding ring four years before. He’d checked. He didn’t ever flirt or even think about flirting with another man’s wife.

  Her fingers were unadorned now.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have sounded so surprised,” he said, making certain that he didn’t touch her at all. “I’ve just never seen you out of uniform.”

  He’d begun to picture her wearing her various colored and designed scrubs to bed. Only the top. With nothing on beneath it.

  Because he was certain he hadn’t misread those looks—the way she’d licked her lips...the softer, sexy tone she used a time or two....

  “I had a fundraising lunch,” she said. “It was outdoors, on a patio at a country club, and part of the program was a fashion show. I agreed to be a model and they gifted me the clothes as long as I wore them through lunch. We not only raised enough money to keep us going here for a month, but the fashion designer donated makeup and an outfit for each one of our residents.”

  Noticing that it was almost time for Darin’s therapy session to end, he closed his tablet, latched his tape measure back onto his black leather belt and tucked the folder she’d walked all the way out there to give him under his arm.

  She’d walked all the way out here, dressed like that, to give him a folder she could have left for him someplace. She could have texted or called to tell him to pick it up at the front office.

  She’d wanted him to see her.

  “How many residents are currently living at the Stand?” he asked, treading carefully as he walked with her back toward the main house.

  She was attracted. And afraid? Not a combination he’d ever dealt with before.

  “Two hundred and forty-two. We’re almost maxed out at the moment. But Lila’s working on a deal that would include enough new bungalows to allow us to take in another fifty.” The voice of a woman who didn’t sound the least bit fearful.

  Because when she was a nurse, she was in her element? Secure and confident?

  Living with Darin had made him more sensitive to the fact that people behaved differently in different circumstances.

  “Is there some kind of a time limit for how long someone can live here?” he asked, partially to keep her comfortable, but also because he was growing more and more curious about this aspect of life that he’d, thankfully, never been exposed to before.

  His dad had adored his mother. He’d revered her. And so had her sons.

  Apparently, the world was also filled with jackasses who didn’t cherish the women in their lives. He’d known there were some...but two hundred and forty-two right here in Santa Raquel? The town wasn’t that big.

  “Not in terms of a number of days or weeks or months,” she said, answering his question. “A few of us, like Maddie and me, are paid employees and live here full-time as part of our jobs,” she said.

  “I thought Maddie was a resident who donated her skills while she was here.” She’d told him before that much of the general running of the place—the cooking, cleaning, laundry and even a lot of the computer and office work—was handled by residents.

  “She was, when she originally came to us,” Lynn said. “Maddie’s situation was different, and it suited everyone best if she stayed on. But the idea here is to help these women heal, inside and out, to prepare them for happy healthy futures as they resume their lives. W
e’re a hideaway, but the only thing we hide our residents from is the wrongful abuse. Otherwise, our goal is to prepare them to face the world, not hide from it. These women and their children have loved ones. Jobs and schools and friends and lives. We want them to be able to live those lives. Or, if they choose, to start new ones.”

  So had she been healed? Had Maddie?

  They’d reached the main building and were standing in one of the extrawide, fancily decorated hallways so he lowered his voice. “But there’s no time limit attached to it.”

  Lynn smiled at a couple of residents. Handed a toy back to a toddler who’d dropped it. Said hello a few times. They went through a door and reached the more private hallway that led to the therapy rooms.

  Grant, walking beside her the entire time, smiling and trying to appear as unthreatening as possible, had the crazy urge to hold her hand.

  “We run on a tiered system,” she said, stopping inside the door to lean back against the wall, and it took him a minute to realize she was answering his earlier question. Her arms were crossed. “Our residents have objectives based on their personal circumstances. There are measurements for each objective and they have to show a certain amount of progress toward meeting those objectives, and reaching the next tier in their own personalized plan, in order to remain a part of the program.”

  Her tongue peeked out between her lips as she met his eyes. He wanted to promise her something, but had no idea what it would be.

  He wanted to sleep with her. But had absolutely no room in his life for another commitment.

  There hadn’t been time or opportunity for a committed relationship in his life since Darin’s accident.

  “I wondered,” he said now. “This place is so nice, who wouldn’t want to stay here forever?”

  “People who want to get back to their families. To their friends and jobs. To have their own homes where they can decorate as they please, cook when they please, leave as much of a mess or not as they please.”

  “What about you?”

  He knew he shouldn’t have asked the question. But Grant had never been known to have a lot of finesse. He was more the bull-in-a-china-shop type.

  “I have my own home here on the premises. And this is my job.”

  He wanted to ask about family. Friends. And thought better of it.

  “So what happens when a resident doesn’t show progress?”

  He’d kept his distance at the Stand. Hadn’t had more than cursory and very polite conversations with Darin’s therapist, with Lila, the managing director and with Maddie on one occasion when she was still in the room when he’d come to collect Darin. But he knew enough to know that the people here would not just throw a woman out on the street.

  “Anyone who doesn’t try to help herself is given special counseling,” Lynn was saying, still leaning against the wall a couple of closed doors down from the therapy room. “She’s assigned a one-on-one mentor. If she still doesn’t help herself, we help her find some kind of job and a place to stay that she can afford with the money she has, and we help her move. We help her unpack in her new place, have a little housewarming for her. And invite her back to the Stand for any counseling she wants and for dinner once a week.”

  “What’s the success rate on that?”

  “Better than average.” Lynn stood, shrugged. “Some people just don’t want to help themselves. But the majority do. Our overall success rate here is better than anyone imagined,” she added.

  Anyone imagined. “Who’s anyone?” he asked, growing more and more connected to a place that he’d never known existed and probably wouldn’t have given more than a cursory thought if he had. Who had the wherewithal, or the need or the foresight, to conjure up The Lemonade Stand?

  “Our founder is a thirty-six-year-old man who grew up in an abusive household. His mother had left with him and his sister a couple of times before she got pregnant again. They’d spend a week or more in a seedy motel while she tried to keep them safe and find a means of supporting them, and each time, they’d end up having to go back. Until one night after their little sister was born, when he and his other sister saw his father knock his mother unconscious and then shake the crying toddler to death. He hurled himself at the man and doesn’t remember much after that until he woke up in a hospital. But they say he hit his father in the head with his own beer bottle.”

  And he thought he’d had it rough.

  “How old was he?”

  “Twelve. His old man survived but was sentenced to life in prison for killing his own daughter.”

  “And his mother?”

  “She survived, too. And is doing well.”

  “Did his father have money that your founder used to build The Lemonade Stand?” It was fitting.

  “There was some money, enough for his mom to provide a home for herself and her two remaining children, to provide them all with college educations, including herself. Our founder started a dot-com business when he was at university, which he sold upon graduation for a hefty sum and that’s what he used to set up The Lemonade Stand. He was twenty-four at the time. Originally there were four bungalows on a couple of acres that housed sixteen victims. He spent the next year crusading for investors and grants and government funding. That was twelve years ago.”

  “Is he still around?”

  “He sits on our board.”

  “And his mother?”

  She straightened, standing free of the wall. “She’s around.”

  He had to collect Darin and get in a couple of hours of mowing and trimming before the sun went down.

  “You were married,” he said instead of “Thank you for the tax papers.”

  Her eyebrows rose but she didn’t say anything. “Before...that day at the hospital. You were wearing a wedding ring.”

  She nodded.

  “Now you aren’t.”

  Her husband could have died.

  She didn’t have the demeanor of a widow. Maura, his next-door neighbor who helped out with Darin, had the demeanor of a widow.

  “I’m divorced.”

  Grant didn’t ask any more questions. The shadow that had immediately fallen over her face at the words was answer enough.

  The bastard had hurt her.

  Bad.

  It was also clear, from her tone, her changed and distant demeanor, that Lynn wasn’t open to discussing the topic.

  Hopefully, someday, she would be.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  LYNN WAS COMING from her office on Wednesday afternoon and took the long way around, passing through the grassy commons. The February weather was perfect. A sunny and balmy seventy degrees. She wanted to take a couple of minutes to enjoy it.

  She wanted to see if Grant was still there. Not for any reason. Just to see.

  When she noticed him and Darin at the edge of the Garden of Renewal unloading stones one by one from a cart, she picked up her pace toward home, taking a couple of shortcuts and making it there in record time.

  “She’s still asleep.” Maddie met her at the door, her finger to her lips, although Kara would sleep through an earthquake. “She had swimming lessons this afternoon,” Maddie reminded her. “With LaQueisha.” An ex-Olympic-bound swimmer whose older brother had used her to practice his boxing skills and irreparably damaged her left shoulder in the process, killing her chances to swim competitively ever again. Her divorced father, who’d been unaware of his son’s anger issues, was prepared to take LaQueisha to live with him, to put her through college, as soon as she was ready to leave the Stand.

  “Then I’m going to go help unload some rock,” Lynn whispered, heading into her room to change into jeans, a T-shirt and tennis shoes. “I’ll be back in an hour, and if she’s not up yet, we can wake her for dinner.”

  Dinner was always at six. Whether
Lynn was home to eat with Kara or not.

  Kara had her bath between 7:30 and 7:45 and was in bed by eight. Story time was Lynn’s time. She’d lie in bed with her little girl and read to her. Sometimes long after Kara had fallen asleep.

  Five minutes later, Lynn arrived at the cordoned-off site. “I’m here to help,” she announced, not singling out either brother as she directed her words.

  “Hi, Lynn, you look different in a T-shirt,” Darin said as he knelt by a section of neatly stacked rock.

  “He means cute,” Grant said, standing, his gloved hands empty as he smiled at her.

  “No, I meant different.” Darin’s tone was slightly petulant. “But she is cute,” he finished, with a grin that was all male.

  Hot inside, and feeling suddenly uncomfortable, Lynn asked, “What can I do to help?”

  “I’m stacking the rock,” Darin said. “Normally I lift, but I can’t because of my surgery. Another three weeks, huh, Grant?”

  “Yep.” Grant grunted as he lifted a stack of about ten stones and carried them over to Darin, who took them one at a time and placed them, at different angles, on top of one another.

  “This is how we’ll place them when we build the wall,” Darin said. “See how they form this circle...?”

  Pointing with his right hand to the more defined edges of the somewhat flattened stones, Darin gave her a brief rundown of the job ahead.

  “Looks like you’ve got that part covered,” she told him, and then moved toward the loaded-down trailer in the yard beyond the garden. “I’ll help carry,” she said.

  Grant stopped, hands on his hips, and stared at her. “You are not going to lift river rock.”

  “Not as many of them at a time as you are,” she agreed. “But I want to help. This garden, it’s over and beyond our agreement. And I have a free hour.”

  She wanted to spend time with Grant. It didn’t make sense. She didn’t want a relationship with him. Or anyone, in a partnership sense. But knowing he was there...