His Valentine Surprise

by Tanya Michaels

  As she did so, her body brushed Mark’s. Awareness shot through her like an arrow.

  She swallowed, keeping her voice low as the next speaker began her remarks. “Sorry. These, uh, chairs are awfully close together. None of the rows except the front ones are full—maybe they should space things out better next time, give people more elbow room.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Mark kept his gaze straight ahead, but his grin was just as disarming in profile. “The current seating arrangement’s not without its perks.”

  Like being scant centimeters from the hottest guy she’d met since college? No argument there.

  Shay blinked, reminding herself she was an adult and a consummate professional. Her mind was only wandering to inappropriate places because the council meeting was a bit dry. Any woman would find watching the curve of Mark’s mouth as he smiled more stimulating than listening to the pros and cons of outlawing decorative novelty mailboxes.

  The next fifteen minutes dragged on while various citizens stood to say their piece. But after a lady in the back stood to thank the council for its diligence in quickly responding to a massive pothole on Juniper Street, Mark raised his hand to be recognized. Shay straightened in her seat. The meeting had just become interesting.

  “As some of you know, I’m Mark Hathaway, manager of Up A Creek and a local father. I wanted to take a few minutes of your time tonight to talk about the Douglas Lodge that was closed down. If you’re unfamiliar with its history, it was originally built as a polling place for people who lived out in the sticks.” He said it with affection, clearly proud to live on the less-polished outskirts of urbanization. “Later it passed into private ownership and was refurbished, serving as the main office for the nearby campsite. But in the past few years, it’s been sitting derelict. I think we’re overlooking a great opportunity for our town. The hiking and fishing possibilities near the lodge are as plentiful as they’ve ever been, and most of the surrounding park area is government owned. If the town took responsibility for the lodge itself, we could reopen camping in the area and encourage people from neighboring counties to come admire the beauty of what we have here in Braeden.”

  In the row in front of them, a man snickered and whispered to his companion, “‘If you build it, they will come’?”

  She slugged him in the arm. “Shut up, Harry. I happen to love that movie.”

  Mark ignored the byplay. “Plus, reopening the lodge provides us another opportunity to spend time with our own families, fostering an appreciation of nature.”

  “Which all sounds great,” the mayor agreed. “As long as someone can pay to reopen the place, fix it up and pay whatever staff is needed.”

  “I understand that, sir. But I believe it’s worth looking into and that, if marketed properly, the lodge could become a solid source of town revenue. Only a small portion of it is needed for office space. The rest could be rented out for events—banquets, corporate retreats or family reunions. Or the interior could be used for displays to form a small nature museum. Charge three-dollar admission for tours. For what it costs to buy our kids a popcorn at the movies, a parent could spend an hour helping them learn about our environment and wildlife, then enjoy some exercise in the fresh air.”

  “Says the man who owns a store that sells hiking and fishing accessories.” Carolyn Moon swiveled in her chair, making sure that everyone in the back could hear her sniff in disdain.

  “Mrs. Moon, you have not been recognized to speak,” the town clerk reminded her, staring pointedly over the top of her horn-rimmed spectacles.

  Mayor Green thanked the clerk, then turned back to Mark. “You’ve given this a lot of thought, Mr. Hathaway.”

  “Of course, sir. To stand here unprepared and ramble whatever came into my head would be a waste of the council’s time.”

  The mayor encouraged Mark to make an appointment with the town planner to present his ideas and also encouraged the rest of the people attending the meeting to consider the matter so that voters’ opinions could be heard in the future.

  As the next person stood to speak, Shay leaned closer to whisper, “You did great. As soon as they open that nature museum, I’m putting a call in about school field trips.”

  With a smile, Mark reached over to squeeze her hand. She suspected it was meant to be a quick, wordless gesture of gratitude for her support. But his touch also turned out to be a quick way to short-circuit her brain and set her hormones buzzing. She didn’t hear another word clearly for the rest of the meeting.

  UNLIKE THE COUNCIL MEETING, which adhered to a formal structure and often turned dull for periodic stretches, their late dinner around a circular table at the barbecue house was fun, messy and verbally chaotic. Shay was used to conversations with Geneva where the two of them were practically talking over top of each other, but it was even more frenetic with Cade interjecting outrageous comments and Mark playfully mocking them all. He teased his friend about his “he-man persona” and questioned aloud how Geneva and Shay ever managed to eat anything when they never stopped chatting. But it was patently obvious that he didn’t mean the gibe because he laughed as loud as anyone at Geneva’s irreverent jokes and, whenever conversation slowed for a nanosecond, asked Shay questions about herself, her job and how she liked living in Braeden.

  Right at the moment, life in Braeden seemed pretty darn perfect.

  In fact, if Mark hadn’t noticed the time on the clock hanging opposite their table, Shay would have been content to sit there all night, swapping anecdotes and dragging fries through a tangy puddle of barbecue sauce, with no thought to how early she had to be up for work in the morning.

  Mark frowned. “I hate to break up the party, but my sister-in-law is not a late-night person. I should get back so that Dee can go home and go to bed.”

  “The waitress just brought me another round,” Cade said, tapping the side of his full pilsner glass. “And I really want to hear the rest of Gen’s story about how she handled this nut-job customer. Geneva, would you mind swapping passengers with Mark? Maybe he could take Shay home, and you could drop me off later.”

  Geneva turned beseeching eyes to Shay. “You’d be okay with that, right?”

  Shay sighed inwardly. A line had been crossed tonight—for the first time, they hadn’t been “Principal Morgan” and “Mr. Hathaway.” They’d been Shay and Mark, laughing over a couple of beers, perilously close to flirting, but with four of them at the table, there’d been no real threat of intimacy. She wasn’t sure leaving with him was the best idea ever. It was too easy to imagine other lines that could be crossed.

  But just because dating was not her current priority and she doubted Mark was even emotionally ready to date…well, those weren’t good reasons to sabotage Geneva’s love life.

  So she capitulated with a wan smile. “It’s okay with me if it’s okay with Mark.”

  “Great! You guys go ahead,” Cade suggested before Mark could offer an opinion one way or another. “I’ll get the check and we can settle up later.”

  “Wait, I have cash here.” Shay dug into her purse, but both men were shaking their heads.

  “Dinner’s on us,” Mark objected. “We invited you.”

  “Consider it a welcome to Braeden. And you,” Cade told Geneva, “consider it an apology for my not frequenting your store in the past. I can assure you, that will be remedied.”

  She giggled, waggling her fingers in Shay’s direction and not even looking up when Shay and Mark left the table.

  “Thanks for the ride,” Shay said as they stepped outside. A light drizzling rain had started while they ate, just enough to dampen the asphalt. The parking lot shone a slick silver.

  “No problem. I wouldn’t have gone straight home anyway since I had with Cade me.” He paused, looking uncertain in the shadows. “You don’t mind, do you—my taking you home? There was a moment inside where it seemed like you might not be comfortable with the idea.”

  She jammed her hands into the pockets of her jacket, won
dering what to say. Although she didn’t consider herself shy in general, she couldn’t possibly tell him that she was attracted to him, which she found awkward, and that being alone with him only magnified the awkwardness. Not to mention the attraction. “I suppose I’m being hypersensitive. I’m the principal at your child’s school, which is a fairly public position that invites a lot of scrutiny from parents and concerned community members. And you’ve had your own share of scrutiny since…”

  He laughed softly, the sound like a warm breeze across the nape of her neck. “Since my daughter sent out a mass-mailing informing people that her dad couldn’t get a date?”

  “That is sort of where I was going, yeah.” She bit her lip, worried she’d just embarrassed him and wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. “You know, it’s really kind of a pretty night. Maybe I’ll just walk.”

  They both grinned at each other. In addition to being cold, the raindrops were growing steadily heavier.

  “As a dues-paying PTA member, I’m obligated to make sure the school principal doesn’t get pneumonia on my watch.” He opened the car door for her. “Hop in.”

  “You certainly seem to take your myriad duties seriously,” she said, once they were both buckled into their seats and she’d told him the name of her subdivision. “Chauffeuring principals, being a father, running your store.”

  “Not actually mine,” he clarified. “Carolyn was wrong about that.”

  There’s a shock. In Shay’s opinion, Carolyn was wrong about a great many things.

  “I manage the Braeden location, but it’s owned by a businessman who lives out of state.” In the dark, it was hard to make out Mark’s expression, but the tension in his voice was unmistakable. “He’s thinking of shutting us down, actually. But I’d appreciate if we could keep that piece of information between us.”

  Shay’s heart squeezed painfully. No wonder he’d been so cranky at their first meeting—facing possible unemployment would be difficult for anyone, much less a single father. “What would you do if the store closed?”

  Mark was silent for so long that she regretted asking the question, afraid she’d upset him. But then he answered, “It won’t happen. I won’t let it. Carolyn was right about one thing. I do have ulterior motives for wanting to see outdoor recreation increase in the area.”

  “Hey, stimulating the local economy is ultimately good for all of us. But…even if they do reopen that lodge you were talking about, that’s bound to take months, right? How much time do you have?”

  “Not enough.”

  AS DETERMINED AS HE WAS to keep the store up and running, on Monday morning, Mark wished he didn’t have this job. Being in charge meant that you often had to be the bearer of bad news.

  “Thank you both for coming in,” he told Roddy and Keesha. The three of them were seated in the break room, where Mark had just poured them all coffee. He’d scheduled this meeting for what was typically a slow part of the day, asking Dee to watch the store for a little while. She could handle simple transactions but would come back to get one of them if anything complicated arose.

  “Anything you need, boss,” Roddy replied easily.

  Keesha, however, squirmed in her seat, looking apprehensive. Mark wondered if she had a sixth sense about what he was planning to tell them.

  Since stalling wouldn’t make this any easier, he jumped right in with, “I’ll talk to Ed and Joan later, but since they’re part-time, it won’t affect them as much. You both know that the store hasn’t been doing as well in the past year and a half. The fact of the matter is that Coleridge is considering closing us down this spring if I can’t improve our profit margin. I promise you both, I’m doing everything I can think of to make that happen—like the upcoming Valentine sale. And I welcome any ideas you have. In the meantime, I’m afraid I have to cut some costs. You both do a wonderful job and Lord knows, you deserve raises but—”

  “You’re letting one of us go?” Roddy interrupted, his face grim.

  “No,” Mark promised. At least not yet. He prayed it wouldn’t come to that. While Vicki was his primary motivation for saving the store, there were other people he cared about who would also be affected. “But I need to cut your hours and possibly your pay. I don’t want either of you to lose your benefits, so we’ll be scaling back to meet the minimum requirement for ‘full-time.’” He’d reduce his hours if it would help, but his salary was annual, not hourly.

  “Mark, let me just stop you there.” Surprisingly, Keesha was smiling. “I can make this all a whole lot easier. I quit.”

  He blinked, startled by the announcement. “Keesha—”

  “It’s not because I’m angry. I respect you and know you’re trying to do right by us. But I was struggling with a hard choice. Like you said, we all knew the store hasn’t been doing too well. I’ve done a lot of volunteer work for my church over the years, including their newsletter, and our receptionist just retired. They offered me her job, but I wasn’t sure what to tell them. It would have meant a pay cut and you’ve been good to me, so I felt loyal to the store. But now…”

  Mark’s lungs expanded fully for the first time all day. Ever since he woke up that morning, he’d felt like he had a brick of guilt sitting on his chest that made it impossible to breathe. “We’ll miss you, of course, but it sounds as if this will be the right move for you.”

  Roddy patted his coworker on the arm, quietly congratulating her on the new job. Then he asked Mark, “So are my hours still going down?”

  Mark shook his head. “Nope, guess not.”

  Keesha flashed them an impish grin. “Are you kidding? You two will have to pick up my slack.”

  She was right. Down one full-time employee, Mark would probably need to work more. Because he didn’t get paid hourly, there was no overtime pay, which would be a concern with Roddy.

  Mark frowned. Shay had emailed him on Friday that she would have an answer soon on whether he could head up a Campside troop. Although it wasn’t yet definite, she’d been optimistic that he’d get approval. Mark had happily anticipated giving good news to his daughter this week. Now he was torn, not sure if he wanted to be made a troop leader or rejected, leaving him more time and mental energy to deal with his job.

  But then he recalled Vicki’s animated expression when she’d been talking over the weekend about the “cute butterfly hats” Campside Girls got to wear and how many times she’d said “thank you, Daddy!” ever since he offered to be a leader. And suddenly he didn’t feel conflicted anymore. He would find a way to do both. He just had to commit to his goals—be the best dad possible to Vicki, keep the store alive—and stay focused on achieving them.

  Chapter Seven

  Multicolored lights flashed above a slick circular floor, and some song that was currently popular with kids blared through the speakers. Given the high-pitched voice, Mark had assumed they were listening to a female singer. But when he asked who “she” was, the third-grade sister of Vicki’s best friend laughingly informed him it was Jace-somebody, a preteen singing sensation who was so cute.

  Mark flashed the girl a smile. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  When he and Vicki had walked through the turnstile and into the roller rink, her friend Tessa Wilkes had spotted them immediately, waving and screaming hellos. The girls had been in class together for kindergarten and again this year; their first order of business at any event was to find each other. Tessa and her big sister, Heather, were here with their mom, Charlotte, a woman who barely topped five feet. The girls, however had inherited their height from their lanky father, and would clearly dwarf their mom in the next few years. Mr. Wilkes was a night manager at a factory outside town, often available to visit his girls for lunch and pick them up after school, but frequently missing evening activities like tonight’s.

  Mark had been embarrassed at the winter carnival when he and Charlotte realized that, in Mr. Wilkes’s absence, Vicki was pretending that her dad was married to Tessa’s mom and that they were a famil
y. Charlotte had been sympathetic and maybe even a little amused; her daughters, understandably protective of their parents’ marriage, had not been.

  “I know you have a husband,” Vicki had told Charlotte, “but I like to use my ’magination and have a mommy, too.”

  With that incident in mind—and thinking it would be good for him and Charlotte to keep unmistakable space between them—Mark finished lacing up his daughter’s skates and turned her over to Mrs. Wilkes for safekeeping. She assured him that Vicki would be fine with them for however long he needed. Mark was scheduled to work a shift at the school’s sign-in booth, helping to keep track of how much business Woodside had created for the rink tonight and handing out raffle tickets for the door prizes that would be awarded later in the evening.

  The Woodside table, decorated in the school’s yellow and green colors and a stuffed frog to represent their mascot, sat just inside the main entrance, near the admissions booth everyone had to use. An auburn-haired woman was already seated there, and Mark smiled in greeting as he took the chair next to her.

  “Ah, they corralled a dad into helping tonight.” The redhead smiled at him. “I’m Anita Shepherd, mother of third-grade twins.”

  “Mark Hathaway. I have a six-year-old daughter in Mrs. Frost’s class.”

  “You don’t have any older children?” The woman paused, her expression perplexed. “Because your name sounds so… Oh. I know why your name is familiar. I believe we got an email from your daughter,” she explained, although he’d already deduced that for himself.

  “You and lots of other people,” he said, trying to sound good-natured instead of aggrieved. “Kids say the darnedest things. Or type the darnedest things, in this case.”

  Anita laughed. “If I may be so bold, Mark, I have a younger sister near Asheville who’s had trouble meeting the right guy. And—”