“Shay…”
Tears were welling fast and furious. “Maybe the move to Colorado will be good for you and Vicki, a fresh start. I’ll…I’ll call you later in the week.” And with that, she hurried down the stairs to the sanctuary of her car. With any luck, she could park unseen at the end of his street and have her imminent meltdown.
WITH PRICES SLASHED, IT TOOK depressingly little time to clear out the store. Now that warm weather had returned, people were more excited about the idea of hiking, boating and playing outdoor sports. Up A Creek had been at this location for years; it didn’t seem right that it could be emptied in a matter of weeks.
“We had a good run, boss,” Roddy said from behind the counter. He, Cade and Mark had been taking down fixtures and cleaning up debris. “I always enjoyed working for you.”
“With me,” Mark said. “You as much managed this place as I did. And in case I never thanked you for stepping in after Jess died—”
Roddy waved his hand, looking emotional and embarrassed. “I’m gonna go in the back, see if we have any more coffee.”
“What we really need,” Cade remarked as the other man disappeared through the doorway, “is beer. How are you doing?”
I failed to keep the store open and I miss Shay with every fiber of my being. After their fight on the porch, they’d devolved by unspoken consent into a distant relationship. He called her Principal Morgan when he saw her—which didn’t happen often. “Been better.”
“And Vic?” Cade asked, glancing away. “How’s she?”
“She’s angry, scared. I went online and showed her that there’s a chapter of the Campside Girls where we’re moving and that she can join. I think Kris and Julie are going to take over as coleaders here when we go.” Mark had told Bennett emphatically that he would not uproot Vicki before the end of her school year, the third week in May.
Dee had said Vicki could stay with them as much as necessary in order for Mark to visit Colorado, do some initial house-hunting and narrow down the choices before he took Vicki. In all of this, he’d been surprised that it wasn’t more difficult to put their house on the market. It was the house he’d shared with Jess, the only house Vicki had ever lived in. But signing the documents with the real-estate agent had been more of an annoyance than a tragedy.
At the end of the day, that house was a building, and he wasn’t going to miss bricks and tile. He was going to miss people. Shay. But if she found it that easy to walk away from him, from what they could have shared together, perhaps this was for the best.
IF SHE KEPT UP THIS KIND of behavior, Shay thought, the people who lived at the end of the street were going to report her as a possible prowler. Or a Peeping Tom, at the very least. What are you doing, Shay?
She’d driven all the way over here, wanting to talk to Mark, but the closer she’d gotten to his house, the more she’d panicked. What was she going to say? She wanted to apologize for their last real conversation, that fight they’d had. It ate at her, as did her mother’s assertion that jobs were not as important as people.
But even though Shay thought she’d handled the entire thing gracelessly, she still believed that his “proposal” had been rash and for the wrong reasons. No doubt he’d come to that conclusion by now, too. They’d been apart nearly as long as they’d been together. If he’d gotten past it, why rock the boat by showing up on his doorstep?
Because it’s the right thing to do. Even though she had no intention of going with him to Colorado—an invitation that had no doubt been rescinded anyway—she should tell him she loved him. That he’d been good to her and that she was sorry if she’d made it seem like their feelings were something shameful that should be hidden away. If I had that to do over…
She swallowed a lump in her throat. You didn’t get to do the past over. But she had a chance now, with her present.
Starting her car up, she quickly accelerated toward his house before she could lose her nerve. But when she pulled up in front of it, she didn’t see Mark’s car. Instead a pretty brunette in a suit was talking to a family of four on the front porch.
The For Sale sign in the front yard featured a picture of the same brunette.
“Well, hello,” the woman called out.
It was a pretty day and Shay had rolled down her windows. “Hi. I don’t mean to interrupt, but…I was looking for the current owner of this house. Mr. Hathaway?”
The real-estate agent shook her head. “Sorry, honey. He’s in Colorado.”
“Thanks anyway.” Stomach churning, Shay pulled away from the house.
He’s in Colorado. Soon, it would be permanent. Maybe it was better that she hadn’t found him today, hadn’t put them back on speaking terms. Because she didn’t think she could handle the goodbye when he left.
FROM A HOTEL ROOM IN Colorado, Mark tried to console his sister-in-law.
“I’m sorry,” she blubbered into the phone. “I know I should be setting a more positive example for Vicki, but…” Her words grew muffled as she turned her head away and blew her nose. “You want to hear some good news?”
“Yes, please.”
“Stacey thinks she’s about to get an offer on the house. Call her when you get back into town.”
That was still a couple of days away. And he missed his daughter like crazy.
“It will be hard for me to go by that subdivision,” Dee admitted. “I know it’s normal for families to move apart and people do it all the time without having nervous breakdowns, but…Vicki’s a miniature copy of my sister. Losing her, watching the house go to another family—it feels a bit like losing Jess all over again.”
“Good Lord, woman.” This was Frank’s voice, in the background. “Are you trying to make him feel worse than he already does?”
“I should go,” Dee said, chagrined. “When you call tomorrow, I’ll do better.”
That’s what she’d said yesterday.
After he hung up the phone, Mark flipped on the television, but he didn’t hear any of the sportscasters on ESPN. Instead, he heard Dee’s words in his head.
Like losing Jess.
When his wife had been sick, there had been nothing he could do for her, nothing he could do to fight it or to stop the inevitable. At the time, he’d felt as though he would have done anything to keep her with him. Only he hadn’t been given that opportunity.
Although the past few weeks had been pretty grim, he could still recall with perfect clarity that sweet, sharp flare of joy he’d experienced when Shay told him she loved him.
He’d had no choice but to let go of Jess. But with Shay, it was different! He could fight for her. Maybe it wouldn’t work out, but why wasn’t he at least trying?
The entire time he’d been in Colorado, he’d been torn between apathy and flat-out loathing for his surroundings. Objectively speaking, Colorado was a great place. But the two most important people in Mark’s world were in Braeden.
Which meant he needed to be there, too.
IT WAS THE LAST MONDAY of school, the final week. In the halls all around her, students were vibrating with excitement over the upcoming break. Meanwhile, Shay moved toward her office with all the verve of a geriatric turtle.
If it weren’t for a series of administrative meetings she had to attend this summer, Shay would probably crawl into bed, pull the comforter over her and stay there until August. Ironically, the superintendent had informed her that she’d been named principal of Woodside Elementary—her official title now, not an interim honor—and it hadn’t done a thing to lift her spirits.
Maybe because when you got the news, there was one person you wanted to celebrate with more than anyone. And he wasn’t there.
“Good morning, Ms. Morgan!” the secretary boomed when Shay walked into the office.
Shay blinked, taken aback by Roberta’s volume…and her expression. Was that an actual grin? Weird. Maybe the secretary had summer fever. Or maybe she was just coming down with something.
“Morning, Roberta,” she
returned listlessly, shuffling down the hall. Now that she’d finally done it, become principal of her own school, maybe she’d proven herself. Now that she knew she had succeeded, could succeed, would it matter so much where she did it? After all, they had public schools in Colorado.
“Shay?”
With a gasp, Shay jerked up her head. And found Mark sitting at the visitor table just inside her office.
“M-Mark?” Dear God, she’d finally snapped and was hallucinating the man.
He swallowed hard. “You look beautiful.”
“I look like hell,” she rebutted.
“Even so.” He smiled gently and she wondered if he meant it—that with lackluster hair and red-rimmed eyes she could still be beautiful to him. He raised a bag that said Book ’Em Daniels on the side. “I come bearing gifts. I understand these are your favorites.”
“Geneva knows you’re here?” And didn’t warn me? The woman better have lightning-fast reflexes next time they kickboxed together.
“I’ve missed you.” He stood and Shay fell into his arms.
“You, too.” She gulped, almost afraid to ask. “Are you here to say goodbye?”
“Not exactly.” For a second, she thought she heard a smile in his voice, but that was crazy. And she was loath to give up the comforting position of her head buried in his chest to check. “I thought a lot about what you said, about me expecting you to drop everything to go to Colorado—”
“I was a little harsh.”
“Not really. Why should I expect you to want to come to Colorado when I don’t even want to go? I told Bennett he should give the promotion to Roddy if he wants it.”
Her heart stopped. “You did?”
“And then I got in touch with Jeffrey Frye at Hawk Summit. He can’t afford me as a full-time employee, but he has some part-time marketing work he can throw my way and he’s willing to help me build a PR portfolio and recommend me to other groups—like the lodge once it reopens. Think of all the babysitting money I can save if I end up a work-at-home dad. But Jeff has this crazy idea that just because he’s helping me, we should honeymoon at his resort.”
“H-honeymoon?”
He pulled back, threading his fingers through her hair and meeting her eyes. “That’s why I’m here. I didn’t come back to say goodbye. I came to ask you a question.” Then, to her absolute wonderment, he dropped to one knee, reaching inside his slacks pocket to pull out a black velvet box. “Will you marry me, Shay Morgan? Not because my daughter needs a mom or because I can’t bear to face Colorado alone or for any reason other than I love you. I’d like to spend the rest of our lives showing you how much.”
She sank to the floor with him, nearly toppling him with kisses.
“Is that a yes?” he asked moments later, when they were trying to catch their breath.
“Yes.”
Suddenly, a laugh rumbled through him.
“What is it?” Shay asked, wanting to be in on the joke.
“Well, I was just looking around—this office. It’s where we first met, and I thought… It worked.”
“What worked?”
“Vicki’s letter.” He started chuckling again. “Turns out she found me a Valentine, after all. The only one I want for the rest of my life.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8514-3
HIS VALENTINE SURPRISE
Copyright © 2011 by Tanya Michna
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