by Judith Bowen
She started toward the exit, grateful for the opportunity to be alone for a few moments. She felt hot and her heart was still pounding wildly.
“Zoey?”
She turned. Cameron dangled the car keys, one eyebrow raised. “Need these?” There was no doubting the challenge in his eyes, directed solely at her. He hadn’t missed a thing. Not the kiss, not the hug, not the male swagger that had accompanied them. Definitely not the reference to Ryan snagging an aunt to go along with Lissy’s uncle.
“Thank you.” She grabbed the keychain with a mutinous expression and headed toward the exit again, squelching her impulse to look back.
She knew Ryan was grinning. She couldn’t bear it if they both were.
CHAPTER NINE
ZOEY STOOD with Ryan and Mary Ellen at the railing, watching Cameron and his daughter on the midway’s tiny tot bumper cars. An elderly couple had just walked by, arm in arm, smiles on their faces, and Mary Ellen murmured “ah.” You could tell, just tell, that the old people were crazy about each other—after how many years?
She glanced sideways at her friend, then sent a skeptical eye toward the bumper cars. Hmm. Mary Ellen and Cameron Donnelly—were they a possibility? Tall, dark and sometimes handsome meets short, sweet and totally adorable? One a brokenhearted single dad, the other a softhearted travel agent-turned-inn operator who had a knack with kids? Mentally, she kicked her self. Get a grip, Zoey Phillips! A matchmaker she wasn’t. She couldn’t even conduct her own love life—or lack of it.
She’d had boyfriends, lovers. Several. One or two had even said they were in love with her. She couldn’t say she’d ever returned the feeling, at least not a feeling like that long-ago desperate crush on Ryan Donnelly. Maybe love at sixteen or seventeen was special; maybe you never felt the same way again. Unfortunately, many of the men in her life had been the caliber of her most recent ex.
True, she often yearned for the solid security of a relationship like Elizabeth and Arthur’s. A rock-solid partnership. Marriage. Respect. A man you could love with all your heart, who loved you. A man you could count on. Then she thought about her mother, dragging after her dad all over the country, pregnant every two or three years, raising children, baking bread, having to support the family, too. Now in his sixties, her father was finally earning a decent living, about to retire, and her mother was all worn out. What kind of Happily Ever After was that?
So far, Zoey had made every single decision that affected her adult life. Her future was hers. Any mistakes were her own. Any triumphs? Well, she could take the credit for them, too. She had friends, an interesting career, a respectable bank account. She was independent, free to travel when she wanted and where she wanted. She had a life. A good life. But she wanted more. She wanted love. Real, true, knock-your-socks-off love.
“Uncle Ryan! Did you see me bump Daddy’s car? I smashed right into him.”
The girl’s face was flushed, her fair hair flying. “Come with me to the Haunted House now, Uncle Ry!”
“No way!” Ryan laughed and made a face at the child. He shuddered unconvincingly. “Too scary for me, honey.”
“Daddy?” Lissy looked up at her father.
Cameron settled his hat back on his head. He took her hand. “You mind, Ry? We won’t be long.”
“Take your time. We’ve got nowhere to go this afternoon.” He slung his arm around Mary Ellen’s shoulders. “I’m too old for this stuff, anyway. How about you meet us inside when you’re through? Brrr.” He shivered. “It’s colder than a witch’s—”
“Ry,” Cameron broke in with a warning look and a glance at his daughter.
“A witch’s toenail,” Ryan said innocently. “What did you think I was going to say?”
Lissy giggled. “I know, Uncle Ry. C’mon, Dad.”
“Okay.”
Zoey watched father and daughter walk toward the series of joined trailers that formed the Haunted House exhibit. Zoey could just imagine how frightening it was. Spider webs and wiggly mirrors. Creaky doors and scratchily taped groans. It bothered her a little that Ryan had thrown his arm around her friend, the way he so often did with her.
“Zoey!” She heard her name just as she’d turned with Ryan and Mary Ellen to go back to the community center. Sounds of a few guitars and a fiddle came faintly through the hot dog-and-onion-scented air. Zoey looked over her shoulder.
Melissa was waving frantically. “Come with us!”
Zoey pointed to herself in a questioning gesture. “Me?” The little girl nodded and waved with her free hand. The other was firmly attached to her father’s.
“Go on, Zoey,” Ryan said, giving her shoulder a quick squeeze. “We’ll meet up with you and Cam later.”
Zoey walked around to the entrance and dug in her pocket for change to buy her ticket, aware of the warm buzz of pleasure she felt. They’d included her. Maybe she’d been mistaken, thinking Melissa didn’t like her.
Cameron had an odd look on his face. Zoey suddenly wondered if he’d been the source of the last-minute invitation. But why would he do that?
“Cotton candy for everyone?” She’d noticed a stand selling spun sugar just beside the ticket booth. Lissy clasped her hands together and smiled endearingly up at Zoey.
“Oh, please, please, please!”
Cameron turned down her offer. No surprise there.
Zoey came back with two cones, jumbo-size, and handed the pink one to Lissy who whispered “thank you,” eyes huge. Zoey stepped into line with Cameron.
“Incentive?” he murmured, one eyebrow arched. Zoey shrugged. “Bribe.”
“I see.” They waited in line for their turn to enter the Haunted House. “Scared?” he asked.
“What do you think?” she said, smiling as she dipped into her cotton candy and tore off a chunk. Purple.
“I think you are,” he said, peering over her head at various passersby.
Zoey didn’t answer. He was teasing her; it was a refreshing change to see him relaxed like this. The cotton candy brought back lots of happy memories. She was enjoying the long-forgotten taste and texture of the spun sugar—more like sweet sand after it disintegrated in your mouth.
Why did kids like this stuff so much? “Want some?” she asked Cameron.
“No, thanks.”
“How about some pink, Daddy? It’s yummy.” Lissy held up her cotton candy, shreds of pink fluff sticking to her face.
“No, thanks, honey.”
“We-ell,” Zoey began, with a wide-eyed look at Lissy, “I guess your dad just doesn’t know what’s good, does he?”
Lissy shook her head and shrugged her small shoulders. “Guess not.” Cameron’s daughter seemed to have warmed toward her considerably. That was terrific news. So what if it took a little bribe? Wait until she presented the sun-catcher….
“All right. Next, next, next…one more.” The ticket-taker ushered them inside the enclosure and fastened the gate after the couple standing behind them. Lissy darted ahead.
The Haunted House was really quite pathetic. A lot less scary than Zoey remembered as a ten-year-old. The cobwebs weren’t very well-done, just tatty fishnet draped here and there from the ceiling. The wobbly floor wasn’t very wobbly, the floorboard squeak clearly came from a tape machine secreted somewhere, the skeletons hanging in the corner looked more sad and in need of dusting than scary.
“It’s not even that dark in here,” Zoey whispered to Cameron, feeling a little outraged that childhood memories were made of so little.
“You’re not a kid,” he reminded her, his hand on her elbow as they went through a corridor between one trailer and the next. Lissy was somewhere ahead.
They heard a scream and came around the corner to see Lissy covering her eyes and stamping her feet in fright. Her cotton candy, Zoey noticed, was still clutched in one sticky hand. “A monster, Dad!”
Cam growled and grabbed Lissy’s waist from behind and the girl shrieked again and broke away. Zoey could hear the delight in her voice. Other children were screaming al
l around them in the semi-dark. Adults were smiling indulgently. The “monster” was nothing more than a crude robot-like face, probably made out of papier-maâché, with plenty of painted-on scars and bandages, set in a shadow box lit by flickering purple and green Christmas lights.
Honestly!
The next room contained trick mirrors. Lissy giggled at one that made her appear ten feet tall, while her father, in the mirror beside her, looked like a dwarf. Zoey had to admit that a six-foot-plus man looked pretty ridiculous with a hat wider than his height, a huge belly and ten-inch legs. Optics. Things weren’t what they seemed.
In mirrors—and sometimes in life, she thought. Wasn’t that true? Chad Renwick, Jr., or so she’d assumed, was a thirty-something good-looking young realty executive focussed on a serious relationship with her. Turned out he was Mr. Uncommitted and Sneaky, getting it on with just about any like-minded female, including his brand-new receptionist. She’d blissfully believed she was the love of his life! Perhaps she was, but he’d had an awful lot of love to share.
Luckily, dumping him hadn’t hurt too much. Zoey was just glad she’d found out when she had. Did big-city things like that happen in Stoney Creek? According to Elizabeth, they did. People were the same, no matter where they lived.
Chad wasn’t the only man in her life who’d revealed himself to be a jerk. Just the last in a fairly long line. She’d always thought she just had bad luck, but it had recently crossed her mind that maybe she just didn’t know how to pick men.
Concentrating on Ryan Donnelly was more and more appealing all the time. He still cared for her, if his attention meant anything, and she’d been head-over-heels in love with him once, even if she had been an impressionable teen. She’d always wondered what if…. Wasn’t this a chance to find out?
Years ago she’d dreamed of her and Ryan together. In bed, on the beach, dancing, sharing breakfast. Adele Martinez had always loomed large in those scenarios, but Adele was out of the picture now. If she didn’t give Cameron’s matchmaking set-up an honest try, she’d never know for sure, would she?
If things didn’t work out, she’d be flying back East soon, no one any the wiser. Except her. But what if true love really did exist, buried, a dormant spark, ready to be coaxed into full flame now that they were adults?
Anything could happen, her mother had always said. You never know until you try. The biggest risk was not taking any, her father had said, not that she put much stock in that advice, judging by Harvey Phillips’s success in life. Ryan was an extremely handsome, generous—well, free-spending, anyway—man. Most women would find it thrilling just to look at him. He was employed, owned property, paid taxes. He wasn’t as involved with the ranching business as his brother would like him to be, Cameron had hinted, but marriage to the right woman could change a lot of things about a man. And if he didn’t like ranching, well, he could do something else. She didn’t care. He could move to Toronto.
The possibilities were definitely something to think about, Zoey thought. She had to make up her mind. Either she’d go after him in a serious way or not. She couldn’t keep wavering about it.
“Zoey!” Melissa called back to her as they entered the last compartment, a fake jungle set with corpses and skeletons and skulls everywhere and a rickety rope bridge to traverse to the exit door. “Come on with me. I’m sc-a-a-a-red,” she said, shivering dramatically.
Zoey laughed, absurdly pleased that the child had asked her. “Okay. You go on first and I’ll be right behind you.”
“Whoa!” A huge rubber spider suddenly dangled in front of Zoey’s face. Lissy screamed and Zoey realized she’d nearly screamed, too. She felt ridiculous. She heard a growl from behind and then suddenly someone grabbed her. This time she did scream—as loudly as Lissy had. The spider bobbed back up into the recesses of the plastic foliage overhead and a rubber snake dropped down. Shivers ran up and down her spine.
“Cam!” She giggled then, sagging back against him, relishing the solid feel of his chest behind her and his arms around her. Her heart was still rocketing all over the place.
“Omigosh!” She stepped forward, away from him. The spider was quite realistic-looking—at first, anyway.
“So, said you weren’t scared, huh?” He looked mightily pleased with himself.
“Well, okay. Maybe a bit.” She placed both hands on the wooden railing and inched her way to the exit door. Lissy was five or six feet ahead of her, shrieking in fine form at every wobble, at every fake insect or creepy-crawly that pulsated or wiggled.
They emerged into the sunlight, blinking and giddy. Lissy staggered this way and that, eyes shut, arms outstretched, pretending to be something, Zoey wasn’t sure what. Cam was the only one who looked fairly normal.
“Okay,” Zoey said, deciding it was time to act like a grown-up. “Come on, Lissy. Let’s go find your uncle.”
“And Mary Ellen,” she reminded her soberly, as though Zoey had really forgotten.
“And Mary Ellen.”
“We have to go get Kitty, too!”
Lissy took each of their hands in hers and marched between them. Zoey looked over at Cameron, ready to catch his indulgent smile, but he wasn’t paying attention. He stared straight ahead. Even frowned a little.
What a strange man. What had turned his mood sour? She’d thought they were having great fun, all of them. Zoey swung Lissy’s hand and listened to her patter as they worked their way toward the beer garden tent inside the community center.
He ought to be pleased. Why wasn’t he? The day was going very well. He was spending quality time with his daughter and, if he only knew, she’d almost made up her mind to enter wholeheartedly into his matchmaking scheme.
They had lunch at one of the hot dog stands and on the drive home, Lissy said her stomach hurt. Cameron slammed on the brakes and the little girl lurched out of the Blazer to throw up. Luckily, Mary Ellen had damp wipes in her handbag. Lissy looked ghastly. Too much excitement, Zoey murmured. Too much sugar, Cameron said grimly, with a glance at her.
The cotton candy! Oh, no. She couldn’t do anything right….
Then the little kitten, which had been forgotten in the ruckus of stopping the vehicle and letting Lissy out, disappeared and was finally found hiding under the front passenger seat. Ryan cursed. Cameron told him to shut up. Lissy started to cry. Mary Ellen put her arms around the child and soothed her, but it was Zoey who managed to stick her hand in under the seat and grab the kitten, getting severely scratched in the process. Lissy gave her a weak smile and whispered thanks.
Reprieve. Okay, so she didn’t carry damp wipes in her purse, but she was a woman of action. She could get a cat out of a tight spot, if required. You never knew when a talent like that might come in handy.
“OF COURSE YOU’RE PERFECT for him!” Elizabeth leaned forward over the table at the Stoney Creek Golf Club. The Nugents were members. “I’ve always thought so, ever since high school. I never could figure out why he didn’t have the sense to see through that Adele Martinez. Just think! You could’ve been living here in Stoney Creek all along!”
Zoey wasn’t sure she really regretted leaving town. Stoney Creek was a lot more interesting than she remembered. But she was almost twenty-eight now. At seventeen, fresh out of high school, the prospect of staying had felt like a prison sentence.
“Well, it’s just a thought,” she said, not quite as enthusiastic now she’d confided in Elizabeth that she still had feelings for Ryan Donnelly. Lizzie was the type to get involved. Luckily, she was busy with her family and her craft business, getting ready for the Christmas fairs coming up. Otherwise, Zoey knew she’d take a prime role in rearranging Zoey’s love life.
Love life? She kept forgetting—she didn’t have one!
“How’s the book coming?” Elizabeth had been thrilled to find out that Zoey edited Jamie Chinchilla. It seemed as though, even in Stoney Creek, everyone read Chinchilla. No wonder the big bucks kept rolling in for author and publisher.
Zoey no
dded, licking the last bit of chocolate mousse off her spoon. “Quite well. I’m pleasantly surprised.” She grinned. “I can almost follow the plot on this one, which isn’t always the case. Although,” she added, in response to Elizabeth’s shocked expression, “I don’t suppose that’s something the average Chinchilla fan would want to know. Sorry.” She’d found that people generally had no idea how a book was written, edited or published.
“Definitely not!” She leaned forward, eyes alight. “Hey! Why don’t I throw a party? Arthur and I? Christmas is always a good reason to have a party. We can invite a bunch of people, including you and Ryan, of course. That’s the whole point. The mayor and his wife—you remember Allie Trennant?”
Zoey shook her head; she didn’t.
“Anyway, Arthur golfs with the mayor. You know, we’ll invite enough people so it doesn’t look too much like a set-up and—”
“Elizabeth!” Zoey laughed. “I’m living right out there on the darn ranch. Why would you think I need a set-up?”
“So we can all get dressed up! I bet Ryan’s never seen you in anything sexy. Mary Ellen and her stepmother and that fiancé of hers—Bob?”
“Tom,” Zoey said.
“Oh, yes, Tom Bennett. Arthur says he used to be in the army, which means he can probably dance. I think they make them do that in basic training. Or at least they used to. Not that it’ll do poor Edith any good.”
Zoey collected her handbag and the few items she’d purchased in town. “Well, I’ve got to run, Lizzie. I have a couple more errands and then it’s back to the grindstone.” She made a face. “Sunday dinner with the Donnellys tomorrow. If Ryan proposes over the mashed potatoes, I’ll let you know right away so you can call off the party.”
Elizabeth laughed and they both rose from the table. Zoey watched her as she rummaged in her purse for change for a tip. Elizabeth looked pleased. Zoey got a clear picture of Elizabeth’s role in Stoney Creek society. The gracious hostess. The magnificent cook. The pillar of country club hospitality.
Ah, well. Let her take charge, as Zoey knew she would anyway. Besides, Zoey was getting sick of jeans and sweaters. She liked the idea of Ryan seeing her in something sexy. She liked the idea of the entire town seeing her as a sophisticated woman. Might as well put all the old ideas about little Josephetta Antonia Phillips, tomboy, to rest.