"Sure, sure." Ian had no idea why she was making such a big deal out of who would be where or why she was sticking Andy with fertilizer duty. For his part, he intended to fiddle with her new bookkeeping application. He only had this one day now to confirm that it was something financial bugging her. Yesterday while at home with his friend Jake, he'd puzzled over the matter and decided finances had to be Maggie's secret issue.
"I like the register," Kathy said and plopped onto the stool behind the outdated machine.
"Good, good," Maggie muttered. With one final, odd glance toward Ian, she left the building to meet Andy outside.
"I don't know why Aunt Maggie is so annoyed." Kathy gazed after her.
"Me, either." Ian settled into Maggie's old office chair. But he was about to find out.
As Maggie's bookkeeping program booted up, he leaned forward, scanning the data. Oh, it occurred to him he might be overstepping the bounds in looking through the nursery's accounting, but he had a powerful hunch it wasn't privacy that prevented Maggie from confiding in him but pride and, perhaps, embarrassment.
In any case, if she was in trouble, he intended to do something about it.
This would have been true even if it weren't so much easier to concentrate on Maggie's problems than his own. He was deeply grateful to her for the past week. But it was a fact he couldn't steer close to any of his own problems. They'd overwhelm him if he let them into his brain. Tomorrow he had his first post-procedure doctor's appointment. That alone sent the old fingers of dread into him. What if the angioplasty hadn't fixed his problem, after all?
But even if his heart appeared to be recovering, he wouldn't rest easy. How could he ever consider himself the same as before: strong and reliable? How could he feel sure he wouldn't collapse again, probably at the exact moment everyone was most counting on him.
With a frown, Ian pushed the whole subject out of his mind. Slitting his eyes, he began scrolling through Maggie's financial data: back one month, two, six.
It didn't take long before he could feel himself relaxing.
To make matters even better, he noticed from the corner of his eye Kathy pull a dog-eared paperback from her backpack. His daughter was actually reading.
Smiling, Ian scrolled back yet another month in Maggie's finances. He could hear her outside, instructing Andy about fertilizer.
Oh, tomorrow—with all his problems—would come, but he'd figure out how to deal with that...tomorrow.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Finally. She was officially done with Ian. He hadn't discovered her secret. He was never going to discover her secret. She was safe.
On Monday morning Maggie had the nursery to herself. She stood in the center of the garden and turned in a slow circle. Fifteen minutes ago, she'd finished her last round of ferrying children to school. Instead of coming to the nursery with her as he had for the past four days, Ian had taken a cab to his doctor's appointment. She wouldn't have to see him again—ever. Or at least not very much.
Reaching out to finger a Lady fern, Maggie released a relieved sigh. Her life could go back to normal.
She squinted at the fern. But she didn't feel normal. Instead, she felt...
She felt...
The bell over the front door jangled.
Maggie's narrowed eyes widened. Oh, good. She had a customer! She didn't have to decide how she felt. For she could swear she'd been about to conclude she felt depressed.
Depressed? Because Ian was out of her life? No way.
Maggie swept into the sales building and stopped in mercenary delight when she saw who was standing there. "Alana!"
Alana was the landscaper for Corporate Edges. Her presence could mean only one thing: a big job.
"Oh, Maggie." Alana lifted a pair of expensive sunglasses onto her salon-dark hair. "I am so behind. I'm counting on you, darling, to help me catch up."
"Of course. I'll do whatever I can." Wonderful. There was urgency here. Something to keep Maggie busy and her thoughts off of a man she couldn't admit she was thinking about in the first place. "What's the job?"
"It's a condo common area." Apparently assuming Maggie would follow her, Alana swished her model-thin body through the sales building and out the open wall. She appeared unafraid any dirt would dare soil her designer pantsuit. "Five acres," Alana complained to Maggie. "And they want the landscaping ASAP, of course. Helps boost the asking price of the condos. I'm going to need help, Maggie. Big-time cooperation."
As she followed Alana, Maggie's brows jerked down. Had she ever refused to cooperate? "I'll come through for you. I always do."
"Yes, you always do." Swiveling to face her, Alana smiled faintly. "Which is I why I always come back."
That, and the fact Maggie had always let Corporate Edges buy on credit. Coughing, Maggie asked, "Do you have any plans?"
"Right here." Dropping her gaze, Alana rummaged in her large custom-designed tote. "This is a big job, going to run at least twenty-five thousand."
Whoa. Twenty-five thousand dollars was a wonderfully big job, and it would keep her wonderfully busy.
Alana looked up again. "I assume we can operate under the usual arrangement?"
Maggie's mouth opened. With a job this size, Alana still wanted to operate under the 'usual arrangement,' buying on credit? Maggie's budding enthusiasm took a cold hit. Twenty-five thousand dollars of inventory would stretch her resources to the limit.
On the other hand, Corporate Edges would pay their bill...eventually. It was guaranteed income. No other single customer was going to drop this size order on her. And Maggie certainly didn't want them to go elsewhere. Twenty-five thousand dollars...
But such a big order, to deliver on credit...
As her zeal lagged, her father's voice popped into her head. What, chicken? Ha! I knew it. You don't have what it takes to wheel and deal with the big boys. You're just a little girl. She saw herself from the outside, a small-time operator smilingly apologizing for her inadequacy. Dammit, her father would be right.
Slowly, Maggie smiled. "Sure," she told Alana. "The usual arrangement will be fine." Of course it would. She could handle this, no problem—because her father was never right.
Returning her smile, Alana pulled out a set of eight-by-ten sketches. "Let me show you the preliminary design with size and type of trees and shrubs. But I'll need your help in nailing down the actual selections."
"Of course." Maggie took the sketches. The downside of furnishing the landscaping on credit faded as she looked forward to the challenge of the job, one of the largest she'd ever received.
It was perfect, really, exactly the type of thing to wean her mind off Ian. It wasn't as if she were infatuated with the true Ian, anyway. She'd only been interested—slightly interested—in the temporary man he'd become. He'd revert to his old self soon enough.
Maybe as soon as today, when the doctor gave his health a green light.
"So you want a tree with flowers," Maggie observed, pointing to one of the sketches. "White ones?" She listened to Alana's response and developed a list of possibilities in her head.
Maggie could go back to becoming her old self, too. A woman with some common sense. A woman who'd be happy never to see him again. A woman who was definitely not weak enough to call him later and see how his doctor's appointment had gone. Oh, surely not.
Shaking her head to clear it, Maggie flipped to Alana's next photograph. Ian was out of her life and she was not depressed about that. Oh, no. Not at all.
~~~
The nurse was stone-faced as she removed the stickers from Ian's chest. Her heavy, impassive features gave no clue regarding the results of the EKG she'd just taken.
Unclamping his jaw, he was forced to ask her himself. "Uh, how's everything look?"
She didn't even spare him a glance as he rolled to a sitting position on the exam table. "Doctor will be in to talk with you shortly. Keep your gown on."
Ian drew the sides of his thin cloth gown over his naked chest and didn't
bother scowling at the woman. She wouldn't have noticed his expression anyway as she doggedly rolled the EKG machine out of the room.
The room was cold and Ian tried, unsuccessfully, to find a comfortable way of sitting on the exam table. Hell. Had everything gone to crap again? Was his heredity—whatever it happened to be—catching up to him? He could feel his heart pound heavy and fast as the issues he'd been ignoring for the past week rose to confront him.
How sick was he? How feeble and weak? Would he ever have a life again?
Good thing the nurse wasn't taking an EKG of him now.
Nor when the door suddenly burst open, admitting staid, impenetrable Dr. Bloch. Ian could feel his blood pressure spike. Truth time. How was his heart really working?
Dr. Bloch, at least, understood what came first. "Everything looks fine." He dropped Ian's chart onto the small counter beside the sink. He put his hands on the edges of the counter and leaned back against it, regarding Ian with the tired, condescending smile all doctors seemed to own. "You can drive, go back to work. My only recommendation is you take it easy as you start again to lift, push, and pull. Remember, your heart is still healing."
Ian's mouth opened. Everything was fine. "Oh."
"We'll want to keep a watch, of course," Dr. Bloch went on. "Regular check-ups, considering the possible genetic factor, but your heart looked good when we did the angiogram last Friday. Perhaps this episode of yours was a fluke. All the same, let's be conservative; start with coming to see me every three months, then expand the time in between appointments based on your progress."
A fluke or maybe genetic. They still didn't know. Maybe would never know. Ian probably should have been euphoric that everything looked good, but instead he felt a cold weight of dread. He was going to have this hanging over him—forever.
He was never going to be strong again. Not really. Because he never could know, for sure, that his health would last.
The doctor turned to pick up his chart again. "Let's see, you work for a construction company, is that right?"
"Brockton Construction." Or at least, he'd once worked for them. It was one of those things Ian hadn't let himself think about, whether he still had a job.
The doctor frowned. "That might be a problem. I wouldn't want you hoisting I-beams or anything."
Ian smiled. "I'm in construction management. The heaviest thing I hoist is a telephone."
"Ah." Still looking into the chart, Dr. Bloch nodded. "Then it's all right. You should be able to dive right back in. Today, if you wanted."
Ian's fading smile turned ironic. He doubted Howard would be happy to see him stroll into the office today, unannounced, untested, unproven. "My boss is...a bit skeptical."
Dr. Bloch looked up from the chart.
Ian spread his hands. "It's a high-stress job. Deadlines, big financial consequences. Since I did collapse right in my office I can hardly blame him." Or disagree.
A frown drew Dr. Bloch's gray eyebrows together. "Job-related stress is not a direct factor in heart disease."
"Well, yes, so you told me, but still..." How to explain? A guy had to be a man, a strong one, in order to handle the pitches that were thrown in the rough-and-tumble game of the working world. He couldn't fall to the floor in front of his secretary. He couldn't even be afraid he might do so. Neither quality made a leader.
"You'll be fine," Dr. Bloch pronounced, and went back to the chart. "Let's see, now. You have kids. How are they doing?"
"They're okay." But Ian blinked after giving this automatic response. Were they okay? Andy was outright petrified and Kathy, well, Ian could only hope she was actually as serene as she appeared. "Actually, they're a bit shook up, I suppose. I'm the only parent they have left, and now—" Ian left the rest unsaid. And now, he was not one hundred percent of a parent. Unreliable.
"They have an aunt, though," Ian remembered and a smile crept onto his face. "She provides a sense of stability. Security. She'll be there for them no matter what happens to me." A short laugh escaped him. "Hell, she'll even be there for me."
An unreadable expression crossed the doctor's face. His gaze went back to his chart. "How is the exercise going? You taking walks?"
"Yeah. I'm up to a mile-and-a-half per day."
"Good. And stairs. Can you make it up a flight without having to rest?"
Ian was surprised. "I could do that the day I got home from the hospital."
"Excellent." The doctor made a note in the chart. "All the same, I'd like you to wait another week before resuming sexual activity, just to be on the safe side."
Ian laughed. Resume sexual activity? He hadn't had any in two-and-a-half years. That last occasion, an empty, mutually calculated coupling with a woman he'd met at a management seminar, had convinced him he'd just as soon give up the whole business.
But the doctor looked at Ian as if expecting him to say something. About sex.
"That's okay," he told the doctor. "I can wait."
"Oh?" The doctor, for some reason, looked skeptical.
Ian pointed toward his chart. "Maybe it says in there, my wife died three years ago. I'm not in any rush when it comes to sex."
Instead of looking satisfied with this explanation, Dr. Bloch appeared even more skeptical. "No rush," he repeated.
"Right. One week. Two weeks." Five years. "Doesn't matter. We don't have to concern ourselves on that front." Hell, this was a subject Ian never discussed.
"Mm." The doctor had the gall to look suspicious. Suspicious! "Three years," he murmured. Frowning, he shook his head. "You're a bit young to hang it up, aren't you?"
"Ah. Am I?" Ian knew he was very red in the face. How on earth was this conversation part of a cardiology exam? "But a fellow can't force himself to have interest if he just doesn't have it, can he?"
Thankfully, Dr. Bloch abruptly dropped the subject. He closed the chart with a flourish. "Come see me in three months and keep up the good work."
Chart in hand, he left the room, just as if he'd never brought up the whole business to begin with.
Ian was left to stare at the closed door and grind his teeth.
He wasn't pathological to be uninterested in sex. Plenty of men were uninterested. It wasn't a crime. It wasn't even—unhealthy. Scowling, Ian jumped off the examination table.
What was unhealthy was having a heart that crapped out on you. Now, that was a true problem. Dr. Bloch didn't seem to understand that. He told Ian to go back to work—when nobody, including himself, considered him capable. Dr. Bloch told Ian he was healthy—and then ordered him to check in every three months.
It was inconsistent, illogical. Ian stripped off his examination gown and snatched up his sports shirt. He pulled it over his head.
Why couldn't the man come right out and say it? You're finished. You will never be the man you once were. Never be completely capable, never be strong enough to lean on, never be considered truly reliable. Never. Again.
Exactly the concept Ian had been avoiding for the past week. The life he'd known was over. For good. Meanwhile, there was nothing with which to replace it.
Ian shoved his legs into his pants. Correction. There was one thing he could do. In fact, the doctor had seemed pretty keen on the idea that Ian should have sex. Hell, Ian hardly remembered how.
Even if he did, even if by some weird chance he felt an urge to copulate, this was the doctor's idea of a future? There were only so many hours a forty-one-year-old man could spend in a bedroom. What, pray, was Ian supposed to do with himself the rest of the time?
Ian yanked up his fly, buttoned his waistband and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. He had no idea what to do with his future, however long it might chance to be, but he knew he was in a hurry to get out of there.
CHAPTER TWELVE
On the sidewalk outside the medical building, Ian came to an abrupt stop. What was he supposed to do now? Go home? No, hiding at home would feel infantile. But he sure couldn't go into work like Dr. Bloch had suggested. Ha. Howard woul
d be appalled to see him walk in. Everyone else would stare at him fearfully. Was he going to drop into a dead faint again? Ian probably would, in fact, faint from the sheer embarrassment of it all.
For one truly terrifying moment as he stood on the busy street, he had no idea what to do with himself. He almost couldn't breathe.
Then he remembered. Maggie had his car. She'd used it to drive the kids to school. An uncharacteristic slip-up on both their parts. They should have realized Ian would need the car back once he was done with his doctor's appointment.
He had a task: go fetch his car. This was something genuine that needed to be done. Not inconveniently, it was an excuse to go to Maggie's nursery. Somehow, Ian knew he'd feel better, less untethered, if he were back at the nursery.
After using his cell phone to call a cab, Ian popped into the little café tucked in the lobby of the medical building. Anticipating lunch, he bought a turkey sandwich for himself and a vegetarian wrap for Maggie.
Maybe he was out of circulation when it came to sex, but he hadn't forgotten everything he'd ever learned about women. A little bribe never hurt. Not that he imagined Maggie would refuse him haven. On the contrary, he counted on Maggie to find him some work so he wouldn't feel completely useless.
The cab came and, feeling better already, Ian climbed in. A bit of his pleasure dimmed when, upon their arrival at the nursery, he saw two cars parked in the lot: his Cherokee and a dark Mercedes. He wouldn't have Maggie to himself.
While he paid the driver, Ian glanced at the interloper's vehicle. It was a new model, very spiffy. Hardly Maggie's usual sort of customer.
He felt a nudge, a little spark, in his brain. The spark got brighter when he saw the logo painted on the side of the Mercedes. Corporate Edges.
So this was the infamous Corporate Edges, the name he'd spotted among the financial files on Maggie's computer.
Ian's cab drove off just as Maggie and a woman of high fashion appeared at the top of the nursery building's stairs.
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