Until she’d met Bud. Sometimes she felt like a foolish schoolgirl, though there was nothing girlish about her feelings for Bud. He made her feel young and beautiful again, even if those days were fifty-some years past.
After wandering around the nursery for a time, breathing deeply of moist earth, sweet-scented flowers, and fertilizer, Agatha rang the bell on the counter. “Melissa, dear, it’s Agatha,” she called.
“I’ll be right there.” The voice filtered from the back room, where no doubt Melissa was up to her ears in her latest shipment. She was devoted to her husband, Alex—Bethlehem’s best attorney, in Agatha’s unbiased opinion—and her family, friends, and the shop. Unfortunately, that family didn’t include any children. The only thing more difficult for Melissa than getting pregnant, it seemed, was carrying a baby to term. It was her greatest sorrow.
But Agatha was living proof that a maternal woman could have a satisfying life without children of her own to love. And sometimes there were rewards. She had the Dalton children and young Michael Bishop, and Bud was the proud grandfather of six. Already the littlest ones called her Grandma—the sweetest name she’d ever known.
Pulling off a pair of muddy gloves, Melissa joined her at the counter, where she gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I swear, Miss Agatha, you’re glowing these days. Isn’t love grand?”
Undoubtedly, the blush heating her face added to the glow. “It certainly is. And how is Alex?”
“He’s fine. And Bud?”
“Oh, he’s fine, too,” she replied dreamily, then caught herself and cleared her throat. “Is this a good time to talk flowers?”
“Any time is. Let’s get comfortable.”
Melissa led the way to a pair of wicker chairs surrounded by lush greenery, and there they debated bouquets, boutonieres, centerpieces, and candelabra until there was nothing left to discuss. Once all the details were finalized and the order form written up, Melissa gave Agatha a copy, then asked, “Have you seen Holly lately?”
“Bud and I saw her when we had dinner at the inn a few days ago. She looked … serene.”
“Yes, that’s a good way to describe her. Can you imagine—our Holly, overseeing the construction of both the new house and the motel at the same time, and she hasn’t taken anyone’s head off yet?”
“It’s amazing what the love of a good man can do for a woman’s outlook. I understand they’re moving into the new house next week.”
“Yes, and I heard Emilie and Nathan are—” Her cheeks turning pink, Melissa quickly broke off.
“Emilie and Nathan are what?” Agatha thought of the Bishops as the next best thing to her own children and presumed she knew all the important events in their lives before practically anyone else.
“Oh, nothing. Is there anything else I can do for you today, Miss Agatha?”
Other than giving an honest answer, she couldn’t think of anything, and she said so politely.
“Then I’d better get back to those plants in back. I got an entire shipment of hostas crammed into pots so tiny that I could hear them getting root-bound before they were even unloaded. I figure the least I can do is give them a chance at surviving until someone buys them and gives them a good home. You take care, and if there’s anything else I can do for you, don’t hesitate to call.”
Agatha watched her hasty departure, wondering what in the world Emilie and Nathan were up to that she wasn’t supposed to know. Maybe Emilie was pregnant again and didn’t want her friends to spill the beans before she’d had a chance. Or maybe …
Agatha simply didn’t have a clue.
When she got home, she was surprised to see Bud’s car parked on the street out front, along with Nathan’s police vehicle. The two men were standing in the driveway next door talking, and they both looked more than a little guilty when she joined them.
“What are you doing here in the middle of the afternoon, Nathan? Is there a problem?”
“No, ma’am. I do live across the street, remember?”
She playfully slapped his arm, then presented her cheek to Bud for a kiss. “This is a pleasant surprise, to see my two favorite men unexpectedly.”
“I bet you tell all the men that,” Nathan teased. “Better watch out, Bud. I heard she was being coquettish with that new guy in town.”
“Coquettish,” she repeated with a laugh. “I wasn’t flirting with Ben. He was flirting with me. And Bud knows all about it. In fact, he’s the one who introduced us.”
“Yes, but I was just being friendly,” Bud said. “I didn’t realize I was going to have to beat him back with my cane.”
“I’d better get back to work. Miss Agatha, I’ll see you when I pick up the kids. Bud.”
“Nathan!” she called before he reached his vehicle. She wasn’t a gossip, she assured herself, but she did like knowing what was going on. “Is there anything … new with you and Emilie?”
He looked as innocent as young Michael. “Nope. We’re both keeping busy with work and the kids, as usual. See you later.”
As he drove away, Bud slid his arm around Agatha’s waist and started walking her toward the house she shared with Corinna. “What was that about?”
“Oh, nothing. What brings you over this way?”
“You, of course. You don’t think I’d come into town without stopping to see my girl, do you?”
She looked up at him and felt a lazy warmth flow through her that had nothing to do with the afternoon sun. “No, I don’t think you would. I just wanted to hear you say it.”
“Well, I’ve got a few things I want to hear you say, too. Starting with ‘I do’ a week from Saturday.”
“Oh,” she murmured with a satisfied sigh. “I certainly will.”
Chapter Eleven
A week after injuring his hand, Ben returned to work. Lynda was upstairs, getting ready to leave for work herself, when she heard the familiar rumble of the GTO’s engine. By the time she made it downstairs, he was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a plate of sticky buns in front of him. “What are you doing here?” she asked as if she weren’t unreasonably pleased to see him. As an afterthought, she added, “Good morning, Gloria.”
“Mornin’, Ms. Brown.”
“Good morning to you, too.” Ben grinned, and the emptiness in her stomach was suddenly filled with butterflies. “I’ve got work to do.”
“You’ve also got a doctor’s orders to not do it for another week.”
“She said no work until the pain goes away.”
“She said until the stitches are out and the pain goes away.”
Gloria interrupted, giving him a moment’s reprieve from responding. “Ms. Lydia, I thought I’d do some heavy-duty spring cleaning today, if that’s all right with you.”
“Yes, of course.”
Humming to herself, the woman picked up a cleaning caddy and left the room. With his foot, Ben pushed out the chair opposite him and gestured for Lynda to sit. She did.
“Look, I’m not used to lying around all day doing nothing. I may be just a carpenter, but I like keeping busy.”
“So keep busy with something else.”
“I have. I found an apartment and moved in. That took all of an hour and a half. I’ve watched every one of the fifty-seven channels the local cable service offers—and there’s not a fishing or NASCAR channel in the bunch. I’m bored. I need to work.”
She thought he was teasing about the fishing part, but wasn’t sure. After studying him a moment, she asked, “What is NASCAR?”
Surprise raised his brows. “The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing.”
“Is that a Southern thing?”
His disbelieving look slowly shifted into one of those to-die-for grins. If he’d grinned at her mother like that even once Saturday night, Janice would have forgotten all her complaints and spent the rest of the evening drooling over him. “No, darlin’, it’s not a Southern thing. The circuit covers the entire country, including your home state of New York.
However, down South, we do treat it with the respect it deserves. You people have your churches. We have our speedways.”
“Sounds … loud.”
He shook his head. “You just don’t have a proper appreciation for fast cars, do you? Not even after taking a ride in my Goat.”
“I take it that’s your car.”
“Not just my car. All GTOs are Goats. Haven’t you ever heard that?” He gave an exaggerated sigh. “You’ve lived such a deprived life.”
She had never felt deprived … until he’d come along. Oh, sure, she hadn’t had a date in ages, couldn’t remember the last time she’d had sex, and had only hazy, dusty memories of being kissed, but she’d had her work. Her house. Melina. And her work.
God, her life had been empty.
“Well, maybe sometime you can take me for a fast ride in your … Goat”—she had to force the word out —“and show me what the big deal is. Right now, though, I’ve got to get to work.”
When she stood up, he caught her right hand in his. His grip was fairly strong, considering that he’d worn a splint for the preceding week, but she didn’t try to pull away. No sense in testing just how well his sprain had healed … or so she told herself.
“How about tonight?” His voice was pitched low, the tone about ten times more serious than usual. “We’ll take a drive, get some dinner, and see what I can teach you.”
The smart thing would be to pull away, tell him thanks but no thanks, get her briefcase, and go. The smart thing, the prim thing, the prissy, stuffy Lynda thing. She’d been doing it for more years than she wanted to remember, and she was tired of it. She wanted to go with him. Wanted to see how fast they could go. Wanted to see how far they could go.
“All right.” Her voice was just as low, just as serious.
He stood up without letting go of her, and though she could easily step back, she didn’t. He invaded her personal space, standing closer to her than she normally allowed anyone to get, so close that she could see a few faint flecks of brown in his green eyes and could feel the slight puff from his slow, steady breathing. “Good. I’ll pick you up here at six-thirty. Is that okay?”
She nodded, resisting the urge to tell him to make it earlier. In fact, she couldn’t think of anything urgent on her calendar for the day. At the moment, though, she couldn’t think of anything on her calendar, period.
For one tantalizing moment, he leaned closer, and she thought he was going to kiss her. He didn’t, though, leaving her feeling disappointed—and more than a little anticipatory. She was going out on a date with a man whose kisses did funny things to her insides, whose grin gave her butterflies, and whose simplest touch made her tingle.
Melina was going to be so jealous.
“I—” Her throat was tight, her voice thick and foreign-sounding. “I’d better go.”
For a long moment he simply looked at her. Finally, he released her hand and stepped back. “I’ll see you.”
She made it as far as the back door before he spoke her name. When she turned, he was wearing an expression of … guarded concern was the best way she could describe it. “Don’t change your mind.”
She smiled faintly before leaving. She was still smiling faintly when she walked into her office ten minutes later. She went straight to the phone and called Melina in Buffalo. “Ben asked me out,” she said in place of a greeting. “Can you believe it?”
There were muffled sounds in the background—the phone hitting the floor—then a grumpy, sleepy voice muttered, “Who is this?”
“Wake up, Melina. This is important.”
“Lyn? Do you know what time it is?”
“Past time for you to be up unless … Are you alone?”
“Of course I’m alone. That’s why I’m cranky. Well, that, plus I ate an entire half gallon of banana pecan ice cream with a whole box of vanilla wafers last night, and someone woke me up to gloat at the ungodly hour of”—there were more muffled sounds, probably the alarm clock hitting the floor—“whatever time it is.”
“You weren’t sleeping. You were comatose from sugar overload. Do you want me to call later when you’re feeling better?”
“I’m not planning on feeling better. I wasn’t even hungry. I was just watching TV, and I got the munchies, and before I knew it … ten thousand calories for dessert. And you’ve got a date with our Southern hunk. I hate you.”
Lynda had roomed with Melina long enough to know that she was sitting up now, pushing her heavy dark curls away from her face, rubbing her eyes to help her wake up. She wasn’t a morning person, but could last far longer into the night than Lynda had ever dreamed of.
“Where are you guys going on this date?”
“I don’t know. Someplace for dinner.”
“You don’t know. Okay, who am I really talking to? The Lynda Barone I know and love has never let a man take her anywhere without knowing all the details first—where, why, who they might see, what they might do, how long they might stay.”
It was hard to laugh when the words were so true, but Lynda managed a chuckle. “I wasn’t that bad,” she lied in her own defense.
“Yes, you were. Now tell me exactly what Ben said when he asked you out.”
“He said, ‘We’ll take a drive, get some dinner, and see what I can teach you.’ ”
“Oooh. Wear your prettiest, sexiest underwear. You’re gonna get lucky. Man, do I hate you.”
Sex with Ben. Oh, yeah, she could easily describe that as “getting lucky.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter—or the backseat,” she chided.
“What do you think he meant by see what he could teach you?”
“We were talking about my lack of appreciation for fast cars.”
“That may have been what you were discussing, but it’s not what he was talking about.” Melina sighed wistfully. “Why couldn’t it have been me? I already appreciate the car, and I’m perfectly ready to appreciate him. Promise you’ll call and tell me everything that happens … unless, of course, he spends the night. Then you can wait until the morning.”
“Darn, Melina, my other line’s ringing. I’ve got to go.”
“Remember—sexy undies!” Melina reminded her before she switched lines.
She had plenty of sexy undies, Lynda thought as she worked her way through phone calls, meetings, and reports. She had a taste for silk and satin, for barely-there wisps and see-through softness, often adorned with demure rosebuds and bows. Naughty and nice, wicked and innocent, sexy and sweet. The problem was what to wear over the undies. For their picnic last week, she’d worn the only casual outfit she owned. Ben probably suspected it, but he would know for sure if she showed up wearing it again, and he would be amused.
Unless she went shopping.
No sooner had the idea formed than she’d decided it was a great one. She checked her schedule and found nothing of earthshaking importance, told Tasha she was taking an early lunch, and left her secretary with a dazed and bewildered look on her face. But she was the one who was a little dazed as she walked into one of Bethlehem’s few clothing stores less than fifteen minutes later. She felt like a child playing hooky, as if any minute now Ross or Tom would spy her and order her back to the office—or off to the hospital for tests. There were a few hard and fast facts in life—the sun came up in the east, water was wet, grass was green, and Lynda Barone did not play hooky or act on impulse.
But there she was, browsing through racks of summer clothes when she should be negotiating for a new partner in the Malaysia deal, wondering if she would look silly in a mint-green top and denim shorts in a darker shade when she could have been working out the final details in the swimming pool construction.
She was holding a dress at arm’s length, a sleeveless garment with a row of buttons from the V neck all the way to the hem—which wasn’t really all that far. It was more fitted than the styles she usually wore, and significantly shorter, but it was still perfectly modest. She could even wear it to the office without
getting much more attention than usual, she told herself. Then honesty won out over the need for reassurance. If she walked into the offices at M.I. wearing that dress, heads would turn, tongues would wag, and poor Tasha would probably keel over at her desk. It just wasn’t her.
She returned the dress to its rack, then picked up a lightweight summer sweater, soft as a cloud, in pastel ice-creamy colors. She was admiring a pale aqua when a voice spoke behind her.
“There are some white jeans on the other side of this display that would look great with that.”
She turned abruptly to find Maggie McKinney, holding Rachel, and Holly Flynn behind her. It was Maggie who had spoken, her tone friendly, giving no hint of her true feelings toward Lynda. The boss’s wife couldn’t possibly think too highly of her, and with good reason, Lynda was ashamed to admit. Back when Maggie and Ross’s marriage had been on a rapid downhill slide, Lynda had taken her cues on how to treat Maggie from Ross. To say she had been inexcusably rude would be an understatement, and the fact that Ross had been even ruder didn’t change things.
But if Maggie harbored any resentment, it didn’t show. It baffled Lynda and made her uncomfortable as she fumbled the sweater back onto the display. “Hello, Maggie, Holly, Rachel.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you outside the office during the day for anything but a business meeting, and here you are shopping,” Maggie said. “I didn’t know you even shopped here in town. Special occasion?”
“N-no. I—I was just looking for something … casual.” She saw Maggie’s gaze shift from the dress to the sweaters, and her cheeks warmed. Okay, so her definition of casual was a tad different from Maggie’s. She wore shorts, a T-shirt, and thick-soled sandals, looked comfortable, cool, and relaxed, and Lynda couldn’t pull off the look in public to save her life.
“The sweater’s great, but with your coloring, you should try the lavender instead. Here, Holly, hold Rachel for a minute.”
Getting Lucky Page 18