Moore than a Feeling (Moore Than a Feeling #1; Needing Moore #4)

by Julie A. Richman

  “That’s where she did it,” Holly said, thinking aloud. Holy crap!

  “What?”

  “Nothing, just putting two and two together.” Holly again looked over toward the kitchen where her mother had joined Mia, Seth, Henry, and Gaby.

  Half cleaning, half just enjoying champagne, Mia was trying to get everything washed and put away before she started serving dessert.

  “Gaby, will you pull the cheesecake out of the fridge? I want it to warm up and get to the right consistency.”

  Grabbing the red-and-white-striped box, Gaby’s eyes lit up, “Junior’s,” she sighed, pulling out the famed-baker’s specialty.

  “You’re welcome.” Seth knew his addition to the dessert menu would be a crowd pleaser.

  “Congratulations,” Henry clinked champagne glasses with CJ when she walked in. “Looks like you’re going to have a wedding to make.”

  “I think I might have to make a baby shower first.” Turning to Mia, CJ interrupted the conversation she was having with Gaby. “I want to help with the baby shower.”

  Gaby just smiled and took a step back, as she sipped her champagne.

  “Of course, you’re her mother. This should be yours.” Mia knew when to jump out of the driver’s seat.

  “I don’t know where to throw it or who to hire here. In Newport Beach, I have all my people in place. So, I think we’ll need to do this together.”

  Caught by surprise, Mia was astonished that CJ would reach across the aisle. “Well, I’ll help a little bit. But I think it would be a lot more fabulous if you and Seth worked on it.”

  Nodding at Mia, she smiled. “I like that idea a lot better.”

  Of course, you do. Mia just smiled back, congratulating herself on her stellar self-restraint.

  With a nod, CJ went back into the great room and sat down on the couch next to Aiden’s mother.

  Picking up an open bottle of champagne off the marble countertop, Mia refilled Seth’s flute and smiled. “She’s all yours, Steve.”

  “I’m doing this for Holly, not for that Real Housewife.” And turning to Henry, he shook his head. “You should be nominated for sainthood.”

  Picking up Holly’s hot apple pie off the counter, Mia handed it to Seth, “Time for something sweet,” she smiled. “Let’s just serve dessert from the island counter again.” Mia pulled a pumpkin pie and a Key Lime pie out of the refrigerator. “I think we’ve already lost Schooner, Chazicle, Aiden, and his dad to that football game.”

  “It’s a Junior’s cheesecake, that should get them all off the couch,” predicted Gaby, saying it loud enough for the men to hear.

  “Junior’s cheesecake?” Charles and Schooner said in unison, both getting up from the couch.

  “You used to eat so healthy,” CJ said to her ex. “You really should watch yourself. You’re not getting any younger.”

  He just looked at her and squinted. Slowly lifting a forkful of the creamy cheesecake to his mouth, he leisurely savored Brooklyn’s finest confection, licking a dab off his bottom lip, before he turned away from her, and headed back to the game without ever saying a single word.

  “Do you have any herbal tea, Mia?” CJ asked, taking a plate of grapes to the table from the fruit bowl Mia thought no one would touch.

  “Yes, we’ve got jasmine and chamomile. Which would you prefer?”

  “I’ll take the chamomile. Thank you.”

  “Good, hopefully that will put her to sleep,” muttered Schooner, loud enough for CJ to hear.

  “Ever the gracious host.” She shot him a deadly glance. “At least now you don’t walk out on your own parties. Maybe you’re maturing. Or just getting lazy.” Turning to Holly who was sitting across the table, she announced, “I want to throw you a baby shower.”

  “Okay. That’s nice.” Holly looked skeptical, waiting to hear her mother’s ulterior motive.

  “This is the first grandchild for both the Moores and the MacAllisters.”

  “You want to do it in California?” Besides grandparents, Holly didn’t have ties there anymore, having gone to school in New England and then stayed on the east coast.

  “No. I was thinking here in New York. Seth and I will be coordinating and putting together the whole thing.”

  “You and Seth?” Mia’s best friend and her nemesis teaming up? Holly wasn’t sure what to think of that.

  “Don’t look so worried, I’m still planning on inviting Mia.” She added with a close- mouthed smile.

  “That’s Mimi to you, Granny.” Mia returned the close-mouthed smile with one of her very own.

  “I have never liked you. Right from the freshman retreat on.” CJ was livid knowing her grandchild would have a closer relationship with the woman who had been a thorn in her side since she was eighteen. She couldn’t believe it then, watching Schooner Moore at that retreat, just a few weeks into their freshman year, totally entranced by the bespectacled little hippie girl. And she couldn’t believe it now, nearly thirty years later, he still looked at her like a lovesick teen. And she hated it.

  Mia rolled her eyes. “I know. Get over it already. You really do need to go to Canyon Ranch to cleanse and get rid of some of that toxicity. You know that shit’ll kill ya.” Mia smiled her big, beautiful, devil grin at CJ.

  It was too many hours later when Mia crawled into bed, exhausted and aching from being on her feet all day.

  Schooner opening his arms, ready to feel her head nestled on his chest. “And that concludes ShitStorm2.0.” He kissed the top of her head.

  “Not nearly as bad as its predecessor. It could have been a whole lot worse,” was Mia’s assessment.

  “I don’t think we scared the McManus’s too badly. Even though there was definitely some bad behavior tonight.”

  “The three of us cannot be around each other without turning into eighteen- and sixteen-year-olds again. We are responsible, successful adults who are generally good role models for our kids. But put the three of us in a room, and that anger is so deep, that the emotions are still like raw nerves.” Looking up at him, she sighed. “I love you, I really do. But that is one monkey I don’t want in my circus.”

  “Unfortunately, she came with the big top. So, we’ve got her for life.”

  “Ugh. Thanks for that reality check. Hopefully the addition of the baby at Thanksgiving 3.0 will help curb some of the unbridled hostility.”

  Schooner laughed. “Not if you keep calling her Granny.”

  Mia smiled into his chest. “It’s going to be a shitstorm.”

  July 4th

  AIDEN TURNED ON THE TV, flipping stations until he got to PBS where A Capitol 4th was about to begin. Turning toward the windows, he could see the beach getting crowded, people standing shoulder to shoulder, ten deep. The Moores and their friends were all on the deck comfortably settled on padded deck chairs and chaise lounges, waiting for the start of the annual July 4th fireworks.

  Adjusting the television’s volume a little louder, he was looking forward to hearing the National Symphony Orchestra and the U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own.”

  It was exactly a year ago that Holly had found him in the alleyway. And now tonight, he had anxiety about having anxiety, wondering if he’d be able to handle it. Tonight would prove to be the litmus test for how far he’d come since last year. Or not. The pressure to be ‘better already’ had been choking him all day.

  “Do you think this is too loud for her?” he asked Holly as she came down the stairs.

  She stood for a moment, listening. “No, I think she’ll be fine. I think Daddy needs to see how yummy you smell.” She said to her blanket-swaddled daughter, handing the baby to Aiden.

  His nose went right to her neck. “Please always smell like this.”

  Amelia Moore McManus had been born two weeks before the opening of Acebo and had attended opening night, greeting all the guests alongside her mother. Today was the first day Aiden and Holly had taken off since the restaurant’s opening the week before Memorial Day. Concern
ed with leaving the staff alone on such a busy night, they decided to go over there to check on everything after the fireworks ended.

  Poppop and Mimi would be babysitting Amelia alone for the first time with the help of Auntie Po, Uncle Natie, and the rest of the Moore entourage.

  “What do you think of this music, Beautiful?” Aiden asked the baby. “It’s pretty, isn’t it? We’ll see how much it hides those loud bangs for me. For you, we’ve got noise cancelling ear muffs.” He placed the little pink earmuffs over her ears.

  “Do you want some noise cancelling earphones?” Holly asked, digging through her bag.

  “Not yet.” Aiden shook his head. “Let’s first see how I do with just the music from the TV. If it gets bad, let’s have them on standby.”

  “It should start any moment now.” She stood next to him by the french doors.

  “Are you ready for your first Fire Island July 4th?” He kissed the baby’s cheek. Looking at Holly, he laughed, “How about we start a new family tradition?”

  “What’s that? Never work on the 4th?”

  “That would be part of it, but I was thinking we go on vacation, out of the country, over July 4th.”

  “That’s one way to not have to be around fireworks. Here we go, they’re starting.”

  The first lights started to flash in the sky, white streams cascaded in graceful arcs, the tips of the smoky ribbons turning red. And then, the much anticipated, and feared, first blast. Holly put a hand on Aiden’s back. The truth was, she was as tense as he was. The vision of last year was so fresh in her mind that she could still feel the angst of watching him on the beach the year before.

  They both flinched a little with the first blast.

  “How’s she doing?” Holly asked, distracting him.

  “So far so good.” Aiden knew focusing in on his daughter would alleviate his tension. Just looking at her made him smile and gave him a peace he thought he’d never experience again in this lifetime. He could spend hours looking at her, studying the funny faces she made. Amelia was the spitting image of Holly, but with his dark hair.

  Tensing a little with the next blast, he took a deep breath, then turned his focus back to the baby in his arms. “We’ve got a couple of summers before you’re going to want to go out and see those pretty lights in the sky, which gives me a couple of years to work on getting used to it.” Nuzzling her again, he promised, “Yeah, we’re both going to be ready together.” Goal set.

  Rubbing his back softly, Holly could feel the tension with each blast, but it was a fraction of what it had been the summer before.

  Turning suddenly toward the TV, he said, “Amelia, this is the U.S. Army Band. Don’t they sound great? Daddy was in the Army.” As he sang Yankee Doodle to Amelia, he swayed with her in his arms, moving in time to the U.S. Army Band.

  “They are so great.” He turned to Holly with a huge smile and was caught off guard. “Why are you crying?”

  “Because last year we were in an alley and nothing was right. We weren’t together. You were drowning right before my eyes and I had no idea how to save you. And here we are, just one year later. And we’re together and you are dancing with our daughter on July 4th. That’s why I’m crying. I stood in this room and cried in my father’s arms after the alleyway last year, feeling totally hopeless. And look at our world, just one year later. And next year will be even better. I know it will. I’m crying because now I have hope.”

  “Come here.” He held out his free arm to her, pulling her into a hug with the baby. “I could not have done any of this without you.”

  “Well, thank you. But you’ve done all the heavy lifting.”

  “And you’re right, next year will be better, because by then we’ll be married.” With building and opening a restaurant, and the baby, getting married had come in a distant third, mostly because he wanted Holly to have the wedding of her dreams and the focus to put it together.

  The frequency of the fireworks was starting to pick up and Aiden could feel his anxiety beginning to rise just knowing the finale was not far off. A vision of last year wormed its way to the forefront of his consciousness.

  “I think I should sit.” He was afraid to be standing with Amelia if he became overwhelmed. “How much longer do you think?” he asked.

  “Probably within the next five minutes.” She predicted when the finale would begin. “She must’ve liked your dancing.” Holly motioned to the baby, who was now fast asleep in Aiden’s arms.

  “I think I’ll take those headphones now, Angel.”

  Grabbing the headphones, Holly put them over his ears so that he wouldn’t have to jostle the sleeping Amelia. Curling up on the couch next to him, she watched the fireworks light the Washington, DC sky on the television, feeling the non-synchronized vibrations from the finale blasts being shot off over the ocean outside their door.

  “Oh, man, she’s now getting in on the blasting action.” He turned to Holly.

  Sitting up, Holly looked at Aiden, her nose scrunched.

  “It wasn’t me.” He laughed. “How could someone so tiny and so beautiful emit an odor so repulsive? Ugh, she did it again. I can feel the blasts.”

  “Eww, it smells like something that would come out of my brother.” Holly looked like she was going to be sick. “I wonder if it’s from the corn-on-the-cob I ate. I don’t usually have that. Maybe it was too much for her.”

  “Oh, man, I’m dying.” Aiden laughed as the baby did it again.

  As the french doors opened and everyone filed back into the room, Aiden pulled off his headphones. July 4th had been a lot less painful than he’d anticipated, and Holly was right, if he looked at where he was last year to this year, it was evident exactly what therapy, being active in veterans’ groups, and her love had done for him. He had taken his life back, vowing not to let the enemy defeat him at home and ruin his relationship with either the woman he loved or his precious baby daughter.

  “Oh, that smell is nasty.” Lily screwed up her face in disgust as she got near the couch.

  “Oh wow, that is foul.” Zac looked like he was going to be sick.

  Aiden pointed to the baby.

  “That is gross. We are not having kids,” Zac said to Lily.

  “Zac, that smells just like yours.” Lily swatted him in the arm.

  Aiden looked at Holly and laughed. “Well, we’ve now established she definitely gets that from your side of the family.”

  “It feels so weird to be out without the baby, doesn’t it?”

  Aiden smiled, reaching for Holly’s hand, and pulling her closer to him as they walked toward Acebo. “It does feel weird.”

  “I miss her. Is that weird, too? I mean we’ve only been gone a few minutes.”

  Aiden laughed. “How about we just check and make sure the staff are doing okay, and if they are, we get the heck out of there.”

  “I like that idea.”

  “And I’ll buy you an ice cream.” He gave her hand a playful tug.

  “And I’ll even let you lick it,” she smiled suggestively.

  “I’m going to hold you to that.” He raised his eyebrows. “Maybe we should get the ice cream first and then go in the back way directly upstairs to my office. We can check on the staff later. As in much.”

  “Are you promising me fireworks?”

  “Fireworks and ice cream. July 4th doesn’t get much better than that, Angel.”

  As they turned onto Midway, she said, “You did so great tonight. I am so proud of you. Do you feel good about it?” All her anxiety about how the night was going to affect him was now gone. She knew she had been tense all day, but it wasn’t until the fireworks ended that she could really allow herself to acknowledge just how on edge she had truly been.

  “I do. I really do.” He nodded, a look of pride on his handsome face. “You know it better than anyone. One year ago tonight was the watershed moment for me, and I had to make a choice. I either needed to listen to everything you said to me in that alley, or I was go
ing to die.”

  His admission was a sobering thought, especially because it was most likely true. He would have died. And she feared it would have either occurred at his own hand or through sheer recklessness and negligence.

  But that was a year ago. And a lot had changed in a year.

  “Come with me,” she turned onto Ocean Breeze Walk, tugging his hand and quickening their pace.

  It took only a moment for him to realize why they were going down Ocean Breeze Walk and not Bayberry Walk where Acebo was located. And he wasn’t wrong as she tugged his arm, pulling him down the alley. That alley.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “Last summer after the fireworks ended, when you and I were going at it, all I really wanted was for you to kiss me.” She backed up against the building’s weathered shingles, pulling him to her. “And I didn’t get that kiss.”

  “And you want it now?” he whispered, with a wolfish grin.

  When she nodded, he placed a hand on the back of her neck and pulled her in for the long-overdue kiss for which she had yearned, allowing the flood of raw and overwhelming memories to ignite and fuel their urgency.

  When their kiss finally ended, Aiden looked down at Holly and reached for her hand, bringing it to his lips. “I could not let go of your hand that night.” He threaded his fingers with hers, placing a kiss on the inside of her wrist. “You want to know what I wanted?”

  “Tell me what you wanted.” She nodded, still breathless from their kiss and the resurrection of the gut-wrenching emotion that had never been fully laid to rest in this alleyway.

  “I wanted to never, ever let you go again. That’s what I wanted that night.”

  “Well, it looks like we both got what we wanted, because I would never, ever let that ferry sail without you.”

  “Yeah, well, you know what that means, right?” Aiden brushed the hair from her face.

  “What?”

  “It means you’re stuck with me. Forever and a day.”

  Mission accomplished. She smiled up at her handsome man.