Harlequin Superromance November 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2

by Mary Brady

  He was standing in the moonlight in the kitchen.

  “How could you?”

  He turned toward her but he didn’t say anything.

  “How could you? I needed to finish that work before the end of today. I had to get it done. How could you?”

  “It’s done.”

  “No, I still have so much to strip and clean up to get done and I have to—”

  “It’s all done.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Did you know there was a group of men and women just waiting for you to ask them to help you? Heck, if they hadn’t been so afraid you’d chase them away, they would have done it without waiting to be asked.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mia, you can’t do it all. None of us can do it all.”

  She tore off upstairs and a couple minutes later she raced back down dressed. In the front hall, she rummaged through the key dish. No car keys.

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “I’ll drive myself.” Where were her keys? She raced to the kitchen. Sometimes she left them there. They weren’t.

  She grabbed her jacket and headed for the door.

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “No. I’ll walk.”

  “Mia, stop it.”

  She stopped and kept trying to get her arm into the sleeve of the jacket. Dull anger floated amid the confusion inside her head.

  “You do not understand,” she said through clenched teeth.

  She started for the door again and he grabbed her arm and spun her to face him.

  “You can’t do it all yourself.”

  “I need to, it needs to get done. Don’t you see? I thought this was just a restaurant, but it’s, it’s...” She pulled her arm away.

  He grabbed her again, but this time he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest.

  “Please, Daniel, please let me go.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  She nodded against his sweater and recognized it as her favorite old raggedy one and inhaled a breath of comfort. “Thank you.”

  A chuckle rumbled deeply in his chest and she looked up into his smile. “Now was that so hard?”

  A smile slipped onto her lips. “Immensely.”

  He smoothed back her hair, probably her wild hair, and dropped a quick kiss on her lips.

  She pulled away before she burst into flames. “Let’s go.”

  He made a call on the way to the car. All he said was, “We’re leaving.” Then he pretended that he had made no phone call at all when she asked what that was about. Who did he call?

  When she got into the car there was a bottle of orange juice on the seat and he didn’t pull out of her driveway until she drank it all.

  “Why do I feel as though I’m being manipulated?”

  When they arrived at Pirate’s Roost all the lights were on. She jumped out of his car and ran up to the front door.

  The place was clean. She ran into the kitchen. Not a speck of the old wallboard remained. Even the old sink had been scrubbed.

  The stairways had been sealed off with tape and plastic to keep as much of the insidious drywall dust from getting upstairs as possible. “They cleaned up there, too, and the basement.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Can we close this place up and go back to your house?”

  She turned and smiled. “What if I want to stay here?”

  “I’ll just have to make another phone call. They’ll all come here. If you just let me take you home, they will have come and done their mischief and gone away like giggling little pixies.”

  “Did they really giggle?”

  “There was one big guy with a dark beard and his wife who could not stop.”

  “I’m definitely being manipulated, but I guess home it is.”

  When they got to her house, the lights were on, but then she’d not been careful about shutting them off when she left. Smoke curled from the chimney and once inside the door the definite smell of food filled her house.

  On the counter in a bucket of ice was a bottle of white wine.

  “So you knew I’d sleep a long time and I’d wake up mad and demand to go to Pirate’s Roost. And that I’d be hungry?”

  “I think the bottle of wine and fire are just nice extras.”

  She pulled open the oven. “No way. Millie Davies’s fried chicken and Mattie Finn’s scalloped potatoes.”

  “I believe there’s a coconut cream pie in the refrigerator and a couple of salads.”

  “Mandrel’s. Don’t eat the pie.”

  “It looks like great pie.”

  “It is. Hard to stop once you start.”

  With plates full of food and glasses full of wine they sat on the floor in front of the fireplace and Mia ate the first real meal she’d had in days.

  * * *

  DANIEL WATCHED THE firelight play in Mia’s hair. They had dragged the pillows and quilts out and had nestled in front of the fireplace.

  “Thank you for refusing to take no for an answer. I don’t know how to be rescued. I don’t think I’ve ever known.”

  “Mia, there is a world of people out there who would love to do things for you, if you’d just give them a chance.”

  “It’s hard.”

  He watched the firelight play in her hair and the emotions on her face. “Tell me.”

  She swallowed. “I waited and I waited for my parents to do for me, like other kid’s parents did for them. When I was in fourth grade, I got myself up, packed my lunch and got myself to school before the sun came up so I wouldn’t miss the field trip to the museum in Portland.

  “Other kids got sandwiches and homemade cupcakes and I got whatever I could find to put in my lunch. If I didn’t get it done, it didn’t happen. Eventually, I decided it must be wrong to expect anyone to help out. And then by the time I figured out that wasn’t right, either, I couldn’t seem to change. I was afraid to change.”

  She sat there quietly for a long time, then she turned and studied him.

  “Daniel.”

  “Yes, Mia.” He wanted to take her in his arms and reassure her she was enough, she was a whole and wonderful person. He wasn’t sure he could trust himself with a hug.

  “I know I’m not the reason you need to stay clear of a relationship. I almost wish it was me. Maybe then I could dye my hair or learn to be funnier.”

  He shifted to face her. “It’s just self-preservation.”

  And he wouldn’t touch her for the same reason.

  “Monique called you. That’s why you’re here?”

  It wasn’t an accusation. It was more like the sound of nearly exhausted hope.

  He still wasn’t sure he could tell her or should tell her why he would go away again.

  “Your friend is a very forceful person. She called me and told me I had to come and stop you because you wouldn’t listen to anyone else.”

  “I love her. I made her mad. She never gets mad. That must be when she called you.”

  “Then she said I had to tell you why we can’t have a relationship. She said she didn’t care if I was an ax murderer and a vampire, I had to tell you.”

  “She said that? You don’t have to tell me, you know.”

  “She said I was killing you.”

  She breathed quietly almost as if she might break.

  “I want to tell you,” he continued.

  “You’d do that for me? You’d tell me?” Her expression was open and amazed. He broke his promise to himself and he ran a finger down the line of her jaw.

  “Are you sure you want to hear it?”

  “I can open another bottle of wine if you want more.”

  “No, tha
nks.”

  “I’ve tried to talk myself out of being—um—attracted to you, but I haven’t had any luck so far. For purely selfish reasons I’d like for you to tell me, but now that we’re here, I don’t know if I can have you look at me while you tell me.”

  She turned away so she was facing the other direction, and when he reached for her, she moved back against him and he wrapped his arms around her. She waited for him to start, breathing quietly, pressing his arms into her body with her own.

  “We knew we were the happiest parents on the planet when we got pregnant.” She rubbed the back of his hand. “I was well on the way to tenure. Mandy had just turned down a huge promotion at her company because it would have meant travel and she knew she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

  “Everything in our lives was perfect. We had tried for only two months and we were pregnant, but Mandy didn’t feel well for most of the pregnancy and then Sammy was born six weeks early, but we were still blissful. We had a son.

  “It didn’t take long for any of us to grasp there was something seriously wrong with Sammy. He had a hard time taking to her breast. He didn’t even do well with the bottle, and then the doctors told us his heart was malformed. He didn’t thrive. He just seemed to be fading away in our arms. Then he started to turn blue when he cried hard. The doctors said if we could get him a little stronger they might be able to repair his heart.

  “Every day brought fear and pain for all of us. Sammy suffered the worst, test, needles, big cold machinery, unfamiliar beds and faces changing every day.

  “When he was just two and a half years old, they took him to surgery. Eighteen hours later, they came to us and told us Sammy had died during the operation. We didn’t even get to hold him when he died. He was just gone.”

  She kept very still and listened.

  “One thing they were happy to tell us is we could try to have another baby right away. They could do genetic testing to make sure the fetus wasn’t affected. By then I already knew Sammy died that terrible death because of me, because of something I carry within my genetic code.

  “If I had paid attention to what had gone on previously in my family, I would have known there was a chance of a genetic flaw. Mandy and I could have made different decisions.”

  He paused to let his breathing even out.

  “Afterwards, Mandy and I tried to hold things together. One day I came home to find her bags were packed. She said she couldn’t look at me without thinking of Sammy and she left. No matter how much I told myself our son’s death destroyed Mandy, I knew my ignorance and then my reaction was as much to blame. She was a wonderful, loving woman and I had brought her to her knees.

  “I was almost happy to see her go. Without me in her life, she would be able to find someone else. She had a chance for a complete life. She could have children with another man, healthy, happy children who would grow up to make refrigerator art and go to prom.

  “I can never do that to a child or a woman ever again.” He paused to collect his thoughts.

  “The hardest part to explain is why I didn’t tell you in the first place, why I never wanted to tell you. The mere act of telling you changes you, telling any woman would change her. There is a part of you that will say, ‘It’s all right, we could do without a child.’ I would never ask that of you. Or you might think we can work around the situation. The logistics of that option are difficult from many different angles. I wouldn’t ask that of you. The option to go on having a great sexual relationship would only delay the inevitable.

  “The point being you should not have to choose those things. You should be able to go out and find someone who can offer you the total union of a man and a woman making a baby. I have been there and I know how utterly amazing that is.”

  He stopped, hoping she would hear and understand completely so she could free herself. The fire died down behind the glass doors of the fireplace. The house seemed to breathe and Mia did not.

  He started to go, but she held on tightly. He kissed her hair. “Let me go. I’ll leave, let you get some rest.”

  “Could you just relax? I’m thinking.”

  She stayed so quiet, he started to think she had fallen asleep.

  “So, you failed to know there was a genetic flaw that might occur in your family.” She spoke slowly as if choosing her words carefully. “I get that you feel responsible, but I’m wondering how much punishment is enough. I’m not asking for an answer, but someday please answer that for yourself.”

  She turned over in his arms and pulled him close.

  He tipped back and peered deeply into her eyes. “I’m going to leave now, Mia.”

  “Yeah, I know that.” She stood up and reached down for his hand and helped him up. “Thank you for all you did for me.”

  “There is a world full of people who are not your parents willing to help you. You might consider letting them.”

  “Do you think I can do that?”

  “It’ll take some practice.”

  She gave him a quick hug and let him go. “Will you try to be a little less hard on yourself? And try to find a hug once in a while. Like Mrs. Wahl. Given half the chance she’d hug you. And, of course, they’re always available here on Blueberry Avenue. Heck, buy a couple rounds at Braven’s and you might get a whole bunch of whiskery hugs.”

  He left her smiling, but that didn’t make him feel any better.

  He pointed his car down Blueberry Avenue and hoped it knew how to get home because all he could think about was Mia Parker. She was everything he could possibly want, if he allowed himself to want. He hoped telling her helped her move on. With Pirate’s Roost opening soon, she had a great adventure coming.

  He turned onto Church Street and when he was almost to Pirate’s Roost, he realized there was police tape across the door the way it had been the first day he came to town, and there was a notice tacked on the door.

  He stopped and got out to look.

  The university had gotten an injunction to stop any construction at the site. When the contractor with all his supplies arrived in a few hours, he would be turned way.

  Daniel’s first instinct was to turn back to Mia’s, but there was nothing she could do tonight. Let her have a peaceful night’s sleep. He couldn’t do anything here to change things.

  Her friends would rally around her, while he worked from the university end.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  MIA WOKE UP excited because the world was tipping back onto its axis even without Daniel MacCarey. Today Pirate’s Roost would begin to take real shape. Markham Construction would be swift and competent. They expected to be finished in two to three weeks. She could be ready to serve her first customers in five to six weeks. Woefully behind what she had planned, but the tourists would still be wandering through for several months afterward.

  She had planned to be ahead of the construction company, but there were already pickup trucks parked along the street. They were milling around outside the door. Waiting for her. Oh, no. Bad show for her first day.

  She parked and hurried up to be met with a group of worried faces. Was she that late? They parted so she could get to the door.

  The crossed yellow tape confused her at first. Then she saw the notice.

  “It can’t be.”

  She turned to see Henry Markham approaching. His face was grim when he shook her hand.

  “Ms. Parker, I’m sorry, we have to leave. The supplies will be returned, but the suppliers will charge restocking fees. Please call the office and reschedule when you can. I hope things go well with you.” He tipped his hat and walked away.

  The crowd around her dissipated and she stood alone on the steps of her own building.

  A squad car pulled up beside her and Chief Montcalm got out. “I’m sorry, Mia. I would have called you last night, but all tha
t would have done was ruin your evening.”

  “Do you forgive me for breaking the law in your town?”

  “From what I understand, it’s your town. I would have had a jail full of you trespassers if the university had asked that charges be pressed.”

  “I can’t believe the townsfolk did that for me. Ghosts they were. I didn’t see a single face of the perpetrators.”

  “Mia, you are tough. You’ll get through this, too.”

  She took solace from his words because she suddenly knew this man had been through tough times; he knew them inside and out and here he was.

  * * *

  AS THE DAY passed, the storm of her failure raged on. She spoke with the bankers and all loans were withdrawn. They could offer her a low-fee refinance on her home, but that was all they had.

  Pirate’s Roost was in true limbo. The university had laid claim by the right of eminent domain and the banks could not repossess it until it was released.

  Monday turned to Tuesday and then another Monday and another. The building sat empty. No one visited at all as far as she could tell. No hordes from the outside world appeared. The town could probably thank the university for not putting the pirate news on their website.

  Negative responses began to come back from the dozens of resumes she had sent out. She knew from experience many of them were just shredder fodder, and she’d never hear from those companies.

  Monique had long ago forgiven Lenny and her for not telling her about her granddad the night she fell and hit her head. With Lenny’s help she was coping, but Mia did not give up hope that Edwin Beaudin would return one day and for good.

  Monique and Lenny helped her get through some of the lonely times, but she refused to be what she called a date killer.

  Mia had even watched a few game shows with her parents, and one Thursday evening they played Scrabble and her mother and father seemed to have fun.

  Her meetings at Braven’s tapered off, took on a different tone, but they all seemed to have fun when she did go. The city council had invited her as a special guest to tell them what she had learned. Afterwards, it was suggested at Braven’s that she run in the next election. She said she would keep it in mind.