Mona bit her lip. She loved Joe. And now she’d have to ask God to make him stay. Talk about heart’s desires . . . she swallowed hard.
It seemed that God was blessing her plans, however. There had been no roaches, no floods, no poison on her grass, no fires, and no building catastrophes for nearly a week. She was setting a record, she thought ruefully. Mona laced her fingers behind her neck and kneaded a stiff muscle.
“I can do that.”
Every muscle in her body froze. Joe’s soft voice drifted on the breeze. “I give excellent back rubs. At least Rip seems to like them.” Mona’s eyes widened as she watched Joe climb up and settle on the boulder behind her. He put two strong hands on her shoulders, gently wiped away her hair, and began to work her neck muscles with his thumbs.
Mona held her breath and trembled. “Thanks, Joe.”She was mortified to hear her mousy voice.
“No problem,” he returned in his melodic tenor.
Silence mingled with the harmony of the waves. A seagull’s song echoed in the velvet darkness. Mona relaxed as Joe worked out the tension in her neck. Rip chased birds, then gave up and scrambled up the boulder. He collapsed on Mona’s feet and sighed.
“Rip likes you,” Joe said.
Oh, how she wanted to ask Joe to stay. It nearly crossed her lips, but he interrupted her.
“The place is almost ready. Less than two weeks left. Amazing how time flies, huh?”
A lump suddenly formed in her throat. “Right,” she croaked.
She didn’t ask him to stay, didn’t offer more comment on his words. He finished rubbing her neck, then scooted behind her and pulled her back against his chest. It almost hurt physically to rest against him, to feel his strong arms around her, and to let him fold his hands over hers. She kept calling herself an idiot, and even more so when he whispered in her ear. “I sure do hope and pray your bookstore is a success.”
His breath was close, and her skin prickled when his whiskers brushed against her cheek. He smelled of soap, jeans, and flannel, and she let herself savor it. She told herself to pull away, but the urge to let him hold her, to trust him despite her fears and inevitable broken heart, overwhelmed her so, it felt almost supernatural.
Tears pricked her eyes. “Me too,” she agreed in a broken voice.
He went quiet, as if he, too, sensed the inevitability of their relationship.
“Thank you, Mona,” he murmured into her hair.
Mona turned in his arms to meet his eyes. “For what, a job?”
His white teeth and crooked grin flashed in the moonlight. “Well, that too, but I was thinking more about this afternoon.” His voice dropped. “For telling me your story.” His expression grew tender, and something in his eyes made her heart thump—hard. He cupped his hand on her face and rubbed his thumb along her cheekbone. “I’m sorry about your father. It sounds like he was a wonderful man.”
Mona’s eyes began to mist, and she leaned her face into his palm.
“My father left us when I was fifteen,” Joe said. His voice hardened. “Sometimes I wish he had died. It might have been easier to know he was gone and left us against his wishes.”
Mona saw a muscle pull in his jaw. He looked beyond her into the dark shoreline. Into the past. “I’ll never forget the day he left. It ripped me in half. Part of me wanted to go with him. The other half knew I had to stay with my mother.”
Mona hurt from the agony twisting his face. “Did he come back?”
His expression suddenly became like that of a wounded animal facing its own mortality. He seemed afraid, and she didn’t understand it. A chill rippled through her.
“I don’t know yet,” he answered.
He had opened his heart and let her peek inside. The realization of that humbled her and filled her with hope. Joe could be vulnerable.
Mona cupped her hand over his on her cheek and couldn’t ignore the delight that filled her when he threaded his fingers through hers. “I’m so sorry, Joe.”
His gaze touched hers, and she saw his emotions fill his eyes before he had a chance to hide them. Mona’s mouth went dry and her pulse jumped. The moment was now. She would ask him and maybe he would stay. He brought such life to the Footstep . . . the place would be barren without him. Yes, he could stay and—
Joe slid his other hand behind her neck and entwined it in her hair.
She scrambled to find the words to voice her request. His eyes roamed her face, caressed her eyes, her forehead, her nose, and stopped at her mouth. The question lodged in her throat as she saw his intention pool in his eyes.
She surrendered without hesitation.
He whispered her name just as his lips brushed against hers. His kiss was tentative, not demanding, and devastatingly gentle. Mona melted against him. He made a soft noise in the back of his throat, making her entire body tingle. Yes, this is what she’d been waiting for—the tingle, the peace. He wound his arm around her neck, and she sank into his safe embrace.
As his kiss deepened, so did her understanding that indeed she would not have to ask him to stay . . . he was already counting on it.
23
They’re here!” Mona’s delighted whoop shook the rafters, and her dash through the dining room rattled the cups Joe was stacking under the coffee bar.
How she heard the UPS truck from the kitchen was a marvel. Joe couldn’t hear anything but Handel blaring through the house on her new stereo system. Anything, even Conway Twitty, would have been an improvement. But when he suggested a change, he’d been on the receiving end of one of her famous sour looks and he’d backed away, hands up.
She’d grinned playfully, however, immediately icing the bruise with concession. “I found an Alabama album at your favorite hangout—the Goodwill. We’ll try it after ‘Water Music’ is finished.”
Joe had laughed also, but it was a facade, and every time he noticed the twinkle in her eyes, shame stabbed him. He’d spied on her all morning, listening to her hum and watching a contented smile grace her face, and through it all, guilt played him like a bass drum in a parade.
He had no right to kiss her. He wasn’t prepared to make the commitment that should accompany last night’s passionate kiss. Commitment? He had yet to tell her his real name! He’d woven such a web of lies he didn’t know where to start untangling them. He’d tossed the night away, calling himself all brands of idiot. Somehow he’d let the tender closeness of her body nestled in his arms crumble his resolve, leading them both down a path he could never journey. A condemning voice had screamed at him, trying to yank him back, but the sweetness of her kiss and the heady perfume of her unmitigated trust had drowned it to oblivion.
If he could only find a way to make the unspoken promise he’d given her through his kiss a reality and spend the rest of his life with her. If only he could find a way to confess to every lie he’d told.
She’d be furious.
And wouldn’t that put a nice touch on their last days together? His deceit would surely make her jump into his arms.
If only time didn’t loom above them.
If only he’d told Mona the truth the first day.
Mona skipped by him, joy written on her face as she lugged in the first box. Her green eyes sparkled.
“They’re here!”
Joe nodded, grinning. She looked like a kid at Christmas. And he was the Grinch. Dread’s cold fist wound around him even as he walked onto the porch to help the deliverymen.
An hour later she was outside signing for the delivery when the telephone rang. Joe thumped down the last heavy box, probably filled with gold bars, on a tall stack and leaned out the window. “Mona, your phone is ringing!”
“Answer it for me!”
He found the cord and followed it to the base. The cordless unit wasn’t on the stand. The phone continued to ring as Joe sifted through papers, boxes, and eventually dove for the other phone in the kitchen. “Hello?”
“I knew I could find you.”
His heart plummeted to his
knees. He winced and considered slamming down the receiver, ripping the cord from the wall. The voice on the other end gave a shrill laugh.
Joe gulped back panic. “How did you find me?”
“Oh, c’mon. Who helped you hide your little brother up there in the woods? The new director seems very nice. Helpful.”
“Gabe’s not hiding,” Joe growled. He looked around, praying that Mona wouldn’t walk in.
“Yeah, but you obviously are. You’re late. We expected to hear from you two weeks ago. I don’t like having to track you down. That’s not our deal. What’s going on?” The voice turned dark. “Please tell me you have something cooked up for me.”
“We’ll discuss it when I see you,” Joe whispered. This was not the time to face his failure . . . and the consequences. He’d done a pretty good job of dodging his responsibilities for the past three weeks. Too good. But now, showing up without the goods he promised seemed the least of his problems.
“I certainly hope you’re not going to let us down. You know we invested the farm on your word.”
Joe rubbed the back of his neck and stared out the kitchen window at Liza, busy at work in her pottery shed. “Just give me a few more days. I’ll be there.”
“You’ve got one week, pal. One week. Don’t disappoint me. And you keep your pretty face out of the news, hear me?”
“Like a siren.”
The line clicked off and Joe pressed the receiver to his forehead, fighting back a swell of frustration. As if to add fuel to his rising panic, he looked down on the counter and noticed a brochure topping the stack of mail. Try the Garden for fresh strawberries it read.
He grabbed the advertisement and shoved it into a drawer just as Mona sauntered into the room. “Who was on the telephone?”
Joe shook his head, trying to force words past the knot in his throat. “Wrong number.”
He lied. It seemed like such a little one in the face of all the betrayals of the past month. But this one stung, driving home the awful reality of the nightmare he’d created.
As Mona went into the living room, he replaced the phone and braced both hands on the counter. Like the climax of a bad Western, he had villains ambushing him on all fronts, and the hanging at high noon felt only minutes away.
“I’m going out for a walk,” he hollered, not waiting for Mona’s reply before he slipped out the back door.
The last thing he wanted was for her to see him cry.
The sun turned her hair to gold, and Mona had such a whimsical look on her face, it nearly made Joe turn right around and head back out to the beach for another hour of pacing and stone skipping. As it was, he barely felt able to saunter into the Footstep with a forced smile.“Do you plan on selling these books warehouse-style, or are you actually going to use the bookshelves you ordered?” he teased.
Surrounded by boxes, she looked up from her cross-legged position on the floor. It tickled Joe to see her startled expression—like a child caught stealing cookies. She’d tucked her hair haphazardly behind her ear, and she looked deliciously rustic in worn brown leggings and a green-and-brown flannel shirt.
He felt something inside him go weak. He should leave now—today. In a week he’d be helpless. Even now, only his boss’s voice in his ears made him sift through fantasy to see the brutal truth: he had dues to pay, and he couldn’t do it in Deep Haven.
“What are you reading?” he asked, crouching beside her.
She grinned sheepishly. “Mitford.”
He resisted the impulse to run his fingers along an errant strand of golden hair and instead folded his hands between his knees. “I suppose a person who owns a bookstore would read a lot.”
Mona closed the book on her lap, then rubbed the cover gently. “I love books. They’re like a piece of my life I haven’t lived yet. I could live forever on a desert island, surrounded by my favorite authors—C. S. Lewis, Dickens, Austen.”
“What about today’s authors—John Grisham, Tom Clancy, or Mary Higgins Clark?”
Mona set the book down, pushed up her flannel sleeves, and dove elbow deep into the box, as if digging for clams. She pulled out a stack of paperbacks by John Grisham. “Yep, like them too.”
Joe laughed. “Give me a knife. I’ll help.”
She’d ordered everything—suspense thrillers, biographies, military operations, even romances. Mona opened boxes and directed Joe until they had built a maze of books towering around the room. She was counting a stack of Jack Higgins spy thrillers when Joe stole up behind her, a paperback copy of Clancy’s Politika in hand, and tagged her. “You’re it,” he said, cutting behind a stack of boxes.
She turned, and he recognized the expression on her face—from the beach and at the Kettle. He had started a war. Mona faked, then charged. Joe darted behind a row of Minnesota coffee-table books, but Mona snared a copy of Lake Wobegon Days and tagged him. Unfortunately, she also nudged a wall of books. They shuddered like a building on the San Andreas fault.
“Yipes!” Mona dove for the stack and wrapped her arms around the top layer.
Joe wrapped his arms around her. “Yipes,” he echoed softly. She felt so small and tender in his arms. A perfect fit. The fragrance of soft flannel and fresh lilac surrounded him, and suddenly a feeling so right it could only be peace washed over him. Overwhelmed, he gasped and sprang away as if he’d been stung.
Mona turned with a frown, and he caught the hurt in her eyes.
What was wrong with him? One minute leading her on with gentle kisses, the next treating her as if she were covered in burrs. What a cad. Blowing out a breath, he said, “Let me help you put these away.”
Mona turned her back to him.
A crisp silence prickled the room.
“Please put the coffee-table books over there,” she said tentatively, pointing to the walnut table.
Joe obeyed like a servant.
Moments later, when Liza popped her clay-streaked face into the room and invited them into her studio for a look-see, Joe silently thanked Mona’s best friend for the profoundly needed intermission.
Mona watched Joe’s back as he followed Liza to her workshop. Minutes before she’d been inside his arms. Then all at once he’d dropped her as if she had leprosy.
Joe praised Liza’s latest creation, a vase with a wilting, wide lip. He blew out a long whistle. “You’re really talented, Liza.”
Mona suddenly wished she knew how to do something besides read and eat muffins. When she turned back to the house, she noticed Joe did not follow. Her eyes burned, but she refused to cry. Maybe she’d been misreading Joe all this time. Was he really interested in Liza? Or was he using Mona like he used all women he rescued from floods and roaches? Maybe he was some sort of playboy, stealing kisses from every woman he worked for. A sick feeling welled in her stomach.
She had been a fool to open her heart to him. She should have known better than to let him in her life, starting with the minute he appeared a month ago, looking devastatingly handsome and dripping mud all over her dining room.
She should have known there was no man for her. At least no man in the flesh.
“Pizza on the house!”
Mona bristled, hearing Joe thump down his steps two at a time. He skidded into the kitchen.
“Pizza!” he hollered again.
Mona was curled up at the bottom of the stairs, halfway through a current best-seller. She glued her eyes to the page despite the fact that the words were blurry.
Joe clomped into the room. Out of the corner of her eye Mona noticed his clean boots. “Did you hear me?I was offering free pizza.”
Mona peeked up at him, took note of his boyish, lopsided grin, and something twisted inside her. “Take Liza.”
Joe’s smile vanished. “I was hoping I could take you.”
Mona fixed her eyes back on her book and bit the inside of her lip.
“What are you reading?” Joe hunkered down beside her.
Go away, Joe. His cheerful voice grated on her nerves.But
she flipped the front cover over. “It’s a book by one of my favorite authors.”
“Reese Clark.” Joe slipped his finger into her place and pulled the book from her grip. “One of your favorites—why?”
Mona’s eyes narrowed, watching him finger her book. He looked genuinely interested and not the least bit like she’d tried to give him an infectious disease. She sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe because his main character never seems to get it right ’til the end. You know, he’s not perfect, just real. And each story is in an exotic location—Texas, Russia, Mexico, the Canadian Rockies. He writes as if he’s been there, and I feel like I have too.”
“Sounds like a good writer.”
“He is. But his stories are sad also.”
“Why’s that?” He leafed through the book, speed-reading.
“Because the main character, Jonah, never really finds what he is searching for. He’s always somewhat discontent at the end.”
Joe stared at her, and a muscle quivered in his jaw. He didn’t smile. “What is he looking for?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’m not Reese Clark, but I think Jonah is looking for acceptance or maybe just stability, like a real home. I feel sorry for him. Perhaps Clark is lost also and is searching for something. Peace, maybe.” She gave a rueful chuckle, remembering Joe’s words. He and Jonah had a lot in common.
Joe opened the front cover and studied the jacket synopsis. “Mind if I borrow it when you’re done?”
“Sure, no problem.” Mona reached for the book.
“Not so fast. C’mon, Mona. Come out for dinner with me. We don’t have to have pizza . . . we can go exotic and eat melting trout at the Portage Resort.” His eyes almost seemed to plead with her, and his crazy cockeyed smile ultimately crushed her last bastion of resistance.
Happily Ever After Page 22