Happily Ever After
Page 27
Mona blinked at her. “Chuck?”
Edith laughed. She sidled up close, as if they were sharing an intimate secret. “Why didn’t you tell me? I had to find out from Mabel down at the dime store.” Before Mona could stammer a reply, Edith winked.
“We’ll just get our coffees and wait.”
The five women purchased five coffees, three strawberry muffins, a bran muffin, a chocolate-chip one, and three copies of Reese Clark’s new book, Canadian Catastrophe, which had arrived only yesterday.
“I just love Jonah,” Edith giggled.
Mona stared at her as if Edith had turned purple.
A shiny, red, antique Corvette cruised up in front. Mona watched from the window as a man, decked out in black jeans and a matching Stetson, headed for the Footstep, a sign under his arm.
Mona’s breath caught when she saw the man stop and prop up the placard in the front yard, then stare at the house. She’d seen that look a week ago in the dead of night as he’d bid the Footstep good-bye. Joe Michaels. She ignored her thumping heart and strode out the door. On the steps she saw another group of women—tourists, from the looks of their Welcome to Deep Haven shopping bags. They seemed in a hurry to get to the Footstep.
“What are you doing here, Joe?” Mona marched down the sidewalk, shocked at her angry tone.
Joe tugged the brim of his hat as if he had never seen her before. “Howdy, ma’am. Reese Clark. I’m here for my reading.”
Mona gawked at him.
“Mona, close your mouth or a seagull will fly in.”
She snapped her lips shut and examined the sign. The answer was written in plain English: Reese Clark, author of the Jonah Series, appearing for one day only at the Footstep of Heaven Bookstore and Coffee Shop.
Words deserted her, but as she glowered at Joe or Reese or whatever his name was, anger simmered. Had she been fodder for his next Jonah story? Had he been here doing research, writing down her every mishap, her secrets? Had he been plotting the destruction of her heart as he held her under the stars? The image of his next book title, Disaster in Deep Haven, flitted through her mind. She hoped it was a murder mystery—who killed the handyman?
“You tricked me,” she finally growled.
Joe’s smile evaporated. “I didn’t trick you. I just didn’t tell you everything. Some things are private.”
“Like your being a best-selling author and acting like a handyman?”
“I was a handyman, remember? I fixed everything.”
“Well, you can’t fix this, buddy.” Mona turned and stalked toward the house.
29
How could the suave, refined gentleman greeting Mona’s patrons be her very own handyman, Joe? Yes, she recognized those gorgeous blue eyes and couldn’t help but melt when they turned her way, but it truly was Reese Clark, best-selling author and handsome enigma casually strolling through her Footstep of Heaven. Bitterly, Mona sandbagged her heart and told herself the man was also a deceiver and a manipulator.
It didn’t help that Reese Clark attracted business like bees to a flower. All the locals stopped by, along with a steady flow of tourists, and Mona discovered why when she read the half-page ad, in bold type, posted in the Superior Times. She had seen the professional picture of a guy in a Stetson leaning on a fence post a dozen times, on all his book jackets, and she felt like an imbecile.
The good news was that she sold out of her supply of Jonah books, even the ones Reese had brought in the trunk of his Corvette, and took two pages of back orders besides. Her muffins vanished at an alarming rate, and the coffeemaker gurgled like a contented baby all day.
“This is a darling place, Mona,” Edith commented as she walked out, clutching a bulging bag of books. “It certainly lives up to its name. I think it is just what Deep Haven needs.”
Edith’s warm words only added to Mona’s quandary.
Liza sold pottery like hotcakes as soon as the locals discovered her creations included a seagull etched on the bottom, as if she were a born-and-bred native of Deep Haven. As her stock dwindled, she compiled a list of orders long enough to keep her blissfully hibernated in her pottery shed throughout the winter.
When the doors finally closed, Mona and Liza dropped into an exhausted heap on the stairs.
Even Reese seemed worn out from all the admiration. “Not bad, eh?” he said, tucking his thumbs into his belt loops.
“I’m not talking to you,” Mona said. She wanted to surrender to gratefulness, but the sting of his betrayal bit at the impulse. Gratitude stayed locked inside her tightening chest. She glued her eyes to the floor lest confusion unfurl in the form of tears.
Liza, however, grinned at the rogue. “I’m going to take a bath and order a pizza.” She stood up. “Thanks, Joe . . . uh . . . I mean, Reese.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Actually it is Joe. Or, really, Jonah.”
Both women gaped at him.
“Reese is my pen name. Jonah Michaels—” he thumped his chest—“that’s me.”
“You named your character after yourself?” Liza gasped.
“It seemed to fit at the time.”
“I might need some chocolate-chip ice cream too,” Liza muttered and headed upstairs.
Mona felt as if her heart had been yanked into her throat. Joe was Jonah. The comparison was so obvious now that she must have been blind not to see it. Or perhaps she had been so obsessed with making her dreams come true that she failed to see when God brought one walking right through her front door.
Jonah was real. . . .
Joe toed his black cowboy boot into the shiny wood floor, avoiding her eyes, as if he had just handed her his heart and now waited for her to pummel it.
“I have something of yours,” she offered quietly, her anger peeling off at his palpable discomfort. Mona fled to her room and grabbed his journal from her nightstand. Shame seeped through her. She’d had no right to read it, and when she handed it back to him, she saw the question flicker in his eyes. “Yes, I read it,” she admitted. “I’m sorry.”
He winced. “It’s okay.”
They stood there for a moment, he blowing out painful sighs and she rubbing her cashmere-covered arms.
“I know about Gabe, Joe.”
That seemed to knock the wind from him, for he gave her a look so desperate, her last embers of irritation died. He opened his mouth, but no words emerged.
“He’s a wonderful man. I bought all my strawberries from the Garden.” She smiled with compassion.
Chagrin colored Joe’s face in the form of a blush. “I’m sorry, Mona. I should have introduced you to him.”
“Did you think the fact that he has Down syndrome would matter to me? That I would love him any less?”
“It mattered to my father,” he answered bluntly. “He left us because of Gabe.”
Pity swelled inside her. “Well, I wouldn’t leave. I would trust the Lord and find a way to see His blessings.” She tightened her gaze. “Would you leave?”
He paused, stared at the floor. “I did. I ran away from Gabe and all the pain my father left behind.” When he looked up, his agony wrenched out her heart. “I was afraid to get close toGabe, to my father . . . to you.”
She put a hand on his arm. “Joe,” she said tenderly, “why did you leave?”
He stiffened. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Mona frowned.
“You said you loved Jonah for his honesty.” Joe’s voice grew ragged. “But I was living here, deceiving you with every slam of my hammer. I knew when you said that, you could never forgive me.”
His face reddened, and he looked away as he continued. “I even came here at first thinking I might be able to write another Jonah story. Something about Jonah saving a young woman’s dreams. But it didn’t take long before I didn’t want it to be just a story. I didn’t want it to be something I dreamed up, watching from afar. I wanted Joe to be your hero, and I wanted . . .” His voice trailed off to nothing, and Mona bit her lip to keep from crying. “But I
know now that I was just fooling myself.”
Tears pushed into Mona’s eyes. Bravely, she stole closer. “If God can forgive me for killing my father, and you can forgive me for blaming you for the Footstep disasters, I think I can forgive you for pretending you’re a handyman.”
“I am a handyman,” he returned, and she caught a mischievous, grateful spark in his eye.
Mona hurled him a semi-cross scowl. “And a best-selling author—only my favorite, I might add—and you knew it!” She clamped her hands on her hips, feeling a swell of sickness in her chest. “You were probably rolling over inside with laughter when I told you my impression of Reese.”
Joe shook his head. “Mona, most women I meet see Reese Clark, author and recluse, and think they know me. They know the author, the image they want, and that’s whom they run after. You, on the other hand, accepted me, Joe, with all my quirks and imperfections. You didn’t run after me. You just let me be who I needed to be. Who I desperately wanted to be.” His voice dropped. “I wasn’t laughing at you; I was seeing myself through your eyes.”
His tender voice soothed the pain around her heart. Besides, how could she doubt the sincerity in those disarming blue eyes? “So, it was you I met last fall at the Mall of America?”
“Yep.” He looked so mournful it reminded her of Rip hiding from her after he’d tracked mud through the house.
She suddenly wanted to laugh. “Did you follow me here?” she asked, stifling the urge to laugh.
“No! That was purely God’s doing. But it didn’t take me long to remember where I’d first met that delicious smile or seen that dirt-streaked face.”
Mona glowered at him in mock fury.
“I didn’t set out to deceive you,” he said, abruptly serious. “I was just trying to keep things simple. I thought if you met Gabe and found out who I was, and that I had a passel of fans who might invade your life, you’d send me packing. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.” He rubbed a hand behind his neck. “In fact, I prayed that when I showed up I would be a blessing to you.”
“You have been a blessing, Joe,” Mona affirmed softly and felt a blush creep up her neck. Staring at the floor, she folded her hands. Oh, how she wanted to pull his hand into hers, feel the gentle warmth of his touch again. But she held herself back. What if, now that he was a big star, he really was here for only one day? What if he’d come back out of guilt, or worse, out of pity? Tears burned her eyes.
As if to confirm her rampaging doubts, he turned abruptly. “I’m glad I could help you, Mona.”
Oh no. It was just as she suspected. Pity. Her Jonah was walking right out the door, possibly forever. “Joe,” she blurted, “why did you come back?” Oh, please let me be wrong. Please let him have come back because he, too, stared at the ceiling every night, listening to the despairing groan of his broken heart.
He swallowed hard, as if working up the truth, and she heard the echo of her fears.
Joe finally met her gaze. His eyes blazed with an inferno of unspoken emotions so warm it made her mouth dry. “I wanted to help you. It seemed you were trying so hard, and I wanted it to work for you. I heard about your problem through my publicist and knew God wanted me to come back. I realized then that He’d given me a gift—a successful writing career. I could either hide from it or use it to help you.”
“Oh.” It was worse than pity. Joe had reverted back to handyman mode . . . fixing the black holes in her life, but this time doing it by flexing his author muscles. It didn’t have anything to do with romance or the love she thought she’d felt emanating from his warm smile as he’d helped her build her dreams. “Thank you,” she said through her knotted chest.
He tugged his hat, as if he had just walked her across the street, and turned toward the door.
Mona’s heart made a tiny whimper. Please don’t go. Her pride might be slashed to smithereens, but she couldn’t let him leave. Here he was, back in the Footstep of Heaven, practically hand-delivered by the Lord, and there was no way she was going to let him stroll out of her life. Not when she thought she’d seen their future written in his smoldering eyes. So his words had stabbed at her heart . . . Jonah had walked through her front door. It seemed impossible, glorious, and suddenly she heard Joe’s words like a siren in her head. God wanted me to come back.
God had given her everything—her forgiveness, her Footstep, and her Jonah right off the pages. She wouldn’t let Joe run away. Not if her love could bring him home.
“Joe, did you mean what you wrote about me?”
He whirled, and the look on his face made her want to cry. Achingly raw and desperate. “I meant it.”
“Then let me finish the story for you,” Mona whispered. “Jonah stops running. He finds the woman of his dreams in some tiny town and decides he’s going to have to risk someone invading the privacy of his heart . . .just like the rest of us.”
An odd look filtered into Joe’s eyes. Mona swallowed her heart, which had lodged in her throat, squarely cutting off her air supply.
A smile spread across his face. “I like it.”
“I love you, Joe. Don’t leave.” Summoning her courage, Mona nudged closer, nearly into his arms.
Joe’s eyes searched hers, piercing, intimate, testing her words. He reached out and traced her cheek with his fingers, sending a ripple down Mona’s spine and igniting every nerve ending.
“I love you too.” His voice trembled when he spoke. “You’re all I’ve been thinking about this last week, you and the Footstep and Gabe. . . .” He closed his eyes, obviously fighting a wave of emotion.
Mona waited, her pulse nearly flinging her into his arms, longing to comfort, to soothe. Instead she leaned her head into his hand as it cupped her cheek.
“Mona, after I left you, I went to see my father.”
She saw his face change subtly, like the effect of the sun moving from behind a cloud through a thick forest. His emotions, once hooded, began to shine. Passion swept through his voice. “I told him I forgave him for leaving us, and when I did it . . . okay, here goes—I felt like I could breathe again. Suddenly I had all these places in my heart that were wide open . . .” His eyes roamed her face. “And just waiting for you to move in.” He cradled her face with both hands, causing her entire body to quiver.
“Mona, I’ve loved you almost since the first day I met you. Your crazy, wonderful dreams make me want to put down roots and build a life here in Deep Haven. I don’t care if I get hurt, or if something happens and you leave me. I’ll take the risk if you’ll let me love you. Let me fix all your broken pipes, your leaky roof, mow your lawn. I don’t even have to write anymore. Not one word. I just want to be with you. I’ll be your handyman. Forever.” He swallowed, and she felt his nervousness strum through her. “Mona Reynolds, will you marry me?”
She went weak. “Marry Jonah?” she teased in a shaky voice. “I’d be the envy of women across the world.” Her head spun. Marry Jonah . . . her dream man?
He held her gaze with those beautiful eyes that could turn her bones to jelly. “Yes, marry Jonah. Marry me. I can’t promise that it will be easy. We’ll always have people peering into our lives. But I think, with you beside me, I can bear it. Will you share my world and let me into yours?”
Mona nodded, unable to speak, to breathe, to do anything but let her tears flow.
When he gave her a tender smile, she could have danced to the music in it. Then Joe bent and kissed her, tentatively, lingeringly, as if the touch of her nourished his soul. Mona put a hand on his chest and relaxed against him, tasting tears in their kiss. When he pulled away, she felt his body tremble and saw in his eyes the magnitude of his love. Her heart filled with a swirl of joy.
“What about Reese Clark?” she murmured, drinking in the fragrance of his cologne and the intoxicating scent of flannel that always surrounded him. “Your book plots take you all over the world. What will happen to Jonah?” His lips were close to hers, and she longed for his strong, capable arms around her.
She laughed softly. “Well, I might employ your services occasionally. But you can’t stop writing. What would your public say?”
Worry shifted into his face. “Are you sure you’re ready for my public?”
“Mister, I am your public,” Mona said, and a new wave of disbelief washed over her. Jonah’s here, kissing me. “You can’t stop writing any more than you can stop breathing.”
He leaned his forehead against hers. “Have I told you how much I love you?”
“Tell me again.”
“Since it’s okay with you, I have one more book to write,” he said. “I’ll call it Deep Haven Dreams.”
Then Joe gave her a kiss that was so sweet, so gentle, so perfect it sent shivers to her toes. It spoke of commitment and promises that were forever. When he drew away, a lopsided smile creased his face. His incredible eyes, however, were serious. “It will be the last of the series. Jonah has finally found what he’s been searching for.”
He put his arms around her, drawing her close, holding her eyes with a soul-reading look. Mona barely managed to find her voice. “And what’s that?”
His gaze left hers briefly, scanning beyond her and encompassing the bookstore—at the many repairs he’d completed, at her bookshelves, the coffee bar, the oak stumps, the light fixture in the hallway. When he looked at her again, tears pooled in his eyes. “Peace.”
Mona traced the shape of Joe’s crooked smile and wove her hands into his soft hair. Then she kissed the man upon whom she’d come to depend, to trust, to love. The man God had sent to remind her that yes, dreams do come true in the hands of the Author of happy endings.
“Welcome home, Jonah Michaels.”