The Most Wonderful Time

by Fern Michaels

  Brick framing surrounded a lattice porch skirt. Emma used her cell phone light to peer into the darkness beyond it. There. About a foot from the edge of the latticework, the keys glinted against dark soil.

  “All right, you little bugger,” Emma growled, pulling at the porch skirt. “You’re coming down, because I need that key.”

  She yanked, but the board didn’t give.

  She yanked again, rocking back on her stilettos and pulling so hard her fingers hurt. The dang thing still didn’t give.

  “Darn it! Can I just get one measly little break? One tiny little positive in this entire four years of negatives? Can I?” she shouted, the words mixing with the sound of a car engine.

  Someone was coming. Probably one of the guys from the sheriff’s department where she worked. Maybe Simon or Cade coming to check on her and make sure that she was okay.

  She would be.

  Once she got her keys.

  She yanked harder and one of the boards gave so abruptly, she flew back, landing in a pile of slushy ice that soaked through the coat and dress and the already-torn tights.

  She was up in a flash, shoving her arm through the opening, feeling around for the keys. No dice. Her arm was too short or the key was too far or some little demon had snatched the thing out from under her hand right before she could grasp it.

  She grabbed another piece of the porch skirt, yanking at it with so much force, her shoulders ached.

  Behind her, footsteps crunched on the icy ground.

  Probably her boss. Sheriff Cade Cunningham approached most situations with quiet observation rather than boisterous greetings.

  “Everything is fine,” she called. “You can go back to the office or home or wherever you were headed before you stopped here.”

  Her voice sounded cheerful and light.

  Just the way she’d planned it.

  Hopefully, Cade would turn right back around and . . .

  “Home is a long way from here, Emma,” Jack said.

  Jack.

  Again.

  And, this time she was coated with mud, her hair plastered to her head, her face probably splattered with dirt. Worse, she felt like crying, because it didn’t seem as if anything in her life had gone right lately.

  She didn’t look at him.

  Not when he stood beside her.

  Not when he sighed.

  Not when he crouched right next to her.

  She was afraid if she did—if she looked into his dark green eyes, saw any kind of sympathy at all—she would cry.

  “Problems?” he asked.

  “My truck slid off the road.”

  “I saw that, but it doesn’t explain why you’re tearing your house apart.”

  “I dropped my keys.”

  “I see.”

  * * *

  But, he didn’t see. Not really.

  Because Jack had no idea what tearing pieces off of the latticework porch skirt had to do with dropped keys.

  “They fell through a hole in the porch,” Emma continued, yanking at the wood again. It gave with a quick snap, and if he hadn’t grabbed her waist, she would have gone flying.

  Instead, she tumbled sideways, falling against him in a shivery mass of wet fabric and frozen hair.

  “You need to get inside,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet.

  Her teeth were chattering, and her skin was tinged blue.

  He shrugged out of his coat, wrapped it around her shoulders, pulled the collar up around her ears.

  “You’re nearly frozen.”

  “You think?” she asked, and he smiled at the sarcasm in her voice.

  “Obviously, you’re not as close to death as I feared.”

  “No, but this darn porch will be if it doesn’t give me back my keys.” She reached for the wood again, but he nudged her out of the way.

  “Let me.” He took her cell phone, used the light to look under the porch, found the keys and snagged them with the edge of his pocket knife.

  “Here you go,” he said, dropping them into her hand.

  “Figures,” she muttered.

  “What figures?”

  “That you’d do in three seconds what it would have taken me four hours to accomplish.”

  “Is it a competition?” he asked gently, because she looked miserable, her clothes ripped, her knees bleeding, her face flecked with melted ice and mud.

  Her eyes were the same velvety gray they’d been six years ago. Now, though, they were red-rimmed and hollow, all the humor and vitality hidden by what looked like bone-deep fatigue.

  She ran a hand over her soaked hair and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m in a mood. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

  “Because of your father?” he asked.

  “Yes, but not for the reasons you might think.” She headed up the porch stairs, her dress plastered to her legs, her calves splattered with mud.

  “Are you going to tell me what reasons they are?”

  “They’re not important.” She tried to unlock the front door, but her hand was shaking so much she missed the keyhole. Once. Twice. Three times.

  He took the keys from her hand, unlocked it himself.

  “Thanks,” she said as she stepped inside.

  He followed, stopping in the center of a two-story foyer. Mahogany trim and gleaming wood floors. Hand-carved banister. Wide, curved stairs. Not just a farmhouse. This place was a masterpiece.

  He whistled softly, and Emma smiled.

  “Impressive, huh?”

  “Adam said I’d have a field day here. He was right.”

  “Field day doing what? Seeing it?” She turned to face him, his coat still around her shoulders. She was nearly drowning in it, the wool falling to her calves.

  She looked small and a little fragile. She also looked suspicious. She had a right to be. Adam hadn’t just asked him to make sure Emma was okay. He’d asked him to help organize the collections of antiques that filled the house. Generations’ worth. That’s what Adam had said. He hadn’t been kidding. Everywhere Jack looked, there was something old, beautiful, valuable.

  “You know my family owns an auction house, Emma.” He sidestepped her question, because she was already upset. He didn’t want to make things worse.

  “Adam said you and your brother took over for your father.” He shrugged out of his coat and hung it on a hook near the door. She removed hers, too, hanging it next to Jack’s. She looked even thinner without the coat, her waist narrow, her hip bones and scapula jutting out.

  He was worried, but saying it would get him nowhere fast, so he kept his own counsel and responded to her comment.

  “We did. We’ve got three auction houses, now. The original one in New Hampshire. One in Maine and another near Boston.”

  “That’s fantastic!” She sounded genuinely pleased. That didn’t surprise Jack. One of the things he’d liked most about Emma was her enthusiasm for other people’s dreams and accomplishments.

  “We think so. New England is filled with history and antiquities. It’s exciting to be part of giving old things new homes.”

  “I can imagine how satisfying that would be.” She smiled, lifting an old piece of carnival glass from a built-in near the stairs. 1930s. Amethyst. He’d only ever seen one other like it.

  “Not as satisfying as seeing you put that back on the shelf. It’s worth a small fortune,” he said, and she laughed.

  “Afraid I’ll drop it?”

  “You did drop the keys.”

  “And destroy the porch skirt.” She set the piece down, ran her hand through her drying hair. “And let my truck slide into a ditch.”

  “You’ve had a long four years,” he said, repeating what she’d said earlier.

  Her smile faded, and she shrugged. “Right, and you’ve had a very productive one. You’ve got to be really busy, Jack, so I’m even sorrier that my brother asked you to come out here.”

  “I told you why I came. Adam was only part of the reason.”


  She looked like she wanted to say something. Her mouth opened. Closed. Finally, she sighed. “I’m so cold my brain isn’t functioning properly. I need to get out of these clothes and warm up. You can look around if you want. If you have to leave before I come back down, thanks again. For everything.”

  She didn’t give him a chance to respond. Just turned and ran up the stairs. She was assuming he would leave, of course. That was the way she’d always been—certain that what they’d had couldn’t last. That had been the biggest reason why it hadn’t.

  “People don’t stay, Jack. The kind of love all my friends are looking for? It’s a fantasy. My mother spent years trying for it. She wasted her health and her youth, and she never got anything for it but tears.”

  She’d told him that a few weeks before they’d broken up.

  He’d been annoyed. Not because he’d disagreed, but because he’d wanted to give it a shot, see if they could create something that neither of them would ever walk away from.

  Emma had wanted to take things a day at a time.

  He’d wanted to talk about the future.

  Maybe because he’d been twenty-four, a combat veteran, already wounded once. He’d seen men die, and he’d wanted proof that he was alive, that he had something to live for. Maybe, he’d wanted Emma to be that.

  He didn’t know.

  He just knew that he hadn’t been content to take things a day at a time. Eventually, he’d decided he didn’t want to be with someone who didn’t believe in what they had. He’d told Emma that.

  That had been that. The end.

  Except it hadn’t really been.

  When he’d told her that he’d be around if she ever needed him, he’d meant it.

  He still meant it.

  The floorboards above his head creaked, and old pipes groaned as Emma turned on the water. She must be taking a shower. He walked into the room to the left of the foyer, eyeing thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of antiques. Most of it looked to be in mint condition. Even the fireplace looked unused. Not a smudge of soot on it. Too bad.

  One of the things he’d learned from auctioning off estates: No one regretted living. Not one person he’d ever worked with had ever wished they hadn’t used Aunt Gracie’s fancy silver teapot or sat at Grandmother Maude’s Chippendale table. Memories were built into things by the using of them. It made cleaning out estates bittersweet, but he figured the sweet outweighed the bitter for most people.

  This house, though? He glanced around, taking in the Victorian settee and the Georgian couch, the gleaming fireplace mantel and the Limoges teacups and saucers that lined it. It didn’t look like anyone had been in the room for decades.

  A shame, because the large windows would have been the perfect frame for a Christmas tree, some glitter, a few lights.

  He’d been in more than his fair share of old homes, and he knew how ones like this were set up. He walked through the parlor and into a formal dining room, opened pocket doors and stepped into what must have once been a library. It was empty now. Just an old desk and an older leather chair. Neither of them as fancy as what he’d seen in the other rooms. A small door opened into the kitchen. Spacious and gleaming, it had all the charm of an old farmhouse kitchen—deep porcelain sink, 1920s stove, huge fireplace with bread boxes on either side of it.

  Upstairs, water was still running. He could hear it flowing through the pipes in the kitchen wall. It wouldn’t be long before Emma finished showering. He walked onto the back porch and found what he was looking for. A covered pile of firewood. He’d start a fire, warm up the parlor, get everything ready for the blowup he was pretty sure was going to happen once Emma found out that he had no intention of going anywhere until the house and the property were ready for sale, and she was ready to move on.

  Chapter Three

  She was warm again. Thank God!

  No more shaking hands. No more blue fingers.

  No more wet clothes and stupid too-high heels.

  Emma tugged on soft leggings, her warmest sweater, her thickest socks. She dried her hair until it fluffed around her face with static energy.

  By the time she finished, she’d wasted a good forty minutes. She would have wasted more, but she didn’t feel like spending another second looking at herself in the mirror. Pale skin. Puffy eyes. Colorless lips.

  Yep. She was a winner.

  She opened the bathroom door, hoping that Jack was gone.

  Hoping he wasn’t.

  Truth? She wasn’t sure how she felt.

  She just . . .

  Smelled a wood-burning fire?

  No way!

  The last time there’d been a fire in one of the fireplaces, her mother had been alive.

  That had been what? Eighteen years ago?

  She inhaled deeply, confirmed what she’d already known—someone had definitely lit a fire.

  Someone?

  Jack. She knew it. Just like she knew that if she walked downstairs, she’d find him there. Maybe studying one of the hundreds of antiques that decorated the parlor or the sitting room.

  She walked to the top of the stairs and stood there, breathing in the best childhood memories. Wood-burning fires on cold nights. Rocking in her mother’s chair, staring into the crackling flames, imagining having a family of her own there one day, all of them living in the big old house that would always be part of the family.

  She could remember her mother saying that.

  Funny how that memory had been gone until now.

  But, it was there again—the way her mother’s voice had sounded, the way Emma had closed her eyes and imagined having a husband. Kids. Lots of noise and happiness and joy.

  She couldn’t remember the exact moment she’d stopped daydreaming about those things. Maybe the day she’d heard her father tell her mother that she was the worst mistake he’d ever made, that he wished to hell he didn’t have to be burdened with the responsibility of a sick wife and lazy kids.

  That had been a month before Sandra had been diagnosed with cancer. She’d been sick for a while, tired all the time, in pain from the tumor that was growing on her brain stem. Emma had been young, but she’d been old enough to see how sick her mother was. Adam had still been home. So had Michael and Jenna. The four of them had tried hard to make their mother’s life easier. They’d cooked. They’d cleaned up after meals. They’d taken out the garbage and swept the floors, dusted every fancy vase and beautiful antique every single day. Just like their mother had always done. Just like their father had expected.

  If Daniel had noticed, he hadn’t said a word.

  Then again, he’d never seemed to care who made his life comfortable, as long as someone did. And, of course, none of it was ever good enough anyway. There were always complaints, criticisms, harsh word that rang through the house.

  No joy there.

  No love.

  Nothing but tension and fear mixed with shouts and slaps and slamming doors.

  She frowned.

  Water under the bridge, and there was no way to make it flow backward. Even if she could, there would be nothing she could do to change anything. Her mother had tried. God knew she had. She’d bent over backward to please her husband.

  Daniel wouldn’t be pleased.

  Emma sure as heck knew that.

  She’d spent years catering to his whims, and he’d never once thanked her for anything. He’d never complimented her. He’d never encouraged her. All he’d done was tear her efforts apart.

  She hadn’t thought it could be possible, but he’d been even meaner after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis than he’d been before it.

  But, now, it was over.

  Time served.

  And, there was a fire burning in one of the fireplaces, and something else in the air. Something fragrant and warm and . . .

  Edible?

  No way!

  But . . . she was pretty sure she heard pans clanking in the kitchen as she walked down the stairs.

  God! S
he hoped Jack wasn’t cooking.

  He could cook like a dream, and she could devour every bite of anything he made. She could also sit across the table from him and look in his eyes and remember just how good they’d been together.

  Until they weren’t.

  Until she’d gotten scared.

  That was the truth. She was old enough and mature enough to understand what she hadn’t six years ago. She’d wanted Jack too much, and she’d been afraid of what that would do to her, how it would change her. How deeply it would hurt if it didn’t work out.

  She’d also been terrified of becoming her mother—a slave to her husband’s discontent; an afterthought in the mind of a man who’d promised to love her forever.

  “Poor, Mom,” she murmured, walking into the parlor, the warmth of the room seeping into her bones.

  A cheerful fire cast long shadows across the dark room. They danced over the throw rug and the gleaming hardwood floor, lapped against the cream-colored walls and the woodwork.

  The sun had set, and the ice that had been falling all day had turned to snow, the flakes drifting silently outside the window. She could see them swirling through the dark-blue night, and she would have been tempted to walk out on the porch and get a better look if she hadn’t been opposed to getting cold again.

  She was.

  She’d been cold enough for one day.

  Cold enough for a lifetime, really.

  She heard footsteps in the hall, and she turned, her breath catching as Jack walked into the room. His nearly black hair gleamed in the firelight, and his eyes glowed. He looked older, tougher, even more handsome than he had six years ago.

  He held out a mug, smiled.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “I’m not a big coffee fan,” she said, glad that he’d forgotten. Relieved, really, because she didn’t want to think that he’d remembered that she almost never drank coffee and when she did . . .

  “Four creams. Three sugars.” He looked into the cup and frowned. “I’m not sure it can even be called coffee.”

  “I can’t believe you remembered.” She took the cup, sipped the scalding, sweet brew.