The Sweetheart Rules

by Shirley Jump

  Pauline choked on a laugh. Esther’s face pinched, but she kept silent and whipstitched at lightning speed.

  “You are terrible,” Olivia whispered.

  “I prefer to call it intelligently lazy,” Greta whispered back.

  “That’s one way of putting it.” She started to turn away, about to leave, and Greta hadn’t had a chance to launch her plan yet. Worldwide domination for the Common Sense Carla column was one mere happy ending away. Greta didn’t give a fig about the column reaching beyond Rescue Bay’s borders, but she did care about making sure one particular princess found her perfect prince.

  “Do you have a minute?” Greta asked. “I was hoping you could keep me company until your appointments.”

  Olivia slid into the opposite chair and crossed her arms on the table. Miss Sadie sat beside her on the tile floor, her little nose sniffing the air, probably hoping for a treat from one of the residents. “Now you know I love chatting with you, Grandma, but I get the feeling there’s something afoot.” She cocked her head. “You’re not scheming again, are you?”

  “Who me? Scheme? I don’t do that.”

  Pauline snorted. Esther tsk-tsked and started back in on her quilting, working at an even more furious pace, as if taking out her Greta disapproval on the thick blue-and-white squares. A moment later, the door to the morning room opened, and one of the candy striper volunteers came into the room, pushing a metal cart.

  “Ooh! It’s make your own pretzel day! I almost forgot.” Esther popped out of her seat, the whipstitch forgotten. “Come on, Pauline, let’s go get a pretzel.”

  “I don’t want a pretzel. I don’t like pretzels.”

  “Good. Then I’ll take yours.” Esther tugged Pauline out of the chair and over to the cart. Pauline grumbled the whole way, but Esther forged to the front of the line. “Hush, Pauline, or they won’t give you a pretzel. And I really need yours. All that quilting made me hungry.”

  “Breathing makes you hungry,” Pauline muttered.

  Olivia laughed at the women’s bickering, then turned back to Greta. “Okay, spill. What’s up?”

  “I just had an idea, that’s all.” Greta put aside her quilting squares, which looked more like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that had been squished into the bottom of a backpack than the beginnings of a blanket. “I’ve been thinking about your sister, Diana.”

  Olivia grinned. “Don’t tell me you have your matchmaking hat on again. I still remember that very obvious sandwich delivery you made.”

  “Brought you and Luke together, didn’t it? And now look at the two of you. Happy as two lovebirds in a tree.” Greta smiled and thought her heart had never felt so good. Eighty-three years on this planet, and there were still days when she thanked the Lord above for rays of sunshine like this one. If the Lord was willing, she’d still be around to see her great-grandchildren born—so she could spoil them mercilessly and send them back to Olivia and Luke while they were still riding a sugar-for-lunch, drums-as-gifts-from-Grandma high. “I think the world deserves more happy endings.”

  “And what about you?” Olivia asked, her voice gentle, her touch on Greta’s hand warm. “Shouldn’t you be looking for your own happy ending?”

  “I had mine,” Greta said softly. She thought of another sunny day, a million years in the past and a crazy-in-love couple too foolish to realize the serious life road ahead of them. Oh, how she missed Edward and the way he could make her laugh when she needed to most. “A long time ago.”

  Olivia rubbed her thumb over Greta’s fingers. “There’s still plenty of time in your life to meet another Mr. Right.”

  Greta shook her head. “There’ll never be another man like my Edward. Besides, I’m too old and too stuck in my ways. Men like flexibility in a woman—in more than one way, if you know what I mean.”

  Olivia gasped. “Greta!”

  “What? I’m old, not dead.” She grinned, then got back to business. The little innuendo had deflected Olivia’s questions about Greta’s love life, thank goodness. Lord knew she had enough on her personal plate right now. The last thing she needed was a side of man trouble. “I was thinking it would be good for your sister to meet a good man. She’s such a nice young lady. Then maybe you could make it a double wedding.”

  “Well, I’d be all for that, but I don’t think Diana is interested in dating. She’s a little sour on men right now, particularly after—” Olivia shook her head and cut off the sentence, as if regretting that she’d spilled a personal detail.

  Greta leaned in, tried not to look too anxious. This was the kind of thing that made for the perfect happily ever after. Greta could write the headline herself: “Brokenhearted Single Mom Finds Love After Dating Disaster.” “Particularly after what?”

  “Nothing, nothing. She’s just had a few bad dates lately, and one relationship that went south before it ever got off the ground.”

  Greta searched her memory bank, cursing the irony that allowed her to remember her first kiss—with Norman Weatherbee, under a maple tree on the playground, a quick, sloppy embrace he’d snuck in on her just as the recess bell rang—but couldn’t remember the name of someone she’d met yesterday. She knew Olivia had mentioned something, months ago, about her sister dating someone that Olivia knew.

  She shoved aside the thoughts of Norman—Lord, but that boy was a messy kisser, all slobber and no punch—and focused on what Olivia had told her before. The memory filtered in, light on details, but enough for her to put the pieces together. “With Luke’s friend, right? The one that was here a while back?”

  Olivia nodded. “They dated a bit. It didn’t go anywhere. Now Mike is back in town for a few weeks, with his daughters.”

  Mike. That was his name. Coast Guard fellow. Greta always had liked a man in uniform. There was something about a military man. They were organized, smart, disciplined, and strong. And even better, employed. Surely it couldn’t have ended that terribly—and if the man had daughters, well, he wouldn’t be all bad, right? If Diana had made a connection before, perhaps she could make one again.

  “Back in town? Oh, well, that is convenient.” Greta said it with the casual air of delivering the day’s weather report. Across the morning room, Pauline gave her a how’s-it-going look. From under the table, Greta put up a hand. The last thing she wanted was for Pauline and Esther to return with their pretzels and prodding. Lord, but those women were nosy busybodies.

  “I can see those matchmaking wheels turning, Grandma,” Olivia said.

  Greta didn’t admit or deny. Always better to plead no contest than guilty. “Wouldn’t you like to see your sister just as happy as you are?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then work with me,” Greta said, leaning in and lowering her voice, “and we’ll force a happy ending on her.”

  Olivia laughed. “Sounds like making her eat broccoli.”

  Greta leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. This was why she meddled—a bit—because she’d learned long ago that you could lead the horse to water, but if he was too stupid to drink it, you needed to throw him into the river. “If you ask me, the problem with most people is they don’t know what’s good for them.”

  Across the room, Harold gave Greta a little wave and held up a pretzel. “Do you want one, my lovely?” His voice boomed in the small space. Conversation in the morning room stopped and two dozen snooping senior citizens paused in their jigsaw puzzles and board games to see how Greta would respond. All the more reason for NBC to bring back soap operas. So folks could get all wrapped up in fictional dramas instead of poking their noses into real-life ones.

  “No. And if you bring me one, I’ll twist it around your intestines.” Greta rolled her eyes and shuddered. “That man can’t take a hint.”

  Harold, undeterred, ordered two pretzels. “One for me and one for my special little lady. Dip hers in a little chocolate, because she’s as sweet as honey.” He grinned and sent Greta another wave, then turned back to the girl behind the pr
etzel cart. “When she wants to be.”

  Olivia laughed, then got to her feet. “From the looks of it, you’ve got a little broccoli coming your way, Grandma.”

  “Harold Twohig is a useless waste of skin and bones. He breathes altogether too much air and eats far too much. And keeps on bringing me things I don’t want. He’s like a cat with a pile of dead mice.”

  Olivia laughed again, then laid a hand on Greta’s shoulder. “Oh, Grandma, I do think you’re developing feelings for Harold.”

  “Better start your doomsday prepping then,” Greta said, and swallowed back her distaste at the mere thought of combining feelings with Harold, “because if that ever happens, it’ll be the first sign of the apocalypse.”

  Ten

  There were pluses and minuses to living next door to the shelter and veterinary office, Mike realized. Pluses because he didn’t have to go far to find something to do that kept his hands occupied and reduced his stress level by a thousand percent. Minuses because being in so much as the same county as Diana Tuttle made him daydream about other things to do with his hands and raised his stress level ten thousand percent.

  The first round of work on the shelter was mostly demo work, which kept the initial costs down for Diana and Olivia. He’d worked out a plan that involved minimal changes, so that their budget wouldn’t be compromised. With him doing the labor for free, there’d be even less expenditures. A bargain all around. In exchange, Diana and Olivia offered to take turns watching the girls so that he could work without interruption—and without the earsplitting temper tantrums.

  “Why do we have to stay here all day?” Jenny tromped along beside him, a backpack loaded down with enough supplies to keep a large school occupied for a year. Ellie followed behind, towing Teddy by one arm and clutching two other stuffed animals in the other.

  “Because I am going to be doing some demo work and I don’t want you guys underfoot.”

  “What’s unda-foot?” Ellie asked, pausing to turn a flip-flop clad foot up and look at the bottom. “Do I have one?”

  “It means he thinks we’ll get in the way,” Jenny said. “He doesn’t want us around.” Then she lowered her head and added, “As usual.”

  “This isn’t a permanent thing,” Mike said to Jenny. “I’m helping out a friend”—though the word friend, associated with Diana, sounded weird and inadequate—“for a few hours and then I’ll get you guys and we’ll go have some dinner.”

  “Like chicken nuggets?” Ellie asked, bouncing in place, yanking the bear up and down like a yo-yo. “Cuz I love chicken nuggets.”

  “Well, those aren’t exactly healthy. I was thinking we’d have salad and—”

  “Yuck! I hate salad. Toma-hos are gross.” Ellie stuck out her tongue, then crossed her arms over her chest. “Mommy gets us chicken nuggets. Mommy likes chicken nuggets.”

  Mike didn’t want to have this argument about Mommy versus Daddy and who made better meal choices right now. Hell, ever. He was out of his depth in this world of Barbies and Legos and questionable choices. He liked his black-and-white military world, where the questions made sense and the answers were clear. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  “That’s code for no,” Jenny whispered to Ellie.

  “You are not helping the situation,” Mike said to her.

  “That’s because I don’t want to be in this situation,” Jenny said. “Nobody asked you to come get us and drag us halfway around the world so you can see your stupid friends and build some stupid shelter.”

  “No, nobody asked me. But I couldn’t leave you guys where you were. It wasn’t…” He searched for the right words. “Wasn’t as much fun as coming to the beach.”

  “Fun.” Jenny snorted. “Let me know when we start having some of that.”

  They had reached the veterinary office, and not a moment too soon. Mike opened the door, ushered the girls in front of him, and prayed the air conditioning would cool everyone’s irritation a bit.

  His temperature shot up when he saw Diana behind the counter. She had on her white lab coat, which gave her this sexy air of authority and made him wonder what she would look like in just the lab coat and nothing else. “Hi,” he said.

  Lamest entrance ever. But ever since that kiss in the kennel, his mind became Jell-O around her. When was the last time a one-night stand did that to him? Mike had made moving on a specialty in his life, especially after the disaster of his marriage when he’d deluded himself into thinking he could stick to any one woman for longer than a few nights.

  But Diana was different—in his thoughts, she stuck to him like glue. He’d slept a grand total of three hours last night, and spent three more hours trying not to fantasize about her. Yeah, not much success in that department.

  “Hi, girls,” Diana said, bending over the counter and giving Mike a peek of her cleavage, which started up those fantasies all over again. “Jenny, later today, do you want to take Cinderella out in the yard for some play time? And Ellie, do you want to help us play with the kittens?”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Ellie jumped up and down, her little feet slapping the tile floor. “I love kitties!”

  “Well, you have to be quiet,” Diana said. “Remember, it’s super easy to scare kitties, and you wouldn’t want to do that, would you?”

  “Nuh-uh.” Ellie shook her head, serious now, and morphed into a patient, still child.

  Jenny stood at attention and gave Diana a smile. “Nobody’s adopted Cinderella yet?”

  “Nope, and she can’t wait to see you. I was hoping you could brush her, too, and get her all ready for the adoption event tomorrow. We want all our animals looking their best.”

  “Awesome.” Jenny grinned. “I can’t wait.”

  “I swear, you work some kind of hypnosis on them.” Mike shook his head. Was he that bad of a parent or was it just that hard for the girls to connect with him? For a second, he considered getting the girls a puppy, then he realized he wouldn’t be here long enough for the dog to get its first shots. There was no way he was dropping off a dog at Jasmine’s. His ex could barely take care of the two girls, never mind a pet, too.

  “They’re nice girls,” Diana said. “It’s easy to connect with them.”

  Yeah, easy for her; not so much for him. He tried to tell himself he wasn’t jealous or hurt, but he was. All he wanted to do right now was get to work. Get his hands dirty, do something hard and physical, and then none of this would bother him anymore. “I better get to work. I’ll be out back if you need me.”

  “Actually, if you have a minute, I could use some help moving something.”

  She had put her hand on his arm to get his attention, and it was all Mike could do to keep himself from taking her hand, hauling her down the hall and kissing her again. It was as if Diana’s touch flipped some switch in his brain, one that went to instant on. “Uh, sure.”

  Monosyllabic answers. A clear sign that Man Brain was activated.

  “Thank you. It’s definitely a job that calls for a brawny man.” She grinned.

  He remembered that joke, from the first time they met. He’d even flexed, if he remembered right. Trying to impress her, like a horny fifteen-year-old. Hell, who was he kidding? He might be in his early thirties now, but the horny fifteen-year-old in him had never died. And every time he was around Diana, that side became stronger, louder, the kind of voice that said he’d bust through a concrete wall just to get a kiss from her.

  “This brawny man is all yours,” he said.

  A part of him wondered if he meant just for this task, or for more. Diana’s held his gaze for a moment, as if she had the same question, then she looked away. “The, uh, delivery driver unloaded the dog food shipment in the wrong place. I need the bags moved closer to the dog kennels.”

  “Just point me in the right direction. I’m here to help.”

  She laughed. “Don’t say that too loud or I’ll give you a to-do list as long as your right arm. I always have about five hundred things on my wish lis
t.”

  Jenny tugged on Mike’s sleeve. “Can we stay here?”

  He’d forgotten the girls were there. Forgotten they were standing in the lobby of the veterinary office. Diana had touched his arm and asked for his help, and wham, his brain short-circuited. “If it’s okay with Diana”—she nodded her assent—“then yes, as long as you two stay out of trouble.”

  Jenny made a face. “Duh. We’re not going to do anything wrong.”

  Ellie got out of her seat and spun a circle on the floor. “We’re going to draw pictures for the kitties. And make up songs. And play games. We’ll be good, Daddy.”

  That’s what he was afraid of. Their version of good and his version were two different definitions. He gestured toward the plastic seats. “Stay in the chairs, and don’t touch anything. Nothing. Understand?”

  “I gotta touch my crayons, Daddy. I gotta draw a picture,” Ellie said.

  Diana laughed. “Kids. Smarter than us sometimes.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” He followed Diana down the hall, watching the sway of her hips underneath the lab coat. She had nice, easy movements, and he remembered she told him once that she ran in her spare time, to keep fit. Those miles showed in the muscles flexing in her legs, the tight roundness of her ass, and the easy confidence she had in her stride. Maybe someday they could go on a run together, a few miles on the beach, and then, when they were done and sweaty, strip off their clothes, dash into the ocean—

  Okay. Not a good line of thought. He was here to work, not to let the Man Brain control his day. He needed to stay focused on his goals—get closer to the girls, help Diana and Olivia out, then figure out what the hell to do with the rest of his life.

  The career he loved had begun to lose its luster in the last few days. Somewhere in the midst of all those Daddys and colored pictures and barbecues, he’d begun to wonder just what the hell was so wonderful about living in near-isolation in Alaska. Far from the beach, from the girls, and from here.