The Sweetheart Bargain (A Sweetheart Sisters Novel)

by Jump, Shirley

  “Are those kids bothering you?”

  “I. Don’t. Want. To. Talk. About. It.” He said the words through gritted teeth and kept his face averted from hers.

  She sighed. Weighed the wisdom of pushing the subject or letting it go. In the end, the light changed, Diana made the turn, and as they left the intersection in the rearview mirror, Jackson’s tense stance eased and he sat up straighter.

  “Don’t forget to stop at the store,” he said, as if nothing had happened and the world had returned to normal.

  “Right.” But her mind was on her son and what he wasn’t telling her, even as she pulled into the parking lot of the pet store and went inside with Jackson to pick out a bag of puppy treats. She wanted to ask but didn’t want to disturb the fragile happiness in Jackson’s voice when he talked about seeing the puppies. In the end, she let it go.

  Some child psychologist would probably chide her for avoiding instead of confronting, but right now, the greatest thing in Diana’s life was Jackson’s smile, and she refused to dim it.

  When Diana and Jackson entered the shelter, the puppies scrambled out of the kennel and over to Jackson, a tangle of awkward legs and eager noses. They yipped greetings, nudging each other out of the way to be the first to reach the boy. He laughed, bent down, and grabbed up one, then the next, then the third. The trio wriggled in his arms, like he was trying to wrestle a twelve-legged furry octopus. Jackson’s smile brightened, his eyes softened, and he seemed to drop ten pounds of stress and angst off his shoulders.

  Diana saw Olivia’s car parked in the driveway of the house, but her sister didn’t come out. Fine with Diana. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about this whole sister-and-inheritance thing. Diana had talked to an attorney, who told her that she had a valid case if she wanted to fight the will in probate. Diana decided to sit with the information, let it digest before rushing to a decision. Maybe because she didn’t relish a lengthy and expensive legal battle, or maybe because Diana’s heart was softening toward this stranger who was trying so hard to make things right.

  What would Mom want? That was the question Diana came back to again and again. She knew the answer.

  She just didn’t like it.

  “Let’s get their shots,” Diana said, concentrating on the dogs, on doing her job. That was one thing she and Mom had in common. They both found solace in working with animals. Dogs didn’t judge or question, they just loved. She thought of Miss Sadie and Chance, and realized her sister shared the same affinity for furry creatures.

  Diana lowered herself to the ground and laid her supplies nearby. Jackson remained standing. Diana bit back a sigh.

  For months, Jackson had maintained this invisible wall between himself and his mother, keeping his distance emotionally, physically. Hugs and bedtime kisses had been replaced with a sullen quiet. She didn’t know if the aloofness stemmed from normal teenage divisors, or if he blamed Diana for his father’s absence, or a combination of the two.

  “You want to help?” she asked. “After all, these guys are partly yours, since you’re the one who found them.”

  “Yeah, I guess they are.” He shrugged.

  “I don’t think I told you this, but you did a good job taking care of them. They all look healthy and strong.”

  He shrugged, smiled a little. “Thanks.”

  Diana waited, but Jackson didn’t move. She told herself not to feel disappointed, that there would come a day when Jackson would seek her out again, when they could build a bridge over all that stood between them. She fished in her bag for the rabies medication and some needles, while the puppies, unaware of what was coming, frolicked on the floor.

  Jackson sat cross-legged on the kennel floor beside her, close enough to bump knees. Tears burned behind Diana’s eyes. She turned away and dug in her medical bag for supplies she already had in her hand. “Okay, first puppy.”

  “This is Mary.” Jackson picked up the brown-and-gold floppy-eared female. “She’s the nicest of the three, but she keeps the boys in line, so if she gets her shots first, the other two should be more cooperative.”

  Diana raised a brow. “Mary?”

  Jackson shrugged and handed the dog to his mother. “As in Peter, Paul, and Mary? The puppies are two boys and a girl, and when I was thinking about names, I thought about that group. Because, well, they have that song we both like.”

  Her eyes burned again, but Diana worked a smile to her face, and didn’t care that it wobbled. “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The answer, my friend,” she began singing, low and slow, the words coming back like old friends. By the time Diana reached the close of the chorus, two voices were singing the sweet melody inside that kennel, one soprano, one a deep baritone. Diana grinned at her son and stopped singing because her throat had closed.

  “I like that song.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  Jackson kept his gaze downcast, but she could see a smile toying with the edges of his mouth. “I thought, you know, ’cause we’re taking care of these puppies together, that, well . . . it’d be nice to pick names that kind of go with you and me both.”

  “They’re perfect names, Jackson. Absolutely perfect.” Tears brimmed to the surface of Diana’s eyes and blurred her vision. She reached, corralled her son around the shoulder, and drew him to her for a fierce, tight hug. He didn’t squirm or pull away, and after a moment, his arm encircled her waist. He nestled his head in the crook of her shoulder, just as he had when he was a boy and she’d come into his room late at night, wipe away his tears, and reassure him that there were no monsters in the closet, no alligators under his bed. In the soft glow of a Curious George night– light, Diana would hug her son and make his world all right again.

  A long time ago, he’d replaced that night-light with a neon lamp shaped like a guitar. He’d stopped calling out when he had nightmares and stopped asking about monsters in the closet. But in this hug on the cold, hard floor of a run-down animal shelter, the sweet connection between Diana and Jackson returned.

  Some things, she realized, hadn’t changed at all.

  “I love you, Jackson,” she whispered against his dark brown mop of hair.

  “Love you too, Mom.” His voice caught on the last syllable. Then he cleared his throat, drew back, and gave his head a shake, more to erase any evidence of emotion, she suspected, than to straighten his hair.

  “Let’s get these little boogers their shots. Okay?” Diana swiped away the tears with the back of her hand, then grabbed up Mary and gave her several shots in quick succession, while Jackson handed her dog treats and petted her head. They repeated the actions with Peter and Paul, working together in efficient, quiet moves. She admired the way her son handled the rambunctious pups, calming them and keeping them in line. He kept advising his mother on the best way to handle this one or that one. She smiled to herself because she could have been listening to herself in Jackson’s words.

  “You did great, Jackson,” Diana said. “You know, if you ever want to come in and help at the practice—”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  She nodded and decided not to push. She’d asked Jackson a hundred times to come to work with her. When he was little, he’d loved the office, the animals, the staff. But then around eleven or twelve, he’d stopped wanting to go to work with her, opting for a video game or TV show instead. The wall was being built, even back then, she realized, and she had just been too wrapped up in her job and the demise of her relationship with Sean to notice.

  “Sounds like a puppy party in here.”

  Her pulse tripped and she turned at the sound of Mike’s deep baritone. “Here to adopt a puppy?”

  Mike put up his hands. “No way. Heck, I don’t even have a permanent residence.”

  A reminder that anything she started with this man would be over before it began. He was married to the U.S. Coast Guard, and when his leave ended, he’d be gone. Charming smile and dancing blue eyes and all.
A little fissure of temptation slid through her bones all the same. “We’re just giving the pups their first shots,” she said. “Getting them ready to find homes.”

  “I picked up some lumber and supplies.” Mike thumbed behind him. “I figured the least I can do for dashing Olivia’s hopes is to make myself useful around here and get this shelter fixed up and safe.”

  “Dashing her hopes?”

  “I told her that house is a lost cause, but from what I see and hear, she’s determined to keep trying. Luke was over there today, he said, helping her put in some cabinets,” he said.

  Diana admired Olivia for holding on to the house. For not giving up. She had to give her sister—oh, that word still sounded so odd—some credit. Olivia had determination and grit when it came to what mattered to her. A lot like their mother.

  “I’m glad she’s holding on to it,” Diana said, and for the first time since she’d realized that her mother had left the house to someone else, Diana meant those words. “It’ll be nice to see someone giving that house the love it deserves.”

  “Some people are eternal optimists,” Mike said. “Even when the glass is empty.” He gave the metal post a tap, as if adding a punctuation mark to the sentence. “I’ll let you get back to work with the dogs. I’ve got some work to do, to make this place safe for the animals and the people. Hey, Jackson, want to help?”

  Jackson looked at the puppies, then at his mother. Diana could tell her son liked Mike, and knew her dexterous son also liked doing anything that required power tools.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll finish up with Peter, Paul, and Mary, then I’ll come give you guys a hand, too.”

  Mike gave Diana a big grin. “You any good with a hammer?”

  “As long as I have a big target.”

  “This big enough?” He put out his arms, gave her a wink, then walked off with Jackson, chuckling. The two voices, one deep, one still finding its range, carried down the hall, light with laughter. Diana sat back and held one of the puppies to her chest, and the tension she’d been carrying for so long slowly uncoiled its grip.

  Twenty

  Olivia was still singing—badly and off-key, but she didn’t care—when she stepped out of the shower. The delicious warmth that had filled her after she and Luke had made love lingered long after she headed for the shower while he stayed in the kitchen to wait for the pizza guy.

  She swiped a circle of steam off the mirror’s face. Her reflection showed a happy woman, a woman who had taken a risk that she’d vowed to avoid. It exhilarated and terrified her all at once, but the song in her heart overrode everything.

  She’d fallen for Luke Winslow, and fallen hard.

  She kept on singing while she dried her hair, applied her makeup, and pulled on a pair of skinny capris and a V-necked butter-yellow T-shirt. A swipe of cherry-colored gloss on her lips, and then she was done and heading down the stairs, toward the scent of pepperoni and cheese. “Sorry I took so long. I hope the pizza isn’t cold.”

  She stopped. The pizzas sat on the kitchen table, unopened, beside a white bakery box that hadn’t been there earlier. Miss Sadie stood by the door, tail wagging. The new cabinets gleamed, blank oak faces waiting for hardware. Yet the silent room held an air of emptiness.

  Olivia peeked in the other rooms, but Luke was gone. No note, no explanation.

  “Did he go home to shower?” she asked Miss Sadie. The bichon yipped, wagged her tail, then sat down and put up her paws, already begging for pizza crust.

  Olivia grabbed a pair of shoes, then headed next door, carrying the boxes of pizza and bakery goodies. She had no idea where those had come from but had one prime suspect. Greta. Another of her sweet but overt attempts to bring Olivia and Luke together. Either way, the cookies would make a perfect dessert for after the pizza and after more . . . well, more. When Olivia reached Luke’s porch, she paused a second to straighten her hair, then knocked.

  All the way over here, the song she’d been singing in the shower had resonated in her mind, pinging off the happy bubble in her chest. She smiled when Luke opened the door. “Hey, where’d you go?”

  “I’m sorry. I probably should have said something before I left. I . . . I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said. “I was wrong for misleading you into thinking we could have something.”

  Just like that, the bubble burst and the song died. “Mislead me?”

  He had gone back to the stone-faced man she had first met in the yard all those weeks ago. His blue eyes had gone icy, his jaw a block of granite. “I made you think there was a future with me. And there’s not.”

  A half hour ago, they’d been on the floor, making love, sharing their bodies, their hearts. She had felt a connection between them, she was sure of it. Or had Luke just been a supremely good actor? “What the hell happened, Luke? A little while ago, everything was fine and now . . . I don’t know what to think.”

  He let out a long breath and his gaze went to that far-off spot, the one she couldn’t see, the place she couldn’t reach. “If we’d met a year ago, six months ago, maybe things would be different. Back then, I was thinking about settling down after my commission ended. Maybe get a job at the airlines, or as a private pilot. But that’s out of the question now, and always will be. I’m done flying.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’re done as a man.”

  He turned to her and now the ice in his eyes had given way to an angry fire. “I was done the day of the accident. I killed a man that day. I’m not some hero or the kind of man a woman like you deserves. You need someone you can depend on, who’s there for you over the long haul. That’s not me. Not anymore.”

  She started to speak, but he cut her off.

  “You don’t know the man I am, Olivia, and if you did, you wouldn’t be standing on my porch.” He let out an angry gust. “I never should have let things get out of hand between us.”

  “Get out of hand? You make it sound like making love with me was a mistake.”

  “It was.”

  The words stung like a slap. She stared at him for a long, cold second while the world went on and her heart stopped. “Yeah, I guess it was. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think you were different.” Then she dropped the boxes to the porch and turned away, before Luke saw her cry.

  * * *

  As if things couldn’t get worse—they did.

  Olivia pasted a smile on her face and forced herself not to think about Luke. Or about how she’d fallen and gotten burned again. Or anything other than the job she was here to do. She signaled to Miss Sadie to come forward, and to sit.

  Millie sat on the end of her bed, still wearing her pink flannel pajamas and blue house slippers. The sun streamed in the windows, bouncing off the windowpane quilt and the pale-beige carpet. The team had thought taking Millie’s therapy to an area where she was comfortable—her apartment inside the Golden Years building—might encourage her to open up.

  Kris stood in the back of the room, arms crossed, watching, ready to lend a helping hand if Millie decided to try any of the exercises. A quad cane sat to the right of Millie’s hand, waiting for use. Millie could walk with the aid, she just had chosen not to touch the cane or get off the bed.

  “Miss Sadie loves to go for walks,” Olivia said. “She would be so excited if you took her for a walk.” Olivia signaled to her dog. The bichon let out a happy yip. “Did you hear that? She’s looking forward to going for a walk with you, Millie.”

  Millie glanced at the dog, then the cane, and then turned her gaze back to the wall.

  Olivia laid the looped end of Miss Sadie’s bright red leash beside Millie’s hand. “Do you want to pick up the leash? Start there, Millie. Just pick it up.”

  Millie’s gaze dropped to the leash. She shook her head.

  Olivia glanced at Kris, who shrugged. The team had tried about everything they could think of, and nothing had worked. Millie was determined to stay in her dark world.

  Olivia bent down in front of Mil
lie. Miss Sadie hopped onto Olivia’s knees and pressed her little body against her mistress’s chest. Olivia kept her gaze on Millie’s downturned head, her long white hair a shaggy mess, pale-blue eyes downcast.

  How Olivia could relate. She remembered the days after her marriage imploded, when she’d realized the entire thing had been a sham, and she was the one who had fallen for her ex’s forever act. “I know how you feel, Millie. I’ve been there. Not on the same road you’re traveling, but on my own path. At the time it seemed so dark and lonely, like I was the only one who felt this way, and no one I knew could relate or understand. Then I met Miss Sadie, and I told myself I had nothing to give a dog, nothing to give to anyone, most especially myself. But she looked at me with that little face of hers, begging me not to give up on her, not to leave her in that shelter.

  “I couldn’t walk away from such raw . . . need and hope.” Olivia ruffled the bichon’s head. Miss Sadie pressed harder into Olivia’s chest, a ten-pound doggie hug of gratitude and love. “So I took her home. She needed to be fed and walked and loved, whether I wanted to do any of those things or not. It didn’t matter if I was depressed or mad, or feeling sorry for myself. I had to put all that aside and place Miss Sadie’s needs first. This little dog saved me, and she wants to save you, too.”

  Millie raised her gaze to Olivia’s. Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes shone with unshed tears, but she didn’t speak.

  Olivia gave Millie’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m not going to give up on you, Millie, and neither is Miss Sadie.”

  No response.

  “I’ll be back, Millie. See you tomorrow.” Olivia got to her feet, gathered her supplies, and left the room, with Kris following along.

  “That was awesome,” Kris said.

  “Yeah, it would be if it had worked.” Olivia sighed. Every time she thought she was making progress with Millie, she was wrong. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this job.