KEEP YOUR LOVE FOR ETERNITY
For generations, couples have been coming to Eternity, Massachusetts, to exchange wedding vows. Legend has it that those married in Eternity's chapel are destined for a lifetime of happiness. And the townsfolk are more than willing to help keep the legend intact.
ETERNITY…where dreams can come true.
Singer Kerry Muldoon knew she was made of bigger stuff than doing wedding gigs in Eternity. With a boost from sexy recording exec Judd Roarke, she was quickly on the road to stardom. Kerry was grateful for Judd's helping hand…but it was lonely at the top. Suddenly fame and fortune were not enough-she wanted Judd, too!
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1
WHITNEY HOUSTON said it all.
On Independence Day, Kerry Muldoon faced the ocean, planted her toes in the sand and belted out Whitney’s “One Moment in Time.”
As the early-morning fog swirled around her, she imagined that it was manufactured fog and she was singing on a stage before an audience of thousands. Because now fame was within reach. Her one moment in time was at hand. Today she would be discovered by Judd Roarke.
Kerry finished the song and bowed, accepting the polite applause of the surf, the bleating cheer of the foghorn and the encouraging calls of the gulls. “Thank you.” She spoke into an imaginary microphone held in one hand and tossed back the cascade of dark hair the dampness had turned into a riot of curls.
She’d learned long ago that the northeast end of the beach outside of Eternity, Massachusetts, made a perfect rehearsal hall. The old lighthouse standing sentinel on a rocky promontory at the end of the strand was uninhabited, and early-morning joggers seemed to prefer the stretches closer to town. She could sing as loud as she wanted and practice whatever outrageous dance moves came to mind.
“You’ve been a wonderful audience,” she announced to the sea birds wheeling in the air and skittering near the water’s edge.
A flock of gulls skimmed over the waves, sailed in for a landing near her feet and immediately began squawking at her. She’d rehearsed here so many mornings they knew the routine. “Greedy, aren’t you?” After pulling a crust of bread from the pocket of her shorts, she tossed pieces of it to the birds, who squabbled over the offering. Wondering how she should make her pitch to Judd Roarke, she watched as one large gray-and-white gull with an attitude hogged most of the crumbs.
Kerry cleared her throat and addressed the aggressive gull. “Mr. Roarke, sir—” the bird ruffled his feathers and stared at her “—I’d give anything for a contract with Lighthouse Records…. Well, not exactly anything.” Now she spoke out of the side of her mouth to a sandpiper nearby. “You have to be careful with these crafty old goats.”
The sandpiper cocked its head as if to question her evaluation.
“Okay, I haven’t met him. But it so happens I’m giving piano lessons to his daughter, Rachel, who’s up here for the summer with her grandparents. And I’ll just bet he shipped her off for a couple of months so he could seduce some Manhattan mama.”
The gull croaked and stalked away.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend you, Mr. Roarke, sir. I have no right to tell you how to live your life, I’m sure. But I do hope you plan to attend the Fourth of July concert this afternoon on Soldier’s Green. Because I’m gonna knock your socks off.”
Shoulders hunched, the gull glanced back.
“You don’t believe it? Watch this!” She launched into “New York, New York,” finishing with some suggestive bumps and grinds as she sang “It’s up to you, Judd Roarke, Judd Roarke!” She spiked one arm in the air, fingers spread, and spun around in a complete circle. She froze, then turned halfway back. Slowly. A man clad only in black nylon running shorts stood about twenty feet away, watching her.
As she met his gaze, he began to applaud with an easy measured rhythm. He was tall, easily six feet, with short dark hair, a nice build and evidence of a recent sunburn. She studied his chiseled features. She didn’t recognize him, but the town was swarming with unfamiliar city people this weekend.
“Thanks for the show.” He walked closer, his shoes crunching through the sand. “I didn’t expect to get first-class entertainment with my morning run.”
Kerry decided to brave it out. “And better yet, the performance was free.”
He nodded. “I would say that’s about the freest performance I’ve seen in a long time.”
Kerry thought about her sexy hip movements and her unfettered breasts under her purple cropped top, but she refused to be intimidated. She lifted her chin. “I thought I was alone. Most joggers usually—”
“I tried closer to town yesterday. In honor of Independence Day I decided to be more…independent.” He gave her a wry smile.
Kerry decided to learn the worst. With effort, she maintained her bravado. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to know you’re going to hit up some old goat named Judd Roarke for a recording contract.”
She flushed.
“Good luck getting it.” He glanced at his watch. “Gotta go. I promised Rachel I’d bring cinnamon doughnuts home for breakfast.” He turned and took off at a steady pace.
Rachel? Her breath caught. No, it couldn’t be. Something that horrible wouldn’t happen. Couldn’t happen. She stared after him and watched the black nylon flap against his muscled thighs. He was probably just a guy with a wife named Rachel.
Except for one thing. Kerry’s stomach began to churn. Rachel Roarke’s favorite treat after a piano lesson was a cinnamon doughnut. Clutching her midsection, Kerry groaned and dropped to her knees. She’d just destroyed her one moment in time.
* * *
JUDD STOMPED the sand from his running shoes before walking into Stella and Allen Woodhouse’s kitchen with a box of doughnuts. Rachel sat at the table, a bowl of cereal in front of her, while Stella scrambled eggs in a pan on the stove. Grandmother and granddaughter looked related, all right. Rachel was going to be tall, like Stella, and her features, even at nine, suggested the high cheekbones and aristocratic nose that made Stella a dignified beauty at fifty-seven.
Rachel’s blue eyes sparkled when she saw the box in his hand. “Doughnuts! You remembered.”
“Sure.” He didn’t admit he’d been so preoccupied he’d come almost all the way home before he remembered his promise and retraced his steps to the bakery. He put the box on the table, and Rachel reached for it eagerly. He watched her take a huge bite and roll her eyes in ecstasy. She looked so young and vital with her freckled nose and sun-streaked brown hair that his heart ached. He missed her like the devil, but this summer in Eternity was a good idea. And, contrary to what Kerry Muldoon might think, he hadn’t shipped her off so he could seduce women. “I met your piano teacher today,” he said.
Rachel glanced up, her mouth ringed with sugar and cinnamon. “Kerry?”
Stella turned. “Rachel, don’t talk with your mouth full, sweetheart.”
Judd waited for the smart-alecky response that had increasingly become part of Rachel’s repertoire. It never came. Rachel obediently chewed and swallowed her food. Stella was a good influence on her—so good it gave him a moment of guilty unease. He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. “Your piano teacher has quite a voice. I don’t remember your telling me that.”
“I didn’t?” Rachel took a swallow of milk.
“She wants to be a recording star.”
; “She does?”
“That’s what she said.” And she also called me a crafty old goat, he thought with amusement.
Stella turned down the heat under the eggs and took three plates from the cupboard. “I didn’t know that, either, Judd. Although to my untrained ear she has the talent for it. She’s singing with the Honeymooners, the band that’s giving the concert this afternoon, so you’ll have a chance to hear her.”
Unless she chickens out, Judd thought. He’d acted on a devilish impulse when he’d dropped a broad hint about who he was. After the assumptions she’d made about him, she deserved to twist in the wind a while. “The Honeymooners?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Their main job is playing for all the wedding receptions we have in Eternity.”
“Ah, yes. The Eternity legend.”
“Don’t scoff, Judd Roarke. Allen and I are living proof that weddings in the Powell chapel here in Eternity really take. Thirty-five years and counting.”
“And I suppose you retired here to get a booster shot of romanticism?”
She made a face at him. “Go ahead and throw your big-city cynicism around. I’m thrilled the legend has been kept alive all these years. There is something magic about this place.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” He winked at Rachel, who struggled, and finally succeeded, in winking back. As Rachel bit into another doughnut, his thoughts drifted back to the scene on the beach. Now there was magic. She’d handled Whitney Houston’s song with a flair that could take her directly into mainstream popular music. Not too many singers challenged Whitney’s standing these days, but Kerry just might have the voice and presence to do it.
He looked forward to seeing her perform again today, assuming she showed up. If she braved her embarrassment and appeared on stage knowing he’d be there, he’d have some valuable information about the character of Kerry Muldoon.
Intuition told him she’d be there. Or maybe he was the victim of wishful thinking. He reluctantly acknowledged she’d turned him on with her hip action at the end of the song. In fact, it was partly the picture of her in those white shorts, her firm bottom thrusting left and right as she sang, “It’s up to you, Judd Roarke, Judd Roarke,” that had caused him to walk blindly past the bakery on the way home.
“Daddy, want one?”
“Hm? One what, punkin?”
She gave an exaggerated sigh. “A doughnut. I asked you two times.” She narrowed her blue eyes at him. “Were you thinking about work?”
He reached for the excuse rather than admit he’d been having lecherous thoughts about her piano teacher. “Yes.”
“Daddy! You promised. No work this weekend.”
“But what about your piano teacher? She’s the one who apparently wants me to talk business.” He knew how Rachel felt about Kerry. Rachel had given him a miniconcert herself last night and had proclaimed Kerry “the best piano teacher in the whole wide world.”
Rachel scrutinized him. “Okay. You can talk business to Kerry, but that’s it, Daddy. No making calls on your cellular phone, no looking at papers in your briefcase, no sending faxes from that machine in your car. This is a holiday.”
“Whatever you say, punkin.” Friday night Rachel had accosted him the moment he’d arrived and extracted that promise. He’d intended to get quite a bit of work done during the three days he was up here, but one look into Rachel’s pleading eyes and he’d abandoned the idea. She was right; they hadn’t seen each other in a month. He’d turned off the phone and left his briefcase in the trunk of the car.
Saturday they’d gone swimming and built a huge sand castle. Sunday they’d wandered through the Powell museum with its displays illustrating the town’s history as an early seaport. At Stella’s urging, they’d also visited the famous Powell chapel. Rachel had been as fascinated as Judd to learn that the tiny chapel on the old Powell family estate, which had been there since the midnineteenth century, had once been a stop on the underground railway before the Civil War. She’d talked for hours about what it must have been like for a slave to hide in the coffinlike boxes built under the pews, and Judd realized she was showing scholarly interests for the first time in her life.
Sunday night he’d played Monopoly with Rachel and her grandparents, and he’d even suppressed his characteristic urge to win. It had felt kind of good to shrug off the CEO mantle for a while and watch how his child was blossoming. Yet jealousy tinged his enjoyment, because she was blossoming so well without him.
Allen Woodhouse, coming down to breakfast whistling, interrupted Judd’s thoughts. The balding sixty-two-year-old rumpled Rachel’s hair and kissed Stella on the cheek. “How are my girls this Fourth of July morning?” He smiled at Judd. “Looks like you made a doughnut run for the cause.”
“I understand some people have become addicted to them,” Judd said with a teasing glance at Rachel.
“I love them,” she said, rubbing her stomach. “I hope we can find a place in New York that makes them just like this, so I can have them when we go home.”
Allen glanced down and Stella suddenly became very busy dishing food. She bustled over and put a platter of eggs and bacon on the table. “Rachel, the children’s parade starts in an hour,” she said as she poured coffee. “You’d better get into your outfit.”
“Okay.” Rachel carried her dishes to the sink and skipped out of the room. “I’ll need help,” she called over her shoulder.
Stella nodded. “I’ll be up in a few minutes, as soon as I finish my coffee.”
Judd looked at her. “That colonial dress you made for Rachel is wonderful. I’ll bet it took hours of work.”
“I loved doing it,” Stella said, settling herself at the table. “She’s my only grandchild, and the only one I’ll ever have, too. It’s been a joy having her here.”
“Sure has,” Allen agreed, blowing the surface of his coffee. “She’s a ray of sunshine in this house.”
“That’s good,” Judd said. “I was afraid she might be too much trouble, or too loud, or too—”
“Never,” Stella said, her voice quivering slightly with emotion. “Never.” She toyed with her eggs and glanced up. “Are you saying that because she’s too much trouble for you in New York?”
“No, of course not.” Rachel’s recent tendency toward back talk worried him, though. He blamed the behavior on new friends his daughter had made in Manhattan, three girls who seemed to have lots of material possessions and little adult attention. The problem had magnified because his trusted housekeeper had moved to Arizona to be with her daughter, and her replacement wasn’t as diligent about supervising Rachel. He’d about decided to look for someone else, instead of having the woman return in September as they’d arranged.
Stella hurried on. “Because you must realize we’d take her permanently in a minute. Now that we’re both retired, we have more than enough time to spend with her.”
Here it comes, Judd thought, the very thing he’d been afraid of. He tamped down his anger at Stella’s implication that she and Allen had more to offer—time, expertise, patience—than he had. “I plan to keep her with me,” he said gently. “I know that’s what Steve and Michelle wanted.”
“Yes,” Allen said, “but they thought you’d be married by now.”
“Maybe, but there wasn’t any condition like that in the will,” Judd continued firmly. He might as well take care of this problem now. “Rachel and I have made it just fine for seven years, and I’m sure we can—”
“But she’s getting older,” Stella interjected. “Don’t you think a girl her age needs a woman around?”
Allen scooped up a forkful of eggs. “I’ll testify to that. When Michelle was about eleven, she changed from my fishing buddy to somebody interested in eye shadow and designer jeans. I hollered for Stella and she took over. Kids are maturing even faster today, Judd. I don’t envy you trying to deal with that metamorphosis by yourself.”
Judd stared into his coffee. He couldn’t argue that point with them. “I
thought I’d be married by now, too,” he confessed. “With my schedule it’s tough to find time to date, and most of the women I meet are ambitious musicians on a career track. They aren’t in the market for a husband and nine-year-old child, and even if they were, I know what their life-styles take out of them. I’m not convinced they’d be much help to Rachel.”
Stella put her hand over Judd’s. “For heaven’s sake, I’m not advocating marriage just to provide a mother for Rachel. Far better for her to move up here with us and have you visit her on weekends when you can.”
Judd’s whole being rebelled at the thought. Besides, his brother hadn’t wanted it. Judd remembered word-for-word Steve’s speech on the subject. Grandparents are fine as backups, but if something happens to Michelle and me, which it won’t, I want someone from our generation to raise her. I want you, Judd, and whoever you’ve dragged to the altar by that time. Except that Judd hadn’t dragged anyone to the altar by the time Steve and Michelle’s boat had smashed against the rocks three weeks after Rachel’s second birthday.
It hadn’t seemed to matter then that he wasn’t married. He might even have resented someone else caring for his newly adopted child. Ministering to Rachel had soothed his grief more than anything else could have. He and Rachel had bonded like two castaways, and the thought of giving her up to Michelle’s parents, no matter how well they meant the gesture, sent cold chills through him.
“Grandma! I can’t do these hooks!” Rachel called from the stairwell.
Judd turned to glance through the kitchen door and up the stairs. Rachel stood at the top railing, her dress askew, her hair in a tangle. Stella left the table to help her.
He sighed and picked up his coffee cup. If Stella hadn’t been here, he could have fastened Rachel’s dress and brushed her hair. But he couldn’t have sewn the dress in the first place, and Rachel had boasted more than once that “Grandma made it for me.” No doubt about it, Rachel’s life would be enriched by having a woman in it who was more emotionally involved than a hired housekeeper. He’d just have to try harder to find someone they both could love, who was free to love them back.
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