by Jillian Hart
He wasn’t wrong a lot, but this time was a whopper. He had judged Lucy at every turn, so harshly, so unchristian-like, because of his own fears, because of his own feelings. He was afraid if he didn’t, then he would care for her even more.
Too late. She stood in his highest esteem, and after all he had done, she couldn’t stand him. He deserved that.
“I know what those families are going through.” She said simply through a veil of tears, her chin set and all pure strength. For a petite thing, fragile and gentle-hearted, she was steel, too. “It’s the reason I left Portland. In the end, the memories were too hard. Only Pastor Marin knows this about me.”
“Understood. I’ll keep this private.”
“Thank you.” She wiped her eyes, trying to smile. “Look at me. I’m a mess. Now you really are thinking twice about working with me. Remember you said you don’t go back on your word?”
He saw what she was doing, tucking away the things that hurt. He took her coat and shook it out, holding it for her. “It’s tempting, but I won’t fire you. You have all the notes.”
“Whew.” She turned and slipped into the coat.
Tenderness spilled into his heart, one miserly drop at a time—tenderness he couldn’t hold back.
“We’ll need to get together.” She stepped away, hugging the coat to her as if for comfort. “We should make it as painless as possible for us both. I know I’m not your favorite person.”
“I’ve never said that.”
“Actions speak louder than words.” She didn’t meet his gaze as she hooked her purse over her shoulder.
Direct hit. “Let’s face it, I’ve been awful to you.”
“Yes, you have. And for your information, I didn’t know Katherine had been trying to fix me up with you when I first moved here. It hadn’t been my idea.”
“I’m not your first choice of a man, sure.” He deserved that, too. It was the story of his life.
“No, I wasn’t in a position to think about dating again. Katherine didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t either.” Heat stained his face. He had never felt more shamed or embarrassed around anyone. “It’s what I do, Lucy. If there’s the slightest chance of a woman being interested in me, I make sure to stop it. It wasn’t anything personal.”
“It feels personal, Spence. Take some advice.” The shadows were in her eyes again as she laid her hand on his arm.
The tenderness within him doubled against his will. He tried to swallow and couldn’t. He tried to move away and couldn’t. He was held in place by the connection of her simple touch.
“You’re making a habit of pushing people away and closing them out.” Earnest and sincere, all caring, came her words. She walked away in slow, measured steps. His arm felt cold where she had touched him. “One day all you will have is a heart too hard to love anyone and no one who loves you in return. Trust me. I know.”
How? he wondered. How did she know? He watched, speechless in amazement, as she pulled open the door and disappeared into the hall. There was too much residual noise to make out the pad of her footsteps walking away from him.
He picked up the file folder she had forgotten. How had she known his worst fears? He rushed out into the hall, but there was no sign of her. A handful of people from the meeting were clustered together, sipping tea. A few of them turned to him and nodded in acknowledgment.
Jason Huntley gave him a thumbs-up. They all probably thought he had volunteered to help Lucy because he was sweet on her.
They didn’t know the half of it.
“How did the meeting go?” Danielle asked the second he walked in the bookstore.
“Tolerable.” He scowled, sending one of the new hires scurrying. He scowled harder as the door swung shut with a tinkle of the overhead bell. He hadn’t meant to frighten the help. “Can’t you find someone less skittish?”
“Brother dear, it would take Attila the Hun not to quake when you look like that.” Danielle went up on tiptoe. He winced, and she wrapped her arms around him.
He didn’t hug her back. He wanted to, but how would that look? People would stop scattering when he frowned. The next thing he knew, he would have to start talking about his feelings. He rolled his eyes and put one arm around his sister in a half hug. Then he broke away. “That’s enough. This is a place of business.”
“How inappropriate of me.” She rolled her eyes, not offended, trying not to laugh at him.
She had his number, all right. He was fairly fond of her. He kept his frown in place and marched toward the cash registers.
“How did the meeting go?”
“It was a meeting.” He rounded the counter, refusing to give up any more information. The cashier, their cousin, Kelly, looked up from her textbook and gave him a smile. She was back from California, married and in graduate school now. There was a sensible girl. She never quaked when he stormed by. He tossed her a smile, careful that no one else saw it, as he stalked toward his office.
“That’s it? It was just a meeting?” Dani was smiling by the sound of it as she brushed past his desk and settled into one of the armchairs by the window. “I expected something more informative. Maybe even a show of your temper?”
“I know why you stepped down from being the committee chair.” He dropped his briefcase beneath his desk and shucked off his overcoat. “You wanted Lucy to take your place.”
“I suppose that is one consequence.” Her eyes twinkled at him. “Morning sickness might be the real motive here.”
He knew Danielle. She would never hurt him intentionally. But she was one of the few who had found a happy and loving marriage, one without deceit and worse, and so she looked at marriage through a serious set of rose-colored glasses. “You meant well, but do you want to know what happened?”
“I’m dying of curiosity.” She leaned forward in her chair.
“I’m the committee head in your place.” He tossed his coat over the file cabinet and paused for effect. “Me.”
“You?” She bit her bottom lip and choked.
“You’re laughing.”
“Who me? No, I’m not laughing.”
“Because you’re fighting it.” He wasn’t fooled. It really was funny. He dropped into his chair. There was no way he was going to admit how it happened. That was strictly private information. “Go ahead and laugh. I deserve it.”
“Something tells me you are going to love getting involved.” Danielle leaned back in the chair and crossed her ankles, looking as if she were already picturing the outcome.
Oh, he knew what she was thinking. He scowled harder. “I’m not going to wind up with Lucy. She can’t stand me.”
“Lucy is warm and wonderful. She loves everyone.”
“Not me. I can guarantee that.” He thought of the sadness he had caused her, what she must think of him. He tapped his keyboard, and the computer screen blinked on. “Let’s go over your schedule.”
“Why? You’re not replacing me already, are you?”
“No, but you are cutting back on your work hours. That’s an executive order.” All he had to do was think of Katherine with her feet up lying in bed all day, trying to combat high blood pressure. He should have taken a firmer hand with her and refused to let her work the instant she had told him about her pregnancy. Working hadn’t caused the problem, but it hadn’t helped it. “Your only job will be finding and training your replacement.”
“Spence, you can’t manage everything on your own.”
“I can handle it. What I can’t handle is worrying you will lose the baby.” His voice sounded strained, and he hated that he had tipped his hand toward his emotions like that. He would have to give Katherine a call in a bit and make sure she didn’t need him to do anything for her. She had a husband, a teenaged stepdaughter and sisters ready to run at a moment’s notice, but he had his responsibility, too. “I mean it, Danielle. If you argue, then you are out of here today.”
“Spence, you are being unreasonable. Again.” Gently
spoken, she launched out of the chair and came his way.
He sure hoped she wasn’t going to hug him. He didn’t approve of affection. Okay, maybe he did, but it embarrassed him. He held out his hand, hoping that would stop her. It slowed her down.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.” She sat on the edge of his desk and ruffled his hair. “You’re hopeless.”
“I know. And I sort of care about you.”
“I sort of care about you, too.” She didn’t hug him.
Whew. He relaxed and turned to his computer. “You’re coming in late from now on. No arguing. We have to account for morning sickness. If it’s troubling you, then you stay home.”
“I sailed through my other two pregnancies with just a little stomach upset.”
“You can’t be too careful.” As he adjusted the scheduling, he thought of what Lucy had told him. Four years old. He remembered Dani’s son at that age. Tyler had loved fire trucks and the color red and playing with the garden hose for hours. He still did. What had Lucy’s stepson-to-be been like? Precious, that’s what. Every child was precious.
“No more working evenings.” He deleted her from the schedule. “Too bad Lauren is managing Gran’s commercial properties, or she could take over for you.”
“I’ll talk to her and see if she has any suggestions,” Danielle offered. “She might know someone.”
“And put an ad in the paper.” He tried to concentrate but his thoughts kept returning to Lucy and the broken dish in the sink and the blood dripping from her hand. He also thought about the quiet solemn layers of her depth and compassion.
“Are you all right, Spence?” Dani sounded far away.
He nodded his head. No. He wasn’t all right. He was never going to be all right again. It wouldn’t be all right with Lucy Chapin walking around in the world able to pop into the bookstore at any minute, able to see right to the core of him where no one was allowed.
“I’m fine,” he said, touched that Danielle cared. But could he show it? No.
Lucy was right. It was a serious habit with him to push people away and close them out. He was doing it right now with his sister and he trusted her. He rubbed his hand across his forehead. Thinking of Lucy was making his brain hurt.
“You don’t look fine.” Danielle and her persistent gentle care would not relent. “You haven’t looked okay for almost two weeks. Since Thanksgiving. I know everyone was really pressuring you.”
“Pressuring me? You all had me practically engaged.”
“We were just hoping, that is all.” Her caring was a given. She had always been that way—would always be.
He could count on his family’s love for him. He might not be able to accept it, and he might not be able to show it, but they were always going to be there even if their lives were changing. Not needing him anymore. He cleared his throat. “I know you were all spying when I was in the kitchen with Lucy.”
“You were holding her hand. We were all peeking around the dining room archway watching you.”
He couldn’t stand to look at her. All her hopes for him would be shining there and her beliefs in him. She didn’t know what he had done. Ashamed, he couldn’t speak. He remembered the loss dark in Lucy’s eyes and her wise words. Had she been lost in despair? Had she lost her heart, too? Pain could do that to a person. He knew. He figured loss could, too.
“I heard through the grapevine that you dug out Lucy’s car and drove it home for her.” Danielle was using her understanding tone, as if she had it all figured out. “Volunteering with her will be a good chance for you to get to know her. Promise me something.”
“No.” He tapped the keyboard and saved the file. “No promises.”
“Follow your heart. I know you have one.” She smiled at him. “It might be as shrunken and as black as a piece of coal, but you have one.”
He rolled his eyes. “Will you be quoting Dr. Seuss to me next?”
“Either that or Charles Dickens.” She swung off the desk and opened his door. “I’ll go write an ad for the paper, Ebenezer.”
“I’m not a scrooge,” he argued, but she was already gone, breezing around the corner to her office.
Kelly startled out of her reading, looked up and glanced over her shoulder. “You’re not a scrooge, Spence. Mostly.”
“Thanks for the reassurance.” Did everyone have to kid him today of all days? He went back to his desk. He felt raw inside, and Lucy had everything to do with it.
“It’s Dorrie on line one for you, Ebenezer.” Danielle’s smiling voice came over the intercom.
“I’m not a scrooge.” What was with everyone these days? They had gotten cheeky—a terrible side effect of happiness. He snatched up the phone. “Hi, Dorrie. What can I do for you?”
“I just heard the news. I’m proud of you, sweetie.”
He grimaced. He loved Dorrie, but he was no longer thirteen years old. He was a grown man and had a reputation to protect. If only he could set her straight on the “sweetie” part. He had better just ignore it. “I accidentally volunteered to help with a Christmas project.”
“So you will be busy for part of Christmas. You tell me when you’re available so I can work our family feast around it.”
That couldn’t be why she was calling, right? “Great. I’ll let you know. Is there something up? What can I do for you? Dad isn’t having problems with that right front tire again, is he?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. I just wanted to talk to my boy.” Dorrie sounded like she was one of those hot air balloons floating over the city.
It was Lucy, he realized. Of course, she had jumped to conclusions about Lucy. He launched out of his chair, taking the cordless phone with him and staring out at the snow berms in the parking lot. “Whatever you are thinking about me and Lucy, delete it.”
“But Spence, I’ve started to hope all over again.”
“Don’t. You’ll just be disappointed.” He did his best to stay gruff, but he had a soft spot for his stepmother. “You heard Lucy. What nice woman is going to want me? If you want to marry me off, you will have to find a woman looking for a curmudgeon for a husband.”
“What kind of woman would that be? She might be pretty hard to find.”
“That’s the idea.”
Dorrie started to laugh. “Oh you, you had me going there for a minute. I’ll have you know that I’m praying for you as hard as I can.”
“Good. Then a woman who might be looking for a man in his mid-thirties who is sweet on his ma will be coming along any second.”
“Oh, you aren’t sweet on me.”
“In a distant, fond sort of way.”
“I love you too, Spence. When you see Lucy, you say hi from me.” Dorrie’s loving voice was warm and smiling again.
Why was everyone so happy? Spence rolled his eyes. It wasn’t sensible to live like that. Just reckless, that’s what. Not something he could do. You never knew when and how life was going to disappoint you. Best to keep expectations low so you weren’t sideswiped.
He disconnected and stared out the window. Lucy. All he had to do was think her name, and tenderness winked into existence like blinking Christmas lights. They were everywhere inside the store. Danielle and Kelly had gone nuts with the Christmas decorations. Personally, he thought Christmas hymns over the speaker system were enough.
I’m not a scrooge, he told himself, and if a tiny voice in his soul wanted to argue, he soundly ignored it.
Lucy looked up from her screen to the haze of twilight darkening the forest outside her window. Her head hurt from trying to think too hard, and her heart ached from a day of trying not to feel too much. That’s what happened whenever she came face-to-face with the past. It was best to keep those memories buried if she could.
Bean landed with a loud cat thump on the edge of her desk. The Persian flicked her tail once and gave an admonishing meow.
“Is it that time already?” She rubbed her eyes. Her vision was blurry from staring at the screen
while she wrote and rewrote two pages all afternoon long. Work had been a disaster today. She should have known better than to try to write. Maybe tomorrow would be more productive.
She saved her file and closed her laptop. “In case you get any ideas,” she told the furry feline as she rubbed the cat’s ears. “I know you hate the computer.”
Although Bean understood English perfectly well, she offered an innocent look. The ten-pound cat had mysteriously managed to break three keyboards over the years.
“C’mon, cutie. I’ll refill your bowl.” Lucy eased out of her chair with a creak, she really had been sitting too long, and a flash of light caught her attention.
Headlights came down her driveway. Strange, since she wasn’t expecting anyone and not many people visited her way out in the boonies. The lights were coming closer, and she recognized the green pickup that parked in front of her garage.
Spence McKaslin.
Chapter Nine
She could see him plainly through the windshield. He was the only man she knew who could frown like that and still look gorgeous. Maybe it was the thick fall of his brown hair that softened his harsh features or the rugged, striking cut of his face. Maybe it was his masculine presence that radiated goodness and decency. Whatever it was, she should not be noticing.
His door swung open and he climbed out. He was going to come to the door. Of course, that only made sense, but suddenly it was a reality. She was going to have to open the door and face him. Like this. Yikes! Her reflection in the glass wall of windows stared back at her.
She groaned. I look like a bag lady, she thought, cringing. She wore her glasses instead of her contacts. She had pulled her hair back in a ponytail, and who knew what it was doing? It was probably sticking straight out. Her gray sweats were baggy and had a hole in one knee. They were her most comfy writing pants, and it wasn’t as if anyone was around to see her…usually.