He's Back

by Aria Ford

  “Everything is amazing,” I said. “More than amazing actually.”

  “Then what is it?” she asked nervously.

  “Jacqueline,” I said softly. “I know this whole relationship started in kind of a weird way. Your family and I are so intertwined, and it was complicated in the beginning. But then you made everything simple in the best way. I didn’t know who I was until you came back into my life. The day I saw you standing on my front porch changed everything. You woke something buried deep inside me, something I thought I lost.”

  I took a deep breath and slowly pulled the ring box from my pocket. Still holding Jacqueline’s hand in mine, I got down on one knee and smiled up at her. I opened the box and let the ring sparkle in the light of her office. Her eyes widened and filled quickly with tears.

  “I’m only myself when I’m with you,” I said simply. “Jacqueline, you make me a better man. Without you, I don’t know what my life would be, and I never want to find out. I love you more than I ever knew possible. You’re everything to me: my love, my soulmate, my best friend. Now the only thing left is … my wife.”

  Jacqueline’s eyes were brimming, and at my last word, the tears spilled over. She cried earnestly, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

  “Jacqueline, will you marry me?”

  I waited while Jacqueline wrapped her mind around everything. This was a huge surprise, just like I wanted. When she could finally speak, she nodded and pulled me to my feet.

  “Yes,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around me. “A thousand times, yes.”

  We kissed, and everything else melted away. I didn’t think about anything or anyone else. The only thing that was real to me was Jacqueline. Her lips, her body, and her amazing spirit. She’d just agreed to be my wife, and I couldn’t think of a happier moment in my life.

  When we broke apart, I slid the diamond ring on her finger, and she stared at in awe. Her eyes were still red from crying, but the smile on her face was brighter than I’d ever seen it.

  “Are you happy?” I whispered.

  “Happier than I ever thought I could be,” she said with a nod.

  We kissed again, and then she broke away, just to stare at her new ring. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. I laughed and lifted her chin, so she would meet my gaze.

  “I love you,” I said.

  “I love you too,” she said. “Do you think my parents will be okay with this? I know things are better between you and them now, but still.”

  “Come with me,” I said, grinning with excitement.

  Jacqueline frowned, but let me lead her out of her office and down the hall. We stepped into the waiting room and were met with a thunderous round of applause. Jacqueline’s parents, Bradley, and her best friend, Nicole, were standing in the middle of the room. They were all grinning broadly and clapping their hands together again and again.

  I looked at Jacqueline to see her face light up even more. She ran forward into her mother’s arms, hugging her tightly and then pulling away to show her the ring. Everyone was so happy for us.

  “Glad she said ‘yes,’” Bradley joked. “I was worried there for a second.”

  “Shut up,” I said with a laugh.

  “I’m happy for you,” Mr. Keeton said, extending his hand to me. We shook, and then he pulled me in for a hug. When Jacqueline moved over to show Nicole the ring, Mrs. Keeton turned to me. She smiled and kissed my cheek, silently expressing her joy.

  Things between me and the Keetons were better than ever. I still couldn’t bring myself to call them Mom and Dad, not after everything we went through, but we were close. They approved of me for their daughter, and they were even gracious enough to help me pick out her engagement ring. I knew we still had some progress to make, but I was happy to have them there to celebrate with us.

  Jacqueline came over to me, wrapping her arms around my waist and standing on her tiptoes to kiss me. The smile never left her face. I stared at her, immediately getting lost in the green of her eyes. It was so easy to forget that anyone else was in the room. When Bradley cleared his throat loudly, both Jacqueline and I jumped.

  “Let’s go celebrate,” Bradley suggested. “Everyone in?”

  “Hell yes!” Nicole exclaimed.

  “Of course,” Mrs. Keeton said.

  We all left the clinic, finally together, the way we were always meant to be.

  PREVIEW OF ARIA FORDS BOOKS

  CHAPTER ONE

  Brooklyn

  “Parker! Can you get the phone?”

  I yelled it over the dull whine of the electric mixer as I made a valiant attempt to mix batter for fruitcake. My daughter, luckily, has the great hearing of a six-year-old and heard my request over the din.

  “Coming, Mommy!” she called.

  I distantly heard her clatter down half a flight of steps and the skitter of her feet on the hallway tiles. Three seconds later I was bending down and taking my phone in flour-covered hands. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Brooklyn,” a drawling voice declared over the phone. “Happy holidays!”

  “Hi, Aunt Sheena,” I said, recognizing the voice without needing to see the number. “How’re you?”

  “Excellent, dear. I’m sorry, but I have bad news.”

  “Oh?” I asked, feeling crestfallen. I scraped a strand of auburn hair out of my eye and looked around my crowded kitchen, wondering if one more piece of bad news could fit. I was doing my best—three days before Christmas—to prepare for everything. It just all seemed to go wrong somehow.

  “Nothing serious dear…just that I might have to say no for dinner.”

  “Oh?” I frowned. I wasn’t sure if this was bad news or not. My mother’s eldest sister, a dignified and strangely quirky lady in her late sixties, Auntie Sheena would at once have been an asset and a liability at dinner. “You’re okay, though, Auntie?” I asked.

  “Oh, fine, dear. Great. I just can’t get down there. My car’s in for repairs. Would you believe it? The fan belt or something…I don’t even listen to these things when mechanics tell me. I just let them get on with it.” She giggled apologetically.

  “That’s too bad,” I said, cradling the phone against my shoulder as I lifted the bowl to scrape batter into the two cake tins. Parker was standing in the middle of the floor, making questioning eyebrows at me.

  “Auntie Sheena,” I lip-synched to her. She nodded.

  “Sorry, dear?” Auntie Sheena asked me.

  “Oh! Nothing. Just making cake…” I trailed off as I did a balancing act with the two full tins, carrying them to the oven. It had been preheating for the last half hour, and if I left it much longer I might as well get Santa to pay my electricity account.

  “Oh!” Aunt Sheena sounded contrite. “Well, I’m so sorry, dear, that I can’t make it.”

  “No, it’s okay…” I said, setting the trays down carefully and then bending to open the oven with my left hand while I took the phone in my right before it slid off my shoulder. “You didn’t exactly decide to get engine issues.”

  She giggled. “No. It’s the last thing I’d decide. Well, you sound busy. So I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Oh. Thanks, Auntie,” I said, wincing as the oven door almost did its spring-closed-on-your-arm trick. “Have a nice day.”

  “You too, Brooklyn. Bye-bye.”

  “Bye!” I called.

  I put down the phone, slid the cakes into the oven, shut the door and turned to Parker with a grin on my face.

  “She’s not coming,” I explained. “It’ll be just us, then.”

  “Oh.” Parker, my six-year-old daughter, took that somewhat undecided. She gave me a little frown. “Just you and me, right?”

  “Yup, that’s right.”

  “And Daddy?”

  I dropped the spoon into the sink, letting the vehemence of the gesture diffuse some of my stress. I sighed. “Daddy’s away, sunshine.”

  “Oh.” She put her thumb in her mouth, looked up at me with those heavenly blue eyes
. I wanted to cry.

  Daddy—also known as Richard Price—was my ex-husband. I sometimes wished he had been as nice on the inside as he’d been on the outside, but if looks were deceptive then he was the master of deception. Stunning on the outside, remorseless and emotionally dead on the inside. His daughter had all the good looks, fortunately, and none of the character.

  “Daddy sent his love, sweetheart,” I said. Not exactly, but the thought was there. At least it was worth saying so.

  “Oh!” she brightened. The thumb came out of her mouth and she grinned. “Yay!”

  I leaned on the sink. Looked out of the window. Heard her scamper into the hallway saying something about Bluey, her doll, and let myself cry.

  Richard, you bastard, I wanted to swear. You could at least send your kid a card.

  He hadn’t, though. He hadn’t said a word. Last thing I heard he was in Hawaii. I think he only phoned to show off.

  He doesn’t feel things the way you do—the way anyone else does. He only cares about getting attention on himself.

  My therapist had told me that and I finally was starting to believe her and walk away, slowly, from the crimped-up place of blame I’d hidden in for the last almost eight years or so.

  “Mommy!” Parker yelled, running in. “Why’s there smoke coming out of the oven.”

  I gasped. Turned around, my train of thought coming to a spectacular halt. Parker was right.

  “Oh…” I held back the swearing. There was a child in the room. I bent down and together we stared into the oven. The wax wrap was smoldering. As we watched, flames kindled.

  “Wow, Mommy!” Parker said, eyes like pie plates. “That’s cool.”

  “No, it’s hot,” I said succinctly. “Our cake will burn!”

  I reached for a towel, covered my hands and hauled out the first cake, then the second. We both coughed as acrid smoke poured out of the oven. I couldn’t help it—as I fanned away the smoke I looked at my daughter’s enchanted expression and burst out laughing.

  She caught my ebullience and started giggling. Soon we were both huddled in the center of the kitchen floor, our arms round each other, howling with mirth.

  One thing is sure—we couldn’t have done that if Richard was around. I shuddered to think of the recriminations, the shouting, the cruelty, that would have poured out of him had he been here now.

  As it was, Parker thought it was brilliant.

  “Mommy! Can we do it again?”

  I laughed. “No, sweetie. If it catches fire again, we might not get the cakes out.” As it was, they were ringed with a sort of crisp collar of cinders that would have been funny if I hadn’t been worried about how to lift them out again when they cooked up.

  Brooklyn, don’t be silly—just turn them upside down. They’ll fall out.

  I sighed and opened the oven door again, then slid them into the same places again.

  “Right,” I said, turning to Parker. “Now we have to finish the tree.”

  “Tree!” she effused. “Let’s go! I want to put the angel up…”

  “You can’t, honey,” I said, chuckling as I followed her up to the attic to fetch down the baubles and tinsel and other things. “You can’t reach.”

  “I can climb the ladder,” she retorted, those pale blue eyes glinting with ambition. I grinned.

  “Maybe next year.”

  “I want to climb it now!” she insisted. “I’m a big girl, Mommy. I’m a meter tall!”

  I bit back my laugh. “Yes, you’re a big girl, sweetheart. Can you carry this for me?” I asked, passing her a bag of glittery green tinsel.

  “Yes, Mommy!” she nodded. She took it in both arms, running down stairs.

  I sighed and found the other things, walking quickly down to the sitting-room behind her. While she pranced in with her armloads of tinsel to throw at the branches, I paused and glanced sideways in the mirror, scraping curls of hair off my damp brow.

  The reflection showed me a woman of thirty-four: medium height, with a cloud of auburn wavy hair, brown eyes, and a worried frown. I wasn’t bad looking, I told myself with that constant surprise. My eyes were almonds, my lips full, and I had high cheekbones and a heart-shaped face.

  I don’t know why Richard made me feel so worthless and ugly. But even now I kind of expected to look monstrous until I checked in with myself. I shook my head. I had been divorced for two years. I really should move on from those patterns of pain that had become such a habit with me.

  “Mommy…” a voice came from the sitting room.

  “Yes, darling?” I gasped, dumping the armload of decorations on the chair and looking around.

  “Why’s there water coming through the roof?”

  I stared. Her little finger pointed up triumphantly, like an Israelite spotting manna dropping from Heaven. Except this wasn’t manna from Heaven, this was water. Rainwater. A lot of it.

  “Oh…” For the second time that morning I bit back a string of rude words. The roof had its issues—the landlord warned me the rain sometimes came in if the gutters were blocked. I guess I should have checked them. But I forgot. Now the roof was doing its tricks and threatening the furnishings. I swore quietly in the hallway and reached for my phone.

  “What can we do?” Parker asked carefully.

  “Well, all we can do,” I retorted, punching letters into my phone to look up a contact. I was frowning as I did it, because the only thing we could, in fact, do, was the last thing I wanted. Call Riley Robson.

  As I found the number and pressed the button, I found myself thinking back to the only time I had actually met Riley. He had parked his van in front of my driveway and I had asked him to move it.

  He had looked at me, I remembered, with those dark brown eyes. “Why?” he’d asked, giving me an insolent grin.

  “Because it’s parked illegally,” I had replied.

  He’d laughed. “Well, you’re not gonna call the police now, are you?”

  I had felt as if he’d slapped me. How could he be so self-assured? “I might,” I’d threatened. “If you don’t get it out of my way in the next five minutes.”

  He had whistled appreciatively, as if I’d done something for his pleasure. That had really made me mad.

  “Okay, okay,” he’d agreed, still grinning. He’d moved the van. That was the last time we talked.

  I’d seen him around, and I couldn’t exactly deny that he was sexy. Stunning, in fact, with those broad shoulders, curly dark hair and those limpid brown eyes with their heavy lids and the crow’s feet in the corners that made him look like a tanned, adventurous seafarer. But his character didn’t match up.

  Arrogant, rude, unthinking…I was running through the list when the phone stopped ringing.

  “Yes?”

  Oh, heck. There he is too. “It’s Mrs. Price,” I said quickly. “I have a problem with my ceiling.”

  “Oh?” he drawled. “What kinda problem?”

  “It’s leaking. Badly.”

  “Probably the gutters. You’re in number three Ascot Street?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “Just near you.” I said through gritted teeth.

  “I know,” he said. I couldn’t help that those words made me shiver. Why did he have to be so stunning?

  “Well, could you come ASAP?” I asked. “I have good furniture getting ruined in here.”

  “Okay,” he drawled. “Be there in five minutes. Oh, wait…”

  “What?” I said, trying not to shout.

  “Where can I park?”

  “Anywhere. You. Like.” I said it one word at a time. Did he have to make an issue? Right now? Three days before Christmas and in a state of minor crisis?

  “Okay.” I could hear him smile. “I’ll be there now.”

  “Thanks,” I grumbled. I shut off the phone with a kind of grim rage and turned to Parker.

  “What’s happening, Mommy?”

  “The repairman’s coming, sweetheart. It’ll be okay.”

  As I walked through to
the lounge with a roll of paper towel under my arm, planning to swab up the worst of it, I prayed inwardly that was true. I really wanted it all to just be okay.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Riley

  I have to admit I’ve always been interested in the woman in Number 3. I remember when she first moved in. I was in my garage when the removal van rolled in and she jumped out. She was wearing a pair of tight jeans and a sweater. Nice ass, I thought.

  Since then I had gotten to know her a bit better—if having an argument in the middle of the street is getting to know someone. I noticed more than the ass: the pretty face, the fiery hair, the sass. Now I stood with my phone in my hand and a funny grin on my face and an invitation to go into Number Three Ascot Street.

  Hey, I thought. Christmas came early this year.

  As I packed my tools and went across to my van in a leisurely manner, I found myself wondering what would happen next. I didn’t have to go far. I stopped and slid out of the door feeling strangely apprehensive. I rang the bell and the door opened. I stared.

  “Hello?”

  Whoever had answered the door seemed to have gone away.