No Place Like Home

by Leigh Michaels

  She let the car creep forward a couple of feet to clear the path for him, and then climbed out again with her ice scraper. No matter how long it took, she vowed, or how late she was, she wasn’t driving anywhere until she could see through every square inch of glass.

  His little car had stopped a few feet away, and the door slammed. “Here,” he said, taking the scraper out of her hand. “Let me do that.”

  “Thanks,” she muttered.

  “I’m not really doing you a favor,” he said, “as much as I’m trying to do a good deed for every other driver on the road.” He smiled down at her. “They can use all the help they can get.”

  *****

  “And you didn’t even get his name?” Graham looked worried, and that was unusual.

  “He gave me his business card,” Kaye said. “But I didn’t even glance at it at the time, and when I got home and looked for it, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I must have dropped it in the parking lot.”

  “Careless, Kaye. That was very careless. You don’t even know how to reach him, and you have no idea what kind of person he is.”

  “He seemed a pretty restrained sort to me,” she said mildly. “I had just put a huge crease in his car, and he didn’t even yell at me.”

  Graham frowned, but he didn’t say any more. Kaye was glad. She hadn’t intended to tell him about the accident, but he’d been waiting outside her apartment when she had finally got home, and she had had to explain why she was so late. She had changed her clothes in less than five minutes, run a brush through her long blonde hair, thanking heaven for natural curls, and reflected that she wasn’t nervous any more about meeting his mother— at least, not much.

  The security guard in the lobby of the apartment complex waved them through with a cheerful greeting, and the glass lift whisked them through the five-story atrium lobby up to the penthouse floor.

  “It’s beautiful,” Kaye said, with a catch in her voice. “I never would have dreamed all this could come out of an old warehouse.”

  “I know,” Graham said cynically. “No one else did, either, except for my mother.”

  “It was her idea?” Kaye didn’t know why that should have startled her.

  A man in severe formal garb opened the door. “Good evening, Mr. Graham,” he said. He took Kaye’s coat, seeming to pretend that it was mink instead of mere wool, and ushered them into a long living room with a grand piano at one end and the curtains pulled back to reveal a stunning view of the city below, spread out along the frozen shores of Lake Henderson.

  “How lovely!” Kaye exclaimed. “I had no idea this city could look so wonderful!”

  “You don’t like living in Henderson?” It was a woman’s gentle voice, and Kaye turned to face Claudia Forrest as the older woman rose from a chair beside the windows. She was tiny, all blue and white, with enormous sapphire eyes and soft silver hair.

  “Oh, of course I do, but...” Kaye stumbled to a halt.

  Claudia laughed, a tinkling trill. “The city does look prettier from up here, doesn’t it? Graham will get you whatever you like to drink, and then you’ll come and sit by me, dear, and we’ll chat. I’m so glad you could come tonight.”

  There was no one else in the room; Kaye realized belatedly that Graham had not said this was to be a party. I really am on trial, she thought, and swallowed hard.

  But Claudia was chatting gently. “I never thought I’d end my days living in a warehouse,” she said. “Graham’s father would have been horrified, I’m sure, but I think it’s something of a joke. After all, I heard about baby food morning, noon, and night all the years we were married. What is so strange about living where the tons of oatmeal boxes were stored?”

  Kaye giggled. “Do you mean—here?” She gestured at the elegant room with its cream-colored carpeting, pastel furniture and striking art.

  “Right here. It nearly broke my heart when Graham built the new warehouse out on the edge of town. This building held such memories.”

  “It was the only practical thing to do, Mother.” He put a delicate crystal wineglass into Kaye’s hand.

  “Practical,” Claudia said. “Sometimes I wonder, Graham, if you will ever realize that being impractical is sometimes much more fun.”

  “Also, much less profitable. You’ll never get back the money you spent on this place, Mother. You simply can’t charge enough rent in a city like Henderson to recover your investment.”

  Claudia shrugged. “If it amuses me, what does the money matter? But let’s not quarrel in front of our guest.” Claudia’s voice was crisp. In the next hour, she drew Kaye out, asking about her job, her family.

  “I haven’t any family left,” Kaye said. “My mother died when I was a baby, and my father several years ago.”

  “You’re very young to be all alone,” Claudia murmured. The sapphire eyes were almost hypnotic.

  Kaye fought down the sudden, irrational desire to say, I’ve always been alone. But she couldn’t say things like that to a woman she scarcely knew. She couldn’t confide those details to Graham’s mother, who would probably forbid her son to ever see this young woman again.

  It was all in the past, anyway. The fact that Kaye’s father had been a less than reliable parent and provider, that they had lived on the thin edge of poverty, didn’t matter in the least. It wasn’t as if he’d been a criminal, after all, Kaye told herself stoutly. A black sheep, perhaps, but from a good enough family nevertheless – one even Claudia Forrest couldn’t object to. And so she smiled and talked of ordinary things.

  On the way to Pompagno’s, Graham looked across at Kaye, cleared his throat, and said, “My mother likes you very much.”

  “I’m glad,” Kaye said. “I like her, too.”

  He gave a self-conscious little cough. “I intended to wait a while to ask this—perhaps order a bottle of champagne at Pompagno’s—but that’s rather public, don’t you think?”

  “Public for what?” Kaye asked. Her heart was beating a little faster than usual. She was afraid to look at him; instead, she looked straight ahead to where the highway turned away from the frozen shore of Lake Henderson.

  “Will you become my wife, Kaye?”

  She closed her eyes tightly. A strange little pain rocketed through her, tingling clear to her fingertips, followed by a tidal wave of relief that threatened to drown her. This, then, was what love really felt like, she thought. She’d simply been terrified to let herself feel it before, afraid that Graham might not want to marry her at all.

  I hadn’t realized, she thought, just what rigid controls I was putting on my feelings.

  “Kaye?” he asked quietly. “I’m sorry if it sounds as if I needed my mother’s approval before I proposed to you. But you do understand why I waited, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” she said quietly. “It wouldn’t be very pleasant for any of us if your mother and I couldn’t stand each other. It was only sensible to wait till she got home. Graham, thank you. Of course I’ll marry you.”

  There, she thought. It’s all decided. And I am thrilled.

  He smiled at her and patted her gloved hand where it lay on the leather upholstery. “Thank you, my dear,” he said gently. “We will be quite happy together, I’m sure.” He laughed a little. “And Mother will be delighted. She’s thought for a long time that a man in my position shouldn’t be single. The baby-food business, I mean. She keeps hinting that it’s time to put a picture of a new Forrest baby on the labels.”

  He was blushing, Kaye thought in astonishment. Graham was actually embarrassed.

  “All in due time, of course,” he added hastily. “There is no hurry about it—no hurry at all.” He hesitated, and added warily, “I should have asked about your views on the subject, of course.”

  She wondered idly what would happen if she said indignantly that she absolutely refused to ever have a child, and then scolded herself for letting the relief of the moment make her get silly and half-hysterical. How could such a crazy thought ever have come into
her head, anyway?

  “I haven’t ever given it much thought,” Kaye said. “But I’ve always hoped to have children some day. I’d like several, I think. I was an only child, and it was very lonely.”

  He laughed again, with a little relief. “Well, at least there’s no fighting when there’s only one,” he said.

  He turned the car over to the doorman outside Pompagno’s, and took Kaye’s arm to usher her inside. “Kaye, my dear,” he said. “I’m honored that you’ve put your trust in me. I promise you will never want for anything.”

  It was only then that she realized it. Neither of them had said anything about love.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MONDAY morning at the travel agency was not often busy, but it seemed to Kaye that everyone in town had cabin fever after the snowy weekend at home and immediately started planning to leave. She and Emily were both occupied for most of the morning, and it was nearly noon before Emily pushed her chair back, picked up her coffee mug, and said, “How did you get along with Graham’s mama Saturday night?”

  “Just wonderfully, thank you.” Kaye addressed an envelope, rolled it out of the typewriter, put in a cruise-ship brochure, and dropped it into the outgoing mail. She couldn’t resist giving Emily a jolt. “The wedding will be next summer some time.”

  Emily choked and sputtered. “Don’t do that to me,” she begged. “I can’t take practical jokes of that sort.”

  “It isn’t a practical joke. Graham proposed, I accepted, and we’ll set a date as soon as I find a house for us to buy.” Kaye propped her elbows on her desk and smiled happily across at her co-worker. “It’s real. I’m engaged.”

  Emily put the cup down. “I don’t see a ring.”

  “Graham hasn’t had a chance to get one yet.”

  “Do you mean to tell me he didn’t even think ahead far enough to buy you a ring?”

  “It was only Saturday night that he proposed, Emily.”

  “How awfully romantic of him to act so uncertain of your answer,” Emily drawled. “Or—on the other hand—how very practical of him to avoid the chance of being stuck with a secondhand diamond.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic. It’s foolish to buy a ring for someone without knowing what she likes.”

  “Oh? Do you mean to tell me you’re actually going to marry someone who’s never bothered to notice whether you prefer simple designs or clusters of glitter? If he has no idea what your taste in jewelry is, Kaye, doesn’t it make you wonder what else he doesn’t know about you?”

  “Emily, if you insist on twisting what I say, I’m going to stop talking to you.”

  “Sorry, Kaye. I’m in shock, that’s all. So the great man finally went overboard. Champagne and candlelight at Pompagno’s, right?”

  “Something like that.” Kaye was glad, when she thought about it, that Graham hadn’t waited for soft music and romantic candlelight to ask her to marry him. Pompagno’s had been crowded on Saturday night, and in those surroundings their private conversation would have stayed private for about fifteen seconds, she thought—approximately as long as it took for one person across the crowded room to jab another in the ribs and say, I’ll bet Graham Forrest just popped the question!

  “And now you’re looking for a house. How domestic.”

  Kaye refused to be ruffled. “We have to have a place to live, Emily. My apartment is certainly too small.”

  “No, I can see that would be a problem. It’s scarcely large enough for you and the cat.”

  “And Graham will want to entertain more, so we might as well buy a house right away.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Emily said reluctantly. She came across to Kaye’s desk and gave her a hug. “Best wishes, and all that, you know. I truly do hope that you’ll be happy.”

  “I know, Emily. And of course I’ll be happy. We’re hoping to keep this a bit quiet for a while, though. We’d like to find a house, and set a date, and then make the announcement.”

  “As soon as you start touring houses in Henderson Heights, every one of the hundred thousand people in this city will know what you’re up to.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Kaye said reluctantly. “But I think I’ll go first to the real estate agent here in the plaza. It should be a bit easier to keep it mum in a branch office, don’t you think? And it can’t be too hard to find what we’re looking for. We made a list yesterday. I’ll just give that to the agent, and she can eliminate the ones we wouldn’t be interested in. I won’t have to look at many houses, I’m sure, before I find the right one.”

  “Good luck,” Emily murmured. “When I was house- hunting, it never worked that way—but then I was on a budget. Everything I liked cost twice as much as I could afford.” She turned to the client who had just walked in and said, “Hello, Mrs. Meadows. How was the trip to Italy?”

  The telephone rang, and the rush was on again. It didn’t let up till the lunch hour, and when Kaye finally left the building to go to the delicatessen down the street, it was with a sigh of relief.

  It was always feast or famine in the travel business, she thought. Nevertheless, she liked it much better than the other jobs she’d had. Within the next few months, she hoped, she would be able to start guiding a tour now and then. Emily did regularly, and the owner of the business spent much of her time supervising groups. That was where the fun was, Kaye thought, not sitting in the office reading computer screens.

  She paused outside the door of the real estate office. Lunch first, she debated, or this? It couldn’t take long to hand her list over and get the process started, and then she could go and eat her sandwich with a clear conscience. She pushed the door open.

  A gorgeous brunette was at the reception desk, flipping pages in a thick album full of photographs of houses. Occasionally she read off an address. Sitting on the corner of the desk with his back to the door was a dark-haired man, notebook and pen in hand, writing down what the woman said. The brunette broke her page-turning rhythm, looked up at Kaye, and said with a smile, “May we help you?”

  The man on the desk turned. “Oh, no,” he said when he saw Kaye. “Don’t tell me you’ve dented my car again.”

  “I certainly haven’t,” she said irritably.

  “Well, that’s good news. I got the estimates of the cost to repair the damage just this morning, if you’d like to take them to the insurance people.” He slid off the desk.

  “I thought you were going to do that.”

  “I could, but I assume that’s what you came in for. They’re in my office.” He strode off.

  So he worked here, she thought, and wasn’t just coming in to check out a house for sale.

  He had vanished across a big room, crowded with desks and file cabinets, and into a smaller office. Kaye decided that she could either follow him or stand there and scream in frustration, so she trailed across the big room after him.

  He was already tugging a sheaf of papers out of the inside pocket of his overcoat.

  “The paperwork on your car is not why I’m here,” she said briskly. “I want to buy a house.”

  “Oh, in that case...” He pushed the papers back into the pocket and waved her to a chair. “What kind of a house? How large? What part of town? Do you have one to sell before you start looking for a new one? What sort of price range—”

  “You can’t be a very effective salesperson if you don’t listen to the customer,” she pointed out coolly.

  He grinned at her and leaned back in his chair. “I’m all ears,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve found we get somewhere faster if I get some basic information from the client first, like what kind of neighborhood you prefer and whether you like old houses or new ones.”

  “I haven’t even said that I want to work with you, Mr.—”

  “If you don’t, why did you come into this particular branch office?”

  “Because I didn’t know you’d be here!” Kaye snapped.

  His eyes, she noticed, were dark blue, and at the moment they were susp
iciously bright. “I gave you my card.”

  “I lost it,” she admitted, finally. “I had no idea you worked here.” Damn, she thought. Why did I have to lose that business card? It’s not like me to be so careless, and it’s dreadfully embarrassing not even to know his name!

  “Somehow,” he murmured, “that doesn’t surprise me. This is apparently not my lucky week. Fortunately, I am always up to a challenge. So tell me about the kind of house you want, Miss Reardon.”

  “I think I’d be happier working with someone who will take me seriously.”

  “Oh, when it comes to commissions, I take things very seriously,” he assured her. “If you’d like another copy of my card...”

  She took the bit of beige pasteboard with reluctance. His name was Brendan McKenna, it said. That figures, she reflected. He’s as Irish as they make them. The dark blue eyes completed that improbable combination of black hair and fair skin that made the Celtic Irish so very attractive.