“Is that an invitation to move back in?”
She drew back and studied his face. “Would we stop talking if you moved back?”
“Hell, no, Sue. It took us twenty years to get on the right track. I’m not leaving it now. I’m willing to go see a marriage counselor, anything we need. We should never take anything for granted again.”
Susan’s throat flexed as she swallowed, and he could see the anticipation in her eyes. “Imagine how good we’ll be at it by the time we’re great-grandparents.”
“Come on, Grandma,” he urged, “let’s try that new steak house. I hear they’ve got great grilled eggplant for guys like me. But after it’s over, I plan to chase you around the house. Got to stay in practice for the time we’re using canes and walkers.”
* * *
A PART OF Mandy had stayed warm all morning, thinking of how Daniel had covered her with his coat. At midafternoon, she went home and curled up on the couch for a nap, only to be awakened by a knock on the door around dinnertime.
With a sigh, she dragged herself off the couch and peeked out. Like déjà vu, Daniel was standing there again.
“Hi,” she said brightly as she opened the door. “What’s up?”
“I wondered if you’d enjoy going shopping for a Christmas tree with us,” he said. “You can’t easily get one home with your little car, and I can put two on the top of my Jeep.”
“Oh.” At the curb was Daniel’s car, with Joyce and Samantha sitting in it. “I...thought you didn’t want me to spend much time with Sam. Especially all of us together.”
His eyes were hard to read. “I’d like to call a truce for the time being. Besides, it’s shopping for a Christmas tree, not buying monogrammed towels.”
“The monogrammed towels my parents gave me and Vince were wickedly uncomfortable.”
Daniel grinned. “I didn’t like mine and Celia’s, either. So, no matter what happens, we’re agreed, no monogrammed linens.”
Mandy couldn’t keep her heart from leaping a tiny bit. No matter what happens? Did that mean he was considering options that included her?
“Okay, agreed. And I’d love to shop for a tree. Give me a minute. I’ll get something warm to wear.”
Mandy rushed back to her bedroom and pulled out her Christmas sweatshirt, the one proclaiming DEAR SANTA, I WANT IT ALL. It had seemed funny when she bought it, but now she was in love and fearful she couldn’t get it all. It would be nice if people could simply punch a button and turn off love. Of course, then love wouldn’t last very long. Whenever something got hard or painful, people would punch a button and, presto, that would be the end of it.
Daniel’s words about her leaving when things got sticky echoed in her head. For eight years, she’d jumped from place to place, avoiding pain by not staying long enough for the hard parts of life. She hadn’t been a bad person, but did she want to go back to living that way?
CHAPTER TWENTY
EARLY THE NEXT morning, Susan poked her head through Mandy’s office door. She was carrying a pastry box.
Mandy blinked. “I didn’t think you’d make it today.”
Susan’s face turned pink. “Chris still has the early shift. He’s moving back in, but we’re making an appointment with a marriage counselor to help us stay on track.”
Mandy’s eyes grew teary. Again. “I’m so glad, Susan.”
“My father won’t be thrilled.”
“As if that’s a surprise.”
Susan set down the pastry box and poured herself a cup of coffee. “So, how are you and Daniel doing?”
“About the same,” Mandy said, though she didn’t know if it was true. Buying a Christmas tree with Daniel’s family had felt homey and intimate.
Mandy sat back. There wasn’t much for her to do except paperwork, not even a regular lunch since the seniors were on a bus tour to the Avenue of the Giants and the Loleta Cheese Factory, which was a popular trip. A volunteer was taking meals to the shut-ins, so she expected to spend most of the day catching up on the administrative details she most disliked.
“You’ve got it pretty bad for that man,” Susan said softly.
“You’re right, and I’ve been afraid everyone in Willow’s Eve would figure it out.”
“I haven’t heard any rumors or anything, so you’ve probably kept it under wraps.”
“We don’t necessarily fall for the people we should.”
“It still could work out.”
Mandy shrugged. “That’s a nice thought,” she commented, not believing it. Sure, in Willow’s Eve, she and Daniel might be able to keep an illusion going. But he was moving up the ladder of success. His next rung might be one of those big cities with all the high-profile “beautiful people.” She’d never fit in. Daniel would need a polished and socially graceful wife, not a woman who hated formal clothing, couldn’t keep her hair coiffed and whose conversation went merrily on its own nonconventional flight path. And there was one thing she knew for certain—she wanted to be loved for herself, not for a fake mask she was wearing.
She loved Daniel that way. He was rather hung up on rules and doing things the right way, but no one had ever seen inside her enough to understand the way she could feel guilty about dumb stuff. Daniel had also understood some of the reasons she moved around so often...maybe better than she did herself.
She and Susan ate mostly without talking. But it was a comfortable, friendly silence, Susan’s mind clearly occupied with pleasant thoughts. Mandy didn’t envy her, but did wish she had something more joyful to anticipate for herself.
The ironic thing was that no matter what she’d claimed about being free and not wanting to get tied down, she’d also dreamed of finding the perfect place and the perfect man. Willow’s Eve had seemed close to ideal, but it had its troubles, along with the rest of reality.
And Daniel wasn’t at all what she’d envisioned as the just-right kind of guy, but she loved him the way he was...loved him so much that she had worried whether other people could see it, too. If it hadn’t been for everyone getting swept into the water problem, maybe they would have seen what was going on. It was mostly a concern because she wouldn’t want Samantha hearing any speculation about her father. She was a great kid, and Mandy didn’t want her to get hurt, any more than Daniel did.
* * *
DANIEL KEPT HIS eye on the orange group—four kids with orange tags—matching the name tag pinned to his own shirt. The teachers were doing most of the talking, but the parents’ job was to keep track and make sure no kid wandered away.
The small museum in Vicksville wasn’t fancy, but it was nice and contained displays on various aspects of local history. He was glad to note they’d included a section on the local Native Americans and that it was honest about the mistreatment the people had sometimes received. He wanted his daughter to grow up with a realistic view of history.
Sam had asked if Mandy could go on the field trip with them and he’d explained she was at work. His daughter had quickly countered, saying her friend Kelly had told her how Mandy had gone on more than one field trip as a volunteer at summer school.
A grin tugged at Daniel’s mouth.
Mandy was involved in almost everything. Or it seemed that way. She had a generous spirit, and when she saw a need, she rushed in to meet it. She was also smart enough to understand her own family history and what impact it had upon her. For that matter, it had pushed him to examine more of how his childhood had affected his own life. His marriage to Celia had been one of the largest fallouts, though he couldn’t entirely regret it, because he wouldn’t have Samantha otherwise.
“Daddy, look,” Samantha called, trying to get his attention.
Along with the other kids in his small group, he bent down while they examined a display on the life cycle of the banana slug. He would have expected h
is daughter to find it creepy.
“That’s so great,” Sam exclaimed instead. “Mandy says they’re yucky, but terrific. She told me she had an entire conversation with one out in the woods one day.”
“What did it say?” Kelly asked. While they might have found the idea of a slug conversation silly from anyone else, the kids were clearly willing to entertain the possibility if Mandy Colson was involved.
“Mandy says it’s hard to understand slug language, but she had a feeling he knew what she was saying.”
After another hour, they ate lunch, then climbed back onto the bus for the trip back to Benjamin Franklin Elementary School.
Daniel waved goodbye as Samantha trooped back to class with her friends. Deep satisfaction filled him. Sam was blossoming, sometimes in directions that surprised him, but that was one of the marvelous things about it. Willow’s Eve had been good for her...and Mandy Colson had been good for Sam.
Good for him, too.
Initially, he’d told himself that with his divorce and self-imposed celibacy, it was only natural he’d find a lovely single woman attractive. But Mandy was so much more than physically beautiful. She had reawakened his sense of humor and pleasure in the world. Because of her, he’d become a better parent. He’d also improved at building bridges between the various factions in the water debate. It was helping, even though the issue wouldn’t be resolved anytime soon.
But when had he realized he was in love with her?
He couldn’t say for sure, and he also didn’t know if she wanted to be with him, in Willow’s Eve or anywhere else.
Oh, yes, she returned his feelings on a physical level, and it was probably the first time since her divorce she’d let down her guard in that way. But she’d already been burned by people who didn’t approve of her, offering love only insofar as she tried to change into what they wanted her to be.
Daniel had a depressing conviction that Mandy saw him equally limited in his ability to love, perhaps figuring he still wanted to be with someone who’d wear a hideous gray suit to work and behave calm and proper, without an ounce of spontaneity.
Maybe that had been true before he’d come to Willow’s Eve. He’d associated strong emotions with the sullen, explosive anger that his parents fed upon. But that wasn’t Mandy. She’d shown him that caring passionately could be a good thing. And while she had a quick temper, she got over it quickly and didn’t carry grudges.
What Daniel hoped, more than anything, was that Mandy could care passionately about him, as well. They would make an unstoppable team if she was willing to trust him and make the commitment.
* * *
MANDY GRIMLY PLOWED through her paperwork, even skipping lunch. Two of the volunteers for the Senior Center had gotten into an argument over the water issue. She’d calmly asked them to save it for the next council meeting, and for once, she hadn’t felt torn up or guilty because she couldn’t resolve the problem.
Daniel knew he couldn’t fix everything, and kept reminding her she couldn’t, either. All they could do was handle their own part of the job and accept that some garbage in life was inevitable. He was right. In the past, she’d gone on to the next place when there was any kind of bobble; it had seemed safer, a way to avoid pain and jumbled feelings. But maybe that was the price to pay for being connected to people, accepting the good and the bad stuff, and sticking it out.
Promptly at four, she headed home, and soon heard rain spattering on the roof.
Mandy chuckled wryly. Water for drinking, water for washing, water for washing babies and water for tears, both happy and sad.
Lord, she was getting maudlin.
A firm tapping sounded on her door an hour later. It was Daniel.
“Oh, hi,” she said, surprised by his third appearance in such a short period. “Anything wrong? Need Christmas decorations, a wreath, lessons in clogging?”
He chuckled. “None of those. May I come in?”
His face seemed different to her, more open, somehow.
“Sure. I just made a pot of cocoa. You want any?”
“Sounds good.”
Mandy escaped into the kitchen and breathed carefully. Part of her wanted to tear off her clothing and run back into the living room to get an early Christmas present, but Santa probably wouldn’t approve of such methods.
She carried the cocoa back in and handed a cup to Daniel. He accepted the steaming mug, but set it down immediately. “I was wondering something,” he murmured.
“About what?”
“You were pretty adamant about never getting married again, so I’ve been wondering what it would take to change your mind.”
Mandy blinked. She didn’t have much experience with proposals, but that had sounded pretty damn close to one.
“Um, why do you ask?”
“Because marriage is a very serious commitment.”
She tried not to be annoyed. “I realize that. In a way, I got divorced because I take it seriously. That probably sounds contradictory, but two people spending their lives together should mean more than what Vince and I had. In the end, I don’t think he was any happier than me. A husband and wife should be better together than they are apart. Not just as a team, but as individuals. The right person should bring out your best, not the worst.”
Curiously, a smile curved Daniel’s lips. “I like that idea. One thing’s for certain, I didn’t bring out the best in Celia, any more than she brought it out in me. I just turned into an obsessed administrator with control issues, while she became obsessed with clothes and her looks. But people change.”
“Sometimes.”
Daniel smiled faintly. “Okay, sometimes people change. I’ve changed a lot because of you.”
Mandy squashed the flare of hope that surged through her. A man claiming he’d changed from meeting her could be interpreted a lot of different ways. And the truth was, everybody probably changed a little when they got to know someone. They learned something, or became nicer or angrier or sadder. In her case, any changes had been smaller since she’d never stuck around very long in one place, but they’d crept in, never quite recognized, until meeting Daniel. And now it was as if he’d booted her through some kind of one-way door and there wasn’t any going back.
“You’ve learned to appreciate small towns,” she said. “And that meat loaf isn’t always revolting.”
“That, too.” Daniel took a swallow of his cocoa and his eyes crinkled in a grin. “Cinnamon and vanilla?”
“Sorry, I forgot. I’ll make a new pot.”
He shook his head. “This is fine. It’s different, but I like it. I wonder if Sam would like it, too.”
“She’d probably try it.”
Daniel nodded. “I had assumed my daughter didn’t like new things, but now she’s experimenting and becoming more self-assured. A lot of that is because of you. Thank you for helping so much.”
Lead sank to the pit of Mandy’s stomach. He wanted to thank her? That was sooo depressing.
She lifted her chin. “Don’t give me too much credit. Travel does that for kids. Adults, too. Loosens them up.”
Now why had she said “travel” instead of “moving”? Because she didn’t want to remind Daniel of how often she’d pulled up stakes and gone to a new place? Fat chance he’d forget that.
“It loosened me up.” Daniel put his hand over hers and Mandy’s heart rate doubled. “Except I don’t think it was coming to Willow’s Eve. I believe it was you. You’ve made me realize that just because I had one failed marriage, it doesn’t mean I can’t have one that’s happy and forever.”
Mandy gulped. She couldn’t think of anything to say, which was bizarre, and totally unlike her. Her mouth usually ran like a runaway train around Daniel.
“I love you, Mandy, and I want to marry you,” he continued. “Maybe I shoul
d have chosen a more romantic place to propose, but just being with you makes it special enough for me, and I didn’t want to wait.”
She gulped. Being with him did the same for her—who needed exotic places, ancient cities and Mediterranean breezes? For a place to be special, all anyone really needed was the right person. But she had to be sensible.
“That’s a really nice thing to say,” she said. “Only it wasn’t long ago you seemed annoyed at being attracted to me. Don’t pretend you weren’t.”
His face became rueful. “That’s true. You threatened the predictable, ordered world I thought I wanted. Then I finally realized a smart man lets go of plans that won’t bring him happiness.”
Mandy drew a deep breath. “It won’t work.”
“Do you love me?”
Blinking back tears, she nodded. “Yes, but we’re opposites. Don’t forget, I have experience being married to an opposite.”
“Hell, Mandy.” Daniel reached up to catch a tear with his forefinger. “For God’s sake, don’t lump me with your parents or that stuffed shirt you married. I’d hate to think that was the horrible fate I was headed for before we met.”
The comical dismay on his face made Mandy smile despite herself.
“It doesn’t mean we’d be right together.”
“I think we’re exactly right together. I love you, and I love the wonderful, passionate, zany, laughing caring person you are. You bring out the best version of myself.”
“But I argue,” she sniffed.
“Lord, Mandy, we both do. I finally figured it out. My parents fought for the sake of fighting. We argue because we care about things. How dull would it be if we didn’t? I don’t want you to be any different from who you are.”
Mandy sniffed. “You might not feel that way forever. What if you leave Willow’s Eve and go to a big city? In those kinds of places, a city manager’s wife is expected to fit a certain mold. I’ll never be polished. I’ll never give a Grace Kelly type a run for her money.”
“In the first place, at her best, Grace Kelly couldn’t have competed with you. The only thing I’ll ever want is for Mandy Colson to be herself. You don’t even have to call yourself Mandy Whittier.”
Until She Met Daniel Page 28