The Boss Next Door (Harlequin Heartwarming)

by Fox, Roz Denny

  “Keith!” they exclaimed. “We were told you were fine. But your leg?”

  “Sherry handed me down the rope. I fell and hit something in the water. A big rock, maybe. Sherry’s the one hurt bad.” Tears trickled down his pale cheeks. “They won’t tell Dad nothin’.”

  Carla and her husband glanced at Garrett. “We just saw her—in Emergency,” Carla said. “She asked about you and Keith. They’d just sewn her up apparently. She was fine enough to give me a lecture about parental responsibility.”

  Carla sat beside Keith and held his hand. Her eyes filled with tears, and Crawford gripped her shoulder. “You’ve no idea what hearing about this did to me. Learning that neither Garrett nor the hospital could reach me really shook me up. Garrett, Keith—I’ve decided not to pursue full custody. My lifestyle didn’t allow for motherhood eight years ago and if anything, demands on my time are even greater now. You’re part of me, Keith. I don’t want to lose touch again, but I have to face facts. All I can ever be is a part-time mother.” She sobbed quietly. “I want you to visit us whenever possible. And Garrett—” she faced him “—you’ve done a fabulous job of raising our son.”

  Keith gave a whoop, then said with more decorum, “You’re okay, too, Mom.”

  Crawford started to speak, but the door opened and a nurse wheeled Sherry in. “Keith,” she gasped. “Your leg? They just told me you’d been admitted.”

  “Yes,” the nurse said dryly. “Dr. Campbell should be in her own room, but she refused to go until we brought her by to see this young man and his father. It’s against the rules, you know.”

  Garrett sprang from his chair and rushed to her side.

  Keith sat up in spite of his elevated leg. “My broke leg don’t hurt, Sherry. You saved me and all the other kids. You were right, too. Dad’s not mad that I invited you.”

  “Keith.” Garrett wagged a finger.

  “Well—” the boy looked contrite “—he said I have to lose privileges ’cause I went behind his back. But...he didn’t sound all that mad.”

  Carla lobbed a gaze between her son and Sherry. “Has anyone told you, Dr. Campbell, that you’d make a good mother? And wife,” she said pointedly to her ex.

  Sherry gaped at the woman. “I, uh, know people who wouldn’t agree.” Was she so transparent that Carla saw right through her half-baked attempt to hide her love for Garrett and Keith?

  Crawford, the emotionless banker, certainly did. “A client of mine—the doctor who examined Garrett—said he drove them nuts asking about you, Ms. Campbell. Perhaps Garrett’ll give us some time alone with Keith while he makes sure you’re settled in your room.”

  “Dr. Lock can stop by 302—briefly,” said the nurse who was already backing Sherry’s wheelchair out the door. “I figure we have fifteen minutes max to get her into bed before that painkiller kicks in and sends her nighty-night.”

  “She’s looking pretty rocky,” Garrett said hesitantly. “Maybe I shouldn’t go.”

  “Do...please.” Sherry held up a beseeching hand, then let it fall quickly to her lap. “Unless you’d rather not.” Her lashes fluttered down to cover her eyes.

  Garrett thought she looked terribly pale, although she had more color than she’d had during the drive to the hospital.

  Carla nudged Garrett forward. “Quit looking like a lovesick calf caught in a hailstorm and go get her.”

  His lips curled in a sheepish grin. “That noticeable, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Crawford, Keith and Carla all said together.

  Garrett frowned at his son. “You’re eight years old. What do you know about lovesick looks?”

  “I’m almost nine. I watch TV. And you’ve looked that way since you and Sherry had a fight. Me’n Rags love Sherry, too, so don’t blow this, huh, Dad?”

  “We did not fight,” Garrett said huffily, hitching up jeans dried stiff from the silt in the river. What a way to look when a man went to propose to the woman he loved. But then, from that first stormy night they’d met in Kansas, nothing about his relationship with Sherilyn Campbell had been exactly normal.

  He entered Sherry’s room as the nurse slipped out. “Talk fast,” Sherry muttered, her speech slightly slurred.

  Garrett gazed at her sweet face. Her short spiky hair made a two-toned splash against the pillow. He remembered how silky it’d felt against his palms that night on the Ozark Queen. Afraid of hurting her, he touched the back of her hand—not the one sprouting the IV.

  Her smile was off-kilter. Garrett wondered if he’d already lost her to the sedative. But she crooked her finger at him, then patted a spot on her bed.

  He sat carefully. “We have a lot to talk about, you and I. Earlier I thought I’d lost you.” His voice broke. Nipping in a sharp breath, he attempted to laugh. “Takes getting kicked in the head to show some guy what a fool he’s been.”

  Sherry covered his hand with her smaller one. “You were kicked in the head? By whom? When?”

  “Figuratively speaking,” he said gruffly, threading their fingers and bringing hers to his lips. “You’ve given me no reason to believe you still consider March a perfect time for new beginnings,” he murmured, “but...well, I love you. Will you marry me?”

  How she responded so quickly for someone in her shape, Sherry would never know. She lunged forward, flung her arms around Garrett’s neck and smothered his lips with a kiss aimed at cutting off any objections he might have raised.

  “I take it that means yes,” he gasped when they were forced apart to breathe.

  “It’d better,” chorused Nan and Ben Campbell from the open doorway. “The doctor downstairs said he’d ordered strict bed rest for Sherry. I got the feeling,” said Ben dryly, “that the old duffer had something far less strenuous in mind.”

  Sherry slid back into bed, a silly smile flitting along her lips. “What lousy timing. A marriage proposal at last, and I can’t stay awake. But I’m holding you to this, Lock.” With that, her lashes drifted down and she was fast asleep.

  EPILOGUE

  THE CITY HOSTED a parade to honor the hero and heroine who’d kept the local school-bus accident from going down in the annals of history as a tragedy. The parade was front-page news.

  As a rule, parades made dull stories. So did averted tragedies. What Sherry Campbell and Garrett Lock provided was better, as far as the reporters were concerned. A love story. The whole world, they soon discovered, loved a love story. At least, the people of Columbia did.

  Because the couple had decided on a spring wedding, Garrett and Sherry had reporters dogging them for four months. Also wedding consultants, jewelers, caterers, florists and photographers. Merchants weren’t trying to sell them services; shop owners begged to give them every aspect of a fairytale wedding.

  “Shall we elope?” Garrett suggested hopefully. He and Sherry had just sneaked out the back door of the plastic surgeon’s who’d conducted a final exam on her now-healed shoulder.

  “Are you serious?” Sherry asked as they piled into the back of her father’s van.

  By pre-arrangement, Ben and Nan Campbell had brought Keith, Megan and Mark along. The whole group was headed to a celebration dinner hosted by Nolan and Emily because an editor was interested in their manuscript, Who Really Settled the West?

  Garrett hooked one arm around his son’s shoulders and tucked Sherry into the crook of the other. “Well, eloping’s starting to sound good....”

  “But if you ’loped,” Keith said, his bright smile fading, “my class—all the kids you helped off the bus—they wouldn’t get to be ushers or hand out groom’s cake like me and Mark did at Camp and Emily’s wedding.”

  “True,” Sherry said. “The kids are looking forward to taking part in our wedding.”

  “Mom promised I could buy my first pair of high heels to wear when I light your candles,” Megan wa
iled.

  “If you eloped,” Nan gasped, “that beautiful gown Yvette talked her merchandiser into giving Sherry would go to waste.”

  “True,” Sherry agreed. “But Yvette’s apology for starting those rumors means more to me than any gown.”

  “Speaking of rumors...” Ben smiled at them both in the rearview mirror. “I hear all this publicity has set your board of regents on their ears. In the entire history of Wellmont, they’ve never let spouses work together in the same department—until now.”

  Sherry batted her eyes at Garrett. “Sheldon March made it very clear that while I may have helped a few kids out of the bus, you, my love, are the real hero. And since you saved my life, Garrett, he strongly implied I should never oppose you on budget matters again.”

  Garrett started to snort indignantly, then reared back and favored his soon-to-be-bride with a steely blue gaze worthy of a Texan. “Sheldon’s right, little lady, and don’t you forget it.”

  Sherry sputtered. “I was kidding!”

  “Me, too.” Garrett leaned over and kissed her. Once. Twice. The third time she melted against him with a sigh.

  “Those kisses, Lock. That’s how you got me to make the Hub co-ed.” She held out her left hand and studied the engagement ring Garrett had placed there the day after he proposed—when she was still in the hospital. “Remember how much Angel hated the idea? She called me a traitor and threatened to wax the floor with your butt. Um, Angel changed her tune,” she said for the benefit of the others. “After Garrett advertised our new counseling services and twenty divorced and single dads signed up the first day.”

  “Is that why Angel agreed to be one of your bridesmaids?” he asked.

  “Probably. So there’s another reason we can’t elope.”

  “I’m tasting defeat, but refresh my memory on why else we shouldn’t do it,” Garrett muttered.

  “To show whatever jerk left that article on my desk about failed second marriages that we’re going to beat the odds.”

  “You’ll succeed if you two stay away from water. Bad history there,” Nan Campbell put in. “Better add something in your vows about keeping your feet on terra firma.”

  “Can’t,” Sherry said. “The owner of the Ozark Queen saw our picture in the paper and he offered us the boat for a week.”

  “Does that ’clude me?” Keith piped up.

  Garrett vividly recalled the last trip. Silver moonlight dancing off the water. Sherry’s slinky purple dress—and everything that occurred thereafter.

  Her thoughts similar, Sherry straightened Garrett’s tie.

  “Uh...cough...cough...uh,” he wheezed.

  “Yippee! Dad said yes! I can go. Those are the noises he makes when he wants to say no, but ends up saying yes.”

  “Not this time, Keith.” Garrett’s voice was strangled. “Honeymoons are strictly a party for two. You and Rags will stay with Mark, Megan and Pilgrim. But I promise, son. One day soon Sherry and I will take you on a river boat. It’ll be our first trip as a family.”

  Keith bounced happily up and down. “Then I’ll be like Mark. I’ll have it all.”

  Mark made a face. “Not quite. You still won’t have a dorky sister.”

  “Oh.” Garrett tweaked Sherry’s nose. “I think Professor Campbell and I might be willing to try and correct that oversight.”

  Her lips curved in a satisfied smile. “If that’s a challenge, Dr. Lock...I accept.”

  * * * * *

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  ISBN: 9781460307373

  Copyright © 2013 by Rosaline Fox

  Originally published as HAVING IT ALL

  Copyright © 1998 by Rosaline Fox

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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