by Mia Ross
He’d tried, really he had. Merging with the light traffic, he consoled himself with the knowledge that, while he’d been unable to resist Lauren’s charms, in a month or so she’d be leaving Holiday Harbor. Then his life would go back to the way it was before he knew she existed.
That should have eased his mind, and with any other woman, it would have. For some reason, this time it just made him feel sad.
* * *
“Dinner with Ben?” Looking up from the display of doll clothes she was straightening, Julia’s eyes danced with obvious delight. “How nice.”
“Leftovers,” Lauren clarified while she changed out her pearl earrings for more casual hoops. They’d look better with the jeans and polo shirt she was wearing. Not that it mattered, but she didn’t want to show up at Ben’s looking like she was headed to the opera. “It’s not a date or anything.”
“I don’t care what you call it, it’s still nice. He likes you,” she added, as if that made a difference.
“I helped him out with a problem, and he’s thanking me with ham. No biggie.”
Julia’s forehead wrinkled with sudden concern. “What kind of problem? He’s not in trouble, is he?”
Lauren was fairly certain he didn’t want her spreading his dilemma around, so she kept it vague. “No, just a business thing. Speaking of which, I had an idea while I was clearing out the display windows this afternoon.”
“Wonderful! Shoot.”
Taking that as a good sign, Lauren sat on a nearby child’s chair. “The kids had such a great time doing the eggs, I was wondering how we could do that kind of thing more often. That way, they don’t just buy toys here—they have fun here, too.”
“I like it so far.”
The brainstorm had come from nowhere, and Lauren still wasn’t sure it was a stroke of genius or just a plain old stroke. Taking a deep breath, she gathered her courage and plowed on. “What if we had playtime? For the girls, we could do up a stage and a big wardrobe filled with costumes, maybe call it Princess Playtime. For boys, we could set up an area of the store like a construction zone, with a big sandbox and lots of tractors, trucks, maybe pieces for a model city they could build however they want.”
Julia replied with a noncommittal hum, but Lauren could almost hear the wheels spinning in her friend’s agile mind. Rushing ahead, Lauren added, “We could even do birthday parties, which would be great because when the parents drop their kids off and pick them up, they’d probably stop to browse around the store. Not only would you make the money from the party, but you’d sell a few toys at the same time.”
When Lauren paused for breath, Julia laughed. “Are you finished?”
“Well, it’s just an idea—”
“I love it,” Julia interrupted firmly, embracing her for good measure. “It’s brilliant, and will set us apart from other shops in the area that just offer their customers shelves full of merchandise. This is just the kind of thing I want for Toyland.”
Julia thought her idea was brilliant. Not lame or a waste of time, but brilliant. Lauren’s heart soared with excitement, and she barely resisted the urge to clap her hands like an ecstatic two-year-old. “I’m glad you like it.”
Tilting her head in that graceful dancer’s pose, Julia gave her a regal smile. “I said I love it, and I meant every word. Since it’s your concept, I want you to put it together while Nick and I are gone. Then when I get back, I’ll have a wonderful surprise waiting for me.”
Lauren’s enthusiasm dimmed a little, but she gave herself a mental shake. Since graduating from college, she’d longed for the chance to do something entirely on her own but hadn’t found the right situation. Julia was offering her a golden opportunity, and she wasn’t about to turn it down because it was a little scary. Okay, a lot scary, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make it work.
“We’ll need some things built,” she pointed out. “The stage and storage for all the costumes and toys. Not to mention we have to buy all that stuff to get started.”
“Ben’s very creative, and he’ll give us a good price on the carpentry work. You can get supplies from any of our vendors, and they’ll just invoice us the way they normally do. Anything special, set up a new account and we’ll pay the bills when they come in.”
“Are you sure about this?” Lauren asked hesitantly. “It could add up to a fair amount.”
“It will bring in even more than we spend—I’m sure of it.” Resting a hand over Lauren’s, she continued. “I have faith in you, Lauren. Your playtime idea will be a fabulous addition to Toyland.”
Her playtime idea. Lauren rolled the words around in her head a few times, savoring the way they sounded. Beyond that, they made her feel proud of herself for the first time in months, reminding her of just how far she’d fallen before finally seeing the light.
No more of that, she vowed. From here on out, those dark memories were in the past, and the future was filled with sunshine.
Thoughts of sunshine reminded her of Ben, which nudged her to her feet. Although her talk with Julia had been everything she’d hoped for, it had made her late for dinner. “I have to get going. See you later?”
“Eventually,” Julia replied with a sigh. “After I close up here, Nick and I are helping Ann choose the music to use during the ceremony. She’s come up with twenty pieces and can’t decide, so I think it’s going to be a long night.”
It sounded like torture to Lauren, and she teased, “You could always elope.”
From his special perch back in Julia’s office, Shakespeare called out, “We could always elope!”
He’d changed the wording slightly, but it was too close to be a coincidence. “There’s no way he got that from me. I’ve only said it once.”
“Nick’s not crazy about all the hoopla that comes with marrying the daughter of an ambassador, so he taught Shakespeare that to irritate me. He thinks it’s hilarious.”
Judging by her smile, Julia thought it was pretty funny herself. They made quite the pair, Lauren thought as she went out the front door and headed for Ben’s place. Someday, she hoped she’d find a guy who complemented her as well as Nick did Julia.
When she reached the address on Elm Street Ben had given her, Lauren paused to check the scrap of paper. Even when she’d confirmed that yes, she was in the right spot, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She’d expected a smallish house that needed some work, maybe some scraggly plants in the garden.
Even at dusk, the house was impressive. A grand Victorian, it rose up behind a rusty wrought-iron fence falling down around an overgrown yard that cried out for a Weedwacker and some serious hedge trimming. Still, some determined daffodils and tulips were pushing through the layers of old leaves and long grass, proving that at one point, someone had cared enough to plant flowers there.
The home itself had a dignified look to it, and she pictured some long-ago captain’s wife on the upper balcony, waving a lace handkerchief to her husband as he made his way home from being out at sea. Wide, welcoming porches invited people to stay and visit awhile, and while its white paint was faded and peeling, intricate gingerbread adorned every inch of the sweeping rooflines. The gray shingles appeared to be new, but the clapboard siding looked like it had seen better days. She envisioned it painted blue, and smiled when she noticed the swatch of pale blue on the end wall.
To her mind, this was a family home, minus the family, and it was the last thing she’d expected to find at the other end of her short walk.
While she was mulling that over, Ben appeared in the open screen door, wiping his hands on a towel. “You wanna come in?”
“Sure.” Realizing she’d been gawking at his house, she felt compelled to offer an explanation as she went inside. She couldn’t come up with anything plausible other than, “This is a really nice place.”
“Too nice for a guy who lives by himself, you’re thinking,” he filled in with a grin. “I grew up one street over, and I always loved this old place. When the owner died and it went up
for auction, I scraped together everything I had to buy it. Now I’m fixing it up a little at a time.”
“Sort of like on-the-job-training for a historical restoration project?”
“Kinda,” he admitted sheepishly. “Would you like a tour?”
“Absolutely.”
The cosmetic issues outside paled in comparison to the disaster zone inside the old house’s walls. From wallboard to ceilings, everything had been stripped back to the studs, and architect-type sketches and measurements were penciled everywhere. The floors were covered in heavy paper, which led her to believe there was something under it that Ben considered worth saving.
“How old is it?” she asked.
“Built in 1852. I found a bunch of old papers and books in the attic, and near as I can tell, the guy who built it was the captain of a merchant ship that sailed in and out of here back then.”
“I thought so,” she murmured without thinking. When he gave her a puzzled look, she felt herself blushing. “It’s silly, but when I saw it, I was imagining a woman on that upper balcony, welcoming her husband home from a long stint at sea.”
“Seriously?” She nodded, and he shook his head. “That’s what I used to picture, too. How weird is that?”
Very, Lauren answered silently. So far, she hadn’t come up with anything they had in common beyond Julia. That they shared something so bizarre was unsettling, to say the least.
He broke the odd mood with his usual optimism. “I know it’s a mess right now, but someday it’ll be amazing.”
“Are you going to live here or sell it?”
“It’s too much house for me, so I’ll probably end up selling it,” he replied while they walked into the brightly lit kitchen in progress. With tall ceilings and a long bank of windows, it looked out on the yard on two sides. When the gardens were in full bloom, it would look and smell wonderful. “Lots of folks who visit here come back later and end up staying. They love old houses with tons of character.”
“This definitely fits the bill.” Sitting on a battered stool in front of the butcher block island, she looked around with new appreciation for his carpentry skills. “You’re doing a lot more than rebuilding this place. You’re bringing it back to life.”
Opening the oven, he pulled out a pan with honey-drizzled ham that made her stomach growl impatiently. “I like how that sounds. You wanna do my PR?”
“Oh, I’m no good at things like that,” she responded, waving the idea away. “My business degree didn’t teach me anything practical.”
That seemed to get his attention, and when he was done basting the ham, he fixed her with a somber look. “Why’s that?”
“I’m not sure,” she confessed slowly. “I just wasn’t into it, I guess. Even a semester in London didn’t help much.”
“Right. Were you studying or partying?”
“Well—”
“Is that where you met Julia?”
This guy was way sharper than he appeared to be, with his shock of unruly blond hair and endless collection of aw-shucks grins. But his demeanor was more curious than aggressive, and she decided to follow the conversation where it led.
“We literally bumped into each other at a little bistro near Buckingham Palace,” she recalled with a smile. “When she found I wanted to see it but had missed the tour, she took me in herself. When one of the dukes found out Julia was there, he came down and greeted us personally. After giving us a private tour, he chatted with us over tea like he had all the time in the world. It was incredible.”
Ben let out a low whistle. “I guess so. I’ve seen pictures of that place, and it’s like a museum.”
“Tell me about it. I’d never been anywhere outside of Pennsylvania, and Julia took me everywhere. Rome, Vienna, we even had lunch at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Just like in the movies, you can see the whole city from up there.”
“Whoa! How cool was that?”
“The coolest. Julia’s the best friend I’ve ever had,” Lauren added emphatically. “When I asked if I could come up here for a while, she didn’t even blink. She offered me a job and a place to stay, no questions asked.”
She hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud, and she hoped he wouldn’t press her for details she wasn’t prepared to share. While she held her breath, she thought he looked like he wanted to say something, but was interrupted by the oven timer. Saved by the bell, she thought. While he was busy with the hot food, she stood and went to the fridge. Inside was a salad and a pitcher of iced tea, so she added them to the dinner he was arranging on the island.
When everything was ready, he sat down across from her and held out his hands. “Like they say in France, bon appétit.”
She laughed. “For a Maine contractor, you’ve got a pretty good French accent.”
“I’d love to go to Europe someday,” he confided around a mouthful of scalloped potatoes. “Those countries have been around so long, you can get a view of history just from studying the architecture.”
He said it with such longing, Lauren found herself wishing she could do something to help him make it happen. He was such a good guy—he deserved to have some of his dreams come true. To her surprise, she heard herself say, “You’ll get there. And when you do, it’ll be worth the wait.”
Where had that come from? she wondered. These days, it was all she could do to keep moving forward, one painful step at a time. It had been so long since she’d felt hopeful about anything, the emotion startled her.
“I’m sure you’re right about that,” he said. “In the meantime, this place oughta keep me busy enough.”
They ate for a few minutes in silence, and she suddenly remembered the mission Julia had given her. Setting down her fork, she began, “I had an idea for Toyland.”
That got his attention, and his eyes glittered with interest. “Yeah?”
While she outlined what she and Julia had discussed earlier, she could hear the wheels spinning in his head. This man wasn’t meant for cement and shingles, she thought wistfully. He was meant to create beautiful things people would enjoy for generations to come. When she was finished, she sat back and folded her hands on the counter. “So what do you think?”
“It’s fantastic,” he answered without hesitation. “Kids around here will line up for playtime at Toyland.”
“I need your help to make it happen, though. Julia doesn’t want anyone but you working in her building, and after seeing what you can do, I agree with her. Do you have time?”
“I’ll make time.”
Jumping from his stool, he grabbed a magnetic pad and pen from its spot on the fridge. While she detailed what she had in mind, he sketched her concept into some kind of primitive blueprint. After a few false starts, they finally settled on something they both liked.
“Excellent,” he announced, holding up his hand for a high five. Then he pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans and opened the contacts screen. “I’ll add your number in, so I can reach you if I have questions while I’m drafting the plans.”
The seemingly innocent request knocked her off her stride, and she did her best to answer without raising suspicion. “You can just call me at the store.”
Unfortunately he must have caught the hitch in her voice, because he gave her a long, serious look. “I thought you just left it behind the day of the egg hunt. You really don’t have a cell phone?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She could have lied, but he’d been so kind to her, he deserved better than that. While she was debating how to explain her situation, he leaped ahead in her story and scowled. “Because of him, right? The guy you ran away from?”
Suddenly, she was tired of concealing the truth of her situation from everyone. Ben had already guessed the basics, so she decided there was no sense in trying to keep up the charade any longer. “Jeremy.” Lauren heard the tremor in her voice and swallowed to steady it. “His name is Jeremy.”
“Does he have a last name?”
It was a reasonable question, but the fury blazing in Ben’s eyes made her hesitate. The Rutledge family was well-known in New York, and she didn’t want Ben doing something foolish like hunting Jeremy down to confront him. So she kept the name to herself and continued. “I met him at a Penn State football game. He was there with friends, and we hit it off. We started dating—me going up to New York, him coming to Philly when he could get away. After a while, I was doing most of the traveling, so he invited me to move in with him.”
Pausing, she looked over to gauge Ben’s reaction to that. Disapproval darkened his usually mellow features, but he didn’t say anything. “I’m not proud of it, but I was so in love with him, I just wanted us to be together. He had a really nice apartment near Central Park, and he got me a job at his office. For a while, it was great.”
She stopped to gather her thoughts, and he gently prodded, “Then it wasn’t so great.”
“We started fighting, about little things at first, then about everything. He didn’t want me going anyplace without him, which wasn’t a big deal, since I didn’t have any friends of my own there anyway. On the rare times we were apart, I discovered he was keeping tabs on where I went and what I did.”
“By tracking your cell phone?”
This guy didn’t miss a trick, she thought with envy. If only she’d been that savvy, she wouldn’t have gotten into this mess in the first place. “Anyway, I finally had enough of that and told him I was going to get an apartment with a friend from college. He didn’t take that well.”
Unconsciously, she raised a hand to the cheek that still stung whenever she thought about Jeremy. The bruise had faded, but she was convinced the memory of that horrible night would be with her forever.
Rage flooded Ben’s eyes, and he fisted his hands on the butcher block as if he were struggling to maintain control of his temper. “I’m glad you didn’t tell me his last name, or I’d be on a plane to New York so fast....”
Lauren knew violence wasn’t the cure to violence, but the protectiveness seething in his voice was comforting somehow. Just knowing Ben was more than willing to stand between her and the big, bad world made her feel safer than she had in a long time.