by Vicki Essex
She looked like she was about to argue—was she that unused to praise?—but then a voice like a bullhorn blared across the room.
“Well, well, isn’t this a surprise?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BOB FORDINGHAM SWAGGERED OVER, his face glowing like a heat lamp. He bared his small, evenly spaced teeth in a grin that reminded Shane of a tired old picket fence. “Didn’t expect to see you two being cozy together.”
“Just a friendly dinner.” Shane made to stand to shake the man’s hand. He didn’t want to invite a deeper conversation, but he didn’t like Fordingham looming over him, either. His considerable bulk cast a wide shadow.
“Oh, don’t get up. I just wanted to stop by and say hello. Didn’t think there’d be much on the menu here you’d like. Your people like curries, eh?” He laughed as if it were the funniest thing he’d ever said.
Shane kept his expression neutral. “I’m more of a meat and potatoes guy. That your family over there, Bob?” He nodded toward his table. It was an unsubtle way to remind the man, and himself, to be civil.
“Just the blonde and the two kids. The rest are friends. I have a lot of ’em.” The implied threat wafted from the statement as unsubtly as the alcohol fumes from Bob’s mouth.
“How nice for you.” Shane knew he’d be better off making this man an ally rather than an enemy, but he’d already burned him in public. And Fordingham didn’t strike him as the type to forgive and forget.
The former mayor swung toward Mira. “You’re not letting this wise guy talk you into selling the Crown, are you?”
Contempt crackled the glaze of her imperturbable facade. “I’m having dinner.”
The man’s expression grew lascivious, as if she’d just described her undergarments to him, and he stooped closer, swaying slightly. “I never got to speak to you after the meeting. I admired your grandfather very much. He was real respectable. His son was a piece of work—I knew the guy. But Jack raised a beautiful granddaughter.”
She met his eye blandly, unblinking, silent and full of judgment. It seemed to make the man uncomfortable because two heartbeats later he straightened and said, “If you need anything from me, give me a call, sweetheart.” He produced a business card from a stack in his pocket. She took it by the edges and laid it on the table, and Fordingham ambled back to his table.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Mira made a sound of disgust. “Grandpa hated him,” she muttered. “He thought he could buy everyone’s loyalty and bullied anyone who didn’t bow down to him. Never did a thing to help this town, either.”
The chatter from Fordingham’s table dropped, then rose again in earnest. Mira grew quiet and picked at her meal. It wasn’t until he peeked over his shoulder that he realized the Fordingham party was staring at them, whispering, laughing.
“I’m not as hungry as I thought.” Mira pushed her plate away.
“Then let’s go find something that will tickle your appetite.” Shane signaled the waiter immediately and got the check. Mira didn’t relax until they were back in the car. This was supposed to be a fun night out for the two of them. Instead, it’d become even more awkward and uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry dinner was spoiled,” he said once they were on the road. “It’s my fault Mr. Fordingham got all up in our business. I shouldn’t have antagonized him at the zoning meeting.”
“I can handle Bob. I just don’t like being stared at and talked about.”
“They were staring at you because you were with me.”
Her gaze flicked to him. “No, they were staring at me because everyone in town knows about my parents, my past. Some people enjoy rubbing it in my face.”
He drove her back to the theater, the gloom of night settling around them. This was not how this evening was supposed to go. He’d meant for her to relax and forget about everything. It was supposed to be just the two of them, learning more about each other.
But business had come between them. Business that wouldn’t go away until it was settled once and for all.
He walked her to the door beneath the marquee. After the night they’d had, he was unsure of what to expect. “May I kiss you good-night?” he asked tentatively.
Mira wavered. Shane’s guts tied into a knot. If she didn’t want him—
She placed a hand on his shoulder, arched up and planted her lips firmly against his. Warmth and relief spread through him. He slipped his arms around her waist, drawing her close. Her softness reminded him of the orchids in her little Eden. They moved deeper into the shadows of the doorway until they were pressed against the boarded-up entrance. Her hands delved through his hair and she softened her jaw, opening to him in invitation.
There was no hesitation in her exploration. He gathered her close, melting into the kiss. He wasn’t seducing her—he was being seduced. And he would gladly climb a rickety ladder to the top of the world to make love to her.
A shaft of protestations and complications briefly cleared the hazy lust fogging his brain, and he broke away, leaning his forehead against hers as he put some space between them.
“Will you come in?” Mira asked breathily.
He throbbed head to toe, and in one region in particular. “I want to. But...” He didn’t want to reject her without giving her a really good reason. If she were any other woman, he would be taking Mira hard against a wall right now. But he wanted everything to be perfect.
At one time he might have treated this like part of his grand plan to get what he wanted from her; maybe everything he’d invested in their relationship made this feel like more than a fling. He hated his cynical brain for even thinking it—what was real if this wasn’t?
His breathing was ragged as he pried himself away. “I want to, but I have to stop. I know it sounds like a cop-out, but... I don’t want anything between us to complicate things. I want to make love to you when we’re both clear of all that stands between us. Otherwise you might wonder for the rest of your life whether I only slept with you as part of a business thing.”
She stared. “Seriously?” She recoiled. “And you think leaving me like this will make that better somehow?”
He grimaced. “I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
“No, I get it.” She raised her hands, a cool veil settling over her. “You want to be the good guy. You want to have it all. You think, ‘As soon as Mira sells the Crown, she’ll see I was right and we can be together and live happily ever after.’” She shook her head. “You and I both know life doesn’t ever work out that way.”
“Mira—”
“Go home, Shane. I’m tired and I’m going to bed alone.”
Before he could stop her, she’d unlocked the front door and slammed it behind her.
* * *
“YOU HEAR THE NEWS?”
Arty was doing paperwork in the grocery store’s office when Janice’s voice startled him out of the mind-numbing task. He nearly knocked over his coffee. “What are you doing here?”
“Pete’s out sick, so I thought I’d deliver the shipment myself.”
He tried to sound his normal, gruff self. “You didn’t have to do that. I would’ve sent one of my guys if you called.”
“Well, I would have if you’d answered the phone. You’ve been avoiding me.”
Arty sipped his coffee, stalling. “I’ve been busy.”
Janice stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. Arty got hot around the collar. Call him old-fashioned, but he didn’t think it was appropriate to be in a room with a lady behind closed doors unless they had an understanding.
There was no understanding between him and Jan. None at all. And he had to keep it that way.
“I heard from Stephanie Stephens who heard from her employee, Kira West, who heard from Wyatt Brown that Mira was out with Shane Patel last nigh
t at Greenfield’s.”
Arty perked up. “You don’t say?”
“That’s not the juicy part. Wyatt saw them kissing outside the theater.”
Arty shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t want to talk about kissing, and while he was happy for Mira, he also wasn’t keen on discussing what she did in her recreational time. “Well, good for them.”
“I just hope this lasts, after everything that happened at the town meeting.”
“How did that go anyway?” he asked.
Jan blinked. “Wait...you weren’t there?”
“Weren’t you?”
Her eyes widened. “No, I... I assumed you’d be there and thought...”
“I assumed you’d be there.”
“Neither of us were there? Oh dear.” Janice wrung her hands. “Mira must’ve been terrified. You know what she’s like in crowds.”
“She’s not a lost child, Jan. I’m sure she did fine.” Guilt ate at him now, though. He should’ve been there. It’d been an important meeting, and even if he wasn’t sure saving the Crown was best for Mira, he had to do what he could for Jack’s granddaughter to honor his friend’s memory. Like he’d been doing by avoiding Jan...
Janice sat forward. “Arty...tell me...what happened the other week? In my shop when you—”
“It was a mistake. I didn’t mean to...” He trailed off.
The space between her eyebrows wrinkled. “Mistake?”
“I got caught up in the moment, that’s all. It’ll never happen again.”
The florist dropped her gaze. “Why not?”
Why not? Did she have a sadistic streak? He shifted in his chair. “I’m trying to be a decent man, here. I can’t dishonor Bill’s memory. Or Jack’s, for that matter.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I can understand your feelings about Bill, but my husband’s been dead a long time. And what does Jack have to do with anything?”
Was she yanking his chain? “He told me when he asked you out, you rejected him. He never did get over that heartbreak. A man doesn’t—” He cut himself off sharply. What he’d wanted to say was that a man didn’t betray his friend by pursuing the woman who’d broken his heart—even if it broke his own in the process.
Janice blinked. “He never asked me out. He flirted, sure—we both know how he was. But I made it clear I wasn’t interested in him.”
Arty stared, his mind swirling with confusion as he tried to identify what she meant by her emphasized him.
“For Pete’s sake, Arty, stop gaping. I was interested in you.” Janice pinkened until she matched the azaleas she sold. “I’ve waited years for you to ask me out. I’d just about given up. Seemed like the only woman you were interested in was Mira.”
He choked on his coffee, started to sputter.
“Not in that way, obviously.” Janice huffed out a sharp breath. “God, but you’re a blockhead. I don’t know how many signals I had to throw your way. It was like trying to flag down a blind bull with a handkerchief.”
“But... Jack said...”
“Jack was an idiot, God rest his soul. I told him I wanted you.” She fidgeted. “That is, he figured it out, eventually.”
Arty didn’t know what to say. The man he’d called brother had taken this secret to his grave. Jack had known Arty was in love with Janice. He couldn’t believe he’d denied him that chance to be with her. All those years they could have had together...
A bleak, black cloud cast his friend’s memory in shadow.
“Well? Do you have anything to say?” Janice asked tetchily.
He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around all this. Jack didn’t really know, did he? I mean...he didn’t actually tell you he’d figured it out?”
“You calling me a liar?”
He shook his head. “I just can’t believe Jack would’ve lied to me about this.”
The florist pursed her lips. “Well, he did. To both of us. He told me you had other things to focus on and that you had your eye on someone else. For a while, I thought he might be implying you were...playing for the other team. I got the impression he was protecting you.”
Or maybe he had a jealous, vindictive side to him. Arty knew Jack could hold a grudge—it was why he and his son, Mira’s father, had been estranged for so long. He just had a hard time imagining his friend would be so duplicitous.
“I... I need time to think about this.” Arty got up and left the suddenly stifling office. He should’ve been overjoyed, should’ve been kissing the daylights out of Janice Heinlein.
But all he could think about were the long, wasted years, and the man who’d been the cause of them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MIRA SPENT THE week working with Maya and several volunteers to promote the Crown’s open house. She was surprised by the enthusiastic support: Maya had enlisted her friends, including the reporter Tiffany Cheung and Stephanie Stephens, who worked at Georgette’s Books and Bakery, as well as their partners, Chris Jamieson and Aaron Caruthers, to help clean up the theater.
The open house would take place on the third Friday of July, which seemed too close, considering all the work the theater needed. She only had so many hours in a day, even after she cut back on the number of articles she wrote daily. The volunteers all had day jobs, too, and could only afford a couple of hours in the evening to help out.
And when they got together, Mira had a hard time prioritizing tasks and directing people where to put things. She’d spent years shuffling and reshuffling everything around without actually throwing anything out. Now she found she couldn’t bear to lose all those boxes of old flyers and paraphernalia. Everything was infused with the spirit of her grandfather—throwing anything out would chip away at his presence little by little.
Maya and the others were soon exasperated by her need to hoard her grandfather’s memories, and that, in turn, made her more anxious. She wasn’t used to working in groups. She didn’t like being either a captain or a team player—it was easier being alone. Being accountable only to herself allowed her to screw up and act out as much as she wanted to without judgment or consequence. By the end of the week, she was so frustrated she told the volunteers not to come back till she’d figured it all out.
Alone at last, she found she wanted to talk to Shane, but she couldn’t face him. She was embarrassed that she’d thrown herself at him and then been rejected. Was she so repellant? She didn’t buy his reasoning. What he wanted, first and foremost, was the theater. He probably didn’t think he could have her until that happened.
Which pretty much meant they’d never be together.
Being reminded that she was a woman with needs had awakened a restlessness inside her. Her insomnia was worse than ever, but a blessing in disguise: she used those long, dark hours to scrub and clean and fix what she could in the theater. But every job unearthed a bigger one she wasn’t ready to handle. And when she tried to start a bigger project, she became distracted by some far less important task. Tasks she could be assigning to those eager volunteers who’d looked ready to give up on her altogether.
She wouldn’t blame them if they did.
Part of it was that she simply wasn’t mentally prepared to let others into the theater. Putting off the big projects delayed that inevitability. She was baffled by her own behavior—this was what she wanted, what Grandpa would’ve wanted. And yet, she dreaded the open house almost as much as she’d dreaded going to school when she’d first moved to Everville.
“You’ll make tons of friends,” Grandpa had assured her. “Who couldn’t love a smart girl like you?”
“Mom and Dad don’t love me.” She remembered how she wouldn’t let herself feel pain over the reality of her sad life. The other kids had called her weird because of how little emotion she’d displayed. “They told me s
o. They said that’s just the way it is.”
“Well, they don’t know any better. I love you, Mira. And so will the kids at school. They just need to get to know you.”
The memory had her stopping in her tracks. Did she want to get to know other people? It was so much easier to be alone, independent, to do as she pleased without anyone being disappointed in her. She got that her parents had screwed her up by treating her like a burden. She’d been more a pet than a daughter, though they’d probably have treated a dog more civilly.
Around eight in the morning, after yet another sleepless night spent cleaning, her phone chimed with a text message. It was Shane. Are you home?
She hesitated. She hadn’t answered his phone calls or emails except with the briefest of replies.
A minute passed. Then two. Hands itching, she typed out quickly, Yes. Busy.
I’m outside. Can I come in?
She checked her security feed—sure enough, he was by the back door, but he wasn’t alone. Three young men were with him, as well as Sheriff Ralph McKinnon. She hadn’t heard her alarm go off. Maybe the battery had died.
She wiped her hands and hurried to the back door, wrestling with both irritation and happiness at seeing Shane. The others she wasn’t sure about. Ralph stood eyeing the three young men, hands on his hips. They were in their late teens, tall and scraggly and looking a touch sheepish.
“Morning, Mira,” the sheriff greeted. “How’re you doing?”
“Fine.” Whatever this was about, she wanted it over with quick. “What do you need, Ralph?”
“I think it’s more about what you need, Mira.” He nodded to the boys. “This here’s Jacob Massey, Matthew Smith and Liam Oppenheimer. They’re the ones who broke into your theater.”