Home to Laura

by Mary Sullivan

  She couldn’t get enough, didn’t think she would ever get her fill, but ended the kiss anyway.

  Here, in the darkness, in the heat of a summer’s night, she understood Aiden, but tomorrow morning, in the light of day, she would still be fifteen years older than him, living in a small town where everyone knew everyone else’s business.

  She relinquished his lips slowly, biting and licking to draw into herself the last drop of his essence. “I have to go.”

  “No. I won’t let you.”

  She smiled, sadly, because despite Aiden’s ferocity, he would do what she wanted. She stepped away from him and left, rushing so she could get into the safety of her home before she broke down.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NICK WALKED INTO Sweet Temptations on Tuesday morning, wishing like hell there was another bakery in town.

  The professor and the elders had painstakingly researched migratory routes and had determined the house was clear. Nick could build.

  They were breaking ground tomorrow morning and, to celebrate, he wanted to arrange to have coffee and goodies delivered for the entire crew.

  The shop was busy, as usual, so he joined the lineup. Might as well get a coffee and a treat for himself while he was here.

  Roy Orbison’s “Crying” finished up just as he stepped inside and Neil Young’s “Helpless” started.

  The lineup was ten deep and the service slow. Tilly was training a new girl who was apparently getting some of the orders wrong.

  Laura should have been on the counter helping as he’d seen her do before. Where was she? Things moved along quickly when she served.

  She was smart to consider expansion, but she would be stepping into a new level of service. She would need a full staff, maybe even waitresses.

  Nick’s blood started to burble like the engine of a fine car. He loved business, every type and every aspect of it. The fundamentals were the same no matter how small or large the business.

  While he waited, another song came on that he didn’t know. It sounded like k.d. lang singing something about a heart caving in and willpower being gone.

  What was with all the sad music? Might as well take an IV, fill it with tears and mainline it.

  When he finally got to the front of the line, he demanded, “What’s going on with the music?”

  Tilly looked glum. “Ask the boss.”

  “The place is packed. Why isn’t she out front helping?”

  “Ask her.”

  “I need to discuss catering. I’m going to head back. Okay?”

  Tilly nodded and served the next customer, ignoring him when he stepped around the counter and into the back. He couldn’t help but contrast the atmosphere to that of a couple of months ago.

  In the kitchen, he saw a layer cake on the floor, upside down, where it had landed with a big splat. Icing covered the floor.

  He called, “Laura?”

  “Back here.” She sounded as if she had a cold.

  He found her in a small office with her head in her hands. When she looked up, he could tell she’d been crying.

  “Oh, crap, it’s you,” she said. “Why do you always catch me in my worst moments? I do laugh. I do have fun. I am eminently capable and efficient.”

  “Did something happen to the baby?” A spark inside of him tugged at his heartstrings. For Laura’s sake, he didn’t want her to lose this baby, and wasn’t that a weird revelation when he didn’t want the baby to exist at all, when it scared the bejesus out of him. “Or is the problem that cake on the floor in the kitchen?”

  “The baby’s fine. The problem is the cake. I dropped it.”

  “I noticed. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “It is when I’m too tired to make another one.”

  “Was it a special order?”

  Her tired nod was a barely perceptible movement. “For a birthday party tonight.”

  “When’s the party?”

  “Seven o’clock.”

  “Make another one.”

  “Easy for you to say.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “I’m just working up the energy to start again.”

  “Do you always get this upset over a mistake?”

  “My hormones are going nuts. Usually I bounce back from things, but you know pregnant women. How we can get.”

  No. He didn’t. He tried to remember Marsha pregnant, but couldn’t. Mort had worked the daylights out of him at the beginning. Nick had even missed Emily’s birth.

  “So I’m guessing women get blue during pregnancy?”

  “It happens.”

  “Is that why the music is so painfully sad out front?”

  “It is?” She looked surprised.

  “You need to change it before your customers slit their wrists.”

  A laugh chuffed out of her. “That bad, huh?”

  Nick smiled, grudgingly. Laura was the most attractive woman he knew, but she didn’t look exactly like a beauty queen when she cried. Not many women did. He smiled to himself. She probably wouldn’t want to know that, so he didn’t tell her.

  Despite his anger with her and before he could think better of it, he asked, “Have you had lunch yet?”

  “No.”

  “You want to go out somewhere?”

  “I probably shouldn’t. I’ve been crying.”

  Given that her nose was red, yeah, she shouldn’t go out.

  “How about if I ask Tilly to put something together for us and we eat it in here?”

  He walked back to the door leading to the café and shook his head. The lineup was as long as when he’d entered.

  He returned to Laura.

  “It will take forever to get through the lineup. We’d better go out.”

  “We can go upstairs and I can whip up some pasta and vegetables.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She didn’t move, still sat in the same spot and stared at the wall. He’d never seen her like this. He’d never seen her without energy to spare, without a laugh in her voice.

  Except when she was angry with him, which, of course, was always.

  Her eyes looked like two golden caramels in a pair of bruises. “Are you sleeping?”

  “It’s normal to be tired in the first trimester, especially with morning sickness. It should get better in the second and then flag again in the third.”

  He hadn’t thought about what it would be doing to her body, had only worried about how it would inconvenience him.

  “I get up in the middle of the night to bake,” she said. “By the time the place opens, I’ve already been hard at work for six hours. Normally that’s not a problem, but this baby makes me want to sleep for hours on end.”

  She touched her belly. “I’m afraid to work too hard. I don’t want to lose her. Maybe that’s why I lost the last baby.”

  He didn’t like this version of Laura. He wanted the capable, feisty woman back. “Come on.” He held out his hand to her.

  “What?”

  “We’re going to bake another cake.”

  “We?”

  “Yep. Tell me what to do.”

  In the kitchen, she stared at the cake on the floor.

  “Go,” he said, gently grasping her shoulders and turning her toward the counter. “Get your ingredients together while I clean this up.”

  While he cleaned, she buttered cake pans and dusted them with flour then started measuring ingredients. When he finished cleaning the floor, he fetched cooking items for her.

  At last, she got the cake into the oven and baked it, then turned it out onto cooling racks.

  She went out to ask Tilly to ice it later and deliver it to the birthday party.

  “The activity was good for you,” Nick said. “You look better.” A lot better. She looked good enough to have for lunch. He reined himself in. That wasn’t going to happen again between them.

  “Thanks for your help. I didn’t feel so alone.” It looked as if it cost some of her pride to admit that. Her stomach grumbled. “I
’m going upstairs for lunch. Join me.”

  He was hungry, but upstairs? Alone with Laura in her apartment?

  She stopped a foot away from him, clear-eyed now. “No sex. We absolutely cannot have sex. It screws us up. I’m just offering lunch.”

  “No sex,” he said, even though his body vehemently disagreed.

  He followed her up her stairs and into her apartment.

  While she threw garlic, greens and vegetables into a wok, Nick sat on a stool at the kitchen counter.

  “You mind if I give you some advice about the bakery?”

  She turned warily. “It’s successful. I know I look like a mess these days, but I know baking and I know how to run a café.”

  “Yes, you do. The baked goods are out of this world. I can see that the café is a raging success, but you’ve got Tilly down there training someone and the customers waiting too long to get served.”

  Laura nodded. “I’m usually out there to help her but the pregnancy has been draining my energy.”

  “You need to either get back on that counter or hire more staff.”

  “It’s going to be hard to stay on the counter much until this fatigue passes.”

  “Then you need to train a bunch of people.”

  “You’re right.”

  Just talking about all of that work made her look tired again, dead on her feet, as though a stiff wind would knock her down. If he knew anything at all about cooking, he’d make her sit down and he would finish making lunch for her.

  She took already cooked pasta out of the fridge and tossed it with the sautéed veggies.

  “This will have to do.” She plonked it onto the counter, along with plates and forks. “Do you mind if we sit at the counter?”

  “Do I mind? My intention wasn’t to put you to work. I wanted to do something for you. I would have taken you out to lunch.”

  “I’m too tired.”

  She smiled and sat down. A sigh slipped out of her.

  They ate in a surprisingly companionable silence. Maybe Ty’s idea of forcing them to spend time together on the Fourth hadn’t been so bad, even if the tension that day had soared with the temperature. They needed to get along. Inside of Laura’s body was a tiny creature forming slowly. Tiny and real and intimidating.

  After lunch, Nick rinsed the dishes and made her a cup of tea.

  They moved to the living room.

  “Show me your music collection. We need to get something upbeat onto those speakers downstairs before your customers start running from the café in tears.”

  She pointed to a CD collection that sat beside a computer on a small desk.

  “I use my CDs and I have a bunch of music already on the computer that I bought from iTunes.” She started to rise but he waved her down. “You can burn whatever you want onto a CD and take it downstairs with you.”

  He scanned row upon row of music, mesmerized by the selection, and by how closely some of it mirrored his own.

  “What’s Caro Emerald like?”

  “Fun. Sexy.”

  “Okay, we’ll start with her. What does she do that’s upbeat?”

  “‘Dr. Wanna Do’ and ‘That Man.’”

  “Who else is upbeat?”

  “Imelda May. Rockabilly. Try ‘Johnny Got a Boom Boom’ and ‘Train Kept A Rollin’.’”

  “Who else?”

  “Anastacia. ‘Paid My Dues.’”

  “How about a male artist?”

  “Jonny Lang plays the blues, but his guitar work is sublime. He makes me happy.”

  With a fistful of CDs, he sat at her computer and brought up her iTunes.

  They discussed music for an hour and had barely scratched the surface of what they had in common.

  When he finished, Nick took a compilation CD out of the computer to take downstairs to Tilly.

  He stood to find Laura sound asleep on the sofa with her head resting on one hand and her elbow on the arm of the chesterfield.

  She couldn’t be comfortable.

  He touched her shoulder. “You need to get into bed.”

  “I’m fine here.”

  “No, you’re not. You need to sleep properly.”

  When she refused to move, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom, where he laid her on the bed.

  “Neanderthal,” she said.

  He laughed.

  She looked so sexy, so womanly, that he had to fight to not lie down with her and make love to her.

  “No,” she said, awareness in her eyes. “We can’t ever go down that road again, Nick.”

  “You’re already pregnant.”

  “We’re too hard on each other. We fight as hard as we make love.”

  She was right. Considering what a cool head he had for business, he spent too much time turned inside out when he was with Laura, as though she peeled back his skin and left him exposed.

  But they made love like masters.

  He pulled a cover over her and walked out before he could use his hands, and everything else in his arsenal, to convince her to let him stay.

  Downstairs, he handed the CD to Tilly. “Put this on the CD player.”

  She looked at it suspiciously. “What’s on it?”

  “Something a hell of a lot more upbeat than what’s on right now.”

  “Thank God.” She grabbed it and took it to the corner. A second later, Caro Emerald came on and she smiled.

  There were still a lot of customers in the café. “You want some help?” Nick asked.

  “What can you do?”

  “I don’t know. Give me something.”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Keira and I have to keep serving customers but dirty dishes are piling up on the tables.”

  Nick Jordan, successful businessman and multimillionaire, bused for the rest of the afternoon and washed dishes. If his colleagues could only see him now.

  He returned to Ty’s ranch feeling as if he’d done something useful, as though he’d helped out a friend in need.

  Was Laura a friend?

  He didn’t know. His feelings for her were so polarized, clanging like fire alarms between poles, sometimes angry, most times lustful, and occasionally, like today, in sweet harmony. He didn’t know which end was up.

  He did know that he’d never talked about music with another woman as he had with Laura today.

  * * *

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Nick had basketball coaching duties. He’d bought shoes and workout clothes and wanted to actually get out onto the court with the boys.

  Ruby, Emily and Mort had come along to watch. Neither of the girls knew the first thing about basketball, but every day came outside with him to shoot hoops and pick up pointers.

  Since finding out about the baby, Emily had been dogging his heels. He couldn’t hug her enough or reassure her enough of his love, of how stable and unending it was. She doubted.

  He’d put that doubt there. He spent endless minutes of his days trying to eradicate it.

  On their way to the high school, they stopped at Sweet Temptations for drinks and doughnuts. Emily might not like Laura, but she loved her cinnamon buns.

  Laura was behind the counter serving. Two women Nick had never seen there before served efficiently beside her, while Tilly took orders and handled cash.

  When she saw him, Laura motioned to come to the end of the counter.

  “Thank you for yesterday,” she said, smiling, looking as strangely at ease with him as he felt with her. “I really needed it. I slept right through until three this morning.”

  “Good. You look better.” The bruises under her eyes were gone. “There was a reason I came in yesterday. We’re breaking ground today and I wanted to celebrate. Could you put something together for the workers for tomorrow morning? Thermoses of coffee and sweet treats?”

  “Sure. How about if I make a few trays of bars tonight? Brownies and lemon squares and Rocky Road bars. Does that sound good?”


  “It sounds great. Perfect. There are about eighteen men out there.”

  An odd thought occurred to him. “If you slept through the afternoon and evening yesterday, how did you manage to hire two women and train them so fast?”

  “At one point this morning, the lineup was so long I called out that I needed new employees. Both of these women came forward and agreed to start right away.”

  “You hired them just like that? For all you know, they might rob you blind.”

  “No. I know them both well. I didn’t leave town like you did. I know everyone. They’re middle-aged farm women who’ve been serving food all of their lives. They’re taking to this like ducks to water and they get to make money for themselves. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.”

  Nick smiled.

  They stared at each other, Nick unsure what to think of this strange new harmony between them. The baby issue would always be a barrier to true harmony, and how they were going to work it out, but the harsh edge of their animosity was gone.

  Ty was one smart guy. He’d started this ball rolling by putting them together on the Fourth and basically telling them to grow up and solve their differences.

  Good on him. He hoped things were working out with Tammy.

  Now it was up to Nick to not screw up, to keep things on an even footing with Laura.

  Next, he guessed the smart thing to do would be to mend his relationship with Gabe.

  Gabe was going to be a tough nut to crack, not because of Gabe, but because of Nick and those strange old feelings and memories that bothered him at times.

  “You okay?” Laura asked.

  He’d been staring at her without saying a word.

  “I’m good. Fine,” he said, at a loss to say more. “I’ll pay Tilly for today’s goodies and for whatever tomorrow’s catering will cost.”

  They got to the gym and Nick changed while the girls sat in the stands.

  Nick came out a moment later and dribbled a ball up and down the court, running on rusty legs. He’d spent too many hours sitting at a desk. His life had been saturated with nothing but work for so long, he’d forgotten there was more to life than business.

  He might be rusty, but his body had moves that seemed to be ingrained in his arms and legs. For twenty minutes, he ran and shot hoops, his body thrilled with the pure joy of movement and rhythm.