by Jean Oram
She sucked in a deep breath, then another, struggling for calm.
It wasn’t helping.
Burke’s employees depended on her. Burke depended on her.
She bent over, trying to encourage the dizziness to pass.
“Jill?” Burke said, his tone lacking concern.
“Trying to breathe.”
“Jill. Please stand up.”
There was a hint of urgency in his voice, and she straightened in time to see an alarmed looking woman in her fifties hurry up to them. She was wearing warm Inuit-styled mukluk boots, and an ankle-length down jacket, her gray hair tied in a ponytail.
“I’m okay. Just lightheaded,” Jill said quickly.
Burke hugged the woman warmly as she reached them. “What brings you to this part of town?” he asked her.
“Gulliver said you were acting odd, so I tracked your phone.”
Oh, boy. It was his mother, Jill realized. A highly overreacting, overprotective mom who would chain Jill to the train tracks if she found out what she’d just accidentally done to her son.
“I should never have given you access,” Burke was muttering affectionately.
The woman turned to Jill. “Who have we got here?” She glanced up at the red sign above them, her eyes narrowing. “What should I know that you’re not telling me, Burke Bartholomew Carver?”
Any moment she’d realize Jill had ruined her son’s dreams.
Jill had to bend over again so she didn’t pass out.
“Jill?” Burke said, clearly unimpressed by her behavior.
“I can’t pay it back fast enough. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to ruin everything. I want to fix it, but I just…I can’t.”
How had she so quickly and easily screwed up everything again? She even had a plan! A good one.
“I know.” Burke sounded as though he couldn’t unclamp his jaw. He was furious. He was going to sue her. She would never build the friendship center, never earn enough to move out of the suite in her perfect twin sister’s garage. She’d be the piteous unlucky-in-love Auntie Jill forever.
“I promise I’ll think of something,” she whispered. She had to. Absolutely had to. She just didn’t know what that something was, and that very fact freaked her out a tremendous amount.
“Jill, please stand up.”
“Are you okay?” The woman’s voice was so kind it made Jill’s heart hurt.
“Yes. No. I’m trying to be. It’s really hard right now.”
“Burke,” the woman said, when Jill dared take a peek at her, “I think you’d better take us for coffee and explain yourself.”
Burke needed Jill to pull it together. Otherwise his aunt Maggie was going to kick his butt so hard his teeth would need replacing. She was already piecing things together—thanks to Gulliver saying Burke was acting strangely. And why would he think that? Burke wasn’t acting that odd. Just because he’d been seen kissing a woman who wasn’t his usual tough-as-nails businesswoman type, had asked for a printed list of his personal assets and had told Gulliver to sell a few trinkets…
Burke sighed. Yeah, that looked kind of bad, didn’t it?
No wonder Maggie was here to bust his chops until she got to the bottom of it—especially after seeing Jill all but hyperventilate on the street outside a divorce lawyer’s office.
Maggie had marched Burke and Jill straight to a little bistro just down the street and ordered them all black coffees, sitting them down in a quiet corner.
“I’m Maggie Carver, Burke’s aunt,” Maggie said, reaching across the table to shake Jill’s hand. She paused to give Burke, who she’d seated right beside her, as though she might have to reach over to yank on his ear, a stern look.
“Pleased to meet you,” Jill said, before introducing herself.
The bistro was cold, the walls a blaring white, the lighting harsh and unforgiving, making Jill’s face look pale and delicate framed by her long black hair. It felt as though Burke was in an operating room. Or an interrogation room.
“Sorry, I should have introduced you,” he said.
“I raised you better,” Maggie told him in a gentle, but chiding tone. She turned to Jill. “Am I to presume you’re Burke’s wife, seeing the two of you were outside a divorce lawyer’s office?”
Burke cringed. Jill was wide-eyed, looking at him for direction.
“We’re getting a divorce,” he said, a familiar pressure building in his temples.
This time he wasn’t losing everything. This time things were going to be different.
“You two got married?” Maggie asked. She shifted in her seat to face him more fully. “Burke?”
He was unable to meet her eye. As difficult as he’d been over the years, he didn’t keep secrets from her. Never had. She’d taken him in, kept him from becoming a true orphan, and when she’d fallen ill after he’d graduated from high school, he’d passed up college to care for her. A decision he knew she regretted, but he didn’t. Never would. That time together had been sacred to him, even though difficult, and it had helped him forge a strength and determination he knew he wouldn’t have otherwise.
He nodded silently.
“It was an accident,” Jill said quickly.
“There are no such thing as accidents.” Maggie was starting to smile despite the flash of concern she was trying to hide. She knew what he’d faced with his previous marriage. Knew he hadn’t wanted to marry again. Ever.
“Neither of us remember it,” Burke said simply. “Drunken night. We’re divorcing.”
“It was a temporary lapse in judgment and the parting is mutual and friendly,” Jill added supportively, and he shot her a grateful look.
“Exactly. Neither of us want to…”
“Talk about it. To anyone.”
“Right. Or—”
“Be married.”
“And do married things.” He caught Jill’s eye, his voice automatically dropping an octave. “Although maybe some of the funner stuff would be okay.”
Those kisses at MacKenzie’s had been out of this world. The kind where the top of your head blew off like in the cartoons and you walked around with your tongue lolling out the side of your mouth and little hearts floated in the air for hours afterward.
Jill choked on a surprised laugh, looking embarrassed by the way he’d shot that one straight from the hip. To his delight, she played along. “Try and make it memorable this time.”
“Try and keep your hands off me.”
“Try and keep it rated for public consumption.” Jill covered her face as if she was mortified, but her shoulders were shaking with laughter. She dropped her hands after a moment and groaned, head tilted to the side, her long hair fanning over her shoulder. “That was so embarrassing.”
“You two acted like newlyweds, I heard,” Maggie said, her own hands clasped on the tabletop, her coffee untouched.
“You heard about MacKenzie’s?” Burke asked in surprise. If she’d heard…then Gulliver had. If he had, the public likely had. Would that mean Autumn and her father had, too? He had a feeling the governor was hoping Burke would take his spoiled, twenty-four-year-old daughter off his hands for him, and he would not be impressed that Burke hadn’t mentioned this aspect of his personal life.
Maggie was studying them thoughtfully, not answering Burke’s question. “I don’t understand. You two seem good together.”
“We’re not a match,” Jill said uneasily. “He goes for my sister’s type.”
“You have a sister?”
“Identical twin.”
Burke smiled and Jill rolled her eyes. “See? You’re ridiculous. I don’t go for ridiculous.” She pushed her coffee away and crossed her arms.
“Come on, for all your planning, I bet you love the adventure of hanging out with a man like me,” he teased, cradling his coffee cup in his hand.
“How do you know I’m a planner?”
He finished his coffee, setting down the cup. “I’ve never seen a more detailed business proposal.”
“Oh. Well, you’re not husband material. As fun as you might claim to be.”
“You heard her,” Burke said, turning to his aunt. He was not husband material. Never would be. He lifted his palms as if to say “Present me with a better argument than that.”
“You need to let go of the past,” Maggie warned.
“I have, and I learned from it, too.” He could feel his earlier humor slipping away.
Jill collected her purse as she stood, her smile pinched. She said to Maggie, “It was lovely meeting you. I’ll let you two talk.” She gave Burke a teasing, more relaxed smile as she added, “I’m sorry our meeting couldn’t have been under more pleasant circumstances.”
“Ouch,” Burke said, acting wounded. “Are you implying I’m an unpleasant circumstance?”
She turned serious, her playful banter gone. “I’ll pay back that loan. I’ll figure this out. Everything’ll be fine. I promise.”
There was fear in her eyes and he hated to believe he was the one who’d put it there. But he nodded, acknowledging her promise.
Maggie tipped her head to the side as she studied Jill’s pained expression. The pounding in Burke’s temples returned full force. It didn’t matter what he did, he was going to hurt or disappoint someone.
“Jill…” He stood, starting to reach for her, then changed his mind. He wanted to tell her everything would be all right, but at the same time, from a business perspective, he couldn’t let her off the hook, as everything would most definitely not be all right.
She flashed a smile. “I’m sorry I can’t stay. Thank you for the coffee.”
Once she was gone, Burke slowly sat again. Maggie turned to him, silently watching. Finally she said, “I think this is the right thing.”
“The divorce should be finalized within a week or two. And no, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I meant this…accidental marriage, as you two are calling it.”
“We’re not calling it anything.” The idea of the two of them having a “thing” got under his skin in a way he couldn’t explain. He wanted that with her—a something. And wanting something from women always led to pain.
“You were always a romantic,” Maggie said, digging through her purse for chewing gum. “Normally it causes you to throw too much into it or chase off after the wrong women.”
“I don’t do that.”
“Your ex-wife? You wanted that to work and I admired your persistence and effort, but wanting something badly doesn’t make up for the other person not wanting it. You can’t make someone else love you.”
“I know that,” he said gruffly. She made it sound so bad. When you were married, you tried. End of story. He’d just tried harder than Neila, who’d been taking advantage of their union. She’d taught him a very valuable lesson about love. She’d pretended—convincingly. And when she’d decided she was done, she’d cleared out their joint accounts as well as the house, even taken their dog, Misty. He’d come home with a bouquet of flowers to celebrate their six-month anniversary and found a For Sale sign out front and a Dear John letter on the mantel, like some horrible cliché.
The worst part was that she wasn’t the first woman to up and leave him after he’d offered everything he had.
He wasn’t the kind of man women kept. It was that simple.
“You two have something.” Maggie waggled her finger between Burke and Jill’s empty seat, chewing on her fresh piece of gum. “And maybe being thrown together takes the pressure off, so you don’t mess it up with idealized dreams.”
Burke checked his phone, wishing something urgent would come up and let him escape. “Don’t read too much into it—we’re getting divorced. She has nothing to lose and everything to gain from this marriage.”
Maggie was silent.
“I, meanwhile,” he said, with a touch of self-righteousness, “have everything to lose.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. As do my employees. I need to protect them.”
“Burke, can I ask you something?”
“No.”
He sighed when she continued, anyway. “Why, do you believe, you have a new woman each month? And don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
“I like to have fun. They do, too. It’s mutual. And it’s not every month.” Lately it had been more like every six months. It was just too much work trying to do the dance. Don’t get too close, don’t get involved. Don’t create too many common experiences that will make you believe it’s actually real.
It was never real.
“Know what I think?” Maggie asked.
Burke leaned back in his chair, staring at the white wall in front of him, knowing she was going to tell him no matter what he said.
“You’re afraid of being truly and deeply loved. You either sabotage the relationship by falling too soon for someone who just needs someone to lean on, and hold it against some ideal you have in your head. Or you keep the woman at arm’s length and don’t let her in.”
Burke took her untouched cup. “Want a warm-up, Dr. Ruth?”
“Honey,” she said gently, placing a hand over his forearm so he couldn’t slip away. “You can’t say your mother’s death, followed by Fiona’s indifference to stepping up to raise you, hasn’t had an impact on your relationships. And growing up without a male role model, or seeing a healthy heterosexual relationship—”
He shifted, shaking her hand off his arm, not wanting to have this conversation again. Yeah, Fiona, his mother’s wife of nine years, didn’t want him after the car accident that had taken his mom’s life. He’d broken an arm and a leg in the collision and needed some surgeries insurance would almost cover. That wasn’t the big deal. She simply hadn’t wanted him.
And so he’d fallen on Aunt Maggie, who was too good to send him off to live in an orphanage.
“I’m happy.” Burke stood. “Happy enough, okay? I tried marriage. It didn’t work out. Jill and I are getting a divorce. It’s what’s best. I can’t give her what she wants and I need her to stay out of my life.” His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry. His urge to run and never stop was incredibly compelling.
“Oh, Burke.” Maggie’s eyes were sad. “I wish I’d done better by you. I thought I was doing the right thing giving you my undivided attention instead of accepting Kurt’s proposal. But maybe if we’d married it would have been good for you.”
Burke shut his own eyes for a second, softened by her morose, and gutted by the guilt he felt at her sacrifice. “You did better than anyone else would have, and if it weren’t for you, I’d probably be in jail.”
“Don’t let her go,” Maggie pleaded, standing, holding him close. “Not yet.”
“There’s nothing there.” He felt as though he was lying to her. It was the same feeling he’d had when he was fourteen and had boldly lied to her—the only time he ever had—about stealing the running shoes he needed for ninth grade gym class. She’d been between jobs due to illness and he’d been at a stage where his feet seemed to be a new size every week. He’d known it was wrong, but hadn’t known what else to do. The guilt had kept him up all night and the next day after school he’d gone out and found a job. Two weeks later, he’d paid the store back for the shoes that had fit him for only three weeks. Five, if he ignored the pain in his toes.
“Don’t give up on her, Burke. But most of all, don’t give up on yourself and your ability to give and receive love.”
“Maggie…” He gave her an exasperated look.
“Please. For me.”
“Love has nothing to do with this marriage.”
“Don’t let your fears get in the way of what’s best. Don’t close your eyes to reality. There’s a way to make this happen. I can feel it.”
Burke paused. A reluctant plan was beginning to form. It wasn’t ideal, and it went against what he wanted in the short-term, but long-term it was exactly what he and his business needed. He just had to find a way to make it happen.
He bent to give his aunt a kis
s on the cheek. “Thanks.”
“Invite me to the real wedding!”
“There won’t be one,” he said cheerfully as he headed for the door.
He ignored how she muttered, “Famous last words.”
4
Jill pushed away from her desk. It had been a long day of trying to catch up on her work for Emma, but the offices at All You were now abandoned until tomorrow. With the building empty she turned up her music and grabbed some labels from her printer.
She stretched out her back and yawned, pausing to flip open one of her magazines on organizing spaces. Katie Leham had once asked her to work as a contractor for her decorating company, when she’d seen how Jill had helped Mary Alice organize her purse. Not that the woman actually kept the system; she still preferred to keep items in her bra rather than in her handbag. But the idea of becoming a home organizer for the wealthy, instead of working for Emma as well as trying to run her own botanicals business in the evenings and weekends, was appealing to Jill. Everything would have its place. No chaos. No stressful juggling of life. Just systems. Easy.
She closed the magazine and went to work labeling folders, her stomach growling. She reached into her desk drawer, pulling out her plastic snack bin. Microwave popcorn. Perfect. That would tide her over before she went home around nine.
Her cell rang on her desk and her heart leaped with anticipation.
Was it Burke?
Whoa. Where had that come from? Of course it wasn’t. And if it was, he would only harp about her paying back that loan.
She answered the call.
“Hi. Jill Armstrong?”
“Yes.”
“This is Zebadiah from WWYL.”
“From where?”
“We Win Your Love.”
“Oh, right.” The dating company she’d hired to find her a suitable date—or even better, boyfriend—in time for her sister’s tenth wedding anniversary, which was in early May. She’d gone to them and their fine-tuned system so she wouldn’t look sad and pathetic as the divorcée twin with absolutely no hope at love.