“This is Mojo.”
“What breed is he?”
“Mutt.” Holly squeezed past Mojo and quickly shut the door before Mojo could make a run for it.
“Have you had him long?” Peter asked as he walked her to his car and held open the passenger door for her.
“About eight years.” Ever since we ended the story of us.
Peter froze. Apparently, eight years was as much a marker for him as it was for her. He nodded, a tense motion, and carefully closed the door for her. He got in on the driver’s side. “I thought we could check out Giovanni’s. It’s an Italian restaurant in Perry Point.”
She nodded. Getting away from the town gossips hanging out at the familiar joints in Havre de Grace was a plus. She leaned back in the seat of his vintage Mustang, but relaxing was not a possibility, not with the scent of his aftershave filling her nostrils. She sneaked a peek at him as he drove across the bridge. In the dim light, it was easy to lose herself in the illusion that little had changed. He was as handsome as ever, with his sculptured features and deep-set green eyes. Age appeared to have touched him lightly, if at all.
“You’re quiet,” he said. “What are you thinking?”
“How much and yet, at the same time, how little has changed.”
“I guess it depends on what you’re looking for. I’ve changed,” he murmured. “It was not hard when forced to grow up.”
The glance he shot her was probing, but she wasn’t ready to dive into the emotional quicksand that lay between them. “What have you been up to?”
“Working, for the most part. Technology sales for small business—customer relationship management systems, financial software, things like that. Sometimes, I get called in to help businesses get started from scratch.”
“And you work for a company?”
“No, I work for myself, but I have relationships with solution providers, and I get commissions on referrals and sales. It seemed to suit me best—setting my own hours and my own goals.”
“You’d always had your heart set on owning your own company.”
He nodded. “And that’s what I did about six years ago; I started my own gig.”
“You like it?”
“Love it.” His grin lit his face. “More challenges than I imagined, but the victories are also sweeter than I imagined.”
“And you’re still living in Baltimore?”
He took his gaze off the road long enough to wink at her. “Keeping tabs on me?”
“People talk.”
“Still?”
Holly shrugged. “We have slow days in Havre de Grace. Besides, Debra and Aidan still live here. The occasional slivers of news on you are unavoidable.”
“I suppose so.” His breath escaped in a sigh. “Anyway, I live in Charles Village, close to Johns Hopkins University. I’m hardly home, though. Work keeps me on the road; I have clients as far south as South Carolina and as far north as Pennsylvania.”
“I’m sure they keep you busy.”
“The work’s fairly seasonal. It’s slow around Christmas.” Peter steered his car off the main road and onto a narrow side street where he parked in front of the restaurant. A cozy orange glow emanated through the wood-framed glass of the restaurant’s bay windows.
Holly unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car before Peter could swing around to help her with her door. She didn’t want chivalry from him, not when it sent unsettled tingles down her spine. She hung back as Peter confirmed the reservation with the hostess, who showed them to a candlelit table for two in a nook next to the fireplace. The hostess left menus with them, as well as a promise that their waitress would be along shortly.
Holly opened her menu. “Have you been here before?”
“Several times. Their seafood is excellent. Their desserts too.” He looked up at her. “Do you still like tiramisu?”
“Love it.”
“You’ll have to save room for dessert, then. The tiramisu is phenomenal, and the cannoli runs a close second. Perhaps we could share like we used to.”
Holly sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t know, Peter. Things have changed in eight years. We can’t go back to where we used to be, not with all that history between us.”
“I’m not expecting us to, but I hope we can move forward.”
Move forward to what? Holly stared at her menu, but her mind refused to focus. James’s question came back to her. Is closure what you’re looking for?
Would closure even be enough?
Across from her sat the man she had dated for nine years through high school, college, and the first year of her working life. He was the man she was certain she would marry, the man who, when he had proposed, she had answered immediately with a kiss of sweet and absolute surrender. He was the man to whom she had given her virginity.
She stared at her unadorned left hand. Her chest ached with all the pain she thought she had buried.
When the waitress came by the table, Holly picked something off the menu without paying much attention, although she did notice the lighthearted flirting between Peter and the waitress. He was obviously a regular customer. She studied his flashing smile and the gleam in his eyes. Peter had always been a charmer, and the passing years had refined his weapon until it was both subtle and smooth.
He glanced back at her when the waitress departed with their order. Uncertainty sneaked into his eyes. “What is it?”
“What is what?”
“It’s that look you have—the slight furrow between your eyes that tells me you’re thinking hard.” He reached across the table, but she did not extend her hand to him. “Sitting here, the two of us, brings back old memories. Good memories.”
“There were lots of good memories, and lots of not-so-great ones too.”
He dragged his hand over his face. “I know. What happened ruined lots of lives—yours, Debra’s, mine. No one came chasing after me with pitchforks, but the effect was the same. They all took your side, effectively running me out of town.”
“You chose to run.”
“It was leave or marry Debra.”
“You mean leave or face up to what you did?”
Peter’s fingers tapped an uneven rhythm on the table. “I didn’t love Debra.”
Holly’s lips twisted in spite of her desperate attempt at self-control. “Then…why?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Stupidity? Insanity? One wrong move, and I’m paying for it forever.”
She suppressed a wince. Where was Aidan in this mess that adults had created? The innocent child. The visible reminder of love and lust gone horribly wrong. Did Peter think of Aidan as the mistake he was paying for forever?
“Fact is,” Peter continued, “I loved you, and I never got a chance to say that I was sorry.”
“So you let eight years pass?”
“We let eight years pass. Your family rallied around you. Your sister, Noelle, who looks like a sweet kitten most days, was a snarling tiger every time I came to the door to ask for you.”
“I told them not to let you in.”
Peter exhaled a shaky breath. “If only you knew how many e-mails I drafted and then deleted. Every time I came back to see Aidan, I drove by your house, hoping for a chance encounter.” He smiled faintly. “I kept tabs on you too.”
She shrugged, but a chill weight settled on her chest. He would have known, then, that she had not dated anyone seriously since.
A brief silence filled the space between them as the waitress returned with drinks and a fried calamari appetizer to share. Holly sipped at her iced tea, hoping it would calm the tangled knot in her stomach.
“What have you been doing since?” Peter speared a piece of calamari on his fork.
“Not much. I’m still teaching at the elementary school.”
“Still enjoying life in Havre de Grace?”
The way he said it made her bristle. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. Once I thought I would stay forever. M
arry you. Live together in the house on the corner of Market Street.”
Red roof, with the gable windows and white picket fence. They had talked and dreamed about their married life in that house, one of the prettiest in Havre de Grace. Holly swallowed hard. “Do you think you’ll ever come back?”
Peter tapped his fingers on the table. “I don’t know. With Debra and Aidan there—”
“I would have thought Aidan would be a major reason for coming back.”
His smile was wistful. “I see him as often as I can, as often as Debra will let me—which isn’t much. She has full custody.” A muscle ticked in his cheek. “She doesn’t mean anything to me. I hope you realize that.”
“She was my best friend. We hung out together, the three of us. You couldn’t possibly have picked anyone else worse to have an affair with.”
Peter ground his teeth. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’ll keep saying it as many times as I need to until you believe me.”
Holly traced the grains of the wood table with a fingernail. She could not bring herself to meet his eyes.
“It’s not the words, is it?” he asked.
She shook her head, tears stinging her eyes.
Bitterness twisted his voice. “Am I beyond redemption? Am I too late?”
“What do you want?” she asked. “My forgiveness?”
The flickering flame of the centerpiece cast half of his face into shadow. He reached across the table and captured her hand before she could yank it away. “I want you,” he murmured, his voice low and intent. “I want the life we planned before I stupidly threw it all away. I love you; I’ve never stopped loving you, and I want to marry you.”
Chapter 4
“You’re quiet this morning.”
Holly roused herself from her abstracted state and turned to look at James. He had picked her up at 7 a.m. to drive her to school, where her broken-down car was still parked. “I’m just thinking.”
“How did your date with Peter go last night?”
“Dinner,” she corrected him. “It was dinner. Not a date.”
Wasn’t it? Her heart mocked the technicality. How many dinners with old friends included a marriage proposal?
To be precise, Peter hadn’t proposed—not exactly. He had told her his intentions, but he hadn’t actually asked, and she certainly hadn’t given him an answer. Peter was no fool; he would have known the timing wasn’t right, but he was giving her time to get accustomed to the idea.
Marry Peter…
Her heartbeat accelerated, her thoughts thrilling despite doubt casting shadows over what she knew should have been purest joy. Wasn’t marriage to Peter what she had wanted for so many years of her life? Hadn’t the loss shredded her and left her empty, unable to love with openhearted vulnerability?
“You’re not all right.” James’s voice sliced through her thoughts. His sideway glance was concerned. “What happened?”
“Peter said he would be back in town over the next few days and asked if he could spend the twenty-third with me.”
“A second date? Is that what you want?”
“I…I’m not sure. My head says one thing, my heart another. I’m not sure which to believe; they’re both horribly prejudiced—”
“Do what men do. Follow your stomach.”
Holly giggled in spite of the lingering uncertainty and dread. James had always had a way of lightening her emotional burden. Her cell phone rang, and she glanced at the number. It wasn’t one she recognized, but someone calling this early had to have a good reason. She accepted the call. “Hello?”
“Good morning,” a strong male voice said. “I’d like to speak to Miss Holly Langford, please.”
“This is Holly.”
“Miss Langford, I’m Brandon Smith. I represent Ms. Rachel Hunter’s—your aunt’s—estate.”
“Oh.”
“I apologize for calling so early, but I wanted to connect with you before your busy day started. I need to meet with you to settle your aunt’s estate, and I wondered if you might have time today or tomorrow.”
“I left New York two days ago. I’m back in Havre de Grace.”
“I realize that.” A faint hint of laughter lurked in Brandon’s urbane voice. “I’m happy to come down to see you. I just need enough notice to catch a commuter flight out to D.C. and make the drive to Havre de Grace. It is fairly important, and I’d very much like to settle your aunt’s estate as soon as possible.”
“This evening, then, if it’s not too soon? I’m available any time after 5 p.m.”
“Five p.m., then. Where would you like to meet?”
“There’s a coffeehouse at the corner of Peterson and Central in downtown Havre de Grace.”
“I’ll be there at five. I’ll see you then, Miss Langford.”
Holly hung up, but she stared at the phone for a moment longer. “That was my aunt’s lawyer. He’s coming down to see me.”
“Must be important.”
“Something about her estate.” Holly smiled through the ache in her chest. “Maybe she left me something. The curios in her china cabinet, perhaps. I used to spend hours dusting and rearranging them to tell whatever story happened to be in my head that day.”
“Were the stories as good as the ones you’ve been telling your first grade class?” James chuckled.
Holly jerked. “You know about them?”
“I figured out pretty quickly when your students demanded I tell them stories ‘just like Miss Langford.’ I suspect I was something of a disappointment, judging by the critical slant of their eyebrows when I was done.”
She laughed. “Oops.”
“Hey, don’t feel sorry for me. I told your class you’d tell them better stories to make up for my lackluster ones.”
“Ah, true friendship. What would I do without someone like you to throw me under the bus?”
“We don’t have a school bus. We borrow the high school’s.”
“True.” Holly giggled.
James laughed, a sonorous sound that always coiled a warm tendril of happiness inside her. His laughter faded into a comfortable silence. “Were you close?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, we were. She was my dad’s only sibling, and she never married, so we were the only family she had. I suspect she was lonely. Noelle tried to visit as often as she could, but she was on the west coast until recently, so I did most of the visits—at least once a month, more often, if I could swing it.”
“It probably meant a great deal to her.”
“The visits weren’t hard, not with the commuter trains plying the D.C./New York City corridor. She always had a room set aside for me to stay the night, and I usually did. She had lots of stories to tell and her famous chocolate chip cookies waiting each time I visited.”
James’s smile crinkled the corner of his eyes. “Sounds like you looked forward to visiting her too.”
“We had a routine, but not all routine is bad. It’s comforting to know when you can count on certain people to always be there for you.” Like you. Reflexively, she glanced at James and hoped that the heat rushing into her cheeks was only a figment of her imagination. How odd that she would suddenly attempt to categorize James who had, all this time, been nothing more than a good friend.
Peter. It was Peter’s fault. His intrusion into her life had forced a different lens over her perspective of men. How appalled James would be if he learned that she had, however briefly, thought of him as something potentially more than the good friends they were.
He turned his head to look at her, and the intensity of his gaze made her breath catch.
A moment later, the look vanished. Holly settled back in her seat, her thoughts whirring and her heartbeat skittered like a frisky calf in spring. She had to have imagined it; James was nothing more than her friend and her boss.
Chapter 5
At 4:50 p.m., Holly pushed open the door of the Coffee Beans café and stepped into its cozy warmth. The aroma of ground coffee and freshly baked bread
filled her lungs and gently eased away the stress of the school day. It had been no better and no worse than usual. Aidan, in fact, had been rather subdued and had not done anything to warrant a rebuke, let alone a visit to the principal’s office. On the other hand, he had not been participative and had delivered his limited responses in a monosyllabic monotone.
She despaired of ever reaching him, although, considering their history, she often wondered if she was trying hard enough. She made it a point not to favor the other children with more attention than she did Aidan, but she struggled with the concept of equality when the children’s needs were clearly different. Was equality giving the children equal attention, or giving them the right amount of attention they needed to achieve equal results?
It seemed like such a fundamental question, but eight years into her career as a schoolteacher, she still didn’t know the answer. She hoped that, like many things in life, good intentions made up for lack of absolute certainty.
“Miss Langford?”
She glanced up sharply and blinked in surprise as a man in a dark gray business suit left his seat by the window and walked up to her.
“I’m Brandon Smith.” He extended his hand.
“My aunt’s lawyer.” Holly’s throat was unexpectedly dry. She had expected a white-haired genial gentleman, someone who might have been her aunt’s peer and friend, not this handsome, dark-haired young man who appeared scarcely older than Holly but who exuded the mature sophistication of a seasoned man of the world.
“May I get you something to drink?” Brandon offered. His curve of his lips was polite, but the directness of his gaze betrayed both depth and intensity beneath his professional demeanor.
The tiny, piercing claws of sexual attraction clutched at the base of Holly’s spine and raked up her back. It was dreadfully inconvenient. Oh, damn. “Yes, a hot tea, please.”
“Cream and sugar?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Brandon gestured at the table he had occupied before heading to the counter to order her drink. Holly drew a deep breath as she sat. Her pulse fluttered erratically; she hoped he would not notice. Perhaps if she sat on her hands, he would not realize they were slightly damp with sweat.
Haunted: A Love Letters Novel Page 3
