by Jen Peters
“Excellent, I knew you two would work well together,” Mr. Blake said. “It would be nice if he could continue, but… Anyway, I’ve been in touch with a decorator and it’s time to get her down here for an actual tour.”
Time dragged through the end of May and into June. Cat told herself she didn’t need Justin. Didn’t need a man in her life. She and Bella would do just fine, just like they always had.
She read in the paper that Chance and one of his gang were in juvenile detention now, although the other two got off with warnings. Hazel Crump had also been arrested clear out in Memphis.
Cat went on ordering material and paying invoices. She checked the drywall installation. She and Todd, working now for money, helped Marty with the staircase woodwork. And she was almost finished with the fireplace.
Sanding gave her pleasure. The repetition was soothing, almost meditative, and she loved the cool smoothness under her hand when she was done. The carved leaves and flowers would glow when the finish went on. The only problem was that it gave her time to think.
And there wasn’t much to think about besides Justin. She saw his red pickup around town and had to take slow breaths and focus on her own driving to not follow him with her eyes. He never looked at her, yet she knew his eyes must be drawn to her truck the same way.
It was time to move on, she reminded herself. The decorator was almost done, and Cat needed to find her next city. She did want to stay in Oregon, but not a small town in the mountains. Not where everybody knew everybody, and you ended up getting close to someone.
She’d taken a day off and toured a restoration project in northwest Portland, finally submitting her bid an hour before the deadline. Other than that, nothing had really grabbed her attention.
Cat was busy, though. The weeks passed as she worked with the designer to hire a lighting crew. She supervised the bathroom fixtures and flooring installation and oversaw the exterior painting.
And still she couldn’t get Justin out of her mind.
It was more than his green eyes and broad shoulders. It was the gentle teasing, the long nights on not-great air mattresses. It was exploring his favorite places with him, and the security she felt when he held her, the love that shone deeply in his eyes right before his lips met hers.
If she were honest, she didn’t want him out of her mind. Or her heart.
She wanted him with her, part of her life, part of her.
She’d run into him once at the IGA. He was buying steaks, and her heart clenched as she wondered who he was inviting up for dinner.
The lighting was installed, and the chandelier glowed and cast soft accents across the foyer at night. She remembered him sleeping there, sprawled across the air mattress with Pip at his feet, waking with sleepy eyes and tousled hair. She remembered his laughter every time she had poured orange juice on her cereal.
Her fingers stilled, and she rested her head against the fireplace. She’d give a lot to have him walk through the door right then.
So stay, whispered a voice in her head.
She focused on the half-round of wood she was sanding.
You like it here.
She did—she’d fallen almost as much for the town as she had for Justin. And surely there was a bit of work here. Or some other way to be happy with her work.
See, you know it. You truly love him.
Cat sat back on her heels. Of course she did, she knew that. Even if she’d never said those magic words aloud.
So, didn’t that make Justin different than any guy she’d fancied from afar? Different than anybody her mother had brought home? Wasn’t he worth a bit of sacrifice?
“Anything worth having was worth sacrificing for,” she’d read once. She’d always been determined not to sacrifice herself for some guy, but there were other things, valuable things, that could be offered.
She reached for her cell phone, then shoved it back in her pocket. This wasn’t something she could do through cyberspace. “Marty! Todd! I’ll be back!” she called, heading for the front door.
She slammed the keys in the ignition, got the engine running, then hit the brakes ten feet later.
Justin’s red truck was turning in the driveway.
They stared at each other through the windshields, then opened their doors in tandem.
Cat’s steps were a little unsure, but so were his. His hair looked like he’d been running his hands through it.
“I was coming to find you,” Cat said softly.
“I couldn’t stay away anymore.”
She looked deeply into his eyes, eyes filled with yearning and wanting and uncertainty. He ran his hand gently through her hair, tucking a tendril behind her ear, then pulled her into him for a soft kiss. She melted and kissed him back, long and lingering and oh-so-right. She pulled away finally and found herself blinking back tears. She, who didn’t cry. “Don’t you have a freezer to fix?”
He wiped a tear off her cheek. “I’m doing a room addition now, actually. But if you want the honest truth…”
“You know I do,” she interrupted.
“The freezers were mostly an excuse,” he said. “The truth was that I couldn’t keep working with the woman I love when she was going to up and leave me. And the truth now is that I can’t be apart from you anymore. I need you, whether you’re leaving or not.”
A stillness settled in the deepest part of her heart. “Give me a reason to stay,” she whispered.
He tilted her chin up. His face was raw. “I was ready to travel with you. You’d stay here?”
“I love you, Justin. I didn’t think I’d ever need a man, let alone fall so hard and so fast. And I love your family, and I can’t believe I’m falling in love with an actual town.”
“But what about Portland? What about your next house?”
Her mouth quirked up as she shook her head. “I always dream of the next project when I get toward the end of the current one.”
He kissed one corner of her mouth. “Maybe you could dream of us as your next project instead?” He kissed the other corner.
“Us. I like the sound of that.” She drew his mouth fully to hers, but he pulled back just as she tasted him.
“Wait,” Justin whispered. He trailed a finger down her jaw, gazing at her like she’d disappear if he looked away. He took both her hands in his and knelt on one knee. “Catherine Billings, I love you. I love you with every fiber of my being, with every beat of my heart, to the very depth of my soul. Will you marry me?”
She traced her fingertip along his hairline, past those soft green eyes with crinkles in the corners, across a day’s stubble, and down to the tip of his chin. She kissed him with a feather-touch of wonder. “And make us our project for the rest of our lives? Yes. Definitely yes.”
Cat melted into him as he stood and kissed her deeply, arms wrapped tightly as if to possess her.
“We could find a place for you to restore here,” Justin whispered, touching his lips to the side of her neck.
“Yes.”
“Or I could work wherever you find a house.” He kissed her eyelids.
“Yes. No,” she stammered.
“Stay here?” He nuzzled the other side of her neck.
“Yes, here,” Cat answered. She cupped his face in her hands. “McCormick’s Creek is what I’ve been missing in my life. You are what I’ve been missing.”
“Well then, Mrs. Cooper-to-be,” Justin murmured, his eyes meeting hers with joy. He bent his head to hers, breath mingling, lips finally meeting.
It was a long time before they came up for air.
* * *
I hope you enjoyed reading Trusting His Heart!
Keep reading to find out what happens when Mitchell Blake meets gorgeous Ree Swanson, a seemingly scatterbrained young woman who can’t wait to escape to the big city, at the same time he’s falling more in love with the small town of McCormick’s Creek.
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From the Back Cover
FINDING HER HEART
Everyone has a hidden agenda…
Jaded corporate lawyer Mitchell Blake knows one thing for certain: everyone has a hidden agenda. From ruthless clients to manipulative women, the only relief Mitch finds is time spent with his ailing grandfather and restoring the family mansion in the small town of McCormick’s Creek, Oregon.
Ree Swanson had it all planned—finish her degree and travel the world working for different hotels. She wants nothing more than to escape her small hometown, but she’s stuck in McCormick’s Creek helping in the flower shop while her mother is laid up.
When Ree lands an extra job at the almost-finished McCormick Inn, having a charming and oh-so-handsome boss is an added bonus—until she discovers that Mitch is the same type of nasty lawyer that ruined her family. And Mitch wonders if Ree is too good to be true.
Can they overcome their suspicions to build a foundation of love?
To Blaik,
who has taken me on a lifetime of adventures
Chapter 1
Mitchell Blake pushed himself faster and faster along the paved path. Pulse pounding, muscles screaming—anything to get the residue of the morning out of his head.
He dodged moms and strollers, overtook an elderly couple, and passed numerous benches with office workers enjoying lunch in the sun. Portland was a lovely city in the summer, but right now he didn’t care.
His morning appointment had left him both dumbfounded and incensed, and once again he questioned the area of law he had chosen. What the client wanted was legal, but that didn’t mean it was right. Now, sweat ran down Mitch’s back, making his t-shirt cling to his body, but no matter how long his stride, how hard his breathing, nothing changed.
He finally slowed to a walk, gulping for air, muscles quivering. Three times around the two-mile loop of Garfield Park was more than his body was used to. A cool shower would help, and perhaps calm him before facing the grind again.
Forty minutes later, he was back at his desk on the sixteenth floor, eating a protein bar while pulling up the documents he’d need. And trying hard to keep the client’s beefy face out of his mind.
Right. It was as easy as “don’t think of elephants.”
The image was so intrusive that when he heard a rap on the door, he almost expected the man to appear. But no, his secretary would have buzzed him first.
“Are you in, Mitch?” came Melanie’s sultry voice, followed quickly by her carefully made up face.
That voice had won many a judge over, especially when it was backed up by a brilliant legal mind and ruthless determination, but Mitch grimaced inwardly. Melanie Xanthe was the latest in a long string of women he made social appearances with, but who were really only interested in his money and his name. Or rather his grandfather’s name. Beautiful but manipulative, extremely bright but lacking any real warmth—that seemed to be the only type of woman he attracted.
Dates with Melanie weren’t bad—he could at least enjoy her conversation even if his heart didn’t engage, as long as she didn’t make too many sly comments. But lately she was finding a lot of reasons to be on his floor instead of hers.
“Melanie,” he greeted her. “I hope it’s something quick—I have to leave in an hour, and I’ve got a ways to go with this.”
She pulled her generous mouth into a smile. “Of course, Mitchell. I won’t keep you but a moment. I just wondered if you’d like to attend a gallery opening tomorrow. Sort of abstract impressionism.”
He enjoyed art, but he had just taken her to a city function the week before. Too many dates too close together would give her the wrong impression. “Sorry, I’ll be with my grandfather." He didn’t need to tell her it was only for the day.
“That’s quite all right—next time, perhaps."
“Perhaps,” he echoed. She closed the door behind her, and he got back to work.
An hour later, with instructions left for his paralegal, Mitch gladly shut his computer down, locked his office door, and made his way up to his grandfather’s apartment. The bold artwork contrasted nicely with the heavy furniture, but couldn’t disguise that the penthouse was home to a near-invalid now, complete with a male nurse.
After a stroke six months ago, Granddad leaned heavily on a cane, but his mind was as sharp as ever. Mitchell was grateful for his recovery, but he still hated to see how age had settled on his grandfather: shoulders stooped, hands quavery and knotted with blue veins, age spots and arthritis. His height had shrunk so that Mitch looked down on the top of his thinning hair.
“Don’t stare, boy,” Granddad said, thumping his cane on the floor. “Let’s go!”
Once the elderly man was settled in Mitch’s Porsche, they headed south out of Portland and finally up the curving highway into the Cascade Mountains, up to the small town of McCormick’s Creek, named for Granddad’s grandfather.
“So what kind of memories do you have of this town of yours?” Mitch asked, popping a peppermint in his mouth.
“This town of ours, you mean? Your roots are there, boy,” came Granddad’s sharp voice.
Mitch shrugged. Granddad provided all the roots he needed. Mitchell had been born and raised in the city, and McCormick’s Creek was as far from his normal life as you could get. It was a town that nobody stopped at anymore, a town where you had to be on the right street to get a cell signal. “So what was it like?” he asked again.
Granddad closed his eyes and smiled. “Homey. Lots of well-kept houses, tree-lined streets, the Lamplighter where we had dances every Friday." He tightened his hands on his cane and turned to look at Mitch. “Not your school dances, mind you. These were nights out for courting couples, and for married folks too. I remember Granny staying with us while my parents went out. Mother would be all dolled up, wearing her favorite perfume.”
Mitch pictured his grandfather dancing: young, mobile, energetic. Not that he wasn’t energetic now, but his stroke had left him moving slowly and carefully. “Did you grow up at the mansion?”
“Oh no. We lived down the street, a nice enough house but nothing like my grandparents.’ I remember playing hide and seek in all the mansion rooms when I was a child." He sighed. “They lost it toward the end of the Depression. My grandfather held onto it as long he could—it about killed him when he finally had to let it go. They ended up moving in with us for a year before renting a place across town." He closed his eyes. “I wonder if our old house is still there. It would be on the way to the mansion.”
Mitch smiled. If his grandfather wanted to chase old memories, Mitch would be happy to indulge him. He gave the old man a few moments of silent thoughts, then asked, “What else besides the dance hall?”
“Oh, a couple of beautiful churches, the park along the creek—we’d have church picnics there, play ball, eat ice cream and splash around. The creek was only good for splashing there, but there was a swimming hole farther upstream. Had to walk a long way to get to it, and you know our dads wouldn’t drive us. Waste of gas, it was, especially during the war. And farther up from that was Warm Springs, where groups of boys or girls would go to soak and try out their smoking skills. Never mixed, oh no, although if a girl seemed a little fast, her beau might try to take her up there to neck.”
Mitch chuckled, imagining if Melanie Xanth ever managed to get her claws into him. She’d probably love a hot tub, but rocks and bugs? She’d hightail it back to Portland before he could say “natural spa.”
Mitch turned at a lonely gas station and followed a two lane road for a mile before they reached the Welcome to
McCormick’s Creek sign.
“Six thousand people, when did that happen?” Granddad said.
“Progress, Granddad. Towns are always growing.”
But that didn’t seem true as they drove through—the place felt like it had never left the sixties. Worn down and flat. The IGA grocery store was busy, and the Shell and Chevron signs were fairly new, but the rest had been left behind. Even the McDonalds had an old set of golden arches.
Grandad was looking right and left. “The Lutheran Church is gone. And there was a movie theater over there.”
“Stop!” Granddad suddenly shouted.
Mitch braked hard, pulling the Porsche to the side of the road. “What? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, blast it,” the old man barked. “I want to put some flowers on my grandparents’ graves while we’re here. You go in. I want yellow roses. And daisies—Granny loved daisies.”
Mitch looked around and noticed a florist shop tucked in between a furniture store and a boarded-up display window. He sighed, turned off the purring engine, and headed in.
The shop was filled with pre-made bouquets, arrangements in baby bootie containers, and even bunches of candy bars on sticks. The glass walk-in refrigerator was stocked with more types of flowers than he would know what to do with. But for all the decor and stock, there wasn’t a person in sight.
He looked for a bell or buzzer on the counter. Nothing. Just an old push-button desk phone, with no way to call someone inside. “Hello,” he called. “Anybody here?”
He waited, but all he got was a cat jumping up on the counter and rubbing at his sleeve. Great. Cat hair.
Mitch glanced out at his grandfather, who seemed to be dozing in the front seat. He’d do anything for this man who had raised him, but his physical frailty these last few years worried Mitch more than he wanted to admit. He wasn’t ready to lose him.
