Now, after what had happened in the office, he was just a friend.
If that.
“Does he know you’re here?”
“No. He told me to leave it alone. But I couldn’t. For all their sakes.”
“Are the girls upset?”
“Oh, Penelope, you know they would be! I haven’t seen them, but it doesn’t take much to imagine. They had a difficult time in their early years.”
Should she say this?
Now that she’d started it was hard to stop. And anyhow, wasn’t it why Joe had told her the girls’ story in the first place, a week ago?
“They have no contact with their mother at all, now,” she explained, “but Joe had a long battle to gain sole custody. She relapsed into serious addiction problems and it spiraled down and they were abused by a couple of her boyfriends before he could manage to keep them safe. They could easily have turned out like your children’s services boy. Damaged. Ticking time-bombs. Joe blames himself…”
“Yes, I know how that feels!”
“And he’s desperate to heal them from any legacy of that time, and I think this’ll hurt the girls the most now, because they’re kids and it’s fresh, but in the long run it’s Joe who’ll be hurt the worst. He’s desperate for a healthy outlet for them, a passion that can harness their energy.”
“And we mustn’t hurt Joe,” Penelope said softly.
Mary Jane flushed even darker. “No. We mustn’t. Please?”
“Somehow I don’t think you’re just friends.”
“I don’t know what we are. If you’re saying I love him, then, yes, I do. I can’t stop myself.”
“To the point where you’d risk really, really annoying me by arguing the girls’ case.”
“To that point and beyond. You might never send another rider to Spruce Bay again,” she tried to joke.
“Relax. You haven’t annoyed me that much! Or at all, really. I needed to talk it out a little more. Probably reacted too hastily this morning. I was remembering the boy, thinking what might have happened if he’d been more subtle in his cruelty and we hadn’t picked up on it in time. He could have killed one of my beautiful horses.”
“I’m shuddering, too.”
“But you’re right. Holly and Maddie are different, and if I’m going to run these things, especially for kids in need, I do need to have a strict policy on adult supervision. I do have one, in fact, when I run the camps. Because this was a less formal arrangement, and because Jess and Si are so used to being around horses, and so clear on what they’re allowed to do and what they’re not, we all dropped the ball a little on Joe’s girls.”
“They’ll get a second chance?”
“One chance. Only for you, Mary Jane. They really do need to know that it’s just one chance. They cannot do anything like this ever again.”
“Thank you so much! One is all they’ll need, I’m sure of it. Thank you! That’s better than I dared to hope.”
“I’ll talk to Lucy and Vanessa and Phil. You talk to Joe and the girls. But please make it clear—”
“I’ll make it transparently clear. One chance. Iron-clad rules.”
“You okay with that, Glenny-boy?” Penelope crooned to the horse.
“Does he have a say in it? They won’t be going anywhere near him!”
“You’re right.” She gave a chuckle. “They certainly won’t.”
*
Mary Jane.
What was she doing here?
Joe’s gut gave a sickening lurch, and he didn’t know what to think. If he hadn’t glanced out of the window as he helped the girls tidy their toys before dinner, he wouldn’t have known she was here until the doorbell rang.
Which it was about to do, any second.
The girls had alternated between stormy tears and subdued silence all afternoon, and he hadn’t been able to leave them with his father. Dad had manned the garage until the last client collected her car, and then he’d closed early. If the phone was ringing off the hook with people wanting service and repair, there was no one in the garage office to hear.
Joe had gone over and over that crazy…and absolutely genuine…proposal of his, and still didn’t fully understand where they’d gone off track. Was it the girls? Just the girls? Was it him? Asking for a ridiculous degree of certainty—a certainty that he felt but that she couldn’t possibly share. Was he angry with her? Or did he want to give both of them more of a chance?
Okay, here she was, about to arrive, and he didn’t have the answer to any of those questions.
He was on his way to the front door before the bell even sounded, having heard her shoes on the brick steps.
“Hi,” he said, opening the door and meeting her face-to-face.
“Oh. You saw me.”
“I did.”
“I didn’t want to call first. Well, I should have. You might not have been home…”
“It’s fine. I am home. We all are.”
“Or you might not have wanted to—” She stopped. She was flushed and it made him want to kiss her. He wished she was flushing because he was kissing her, but that wasn’t going to happen. Neither of them would know where they stood if he did anything like that, and there was no going back. You couldn’t pretend that something like “Marry me” had never been said. Nothing was that simple, and he should know it by now.
This morning, he’d had the brief and utterly clear understanding that marrying Mary Jane would be simple…would make everything simple…but her reaction made it clear that he’d been wrong.
Timing, maybe? Atmosphere?
There should have been flowers or candlelight, not a few harried words in a very practical office. They should have already been in a mood of joy and celebration, not one of anxiety and stress. He’d made her feel that she was a stopgap measure, a desperate choice with his back to the wall, and what woman would want that?
He was an idiot.
And yet she’d made him feel the wrong things, too—that his daughters were baggage he couldn’t expect Mary Jane to handle, that they were an impediment that she would have to overlook, instead of two precious beings for her to embrace.
But still, she was here, and his heart was jumping. “Come in,” he said.
She frowned and didn’t move. “How’re the girls?”
“Dealing with it.”
She lowered her voice. “Because that’s why I’m here.”
“Yeah…?” She was here because of the girls. Wasn’t that ironic!
“I—I talked to Penelope.” She held up her hand, forestalling the protest he was about to make. He’d told her not to! “Wait, Joe. She’s giving them another chance, but I didn’t know if you’d want to take it. Maybe you’ve rethought the whole thing yourself. After all, the trust thing goes both ways. You might not feel they’re safe there. I think Penelope herself recognizes that.”
“Come in,” he repeated, because he couldn’t stand having her on the doorstep. He wanted her in the house.
“Should I?”
“I’m asking you to, aren’t I?”
“Yes. Yes, you are.” She stepped forward and he caught a hint of her scent and it almost brought him undone.
Her stiffness as she slipped past him told him it was too late for regrets, on both sides. She’d pulled right back, and he didn’t blame her. He, of all people, should have known that you didn’t make radical life plans on a whim. You had to think about these things from every angle. He should be happy that she hadn’t just forgotten all about his daughters and said yes purely because the two of them were good in bed. You had to use your brain with this stuff, not just your heart and your—
Yeah, that.
“Let’s go in the kitchen and talk,” he said, sounding much calmer than he felt. “I need to get dinner going.”
“Yep. Sure.”
“You can stay for it, if you’d like.” After all, she was here because she’d stuck her neck out for the girls. How many women would do that? He wanted her to know how
much he appreciated it.
“Well, I…”
“Or not.”
“Maybe not.”
He tried to inject some humor, to hose things down. “You sensed that it was just hot dogs and oven fries, didn’t you?”
She laughed, and that felt so nice. He let go a little. So he’d asked her to marry him in the worst possible way and she’d turned him down because she had more sense than that, but they didn’t hate each other, it turned out. He didn’t think he could ever hate a woman like Mary Jane. He’d asked too much from her, that was all, and he’d asked it too fast.
“I’m sensing it now,” she said as they entered the kitchen, where he had long, garish pinky-red rubbery things thawing on a plate on the countertop, with a packet of matching buns beside them. The really urgent part of the whole operation was the oven fries, because they took longer. He grabbed the bag out of the freezer while she watched, opened it and flung the litter of icy, greasy fries onto a metal tray, then put them in the preheated oven.
“I’m told ketchup is a vegetable,” he said, “and I’m counting mustard as a vegetable, too. Potatoes are definitely vegetables, so that’s three right there. Arguably.”
“Don’t apologize for the nutrition. I bet it’s been a horrible afternoon.”
“It has.”
“What do you think, Joe?” Her face tightened. She really cared about this. His gut flipped again. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe she hadn’t turned him down because of his baggage. So, why?
“What do I think?” His brain was all over the place.
“Penelope will have them back, but do you want them to go?”
He sighed. “Yes, I want them to go. I take your point about the trust issue going both ways, but there are too many good reasons to say yes, and any fears I have about their safety when I think about that stallion, I’ll just have to swallow. They love it too much. It’s too good for them in too many ways.”
“That’s why I talked to Penelope.”
“You can see it, too.”
“Their passion is amazing. You’d said it before and you were right. To harness that. It could be the making of them.”
“I signed Penelope’s waiver last week, and I haven’t forgotten what it said.” He quoted, “‘I understand and acknowledge that horseback riding is an inherently dangerous activity and that horses can act in a sudden and unpredictable way, especially when frightened or hurt.’ But there’s another kind of damage you really haven’t seen in the girls yet, emotional not physical, and it’s there, underneath, and you’re right, I think ponies could help heal it.”
She nodded, her eyes big and bluish-green and swimming with empathy and care.
“Thank you, by the way,” he told her.
“For what?”
“For having sense enough for both of us, today, when I said…what I said.”
“When you proposed?”
“Yeah. That.” He was deeply embarrassed.
She shrugged and made an odd little shape with her lush, pretty mouth. “It’s okay. You’re welcome. One of us had to, I think.”
“You’re right. One of us did. And apparently it had to be you.”
As he had done, she took refuge in humor. They were both good at that. “Well, I’m okay about taking that kind of a dive…”
Awkward, awkward, awkward. He wanted to ask if she’d turned him down because of the girls, but then he thought that he didn’t want to hear her say it.
You were asking too much, Joe, so let it go.
He said instead, “Let me tell the girls that pony camp is back on. Want to watch?”
“Um, no, I’d better not. Better go.”
“Thought you might. It’ll be pretty, though. There may be hugging involved. And admittedly, screeching.”
She gave a brief smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’d really better go. I’ll just say a quick hi to them, and to your dad, if he’s around.”
“In the shower.”
“Oh, well, never mind. Just the girls, then.”
“Just the girls,” he agreed.
“And you can tell them the good news after I’ve gone.”
And she went.
She went, because it would be too painful to stay.
Mary Jane didn’t know which was worse, the spontaneous proposal, or the fact that Joe was apologizing for it just hours later.
What if she’d said yes?
What if she’d done what her heart wanted, and jumped into his arms and screamed out, “Yes, yes, yes!” Would they have been stuck in an engagement that he regretted at once? Would he have gone through with all her pretty fantasy plans, or pulled the plug later on, at the worst possible time, when she’d become even more attached to his daughters and couldn’t imagine her life without him or them or the family she wanted so much to create.
Narrow escape, Mary Jane.
She’d done the right thing in turning him down.
The knowledge didn’t make her feel any better.
Chapter Fourteen
Europe appealed. Maybe Scandinavia. There was an amazing-looking hotel in Norway, made entirely of ice, that was freshly built every winter. Now, that would be a unique experience! Or maybe canoeing in Sweden. At the warmer end of the spectrum, there was surfing and yoga in Portugal, or cycling in France.
Mary Jane arrived back at the resort with a whole pile of travel brochures sitting on the passenger seat beside her, most of them featuring vacations that would require several months of fitness training in preparation.
She didn’t really want to go on any of them, but she had to do something, have some kind of escape to look forward to, some kind of proof to herself and the outside world that she was okay, and she didn’t want to just lie on a beach with nothing to do but think. Travel had always been her go-to activity when life wasn’t quite working out right. Rnd if she sometimes didn’t enjoy herself that much, it wasn’t from lack of trying.
She grabbed the pile of brochures and her purse, climbed out of the car, told herself that she was getting on with her life…and there was Joe, standing right there, three days after she’d last seen him on Friday evening, the day Holly and Maddie had been banned from pony camp and then given their second chance.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi, Joe.”
“Need more towels by the pool.”
“Right.” Since it was the number-one reason anyone came to the office on a sunny afternoon, and since he was wearing swim trunks teamed with a bare, wet chest, she wasn’t surprised. The whole sight of him was so difficult and distressing and overwhelming, the bare chest almost didn’t register.
She couldn’t let it register. She didn’t need those memories! She was all over the place just seeing him.
She’d been coaching herself relentlessly since Friday, telling herself she’d done the right thing. For herself. For both of them. For the girls, too. Dreams were just that. Dreams. They didn’t happen in real life. It was disastrous if you tried to shape your life to fit a fantasy. Hadn’t she learned that the hard way with Alex? You had to take control. You had to be sensible….
Just run that loop tape one more time, Mary Jane.
“They usually bring their own,” Joe was saying, a little awkwardly, “but we forgot to put them in this morning.” He folded his arms across his chest as if he was selfconscious about showing it, and the action made his biceps harden.
They’d slept together. She knew that body so well. She loved it. She wanted it. But she couldn’t let herself feel that way.
“I know we’re not guests,” he was saying, “So I hope—”
“It’s fine. You know that, Joe. I crashed your car, remember?”
He laughed dutifully, but they both knew the joke was getting a little stale. He was just being nice. She went to lead the way into the office. The towels were kept in one of the back rooms, and she knew there were plenty. But he was still speaking.
“So… Going away?” He was looking at that big pile o
f thick, glossy brochures tucked in the crook of her arm.
“Oh, maybe. Just dipping my toe in the water. Something adventurous would be good. Cycling in France, or—”
“Wow,” he said. “I’m a little envious. I’ve barely traveled. Maybe some day.”
“Home is nice, too. We live in a beautiful part of the world, and I’ve had plenty to compare it to.”
“You’re very lucky.”
“Um, yes. I am. I know. I love to get…out…away…” She waved her hand and it fluttered like a moth. His eyes flicked to the movement and then to her face and she knew what he would see there—all the need she couldn’t coach herself out of quite yet, no matter how hard she tried. “See new things, meet new people,” she added, and it sounded so lame and sad, she wasn’t fooling either of them. This was agony.
He called a halt to it, mercifully. “Uh, speaking of toes in water…I really need those towels. They’re getting cold.” He added uncomfortably, “I wish we could talk.”
She felt herself heating up. “Me, too.” But he was right. He needed the towels, and she needed to stay strong.
And maybe he was only being polite about the talking. He was holding himself very stiffly, and she struggled to look at him, not knowing where to hold her gaze. She hurried ahead of him, dumped the brochures on her desk and went through to the storeroom to grab a thick pile of towels. Joe waited on the office porch.
When she came back out, she saw two shivering, dripping little shapes picking their way across the gravel, the surface of the driveway too rough for their water-softened feet.
“We couldn’t wait, Daddy.”
“We’re soooo cold!”
Joe looked at the towels in Mary Jane’s grasp. “Oh, you have a whole pile.”
Her arms were full. “To leave by the pool.”
“Let me just take the top two.” He almost toppled the pile out of her arms and she had to anchor them with her chin—fortunately a skill she’d honed over the years. She and Joe didn’t touch at all, just hands on thick fabric. Hands and chin.
He draped a towel around each quivering little pair of shoulders and the scene reminded Mary Jane of that first day the girls had swum here, a couple of weeks ago—was it only that long?
It Began with a Crush (The Cherry Sisters) Page 16
