It Began with a Crush (The Cherry Sisters)

by Darcy, Lilian

  “You don’t have to wait,” she told him shamelessly. “You can say it right now.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m not sensible today. I’m admitting total defeat. If you want to marry me, then I want to marry you, and I don’t care how or where you ask me.”

  “As long as it’s now?”

  “Right now.”

  “Marry me, Mary Jane?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “That sounds so good…”

  “What sounds good?” Holly said, trotting to within earshot.

  “Why are you hugging Mary Jane?” Maddie asked.

  They both looked suspicious, eyes narrowed, lower lips stuck out. Mary Jane wanted to lavish hot chocolate on them right now, and anything else their hearts desired, but she knew she couldn’t. She had to take her cue from Joe. This wasn’t a dream, this was real life, a future with two little girls who’d been damaged in the past and who needed careful handling. It would be a lot of work. She would get it wrong sometimes. She wouldn’t always be their best friend.

  “Because we’ve just had a talk,” their dad said. “And we’ve decided we’re going to be a family.”

  “How? When?” They both began hopping up and down. They weren’t quite sure yet why this was exciting, but Joe’s attitude told them it was, so they reacted accordingly. “A family?”

  “A family. People who care about each other, and share each other’s lives, and do good things for each other, and know and promise that they always will. That’s a family, girls. Wanna start this minute, with a granola bar picnic on the dock, the four of us? I think I have a spare bar for your new mom.”

  “Our mom?” shrieked two identical voices.

  “Does that sound good?”

  “Yes!”

  “It sounds really good!” Holly yelled. “Good, good, good!”

  A little hand sneaked it’s way into Mary Jane’s, and she felt Maddie’s quieter presence beside her. “Does that mean we can play with your makeup now, Mary Jane? Please, please, pretty please? If you’re there helping us, and we’re so, so careful not to drop it?”

  “Don’t say yes,” Joe muttered to her in a stern aside. “This is the thin end of the wedge.”

  “Are you joking?” she muttered back.

  “Yes, I’m joking,” he said. “You can let them play with your makeup if you really want.”

  “I—I think I do.” She was overwhelmed, giddy, happy, daunted, all at the same time.

  “You’re crazy, sweetheart.”

  “I know.” And the only thing that stopped her from bursting into tears was Joe’s arm tightly around her, telling her that beyond all the shifting, ballooning emotions in her heart, everything was good.

  Epilogue

  Waiting for the results on the New York bar exam was a little like waiting for a baby to be born. You were given a rough date on which to expect the event, but there were no promises or guarantees. Coincidentally, Daisy’s baby girl was due in mid-November, which was exactly what the New York Board of Law Examiners had announced about when they thought they might give out the results of the July exam.

  By early November, Daisy was getting pretty antsy and fretful about the whole late pregnancy thing. She’d complained more than once, “I’m so huge! I’m bigger than Lee was, I’m sure of it! What if the baby’s late? Can I really stand another four weeks of this? How big is that baby girl going to be?” And then she’d apologized for complaining and disappeared into the bathroom to take an antacid tablet for her heartburn.

  She definitely wasn’t making the last few weeks of pregnancy look like a fun experience, and if it wasn’t for Lee and Mac embarking on parenthood in a bright light of happy energy, Mary Jane might have been wondering why she was so eager to experience pregnancy herself.

  Lee and Mac had had their baby boy on the twenty-third of September, two weeks before Mary Jane and Joe had their quiet, low-key, but completely perfect wedding, with two identical flower girls. Her love for Joe had gone on feeling right from the moment she’d said yes to him, and she didn’t want her wedding to feel like a public parade of success. It needed to be quieter than that, a personal celebration of joining their lives, and acceptance of the challenge and responsibility and joy.

  Mary Jane had moved into the Capelli family home on North Street, so as not to disrupt the girls with another move, or to leave Joe’s dad without help. This left the Cherry family apartment above the Spruce Bay office empty for the first time in thirty years, but assistant chef Piri was keen to rent it, and would be moving in any day.

  Lee’s baby, Adam, was a darling, adorable little boy, now six weeks old and already smiling, and to Mary Jane he seemed like a promise about her own future. She and Joe weren’t using any contraception, and she couldn’t wait to find out if something had happened this month. She should have a pretty good idea within the next couple of weeks.

  But for Joe, his dad, the girls and Mary Jane herself, the thing she was most on tenterhooks about was the result of the bar exam.

  Every day when the girls came home from the new school they’d already settled into, they asked him about it. “Did you find out about the exam yet, Daddy?”

  “Not yet.”

  His dad would greet Joe and Mary Jane after they’d been for an evening out with the news, “I checked your email. Nothing’s come through yet.”

  “Well, it’s still earlier than their average, according to what they say,” Joe would calmly reply.

  “2012 results came out on November second, you said.”

  “We’re not in 2012.”

  Of all of them, Joe seemed like the most stoical and restrained about the whole thing, and Mary Jane loved him for it. She knew how he’d learned to be that way—through all the months he’d had to wait for court dates and assessments from children’s services—and she knew how hard those life lessons had been.

  So when she first began to suspect that she was pregnant, she didn’t know what she should say. Tell him about her hopes, when they were still so tenuous and uncertain? Or wait until she had more reason to be sure? Wait till they knew if he’d passed the bar?

  She let four more days go by. So did the New York Board of Law Examiners, and, very tetchily, so did huge, uncomfortable Daisy.

  The girls were at school, Joe’s dad was raking leaves and Joe was at the garage when Mary Jane finally cracked and went to the drugstore to pick up a test. An hour later, Art was taking a nap, and Joe had just walked in after picking the girls up from school.

  He kissed her and she took in a breath ready to say…

  “Let me just take a look at something,” he muttered before she could speak. He disappeared into the little room off the dining room where he studied and kept his computer, and she knew exactly what he was doing.

  Mary Jane stood there, biting her thumb, while the girls ran into the kitchen to see if there was something to eat. They continued to have voracious little appetites but never seemed to put on weight. There’d been a few confrontations over toy tidying and vegetable eating, but there were so many precious moments, too. Mary Jane felt her love for them growing day by day, and it seemed as if the tired, defiant, difficult episodes from the girls were what really deepened it. Right now, they weren’t being tired or defiant, they were oblivious, and so was Joe.

  When he came out of the computer room, she was determined to get in first.

  But she didn’t. Because the news was obvious in every line of his body.

  “Guess what?” he said, and he was grinning from ear to ear. “I passed the bar exam!”

  Mary Jane burst into tears and threw herself into his arms. “Oh, Joe!”

  “Are you proud?”

  “Incredibly! But not surprised. Not for a second. I knew you would.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “And guess what?” Now she was grinning through her tears. “I took a pregnancy test just now…”

  Joe whooped so loud that the girls came running, and Art’s foots
teps could be heard upstairs, heading this way, so the news didn’t stay private for long. That was fine. They were a family. Five of them now, soon to be six.

  When the phone rang a little later, while everyone in the Capelli household was still giddy and chatty and happy, Mary Jane picked it up and somehow wasn’t all that surprised when she heard Daisy’s husband, Tucker’s, voice. He was phoning from the hospital, sounding weary and proud and relieved and happy. “Guess what?” he said.

  *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE SHERIFF’S SECOND CHANCE by Michelle Celmer

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  Chapter One

  The instant Deputy Sheriff Nathan Jefferies pulled his cruiser into the diner lot and saw his dad, P.J., standing out front instead of waiting inside like he always did, he knew something was up. He grabbed the phone he’d lobbed onto the dash when he’d walked Cody into day care, and, sure enough, there were two missed calls from his dad and two more from his mom.

  By the time he killed the engine and climbed out of the car, his dad was standing at the driver’s side door—definitely not their usual routine. “Something wrong?”

  The old man shrugged. “I just thought maybe we could try someplace different for a change.”

  Someplace different? Was his dad forgetting where they lived? With a population of 1,633, Paradise, Colorado, didn’t exactly have a huge selection when it came to dining establishments. There was Joe’s Place, but that didn’t open until lunch, and there was Lou’s Diner. Aside from those, and the Howard Johnson’s on the highway several miles east of town, there wasn’t anywhere else within twenty miles to get a decent breakfast. Or any breakfast for that matter.

  Something was definitely up. “What’s going on, Dad?”

  His dad sighed and rubbed a hand across a jawline beginning to sag with age. “Son, she’s back.”

  Nate wasn’t sure what was more pathetic: that he knew exactly who “she” was, or that he still gave a damn after all these years.

  He steeled himself against the residual sting of rejection, the burn of betrayal that still seared his heart like acid.

  “Was bound to happen eventually, I s’pose,” his dad said. “She couldn’t stay away forever.”

  Not forever. Just seven years.

  Seven years with no explanation of why, after two years together, she’d packed her bags and left town. Nothing but that pathetic excuse for an apology she’d sent him weeks later.

  Dear Nate, I’m so, so sorry…

  Nate shook away the memory.

  “We could skip breakfast today, son. We don’t have to go in there.”

  Nate blinked. “She’s here, at the diner?”

  His dad nodded.

  Everyone in the restaurant had seen him pull up. He had no choice but to go in. And it wasn’t just a matter of his pride, although that was part of it. As a deputy sheriff, he had a reputation to uphold. If people began to see him as a coward, his credibility as peacekeeper in town would be compromised. And what could be more cowardly than turning tail and running from an estranged girlfriend seven years after the breakup?

  “Let’s go.” He marched up the walk and shouldered his way through the door. The second his shoe hit the black-and-white-checked linoleum floor, twenty or so pairs of eyes snapped in his direction and bore into him like an auger biting through steel. In a town the size of Paradise, where everyone’s nose was in everyone else’s business, good news traveled fast.

  And bad news traveled even faster.

  This reunion would be stressful enough without an audience, but it was too late to turn back now. A swift survey of the interior revealed many familiar and curious faces, but not the one he was anticipating. And dreading.

  The short walk to the counter felt like a mile. He slid onto his usual stool beside George Simmons, owner of Simmons Hardware, and his dad sat beside him.

  “Mornin’, Deputy,” George said, then nodded to Nate’s dad. “Mornin’, P.J.”

  “Mornin’, George,” P.J. returned. “How are things down at the hardware store?”

  George shrugged. “Can’t complain. How’s the house coming along?” he asked, referring to the Victorian-era home Nate’s parents had been renovating.

  “It’s comin’.”

  “Got that tile laid in the downstairs bathroom?”

  P.J. nodded. “Just about.”

  They had a similar conversation every morning, yet today it felt stilted and awkward. To add to the tension, Nate could feel the gaze of the entire restaurant pinned against his back.

  Their waitress, Delores Freeburg, who had worked at the diner as long as Nate could remember, appeared with a decanter of coffee and poured them each a cup. “Morning, Nate, P.J. Will you have the usual?”

  “Just coffee for me,” Nate said. His belly was too tied in knots to choke down eggs and bacon.

  P.J. patted the paunch that had begun to creep over his belt and said, “I’m starving. The usual for me.”

  Delores winked and left to put in the order, but not before shooting Nate a glance rife with curiosity.

  There was a brief, awkward silence, then George said, “So, Nate, I guess you’ve heard the news.”

  “I heard.” And he didn’t care to talk about it.

  “Been a long time,” George persisted.

  Nate poured cream and sugar in his cup. The idea of drinking it made his stomach turn, but he forced himself to take a sip, burning the hell out of his tongue in the process.

  “Seven years,” his dad answered for him, and Nate shot him a look that said, Don’t encourage him.

  But George needed no encouragement. He was a worse gossip than most of the women at Shear Genius, the salon Nate’s ex-wife owned.

  Nate pulled out his phone and pretended to check his messages, but that didn’t stop George.

  “Guess she got herself into a fix up there in New York.” George shook his head, as though he could relate, even though he’d never lived a day outside of their small town. “Some sort of federal investigation into her financial firm.”

  “I hope you also heard that I’m not personally under any suspicion,” a female voice stated from behind them. A voice that after seven years was still so familiar, Nate’s heart climbed up his throat and lodged there. Caitlyn Cavanaugh walked around the counter, facing them now, but Nate kept his eyes on his phone screen.

  “Welcome back, Caitie,” his dad said.

  “Hi, P.J. Long time no see.”

  “When did you get home?”

  “Just last night.”

  “And your parents have you back to work already?”

  “I offered. Deb called in sick. But I’ll warn you, I may be a bit rusty. I haven’t waited tables in almost five years.”

  “Well,” P.J. said with a shrug. “You know that nothing much ever changes around here.”

  “I guess not.”

  Nate could feel her eyes on him, but he couldn’t make himself lift his gaze. Maybe if he ignored her, it wouldn’t be real.

  “Hello, Nate,” she said, her voice quiet.

  He had no choice but to look at her now, and when he lifted his head and his eyes snagged on hers, every bit of pain and rejection he’d felt when she left slammed him in the gut like a fist.

  In
her waitress uniform she looked almost exactly the same. A little older, maybe, her pale blond hair longer than the shoulder-length, no-nonsense style she’d worn in high school. And her smile wasn’t quite as carefree. But she was still his Caitie—

  No, she wasn’t his anything.

  Underneath the pain, the anger still simmered. It threatened to boil over and spill out like molten lava onto the Formica countertop.

  He said the only thing he could, so she would understand exactly where she stood. “That’s Deputy Sheriff to you, Miss Cavanaugh.”

  So that was the way it was going to be?

  Caitlyn Cavanaugh wasn’t really surprised. Of course she had hoped that after all these years Nate would have forgiven her, or at the very least, let go of the animosity.

  Apparently not. And that was not at all like the Nate she used to know. That Nate was so laid-back, so easygoing and nonconfrontational. After two years together she could count on one hand how many times they had argued. Come to think of it, she’d never seen him really angry at anyone.

  Until now.

  Under the icy exterior, he was seething. And though she would never admit it to another living soul, after all these years, it stung. Badly. But she refused to be labeled the only bad guy when he was just as guilty of betrayal. She may have left town, and she wouldn’t deny that sending a vague letter in lieu of a real explanation was a cowardly thing to do. But he seemed to be forgetting that he married her best friend only three months after she left.

  If it killed her, she would never let him know just how much that had hurt.

  “I beg your pardon, Deputy,” she said, pasting on a polite yet vaguely disinterested smile. One he didn’t return, not that she had expected him to. He’d always had a sweet, slightly lopsided grin that never failed to melt her on the spot. And hadn’t that been one of their biggest problems? She never could tell him no.