“It’s just me,” she said. “Me and Helen.”
That made him glance her way and his eyes, blue as blue could be, were soft. Warm. Utterly different than she’d ever seen them. Her skin felt as if it might melt and release all this longing she was cursed with.
“You are doing a very good job,” he told her. Stupidly his words went right to her soft underbelly and she had to blink back tears.
She was a single mother with a business and a girl who every other day seemed like a changeling rather than her daughter and doubts about her parenting were weeds she couldn’t contain with her solo efforts.
“Thanks,” she murmured, quickly turning away so he wouldn’t see what his words stirred loose in her.
“And you are doing a very good job of being polite to a man you clearly find reprehensible,” he said with a laugh. She spun her head only to meet his assessing gaze and crooked smile.
“Not reprehensible,” she said and he smirked. “Not totally reprehensible,” she amended. “Just…confusing.”
It was the truth. What she knew about this man and what had been said about him in the papers didn’t seem to add up. This man with a green tongue, and sometimes soft eyes. The man who had made that little bow to Helen and had teased her, who ran miles in the countryside in an old T-shirt, couldn’t be poisoning people deliberately. For crying out loud, the guy loved his mother.
Her gut said it wasn’t so.
“Doesn’t it bother you—” She cut herself off. “Never mind, it really isn’t my business.” She turned down the road toward the inn.
“Does it bother me what I do? Or does it bother me what people think of me?” he asked, shifting sideways and taking up way too much space. Way too much air.
“Both,” she cried. “If what they say—” Suddenly it dawned on her. He’d all but told her. “It’s not true, is it? What they said in the paper.”
“Does it matter?”
She could feel his breath, his eyes on her like a warm hand across her skin. Why was he telling her this? Why her?
She stared at him, lost momentarily. Was he, perhaps, feeling this, too? This stupid…yearning.
“Of course it matters.” She shook herself free from his gaze. “It’s your reputation.”
“My reputation is just what people think of me. It’s not my job. It’s not who I am.”
She stopped the truck at her usual space in the parking lot behind the kitchen and shut off the engine. “If this isn’t true, you need to clear your name. Tell the Mitchells at least. You need to—”
“Anyone who matters to me knows the truth,” he said and got out of the truck. His tanned skin was flushed around his neck and it seemed all too suddenly that he couldn’t get out of the truck fast enough.
Bringing up the Mitchells had killed the temporary warmth in him.
He was beautiful, walking in front of her truck with his long legs and fabulous rear end. He was beautiful and, she realized, hugely misunderstood.
She quickly rolled down her window, cursing her lack of power accessories.
“Anyone who matters and me,” she yelled as he reached the kitchen door.
He squinted at her and, for some reason, she laughed. It was relief, really, that she wasn’t attracted to an utter and total blight on the planet. Instead she was wildly attracted to a complicated, far too handsome man with a freight train of personal issues.
“I know, Jonah Closky,” she said. “I know the truth about you.”
He stepped toward the door, unresponsive, then turned back to her, smiling. A full smile, as though he was glad that she knew. The blunt lines of his face curved, revealing something unexpected. He had dimples. And laugh lines. And of course, that imperfect tooth that other women might consider a defect, but she considered it delicious.
He was delicious.
Uh-oh.
6
Saturday morning Daphne raced to the Riverview Inn, a woman possessed. She had to convince Tim to go to the School Board Picnic today, and her hopes weren’t high that he’d had a change of heart. Helen sat beside her in a state because Daphne had made it clear that Helen would not be spending the night at her father’s tonight, no matter how fun it was going to be.
But stupidly, foolishly, more importantly was the front page of the Saturday Times that was folded up and practically glowing between them on the bench seat of the truck.
Dirty Developer? It couldn’t be further from the truth.
And while she’d been pretty sure she was right yesterday when she dropped Jonah off, she had no idea how misjudged the man was.
How misjudged the man let himself be.
Cripes. She didn’t know who was more ridiculous: him for being so mule-headed, or her for caring.
“But, Mom,” Helen moaned for the hundredth time. “Dad said that they had the equipment rented for two hours after the picnic ended and that I could play after all the kids had left.”
“I know, sweetie, but we have things we need to do at home.”
“What kinds of things?”
Nothing.
“Lots. You need to clean your room. And you wanted me to cut out that pattern for the new dress you wanted, remember?”
And your father saw you all last night and I don’t need this to get more complicated.
Helen eyed her shrewdly and Daphne focused on the road. “You told me I couldn’t have that dress. You said seven-year-old girls needed to have straps on their dresses.”
“I’m going to add straps.”
“Mom,” she moaned.
“Little ones. With bows.” Helen loved bows. “And we can make it out of that purple and pink material you loved.”
Daphne glanced over expecting to see her daughter in smiles. After going to the drive-in with Jake, Helen had come home with nothing but stories of “Dad did this…” and “Dad did that…”
While Daphne had spent the night working out a marketing plan for her pick-your-own fields and trying not to think of Jonah Closky.
She’d failed. Utterly.
But instead of smiling Helen was solemn. Sad.
“Dad isn’t going anywhere, Mom,” Helen said and Daphne tried not to sigh. “He’s on the Athens Charter School Board and he’s running for the county school board next year. How can he go anywhere if he’s doing that?”
He left you. Daphne would never say that, but she thought it. Your father left you when you were so cute, you were smiling and grabbing fingers and lifting your head. He left you when you were barely as long as my arm and your breath was so sweet I couldn’t stand to be away from you.
And he left me. Walked away the second I gave him the chance, saying goodbye when I needed him most.
“I hope he doesn’t leave,” Daphne said and braked behind the kitchen of the Riverview Inn. “You want to come in?”
Helen was already out the door, no doubt hunting for Josie or Cameron. Daphne grabbed her newspaper and got out. It was still early so she cut through the kitchen, noting that Tim wasn’t there. But she’d hunt him down later. She wasn’t showing up to this picnic without a date. No way.
The dining room was mostly empty, still too early for many of the inn’s guests to make it down for the famous Saturday brunch.
She found Patrick and Gabe and Max lingering over their breakfast coffee. Gabe had Stella in his arms and looked, quite frankly, as though he needed to start mainlining the coffee.
“Hey, Daphne,” Patrick said and she had to give him points for trying to be himself. Forcing the twinkle in his eyes, but she could see that the wattage had taken a beating. And she knew Jonah had been wielding the bat.
“Hey, Patrick, guys.” She smiled at the Mitchell brothers who smiled back like the big brothers she often thought of them as. “Have you seen the New York Times today?”
“Not yet,” Max said. “I’m headed in to town in a few minutes. I thought I’d get one then.”
“Well, here’s a sneak peek,” she said and unsnapped the paper to set it on
the table between all three of them. And pointed—just in case they couldn’t see it—to the headline: Dirty Developer Or Environmental Bastion?
The three men blinked, looked at each other and looked back at the paper.
“Read it to me, Max,” Gabe said. “I’m so tired I can barely see straight.”
“It says…” She grabbed the paper, her heart pounding. She didn’t understand why she was so affected by this news, so on edge by the reality of Jonah. Yesterday she’d suspected the story was untrue, but finding this out was making her crazy. She felt like laughing. Like jumping around screaming, “He’s not so bad!”
“Developer Jonah Closky is singlehandedly cleaning up the worst of New Jersey’s industrial wasteland,” she read. “In the reverse of what was printed about him two weeks ago, the Times sat down with the mysterious mogul and found out the truth.”
“‘It’s prime property,’ Closky said. ‘With views and access to the city. It’s just poisoned. We’ve figured out a way to clean up the soil and make the land usable. Sometimes it takes two or three tries but eventually we get the job done.’
“And Closky has gotten the job done three times with high-rise condos and a fourth being built now after the land has been retested and deemed safe. Moreover, Closky insists on building green—”
“Well.” Jonah’s voice from the front door cut Daphne off. She lifted her head with a smile, ready to call him out for being so closemouthed. But the expression on his face didn’t invite smiles.
Jonah was furious.
All of her jumping glee stopped dead and she couldn’t breathe for the look he gave her.
“Someone has been busy,” he said, his blue eyes like ice sliding right through her. She felt cold, as if it were February and she was naked. He looked at her as though he hated her.
“Jonah, please—” Iris stood beside him, her hand on his sleeve.
“It’s the Times,” Daphne said. His eyes were still locked on hers, although no one else was in the room and she felt as if she’d betrayed him, but she didn’t know how. “I was just reading the article.”
“Of course.” He nodded and finally raked his gaze over his family, lingering on his father, who sat slack-jawed with surprise.
“What you do is amazing,” Patrick said. “Why would you let us believe the worst?”
“Because what you think doesn’t matter to me,” Jonah said.
Daphne sucked in a wounded breath on Patrick’s behalf. How much more of this could he take?
“You are a part of this family,” Patrick said, coming to his feet, beginning to seem like a dragon about to spew fire and roast something. “You are my son. Whether or not you want to believe that. I want to love you—”
“Dad.” Gabe reached out but Patrick shook him off.
“This is me, son. You are not alone.” Patrick stepped toward Jonah and for the first time Daphne saw something in Jonah waver. He couldn’t quite hold the look of disdain. He couldn’t quite keep eye contact with Patrick, willing him away with the chill of his demeanor.
Jonah’s gaze dropped to the floor and a muscle pulsed along his jaw. She could see his heartbeat in his neck, pounding for all it was worth.
“We are not out to hurt you more than you’ve been hurt,” Patrick continued, edging closer to Jonah. “I am here. Your brothers. Your mother are all here and you don’t have to be so alone.”
Jonah’s swallow was audible.
“I’m proud of you,” Max said and Jonah jerked slightly, as though he’d been hit.
But still he said nothing.
Oh, Jonah, she thought. Bend before everyone breaks.
Max glared at Gabe who held on to his mutiny a bit longer before sighing. And finally standing.
“Me, too. I’m—” Gabe swallowed and patted his baby’s back. “Grateful and proud of you.”
“Me, too,” Daphne said, the words flying out of her mouth. Jonah’s eyes swung to her and she was scorched by the sudden heat she saw there.
We’re more alike than we are different, she realized. That’s what the article proved. And that heat in his eyes underlined it. What a change from the chill, the control he had. She wanted to grab him, warm herself as if she’d been cold for years. For too long.
Tears filled Iris’s eyes and her fingers, trembling and white, pressed to her lips as if to hold back sobs. Daphne wanted to hug the woman. She wanted to hug all of them.
Particularly Jonah. This felt like the beginning of a breakthrough. A moment that would change everyone’s lives.
“I have work to do,” Jonah said, removing his mother’s hand from his arm. The moment shattered and littered the floor with sharp shards of everyone’s expectations.
“But,” Iris stammered. “Breakfast.”
“Will have to wait.”
Jonah kissed his mother’s cheek and left the room silent and cold in his wake.
“Wow,” Gabe finally said, sitting back in his chair. “That is one stubborn guy.”
“Dad?” Max said, watching his father, and Daphne realized the man was crying.
“What can I do?” Patrick whispered, tears running down his face. “What can I do to change this?”
“That’s it.” Gabe sat, Stella fussing slightly at the movement. “He needs to go. He’s not worth all this, Dad.”
“Not worth it?” Patrick asked. “How can you say that? He’s your brother.”
“But he doesn’t want to be,” Gabe said ruthlessly. “The guy clearly doesn’t care.”
“That’s not true,” Daphne said and wished she’d kept her mouth shut when they all turned to her.
“How do you know?” Max asked.
Unerringly Daphne found Iris’s gaze. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I just do.” It was in his eyes, in the way he held his head. How hard his heart beat. It was the way he couldn’t tell her outright that the article was wrong. And it was in the relief of his smile when she’d guessed the truth.
Iris nodded and Daphne felt a strange buzz down her back, a weakness in her chest that slid down to her stomach.
I know him. I know things about him only his mother knows.
And just like that, she felt the waters go right over her head.
That’s it, she told herself. Hormones and stupid intuition be damned. She was nipping this bizarre connection in the bud. Right now. Right here. She needed to get out of this situation. There was no room in her life for this drama. This heartbreak. She had enough of her own.
“I have to go,” she said. “Do you know where Tim is?”
“Plotting a vegetable garden with Cameron,” Gabe said, pointing toward the kitchen. “On the other side of the hill.”
“Okay.” She felt as if she needed to run. Needed to put a lot of distance between herself and this place as of ten minutes ago. What had she been thinking running in here like the town crier? And telling him she was proud of him, as if it mattered?
Dumb, Daphne. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
She turned tail and left before she made any other dumb moves.
“A little warning, that’s all I’m saying,” Jonah said to Gary, fighting the urge to kick something. Anything. “I just got ambushed—”
“It’s a good article, Jonah. Our phones have been ringing off the hook. Only you would think that something like this constitutes an ambush.”
Jonah sighed and stared at the green grass.
The same color as Daphne’s eyes.
I’m proud of you.
Lord, he needed his inhaler.
“Still,” he said, tipping his head back and breathing deep. “You could have let me know.”
“Fine. I’m sorry,” Gary conceded, but Jonah didn’t feel any better. His stomach twisted and his head seemed three inches off his neck and the pain in his chest… He rubbed it, digging thumb into his sternum but nothing assuaged the ache.
Wow. All of them standing up like that. Saying they were proud. The old man looking as though he could splinter apart with the force of what
he’d been feeling.
Jonah stared directly at the sun, searing his eyes. At one time, maybe that would have been important to him. Having their support, watching them stand, shoulder to shoulder on his behalf. When he was ten, making up those stupid stories about a family of lumberjacks, when he’d wished for brothers and a father so hard it gave him headaches, that’s when it would have been important to him. Not now. Having his brothers and father—
He shook his head, wanting to pull the words from his vocabulary. He didn’t have brothers, or a father. And what they felt about him didn’t change his life at all. Just as he’d told Daphne yesterday, right before he’d almost told her the truth so she’d smile at him.
I’m falling apart, he realized with a sort of panic. Daphne, being at this inn, watching his mother watch him for a change of heart—it was stirring up old demons.
Truthfully what had happened in the dining room had been a dream of his for a lot of years. But he’d grown up and he’d realized that dreams like that—of vindication, of brotherhood, of belonging—weren’t productive.
“Yo, Jonah. You there?”
He snapped to in a hurry. Productive. It was time to be productive. “Yeah, sorry, Gary.”
“Look, since I’ve got you on the line—”
“Uh-oh.” Something in Gary’s voice was ominous.
“We’ve got two tickets to the New York Realtors Gala next Saturday.”
Jonah groaned. “You go, take Carrie.”
“I am not the Environmental Bastion. I am the Environmental Bastion’s associate. And, Jonah, they want to give you an award.”
“What kind of award?” he asked, shocked. He didn’t get a lot of those. And considering that most people who would be in that room hated working with him, he could only guess it would be the biggest jerk award.
“I don’t know. The letter just says special environmental award. They want some of our good buzz.”
“No.” He groaned. “I’m serious. Take Carrie, make a night of it. The company will pay for a suite—”
“Carrie’s pregnant.”
Jonah blinked, stunned.
“You there?” Gary asked.
“Of course,” Jonah said, and chuckled. “Congrats, Gary. That’s amazing. The world needs more people like you two.”
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