The most unwelcome memory came back to him, making it all worse. It had been one of those nights when Sandy’s pain kept them both awake far into the small and scary hours. I pray for her, she’d said. She’d been holding his hand, and he’d been making circles on the back of it the way he did to distract her from the pain. Her voice had become so thin she barely sounded like Sandy.
Carly? he’d asked, choking back tears. They both knew there weren’t too many days left.
Her, too. Sandy had managed to smile. But for who’s next.
Her hysterectomy already decreed they’d have no more natural children, even if they had time. Next?
The next woman who gets to have your heart.
It was the one time he’d allowed himself to cry in front of her. There’s only you, he’d sobbed into her bony chest, hating how her ribs pressed against his cheek. There will only be you.
I hope not, she’d said, stroking his hair. I envy her. You’ll be such a silver fox when you’re old. He remembered hating how her laughter dissolved so quickly into rasping coughs.
He felt old now. Much older than he was, that’s for sure. Too old to face a long, sleepless night stewing in the fact that his daughter hoped his next valentine should be Kelly Nelson.
Chapter Eight
He was hiding.
To the average person, it would look like a man had simply decided to take his daughter out for a walk in the gorgeous snow-frosted morning down the street to Bliss Bakery for hot cocoa and doughnuts. But Bruce knew better. He was trying to stay out of sight of Kelly and Lulu until he could talk this out with Carly, and for some reason staying at the inn made it feel like she could appear at any minute.
Of course, she had a talent for running into him wherever he was, which meant she could show up here, as well. Still, hiding here meant at least she wouldn’t find him if she came looking for him at the inn.
And knowing her, she would. Kelly had to be as unsettled by the appearance of these valentines as he was. It had been a terrible night. He couldn’t stop himself from wondering what she was thinking about, how she’d reacted, whether or not she was lying awake thinking about what he was thinking about... The whole thing was just one huge ball of sleepless anxiety.
Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, Bruce decided how he wanted to deal with it. And it meant settling this with Carly first before facing Kelly and Lulu, which would come soon enough.
“Carly, hon,” he began as they settled in with an indulgent mug of cocoa for her and the strongest coffee the bakery had for him. Along with, of course, doughnuts covered in red, pink and white sprinkles. “I want to talk to you about the valentine I found on my pillow last night.”
She gave him a wide-eyed, innocent-looking blink. “What valentine? Did you get one?”
He pushed out a breath and leaned in toward her. “You and Lulu made that valentine, didn’t you?”
Though her eyes stayed wide, the innocent look left her face. She fidgeted, but said nothing.
“Please don’t lie to me, Carly. Not ever, and especially not about this.”
When she still didn’t confess, he gave her his most serious look and said, “Carly Anne Lohan...”
“Maybe,” she said very quietly.
“Why?” he asked, even though it wasn’t hard to guess the answer.
Carly poked at the frosting on her doughnut. “I like her.”
“Lulu is a very nice friend, I know.”
“But I like her mom, too. She’s nice. You smile at her when you think I’m not looking.”
Bruce couldn’t remember smiling at Kelly—at least he’d tried not to—but he also couldn’t argue that she did, for reasons that made very little sense, seem to loosen something tightly bound in him. “Miss Kelly is a nice person, I agree,” he admitted. “But what you and Lulu did was wrong. It wasn’t the truth.”
Carly’s bottom lip stuck out in a guilty pout. “We were wishing. I was wishing Miss Kelly and Lulu were in our family, and Lulu was wishing you and me were in her family. You like her, and Lulu says she likes you. We were just helping, weren’t we?”
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. He had to step very carefully here. “Did you hear me say I liked Miss Kelly? In a valentine kind of way? Did you hear me say those words?”
“Not really,” Carly admitted, looking down for a moment before she added, “But you don’t go away around her. And she’s soooo nice. And pretty. I like her and Lulu a lot, Dad.”
“I know you do. And I suppose she is...kind of...pretty. But that doesn’t...” How was he going to make her understand? “Sweetheart, grown-ups have to decide things like this for ourselves. This isn’t something you and Lulu get to decide for Miss Kelly and me, no matter how much you might wish for it.” He felt like he had to ask. “Do you wish for another mom?”
Her eyes just about broke his heart when she said, “Sometimes.”
“That’s okay,” he said, taking her small hand. “Every little girl wants a mommy, and it doesn’t—” he had to swallow hard on account of the huge lump that rose in his throat “—it doesn’t mean we love Mom in heaven any less.”
“Okay.” That little bottom lip quivered, threatening to undo him. He had expected this conversation to be awkward and difficult. He hadn’t expected it to slice through him this way. Suddenly, his inability to heal seemed like it was harming her, denying her something every little girl needed.
“Now, if the time ever comes that I think there’s a new mommy to come into our family, I promise you we’ll talk about it. A lot.” The idea was distant and impossible, wasn’t it? It certainly felt frightening.
“Couldn’t it be Miss Kelly?”
Bruce didn’t have a good answer to so direct a question. If he forced himself to really consider it, he’d have to admit it was possible. Under different circumstances, maybe months from now, Kelly Nelson could be someone he might consider dating. She was, in fact, the first woman who even remotely struck him as someone he might want in his life. If he was ready to date. Which he absolutely wasn’t. “This isn’t the time.” He knew that wouldn’t be enough of an answer for Carly.
It wasn’t. “Why not?” she persisted.
The best defense he could come up with was deflection. “Well, for one thing, this weekend is supposed to be about Miss Tina and Mr. Darren getting married.”
“I know. But you do like Miss Kelly, don’t you?”
He liked her, sort of. She was pushy and a bit of a control freak, but she was also creative and smart and brave. He certainly liked the amazing way she had with Carly. “That’s not the point.”
“Why?”
Five-year-olds and their “why?” questions. “Because the point is you put Miss Kelly’s name on a card that she didn’t write. And did you make one for Miss Kelly with my name on it? Without my permission? Saying things I didn’t give you permission to say?”
There was a long, sniffly pause before Carly said, “S’pose.”
“Not ‘suppose,’ you did. And while I understand why you did it, it’s still wrong. And while Miss Kelly gets to decide what Lulu has to do about it, I get to decide what you have to do.” He sat up straight. “And my decision is that you owe Miss Kelly an apology.”
That brought a stricken look to Carly’s eyes. “Really?”
He’d decided this was the best way to deal with the valentines. To address the issue of their deception rather than the stickier concept that the girls had picked up on an attraction between Kelly and himself. “Yes, really.” He pointed across the street. “We can see the flower shop windows from here. And when Miss Kelly opens up and the lights go on over there, you and I are going to walk across the street and you’re going to apologize to her for putting her name on that valentine without her permission.”
Carly’s eyes glistened as her bottom lip stuck out farther. “Do I haf
ta?”
She was so adorable that it was hard not to smile at her, but he needed to stay serious. Sweet as the intention was, it was still deception, and this matchmaking scheme had to be squelched immediately. “Yes, you ‘hafta.’”
She looked at her doughnut. “I’m gonna need this whole doughnut. Maybe two.”
Now that was 100 percent Sandy. The day she’d made a whopping mistake at her work and had to fess up to her boss, she’d eaten half a chocolate cake. “Two doughnuts is okay, but even three wouldn’t change what you have to do.”
“Can I have the one with chocolate sprinkles next?”
He hid the smile from his face until he walked up to the counter and pointed out the chocolate sprinkle doughnut to the brown-haired woman behind the counter with “Yvonne” stitched into her blue apron.
“I’m sorry,” Yvonne said as she lifted the doughnut out of the case with a square of waxed paper. “I wasn’t meaning to eavesdrop, but I gotta say, that was some pretty impressive parenting.”
The pleasant sense of affirmation warred with embarrassment. The only thing that would make this whole situation worse was anyone else knowing about it. “Um, thanks.”
“Carly has gumption, that’s for sure.”
At least that he could agree with. “It was just a bit of a misunderstanding, I’m afraid.” Understatement of the year.
The bakery owner gave him an all-too-knowing look. “But Kelly’s a pretty amazing woman, too. Not that it’s any of my business—”
“It’s not,” he cut her off, not liking how everyone in this town seemed totally comfortable sticking their noses in everyone else’s business. The inn offered room service—why hadn’t he dealt with so delicate a matter in the privacy of his room?
“I’m just saying,” she said with a wide smile as if he hadn’t just tried to end the conversation. “Having a thing for Kelly Nelson isn’t the worst thing a guy like yourself could do.”
Bruce considered marching out to the “Welcome to Matrimony Valley” sign and adding a panel that read “Beware of Meddling.” He scowled at the baker. “I’ll just leave the advice and take the doughnut, if you don’t mind.”
“On the house,” she said, sliding the doughnut across the counter to him. “Both.”
* * *
Kelly leaned up against her refrigerator. “She’s here?” she said into the phone as Hailey called to let her know Samantha Douglas had just checked in. “Already? I thought she was coming at eleven?”
“They wanted to get ahead of the weather. She and her photographer walked in about fifteen minutes ago. The photographer guy just dumped his bags at the desk and went right back outside to photograph, gushing about the beauty of new-fallen snow.”
“Oh, well, that sounds promising. It is pretty out there.”
“Samantha didn’t seem to share his delight. I gave her our best room outside of the bridal suite, and she still frowned. And older than I was expecting. She’s really the one who writes the reviews for wedding venues? You’ve got your work cut out for you—she’s one picky lady.”
Kelly had to admit to the same reaction on her many phone calls to the writer. “She does seem picky. But lots of people read her. And even more follow her online.”
“Well, I hope the photographer gets a bunch of great shots. The inn looks terrific dusted with snow. The whole avenue does.”
“I’m glad I delivered those gift bags to you while I was there yesterday,” Kelly said as she dumped more grounds into the coffee maker. “Picky or not, we need to impress her.” This wasn’t the day for Samantha Douglas to show up early. Lulu was barely awake, and Kelly was yawning herself. She’d lain awake for hours after a long conversation with Lulu about what she and Carly had done. While she’d managed to get through to Lulu that how they’d gone about it was wrong, Lulu just couldn’t see why the grown-ups didn’t understand how perfect a solution the match was.
You like him, Mom, Lulu had offered, as if that solved it all. And he likes you. And Carly and I are super-good friends already. It’s perfect.
That’s not how things like this happen, hadn’t convinced Lulu in the slightest. She’d finally sent Lulu to bed with the promise that she would write an apology note to Bruce in the morning. For the next hour—and several times after that—Kelly talked herself out of dialing the inn and asking for Bruce’s room. She didn’t know what she’d say if she could reach him anyway. When the snow had delayed the start of school, Kelly was grateful for the chance at a slow morning. Now, with Samantha already here, who knew when they would find time to deal with the girls’ misguided scheme?
“Look, I know Samantha Douglas can do a lot for us,” Hailey was saying on the other end of the line, bringing Kelly’s thoughts back to the present. “She’ll get top-notch treatment, don’t you worry. But she does seem rather worried about a heavier storm coming in.”
Get in line, thought Kelly, squinting out at the white landscape. The bride and groom were both due in tonight. “Where is she now?”
“The photographer just came back in. I’ll go seat them for breakfast.”
Kelly hit the brew button on the coffee machine. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Bruce, Carly and the whole valentine tangle would just have to wait until Samantha Douglas was settled.
“Okay. See you then.”
Kelly put her hands over her eyes and forced in a deep breath. Stay close, Lord. It’s gonna be a crazy hard day. “Change of plans, young lady,” Kelly said to Lulu, who was pulling a box of cereal out of the cabinet. “We’re going to meet the Southeast Nuptials reporter at the inn and have breakfast there. I’ll walk you to the bus stop after that, and you can write your letter to Mr. Lohan tonight.”
“Waffles!” Lulu exclaimed, as if nothing at all had gone amiss. “And I’ll get to see Carly!” she said as she took off up the stairs.
And that. Going to the inn could mean running into Bruce without time to really talk, and that would certainly be awkward, but there was no help for it. He had to be feeling as odd about last night’s turn of events as she was, and they’d just have to deal with it when the opportunity came.
Fortunately, there was no sign of either Bruce or Carly as she and Lulu sat down at a table near Samantha Douglas and her photographer a short time later.
“Have you enjoyed the inn’s famous waffles?” Kelly asked, noticing the remnants of the inn’s signature heart-shaped waffles on the woman’s plate.
“They’re delicious,” Lulu chimed in.
“Very charming,” Samantha replied, in a voice that didn’t sound charmed at all.
“I’m glad you came up early. The town is so beautiful in a coat of new snow, don’t you think?”
“I got some great shots,” offered the photographer.
“Aren’t you worried about travel issues?” Samantha asked. “I wouldn’t want to get stuck up here on account of ice or snow.”
“We can handle weather,” Kelly declared. “Besides, I like to think we do winter weddings with the same creativity as our summer ones. This one really shows off what Matrimony Valley can do, Ms. Douglas.”
Samantha sipped her coffee. “So you keep saying.”
“I’ll personally guarantee your safe travel no matter what the weather. Even if I have to drive you in my own van myself.”
“Of course you’ll comp our rooms should we end up stranded?” Samantha adjusted her glasses, looking as if being stranded in Matrimony Valley presented a highly unpleasant prospect.
“Absolutely,” Kelly reiterated. “Your interview with the bakery isn’t for several hours. Would you like to start with a tour through town?”
“I suppose.” She reached into her posh handbag and began flipping through the screen on her phone. “Don, are they still saying the worst of the storm will stay north of here?”
“Lulu!” Carly came running through the
dining room doors, having spotted her new friend. She froze when her eyes met Kelly’s. Lulu clearly wasn’t the only one who received “a talking-to” after last night.
“Carly, stop...” Bruce came in behind her, his own face contorting with discomfort upon seeing Kelly. The whole moment was excruciating enough without Samantha Douglas watching. “We were waiting for you to open up the shop.”
“Oh, well, I’m here, with Samantha Douglas from Southeastern Nuptials Magazine.”
Upon a nudge from Bruce, Carly mumbled, “Hello, Miss Kelly.”
“Good morning, Mr. Bruce,” Lulu mumbled with an equally sheepish tone.
No one else said anything for a long moment while everyone avoided everyone else’s eyes. When Kelly could bear it no longer, she said, “Samantha, this is the wedding’s best man, Bruce Lohan. He came in early to make a vacation of visiting Matrimony Valley with his daughter.”
He coughed at first, but found his voice and extended a hand to shake Samantha’s. “Charming little town, isn’t it?”
“I love it here,” added Carly.
“It’s certainly rustic.” When Kelly couldn’t quite say if Ms. Douglas considered that a positive trait, she confirmed her opinion by adding, “If you like this sort of thing.”
“I think it’s pretty,” Carly proclaimed. “And it has reindeer.”
“Elk,” Bruce corrected, although Kelly didn’t think Samantha Douglas held either in much esteem. “My daughter, Carly, is the flower girl for the wedding. And Kelly’s correct—we chose to spend a week’s vacation here on top of the event to enjoy everything the town has to offer.”
“Well, it certainly is out of the way.” The writer’s declaration fell rather short of a compliment.
“We prefer to think of it as secluded,” Kelly amended. “Accessible to bigger cities, but peaceful. With exciting, memorable weddings.”
Snowbound with the Best Man Page 8
