And Then Came You

by Maureen Child

  But then reality crashed back down again and she reminded herself that this was Jeff. He was the calm, cool, rational half of this little duo. And he was no doubt already giving thanks that she’d signed the papers and walked out of his life.

  Nope.

  Ball in his court or not, nothing would change.

  “Okay,” Mike said into the silence, as if she knew Sam needed an emotional break. “If you’ve finished with the hearts and flowers portion of the program, let’s talk about the home show.”

  Sam’s eyes widened, she groaned, then leaned over double and let her forehead smack the tabletop. “I forgot about the Home Show.”

  “Not surprising with everything else going on,” Jo noted.

  “It’s tomorrow,” Sam whined, her voice muffled as she still lay eyeball to glossy surface of table.

  “Oh yeah.”

  She heard the amusement in Mike’s voice. “I’m supposed to do a faux-finish painting seminar.”

  “Right again.”

  She lifted her head high enough to look at Mike. “You want to do it?”

  Mike swung her long blond braid back over her shoulder. “I’ve got my own deal to worry about, remember? Plumbing for the amateur.”

  “And I’m explaining simple home repairs,” Jo put in as she lifted her coffee cup, “so don’t even ask me.”

  Sam groaned again and sat up.

  “Papa’s going over there today to finish setting up our booth.” Mike pulled a piece of her muffin off and nibbled at it. “He said Grace is going along too. She wants a close look at the other booths to give her ideas, God help us, for her house.”

  “Grace is going with Papa?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “No reason.” Sam sighed inwardly and told herself that she had enough to think about. She was just going to stick her head in the proverbial sand over Papa and Grace. The less she knew, the happier she’d be. “Fine. I’ll worry about it tomorrow. For now, we’ve got today off, so I think I’ll take Emma to the beach.”

  “Good plan,” Jo agreed. “Why don’t we all go?”

  “Ready for a refill?” Stevie asked as she walked up to the table carrying a tray loaded with three fresh lattes.

  “You’re a queen, Stevie,” Mike said, reaching for one of the cups. “How’d you know we’d need more?”

  “Are you kidding?” Stevie laughed and shifted the tray to a more comfortable position against her hip. “I know my customers. You guys are always good for at least two lattes each.”

  As she stacked the empty cups on the tray, she looked down at them and asked, “So why are the Marconi sisters going to the beach instead of the library?”

  Mike gave her head a shake. “Why would we go to the library?”

  Stevie just stared at them. “You guys have got to get out more. Haven’t you heard?”

  “What?” Jo scooted her chair around and looked up.

  “People are finding cash in the books.”

  “Cash?” Mike repeated. “Money?”

  “Yep,” Stevie said, clearly enjoying the opportunity to tell some news. “Tens, twenties, even some fifties.”

  “I don’t get it,” Sam said.

  “Nobody does,” Stevie said. “But the library’s been looking like the mall at Christmas for the last few days. Once word spread, the place has been packed. I hear Mrs. Rogan’s been chasing people with her ruler.”

  Mrs. Rogan, who was, at last count, a hundred and ten, had been the town librarian since before God learned how to read. And she wielded her long yardstick like a broadsword in the hands of a knight. Every so often, one of Chandler’s kids would get up the nerve to steal the damn thing, but Mrs. Rogan always replaced it.

  “Who’s putting the money there?” Jo wondered.

  “Nobody knows,” Stevie said, shrugging. Then as someone on the other side of the room called out for a refill, Stevie turned and lifted a hand in acknowledgment. “Gotta go. You guys want anything else, just call.”

  As she wandered off, Sam looked at her sisters. “Money in books? Doesn’t make sense.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Mike said, easing her chair back onto two legs to rock again. “Papa always said that ‘knowledge is the real wealth.’ ”

  “Cute,” Jo muttered.

  Mike shrugged. “I try.”

  Jeff was a man possessed.

  Sam’s words kept ringing in his ears, driving him, pushing him. She loves me. He wouldn’t believe it was past tense. Couldn’t believe it. If he did, it would kill him. To find her again after all this time, to rediscover the magic of what they’d had, only to lose it again.

  No.

  He wouldn’t let it happen.

  Hell, since taking over the family bank, he’d handled hundreds of insurmountable situations. He’d doubled the bank’s holdings, made their shareholders rich, and found that, like it or not, he did have an innate gift for the business end of things.

  If he could do all of that and come out on top, then he could damn sure win Sam Marconi.

  And he wouldn’t quit until he pulled it off.

  Reaching for the phone, he dialed.

  When the phone rang, Sam turned and stared at it as though it were a writhing cobra preparing to strike. She set down the bottle of Lysol and tossed the dishcloth to the countertop she’d been busy cleaning, for the tenth time. It didn’t matter how often she scrubbed it down, though, the memory of what she and Jeff had done there remained.

  The phone rang again and it was as if he were in the room with her. She knew it was him calling. Felt it in her bones. And as the shrill ring bounced off the walls again, it was almost as if she could hear him, taunting her. “Too scared to answer, Sam? Must mean you don’t trust yourself to talk to me.”

  “Scared, my ass,” she muttered and stomped across the room to snatch up the receiver on the fifth ring. “What?”

  “Is that the voice you use to frighten telemarketers?” Jeff asked.

  “Don’t call here.” Her fingers tightened on the long, twisty cord, hanging from the old-fashioned blue wall phone.

  “Have to if I want to talk to you. And Emma.”

  “You don’t get to talk to me,” Sam said, congratulating herself on her restraint. Her calmness. Her absolute indifference to hearing his voice rumble through her body. Until she looked at the cord, tight enough around her hand to cut off the circulation. “Dammit,” she muttered and unwound the thing quickly.

  “Sam, I—”

  “Just a minute, I’ll call Emma.” She yanked the phone away from her ear, not quite trusting herself to remain strong. “Emma, your daddy’s on the phone.”

  Footsteps, light and quick, sounded out and the little girl raced into the kitchen and crashed into her mother. Grinning her still gap-toothed smile, she reached up for the phone. “Hi, Daddy, do you miss me, I miss you. I went to the beach today and found some seashells and I met Jonas and he let me play with his dog Goliath and can I have a dog too and I’ll name her Ariel and we’ll play and—”

  Sam tried to zone out while Emma chattered in a high-pitched voice filled with excitement. It had been a good day. She and her sisters and Emma had met up with Tasha Candellano and her son Jonas. Tasha was now officially past her baby’s due date, and had headed to the beach to get away from her husband Nick’s overpowering mother-henning. Sam smiled to herself over the amazing transformation of one of the most determinedly single men she’d ever known into a doting husband and frantic father-to-be.

  “Mommy says I can have a dog and it can live here and I can visit it whenever I come to see Mommy,” Emma was saying, as she shot her mother a quick smile. “But I don’t wanna go back to San Francisco, Daddy. I wanna live here with my puppy and you and Mommy and then we can go to the beach all of us and—”

  Little dreams, Sam thought as she picked up the bottle of Lysol and tucked it away under the sink. All Emma wanted were the things any kid wanted. A mom and dad to love each other. A puppy.

  She turned on the h
ot water tap and washed her hands with a squirt of detergent.

  “Okay,” Emma said, lowering her voice to what she probably thought was a whisper. “I can. Okay. We’re going to a house show tomorrow and Mommy said I can help, so you could too, and then we—Okay.”

  Sam glanced at her, but Emma had wandered into the doorway of the living room, where she continued to whisper. “I love you too, Daddy. Okay, I will. Bye.”

  Emma turned around and walked to Sam, handing her the phone receiver. Then she wrapped her arms around her mother’s legs and squeezed.

  “Thanks,” Sam said, running her hand across Emma’s baby-fine hair. “But what’s the hug for?”

  The little girl tipped her head back and looked up at her. “It’s from Daddy,” she said. “He wanted me to give you a hug. He said you needed one.”

  A twinge of something sharp and sweet tore at Sam’s heart.

  “Did you?” Emma asked.

  Sam forced a smile. “I always need your hugs, mouse.”

  “I love you, Mommy.”

  One short sentence brought Sam to her knees. Wrapping her arms around her daughter, she held her close, inhaling the sweet, summery little-girl scent of her. No matter what else this summer had brought—no matter what pain she might be dealing with in the weeks to come—it had all been worth it.

  She’d no doubt be lonely again, as she had been before. She would miss Jeff for the rest of her life and always wonder about what might have been. But there would never again be that soul-numbing emptiness, filled with haunting shadows and desperate cold.

  Burying her face in the bend of her daughter’s neck, Sam whispered, “Oh baby, I love you, too.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The Home Show was a crowded, noisy, over-the-top showcase for local home-building talent. Every year, Marconi Construction took part in the festivities, and every year, they gleaned new customers and visited with old friends.

  Booths lined the huge San Jose Convention Center and those manning the booths were like barkers at a carnival.

  “Try this electric drill bit with a light embedded in the tip. No more drilling in the dark . . .”

  “With this lamp, you’ll only have to replace a bulb every two years, guaranteed, or your money back . . .”

  “Why paint when you can stucco?”

  “Aluminum siding is the ‘green’ way of building . . .”

  “Wallpaper doesn’t have to be a chore . . .”

  Sam walked the narrow aisle between booths and shook her head at the chance to try out a new circular saw. The crowds were thick and the noise level higher than an elementary school at the start of summer vacation. Plus, over and above the roar of the mob and the shouts of the dealers, came an announcer’s voice over a loudspeaker set at a level designed to shatter eardrums.

  Ordinarily, Sam loved the Home Show. It was a chance to do the fun stuff and show off a little as she did it. She never failed to wow the crowd when she started demonstrating the varied kinds of faux-finish painting styles. She usually spent lots of time with bored kids being dragged around behind focused parents—and let those same kids vent a little frustration with a paintbrush.

  But today, she just wanted to go home.

  Hug her misery close.

  Ever since leaving Jeff’s condo the day before, she’d been going over and over everything. Her heart ached, but her head was clearer now, less fogged by fury, and she could admit that Cynthia’d had more reason to lie than tell the truth. And Jeff had probably been right when he said the woman had no doubt known exactly how Sam would react to such news. And it pissed her off to admit that she’d accommodated the perfect bitch even that much.

  Sam shook her head at a man trying to hand her a flyer about roofing specials and remembered instead everything she’d said to Jeff the day before. Not that she regretted any of it or anything. But she kept remembering the look on his face when she’d told him she loved him.

  Had it really been a spark of hope in his eyes? Or was she just finding new and unusual ways to torture herself? Safer, she told herself, to hang on to her anger and let the sorrow drain away. She’d be hurt less by temper than regret.

  “ ’Bout time you got back,” Mike shouted as Sam stepped up to the Marconi booth. “Jesus, did you go to Brazil and pick the coffee beans by hand?”

  “Do you absolutely have to talk?” Sam handed her the carrying tray filled with four cups of steaming hot coffee, courtesy of the Home Show’s snack area, set up behind the hot tub and spa display. The coffee was probably poisonous, but any caffeine port in a storm.

  Snatching one of the cups for herself, Sam glanced around for Emma.

  “Yes, actually, I do.” Mike took one of the cups and set the tray aside for Jo and Papa. “Jo’s off drooling over the goodies at the True Touch tool booth. But if you’re looking for Emma, she’s wandering with Papa and Grace.”

  Sam winced. Papa and Grace. Even having them so close in the same sentence felt a little uncomfortable. But she so wasn’t in the mood to think about that today. Besides, what the hell? Somebody should be happy.

  “Excuse me,” a huge woman in a garishly flowered dress said as she tapped Mike’s arm. “Do you know where I can find those cute little lamps shaped like dogs?”

  “God, no,” Mike said, drawing her head back and staring at the woman with a horrified expression.

  “They’re down at the end of aisle three,” Sam interrupted smoothly, shooting Mike a quelling look before smiling at the offended woman.

  “Thank you.”

  As she moved off, Mike said in her own defense, “Well, do I look like I have dog lamps?”

  Sam laughed and carried her coffee to the far end of the Marconi booth. Here, she had a sheet of primed plywood set up and awaiting her first painting demonstration. She’d brought a dozen of the plywood sheets so that she could keep up the demos for the entire twoday presentation.

  She might not be in the mood for it, but she was determined to do a good job. Marconi Construction was always looking for new clients. Even though they’d be tied up with Grace’s place for the next two months, there was no harm in having future jobs lined up. And with the hundreds of people wandering through the show, they were bound to pick up their fair share.

  Getting busy, she knelt beside the row of neatly stacked paint cans, brushes, sponges, and rollers. She shoved Jeff to the back of her mind, where no doubt he’d still be lingering in ten years. But if her heart was aching, no one else would ever know about it.

  Jeff walked into what looked to him like an Arabian bazaar. But he was willing to bet this place was a lot louder. Shouted conversations rose and fell like ocean waves and there was a background hum of machinery whining at the various booths. Thousands of people were crammed into a warehouse nowhere near big enough to hold all of them, and he guessed the fire marshals were going nuts trying to keep a lid on the place.

  Trying to find Sam was going to be like searching the shore for a particular grain of sand. But he was a man on a mission.

  She loves me.

  All he had to do was keep reminding himself of that and he’d find a way back into her heart. Her life. And that was more important than anything.

  Stepping into the chaos, he bumped into a big man in overalls, then steered around him, squeezing between kids and parents, darting into gaps in the crowd, and scanning the booths as he passed. The urge to hurry dogged him. Seconds ticked into minutes and the minutes flew.

  He felt the urgency pounding inside him and went with it. Nine years gone. Nine years when they could have been happy, making more babies, loving each other crazy. They’d lost too much time together already and he wasn’t willing to wait even one more day.

  Thanks to talking to Emma last night, he’d known about the Home Show and hadn’t wasted precious time going to Chandler first. Maybe this wasn’t the best place to be hunting Sam down.

  But dammit, he was through waiting.

  Jeff’s gaze swept the crowd, searching for a f
amiliar face. At this stage of the game, he’d even be willing to catch a glimpse of Mike or Jo. At least then he’d know he was on the right road. “Too many damn people,” he muttered.

  “Ain’t that the truth?” A man beside him grinned and shook his head helplessly as the crowd carried him away, like a feather buffeted by the wind.

  Jeff laughed and waved as if saying good-bye to an old friend. Then he ducked his head, hunched his shoulders, and hit the crowd like a three-hundred-pound linebacker sacking a quarterback.

  “Can I paint now, Mommy?”

  “Sure, baby,” Sam said, grinning at her daughter. “You can show these nice people how easy it is to sponge-paint.”

  A half-dozen people stood around her in a semicircle and watched as Sam tugged a rubber glove onto Emma’s small hand. Then she helped her dip the sea sponge into a paint tray of dark green paint and scrape off the excess against the edge.

  “As you’ll see,” Sam said, addressing the interested faces turned toward her, “sponge painting is so easy, your kids can help you decorate.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a plus,” someone muttered.

  Sam laughed. “Up to you, but my daughter Emma will show you just how creative children can be.” Then to Emma, she said, “Go ahead, baby, show these nice people how easy it is.”

  Eagerly, Emma practically launched herself at the plywood sheet. Since the little girl had already been helping Sam on the job site, she was confident and raring to go. This was her second demonstration of the morning and she was already handling it like a pro.

  Carefully, she reached out and pressed the sponge to the flat white surface, then pulled it back. The imprint of the sponge left a delicate, lacy pattern of green paint. As everyone watched, Emma repeated the process two or three times, overlapping and turning the sponge so that the pattern never really repeated, but left the sheet of plywood looking as though it had been wallpapered.

  “Well, I’m impressed,” one woman said and stepped forward to take one of Sam’s business cards. “And you, little one,” she added, smiling down at Emma, “are a very talented painter.”