Heartstrings and Diamond Rings

by Jane Graves

  “You’re right,” Brandon said. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

  Alison closed her eyes, her anger fading away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to bite your head off.” She folded her arms protectively and looked away. “It’s just that I can’t lose him, Brandon. I can’t.”

  “I understand that. You’re very close.”

  She nodded, but suddenly her eyes were glistening with tears. He hated that. Hated it.

  “You were so right about me,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “My childhood was wonderful. The kind every kid ought to have. My father seems crabby and everything, but that’s just his way. He was such a good father.”

  Brandon didn’t know what to say, so he just let her talk.

  “And my mother was one of those who was born to the job,” she went on. “And the two of them together…” Her mouth turned up in a brief smile. “Fireworks. The good kind. They loved each other more than anything. Sometimes I think I must remember it wrong, that my life growing up couldn’t have been all that wonderful. But then I look back at pictures, and sometimes my dad and I talk, and I realize that it really was. It really was perfect.” She paused. “But when I was sixteen, everything changed.”

  “What happened?”

  “My mother got cancer. She died three weeks before Christmas.”

  Oh, God. This was way out of his league. Way out. “I bet that was hard.”

  “Yeah,” Alison said. “After her funeral, it was about the time of year when she would have started decorating and baking. But the house was silent. My father hid himself away in his bedroom most of the time. I couldn’t stand it. I’d just gotten my driver’s license, so I grabbed my brother, took my father’s truck, and I bought a Christmas tree. And I got out her mixer and baked. And when Christmas day came, I fixed dinner and played Christmas carols. It helped my brother get through it, I think. But my father…” Her voice quivered at the memory. “He sat through Christmas dinner. Barely ate anything. Then he went to his bedroom for the rest of the night. I cried myself to sleep, thinking I’d never have a real family again.”

  Brandon didn’t know what to say. Christmas had never meant much to him, because it had been just he and his father from the time he was four years old, and his old man sure hadn’t given a damn about the glow of the holiday season. Hell, until he’d lived with his grandmother, he’d never even had a Christmas tree. But he could imagine what it must be like for somebody like Alison.

  “What about your brother?” Brandon said.

  She was silent for a long time. “He enlisted in the military when he turned eighteen,” she said finally. “He was deployed to Iraq. By the time he was twenty-one, he was engaged. I was so excited. Finally our family was going to grow. I loved his fiancée.” She paused, her voice quivering. “We planned a wonderful wedding that was going to take place two weeks after his discharge.”

  When her eyes filled with tears, Brandon’s throat tightened with dread. “God, Alison. Please don’t tell me—”

  “Roadside bomb,” she said, her voice choked. “He came home in a coffin.”

  Brandon felt as if he’d been hit with a sledgehammer. He wanted to say something warm and soothing and helpful. “I’m sorry” was all he managed, and it sounded so weak and worthless that he wished he hadn’t said anything at all.

  “His fiancée was devastated,” Alison said. “But time passed, and she moved on. She was married last summer.” Her lips tightened as if she were going to cry. “She invited me to the wedding, but I just couldn’t bring myself to go. I couldn’t bear to see her so happy when my brother was dead. Isn’t that awful?”

  “No,” Brandon said. “It’s not awful. You just do what you can do.”

  “When I was younger, I assumed I’d eventually get married and have a family of my own. But as the years went by, it was one bad relationship after another, and my father was getting older, and I had nobody else. And then several weeks ago, after the marriage proposal that wasn’t, I got to thinking, my God. It’s possible. I could go through my entire life alone.”

  “So you hired me.”

  “Yes.”

  Brandon closed his eyes, wishing he’d never gone through with this crazy scheme. How could he ever have thought this business would be something he could just toss off, take people’s money no matter what the outcome was, and disappear? Not once had he stopped to think how important he might be to the people who came to him, and how horribly ill‑equipped he was to help them. Christ, he didn’t know the first thing about marriage, family, any of it. And in his own arrogance, he thought he was going to help people find the true love they were looking for?

  No. That wasn’t what he’d thought at all. His thought process had stopped at matching them up. That was what they were paying him to do. What came after that, he hadn’t given a single thought to.

  How dumb could he have possibly been?

  “Don’t you have other relatives?” he asked her.

  “An aunt and uncle on my mother’s side in Phoenix, but after my mother died, we drifted away from each other. My father has a brother, but he’s divorced and works overseas. None of my grandparents are still living. So really, my father is just about it.”

  Her teary eyes told him how much she loved her father. How much love she had to give, period. He’d felt it when she’d kissed him that night, and he was feeling it ten times that now.

  “I need a family,” she said quietly. “Like I need air to breathe. I want a husband and children and summer vacations and Christmas mornings. I can’t bear the idea of going through my life alone, with nothing but a houseful of cats to keep me company.” Tears rolled down her cheeks now, and she swept them away with the back of her hand. “My cats. God, I’m even pitiful about them.”

  “Come on, Alison,” he said with a tentative smile. “You’re still one away from being a crazy cat lady, right?”

  A smile briefly touched her lips, only to disappear into misery again. “Do you know the real reason I took them in? Because they lost their mother. I knew how that felt. But they had each other. Brothers and sisters. And when the time came, I just didn’t want to split them up. So I kept them all. I know they’re just cats, but…oh, God. See? Pitiful.”

  Suddenly what Heather had told him that night came back to him, and he knew now what she was talking about. She’s lost so much in her life already. I don’t know how many more times she can hit the wall before she just can’t take it anymore.

  “And then tonight,” she said, her voice harsh with emotion, “when I saw my father lying on the floor, I was sure the worst had happened. Do you know how horrible it feels to be only one person away from having no family at all?”

  She bowed her head, her hand over her mouth, trying to stem the tide of tears that was coming. But she couldn’t. And in that moment, her grief made the heart Brandon swore he didn’t have come very close to breaking.

  He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, and she fell against him, sobbing. Any pain he’d ever felt in his life he’d just shoved aside, pushing it to the depth of his subconscious so he’d never have to face it. But Alison was different. Her pain was so raw and real and so near the surface that all it took was a whisper of a breeze to bare it to the world. Maybe for another person the things that had happened wouldn’t have been so traumatic. But for Alison, who had been cherished as a child, tangled blissfully in the heartstrings of a warm and loving family, it had been excruciating.

  She splayed her hand against his chest and then drew up his shirt in her fist, holding on tightly. “I’m sorry,” she said as she cried, but he didn’t care about apologies, didn’t want them, didn’t need them. He just let her curl up in the comfort of his arms as he stroked her hair, remembering now how silky soft it had felt beneath his hand the night she’d kissed him. He murmured nothing words to her until finally her sobs wound down and she lay motionless in his arm
s. Her hair was mussed, her long, golden lashes wet with tears. She looked like an angel who’d tumbled out of heaven into a world where bad things happened, things she was helpless to face by herself.

  He rested his palm against her cheek and brushed away a tear with his thumb. She turned slowly and looked up at him, her head still resting against his shoulder, her soft, full lips parted slightly. Brandon felt the air between them quivering with unrealized possibilities, and every one of them was flashing through his mind right now.

  He felt things for Alison he’d never felt with another woman before. As if his emotions were getting tangled up with hers and he couldn’t disengage. His thoughts turned blurry and incoherent, and suddenly all the dangers of being so close to her right now seemed to fade into the background. Without another thought, he slid his arm around her shoulders, pulled her to him, and kissed her.

  The moment his lips fell against hers, she slid her hand to his shoulder and leaned into him, wanting it every bit as much as he did. He knew he shouldn’t be doing it, but the longer he kissed her, the longer he wanted to kiss her. Just as he’d think about maybe pulling away, she’d thread her fingers through his hair and pull him closer, or she’d drop her hand to his thigh and grasp it gently, asking him to continue, or he’d hear the faintest whimper in the back of her throat, begging him for more. He mentally cursed the console between them, even though he should have been grateful for it. If they’d been anywhere else but this car, he could only imagine what this might already have led to.

  Finally he slid back to his senses enough to pull away, but when he looked and saw her heavy-lidded expression of total satisfaction, he damned near kissed her all over again.

  “I should go,” he said.

  “No,” she whispered. “Stay with me tonight.”

  His heart slammed against his chest. Everything he wanted and everything he couldn’t have were wrapped up in those four little words. And when he looked down and saw the gentle, pleading expression on her face, he realized just how badly he’d screwed up. Why the hell hadn’t he kept his lips to himself?

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Tonight has been crazy. I think you just need to sleep.”

  “Fine,” she said. “We’ll sleep.”

  “Alison—”

  “This isn’t like the other night. I wasn’t thinking straight then. But now…now I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  She slid her hand to his neck and stroked it with her thumb, sending hot shivers up and down his spine. Then she leaned in and kissed him, taking his face in her hands and angling her mouth to engulf his, answering his kiss with one of her own, making it clear what she wanted and that she wanted it now. It took every bit of willpower he had to take her by the shoulders and ease her away.

  “Alison,” he said, breathing hard. “Stop. Please stop.”

  She blinked, edging back to reality.

  “I can’t do this,” he said. “I know I started it, but I can’t do this.”

  She looked at him warily. “I don’t understand.”

  “This was a mistake. You’re a client. If we got involved with each other, it would be bad for business.”

  She leaned away. “Oh, that is so much crap, and you know it.”

  “Alison—”

  “Am I really that unappealing?”

  “No!”

  “Did you kiss me because you were feeling sorry for me?”

  “Will you stop?” He blew out a breath of frustration. “I’m just not looking for any relationship right now.”

  “I don’t believe that. Look at what you’re doing. You run a business dedicated to helping other people find true love. How can you not want that for yourself?”

  He hated this. Hated it. Every question she asked made another lie come out of his mouth.

  “Someday I will,” he said. “But you want it now, and I can’t be the one to give it to you.”

  “God, Brandon. Why don’t you just tell me the truth? You’re not attracted to me.”

  “Not attracted to you? I kissed you, didn’t I?”

  “Then what the hell is going on here?”

  He turned away. “This has nothing to do with you. I’m the one with the problem.”

  “Oh, please! Will you spare me the old ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ thing? As if I haven’t heard that a thousand times before?” She turned away. “You had it right the first time. Maybe you should just go.”

  She grabbed her purse off the floor by her feet and opened the car door. He grabbed her arm. “I’m sorry, Alison. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  “But you didn’t do much to stop it either, did you?”

  “I’ll find the right man for you,” he said. “No matter what it takes.”

  She looked at him with disbelief. “You’re telling me that now? After this? You turn me down, but, hey, no problem, my next date is just around the corner?” She made a scoffing noise. “I was right in the first place. You are clueless about women.”

  She was right. His timing was just impeccable.

  “All I meant was that you deserve a better man than me.”

  “And you still think you can find him for me? Sorry, Brandon. I’ll have to see that to believe it.”

  With that, she turned and got out of the car, slamming the door behind her. She trotted up the stairs and disappeared into her condo, leaving him sitting in frustrated silence, wondering how he could have been stupid enough to get himself into this mess.

  He glanced up at her living room window. The curtains were pushed aside, and Alison was standing there, staring down at him. Even at this distance, he could see the look on her face and knew that the anger and sarcasm she’d left him with were nothing but a mask to hide what she was really feeling.

  He’d told her the truth, whether she believed it or not. He didn’t have much time left, but one way or the other, he was going to do it. He was going to find her the man she was so desperate for so she could have the family she’d always wanted. Soon her memory of the kiss they’d just shared would fade away into oblivion, and maybe she wouldn’t hate him forever.

  Chapter 22

  Dad, you just got out of the hospital. Would you please take it easy?”

  Charlie twist-tied the trash bag and started for the back door. “It��s trash day. That means I gotta take out the trash.”

  “Why don’t you let me do that?”

  “Do I look like an invalid to you?”

  No, he didn’t. At least not now. But Alison still couldn’t get that picture out of her mind of her father in a hospital bed and the inevitability that someday it was going to happen again.

  She watched out the kitchen window as Charlie headed across the backyard to the alley, Blondie bouncing at his heels. Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the trees, dappling his perfectly manicured lawn. He dumped the trash, then turned around, grabbed a stray ball from the grass, and heaved it across the yard. Blondie took out after it as if her bushy gold tail was on fire.

  Alison heard the doorbell. She went to the front door and looked out the peephole.

  Bea?

  She opened the door. “Bea! What a surprise!”

  But thinking about it, was it really?

  “Hi, Alison. I just came by with something for your father.” She nodded down at the casserole pan she held. “Is he here?”

  “Sure. Come on in.”

  By the time they got to the kitchen, Charlie and Blondie were coming through the backdoor. He stopped short when he saw Bea.

  “You have food,” he said. “What is it?”

  “Lasagna,” she said, then turned to Alison and whispered, “Vegetable lasagna.”

  Charlie frowned. “I heard that.”

  “I figured you wouldn’t be up for cooking,” Bea told him as she shoved the lasagna into the fridge. “So there. You have dinner.” She knelt down and ruffled Blondie’s ears. “And if I’d known you had such a gorgeous puppy, I’d have bro
ught a soup bone instead. What’s your name, sweetie?”

  “Blondie,” Charlie said. “As in dumb Blondie.”

  “Watch it, buster. Before the gray took over, I used to be a blonde.” She scratched Blondie’s ears. “You poor, precious puppy dog. How do you put up with that man?”

  “I feed her, brush her, and scoop her poop. What more does she want?” Charlie went to the sink to wash his hands. “So do you want to stay for dinner?”

  “Why, Charlie,” Bea said. “How sweet of you to ask.”

  “I just want somebody to eat the lasagna first so I’ll know it’s okay.”

  Bea turned to Alison. “So what does he think? I’m poisoning him?”

  “You stay too, sweetie,” Charlie said to Alison.

  Under normal circumstances, she would have. But then the strangest thought crossed her mind: two’s company; three’s a crowd.

  “Nah,” she said. “I have a lot of stuff to do tonight. I think I’ll head on home.”

  “You’re leaving me alone with her?” Charlie said. “I told you she’s packing, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, Dad. You did.” She turned to Bea. “If he gets out of line, shoot him.”

  She gave her father a quick kiss on the cheek and left the kitchen. When she reached the front door, she heard him say, “So do you like zombie movies?” and Bea said, “What’s not to like?”

  Alison stopped for a moment, feeling the strangest push-pull of emotions she didn’t know what to do with. She loved seeing her father happy. But at the same time it magnified her own feelings of despair.

  Stop being selfish. Your father deserves happiness, too. Your day’s coming. You just have to stay positive.

  But that was becoming harder and harder to do. She didn’t know why Brandon had rejected her after giving her the kiss of the century, but it had chipped away at her hope for the future and made her feel lonely all over again.

  The next afternoon, Brandon went to the living room, where Tom was taking a nap on the sofa. He tossed a file onto Tom’s chest. “Tell me what you think of this guy.”