The Trouble with Joe

by Emilie Richards

  His gaze moved over Lucy’s face, now in profile, savoring her high, curved brow, the wing of her cheekbones, the slightly pointy chin with a hint of a cleft, the scattering of freckles on skin that had the translucence of a child’s. She’d acquired a scratch across one cheek today, courtesy of Zepherine Drouhin, but she’d only laughed and wiped away beads of blood onto her shirt hem.

  He wasn’t sure what her prized climbing rose would look like in bloom, but she made him think of a wild rose—pale pink, perhaps, without complicated whorls, the few simple petals perfectly arranged on long, arching canes, the scent elusive and sweet.

  Adrian didn’t know how it had happened, when he’d only known her a few days, but he couldn’t imagine driving away from Middleton without planning to see her again.

  You know people. Lean on them. Find her the perfect job.

  What if a restaurant like Veil or Earth & Ocean offered her a job as sous chef? That was the opportunity she’d dreamed about. Would she follow him to Seattle?

  Did wild roses transplant into urban, postage-stamp-size gardens?

  Why not? he thought recklessly. She longed for a life more sophisticated than Middleton could give her. People here wouldn’t change; fifty years from now, they’d still expect clam chowder on the menu every Friday. As talented as she was, she deserved better.

  And he liked the idea of having her in his life, of exploring where this peculiar blend of tenderness and hunger he felt would take them.

  “She squeezed my hand!” Lucy turned to him, her mouth forming a circle of delighted astonishment. “I’m sure she did!”

  Adrian smiled at her, relaxing now that he’d figured out a course of action.

  Find his mother a place in the best assisted-living facility in Seattle, and Lucy a job at her dream restaurant.

  He didn’t let himself think about the garden she’d created that weekend, or the café that bore her stamp, or the family that aroused amusement, exasperation and love in her. The family that sustained her.

  Middleton wasn’t that far from Seattle. She could visit. Maybe even keep the house.

  And if she didn’t like Seattle... His jaw tightened. Well, maybe he’d find that whatever he felt for her here evaporated in the real world.

  “Show me,” he said, and leaned forward to see the slender, long-fingered hand of this surprising woman wrapped around the arthritic hand of his mother.

  And damned if he wouldn’t have sworn the clawlike fingers tightened and clung to Lucy...who was beaming.

  “You’re coming back to us, aren’t you? Thank goodness! We miss you so much. We’re waiting, Elizabeth.” Her voice had a hitch, softened. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Whenever you’re ready,” he echoed, believing for the first time that she would wake up, that he would have a chance to become reacquainted with the mother who had disappeared from his life so many years ago.

  His heart seemed to swell in his chest, and he sat back in his chair.

  What would it be like? Having her back? Discovering the history he hadn’t understood as a child? Learning, perhaps, to hate his father?

  Lucy would listen if he had to talk, he thought involuntarily. He could deal with anything, if she were there.

  Damn it, he had to find a way.

  * * *

  ADRIAN INSISTED ON taking Lucy to dinner again that evening, this time at the Steak House.

  He seemed...different tonight, she kept thinking. Less tense, more confident, even expansive. She blossomed under the full force of his charm even as she felt wary.

  It was relief, she tried to tell herself. She felt a little of that giddiness, too. It was really beginning to seem that the hat lady would come out of the coma and be herself again. And imagine how much stronger the spark of hope must be for Adrian!

  On Friday, he’d discovered the mother he thought long dead was alive. He’d spent the past three days recovering his memories of her and at the same time assimilating the likelihood that she would never regain consciousness or know that he had found her. And now...now it looked like she would. Why wouldn’t he feel like celebrating?

  They waited until dusk to drive to her mother’s street. Lucy knew it was silly to sneak in to her own parents’ yard and steal lilac blossoms, but she didn’t want to knock and have to introduce Adrian to her father and whatever stray aunts or cousins happened to be over, embroiling them both into an explanation of the change in the hat lady’s condition.

  Everything else in her life had to be shared with the family grapevine; that was the price of having their support. But she didn’t want to share Adrian. And especially not what she felt for him, which she was terribly afraid was writ bright on her face to anyone who knew her well.

  Like her mother, father or any stray aunts or cousins. Or, God forbid, her sister, who knew her best of all.

  Anyway, Lucy could just imagine her father peering at her over his reading glasses, doubt weighting his voice. “Her cheek has a tic? And her eyes are rolling behind the lids, but she isn’t opening them? And Ben says this means something?”

  That was her father: the Eeyore of the Peterson clan. He always saw the dark cloud on the horizon. She loved him dearly, but she didn’t think Adrian needed an introduction tonight.

  She had Adrian park three houses down. The neighborhood dated from the fifties, and trees were large and leafed out with spring. Several of the neighbors had large lilac bushes in their yards, too, but none had blooms as far advanced as her mother’s.

  She and Adrian hurried through a pool of light cast by the streetlamp, then slowed in the dark beyond, peering past a snowball bush in full bloom.

  “That’s my parents’ house,” she whispered, indicating the brick rambler.

  “You grew up there?” He spoke in a low voice, too.

  Lucy nodded. “The lilac is the one by the front window.”

  The house blazed with lights. As they watched, a figure moved in front of the window. Samantha. Why was Samantha here? Lucy wondered indignantly, and knew the answer. Probably Mom had invited her so she could tell the family all about Adrian. By this time, they must know how much time Lucy was spending with him. She’d seen enough heads turn as cars passed her yard today while they were working.

  Pull the drapes, she willed her sister, who instead turned and looked out the window. Lucy gripped Adrian’s hand and held him back.

  “Wait.”

  He nodded. She couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t disentangle his hand from hers.

  “Okay, now,” she whispered, when her sister turned and disappeared toward the kitchen.

  “Is that Samantha?” Adrian murmured in her ear. “I thought she was supposed to be turning down my bedcovers and putting a chocolate on my pillow right about now.”

  “She’s probably already done it.”

  She’d never asked what he thought of her much prettier sister. He hadn’t talked about her beyond mentioning that Sam had told him about his mother’s routine. With a pang of jealousy, Lucy speculated on whether her sister poured him a cup of tea and sat down to talk to him every night when he got back to the B and B. Sam was exceptionally easy to talk to. She’d never gone through the suspicious stage as a child that Lucy had. Mom made a point of telling people that even as a baby Samantha had grinned happily at complete strangers. She was a born hostess.

  Mom invariably chuckled at that point. “My Lucy, why she glared at everyone at that age!”

  Right now, Lucy quit worrying about Sam as she and Adrian hurried across the springy grass and pressed their backs against the brick wall of the house, just as her father walked across the living room. He didn’t even glance toward the window. Once he’d vanished from sight, Lucy let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  “Do you have the clippers?” she asked.


  Adrian pressed them into her hand, nurse to her surgeon. She couldn’t see very well; night had crept upon them from the dusk they’d started in. But she snipped several branches, freezing every time she saw movement inside.

  By the time she backed away, it was all she could do not to giggle.

  “The front door!” Adrian murmured in her ear, with an urgency that had her dropping to a crouch beside him. He took the clippers from her.

  “I’d better get back, Mom.” Samantha’s voice came easily to their ears.

  “You’re so busy you can never stay,” Lucy’s mother complained. “If you’re going to have guests seven days a week, you need to bring in some help. Bridget’s looking for a job, you know.”

  “Lucy already hired her,” Sam said. “Anyway, I can’t afford help yet. Maybe by summer, if business is good.”

  “I know it will be.” They embraced.

  Samantha went to her car out on the street without ever looking toward where her sister and Adrian crouched beside the lilac. The front door remained open, spilling light onto the porch and walkway, until Sam was safely in her car and had started the engine. Then Lucy heard her father call something from another room, and her mother begin to answer. The door closed, cutting her off, and Samantha drove away.

  Lucy’s giggle escaped, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “Oh, dear. I should have knocked and told Mom I wanted to cut a bouquet. She wouldn’t have minded.”

  “We don’t want her to catch us now. God knows what she’d think.”

  She gave a hiccup. “Oh, no!”

  “Shh!” She could tell from his voice that he wanted to laugh, too. “Come on. Let’s run.”

  They raced across the lawn, Adrian towing Lucy, who clutched her stolen lilac branches in the other hand. Not until they’d reached the sidewalk and passed the big snowball bush that hid them from her parents’ house did they stop, their laughter spilling out.

  She hiccuped again, and they laughed even harder. It seemed natural to feel Adrian’s arm around her, his breath against her cheek.

  “You got the flowers?”

  “Can’t you smell them?” She held the armful up and he breathed in.

  “You’re a genius.”

  “Of course I am,” she said on another bubble of laughter. Or was it a hiccup?

  “More than a genius.” His voice had changed, deepened. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”

  She went still inside the circle of his arm. “Trespassing on my parents’ property?”

  “In Middleton. Finding my mother.” So quietly she barely heard him. “Finding you.”

  His hand touched her neck, slid up the column of her throat and lifted her chin. The next moment, his lips found hers.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WHEN LUCY’S MOUTH immediately softened and parted for his, Adrian forgot where they were. He forgot everything but her.

  He crushed her to him, the scent of lilacs rising, and feasted on her mouth. She tasted of the Chardonnay she’d sipped with dinner, of the laugh she’d swallowed barely a moment ago. She was slim and taut and yielding, all at the same time.

  Arousal was instant. Every sensation felt heightened: the cool night air, the pillow of her breasts pressed against his chest, the vibration in her throat, the stroke of her tongue. He gripped her hips and pulled her tighter against him even as her arm encircled his neck and she made a whimpering sound.

  The blaze of the headlights of an approaching car seared Adrian’s eyes through closed lids. He groaned and reluctantly lifted his head.

  “Unless we want the whole town gossiping...”

  “Oh, no!” she breathed, not the most flattering response she could have made. She whirled and started toward the car, not waiting to see the way his hands dropped heavily to his sides.

  He hadn’t locked the doors; she was already sitting on the passenger side by the time the car passed them, headlights silhouetting her briefly, and Adrian got in behind the wheel. She sat rigidly, staring straight ahead.

  He put the key in the ignition, but didn’t turn it. “Did I crush the flowers?”

  “The flowers...? Oh.” Her head bent as she looked down at them, although he didn’t know how much she could see. “No. I held them, um, to the side.”

  “Okay.” He waited.

  “Why don’t we go to my house?” Lucy spoke in a rush. “I can trim them and put them in a vase. Then if you want you can drop them at the hospital tonight.”

  You can drop them at the hospital. No more we.

  Adrian had believed himself to be reasonably skilled at the games men and women played. Now, he had absolutely no idea what to say. Hadn’t they been working their way toward a kiss? Why did she seem upset?

  “You won’t come with me?” he asked, baffled.

  “Oh, I don’t think I’d better. I should never have taken so much time off this weekend. I need to work on my books this evening....” Her voice trailed off.

  It might even be true. As a small-business owner, she likely did devote her days off to such tasks as accounting and ordering. But given that he guessed it was now eight o’clock, he wondered how much she’d actually get done tonight.

  He nodded anyway, even if Lucy couldn’t see, and started the car. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Sorry?” Her head turned sharply.

  “That you can’t take the time to come. Since this was your idea.”

  “You’ll let me know if...if she responds?”

  “I’ll let you know.” He drove several blocks. “I’m not sorry I kissed you.”

  “I’m...not sorry you did, either.” She sounded so constrained, he couldn’t tell what she felt.

  “You don’t seem happy.”

  “I just need to...well, think about it. Okay? I mean, you’re here for a week. That’s pretty temporary.”

  “Seattle isn’t that far,” he said mildly, although his hands had tightened on the steering wheel.

  “I’ve had the impression you could hardly wait to see the last of Middleton. You’re eager to move your mother.” Her voice was even now, so reasonable it ticked him off.

  “Give me a little credit,” he said, anger edging every word. “I was somewhat in shock when you walked in and announced that the mother I thought was dead had been hanging around this little town for ten years. You think I should have embraced Middleton immediately?”

  “You didn’t have to be...to be condescending.”

  “What makes you think I was? You’re sure it wasn’t in your own mind?”

  “Oh, come on. You were blown away to find out that Dr. Slater was actually competent enough to treat your mother.”

  Her hostility couldn’t have been born this minute, Adrian realized in shock. He’d been right when he thought she didn’t like him.

  “Do you blame me? Small community hospitals don’t have neurosurgeons.”

  “Did you think a small community hospital had a doctor competent to set a broken bone?”

  He wrenched the wheel, pulled to the curb in front of her house and braked so abruptly, the seat belt bit into his shoulder. Adrian turned to glower at her. Light from a streetlamp let him see that she was fumbling onehanded to release her seat belt, and she looked...panicky.

  No. God. On the verge of tears.

  “Let me.” He reached out.

  “No!” She batted at his hand. “I can get it!”

  He felt dense. It shouldn’t have taken him so long to realize that he’d scared her. He didn’t entirely understand why a kiss would have that effect, but he knew he wasn’t wrong.

  “Lucy...”

  “What?” she snapped.

  He sat very still, trying to make himself unalarming. “I really am sorry. It was...” Impu
lsive would be insulting, and not even entirely true. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you.”

  There was a moment during which she didn’t move. Then, with a sigh, she sat back in the seat. “No, I’m sorry. I think I panicked. You’re...a little out of my league.”

  He stared at her. “What in hell does that mean?”

  “You’re successful, rich. Hot. I live in some little town. I cook. I’m nothing special to look at.” She let out another gusty sigh. “And I sound pathetic, don’t I? I don’t even mean it. I like myself. But I can’t possibly be the kind of woman you usually—”

  Adrian kissed her again. Roughly, passionately, and his fingers shoved into her hair so she couldn’t escape. He let her go as suddenly.

  “I don’t see it that way.” His voice was hoarse.

  She gulped. He heard her.

  “Oh.”

  “If you don’t like me, say so. But don’t put yourself down. You’re an extraordinary woman. What you did for my mother out of sheer kindness puts me to shame.”

  “That doesn’t make me—”

  When she stopped, he asked, “What?”

  “Pretty,” she whispered. Then, louder, “Sexy.”

  Baffled, Adrian said, “I wouldn’t have kissed you if I didn’t think you were both.” How had she developed such low self-esteem? He tried not to think about his own original assessment of her. He’d been blind. An idiot.

  After a moment she nodded. “Okay.”

  She sounded so damned equable, he could only repeat, “Okay what?”

  “I like it that you think I’m pretty and sexy. And that you kissed me. And I’m sorry I was so...so old-maidish about it.”

  Good God, was she a virgin? Was it possible in this day and time?

  Not likely in Seattle, but in Middleton...who knew? Adrian examined the idea and discovered that he didn’t mind. Mild way of saying that he was getting aroused, thinking of it.