Harlequin Superromance November 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: Christmas at the CoveNavy ChristmasUntil She Met Daniel

by Rachel Brimble

  Thank goodness tomorrow was Friday and she’d have the weekend to regroup. It had been a difficult week in more ways than one. Chris was angry over the proposed water project and they’d been sniping off and on...actually, more on than off, and sniping was a kind word to describe the argument they’d had two evenings ago. They’d made up, but there was lingering tension.

  She popped a couple of aspirins and decided to make eggplant Parmesan for dinner. It was one of their favorite dishes, and cooking might help her relax. Forty minutes later, she finished cutting up salad vegetables and removed the eggplant from the oven. The meal was ready, but what was keeping Chris? He usually let her know if he was going to be late.

  An hour later, the food was cold and she put everything into the refrigerator, about to call the highway patrol to see if there’d been an accident when Chris’s car pulled up in front of the house. Breathing a sigh of relief, she took the food out of the fridge. It was annoying that he hadn’t called, but not worth getting upset about.

  “Hey,” she greeted him as he stomped into the kitchen. Her smile faded when she saw the glower on his face. “What’s wrong?”

  “That damned water project,” he growled. “Everyone in town is buzzing over it. They’re talking about a new reservoir, and maybe digging up everything and covering a big section of land with treatment ponds. Just what we need is to ruin more of the environment.”

  Taking a deep, calming breath, Susan served the eggplant Parmesan onto a plate and put it into the microwave, one modern convenience that Chris actually appreciated.

  “The council is simply examining different possibilities,” she said finally...for the hundredth time. Why couldn’t he be part of the process, instead of automatically assuming the entire thing was going to be an environmental disaster?

  “You know very well they’re going to do that.”

  “How would I know?”

  “Because your father is behind it.”

  “He’s simply concerned about jobs,” she tried to say evenly.

  “Jobs? The only thing he cares about is the almighty buck, and he doesn’t care what he does to the environment to get it.”

  Susan slammed the silverware drawer shut. “That isn’t fair. You know that Dad no longer buys lumber from people who clear-cut.”

  “So he claims.”

  “It isn’t a claim. It’s true,” she snapped back. “I’m the financial officer for the mill and I know what businesses we’re dealing with.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference. You can’t do one token thing to look politically correct and then call yourself an environmentalist.”

  “Don’t be so self-righteous.”

  Chris crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s better than destroying the environment for the sake of a dollar.”

  Couldn’t he ever see the other side of an issue? The environment was important, but people needed to live and to make a living, and all of that required water.

  “Be reasonable,” she said through gritted teeth. “The paper mill is the only major employer here in Willow’s Eve.”

  “Naturally you’re taking your father’s side.”

  She opened her mouth to retort, but he turned on his heel and strode out the door again.

  Susan ran after him. “Where are you going?” she yelled.

  “To my office.”

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  If she’d been holding the salad bowl, she might have thrown it at him.

  * * *

  AT FOUR ON Friday afternoon, Mandy decided she may as well leave for the week. She stretched and thought about what to do with the weekend. She could drive into Vicksville and watch a movie. There was a new science-fiction flick playing at the theater that looked interesting.

  Of course, it would be more fun to go with someone. She considered asking Daniel if he’d be interested, but decided against it. She didn’t know what kind of movies he liked, and even if they’d cleared the air so there wouldn’t be any misinterpretations, she didn’t think spending two evenings together in a row was the best idea. Oh, well. She was good at doing things by herself.

  Humming, she drove home and found Susan Russell sitting in one of the front-porch chairs.

  “What are you doing here?” she called. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for a date with your husband this evening?”

  “I wish.” Susan looked up, her eyes red and miserable. “Chris and I aren’t going out tonight. It’s that wretched water project. We’ve been arguing more and more about it, to the point we’re practically at each other’s throats. So this afternoon I finally said we shouldn’t go anywhere.”

  A cold chill shivered through Mandy’s gut; she hated having her friends at odds with each other, especially friends who seemed to be so happy together. Maybe it would help if she gave Susan a chance to vent.

  “Come in,” she invited. “I have more than enough ice cream to get us through the evening.”

  Susan sighed and held up a grocery sack. “Good. I brought potato chips.”

  * * *

  CHRIS RUSSELL SUCKED down the last of his nonalcoholic beer and tossed the bottle into the recycle bin outside the office door. He would have preferred the real thing, but alcohol wasn’t permitted in the forestry station. Of course, technically he was on the porch and not in the building, but he refused to split hairs on technicalities.

  Anyway, it wasn’t the beer he needed, it was the solitude, so he’d come out to sit on the porch and look into the woods. This way he also wouldn’t have to wait before heading home to be sure his blood alcohol levels were within legal limits. He’d been careful with booze since some stupidities in his youth.

  A young buck stepped out of the woods and dropped its head to nibble on wild grasses. It was so beautiful that Chris’s chest ached. Every year, more of the wildlands were lost, and even within his own field of study, experts didn’t agree about how the remaining land should be administered.

  He sighed.

  It wasn’t just the water and sewer issue bothering him; he shouldn’t have agreed to canceling date night with his wife. Of course, the two things were tangled up together and Susan had claimed they’d just argue. Maybe she was right. Their relationship had seemed out of whack lately, and he wasn’t sure it was only their differing opinions about the proposed town project. But what was it? Evan leaving for college?

  For a long time, Chris stared at the buck grazing nearby, but when it disappeared into the woods again, he went into the office. Might as well get something accomplished. He fired up the computer, and then tried to bury himself in his work.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” a voice asked twenty minutes later.

  He looked up and saw his coworker John Marley strolling through the door. John was the newest addition to the staff and had earned Chris’s approval because of his passionate commitment to environmental preservation.

  “Thought I’d come in and get that report finished,” he told the younger man.

  “I didn’t know it was so urgent.”

  “It isn’t, but I was restless and figured tonight was as good a time as any.”

  “If I had a wife as gorgeous as yours, I wouldn’t be working late on a Friday.”

  With a weak grin, Chris shrugged. “I think she’s hanging out with a friend of ours. By the way, we thought you’d like to meet Mandy—if you’re interested. She’s pretty and lots of fun.”

  “She isn’t a vegetarian, is she?” John asked warily. They’d had a few “discussions” on the subject and he was firmly in the meat eater’s corner.

  “Nope.”

  “Then I’d love to meet her.”

  “I’ll try to set something up.” Even as he said it, Chris thought a double date could have been the way to make the evening work out with his wife. With an
other couple along, it might have kept the conversation more neutral.

  It seemed forever since last Friday and the kind of hot sex they’d enjoyed before Evan had been born—and on their recent vacation. You couldn’t be as spontaneous when you had a child, though appreciating their freedom didn’t stop either of them from missing their son. Susan had wanted more kids, but he’d convinced her otherwise. It was true he cared about overpopulation, only he hadn’t confessed his second reason...the fear of losing her with another difficult pregnancy and delivery.

  “Say,” John said, interrupting Chris’s thoughts. “Do you know anything about this request for watershed information from the city manager’s office?”

  His eyes narrowing, Chris glanced at the sheet of paper his colleague held. He’d angrily tossed it into John’s in-basket earlier that afternoon, since it was the younger man’s specialty. The letter had sent him home in a bad mood, resulting in the argument with Susan...which had brought him back to the office. It was one devil of a revolving cycle.

  “Haven’t you heard? They’re considering options for additional water sources. Again. The issue came up years ago, but I thought it had been closed,” he said stiffly. “I should have known better.”

  John’s lip curled. “I could give them a less-than-honest report. But I won’t, however tempted I might be.”

  “No, it wouldn’t be right,” Chris agreed heavily. “Besides, my father-in-law will probably pay for an outside report to cross-check anything we provide. He’s suspicious of ‘tree huggers.’”

  “What does your father-in-law have to do with it?”

  Chris let out an ironic chuckle. “You don’t know? He’s Joe Jensen.”

  “Of the paper mill, that Joe Jensen?”

  “Yup. He doesn’t care how much of our beautiful countryside he has to rip apart, so long as he gets water to expand and make more money.”

  “Puts you in one hell of a spot with your wife, doesn’t it?” John observed perceptively.

  “I’m used to it,” Chris answered, not wanting to discuss his marital woes, though Susan would probably unload on Mandy that evening.

  “I’m through for the day,” John said at length. “You’ll lock up?”

  “Yeah, I’m only going to stay for a little while.”

  “See you Monday.”

  “Right.”

  Chris worked another hour, polishing the report, before switching off the computer. He generally got to the office early so he could be home by the time Susan finished at the mill or with her volunteer projects. It hadn’t thrilled him when she’d gone to work part-time as the paper mill’s financial officer. She’d wanted to be a stay-at-home mom when Evan was little, but when he was older, she’d trained in accounting and looked for a job.

  As he came into his very quiet, very empty house a while later, Chris considered having a real beer. But that was a slippery slope. One could lead so easily to another, then six more, as it had for his father. He turned on the TV instead and found a historical documentary to watch.

  It wasn’t much of an evening, especially remembering last Friday. But it was better than spending it arguing with his wife. Why was she sticking up for her father’s point of view?

  Maybe it was old-fashioned, but Chris couldn’t help feeling that a husband and wife should be on the same side.

  * * *

  MANDY SCOOPED FUDGE ripple into Susan’s dish, deciding on a much smaller serving of lemon sherbet for herself. After a bowl of potato chips and six servings of ice cream, she was nauseous.

  Susan took the bowl and shoved a spoonful into her mouth; Mandy didn’t think she was really aware of what she was eating.

  Pushing her sherbet away, Mandy told herself it was only an argument. Chris and Susan would work it out, she was sure of it. Chris loved his wife so much, he’d managed to live with the fact that his father-in-law held the opposite opinion on almost everything Chris believed in the most. And Susan had married him, knowing it would be a constant battle, but she’d loved Chris in return too much to let it stop her.

  Of course, that didn’t mean there weren’t tensions beneath the surface.

  “He seems to think I should adopt the exact same opinion as him, just because he’s the man and I’m his wife,” Susan grumbled. “He has all these enlightened ideas and then wham, one from the Dark Ages shows up. Strike that, the Neanderthal age.”

  “Oh?” Mandy said, choosing her words carefully. “He never struck me as the caveman type.”

  “He’s a man,” Susan answered, as if that was enough of an explanation. And it was true that some men still had a hard time getting away from old-fashioned attitudes. But Mandy had grown up with a father who was far worse, and brothers who could give lessons in regression, so Chris had seemed pretty fair-minded to her.

  “It might not be that exactly,” she suggested. “People can go overboard when they’re arguing and say things they don’t completely mean.”

  Her mind strayed to Daniel Whittier, and she wondered where he fell on the scale of progressiveness. She had been surprised to learn he’d been divorced and that his daughter would be living with him, which was a fair indicator his wife wasn’t interested in her own kid. It was good the girl had a dad who cared about her.

  Mandy leaned forward. “I left my husband because he wanted to turn me into a Stepford wife, a clone of all those university wives I’d seen growing up. Surely things aren’t that bad, are they?” she asked carefully.

  “I suppose not.” Susan made a face at her bowl. “If I eat any more ice cream, I’m going to be blotto.”

  “You’re already a little pie-eyed,” Mandy joked, winning a small smile from her friend. “You’re welcome to spend the entire night, you know. I could make up the bed in the spare room. But is it where you truly want to be?”

  “No. I just don’t want to go back to another argument.” Suddenly, Susan pushed herself off the couch. “Nevertheless, it’s almost nine and I’d better get going. Thanks for listening.”

  “Anytime, you know that.”

  Susan hugged her and left, her shoulders just as tense as when she’d arrived. Mandy put their ice cream bowls into the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen.

  She could still go to a late movie, but wasn’t in the mood anymore after sharing Susan’s unhappiness all evening.

  In every place she’d lived, Mandy had made good friends. They stayed in touch, mostly by email because they said that keeping up with her physical address was worse than chasing a shadow. Those friends had problems, too, and she’d written and sympathized, even phoned if things seemed especially tough. But their problems had never hit her as hard as what was happening with Chris and Susan.

  Maybe it was because they had made a happy marriage look possible. Not necessarily for her, but for some people. Her parents’ lives seemed more like a collegial partnership than marriage, and she’d met a ton of people whose relationships were falling apart, or had fallen apart.

  But if Susan and Chris couldn’t pull it off...

  Mandy determinedly switched on the TV and tried to concentrate on a program, but when it was half-over, she realized she hadn’t paid any attention.

  When the phone rang, she was grateful for the interruption.

  “Hello.”

  “Mandy, this is Daniel.” He sounded harried. “Sorry to call so late, but do you know where the water shutoff is over here? I’ve got water spraying all over the laundry room.”

  “I’ll be right there.” She dropped the phone, grabbed a flashlight and raced out of the house.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MANDY DASHED AROUND the side of the Victorian, Daniel following. Toward the back of the house, she squeezed between some bushes and the house and fumbled in the dark. Light suddenly shone on the area from Daniel’s flashlight, and she turned the shutoff val
ve.

  “Okay, that should do it,” she said. “Let’s check the damage.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but it’s not your problem. I’ll mop up and see if there’s a plumber available.”

  “Fred Curtis is the only plumber in Willow’s Eve, and he won’t go out at night unless it’s an emergency.”

  “This doesn’t constitute an emergency?”

  “Not now, the flood has been stopped. There are plumbers in Vicksville, but it would take a while to get one here, if they’ll come. Let me check the problem.”

  “Don’t tell me, you’re a plumber, in addition to being the Senior Center director?”

  She laughed. “Not licensed, but I worked a few months as a plumber’s assistant. The gang got a kick out of teaching me how to do things.”

  “What other skills are lurking under the skin? A couple months as a surgeon? Ambassador to France or Italy? Dance instructor at Juilliard?”

  “Nope, but I can do plenty of things around a house. I don’t mess much with electrical, though. That stuff scares me.”

  “Okay, come on in.”

  They entered his house and Mandy surveyed the pools of water on the laundry room’s floor. “Let’s sweep what we can out the door,” she suggested.

  “That’s probably best.”

  Daniel found a broom and they swept as much of the fluid outside as they could. Then they sopped up the remaining water with towels until the laundry room was damp, but no longer flooded.

  “Okay,” Mandy said once they were finished. “Where did the leak start?”

  He showed her a spot by the utility sink.

  “You know there’s a water shutoff valve under the sink, don’t you?” she asked.

  “It wouldn’t move when I tried to turn it. Then water started leaking there, too, so I left it alone.”

  She dropped onto the floor to check the valve. Then she looked up at Daniel. “I can replace both of these, but I’d need some parts. I’ll call Dorothy Tanner and see if her son will let me get the supplies at the hardware store.”