A Man of Honor (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Barrett, Linda

  When had Patrick and Gene become friendly? When had Gene given out his number? She looked at the faces around her, every one of them beaming with satisfaction. Did it really matter how it happened? Go with the flow, Heather.

  She smiled at her biggest supporters. “This is great! Thanks so much.”

  “The mild weather won’t last forever,” said Dave. “And probably neither will all the volunteers. Let’s make every minute count.”

  “And every person.” Kathy added her determined voice to the discussion from where she stood with Jolene and George.

  Heather groaned silently, and inclined her head toward the door. “Inside,” she said, without making introductions. “We’ve got plenty of work. Inside.” She stared pointedly at her sister, and Kathy nodded. Her parents seemed delighted.

  She led the trio to a back bedroom she hadn’t gotten to yet. “I’m lifting carpeting,” she said. “It’s hard work and dusty. And I’m sure you didn’t come to Houston to clean a house, so I can give you a tour of the place, and you can enjoy the rest of the day. Somewhere else.”

  “Nope. This is where we want to be,” said her dad.

  “With you.” Jolene’s soft voice beseeched her daughter.

  Damn it. Heather avoided her mother’s eyes and instead checked the time. Ten-thirty. They wouldn’t last more than thirty minutes doing hard work.

  She knelt on the floor and used a screwdriver as a lever to pry the carpeting up. After she got it started, she stood and gave the tool to George. “Here you go. When the whole perimeter is up, you can use the razor in the other room to cut the rug into strips.”

  She returned to the front porch where Dave met her. “The contractor’s asking for you.”

  Dave went with her to join Gene and Patrick who were already with the man. The five of them took an hour’s tour while the contractor made notes about breaking through and connecting the top-floor apartments, taking out three kitchens, knocking down walls, preserving beams. The man talked. The other three nodded. Heather said nothing until the end of their inspection, when they were all on the wide front porch again.

  “How much money? And how much time?” she asked, notebook, calendar and calculator in hand. She’d included an estimate in her grant, but this was the real thing.

  “It’s the time that might get you,” said Gene. “The teardown needs to be done before the volunteers can really make the place shine. And your contractor will need help knocking down the walls.”

  She looked down at her calendar just as Anne McCoy approached. “We’ve got pizza for lunch today,” said Anne, nodding toward her car.

  “That’s where I come in,” said Patrick.

  “For pizza?”

  The retired cop laughed, walked toward his ex-wife and kissed her on the cheek. “That, too. No, for remodeling.” He looked at Heather. “I’ve got the most time, and if I help this professional,” he said, nodding at the contractor, “we should get the job done pretty quickly.”

  “I’m not too bad a hand, either,” said Dave.

  “You?” asked Patrick. “I thought you were studying for the sergeant exam. That’s what you need your spare time for. You don’t want to mess up your career.”

  “Damn stupid career,” murmured Anne.

  Standing alongside her, Heather jerked with surprise and watched Patrick’s expression harden for a moment. “What?” she whispered, but the woman simply shook her head.

  Dave, however, stared at his father. “I can organize my own life, Dad.”

  “Absolutely right,” said Anne. “A well-balanced life is best. Part work, part play.”

  Heather felt the undercurrents as strongly as if she were caught in a riptide. Time to change the subject.

  “Pizza sounds wonderful, but it’s too expensive for you, Mrs. McCoy. I’ll pay you for it.” Oops. The woman glared at her. “Or,” Heather amended, “at least, let me split it with you.”

  “It’s my contribution. Don’t worry about it. And when it’s time to decorate, I’m your gal.”

  “Think inexpensive,” said Heather. “As in cheap. And easy to clean. Machine wash.”

  Anne grinned. “Bring it on. The bigger the challenge, the better I like it.”

  “That’s because you’re stubborn,” said Patrick. “When you’re committed to something, you don’t give up until it’s right. Even now.”

  The older couple eyed each other. An awkward silence fell on the group. “I knew when to fold,” Anne whispered. “At least I thought I did. I thought I’d cut my losses and gain some sanity. Maybe I was wrong.”

  “Or maybe I was,” said Patrick.

  “Aw, hell!” said Dave. “Do we have to have a live melodrama in front of an audience?”

  Then, out of the corner of her eye, Heather saw her dad come through the apartment door with large carpet remnants in his arms. Rivulets of sweat rolled from his temples. He proceeded outside, dropped the carpet in the corner of the porch, and blotted his face before he turned to her.

  “Heather, girl,” he said excitedly. “The bedroom floors are bare. Do you know what’s there? What was underneath that filthy rug?”

  “No clue, George.” As if her dad ever cared about floors in the pit. Or about anything.

  “Beautiful wood,” he replied. “Oak. That’s going to be one hell of a floor when this house is done, or my name isn’t Big George Marshall.”

  Heather sighed, saw her mom and Kathy in the doorway, and glanced at Dave. “Did you say, melodrama? Here comes Act II.”

  SO THAT WAS HEATHER’S DAD. Not what Dave had expected. Not that he’d thought about her parents much. Somehow, Heather and Kathy had always seemed like a self-contained family unit. Although his name seemed to fit him, Big George Marshall didn’t carry himself like a powerhouse. In fact, he seemed a bit timid around Heather. And her mother even more so. How did these two ever produce the confident girl he was falling in love with?

  He waited for Heather to introduce them, but it was Kathy who filled in the gap. A prewedding visit. Shopping in the big city. Reconnecting with their daughters. Dinner tonight with Kathy and Mark and Mark’s parents. It sounded logical, but he knew Heather well enough to read her body language. She was uncomfortable dealing with her parents.

  He walked around his mother and took Heather’s arm, drawing her aside. “What’s wrong, Heath?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “It’s complicated.”

  “That’s nothing new. We’re human. You think my folks are easy to figure out? I love them, yet they can still drive me nuts—if I let them.”

  “You, my friend, are one up on me. Any love I had for mine was beaten out of me long ago.”

  She sounded like a little girl, her voice trailing off very small and quiet. Then her words sank in. Beaten? She’d been beaten as a kid? He wrapped his arms around her and just held her. He wanted to protect her. And love her.

  And then he’d take care of “big” George Marshall.

  He nuzzled Heather’s ear and whispered her name, saw the pink color her cheeks. Light complexions always revealed the truth, and Heather was definitely not immune to him.

  Suddenly, the air around them got quiet, and the hairs on the back of his neck seemed to stand up. He turned and saw two pairs of eyes staring at them. He squared his shoulders as he looked first at his mom, then at his dad. “What?” he challenged.

  His mother’s mouth made a small circle. “Ooh. Uh. How about some pizza?” asked Anne. Not a bad save.

  Then George’s voice joined in. “Heather, why don’t you introduce us to your boyfriend?”

  The pink in her cheeks quickly turned bright red. Dave could feel the instant heat through her clothes.

  “Act III,” he whispered, and squeezed her lightly. He extended his hand. “Dave McCoy, HPD, and Heather’s friend. A close friend.”

  “I’m Heather’s dad. Used to be in law enforcement in our hometown. I liked it.”

  “Retired, like me?” asked Patrick amiably.

&nbs
p; George smiled and nodded, then a film seemed to cover his expression. “Something like that.”

  Heather was as still as a cat eyeing a mouse. “Is that what they teach you in those monthly meetings you go to, George? How to dress up the truth?”

  “Heather!” Kathy broke in, horrified. “Please.”

  Dave’s brain clicked into gear as he gazed from George to Heather and back again. He connected the dots between words spoken and words left unsaid.

  “Some cops do drink too much, but they don’t all wind up in A.A. Congratulations,” said Dave. “Wise choice.”

  “Traitor,” whispered Heather, poking him in the ribs.

  “Too much melodrama,” he whispered back. “With you in the starring role.”

  Sighing, she said, “Maybe so. Sometimes, I really should tape my mouth shut. Want to go to dinner at a fancy country club tonight?”

  She didn’t have to ask him twice.

  “THAT YOUNG MAN is courting you.” Jolene stood in the doorway of Heather’s workout room. She wore a navy-blue pant suit with a fitted red jersey tucked inside the waistband, and a pair of low-heeled navy shoes. She looked neat and clean, but could have been going to work at a downtown law firm.

  “You need some jewelry to dress up your outfit,” said Heather. “Something around your neck. Ask Kathy. I don’t own any.”

  Jolene was quiet for a moment, then smiled so widely her eyes crinkled shut. “Okay. I’ll ask her. I want to look as pretty as I can for—for Mark’s family…and…and…oh, never mind.”

  “What are you worried about, Jolene? George can’t take his eyes off you.”

  Her mother brushed the comment aside. “Your daddy’s always been crazy about me. That was never the problem.” She took a deep breath. “And Mark loves your sister. We saw that when they visited us last year. We’d only been sober about six months, but the visit worked out real well.”

  “I guess so,” said Heather, shimmying into a black sleeveless dress. “Mark stuck around.”

  “We like him a lot. He’s a good person. And so is your Dave McCoy. That’s what I really wanted to say.”

  Did Jolene actually think her opinion mattered? “I imagine you thought Daddy was a ‘good person’ when you married him.”

  “Your daddy is a fine person,” Jolene insisted. “But he has a disease. And I’ve got the same one.”

  The medical community had distinguished alcoholism as a disease. Heather, the teenager, had called the explanation a cop-out.

  Now she looked at her mother. “You have the disease, but I was also a victim. Can you give me back my childhood, Mama? Can you make the years disappear and live them over with kindness and, at the very least, normalcy?”

  Jolene leaned against the door frame as if to support herself, but she didn’t step back. “You know the answers to those questions, Heather. Ask for the possible, not the impossible. For me, the possible lies in looking forward. In not using alcohol in any form. That’s what I can do. That’s the only way this particular disease can be arrested. Not cured, but arrested.”

  Was this the same woman who’d spent fifty years without a backbone? Who’d enabled her husband to drink, and then joined him in getting blitzed? Who ignored the effects on her children?

  Heather studied her mother closely. Jolene stood perfectly still.

  “Sobriety looks very nice on you, Jolene. Keep it up.”

  Her mother’s natural smile lightened her face, made her seem younger. “One day at a time.” She turned to go back to the others.

  Heather walked toward her. “Hang on a sec… If George ever falls off the wagon, I suggest you run like hell.”

  “You know what, Heather? That’s exactly what I told him about me. ‘Run like hell, Georgie,’ I said, ’cause I’ll bring you right back down again.’”

  It seemed her parents were in this life together, for better or worse, even if the worse was strictly their own doing.

  Not her problem.

  FIVE MINUTES AFTER Kathy, Mark and her parents left the house that evening, the doorbell rang.

  “You look incredible,” said Dave as soon as she opened the door.

  Actually, if anyone looked incredible, it was Dave. Heather couldn’t stop staring. His big dark eyes, and that wavy hair… He was wearing a charcoal-gray suit with a pin-striped gray-on-gray shirt and solid tie. He looked…so, so… If she didn’t stop staring at him, she’d melt right there.

  “I don’t think I need a wrap,” she said.

  It took him a second, but then his laughter filled the hallway. He moved closer, and his lips covered hers as naturally as if they’d found home. His kiss was slow and deliberate, his tongue traced the outline of her mouth. She shivered. His familiar spicy aftershave, which she recognized now, added to her hunger, and she returned his kiss eagerly.

  “Heather?” he finally whispered, his voice gravelly. “What are we doing? What do you want?”

  She was on fire. As soon as she’d seen him. She shook her head to clear it, for sanity’s sake, barely able to meet his glance. “What is it with us? With you?” she replied in a low voice. “It’s been years since anyone’s affected me this way….”

  His grin, that slow sexy grin, had her reeling. And this time, she couldn’t blame it on a near-death experience.

  “For starters,” he replied, “the word slow doesn’t seem to be in our vocabulary. And that’s a first for me, too.”

  Maybe. “I know better than that,” she replied. “Cops always have a few groupies hanging around. It’s the uniform thing.”

  “Not true at all,” he replied. “The only people I see in groups are the pushers, the prostitutes and the users.”

  “Really?”

  He kissed her lightly. “Really.”

  She grabbed her purse. “Ready?”

  “I certainly am.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “JUST LOOK AT THIS PLACE,” Heather said as she and Dave drove through the grounds of the Emerald Oaks Country Club. The distance from the state road to the club entrance was almost a half mile. “It looks like a plantation.”

  Dave chuckled. “I think it was actually modeled on a Bermuda plantation. In any case, golf courses require land, and the club also has a dozen tennis courts and three swimming pools.”

  “And you know so much because you’re a secret member?” Heather knew full well a cop’s salary didn’t stretch far enough for a membership here.

  “More like security detail when I want extra cash.” He glanced at her. “But would you be impressed if I were?”

  He had to be kidding. “Hardly. I’d think you’d be an idiot to go into debt…oh, oh, look, there’s a deer right off the road in that stand of trees.” The deer lifted its head and stared at the passing car. “Aw…such big beautiful eyes. So delicate.”

  “And here I thought you were a hardened city girl,” said Dave, “but you’re still a sucker for Bambi.”

  “I’m a city girl through and through. Had enough country to last a lifetime. But, this is so peaceful.” Her hometown had been mostly brown, just as its name implied. Dry Creek. Brown and harsh. Residents fought to raise a green lawn next to their houses. Her yard, of course, had been pure dirt.

  Dave pointed ahead to the large brick-and-glass building, light from its windows creating a warm glow. He pulled around the circular driveway to the front door and nodded at the valet for service.

  “We can park it ourselves…” Heather began. But Dave shook his head.

  “Not tonight,” he said quietly. “Let tonight be special. Let’s consider this our first official date.” He took her arm, tucking it inside his.

  His tender expression silenced her. And his eagerness for this so-called date, well, it was irresistible.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “You’re on. But it would be a lot easier to enjoy the night if I could forget why I’m really here.”

  He brushed a kiss across her temple. “You’re really here with me, and your folks will be fine. They won’t w
ant to disappoint Kathy. So, feel free to lighten up.”

  They entered the club, and a maître d’ appeared in front of them as if by magic, before Heather could absorb the elegant decor of the large foyer.

  “The Warner family party,” said Dave to the man, and Heather was reminded that Kathy’s name would soon change, and country club memberships would become part of her life. Keeping pace with the hostess who escorted them to the main dining room, they arrived just as Mark, Kathy and the four parents were being seated at a round table.

  “Perfect timing.” Mark stood up again, as did his father, Charles Warner, who Heather recognized from having met him once. Tall, trim, with steel-gray hair, he exuded the confidence of a successful man. His firm handshake reinforced the impression.

  Then Heather greeted his wife, Vivian, whose perfect appearance bespoke hairdressers, makeup techniques and hours in the gym…or on the tennis courts. She not only looked fabulous for her age, she looked fabulous, period. Except for…her smile. Something wasn’t right. Heather studied the other woman. Tonight, Vivian’s smile seemed forced.

  Heather and Dave sat across from Kathy and Mark while the two sets of parents sat opposite each other. The table was set with white linen cloths and lovely gold-plated dinnerware. Heather looked around the table, observing the other couples, and thinking how well matched they all seemed. Perhaps her parents were too well matched. Maybe with other mates…

  “The champagne is chilled, sir,” the waiter said to Charles. “Would you like it brought now?”

  Well, that didn’t take long. Heather glanced across the table. Kathy looked nervous. She seemed about to speak when George said, “We sure want to toast the children’s happiness, Charles.”

  Now, Heather’s stomach tightened. Just when she’d started to believe in a miracle, was her dad going to throw it away?

  But George surprised her. He looked at the waiter. “If you’ve got some club soda with a twist of lime for my wife and me, that would be better.” He turned toward Mark’s dad. “Thanks. But the doc said to lay off the booze if we want to live long enough to see grandchildren.”