Midnight in Brussels

by Rebecca Randolph Buckley

  “You know, you’re even prettier than you were when you left. Belgium must be good for you.”

  “It is. I love it. I’m happiest here.” Amanda almost told him more, but stopped herself.

  “I have some business to take care of in Belgium, believe it or not, so I’m going to stay for a couple of weeks. Do you mind?” Richard asked her.

  Amanda hesitated. “Uh, well, I’m going to be pretty busy, and my friend Rachel is arriving in the morning to spend some time with me—”

  “That’s all right, sweetheart, I won’t interfere with your plans. I’ll be busy most of the time anyway, during the day. Maybe we can meet for lunch occasionally, and of course dinner. I’d love to meet your new friend.”

  She knew she had to tell him soon, but not right then, at that particular moment. Later.

  “I think you’ll like Rachel.” She smiled and lowered her eyes to her glass.

  The waiter brought the dessert and the brandy and they ate and sipped until it all had disappeared.

  Amanda smiled. “Would you like to take a walk to the Grand Place?” She touched his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Come on, let’s walk.”

  “That’s a great idea. I need to walk off all the calories I just gobbled up and drank.” Richard wasn’t accustomed to an aggressive Amanda. This was new to him. He liked it.

  “I do, too. Let’s go.”

  Richard stood up. “Let me tell the waiter to put the tab on my room.”

  Amanda looked up at him. “You’re staying here?”

  “Yes, I checked in earlier. Called your room, but you didn’t answer. Then I saw you in here.”

  “Pretty slick, Mister,” Amanda mumbled as she pushed her chair back and stood.

  Chapter 44

  Amanda was up at seven. The plan was to have breakfast with Richard in the breakfast room downstairs, and then he was going out to take care of his business. Rachel would be arriving around eleven. So Amanda had plenty to do. She was going to try and locate a supplier for commercial sewing machines. It shouldn’t be difficult since Brussels was a fashion center for new designers and there were several designer schools around.

  Richard was waiting for her in the foyer of the hotel. He had a commanding presence and looked even more handsome in a grey suit with an open-collared black shirt. His graying blond hair, tan skin and blue eyes topped off the perfect portrait before her. She couldn’t believe he was there for her. How did she ever capture this man’s heart?

  “Ah, there you are. Are you hungry, darling?”

  Amanda smiled. “As a matter of fact, I am. I don’t know why, after all we had last night.” She laughed. “The pastry on the square and the champagne afterwards. It’s a wonder I was able to get out of bed this morning after all that.”

  “The walk offset it all,” Richard said through a grin.

  They went into the breakfast room, reserved for guests only, and had a light meal. The huge buffet spread was tempting, but they decided to keep it simple to save room for later.

  “So when does Rachel arrive?” asked Richard.

  “Eleven, but I have some things to do before she gets here, so I’ll be busy.”

  “I’ll be back around four or five; shall I meet the two of you in the café?”

  “That will be perfect,” Amanda answered.

  They went their separate ways after breakfast. Amanda back to her room to make phone calls, Richard left the hotel in a cab.

  Once in the cab, he used his universal phone to call an estate agent he’d found in the phone book earlier. He confirmed a nine o’clock appointment to look at country estates outside of Brussels and had hoped to find what he was looking for in one day. After a lengthy phone conversation with Paula, he knew exactly what he wanted, so it shouldn’t be difficult.

  By two in the afternoon he found it. It was perfect and was twenty miles from Brussels, east of Leuven. Although he would negotiate the asking price of seven million Euros, he was determined to buy the estate regardless. It was a nineteenth century castle in Belgium’s most beautiful country setting.

  By four o’clock they had come to an agreement and he had signed the deal; the transfer of funds would be made the following Monday.

  Richard was back at the Metropole by five.

  “There he is,” Amanda whispered to Rachel. They were sitting at the sidewalk table of the Metropole Cafe when Richard got out of the cab.

  “Wow, he’s a looker,” Rachel replied.

  “That he is.” Amanda blushed and stood up, waving, “Richard! Over here!”

  He nodded and took a few long strides and joined them. “What a day it’s been!” he said as bent down and kissed Amanda. He straightened up and held out his hand toward Rachel. “And this must be the writer I’ve heard so much about.”

  “Rachel O’Neill,” Rachel said and shook his hand.

  “Richard Miller,” he said, then signaled the waiter for drinks all around. “I’ll have a Scotch, and give the ladies what they’ve been drinking, please.”

  “So what did you do today, Richard?” Amanda asked.

  “Oh, just took care of some business. Nothing you would find exciting.”

  Rachel tilted her head. “What kind of business is it you would be having in Brussels, Mr. Miller? I understand you’re in cattle ranching.”

  Richard nodded. “Right, I’m here to buy some Belgian Blues. They’ve been genetically bred and developed, so crossbreeding increases their commercial value. But then, you don’t want to hear about cattle. Boring subject for you ladies. So how was your day? Did you do everything you wanted?” He picked up Amanda’s hand and held it between both of his on the table.

  Amanda glanced at Rachel who nodded slightly. “Yes, we did, as a matter of fact. Would you like to hear about it?”

  Earlier the two of them had discussed whether or not she should tell Richard about her plans to open a shop and sewing room in Brussels. At first she’d wanted to keep it to herself until after he went home, but Rachel convinced her that she should level with him.

  “Absolutely! So what is the big secret you’ve been keeping from me, darling?’ Richard grinned as he continued to hold her hand.

  She took her hand from his and passed him a file folder that was in front of her. “Take a look at this here.”

  He opened the file and began to leaf through the papers inside: a lease agreement to a shop and overhead apartment, a list of names and phone numbers of lace-makers and seamstresses, a drawing of a floor plan with notations, and a sketch of a business sign that said Mandy Malone Designs.

  “Looks like you’re getting ready to open a shop here in Brussels?” He feigned surprise, for Drake had already told him what was happening.

  “I ain’t going back to California with you, Richard. I’m staying here.” She was happy that Rachel was sitting beside her; it gave her the strength to tell Richard the truth. “And, while I’m at it,” she handed him the engagement ring, “I don’t want a ring you bought for somebody else. It don’t, I mean, it doesn’t belong to me and never did. Take it.”

  Of course he already knew about the ring, Drake had told him everything, had left nothing out. He put it in his pocket without looking at it.

  “I’m sorry I offended you, Amanda. It wasn’t my intention. You’re right; you should have your own ring.”

  “Didn’t you hear me, Richard? I ain’t going back with you to get married.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, I do. But how about we change the subject for now. So tell me more about your shop? Do you need any help? Financial or otherwise? I’m a good carpenter; I can build shelves and racks, whatever you need. Tables? Put me to work while I’m here.”

  Rachel slapped the table. “You’ve got a job, Mister. A carpenter is exactly what we need. We haven’t found one yet.”

  “Rachel’s investing her money and is helping me with the planning part of it,” Amanda explained.

  “Well, with the two of you good-looking girls running it, the business
can’t help but be successful. So when do we start?”

  Amanda frowned. “Don’t you have to go back home and run the ranch?”

  “Nope. Jered and Darys can run it. It’ll do Darys good since it will all be hers some day. And Jered has been my foreman for years at the Cupertino ranch. So I got it covered. I’ll just buy the Belgium Blues and ship them to my spreads in Wyoming and Montana. Don’t have to be up there, either. I go up twice a year and check on them, though.”

  Raising her eyebrows, Rachel asked, “How many ranches do you have?”

  “Oh, eighteen at last count. I just sold a couple of them in Idaho last month. Two of my biggest.”

  “I didn’t know that, Richard!” Amanda’s eyes widened. “I thought you just had the one in California.”

  “We never talked about it, darling. I’d planned to tell you after we were married.”

  Amanda leaned back into her chair and sighed. “No wonder Darys thought I was marrying you for your money. Lordy! You must have boxcars of it.”

  He and Rachel laughed.

  “I love that Arkansas side of you, Amanda, when you let it out.” Richard took her hand and kissed it.

  “I’ve been trying to fix that Arkansas side of me.” She hesitated. “But aren’t you mad at me, Richard?”

  “Should I be?”

  “Well, I just told you I ain’t going home with you, and I gave your ring back. Don’t most men get mad when that happens?’

  Rachel answered before Richard had a chance. “Not this man.” She smiled at them both and lifted her wine glass to toast them. How she wished Pete was there.

  Chapter 45

  It was a Thursday morning three weeks before Mandy Malone Designs was to open. The sewing room had shelves of fabric and the racks were filling up with finished and unfinished garments. Six seamstresses were busy ten hours a day so they could be ready on June 15 to open their doors.

  Richard had built the shelves and cupboards in the sewing room, as well as the cutting and sewing tables: three of each, so that while three women were sewing, three were cutting fabric.

  The industrial sewing machines they’d found weren’t new, but were in top notch condition. They’d been lucky and had the chance to buy them from one of the local fashion schools that had bought newer machines.

  That morning Amanda and Richard had gone to Bruges to pick up lace from the lace-makers and were due to return soon. It was to be a quick turn-around trip, time was of the essence.

  In her hotel room, Rachel was working on the final edit of her novel.

  The room phone rang. It was Paul. Belinda had taken a turn for the worse. She was in intensive care at the hospital. He was unmistakably distraught so Rachel told him she’d take the first flight out.

  Then she called Richard on his cell phone and told him that she had to make a quick trip home, that her friend was critical, and that she would be back before the opening.

  Amanda and Richard both told her not to worry, that they could handle the rest for the opening, and that she should stay as long as she was needed.

  Driving back from Bruges, Richard took a slight detour that took them north of Brussels and then east to Leuven.

  “Where are we?” Amanda asked as they meandered through the town.

  “Just wanted to come back another way. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind. This is a beautiful town, bigger than Bruges, though. Right? What’s the name of it?”

  “Leuven. Thought we would have lunch here. I hear the mussels and seafood are great,” Richard said.

  “I’ve never had mussels. What are they?”

  “They’re in the same family as clams and mollusks. We’ll get one order of steamed mussels and you order something else you’d like and we’ll share. That way, in case they aren’t your cup of tea, you’ll have something else to eat. How’s that?”

  “Perfect.”

  After lunch they continued a few miles further east before he was to swing back to Brussels. The weather was warm and the sky was clear so Richard put the top down on the rented BMW Z4.

  “Isn’t this the most beautiful countryside you’ve ever seen? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it before. I just love it.” Amanda was grinning from ear to ear. She leaned over and planted a kiss on Richard’s cheek.

  “Look at that!” He pointed to a castle set back through some trees and pulled over to the side of the road in front of the lane leading up to it. “That is spectacular!”

  “Oh my goodness! Is that a castle?”

  Amanda’s childlike excitement thrilled Richard.

  “Looks like it.” He said as he continued to enjoy her reaction.

  “I’ve never been in a castle before,” she said. “Do you think they have tours through it? I’ve heard some of them do.”

  “I don’t know. Shall we drive up there and ask?”

  Amanda thought for a moment. “Oh, we better not. I need to get back to the girls with the lace. They’re waiting for it.”

  “We can always come back out here another day,” Richard suggested. “It’s only about seventeen miles from Brussels.”

  “That’s not far at all, is it?”

  “Not at all.” He turned at the next road and headed back to Brussels, grinning all the way. He was happy.

  Chapter 46

  Mid-summers were sweltering in Cornwall, but the hospital was equipped with air conditioning. Rachel sat in the waiting room with the children while Belinda’s mother and Paul were in the intensive care unit with Belinda.

  The scare was over, however. After a severe life-threatening drop of her white blood cells due to the chemo treatments and an infection that had invaded her body, Belinda was now improving and the doctors were saying she would be moved out of ICU the next day. She’d been there for nearly two weeks.

  Paul came through the door toward Rachel looking haggard and disheveled. He’d been at the hospital almost every day and night the entire time.

  “Let’s take the children home, Rachel. She’s okay now, her mother is going to stay with her till I get back, then she’ll come to the house. Will you stay with the children till her mother gets there?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Come on, big boy,” Paul said as he picked up Jake and hugged him. “Let’s go home.”

  Rachel carried Paul Junior and followed.

  Later that evening when Rachel was back at her cottage, she sat on the veranda sipping tea, gazing out across the sea. The glimmer of the moon lit up a streak of water and filled the night air with enough light to see everything on the hillsides around her. She listened to the seagulls hunting for food and could smell the sea mixed with the scents of hyacinths and climbing roses growing all around her. She loved flowers and had planted an abundance of them in her garden and all around the cottage.

  As she breathed deeply, her mind swirled with all the events of the past few months.

  She wondered how Amanda was faring with Richard and the preparations for the shop’s opening. She made a mental note to call her first thing in the morning. Only one more week until the grand opening and she was planning to be there.

  Pete was on her mind. It had been nearly seven months since his death and she still thought of him every day and night. She wondered if one day she’d forget him. Thoughts of Ethan were diminishing; maybe it would be the same with Pete. It wasn’t that she wanted to forget either of them; it was the sadness and heartbreak she wanted to erase.

  Rachel wasn’t the happy person she once was. How could she get that back? She’d been reading several books on overcoming sorrow and depression, and some days the methods seemed to work, while on others it didn’t. She figured that the best way to handle it was to focus on what she loved doing the most and just do it. Writing and traveling, that was what she loved. And nesting. She loved her homes. If she traveled from home to home, writing as she went, maybe that would work.

  She thought of the house in Brentwood, California that her fath
er had left her. It was a slice of the ‘50s. And she adored her mother’s log cabin in Montana – her American Indian legacy. She thought of her son in Denver, hadn’t seen him in over a year when she’d last been in States.

  And the house in Paris, in Montmartre, the one she and Janet had bought on the spur of the moment. She had loved being there with Janet and Shellie. Now Shellie lived in Switzerland with her husband and baby, but Janet was still in Paris.

  At that moment she decided that after Amanda’s shop was open and operating smoothly, she would go to the Montmartre house for at least a month. Yes, that’s what she would do.

  Belinda was out of the woods for now, so there was no reason to hurry back to Cornwall from Brussels. She also wanted to put some distance between herself and Paul. The past two weeks had been awkward and difficult for her, being in such close proximity to him.

  Yes, after Brussels she’d spend the month of July in Paris. Maybe even longer.

  Chapter 47

  Brussels was having a record heat wave. Pedestrians were wearing straw hats and sunglasses, shorts and tank tops, sandals, and carrying water bottles as they shopped and walked on the streets of the city.

  It was Saturday, a week before Mandy Malone Designs was to open, and Richard met Amanda for breakfast at The Roy before her day began at the sewing room. She’d moved out of the Metropole and into the sewing room above the shop, had sectioned off a living area and was very comfortable there.

  Richard was waiting for her at The Roy. He’d been waiting an hour already, drinking coffee and making mental plans. He wanted to take Amanda to Antwerp to see its fashion sector, to see the fabric houses. That was the reason he gave to Amanda. She’d mentioned she needed more fabric.

  He knew it was also the diamond center of Europe.

  As they had their breakfast he told her about Antwerp, and even though she felt she should stay and watch over the girls, he persuaded her to take a day off. Convinced her she needed a change of scenery and needed to clear her mind. It was only thirty-two miles to Antwerp and the trip would be good for them both.