“She’s almost thirteen,” Ben said with an awkward grimace as the bass tones from the music upstairs made the china in the cabinets clink. “She doesn’t really hate me, even if it seems so. She just thinks I’m a bit pathetic, for the moment, and the worst is—she’s right.”
“You are not pathetic,” Leonore tried, feeling a bit sorry for him. It couldn’t be much fun listening to one’s daughter shouting how much she hated him, whether over luncheon and in front of a near-stranger or not. “She doesn’t mean it…”
Ben laughed, a merry laughter with a strained undertone. “Oh, she does mean it; don’t pretend otherwise. As I said, she’s almost thirteen—when it comes to their parents, teenagers mean every last word. But then you have to know how to translate her.”
“Excuse me?”
Ben stood up with an amused smile and went to the stove. Filled with fear, Leonore watched him put a coffeepot on one of the hobs. “Kelly is a lovely girl, and I know she loves me,” he said. But sometimes she can’t tell me enough how much she hates me, and when she does, it’s all about something I’ve done wrong or not done at all. This time I did pancakes. That’s really all it takes to make Miss Emerson fall into pieces. She really doesn’t like my cooking.”
“Maybe I could do dinner,” Leonore offered, unable to stop herself, and Ben turned toward her, his smile radiant and grateful.
“Oh, would you? I would be beyond thankful if you did. I’m not good around the kitchen, obviously. Usually it’s Pa who does the magic in here. But now, as he’s away, I don’t have a choice but to cook. And as I think you’ve noticed, Kelly really hates my cooking. Here.”
The last word came with the apron, and numbly she accepted the cloth, still in shock over how easily she’d been played again. Because she had. It was easy to tell when one looked into Ben’s laughing eyes as he left the kitchen in a hurry, probably afraid he might be hauled back inside if he were still there when she’d collected the remains of her brain.
She really should be upset, she thought, as she fastened the apron absentmindedly. As an unwilling houseguest for God knew how many days, she should be taken care of, not coaxed into taking care of her hosts. But then again, it was sort of nice being needed, if only temporarily.
After pouring herself a cup of coffee, silently praying Ben was better at handling coffee than pancakes, she sat back down at the table and watched the dark storm outside throwing snow at the windows, wishing herself anywhere but here. It didn’t matter how nice Ben was, she still felt trapped, and as an independent woman, she wanted to be in charge. And yet here she sat, listening to her stomach growling, caught in a storm which seemed to intensify by the minute.
Although… Sipping on the surprisingly tasteful coffee, she guessed the problem wasn’t the fact that she was caught, but that her personality did not lend itself to this scene. She wasn’t an idle person. Sitting in a chair and doing nothing made her uncomfortable, especially when she was surrounded by such a mess as the one here in the Emersons’ house.
Taking in the kitchen filled with clutter and dishes, she decided to do something about it. She couldn’t cook in a mess like this anyway, and as it seemed she was the one who would be using the kitchen next, she might as well straighten it up a bit. It didn’t take long for her to realize that Pa Emerson had earned her respect: beneath the mess, everything was spotless. She had expected mold, grease, and other disgusting things, but all the cupboards, the counter, and all the other basic surfaces were meticulously scrubbed, and she exhaled, relieved.
She started with cleaning up after Ben, who clearly wasn’t the tidiest cook, before reorganizing things until she had freed the kitchen counters and had room enough to work. The cupboards and the refrigerator were fully stocked, but only with the most common ingredients like flour, milk, cheese, and eggs. As Ben had already served his version of pancakes today, she decided to go with pizza for the next meal.
In college, she used to make the most delicious deep pan pizza imaginable, with loads of cheese. Her dorm mates had loved it, demanding it at least once a week, preferably every day.
The only one who minded had been Paul.
He’d wrinkled his proud nose with what looked like disgust as his fingers got all greasy when she first served him a slice. Being newly in love, she had found it adorable, and the next time it was pizza day, she’d offered him a plastic set of knife and fork with a tender smile.
They’d never had pizza again.
From that day forward, Paul took over the cooking, serving five-course French meals every day from the small hot plate in his room. She had thought that adorable too, not knowing then that it was the first of many things he would change about her way of life. Before Paul, she had always hung around in the common room, eating and chatting with everyone who happened to be there. But after Paul moved in and they became an item, he slowly started to isolate her, until he was the only one she spent time with.
Eventually she had no friends.
Paul knew the importance of networking, and he collected connections like kids collected baseball cards, forcing her to join him almost every work-free evening she had, going to different parties, galleries, and gatherings. But those were his friends, his social arena.
Paul had been everything to her, and as he struggled to get his master’s degree, she had worked three jobs just to make ends meet and hadn’t had time to hold on to old friends or find new ones. She had not even had time to visit Granny as often as she would have liked. That special old lady had been her only remaining blood relative: her father hadn’t stayed around after donating his genes one wet party night, and her mother had died of cancer when Lenore was just a child.
When the small, intimate bubble she and Paul had lived in burst, she had found herself all alone, without a home and without funds. Somehow all their joint assets suddenly were Paul’s. He even, magically enough, had papers to prove it. That she had been the one paying for everything seemed unimportant. At least that’s what his lawyer told her.
Thank God she hadn’t had the time to put Granny’s small house on the market. That autumn had been a crazy time at her day job, and she’d had to work from seven a.m. to nine p.m. almost every day, which meant next to no time for any personal business. Paul’s lawyer had insisted upon her paying him half of the house’s worth, as a consolation for what Paul had to endure during their eleven-year relationship.
Paul had walked out of their relationship with the apartment she had paid for, with an education she had made sure he didn’t have to take out any loans for, and with his pockets filled to the brim with her savings for a house to start a family in.
All she had left was Granny’s house.
At first, she had been devastated over how coldly he had used and dismissed her, and she had resolutely quit all her jobs before grabbing the bags of her clothes that Paul kindly had placed outside the apartment door. Filling her little Italian car to the brim, she had fled to Granny’s house in Barnesville, licking her wounds behind the curtains, hiding from all the nosy and well-meaning neighbors, who kept bringing her casseroles.
It took a month for her to get back on track again, but then she put on her most prim outfit and marched down to the library and applied for the open spot as one of two librarians. Mrs. Colfax, the elderly librarian, had given her the job immediately, soaking Leonore’s handkerchief with tears over her old friend Mrs. Brody.
It was not a high-paid, fancy job, but it was a job that provided an income, and it forced her to get up in the morning and brush her teeth, comb her hair, and get dressed. She had to eat to last the whole day, and her neglected body was slowly starting to fill out again.
Paul had maliciously destroyed her life, but like the phoenix she was now rising from the ashes, being reborn in her childhood home of Barnesville, without friends but surrounded by people who all knew her name.
****
“This is much better,” Kelly said with a deep, satisfied sigh before stuffing more homemade pizza
into her mouth. “And you said you don’t cook.”
“Dweleshess,” Ben let out, as he reached for a third slice, and Leonore blushed with delight over their praise, even though it wasn’t a three- or five-course dinner, just ordinary pizza. But still… Their appreciation of her effort made her relax enough to give them a small smile, accepting their gratefulness quietly.
“You should work over at Rosa’s,” Kelly mused. “Burt sure makes burgers to die for, but his pizza is nothing like this. Nothing!”
When it was all gone, Leonore grabbed their empty plates, unable to sit still but enjoying the praise raining over her. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate their kindness; she just didn’t know how to accept it. So she did the dishes instead, leaving the father and daughter to chat behind her back. As if on cue, Kelly disappeared up the stairs as soon as Leonore put two mugs of coffee on the table.
“I don’t think I can thank you enough, Leonore,” Ben said, his kind face wearing his heart. “I hope you understand that it was not a part of my plan to have you cook for us, but now, as you did, and so damn good, I must say I’m glad you are here.”
Putting her cold hands around the hot mug, she sat down on the other side of the table, forcing herself to meet his serious gaze. “You planned to bring me here?”
He laughed, looking both amused and embarrassed. “I did. Sorry.” She must have looked as confused as she felt because he stood up, holding out his hand for her to grab. “Come. I want to show you something in the cellar.”
Her eyes grew larger as she glanced at the small door in the corner. “The cellar…?”
He threw his head back as he laughed, looking like a strong, happy, handsome, wonderful, sexy Roman god. “Oh, man, Leonore. Have the Hyenas been filling your ears about my cellar? How many women am I supposed to be hiding there now, according to them?”
“Four,” she blushed, feeling more stupid by the minute.
He shook his head, amused. “Those absurd women. They should come out here and do some real honest work a couple of days, so their bodies and minds become too tired to come up with such crap.”
Opening the small door, he turned around, again holding out his hand toward her. “Come, Leonore. Let’s go down into the cellar.”
She couldn’t stop a giggle escaping her, and his smile widened in return. Taking a deep breath, she stood and grabbed the hand he offered, following him down the narrow stair until they stood in the large cellar, where everything lay in full view. There were no cages there, no scared women screaming for help. Only row after row of shelves filled to the brim with glass jars, and cases full of apples and potatoes.
“Oh, my.” Leonore sighed as Ben released her hand. She stepped over to a shelf of jars with the same labels as she had in her small house. “Those are Granny’s.”
“Your grandmother was the sweetest, most generous lady I have ever known. I gave her a helping hand now and then, you know, and she always gave me a jar or two in appreciation. I never had the heart to tell her that our cellar already has more jams and chutneys than we can ever use, so I brought them here, to stand side by side with Ma’s.”
“You could have refused.”
“Could I?” His eyes were serious. “She was a lonely old woman, grateful for the help, because she didn’t want to bother you and disturb your life in Boston. So of course I helped her.”
Something about what he had said pricked her heart. “Why didn’t she want to ask me for help? I would have helped her; she was my Granny!”
“Calm down, Leonore. I didn’t mean that you were the unhelpful kind. It was your grandmother who didn’t want to give you more to carry. She was already so worried about how that guy was using you that she didn’t want to give you something more to deal with.”
“I…I…” Leonore stuttered, unsure what to say. Granny had known about the difficulties in her life with Paul? She had thought she had hidden it well—the anxiety, the loneliness, and the feeling of being useless.
But of course Granny had known. She’d always had a sixth sense when it came to Leonore, all her life. Why would that have changed just because the granddaughter lived in Boston instead of Barnesville?
“I showed you this so you would understand why I had to go through with my plan, because I wanted you to understand that I just couldn’t break a promise to someone who meant as much to me as your grandmother did.”
A small table with two chairs stood in the middle of the room, and Ben ushered her there to sit down before joining her. “When I found your grandmother in the garden, she was almost gone, yet she found the strength to lift her hand and hold it against my cheek with one of those loving, understanding smiles of hers. Her voice was not more than a whisper, but I could hear her words as if she had been shouting. Do you know what she said?”
Leonore shook her head, tears streaming down her face, both pain over her recent loss and love for the person Granny had been filling her heart to the brim.
“She asked me to be your Valentine.”
Chapter Four
Of all the things he could have said, this was the most unexpected. But as she thought about it, not so surprising. Valentine’s Day had always been special to her and Granny, and they had never spent the fourteenth of February apart.
Paul had refused to let her leave Boston during the holidays, demanding that she stay in Boston and go with him to every available Christmas party he could find and celebrate the new year together with his most exclusive connections.
Leonore’s Christmases, before Paul, had been filled with traditions. Peaceful, cinnamon-tasting Christmases filled with trips to the church and every festivity the people of Barnesville could think of—ice skating on the frozen Housatonic River, sleigh rides behind jingle-clad horses across snowy fields, listening to carolers while nibbling on a candied apple or a peppermint stick…
Her Christmases in Boston had been lonely.
They had never spoken about it, but somehow Granny had known why Leonore had stopped coming home for Christmas, never mentioning it nor making a fuss about it. Instead she had Lenore come to Barnesville every Valentine’s Day, filling the house with hearts and laughter. And love.
This year Leonore had forgotten all about both Christmas and Valentine’s Day. This year she had been so caught up in everything she had lost: Granny, Paul, and her future.
But Granny hadn’t forgotten.
In her last moment, she had made sure that Leonore wouldn’t be alone during their holiday. She had known that Ben, with his warm heart, never would break a promise. Content, with that knowledge, she had died.
The ache in Leonore’s heart exploded out into every last cell of her body, and she leaned forward, hiding her face in her hands as heart-wrenching sobs shook her. She never noticed Ben moving closer to her, not until she felt his warm hand tenderly caress her back. His unspoken compassion touched her more deeply than any words could have done.
She didn’t know for how long they sat there, in the cold cellar. Patiently he waited for her sobs to turn into pitiful sniffs, as she finally let her heart mourn her loss. He never said a word, only continued to stroke her back, offering his warmth and compassion.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, when she finally could speak again.
“Don’t be,” he said, his warm breath fluttering her hair as he leaned forward, gently forcing her hands away from her face. “You had to get it out sooner or later, and I’m glad I could be here for you, so you didn’t have to face it alone.”
She groaned as she straightened her back. “Oh, I feel like I’m sixty, not thirty years old.”
He put his head to the side, peering at her. “You know what? Right now you do look sixty, with the mascara making lines all over your face.”
“Oh, you…” A rusty laugh emerged from her as she accepted the napkin he magically produced from nowhere, carefully drying her tear-soaked face. Looking down at the once-white piece of cloth, she laughed again. A small laugh, but still a laugh. “I must l
ook like a zebra.”
Ben grinned as he stood up. “If you feel as exhausted as you look, I think you need a boost of energy. Let me see…” He moved around in the cellar, searching for something or other, accompanied by inaudible mumbles, before reappearing with two glasses and an unlabeled bottle of something dark red. “This will put some color back in your face. Here.”
He poured the red drink into one of the glasses, and she accepted it gratefully. She took a sip, appreciating the fullness of the liquor. It was a good wine, strong and tasty, and after just a couple of sips she started to feel dizzy.
Ben took a sip too, and made a small, funny grimace. “I had forgotten how strong Ma’s cherry wine is. Damn…” He took another sip, and then another. “Well, it keeps getting better and better. I’m pretty sure I will declare this the best wine I’ve ever had to drink, by the time we reach the end of the bottle.”
She had to laugh. He was simply too irresistibly funny for her not to. It was obvious he was trying his best to make her feel better, and he was succeeding. She felt relaxed. She felt light. But most importantly, she felt released. Freed of an unknown weight that had burdened her for years. Silently, they sipped on the wine in friendly company, and when they had emptied their first glasses, he refilled them.
Looking up at him, she noticed he didn’t look as disheveled as before. Not as he had when he’d spoken with her in the library this morning. Now he wore tight-fitting jeans and a T-shirt which stretched over his torso leaving no room for imagination. He was a well-built man. Mesmerized, she watched his muscles flex under the thin fabric.
When had Ben become this handsome? Why had she never realized it before? Perhaps it was the wine, she didn’t know, but at that moment, when he sat back down on the other chair, raising his glass toward her with a grin, she knew that she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anything, or anyone, before.
He must have sensed the transformation in her, as his smile faded and his navy-blue eyes became almost black. “Leonore…” His voice was dark and husky, sending shivers of delight down her spine.
Please Be My Valentine Page 3
