[The Sons of Lily Moreau 01] - Remodeling the Bachelor

by Marie Ferrarella

  He knew Janice was her own person, that she valued her independence, but afterthe response he’d felt the night before, he thought she was ready to share thatspace just as she’s shared her bed and her body.

  Obviously, he must have thought wrong. With effort, he forced himself to ease back on the gas pedal. He was goingfiftythree miles an hour, eighteen miles over the speed limit in thisparticular section of the city.

  God, if he had scared her off, he was prepared to backtrack, to reconstruct allthe collapsed bridges until they could sustain his weight as he crossed them toher again.

  He was willing to do anything. Anything but say goodbye.

  By the time Philippe arrived at her door, he’d gone back and forth in his mindso many times he felt like a worn-out tennis player. He barely closed the door of his car, then hurried up the front walk. He didn’tbother with the doorbell, but pounded on her door just the way Janice had on hiswhen she’d come to drag her brother away from the poker table.

  That seemed so long ago now. And yet, it hadn’t been. Everything that hadhappened had transpired in a very short time. Maybe that was the trouble….

  Sick of second-guessing, Philippe pounded on the front door again. This time, an incredibly sleepy-looking Gordon, attired in pajama bottoms andlooking very much like an unmade bed, opened the door. Scrubbing one hand overhis stubbled face, Gordon obviously tried to focus his eyes. He seemed to behanging on to the door for support.

  “Hey, man, do you know what time it is?”

  Philippe walked in.“Do you?” “Yes, it’s—”Gordon blinked, seeing daylight streaming in behind Philippe. Stillhanging on to the front door, he looked at the clock on the mantle.“Hey, wow,it’s not six, is it?”

  Philippe pivoted on his heel.“No, it’s not six,”he snapped, then made anattempt to rein in his temper.“Where’s your sister?”Janice’s truck, when he’dpulled up, hadn’t been parked outside and the garage door was standing wideopen, allowing him to see that the vehicle wasn’t inside, either.

  Gordon took a deep breath, as if that would somehow help to engage his brain.

  Releasing it, he shook his head, then dragged one hand through his hair.

  “I dunno,”he admitted.“She should have woken me up for work.”He lookedsheepishly at Philippe.“I hate the sound of an alarm clock.” Philippe could in no way process this personal piece of information about theother man, not right now. Every cell in his body was focused on trying to findJanice. His fear threatened to explode at any second.“Did she say anythingabout getting a late start today?”

  Gordon shook his head.“No.”

  Philippe tried again.“Did she say anything about buying more supplies?”

  Again the shaggy head moved from side to side in denial.“No.”

  He was getting dangerously close to the end of his rope.“Did she—” “No, no, no,”Gordon declared, pulling both hands through his hair.“J.D. didn’tsay anything about anything. She was very quiet this weekend.”He looked upsuddenly at his visitor as the thought struck him.“Like she was right after shefound out that Gary wasn’t coming home.”The thought sank in and Gordon lookedat Philippe.“You two have a fight?”

  “No.”Philippe pressed his lips together. He wasn’t the kind to share, not evenwith his brothers. So sharing personal information with someone who was almost astranger to him was completely foreign. But at this point he was willing to tryanything to help pull the pieces of the puzzle together.“It was just theopposite.”He paused significantly, hoping Gordon was clever enough to pick upon what he was saying.“I thought everything was great.”

  Gordon seemed a little concerned himself.“Well, obviously something wasn’t sogreat,”he theorized.“Otherwise, J.D. would have been in my room, kicking mybutt at six and telling me to get the hell out of bed.”Scratching his head,Gordon realized that he was talking to himself. Philippe had left the room.

  Walking into the hall, he saw that the man was already halfway up the stairs.

  “She’s not up there, man,”Gordon called after him.

  Philippe made no answer, just kept going. Maybe there was something in Janice’s room that would tell him where she’d gone.

  Trying to calm himself, he silently insisted that he was probably justoverreacting because he valued routine so much and she had broken hers.

  He stopped dead in the doorway when he reached her room. The closet doors werestanding open and it was obvious that a section of clothing was missing.

  “This is bad,”he heard Gordon say. The man was standing behind him. Philippe turned around.“Why?”he demanded, even though he knew damn well thatmissing clothing and a missing woman did not add up to a good thing. He washoping against hope that Gordon would say something he could hang on to.

  But he didn’t.“Because she took some of her things. And her suitcase is gone.”

  Gordon pointed to a space on the floor. Just as he did, Philippe noticed a folded up piece of paper on the dresser. Whenhe opened it, he saw that Janice had left a note for her brother.“Gordon,”shewrote,“Kelli and I had to take off for a few days. Don’t worry. Please finishup for me at the Zabelle place. Love, J.D.”

  The Zabelle place. As if there was nothing between them. As if he was nothingmore than another job.

  Philippe squelched the desire to crumple up the paper. Instead, he handed it toGordon.“When was the last time your sister just took off like this?”

  Gordon stared down at the note as if the words were not sinking in.“Never.” “Do you have any idea where she’d go?”

  Gordon shook his head.“No.”And then he stopped, his eyes widening as a thoughthit him.“Wait.”He turned toward Philippe.“Maybe. Maybe I do.”

  Philippe took a breath, waiting. He didn’t care where it was, he was going to goafter her and bring her back, even if it meant going to hell and back.“I’mlistening.”

  Gordon ran his tongue nervously along his lower lip, afraid of making the wrongcall.“She could have gone to the cabin.”

  “The cabin,”Philippe echoed. When Gordon didn’t elaborate further, he pushed,“What cabin?” “When we were kids, my dad used to rent this cabin one week a year. It’s up byWhitewood,”he added, citing a resort area.“I always hated going there, but sheloved it.”

  “Can you give me something more specific than a‘cabin in Whitewood?’”

  Gordon thought a minute, as if his mind had gone completely blank. And then helooked up, a relieved smile on his lips.“Yeah.”

  “Good,”Philippe retorted between closely clenched teeth.

  Gordon made the next logical guess.“You going up there to get her?” Again, it was against his nature to let anyone in. He’d grown up holding all hisemotions close, not allowing the kind of hurt he’d privately viewed his motherenduring ever find him. That meant keeping everything damned up. But suddenly,it was just too late for that. And he was going to need allies. Gordon was herbrother, that qualified him for the part.

  So he looked at the other man and announced,“Damn straight I am.”

  Gordon grinned and nodded his approval.“My money’s on you. Got a map in yourcar?”

  Philippe was already on his way to get it. It took Philippe the better part of the day to locate exactly where Janice hadgone. Gordon’s instructions only took him so far and no further. Apparentlyboyhood memories for Gordon were rather hazy.

  Refusing to give up, Philippe backtracked to a general store he’d seen in thearea. The clerk behind the counter told him the whereabouts of the local rentalagency. Philippe left a ten in his wake and forgot to take the bottle of waterhe’d purchased.

  Hadley’s Rental Agency had been there almost as long as the mountains had.

  Joseph Hadley, the present owner, was a heavyset man who completely filled outthe chair behind his desk.

  He sat in it now, rocking back and regarding Philippe suspiciously as the latterasked him if a woman with a little girl in tow had rented a cabin in the lastfew hours.

  “Don’t give out informat
ion like that, son,”he announced after a long, pregnantpause.“Violates a trust.”

  Philippe thought of trying to bribe the owner, but Hadley seemed like a man whovalued his integrity and enjoyed letting everyone else know it. Desperate, Philippe glanced at the small older woman who occupied the only otherdesk in the small office. She eyed him with a touch of curiosity that appearedto mingle with sympathy.

  She could be won over, Philippe thought. But only for a price. With his back tothe wall, Philippe again found himself in a position where he had to share hispersonal business and, more important, his feelings with a stranger.

  With strangers, he amended silently, resigning himself to what he knew he had todo. “I’m looking for my fiancée, Janice Wyatt. She just took off this morningwithout any explanation.”She wasn’t his fiancée, but if he had to go this far,he might as well embellish and go for broke. Whatever it took to find out whereJanice had gone.

  Hadley’s tiny eyes all but disappeared as he moved forward on his chair andsquinted.“You hit her?”

  “No,”Philippe declared with feeling, the very thought turning his stomach.

  “Never raised a hand—or my voice,”he added for good measure.“Her first husbandwas killed in the war—”

  It was all he needed to say. Mrs. Hadley’s imagination—or intuition—filled inthe rest.“Poor thing’s probably afraid to take another chance on love.

  Heartache’s a powerful deterrent.”

  The second the woman uttered the words, they hit home. Philippe, prepared tohumor her, looked at Mrs. Hadley in awe instead.“You’re right.” “Of course I’m right,”the woman said with a nod.“Don’t get to sit on thismountain, watching people for close to sixty-five years and not pick up a fewthings.”She turned to her husband.“Give him the cabin number, Joe.”

  “Mary Beth, that’s not the way we do business,”her husband growled.

  She waved a hand at him dismissively.“That’s not the way you do business.” Walking over to the large map of the area that covered the wall behind herhusband’s desk, she pointed out the cabin that had been rented last.“She’sright there. Go out, take the road on the right and follow it until itdisappears.”She smiled at him.“That’ll be the backyard. You can’t miss it,”

  she promised.

  Philippe thanked them both and was back in his car in under a minute. Twilight was just beginning to tiptoe down the mountainside as Philippe slowlymade his way along the winding road and first spotted her. It had taken him alot longer than he’d first thought, but the only thing that mattered was thathe’d found her.

  Janice was outside, playing a game of catch with her daughter.

  A rather bad game of catch, Philippe noted, amused, as he parked his vehicle andmade his way silently up the path.

  Kelli threw the ball to her, but it fell right through Janice’s hands. She wasobviously preoccupied.

  Not knowing what she was liable to do, he didn’t speak until he was directlybehind her.“You make a lousy catcher.” Janice caught her breath. Swinging around, she almost shrieked. She halfexpected him to be a fabrication of her overworked imagination. But Kelli sawhim, too. Abandoning the game, she ran like a shot across the grounds andlaunched herself straight into his arms.

  “You’re here!”she cried at the top of her lungs, wrapping her arms around him.

  “You’re here!”

  He rose with her in his arms, thinking how incredibly sweet it felt, holding herlike this. As he basked in her blatant adoration, he felt his heart swell.

  “Yes,”he told her, kissing the top of her head,“I am.”

  It took Janice a long moment to find first her breath, then her voice.“What areyou doing here?”she managed to ask.

  Holding Kelli to him, he turned to look at her. Well, at least she wasn’tfleeing. “Moving heaven and earth, looking for you,”he told her without fanfare. Andthen, in case she didn’t realize just what it had taken to find her, he added,“I had to spill my guts to complete strangers to find out where you got to. Doyou have any idea how hard that was for me?”

  Stunned, at a loss, she stared at him.“I—” He didn’t wait for her to respond, because there were more important questionsto be answered.“Why did you suddenly go on the lam?”With effort, he kept hisvoice upbeat for Kelli’s sake.

  Janice raised her chin defiantly.“Gordon’ll finish your bathrooms.”

  His eyes narrowed. His voice was low.“That’s not what I asked.”

  Janice glanced toward the mountain range rather than at him. Because he had gonethrough all this effort to find her, she supposed she owed him the truth. “Because I didn’t want to be hurt again.” The woman at the cabin had been right, he thought.“Well, that’s good because Idon’t want to hurt you.”Gently, he set Kelli down and stepped into Janice’sline of vision.“Go on,”he urged.“So far we’re on the same page.”

  She shrugged, feeling lost, feeling alone and feeling very angry at beingcornered this way. Why couldn’t he have just accepted things and let her go? Whydid he have to put her through this?

  “That’s it.”

  “That’s it,”he repeated incredulously.

  “That’s it,”she echoed. Her voice took on strength as she restated her reason.

  “I don’t want to be hurt again.”

  He was going to get her to see the light if it killed him. Because suddenlynothing had ever been as important as this. “Did it occur to you that maybe the solution to never hurting again is not notto love but to get the most out of the love that’s possible?”he asked. When shebegan to turn away again, he caught her by the shoulder and continued.“To enjoyand savor each day as if there’s no tomorrow and to keep doing it as long astomorrow keeps coming?”

  Janice blinked. She’d heard only one thing. One word. The word that ultimatelywas the most important one in the world. She needed him to repeat it, toexplain. Because she was afraid she was imagining things, hearing what shewanted to hear.“What love? Who said anything about love?”

  “He did, Mama,”Kelli piped up helpfully, dramatically pointing to Philippe.

  He grinned, first at Kelli, then at her.“What she said.” But Janice shook her head. This couldn’t come via hearsay or secondhandrepetition.“I don’t want what she said, I want to hear what you said. Are youtelling me that you love me?”

  He looked as if it was a surprise to him, too. But not an unwelcome one.“Yes, Iguess I am.”Then, trying it on for size, he said it formally.“I love you,Janice Diane Wyatt.”

  “And me?”Kelli asked eagerly.

  “And you, too.”Philippe laughed, bending over and kissing the top of her head. And then, straightening, his eyes shifted to Janice’s face. For just a second,he tried to pretend he was all business.“By the way, when you do get around tofinishing my place, my brothers have some renovations they want you to handle ontheir houses. You up for that?”

  When she stared at him numbly, apparently unable to decide if she washallucinating, he took her in his arms. Just as she caught her breath, he kissedher. Once, and then again. Deeply and with feeling.

  He heard her sigh against his lips.

  “Yes,”she murmured, answering a question that he had silently asked with hiskiss.

  “Yes, what?”he asked. “Yes, I’ll do the renovations.”And then she smiled broadly.“And yes, I’llmarry you.”

  Kelli looked up at her, perplexed. She tugged on her mother’s shirt.“But Mama,he didn’t ask that,”she pointed out.

  Delighted, euphoric, Philippe laughed as he looked down at the little girl whowas going to be his daughter.“Actually, I did. I asked her with my heart.”

  Kelli’s eyes grew wide. She stared at him as if he were magical.“You can dothat?” Janice locked her hands along the back of his neck.“He can do that,”she toldher daughter just before the man she’d fallen in love with kissed her again,crushing the words,“I love you, too,”against her lips.

  ly Moreau 01] - Remodeling the Bachelor