Linda Lael Miller Bundle

by Linda Lael Miller

  He inclined his head slightly in answer and Shay felt an incomprehensible yearning to be kissed. She got out of the car and cut Hank off at the gate.

  “Who was that?” the little boy wanted to know.

  Shay ruffled his red-brown hair with one hand and ushered him back down the walk. “The man who bought Rosamond’s house.”

  “Uncle Garrett called,” Hank announced when they were inside.

  Shay paid the baby-sitter, kicked off her high-heeled sandals and sank onto her scratchy garage-sale couch. Garrett Thompson had been her stepbrother, during Rosamond’s Nashville phase, and though Shay rarely saw him, their relationship was a close one.

  Hank was dancing from one foot to the other, obviously ready to burst. “Uncle Garrett called!” he repeated.

  “Did he want me to call him back?” Shay asked, resting her feet on the coffee table with a sigh of relief.

  Hank shook his head. “He’s coming here. He bought a house you can drive and he’s going fishing and he wants me to go, too!”

  Shay frowned. “A house—oh. You mean a motor home.”

  “Yeah. Can I go with him, Mom? Please?”

  “That depends, tiger. Maggie and the kids will be going, too, I suppose?”

  Hank nodded and Shay felt a pang at his eagerness, even though she understood. He was a little boy, after all, and he needed masculine companionship. He adored Garrett and the feeling appeared to be mutual. “We’d be gone a whole month.”

  Shay closed her eyes. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow, Hank,” she said. “I’ve had a long day and I’m too tired to make any decisions.”

  Anxious to stay in his mother’s good graces, Hank got ready for bed without being told. Shay went into his room and gave his freckled forehead a kiss. When he protested, she tickled him into a spate of sleepy giggles.

  “I love you,” she said moments later, from his doorway.

  “Ah, Mom,” he complained.

  Smiling, Shay closed the door and went into her own room for baby-doll pajamas and a robe. After taking a quick bath and brushing her teeth, she was ready for bed.

  She was not, however, ready for the heated fantasies that awaited her there, in that empty expanse of smooth sheets. She fell asleep imagining the weight of Mitch Prescott’s body resting upon her own.

  The next day was calm compared to the one before it. Shay’s car had been brought to Reese Motors and repaired and she left work early in order to spend an hour with her mother before going home.

  Rosamond sat near a broad window overlooking much of Skyler Beach, her thin, graceful hands folded in her lap, her long hair a stream of glistening, gray-marbled ebony tumbling down her back. On her lap she held the large rag doll Shay had bought for her six months before, when Rosamond had taken to wandering the halls of the convalescent home, day and night, sobbing that she’d lost her baby—couldn’t someone please help her find her baby?

  She had seemed content with the doll and even now she would clutch it close if anyone so much as glanced at it with interest, but Rosamond no longer cried or questioned or walked the halls. She was trapped inside herself forever, and there was no knowing whether or not she understood anything that happened around her.

  On the off chance that some part of Rosamond was still aware, Shay visited often and talked to her mother as though nothing had changed between them. She told funny stories about Marvin and his crazy commercials and about the salesmen and about Hank.

  Today there were no stories Shay wanted to tell, and she couldn’t bring herself to mention that the beautiful house beside the sea, with its playhouse and its gazebo and its gardens of pastel rhododendrons, had been sold.

  She stepped over the threshold of her mother’s pleasant room and let the door whisk shut behind her, blessing Garrett’s father, Riley Thompson, for being willing to pay Seaview’s hefty rates. It was generous of him, considering that he and Rosamond had been divorced for some fifteen years.

  “Hello, Mother,” she said quietly.

  Rosamond looked up with a familiar expression of bafflement in her wide eyes and held the doll close. She began to rock in her small cushioned chair.

  Shay crossed the room and sank into another chair, facing Rosamond’s. There was no resemblance between the two women; Rosamond’s hair was raven-black, though streaked with gray now, and her eyes were violet, while Shay’s were hazel and her hair was merely brown. As a child Shay had longed to be transformed into a mirror image of her mother.

  “Mother?” she prompted, hating the silence.

  Rosamond hugged the doll and rocked faster.

  Shay worked up a shaky smile and her voice had a falsely bright note when she spoke again. “It’s almost dinnertime. Are you getting hungry?”

  There was no answer, of course. There never was. Shay talked until she could bear the sound of her own voice no longer and then kissed her mother’s papery forehead and left.

  The box, sitting in the middle of the sidewalk in front of Shay Kendall’s house, was enormous. The name of a local appliance store was imprinted on one side and, as Mitch approached, he saw the crooked coin slot and the intriguing words, Lemmonad, Ten Sens, finger-painted above a square opening. He grinned and produced two nickels from the pocket of his jeans, dropping them through the slot.

  They clinked on the sidewalk. The box jiggled a bit, curious sounds came from inside, and then a small freckled hand jutted out through the larger opening, clutching a grubby paper cup filled with lemonade.

  Mitch chuckled, crouching as he accepted the cup. “How’s business?”

  “Vending machines don’t talk, mister,” replied the box.

  Some poor mosquito had met his fate in the lemonade and Mitch tried to be subtle about pouring the stuff into the gutter behind him. “Is your mother home?” he asked.

  “No,” came the cardboard-muffled answer. “But my baby-sitter is here. She’s putting gunk on her toenails.”

  “I see.”

  A face appeared where the cup of lemonade had been dispensed. “Are you the guy who brought my mom home last night?”

  “Yep.” Mitch extended a hand, which was immediately clasped by a smaller, stickier one. “My name is Mitch Prescott. What’s yours?”

  “Hank Kendall. Really, my name is Henry. Who’d want people callin’ ’em Henry?”

  “Who indeed?” Mitch countered, biting back another grin. “Think your mom will be home soon?”

  The face filling the gap in the cardboard moved in a nod. “She visits Rosamond after work sometimes. Rosamond is weird.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “You’re not a kidnapper or anything, are you? Mom says I’m not supposed to talk to strangers. Not ever.”

  “And she’s right. In this case, it’s safe, because I’m not a kidnapper, but, as a general rule—”

  The box jiggled again and then toppled to one side, revealing a skinny little boy dressed in blue shorts and a He-Man T-shirt, along with a pitcher of lemonade and a stack of paper cups. “Rosamond doesn’t talk or anything, and sometimes she sits on my mom’s lap, just like I used to do when I was a little kid.”

  Mitch was touched. He sighed as he stood upright again. Before he could think of anything to say in reply, the screen door snapped open and the baby-sitter was mincing down the walk, trying not to spoil her mulberry toenails. At almost the same moment, Shay’s Toyota wheezed to a stop behind Mitch’s car.

  He wished he had an excuse for being there. What the hell was he going to say to explain it? That he’d been awake all night and miserable all day because he wanted Shay Kendall in a way he had never before wanted any woman?

  Mitch was wearing jeans and a dark blue sports shirt and the sight of him almost made Shay drop the bucket of take-out chicken she carried in the curve of one arm. Go away, go away, she thought. “Would you like to stay to dinner?” she asked aloud.

  He looked inordinately relieved. “Sounds good,” he said.

  Sally wobbled, toes upturned, over to stand
beside Shay. “Who’s the hunk?” she asked in a stage whisper that sent color pulsing into her employer’s face.

  Shay stumbled through an introduction and was glad when Sally left for the day. Mitch watched her move down the sidewalk to her own gate with a grin. “I hope her toenails dry before the bones in her feet are permanently affected,” he said.

  “Dumb girl,” Hank added, who secretly adored Sally.

  The telephone was ringing as Shay led the way up the walk; Hank surged around her and bounded into the house to grab the receiver and shout, “Hello!”

  “Why are you here?” Shay asked softly as Mitch opened the screen door for her.

  “I don’t know,” he answered.

  Hank was literally jumping up and down, holding the receiver out to Shay. “It’s Uncle Garrett! It’s Uncle Garrett!”

  Shay smiled at the exuberance in her son’s face, though it stung just a little, and handed the bucket of chicken to Mitch so that she could accept the call.

  “Hi, Amazon,” Garrett greeted her. “What’s the latest?”

  Shay was reassured by the familiar voice, even if it was coming from hundreds of miles away. The teasing nickname, conferred upon Shay during the adolescent years when she had been taller than Garrett, was welcome, too. “You don’t want to know,” she answered, thinking of the upcoming commercials and the attraction she felt toward the man standing behind her with a bucket of chicken in his arms.

  Garrett laughed. “Yes, I do, but I’ll get it out of you later. Right now, I want to find out if Maggie and I can borrow Hank for a month.”

  Shay swallowed hard. “A month?”

  “Come on, mother hen. He needs to spend time with me, and you know it.”

  “But…a month.”

  “We’ve got big stuff planned, Shay. Camping. Fishing.” There was a brief pause. “And two weeks at Dad’s ranch.”

  Shay was fond of Riley Thompson; of all her six stepfathers, he had been the only one who hadn’t seemed to regard her as an intruder. “How is Riley?”

  “Great,” Garrett answered. “You’ve heard his new hit, I assume. He’s got a string of concerts booked and there’s talk that he’ll be nominated for another Grammy this year. You wouldn’t mind, would you, Shay, our taking Hank to his place, I mean? Dad wants to get to know him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s your kid, Amazon.”

  Shay felt sad, remembering how empty that big beautiful house overlooking the sea had been after Riley and Garrett had moved out. Everyone knew that the divorce had nearly destroyed Riley; he’d loved Rosamond and chances were that he loved her still. “I want you to tell him, for me, how much I appreciate all he’s done for my mother. God knows what kind of place she’d have to stay in if he weren’t paying the bills.”

  “Shay, if you need money—”

  Shay could hear Hank and Mitch in the kitchen. It sounded as though they were setting the table, and Hank was chattering about his beloved Uncle Garrett, who had a house that could be “drived” just like a car.

  “I don’t need money,” she whispered into the phone. “Don’t you dare offer!”

  Garrett sighed. “All right, all right. Maggie wants to talk to you.”

  Garrett’s wife came on the line then; she was an Australian and Shay loved the sound of her voice. By the time the conversation was over, she had agreed to let Hank spend the next four weeks with the Thompsons and their two children.

  She hung up, dashed away tears she could not have explained, and wandered into the kitchen, expecting to find Mitch and Hank waiting for her. The small table was clear.

  “Out here, Mom!” Hank called.

  Shay followed the voice onto the small patio in back. The chicken and potato salad and coleslaw had been set out on the sturdy little picnic table left behind by the last tenant, along with plates and silverware and glasses of milk.

  “Do I get to go?” Hank’s voice was small and breathless with hope.

  Shay took her seat on the bench beside Mitch, because that was the way the table had been set, and smiled at her son. “Yes, you get to go,” she answered, and the words came out hoarsely.

  Hank gave a whoop of delight and then was too excited to eat. He begged to be excused so that he could go and tell his best friend, Louie, all about the forthcoming adventure.

  The moment he was gone, Shay dissolved in tears. She was amazed at herself—she had not expected to cry—and still more amazed that Mitch Prescott drew her so easily into his arms and held her. There she was, blubbering all over his fancy blue sports shirt like a fool, and all he did was tangle one gentle hand in her hair and rock her back and forth.

  It had been a very long time since Shay had had a shoulder to cry on, and humiliating as it was, silly as it was, it was a sweet indulgence.

  3

  Tell me about Shay Kendall,” Mitch said evenly, and his hand trembled a little as he poured coffee from the restaurant carafe into Ivy’s cup.

  Ivy grinned and lifted the steaming brew to her lips. “Are you this subtle with stool pigeons and talkative members of the Klan?”

  “Damn it,” Mitch retorted with terse impatience, “don’t say things like that.”

  “Sorry,” Ivy whispered, her eyes sparkling.

  Mitch sat back in the vinyl booth. The small downtown restaurant was full of secretaries and businessmen and housewives with loud little kids demanding ice cream; after a second night in that cavernous house of his, he found the hubbub refreshing. “I asked about Ms. Kendall.”

  Ivy shrugged. “Very nice person. Terrific mother. Good office manager. Didn’t you find out anything last night? You said you had dinner with Shay.”

  Mitch’s jaw tightened, relaxed again. “She was married,” he prompted.

  Ivy looked very uncomfortable. “That was a long time ago. I’ve never met the guy.”

  Mitch sipped his coffee in a leisurely way and took his time before saying, “But you know all about him, don’t you? You’re Shay’s friend.”

  “Her best friend,” Ivy confirmed with an element of pride that said a great deal about Shay all by itself. A second later her blue eyes shifted from Mitch’s face to the sidewalk just on the other side of the window and her shoulders slumped a little. “I don’t like talking about Shay’s private life. It seems…it seems disloyal.”

  He sighed. “I suppose it is,” he agreed.

  Ivy’s eyes widened as a waitress arrived with club sandwiches, set the plates down and left. “Mitch, you wouldn’t—you’re not planning to write a book about Rosamond Dallas, are you?”

  Mitch recalled his telephone conversation with his agent that morning and sorely regretted mentioning that the house he’d just bought had once belonged to the movie star. Ivan had jumped right on that bit of information, reminding Mitch that he was under contract for one more book and pointing out that a biography of Ms. Dallas, authorized or not, would sell faster than the presses could turn out new copies.

  He braced both arms against the edge of the table and leaned toward his sister, glaring. “Why would I, a mild-mannered venture capitalist, want to write a book?”

  Ivy was subdued by the reprimand, but her eyes were suspicious. “Okay, okay, I shouldn’t have put it quite that way.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Are you writing about Shay’s mother or not?”

  Mitch rolled his eyes. “Dammit, I don’t know,” he lied. The truth was that he had already agreed to do the book. Rosamond Dallas’s whereabouts, long a mystery to the world in general, were now known, thanks to the thoughtless remark he’d made to Ivan. Mitch knew without being told that if he didn’t undertake the project, his agent would send another writer to do it, and unless he missed his guess, that writer would be Lucetta White, a barracuda in Gucci’s.

  Lucetta was no lover of truth, and she made it a practice to ruin at least three careers and a marriage every day before breakfast, just to stay in top form. If she got hold of Rosamond’s story, the result would be a vicious disaster
of a book that would ride the major bestseller lists for months.

  “Shay’s husband was a coach or a teacher or something,” Ivy said, jolting Mitch back to reality. “He was a lot older than she was, too. Anyway, he embezzled a small fortune from a high school in Cedar Landing, that’s a little place just over the state line, in Oregon.”

  “And?”

  “And Shay was pregnant at the time. She found out at her baby shower, if you can believe it. Somebody just walked in and said, ‘guess what?’”

  “My God.”

  “There was another woman involved, naturally.”

  Mitch was making mental notes; he would wait until later to ask his sister what had prompted her to divulge all this information. For the moment, he didn’t want to chance breaking the flow. “Does anybody know where they are, Shay’s ex-husband and this woman, I mean?”

  Ivy shrugged. “Nobody cares except the police. Shay received divorce papers from somewhere in Mexico a few weeks after he left, but that was over six years ago. The creep could be anyplace by now.”

  “Who was the other woman?”

  “Are you ready for this? It was the local librarian. Everybody thought she was so prim and proper and she turned out to be a mud wrestler at heart.”

  If it hadn’t been for an aching sense of the humiliation Shay must have suffered over the incident, Mitch would have laughed at Ivy’s description of the librarian. “Appearances are deceiving,” he said.

  “Are they, Mitch?” Ivy countered immediately. “I hope not, because when I look at you, I see a person I can trust.”

  “Why did you tell me about Shay’s past, Ivy? You were dead set against it a minute ago.”

  Ivy lifted her chin and began methodically removing frilled toothpicks from the sections of her sandwich. “I just thought you should know why she’s…why she’s shy.”

  Mitch wondered if “shy” was the proper word to describe Shay Kendall. Even though she’d wept in his arms the night before, on the bench of a rickety backyard picnic table, he sensed that she had a steel core. She was clearly a survivor. Hadn’t she picked herself up after what must have been a devastating blow, found herself a good job, supported herself and her son? “Didn’t Rosamond do anything to help Shay after Kendall took off with his mud wrestler?”