Harlequin Heartwarming May 2016 Box Set: Through the StormHome for KeepsThe Firefighter's RefrainTo Catch a Wife

by Rula Sinara

  “I’m sorry about that. In fact, I’m sorry, especially because it seemed like I didn’t care about your feelings. I hope you can forgive me.”

  There was a clearing on the other side of the creek where they could walk side by side.

  “Thanks. I appreciate that.” She let out a big breath. “What my dad said about disowning me... I just can’t get the words out of my head.”

  “I don’t think he meant them.” Hearing an engine, Caleb glanced up as the company plane flew overhead.

  “It was cruel of him to say it. I should have told him how I felt a long time ago.” Grace frowned. “I guess I’ve taught myself to avoid dealing with difficult situations.”

  “I noticed that when you left the restaurant. Then when you wouldn’t answer your phone. I thought that was it for us. That would have broken my heart.”

  “Really?”

  “The only other woman I ever loved left me, remember.” He reached out to her and pulled her into his arms. “If I’m going to love someone, I want to know they will stick with me, not give up and run at the first sign of trouble.”

  “Are you saying you might love me?”

  “I do love you, Grace.” And he was absolutely certain, Even though he still had to deal with his problematic daughter, he wasn’t going to let her get between them.

  “I love you, too.”

  Grace planted a kiss on his lips, flooding him with warmth. Until this moment, he hadn’t been sure they would be able to work things out. Now he couldn’t see a future without Grace at his side.

  They stood there entwined, forgetful of where they were or the task at hand. Until Grace’s phone rang.

  She answered, a little breathless. Then she disentangled herself. “It’s the pilot. They’ve spotted smoke about a half mile east.”

  “Let’s go!”

  A short time later, they came upon what seemed to be a deserted camp. A crude shelter made of bent boughs stood to one side of a pit where a fire was crackling and a fish was frying on a slab of stone. But Caleb recognized the blue hoodie stretched across the top of the shelter and the purple backpack lying inside.

  “Angela!” he yelled, glancing in all directions. “Where are you, Angel?”

  She emerged slowly from some bushes near the shelter. “I know you’re angry, Dad, but it wasn’t my fault.”

  Heart uplifted, he immediately strode to her and pulled her up in a huge bear hug. “Angela!”

  “Don’t break my ribs, Dad!” Though her voice told him she was smiling.

  He put her down, relieved and ecstatic. “I’m not angry. I already talked to your mother.”

  “Did the police arrest her?”

  “Yes, they did.” He held her by the arms and just looked at her, a sight for sore eyes. “Why did you take off anyway?”

  “I was tired of sitting around and watching Lily,” Angela admitted. “I didn’t know what she was going to do. She wasn’t even sorry for tricking me into coming with her.”

  “I don’t think she considered the consequences,” said Caleb. “But she will now.”

  Then more details spilled out. Angela told him about this artist Lily had promised she’d meet, the only reason she’d gotten in the truck. How Lily said he, Caleb, was too practical and wanted to spoil her creative dreams.

  “That’s not true,” Caleb objected.

  “Well, you are practical.”

  “It seems you can be practical, too.” He smiled, gesturing to the shelter. “Pretty self-sufficient. Not bad for a place to sleep. You need to put some branches over the top, though.”

  Angela’s grin was bigger than he’d seen in months. “Want some fish? I was hungry, so I caught it with some line and a hook I took from the cabin.” Then her gaze focused over his shoulder.

  Grace stood some feet away. “Hi, Angela.”

  Ready for a snarky remark, he was surprised when his daughter replied simply, “Hi. Thanks for helping my father.”

  Maybe the relationship he craved with Grace wasn’t going to be as difficult to manage as he’d feared.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “THIS IS SO LOVELY,” said Gloria Vega, one of the most prominent members of Nellie’s quilting group. “Just big enough for you and Olive.”

  Nellie showed her guest both bedrooms of her new condo, the smaller of which Nellie used as a sewing room.

  “Of course, you had to have space for fabrics and a table,” remarked Gloria. “You’ve fit everything in nicely.” She looked around at the shelves where sewing items were stored. “Did you say these floors are bamboo?”

  “Sure are,” said Nellie. “Sustainable material.”

  Gloria seemed impressed, just like Nellie expected. “Your living room is big enough for most of the quilters. You’ll have to have the whole group over some time.”

  “I plan to,” Nellie told her as they returned to sit down on the living room couch. She introduced the woman who was already seated there. “This is Fran Willowby, my neighbor.”

  “Hi, Fran,” Gloria said, dark eyes sparkling. “Do you sew, too?”

  Fran shook her head. “No, I don’t, but I really admire all the work you ladies do.”

  Nellie had hung one of her nicest quilts on the living room wall and decorated her dining table with a beautiful runner she’d also designed and sewn.

  The three women sat down to enjoy a glass of wine from the bottle Gloria had brought as a housewarming present.

  “I meant to have you over weeks ago,” Nellie told Gloria. “I’ve just been so busy.”

  Gloria laughed. “Right. I’ve heard about the ghost you’ve been chasing around out here.”

  “There’s no ghost,” said Nellie, irritated the topic had come up again.

  “Well, there’s something,” Fran said. “I have a twisted knee thanks to whatever or whoever it was.”

  “Somebody’s pulling high jinks,” insisted Nellie, staring toward the window from which they could see the area where Fran had her run-in. She frowned, punching at her glasses. “Every once in a while, I still think I see something white moving about in the trees.”

  The women continued to chat as night fell and shadows flitted here and there under the lights of the complex. Nellie was pleased that Gloria and Fran seemed to have so much in common. It turned out Fran had lived in Gloria’s neighborhood before moving to Green Meadows.

  Nellie got up to return her glass to the kitchen, passing the window with the view of the area where Fran had confronted the mystery assailant. She stopped short when she glimpsed something white moving outside. Her eyes widened. A large white figure appeared to be emerging from behind the wall of a town house.

  “I can’t believe it!” Nellie’s cry startled the other two women. “There it is! Speak of the devil...”

  Gloria and Fran both hurried to the window to stare but Nellie was already grabbing her broom to rush outside.

  “It’s not getting away again!” shouted Nellie, whipping open the door.

  “Wait, be careful!”

  Fran’s warning didn’t slow Nellie at all. She hurried down the walkway, aware that Gloria was running after her.

  “There it goes!” shouted Gloria as the bulky white figure slid into view and made haste to escape in the opposite direction. It had two black spots on its back and seemed to be dragging a tail.

  Up ahead, Mr. Cassidy suddenly opened his door...and his mouth at the sight of the invader. “Hey, you!”

  The apparition slowed enough that Nellie was able to give it a good whack with her broom.

  “Ugh...”

  Then Mr. Cassidy faced of
f with the creature and punched it in the face.

  “Yah!” The figure groaned, fell to its knees, then collapsed on the sidewalk.

  Mr. Cassidy hefted the intruder onto its back, revealing the round bearded face of a man dressed in a fuzzy polyester cow suit. It was one piece with a hood from which white ears protruded, along with two rubber horns.

  “It’s that ghost tour guy!” cried Nellie. “Vincent Pryce!”

  “Please,” begged Pryce, raising one white-gloved hand. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

  “No harm?” shouted Nellie. “You’ve scared the heebie-jeebies out of us with your prowling around.”

  “And knocked me down!” cried Fran, who’d managed to make it over from Nellie’s condo.

  “What do you think this is?” Mr. Cassidy took in the costume, including the rubber udder in front. “Halloween?”

  Pryce didn’t answer the question. Instead he pleaded, “Can you help me? The zipper’s stuck. I’ve been in here for hours.”

  “Good,” said Nellie, raising her broom for another blow. “Suffer some more.”

  Mr. Cassidy laughed and blocked Nellie’s arm before she could strike the fallen man again. Behind Nellie, Gloria laughed, as well. The “ghost cow” splayed out on the sidewalk did look ridiculous, Nellie had to admit.

  But she remained serious. “Call the police. This guy is finished scaring people.”

  “I just wanted to drum up business,” Pryce pleaded. “I stayed off the property whenever I could.”

  “But you’re here now,” said Mr. Cassidy. “That’s trespassing.”

  Gloria already had her cell phone out. “I’m calling 911.”

  “Unless you’d rather we just quilt you into that cow suit forever,” said Nellie. “I have the tools.”

  Again, the group laughed. Nellie smiled grimly.

  “Can’t we just take this as a joke?” asked Pryce.

  “No, we can’t,” said Nellie. “We’re putting an end to this nonsense once and for all.”

  * * *

  AS GRACE EXPECTED, they spent a lot of time at the police station once they got back to Sparrow Lake. Alex Novak wanted to talk to everyone, especially Caleb and Angela. Paperwork had to be filed. The state trooper who’d arrested Lily at the cabin had already arrived and she had been booked. Grace wasn’t certain if Lily now occupied a jail cell, but she didn’t ask. She still felt bad for the woman but not bad enough that she thought Lily should have been let off. The outcome of the kidnapping could have been far worse, with Lily leaving the state with Angela. Caleb had been so worried.

  To her surprise, while they were waiting in the lobby of the station, Grace got a call from a deputy who’d been called to Green Meadows. A prowler had been caught.

  The deputy and his prisoner arrived a few minutes later and Grace recognized Vincent Pryce! The ghost tour operator appeared far less energetic than he had the last time Grace saw him, when he was entertaining customers at The Busy Corner. Clad in some sort of Halloween cow costume, he looked extremely silly and ashamed. Both his moustache and the mouth beneath it drooped. He could hardly meet Grace’s eyes.

  A couple of troopers standing around burst into laughter, one of them quipping, “Yee-haw, looks like there was a roundup, pardner!”

  Grace wasn’t sure how she felt. A crowd of residents from Green Meadows swarmed in a few minutes later. They must have followed the squad car in their own vehicles. Both the station and the parking lot outside were buzzing.

  Nellie was among the Green Meadows group. “We caught him!”

  “Vincent Pryce and his ghost tour,” breathed Grace. “I can’t believe he thought he could get away with it.”

  “He didn’t get away,” said Nellie, sounding victorious.

  As he was led past her to the front desk, Pryce caught Grace’s eye. “Look, Ms. Huber, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

  “But you did cause trouble, Mr. Pryce,” Grace said. “Your outfit may be funny but you weren’t trying to amuse anyone.”

  “And you’re pressing charges, right?” the deputy asked Grace. “If nothing else, he was trespassing.”

  “Yes, I’ll press charges,” Grace told him. “He also injured Fran Willowby. Is that assault?”

  “Battery,” said the deputy. “Probably at the misdemeanor level.”

  Caleb came out of Alex Novak’s office to sit down beside her. “I bet he built the scare cow across the road, too.”

  “But that wasn’t on our property.” Though Grace planned to ask the police chief about it.

  A half hour later, the crowd had thinned a bit, though plenty of people were still coming and going at the police station. Returning from getting herself a drink of water from the cooler in the lobby, Grace spotted her dad arriving. He must have driven down from Milwaukee, where the plane was based.

  “Some kind of hullabaloo going on here,” her father remarked, looking around. He was dressed in casual clothes, something rare for a man who lived in suits.

  “It was even busier earlier,” said Caleb, rising to shake Henry’s hand. “We can’t thank you enough for your help with the plane.”

  Grace wasn’t sure if the “we” meant Caleb and daughter or if she counted, as well. When Caleb came closer to slip his arm around her waist, she thought maybe she did.

  Her dad smiled. “You’re only too welcome.”

  “There have been a lot of mysteries solved this afternoon,” Grace told her father. “Residents caught the prowler at Green Meadows.”

  “There was a prowler?” said her dad. “I heard about the vandalism, then the kid on the skateboard. I’ve kind of lost track of all the incidents out there.”

  Grace told him about Vincent Pryce and how the ghost tour operator had dressed up as a cow.

  “I wouldn’t have minded seeing that,” said Dad. “Ghost cow, huh?”

  “They got him out of the cow suit,” said Caleb. “Maybe he’s locked up.”

  When Angela finally came out of the inner offices, Caleb went to see how she was.

  At the same time, her dad pulled Grace aside. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Now?”

  “I don’t know when I’ll find you next.”

  “Okay.” She strolled with him to a quiet corner. “You don’t have to worry about me disappearing again.” She hoped they would never have another terrible argument. At first he seemed to be at a loss for words, so she said, “You’re going to tell me that I’m just finding myself and you forgive me, right?”

  “No.” He actually looked sheepish. “I was out of line. I would never disown you, Grace.” He paused for words again, proving the admission was difficult for him. “I thought it over afterward and was horrified at what I said. I was upset and went too far.” His gaze slid to Caleb. “It’s not easy losing my little girl.”

  Did he mean losing her to a man or to another profession?

  Regardless, she said, “You’ll never lose me, Dad. No matter what I do or who I’m with. We’ll always be family.”

  “I’m proud of you, Grace. Especially that I raised such a caring and wonderful person.”

  They hugged and she pretended she didn’t see the tears in his eyes. She’d rarely seen him so emotional.

  He said, “And you’re right about someone else in the company being interested in taking over when I retire. Is that a relief for you?”

  “It is. But you’re not retiring right away, are you?”

  �
��No.”

  “And I’ll help you with the transition. Again, I appreciate your volunteering the plane, Dad. We found Angela faster because you sighted the smoke.”

  “How is she?”

  “She seems to be fine. And her mother was arrested.”

  Caleb and Angela approached, and Caleb thanked Grace’s father again.

  The older man said, “Hey, since everything is all right, how about some refreshments at the café? The check’s on me.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll let you pay but I could use some grub.” Caleb admitted, “I haven’t had anything since that bit of fish that Angela cooked out in the woods.”

  “She cooked a fish?” Dad asked.

  “And built a shelter,” Grace added.

  Caleb smiled proudly, then looked from Grace to her father. “Is it okay if my mother and a friend of Angela’s joins us? I thought we’d celebrate.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Grace and looped an arm in her dad’s to bring him along as they headed for the door.

  A celebration was definitely in order.

  * * *

  GRACE WAS THANKFUL she’d made up with her father but she still wasn’t sure how secure her relationship with Caleb was. They might love each other, but she refused to stand between a father and daughter.

  They’d both been exhausted the night before, so after eating, Caleb had taken Angela home. Maddie had left with Kiki, saying she would let the girl stay with her while she tried contacting her grandmother.

  Grace still felt a bit worn out herself the next day, but she’d gone into her office anyway and spent the morning trying to get caught up. Early in the afternoon her cell phone rang. She saw that it was Caleb and tried to tamp down a thrill of excitement.

  “Have you recovered yet?” he asked.

  “That may take a few days.”

  “Why don’t you take some time off right now—if you can—and drop by to see Angela’s new design for the green community’s mural?”

  “She has something already?”

  “Already? It’s been a while. She had the sketches done before the kidnapping.”