Nora's Guy Next Door

by Jo McNally

  Cathy swallowed hard. Then she moved around the end of the counter, but no closer to Grace. She had a clear path, but she wasn’t taking the first step. Nora willed her to do it, but both women were immobilized. Grace by anger. Cathy by fear.

  Nora couldn’t take it any longer. There was a flash of surprise in Grace’s eyes when Nora walked over and took her hand.

  “Honey, you’re asking questions that can’t be answered easily or quickly. But your grandmother didn’t even know you existed until last year.” Grace’s eyes went wide. “And the minute she did learn about you, she sold the only thing she’d ever owned—this coffee shop—to help you.”

  The girl wasn’t giving up her anger and hurt that easily. “She didn’t come see me. She didn’t call me. She just sent guilt money.”

  “No...” Cathy grimaced, trying to come up with the right words. “Well...yes. I have a lot to feel guilty about. Paisley had to put herself through school. I didn’t want you to have to do that, Grace. Call it guilt money if you want, but I call it love money. From the moment I heard about you, I’ve loved you.” Grace’s eyes shone with unshed tears, and Nora suspected her own did, as well. “I know you have questions, and I promise to answer every single one.”

  Grace looked to Nora, then back to Cathy.

  “Why did you name her Paisley?”

  Nora and Cathy both laughed. “Oh, great, start with the last story I want to share with a teenager! Why don’t we go back to my place and I’ll tell you all about your mom, including how she got her name?”

  She took a step forward. Grace recoiled, but she caught herself and met Cathy’s gaze straight on. Cathy opened her arms, and Nora barely breathed as she watched mistrust and longing battling inside Grace. Finally the girl stepped into her grandmother’s embrace. Nora quickly grabbed a pile of napkins from the counter, and all three women used them liberally to dry their tears.

  Cathy took the next day off, not returning to the shop until after Grace caught her flight back to Seattle. Her smile was not only endless, it was contagious, and the shop still hummed with her positive energy. Even Asher noticed when he stopped in for his morning coffee. He glanced around and winked at Cathy.

  “You sure you’re only selling coffee in this place? It feels as though some herbal remedies are in use here today.”

  Cathy laughed. “Nothing but peace and love touching us here today, neighbor. Peace and love.” She looked between him and Nora, who was at the cash register, and lowered her voice. “Peace and love for all of us, I think.”

  Nora blushed as Asher watched her intensely. When she took his money, his fingers wrapped around hers and held on.

  “I want to take you out to dinner tonight. Someplace special. And, yes, someplace out of town so no one will see us. Pick you up at six?” She nodded, feeling like a teenager invited to prom. They were going out somewhere nice. On a real date. Maybe it was time to tell him she was falling in love with him.

  “Six is good. I’ll be ready.”

  The noon rush was just winding down when Becky stopped in. Nora smiled, surprised to see her, but it faded quickly when she realized her daughter had been crying. Her cheeks were blotchy and red, and her eyes glistened with more tears to come.

  “What is it, honey? What’s happened?” Nora guided Becky to a corner table in the nearly empty café. “Are you sick? Is the baby okay?” Becky sat and shook her head. Cathy brought them two steaming mugs—coffee for Nora and herbal tea for Becky. Nora was just about to burst out of her skin when Becky began to wail.

  “I’m so fat and ugly right now! I shouldn’t even be surprised.” She sniffed and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. Nora had a hard time not smiling at her distraught daughter. This was a hormonal moment every pregnant woman experienced sooner or later.

  “Honey, you’re more beautiful than ever.” It was true. Becky’s skin glowed with health and her hair had grown longer than usual. “You’re not fat, you’re pregnant, and you wear it well. Now, tell me, what happened to upset you? Did Michael say something stupid?” Men could be such clods sometimes. He probably made a comment about her size that set her off.

  Becky laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I don’t know, Mom, why don’t you ask the hot blonde he was talking to this morning? When he was supposed to be in New York listening to a lecture!”

  Nora went very still. Pregnancy hormones could do a lot of things to a woman’s self-esteem and judgment. And an eighteen-year-old was shaky in those departments anyway. But Nora had been married to an unfaithful man, and it was one thing she never wanted her daughter to deal with.

  “Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?”

  “Oh, my God, Mom! Don’t you believe me?” More tears soaked Becky’s face as she took a ragged breath.

  “Honey, I just want to understand what happened.”

  “I decided to take a walk this morning, because it was such a nice day. I took that stupid shore walk, along the lake.” The Gallant Lake business chamber had been planning on expanding the boardwalk for a while, connecting various docks and walkways behind the businesses along the water. They hoped to start the project in earnest that summer.

  “That’s when I saw them. Michael and some blonde. At first I thought I was wrong, that it just looked like him from behind, but he turned to face her and it was him. I ducked into one of the alleyways and watched, like I was on some horrible soap opera. She reached out and put her hand on him, and he stood there! He didn’t shake her off, Mom. He stood there with her touching him.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t stand to watch anymore. I came up the alley and walked around town for a while, then ended up here.” Nora’s heart ached. “You should have seen how pretty she was, Mom. Older, I think. Older than Michael. Tall and thin and classy. So put together, you know? Makeup, hair, clothes—the whole package. Everything I’m not. Why wouldn’t he fall for a woman like that when I’m such a hot mess?”

  “Okay. First, we don’t know for sure he’s done anything of the sort.” A sour taste rose in Nora’s mouth as she said the words. “She might be a classmate. Or an old friend. Maybe even a relative. You don’t know.”

  But I’m sure as hell going to find out.

  “Mom, he lied to me! He’s supposed to be in class today.” Becky sat back in her chair, dejected, then fixed a cold stare on Nora. “I know what happened. His dad got to him. The man you’re sleeping with just broke off my engagement.”

  Nora blinked. “What are you talking about? Asher wouldn’t do that.”

  “Really, Mom? Because your lover offered my fiancé a free ride to Stanford months ago if he’d leave me. He told Michael he’d pay him to move to California if he left me and the baby behind.” The words were like a body blow to Nora’s chest. Had Asher offered to pay Michael to abandon her pregnant daughter?

  “Michael initially laughed it off, but his dad wouldn’t quit. And I guess now he’s finally convinced him to leave me. Maybe he even introduced Michael to this woman. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  Nora was silent. She couldn’t deny how vehemently Asher opposed the wedding, and even the baby. In the beginning, he’d even hinted Becky should get an abortion.

  But he’d changed lately. He’d mellowed about the baby and even admitted just a few nights ago that he was proud of Michael for manning up and accepting responsibility. Of course, he could be proud of his son’s honorable intentions while still trying to change his mind. She pushed her suspicions aside, refusing to believe it of the man she’d given her heart to.

  “I know Asher didn’t want you and Michael getting married, but to be fair, honey, neither did I. And you’re making a big leap from seeing Michael talking to some stranger to believing he’s leaving you. You’ll feel silly if this is all just a misunderstanding. Why don’t you go
home and talk to him? Remember what you told me about you two basing your relationship on trust and listening to each other?”

  Becky was quiet for a moment, scowling at her coffee mug. Then she nodded, turning her head and grimacing as she rubbed her neck.

  “Okay, I’ll give him a chance to explain. One chance. And he’d better not lie to me again. But first I have a doctor’s appointment.” Nora sat forward and Becky shook her head. “Chill, Mother. It’s just blood work. Then I’ll go home, and you can bet Michael and I are going to talk.” Becky frowned again. “She was just so pretty and thin...”

  “Honey, when you’re pregnant, everyone looks prettier and thinner to you. But not to the people who love you.” She thought about the time she’d spent with Michael and Becky. “I really think Michael loves you.”

  Becky sounded fierce. “I know he loves me.”

  Another mercurial mood change. Becky had gone from accusing Michael of leaving her to defending his honor. Nora took Becky’s hand.

  “Then give him a chance to tell you the truth.” They sat together while Becky composed herself. By the time she left for her appointment, her tears were dried and her complexion somewhat back to normal. Most important, her smile, while a bit tremulous, was back in place.

  As soon as she left, Nora made sure Cathy was okay on her own, and she headed out the door. The Peyton men were pushing their luck with all this secrecy and nonsense. She was going to have a talk with both of them.

  And first up was the guy next door.

  * * *

  ASHER POLISHED THE final coat of finish on the dresser top with a massive wad of cheesecloth. Layer after layer had been applied and sanded and polished, and now the cherrywood was gleaming. The drawers sat nearby, fronts up, waiting for the same treatment before he assembled the unit, added the hardware and returned the dresser to his client.

  It was a good thing he was doing such mindless work today, because he couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d seen that morning. His first stop after getting coffee and before opening his shop had been the hardware store across the street.

  He’d run out of the tiny wood screws he needed to attach the back panel to the dresser, and he knew Nate would probably have them, since Nate always seemed to have everything. People joked that Nate was secretly a magician, since no matter what it was you needed, he’d manage to find it in the narrow aisles or dusty upstairs loft. And, sure enough, he found a single box of the exact wood screws Asher was looking for.

  Nate had offered him coffee, and Asher surprised them both by accepting it. Nora’s constant harping on his antisocial tendencies had gotten under his skin, and he wanted to prove to himself he was still capable of carrying on a friendly conversation with someone. Nate wasn’t exactly a stranger, but they weren’t close friends, either. Mainly because Asher had regularly rebuffed Nate’s attempts to work together for the betterment of the downtown area. He’d never been much of a joiner.

  But this morning, after already drinking a cup of Nora’s espresso, he’d accepted a cup of coffee so thick it looked like tar and sat down with Nate in the back room of the hardware store, where a window looked out over the lake. In the distance, he could see Blake Randall’s resort and golf course sprawled along the shoreline, and beyond that, the pink granite castle the Randalls called home. There really was quite a view on this side of the street, and he started paying attention when Nate said the same thing.

  “I don’t know what the town’s founders were thinking, having the businesses on our side of the street face the road instead of the water. Sure, the fronts of the buildings look fine on Main Street. But if you walk the lakefront, you’re looking at dingy old backs of dingy old buildings. Locked-up back doors instead of storefronts. Imagine the tourists we could bring downtown if they could walk and shop right along the water. If we complete the boardwalk, we can add gazebos and maybe get a couple restaurants to move down here. Think how nice it would be in the summer to dine outside and...”

  Nate’s enthusiasm was admirable, but Asher had lost track of the conversation when he saw a familiar figure standing on one of the few existing sections of wooden walkway. It was Michael. He wasn’t alone. But he wasn’t with Becky.

  He was talking to a striking blonde who was wearing an expensive suit that fit her figure perfectly. The two were standing close, as if they didn’t want anyone to overhear. She was older than Michael—maybe in her thirties. The woman reached out and touched his arm, and Michael left her hand there as the conversation continued. Eventually the blonde walked away, and his son turned and left in the opposite direction. Asher had politely extracted himself from Nate’s sales pitch about the shore walk and gone back to his shop, half hoping he’d see Michael there, but no such luck.

  Asher stood up from rubbing the dresser and stretched. The irony was that two months ago, he’d have been thrilled to see his son paying attention to a beautiful woman who wasn’t trying to rope him into marriage. Michael stepping out on Becky would have solved a lot of problems. But now his stomach was sour and so was his mood.

  Michael and Becky were good together. Sure, they were young and stupid, but they made a good little team. The idea that Michael might be cheating on her didn’t sit well. First, that wasn’t something Asher ever imagined his son would do—be unfaithful to someone. And since spending more time with Nora, Asher had gained a new appreciation for love and family. He’d known for a while that his offer to Michael was a mistake, but he hadn’t done anything to correct it.

  He tossed the polishing cloth on the workbench and poured a splash of whiskey into a shot glass. He needed something to dull the sharp pricks of guilt he was feeling like needles on the inside of his chest.

  He’d be a hypocrite if he continued to let Michael think he wanted him to leave Becky. He should have talked to him before now. Told him he’d changed his mind. Told him he wanted him to stay with the girl he’d fallen in love with, because Asher was going to stay with the woman he’d fallen in love with. He set the glass on the workbench with a thud.

  He was in love with Nora Bradford.

  There was no sense denying it. She’d taken his heart away and he didn’t even care, because without her he didn’t need it. He reflected on that surprising revelation for a minute before remembering he might have ruined everything. If Michael did something stupid, like leave Becky, it would be Asher’s fault. And Nora would never forgive him.

  He grabbed his phone and dialed his son’s number. If they met at the mountain house, they could have the conversation away from any curious eyes, like Nora or the pretty blonde stranger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  NORA WAS MOMENTARILY frustrated when she found Asher’s shop closed, with a Be Back Soon sign hanging in the window. Fine. If she couldn’t find one Peyton man, she’d find the other. She pulled her phone out right there on the sidewalk and called Michael. It took three rings, but he finally answered.

  “Nora?” He was on speakerphone, and it sounded like he was in a vehicle.

  “You and I need to talk, Michael. Right now.”

  “My dad just called and asked me to meet him up on the mountain. I’ll stop by aft...”

  “Your father can wait. I need to know what’s going on with you and Becky.”

  Silence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No? Let’s start with you having an intimate conversation in a public place with a beautiful woman this morning.”

  Michael’s voice turned cold. “Who told you that?”

  “Becky saw you, you idiot!”

  “Oh, shit.”

  Nora didn’t bother responding.

  “It’s not what you think, okay? I was trying to protect Becky. Look, I’m two minutes from town. I’ll stall my dad and meet you at the café.”

  Nora shook her head. “Meet me upstairs. This is not
a conversation I want to have in public.”

  “Nora, I didn’t...”

  “I’ll see you in a few minutes.” She hung up and stalked back into the café, waving off Cathy’s curious look. She’d only been upstairs long enough to pour a glass of water when Michael knocked.

  He was so pale his dark beard stood out even more than usual. His eyes had shadows under them, as if he hadn’t slept.

  Nora nodded to a barstool. “Sit. And start talking.”

  His chin lifted defiantly. “And you’ll listen? Or have you already made up your mind and condemned me?”

  “Save the pity party for later. I just spent an hour calming my hysterical daughter, who thinks you’re leaving her, just like your father wanted you to. Is that true, by the way? Did Asher bribe you to leave Becky?”

  She was supposed to be grilling him about the blonde. But she had to know the truth about Asher.

  “I... He...sort of. I mean...he offered to pay for college if I went to California. But I never considered it, and that was months ago. He made the offer in December, for crying out loud.” Michael’s puppy-dog eyes almost made Nora soften. Almost.

  “Did he ever rescind the offer?”

  He looked down at the counter, unable to meet her eyes.

  “No.”

  Nora gripped the counter tightly. Asher wanted his son to abandon her daughter. How could she have been so stupid as to fall in love with another man who couldn’t be honest with her? She was so lost in her personal struggle that it took a moment for Michael’s next words to sink in.

  “That blonde was asking about Becky’s dad.”

  Nora flashed from hot anger to cold fear. “The woman this morning? Asked about Paul?”

  He nodded, staring first at his hands clenched tightly together on the counter in front of him, then up at Nora.

  “Becky went to bed early last night. When her phone rang, I thought it was her girlfriend Taneishia from school. They were trying to hook up to go shopping this weekend, and Becky was expecting her call. I didn’t want to wake her, so I grabbed it and answered in the other room.” His expression hardened. “It was a woman named Daphne Tomlin.”