Good Guy Heroes Boxed Set

by Julie Ortolon

  Grateful for the interruption, Kate rose from the desk wedged into the corner of her bedroom and stretched her back. Though minuscule in size, the room perfectly reflected her personality, a style she’d dubbed bohemian chic. While very feminine, it leaned more toward funky than fussy. Gauzy white curtains helped relieve the darkness of the cabin’s wood walls, and a colorful mishmash of pillows from a thrift shop added interest to the plain white duvet she’d found at an online clearance site. Knowing that formal, stiff Edward would hate it—if he ever saw anything more than the cabin’s main room—made her love it even more. After so many years of feeling stifled and constrained, she enjoyed letting her creativity run free.

  “Hey there, big guy,” Linda was saying to Dylan as Kate joined them in the area that served as living room, breakfast nook, and kitchen. “What are you doing home on a school day?”

  A deep-chested cough cut off Dylan’s reply.

  “We had a little episode last night,” Kate said by way of explanation, intentionally downplaying her son’s frequent and terrifying asthma attacks in front of him.

  “Well, I don’t know.” Linda bent as far forward as her heavily pregnant body would allow. “You look pretty chipper to me, kid. You wouldn’t be playing hooky, now would you?”

  “Nah.” Dylan giggled as Linda attacked his ribs with tickling fingers. The two made quite a picture, both as little as pixies, but Linda’s healthy color and blond hair contrasted sharply with her son’s milk-white skin and jet-black curls. As for their laughter, the sound made her smile. Since moving to the lake, Dylan had slowly started coming out of his shell.

  “Speaking of people who look chipper,” Linda said to Kate as she straightened, “you’re sure looking better today. Yesterday, when you picked Dylan up, you looked ready to collapse.”

  “I felt ready to collapse, and still do,” Kate admitted as she headed for the kitchen area of the rustic fishing cabin that had been in Jim’s family for generations. Linda and Jim had even lived in it for the first few months of their marriage, until Jim finished building his bride a more suitable house up the hill. Since then, Kate had rented the cabin and been thankful for a place she could afford, no matter how small. “So, how about joining me on the deck for some iced tea?”

  “As long as I can sit down to drink it.” Linda sighed and placed one hand at the small of her back, making her pregnant belly protrude.

  “Me too,” Dylan said. “I’m tired of staying inside.”

  “Hmmm, I don’t know.” Kate studied him. His breathing still sounded wheezy to her. She picked up the peak flow meter, which sat on the counter next to his numerous medicine bottles. The plastic tube allowed her to monitor the air flow to his lungs. “Let’s see how you’re doing.”

  With a dramatic sigh, Dylan came over and blew three times as hard as he could into the mouthpiece. Turning the tube sideways, Kate noted the final reading. “Sorry,” she said, trying not to look too worried at the low number. “Not quite good enough to go outside in all those yucky pollens.”

  “Oh, Mom!” He slumped in disappointment. “Staying inside is boring.”

  “How about I let you play games on my computer?” she offered.

  His eyes brightened. “You mean it?”

  “You betcha.” She tweaked his nose. “But only while Linda and I are visiting. Then I’ll need to get back to work. Okay?”

  “Hot dog!” He dashed toward her bedroom with enough enthusiasm to make her laugh. Her smile faded, though, as she remembered how he’d struggled for every breath the night before.

  “I never should have left him,” she whispered, turning to fill two glasses with iced tea. “I know how any stress can trigger an attack.”

  “Ka-ate.” Linda sighed in exasperation. “You’re beating yourself up for nothing. He was fine while you were gone. Really.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, desperate to allay her guilt.

  “I swear,” Linda insisted. “When I picked him up from school, you’d have thought the kid was on vacation. We stopped for pizza on the way home. Then he and Jim spent the evening in the workshop doing he-man stuff with hammers and saws.”

  “Saws?” Kate’s heart dropped. They’d let a seven year-old boy who couldn’t tie his own shoes near finger-severing blades? And all that sawdust?

  “Would you stop it?” Linda gave her a stern look. “You keep saying you want Dylan to live a normal life, then you turn right around and try to seal him in a glass bubble.”

  “You’re right.” She took a calming breath. “I just… worry.”

  “I know.” Sympathy softened Linda’s face. “But Dylan is going to be fine, and it’s far too pretty a day to waste on worry.” Taking one of the glasses, Linda led the way to the back deck.

  The warm spring air flooded Kate’s senses as she followed her friend outside. Sunlight dappled the stretch of land that sloped down from her cabin to the water’s edge. Beneath a stand of oaks, a herd of deer stripped the lower branches bare.

  Settling in one of Jim’s handmade wooden chairs, Linda propped her glass on her rounded belly, let her head fall against the chair back, and sighed in relief. “So, you want to tell me about your meeting with Gwen?”

  Instantly deflated, Kate sank into the other chair. “She put me on probation.”

  “Probation?” Linda frowned.

  “That’s better than outright canceling my column.” Kate shrugged.

  “Cancel you!” A militant light flashed in Linda’s eyes. “That’s absurd. If not for you, Gwen wouldn’t have anywhere near the traffic she gets at her online magazine.”

  Kate hid a smile at her friend’s vehement reaction. They’d known each other barely three years, yet Linda was her staunchest supporter. They’d met when Linda had written to Cupid asking for advice on how to attract the eye of the building contractor who was remodeling the bank where she’d worked at the time. She’d claimed that every time she saw him with his mile-wide shoulders and tool belt slung low on his trim hips, her heart melted right to her toes. Yet if she tried to talk to him, he just stared at her as if she were an idiot.

  Little had Linda known that Jim was also writing to Cupid, pleading for advice on how to ask out the pretty bank teller who looked so delicate that the mere thought of touching her with his big, callused hands scared the hell out of him.

  If not for Cupid, they both claimed they never would have made it to their first date, much less gotten married. When they finally figured out the other one had been going to the same source for help, they’d laughed until their sides ached, then invited Cupid to the wedding.

  Kate had been delighted by the invitation. While it wasn’t the first or last she’d received, the wedding had been the closest to where she lived so she’d decided to attend. The three of them had been friends ever since.

  “How can Gwen even think of canceling you?” Linda asked, eyes blazing. “You have a lot of loyal followers.”

  “It’s business.” Kate made a valiant attempt to look as if she didn’t care. In truth, the current strife between her and Gwen made her stomach hurt almost as much as it had during her divorce. It didn’t feel like business. She and Gwen had been friends since they’d roomed together in college. Did the term friends even apply anymore, now that Gwen had gone on to become a highly successful owner of an online magazine? She frowned at the thought, then pushed it aside. “Gwen says my posts and responses to readers have become too negative. I’m supposed to keep it light and encourage women to purchase lingerie and perfume from her advertisers. The problem is, I don’t feel like being breezy when people email me with serious relationship problems. How can I, in good conscience, tell some woman whose husband verbally abuses her to indulge in chocolate bonbons and a long, hot bubble bath? Those things won’t make her problems go away.”

  “No,” Linda agreed, “but reading your column might make her believe that love does exist, and that she deserves to go after it.”

  “I wish I could believe that as easily as
I used to.”

  “Of course you believe it,” Linda insisted. “You talked Jim and me into going for it.”

  “Because you and Jim were obviously perfect for each other,” Kate pointed out, not mentioning that they had approached her before her marriage turned sour.

  “Well, what about the women whose only marital problem is boredom in the bedroom?” Linda raised a brow. “Let’s face it, Kate, you’ve suggested some very clever ways for couples to avoid that trap.”

  “Too bad I didn’t take my own advice.” A bitter laugh escaped her. Toward the end of her marriage to Edward, the spark between them had died completely.

  “Kate…” Linda growled. “That wasn’t your fault.”

  “Well, not entirely.”

  Linda sipped thoughtfully at her tea. “Have you considered what you’ll do? If Gwen really does cancel Dear Cupid?”

  “I could always go back to school,” Kate said, only half joking. “Maybe get a master’s in psychology.”

  “A master’s in psychology?” Linda looked dubious.

  “Well, it’s more useful than some of the other subjects I studied in college, like art history or medieval poetry, especially if one wants to get a job as a therapist.”

  Linda waved the comment aside. “You’re already a therapist… of sorts.”

  “I meant a licensed therapist, or counselor, or whatever the correct term is,” Kate clarified, then frowned as she realized how little she knew about the specifics. “I guess I need to look into what it would entail.”

  Linda cocked her head to study her. “You don’t sound too thrilled about being a licensed therapist.”

  Linda was right; she wasn’t thrilled at the idea of doing anything but writing her column. Not only did it allow her to be home for Dylan, but she enjoyed hearing little snippets of people’s lives, getting to know a few of them beyond that first letter, feeling that her advice had in some small way helped them find happiness. Lately, though, she’d started to feel like a fraud. What right did someone with a failed marriage have to give advice on romance to anyone?

  She shook her head to dispel the sense of gloom. “I’m more worried about how I’ll afford tuition if I go back to school, not to mention little things like food and rent. I don’t exactly have a plethora of job skills.”

  “Well…” A mischievous smile slowly turned up the corners of Linda’s mouth. “There is one thing you could do.”

  Kate narrowed her eyes. “Linda Davis, what are you thinking?”

  “That you could come to work for me.”

  “Absolutely not.” Kate rose in a rush that startled the deer.

  “Why not?” Linda asked.

  “Because—” Kate paced before the rail. “It is not your responsibility to provide me with a job. Good heavens, you’ve given me a place to live for next to nothing and you babysit Dylan all the time for free. I’ve been a total leech since I moved out here, but I draw the line at taking your income.”

  “Would you quit?” Linda laughed. “You won’t be taking my income. Wife for Hire has generated more work than I can handle right now. With the baby coming, I couldn’t possibly take on another account, but I need to keep growing the business to afford this baby. You’d be helping me, Kate. I mean that. Truth is, I need you.”

  Kate studied her friend’s face. She couldn’t quite picture the Queen of Efficiency needing help. Still, Linda did have a baby on the way. Babies took time and money.

  “It wouldn’t have to be long-term,” Linda continued, as if sensing her weakness. “You could try one account, see how you like it.”

  “You’d get a percentage, right?”

  Linda nodded. “Once I’m back up to full speed, you can quit if you want, no hard feelings.”

  “What exactly would I have to do?” Kate asked cautiously.

  “You mean, you’ll take the job?”

  “Maybe. But only if it doesn’t involve anything remotely like bookkeeping.”

  The fear was legitimate, since Wife for Hire offered services that ranged from picking up dry cleaning to balancing the family checkbook. In the year since Linda had started the business, Kate had seen her walk dogs, shuttle kids to soccer practice, organize dinner parties, and decorate Christmas trees. The variety of work had a certain appeal, and Kate could easily understand why her friend preferred it to being a bank teller.

  “Actually,” Linda said as she pulled a slip of paper from the pocket of her maternity shorts, “I’m not sure what this job will include. The call just came in this morning. He said he’s a bachelor and, next to single moms, they make the best clients.”

  “Why, you little snake.” Kate raised her brow in a good-natured accusation at the sight of the note. “You had this in mind before you even came down here, didn’t you?”

  “It never hurts to be prepared,” Linda said primly. “Besides, the client specifically requested you.”

  “Me?” Kate’s eyes went round.

  “Apparently you recommended my service to him.” Linda flashed her a grin. “Nothing new there. Several of the clients I’ve landed in the last year were referrals from you, for which I will be forever in your debt.”

  “Passing out a few business cards isn’t exactly a strain,” Kate pointed out.

  “Maybe not, but when this guy called this morning and mentioned you, I said I wished I could talk you into working for me. He said he’d like to hire my service, but would prefer dealing with you since he already knew you.”

  “So, what’s his name?”

  Linda glanced at her notes. “Michael Cameron. Lives over in Lakeway,” she added, referring to the resort community that seemed like a separate world from the hodgepodge neighborhood where they lived.

  “Michael Cameron.” Kate tested the name. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Well, he’s expecting you today at one o’clock.”

  “Linda, I can’t go today. Not with Dylan home sick.”

  “Hogwash. I’ll watch Dylan, and it won’t be any trouble at all since I plan to spend the day catching up on paperwork. I can bring my laptop down here and work. So, no excuses. Just go.” She held out the note.

  Taking it, Kate glanced at the address and raised a brow. Lakeway alone was exclusive enough, but this was one of the streets on which the real money lived. “Challenger Drive, eh? Pretty fancy digs for a bachelor.”

  “Honey, in this business, wealthy bachelors are a dream come true. So go get ’em.”

  Chapter 4

  *

  THE MOMENT KATE drove through the main entrance to Lakeway, her shoulders tightened. The neighborhood looked too much like the one where she and Edward had lived. Professionally landscaped lawns surrounded custom-built homes, herds of deer roamed picturesque golf-cart paths, and turtles sunned themselves on the banks of a tranquil pond.

  Beautiful as it was, it brought back too many memories of being gradually relegated to the bottom of her husband’s priority list.

  Writing the Dear Cupid column had saved her self-esteem during those years. As Cupid, her opinions had value. Writing the column had helped her to endure, so her son could be raised in his father’s world.

  Until his father made it brutally clear he no longer wanted either of them there.

  Now here she was, returning to the world of the upper crust as the hired help. How appropriate.

  She tried to not think about it. This job would help her do what Dear Cupid hadn’t: provide her son with the life he deserved. Working for Gwen simply didn’t pay enough. Her chances of getting a raise had dwindled along with the traffic her column generated.

  That, however, was about to change. The more she thought about working for Linda, the more she liked the idea. After all, Wife for Hire had introduced Linda to all kinds of interesting people. Who knew what doors it might open for her? Maybe some opportunity would present itself that would enable her to become the independent, self-sufficient woman she dreamed of being.

  Her spirits lifted further as she toppe
d a hill high enough for her to see over the rooftops of the houses to the wide expanse of Lake Travis. Its royal blue water sparkled in the sunlight as its inlets stretched out among the rolling green hills. Sailboats drifted over the surface, the spring breeze filling their sails. Dropping down, she turned onto Challenger Drive, which followed the top of the cliff that formed the lake’s south shore. The hilly terrain allowed houses on both the high side and cliff side to have breathtaking views. The jumble of pastel stucco and white stone homes with terracotta tile roofs looked as if a slice of the Riviera had been dropped in the middle of the Texas Hill Country.

  Finding the address Linda had given her, Kate saw her client lived on the cliff side, where the lot alone would cost double just for having lake access. Rather than attempt the short but extremely steep driveway, she parked her battered compact on the street.

  Like many waterfront houses, this one looked unimpressive when seen from land. With the street practically level with the tile roof, all she could see were the garage doors and the entry to the top floor. If viewed from the lake, however, she imagined the house would present a much grander sight, with an expansive balcony along the top floor, and at least one lower level with a terraced, stair-stepped landscape before the land gave way to sheer cliff. Metal stairs, or possibly even an electric tram, would lead down to a private dock for some outrageously expensive sailboat or cabin cruiser.

  Once, the thought of living in such a house would have thrilled her. No more. She’d rather live in a shack with someone who honestly cared about her than the finest mansion in the world.

  She hoped the wealthy bachelor who wanted to hire Linda’s service had his priorities in the right order, or she might have trouble keeping her opinions to herself.

  Getting out, she ran a hasty hand over her apricot silk pants suit and prayed she’d dressed appropriately. Life at the lake, even at this income level, tended to be more casual than her life as a society wife in Austin. Unfortunately, her clothes fell into two categories: BD and AD. Her BD, or Before Divorce, clothes bore names like Christian Dior and Liz Claiborne. Her After Divorce clothes ran more toward funky thrift shop finds, which allowed her to indulge her creativity even on a tight budget. For her initial meeting with her first client, she’d decided to err on the side of too dressy, rather than too artsy.