What a Woman

by Judi Fennell

  “Now where’s the fun in that? Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I left it with the 1542 Martinsons.” She tapped the top of the frame to give the all-clear. “Those people could suck the life out of any party.”

  “Just the sixteenth-century ones? Sweetheart, have you been in any other hallway in this place?”

  She groaned. “More than I wanted to.”

  Jared set the frame against the wall and tugged Mac around the corner. He wrapped his arms around her and picked her up, pressing her against the wall to plant a quick kiss on her startled mouth. “I’ve been wanting to do that all day.”

  “But you did it so many times this morning.”

  “Last night, too, but it doesn’t seem to be enough.”

  Mac’s grin took him right back to last night and this morning—until it froze on her face when she looked over his shoulder.

  The hairs on the back of Jared’s neck prickled and he let her slide to the floor before he turned around.

  “Hello, darling.”

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here, Camille? How did you know where I was?”

  She crossed her arms and cocked her hip. “You’re not the only one who has someone on the payroll.” The bitch smiled that smile he used to think was sexy but now saw for calculating. “Come on, sweetheart. You don’t have to pretend in front of everyone. I got the gifts you left for me in the condo today.”

  He felt Mac stiffen beside him.

  “They were so thoughtful.” She sauntered up to him and placed a clawed hand on his shoulder with the scantest of glances toward Mac. “Your apology’s accepted.”

  “I’m not apologizing for anything.”

  “But you’re not denying the gifts.”

  Mac sidestepped away from him.

  “Mac, don’t listen to her.”

  That was like telling a bull not to charge a red flag. Unfortunately, Mac chose to storm off without a word, and he couldn’t even run after her, thanks to the bitch in front of him.

  “My, my, did we break another heart, Jared?” Camille stroked a fingernail down his cheek.

  Jared thrust her hand away from him. “Get out, Camille. You’ve caused enough damage.”

  “You haven’t even begun to see the damage I can cause, Jared. That little stunt? My lawyer is already drawing up charges.”

  “Did you go to his office to talk to him about it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Did you pack a bag?”

  That took her off her high horse. She looked at him suspiciously. “Of course. I’m not about to let my things get polluted by that mess.”

  “Perfect. Good luck getting back inside the condo.”

  “You can’t toss me out. There are eviction laws against it.”

  “Considering you left voluntarily—bags packed—we can safely say you left of your own accord.” The smirk slid off her face—and onto his. “And there are trespassing laws as well, so I suggest you stay off the premises. The locks are being changed as we speak.”

  “Why—You—” She stomped her foot. He’d paid for those very expensive heels and wouldn’t mind if they chose now to fall apart.

  Camille spun around and stormed off the way Mac had gone, only to spin around again and head back his way, finger pointing at him like a lance.

  “Listen, you hack. Don’t you think you can do this to me. I’ll destroy you. I’ll drag your name through the mud so many times no one will remember what it is. I’ll—”

  “’Scuse me.” Little Maggie ran in from the other hallway. “Are you guys fighting?”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” Camille glared at him.

  The little girl stuck her thumb in her mouth and looked at the two of them.

  Jared glared back, then dropped to Maggie’s level. “I’m sorry, Maggie. No, sweetie, we’re not fighting. We’re having a disagreement.”

  “Oh. I have disabeements with my brothers. But then they get out the lightsabers and try to chop my head off. You’re not gonna do that are you?”

  Much as he’d like to, he shook his head. “No, sweetheart. I’m not going to chop off her head with a lightsaber.”

  Camille crossed her arms and tapped the toe of one of those shoes. “You might as well, Jared. Where do you think we—I mean, where am I supposed to go now?”

  “Ask your lawyer if he’s so full of answers.” He planted a hand on the wall to stand up, then held it out for Maggie. “Now, if you don’t mind, Camille, I have other things to deal with. I presume I’ll be seeing you in court. Or maybe, since you’ll actually have to start paying rent somewhere, you’ll want to save the attorney’s fees and just give it up. You’ve taken enough from me. Call it a day, will you? Don’t you get tired of fighting? You had your time in the limelight, now go enjoy obscurity.”

  “Big words coming from you, Jared, especially since you might never play again.”

  “Sure he can,” said Maggie, the biggest smile on her face. “He can play with me.”

  Maggie’s innocent remark settled around his heart as if it belonged there. “Don’t worry about me, Camille. I’ll be just fine. Come on, Maggie. Let’s go find Mac.”

  Maggie looked up at him with her big eyes. “Why? Did she get lost?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  MAC swiped the tears off her face.

  Dammit. She’d fallen for him again and he’d used her. How could she have forgotten about Camille? The woman he’d fallen in love with. The woman he’d lived with.

  The woman he’d gone to this morning after spending last night with her.

  She had no clue why he’d leave their bed and go back to Camille on the same freaking morning! Within the space of half an hour!

  She’d misjudged him. All these years, she’d held out the fantasy of him as Prince Charming, and when she’d finally taken him off that pedestal to see him as a man, she still hadn’t seen the truth.

  The Maeves and Renees and Juliettes of the world should have told her, but she’d been too blind to see it.

  Well she was seeing it now. Well, sort of. It was hard to see through tears.

  Women were available to Jared whenever he wanted and she’d just become one in a long line.

  And she’d let herself fall in love with him. Again. God, she was pathetic.

  She slowed to a stop at the next traffic light. Turning right would send her to Mildred’s.

  She didn’t want to go back there.

  When the light turned green, she went straight. Straight home. Straight to where she could lick her wounds and soothe her battered heart in the place that had always given her solace.

  She pulled up to her street and turned right, then curved around to the left.

  She pulled into the driveway of her childhood home. All the memories she’d had here, all the hopes and dreams. And that damn walkway where Jared had broken her heart. She should have remembered that night.

  Crud, and she should have remembered her key. Damn, she’d left it at Mildred’s.

  Mac plunked her butt down on the front porch stoop. She was going to have to go back there. Or she could drive back to the estate and grab a spare from one of her brothers, but that would involve questions about why she’d just up and left without a good-bye to anyone.

  Questions she didn’t want to answer.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  JARED found her just where he knew she’d be.

  “Hey,” he said when he got out of his car in her driveway and saw her sitting on the front step of her grandmother’s house. “Forget your key?”

  She looked up and, God, the pain he saw there. “It’s back at Mildred’s and I . . . I didn’t feel like going there.”

  Because he’d be there. Because she though
t he’d hurt her again.

  He walked up that path that held one of the saddest memories of his life. “I’m sorry, Mac.”

  “For what exactly, Jared?” She tucked some hair behind her ear.

  He sat next to her on the stoop. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about going to the condo today.”

  The raw pain he saw in her eyes sliced across his heart.

  “Why did you?”

  He took her hand in his. “I wanted to get her out.”

  “But why today? After . . . well, after last night?”

  He covered her hand with his other one. “Something Liam said.”

  “Liam? What does he have to do with this? Is he trying to pay me back for winning that damn game?”

  “I hope you don’t consider me payback, Mac. I was hoping to be the jackpot.”

  She bit her lip.

  It was too soon for jokes.

  He slid closer and nudged her with his shoulder. “I went to the condo with the kittens.”

  “You gave her our kittens?”

  He loved the way she called them theirs. “Let’s just say I loaned them to her. For a little housekeeping.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “She’s allergic to fur, remember? The place will now have to be fumigated for her to live there. So she left, and because she packed a bag, she can’t say I evicted her. So I had the right to change the locks. Which I did.”

  “But why today?”

  His heart broke at the pain in her voice. “I wanted her out of my life before I started anything with you, but, well, we got that a little out of order. This morning was the first chance I had.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Lee pointed out that you wouldn’t appreciate Camille being in the picture, so I didn’t want to mention her at all. I never expected her to pull the stunt she did.”

  “What did you and Lee talk about?”

  “You, Mac. We talked about you. About how I was an idiot and how much you loved me.”

  She looked away, a blush creeping up her throat.

  He put a finger under her chin and turned her to face him. “Don’t look away, Mac. Those are the sweetest words I’ve ever heard.”

  “I’ve never said them.”

  “You don’t have to. I saw how you looked at me while I was making love to you—and I was making love to you, sweetheart.”

  She blinked and her eyes filled with tears.

  He brushed the corner of her eye with his thumb. “Don’t cry, Mac. No more sad tears. It’s okay. Because I love you back.”

  Her eyes got big and she blinked faster. “You . . . you do?”

  “I do. I should have told you the minute I realized it, but I wanted to make it this grand gesture. Something big and memorable so you’d never forget it.”

  “That is not going to happen, Jared.”

  Her answer sucked the wind out of him.

  Jesus, he’d blown it. After all of this, after everything they’d been through, after finally realizing what he should have known all along, he’d ruined it.

  “Are you sure, Mac? You can’t find it in your heart to forgive me? To let me make it right, let me show you how much I love you? I will, Mac. I do. I promise. I should have told you about going to Camille’s. Hell, I should have told you everything I was thinking and feeling, but—”

  She put a finger on his lips.

  He kissed it. He had to. He had to convince her that what he felt for her was real. That she could believe in it.

  “No, Jared. That’s not what I meant. I’ve loved you forever; that hasn’t changed. No, what I meant is, you’ve given me that moment.” She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek—a soft, sweet, forever kind of kiss. “And I never will forget it.”

  Three months later.

  He gave her an even more memorable moment. One they could tell their grandkids about.

  Because there would be grandkids.

  “You ready, guys?” he whispered to the troops lined up behind his grandmother’s house. He’d bought it for the two of them, and for the family they’d raise here, but hadn’t told Mac yet. He knew she wanted to live in her grandmother’s house, but it would be too small once they started having a family, because he wanted a lot of kids with her.

  She was in the front yard, thinking the yellow mums she was planting were for putting the house on the market.

  He couldn’t wait to tell her they were to commemorate this moment. He would’ve preferred daisies, but they needed to be planted in the spring and he wasn’t waiting until then.

  He wasn’t waiting one more moment.

  “Do we really have to do this again?” Kevin groaned. “Wasn’t once enough?”

  Nicky tapped the baseball cap down so Kevin couldn’t see. “Shut up, dork. The guy’s gonna propose. Let him do it the way he wants to.”

  “Jerk.”

  “Loser.”

  “Guys? Can it wait? ’Cause I can’t.” Jared had been dying to do this for the past three months. He’d known he wanted to marry her the moment he’d fallen in love with her. He should marry her; it was as right as breathing. And he’d been the dork who had been too stupid to notice. “Ready?”

  Kevin sighed. “I guess.”

  Chase nudged him behind the knees, almost taking him down. “Then man up, Kev. Most important moment of a guy’s life according to my dad. We gotta make it count.”

  “Whatever. Let’s just get it over with so we can go play ball.”

  Jared wanted to get it over with so he could start planning his future with Mac.

  He nudged Nicky out first.

  The look of surprise and happiness on Mac’s face was everything he’d hoped it’d be.

  The boys continued giving her the daisies, each one coming back for more. That’d been the stipulation he’d made to take on the coaching job; that they’d each give her half a dozen flowers. One for every year he wanted with her. Sixty ought to cover it. And if not, well, there were the three dozen more in his hands.

  She was laughing by the time they were at thirty, and had tears in her eyes at fifty.

  When he walked out with the rest, those tears slipped down her cheeks.

  “I love you, Mary-Alice Catherine Manley,” he said.

  She tried to say something, but had to sniff back the tears. “I’m not even going to get mad that you used my whole name.”

  “Good. Because I have to use it again.” He handed her the flowers—well, he fit them in among the rest. Crud, he hadn’t really thought these logistics through because she needed both hands to hold all the flowers and he needed one for the ring.

  “You do?”

  He nodded then took some of the flowers from her, kneeling to put them on the ground around her.

  He didn’t get up.

  Instead, he pulled Grandma’s ring from his pocket. She’d been thrilled to give it to him.

  Mac’s tears started flowing faster. They were happy tears; he could tell by her smile. Happy tears were okay.

  “Jared Nolan, what are you doing?”

  “You’ll see.” He took her hand. “Will you, Mary-Alice Catherine Manley, marry me and be my wife? To have and to hold in million-dollar contracts or community center coaching salaries, with broken legs and cracked ribs, leaping furniture in a single bound, and taking in stray kittens wherever we find them until one of us kicks the bucket—and that’ll be the only way we’re ever separated—amen?”

  She was crying and laughing by the time he finished, so much that he couldn’t get an answer out of her.

  So he kissed her.

  Hell, he knew her answer. She’d marry him.

  Epilogue

  Six months after that on the far side of the dance floor . . .

  I’M telling you, Lois, it can w
ork.”

  “Eh?” Lois Gayle put a hand to her ear to listen to what Cate Manley was trying to tell her. These dang parties were always so noisy that it made it tough to hear.

  Though that’s not what her granddaughter would say. Jennifer was a sweet girl, smart as a whip that one, but her fancy vet degree didn’t teach her a thing about humans getting older. Hearing aids were for deaf people, not those who didn’t want to listen to the noise. Lois liked her peace and quiet, thank you very much.

  “You just need to come up with a plan. Mildred and I married off all of our grandkids. Two of them to each other.”

  “To each other? Isn’t that illegal? I’d watch out for the babies on that one, I would.” Lois’s third-cousin-once-removed had married her first cousin, and Lois would swear that’s why their son Bill ended up in prison. Just wasn’t right mixing the genes that way.

  “No, not to each other. My granddaughter, Mary-Alice Catherine, married Mildred’s grandson, Jared. That’s who got married today.”

  Lois looked at the two of them, smiling so happily. Mildred and Cate had been talking about their plan for so long it was a wonder their grandkids hadn’t heard anything about it. Why, Lois had heard and she’d been trying not to listen.

  Still, the plan had obviously worked, since Cate was spouting off about three more weddings.

  Hmmm. Maybe she should have a chat with these two. After all, Jennifer wasn’t getting any younger and Lois would like to have some great-grandchildren of her own.

  She patted the chairs beside her. “Have a seat, ladies, and tell me what I should do.”

  TURN THE PAGE FOR A PREVIEW OF THE FIRST MANLEY MAIDS NOVEL

  What a Woman Wants

  AVAILABLE NOW FROM BERKLEY SENSATION!

  Guys’ Night . . . Plus One

  SEAN Patrick Manley stared at the straight flush, nine high, in his hand. He really hated that he was going to win this game. Oh, he didn’t mind taking his brothers to the cleaners, but taking his hardworking sister’s money wasn’t anything to gloat about. Still . . . she had asked . . .