Small-Town Girl (Mills & Boon Vintage Superromance) (Mills & Boon Superromance)

by Carmichael, C. J.

  Neither Skip nor Watson, both asleep in her office, responded. Julie kicked back from her desk and stared out the window. It was Wednesday, the midpoint of an incredibly busy week. And she was in an irritable mood. Hormonal from the pregnancy?

  No, she didn’t need the excuse of hormones. Her life was pure crap right now. She was stuck in this nowhere town with a husband who’d suddenly found out he’d had a child with another woman, and Ben, although improving, still wasn’t himself, and her damn mother-in-law…

  Oh, the list was endless.

  Julie went to the fridge to top up her glass of water. She poured from the pitcher she’d filled that morning with water and slices of lemon. Glass in hand, she leaned against the kitchen counter and surveyed her home.

  From this vantage point she could view the eating nook, the family room, down the hall to the front entrance. Everywhere she gazed she saw order, tranquillity, her trademark classic choices of subtle color and quality furnishings.

  The husband of the woman who’d written that letter would approve, she thought. While the woman herself would probably prefer…Heather’s house.

  The urge to throw something struck again. Julie stifled the dangerous impulse by striding back to her office. How many times a day did Heather cross her mind? Too many to count.

  Though not normally superstitious, Julie had begun to wonder if her chance meeting with Russell during their university years might have been a fate-defying moment. She’d been on her way home that day, had only visited the library on a last-minute whim.

  What if she hadn’t stopped? What if she hadn’t spotted the attractive, athletic guy with the kind-looking face? If she hadn’t asked him the time, then they would never have gone out for lunch, and he wouldn’t have offered to make her dinner, and they wouldn’t have fallen in love.

  And if they hadn’t fallen in love, then maybe Russell would have given Heather a call and found out about the baby. And married her.

  The baby who’d been given up for adoption would be their son. Probably he’d have a brother and a sister by now, too. They’d all live in Chatsworth, happy as ticks on an old gray mare. As for her, she would have returned to London with her parents and never have known the town of Chatsworth even existed.

  Which made for a very happy ending except for one thing. Ben would never have been born.

  Oh, yes, one more thing. She wouldn’t have known Russell.

  Julie returned to her desk and collapsed in her chair. She had to stop obsessing about what might have been. As a reasonable, rational woman she ought to be making good use of her time. She could start by composing a response to the decorating question she’d read earlier.

  Hands above the keyboard, she reflected for a moment, then began to type.

  Answer: Sounds like you are going to have to master the art of compromise early in your marriage! One suggestion I have is to decorate your house in the neutral palette preferred by your husband, then to accessorize with your preference in vibrant colors and interesting objets d’art—

  The words were flowing and Julie frowned when the phone on her desk dared to ring. Thinking it might be Russell or Ben, Julie answered.

  But T. J. Colins was on the line. “We’ve got a big truck on Main Street. Odds and Ends is the name on the side panel. They’re hauling out benches and stone urns and nobody seems to know where to put them.”

  “Odds and Ends? This is fabulous. I didn’t think they’d get here until Friday. Don’t let them leave before I get there, T.J.”

  Julie scooted out of her chair, grabbed her keys and dashed for the door. Poor Watson gazed at her forlornly as he figured out she wasn’t taking him with her.

  “I’ll be back soon.” She sprinted the two blocks to Main Street, hearing the commotion before she saw it.

  Men talking, the sound of heavy items being wheeled down ramps… Soon she came upon the large white truck with the distinctive logo and company name on the side.

  She’d placed this order on a mad-rush basis, calling in a few personal favors with the company owner. Fortunately most of the items she’d wanted were in stock in the Calgary warehouse and the only thing required had been hiring a truck and a driver to make the twelve-hour haul to southeastern Saskatchewan.

  “Hi, there!” she called to one of the men currently wheeling a cast-iron bench from the body of the truck. “I’m Julie Matthew. How about I show you where that stuff goes.”

  First, though, she needed to figure that out for herself. She hadn’t expected this delivery so quickly. So where to store the items until the carpentry work was finished?

  She’d subcontracted two men to do the job and they were hard at work right now, removing the old battered screen door.

  Julie noticed T.J. standing at the entrance to the Handy Hardware, his white T-shirt and jeans emphasizing his dark good looks. She waved, then hurried over.

  “This is a combined order for Donna, Lucky and you, but it’s come too soon. T.J., is there any chance you have some room in the back of your store?”

  “Depends. How much space do you need?”

  She drew him toward the truck so he could see for himself.

  “Not bad. Yeah, we can manage.” He instructed the truck driver to wheel around to the back of his store.

  “Thanks, T.J. I really appreciate this.”

  “No problem. Some of this is for my place, anyway. I like the look of those benches, by the way.” He gave her a nod of approval that seemed almost grudging.

  Despite the mornings at the café, Julie still didn’t know T.J. very well. He rarely spoke, and when he did, cynicism colored most of his remarks. She wondered if his divorce was to blame or if he’d always been that way.

  “T.J.?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you miss practicing law? Living in a big city?”

  The look he gave her told her she wasn’t even close. “Julie, I guess this life of mine is exactly what I deserve. And I don’t mind it much. How about you? Do you think you’ll ever adjust to small-town living?”

  Obviously he could tell she hadn’t yet managed it. “I don’t know. I feel as though I stick out like a sore thumb everywhere I go and with everything I try to do.”

  “Sore thumb? Hardly. More like a beautiful white rose, in my opinion.”

  The compliment took her breath away. Especially coming from T.J. Before she could thank him, he strode off to help the workers with the unloading.

  “SO HOW WAS YOUR DATE the other night?” Russell asked Heather. They each had an armload of posters that they were carting to the town hall. The long, rectangular building dominated Teal Avenue, half a block up from the white clapboard library.

  “I’ll tell you later. Something in these posters is making me…” She sneezed once, then twice.

  “Bless you.”

  The Harvest Festival was tomorrow. Last night Julie had stressed out on the potluck aspect, of all things. What should I take? she’d asked him, over and over, but damn if he could remember what his mother usually prepared for events like this.

  “A casserole?”

  Julie’s expression had darkened. “What kind of a casserole?”

  How was he supposed to know what people put in casseroles? “Meat and vegetables and rice and stuff,” he guessed. “Oh, and maybe a can of mushroom soup mixed in.”

  Julie had grimaced, so he guessed she wasn’t going to be making anything like that.

  Russell preceded Heather up the short flight of stairs to the main entrance of the hall to open the door for her.

  “Thanks, Russ.”

  Following her inside, he was struck by how familiar, yet strange, the old hall felt. He hadn’t been back since the summer dances of his university years. The cloakroom—an old-fashioned term he rarely heard used anymore—was on the left. Washrooms to the right.

  The Harvest Festival decorating committee had been busy with streamers and balloons. An arrangement of pumpkins and assorted gourds sat on a table where two chairs waited fo
r the volunteers who would be welcoming attendees and taking tickets.

  He dropped his posters onto the table, then relieved Heather of hers before she broke out in another fit of sneezing.

  “You must be allergic to the dried leaves.”

  She pulled a roll of tape and some scissors from her purse, which she’d slung over her shoulder. “Maybe. I seem to be okay now. So where should we hang these?”

  All business, Russell noticed. “Bernie just said on the walls, wherever we could find room.”

  Heather moved out into the main hall area. Really, only the two side walls were viable options. The stage occupied the front, while a bar and tables for the potluck took up the entrance wall.

  “Should we divide the posters between the walls?” he wondered.

  “They might make more of an impact if we grouped them together,” Heather countered.

  “Fine.” He was used to acceding to a female’s opinion in matters like these. “Where do you think?”

  Heather pointed out a large blank area to the right of the stage.

  “Let me take the posters. I don’t want you starting another sneezing fit.”

  He scooped up the posters and carried them down the hall. Heather showed him where she wanted the first one and he held it in place on the wall as she tore off strips of tape.

  “I’m guessing your date was a dud, since you don’t seem to want to talk about it.”

  “Not really.” She passed him a length of tape, and their fingers momentarily stuck together. “His name was Dean Mazurkewich, and he was nice, actually. Good-looking, too.” She sighed.

  “Well, I can see how that would get a girl down.”

  Heather stuck a piece of tape on his cheek. Since he needed both hands to position the poster, he had to leave it there.

  “That part was good,” she agreed. “But my friends didn’t tell me he’s a constable with the RCMP in Yorkton.”

  She passed him a fresh piece of tape, which he attached to the corner of the poster.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.” She handed over a new poster.

  Hell, just being the wife of a police officer had to be hard. After Heather’s experience with Nick he couldn’t blame her for being extra cautious.

  “Maybe he’ll transfer to a nice safe desk job?”

  She shrugged. “At least he’d heard about Nick so I didn’t have to go through the whole story.”

  Thinking about Nick made Russell wonder. He accepted two more strips of tape from Heather. “I suppose Nick knew about the baby…?”

  “Our baby?”

  Russell tried not to flinch. Would he ever get used to this? “Yeah.”

  “Of course. I couldn’t marry him without telling him something like that.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Anyway, he was okay with it. Thankfully.” They’d been working steadily as they talked. Now she passed him the last poster, then sat on one of the wood chairs from a lineup against the wall. “How about Julie? Have you told her yet?”

  He stood back to admire the display. Not bad. Using those posters had been a good idea.

  “Yeah. She was a little shocked. Like me.” He smiled, or at least tried to. Then he sat next to Heather.

  “Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut.”

  A part of Russell wished she had. A selfish part. “But if it made you feel better to tell me, then you did the right thing.”

  “It has helped.” She leaned over her knees and angled her face in his direction. “I do feel better.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “How about you? Are you handling it okay?”

  “Like I said, it’s been a shock. My first impulse was to find the kid. But I’m coming around to your way of thinking. I don’t want to shatter his world just to make myself feel better.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But it would be great to know that he’s really okay.”

  “I understand how you feel. Once Nick offered to do a little investigating on my behalf. Just locate the boy and make sure he was happy. After several weeks of contemplation, though, I realized I didn’t want him to.”

  “Why?” It sounded to Russell like the perfect solution.

  “Because once I knew his name and where he lived, how could I stop myself from getting involved? I’d start by driving past his house, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Maybe I’d follow him to school, check out his friends and his teacher….”

  Heather rubbed her thighs, her voice rising with anxiousness. “Where would I have drawn the line, Russ? Would I have arranged to accidentally meet him? Would I have wanted to tell him who I really was?”

  Russell could empathize. “Yeah, I can see it would be a real slippery slope. Still, to know he’s happy…”

  “We’ve just got to trust the system on that. Believe me, I’ve thought about this a lot. As I said, the family who adopted him were good people and they wanted a baby badly. I’m sure they’ve made mistakes, as any parents would. But our baby has a good home, Russell. I’m certain of it.”

  He swallowed, then cleared his throat. “The father’s a doctor, you said?”

  “A pediatrician.”

  “Well, we know the kid’s healthy, at least.”

  Heather laughed then, and so did he. He got out of the chair and held out his hands to help her up, too. Just then the sound of the front door opening caught their attention.

  His wife stood near the table with the pumpkin arrangement. “Oh.”

  Russell dropped Heather’s hands. “Good timing, Jules. We just finished. What do you think?”

  Julie’s attention remained on him. She didn’t even seem aware of the posters. “Dinner’s ready. I was just coming to tell you….”

  He’d been moving toward her. Now she reached a hand out to his face and pulled off the strip of tape that he’d forgotten all about.

  “Great. I’m hungry. Did you see the posters?”

  Finally Julie snapped out of her trance. She said hello to Heather, then went to admire their display.

  She paused by Ben’s poster and Russell felt a twinge of anxiety in his gut. He had to admit Ben’s effort hadn’t reached the level of most of the kids. In the past, their son had displayed a reasonable amount of artistic ability—a gift Russell had attributed to Julie’s genes, not his own. But a preschooler could have thrown together this recent effort.

  “Is Ben already home?”

  Heather stuffed the tape and scissors into her purse.

  “No.” Julie sounded distracted as she continued to assess the artwork. “He went bike riding with some buddies. I was wondering if you…”

  “I’ll track him down and meet you at home. You okay, Heather?”

  “Fine.” She smiled, her complexion still paler than normal. “If I see Ben I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”

  “Thanks.” As he left, he heard his wife speak quietly.

  “Excuse me, Heather. If you’re not in a rush to get home, could I have a word?”

  The closing hall door blocked Heather’s answer. Russell paused on the upper stair for a moment, and considered if he should go back in.

  But if Julie had wanted him to join in her conversation, she would have invited him. With a sigh, he loped down the stairs and started searching for his son.

  “I’M WONDERING HOW BEN is making out in your class.” Julie still had the piece of tape that she’d plucked from Russell’s face in her hands. How had it ended up there? She could imagine a few ways.

  “He seems happy,” Heather began cautiously. “You know he’s made friends with Craig. He also hangs out with some of the other boys who live in town. Probably the ones he’s playing with right now.”

  “Yes, socially he’s adjusted just fine.” Julie acknowledged that this was the case. “But how about academically? I know the first reporting period isn’t for several weeks, but I’d appreciate your frank opinion. Is Ben meeting grade-level expectations?”

  She walked away from the p
oster display, hoping Ben had simply not been interested in the project, that he hadn’t given it his full effort. She watched Heather’s face carefully, searching for nonverbal clues and praying for news that might be better than what she anticipated.

  “Not quite grade level, I’m afraid.”

  Heather’s honest assessment was reflected in her open, sympathetic gaze.

  “I see.” Julie twisted her watch strap, adjusted the hem of her sweater. Taking a deep breath, she tried to focus on the positive. “But he’s improving, right? Compared with his performance at the beginning of the year, you’ve seen signs that he’s getting better?”

  Heather’s soft smile gave Julie the message before her words. “Definitely he’s improving. Try not to worry, Julie. I know you give him a lot of support at home, and that’s definitely helping. Working together, we’ll get him through grade four.”

  With her smile stretched tight, Julie nodded. Getting through grade four. If only Heather had known Ben before the accident, she would realize what a meager expectation this was to set for her son.

  “Well, we’ll keep doing what we can at home,” she said.

  “That’s great. But no need to push too hard. I can tell Ben gets quite tired at school. Time to relax is important, too.”

  “Yes. That’s what Russell is always telling me.”

  At Julie’s mention of her husband, Heather’s smile faded. And Julie was reminded of the scene she’d interrupted as she’d stepped into the hall unexpectedly. Russell and Heather laughing, holding hands.

  Did this woman have designs on her husband? Julie regarded the other woman candidly. She had to admit Heather was an honest and honorable person. As was Russell. If these two were still in love with each other, she could imagine them putting aside their feelings for the sake of Russell’s marriage and his child.

  The thought did not comfort her one bit.

  As if picking up on Julie’s suspicions, Heather broached an equally disquieting subject. “Russell told you about the baby?”

  Julie blinked with surprise. “Yes.”

  “I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want him to feel any obligation toward me. I just believed he ought to know. Even though so much time has passed.” Heather’s voice cracked with a combination of sincerity and tension.