Mr. Congeniality

by Sherry Lewis

  ANNIE MOPPED THE BEADED perspiration from her forehead as she put the finishing touches on dinner. Even at their high altitude, the early August afternoon had grown uncomfortably warm. She was trying to conserve energy, but the burners she used on the stove kicked additional heat into the room and made her wish she was sitting in the shade of the tall pine trees.

  She’d been working steadily all afternoon putting together a meal that would prove to Spence that spending a few months in the mountains hadn’t dulled her edge. She’d planned roasted peppers stuffed with feta cheese, parsley and hot chillies. Flank steaks that had already been marinating for hours would be served with her summer salsa made from cantaloupe, jalapeños and blackberries. Side dishes of sage polenta, vegetable slaw with orange cilantro dressing, barbecued quesadillas with lime sour cream, and sweet-onion-and-sage gratin cooked in a Dutch oven over the fire rounded out her choices.

  Maybe after seeing what she was still capable of, Spence would tuck his tail between his legs and go back to Chicago where he belonged.

  Through the open windows, she heard Nessa’s laughter mingled with Spence’s and a new battery of mixed emotions bombarded her. She understood Nessa’s feelings about the family breaking up, but she’d have to accept the divorce now. Obviously, Spence was still with Catherine. He’d invited Annie back on a strictly professional level. Why couldn’t Nessa see that? Why couldn’t she understand that Spence still didn’t feel any remorse over the affair or what he’d done to their family?

  Glancing toward the window, Annie willed Spence to say or do something more in character that would open Nessa’s eyes. Something thoughtless or selfish or—

  “Got a minute?”

  Annie whipped around at the sound of Dean’s voice and laughed to hide her sudden nervousness. He stood just inside the doorway, his eyes so penetrating she had trouble catching her breath. “You startled me. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  His lips curved slightly and he pulled out a chair at the table. “Mind if I talk to you?”

  That sounded ominous. Annie shook her head quickly, turned down the burners on the stove and joined him. When she realized that her hands were shaking, she clasped them in her lap and tried not to look worried. “What is it?”

  He took so long answering, Annie thought she might stop breathing entirely. When he finally spoke, he didn’t even make eye contact. “I met your husband today.”

  “Don’t call him that.”

  “That’s what he is.”

  “Technically, and only for another week. We haven’t lived as man and wife for months.”

  Dean’s eyes raked her face as he processed her answer. “Did you know he was coming?”

  “No.”

  “Did Nessa?”

  “I don’t think so. She certainly seemed surprised to see him.”

  Dean let out a breath and sent her a lopsided smile. “Can I admit that I’m glad to hear it? I wanted to warn you that he was here—just in case you didn’t know—but Mr. Jennings in number seven cornered me so Spence got to you first.”

  Annie resisted the urge to touch Dean’s hand, but only because Nessa could have come through the door at any moment. “I didn’t ask him to come,” she assured him again. “I wouldn’t even let him stay if it weren’t for Nessa.”

  Dean nodded slowly and turned a place mat absently. He ran his fingers along the pattern and studied it as if there was nothing more important in the world. “She misses him,” he said at last. “And she needs him.”

  “Yes, she does. I just wish it weren’t true. I wish she and I could just go off somewhere and forget Spence even exists.”

  “You’ll never be able to do that.”

  “No. Of course not. It’s just me being angry and bitter.” She smiled sadly. “In my head, I understand why Nessa feels the way she does about Spence. My heart has more trouble. We were a family. He betrayed both of us when he cheated with Catherine. He destroyed our family but Nessa seems to think it’s my doing.”

  “She’s a smart girl. She knows that what her dad did was wrong but she still loves him—and she should. She’s probably just as confused as you are.”

  “I know you’re right. If it were my dad who’d cheated, I’m sure I’d feel the same way she does.”

  Dean leaned back in his chair and rested an ankle on his knee. He drummed his fingers on the table and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “He doesn’t intend to leave without you. I can tell.”

  A wave of resentment curled through Annie. “Not because he loves me, though. He just wants his chef back. But he’s using some twisted logic to argue his case. He claims that going back to Holladay House would be the right thing for me on a professional level, but he never cared this much about my career when we were together. It was always about his restaurant.” She rubbed her temples with her fingertips and let out a deep sigh. “He’s going to have to leave without me. It’s over between us—on every level.”

  Spence’s voice drifted in through the open window and Dean’s gaze trailed toward it. “You know, now that he’s here and I realize that I really could lose you, suddenly there’s nothing I want more than to convince you to stay here with me.” He smiled without humor. “Maybe my logic is equally twisted, but I can live with the idea of you going to Seattle, even if I don’t like it. Maybe because I think I’ll still have a chance if you’re there. I really don’t like the idea of you going back to Chicago, but I’m not sure if it’s because I think going back would be bad for you or for me.”

  The choices were so hard. She wanted to assert her independence and prove to herself that she could make it on her own. But Gary’s warnings about the rarity of love and not living with regrets, along with Nessa’s determined announcement that she wanted to stay, kept echoing through her mind.

  Tears filled Annie’s eyes. Emotion tightened her throat, and she could hardly speak around it. “Dean, I—”

  He held up a hand to stop her. “Don’t, Annie. I don’t want you to say anything right now. I want you to be absolutely sure of how you feel. If you go through with the divorce, it has to be because of Spence, not because of me.”

  “I am going through with it,” she said fervently. “And you know why I’m doing it.”

  Dean leaned forward and touched her lips gently with his fingers. “Yes, but I also need to know that if you go to Seattle and the culinary institute it’s because that’s what you really want, and if you choose to stay here it has to be because of me, not him.”

  Annie gulped back the protest she’d started to form while he was speaking. She gripped his hand and held it between both of hers near her heart. “I know how I feel about you, Dean. I—”

  He cut her off again. “I don’t think you do, Annie. You won’t until you’ve worked through all the issues you have with Spence.” Dean pulled his hand away with exquisite gentleness. “His affair is still too recent. The hurt is still too raw. And I’m not sure there’ll be room in your heart for me until he’s out of it.”

  His arguments were making her head hurt. Hadn’t he been listening? “Spence is out of it,” she assured him. “He has been for a long time. For years before he took this final step, all we did was go through the motions. We never kissed, never made love, never talked—really talked. There were many times along the way when I wondered if he stayed with me because of the restaurant. I know there were times when that’s why I stayed.”

  Suddenly too agitated to sit, she pushed herself to her feet and paced a few feet away. “The marriage is over, Dean. I’ve filed for divorce and it galls me that I had to do it. I’m furious that he probably would have let us go on that way indefinitely if I hadn’t found out for myself what was going on.”

  Dean watched her carefully and listened without interrupting until she’d finished. “The problem is, I don’t know how to love halfway. If you get me, you’ll get everything I’ve got. I’m selfish enough to want the same thing in return. As long as you’re this angry with Spence, he’s takin
g part of your heart.”

  Annie shook her head, but Dean raised his hands so he could finish his thought. “Believe me, I know a little something about anger and what it does to a person. You can’t give me all you have if you’re passionately angry with your ex-husband.”

  Annie’s thoughts were all jumbled up with feelings that washed up and receded like waves. He was right. He was wrong. He was blindly, foolishly unfair. He was a hypocrite. How dare he talk to her about anger? How dare he tell her to put Spence out of her heart when the woman who’d caused his accident still owned such a huge chunk of his?

  But she didn’t want to bring that subject into the discussion or they’d argue. She didn’t have enough emotional energy for that. “The choice I have to make isn’t between you and Spence,” she said. “It’s between striking out on my own and linking my fate to another person’s like I did at Holladay House.”

  He stood and leaned toward her, close enough for her to smell that scent of soap and outdoors that was uniquely his, and gave her the briefest kiss in history on the cheek. “I know that, Annie. So take your time. I’m here if this is what you want. I’m not going anywhere.”

  ANNIE WAS ON PINS AND NEEDLES that evening. Everyone could see it. Dean could feel her agitation as if it were his own. Usually, she worked smoothly. Seamlessly. Watching her prepare a meal was like watching an artist create an oil painting. Tonight, she seemed so jittery as she lowered the Dutch oven into the coals, he nearly stepped in to help.

  But the anxious glance Annie cast in Spence’s direction stopped Dean cold. Her expression was almost impossible to read. But he knew instinctively that she’d resent him implying that she wasn’t functioning at full capacity. So he kept his comments to himself.

  Dean kept one eye on her as he made his way along each of the tables occupied by the guests. He listened to Mrs. George with half an ear as she chatted about the fish her boys had caught that afternoon, and he made an effort to concentrate when he promised to provide Doug Wright and his son with wading boots and hand-tied flies for an early-morning fishing expedition the next day.

  As he left their table, Gary stopped him. “You okay?”

  Dean nodded, but he made a face and let down his guard. “Peachy. Why? Don’t I look okay?”

  “Not exactly. Your face is all scrunched up, the way it gets when you miss taking your pills…but I’m sure I’m the only one who’s noticed. You seem fine around the guests.”

  Dean turned toward the trees and let the plastic smile slip from his face. “Have you talked to Annie since he got here?”

  “I haven’t had a chance. She’s not exactly in the mood to talk.” Gary ran his thumb and forefinger along his mustache. “I’ve gotta tell you, though, she’s not the happiest I’ve ever seen her.”

  Dean put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath, hoping a little oxygen would help him get his thoughts together or make sense of the emotions warring inside him. He glanced over his shoulder toward the fire. In spite of Annie’s assurances, Dean wasn’t convinced that Spence wasn’t a choice. “Do you think she’s going to take him back?”

  “Come on, Dean,” Gary said with a scowl. “You know her better than that.”

  “I know they have a lot of history together,” Dean said. “And that can be hard to turn your back on.” He stole another peek at Nessa. “Especially when there’s someone who wants you to put things back together so badly.”

  “Nessa’s just scared,” Gary said. “She doesn’t want her dad to disappear from her life, and she only knows of one way to keep him around.”

  Dean nodded and turned back toward the trees. “Have you met him?”

  “Briefly.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think he’s okay. I think he made some bad choices and did things backward, but he’s not a bad person. I think he’s anxious to get Annie back and worried about losing his daughter. But I think he’s more worried about what losing Annie will do to his business than anything.” Gary clapped a hand to Dean’s shoulder. “You’re going to have to trust Annie to do the right thing, buddy. What other option do you have?”

  Dean wished he could think of one, but Gary was right. What other option did he have?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  AS SOON AS HE THOUGHT he could get away unnoticed, Dean hurried back to the lodge, grabbed a sandwich and some chips, and carried them to his room. He could either mope over Annie and Spence, or he could do something constructive.

  He’d been watching Tyler with the Little League team at their last few practices and he’d been amazed by the kid’s easy, natural ability. Working with the team seemed to be loosening something inside Tyler. Dean had no idea whether or not Tyler wanted to play baseball, but he thought the kid had a chance to make the high school team and even go on from there if he wanted to.

  He didn’t intend to push Tyler one way or the other, but he couldn’t deny the surge of pride he’d felt when he realized that he and Tyler shared something. As a token of respect—or maybe a means of making amends—Dean had decided to offer Tyler the glove he’d used when he played professionally. Even if Tyler didn’t want it, Dean wanted to make the gesture.

  Never one to enjoy living amid boxes, Dean had quickly unpacked everything after he’d moved into the lodge. All but one carton. The one Hayley had packed for him shortly after the accident. The things she’d put away just before she left.

  It was the one box he’d never been able to make himself open.

  He knew, because Hayley had told him, that his glove was inside, but he had no idea what else she’d put in there. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. But every time the urge came to carry the box, unopened, to the garbage dump, that glove was the only thing that kept Dean from following through.

  He opened his closet door and pulled the carton toward him. He spent a minute studying the neat label in Hayley’s handwriting and marveled that she’d taken such pains to put his things together when she’d been about ready to walk out on him. Her image floated in front of his eyes for a second, but Annie’s face quickly replaced it.

  Dean thought back to his first encounter with Annie—she had reminded him so much of Hayley. It was true that the two women shared a few physical characteristics, but Dean now knew they were nothing alike. Annie had helped Dean forget about the pain Hayley caused him. Even better, the animosity he’d once felt toward his old flame had faded to nothing.

  Looking at the box she’d taken such care to pack made him feel pretty sure that he’d been a whole lot more responsible for their break-up than he’d ever wanted to admit. Wherever she was now, Dean wished her well. He hoped she’d find someone to love her as deeply as he now loved Annie.

  Dean blinked rapidly to clear his eyes and started toward the small desk he kept in the corner of his room. But now that he’d thought of her, Annie wouldn’t leave him alone. Her hair glimmered in imaginary sunlight. Her eyes glittered with excitement. Her quick smile and ready laugh seemed to float in through the window on the gentle breeze. He had to find some way to stop thinking about her or he’d go crazy.

  Dropping to the foot of his bed, he rubbed his eyes and told himself to do something. He slit the tape on the box and began digging through the things Hayley had stored inside. Cards and letters that had been sent to him in the hospital formed a layer on top. A little perturbed with Hayley for keeping them, Dean scooped up the envelopes and set them on the bed beside him. As he turned back to the box, one envelope slipped from the pile and dropped onto the floor by his feet.

  He reached down to retrieve it, glancing at the handwriting on the front as he picked it up. When he saw the return address, he dropped the letter as if it had scorched him.

  How had that gotten here? He distinctly remembered telling Hayley to trash it.

  He’d only touched it once before. He hadn’t even read the whole letter inside—and why should he? The woman who’d plowed into his car had offered a weak apology and then started in with the excuses.
When Dean had reached that point in the letter, he’d told Hayley to burn the damn thing.

  No apology could make up for what that woman had done. No excuse could justify it. And the inconsequential legal punishment she’d received as a first-time offender certainly hadn’t atoned for it. Compared to losing everything, what price was a suspended driver’s license and a fine?

  His heart hammered in his chest as he bent once more to pick up the envelope. Holding it in two fingers, he carried it to the trash can across the room. So Hayley had kept it, probably thinking that Dean would change his mind someday. Maybe she’d even believed those things she’d said in the hospital about him needing to forgive the woman.

  Well, Dean had no intention of forgiving her. And he would never forget. He stopped beside the trash can and held the letter over it, but for some reason he couldn’t make himself drop it. He stared at the small, neat script on the envelope and let the name sink into his fevered brain.

  Maria Hillyard.

  He’d seen her only once through the haze of painkillers, but once had been enough. He remembered the dark-haired woman standing over him, her face twisted in agony as she’d stammered an apology. Dean hadn’t wanted to hear anything she’d had to say, and the nurses had ushered her out of his room before she could finish.

  So why was he hesitating about throwing the letter away now? Morbid curiosity? Did some twisted part of his brain, some dark corner of his heart want to know what her excuses were?

  He crumpled the envelope in his fist and held it over the garbage can again, but the memory of that night on the porch with Annie stopped him. Annie had told him to remember that everyone had a rough road in life, to stop feeling sorry for himself or imagining that his was worse than the next person’s.

  But he was doing it again.

  He walked to the window and glanced at the light from the fire dancing on the trees. Annie was down there in the thick of battle. She couldn’t turn around and walk away or shove Spence into a box and pretend he didn’t exist.