Riley and His Girls (Mills & Boon Vintage Cherish) (Mills & Boon Cherish)

by Janis Reams Hudson

  As for Marva, this was only the second time Amy had seen her. She wasn’t expecting warm hugs, and it was just as well, because she barely got a civil nod as Marva passed her desk and headed in to see Riley.

  There being no such thing as privacy in the office, outside of the restroom or the storage closet, Amy couldn’t help but overhear when Marva explained the reason for their visit.

  “I hear you finally put up your Christmas tree at home,” the woman said to Riley.

  “Yes. We did it Saturday. You’ll have to come by and see it.”

  “Yes, well, I drove by this place and noticed you haven’t done anything here, at least nothing that’s visible from the street. So we’ve come to remedy that, haven’t we, girls?”

  “We’re gonna decorate,” Jasmine said firmly.

  “There’s not enough room for a tree,” Riley cautioned.

  “I do have some sense,” Marva stated. “Just some window dressing and the like. You just go on about your business and I’ll take care of everything. You can count on me.”

  “I know I can.” He smiled quickly.

  Amy was then witness to the slickest bit of military command she’d seen in a while. Marva Green might resent the military for controlling most of her life via her husband and sons and for taking her daughter from her, but that hadn’t kept her from absorbing command technique. She had all three girls, and, eventually, Riley, too, marching to her tune and carrying out her orders in nothing flat. In under thirty minutes a beautiful garland and tinsel with blinking lights draped the front window and produced a pretty holiday picture from the sidewalk and street.

  Not that Amy was invited to the viewing with the family, but she heard the reviews and knew what it looked like from inside.

  On the office door Marva had Riley hang a wreath that was so large he had to turn sideways to enter, or risk knocking the wreath off with his shoulder.

  Not willing to let well enough alone, Marva draped garland around the hallway door, and placed a red candle on top of a file cabinet in Riley’s area.

  Riley decided to keep the girls with him at the office, as he planned to go home shortly anyway.

  Marva seemed disappointed not to take the girls with her, but she was nothing if not dignified as she put on her coat and moved toward the door.

  “The decorations are beautiful, Mrs. Green,” Amy offered.

  Marva paused with one hand on the doorknob. “Why, thank you, my dear.” She tilted her head and studied Amy a moment. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  “Of course not,” Amy said.

  “Do you dress like that every day?”

  Amy frowned and looked down at her white shirt and blue jeans. “Pretty much. What’s wrong with it?”

  Marva gave a delicate sniff. “Nothing, if you’re a man.”

  Amy’s back stiffened. “What are you, the fashion police?”

  From the other end of the room came a masculine choking sound, accompanied by little-girl laughter and giggles.

  “Well!” Marva claimed in a huff. “I never.”

  “Of course you never,” Amy said. “I forgot, you’re not the fashion police, you’re the dragon lady.”

  Pain flashed through Marva’s eyes. She turned quickly and let herself out the door.

  “Me and my big mouth,” Amy muttered. She dashed out the door after the woman. “Mrs. Green, wait, please.”

  With her car door open, the woman stood and waited.

  “I’m sorry. That was Brenda’s nickname for you, I know. And you have to know that she said it with love. It was her way of acknowledging the differences between the two of you. She loved that you cared enough about her to want her to look her best all the time, even though she didn’t always agree what that meant. But I shouldn’t have called you that anyway. I’m sorry. It was her name for you and I have no right to it.”

  Waves of fury seemed to radiate from the ashen-faced woman. “That’s right, you have no right to it. And that’s her family in there, and you have no right to them, either. Or is that the reason you want them? Because they were Brenda’s?”

  Wow. A sucker punch. Amy hadn’t expected that one.

  Neither had Riley. She hadn’t heard him follow her outside, but she heard him now as he sucked in a sharp breath in shock.

  Marva was shocked, too, when she realized that Riley had overheard her remark. With her face flaming red in embarrassment, or perhaps renewed anger, she slid into her car and drove away.

  Riley told himself he wasn’t a coward, but he knew he lied. He should have talked to Amy right then and there when Marva threw out that bomb about Amy having no right to him or the girls, because they were Brenda’s.

  She’d accused Amy of only wanting what was Brenda’s because they were Brenda’s.

  That was nonsense. He didn’t believe it for a second. But the stricken look on Amy’s face concerned him. Did she believe it? Did she fear she was attempting to take over her best friend’s life?

  He didn’t have a clue what to say to her, or if he should say anything at all. So he did the only sane and sensible thing. The manly thing. The super-duper macho thing. He grabbed the girls and ran.

  And the next day he did an admirable job of avoiding her by staying out on one site or the other most of the time.

  Amy nearly snarled in frustration. Fanny was gone on vacation until after New Year’s so Amy was fighting her way through payroll. Then there was the paperwork requiring Riley’s signature, which wasn’t ready until after he had disappeared back out to the site. Or wherever. He’d said he wouldn’t be back for the day.

  Well, she wasn’t going to put this off until tomorrow when he came back to the office. He’d said it was important. If she could get it to the express drop box at the post office by six it would still go out tonight.

  If Mohammed wouldn’t come to the mountain…

  She closed the office at five, as usual, and drove to his house, gratified to find his pickup in the driveway.

  “Avoid me now, boss man,” she muttered.

  Not that she’d been at all anxious to spend any time with him since Marva’s crack the day before, because…because… Because just maybe Marva had seen into her heart and understood what was there better than Amy did herself. How was she supposed to talk with a man whose mother-in-law had warned her away?

  No matter, Amy decided. She could easily drive herself crazy trying to make sense of her own motives, her own emotions. And wasn’t that pathetic? How was she supposed to determine Riley’s feelings if she didn’t know her own?

  But it wasn’t his feelings she was after when she pulled into his driveway just after five. Only his signature.

  She knocked on the door and waited, a pen in one hand and the papers, turned to the signature page, in the other. But it was Pammy who answered the door.

  “Amy.” The girl beamed at her. “Come in.”

  “Thanks, Pammy. I have some papers your daddy needs to sign.”

  “He’s in the kitchen. Daddy! Amy’s here!”

  Unwilling to wait for him to come to her, Amy quickly made her way to the kitchen.

  “Hey,” he said, his hands occupied dicing potatoes. “What’s up?”

  “I need you to sign these so I can ship them out tonight.”

  “Oh. Okay, just a sec.” He finished the potato he was chopping, then washed and dried his hands before turning toward her. He signed the papers and thanked her.

  Feeling dismissed, she turned to go, but at the doorway, her frustration shifted from matters of work to personal matters. She stopped and pivoted. “Riley, I—”

  “Amy, about—”

  “Sorry,” they said in unison.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  “Ladies first.”

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath for courage, thinking she might rather march ten miles with sand in her socks than initiate this conversation, but she’d started it.

  “About what Mrs. Green said. About you and the girls belon
ging to Brenda, that I have no right to you.”

  “You know that’s just her pain talking,” he offered.

  “Partly,” she agreed with a nod. “And part of it is jealousy.”

  “What?”

  “I’m a woman invading her territory. Or so she thinks. To her, any woman represents a threat. If you have a woman in your life, you might not need her so much. The girls might not need her so much.”

  Riley moved to the kitchen table and sat down heavily. He looked a little thunderstruck, staring off into space. “I never thought of it that way, but yeah, it makes sense.”

  “Anyway, I thought we should talk about what she said, you know, that—”

  “She said you have no right to me and my girls,” Riley said. “Yes, we belonged to Brenda. We loved her, we’ll always love her. We love Marva, too, even when she’s a pain in the ass. She’s saved our bacon dozens of times. When we need her, she’s always there for us. But she doesn’t have a say in my private life.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is me,” she admitted. “I’m the one who wonders if…”

  He rose and crossed to her. “If what?”

  “What if she’s right? What if I heard so much about you and the girls and this town from Brenda that I associate with you because of that? Maybe somewhere inside I feel guilty because I lived and Brenda didn’t, and now I’m trying to live the life she would have had. Her town, her husband, her children.”

  Riley scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “What if it’s not?”

  “Well, then, maybe we’re a good pair.”

  “How’s that?” she asked.

  “What if I’m only looking for someone to step in and fill Brenda’s shoes? A replacement for the wife I lost, the mother my girls lost.”

  Amy smiled sadly. “A new bedmate, cook and nanny? That thought has crossed my mind a time or two. Not that I think you’ve got those kinds of feelings for me. I just…I don’t know. I guess I don’t trust my own mind where you’re concerned, and maybe I don’t trust yours, either, and I know none of it matters. I just don’t want what Marva said to come between us and make us uncomfortable with each other. We’re just friends. I know you’re not interested in me that way.”

  “Oh, really? Says who?”

  If lightning had struck her she wouldn’t have been more shocked. “You don’t mean that.”

  “You know I do. Are you going to tell me the interest isn’t mutual?”

  Amy swallowed. She wanted to lie, but those deep-blue eyes wouldn’t let her. “No, but so what? What if we act on that interest? What if we make a go of it? What’s to stop us from ending up hating each other when I realize you and the girls will always be Brenda’s, and when you realize I will never be Brenda?”

  One corner of his mouth quirked upward. “With that kind of thinking, we might as well say goodbye right now.”

  “You’re laughing at me.”

  He nodded once, with a slight smile. “Some, yeah.”

  “I guess I had it coming.”

  “I guess you did.” He took a step closer. “I propose a test.”

  She eyed him carefully. “What kind of test?”

  “Have you finished your Christmas shopping?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Humor me. It’s an easy, yes-or-no question. Have you finished your Christmas shopping?”

  Amy heaved a sigh. “All right, I’ll play. No. I need one last element for the girls’ presents from Brenda.”

  “Can you tell me what this last item is? Where you might need to go to get it?”

  “I want to get a backpack for each of them, to hold all the parts of their presents.”

  He tilted his head in curiosity. “You’re really making me wonder what Brenda was up to. What you’re up to.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  “How about this. You and I drive over to Waco Saturday afternoon. I’ll get a sitter for the girls, and we’ll have dinner, maybe catch a movie if you want. Make a date out of it. See if we end up hating each other.”

  Amy smirked. “You know I didn’t mean it would happen in one day.”

  “So humor me. We’ll have a test date, see what happens.”

  She was tempted. More than tempted. “It’s not smart.”

  “Then let’s be stupid. Come on. What do you say?”

  She could play coy and tell him she’d have to let him know. She could fool herself into thinking that if she postponed her answer she might get smart and turn him down. But she’d never been coy in her life, and now it seemed she wasn’t even smart.

  She nodded. “All right. Saturday afternoon. A test. To see how it goes. Great. No pressure there, right?”

  He smiled. “Right.”

  She spun on her heel and made for the door. “I’ve got to get this package shipped.”

  Only on her way out the door did it occur to Amy that she could have said no.

  Friday morning Riley was out of the office. Amy had little work to occupy her. She spent most of her time pacing the floor, hearing that mocking voice over and over in her mind—Do you dress like that every day?

  This crazy outing tomorrow was supposed to be a test date. To see…whatever.

  How long had it been since she’d been on a date? A genuine, honest-to-goodness, civilian date? She couldn’t remember, but she was pretty sure there’d been a different president in the White House at the time.

  What had she worn on that long-ago date? For that matter, who had she gone out with?

  Never mind. The who wasn’t important. What mattered was what she’d worn.

  No, what mattered was what she was going to wear tomorrow, when the only thing she really knew how to wear was desert camouflage. Or Levi’s. She was pretty good with Levi’s.

  Do you dress like that every day?

  Yes, dammit, she did. But tomorrow she wanted something else. She only wished she knew what that was. However, she knew where to go to find out.

  It was nearly noon. She locked up the office and drove in the direction she knew the elementary school to be. It wasn’t hard to find. It was the place with all the little morning kindergarten and pre-kindergarten kids streaming out the door to the buses and cars waiting to take them home. She looked at the driveways across the street from the school for the big sedan she’d seen Mrs. Green drive, but all the driveways were vacant.

  It stood to reason that the Greens would keep a nice car like that in the garage, especially during cold weather, although it was in the upper forties today and sunny. But as it turned out, she didn’t need the appearance of the car to find the Green’s house, all she needed to do was follow Cindy as she zipped up the neatest yard to the front porch where Marva Green stood with open arms and a smile.

  “Brenda,” she whispered. “Your babies are in good hands. Your mother loves them so much.”

  When the street cleared, Amy rolled forward and pulled into the Greens’ driveway. By then Cindy and her nana had gone inside. Amy rang the doorbell and took a deep breath for courage. She’d faced armed insurgents with little concern. They were nothing, however, compared to the dragon lady.

  The door opened and for once, Marva Green was at a loss.

  “I apologize for showing up like this without calling first,” Amy began. “But I had a feeling you might have hung up on me rather than invite me over.”

  Having gathered her wits, the woman assumed her queen-to-peasant look. “I assume you’re going to tell me why you would want to be invited.”

  Amy took another deep breath. “I need your help.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m not your daughter. I loved Brenda. She was the sister I never had but always wanted. But I don’t want to be her, don’t want to take her place even if I could, which I couldn’t. I want my own place, Mrs. Green. If that place is in Riley’s life, well, that remains to be seen. He asked me to spen
d tomorrow afternoon and evening with him to finish Christmas shopping. I said yes because I’d like to spend some time with him away from work, to see how we get along.”

  “And you’re telling me this why?”

  “I’m rambling, I know. I do that when I get nervous, and you make me nervous.”

  Mrs. Green’s lips twitched. “I’m sure.”

  “Yes, well, I’d rather face a spitting camel than Brenda’s beautiful, perfect mother, but I don’t know where else to turn.”

  “Please.” Marva rolled her eyes. “The suspense is killing me.”

  “I want to dress a little more—stylish, I guess—tomorrow and I don’t know how and no one is better at that than—”

  Mrs. Green’s brow quirked upward.

  “—Brenda’s mother,” Amy finished.

  Suddenly the woman frowned and peered at Amy. “Am I to understand that you’re asking me to help clothe you for your date with Riley?”

  “In a nutshell, yes.” Then it was Amy’s turn to frown. “Where’s Cindy?”

  “Here I am,” the child said, running in from the hall. “Hi, Amy.”

  “Hi, Esmeralda. How ya doin’?”

  Cindy giggled, then hiccuped, looking adorable in a red dress with ruffles at the hem, sleeves and neck. She looked as though she’d just walked out of a Christmas pageant.

  “Who,” Mrs. Green said, “is Esmeralda?”

  “That’s me, Nana. I’m Esmeralda.” Cindy beamed with pride.

  Amy’s heart warmed. “It’s my nickname for her,” she told Mrs. Green.

  “How come you’re here?” Cindy asked Amy.

  “I came to ask your nana to help me dress a little nicer.” At Cindy’s look of confusion, Amy added, “More like you, in a dress, than in jeans, like me.”

  “You mean, like a girl?” Cindy asked, all sweetness and innocence.

  “Yes, like a girl.”

  “Are you gonna help her, Nana? Can I help, too?”

  Marva Green smoothed a hand over the head of her youngest granddaughter, treasuring the silky softness of Cindy’s beautiful hair, while eyeing this friend of Brenda’s. Inside, grief and rage and love threatened to tear Marva apart, but she kept her expression as blank as possible.