“Think you would consider staying here?” Jeff wasn’t sure whose voice questioned Teresa, but he was glad the man had asked it.
The answer mattered. A lot.
“I don’t know. There might not be enough work here for me to be able to support myself.”
While the topic shifted, Jeff thought, she could live with me permanently. Then it wouldn’t matter how large her paycheck was. The thought stunned him—he wasn’t an impetuous man—but it felt right.
Shortly after ten, they drove home.
Jeff’s thoughts tumbled like acrobats. Should I tell her how I feel? Years ago when he’d first started dating Irene, he’d known that she loved him because he’d seen it shining in her eyes.
Not so now. He couldn’t gauge Teresa’s expression, couldn’t guess her emotions.
Should I say something? What did he have to lose? His life was short and getting shorter.
“I wish I could see you,” he said, his voice quiet in the hush of the truck’s dark cab.
“Why on earth would you want to do that?” she scoffed. “I’m not a looker, Jeff.”
“I don’t care. I just want to see you.”
“You could if you had the operation.”
“We don’t know for certain it would work.”
“We don’t know that it won’t unless you try it.”
They’d had this argument before.
Tonight, his resistance softened.
“I might have it if it meant I could see you.” There. He’d put everything out in the open. She knew how much he feared the operation.
He heard a soft gasp. “I...”
Jeff laughed softly. “I never thought you’d be speechless, Teresa.”
“Me, either.” She sounded subdued. He’d screwed up. She didn’t know how to let him down gently. He should have kept his mouth shut.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just a client. I understand.”
She didn’t respond and his hope deflated.
At home, they went through their bedtime routines, but when Jeff finished up in the bathroom and returned to his room, he sensed her there.
He sat on his bed and waited.
“I shouldn’t say this. I shouldn’t say anything,” she admitted. “I’m a professional. When my clients are men, I’m careful with them. I don’t become involved.”
He waited. Was there a but coming, or was he a foolish man, too hopeful when she had given him no signs and had made no promises?
“You are argumentative and stubborn,” she said, and his heart sank. “But you’re also highly moral and ethical and honest. I like your hardheadedness. I like arguing with you. I’ve learned from your friends that you used to do anything asked of you for anyone, purely from the goodness of your heart. I admire those traits.”
He sensed her moving toward the door. “I work hard to maintain my professional distance. It’s important to me. So I will never have an affair or sleep with a client, but I want you to know something. I’ll say this only once and then we won’t ever talk about it again.”
She stepped into the hallway and whispered before she left, “You are more than just a client.”
* * *
THE NEWS CAME on Wednesday morning. Good thing Gray was sitting down because it shocked him, even though he’d known it was coming, had known that John would be able to pull it off. It destroyed him nonetheless. John must have used some powerful persuasion, or maybe some of Gray’s own money, to get everything pushed through so quickly. Dad’s psych evaluation had gone through, and it had been determined that his behavior was erratic—and the threat to the livelihood of everyone at the company substantial—enough to warrant Gray’s concern.
Gray now had guardianship over Dad and his property, and could do whatever he wanted with the company. What’s more, the sale of the greenhouses to Audrey had been made null and void. Turner Lumber owned that land again.
Gray should have rejoiced. He’d won. He felt no victory. No triumph. He felt nothing.
* * *
AUDREY WALKED INTO the Army Surplus and straight into Noah’s arms.
“Hey. Whoa. What wrong? Is it your dad?” He rubbed her back.
“No.” She started to weep, silently.
“Hey. You don’t cry easily. What’s happened?”
He led her to the counter and pulled out a cotton handkerchief from a drawer.
She wiped her eyes, smearing makeup across her temples and cheeks.
“Come on, babe. Tell me what’s going on.”
“The greenhouses.”
“What could you have done that has you this upset?”
She broke into loud sobs. “I lost the greenhouses.”
“Lost?” Noah swore. “Gray got them back?”
“He had Harrison declared incompetent.” In the cave, there had been a breakthrough with Gray. She’d thought she’d prepared herself in case he still went through with this, but she hadn’t even come close.
“Oh, Jesus,” Noah said.
“I hired a therapist for dad. How will I pay her?” Disaster. Her mind couldn’t process past that one word. “How can I win the competition without my plants?”
She couldn’t control the sobs that made talking difficult. “If I move them now, they’ll die. I planned to move them only once to take them to the competition.”
Her despair eclipsed her good nature, her willpower and every ounce of strength she’d used to push herself forward through adversity, through the really hard times with Dad. She’d hit a wall.
“I have nothing, Noah. Nothing.”
“You still have the store.”
“I know, but it isn’t paying me a living wage. Not yet, anyway.”
“You’ll get back the money from buying the greenhouses.”
Small consolation for an aching heart. “Yes, I will, but they represented moving forward, taking huge strides toward becoming well-known in the Denver market and farther afield than just Accord.”
“I know, but if you can hang on, you can still make a go of it. Look at me. I manage to hang on with the Army Surplus.”
“But Dad’s operation. His eyesight that just keeps getting worse. I can’t live off my blind father.”
That’s what this amounted to. Pride. She’d really thought she could pull it off. She could bring home an award that would take care of Dad’s medical expenses and his therapist’s salary. Yes, she could pay Teresa with what she got back for the greenhouses, but that was only a down payment. She’d been paying a small mortgage on them, as well. The win would have been a steady income for the upcoming year.
“He’s going to tear down the greenhouses.” None of the good things Gray had done for her and Dad lately diminished her profound disappointment in him.
“I’ll make you dinner tonight at my place and take care of you. You need a friend right now, okay?”
She nodded.
“You need to eat now, too. Go to the washroom and clean up your face. I’ll pick up lunch from the bakery and bring it back here.”
She couldn’t dredge up a smile. Noah was trying so hard, but nothing was going to fix this.
He bent his knees so she would meet his eyes. “Are you going to be okay while I’m gone?”
“Yes. I think I’m all cried out.”
“Good, ’cause I’ll be gone for a while. There’s something I have to do before I pick up lunch.”
* * *
GRAY SAT AT his desk at work, unable to get a thing done. He’d always reveled in his business victories in the past, but they had never felt so dirty.
His sliding wall flew open and Noah strode into his office, looking like a thundercloud had taken up residence on his face.
Crap. Trouble
. Gray stood.
Noah’s fist met Gray’s chin before Gray had a chance to prepare.
His head snapped back, then rocked forward, and pain exploded through his jaw. For a peace-loving hippie, the guy packed a lot of power.
“Fair enough,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “If it’s any consolation, I feel bad.”
“It isn’t. What are you going to do for Audrey? She’s at my place crying her heart out.”
Dear God, that pained him more than the fist in the face. He’d known all along she would be hurt, but when he’d started this process three weeks ago, he hadn’t cared about her.
Now he did, too much, and there was nothing he could do for her.
Noah said a couple of truly nasty things and then stormed out. Gray closed the walls of his office because everyone and his uncle were staring at him, and he needed time alone. Buckets and buckets of time alone.
* * *
GRAY STOOD IN front of the greenhouses and watched the backhoe pull into position and raise its bucket to smash through the buildings.
For the first time since arriving ten minutes ago, his gaze lit on the interior, barely visible through humidity-coated glass. It wasn’t empty.
He raised a staying hand and stepped to the door.
Inside, every plant to which Audrey had introduced him, every baby she’d talked to, still sat in colorful rows waiting for her, confident in their patient green finery that she would be there soon to flood them with water, nutrients and love.
Gray’s throat ached. Why hadn’t she taken them?
He called her, but her phone went to an answering machine.
“Audrey, if you’re there, pick up. You need to get these plants out of here.”
He heard a click and then, “Why?”
At the sound of her rough voice, his resolve faltered. He hadn’t spoken to her since the day she’d taken him into the cave to start him on a journey of healing.
He thought of Joe, therapy and a wheelchair, and Sam and Tiffany, ruthlessly triaging one person’s needs over another’s.
Audrey was an adult. She would survive. He didn’t doubt that she’d pick up the pieces and make a better life for herself.
“Why?” he echoed. “Because they’ll be destroyed. I’m pulling down the greenhouses today. Now.”
“They will die when I move them. I made that clear to you the first time you tried to tear down my greenhouses.”
He didn’t miss the emphasis.
“Most of them are exotic plants,” she continued. “They’re too delicate to move until they are fully mature.”
She cleared her throat. “Do your dirty work. I can’t save them.” She hung up.
Gray stared at the phone.
Envisioning twelve-year-old Joe on the sofa, his body folding in on itself, and Shelly’s admonishment that it would get worse, he knew he had no choice. Stepping outside, he nodded to the backhoe operator.
It edged closer to the building. Its bucket rose, tipped toward the delicate glass, but Gray didn’t see the greenhouse. He saw Audrey.
She might as well still be chained to the front door. Her spirit was here, on the land, in the building.
She would have nothing to use to enter the flower show. She would never win that monetary award for her beautiful flowers. Her store would never get the boost it needed to bring in more customers than just those who trickled in from Accord.
The backhoe screeched when it navigated into position.
Teresa already worked for Audrey, already tended Jeff. Audrey had gone into debt to bring Teresa here. How was Audrey going to pay her salary in the future if she couldn’t bring in enough money from the flower shop?
The bucket glanced off the glass as the operator maneuvered it into position.
The bucket came in for the kill.
How would Audrey—?
In his mind’s eye, he imagined her beauty, selflessness and magnificent spirit, all destroyed by one ugly decision.
He couldn’t do this.
He wasn’t destroying Audrey’s work. He was destroying her.
He couldn’t.
“Stop,” he shouted, but the operator couldn’t hear him.
The bucket would hit.
“Stop!” he yelled.
It touched the glass. With an ominous crack, the glass split.
“Stop!” Gray sprinted to the machine and reached in, grabbed the man’s arm and hauled him out of the backhoe, dumping him onto the ground.
“Hey!” the operator shouted. “What’s wrong with you?”
I’m insane. Crazy. Stupid.
Sentimental.
In love.
Whoa. Really?
No. Just serious, serious like.
He couldn’t love and lose again. He suffered the memory of Marnie hanging upside down in the car, her body lifeless, her once beautiful spirit gone.
“I said, what’s wrong with you?”
The construction worker’s voice brought Gray back to the present. “You couldn’t hear me. I was telling you to stop.”
He helped the man to his feet. “Sorry, man. I changed my mind. Load the backhoe onto the truck. We’re through here today.”
His foreman approached. “Are you serious? Not again.”
“Again,” Gray murmured, sick, unable to believe what he’d just done. What would happen to Turner Lumber?
He watched the construction equipment, the destruction machinery, make its way back to the trucks and drive away.
He fell onto the front step and hung his head.
What would happen to Joe now?
What would Shelly do? He could pay her rent for her, barely, considering that he paid a monthly mortgage on his condo in Boston until it sold, and now his monthly rent on his condo in Accord.
But what would happen to Joe?
When no great bolt of inspiration tumbled from the sky, he entered the greenhouse and wandered the aisles, struck by how warm and welcoming the old building felt.
Maybe humidity was good for the soul. More likely, it was the bountiful life around him, the exotic beauty that fought for its survival every second of every day. It might be pampered by Audrey, but it would perish in a heartbeat without her in a matter of a day or two.
Already, many plants drooped. He stuck his finger into the soil of a couple of them. Dry.
He phoned her again, but she wouldn’t answer. She needed to get out here to water these things.
Still, after repeated calls, she didn’t answer.
How could he blame her?
She’d given up.
He’d destroyed her spirit. Had killed her hope.
Gray took off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves and went in search of a water spigot.
Some plants he sprayed using a hose and others he watered by hand with water he hauled around in buckets, hoping like crazy he wasn’t killing them with too much moisture. What he knew about plants could fit into a thimble.
While he worked, he thought and thought until he devised a plan—a slow one, because nothing was going to get him money faster than selling this property to a company that was greedy for land and had plenty of money in hand.
He would have to lay off some of Dad’s employees, but maybe he could get a couple to agree to early retirement. As soon as the sale of his Boston condo went through, he’d give the money to Shelly with a promise of more to come.
She would just have to trust him.
He knew he also had to do what he’d been avoiding. He needed to pick up the results of the DNA test.
An hour and a half later, he finished, rolling his sleeves down and donning his jacket, more at peace than he had been in years. He’d come to a decision, a momentous permanent decision.
&n
bsp; He would stay here in Accord and keep the company alive as best he could, with as little carnage as possible.
Once his company sold, he would plow his money into Turner Lumber and run the business. He wanted that company. It was his legacy, and he’d been gone too long.
As well, one way or another he was going to repair his relationship with his parents. He didn’t know how, but it had to be done.
He loved them and he missed them.
First, he had to mend his friendship or whatever it was that had developed between him and Audrey.
He left the building and strode to the car he’d rented now that he didn’t have access to Dad’s Volvo, unsure what his next step would be for Shelly’s family, but certain he had to see Audrey first.
At The Last Dance, he peeked in through the front door. She was alone in the shop. Good. He stepped inside, and she turned at the sound of the door opening and closing.
When she saw him, her eyes widened—her red-rimmed, teary eyes.
I’m so sorry.
He’d caused her so much pain.
“Did you come to gloat?” she asked, her throat raspy. “That’s low, Gray, even for you.”
“No.” He stepped toward her, and she shifted away, but a few cells, a tiny ephemeral portion of her soul, strained toward him. He didn’t know how he detected it, but he knew. She needed comfort.
He moved closer, and she must have seen the compassion on his face, but she stayed her ground.
“I didn’t do it.” He needed her to stop crying, to stop breaking his heart with her pain.
“Didn’t do what?” It sounded like Dind do wud?
“Stop crying.” Her weeping made him ache physically. “Please, stop. You’re killing me.”
Her shoulders shook.
“I didn’t do it,” he shouted, and she stared at him, the violet of her eyes almost purple with brimming moisture, her mouth open, her full lips moist.
He kissed her fiercely, pouring his regret, his apology, his comfort—and his aching lust—into her.
She pulled him hard against her, rammed her fingers into his hair and devoured his lips, consumed his mixed emotions and gave of her own.
When Gray came up for air, she asked, “Do you mean it?” her voice dangerously low, afraid to believe, he guessed.
Because of Audrey Page 21
