On Sunday, he put them both on the plane for home.
He hugged Emily hard. “I love you. I wish you would believe me.”
“I do.”
“Then stop worrying that Laura’s baby will come between us.”
“I’ll try, but she is already coming between us. I’m going home and you’re staying here.”
“I don’t feel comfortable leaving her. She needs a friend right now. Someone who can run errands for her because the doctors won’t let her do anything. How’s she supposed to eat if she can’t shop for groceries or cook?” He tucked a strand of hair behind Emily’s ear. “Tammy has her baby to take care of. Callie is a bit more pregnant than Laura is and she’s got her hands full with her job and with getting ready for the baby. Laura needs a friend and that seems to be me.”
Emily stared behind his left shoulder, no longer mulish or sulky, but thoughtful.
“Call me?”
Nick hugged her again. “You’re my shining star. I need to talk to my star every night.”
He watched while she boarded the plane and, despite the tension of the past few days and despite his using his brothers and their wives as a buffer between him and Emily, he didn’t want her to go. He missed her already.
On Monday morning, Nick drove to Callie’s long-term-care facility.
She smiled when she saw him.
“Nick! What are you doing here?”
He’d come on an errand, but now that he was here, he found himself curious about Callie’s adventure and how she was doing.
Funny, in the past few months, he’d come to terms with her having “defected” to his brother. He wasn’t so blind that he couldn’t see that what they had between them was a powerful love. He wasn’t so petty that he couldn’t be happy for them.
He asked Callie for a tour of the home and got it. He was impressed.
“You’re doing a great job, Callie. This place is warm and homey rather than institutional.”
“Thank you, Nick. Your opinion matters to me.”
The quiet honesty of the statement touched him.
“Do you want to see Johanna while you’re here?”
“I’d love to see her.”
“She won’t recognize you.”
“That’s fine.”
He visited briefly and Callie was right. Johanna didn’t recognize him, but then, she didn’t realize Callie was her own daughter.
After they left her room, Nick said, “She doesn’t know us, but honestly, she’s doing well here. She seems calmer. Happier.”
“She is.” Callie gave a brief instruction to a passing nurse then turned back to Nick. “Why are you here? I know it wasn’t for a tour.”
“I want to borrow or rent a wheelchair from you.”
“A wheelchair?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, Nick, not for Laura. She would hate to be wheeled around.”
“I know, but she’s stir-crazy. I want to get her downstairs and into the wheelchair so she can visit her café and see her renovations and maybe even take a ride down Main Street without exerting herself.”
“That’s so thoughtful. You’re good for her, Nick.”
He shrugged. “I’m helping a friend.”
“You’ve come all the way from Seattle to do it. You’re staying in a hotel at your own expense. From what I heard, before Emily came for Thanksgiving, you spent every day with her.”
“There’s no better communication than the small-town grapevine.”
Callie laughed, a musical sound that Nick had forgotten. Then again, she laughed a lot more now than she had when she’d worked for him, so he hadn’t heard it often.
“Someday soon it wouldn’t hurt,” Callie said, walking with him to the front door, “for you to admit that you love her.”
“I don’t.”
“Here’s your wheelchair.” She picked up a folded chair from a rack by the entrance. “Keep it until Laura gives birth.”
Nick hugged her. “I still like you, Callie. I won’t hold that ‘you love her’ remark against you.”
Her laugh rang again, following him through the open door to his car.
He’d joked with her, but God, when were people going to stop shoving Laura down his throat?
* * *
HE HELPED HER down the stairs. She took them carefully, scared to death of falling and making her baby come early.
When she saw the wheelchair she frowned. “I’m not an invalid.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re going nuts inside your apartment, but you have to take it easy for the baby. Sit.”
She did and then he wheeled her down the narrow alleyway onto Main. “This is embarrassing.”
“What do you think of the weather? Nice, isn’t it?”
“People are staring at me.”
“The breeze keeps the sun from getting too hot.”
“Would you quit with the weather already?”
“Just trying to get you to stop complaining.”
She huffed out a laugh. “I am complaining, aren’t I? The sun is nice.” She closed her eyes and raised her face toward the sun’s rays.
He wheeled her into the café and everyone turned.
“Bringing your own chair with you?” someone who Nick didn’t know called out. “Good for you, Laura.”
Nick bought himself a coffee and Laura an herbal tea and got her to carry both of them while he wheeled her next door.
When he pushed her into the shop, he heard her breath catch.
“Looks good, doesn’t it?” he asked.
“It’s gorgeous.”
“Happy with the colors you chose?”
“I love them. Geordie,” she called.
The contractor stepped out from the kitchen, his coveralls stained with plenty of white and beige paint, but also plum and orange and red. Laura’s colors.
“What do you think?” Geordie approached, leaned forward and bussed her on the cheek.
“You’ve done a fabulous job.”
“You chose the colors. All I did was apply them to the walls.”
Nick sat on the floor and Laura in her chair and they talked about her plans for the place and the Opening Day party.
Later, he took her back upstairs, put her to bed and started to head to the B and B to concentrate on his own business.
On impulse, he stopped in to see the Gems, stepping around the counter because they worked exclusively in the back now, baking.
“Do either of you women know where I can find more of you?”
“What do you mean?” Norma asked. Or maybe it was Gayle.
“I want to hire more women for the Opening Day party that Laura’s planning after she opens up the wall.”
“We’ve already got our sisters on the front counter to replace ourselves.”
“Do they bake as well as you do?”
“Yep. Our mothers taught us.”
“Okay, all of you are hired to work overtime. How does time and a half sound?”
“Sounds good. I’ve already been to Denver twice since I started work here. I’m collecting a whole new wardrobe.”
“Okay, I’ll get Laura to write up a menu for you.”
He worked all afternoon, but got little done because much of the time was devoted to calls he needed to make. He was late getting to Laura’s and therefore late calling Emily. By the time he’d finished putting dinner together and eating it and cleaning up and then making sure that Laura was in bed, it was past nine-thirty.
“Dad, I thought you weren’t going to call.” He could hear her uncertainty and disappointment in her voice.
“Sorry, honey. Tell me about your day.”
By the time he hung up, he was yawning, but still had hours of work to do.
He thought it might have been sometime after three when he fell into bed.
His days fell into a routine in earnest after that.
As hard as he worked, he seemed to slip further and further behind at work. Mort called and chastised him for missing client phone call
s and for not getting contracts returned on time.
If he could just get through the Opening Day at Sweet Temptations, things would slow down.
The day arrived with great fanfare. Nick had handbills printed up and delivered to every citizen in town and for miles around.
When he wheeled Laura around to the front of the building, there was a lineup down Main. They stepped aside so she could enter, then followed her in.
Tilly and the Gems and their sisters and the extra staff Laura had hired for the day all waited at the new counter to serve everyone.
Geordie had outdone himself. The place shone. The missing wall opened the room into a huge airy space full of tables and chairs covered in cloths to match the colors of the walls.
There was a coffee and a cinnamon bun free for everyone, along with trays of sweets that the ladies handed around. The children got either cold drinks or hot chocolate.
Even with the larger space, there weren’t enough chairs for everyone. The café would never house this many people on a normal day, though.
Laura glowed. The townspeople loved her.
Nick talked to everyone, helped the Gems clear tables, handed around sweets, but never lost track of where Laura was in the room, watching her for signs of fatigue or stress.
The music for the day had been chosen by both of them. They’d spent a pair of evenings burning CDs with Laura’s favorite artists. The music added to the ambience of the space.
At noon, he approached Laura. “Time to go upstairs.”
“Already?”
He nodded and smiled. “It’s a smashing success.”
She sighed. “It is, isn’t it?”
He made them a light lunch.
“I’m going home tomorrow, Laura.”
She shot him a startled gaze. “Really?”
“You won’t need me now. The shop is open and up and running and I’ve got bucket loads of work to catch up on.”
She fingered the crackers he’d served with the soup. “I don’t know how to thank you for what you’ve done for me.”
He stood to leave. She stood, too.
He leaned forward. Their lips touched. They stared. This close her eyes were golden, the hazel overtaking the brown.
“It was my pleasure,” he said and, to his surprise, meant it.
She walked him to the door, well, waddled really, but even this ripe with pregnancy, she was still beautiful. Radiant. Aglow.
He left with mixed feelings, sort of lost and lonely.
In Seattle, his daughter welcomed him home with squeals and opened arms.
They spent as much time as he could carve out of his evenings with her, then worked long into the night.
Two days before Christmas, they flew to Accord, he and Emily and Mort, to spend Christmas with the Jordan family. On the 28th, Nick put Emily on a plane bound for France and he and Mort headed back to Seattle.
Nick worked through New Year’s Eve and then fell into bed alone, the house hollow and still.
He had an early dinner on New Year’s Day with Mort and then went home and caught up on more work.
He wondered what his brothers were doing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
OLIVIA CAMERON STEPPED out onto Main Street in the driving snow, leaning into the wind. She needed to get across the street to pick up some lunch. She hadn’t brought anything to work today, it was after two and she was starving.
A gust blew snow against her. Every January, she swore she was going to sell the house and the gallery and move to Florida. Year after year, she stayed put. She turned her face away from the stinging cold, trying to keep her makeup dry, and hopped over a small bank of snow onto the road.
She landed wrong and lost her footing.
Tires screeched and a bumper hit her hip. She screamed and fell, landing on her other hip.
“Olivia, what the hell were you thinking?” Lester Hughes ran from his car to her where she lay on the wet pavement in dirty snow. “You don’t step into the road without looking both ways.”
Olivia tried to breathe, but the fall had knocked the wind out of her.
Lester crouched beside her. “How bad are you hurt?”
She finally caught her breath. “My hip...hurts.”
“Which one?”
“Both.” One from the bumper and the other from hitting the road.
“Are they broken? Can you stand?”
They weren’t broken. Standing was painful. She was stiff. She managed, though.
“I’m okay,” she said.
“I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“No.” She took a few steps. “I’m fine. I’ll be bruised tomorrow, though.”
Tyler Jordan appeared beside them. “I heard the squealing tires. What happened?”
Lester explained and Olivia agreed, “It was all my fault, Sheriff. I didn’t watch for cars when I stepped out.”
“Tell her she’s gotta come to the hospital with me,” Lester said. “I want her x-rayed for internal injuries.”
“He’s right,” Ty said. “You need to get checked out.”
“Okay.” Olivia sighed. She’d have to call Monica Accord in on her day off. “You go on about your business, Lester. I’ll drive to the hospital myself.”
“That ain’t right, Olivia. What if you conk out on the drive?”
“I didn’t hit my head when I fell. I’m fine to drive.”
“But—”
“I insist.”
“In that case,” Ty said, “I’ll follow you to make sure you arrive safely.”
“Give me a few minutes. I have to call Monica in from her day off to cover at the gallery.”
“I’ll wait for you out front.”
Back in her office, Olivia sat down and put her head between her legs. She hadn’t hit it, didn’t have a concussion, but the incident had scared the daylights out of her and had left her dizzy and shaken.
She raised one hand. It shook so badly she couldn’t use her phone. What if Lester hadn’t been able to stop? What if he hadn’t had the presence of mind to jerk the steering wheel so she got only a glancing blow rather than being hit head-on?
If she’d been hit squarely by his car, would she be dead now instead of able to drive herself to the hospital?
Or worse, would she be crippled or unable to lead a normal life, the life she took for granted?
In those few precious moments suspended between life and possible death, she’d seen a lot. It had happened so quickly, but not so fast that she hadn’t had immediate disgust for herself.
How much time had she wasted in her life? How much had she let fear rule her?
Tyler entered her gallery and called her name.
She left her office and handed him her phone. “Please,” she said. “Call Monica.”
Five minutes later, she was on the road and Tyler was following her.
X-rays showed neither internal nor permanent damage.
She sent Tyler home. She had a stop to make before returning to downtown Accord.
She was fifty-eight years old and deathly afraid of aging. She was a coward. A man loved her, had told her he wanted her exactly the way she was, flaws and all, and she’d thrown it back in his face.
All it took was one brush with her own mortality to set her head on straight. She wanted Aiden, her age be damned.
She turned down the road to his home. Her cell phone rang, but she ignored it, her mind on one purpose, one goal, and nothing else.
She dashed through the snow to his door and rapped on it hard with her knuckles. Please be home. I need you, Aiden McQuorrie.
He opened the door, opened his mouth to set her down with something scathing, something she probably deserved, but then saw her face and stopped.
“What happened, love?”
Love. Was there a more perfect word in the English language or a more perfect man for her on the face of the planet? Without another word, he took her into his arms. She wrapped hers across his back to hold him tightly, to
savor every muscle and sinew of his vibrant body.
“Make love to me,” she whispered and he slammed the door and pulled her down the hallway.
God, it had been so long. Her body throbbed with unrelieved sexual tension. She hadn’t been with a man in ten years and, during the years after her husband’s affair, their lovemaking had been spotty, impeded by grief, resentment and distrust. She was growing older by the minute, and drying up by the second.
She wanted to know love again.
Her body ached.
There’d been a time when she’d been crazy about sex, she and John active as young lovers well into their marriage, even after their three children had been born.
Since then? Next to nothing. Her body cried out for release. She wanted vitality flooding her veins.
They entered a bedroom and she barely had time to register an enormous king-size bed before Aiden pulled his T-shirt over his head then closed the blinds.
What she’d seen before the room went dark dried her mouth. He was beautiful. Hard. Lean. Sculpted. Muscular.
And she was soft and wanting to accept, to take.
He found her in the darkness as though she were phosphorescent. His fingers worked quick magic, divesting her of her clothes.
Then they were on that massive bed and he was on top of her, his big body pressing hers into the mattress, and kissing her and licking her neck and breasts and running his hands in places only she had touched for years, and he smelled, touched, felt like quintessential Man. Then he was inside of her and she was climbing a golden mountain.
He filled her, stretched her, and quickened her blood. She spread her legs wide and put her hands on his behind to hold his body hard against hers, to savor him inside of her, to cherish the filling of a space empty for far too long. He moved and she wanted more. Her hands urged him deeper, harder, faster.
More.
More.
He touched her between her legs and she sang. Flew. Shattered.
Still, he moved inside of her and their bodies ran with sweat and her spirit rose again, to fly, weightless, timeless, without context.
This.
Only this.
Aiden roared then collapsed onto her, his weight crushing, heavenly. Essential.
Rolling to his side, he took her with him, threw one heavy leg across hers and wrapped his arms around her, as though he would take her into his core.
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