B008KQO31S EBOK (41 page)

Elaine felt her tears rising, but she stubbornly blinked them back.

“I know, Elaine, that I treated you badly. And I know we both said a lot of horrible things. If I could change anything in the world, I’d wipe all of that away.” He impaled her with a glance. “But I can’t. What’s done can’t be undone.”

He picked up the drawing again and put it down square in front of her. “But I would like to be remembered as someone who tries, someone who makes the effort to get what he really wants.”

He walked all the way to the door before Elaine realized he was leaving the only drawing he had ever done with her.

He paused, one hand on the knob, then looked back at her, his heart in his eyes. “And if you ever want to go for dinner with a guy who is willing to try to do better, please let me know.”

With that, Jeffrey McAllister walked out of Elaine’s life.

And not a moment too soon. The tears that she had fought to hide spilled and it was only quick reflexes that kept his drawing from being soaked. Elaine buried her face in her hands and cried, touched more than she could have believed possible by his gesture.

Someone had finally given her something that wasn’t disposable, something that mattered, something that came right from the heart. It was whimsical and romantic and as unlike the Jeff she had known as was possible.

Maybe it was a better view of the Jeff she had glimpsed, the one man she had not been able to forget. Maybe this was what made him special.

The really stupid thing was that Elaine could see love in Jeff’s drawing. The squiggles sort of made lazy hearts, as well as circles that could have been hugs. She could imagine it hanging on a doting grandmother’s wall, she could imagine a five-year-old Jeff feeling adored by his grandmother, proudly eating cookies in that kitchen under his “art” while his cousins teased him.

She’d seen enough old movies that she could imagine what she had never had. Elaine blew her nose and wiped her tears. She rummaged for a nail and hammer in her desk, then hung that drawing on the wall beside her desk.

She stood back, tilted her head and studied it with a dawning smile. If Jeffrey McAllister could come to her with his heart in his hand and ask for another chance, the least Elaine could do was meet him halfway.

Because she had missed him too.

To hell with her desk. She scooped up her purse, locked the door and sailed out of the office, coming to a full stop in the parking lot.

Because there were two cars there, her own and a silver BMW. The beemer had a certain long-legged lawyer leaning against it.

Jeff smiled ruefully. “I stink at waiting.”

Elaine smiled back. “We can work on that.” She fiddled with her purse strap, the words hard to say now that he was watching her so closely. “Maybe over dinner.”

Jeff’s eyes lit in that way that had always thrilled Elaine right down to her toes.

He stood up, but paused. “What about your date?”

“It’s about time you got here.” Elaine grinned at Jeff’s obvious relief, then tossed her keys in the air and caught them. “I’ll drive.” She wrinkled her nose at him playfully. “It’ll give you a chance to see how the other half lives.”

But when she would have darted past him, Jeff caught her around the waist, swinging her close enough for a quick hard kiss.

That was another thing she’d missed.

While Elaine was distracted, he stole her keys. “Let me. We’re still going to Sabatino’s,” he declared as he pulled the Geo out into the traffic.

“Can you afford it now?”

He grinned recklessly. “No. Call it a motivational move. This calls for a celebration.”

“We can celebrate anywhere.”

“Elaine, I want to do this. It may be a while before I can do it again.” He captured her hand, giving her fingers an impulsive squeeze. “I want everyone to know that we’re together.”

Elaine sighed, feeling a niggle of doubt at the sound of that. “Everyone who’s everyone?”

Jeff shot her a hard look. “Everyone. Period.” He rolled down the window and stuck his head out, his hair blowing wildly around his face.

“Hey, Boston!” he shouted. “Elaine Pope is having dinner with
me
!”

A few drivers commented, a pair of kids on the sidewalk hollered in support. Jeff pulled his head back in and grinned at Elaine, looking disheveled and very, very sexy. “How am I doing?”

She was unable to stop her answering smile. “I think you might just do, Mr. McAllister.”

* * *

I took my time going home, driving via everywhere I could think of. I knew the apartment would be empty when I got there and I just didn’t want to face solitude there.

Not to mention carrots for dinner.

In the truck, it wasn’t so bad. I had the windows rolled down and had chucked off my jacket. My hair blew around my face as I drove down the coast, all the way to Cape Ann, then back. I could be going somewhere.

And I do love to drive.

I enumerated all the good things in my life. The contract for Mrs. H. was a success, the check had cleared. Lucia was home and happy with the chief of police. My mother had found a condo and raided my father’s various bank accounts, much to his outrage. She’d called to say she was going dancing tonight, as excited as a kid given a bag of candy.

So, everything should have been right in my world.

You know that it wasn’t. The only thing I really wanted was gone—not that I would have had it any other way. The manacle plan would have never worked out. Knowing Nick, he would have gnawed his way free. He could be a wily kind of guy.

And really, who wants a guy compelled to stay?

The end result would have been the same anyhow. He’d be gone, this time for good.

The sun was setting when I finally turned back toward the city. My stomach was grumbling by the time I took the exit home. Thinking about that dark kitchen, I nearly drove around the block, or back to the office, but called myself a chicken. Sooner or later, I had to go home.

Home. The apartment had never felt less like one.

My porch light with its trusty light sensor was on and that was about it. I’d have to tell Matt about my unauthorized leasehold improvement, since he was about the only one in the family who wasn’t wound up about something.

But then, maybe he was the lucky one.

I parked the truck beside the upstairs guy’s Passat, wondered as always why he had a cheap apartment and an expensive car, then rolled up the windows. I didn’t hurry toward the porch, but no one was there to see.

At least that was what I thought at the time.

I was about twenty feet away from the porch when I saw him. There was a man sitting on my porch, a very familiar man. I stopped and stared, but he just smiled the slow smile that made my toes curl.

This time I couldn’t blame anything on champagne. I was stone cold sober—and starving too.

“Don’t tell me that you haven’t got anything to say.” He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, his eyes gleaming.

I hitched my purse further up my shoulder. “You didn’t have to hang around to say goodbye.”

“I know. I didn’t think you’d take so long.”

“Lots to do.” I jingled my keys and headed for the door, but never made it that far.

Nick stepped forward to intercept me. He closed one hand over mine, silencing my keys. His hand was warm and he must have felt me tremble at his touch. His expression was surprisingly anxious. “Walk for a minute?”

A minute, an hour, a week. I’d take all I could get. I nodded and he slipped his arm around my waist. We strolled away from the house, though I had no idea where we were going. He seemed preoccupied, and I knew he was planning where to go next, what to do, what to make of the rest of his life.

I thought of all the adventures he must have had and the places he had been and I wanted to put my hand in his and go there too. I wanted to unfurl a new map on the kitchen table and pick a destination, any destination, with the drop of a pencil, then go there with Nick.

But he would do the same thing, alone.

“You can hardly see the stars here.” His words were whiskey soft.

“Big city lights,” I agreed, expecting another tale of his travels.

But he halted at the end of the street, his head tipped back. “Which one’s brightest, Phil?”

“Are you going to tell me to make a wish?”

His smile was warm if fleeting. “Why not?”

Why not. I scanned the sky, painfully aware of the echo of this deed in our shared past. I spun around in place, then pointed to the brightest one. “That one.”

“Sure?”

“Um hmm.”

“Then let me get it for you.”

I turned to him in surprise, but he stretched up onto his toes and reached into the night. When he opened his hand, offering me its contents, something glimmered there. It was a star, a perfectly white star trapped on a white gold band, that band caught between his fingers. It glimmered against his skin.

I met his gaze, probably with a big question mark in mine.

“It’s the closest thing I could find to a lucky star, Phil.” His words were gruff and oddly uncertain. “I thought it was time you got rid of that plastic one.”

I stared at him, knowing I’d never seen him so nervous.

“I thought maybe you would wear it, and that then you’d be able to make a wish anytime anyplace.”

I couldn’t quite believe that he was saying what I knew he was saying, so I just stared at him, a dumbstruck dope. His gaze searched mine, as though he was looking for some kind of encouragement.

“I love you, Phil.” He smiled ever so slightly. “I told you before but you were asleep.”

I found my voice, though it was husky. “Chicken.”

His smile flashed and disappeared. “Something like that.” He held the ring between his finger and thumb, turning it so that the diamond sparkled in the light of the city. “Care to make a wish?”

“You first.”

He held my gaze, his own intensely green. “I wish that Phil Coxwell would marry me, travel with me, and count stars with me wherever we manage to find ourselves.”

I smiled at him and held out my left hand. “It must be your lucky night, Sullivan. I think I can arrange for that wish to come true.”

What happened after that is none of your business.

W
e got married with unholy haste, but there were seeds to harvest and gardens to plant, so we took a belated honeymoon. We ditched the apartment and moved into Lucia’s place, which was big enough that we could completely avoid each other if we wanted to. She was getting more frail—though she denied it vigorously—and Nick slept better knowing that she wasn’t alone out there.

He and Joel tilled a huge crescent of a flower bed at the back of the lot and I planted heritage seeds out there. The sun was terrific and they grew beyond expectation. Nick donated a computer and database software to the cause and the woman from the historical society had a heyday making that database.

Mrs. H. did indeed refer us to her friends and we were busy all summer. Nick worked a lot of days for us, which was a great help. An added bonus was that he, unlike so many worker dudes, wasn’t going to disappear.

So, it was near the end of October when we locked our bikes together on the roof of an auberge near Merzouga. The moon was new, the sunset smeared orange from horizon to horizon.

I curled up beside Nick in the sleeping bags we’d zipped together and he bunched our packs and fleeces behind us.

“Show time,” he said with a wink, then uncapped a flask. He poured a measure of something gold into a little metal cup and handed it to me.

“What’s that?”

“Brandy. Drink it.”

I took a sniff and wrinkled my nose. “Moderation is one thing, Nick, but that stuff is like jet fuel.”

“Drink it.” He pushed the cup into my hand when I hesitated. “Freddie has friends and family everywhere.”

Yuck. I drank and practically coughed up my liver, that stuff was so strong.

He was smiling at me, so I smacked his shoulder.

“Not funny.”

“Of course not. Here’s your reward.” He unwrapped the foil on a slightly melted Swiss chocolate bar, broke off a piece and handed it to me.

I eyed him warily. “You’re leading me down the path of temptation.”

“After today?” He shook his head. “We biked thirty miles today, Phil. You deserve it.”

“My butt will get huge.”

He grinned. “Why do you think I’ve been riding behind you? I’ve been keeping an eye on it, as part of my marital duties. Rotten job, but someone’s got to do it.” I laughed at him and he caught me close against his side. “You get sexier every day, Phil, and don’t imagine otherwise.”

I took the chocolate, and leaned back beside him as twilight slipped across the sky.

He was right about the show. Soon the heavens were thick with stars. Star soup. Star carpets, star-studded. It was awesome and even though I was tired from all that pedaling, I stared and stared, filling my mind with the sight of them. I curled up against him and tried my damnedest to find the brightest one.

It was impossible.

But then, I already had everything I’d ever wished for.

“Find your lucky star?” Nick’s voice was a purr in my ear.

“Oh yes.” I squirmed around to face him, then snuggled closer. “And I’m not going to let him go.”

* * * * * * * * *

 Ready for more of the Coxwells?

Keep reading for an excerpt of

Double Trouble

Book #2 in the Coxwell series.