Bundle of Joy (33 page)

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"Oh, no!" Maddy hit the backspace key three times then retyped the number. This was no time to screw up, not when the auction was sliding into its final minutes and she was struggling to maintain high bidder status over some surprisingly stiff competition from someone named FireGuy. You wouldn't think there would be so much action over a dented teapot but she'd had to raise her maximum bid twice in the last hour just to stay in the game.

The computer screen went blank. The hard drive grumbled then groaned. She held her breath until the screen refreshed itself and her new bid appeared.

"Okay," she said, grinning at her reflection. "That's more like it." Now all she had to do was ignore the fact that her mother was lurking in the hallway like your average peeping Tom and keep her mind on making sure that old samovar was waiting for Hannah under the tree on Christmas morning.

Priscilla pawed at the door. She looked up at Maddy with limpid brown eyes then yipped one of those high-pitched poodle yips capable of breaking juice glasses two towns over.

"Yes, I know she's been standing out there for the last ten minutes, Priscilla, and no I don't know why."

The door swung open on cue.

"Very funny," Rose said, her cheeks stained bright red. "I was polishing the hall table for your information."

"I polished it yesterday," Maddy said, one eye locked onto her computer screen.

"We polish daily around here these days," her mother said. The usual edge to her words was absent. "The paying customers expect it."

Maddy forced herself to relax. "I have a lot to learn about being an innkeeper. I bumped into the Loewensteins in the upper hallway last night and almost lost five years of my life."

"You'll get used to it." Rose hesitated then stepped into the room. She smelled like Pledge and Chanel No. 5, a combination that suited her mother down to the ground. "I don't want to interrupt you if you're working on the web site."

Maddy reached for the mouse to click over to a different, safer screen but she wasn't quick enough. Her mother leaned over her shoulder and peered at the image and the accompanying information.

"For Hannah?" Rose asked.

Maddy nodded, wishing she had faster fingers or a less curious mother. Asking for both might have been tempting the gods. "You know how she is about Aladdin. The second I saw this, I thought it would make a perfect magic lamp."

"I thought you'd finished Christmas shopping for Hannah."

"I thought so too, but she came home bubbling about a magic lamp she saw in a coloring book at school and – well, it's Christmas and she's my only child." She looked up at her mother. "You know how it is."
Didn't you feel that way when I was little? Didn't you want to gather up the stars and pour them into my Christmas stocking?

"You spoil that child."

"She deserves a little spoiling. She's had a tough year."

"That teapot won't change anything."

Maddy had the mouse in such a death grip that she was surprised it didn't squeak in surrender. "I think I know what's best for my child." How could one five-foot tall woman reduce her adult daughter to the emotional level of a sulky teenager just by breathing?

"I thought she had forgotten all about Aladdin."

"I don't know what gave you that idea."

"She's too old for this kind of make-believe."

"I suppose you would have advised Stephen King to get his head out of the clouds, too."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Keep your mouth closed, Maddy. For once in your life, just shut up.

She peered more closely at the computer screen in front of her and prayed Rose would take the hint. You spend three hours wrestling with cascading style sheets for the Inn's new website and there was no sign of the boss lady, but the second you flip to Shoreline Auctions, she appeared like magic right over your shoulder.

Well, there was no hope for it. Hannah, a devoted fan of all things Aladdin, needed a touch of magic herself, and Maddy was determined to make at least one of her wishes come true. This samovar had seen better days but, polished and repaired, it would delight her little girl and that was the most important thing. With only five minutes to go until the auction closed, she wasn't about to lose high-bidder status now.

"You're going to give her unreal expectations, Maddy. The sooner Hannah learns she can't have everything she wants, the better off she'll be."

Ignoring Rose was like ignoring a tsunami when you were trapped one hundred yards from shore in a rowboat.

"It's only a teapot, Ma, not the keys to a Porsche."

Rose made a sound that fell somewhere between a snort and a sigh. "That child needs a teapot like I need more rooms to clean."

Rolling her eyes in dismay over her mother's pronouncements had become a reflex action. The figures on the screen changed. Maddy groaned and quickly typed in a new high bid of her own. "That'll teach you to mess with JerseyGirl."

Rose whipped out her eyeglasses from the pocket of her pale blue sweater then slipped them on. "Tell me that's not the price."

"That's not the price." Unfortunately she wasn't lying. The final price was bound to be higher. She refreshed the screen and watched as the numbers changed one more time. "You're a tough one, FireGuy, but you're not going to win." She typed in yet another bid and pressed Enter.

"FireGuy?"

"That's his screen name."

"What's wrong with his real name? Does he have something to hide?"

"I'm sure his entire life's an open book, Mother, but everyone on-line has a screen name. That's how it's done."

Rose peered at her over the tops of her glasses. "Do you have one?"

"Of course I have one."

"I hope it's nothing embarrassing."

When Rose was in one of these moods, the name Betsy Ross would be embarrassing.

"I don't understand this obsession with on-line auctions," her mother went on. "You could drive over to Toys "R" Us and buy one of those sweet Barbie teapots for half the price."

"You're welcome to drive over to Toys "R" Us anytime you feel like it, Mother. I'm perfectly happy with Shore Auctions."

"Nobody should pay that much for a battered tea kettle." Rose's sigh sent middle-aged daughters across the Garden State ducking for cover. "Sometimes I worry about that child."

"Because she has an imagination?"

"You've filled her head with fairy tales. Where is that going to get her in life? She should be making play dates with her school friends, not dreaming over magic teapots and flying carpets."

And people wondered why she had left home at seventeen. Maddy bit her tongue so hard she almost drew blood.

"Have you heard a single word I've said?"

"Every last syllable." Maddy turned from the screen. "Mother, if you make me lose this tea kettle to some bozo who'll use it to store fishing lures, I'll be forced to tell everyone in Paradise Point that your naturally red hair quit being natural around 1981." Rose opened her mouth to protest but Maddy raised her hand. "I have less than four minutes left in this auction. You can finish the lecture after I nail down the kettle."

It was the wrong thing to say. Maddy knew it immediately. If she was looking for the pathway toward peaceful coexistence, maybe it was time to stop and ask for directions.

"Mom, I'm sorry. If you'll just –"

But it was too late. Rose wheeled and stalked from the room and Maddy had no doubt the rest of the clan would know about her latest transgression before it was time to rinse the radicchio for the dinner salads.

She knew she should run after Rose and apologize. Give her a hug and crack some clumsy joke to try and break the tension that had been building between them, but the clock was ticking on the auction and if she left her desk for even a second, she would lose the kettle and her only chance to make Hannah smile again would be lost with it.

She had waited fifteen years to mend fences with her mother. Another fifteen minutes wouldn't hurt.

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end of excerpt~~

A Soft Place to Fall – contemporary romance

A Shelter Rock Cove book

The first time they met, his dog trashed her car.

The second time they met, she set fire to her bathroom.

The third time they met, they fell in love.

Annie Galloway isn't looking to fall in love again. Sam Butler doesn't want a home and family of his own.

Too bad fate has other plans . . .

From
Booklist

It's been two years since Annie Galloway's husband died, and she is finally putting her life back together, even though she stays in Shelter Rock Cove, Maine. Annie has never lived anywhere else, and her life is tied to the small community, which is a blessing and a curse. Her mother-in-law took her in at sixteen when her parents died, and she feels grateful for her love, but her husband was not the saint that everyone thinks he was. When she meets Sam Butler, a Manhattan investment broker hiding out in the small town and reevaluating his life, they instantly connect, but some townspeople are suspicious of the newcomer and his relationship with Annie. Sam and Annie do keep secrets from each other, hoping to keep their newfound love separate from the past, but prying neighbors may tear them apart. Once again Bretton creates a tender love story about two people who, when they find something special, will go to any length to keep it.

Patty EngelmannCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Chapter One

They saved the bed for last.

Annie Lacy Galloway stood at the bottom of the stairs and watched as the two impossibly skinny young men maneuvered the huge sleigh bed through the narrow upstairs hallway. She winced at the sound of wood scraping against wallpaper. She knew it would be a tight fit but she hadn't let herself consider that it might be impossible.

The moving boys paused at the top of the stairs and considered their options.

"How'd you ever get this up here anyway, Mrs. G?" Michael, the one whose voice still hadn't made up its mind between soprano and tenor, called down to her. "This is like shoving an elephant through a keyhole."

She'd found it at a yard sale six months after Kevin died, a wreckage of wood that looked much the way she'd felt inside. "I feel bad taking your money for this," the man had said as they loaded the pieces into the back of her Jeep. She spent weeks sanding the elegant curves and flat planes, stripping away years of neglect and damage, not even sure if the pieces could ever be put back together again into a recognizable whole. It still wasn't finished yet. Come spring, she intended to stain the sanded wood a deep cherry wood then coat the whole thing with a satiny finish that would grow more lustrous with the years.

"Turn it toward the window," she said. "Once you clear the top of the railing, you'll have it made."

Danny, her nephew by marriage, crouched down near the foot of the bed. "It comes apart," he said, fingering the supports. "Maybe we could --"

"No!" Annie forced her voice down to a more acceptable volume. The poor boys looked downright scared. "I mean, feel free to remove the stair rails, if you have to, but please don't touch the bed."

"You're the boss, Mrs. G," Michael said.

She turned in time to see a third moving boy grab for the cardboard box near the front door. The box marked "Fragile."

"Not that one." Annie raced back downstairs. "I'm taking that one in the car with me."

"You sure?" Scotty had been Kevin's top student, the one who was on his way toward bigger and better things. He was smart and funny and built like a two-by-four, all straight edges and long lines. Scotty nailed the Bancroft Scholarship, Kevin. You would've been so proud of him. Years ago, she had been the one with the Bancroft and the big dreams of studying art one day in New York. It seemed so long ago, almost as if those dreams had belonged to somebody else. The sight of the young man in her foyer awoke so many memories of Christmas parties and summer barbecues when they had opened up the house to students and their parents. Kevin loved those parties, loved being at the center of all the activity, laughing and joking and --

"There's plenty of room in the truck, Mrs. G."

"That's okay, Scotty," she said, wondering when he had started shaving. Wasn't it just yesterday that he was raking their lawn for two bucks an hour? "I'll take it over in my car." Her life was tucked away in that box: old love letters, wedding photos, newspaper clippings, and sympathy notes. The sum total of her thirty-eight years on the planet with room left over for her best wineglasses and her journals.

He pointed toward a box resting near the piano. "How about that one?"

Annie grinned. "Be my guest."

He hoisted it on his shoulder with a theatrical grunt. "See you at the new house."