Happily Ever After (6 page)

Mona licked an escaping trail of chocolate chip ice cream sliding down the side of her waffle cone and fielded Brian Whitney’s
next question.

“So then you went to the University of Minnesota?”

His green eyes, searing her with focused intensity, made her squirm, but his interest in her life seemed genuine. She tried
to relax.

“I graduated in five years with an English major.” She caught another drip off the end of her cone. “I always wanted to teach
or maybe write. Then I realized my true love was reading and sharing the joy of literature. So I swapped my teaching certificate
for a glitzy higher-paying job as a law secretary, saved every dime I made, and poof! Ten years later I’m fixing up the money
pit on Route 65.”

“Five weeks left. Think you’ll open on time?”

Mona conceded defeat and surrendered her cone to the trash. “I hope so. I hired a handyman, and he seems to know what he’s
doing. He straightened the gutters today, and tomorrow he’s going to jack up the porch and recement the front posts.” Joe’s
crooked smile flashed through her mind. That and the way he’d hung on her shed door, looking rumpled yet impossibly handsome,
his grin lighting up his face and unraveling the knot in her heart with some sort of masculine magic.

“Sounds like a good man to have around.”

She heard Joe’s voice, gentle and so masculine, as he suggested there might be treasures hidden in Deep Haven, and it sent
a soft smile to her face even now. Mona nodded in agreement. “So, you have family here?”

Brian suddenly focused on his ice-cream cone. “Nope.Had some once but they all moved south. I’m the remnant, holding down
the family homestead.”

Brian studied her with a peculiar expression. “No, not such a bad place,” he echoed, but his agreement sounded hollow.

Mona folded her hands together, propping her elbows on the table. “Where did you go to school?”

Brian shook his head. “Didn’t. Went straight to work driving trucks for the city. Worked my way up into management.”

Mona raised her brows, remembering his sleek black Honda. “You’ve done okay.”

“What, for a small-town boy?” His aggressive comeback startled her.

“N-no,” she stammered. “I just meant they probably don’t pay well here. You must be a good budgeter. Probably why you work
for the city.” She forced the words through a suddenly dry mouth.

“Right. Well, I have my sources. And—” he smiled broadly, as if to restore their friendship—“I am a very good budgeter.”

“So what do you hear about my parking permit?”Mona folded a paper napkin into tiny squares.

“Soon. I’m processing the paperwork.”

“You mean you can’t just snap your fingers and make it happen? I thought all you city officials have ultimate power.” Mona
threw tease into her voice.

Brian leaned close, his cologne washing over her, his breath in her face. “We do.”

He probably meant it to be alluring, but she felt a cold fist land in her stomach and recoiled. “Oh, that’s good to know,”
she said and forced a smile.

Brian sat back, beaming. “Too bad Liza couldn’t join us.”

Mona couldn’t agree more.

He stretched a hand across the back of the seat. Mona stared out the window of the Tastee Treat. The waves scraped the shore,
calling to her, and at that moment she needed the silver-dotted sky. “Can we go?”

The question appeared to startle him. His face darkened. “Sure.”

They stepped out onto the sidewalk. A stinging breeze whipped off the lake, raising gooseflesh on her arms.She wore a light
windbreaker over a cotton sweatshirt, but cold seeped through the layers. They didn’t talk. She must have offended him, for
his face was taut, his pace 55 quick. Mona heard only the scuff of her high-top tennis shoes against the pavement.

She was going to murder Liza when she got home. She had told her roommate she wasn’t interested in Brian Whitney, and now
she knew why. He was too glitzy, too smooth. Not her type. Again, reality proved her dream man a figment of her imagination.
The perfect man didn’t exist, and she had been a fool to accept Brian’s offer to go out for ice cream. And an even bigger
fool to fall for Liza’s I-have-a-headache routine. She gritted her teeth and pounded out the last steps to the house.

Brian stopped her with a hand on her arm, two feet before her front walk. His dark eyes glinted concern.“Did I do something?”
His tone turned a furrow of shame in her heart.

Mona stared at the pavement. “No. I’m just tired.”

She felt his hand under her chin, lifting it. “Maybe we can start over? Rewind the tape and record over this evening? I’d
sure like a chance to show you around Deep Haven.”

Mona squinted up at him. He smiled, a five-o’clock shadow blanketing his chin. His shoulders were wide, and he cut a dashing
pose in his tailored pants and V-neck sweater. Perhaps she had judged him too severely. She shouldn’t compare a man like Brian
to a drifter like Joe. Joe was intrigue and passing fancy. Brian was commitment and future. She’d do well to remember the
difference. She nodded and gave an apologetic smile.

Her answer lit a fire in his eyes. “Great. I’ll be by in a couple of days. I have to go to Duluth for some business. When
I get back, I’ll take you out someplace nice.No more slurps and licks.”

Mona forced a smile. She rather liked Tastee Treat, with the right company. “Thanks for the ice cream,” she said, turning.

He caught her hand in one swift movement. She turned just as he pressed his lips against it. “No, thank you, Mona,” he said,
grinning at her startled expression.

He left her reeling, desperately trying to untangle her welling confusion.

Joe pulled away from the darkened window. What was Brian up to? He hadn’t liked the man from the moment he’d shaken his sweaty
palm earlier that afternoon when the city official had stopped in and arranged the ice-cream date. Joe’s defenses turned on
high when he’d caught the look in the guy’s eyes—like a tiger prowling. Then Joe had arrived home from the Garden to discover
Mona out alone with the predator. He entwined his fingers and clasped them behind his neck, battling irritation. It wasn’t
his business, he reminded himself. He didn’t live here; Brian did. Mona had a future with Brian Whitney, not with Joe Michaels.

Joe stalked to his closet, where he’d piled all the wrinkled clothes from his duffel, hanging the most important on three
lonely hangers. He unearthed a pair of black athletic pants, running shoes, and a red Wisconsin sweatshirt. He needed a run,
and the beach was just the place to unwind the mess of emotions from the day.

The moist night air, smelling of the lake and budding birch trees, cleared his mind and seeped calm into his soul. No wonder
tourists considered Deep Haven, with the waves singing from shore and seagulls calling in harmony, the perfect getaway. He
agreed that he’d like to dump his problems outside city limits and enjoy the sanctuary from life that Deep Haven offered.
However, he couldn’t afford to take a vacation from the choices he’d made that dictated his life. There was too much at stake.

Joe stretched briefly against the back steps, then lit out in a brisk run down the sidewalk. Lights from distant houses pushed
back the darkness in uneven patterns. A dog barked. Rip answered but stayed at Joe’s heels. Joe checked for traffic, then
veered out across the street, angling down a short grassy incline to the rocky beach. He dodged waves crashing against a jagged
shore, running so awkwardly he didn’t even break a sweat. But Rip loved dancing into the spray, and it gave Joe the opportunity
to behold the sky and praise the majesty of the Almighty.

God directed every move he made, inhabited every place he lived. Through his mother’s last plea, God had directed him to Deep
Haven, and Joe knew, just as he knew he’d take another breath, that God had a bigger plan for him here in this town. Bigger,
perhaps, than saving his own bacon, although the Almighty had come through on more than a few occasions.

Maybe he was here to help Mona. That idea had flitted through his mind various times over the past twenty-four hours. She’d
seeded a soft spot in his heart when he watched her lug out the phonograph, gritting her teeth and grunting. He’d politely
stifled his laughter when she wiped soot across her face, but he couldn’t help but erupt when she fought with the rolltop
desk. She had looked so perturbed, her face reddening with bottled frustration when it wouldn’t surrender to her prodding.
To say she was tenacious was an understatement. Maybe she really would whip her bookstore into shape. She had Napoleon dreams,
to say the least.

He sat on the beach and prayed aloud. “Lord, I’m sorry for ignoring Gabe for so long. He’s my brother and I should have paid
attention.” The image of Gabe’s laughing face impaled him. Joe hung his head and dug both hands into his scalp. “What a fool
I’ve been.”

“What sort of fool?” Mona walked up beside him.“Thinking you agreed to too much and contemplating making a run for it?” Her
fragrance settled over him as she sat down and so unraveled him he could only blink at her. “Sorry,” she said, looking worried.
“Am I bothering you?”

He quickly shook his head, his heart galloping in odd rhythm. “Hey,” he finally croaked, “what brings you out here?”

Joe gave her a sidelong appraisal, taking in her sweet smile, her buttery hair dancing in the wind, her sculptured cheekbones,
and the moon twinkling in her eyes. She seemed so calm it made his own erratic heartbeat that much more profound. He struggled
to answer.“Praying, actually.”

“Really? You’re a Christian?”

“Yep. Since I was a teen. I found the Lord one night on a solo camping trip. Counting the stars, I was overwhelmed that He’d
made every one of them and yet also knew every hair on my head, as it says in Matthew 10.What was even more awesome was that
Jesus, God in the flesh, left those magnificent heavens, came to earth, and paid for my sins so that I could know this incredible
God. Since then, whenever I pray, it seems easier when I am staring at the sky, at His glorious cosmos.”

“I know what you mean.” Mona hugged her knees.“There’s something majestic about the North Shore.

I can clearly see God’s handiwork. The rhythm of the waves as they reach for my toes, the seagulls riding over the lumps in
the water, the smell of the fir and birch trees. God made all this for us to enjoy. It always gives me peace to sit under
the stars, surrounded by His creation.”

Her words lit a glow inside him. He couldn’t have said it better himself.

“So, Joe, who are you? I know you can fix gutters, and you drive a mean mower, but what are you doing here? Do you have family
in town?”

Joe raised his eyes to the sky, fastening on the dippers and wondering why the air suddenly seemed nippy.“Not really.” Guilt
stabbed at him. But he wasn’t about to bring his little brother into the picture, dragging with it dozens of questions and
not a little bit of pity. That was the last thing he wanted from this beautiful woman digging through the rocks beside him.
Besides, some things were private.

“Are you a handyman by trade?” She tucked her hands into her sweatshirt cuffs, kneading them together, as if chilly. He wanted
to put his arm around her, but the image of Brian kissing her hand hit him like a cold spray.

“Off and on. I saw your ad and thought I could help.” That was true enough and sufficiently vague to keep curiosity tamed.
The last thing he needed was to spark her interest and start her poking around his privacy. Worst-case scenario would have
her asking the police to do some sleuthing, and it then it would only be a matter of time before his life—and Gabe’s—would
take an ugly turn.