Love's Little Instruction Book
Mary Gorman
Avon, Massachusetts
This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
Copyright © 2012 by Mary Gorman
ISBN 10: 1-4405-5436-6
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5436-0
eISBN 10: 1-4405-5437-4
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5437-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art XXX
For my cousin Denise DiSciullo. You always wanted to be tall …
Love,
Mary Anne
Chapter Seven: Peanuts and Cracker Jacks
Chapter Eleven: Grand Gestures
Chapter Twelve: Dave Gets the Flu
Chapter Thirteen: The Blizzard
Chapter Fifteen: The Misunderstanding
Chapter Sixteen: The Black Moment
Chapter Seventeen: The Reconciliation
Chapter Nineteen: Happily Ever After
Thanks to Crimson Romance editors Jennifer Lawler and Jess Verdi for helping make this book a reality. Thank you to my critique partners Heidi Luchterhand of Arizona, Rowena O’Sullivan of New Zealand and Empi Baryeh of Ghana (I hope we get to meet some day!). Thanks to Clare Bertrand for the early feedback. For Georgette Gorman for the computer (Love you, Mom!). To Allyson Every for rooming with me in Cape Breton while I finished writing this (I’m glad you were driving — I still don’t know where we were!). To the late Rocky MacDougall for driving me all over Cape Breton within an hour of our first meeting. To Vince MacNeil, because the clan is very lucky to have you. For Tammy Gagnon for help with how radio traffic reports really work and to Mike Stacey at WRCH for making sure I had the right word for the guy who stays up all night at a radio station. And most of all, for my cousin Denise for providing the raw materials I needed for inspiration.
The Hamptons, last June
The sugar bowl exploded as it careened onto the driveway, shattering into dozens of shards and scattering spectacularly in all directions to the sound of feminine cheering and applause.
Denise Johnson threw her hands up in victory, a wide grin on her beaming face. “God, that felt good!” She turned to her companions, a small circle of women friends who were still laughing and shaking their heads. “Now you guys,” she said, picking up a small pile of dessert plates and passing them out among them.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” one of them remarked, shaking her head as she accepted a small, round desert plate.
“Come on, Mary Jane,” Denise urged. “This is a celebration!”
“I know, I know,” she replied. “It’s just that smashing a perfectly good set of dinnerware goes against the grain just a little.”
“But what better way to celebrate my divorce?” Denise asked. “I always hated this china pattern, I hated having to put up with the mother-in-law who gave it to me, and I hated being married to that cheating newly-minted ex-husband of mine. Just try it. Think of the very worst thing you hate about men, say it out loud, and throw that sucker down. It feels great, honest.”
When the small circle of friends were all armed with a piece of china, Denise paused for a minute, latched onto a single thought, and said, “Here’s to not having to stay home alone at night, waiting for someone to drag his sorry ass home!” She pulled back her arm and hurled the teacup in her hand to the ground. It bounced once, then split into three pieces, one of them rocking on its rounded side with the shock of the impact. She looked up at her friends expectantly.
Janet, her good friend whose sense of humor often lurked behind her very proper English demeanor, went next. “Here’s to not having to pick anyone’s dirty underwear up off the floor except your own!” The small dessert plate went hurtling to the ground.
Next was Cheryl. “Here’s to never having to avoid eating garlic because he says he doesn’t like it on your breath!” Her plate joined the rest in pieces on the driveway.
Then it was Julie’s turn. “Here’s to not having to pick his hair out of the drain every time he takes a shower.” Her plate stubbornly refused to break and rolled down the driveway on its side, slightly chipped but intact.
“You’re going to have to think of something that makes you madder than that,” Janet told her, picking up the rolling plate and giving it back to Julie.
“Okay, okay. Let me think.” She paused for a moment to consider. “Here’s to never having to fake it!” she exclaimed, hurling the plate to the ground once again with all her might. This time it shattered obligingly.
“And here’s to not having to explain to him why you didn’t bother to fake it!” Patty chimed in before the calls of approval to Julie’s observation had finished.
The friends laughed heartily and then they looked at the one woman who remained. “It’s your turn, Mary Jane,” Denise urged.
“Okay, I’ve got it.” She pulled back her arm like a major league pitcher in a first class wind up. “Here’s to never having to say ‘I love you’ unless you really mean it!”
The white porcelain split into dozens of large pieces and smaller shards, joining its mates in shining white splendor against the black surface of the drive way.
• • •
Denise and Janet sat on the couch amidst stacks of boxes, the drained refuse of used plastic cups, and a series of empty champagne bottles. Denise lazily leaned over to survey the remnants of a box of assorted chocolate. She chose a round piece covered with dark chocolate, hoping that it would be a soft centered confection, and bit into it reverently. Soft, sticky coconut filled her mouth. She made a small sound of contentment and licked her fingers decadently as she polished it off. “This was a lot of fun,” she said to Janet.
“Yes, it was,” Janet replied. “Are you sure you really have to go? I’m going to absolutely hate not having you around.”
Denise nodded reluctantly. “I really have to go. The movers will come to put the stuff in storage tomorrow morning and I’ll leave for my mother’s house tomorrow afternoon. By tomorrow night I’ll be home, snug in my little twin bed in Cambridge. I start at my new job next Monday.”
“But are you sure that this is what you really want to do?” Janet pressed. “I mean, I can see wanting to get a fresh start and all in the wake of the divorce, but does it have to be so far away?”
Denise shook her head, causing her long black hair to swing around her face. “Working in New York City was always Jason’s dream, not mine. The people here know us as a couple. I want to look at the split as a beginning, the opportunity of a lifetime. I want to start fresh. I want to reinvent myself, you know? I can’t do that around people who think of me as ‘Jason’s ex.’”
Janet sat back and rubbed the back of her neck as she contemplated her friend. “Yes, but to move back in with your
mother
? I think I’d rather stay here in Hampton Beach and eat off the dragon lady’s dishes than do that.”
Denise pushed her hair back off of her face with a delicate laugh. “No, Mom’s cool. We get along great. I stay out of her way when she writes and she stays out of mine in everything else.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. Your mum writes romance novels, doesn’t she?”
Denise nodded. “Judy Johnson. Queen of the bodice rippers, that’s her.”
Janet laughed. “Oh, God. Where’d you grow up? In a den of iniquity?”
“No, no. Mom just has a sweet imagination, that’s all.”
“I keep picturing this little old lady in a frilly nightie with a feathered boa, sitting alone, typing away. However did you explain this to your friends when you were a kid?”
“She didn’t write when I was a kid. I didn’t even know she could type until after Dad died. She started when my brother and I were in college. That’s how she paid the tuition. By the time she wrote the fourth one, she was on the best seller’s list. Low down on it, but still … ” She picked up the last of the champagne and took a sip. “She’s on solid ground again, financially. Solid ground and then some. But she still lives in the same house and keeps the same circle of friends. She quit the bakery job a few years ago, but that’s about the only concession she’s made to fame, I think.” She shrugged. “She’s just an ordinary Mom who writes romance novels, that’s all.”
“Hmmph,” Janet said. “And here I was, picturing you lounging around in silk nighties while lots of bare chested male cover models fetch you mimosas for your breakfast drink. I was really looking forward to visiting.”
Diane let out a full-fledged belly laugh. “Oh, God, no! No more men, please! That’s what I’m going there to get away from.”
Instantly Janet sobered. “Are you worried that Jason will follow you there?”
Denise forced a regretful smile. “No, he has his bimbos to keep him distracted. I just meant that at this point in my life, I want to live for me, instead of spending my life waiting for Prince Charming to come along.” She twirled the cup between her palms and pinned her friend with a piercing look. “I’ve had enough charm in my life and it hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I don’t want charm anymore. I want my independence.”
“What about romance?” Janet pushed. “Living with your mother and her line of work, wouldn’t you like a little bit of romance for yourself?”
Diane set down the cup on the coffee table. “I’ve had romance. It doesn’t last. I met Jason in Paris while I was spending a semester overseas. I had it all then — moonlit nights, sidewalk cafes, even the Eiffel Tower, for Pete’s sake. The whole whirlwind courtship thing. By the end of the semester we’d eloped. Six years later I’m out in the driveway smashing ugly china with you guys.”
Janet cocked a skeptical eyebrow at her friend. “I hope this doesn’t mean you’re swearing off men forever?”
Denise made a wry grin at her friend. “They have their uses. I’m just saying that I’m not in the market for another relationship. The last thing I need at this point is another man in my life.”
This was no job for the faint of heart, Dave told himself as he surveyed the wreckage before him. His eyes narrowed as he planned his next move.
Carefully, he stepped into the room.
“Hey, Mattie!” he called with what he hoped was a disarming grin on his face. “Don’t you know that babies are like cans of soda? If you shake them up too much, they explode and gush all over the place!”
Five-year-old Mattie laughed, but he didn’t stop jumping up and down on his parents’ waterbed. “Marie’s not gonna gush, Uncle Dave. She likes to bounce!”
As if to underscore his point, two-year-old Marie echoed her brother’s laughter with short, staccato, baby giggles of her own, her small body propelled into the air each time her brother’s feet came crashing down into the mattress. But Dave knew from experience that babies could be remarkably fickle creatures, laughing one minute, detonating the next.
Logic clearly didn’t work with small children. It was time to move on to threats. Except that the kids knew that good old Uncle Dave was a cream puff. Just the thought of those blues eyes filling with tears and those little lower lips sticking out made him want to crumble like toast in a blender.