On Lavender Lane (41 page)

“From what I’ve been reading about football and brain injuries, he did the right thing,” she said.

“Probably. But it sure didn’t end up being my last one.”

Given what he’d been doing the past ten years, she guessed that was true. She also knew they’d probably have
to talk more about their years apart. But during this special, stolen time together, she just wanted to concentrate on being together.

Although she would have preferred to have him all to herself, knowing that Lucas must still be suffering the loss of his family, they accepted a dinner invitation from his architect godfather and godmother at their hillside home, with stunning views of the city lights. Fortunately, the soaring glass, steel, and concrete mansion was much warmer inside, as was the reception they received.

Not only did the couple welcome her as a longtime friend, but the wife seemed thrilled to receive a signed cookbook, and, over braised chicken legs served with garlic mashed potatoes and sautéed green beans from Maddy’s cookbook, they spent an enjoyable evening talking cooking and ideas for the design of the kitchen, all of which, considering Dylan Delany’s own starkly modern exterior, surprisingly fit in perfectly with the farm.

The night had dawned clear, so they walked along the river again, joining the other couples who were out enjoying the spring evening.

Then they went back to the penthouse and made love. All night long.

Maddy’s last thought, as she slipped into sleep, was while perfection might not be possible, her time with Lucas in Portland had come really, really close.

52

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Lucas said as they drove back to the coast.

“Oh?” She glanced over at him, surprised by the seriousness of his tone.

“I don’t want to marry you for your money.”

Coming out of left field as it had, the statement made her laugh. “I wouldn’t think so. Considering you’re probably the wealthiest man I know.”

“That’s not my money. Not really.” In fact, if he thought about it too much, which he tried not to, the idea had him feeling guilty about coming into such a windfall when he hadn’t done anything to earn it. “Which is why I’m working on ways to give most of it away. The deal is, I didn’t even know about my inheritance when I decided I wanted us to get back together.”

“Believe me, the thought never entered my mind.”

“You never once compared me to the Frenchman?”

“Of course.”

“See?” The guy, while a douche bag, was not only famous, he was also ambitious. Lucas’ entire life for the past decade had been defined by being a SEAL. While everyone had advised him to take some time off to transition back into a civilian society, he’d discovered that not having a goal every morning left him feeling rudderless, which, in
turn, brought back some of the PTSD issues he’d done his best to ignore.

“And you always came out way ahead,” she said. “In fact, you make Maxime look even worse by comparison.”

“When we were first together that summer, I had no clue about what I was going to do with my life. When Dad died, I found myself pretty much in the same place.”

“But now you’re building the school, remodeling the cannery. It’s not as if you’re drifting. In fact, from the little bit Kara told me about your life these past years, it seems that taking time to drift with the flow wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

“I tried that for a few days and didn’t like it. But I’m not the same person I was back then, Maddy.”

“Neither am I.” She shrugged. “We’ve both had life-changing experiences. But when we’re together, it feels the same.”

“For me, too. But there are things you need to know. Things I brought home from the war.”

She turned as much toward him as the seat belt would allow. “Okay. But if you think you can scare me away, it’s not going to happen.”

She might not have agreed to a lifetime commitment. But he was getting to her. Which made what he had to say easier.

“I’m not as whacked-out as Scout was when she came home, but I do have some issues. I have nightmares.”

“Name me one person who doesn’t. My recurring stress one is having to cater a State dinner, getting lost on the way to the White House, realizing I left my shopping list back in New York, and not being to remember a single thing I’d planned to prepare. And then, when I finally get there, I’m naked.

“I realize that’s not nearly as serious as the ones you usually have, which are undoubtedly from having actually experienced nightmare situations, but I just wanted to
point out that although I’m sorry you have to suffer them, they’re not going into any negative column on whatever list you seem to think I’m compiling.”

She seemed honestly unconcerned. But since he had every intention of kissing her on the seawall on their fiftieth anniversary, Lucas decided to continue.

“I always sit with my back against the wall in a restaurant. And check out where the emergency exit is when I go in.”

“I noticed Kara did the same thing at the Sea Mist, which took some juggling of chairs. I suspect it’s common among cops and soldiers. Even SEALs.”

“I don’t trust people as easily as I used to.”

“Neither do I.” Which made sense, he decided. “Do you trust me?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, then.” Her smile made his heart feel as if it might go airborne at any minute. “I don’t see that we have any problem.”

Then marry me, dammit.

Not wanting to dampen what had been such a perfect getaway, Lucas reluctantly decided since he’d apparently jumped that hurdle, this wasn’t the time to push.

“Apparently not,” he said easily.

53

Too impatient to sit around and wait for Lucas to be able to start work on the restaurant, Madeline began juggling her time between working on the building plans with Lucas and volunteering at Haven House. It did not escape her attention that as unsatisfying as her own marriage had been, it could have turned out much, much worse.

She’d begun teaching the basics and found that more than one resident, but especially Phoebe, had a talent for cooking. She also discovered that another of the women, who couldn’t fry an egg, made the lightest, fluffiest doughnuts Madeline had ever tasted. Not only did she seriously consider offering her the job of pastry chef in the new restaurant, but she also began thinking that one of the cannery shops, when Lucas and McGrath got the building finished, could be a great outlet for baked goods.

Or perhaps they could even open up a food booth, serving simple, easy-to-eat items like she and Lucas had bought at the taqueria truck in Portland.

It was good to be excited again. And she had so much to be excited about. Her divorce papers had arrived. Although the Cooking Network hadn’t embraced her idea of filming the building of the cooking school, suggesting it was better suited for channels featuring construction, on the same day she officially became a free woman, Pepper had called to inform her that they’d totally embraced her idea of a show
based on the classes in the cooking school. She also, surprisingly, supported Madeline giving up the ChefSteel endorsement.

To celebrate, Madeline paid a visit to Take the Cake, where she ran into Kara sitting at a table, eating a lemon coconut cupcake. A German chocolate cupcake sat on a plate in front of her.

“My excuse,” she said, when Madeline returned to join her with an island pineapple cupcake, “is that I’m eating for two these days.”

“So I heard. Congratulations!” Madeline took a bite of the cupcake, which reminded her of what Lucas had said about making love to her in Hawaii. She was still, admittedly, gun-shy when it came to marriage, but a vacation trip sounded like a fabulous idea. Maybe she’d suggest it to him tonight.

“I wanted to wait until I got through the first trimester to share the news,” Kara said. “But I know Sax is frustrated with me, so I understand him dumping on you and Lucas.”

“We’re friends.” Madeline licked a bit of frosting off her thumb and remembered, in vivid detail, the quickening in her body when Lucas had licked the salsa roja off her fingers. How was it, she asked herself, that everything reminded her of him?

Because,
a little voice in her head answered,
you’re in love with him.

Which she was. Truly. Madly. Deeply.

“And, having lost my mother young, I can totally understand that you want to share your wedding day with yours.”

“I know it sounds overly sentimental—”

“If you can’t be sentimental about a wedding, what can you be sentimental about?”

“True. But I’m a cop.”

“You’re a woman first,” Madeline said. “I used to define myself as a chef. That was all I wanted. Well, except for that
summer here in Shelter Bay. When I wanted to be Lucas’ wife.”

“You were both young.”

“So were you when you married Jared.”

“Which led to some ups and downs we probably would’ve gone through even if he hadn’t been in the Marines. But that was then.” She took a sip of tea and grimaced. “I really miss coffee.”

“You’re not allowed to have any?” What Madeline knew about pregnancy could be written on the head of a pin and still leave room for a thousand dancing angels.

“Although there weren’t any coffee police when I was pregnant with Trey, Sax read that caffeine isn’t healthy for the baby, so he’s cut me back to a mug a day. The rest of the time I’m stuck with drinking this herbal stuff.”

Madeline had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at Kara’s obvious frustration. “Let me ask Gram. She can probably mix up some blends you might enjoy.”

“One can only hope.” Kara sighed, put the cup down, and bit into the German chocolate cupcake.

“You know,” Madeline said carefully, “the farm’s garden looks gorgeous in early summer. And there’s that gazebo that would make a lovely wedding venue.”

“I thought you understood my problem.”

“I do. But I don’t think you’re giving your mom enough credit.”

“Mom put her entire life on hold for Dad and me. She left a practice she loved, a vibrant city she enjoyed, to settle down here in Shelter Bay because she and Dad believed it was a safe, nurturing place to raise a family. Which, I tend to agree with, and it’s why I’m here. But now it’s her turn. And I don’t want to mess that up. Every time I’ve come up with a date I think might work, some other great world event happens, so there you go.”

“That’s not fair,” Madeline said. “To you. Or Sax.” She reached for her coffee, then seeing Kara’s gaze move to it,
changed her mind. “Or your mom. She missed your first marriage because you eloped. She missed Trey’s birth—”

“Which was solely her choice, because she didn’t approve of me getting pregnant while I was still in high school and running off to marry Jared.”

“We all make mistakes. Give her a chance to make up for hers. And to share this special time with you.”

Kara looked out at the harbor, where a bright red boat was chugging out to take tourists whale watching. Then back at Madeline. “I was class valedictorian.”

“I remember.”

“Though you were no slouch yourself when it came to grades. But when did you get so much smarter than me?”

Madeline laughed. “Blame it on your hormones and pregnancy brain fog.”

“Believe me, I intend to play that card every chance I get for the next eight months.” She downed the rest of the tea. “I guess I’d better go apologize to Sax.”

“It won’t be that hard, since you’ll be making him a very happy man.”

Kara’s wide smile lit up her eyes. Gone was the unhappy, pregnant cop. In her place was a woman bent on seduction. “The man has no idea how happy I’m about to make him.”

54

“Where are we going?” Madeline asked as Lucas drove away from the farm. Although she was spending most nights at the cottage, she still hadn’t felt ready to move in. Because living together was so close to getting married, she was afraid once she took that step, the next would lead to the altar.

What would be wrong with that?
the argumentative voice inside her head that had been getting louder and louder asked.

I’m not ready.

So what are you waiting for?

The sad fact was that she couldn’t answer that question. Other than to fall back on the same old one:
I need more time.

Don’t wait too long,
the voice warned.
Guys like him don’t stay available forever.

“I know!”

“You know?” He glanced over at her. “Damn. And here I thought I’d planned the perfect surprise.”

She was glad for the darkening twilight that kept him from seeing the color flood into her face. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t talking about you. I was arguing with myself.”

“Who won?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “What kind of surprise?”

Madeline had never enjoyed surprises. They often meant
bad things. Like the teary-eyed nun calling her out of class to Mother Superior’s office, where she’d been informed that her parents’ plane had crashed. The phone call from Sofia telling that her grandfather had been diagnosed with cancer. Then that later one, letting her know he’d lost the battle. And, of course, the most recent: Maxime’s YouTube surprise.

He reached across the space between them and ran his hand down her jeans-clad thigh. He’d told her to dress casually, which suggested it had to do with the outdoors. Logically, she’d told herself, the beach. Maybe they were going to relive their younger days, build a fire, and roast s’mores. The idea of him licking melted chocolate off her fingers—and other parts of her body—caused her hormones to spike.

Sure enough, he pulled up in front of a picnic table she remembered Sax’s grandfather having built decades ago. When they’d been kids, they’d hung out here a lot.

“You bought dinner.”

“From the Crab Shack,” he agreed.

He and Charity’s jarhead had gotten far enough in their male bonding that Gabe had assured him that the Dungeness crabs roasted in the shell in butter were the ultimate in seduction dinners. Since he didn’t want to know any more about his sister’s love life, he hadn’t asked for details, but Lucas had always had a good imagination.