Sweet Justice (23 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

A
NDREW
POKED
AT
his piece of the extravagantly frosted cake Kari had
made. Usually he loved Rob's fiancée's cakes. He'd gotten the
W
of the “Way to Go, Eric” celebratory dessert that
Eric's mom had dropped off at the station.

He was definitely glad that Eric was finally back in the land
of the living and had shaken off the coma.

But not even Kari's confection could lift his mood. How had he
misjudged Mallory so badly? Forget LeeAnn. This was truly the mother of all diva
disasters.

Jackson's familiar step approached Andrew's hiding place in the
bowels of the stationhouse. “Hey, buddy. You got a visitor. I think you'll want
to see who it is.”

Tossing the uneaten cake in a trash bin, Andrew squinted
against the sunlight to see who had dropped by. He stopped in his tracks when he
recognized the familiar silhouette of long legs, a flowy little skirt and
impossibly high heels.

“Heck, no,” he said and pivoted around. “I don't want to see
her.”

Jackson planted a meaty hand in the middle of his chest,
blocking his escape. “I think you do.”

“Is this more of your practical jokes? It's not funny, Jackson.
This time, I thought she might be—”

“If you did, then you owe it to yourself and to her to see it
through. You think I'd come get you for her, of all people, if I hadn't heard a
preview of what she had to say? I may prank you with the best of them, but
you're my friend, Monroe.”

The uncharacteristic serious note in Jackson's voice turned him
around. “I can't think of a thing she'd have to say to change my mind about
her.”

“That, boy, is an example of your complete failure of
imagination.” He gave Andrew a not-so-gentle shove in Mallory's direction. “Now
git.”

Andrew approached the bright sunlight and Mallory slowly. He
could tell that she'd been crying—she hadn't even fixed her makeup. Her skirt
was rumpled, and her blouse was, too. Her hair was frizzy as all get-out.

He'd never seen her look more beautiful.

“What?” he snapped.

“I guess I've interrupted a party,” she began slowly. “I saw
the cake.”

“Eric's mom brought it by. He's out of the coma.”

“Oh, that's good!” Mallory's face brightened.

“He still has a lot of rehab to go through. They say he may
never be able to return to active duty—but we'll see.”

The hopeful light in her eyes faded, and she said in a
diffident voice, “I'm glad.” Her hands folded and unfolded a sheaf of papers.
She lacked her usual spit and polish, and that kept Andrew off balance.

“You wanted to tell me something?”
That,
Monroe, was cold as ice in December.

Mallory shoved a heavily creased sheaf of papers toward him.
“This—this is for you. It's the lawsuit. I got Chad to pull it.”

“What?” A flicker of hope pulsed through him. He tried manfully
to douse it.

She looked as though she wanted to turn and run. Still, even
with no makeup and frizzy hair, she was the Mallory he'd come to know. She stuck
it out, her heels planted firmly on the concrete. Mallory rubbed at her eyes.
Was she crying? No, not quite, but almost.

“I'm really—really sorry. I swear, I didn't know. I should not
have been looking for someone to bail me out. I should have listened to you. To
everybody,” she went on. “The bills were so big, and I was so tired, but
that—that's no excuse.”

A long beat of silence stretched out between them. He didn't
dare open his mouth to ask what had happened to change her mind because he was
afraid he'd say something stupid that would scare her off.

She half-turned, then turned back. “I'm sorry, Andrew. Please
tell your family how sorry I am to have repaid all their kindness with...such a
betrayal.”

With that, she pivoted on one slender heel and trudged toward
her cute little convertible. For the first time, he saw that it was packed to
the gills with boxes and clothes.

“Hey,” he called after her. “You should tell them
yourself.”

She stopped.

“What?”

“I said you should tell Ma and everybody yourself.” He finally
managed to un-nail his boots from the ground so that he could walk to her.

“But I—” She waved a hand to the car. “I'm leaving.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I screwed up.”

He reached over and slid a thumb along the oh-so-familiar curve
of her face. “You think I haven't ever done that? If I had gone against Dutch's
advice and just talked you through things, maybe we could have figured out a way
to solve some of your problems. I didn't. Instead, I made 'em worse.”

She caught up his hand in hers, leaned into his touch. Tears
threatened to spill out onto her cheeks, but she was his Mallory. She never let
them loose.

“Are you asking me to stay?”

“I guess I am,” he replied. “Because I'd like to earn your
forgiveness. I left somebody you cared about behind—yeah, it was my job, yeah,
it was technically the right decision. But it hurt you. I want to prove to you
that I will never, ever leave you, or anybody else you love, behind.”

She breathed in. “I didn't figure that Maegan would want...
That you would want... And even though Katelyn won't be facing criminal charges,
she's got to start her senior year again, and I quit my job and gave up our
apartment—”

Now he caught her other hand in his. “Wait. Criminal charges?
Breathe in again. Slow down. I think I'm missing some things.”

“I found out what caused the fire. Katelyn's fire.” She started
talking, and he heard about Gabe reconnecting the power and the offer from
Terrell to pay for therapy that had come too late, after she'd quit her job and
given up the apartment.

Finally her words dwindled to silence. She cleared her throat.
“I can't ask you to forgive me.”

“Why not?”

“Because...what I did was unforgivable.”

“No. What you did was bad. Horrible. But totally
understandable. You didn't have all the facts, Mallory. If you had, would you
have sued?”

“No!” she cried.

“And when you knew...” He paused. “You made it right. That's
the girl I love.”

“You love me?” Her voice shook.

Andrew felt as vulnerable as if he were standing with one foot
off a cliff. His mouth dry, he got out, “Yeah. I do. What's not to love about
you? I mean, any girl who's got ingenuity and a whole lot of compassion, not to
mention can keep me on my toes and looks as pretty as you do, well, she sounds
like the right kind of girl for me.”

Mallory brought his knuckles to her lips. “That's good,” she
whispered.

“That's good...why?” His heart beat even faster as he
waited.

“Because I love you, too. And it was killing me to leave you
behind. I just couldn't figure out how to fix everything.”

“Hey, how about you let me help you figure it out? How about
for, say, forever, I get an equal share in this figuring-out business?”

She leaned into him and whispered, “Forever sounds like just
long enough. I'd like that a whole bunch.”

He bent to kiss her—but stopped short. Out of the corner of his
eye, he saw a long blue line of firefighters stretched out in front of the open
bay, some of them splitting their attention between the free show and the cake
they were devouring. Now Mallory saw them, too. She turned beet red.

“I think we've got an audience,” she said.

“That's the understatement of the century. Guess this will have
to wait, then,” Andrew said regretfully.

Jackson blurted out, “Monroe, if you don't kiss that girl, I'll
short-sheet your bunk for a month!”

“Would he?” Mallory asked, her eyes wide with amazement.

“You don't know a whole lot about firefighters, do you?” Andrew
said by way of an answer.

“No...but I'm willing to learn.”

“Fine, the first thing you need to learn is Jackson is apt to
keep his word, so...” He tipped her back and gave her a kiss that drew a round
of enthusiastic applause. “That's for them.”

She came up for air, cheeks flushed. Before she could say
anything, Andrew let his mouth slant down to hers and kissed her again, softer
this time, with less flash but a whole lot more tenderness.

“This one?” he murmured as he held her close. “This one is for
you...because you? You're the one for me.”

* * * * *

THE GEORGIA
MONROES
will be back with a final story—this time it's Maegan's
turn—in Harlequin Heartwarming, coming this fall!

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A MAN OF INFLUENCE
by Melinda Curtis.

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A Man of Influence

by Melinda Curtis

PROLOGUE

“Y
OUR
SERVICES
ARE
no
longer required.” The chairman of the board for
Bostwick
Lampoon
magazine fixed Chad Healy Bostwick with the kind of stare one
gives to spoiled, stinky sushi.

“You're firing me?” A week after his father died, Chad hadn't
thought he could feel any emptier. He was wrong. His insides felt as hollow as a
jack-o'-lantern on Halloween. He rubbed a hand over his designer tie, just to
make sure no one had carved triangular features in his chest.

“We're taking the
Bostwick Lampoon
in a different direction,” the chairman said, in a voice gruff with age and
years of cigarette smoke and maybe—just maybe—regret over what he was doing.
Barney had been a friend of Chad's father during their student days at Stanford.
He'd known Chad since the day he was born. He had to realize what he was doing
was wrong.

But there was the spoiled and stinky sushi stare. And him
giving Chad the ax.

A quick glance around the boardroom—at dour and pitiless
faces—and Chad realized how few friends he had left at the magazine. He reached
for his coffee, misjudged the movement and grappled the cardboard cup with both
hands to save it from spilling.

Silence filled the room, but it couldn't fill the empty spaces
inside Chad.

“This is my company.” His voice felt as weak as a fighter's jab
in the last few seconds of the fifteenth round. Never mind that Chad was
editor-in-chief and managed the other writers. Never mind that he wrote The
Happy Bachelor On the Road—a popular travel column for the magazine. He owned 49
percent of the publication his father had started over fifty years ago. “You
can't take it away from me.”

But since stockholders controlled 51 percent of the shares,
they could fire him.

“We're honoring your father's last wishes.” Barney handed Chad
a sheet of paper.

“Postmortem manifesto?” Chad perused the document on
Bostwick Lampoon
letterhead, his gaze catching on a
paragraph in the middle.

My son, Chad Healy Bostwick, has done a
brilliant job leading the magazine. But every so often a periodical has to
reinvent itself to stay relevant. Chad is not my choice for the
job.

Unable to read any more, Chad crumpled the paper in his
fist.

This was the thanks he got for taking care of his father during
his three-year battle with cancer? This was the thanks he got for thirteen years
of service? The
Bostwick Lampoon
was a send-up of
the news of the day. It was supposed to be a clever vehicle to make people
laugh. Chad couldn't work up so much as a chuckle.

He used to laugh. Back before he'd had to run the company. He
used to smile. Back before he'd had to fire people with kids and mortgages. He
used to joke. Back before his father was struck by the Big C. The
Bostwick Lampoon
didn't like what he'd become? They'd
made him this way!

Doreen, his father's assistant, led Chad out. She and a
security guard stood in Chad's office as he packed his personal belongings in a
single box and thought about the man he used to be. They didn't care that he
took the lead sheet from his team's last story meeting. They didn't seem
concerned that he might try to beat them at their own game.

At the top of the list was a small town called Harmony
Valley.

Copyright © 2016 by Melinda
Wooten