The Right Thing (22 page)

“Gerald, we need to have this discussion at another time. You’re having a bad day, a really bad day, honey. I cared about Delilah, and I still care about you. I don’t need more reason to be at your side.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Gerald said, picking up his tea and looking at her fully. “But I’ve been in love with you since the first time you let me in your door to talk. Now, at the worst day, you’re still here talking to me. It’s true I want to make an honest woman of you in the eyes of world, but that’s not the reason I’m asking, and I figure you know it. The second woman I would have married is gone now. You know damn well you are the last woman for me, Lydia. I love you. I want you to be my wife.”

“Gerald, shush,” Lydia pleaded, her face turning every shade of pink. “People might hear you. Can we please talk about this some other time?”

Gerald shrugged. “Sure. I plan to keep you up most of tonight anyway. I guess we can discuss it then.”

“Oh my God, Delilah Carmichael is in her casket. We’ll both go to hell over this,” Lydia declared.

Gerald just laughed. “I’m too old to waste time on being proper about something so important. We’ll wait six months. That’s all the patience I have for social niceness. I’m tired of being alone and sleeping without you.”

Because she couldn’t restrain her irritation any more, Lydia reached out and smacked Gerald hard on the arm, the sound of it echoing above the voices all around them. Mourners at the other tables stopped eating and turned expectant faces to them. Those who knew them, knew the truth, looked at Lydia’s flushed face and hid their laughter behind a discreet hand.

“Now see what you’ve done,” Lydia said, scooting back her chair and rising. “I’m completely embarrassed, you old coot.”

She fled to the restroom.

Gerald grinned as Morgan came back to the table with a pitcher of tea for refills.

“What did you say to Lydia?” Morgan asked, noticing the woman’s face matched her soft pink suit as she hurried to the alcove where the restrooms were located.

“Something inappropriate evidently,” Gerald replied. “I’ll tell you later. Too many ears tuned in to us now.”

Morgan snickered and shook his head. “Lydia looked like she could have killed you. Why did you stir her up that way?”

“I like her stirred up. And I’m not as good as everybody thinks I am, at least not where Lydia Roberts is concerned. It cheers me up to know I have the power to make her mad. I know how to soothe her too,” Gerald said, grinning, already thinking about doing just that.

“Yeah? Teach me how to soothe a woman, Dad. I could use some good ideas,” Morgan said, teasing.

“It’s one of those individual things,” Gerald said, lifting his tea. “There’s Thea finally.”

Morgan turned to see Thea walk in the door just ahead of a tall man whose hand was on her back. “He’s awfully friendly for a cousin.”

Gerald laughed. “Ryan’s your age. He’s been hanging around Thea since he was a teenager. She was married to Angus most of that time. He does come see her a couple of times a year, but I don’t think there has been anything between them of a serious nature.

“Well, she never slept with him. I know that for sure,” Morgan said, then flushed when he realized what he’d revealed to his father. “Hell. Can you just overlook my jealousy and never tell Thea I bragged about that?”

Gerald snorted. “I don’t blame you for being proud of it. Nothing wrong with wanting to claim a woman that’s meant for you.”

“I hope you’re right, Dad,” Morgan said, watching Thea move from table to table, while the man she came in with leaned against the bar. “I guess I better mingle and refill tea. Try to be nice to Lydia. I like her.”

Gerald rolled his eyes. He knew Lydia was even now thinking of his marriage proposal and getting excited. He could hardly wait to get her into bed tonight. “It is my current goal in life to be nothing but nice to that woman.”

Morgan grinned at his father as he walked away.

*** *** ***

As she moved around the room visiting, Thea had a hard time following the various conversations when her gaze kept returning to Morgan in his crisp white shirt and black pants. He had a lean body that was just meant for dress clothes, she thought, wondering for the first time if he had to wear them for his work.

Amy was sitting at a table with Tom’s family. Sylvia had hugged Thea at the funeral home and thanked her for giving Tom the boost into marriage finally. Thea protested, but hugged her back.

There had never been anything but friendship in her feelings for Tom. Why she had such a strong attraction to Morgan was still a mystery to her.

She watched as Morgan walked from table to table filling iced teas. He’d seen most of the people in the restaurant over the last couple of months. They might not have spoken to him directly before, but they seemed to accept his presence and his participation today as if it were just natural for him to be involved. In the few months Morgan had been there, he had come to be a regular in the restaurant. It was going to be strange when he left in three weeks—and lonely.

Pulling her attention away from Morgan, she finally remembered that she had left Angus’s cousin, Ryan Carmichael, leaning against the bar. As Thea walked back to him, he opened his arms. She walked into the familiar hug with more relief than she’d known she would feel. For long moments, she let Ryan’s body comfort hers, and then she pulled back to see his wicked grin.

“What’s so amusing?” she asked. “I could use some humor right now.”

“Who’s the guy glaring at me, and why does he want to kick my ass for hugging you?” Ryan asked, laughing against her hair as he hugged her again before letting her go.

“What guy?” Thea turned, but Morgan was talking to people at a table, pouring tea like before.

Was Ryan talking about Morgan? Morgan wasn’t even looking.

“You know what guy. You’ve been watching him since we got here. And he barely looks away from you. Just because I do travel pieces now doesn’t mean I wasn’t a field reporter for fifteen years. I don’t miss nuances often. Thea, that man looks completely capable of making good on that evil look of his. Introduce me so I can stop worrying about it,” Ryan teased.

“You don’t need an introduction. That’s just Morgan Reed—Gerald’s son,” Thea said, crossing her arms over the black knit dress she’d worn. “He’s cooking for me for a few months.”

Ryan narrowed his eyes and laughed. “Liar. If that man is a cook, I’m an NBA star.”

Thea smacked a hand to his chest. “Shut up. He is a cook—a damn good one in fact, but okay, he’s—well, he’s really a fraud investigator. He’s just working for me temporarily.”

Ryan studied the man again. He wasn’t returning Ryan’s perusal, but Ryan could tell the man was completely tuned in to his conversation with Thea.

“I always wondered what the first guy after Angus would be like. Damn, Thea. He’s a bit rough around the edges, probably jaded too. What did you see in him?” Ryan asked, joking. “Well, other than having the nicest father in the world. Was that it? You couldn’t have Gerald, so you went for the son?”

“Very funny, wise guy. Stop trying to figure it out,” she said, studying the bar and frowning.

“Don’t be mad Thea, and don’t get me wrong. I’m happy for you. God knows you deserve somebody to take care of you a little. You passed up that accountant of yours—and me,” Ryan said, laughing.

“
You?
I didn’t pass up you,” Thea said, outraged at the suggestion. “
There was no you.
”

“That’s because you had the
not interested
sign hung out whenever I tried. I flew to Sedona to see you five times the year after Angus died, and four times the year after that. I didn’t even visit my house that often,” Ryan joked. “Why did you think I was coming here? Just to see Aunt Delilah?”

“I don’t know,” Thea said, annoyed with the conversation, which was making her decidedly uncomfortable. She had simply never considered Ryan an option. “I wasn’t thinking of anything except surviving. I was learning to run the restaurant. It was all I had energy for, and I didn’t even want to do it. I honestly never thought you were anything more than concerned in a familial sort of way.”

“Which makes this guy even more interesting to me,” Ryan said on a snort. “He looks like he’s my age.”

Thea shrugged. “Yeah. Okay. He is. So what?”

Ryan smiled wickedly. “You’re sleeping with somebody my age who’s not me.”

Thea blushed. “If I am, it’s none of your business and totally unrelated, you big tease.”

Ryan laughed. “It’s okay. Don’t feel guilty for breaking my heart. I’m completely over you now. I fell in love with my yoga teacher years ago, but she was married at the time. Guess I haven’t exactly picked winners myself. Anyway, the good news is that she’s divorced now. I’m moving back to California to put the moves on her. I’m almost forty-five. It’s time I settled down and got married.”

“I guess you think that woman will just fall into line with your idea of settling down and be eternally grateful for your sacrifice,” Thea said sarcastically.

“Still as romantic as ever I see,” Ryan teased. “Your Morgan must be one hell of a guy to have gotten so far with you.”

“Actually, he seduced me, investigated me, and accused me of a crime. Trust me,
he is
not my Morgan
,” Thea told him, emphatically.

Ryan was openly laughing now, drawing an even more vicious glare from Morgan Reed, as well as some frowns from the other mourners.

“What happened after he hurt you? Did you cry and make him feel guilty?” Ryan prompted, biting his cheek to keep from laughing more.

He knew full well that if Thea cried, it wouldn’t have been her first reaction. He’d seen her cut loose with her temper on Angus a time or two.

“No. I did not cry—at last not in front of him. I bloodied his nose and refused his apology,” Thea said proudly.

“Oh God, you’re still gloating over it too. You are a hard woman,” Ryan informed her.

“Well, my pride didn’t get me very far. After I blacked both his eyes, I had to hire him to cook because the restaurant was losing business. He—he has some good ideas about making money. They seem to work. So I’ve called a truce,” Thea said logically.

“Since he’s obviously keeping tabs on you as you’re talking to me, I suspect you’re still sleeping with him too, aren’t you?” Ryan asked, seeing the answer in her blush. “He sounds a lot like my cousin in that regard.”

“No, he doesn’t. Morgan is not at all like Angus. And again—none of your business,” Thea told him. “I’m going to the kitchen now. Don’t forget to eat. Morgan makes really good pasta.”

“Is that all Morgan’s good at?” Ryan asked her, laughing again as Thea huffed in frustration and marched away without answering.

Ryan moved his gaze to Reed who was discreetly watching Thea head to the kitchen. He planned to have a long talk with the man and get to know him. He’d accepted years ago that there was never going to be a romantic future for Thea and him, but he’d loved her since he was a teenager.

Angus and Thea had become the only family he’d known after his parents had died. He was always going to care about Thea, always going to want to believe she could find love and be happy—even if not with him.

And since there was no man to look out for her, Ryan figured he’d just step more fully into the family role Thea had always assigned to him anyway.

Ryan thought of Emma Wallace and smiled. If he closed his eyes, he could bring up her scent even though it had been almost two years since he’d seen her. Knowing she was free now had turned him into a monk because he couldn’t even pretend to be interested in another woman when there was the possibility of her.

However, the idea of being happy when Thea wasn’t happy had seemed unfair to Ryan, so he was glad to know that some man had penetrated the shield around Thea’s heart.

Hell, maybe he could even learn something from Morgan Reed about seducing reluctant women. He’d never seen Thea as mad at Angus as she seemed to be at Reed, but it seemed the man was still sharing her bed. Angus had practically lived in the guest room at times. Reed obviously knew how to get around Thea’s anger.

Ryan headed to Gerald and Lydia’s table, where he knew an introduction would be unavoidable.

Chapter 17

After spending a pleasant half hour listening to Ryan Carmichael tell stories about Delilah and her husband Frank, Morgan suddenly noticed Thea had completely disappeared from the dining room. Amy was making another round to fill glasses and only shrugged at Morgan’s questioning look.

Ryan, who hadn’t missed the silent exchange, shook his head and smiled. “You’re pretty connected to the people here for someone who’s only been around a few months,” Ryan observed. “Do you always invest yourself this much in your work?”

Morgan grinned. “I bet you’re a damn good reporter. You’re nosy enough to be one.”

“Thanks—I think,” Ryan replied, his mouth twisting into a half grin. “So what’s the deal with you and Thea? Are you dating? You two tend to watch each other from across the room a lot, but I never saw her talk to you.”

Gerald and Lydia hid their faces behind their drinks. Morgan sighed.