Her mouth fell open like I was crazy. “Why not?”
“Because,honey, I don’t know this man, and it would mean you and I would have to move back to Carrington Cove.”
Her green eyes, so like my own, widened while she got up on her knees, making my bed bounce. “You mean I could go to school with Brooke?” Her BFF since she was in preschool.
I nodded.
She grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “You have to take this job. Please, Mom.”
I placed my hands on her perfectly smooth cheeks. “I’m thinking about it.”
“Think hard,” she begged.
“I’m having dinner to discuss the job further with him tomorrow night after I drop you off at Grandma and Grandpa’s, and we’ll see how it goes.”
She flung herself on my bed with her hands clasped together. “Oh please, oh please, oh please,” she repeated over and over again.
I couldn’t help but smile at her and want to make her wish come true. After all, she had made almost all of mine come true, even before I knew to wish for something as wonderful as her. She changed my life, making me less selfish and more aware. She kept me from being bitter about her father. Even now, as Leland was threatening to intervene in our lives once again, Chloe reminded me that she was worth any price, even facing her father.
Unfortunately, facing him was a possibility. A couple of months ago, he called out of the blue after having no contact with us for three years, to tell me he was remarried with a baby and he wanted Chloe in his life. According to him, he was a better man now, all because his new wife taughthim what love really was. Leland never failed to shove the knife that he’d stabbed me with so many years ago in deeper. Everything was always my fault. His excuse for cheating on me was I was always too tired to have sex with him whenever he wanted because I was busy taking care of our daughter. He didn’t pay child support because it wasn’t his fault I didn’t use birth control. And now he felt the need to remind me that he never loved me.
He was real father-of-the-year material. If only I could legally keep him from seeing Chloe. I didn’t want him to flit in and out of her life, hurting her more than he already had when he disappeared again. And I knew he would. Which got me thinking. If I did take this job, I could finally hire a lawyer to sue him for all the back child support he owed his daughter. But gazing at Chloe, I knew that the choice I had in front of me would be solely based on what was best for her. I only had to decide what that was.
Chapter Four
IpacedoutsideCoveCafé on the cobbled sidewalks of Main Street in Carrington Cove in the fading evening light, telling myself to go in. It was only dinner. I didn’t have to accept Miles’s job offer.
It wasn’t only that though. My pulse was racing again, and not because I was nervous about a huge life change. For over a year now, I had imagined an evening like this. Dinner with Taron Taylor, where we would sip wine and discussSilent Stonesand his plans for the protagonist, Isabella Jones. I bit my lip and wrung my hands, thinking about the other things I had imagined. I wasn’t supposed to meet the man I had fantasized about smiling across the candlelit table at me before he leaned in and ran his thumb across my lips. His smile would turn from playful to smoldering with each brush of his thumb before he would whisper my name as if I were a secret he wanted to keep all to himself.
I would draw close enough to share his breath. Anticipation brewed and then bubbled over as our lips teased but never touched. Then just as we couldn’t stand the sweet torture any longer, I would tell myself he would eventually disappoint me. I would force myself to either wake up or stopdaydreaming. Each make-believe meeting ended the same. And there had been many of them. I knew how ridiculous it was to fear even fantasized intimacy, but it was better than being disappointed or disillusioned, especially by the man who wrote such beautiful words.
Words that had made me laugh, cry, even reflect.
In her heart was hidden the deepest desire to love and be loved, but the wound that locked her fragile heart had not healed with time. No, time had only proven to her how right she was to hide the key that would unlock the beguiling gift she held within herself. A gift to bewitch the soul of any man. But not any man would be capable of finding the key to her heart she had buried deep within her damaged soul. He would need to be courageous if he dared to trespass the path to her very essence, obscured by time and thorns. He must be willing to pay in blood and patience. For the overgrown thorns hid not only the key to her heart, but the loveliest roses waiting to bloom under the gentle touch of the man patient enough to prune and care for the garden within her. For that man, she waited to grow with. For him she would give not only the map, but take the journey with him.
I stopped my pacing under the striped awning of the Cove Café. His words haunted me. In some ways, it reflected me. I felt damaged and ached for someone brave enough to try and push past my defenses. To give me the time to trust them even though I knew how unfair that was. But unlike Isabella Jones, I didn’t possess her bewitching powers. I couldn’t even keep the attention of my husband when I had one.
I brought my clasped hands up to my mouth and breathed in and out, trying to convince myself to walk inand face the man who was making my pulse race. Echoes of Chloe’s encouragement, begging, and her crooked little smile lent me some bravery. She’d already picked out the mobile phone she wanted.
She wasn’t the only motivator. I thought of Stephen’s gloating attitude today when he demanded I take a customer wanting to open a CD after we’d already closed the bank. Did I mention Stephen went home after he barked his last command? To add insult to injury, the customer was difficult, lecturing me for twenty minutes about the bank’s pathetic interest rates, because I had control over those. To top it off, I couldn’t open the new account because he forgot his ID. For that, I got another lecture about poor customer service.
Forget the pay raise I would receive if I took this new job, seeing the look on Stephen’s face when I gave my notice would be far more satisfying. First, though, I had to open the door and face Miles Wickham. I took one more deep breath of the crisp autumn air, smoothed out my blush cardigan, and reached for the door, reminding myself that if I could survive the mood swings of a pre-teen, I could do anything.
I let the breath out once I entered the establishment. The smell of the freshly baked breads they used for everything from bread bowls to grilled cheese sandwiches tickled my nose, flooding me with memories both good and bad. This was a favorite hangout during high school, not only for Emma, Jenna, Brad, and me, but Leland too. He would sit in the corner booth brooding while he scribbled out lyrics on napkins. I found it so mysterious and alluring. He knew it too, which was why he would only glance my way until I came to him. Never once didhe come to me.
The young hostess grabbed my attention. “Would you like a table, or to sit at the counter?”
I shook thoughts of Leland out of my head, figuratively and literally. “I’m meeting someone.”
That someone stood and waved, catching my attention from, wouldn’t you know it, the corner booth. I took it as the universe’s way of warning me, until he picked up his nephew and began to walk toward me, smiling.He was coming to get me?
Little Henry lit up when he saw me and immediately began to wiggle out of his uncle’s arms. Miles let him go and watched the tot run straight to me. Before I could catch Henry in my arms, I caught a glimpse of Emma and Sawyer from the corner of my eye. I turned to find not only the aforementioned couple, but Brad and Jenna and Shelby and Ryder all there gawking at me unabashedly. I would deal with them after I scooped up the most adorable boy, dressed to charm in his shorts and tights.
If Henry were the only consideration, I would accept the job on the spot. It was as if my heart directly linked to his. He obviously felt the surreal connection too by the way he wrapped his tiny arms around my neck. But then he yelled, “Nanny,” leading me to believe his uncle had coached the tyke. Perhaps Henry didn’t feel as connected as I thought—or maybe even hoped. Either way, I didn’t know how to respond. I looked at Miles and locked eyes with him. I could tell he was trying to suppress his guilty smile, leaving no doubt he was using Henry’s adorableness to his advantage. Obviously, I was a sucker for the kid.
Miles stepped closer, his guilty smile turning debonair, making me feel like I was having a series of mini strokes.That wouldn’t do. How could I work for someone who caused such a physiological response? Don’t even get me going on how his aqua eyes drew me in. Or his cologne. Whatever it was, I needed to find out and stay away from it at all cost. His spicy, warm smell was more than likely brain numbing. I had a laundry list of all the trouble intoxicating scents had gotten me into, starting with a tattoo my parents still didn’t know about and ending with becoming a single mother.
As I looked closer at Miles’s eyes, I was startled to see they were filled with remorse, like he knew he’d placed me in difficult spot. I had expected to find arrogance. Instead, I found I was more uncomfortable with his concern than Henry’s declaration.
