“When did you try to tell me?” Hank demanded

He took several paces away from Jackie, as though he found her distasteful. “When? I don’t remember once in seventeen years.”

“Yes,” she replied. “I did… That day.” She struggled to maintain control, as everything inside her shook with emotion and old pain.

And new pain.

“I tried to explain why I couldn’t go with you,” she went on, “but you—”

“You said you thought it’d be better if you stayed behind,” he interrupted, taking several angry steps back to her. “You never once mentioned—”

“You talked over me,” she told him quietly. “You didn’t give me a chance. Then you stormed away.”

“Well, what about the seventeen years since?” he roared at her. “Why didn’t you call or write?”

Oh, God, she thought, steeling herself. Anguish squeezed her lungs and made air escape in a painful sound. She had to pull herself together. The hard part was coming….

Dear Reader,

Some women respond to the dreamer hero in romance novels, while others are attracted to the footloose wanderer. Many have an affinity for bad boys, and some want to make a home for the wounded man in need of a woman with just the right antibiotic.

Personally, I have a thing for the hero with purpose. I like the man who knows what he wants in a woman and goes after her with confidence, determination and just enough vulnerability to leave me wondering whether he’ll get her or not. In real life, I’d be offended if my husband behaved as though he had all the answers—particularly because I never seem to have any. Life is a mystery that confounds and confuses me every day. But in my dreams—or in my romantic fantasies—I love to think there’s a man out there to whom life is a clear, straight path to the woman he cherishes, and he’ll let nothing, including her confusion, get in his way.

This is your introduction to Hank Whitcomb, just such a man.

I wish you all good things.

Muriel

Muriel Jensen

P.O. Box 1168

Astoria, Oregon 97103

Man with a Mission
Muriel Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Man with a Mission

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

HANK WHITCOMB STARTED backwards down the stairs in his office building, supporting one end of a heavy oak table that served as his desk. Bart Megrath, his brother-in-law, carried the other end.

“Whose idea was it to move your office anyway?” Bart asked. “And why is everything oak? Don’t you believe in light, easy-to-clean plastic?”

“The move was my idea.” Haley Megrath, Hank’s sister, brought up the rear with an old oak chair. “If he’s going to bid on City Hall jobs, he may as well conduct business from one of their new rental spaces in the basement instead of in this derelict old mill a mile outside of town.”

Hank was counting. Twelve steps—eight to go. “It was my own idea,” Hank insisted. Thirteen. Fourteen. “You just agreed that it was a good one.”

“I’m the one who told you the City had decided to rent spaces.”

“And when you told me, I told you that Evelyn Bisset had already called me about it.”

“So, the suggestion had more punch coming from Jackie’s secretary.” Haley’s voice took on a deceptively casual but suggestive note. He refused to bite. He would not discuss Jackie Bourgeois. He’d neither forgotten nor forgiven her. It was unfortunate that she was mayor at this point in time, but she was. Still, there was little chance they’d have to deal with each other. The city manager handled the bids on city hall repairs, so Hank would be doing business with him.

“Hey,” Bart said with a grunt. “Let Haley take the credit. Electrical power comes and goes in that ancient building, and the roof leaks. When the time comes that you regret moving Whitcomb’s Wonders out of Chandler’s Mill and into City Hall, you can blame your little sister.”

“Hey!” Haley complained. “How’d you like an oak chair upside your head?”

Hank had reached the bottom of the stairs, but the hallway was too narrow for him to put the table down so they could catch their breath. He turned the bulky piece of furniture onto its side and aimed himself carefully out the door, angling the table so that Bart could follow with the legs at his end.

Snow flurried from a leaden sky, and Hank was instantly assailed by the cold of a western Massachusetts March afternoon, its harshness blunted by the delicious freshness of the air. Old snow crunched underfoot as he headed for the dark green van he’d bought to start his new life.

“Is this going to fit in there?” Bart asked, their pace considerably quickened now that they were outside.

“I measured it.” A former engineer for NASA, Hank checked and rechecked even the smallest detail of any project he undertook. He put down his end, climbed into the van, then reached out to pull the table in. He’d removed all the van’s seats to make room and now backed his way toward the driver’s seat as Bart lifted up on his end and pushed the table under the hatch door.

It was a snug fit. Bart took the chair from Haley and slipped it sideways between the table legs.

“Is this it?” Bart asked. “We’ve got a little room under the table. What about those files you had in boxes on the floor?”

Hank climbed over the front seat and let himself out the passenger door. Bart and Haley came around the side. “No, I’ll take those tomorrow. I’ve got to clean them out tonight. You guys go back to work and I’ll meet you for dinner at seven at the Yankee Inn.”

“I told you you don’t have to take us out to dinner,” Haley protested.

Bart had an arm around her and his thumb, Hank noticed, was unconsciously stroking the curve of her shoulder. In jeans and a fleece sweatshirt, her dark hair in one long braid and her cheeks pink from four hours of helping haul his office furniture up and down stairs, Haley looked about fourteen.

Bart had been good for her, Hank thought, though when he’d sent his friend to get her out of jail last August after a crisis on a space mission prevented Hank from leaving, he’d never imagined that his best friend and his little sister would fall in love. Haley still had the fearlessness that had encouraged her to challenge a crooked mayor and end up behind bars.

The sweetness she’d lost that fateful night five years ago when she and her fiancé had been attacked by thugs and he’d broken free and ran, abandoning her to her fate, was finally back. Thanks to the timely arrival on the scene of an off-duty policeman, she’d been rescued, though not before she’d lost her faith in men. But Bart had restored it. Hank saw implicit trust in her eyes when she looked into Bart’s face—as well as a hot, almost embarrassing passion that made Hank green with envy.

The lack of a personal life was part of the reason Hank had decided to come home to Maple Hill. NASA had hired him right out of the University of Southern California, and he’d spent the next fourteen years devoted to assisting in the exploration of space. One day six months ago, after he’d been up seventy hours when one of their space missions encountered a control problem, then finally landed safely, he realized he had no one to celebrate with. There were co-workers who understood the engineering problem and could share his happiness and relief that the astronauts were safely home. But there was no one who really knew what was in his heart.

He had girlfriends, party friends, who shared the intimacies of a bed without really caring about his thoughts and feelings.

He’d once believed that was freedom. Now he knew it was simply loneliness.

There was no one who knew about the warnings that filled his head—“You’re not as good as you think you are. You’ll fail just like the rest of us. But your high and mighty attitude will make you fall so far, you’ll dig a hole when you land.” No one who understood that every day was a struggle to live down the sound of his father’s words. No one who grasped the depths of his relief every time he proved the voice wrong.

Fortunately, an interest in electricity, which he’d probably inherited from his father, led him to a summer job working with an electrician in high school, and apprenticeship summers while he was in college. When he’d decided to change careers, getting licensed had been a simple thing, and his hobby turned into his livelihood.

“I want to take you out,” he insisted. “I couldn’t have managed all this in one day without you. Make sure you bring Mike.”

Mike McGee was a fifteen-year-old boy who helped Haley at the Maple Hill Mirror, the weekly newspaper she published. She and Bart had acquired custody of him when his mother went to jail.

“He’s got an overnight with some friends from the basketball team. The kids are going to have a booth during the Spring Festival. The coach and his wife are hosting them this weekend so they can plan their strategy. Eleven fifteen-year-old boys. Can you imagine?”

He couldn’t. Kids in general were not his forte. He liked them fine, he just thought every child deserved more tolerance and understanding than he felt capable of. They were mysterious little beggars, and he’d been an engineer. Specific rules applied to specific situations for specific results.

Even now that he was an electrician, the approach was the same. There was little mystery involved. If you held on to 120 volts, you fried. It was as simple as that.

“How are you going to unload this when you get to City Hall?” Bart asked, pointing to the table.

“Mom’s there, straightening things up for him,” Haley said with a grin. “She’ll just order the table to get inside on its own power.”

Bart laughed. “I can see that happening. But on the chance that doesn’t work…”

“Trent promised to stop by and help me,” Hank said, pushing the passenger door closed.

“Trent?” Haley asked.

“The plumber I hired yesterday. Seems like an all-right guy.”

“And what’s his story? Why is he joining your troupe of part-time tradesmen?”

“He’s getting his MBA from Amherst, but wants to work part-time. Says school’s too cerebral. He needs the hands-on work to stay grounded.”

“You’re sure you don’t want me to do a story on Whitcomb’s Wonders?” Haley asked for the fourth or fifth time. “It’d be good for business, and the public would love to know about a service that can fill any need out there at a moment’s notice. How many men do you have now?”

“Seven.” He didn’t have to stop to think. He was surprised himself by how good his part-time help idea was. He’d started the business at the end of September, and by Christmas had employed five men who were surprised and pleased by the notion of working part-time while they pursued other careers, cared for their children, went to school. Evan Braga, a house-painter, signed on in January, and now Cameron Trent rounded out a pretty impressive roster. “We can do wiring, plumbing, landscaping and gardening, furnace repair, janitorial work, insulation and house painting. But I doubt that any of my guys is anxious for publicity.”

Haley grinned. “It might get them girls,” she cajoled.

He rolled his eyes at Bart. “Why is it they think we have nothing else on our minds?”

“Maybe because trying to guess what they want,” Bart replied, “takes so much of our time and concentration.”

Haley punched Bart playfully in the stomach. “I’ve told you over and over. Full-time attention and expensive jewelry.”

Her wedding ring of pave diamonds flashed as she punched him, and Hank concluded that Bart must have gotten the message. Or else he loved her so much that what he couldn’t say with words, he spoke with diamonds.

“Thanks for the offer, Sis,” Hank said, walking around to the driver’s side. Bart and Haley followed him. “I’ll buy an ad instead to announce the opening of my new office.”

“Oh, all right, I’ll give you the ad.” She hugged him tightly. “A good half page in the TV section so it’ll be seen every day. Think about what you want in it. A photo of all of you would be good. We don’t have to go into details, just let the town see you have a competent force.”

“Okay. That sounds like a good idea. I’ll see how the men feel about it.” Hank shook hands with Bart, then climbed into the van. “See you at dinner. You’re sure you wouldn’t rather eat at the Old Post Road Inn? The menu’s a little more elegant than the Yankee.”

Bart opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Haley said, “The Yankee’s great. I’m in the mood for their pot roast.”

Bart sent him a subtle smirk over her head. She was as transparent as cling wrap. The Yankee Inn had been in Jackie Bourgeois’s family for generations. Her father had retired two years ago, leaving her in charge. Haley wanted them to bump into each other.

“The Yankee it is,” he said with a cheerful smile, pretending he had no idea what she had in mind. He’d studiously avoided Jackie for the six months he’d been home, afraid she’d see the feelings he couldn’t control, even though she’d broken his heart all those years ago. He didn’t want to care and never intended to do anything about it. He just couldn’t help that he did.

He’d run into her by surprise on only two occasions—once in the dentist’s office when he’d been walking out and she’d been walking in with two very grim-looking little girls in tow. He knew they were her daughters. Erica was ten, his mother had told him. And Rachel was six.

The second time was at the grade school when he’d been called in to replace a faulty light switch in the cafeteria. She’d been chatting cheerfully with other mothers who’d gathered there with classroom treats. He’d looked up at the sound of her laughter, startled and weirdly affected by the fact that though everything else about her had matured in the seventeen years since they’d been high-school sweethearts, that hadn’t. It was still high-pitched and infectiously youthful.

He’d also noticed her pregnancy. Her stomach was bulbous, her cheeks a little plumper than he remembered. But her strawberry-blond hair had looked like Black Hills gold, her complexion porcelain with a touch of rose.

The moment her eyes had met his, she’d disappeared into the pantry area, the swift turn of her back coldly adult.

She had no use for him. Which was fine with him. He had no feelings left for the woman who had loved him as though he was her whole world one moment, then refused to share her life with him the next. If she was at the Yankee Inn tonight, he was sure she’d be as eager to avoid him as he was to stay clear of her.

Comforted by that thought, he turned the key in the ignition, waved at Haley and Bart, and headed off toward downtown Maple Hill.

He was amazed by how comfortable he’d felt coming home to this quiet little Connecticut River valley after being away for so long. If Jackie Bourgeois didn’t live here, he thought, it’d be perfect.

Judging by outward appearances, very little had changed in Maple Hill in over two hundred years. Realizing that its cozy, colonial ambience was its stock-in-trade when tourists visited, the local merchants’ association with the aid of City Hall had done everything possible to maintain the flavor.

The road to town was lined with old homes in the classic saltbox and Georgian revival styles and set back on spacious lawns, their trees now naked against the sky. Old barns housed businesses, and old inns had been refurbished.

Houses were built closer to the street as Hank drew nearer to town. Some of the cobblestones were still visible, and the streetlights looked like something out of Old London.

Maple Hill Common, the town square and the heart of commercial downtown, boasted a bronze statue of a Minuteman and a woman in eighteenth-century dress, surrounded by a low stone wall. Around the square were shops that looked much as they had in the 1700s. A 50-star flag and an old colonial flag with its thirteen stars in a circle flew from a pole on the green.

The sight never failed to move him. He felt connected to a historic past here, while bound to a town looking toward the future. You could buy a mochaccino, high-tech software and designer clothing, or sniff oxygen in a bar if you so desired. Maple Hill was quaint, but there was nothing backward about it.

Hank pulled into a parking spot on the City Hall lot, pleasantly surprised that it hadn’t already been claimed. The spot next to his held a red Astro van and a sign that read, THE MAYOR PARKS HERE.

He turned off the engine and retrieved his key, annoyed that thoughts of Jackie interrupted his pleasant musings on the good life he lived here. But he’d better get used to it, he thought philosophically. He might not have to deal with her, but he was bound to run into her more often with his office in City Hall.

SUICIDE HAD SO MUCH APPEAL, Jackie Bourgeois thought as she put a hand to the rampaging baby in her womb. She would do it with a dozen Dulce de Leche Häagen-Dazs bars, pots of caffeinated coffee and several bottles of Perrier-Jouët champagne—all the things she hadn’t been able to touch since she’d found out she was pregnant.

She’d have to wait until the baby was in college, of course. Responsible women simply didn’t walk away from their problems. The Yankee ethic wouldn’t allow it.

By the time the baby was eighteen, Erica and Rachel would be married and able to provide for him when he came home on school breaks. They wouldn’t even miss her. They were all convinced her sole purpose in life was to make them miserable anyway.

Her father loved her, but he’d made his life without her and the girls since her mother died several years ago. He’d bought a place in Miami and often forgot to check in with his family as he embarked on new adventures.

And two of the city councilmen wouldn’t miss her, except as someone to accuse of feminine ignorance or heartless female highhandedness, depending upon which complaint best suited their current disagreement. At the moment she was a harpy for renting space in the basement, a capitalist venture they considered beneath the dignity of city government.

Holding on to the railing, Jackie made her way carefully down the basement steps, checking on the city’s two new tenants as a way of avoiding the councilmen blustering upstairs.

City Hall was housed in an old colonial mansion that had been built after the Revolutionary War by Robert Bourgeois, an ancestor of Jackie’s late husband. City offices were on the first floor, the mayor’s office and meeting rooms were upstairs, and local events were hosted in the old ballroom. The basement had been cleaned out and redecorated after a hurricane last summer left it water damaged, and Jackie and Will Dancer, the city planner, had come up with a plan to rent office space there to help support the aging building’s many repairs. Will’s office had handled the actual rental of space and Jackie had been too busy with other city affairs to find out who’d secured them.

She peered into the first office and found it chaotic, a sort of examining bed, an odd-looking chair, a file cabinet painted lavender and several pieces of brocade furniture clumped in the middle of the room. There were boxes on the floor filled with what was probably the contents of the file cabinet, and several framed landscapes leaned against the wall.

“Hi!”

Jackie almost jumped out of her skin at the high-pitched greeting. She turned to find a tall, slender woman perhaps a few years older than she, dressed in lavender leggings and flats and a long-sleeved lavender T-shirt. A wide purple band circled her carroty hair and was caught above her left ear in an exaggeratedly large bow.

“Mrs. Mayor!” the woman said breathlessly, offering her hand from under a large box she’d apparently just brought in from the side entrance. “How nice to meet you. I’m Parker Peterson.”

“Hi.” Jackie shook her hand and wanted to try to help her ease the box to the floor, but her pregnancy allowed very little bending at this stage. The woman seemed to have no trouble handling it on her own, a taut line of arm and shoulder muscles revealed by her snug shirt.

She straightened and put one hand on her hip and the other up to fluff her bow. “What a good idea this is! I’ll be right in the thick of the stress and strain of business life. These poor nine-to-fivers are my client base, you know.”

Jackie looked a little worriedly at the curious couch, the odd chair and Parker Peterson’s flamboyant style of dress. She was almost afraid to ask. “What is it you do, Ms. Peterson?”

Parker gave the odd little chair a pat. “I’m a massage therapist. Here. Sit down and put your head right here.” She fluffed the small cushion on the funny arm sticking out in front of the chair. “You straddle it like a horse.”

Jackie patted her stomach. “We’re not very athletic these days.”

“It doesn’t really take much effort. Here, I’ll help you.” She steadied Jackie’s arm as she spoke and encouraged her to lift her foot to the other side of the stool-like chair.

Jackie would have continued to resist, except that Parker had put her hand to the small of Jackie’s back as she spoke and rubbed her fingertips at the base of her spine where the pressure of five or six pounds of baby and fifteen or so pounds of “support” sat twenty-four hours a day. The relief was instant and melted her protests.

“We need to loosen up your back muscles,” Parker said. “That’s it. Feel that? Gotta prevent that tension or you’ll be miserable until you deliver. A couple of weeks?”

“About a month and a half,” Jackie replied, unable to believe she was a pile of jelly in this woman’s hands after two minutes’ acquaintance. She was usually very much aware of her dignity as mayor—not because she was pretentious, but because her council was always looking for something about her to criticize.

And she had to pretend to the town that though her husband had died in the arms of a cocktail waitress after promising Jackie he was rededicating himself to their marriage and their two children, he hadn’t humiliated her, but embarrassed his own memory. And she liked to think that the pregnancy that had resulted from that promise was a testament to her trust.

The baby stirred as though also appreciating the massage.

Parker’s hands went up Jackie’s spine and down again with gentle force.

“You have to stop,” Jackie said weakly, her voice altered by her cheek squashed against the pillow and the total relaxation of her now considerable body weight. “I have a meeting in fifteen minutes. You’ll have to roll me in on the chair.”

Parker laughed as her fingertips worked across Jackie’s shoulders. “You’ll have to come and see me when you need a break. I’m good, I’m reasonable and I’ll give special rates to anyone who works in the building. I’ll be here from eight to six.”

Parker stopped working and helped Jackie to her feet. “Isn’t that better?”

Jackie did feel as though ten pounds had been removed from her stomach.

“Watch that posture,” Parker advised. “And drink your milk. You have a husband to give you foot rubs?”

“I wish,” Jackie replied, then realized that she didn’t really. Foot rubs would be nice, but hardly worth the anguish a husband could inflict otherwise.

“Me, too. So, you’re having this baby alone?”

Jackie concluded that Parker had to be new in town. “I was widowed right after I got pregnant. But this is my third, so I kind of know what I’m doing.”

“That’s nice,” Parker said wistfully. “I know all about pregnancies—what to eat, how to exercise, how to massage to relieve strain and pressure. But I’ve never had the experience. Two husbands but no baby.”

“I’m sorry.” Men weren’t always worth the time devoted to a marriage, but children were. “I’ll bring mine by to meet you,” Jackie said with a grin. “Then you might think you’ve had a lucky escape.”

Parker walked her to the door of her office.

“My purse is in my…” Jackie began, pointing upstairs.

“That was free of charge,” Parker insisted. “Just tell your friends I’m here. I’m taking out an ad in the Mirror, but it won’t come out until next Thursday.”

“I will. And good luck. If you have trouble with heat or plumbing or anything, let us know.”

Parker promised that she would, then waved as she went back to the side door, apparently to retrieve more boxes.

Jackie rotated her shoulders as she passed the two dark and empty spaces. She’d have to find a way to work a massage into her daily schedule.

She turned a corner and walked down a small hallway that led to the last office. The hallway was dark, she noted. She would have to see that a light was installed overhead.

She peered into the only office on this side of the building and was stunned to see a figure she knew well standing in the middle of the room and looking around with satisfaction at what appeared to be a well-organized office.

“Adeline!” Jackie exclaimed, walking into the office, her arms open. “What are you doing here?” Adeline Whitcomb was her best friend’s mother and the girls’ Sunday School teacher.

“Jackie!” The gray-haired woman with a short, stylish cut and bright blue eyes went right into Jackie’s arms. “I didn’t have a chance to tell you I was moving into City Hall.”

Jackie looked around as they drew away from each other. There were file cabinets against the wall, a map of the city tacked up on one side, a large one of the county on the other. A small portable bar sat under the city map, with a coffeepot on it and a box from the bakery. A low table held a cordless phone atop a phone book. A quilt rack took up considerable space in one corner of the room.

“Are you going into business, Adeline?” Jackie asked, knowing that Addy’s skills as a quilter were legendary. She’d made one for each of Jackie’s girls when they were born. “Have you found a way to make quilting profitable?”

Adeline looked amused by that suggestion. “As if,” she said, then lowered her eyes and looked away for a moment, as though uncomfortable holding Jackie’s gaze.

Jackie had a horrible premonition. “This is Hank’s office,” she guessed.

Adeline smiled and sighed, as though she’d suddenly made up her mind about something. “It is. I’m tidying things up while he moves things in. And the quilt rack is here because I’ll be his office staff and help organize all the men.”

Jackie’s horror was derailed for a moment. “All the men? Does he have partners?”

“No. I thought you knew he started Whitcomb’s Wonders.” Adeline went on to explain about the on-call service of tradesmen and craftsmen Hank had started. If anyone had told her, she hadn’t listened. She automatically tuned out when his name was mentioned.

“You know, he’s been back in Maple Hill for six months, Jackie,” Addy went on. “It’s time you two stopped pretending the other doesn’t exist.”

Great. The ten pounds Parker’s massage had alleviated were now back with a vengeance and, against all anatomical good sense, sitting right in the middle of her shoulders. She started to back toward the door. She would never deliberately hurt Adeline, but she would avoid crossing paths with Hank at all costs.

“It’s great that you’ll be here,” she said diplomatically. “Maybe you and I can have coffee or lunch.”

“It’s childish and nonproductive,” Adeline said, ignoring Jackie’s invitation. Exasperation was visible in her eyes. “You’re going to be in the same building. You have to come to terms with this.”

“We’ve come to terms with each other, Addy.” Jackie put both hands to her back, the pressure there tightening at the very mention of Hank’s name. “We like pretending the other doesn’t exist. Then we don’t have to remember the past or deal with each other in the present.”

“You were children when all this happened,” Adeline reminded her. “Certainly you can forgive each other for behaving like children.”

Jackie closed her eyes tightly against the image her brain tried to form of that time. She didn’t want to see it. There’d certainly been grave and very adult consequences for the actions Addy considered childish.

“Just wanted to welcome you to the building,” Jackie said, stepping out into the hall and turning to force a smile for Addy. “If there are any problems with the space, please call,”

Addy sighed dispiritedly. “I will, Jackie. Thank you.”

Jackie headed back the way she’d come, eager now to get upstairs. With Hank Whitcomb occupying office space in the basement, this would no longer be the place to hide from her councilmen.

In the dark corridor before she made the turn, she collided with something large and hard in the shadows. She knew what it was even before firm hands grabbed her to steady her.

Could this day get any worse? She drew a breath and cloaked herself in mayoral dignity. “Hello, Hank,” she said.

CHAPTER TWO

HANK KNEW HE’D COLLIDED with Jackie even before he heard the sound of her voice. Her scent was different, but she was using the same shampoo she’d used seventeen years ago. The collision brought her cap of red-blond hair right under his nose, and the peach and coconut fragrance filled his senses with memories he’d kept a lid on for most of his adult life.

He saw her slender and naked in his arms, her gray eyes looking into his as though he controlled the universe. He saw her laughing, her eyes alight. Then he saw her crying, her eyes drowning in a misery to which he’d hardened his heart.

Why had he done that? he wondered now, as though he’d never considered it before. Then he remembered. Because she’d taken all their dreams and thrown them away.

He felt a curious whisper of movement against his hipbone and suddenly all memories of her as a girl vanished as he realized that her rounded body was pressed against him. For an instant he entertained the thought that if things had gone according to plan all those years ago, this would be his baby.

But the intervening years had taught him not to look back.

Aware that he held her arms, he pushed her a step back from him, waited a moment to make sure she was steady, then lowered his hands.

She hadn’t had this imperious manner then, he thought, looking down into her haughty expression.

“Jackie,” he said with a quick smile. If she could behave like cool royalty to show him she didn’t care about their past, he would be friendly, to prove that he held nothing against her, because it had never really mattered anyway. “How are you? I wanted to talk that day we met at the dentist, but you were in such a hurry.”

She looked as though she didn’t know what to do for a moment. He liked seeing her confusion. The day he’d left Maple Hill, she’d made him think he was wrong, and that had confused him for a long time. Pay-back was satisfying.

She folded her arms over her stomach, then apparently deciding that looked too domestic, dropped her arms and assumed a duchess-to-peasant stiffness.

“I’m well, thank you,” she replied. “I just came to welcome you to City Hall.”

“I appreciate that.” He smiled again, taking her arm and trying to lead her back toward the office. “Mom’s in…”

She yanked her arm away, her duchess demeanor abandoned in a spark of temper. She caught herself and drew another breath. “We’ve already talked,” she said politely. “I told her if you have any problems, to let us know.”

“Shall I call you?” he asked, all effusive good nature.

Her eyes reflected distress at the thought, though she didn’t bat an eyelash. “No, Will Dancer will be taking care of tenants. Extension 202.”

He nodded. “We’ve been in touch a couple of times about updating the building’s wiring with circuit breakers.”

“We can’t afford to do that,” she said.

He shrugged a shoulder. “It’ll reduce your insurance on the building. Dancer thinks it’s a good idea. And I’m pretty reasonable.”

He realized the opening he’d given her the moment the words were out of his mouth.

“Really,” she said, old pain furrowing her brow. “That’s not the way I remember it.”

He didn’t understand it. It had been all her fault. So why did the pain on her face hurt him?

She turned and started to walk away.

He followed, determined to maintain the I-don’t-care-it-doesn’t-matter pose. “I meant,” he said calmly, “that I provide a good service at a reasonable price.”

“Well, that’s what the city would be looking for,” she said, steaming around the corner, past the other offices and toward the stairs, “if we could afford to do such a thing. But Will Dancer notwithstanding, we can’t.”

She turned at the bottom of the stairs to look him in the eye. “I hope you didn’t move your office here in the hope of securing City Hall business.”

He liked this part. “I have City Hall business,” he said, letting himself gloat just a little. “Dancer hired me to replace all the old swag lamps with lighted ceiling fans. He also invited me to submit a bid for rewiring.”

She’d always hated to be thwarted. Curiously, he remembered that with more amusement than annoyance.

“Just stay out of my way,” she said, all pretense dropped and her finger pointed at his face.

He thought that a curious threat coming from a rather small pregnant woman. It suggested black eyes and broken kneecaps.

He rested a foot on the bottom step, his own temper stirred despite his pose of nonchalance. “I know it’s probably difficult to grasp this,” he said, “when you’ve been prom queen, Miss Maple Lake Festival and all-around darling of the community, but you don’t control everything. I am free to move about, and if that happens to put me in your way, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to deal with it.”

Angry color filled her cheeks. “I do run this city hall.” Her voice was breathless in her apparent attempt to keep the volume down. “And if you get in my way, I can get your bid ignored so fast you won’t know what happened. And I can also see that no other city business comes your way ever!”

It was almost comfortable to fight with her again. This was familiar ground. “You’re sounding just like the mayor you and my sister helped replace. The one who got too full of his own importance and eventually stole hundreds of thousands from the city and held the two of you at gunpoint? You remember? The one who’s still doing time.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “You don’t see me holding anyone at gunpoint, do you? And I don’t need anyone else’s money.”

“You just threatened to arbitrarily deprive me of my livelihood. I’m sure Haley, as the city’s watchdog, would have to look into such behavior.”

She didn’t seem worried. “Your sister is my best friend. I doubt very much that she’d come out on your side.”

“She’s a reporter before she’s a friend, and I am her brother.”

Her voice rose to a shout despite all her efforts. “Then keep your distance and don’t give me any excuse to get rid of you!”

“You got rid of me,” he reminded her, “seventeen years ago.”

“Who left whom?” she demanded.

“We were supposed to leave together.”

For an instant, emotion flashed in her eyes. He tried hard to read it but he was out of practice. Had it been…regret?

“Something unexpected…” she began, and for some reason those words blew the lid off his temper. Probably because they reminded him of what she’d begun to say the night he’d left—alone. Hank, on second thought, it might be better if you went alone, and I…

He hadn’t let her finish. He remembered that he’d been so sure all along that such a thing would happen, that Jackie Fortin was never going to be his. He was sure she’d find that his father had been right all along and Hank was worthless.

“Yeah, you tried to tell me that then, too,” he barked at her. “You expected me to fail, didn’t you? And you didn’t want to leave all your crowns and tiaras behind to take a chance with me.”

IT WOULD BE SO SATISFYING to kick him in the shin, Jackie thought. But Parker and Addy had wandered out into the hallway at the sound of raised voices and now stood a short distance away, looking on worriedly. When Jackie finally did take her revenge on Hank, she didn’t want witnesses.

Besides, much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, it hadn’t been all his fault. She should have tried to make him listen, insisted that he understand, but she’d been frightened and hurt, too. And broken-hearted.

She was very tired suddenly and her back felt as though sandbags hung from it. “I think you have me confused with your father,” she said softly, so that Addy wouldn’t hear. “You wouldn’t listen to my explanation then, so I doubt you’d want to hear it now. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get out of your way.”

But she couldn’t climb the stairs until he moved.

He considered her a moment, his anger seeming to thin, then caught her arm and drew her up on the step beside him. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you upstairs.”

She wanted to tell him that she walked up and down stairs all day long. That was the price of occupying a building that had been constructed before elevators. But he looked as tired of their argument as she felt, so she kept quiet.

With his large hand wrapped around her upper arm, he led the way upstairs. The space was a little tight, but she did her best to ignore him. She didn’t realize until they were almost at the top that she wasn’t breathing. The baby, apparently convinced he was being strangled, gave her a swift kick in the ribs.

“Aah!” she gasped, stopping to give herself a moment to recover. This baby had Van Damme’s skill at Savate.

“What?” Hank asked worriedly.

“Just a kick,” she said breathlessly, rubbing where she’d felt it.

“Why don’t you sit for a minute?” Without waiting for her compliance, he pushed her gently until she was sitting on the stair above them. “Are you sure you should be working in this condition?”

“It’s pregnancy,” she replied, a little unsettled by what appeared to be genuine, if grudging, concern, “not infirmity. I’m fine.”

“You’re pale.”

“I can’t help that,” she retorted. “You’re very annoying. Preventing myself from punching you is taking its toll.”

A reluctant smile crossed his face as he studied hers. “It would be a lot for a woman who wasn’t pregnant to run a hotel and a city while raising two children.”

He used to do that when they were going together and she remembered that it made her feel very protected. In the middle of a dance or a drive or a game of tennis he would stop to look at her, and always gave her the impression that if he saw something wrong, he would remedy it.

Considering her embattled position as mayor, her ten-year-old having trouble in school, her six-year-old turning into a sometimes fun, but often worrisome wild-child, Jackie enjoyed the momentary fantasy of someone wanting to solve her problems, or at least being willing to help shoulder them.

She saw him note the brief lowering of her defenses and quickly raised them again. She caught the bannister and pulled herself up—or tried to. The baby provided ballast that sometimes refused to move when she did.

Hank took her elbow in one hand and wrapped his other arm around her waist—or where her waist would have been if she’d had one.

“Steady,” he cautioned. She felt the muscles of his arm stiffen and was brought to her feet on the step. “Careful until you get turned around.”

He held her securely until she faced the right direction, and kept his hold the rest of the way.

At the top of the stairs in a small hallway off the home’s original kitchen, which was now the small but comfortable employee lounge, a tall man blocked the doorway and reached a hand down to help Jackie up the last step. He wore jeans and a blue down vest over a red sweatshirt. She’d never seen him before.

“Hi, Hank,” he said as he nodded courteously to Jackie, then freed her hand. “I was just coming down to help you with the desk.”

“Just in time.” Hank cleared the stop of the stairs, and Jackie found herself sandwiched between the two men. “Jackie, I’d like you to meet Cameron Trent,” he said. “The newest addition to my staff. He’s a plumber. Cam, this is Her Honor, Mayor Bourgeois.”

Cameron offered his hand and Jackie took it, liking his direct hazel gaze and his charming confusion. “What do I call you, ma’am?” he asked. “Your Honor? Mrs. Mayor?”

“Ms. Mayor seems to be the preferred greeting in the building. But Jackie will be fine outside. Are you new to Maple Hill?”

“I’m from San Francisco,” he replied. “I came here to get my master’s at Amherst and to see a little snow.”

She laughed lightly. There’d been snow on the ground in Maple Hill since early December. “Are you tired of it yet?”

“No, I’m loving it.”

“Good. Well, good luck with your degree.” She turned her attention to Hank, unsettled by their meeting and the knowledge that she could run into him at any moment from now on. “Hank,” she said, unsure what to add to that. “Welcome to the building.”

There was a wry twist to his mouth, as though he suspected she didn’t mean that at all. “Thank you, Ms. Mayor. I’ll see you around while trying very hard not to get in your way.”

She gave him a brief glare, smiled at Cameron Trent, then turned and walked away.

“PRETTY LADY,” Cameron said as he followed Hank down the stairs. “Shame about her husband.”

When Hank turned at the bottom of the stairs, surprised that a newcomer knew about Ricky Bourgeois, Cameron nodded. “I came in July to find a place to live, and his death was in the paper with a story about how his family helped establish Maple Hill.”

Hank remembered Haley sending him the clipping. She’d been discreet about how he’d died, just said that he’d been away on a business trip when he’d suffered a heart attack. He hadn’t found out the truth until he’d moved back home.

“You’d think,” Cameron went on, “that a man would value a classy lady like that.”

Yeah, you would, Hank thought. Cussedness and arbitrary last-minute changes of her mind aside. He led the way out the back door to the parking area where he’d left his van.

“Nice rig,” Cameron said. “I used to have one like it, but sold it to help pay my tuition.” He pointed across the lot to a decrepit blue camper with a canopy. “That’s mine.”

“Whatever gets you there and back.” Hank opened the rear door of the van. “Give me a minute to get around the side of this thing and push it out to you.”

“Right.”

They carried the table in without incident, Adeline directing them through the office door to a spot against the wall where she’d hung a map of the city. Hank introduced her to Cameron.

She shook his hand, studying him appraisingly. “Hank, if you’re no longer interested in Jackie, maybe we can fix her up with Cameron.”

Cameron smiled politely, but Hank saw the panicked glance he turned his way. “Thanks, but I’m a happy bachelor,” he said.

“Nonsense,” Adeline said. “How can a bachelor be happy?”

“No woman in his life,” Hank replied intrepidly, knowing it would earn him retribution. “Yourself excluded, of course, but women just complicate a man’s existence.”

“Without a woman in your life, it is just that,” she argued. “Existence, not life. Though some men never come to appreciate us.”

“I like my simple life,” Cameron insisted.

And Hank decided he really liked the man.

The telephone rang as Hank placed it on the desk.

“Hey!” he said, reaching for it. “They connected it while I was gone. Whitcomb’s Wonders.”

“This is the Old Post Road Inn,” a panicked female voice said. “The top off one of the kitchen faucets just shot off and I’ve got water spewing everywhere. Please tell me that one of your wonders is a plumber!” Then she shouted to someone at her end of the line, “The cutoff valve! Under the stairs in the basement! The hot water one!”

Hank held the phone to his chest and raised an eyebrow at Cameron. “Do I have a plumber? You weren’t supposed to start until Tuesday.”

“An emergency?” Cameron asked, coming toward him.

“Sure sounds like it. At the Old Post Road Inn. In the kitchen. Top off a faucet, water everywhere.”

Cameron headed for the door. “I’m on it.”

“We’ve got a man on the way,” Hank said into the phone.

The woman groaned. “I love you,” she said, and hung up.

“All right.” Hank turned off the phone and reached for the daily log hanging on a hook beside the map. “Business is picking up and we’re not even completely moved in.” He noted Cam’s destination and checked his watch for the time. “Any other calls?” He hung the log back on its hook and turned to his mother.

She pushed a cup of coffee into his hand. “You should have gotten one,” she said with an air of disgust. “But you didn’t.”

He knew the disappointed look meant he’d failed morally, somehow. But she was making some maternal point he wasn’t quite getting. He knew he played right into her hands when he asked, “What call?”

“Your wake-up call!” she said emphatically. “What is wrong with you? How can you shout at a poor pregnant woman? And the mayor to boot! And the woman you once told me you loved more than your own life?”

He went across the room for his office chair and carried it one-handed to the desk. “She shouted first,” he objected, realizing how absurd that sounded even as he said it. “And our love for each other died long ago. She married someone else, had his children…”

“And was miserable every moment.”

“I can’t help that.” He didn’t like to think about it, but it wasn’t his fault. “She chose to stay.”

“Maybe at the time,” his mother said more quietly, “she thought she was being wise.”

“She had an unhappy marriage.” He rummaged through a box for his blotter and the family photos he kept on his desk. “And I had a successful career. Which one of us was right?”

“You can’t always judge that by how things come out,” she answered.

He looked up from the box to meet her gaze in disbelief. “How do you judge the right or wrong of an action if not by its result?”

“Maybe by the number of people hurt.”

“Then her staying should go down as a disaster.” The items located, he rose and carried them to the desk.

“Her parents were happy she stayed.”

“How could they have been? She went to Boston for two years.”

“Well, that wasn’t California, where the two of you had planned to go. They had a hope of seeing her once in a while.” She came to stand beside him while he centered the blotter on the desktop and placed the photos behind it. There was one of him and Haley and their parents on a trip to Disney World, all of them in Mickey Mouse ears. His father looked grim. He’d never had much of a sense of humor. Then there was Haley’s graduation photo, and one of her and Bart on their wedding day. He was supposed to have moved home the day before, but he was still in Florida when the wedding took place, sick as a dog with the flu in an empty apartment. He’d insisted they not hold up the wedding.

“I just think you need to make peace with this,” his mother said in the same voice she’d used to talk him out of his sulks when his father had been on him. “It happened. You both made your choices, and for better or worse, you’ve lived with them. Now you’re going to be running into each other on a regular basis and it’ll be easier in the long run if you just come to terms with it. And you could be a little nicer.”

He remembered clearly how he’d felt that night when he’d had to leave without her. He’d been only eighteen, but there’d been nothing young about his love for her. It had been full and mature with roots she’d ripped right out of him.

“She cut my heart out with a trowel, Mom,” he said, hating how theatrical the words sounded. But they did convey the feeling.

Adeline shook her head at him and reached for her coat. “Well, she must have, because you certainly don’t seem to have one at the moment. I’m going out for scones.”

“Thanks.” He handed her a bill from a drawer on the coffee bar. It served as the petty cash safe. “Get one for Cameron in case he checks back in before going home.”

She glowered at him and he added as an afterthought, “Please.” When that didn’t seem to appease her, he tried, “Thank you.”

She sighed and walked to the door, turning to say grimly, “Well, at least you learned ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ I’ll be right back.”

If she were kidnapped by aliens, Lord, he prayed, falling into his chair to soak up the moment’s respite, friendly ones, you know, that play Bingo and have Ibuprofen and mentholated rubs readily available, I could deal with it. She’d be happy. I’d be happy. No, I know. No such luck. I have to learn to cope with her. And with seeing Jackie regularly, too, I suppose. Fine. But just wait until St. Anthony’s needs a microphone for the Blessings Blow-Out auction. See what happens then.

Hank opened the single drawer in the table to retrieve his Palm Pilot when the room fell into complete darkness.

He sat still, experiencing a sense of foreboding. Faulty ancient wiring, he wondered, or God responding to being threatened?

CHAPTER THREE

JACKIE INSERTED HER KEY in the lock on the front door of her home two blocks from downtown, grateful that her assistant manager had all the night shifts at the inn this week. She anticipated a cozy dinner with the girls and a peaceful evening. That did happen more often than not—at least, it used to—but she knew the moment she opened the door and heard screeching voices that it wasn’t going to happen tonight.

She heard the baby-sitter’s quiet efforts to calm the girls. They seemed to be having no effect.

With a wistful wish for a different life—any other life, at least for tonight—Jackie dropped her coat and purse on the nearest chair and hurried toward the kitchen, where the melee was taking place.

“I can’t believe you did that!” Erica was shrieking at Rachel, who faced her down stubbornly, bony arms folded atop a flowered dress Jackie had never seen before. The fabric looked familiar, though. “It was mine!” she said, her voice high and shrill and almost hysterical.

Ricky had been a casual father at best, sometimes attentive but more often unaware of his children, caught up with the pressures of his work and his own needs. But the children, of course, had grieved his loss. Erica had turned from a happy, cheerful child to a moody one. Rachel seemed less affected personally, except that she wanted details about death and heaven and didn’t seem to be satisfied with Jackie’s explanation. “Mom bought it for me! You’re such a selfish little brat! I hate you, hate you!” With that Erica flung herself at Rachel.

Jackie ran to intercept her just as Glory Anselmo caught Erica from behind and held her away. Glory was in her second year at Maple Hill Community College’s computer classroom program. She played volleyball in her spare time and was built like a rock. A very pretty brunette rock.

“Erica Isabel!” Jackie said, pushing Rachel aside with one hand while catching one of Erica’s flailing fists with the other. Erica was dark-featured, tall and slender, built like her father’s side of the family. Rachel was petite like Jackie, and blond. Both seemed to have inherited personality traits from some long-lost connection to the Mongol hordes. “Take it back.”

“I won’t! Look at what she did to my pillowcase!”

“I made it beautiful!” Rachel extended her arms and did an end-of-the-runway turn. That was when Jackie realized she’d cut a hole for her head and two armholes in Erica’s pillowcase, the one patterned with cabbage roses and violets, and was wearing it like a dress. She’d added a white silk cord that also looked familiar.

Jackie groaned. Glory, she could see, was having a little difficulty keeping a straight face. It was funny, Jackie had to admit to herself, if you weren’t the one required to make peace.

Glory caught Jackie’s expression and sobered, still holding on to Erica. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bourgeois,” she said. “I should have checked on Rachel. She was being really quiet.”

Rachel, who had brains beyond her years and an almost scary sense of style in everything she did, said, “I was quiet ’cause I was…what’s that word for when you get a really good idea and you just have to do it?”

“Inspired?” Jackie guessed.

Rachel smiled widely, delighted that she understood. “That’s it!”

“Well, I think you should be inspired to give Erica your pillowcase,” Jackie ruled. “It’s fine to be inspired, but you don’t try out your designs using someone else’s things.”

“Please.” Erica clearly loathed the idea. “It has pigs and ducks on it. I think she should clean my room for a year!”

“No way!” Rachel shouted.

“Then she’ll pay you the amount of the pillowcase out of her savings,” Jackie arbitrated, “so you can buy a new one.”

Rachel pouted. She was also frugal.

The tension eased somewhat, Glory freed Erica’s arms.

“Now take back the ‘I hate you,’” Jackie insisted.

Erica looked her mother in the eye. “But I do hate her.”

That cold-blooded admission might have chilled someone who hadn’t seen Erica defend Rachel from the neighborhood bully who’d tried to take Rachel’s candy bar just two days ago. The fact that Erica had demanded half the candy bar in payment for her protection didn’t really figure into it. Rachel understood commerce.

“No, you don’t.” Jackie touched Erica’s hot cheeks. She was a very physical child and touch usually soothed her. “You’re just too young to understand the difference between frustration and hatred. What’s our rule about hate?”

Erica gave her a dark look but repeated dutifully, “We can hate things, but not people.”

“So?”

“So, I take it back,” Erica conceded ungraciously, “but if she messes with my stuff again, even if I don’t hate her, I’ll…” She hesitated. Jackie also had rules against violence or threats of violence. “I’ll let Frankie Morton take all her candy!” Frankie Morton was the bully.

Rachel ran upstairs in tears.

Jackie grinned over Erica’s head at Glory. “Want to stay for dinner? Promises to be eventful.”

Glory acknowledged the joke with a nod. “Thanks, but I’m meeting a friend.”

“It’s a guy friend,” Erica informed Jackie. “They met at the library. But tonight he’s taking her to dinner.”

Jackie was happy to hear that. Glory worked so hard that she seldom had time for dating. “Anyone we know?”

“I don’t think so,” Glory replied, gathering up her things off one of the kitchen chairs. “His name’s Jimmy Elliott. He works for Mr. Whitcomb. He’s a fireman and fixes furnaces when he’s off.”

“Oh.” The mention of Hank’s name darkened her already precarious mood.

Glory, purse over her shoulder and books in her arms, asked worriedly, “Is that bad?”

“Of course not.” Jackie walked her to the door. “He and I just don’t get along very well.”

“You and Jimmy Elliott?”

“Hank Whitcomb and I. He’s just moved his office into City Hall.”

“Oh. That’s a relief. I really like Jimmy.”

“Well, have a wonderful time.”

Glory stopped in the doorway. “One more thing,” she said, handing Jackie a folded piece of paper, her tone sympathetic. “This is from Erica’s teacher. I didn’t read it, but Erica says Mrs. Powell picks on her because she’s having trouble paying attention.”

A note from school completed the destruction of Jackie’s flimsy attempt at a good mood.

She went back into the kitchen to ask Erica about it, but Rachel had just returned with her ceramic savings bank shaped like a castle with a blond princess in the tower. She knelt on a chair at the table, her eyes and the tip of her nose red from crying. “How much was the pillowcase, Mom?” she asked.

Jackie sat down opposite her, trying to remember. It had been part of the package with two sheets and the bedcover. Erica had been feeling blue, she remembered, and objecting to the childish decor of her room, done when she’d been about five. New bedclothes had seemed the simplest and quickest solution.

“It was on sale,” Erica said, pulling silverware out of the drawer to set the table, her nightly chore. “The whole set was eighty dollars. I remember ’cause I thought it would be too much. But the lady said it was half price.”

Encouraged by Erica’s assistance, Jackie asked, “Then how much would you say one pillowcase would be?”

Erica came to the table and sat, the silverware in hand. “The bedspread would probably be half, don’t you think?” she asked, her mood lightening fractionally.

“That sounds reasonable.”

“So…” Erica closed her eyes, concentrating. “That leaves twenty dollars, and the sheets would probably be three-fourths of that. So…that leaves five dollars for the pillowcases.”

Rachel pulled the rubber stopper out of the bottom of her bank and reached in with little fingers to withdraw bills. Change tinkled to the tabletop. She counted four singles, then asked Erica, “Four quarters in a dollar, right?”

“It was two pillowcases for five dollars.” Erica fell against the back of her chair in disgust. “You only wrecked one.”

The disgust with her sister was a habit, Jackie knew. But this burgeoning willingness to be fair gave her hope after all.

“What’s half of five?” Rachel asked, her expression also brightening somewhat.

“Two-fifty,” Jackie replied. “Two dollars and two quarters.”

Rachel handed over the money. “I’m sorry.”

Erica snatched it from her. “Just leave my stuff alone.”

“And?” Jackie encouraged.

“And I won’t let Frankie Morton steal your candy.”

Jackie’s hope wavered. “And?” she repeated.

Erica looked at her perplexed, then asked uncertainly, “Thank you?”

“Yes!” Success at last. How often did a mother get to repair an argument and provide a lesson in math and morals all at the same time? “I’m proud of both of you. You fulfilled your responsibilities,” she praised, hugging Rachel, “and you…” Erica tried to evade her embrace, but Jackie caught her and wrapped her in a fierce hug. “You were generous in victory and didn’t gloat.”

As Erica hugged back, the baby gave a strong kick.

Erica straightened away from her, brown eyes wide with awe. “It kicked us!” she said, putting a hand with purple fingernails to the spot.

“Probably just wanted in on the hug.”

Rachel ran over to touch also, the three of them standing motionless and silent, waiting for another sign of life. It came with another strong kick. They looked up to share a smile.

Without warning, Erica’s smile evaporated and she said with a sigh, “Pretty soon there’ll be someone else to mess with my stuff.”

Jackie refused to let Erica’s change of mood dissolve her thrill of success over the pillowcase incident. She made a salad while microwaving spaghetti sauce from the freezer and boiling noodles, and chatted happily over dinner about nothing in particular.

While Rachel related a long and complicated story involving the lizard in the terrarium in her classroom and its shed tail, which someone had put in Mrs. Ferguson’s purse, Erica caught Jackie’s eye and smiled hesitantly.

Jackie smiled back, sure that before she knew it, Erica would be a teenager and they’d be at loggerheads all the time.

Or she could get lucky. Some mothers did. Evelyn, Jackie’s secretary, had three daughters in their early teens, and they seemed to love not only each other, but their mother as well. With her own lively and interesting but contentious girls, Jackie envied Evelyn her family’s closeness.

But Jackie was never lucky. She was blessed in many ways, but never lucky. Her victories were all hard-won.

Erica helped Jackie clear the table while Rachel took her bath.

“Are you gonna yell about the note?” Erica lined up three cups next to a stack of plates while Jackie sorted silverware into the dishwasher’s basket. She went back to the table without waiting for an answer.

“Difficulty concentrating isn’t exactly delinquent or disruptive behavior,” Jackie replied, dropping the last spoon in. She didn’t look up but felt Erica’s glance of surprise. “But it’s not very good for grades. Are you thinking about Daddy? It takes a long time to get over the death of someone you love.”

Mrs. Powell’s note had admitted as much but expressed concern that Erica’s inability to concentrate seemed to be worsening rather than improving.

Erica put the butter and the fresh Parmesan in the refrigerator and went back to the table to collect their placemats and take them to the back porch to shake them out.

She returned and set them on the table. “I used to at first, but I don’t much anymore.” She came back and stood beside Jackie, leaning an elbow on the counter. “I mean, he kind of liked us, I guess, but he didn’t really seem to miss us when he was gone, then it seemed like he was always anxious to be gone again after he came home. That’s kind of weird for a dad, isn’t it?”

“He loved you girls very much.” Jackie kept working, afraid that if she stopped and made the discussion too important, Erica would withdraw. “Grandpa Bourgeois never showed Daddy much affection when he was little. The only time he spent with him was to show him around the mill and to teach him how the company worked. Some people have to be shown how to give love, and no one ever did that for him.”

“You did,” Erica said. “He didn’t notice though, did he?”

Jackie was astonished by that perception. “No, I don’t think he did.” Now she couldn’t help but stop, realizing this was important. “But when I came along, your father was an adult. Sometimes adults don’t learn as well as children.”

“Is that why he was with that lady in Boston when he had the heart attack?”

Erica asked the question so directly that she must have known the truth of her father’s death for some time.

Jackie felt shocked, breathless.

“I heard Mrs. Powell and the principal talking about it when I brought in the permission slip so Glory could start picking us up from school.”

“You mean…after I became mayor? You’ve known for that long?”

Erica nodded. “I think everybody knows. A lot of people look at us like something bad’s happened. Not just Daddy dying, but something that isn’t fair. Like they look at you when you’re in a wheelchair. Like they don’t want to hurt your feelings and they’re pretending they don’t notice, but you know they’re really glad they’re not you.”

“You should have told me,” Jackie said, touching Erica’s arm, waiting for withdrawal and relieved when it didn’t come.

“You couldn’t fix it,” she said sensibly. “He was gone. But why do you think he did it?”

Jackie struggled for the right answers. “I think,” she began carefully, “that when someone doesn’t love you when you’re little, your heart is always empty and looking for love, and sometimes doesn’t even recognize it when it gets it. So it keeps looking.”

Erica shook her head. “Didn’t that hurt you?”

“Well…” Jackie felt curiously embarrassed, as though Erica was judging why she’d stayed in a loveless marriage all those years. “It did hurt me, but maybe not as much as you’d think. Because I understood how he was. And being married to him gave me you and Rachel, and the two of you are absolutely everything to me.”

Erica frowned. “And the baby.”

The baby. Erica seemed to be ambivalent about the baby, excited over the feel of a kick one moment, then unhappy about its eventual arrival the next.

“What is it you don’t like about the baby coming?” Jackie asked directly.

Erica looked guilty.

“You can tell me,” Jackie encouraged. “Are you afraid the baby is more important to me than you are?”

Erica shifted her weight, looking down at the floor. “No,” she said. It had a convincing sound.

“That it’ll get more attention than you?”

“No.”

“That it’ll change everything?”

Erica heaved a ragged sigh then looked up, her eyes pooled with tears, her lips trembling. “Mom, what if you die?”

“What?” Jackie couldn’t help the surprised outburst.

“Well, what if you do?” Erica demanded in a tearful rush. “Nobody expected Daddy to die and he did. And you’re at risk!”

Jackie took Erica’s hand and led her back to the table, where she pushed two chairs together and lowered her onto one. “What do you mean, ‘at risk’? Where did you hear that?”

“Sarah Campbell’s mom’s a nurse. She was talking about it with Mrs. Powell at the Valentine’s Day party at school. Mrs. Campbell brought treats.” Erica drew an anxious breath. “All ladies over thirty are at risk of stuff going wrong when they have babies ’cause they’re really too old. You should only have babies when you’re young.”

Caught between the need to calm her daughter and the personal affront at being considered “old” at thirty-four, Jackie focused on soothing Erica.

“Honey, that just means that they take special care of you if you’re over thirty. Sometimes there’s a problem, but most babies and mothers come through the delivery safe and sound. And I’m not old enough to be that much at risk anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Erica looked worried. “You’re not as old as Grandpa or Addy Whitcomb, but you’re pretty old.”

And feeling older by the moment, Jackie thought. She went to the counter for a tissue and brought it back to Erica. “My last checkup at the doctor’s proved that the baby is growing perfectly, and I’m healthy as a horse. There is nothing to worry about.”

Erica swiped at her eyes and dabbed at her nose. “We didn’t know there was anything to worry about with Daddy.”

“That was a heart attack. My heart’s fine. My checkup was perfect, remember.”

“What would happen to us if you died?”

Jackie accepted that as a legitimate question and was grateful she was prepared for it. “When Daddy died and I found out I was pregnant, I put it in my will that if anything happened to me, you and Rachel and the baby would go and live with Haley.”

Erica brightened. Jackie tried not to be offended. “Really? And that’s okay with her?”

“Yes. And her new husband, too. She talked about it with him when they got married.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. So there’s nothing to worry about. Now, you’re not going to bump me off so you can go live with Haley, are you?”

Erica smiled—finally. “No. I was just worried. Brenda Harris’s dad left when she was little, then her mom died in a car accident, and she’s lived at a whole bunch of different places and hasn’t liked any of them. All the houses have different rules and new people you don’t know. I’d hate that.”

“So would I.” Jackie leaned forward to wrap her in a hug. “You don’t have to worry. I’ve got everything looked after.”

Jackie felt the strength of her daughter’s return hug. “Okay. Thanks, Mom.”

“Sure.”

Erica went upstairs to do her homework and Rachel came down to report that she was bathed. She stood in footed pink pajamas patterned with black-and-white Dalmatian puppies.

“When I’m grown up,” she said, dragging a stool over from the lunch bar that separated the kitchen from the dining room, “I’m going to wear one of those floaty nightgown things with the feathers around the neck and the bottom.” She had a predilection for “floaty things” that was fed by Glory’s love of old movies from the thirties and forties where the women wore glamorous nightclothes.

“I like those, too,” Jackie admitted, closing the door on the dishwasher and setting it to run. “How was your day?” she asked, wiping off the counters.

“Pretty good. Things are kinda dull in first grade. How was your day?”

Jackie rinsed off the sponge, squeezed it dry and propped it up behind the faucet. “Well, things are never dull at City Hall. Some new tenants moved into the basement offices today. One of them is a man the city just hired to take care of our electrical repairs. And his mom is going to work in his office some of the time, and guess who she is?”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Whitcomb.”

Rachel smiled. She loved Addy Whitcomb. “Does she do electric stuff?”

“No. She’s just going to answer the phones, take messages.”

“Erica’s not so mad at me anymore,” Rachel said, abruptly changing the subject.

“You shouldn’t have cut up her pillowcase. But it was good that you paid her for it.”

“I just didn’t think pigs and ducks would make a neat dress like the roses. Your plain blue ones weren’t very good either.”

Jackie frowned at the knowledge that one of her pillowcases had been considered.

The chiming clock in the living room sounded seven, time for Rachel’s favorite television show about castaway children on a tropical island. She leapt off the stool. “Gotta go, Mom. Castaway Kids is on!”

Jackie replaced the stool, looked around her tidy, quiet kitchen, and said a prayer of gratitude that though the evening had begun in crisis, they’d managed to turn it around. Another family miracle.

It was a fact of life, she thought, that raising two little girls was often more difficult than running a city of four thousand.

HANK DROVE HIS MOTHER HOME after dinner at the inn, grateful that Jackie hadn’t been working tonight. Running into her once had been all his good humor could handle.

Fortunately the electrical problem he’d encountered at City Hall this afternoon had been simply a blown fuse caused when his massage-therapist neighbor plugged in a faulty microwave. Once he’d found his flashlight, then the fuse box, the problem had been easily solved.

“I’ve got a girl for you,” Adeline said.

The problem of his mother was unfortunately less easily dealt with than electricity. Unlike other mothers, she didn’t beat around the bush or try subterfuge to fix him up with a date. She’d once brought a pizza and the daughter of a friend of hers to his apartment and left them there.

“Doris McIntyre’s niece is visiting for a couple of weeks from New York,” his mother said, “and she needs someone to show her around Maple Hill.”

“Mom, she can see it in a two-hour walk. One hour if she doesn’t go to the lake.”

“Hank, don’t be difficult.” She folded her arms and looked pugnaciously out the window at the dark night as they drove down the two-lane road to the lake. “I’m not getting any younger and I have yet to have one grandchild. Not one. Everyone else in the Quincy Quilters has at least one, most of them several. Bedelia Jones has eleven. I have none. Zero. Zilch. Na—”

“I got it, Mom,” he interrupted. “But I’m single. Shouldn’t you be speaking to Haley and Bart about giving you grandchildren? They’ve been married six months. Let them give you something to brag about at your quilting sessions.”

Adeline made a face. “They’re waiting.” She imbued the word with disappointment.

“For what?”

“They didn’t say, I didn’t ask.”

“So I’m the only one you interrogate?”

“You’re my firstborn.”

“That means I inherit everything you’ve got. It doesn’t mean you’re allowed to harass me.”

“Is wanting you to meet a good girl and settle down harassment?”

“No, but trying to pick her for me is.”

“I’m not picking her for you,” she insisted, apparently affronted that her good intentions were so misunderstood. “I’m helping you find some potential candidates. You don’t seem to be working toward it at all.”

“I’m building a business.”

“I’m going to be seventy in ten years!”

He laughed outright. “Mom, that doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Right now you’ve just turned sixty. And a youthful sixty. Relax. There’s lots of time.”

There was a moment’s silence, then she asked gravely, “What if I told you I was dying?”

His heart thumped against his ribs and he swerved to the side of the road, screeching to a halt. “What?” he demanded.

“Well, I’m not,” she said, tugging on her coat collar, clearly feeling guilty for having startled him, “but what if I was? Am I to go to my grave without ever holding a grandbaby in my arms?”

Hank put his left hand to his face and rested the wrist of the other atop the steering wheel. “Mom,” he said, “I’m going to drive you to your grave myself if you ever do that to me again!”

“I was trying to make a point,” she huffed.

“The point is you sometimes act like a lunatic!” He checked the side mirror and pulled out onto the road again, his pulse dribbling back to normal. “I’m trying to build a business, Mom. Relax about grandchildren, okay?”

“I’m thinking about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re alone.”

“I like it that way.”

He turned onto the short road that led to her driveway, and drove up to the house. He pulled to a stop and turned off the engine. He always walked her up the steps and saw her inside.

“I thought you came home because you realized that while you loved your work for NASA, you didn’t have a life. It was all future and no present.”

He jumped out of the van, walked around to pull out the step stool he kept for her in the back, then opened her door and placed the stool on the ground. He offered her his hand. “That’s true. And I’m enjoying my life here. I just need a little time to get all the parts of it together. Be patient, Mom.”

She stepped carefully onto the stool, then down to the driveway. After tossing the stool into the back of the van, he took her arm to walk her up the drive.

“You’re not still trying to prove something to your father with the business, are you?” she asked. “I mean, you were an engineer at NASA. You don’t have anything else to prove. You don’t have to expand Whitcomb’s Wonders until you have franchises all over the country and appear on the big board.”

He opened his mouth to deny that he was trying to prove anything, but he knew that wouldn’t be true. Every time he did anything, he could imagine his father watching him, finding fault.

“He always tried hard,” she said, squeezing his arm, “and he did well, but everything was difficult for him. Then you came along, all brains and personality, and he couldn’t help resenting that. I know I’ve told you that a million times, but I sometimes wonder if you really understand it. He loved you, he just resented that you were smarter than he was, that things would be easy for you.”

“I worked liked a dog to end up at NASA.”

“I know. But some people work hard all their lives and never get anywhere. He had dreams, too, but he never got out of that little appliance repair shop.”

Hank remembered that his father had little rapport with his customers and slaved away in the back room, taking no pleasure in his work.

“Anyway,” Adeline said, “sometimes old insecurities can come back to haunt us when we’re trying something new, or reaching for something we’re not sure we should have. You deserve to be happy, Hank. And if you won’t reach for that happiness, I’m going to keep working on it for you. So, when can you see Laural McIntyre?”

Hank drew himself out of moody thoughts about his father to the present and the urgent need to get out of meeting the visitor from New York.

“Actually, I’m meeting Jackie on Saturday,” he said, walking his mother up the porch steps.

She brightened instantly. He could see her smile in the porch light. “You are? Where?”

“Perk Avenue Tea Room.”

She looked puzzled. “Where?”

“It’s a new coffee bar, tearoom, desserty sort of place on the square.” She didn’t have to know that they’d be “meeting” because Jackie was cutting the ribbon for the grand opening, and he was helping with the wiring for the sign, which wasn’t expected to arrive until late Friday night.

His mother studied him suspiciously. “You were fighting the last time I saw you together.”

He nodded. “But you didn’t see everything. I ran into her later, we talked, and…I’m seeing her next week.” A slight rearrangement of the truth, but the truth all the same.

“Well, see now, that wasn’t so hard.” She gave him a quick hug. “Will you tell me all about it after?”

“The shop, yes,” he said. “Jackie, no.”

She shrugged, seemingly undisturbed. “I’ll just ask the girls at Sunday School. Thanks for dinner, sweetie.”

“Sure, Mom.” He ran down the steps as she closed and locked the door.

Great. Jackie’s girls were in his mother’s Sunday School class. She’d mentioned that once, but he’d forgotten.

When he’d been a kid, she’d had spies everywhere. It had been impossible to see a girl, cruise downtown, or sneak a beer without someone reporting him to his mother.

It was annoying that he was thirty-five, and nothing had changed.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE MET HIS MOTHER’S SPIES on Saturday. He’d been working at Perk Avenue for several hours when the crowd began to gather out front for the ceremony. He’d turned the sign on and it glowed brightly, a tall cup of neon mocha complete with a swirl of whipped cream standing beside a fat teapot. Underneath, the name of the shop was written in elegant neon script. The whole sign appeared to sit atop a triangle of neon lace.

The two matrons who owned the shop applauded their approval then wrapped their arms around him.

Hank went back inside as several people in the gathering crowd came forward to congratulate the women. He was collecting his tools when the front door burst open and a little girl in a flared red coat and matching hat ran in. Long straight blond hair fell to her shoulders. In her gray eyes was a desperate look. He recognized her as Jackie’s youngest. He studied her one brief moment, realizing that except for a slight difference in the shade of her hair, this was what Jackie had looked like as a child.

“Hi,” he said finally, coiling a length of wire. “Lost your mom?”

She shook her head, looking left, then right.

He took another guess. “Bathroom?”

She nodded.

He pointed to the little alcove directly to the right of the door.

“Thank you!” she called as she ran off in that direction.

A moment later, a child he recognized as the little one’s older sister walked in wearing a pink coat but no hat. She had thick dark hair caught at the side of her head in a ponytail. This child must take after her father. His mother had told him Jackie’s girls were Erica and Rachel. He couldn’t recall which was which.

She surveyed the room, then her dark eyes fell on him in concern. A child taught to be wary of strange men. Jackie was doing her job.

He pointed to the alcove behind her. “Your little sister’s in the rest room,” he said.

She started away, then turned to ask, “How did you know she was my sister?”

“I know your mom,” Hank explained. “And I’ve seen the two of you with her.”

“Are you her friend?”

“Ah…not exactly.”

“You don’t like her?”

Tricky question. “Actually, she doesn’t like me very much.”

“How come?”

She was beginning to remind him of her mother even if she did look like her father. She had a compulsion for detail.

How did one explain to a child about a bright love affair that had been halted abruptly by one lover’s reluctance to follow the other? You didn’t, of course.

“We had an argument a long time ago,” he replied, “that we never really fixed.”

She frowned at that. “Mom never lets me and Rachel fight without making up.”

Aha. This was Erica.

“Adults probably get madder than children,” he said. “So quarrels are harder to fix.”

The little one ran out of the bathroom, hat slightly askew. Erica straightened it for her. “This is Rachel,” she said.

He nodded. “And you’re Erica.”

She smiled and came forward to shake his hand.

“I’m Hank Whitcomb,” he said, thinking her social skills were as polished as her appearance. He wiped his hands on a cloth out of his box before taking hers.

“Our mom’s the mayor!” Rachel said with a wide smile, also offering her hand. “We’re supposed to smile and be polite!”

Erica gave her a mildly impatient look. “He knows who we are. He’s a friend of Mom’s.”

“I thought Mom just had friends who were other ladies.”

WHILE THE WIDE WHITE RIBBON for the ceremony was still being stretched across the front of the shop, Jackie ran in search of her girls. She was sure they were fine, but bathroom runs never took this long. She’d thought a quick trip inside the shop would be the quickest solution to Rachel’s second glass of milk that morning. After all, the café wasn’t really open yet and there was no one inside. Erica had followed her sister in.

But a mother’s trepidation filled her anyway as she pushed the door open, knowing that safety should never be presumed, that it only took a moment for…

Her heart lurched in her chest at the sight of her girls in conversation with a large man in jeans and a chambray shirt. His clothes were streaked with dirt, his hair…

He looked up at that moment, blue eyes noting her presence. It was Hank. Sudden awareness of him took her by surprise.

She’d never seen him at work before. The other times she’d run into him, he’d been in street clothes. Even the day he’d moved his office into the City Hall basement, he’d worn a respectable sweater.

But he was a little grubby now, work clothes well-fitting but mussed, his dark hair disturbed from its usually neat side part and falling onto his forehead. A longing that was decidedly sexual curled around inside her and embarrassed her with its intensity.

To further confuse her, she saw enjoyment in his eyes, as though her daughters delighted him. That pleased and flattered her and, along with this sudden desire completely inappropriate to a woman in her eighth month of pregnancy, threw her completely off balance.

She was about to scold the girls for speaking to a stranger when Hank interceded.

“They did nothing wrong,” he said gently, as though he understood and respected her concern. “Rachel ran in looking for the rest room and there was no one else around. I just told her where it was. Then when Erica came in, I told her where to find her sister.”

“And he’s not a stranger, Mom,” Erica said, going to her. “He’s your friend. Even though you guys never made up after the fight.”

Jackie opened her mouth to reply to that, wondering just what he’d told them about their relationship, but decided it was all too entangled.

“There’s a party here after the ribbon-cutting,” Erica said to Hank. “You can sit at our table, so you and Mom can work it out.”

Jackie turned to her in astonishment.

“You don’t let me and Rachel stay mad,” Erica insisted. “And let’s face it, Mom. You don’t have that many friends.”

Jackie couldn’t help the gasp of indignation. “I do, too.” She ignored the childish sound of her own words. “I have lots of friends.”

“But none of them are guys.”

“I…” Jackie stopped abruptly when she noticed the amusement in Hank’s eyes. “Anyway,” she said in a more controlled tone, “Mr. Whitcomb’s working. I’m sure he can’t—”

“Bridget and Cecilia, the owners of the café, invited me,” he interrupted with a slightly smug smile. “I’ll be back after I’ve showered.”

Rachel hooked her arm in his. “You can sit next to me if Mom’s still mad at you. Are you, Mom?”

Rachel waited for an answer. Hank did, too, his smile expanding.

“I was never angry,” she said a little stiffly, forgetting that the girls were listening and focusing only on him. “I was hurt. Crushed, actually.”

His amusement vanished. She expected him to accuse her of the same, but apparently unwilling to do so in front of her children, he simply said feelingly, “I understand, believe me.”

The front door opened and one of the councilmen stuck his head in. “Ms. Mayor?” he called.

She pushed thoughts of the past aside as she’d done so often throughout her life, and pulled herself together. “Thank you for helping the girls,” she said to Hank with stiff courtesy. “We’ll see you at the party, then.”

It was the usual city function. Two councilmen spoke about the city plan to create a commercial and economic environment that would encourage new business in Maple Hill. The other two spoke about the need to preserve and maintain the area’s natural beauty while doing so. The city council was evenly divided on almost every subject.

Jackie’s speech centered around Cecilia Proctor and Bridget Malone, sisters-in-law in their early forties who enjoyed each other’s company and, now that their children were married or off to college, wanted to spend time together in a profitable endeavor. Each had been involved in community service for many years, so Jackie had the opportunity to praise them for all the time they’d devoted to the city and wish them luck in their commercial venture.

The community college’s band played a few rousing numbers, then Jackie cut the ribbon, her daughters on either side of her. There was loud applause and everyone streamed into Perk Avenue.

Bridget caught Jackie’s arm and led her to the dessert buffet set up at what would eventually be a long service counter. Jackie turned to make sure the girls were behind her, but saw that they were talking to Haley. Haley shooed Jackie on. “I’ve got them. Go.”

Bridget directed Jackie to the head of the line already reaching out the door.

“If you hadn’t fought for us,” Bridget said, giving Jackie’s shoulders a squeeze, “Brockton would have insisted on holding this spot for ‘something that would have put the location to optimum use.’” She was clearly quoting. “Like a chain store or a fast food franchise. So you get to eat first.”

John Brockton, one of the councilmen who fought Jackie’s every move, had stood at the head of the line until Bridget placed Jackie there. He was short and small and balding, with sharp dark eyes. He smiled continually, but that seemed to contribute to, rather than soften, his poisonous personality. Jackie happened to know that John’s brother’s Cha-Cha Chicken franchise deal fell through when he learned he’d have to locate it on the highway rather than on the Square, the lifeblood of Maple Hill business.

“You don’t mind, do you, Mr. Brockton?” Bridget asked with feigned innocence, aware of the animosity between them.

“Of course not,” he replied for all to hear, then added for Jackie’s ears alone when Bridget wandered off, “Ms. Mayor is a privileged person around here and gets whatever she wants.”

Jackie could have laughed aloud at that claim, but chose to ignore it instead.

“But we’re going to change that.” The threat was quietly spoken and chillingly sincere. “You wait and see.”

Then Cecilia, who was serving up sampler plates of gooey desserts, handed her one and engaged her in conversation. Jackie was forced to dismiss thoughts of John’s retribution and focus on her job as mayor and this event’s cheerleader.

Plate in hand, a glass mug of decaf mocha topped with whipped cream in the other, Jackie stepped away from the buffet and looked around for her girls in the small sea of well-wishers.

Then she spotted Rachel, head and shoulders above the crowd—literally. She knew a moment’s horror. It would be just like Rachel to stand on a table to find her. Then she realized the child stood too high to be on a table. Jackie headed straight for her.

As she drew closer, she saw that Rachel sat on Hank’s shoulders, looking very much as though she owned the world.

“Here, Mom!” she called, waving. “We’re here!”

Jackie kept moving toward them, trying to ignore the sexy appeal of the man who held her daughter. He’d changed from his work clothes into casual gray slacks and sweater. His dark hair had been shampooed and combed into order. He looked like the good-twin version of the dangerous-looking man she’d seen that morning.

As Jackie approached, he lifted Rachel off his shoulders and set her down on her feet in the U-shaped booth he’d reserved for them. Rachel nimbly scooted into the middle of the booth, patting the place beside her. “Come on, Mom.”

Hank held Jackie’s plate for her while she put her mocha down, then he stood aside to let her slide in. He sat at the end of the booth beside Jackie. “Erica’s with Haley,” he reported. “They told us to hold the booth, that they’ll get our plates. But Rachel and I are beginning to wonder if that was wise. Who can be trusted with all this delicious stuff?” He pointed to her plate.

“I can,” she said, pretending an ease she didn’t feel at all. She offered her plate to Rachel, who chose a little square of cake with lots of cream.

“Yum!” Rachel anticipated her first bite with a gleam in her eye.

“Hank?” Jackie offered him the plate.

After a moment of surprise, he selected a plain tube of a cookie with chocolate inside. “Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

They studied each other warily for an instant, then seemed to reach the mutual decision that this moment was meant for peaceful celebration.

He snapped the cookie in half with his teeth and made a sound of approval, then popped the other half into his mouth.

Jackie dipped a plastic fork into a brownie-like concoction covered with a white chocolate mousse and took a bite.

“This is to die for,” she said, putting the fork into it again and offering it to Rachel.

It earned another “Yum!”

She scooped up a bit of the mousse, determined to appear unaffected by his nearness. Intending to hand him the handle of the fork, she turned his way. “Bite?” she asked.

His closeness stole her breath. He simply sat beside her, but his large body seemed to block out everything behind him, his arm along the back of the booth hemming her in, tightening her space.

Curiously, it was not an altogether unpleasant sensation.

“Please,” he replied without making a move to take the fork. His eyes told her he didn’t believe she had the courage to feed him the bite.

Flustered and challenged, she did it before she could think twice.

His strong teeth closed around the little fork as he slipped the morsel off, watching her with mingled surprise and reevaluation.

“Here we are!” Haley appeared with Erica, then stopped in the act of placing their plates on the table, her attention snagged by Jackie, still holding the empty fork to the edge of Hank’s lips. She looked from one to the other, obviously confused.

Jackie lowered the fork and turned back to her plate. “All right, you two,” she said to Rachel and Hank as though they’d wrested samples from her. “The rest is mine.” She dropped the fork on her plate and lowered her hand to her knee, hoping to hide its trembling.

Haley finally distributed plates and slipped into the booth beside Rachel, Erica sitting on the end.

Bridget arrived with a tray bearing a large pot of tea and several cups. “Here we are,” she said, handing out cups and a big-handled mug for Hank. She hesitated over Hank’s mug as she poured. “Is this going to be all right for you, Hank, or would you prefer something else to drink?”

The aroma of orange and cloves wafted around them from the steaming tea.

“This is fine,” he said. “Thank you, Bridget.”

“Good. I’ll bring tiramisu as soon as it comes out of the kitchen.” She picked up her tray, returned a wave to Cecilia across the room and left.

“What is that?” Rachel asked.

Jackie was beginning to feel more like herself, in control again and steady. “It’s a cake soaked in Kah-lúa, I think, and topped with whipped cream.”

“What’s Clua?”

She should have guessed that was coming.

“It’s Kah-lú-a,” she enunciated. “That’s a coffee-flavored liqueur. It’s alcohol. Sometimes people put it in their coffee or make other drinks with it.”

Jackie was not surprised to learn she hadn’t answered all her questions.

“If it tastes like coffee,” Rachel asked, “why do they put it in coffee? Isn’t that a lot of coffee?”

“It doesn’t seem to be,” she replied. “It tastes wonderful.” Before Rachel could ask another question, Jackie forestalled her by pointing to a round cookie covered in powdered sugar. “Try that one next,” she encouraged. “You’ll love it.”

Distracted, Rachel was mercifully silent as she ate.

“I love it here, Mom!” Erica held up a macaroon drizzled with chocolate. “Is this one of those coconut cookies?”

At Jackie’s nod, she took a careful bite, then apparently finding its taste satisfactory, took a bigger bite. She wriggled in her seat while she chewed, her eyes focused on her mother, obviously about to make a statement.

After finally swallowing, she said eagerly, “When it’s my birthday, can we have my party here instead of at the pizza place? My friends and I can all dress up and have pots of tea. I’m going to be eleven, after all.”

“That’s coming up, isn’t it?” Haley asked. “March something?”

“Twentieth,” Erica said. “And instead of seeing a movie we could do something more grown-up.”

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