Читать книгу Redemption at Mirabelle - Helen Brenna - Страница 10

“NO!” WYATT STOMPED HIS FEET. “Carla can’t go!”

“She has to, Wyatt,” Adam said calmly. “Her mother is sick and needs her.”

“But we need her, too, Daddy,” Julia said. “What are we going to do without her?”

“I’ve already made some calls to people who help match nannies with families.” Adam pulled lunch meat, cheese and a couple apples out of the refrigerator. It’d be cold sandwiches and fruit tonight. With Carla leaving, he wasn’t losing only his nanny, he was also losing cook and housekeeper. “We’ll find someone new. Someone you’ll like just as much as Carla. In the meantime, Phyllis will take care of you.”

They both groaned.

“She’s boring,” Wyatt said.

“She never plays with us,” Julia complained.

“Why can’t you take care of us?”

“I have to work, Wyatt. You know that.” Adam slapped together some sandwiches. “I’ve made a commitment to this community to help its residents get their businesses up and running before Christmas. I can’t let them down.”

Pulling her suitcases, Carla came out of her rooms, mother-in-law quarters located in an addition built just off the kitchen. This rental house had been the perfect setup for a live-in nanny. So much for that.

Wyatt cried. Julia’s lower lip trembled.

“Oh, niños.” Her eyes were even redder and puffier than earlier in the day. Carla got down on her knees. The kids flew into her open arms the way Julia used to jump off the end of the dock at his parents’ house on Lake St. Louis. “I will never forget you.”

Foregoing dinner preparations for the moment, Adam looked away.

“Both of you…be good for your father. He’s a very busy man with important work to do.”

Sniffles and sobs and sucked in breaths. If he had to listen to another minute of it, he just might… No. Adam refused to let this get to him. This situation was no one’s fault. It was entirely uncontrollable. What point would there be in getting angry, anyway? That emotion was particularly unproductive. Not to mention distracting and draining.

“I called Arlo for a carriage to take you down to the ferry,” he said gently. “Looks like Austin is waiting for you on the porch to take your luggage.”

Carla stood, sucked in a big breath and, trying for stoic and dismally failing, headed toward the front door. “Thank you, Mr. Harding.” She shook his hand.

“Thank you, Carla. Take care of your mother.”

“Find someone good,” she whispered as she slipped out the door.

The kids watched her through the front picture window. They both stayed there long after she’d disappeared. Adam had no more a clue what to say now than when he’d had to find the words to tell them their mother was gone. Forever.

“Come on, kids, let’s get something to eat.”

They slowly followed him into the kitchen.

“I miss Mommy,” Julia whispered.

“Me, too,” Wyatt agreed.

Redirect them. That’s all he could think to do. He cut an apple in quarters and cored a section. “How ’bout we take our sandwiches out into the backyard for a picnic?”

“No!” Julia yelled. “I don’t want to go outside! I don’t want to play! And I don’t want to be a good girl!” She glared at him. “This is all your fault. You did something to make Carla go away just like you did something to make Mommy go away. I hate you.” She pounded up the steps, went into her bedroom and slammed the door.

Sobbing, Wyatt followed her up the stairs, slamming himself in his own room.

Feeling a little as if his heart had been ripped from his chest and thrown in a blender, Adam finished coring the apple. The sharp knife slipped, grazing his thumb. He stared at the blood pouring from the small cut and immediately memories flashed through his mind. Don’t go there. Don’t. Nothing good could possibly come from remembering.

He slapped a Band-Aid over his cut, threw the lunch meat and cheese into the fridge, tossed away the apple and then slowly made his way toward the patio doors at the back of the house. Stay calm. It’ll be all right. Everything will be all right. He slid open the door and stepped outside into the warm early evening air.

“Adam!”

His stomach flipped. The last thing he needed at the moment was a visit from his sugary sweet, always jovial neighbor Missy Abel from two doors down. As he took a deep breath, turned and saw three women coming toward him, one trailing several feet behind the other two, it was clear that was exactly what he was going to get. Client, he reminded himself.

“I want you to meet my mother and sister,” Missy said. “They’ll be renting the house next to yours.”

Great. Two more chipper females like Missy living next door. Could this night get any better?

“Mom, this is Adam Harding. Mirabelle’s savior.”

“Oh, no,” Adam insisted, shaking his head. Since he’d arrived on Mirabelle, every resident had either rolled out the welcome mat for him in a big way or treated him with kid gloves, sometimes both. “Savior I am not, but it’s a pleasure meeting you.”

“Angelica Camden,” the older woman said, smiling as she extended her hand.

“This is my sister, Marin.”

The sister looked about as happy to be meeting him as he was to be having this conversation. “Never met a savior before,” she muttered, shaking his hand. Although both sisters were attractive little things, Marin’s demeanor was as assessing as Missy’s was inviting.

“They say there’s a first time for everything.” Clearly, all the charm in the family had gone to Missy and her mother.

Normally, he wouldn’t have paid the slightest bit of attention to what a woman was wearing, but the sisters not only acted like polar opposites, they looked it, too, making a comparison of the two unavoidable. Missy had curly sandy-blond hair, Bohemian in style, and wore a tie-dyed skirt and loose-fitting blouse. A hippie. Marin’s brunette hair was stick-straight and all business, cut shoulder-length with stylishly long bangs swooping down over her forehead. She wore a pair of pencil-thin pants and a pale blue silky-looking T-shirt topped by a casual black blazer. Strangely enough, their mother appeared to be a clear-cut mix of the two.

“Adam owns the construction company that will be putting Mirabelle back to rights,” Missy explained.

“That sounds like a big job,” Angelica said.

“It gets a little easier with every town.”

“He’s not giving himself enough credit,” Missy said. “His is the most highly recommended company in the country for this type of work.”

Not really feeling like carrying on this conversation, he glanced away, trying to think of a way of extricating himself.

“Is everything all right?” Missy asked. “You seem troubled.”

It was possible she might know of someone who might be able to help on a temporary basis. “The kids’ nanny just quit today.” He explained the situation with Carla’s mother.

“Oh, that’s terrible.”

“Do you know anyone on the island who might be willing to babysit until I can find another nanny?”

“I’ll ask around, but it’s not likely.” Missy cringed. “After the tornado hit most of the teenagers looked to the mainland for jobs. I’m having trouble finding babysitters myself.”

“Let me know if you have any luck.”

“Will do.” Missy turned to her mother and sister and explained, “Adam’s a widower.”

He hated being described that way. People generally had two reasons for the clarification. Either they wanted to set him up with some eligible female—which, based on a quick glance at Marin’s left hand, she was—or they pitied him and wanted everyone else to pity him, as well. Normally, he could decipher right off the bat a person’s motivations. Missy, though, was hard to read.

“I hope your nanny leaving won’t negatively impact your work here on Mirabelle,” Marin said.

“Marin!” Her mother admonished, raising her eyebrows.

Surreptitiously, he studied Missy’s sister. She had to be either a lawyer or an accountant, possibly both, and he guessed she came by her analytical attitude naturally. He prided himself on straightforward business dealings and respected the same from others. So why, all of a sudden, should the comment of a virtual stranger strike a chord?

“What? It’s just a question.” Marin shrugged. “There seem to be a lot of people depending on him here. They deserve to know if he’ll be delayed.”

“That’s no excuse for being rude,” her mother said.

Adam almost smiled. “Actually, she’s right, Mrs. Camden. I’m sure that will be the first thought that crosses many minds here on Mirabelle.” He’d worked hard over the years to not let anything influence his work. Nearly having to declare bankruptcy after Beth’s death had taught him the hard way that emotions had no place in business. He turned to Marin. “And to answer your question,” he said. “No. No one needs to worry about this impacting this project. I always honor my commitments.”

BY THE TIME MARIN AND HER mother had gotten settled in their rental, it’d been dinnertime. They’d immediately headed to Missy’s for a special welcome meal and were now visiting in the spacious family room off the kitchen. Trucks, cars and toy airplanes were strewn on the floor, along with books, wooden blocks and sippy cups.

Close to reaching her child tolerance level for the day, Marin sat on the couch with Missy’s short-haired black cat, Slim, on her lap. She scratched the cat’s muscular neck, and while he appeared to appreciate the attention, he never took his eyes off the two toddlers playing on the floor. Who could blame him? The two little monsters had more than likely grabbed, kicked or fallen on the poor cat more than once.

Monsters. That’s what they were all right. Missy had bought at least two of every toy, but the boys still managed to find something to fight over.

Nate suddenly picked up a block and hit Michael with it. “No hitting, Nate,” Missy said to her little blond. “Just because you’re mad doesn’t make it okay to hit.”

“Yeah, right,” Jonas muttered under his breath to Marin. “Two boys only a couple months apart? We’ll be lucky if they don’t kill each other by kindergarten.”

“I know you’re mad because Michael took that toy away,” Missy went on. “But use your words. Tell him he has to share.”

Marin was fascinated watching her sister interact with her kids. Her sister was gentle, loving and patient. Compared to her, Marin felt like an old spinster hag. The mother gene had obviously been either buried so deeply under the thick skin Marin had developed after years on Wall Street or she’d been missing it entirely in the first place.

When the boys started in on the tug-of-war over the toy, Angelica tapped Missy on the shoulder and snuck down the hall.

“Oh, oh!” Missy said, feigning surprise. “Where did Grandma go?”

“I don’t see her,” Jonas added.

Wide-eyed and innocent, the two boys forgot all about fighting over the toy as they glanced around the large, open family room. Just then, Angelica jumped out from her hiding place in the hallway and announced, “Boo!”

The boys screamed and ran toward their dad, scrambling into his lap. “I don’t know,” he said, teasing them. “She looks pretty mean.”

Oh, puhleese. Marin rolled her eyes. Missy was letting the boys stay up late tonight, as it was their first night on the island, and Marin felt obligated to hang with the family. In truth, though, she’d had all the Kodak moments she could take for one day.

“I’m going to call it a night,” she said during a break in playtime. “See everyone in the morning.”

After a round of pleasantries, she went out Missy’s rear patio door, letting Slim out with her, and walked through the backyard toward her house. Slim took off toward the front yard, but the moment Marin exited the periphery of glowing lights from Missy and Jonas’s house, she stopped.

The glow of stars in the dark sky was magnificent, a spectacle that was almost too vibrant to be real. Missy’s backyard was at the top of the hill overlooking Mirabelle’s village center. The view of Lake Superior, black as ink this time of night, was amazing. It was a warm, balmy evening and in no real hurry to go to bed, she moved even farther away from the lights and let go a long sigh as the sky turned even more brilliant.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

She spun and found their neighbor Adam sitting behind her and leaning up against the trunk of a large oak tree. Apparently, she’d wandered closer to his yard than she’d realized. “It’s gorgeous,” she said. “Never see anything like it living in Manhattan, that’s for sure.”

It wasn’t apparent now, given that he was sitting, but he was a tall man, over six feet. It was one of the first things she’d noticed when they’d met earlier that day. That and his disheveled hair. Even now, he looked as though he’d just dragged his fingers straight over the top of his head.

Was his hair always a mess? Probably. It was a bit too long, for one thing, as if he were a few weeks late making an appointment with his barber. The slight wave in texture was more than likely the cause of his bangs hanging down over his forehead and the rest of his hair appearing tousled. Add a five o’clock shadow to the picture and he should’ve come across as rumpled. Except that even after what had likely been a long and drawn-out day for him, his shirt was still crisp, his khakis creased. What he looked was tired.

That’s when she noticed his fingers curled around a bottle of beer, and the six-pack, one bottle already empty, sitting in the grass next to him. He still wore a wedding ring, and she couldn’t help but wonder how long ago his wife had died.

“Would you like a beer?” he asked with a touch of a Southern accent.

“Sounds good.” She was on vacation, right? She could talk, just talk, to a guy. It wasn’t as if anything was going to happen between them. Cross-legged, she sat in the grass next to him, cracked open a bottle and took a long swig. “That hits the spot.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He had the most amazing lower lip, full and almost too lush for a man. The most striking thing about their neighbor, though, was his eyes. Dark brown and soulful, slanting downward ever-so-slightly, they could only be described as puppy-dog eyes. Eyes that very likely made women incapable of deciding when looking at him if they should sigh, “Oh, poor baby,” or “Oh, baby, baby.” Marin sure couldn’t make up her mind.

I honor my commitments.

Adam’s comment when she’d cornered him about the impact his nanny leaving would have on his job came back to her as if he were whispering in her ear. She had no doubt he believed what he was saying, but after the stunt Colin had pulled Marin was going to have to see that kind of follow-through to believe it from any man.

“Your kids asleep?” she asked.

“Finally. They’re having a hard time without Carla.”

“How long do you think it’ll take to find a replacement?”

“A couple weeks, at least. The agency sent me the first round of prospects today. Only five of them. It’s difficult finding a person on a long-term basis who’s willing to travel the way we do from town to town.”

“How long was Carla with you?”

“Three years.”

Probably since his wife had died. That was a long time to still be wearing a ring. “And you traveled that entire time?”

He nodded. “We go to where the jobs are. Tornado Alley, for the most part. Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, Tennessee.”

“You’re a bit too far north, aren’t you?”

“They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Besides, most of the work will be done before Christmas. We’ll be gone before the worst of the weather hits, and then a small crew will return in the spring to wrap up any loose ends.”

“Ever work on areas hit by hurricanes?”

“Once or twice. It depends. Dealing with water damage from hurricanes and floods is different. Tornadoes are my specialty.”

“How did you get into this line of business, anyway? It seems like a strange specialty.”

“I suppose it does.” He studied her. “I guess I fell into doing this so naturally, I never thought of my business as unusual. One day I was a successful commercial contractor and the next day I couldn’t win a bid to save my soul. A small town near my home where a friend of mine was mayor was hit by a tornado. He asked me to fix them up. To treat the entire town as one client to generate overall cost savings and that was that. One thing there’s never a shortage of is tragedy.”

“So where are you from originally?” Someplace a little south of here, she’d wager, based on his accent.

“Missouri,” he said, sounding sad. “Outside of St. Louis.”

“You still have family there?”

He nodded. “We see everyone a couple times a year. Between jobs. And I take several weeks off over the holidays and head home.” Then, as if the turn in conversation toward family had made him uncomfortable, he asked, “So what do you do in Manhattan?”

“I work…used to work…for a Wall Street investment firm.”

“Used to?”

“I quit. Last week.”

“Sounds like a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

“You got that right.” She took a swig of beer.

“So now what?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“What brings you to Mirabelle?”

“Needed some time away. A lot of time away.”

“Hmm.” He considered her. “Something else happen?”

“I suppose you could say that. Nothing short of my world collapsing around me.” She took another drink of beer. “The firm I work for had been cheating customers without my knowledge. My parents are getting a divorce. And the last straw was finding out my fiancé of the last four years has been cheating on me almost since day one.”

“Huh. That all?”

The words themselves could have been taken in a compassionate context, but the tone of his voice sounded rather unsympathetic. She studied his face, trying to discern exactly what he’d meant by those two words. “Excuse me?”

“I thought something really bad had happened.”

“I tell you my life is falling apart and that’s what you come up with?” She shook her head. “Wow.”

“So you found out there are unethical people in this world and some of them work at your firm. Your mom and dad made some mistakes in their lives, but they’re no different than, what, fifty percent of this country? And you found out in the nick of time that your guy is a lying, stinking excuse for a man. But is your world collapsing around you? I don’t think so.” He cracked another beer. “Now if you couldn’t make your mortgage payment, then I’d agree you had a slight problem.”

It didn’t happen very often—no, make that it never happened—but Marin found herself completely speechless. She wanted to be angry with him, but couldn’t seem to drum up the slightest bit of censure, given there wasn’t an ounce of sarcasm or bitterness in his tone. He was merely stating the cold, hard truth.

“Sorry.” He looked down at his beer. “Working around disasters for a living, I guess I have a tendency to minimize things.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“Think about it for a minute. The world is full of people with stories a lot more heart wrenching than yours. Save your self-pity for those times in life that are truly deserving of the indulgence.”

That comment stung. “Times that you’re such an expert at, obviously.”

“My story’s bad, yeah, but it’s not as bad as some of the folks living right here on Mirabelle. Look at what the tornado did to their town, their businesses. And if that’s not bad enough, take the guy who lives on the other end of the island in the summer. His first wife and kids were killed in a car accident. He was driving. Then there’s one of Missy’s best friends who adopted her nephew because her sister, the boy’s mom, was murdered by an abusive husband. The son of the island’s retired chief of police, a game warden, was shot and killed by poachers.” He took a swig from his beer. “Those are tragedies. The things that have happened to you sound a bit like stumbling blocks.”

What the hell could she say to that without sounding bitter and petty? Maybe her problems were nothing in the grand scheme of things. His problems, on the other hand, involved the lives of children and the death of their mother, his wife, and he seemed to take it all in stride.

Or did he?

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “But it’s one thing to put life with all its ups and downs in perspective. It’s quite another to deny that bad things even happened in the first place. Which one have you done with your life, Adam?”

Silently, he held her gaze.

She stood and headed for her house. “Thanks for the beer.”