Читать книгу Man With A Mission - Muriel Jensen - Страница 8

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?