Читать книгу Wedding Vows: I Thee Wed: Back to Mr & Mrs / Reunited: Marriage in a Million / Marrying Her Billionaire Boss - Shirley Jump - Страница 12

“WHAT WAS I THINKING?” Melanie slumped into one of the bar stools beside Kelly Webber, a frequent customer turned good friend. The college crowd had begun petering out as night began to fall and discussion of dorm room parties replaced the complaints about professors with homework fetishes. Emmie was sitting at a table in the corner of the room, ostensibly doing her homework, but really chatting with a friend while their dueling laptops accessed Cuppa Life’s wireless Internet connection.

Melanie let out a sigh. “Once again, I said yes when I should have said no.”

“That’s called Momitis. It’s how I got roped into doing the PTL dinner and chairing the book drive all in the same week.” Kelly took a sip from her decaf iced mocha and gave Melanie a sympathetic smile. She had her dark brown hair back in a ponytail and wore a blue track suit, her usual running-the-kids attire. Her two sons were taking karate lessons at the studio three doors down, giving Kelly a moment for a coffee and friendship break. “Just skip the reunion. Who needs that one-upman-ship fest?”

“But Cade needs my help.” Melanie sat back and blinked. “What am I saying? I’m not married to Cade anymore, or at least I won’t be soon. I shouldn’t care if he needs my help or not.”

Kelly laid a hand over Melanie’s. “But you do.”

A sigh slipped from her lips. “Yeah.”

“What you have is a conundrum, my friend.”

Melanie grinned. “You helping Peter study for his English tests again?” Kelly often used car time with her captive child audience to do test review.

“Hey, it helps dispel my soccer mom image when I throw out a multisyllable word.” Kelly winked.

“You’ll be ready for Jeopardy! before that boy graduates high school.” Melanie laughed, then sobered and returned to the subject she’d been avoiding. “I guess the real problem is that I don’t want to go to that reunion and tell everyone…” Her voice trailed off. She stirred at her coffee with a spoon, even though it was already fully sugared up.

“Well, that I’m not what they expected me to be.”

“What? You didn’t become what you imagined on graduation day?” Kelly clutched at her chest in mock horror. “Who does, Melanie? Heck, most of us have no idea what we want to be when we grow up. And a good chunk of us never do. Take my husband, for instance. He just bought an ATV. An ATV. We live in a subdivision, for Pete’s sake. Where’s he planning on riding it? Around the cul-de-sac?”

Melanie laughed. “I thought he was sold on getting a jet ski.”

“Apparently those are a little hard to use on the grass. The man forgets we live on eight acres in Indiana, not to mention an hour away from the closest thing to jet ski water.” Kelly threw up her hands in a “duh” gesture. “So now he’s hell-bent on saving for a lake house. I swear, that man has more toys than our ten-year-old.”

Melanie fingered the spoon, then finally let it rest. “At my age, you’d think I’d be well adjusted enough that I wouldn’t worry about what people at the class reunion think of me. I mean, I’m a grown-up.”

Kelly laughed. “Honey, even Miss America worries about what people will think of her at her reunion. I don’t know what it is about those things, but they always bring out our inner seventh-grader.”

Melanie nodded in agreement, drew in a breath and held tight to the stoneware mug. “Cade said he’ll cosign on my loan if I help him at the reunion.”

“A little quid pro quo?” Kelly grinned. “Sorry. That was on last week’s test.” Her gaze softened.

“What does Cade want you to help him with?”

“Networking at the reunion. Cade’s a master in the courtroom, but put him in the middle of a cocktail party and he’s totally out of his element. He gives new meaning to the words social faux pax.”

Kelly chuckled, twirling the straw in her frozen mocha. “Do you think he asked you for this favor because he secretly wants to try to get the two of you back together?”

Melanie glanced again at her daughter, and wondered about the glances she’d seen Emmie exchange with Cade. The good mood Emmie had been in this morning had lasted all day, clearly a sign something was up.

Ha, like what Emmie was trying to cook up was the problem. Today, Melanie had found herself exchanging a few glances of her own with Cade. The year apart had only seemed to intensify her gut reaction to his presence, as if her hormones had been silently building, waiting for the trigger of Cade to set them off.

Hormones could be kept under control. She wasn’t going to let a little desire send her running back into a marital mistake.

“Even if he does,” Melanie said, “it’s not going to happen. I can’t go back to being the little wife.”

“What if that’s not what Cade wants? What if he’s changed?”

“If there’s one thing I know about Cade, it’s how much he likes things to stay exactly the same. He loved knowing I’d be there at the end of the day when he came in from work. He liked wearing his blue suit on Mondays, the gray onTuesdays. Eating spaghetti every Thursday night, like our lives were a stuck record.”

“Surely you don’t think he wanted that at the expense of your dreams?”

Melanie considered her friend’s comment for a moment, sipping her coffee. “I don’t think Cade ever set out to hurt me, to purposely stuff me in this little Stepford box. We stepped into these roles and then it got easier to go on playing them, rather than changing the game halfway through. He wanted a wife who would arrange the dinner parties, pack his suitcases, have his dinner waiting. He’s a good man, but a stickler for tradition.” Melanie rose and deposited her empty mug in the sink, then returned to Kelly, lowering her voice so Emmie wouldn’t overhear. “For Cade, sameness is security and we got into one heck of a secure rut. He needs something different from a marriage than I can give. I don’t want a man who loves me for my ability to cook a crown roast for twelve. Whether or not he looks good in a suit on the night of the reunion, I’m not falling back into that same trap and letting my emotions override my brain.”

Like that hadn’t happened a hundred times already today. When Cade was in the shop, Melanie had been intensely aware of his every move. The scent of his cologne, the blue of his eyes, the very nearness of him.

The bell over the door jingled again, the spring breeze whisking in with Ben Reynolds, the owner of the pawn shop next door. An instant smile lit up his friendly features, putting light into his gray eyes. “Hi, Melanie.” He took off his fedora and clasped it between his hands.

“Ben! Hi! Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“No, thanks. I came by to talk to you.” He ran his fingers around the rim of the hat. Clearly he wasn’t here for his regular daily chitchat and cappuccino. Dread tightened in Melanie’s gut.

She told Kelly she’d be back in a second, then led the way to the love seats, vacated earlier by a couple who had lingered there for a few hours.

“I hate to tell you this because I know you wanted my place,” Ben said after they were seated, “but I got an offer today.”

An offer already?The place wasn’t even listed with a realtor yet, though nearly all of Ben’s customers knew he wanted to retire and sell the space. “I’m working on getting the bank loan, Ben, you know that.”

“I need to sell as fast as I can. Peggy’s mom is getting worse. That heart attack really did a number on her. Peggy wants us to move to Phoenix soon as we can, to help her mom out. Plus, I’m done with Indiana winters. If I never see another shovelful of snow, I can die happy.”

“You’ve been a great friend, Ben,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. “You were the first to welcome me to the neighborhood, and the most vocal advertiser for my shop I’ve ever met. I understand your position. You do what you need to for your family.”

Ben’s face took on an apologetic cast. “I still feel bad, knowing how much you want the space. If you could find a way to get the funding faster…” He threw up his hands.

“I understand.”

Ben gave her a sympathetic smile. “Think about it for a second. I’m going to take you up on that coffee offer.” He headed over to the counter and ordered his usual decaf from Emmie.

Melanie watched him walk away and knew there wasn’t another way. Melanie had already talked to two banks this past week and she’d heard the same thing—once she had a couple years under her belt, with the business showing a steady profit, they’d be more inclined to lend her the money. Otherwise, without much for assets behind her, she didn’t have a chance of getting the money.

Being a housewife and a room mom apparently hadn’t given her the kind of solid financial background bankers liked to see.

Until now, she’d run her company on her own terms, without needing to use Cade or her marital status. Everything was in her own name. The startup expenses had been small enough that she was able to cover the majority of them with an inheritance from her grandmother and the sale of the few remaining antiques in the shop. The rest she’d paid for with credit cards, taking a leap of faith that the market for a coffee shop would be much stronger than that of an aging antiques shop.

The gamble had paid off. Melanie had no debt, and was pleased to finally see more pluses on her balance sheet every month.

With the expansion, she could double her sales. Being located across the street from Lawford University provided a steady under-twenty-five clientele that increased by thirty percent each month. Coupled with the businesspeople who worked in the area and stopped in throughout the day for a caffeine boost, Cuppa Life had a pretty continual customer flow.

Melanie glanced at the door. Cade had left an hour ago, for a meeting with a client. His offer still rang in her head.

That offer came with some strings, but they were strings Melanie was willing to accept, if it meant she could finally have the business she’d envisioned. She could handle this—handle being around Cade—all without losing her heart or her head.

“Ben, don’t worry,” Melanie said, coming up to the older man just as he was about to put on his hat and head back out the door. “I’ll have the funding. Give me two weeks.”

The man who had dispensed wonderful business advice in exchange for a free espresso here and there, nodded. “You’ve got your two weeks, Melanie. But after that…I have to think of my own family. I’m sorry.”

“Two weeks,” she reiterated. “I’ll make it happen.”

How hard could it be? She’d attend the reunion next Friday night, help Cade as she always had, just one more time. In the end, it would mean she’d see her dream fulfilled.

All she had to do was pretend she was married to Cade. After nineteen years in the job, she’d perfected the happy wife role.

Too bad her heart was no longer in it.

“You did what?”

Cade swung his racket, sending the tennis ball over the net and onto the cushy green court on Carter’s side. He was glad for his weekly early Saturday morning tennis match with his twin brother. After all that had happened in Melanie’s coffee shop, he needed to expend some energy and frustration. It was either tennis or pounding some walls. Considering his lack of expertise in the handyman arena, this was a better option, particularly for his walls. “I asked Melanie to go to the reunion with me.”

Carter lobbed the ball back. “I thought you guys were getting divorced.”

“That’s the plan.” Maybe. He smacked the ball over the net.

“Uh-huh. You’re thinking you’ll get her all dressed up—” Carter let out a grunt as he hit the yellow sphere “—you throw on a tie, take her out on the dance floor a couple of times, waltz around to some Sinatra. Before you know it, you’re in love again, just like in high school?”

Cade made an easy return, then shrugged. “Hey, it happens in the movies.”

Carter reached high, nicking the ball a moment before it flew past him. “Real life doesn’t work like that.”

“Why not? Melanie and I were happy for years.” Cade waited for the bounce, then returned again.

“Women today expect more.”

Cade arched a brow. “Says the man who thinks marriage is a contagious disease.”

“At least I know better than to create a business plan to win a woman over. I know you, Cade, you’ve probably got a ten-point strategic overview all laid out on how to win Melanie’s heart. You’ve analyzed the pros and cons, created a damned spreadsheet for your options and even calculated the odds on flowers versus diamonds.”

Cade scowled. “I have not.”

Okay, he did have a list. But he didn’t have a spreadsheet and certainly hadn’t used a calculator to determine the best course of action.

“If you haven’t, which I highly doubt, you will.” Carter got the serve this time and sent the ball over the net toward his brother. “You’re the most uptight man I know. If you weren’t my twin brother, I’d think you were an alien.”

“Speaking of nonhuman creatures,” Cade said, grinning as he slammed the ball back with enough force to tell his brother he was definitely done with the subject of his marriage. “What’s new with you?”

“Funny you should ask,” Carter said as he waited for the bounce before swinging his racket. “Remember Uncle Neil’s will?”

Cade nodded. He’d been at the reading last month. Uncle Neil, a lifelong bachelor, had divvied up his companies and his possessions among his few nephews and nieces. Cade and Melanie had inherited a house in Cape Cod, a nice beach place that he remembered going to as a kid.

Someday, maybe, Melanie would want to go there. More specifically, go there with Cade. Take a weekend, stroll on the sand and rekindle the flame that had seemed to grow smaller since they’d married.

Then again, at the rate his reconciliation efforts were going, he’d be best off selling the place.

“Did you decide what to do with that toy company you inherited?” Cade said.

Carter drew in a breath. “Yep. I quit my job last week and moved into Uncle Neil’s office.”

“You did?”

“I’m sick of the corporate rat race,” Carter said.

“I don’t know how you’ve stood it this long.”

Cade hadn’t. In the last few years, Cade had grown more and more frustrated with his job, with working for his father, and for the first time ever, wondered if he’d made a mistake by following in his father’s footsteps. Cade was a good lawyer—but lately not a happy one.

For a second, he envied Carter’s ability to chuck it all, take a chance. Pursue a dream that might not work out. Just as Melanie had.

Cade shrugged off the thought. It was probably some early onset midlife crisis. He’d buy a convertible and highlight his hair and be over it.

But as he looked at his twin brother, at the excitement in his eyes as he talked about the toy company between racket swings, Cade had to wonder if he needed more than a few hundred horsepower to erase this feeling.

“Anyway, the company’s been struggling for a while,” Carter said. “Morale is in the toilet, sea turtles have faster production than I do. I have to do something, but toys aren’t quite my strong suit.”

“They aren’t mine, either,” Cade said, sending another serve over the net. “We didn’t exactly have a lot of playtime when we were kids.”

“Yeah, that being responsible thing kind of kills the opportunity for a little cops and robbers in the backyard.”

Cade missed the shot and cursed. He had no desire to revisit his childhood. Once had been enough. It hadn’t been happy, it hadn’t been fun and no one knew that better than Carter. No need to reopen old wounds.

“Anyway,” Carter said, pausing to take a breather,

“I was wondering if you knew anyone who specialized in that whole revitalizing a company thing.”

“I heard about a firm in Lawford, Creativity Masters. The client I met with, Homesoft Toilet Paper, was singing their praises.”

“They found a way to make toilet paper creative?” Carter chuckled, then swung and hit the ball back.

“My toy company should be a piece of cake after a few rolls of squeezably soft.”

Cade cut off a laugh as he returned the ball with a hard, swift swing. Once again, the feeling that he was missing something returned. Maybe Cade needed a little creativity boost for his own life.

He wondered vaguely what he would have done differently, had he been able to go back to prom night and change the course he and Melanie had taken. Would he have gone into another field? Tried another avenue?

Carter reached to the right, smacked the yellow ball with his racket and let out a curse when it sailed outside of the white lines, bouncing against the fence. He paused, dropping his hands to his knees and inhaling, sweat beading across his brow. “I’m getting my butt beat. Can’t you let a man win once in a while? Protect his ego?”

Cade retrieved the ball, then bounced it on the court a couple of times before readying it for serve, giving each of them a breather. “Lay off the doughnuts in the break room and you’ll be able to reach those high shots.”

“It’s not the doughnuts. It’s the receptionist.” Carter grinned. “Late night with Deanna. I’m not operating on all cylinders.”

“When have you ever operated on all your cylinders?”

“That was always your job,” Carter said with a grin.

That was true. Cade had shouldered the paternal expectations, gone into the family firm, fulfilled the next generation of Matthews lawyers. Carter, however, had been the one with charm, who smiled his way through college, with job offers falling at his feet like starry-eyed coeds. He’d had options—something Cade had never even considered.

For a moment, Cade envied his twin, the freedom he had to quit the accounting firm for a spin at toy making. Cade shook it off. It was simply a restlessness, maybe brought about from another birthday that edged him closer to forty. He didn’t need an escape from his job, he just needed a way to deal with the fact that his perfect life had disintegrated.

Cade slammed the serve over to Carter’s side, making him dash to the right and dive to return. “To win back a woman like Melanie,” he said, undeterred by the conversation detour, “you’re going to need a hell of a lot more than your navy Brooks Brothers and a spray of roses, you know.”

“I know how Melanie’s mind works.” The ball sailed into Carter’s side of the court, an inch past the reach of his racket. Carter cursed again.

“I hate to tell you this, Cade,” Carter said, lowering his racket and approaching the net, his breath coming in little gasps. “But you’re a detail guy. When it comes to women, detail guys have no chance. You need to be a concept man, so you can see the whole picture and fill in the blanks you’ve missed with her. It’s not about red roses over pink, Cade, it’s about seeing what’s bugging her.”

“I was married to Melanie for nineteen years. I know the whole picture.” But clearly, he’d missed something behind the canvas.

“If that’s so, why is she divorcing you?” Carter gave him a sympathetic glance. All their lives, Carter had been the only one who knew what made Cade tick, and how to get right to the heart of Cade’s problems.

“Sorry to say it, man, but that’s the one fly in your ointment. Until you figure out what’s behind her leaving, you’ll never be able to convince her to stay.”

“So now you’re the expert on women?”

“Hey, I never said I knew how to keep one.” Carter grinned, the same grin that had stolen—and broken—dozens of female hearts. “Just how to get one.”

Five minutes later, they called the game a draw. As Cade retrieved the tennis ball and headed toward the locker room with Carter, he knew his twin brother was right. Whatever had caused Melanie to leave was still there, the eight-hundred-pound relationship gorilla in the room.

If his twin could chuck his career and go into toy making, then maybe Cade could untangle the yo-yo string around his heart.

He was, as Carter said, a detail guy. If he could find the one detail he’d overlooked, then maybe he could restore the life he’d had.

And if not, there was always Chicago.