And Then Came You (2 page)

Sam’d grown up here. She’d gone away to college and come home to mourn when things hadn’t gone just as she’d planned. She’d mourned again when they’d lost their mother nine years ago, but together the Marconis had come out the other side of pain stronger than when they’d gone in.

“Earth to Sam!” Jo huffed out a breath, stepped into the room, snatched up the last cup of coffee, and sat
down in the chair that had been hers since she’d left a highchair behind. “I’m late because I was on the phone.”

“With who?”

Mike asked the question. Sam didn’t really care who Jo’d been talking to. Not yet, anyway. She’d need a few more sips of latte to get from merely awake to interested.

“Our former secretary,” Jo snapped and rustled one hand into the bag from the Leaf and Bean before pulling out a cinnamon-streusel-topped muffin. Practically growling, she took a bite as though she wished it were someone’s head.

“Former?” Mike asked.

“That’s what I said.” Jo sat up straighter in her chair and shook her head fiercely, until her hair whipped from side to side like a happy dog’s tail. “
Former
. Tina just quit.”

“I knew it,” Sam muttered, finally feeling as though she were fortified enough to join the conversation. “I could feel it in the air. Bad stuff coming.”

“God,” Mike said on a snort. “You sound like Nana.”

Jo laughed shortly and reached down to pet Bear’s big head.

Sam was not amused. She lifted her right hand, pointed her index finger and pinky in the age-old ward-off-the-evil-eye hand sign, and said, “Whatever works.”

“Well hell, why not go outside and clack two sticks together?” Mike rolled her blue eyes and blew out a breath that ruffled her bangs.

“Everyone knows you do that to cut a storm, not to
ward off doom,” Sam said with a half-smile. Seriously, coffee could improve your outlook until even the harbingers of disaster could look like fluffy kittens.

“Back to reality, if you don’t mind?” Jo waved one hand until she had their attention. “We are now short one secretary just when the Big Job is set to start.”

“You don’t have to say ‘big job’ in capital letters.”

“That’s what you think.” Jo flicked Mike a quick look, then dismissed her. “This is as Big as it gets and we all know it.”

Oh boy, did Sam know it.

Every summer, without fail, the city of Chandler’s very own local wacko brought in a construction team to work on her house. Sounded simple, of course. And that’s where the trap lay. Because there was
nothing
simple about Grace Van Horn and her never-ending quest to drive carpenters, contractors, and all of their teams insane.

A widow, Grace had more money than she knew what to do with and enough free time to make her dangerous. The major construction firms in the area took turns dealing with her. And this summer . . . the Marconis were up to bat. From July through September, they’d be working with Grace. It made Sam tired just to think about it.

So she didn’t.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad this year,” Mike said wistfully.

“Oh, please,” Jo said. “Last year, Grace changed her mind about the Italian tile for the foyer so often, Mr. Donovan had to take a ‘rest’ afterward.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t that bad. I mean, he had that ulcer before Grace.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t
bleeding
until she got to him.”

“Good point,” Sam said. “And the year before that, there was the fiasco with Baker Construction. I don’t think Mr. Baker
planned
on retiring that early.”

“His own fault,” Mike put in. “He never should have gone along with Grace about that astronomical tower on the roof. No way were the beams strong enough to support that mess.”

“That’s the point,” Jo snapped. “Grace has a way of talking you into doing things you’d
never
consider otherwise.”

“Okay, fine,” Sam acknowledged. “It’s going to be misery and we all know it.” Just thinking about a summer of Grace made that happy coffee glow slide away and Sam wished to hell Mike had brought back a gallon of the stuff.

“But well-paid misery, and isn’t that the important part?” Mike lifted her coffee cup in silent salute as she tossed Bear a piece of her muffin.

Yeah, Sam thought. But wasn’t there a steep price when you traded your soul for gold? “God, it’s going to be a long summer,” she moaned.

“Is
no one
going to ask why Tina quit her job?” Disgusted, Jo looked from one to the other of her sisters.

“Fine.” Sam straightened up, willing to talk about absolutely anything besides Grace Van Horn and the coming headaches. “I’ll bite. Why’d she quit?”

“Cash Hunter.”

“Him again?” Mike squirmed in her chair, planted her forearms on the table and leaned toward her sister. “He got to another one?”

Cash Hunter, mysterious carpenter, man of all work, and apparently the champion Woman Whisperer of all time. One night with this guy and women were lining
up to go off and be Dr. Schweitzer, Madame Curie, and Mother Teresa all rolled into one. He’d been in town only a little over six months and already he’d become a legend.

“Tina told me she was leaving town. Going back home to Georgia to work for Habitat for Humanity.”

Sam winced. “Well, you can’t fault her for wanting to do a good thing.”

“I didn’t say that,” Jo snapped, throwing her hands wide. “Sure, it’s nice. But what is it about this guy that can make women take sharp right turns with their lives? I mean, before this, the closest Tina’s ever come to altruistic was
not
asking for change when she handed the Salvation Army Santa five dollars last Christmas.”

“What happened to Lisa?” Sam wondered aloud, as she flipped through her mental list, trying to recall the other women Cash had charmed into sainthood.

“She moved to L.A.,” Mike said around a mouthful of muffin. “She’s working with the Literacy Foundation. Really loving it.”

Jo nodded, waved one hand at her. “And Paula?”

“Oh, I know this one,” Sam said, perking right up. “Paula’s living in Chechnya now. Working for a foundation that arranges adoption for war orphans.”

“Cash Hunter must be stopped,” Jo muttered darkly. “This guy is like a master hypnotist or something. Is he drugging them?”

“Oh,” Mike said. “That’s good. Now he’s an evil scientist.”

“Well, he’s
something
. I don’t get it. Just don’t get how a man can make a woman come all unglued.”

Mike snorted. “Apparently you have
not
been meeting the right men.”

“Funny.” Jo shifted a look at Sam. “Seriously though, what is this guy up to? What is he doing that’s so fabulous it makes women want to turn their lives around?”

“I volunteer to find out,” Mike said, grinning.

“You stay the hell away from him,” Jo said, offering some of her muffin to Bear.

Sam laughed and shook her head. “No wonder that dog’s getting fat. And stop taking Cash so personal, Jo.”

“The dog’s not fat. And the Cash thing is just weird.”

“Fine,” Mike offered. “You want me to stay away from him,
you
go sleep with him. But report back to us before you run off to join a convent.”

“You just get funnier and funnier.”

“I try hard.”

“Not hard enough,” Jo muttered, then ignored Mike to shoot a look at Sam. “We’re gonna need a new secretary.”

A curl of worry unwound in the pit of Sam’s stomach. “Don’t look at me.”

“Why not? You’d be great.”

Sam glared at Mike. “Thanks, I don’t think so.”

“Come on, you’re perfect for it. You’ll be dealing with Grace anyway and—”

The imaginary gargoyles Sam had entertained earlier perched on her shoulder and howled. “Why’m I going to be dealing with her?”

Jo and Mike exchanged a quick, secretive look that told Sam that this had already been discussed and she’d been chosen. She choked on a gulp of coffee and coughed hard enough that she was pretty sure her eyeballs were going to pop out of her head and roll across the table. And still she managed to croak, “No way.”

“She likes you,” Jo said.

“Because I almost never argue with her like
someone
”—she glanced at Mike—“I could mention.”

“Hey, I have opinions.”

“Too many.” Jo glared her youngest sister into silence, momentarily. “You worked well with her last time, Sam.”

“That was three years ago.”

“And it’s our turn again,” Jo said. “We all know it. We all deal with it.
You
get to handle it.” She took another bite of muffin and, now that the matter seemed settled, acted as if she were really enjoying herself.

“I don’t get a vote in this?” Sam was sputtering now and she knew it.

“Sure you get a vote,” Mike put in. “But you’re one vote, we’re two. Majority wins. Congrats.”

“Ain’t democracy grand?” Jo asked no one in particular.

“My own family turning on me.”

“Damn straight.” Mike grinned and took a long drink of her coffee.
“And,”
she added, “let’s not forget the Home Show in July.”

The Home Show.

This just kept getting better.

Every year, the San Jose Convention Center hosted the Home Show, giving local contractors, designers, and suppliers a chance to show their wares to the thousands of people who lined up to see the latest in home improvement. And like everyone else in the county, the Marconis would have their own booth where they’d demonstrate home repairs, painting techniques, and solicit new clients for the business.

It was three solid days of making nice and answering
dumb questions—with the added fun of keeping Mike from losing her temper while answering those dumb questions.

Sam shuddered. “Can’t I please forget?”

“Not a chance,” Mike said, laughing. “But Jo’s taking care of the booth setup since you’re gonna be dealing with Grace.”

“And what’s
your
job this summer, then?” Jo said, gaze narrowed.

“Watching you guys.” Mike shot a look at each of her sisters and gave them a slow grin.

Jo wadded up a napkin and threw it across the table at her.

Sam groaned.

Trapped like a rat.

No way out.

The summer of hell was just getting started and already she felt the flames licking at the soles of her feet.

“Hey,” Jo said, “could be worse.”

Rain blustered against the windows and the wind howled. That loose shutter slammed into the house with the rhythm of a heartbeat and the light in the kitchen dimmed, then brightened as the power flickered. As signs went, not that dramatic.

“Never say that,” Sam warned. “It’s a direct challenge to the gods.”

“Really, Sam.” Mike shook her head slowly. “
Way
too much like Nana.”

Maybe, she thought. But it didn’t hurt to cover your bases. Besides, Sam’d noticed over the years that once things started going downhill, more often than not, they just picked up speed.

By afternoon, the sun was shining and water was dripping off the trees in the front yard. In fact, she’d just about convinced herself that maybe they’d survive the summer of hell after all.

Until the doorbell rang.

With a fresh fight brewing between her sisters, and Bear snoring under the table, Sam gratefully escaped the kitchen where they’d been working for hours, and headed through the living room. She hardly glanced at the big, square room with its overstuffed sofas, magazine-littered coffee table, and rose-colored walls decorated with years’ worth of framed family photos.

She grabbed the brass knob, turned it, and yanked the door open. Good thing she still had a grip on the doorknob. It gave her something to hold on to while her world rocked.

He was taller than she remembered.

It had been nine years since she’d seen him. Since he broke her heart. And he hadn’t even had the decency to get bald and fat.

“Hi, Sam,” the voice from the past said. “Been a while.”

“Oh, my God.”

She’d expected the UPS guy, delivering her new paintbrushes. The one person in the world she
hadn’t
expected was Jeff Hendricks. Her lying, treacherous, backstabbing, no-good, son of a bitch ex-husband.

Now maybe people will listen to me when I talk about signs of foreboding
.

For one wild, weird moment, Sam was eighteen again. Pain glanced through her body like sunlight bouncing off a mirror. His ink-black hair was still just a little too long, grazing the top of his shirt collar. His deep blue eyes were fixed on her and the mouth that had once done some amazing things to her body was nothing more than a grim slash across his features.

He didn’t look any happier to see her than she was to see him. Small comfort.

So why was he here?

“A while?” she echoed finally. “Not long enough.”

“Good to see you, too,” he said tightly.

She still hadn’t let go of the doorknob and she thought about giving it a hard push, slamming the door in his face, and pretending she’d never opened it. As if he could read her mind, he spoke up again quickly.

“We have to talk.”

Sam laughed shortly. Couldn’t help it, really. It blew out of her throat and scraped the air. “Oh, that’s a good one, coming from you.”