Authors: Maureen Child
“Papa says that sometimes you have to get sad before you get happy ’cause otherwise how would you know the difference?”
Sam looked down into Emma’s serious face and felt her heart turn over. This one little girl was worth anything. Worth the nine years of loneliness, worth the pain of loving and losing Jeff for a second time.
“Papa’s a smart man,” Sam said, smoothing her daughter’s silky hair back from her face. Then reaching out, she picked up the remote and hit the play button.
“I know and he’s funny, too.” Emma cuddled up next to Sam, snuggling under her arm and sighing as the credits began to roll and the music she loved swelled into the room. “He played games with me until I fell asleep and then he played more games with Grace all night.”
“What?” The opening scenes of
The Little Mermaid
filled the screen, but Sam was staring at the top of her daughter’s head. “All night?”
“Uh-huh. After the fireworks, we had a sleepover at Grace’s house and I got to play with the goats, too. And then we played games, and when I fell asleep, they played more games.”
“Games.” Papa and Emma spent the night at Grace’s house after the fireworks? Papa and Grace were playing “games” all night?
“Uh-huh. Grace says Papa knows
lots
of fun games.”
Fun games?
“Oh God.” Sam cringed and told herself not to think about it. There were just some images a daughter shouldn’t have in her mind.
“Shh, Mommy.” Emma leaned in farther. “The movie’s starting. Can we have popcorn?”
Jeff took Cynthia’s elbow and propelled her down the hall with more speed than grace. She was forced to take four steps for every one of his since she was wearing those ridiculously high heels that he almost never saw her out of.
Once inside his place, Jeff slammed the door and spun the woman he’d been about to marry around to face him. High color dusted her cheeks, her eyes sparkled with interest—and desire—and he wanted to pick her up and shake her.
She smiled up at him. “Jeff, I’ve never seen this caveman side of you.” She licked her lips. “I like it.”
“What the hell’s your game, Cynthia?”
Her smile disappeared in a blink. “What are you talking about?” Her gaze shot past him to the closed door and the hallway beyond. “What did
she
say?”
He released her because he suddenly didn’t trust himself to
not
give her that shake.
What an idiot he’d been.
As if watching his expression and planning her own actions accordingly, she smiled again. “Jeff, why don’t we have a drink and sit down together to talk about . . .” Her voice trailed off as she turned and spotted
the shattered remnants of the mint dish scattered across the floor. Whipping around, she said, “
She
did that, didn’t she?”
“Sam?” He glanced at the bowl and found himself smiling grimly. Hell, even that nasty temper of hers was at least honest. “Yeah. She broke it.”
“That woman is appalling.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, really, Jeff,” Cynthia said, her voice smoothing over, her features relaxing. “I don’t want to speak poorly of Emma’s mother, but—”
Amazing, he thought with a weird sort of admiration. Even now, she was cool, controlled. “Cut the crap, Cynthia.”
“What?” Her voice went as cold and sharp as an icicle.
“Sam told me what you said to her.”
Cynthia smiled sadly. “You know, she’s a woman on the edge, Jeff. She’s liable to tell outrageous lies trying to defend her position.”
“Funny,” Jeff said thoughtfully. “Just what I was thinking about you.”
“Excuse me?” One blond eyebrow lifted.
“Why’d you tell Sam you were pregnant?”
She blinked, and just for a second, stunned surprise lit her eyes, but she recovered quickly. “I didn’t. I may have hinted that we’re both hopeful, but—”
Even caught red-handed she was willing to play it out. He could admire her cool confidence even while asking himself why the hell he had never noticed just how duplicitous she could be. And the longer he watched her, the clearer things became to him. It was
as if a blindfold were being lifted from his eyes a quarter inch at a time.
“You told Sam you were pregnant,” he said thoughtfully, and continued before she could deny it again. “Knowing our history, you probably figured it was the one perfect thing to say that would get rid of her.”
He shifted a look at her, but she was still calling his bluff. Not even by the flicker of an eyelash did she reveal what she was thinking, feeling. Or if she was feeling anything, which he was beginning to seriously doubt. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
She gave him an indulgent smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do, Cyn.”
She flinched at the shortened version of her name.
“It should have worked,” he said, giving the devil her due even while a part of him wanted to kick her ass down the hallway. “You were counting on us repeating history, weren’t you?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she walked quietly to the sofa and leaned one elegant hip against the high back.
“You thought Sam would be so pissed that she wouldn’t talk to me about it. That we’d
never
talk about it. You figured,” he went on, watching her eyes and seeing a flash of acknowledgment there, “she’d get mad, then I’d get mad, and we’d go our separate ways again without once comparing notes. Just like we did before.”
Deliberately, she looked away from him, gazing down at her engagement ring, then checking her manicure.
“It was a pretty good plan, Cyn.”
“Thank you.”
Now it was his turn to be surprised. He hadn’t actually expected her to admit anything. “Unfortunately for you, things were different this time. Sam and I were
both
different this time. And now we know the truth.”
“Do you?”
Jeff sighed and let go of his last lingering bit of guilt about breaking his engagement to this woman. “Let’s be honest, all right? You can keep the jewelry I’ve given you. The ring’s yours. Everything else is, too. I just want the truth.”
“Which truth would that be?” Cynthia wondered calmly. “The one where you’re making a fool of yourself over another woman while you’re engaged to
me
?”
“So that’s it?” he asked idly, as temper spiked and dipped within. “Jealousy?”
“You must be kidding.” Cynthia chuckled, shook her head gently, and looked at him. “You think
I’m
jealous of your construction worker?”
“What I want to know is why you did it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Forget that,” he said, waving his words away with one sweeping motion of his hand. “I figure I know why. You wanted to scare her off.”
“I only told her what she had to know already.” Cynthia stood up, adjusted the fall of her skirt. “That she was making a difficult situation untenable.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t
have
to,” she countered, just a little desperately. “I was only thinking of you. Of Emma. Of
us
.”
“There is no
us
.” Something dark and cold pinged inside him as he spoke the words Sam had said to him
just a few minutes before. The difference was, he meant them. He only hoped to hell Sam hadn’t.
“Of course there’s an us,” she said, walking toward him, giving him a gentle smile. “We’re getting married in less than four weeks.”
“You can’t seriously still think that.” When she lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck, he caught her wrists and took a step back. “The wedding’s off.”
Her jaw dropped, her eyes went wide with surprise. “You can’t do that.”
“I just did.”
“Well, I won’t allow it.”
Jeff laughed and sheer fury erupted in the cool blonde’s eyes, surprising him with the strength of it. He’d never seen Cynthia display so much raw emotion. He hadn’t really believed her capable of it.
“Do you think I’m going to allow you to break this engagement?” Stunned, she opened and shut her mouth a few times, as if she couldn’t quite think what to say next, and her breath hitched in her chest. “I won’t let you embarrass me in front of my friends.
Our
friends.”
“Our friends will get over the shock,” he said. “In a couple of months, there’ll be something else to talk about.”
“You—”
“Besides, you don’t have to be embarrassed in front of anyone, Cynthia. You can tell everyone
you
dumped
me
.”
She stared at him as though he’d just been dropped onto earth from another planet. It was as if she didn’t recognize him at all. And that let Jeff know without a doubt that he was doing the right thing.
God, he felt like he’d just been let out of prison.
“Don’t think I won’t,” she countered, a flush of color rushing to her cheeks. Then she waited as if hoping her threat would make him see the light. Change his mind. When he only smiled at her, she still couldn’t accept it. “You’re seriously going to throw me over for that paint-spattered
bitch
?”
“Yeah,” he said, and grinned. He felt life course back into his bloodstream just at the thought of having Sam as his own again. “I am.”
“You bastard.” The words came out flat, cold. But the heat in her slap had his head snapping back.
When she drew her hand back to hit him again though, he caught it at the wrist. “I give you that one, because I figure I owe you that much at least. But there’s only one woman in this world who’s allowed to hit me more than once. And it’s not you.”
“You son of a bitch.”
He nodded. “That seems to be a popular theme today.”
“I hate you.”
“Probably,” he agreed, and steered her toward the door. “Though once you get over your anger, I think you’ll agree that we never would have worked out.”
She pulled free of his grasp and marched smartly to the door. When she had it open and herself posed dramatically in the doorway, she stopped and looked him up and down in the most dismissive manner she could manage. “If you think I’m going to miss you—or that clumsy brat of a child, you’re quite mistaken. I wish you misery with your little goat girl. May you get just what you deserve.”
He shut the door so quickly behind her, he was
pretty sure it caught Cynthia on her fairly impressive ass. And he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.
He had a wife to win back.
“We can find a hit man,” Mike said the next morning, reaching for her coffee cup. “We’re Italian. How hard can it be?”
“We don’t need a hit man,” Jo told her, and grabbed a cinnamon roll from the plate in the middle of the table. “We can break his legs and it won’t cost us anything.”
“You guys are the best,” Sam said and wiped an imaginary tear from her eye. Picking up her latte, she lifted it in a toast to her sisters, took a sip, then set it down again. “Look, I really appreciate all the blood-thirsty support, but keep an eye out for Emma. I really don’t want her to sneak up and hear her aunts plotting her father’s death.”
“Not death,” Mike corrected. “Maiming.”
“Right. Sorry.” Still, Sam shot a look over her shoulder at the front door of the Leaf and Bean. Nope. Still no sign of Emma. Papa’d taken her to the library to get a book on mermaids and there was still no sign of them.
Outside the shop, the bright summer morning was already heating up. Sunlight bounced off storefronts and shimmered off the asphalt, and by noon, everyone in town would be looking for shade and something cold to drink. For now though, the Marconis had a rare Friday off and coffee was the order of the day.
The quiet ripple of conversation from the dozen or more people sprinkled around the room provided just enough background noise to keep the Marconi girls from being overheard.
“So it’s over.”
Sam looked at Jo. “Seems to be.”
“You don’t look happy.”
“I’m not.”
“If you love him that much, fight for him.” Mike leaned her chair back onto two legs and rocked. “I don’t understand it, but I’ll back you.”
“No. If he wants that blond bitch, then he can have her.”
Jo shot Mike a look and the two of them turned interested gazes on Sam.
“What?” Sam demanded.
Mike shrugged. “It’s just that Marconis don’t give up that easy and this makes the second time you walked away instead of fighting.”
Sam slapped herself upside the head. “Hello? Aren’t you the one who was just offering to have him killed?”
“Maimed.”
“Right. My mistake.”
“Sam,” Jo said, giving Mike a glare that should have worried her but instead had her snorting derisively. “You’re not happy. What makes you think
he
is?”
“Cynthia said—”
“And you believed the bitch? Why?”
Sam kicked the legs of Mike’s chair and smiled when her sister wobbled and had to fight to balance herself. “Because . . .” Her voice trailed off. Okay, there was a reason she’d believed Cynthia. It was . . .
“Uh-huh.” More careful now, Mike eased her chair back onto four legs before continuing. “So now you’re figuring out that Cynthia had more reason to lie than to tell you the truth?”
“Maybe—”
“And you gave Jeff every chance to explain, right?” Mike said, laughing.
Sam winced. “He tried, but—”
“And when you gave him the divorce papers, did he look happy?” Jo prompted.
No, he really hadn’t. He’d looked . . . stunned. “Not especially, but—”
“So then you let him talk and you heard him out and—”
“Will you shut up? You know damn well I didn’t listen to him.” Sam shot first Mike, then Jo, furious glances before she reached for her latte and chugged a few swallows. The steaming hot milk lit up her throat and brought tears to her eyes. But at least it was physical pain she could focus on. “I broke a bowl, slugged him in the stomach, shouted at him, then left him standing there with Polly Perfection.”
“
She
was there?” Mike demanded.
“She got there as I was leaving.”
“And you left him there alone with her,” Jo said.
“He’s
engaged
to her.”
“And
married
to
you
.” Mike took a big bite of her blueberry muffin and shook her head in disgust.