Her Fill-In Fiancé (17 page)

Uncertainty still filled Jake's gaze. Was it only wishful thinking that she was seeing a longing there, too? A desire to believe what she was saying? “I don't know, Sophia.”

“But I do.”

Thanks to her mother's love and patience and her father's unflappable humor, kindness and integrity, Sophia had a lifetime of knowledge to draw from when it came to the right way to raise her son.

Knowledge Jake didn't have and knowledge his fiancée had used against him. Sophia felt a slow-burning anger starting to boil at the way the woman had struck where she'd known Jake to be the most vulnerable…

And yet hadn't Sophia done the same thing? Turning Jake's words about not being a family man against him that day at the creek? He'd hurt her when he pulled away, but instead of giving him the chance to explain, she'd lashed out, trying to hurt him, too.

“I'm so sorry, Jake,” she said, apologizing as much for the pain she'd caused as for what his ex-fiancée had put him through.

Raucous laughter and an off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” drifted out to the patio, reminders of the party still going strong inside. Jake's sigh stirred her hair as he
said, “I promised to show you a good time tonight. Believe me when I say this was not what I had in mind.”

“It's okay.”

It might not have been a good time, but it was good to know what she was up against. Jake's past was a serious hurdle, but Sophia doubted he realized the most important part of what he'd told her.

I was trying so damn hard to prove that I could be a good father…

To be a good father to another man's child.

He might as well have reached into her chest and squeezed her heart. But that was no surprise. He'd held it in his hands practically from the moment they met. “Let's go back inside,” she decided suddenly. “We'll tell Billy happy birthday and then we can go.”

“Are you sure?”

Sophia smiled. “I'm sure.”

Looking around the bar as they stepped back inside, Sophia spotted Billy at his spot near the bar. As the crowd mercifully ended their birthday serenade, he took an elaborate bow without spilling a drop, but Sophia could remember so many times when he and her brothers hadn't been nearly so careful.

After ordering an iced tea, Sophia held up her glass. “I'd like to offer a toast.”

Her words went largely unnoticed by the raucous crowd, but before she could make a second subtle attempt, Sam let out a sharp whistle. “Hey, everybody, listen up!”

Just like that, she not only had Billy's attention, but the entire bar was staring at her. The music and laughter that had been so loud only moments before came to a stop. Or maybe it only seemed that way because the pulse pounding in her ears made hearing anything else impossible. Sophia did her best to ignore the way the crowd's attention crawled
like bugs over her skin. If it had been up to her, she would have darted back into a darkened corner. But she wasn't doing this for herself.

She glanced over at Jake amid dozens of familiar faces, confusion and a bit of concern on his expression. “Now that I have everyone's attention, I, um, wanted to say that, growing up, we've all made our share of mistakes. And I think this would be a great time to toast some of Billy's memorable antics and to recall all the times his parents swore he would never make it to this, his thirtieth birthday!” The crowd laughed as Billy hung his head in mock shame. “And I'm sure my brothers have some great memories, too. We all know if they weren't involved in the actual event, they most likely instigated it!”

As Sam and Drew protested their innocence, Sophia said, “One stunt I remember is when you three decided to use the empty community pool as your own personal skate park.”

“Hey, I almost landed that three-sixty,” Sam argued.

“Instead you landed in the hospital with a broken arm,” Sophia said wryly. She drew a laugh from the crowd, but her eyes were locked on Jake's.

“That's nothing!” Drew protested. “What about the time Billy tied his bike to the back of his mom's van and rode behind her all the way to town?”

“The only guy to get a ticket on a ten-speed!”

As Sam, Drew and Billy continued to outdo each other with their often outrageous, sometimes dangerous stunts, Sophia tried to slip away back to Jake's side. But before she'd made her escape, Sam caught her by the arm. “Yeah, don't think you're getting away that easily. Not until you admit your part in all this.”

“What part?”

“Who exactly told me I couldn't jump our front fence with my bike?”

“You couldn't,” Sophia argued, the same thing she'd said as a know-it-all seven-year-old.

“Yeah, but after you said I couldn't, I had to try.”

And just like that, the tables turned with her brothers and Billy pointing out all the times Sophia and her friends had frequently witnessed her brothers' mishaps after egging them on from the sidelines. “So you're saying it was all my fault?”

The three guys exchanged a look. “Yes.”

Not long ago, Sophia would have fired back at her brothers, angry and embarrassed at the way they'd ganged up on her. Able to dish it out, but not willing to take it. But now, now she started to laugh. “If we'd known then we had that kind of power over you, just imagine what we could have made you do!”

“Hey, we never said you had
power
over us.”

“Oh, but we made you do all those crazy things. Sounds like we were the ones in control,” she shot back.

But no, Sophia didn't have power over them, they insisted. “Guys always do stupid things to impress the girl,” Sam insisted. “It's a rule.”

It might have been the rule, but it wasn't always guys who were out to do the impressing. Meeting Jake's golden gaze, she saw the pride in his gaze along with the awareness of what she'd done for him.

She might have started with the idea that she had something to prove to Jake, but she'd proved something to herself as well. If she was going to expect him to overcome the demons of his past, it was only fair that she face down some of her own.

“I
heard you had a good time last night.”

Sophia looked away from the computer screen to meet her father's gaze as he stepped into the study. She'd been doing some research on Hope's newest pieces before heading into the shop, but she turned her attention away from antique lamps to offer a smile to her dad. “I'm glad Jake and I went,” she said, skirting the truth a little. Finding out about Jake and his relationship with Josh—and Mollie—answered so many questions, but so many still remained.

Had everything she said last night been enough for Jake to see that even the best, most vigilant parents couldn't keep kids from getting hurt? That the love he had for Josh said far more about his abilities as a father than his mistake in judgment did? That even though he thought he wasn't a family man, Sophia knew he was a man who needed a family?

And the more basic question—where had Jake gone when he left the house that morning?

His rental car was still parked out front, so Sophia knew he hadn't gone far. And while she wasn't surprised he might need some time alone after the emotional revelations the night before, she was a little disappointed.

“What are you working on?” Vince asked, drawing her attention back to the computer screen.

“Hope bought a truckload of furniture and artwork from an estate sale. I wanted to research some of the pieces. I think they might be antiques and pretty valuable.”

When she'd phoned Hope to ask how she wanted the new items priced, her friend had responded with a blithe,
“Whatever you think they'll sell for.”
It was not the answer Sophia had expected or a call she was prepared to make without a little more information.

“Hope's lucky to have you.”

Sophia was the lucky one, having a second chance to make up for disappointing Hope in the past. She glanced back at the website she'd found, but the computer had already switched into a power save mode and a slideshow screensaver flashed across the screen.

“Look at that, Sophia,” Vince pointed to a photo of a vineyard. “I know it's early, but I can almost taste a fine, red wine just looking at that picture, can't you?”

“Is that Napa?” Her parents had vacationed there a few years ago, Sophia recalled, the only trip she could remember the two of them making without four kids in tow.

Affecting a wounded heart, Vince said, “Your nana must be rolling in her grave. That is the Pirelli motherland.”

“Two generations removed,” Sophia laughed. “Three, I guess, counting Maddie.”
And her own soon-to-be Pirelli grandchild.

“I suppose you're right,” her father sighed. “Still, it would be something to visit, to experience the history of the country and of our family.”

Sophia cupped a hand beneath her chin to keep her jaw from dropping at the wistful tone in her father's voice. “So, you want to travel?”

“Hmm, once upon a time, I dreamed of moving to Italy.”

This time, nothing could keep Sophia's shock from showing. “Seriously?”

Vince smiled. “Not to worry, sweetheart. I wasn't planning on up and leaving your mother and you kids. This was when I was in my teens, long before I was even dating your mom. I wasn't always an old man, you know.”

“You're not old now!” Sophia protested.

The photo on the screen shifted, this time showing a sun-bleached fishing village on the Mediterranean coast. “Back then, I planned to travel all around Italy, but not as a tourist. I figured I'd find some Pirelli relative I could move in with, and I'd learn all I needed to know from the best.”

Amazed to realize her father had ever wanted to do anything other than live and work in the town where he'd been born, she asked, “What did you want to learn?”

“Anything and everything. I wanted to fish, to cook, to learn to make wine. The possibilities were endless.” Reaching over, he jiggled the mouse; the screensaver disappeared, replaced by a background photo of their family. It was a candid shot Vince must have taken with Sam, Drew and Nick standing beside Sophia and her mother.

“And then I met your mother…”

Her father's voice trailed off, so Sophia filled in, “And you gave up your dreams.”

“No, sweetheart. Not at all. I traded in one dream for another, and I've never regretted it. Not for a second.” He looked around the room, but Sophia sensed he was taking stock of the entire house and the decades' worth of memories stored there. “But now that you and your brothers are
all grown up, I think your mother and I would really like to have an adventure or two and see a bit more of the world.”

So much for thinking
she
was the one with all the secrets! Her father's expression was completely calm as if he had no idea the kind of bombs he was dropping.

“I always felt you were a bit more like me that way,” Vince mused. Suddenly he laughed. “Remember when we went to the ice cream shop, the one with all the different flavors, and you asked to try them all because—”

“How would I know which was my favorite unless I tasted each one?” Sophia finished the story she'd heard dozens of times over the years. Her smile fading away, she said, “But I thought you were frustrated with me for being unable to decide. Not about ice cream, but about what I wanted to do with my life.”

Vince leaned a hip against the side of the desk. “With the boys, it was all so easy. They
knew.
From the time they were in diapers, they knew what they wanted to do, what made them happy. Your mother and I were never disappointed in you, sweetheart. But we did worry. That you wouldn't find the one, special thing that made you happiest. And then you started working at The Hope Chest. You'd come home from work filled with stories of the tourists you met, the merchandise you sold, whatever new, amazing find Hope had made. It was like listening to Nick, Drew and Sam talk about animals, tools, and cars.”

Realizing her father was right and more conscious than ever of the opportunity she'd squandered, Sophia said, “You might have told me at the time I'd found my calling. I kept telling myself it was just a stupid after-school job my parents forced me to take.”

“No, you didn't.” At Sophia's look, Vince chuckled. “Okay, maybe you did, but your mother and I had learned
that encouraging a teenager to do something was the surest way to guarantee they do the opposite.”

“But I still screwed it up, didn't I?”

“Sophia…” Vince's dark brows knitted together as he held out his arms and pulled her into a hug. “You made a mistake, but it was a long time ago. Too long to still be carrying this guilt around.”

“You quit your job because of me…” Her words were a muffled protest against his plaid shirt.

Her father pulled back to meet her gaze. “I quit my job because I couldn't keep quiet when the Learys tried to turn you into an outcast and blame you for something that wasn't your fault. But like I was telling Jake, everything happens for a reason.”

“What does Jake have to do with this?”

“He suggested that I talk to you about wanting to travel and see the world outside of Clearville. But I think all this—” reaching up, he brushed a tear from her cheek “—is what he really wanted us to get out in the open.” Vince smiled. “He's a good man, your Jake.”

A good man? Yes. Hers? Oh, how Sophia wanted him to be. But she was running out of time to convince Jake that the only thing he didn't have as far as what it took to make him a family man was a family. And if he'd let her, she was more than willing to share her own.

 

At ten after six, Sophia flipped the sign in the store window to
Closed
and locked the front door. “Well done, my dear. I couldn't have managed better myself,” Hope applauded as Sophia dropped with an exhausted sigh onto the settee across from the wheelchair.

A steady stream of customers had filled the shop most of the day, and when Hope had arrived unexpectedly after being
dropped off by a friend, Sophia had felt a bit self-conscious, wondering if the shopkeeper was checking up on her.

But before long, Sophia realized Hope wasn't paying much attention to what she was doing. Instead, Hope had sat in her chair, chatting with tourists or friends who'd heard she was back at the shop and stopped by.

“I printed out what information I could find on the pieces you bought at the estate sale.” Sophia reached for the folder she'd set on the coffee table earlier. “You should really have it all appraised because I'm far from an expert, but I'm sure the lamps are Tiffany.” She flipped through the pages, showing varying price ranges for items similar to Hope's latest finds.

“And the cradle…” To Sophia's embarrassment, the pin-prick of tears welled behind her eyelids just as they had when she first saw the handmade baby bed. She'd been drawn to the cradle again and again during her free time. She'd dusted the narrow rails and every nook and cranny of the intricate carvings before she polished the rich oak to a luxurious shine. When she finished, she ran one hand across the curved headboard. Even though she still had to imagine her baby curled up on the rainbow print mattress, somehow touching the cradle made her pregnancy that much more real. That much more tangible.…

And obvious, Sophia feared, as she realized she'd been humming a lullaby beneath her breath, her hand cradling her stomach, with Hope's too-observant gaze watching the whole time. Clearing her throat now, she said, “I couldn't find any identifying marks on it, so there's no way to know its history. But it's obviously a work of love, and well, I don't even know how to price something like that.”

Hope reached for the folder, but to Sophia's surprise, she closed it and set it aside. “Thank you, Sophia.” Despite
the words, the woman's smile seemed somewhat wistful, sad even.

“Um, you're welcome.” Hearing a hint of question in her own voice, she added, “It was fun to do the research.”

“Not for that. Thank you for reminding me how this shop should be run. Watching you today, seeing your excitement dealing with the customers and the thought you've put into the new merchandise, it reminds me of myself when I first opened The Hope Chest, and it's made my decision easier.”

“I don't understand. What decision?”

Maneuvering her wheelchair behind the counter without answering the question, Hope took a box off a shelf. “Do you remember this?” she asked once she'd wheeled back beside Sophia and handed her the box.

Lifting the top and brushing aside a layer of tissue paper, Sophia's eyes widened when she saw the hand-carved jewelry box. Even without turning the key, she knew the tinny, familiar melody that would play. She'd had her eye on the velvet-lined box from the first time she saw it years ago. “You kept this? I thought for sure you would have sold it.”

“I did,” Hope confessed with a laugh, “once you'd left for Chicago. And then a few weeks ago, not long after I heard from your mother that you were coming home, I found this jewelry box, the same one from all those years ago, at a consignment shop. And I knew you were meant to have it. Just like I knew from the moment you started working here, you were meant to take over running this shop.”

“I—what?” Thank goodness the jewelry box was resting on her lap or it might have slid from her nerveless fingers and fallen to the floor. “Run the store? When I started working here, I was still in high school. I only worked a few days a week!”

Even as she made the protest, she heard her father's voice.
We worried that you wouldn't find the one, special thing that
made you happiest. And then you started working at The Hope Chest.

“I noticed you still wear the ring you bought here. You went back and forth over whether you should buy it or not.”

Sophia glanced down at the filigree band. “You said if it fit, I had to have it.”

Reaching over, Hope gave Sophia's hand a squeeze. “It fits.”

“I—I can't believe you want me to do this. After everything that happened—”

Hope shook her vehemently enough to almost dislodge the reading glasses from a top her head. “In the past. No reason to even mention it.”

But Sophia couldn't let it go. Not when Hope was offering her so much and she'd— “I never even said how sorry I was.”

“Of course you did! That night, you stayed with me when you could have run off with Amy and her friends. I wouldn't have known you had any part in what happened, but you waited with me until the ambulance came. Over and over, you told me how sorry you were. I forgave you years ago, Sophia. I only wish you'd forgive yourself.”

“I
had
to stay with you. It was all my fault in the first place, and saying sorry isn't nearly enough. You've already given me a second chance by letting me fill in these past few days—”

“No, no. That's not why I asked at all.”

Seeing the distraught look on the woman's face, Sophia insisted, “I was more than willing. Anything to make up for what I did.”

“Stop, please, Sophia. Just…stop.” Hope closed her eyes for a brief moment and exhaled a sigh that seemed to sap her energy. “It wasn't your fault, and it wasn't Amy's fault
either. Not really. Not when…” Opening her eyes, she said, “It was our fault.”

“Whose?”

“Mine…and Carl Leary's.”

“I don't understand. What does Amy's father have to do with any of this?” Carl Leary had always been on the fringes of Amy's life, it had seemed to Sophia, spending most of his time at the office and then ensconcing himself in his study when he was home.

“He's like a ghost,”
Amy had joked once.
“You might hear the creak of a door or the rattle of a chain, but you never actually see anything.”

“Five years ago, Carl Leary and I had an affair.”