Love Blooms on Main Street (19 page)

Still, she'd have to try. It was part of staying healthy.

She'd just have to count sheep and pray that Brett's image would stay out of her mind for a few hours at least.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you're working too many hours?”

“And you're not?” she shot back, bristling.

“Hey, I'm not the one with—”

She flashed him a look and he stopped talking. She blinked at the road. She didn't want this. Didn't need this. They'd been having such a nice time; she hadn't even remembered that he knew about her condition. So much for living in bliss.

“My brother tells me I'm working too many hours. He worries about me too much, though.”

“That's what family is for,” Brett said.

“I suppose.” Ivy sighed. Her mother hadn't worried about anything other than what time the pub opened and closed and whether or not there was enough wine in the house to get her through the night. “But if we're going to be friends, you can't treat me like a patient. Even if you are a doctor.”

Brett seemed to consider this. “Fair enough. But can you do me one favor?”

Dread pooled in her gut. She knew the sound of this. It was the same way Jane worriedly asked if she needed a snack or if she needed to sit down because she looked pale.

“Can you check your levels at the next light?”

She had half a mind to stop the car right there and tell him to find his own way back to Briar Creek. And good luck with that, because cabs weren't common in these parts. But then she thought of what Jane had said about Henry. How much it meant to her that he cared enough to make her business his own business, and she felt a little part of her stubbornness begin to chip away.

For a moment, she even dared to wonder if he cared as more than a friend. Until she remembered that he was a doctor, a doctor who had helped her in a time of need, and that he was probably just covering his bases.

“Fine,” she ground out, but only because she knew she should check the monitor. It was late, her routine was always off on market nights, and she always checked before she went to sleep anyway. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he'd asked. In fact, she'd have loved nothing more than to have had the satisfaction of informing him that she'd already checked and everything was fine.

At the next four-way intersection, with no cars around for seemingly miles in any direction, she flicked on the interior light and pulled her monitor from her bag. It read eighty—not great but not a problem, either. Yet.

“I'll eat a snack,” she sighed, reaching into her bag for some crackers. She wasn't even hungry.

They fell into silence for most of the ride, and soon they were turning onto Main Street.

Brett met Ivy at the back of the car. She hated the tug in her chest, the disappointment that this evening had come to an end. It was dark in the alley, and quiet, making her more aware than ever that they were completely alone.

She glanced up at him, surprised to see him looking down at her. The light from the moon shone down, casting shadows over his face and drawing attention to the strong line of his jaw. Her heart began to beat a little faster as their gazes locked, and her breath caught as his eyes roamed her face. A chill ran down her arms as crickets chirped somewhere in the distance, the only sound she could hear above the pounding of her heart.

She stepped back, laughing under her breath to release the tension. “Thanks again for coming along. This is the first time I've had an escort.”

His mouth curved, but his gaze remained steady and intense. Her breath felt shallow.

“I find it hard to believe a beautiful girl struggles that much with men.” He cocked an eyebrow, his mouth turning mischievous.

Ivy set a hand on her stomach, trying to calm the flutter. “Perhaps my standards are just too high.”

“Keep 'em that way,” Brett said firmly, and Ivy narrowed her gaze, wondering where he fit into that.

She glanced at the back of the station wagon, unable to make out any of the flowers through the window in the moonlight. It was time to steer this conversation back to more neutral ground. “Well, I'm glad I have your seal of approval on the arrangements for the fundraiser.”

“I would have been fine with whatever you'd chosen, actually,” he replied, his voice low and smooth.

“I figured as much.” She grinned.

“About that, though.” He chewed on his lip, studied her as he rolled back on his heels, letting his eyes drift all the way down to her toes and then back up to her eyes.

Damn it if her heart didn't skip a beat. “Yes?”

“Would you mind extending your services to decorating the place? I don't know a thing about that, and I wouldn't know who else to call.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely…” She gave him a rueful look.

He set a hand on her bare shoulder. It felt warm and sturdy and entirely too comfortable. “I didn't mean it like that. You're talented, Ivy. The way you transformed the town square for the festival was really amazing, and I'm not just saying that. I don't know anything about making things pretty, and I don't want this event to be ruined on account of that.”

She held back a smile just long enough to make him sweat a bit, long enough to see if he'd drop his arm. But he didn't. Instead, he kept it there, cupping her shoulder, his thumb grazing the curve, tracing the edge of her collarbone. “Of course I'll help. Why don't I check out the venue next week? That way I'll have plenty of time to brainstorm some ideas for you.”

“I'll go with you,” he said instead, dropping his arm and shoving his hands in his pockets. “Next Sunday. Neither of us work, right?”

Her mouth went dry, and she nodded dumbly. “Sunday. That should work.”

His smile broadened into something way too sexy for this time of night. Quickly, she pulled open the trunk door and filled her arms with irises. “Well, good night then.”

He frowned at her and reached into the car for a bucket. “You didn't think I was going to leave you here to do this on your own, did you? It's the middle of the night.”

Like that wasn't painfully obvious. Everyone in town had been asleep for hours… everyone but her and Brett. “Well, I…”

“I'm not that kind of guy.” He grabbed another bucket—twice what she could have carried in one trip—and began heading to the back door to the store, his muscles straining against his tight T-shirt, conjuring up all sorts of images she shouldn't be thinking about, until he dipped into the shadow, out of sight.

Just what kind of guy are you?
But she didn't know if she was ready for the answer. Because everything in her head was telling her he was a smooth talker, a charmer with good looks who knew how to get what he wanted with a simple flash of those perfect white teeth. But everything in her heart said otherwise.

And she wasn't sure which one to listen to anymore.

T
he oven timer dinged just as Kara was finishing dusting her coffee table and bookshelves. She tossed the rag over her shoulder and ran into the kitchen to turn off the heat before sliding on an oven mitt.

A sweet aroma filled the air as she gingerly placed each cookie on the cooling rack. She checked the clock on the oven—just a few minutes to spare before her guest arrived, and knowing her mother, she was never late.

She set the rag in the laundry basket in the hall closet and went into the bathroom to clean herself up a bit, resenting every brush stroke of her hair. Finally, deciding the heat of the apartment outweighed any potential criticism, she pulled it back into a ponytail. Her eyes were bright, her makeup light, and she was just deciding whether or not to give in and put on some lipstick or take a stand and refuse when the knock at the door came.

She knew it was wrong to feel angry at a knock. After all, she had invited her mother over, hadn't she? Because she was guilted into it.

A dozen potential arguments and hypothetical comebacks raced through her mind as she flicked off the bathroom light and made her way to the front door. Her mother was smiling, her hair pulled back in a headband, her earrings jingling as she pulled Kara in for a hug.

“This is so nice. We don't do this often enough!” She smiled again. Warmly. And Kara felt like the biggest jerk on earth.

This was her mother! Her mother! Sure, she had her quirks, but there was no reason to be avoiding her like this. It was all in her head. She had built it all up to be so much more than it was.

“Come on in,” Kara said, deciding then and there that this was nice and that she'd make a regular habit of it from now on. Once a week. At least.

“When did you get home from work?” her mother inquired as she slipped off her shoes.

“Oh, about an hour and a half ago,” Kara said. She'd had just enough time to race home to bake the cookies and make sure her apartment would pass inspection. Because there was always an inspection.

She pushed that thought back and focused on how happy her mother looked in that moment and vowed to be a better daughter going forward.

“Did you go to work dressed like that?” Her mother's expression betrayed nothing as she tipped her head and waited for the response.

Kara felt her back teeth graze together. She looked down at her outfit. Navy tank top, pink cotton A-line skirt. “Yes.”

“Hmm.” Rosemary pinched her lips together.

Don't lose your temper, Kara. Don't even feed into it. Just pretend she didn't say anything and move on.

“Well, I guess you're not at the front of house anymore, so it doesn't matter.”

Before Kara could close her mouth, which seemed to be permanently slack around Rosemary, her mother just patted her arm and smiled eagerly. “I'm just so excited for you about this promotion! I told all the gals in book club. They were certainly impressed.”

“Oh…” Kara managed a shaky laugh. “Well, why don't we sit in the living room? You go make yourself comfortable and I'll bring in some tea.”

From her pocket, Rosemary pulled out a plastic bag. “I brought my own.”

Of course she did, Kara thought. Because apparently her own tea wasn't good enough.

With a smile she didn't feel, she reached out and took the tea bag and then slipped into the kitchen, cursing silently.

Now, stop it, Kara. She is your mother. And she's well intentioned. Just make the most of it, and in an hour, she'll be on her way, and you can pour yourself a nice tall glass of wine.

With that promise made, Kara boiled the water for the tea while she plated the cookies and set everything on a tray, the way she'd seen Ivy do the times she went over to her friend's place. Her stomach fluttered with nerves when she anticipated her mother's reaction to her part in the hospital fundraiser, and she almost spilled the water in her excitement to share the news. It wasn't often that something big happened in her world, and certainly something like this would get her mother's mind off finding Kara a husband. After all, Rosemary was a businesswoman herself, and a successful one, too. She'd made a solid living for herself when Kara's father had died. Maybe she'd have a few pointers to give Kara, one entrepreneur to another. Kara was eager to hear them.

“Here we—” She stopped in the entrance to the living room, the tray rattling in her hands as she watched her mother swipe a finger over the mantel, glance at it, and grimace.

She had forgotten the mantel.

One. Two. Three. Deep breaths. Maybe she'd have two glasses of wine. Yes, definitely.

“Here we go!” She cheerfully set the tray on the coffee table and settled onto the sofa next to her mother.

“Oh. This couch. I forgot how you just… sink into it.”

Kara smiled through gritted teeth as she reached for her mug. She'd brought out the best she had. The matching pair. Not the funny ones she liked to collect with various catchphrases or slogans or souvenirs of places she'd visited. But there was no credit for that.

“I like the way you sink into it. It's comfy.” She kept her tone deliberately light.

“Hmm.” Rosemary widened her bright blue eyes. “Well, let's just hope I can get out of it.”

Silence fell for a moment, and Kara eyed the plate of cookies. The mood was dead, but maybe this would turn things around.

“Would you like a cookie?”

Rosemary waved a hand through the air. “You know I don't eat sweets.”

Of course. A dancer's figure… Kara tried again. “I made them, actually.”

“Oh?” Rosemary looked at them with new interest and slid one onto her plate. “Well, in that case.”

Kara's heart began to pound as she eyed the cookie, wondering what her mother would say and questioning her sanity for subjecting herself to potentially crushing criticism. She already knew that Grace and Ivy and Brett liked them. And Jane had mentioned something, too. And then there were the customers at the bookstore who had apparently complimented them. What more did she need?

It should be enough, but somehow it wasn't. All her life it seemed that her mother looked at her like some kind of failure, and maybe she was. After all, she didn't have a successful career like Grace or Luke. She didn't own her own restaurant like Anna. She wasn't engaged. She'd never been married. Even Jane had found love twice, and Kara was yet to find it once.

She had so little to show for herself, it seemed. But the cookies… this might just be her chance.

“Jane taught today,” Rosemary commented after she took a long sip of her tea.

Kara eyed the cookie. “Oh?”

“She's planning her wedding. It sounds so pretty. So much pink. My favorite, you know. I kept thinking, wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to plan a wedding?” Her gaze was steady and unnaturally long. “I know that Luke and Grace did just get married, but it was Luke's second wedding, and as with the first, it's really the bride's day. A special experience for the bride and her mother to plan together.”

For the love of God. Kara thought they were past this speech. She'd heard it all through Luke's engagement, when Grace was so indecisive about colors and flowers. It had taken everything in Rosemary not to just step in and take over. But she hadn't. And instead she'd put it on Kara. How when it was Kara's turn… Molly, being the youngest, didn't have to bear that burden. And Luke, being a guy, was given a free pass. So it all fell to Kara.

“I'm very happy for Jane,” Kara said diplomatically. “After everything she's been through the past few years, she deserves a happy ending.”

Her mother looked successfully disarmed. “Yes. Of course. Henry is such a catch. She just snatched him right up!”

If her mother was implying that Henry might have had any interest in her, Kara knew better. The man had loved Jane since he first met her. “Well, it will be a beautiful wedding. I'm looking forward to it.”

“Did you RSVP yet?”

“Yep.”

“Oh.” Kara could see it. The wheels turning. The pregnant pause. Here it came… “With a guest?”

“Nope. Just me.”

The disappointment that crossed Rosemary's face was palpable.

Kara picked up her mug of tea. So maybe getting together with her mother once a week was pushing it. Maybe once a month would be more manageable.

She picked up a cookie and bit into it, hoping it would trigger her mother to do the same. Instead, Rosemary just said, “Is that skirt new? What size is it?”

Kara set the cookie down and turned to her mother, determined to take control of the conversation, and—though she'd promised herself this before—her life. “So, how are things going for the summer ballet gala?”

“Wonderful!” Rosemary crooned. She launched into a variety of stories from the studio, dancers who had potential, dancers who did not but thought they did, mothers who thought their daughters had more potential than they ever would, some costume ordering drama, and the fact that she was toying with getting a new piano.

“Forest Ridge Hospital's annual benefit is in a few weeks. The proceeds are going to the oncology department this year, and so the studio is donating some lessons for the private auction.”

Kara took a breath. This was her chance. Finally her moment to show her mother that she, too, was involved in the event. That she was doing something… exciting. Something people respected and were proud of her for.

She licked her lips, considering how she'd phrase it.

“Brett mentioned it,” she began.

“Oh Brett.” Rosemary tutted. “There's another one in our family who needs to settle down.”

Ignoring the implication that she and Brett were somehow lumped together in the family disappointment pile, Kara said, “Well, Brett's a doctor. He's focusing on his career right now. I don't see anything wrong with that.”

Rosemary huffed out a sigh. “That's just what's wrong with your generation. You all think you have all the time in the world.”

“I'm only twenty-eight.”

“I had three children by the time I was twenty-eight,” Rosemary replied.

Kara could feel the heat rising up her neck and spreading over her cheeks. She clenched her teeth and willed her heart to stop racing so fast it felt like it could burst. She had heard all this, many, many times before. Why did it still upset her so much?

She turned to the subject of the book club and asked what they were reading, hoping that it wouldn't be a love story of some kind that would launch another wave of comments about all the ways Kara was letting her mother down. Fortunately, it was an autobiography of a former First Lady.

Careful to keep the topic safe, they chatted pleasantly for the next hour until Rosemary announced she had to go. Kara eyed the uneaten cookie, feeling her spirit sink a little. She knew that if she just told her mother how much it meant, came flat out and asked her mother to please take a bite and tell her what she thought, that of course her mother would. But somehow, having to do that depressed her, and so she stayed quiet.

“Thank you so much for a lovely evening,” Rosemary said after she slipped her shoes back on.

Kara saw the warmth in her eyes and realized just how much it must have meant to her mom to have come over tonight. Maybe she'd been overly sensitive. Her mother loved her. She could see it in her eyes.

She reached in to give her mother another hug, feeling that familiar surge of guilt as she always did when the negative thoughts started mixing their way in, but the smile fell from her face when Rosemary tugged her ponytail.

“You have such pretty hair, Kara. When you let it down.”

Kara closed the door behind her mother and closed her eyes. She counted to ten before she marched into the kitchen, plucked a bottle of wine from the fridge, and pulled the cork from the top.

She could practically hear Rosemary's tsk of disapproval when she took her first sip.

Brett watched his mother as she moved around the kitchen, stopping to lift the lid on a pot or lower the heat on the burner for another.

“What can I do to help?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she insisted yet again as she reached for one of the colanders she stored over the fridge.

Nothing. Was there anything more he hated than sitting idle?

Pushing his chair back, he stood and crossed the kitchen to retrieve the colander his mother had been straining to grasp.

“Thanks,” she said ruefully. “Now go sit and relax. You've been on your feet all day at the hospital.”

“I'm used to it,” he replied, staying put. “Besides, how many hours did you put in at the diner today?”

“Maybe five or six. I didn't count.” She brushed past him to the sink and began rinsing vegetables.

Five or six was more like eight or nine. She was gone when he'd left for work, and she didn't return until after his shift. He didn't like it. But try telling her that.

“You should be taking it easy.”

Sharon groaned but kept her back to him. “I told you not to worry about me. I'm fine. You saw the test results.”

True, all true, but it didn't mean he could stop worrying. She'd relapsed within five years of remission. They were coming up on another five-year mark. As a doctor, he knew the significance of this. As a survivor, she did, too.

“Besides, sitting around, watching television, reading, knitting, whatever you're suggesting… That won't change anything. If it's going to come back, it's going to come back, and I'm not going to put my life on hold waiting to see if that happens.”

He squared his jaw. “I can't argue with that.” Much as he wished he could. He didn't like thinking of cells doing what they would, of having no control over what would happen and what wouldn't.

He itched to be in the hospital suddenly. To keep busy. To put his skills to use. To take measures into his own hands.