Find Me (3 page)

“I don’t like it.” Dad, who usually kept quiet about her dating life, frowned. “Basing love on some sort of candy? That’s not how it works.”

From the day she heard the story, for some reason, she trusted it without question. “I believe.”

“It’s romantic,” Nate added and fluttered her lashes.

“I know. You have confidence in all that humble-jumble stuff. I don’t,” he said. “I am worried about you heading to Virginia with this wild notion in your head. You didn’t even want to attend the reunion. And now this.” He picked up the note. “What kind of guy is he anyway?” With each syllable, his voice rose. Dad never lost his cool. “I know this Coop guy was a friend, but this…”

“He invented a type of ice cream—” Lyse said, rubbing her hands together.

“Seems to me, an inventor of ice cream—”

“It’s to die for,” Natalie threw in.

“—would have some brains and not encourage such nonsense.” Dad didn’t miss a beat finishing his thought, but he did lower his voice.

“What’s bothering you?”

He stuck a hand on his hip and looked around her office. It couldn’t have entertained him, since a snail crossing the road held more amusement than her bare walls, with the exception of one picture.

His gaze went distant as if he’d gone to another planet, orbiting another moon. She turned her attention to the last family image hanging on the wall behind her desk. Maybe, in an alternative galaxy he relived the great times with his wife, her mother. “Dad?”

He focused on her. “I don’t like you making decisions based on fantasies. It’s not fact. It’s not how things are done.”

She crossed her arms. “This has to do with not leasing Mom’s business, doesn’t it?”

He tilted his head to the side. “It does. I don’t think it’s a smart business choice to not at least lease the space.”

Not attending college wasn’t a good decision. She kept quiet. No sense rehashing the past, but how could she make him understand she not only wanted to follow through with this, she needed to? She lived her life based on superstitions, living and respecting myths and legends. If he kept trying to pull the plug on her beliefs then they would forever have this discussion. “Tell you what. I’ll go to the reunion.”

“Yes!” Nate clapped her hands. “But fix your hair and wear one of your gorgeous dresses that flatter your body. Whatever you do, don’t wear a potato sack.”

She dropped her chin and took in her plain yellow dress. Practical, efficient, easy to move in if she chose to eat a lot at lunch.

“This is not a conversation for my ears.” He fixed his sights on her. “How does attending the reunion work into making a good decision?”

“If the FIND ME candy doesn’t work, then I’ll agree to sell or lease the store, as you want. If it does, then you have proof superstitions are real, and we’ll leave it as it is.”

He mulled this over a few moments as he chewed on his bottom lip. “Provided the candy is in the box. If it isn’t, what will you do?”

Being away for a few days at the reunion would give her more time to think, and hopefully come up with a resolution. Otherwise, she didn’t know how long she could stall him from insisting on leasing, or God forbid, selling the space. “I don’t know.”

“Open it,” Nate demanded.

“You need to take a chill pill,” she said as her stomach fluttered. She tugged on the ribbon and lifted the lid.

At least twenty candies filled the box. She removed the wrapper and dumped them on a napkin she pulled from her desk drawer. With Nate’s help, she rearranged them so they faced up.

“YES, LOVE ME, I’M YOURS,” she said on a groan. “I don’t see it.” She really thought the candy would be in her box. Every year she ordered the famous candy hearts from Rill’s Country Store and every year she was disappointed.

To her, believing in the myth was no different than the dream of winning the lottery. Neither were a sure thing, but they provided hope.

“Have you ever seen a FIND ME heart?” Nate’s pitch increased as it always did when she grew excited.

“Yes, the day I heard the story.”

“Me, too.” Nate opened her hand.

In her best friend’s palm was the long sought after heart. Tears sprung, and she covered her mouth. Finally, she got one!

“Crap!”

“No, not crap, Dad. You’ll see.” She grabbed the reunion invitation, snatched the candy from Nate’s hand, and kissed them both on the cheek. “I’m taking the vacation I never take. I’ll keep you updated. Love you,” she said without thinking over her actions, dashed out of the agency, and onto the sidewalk toward her car. A zillion things zipped in her mind. Pack: dress, shoes, makeup. Candies. Get hair done. Did she say pack a dress?

I need to make a list
. She raised an I-am-number-one finger and slid into her car parked along the curb.
Yeah, that’s it. Create a list, do it, then head to Heather Ridge
. When she got there, she’d…oh hell, she didn’t remember Rill’s instructions on what to do next.

Chapter Two

Myths that are believed tend to come true.

~Rill Babcock

“Good morning,” Coop said to Yaci Mahuiki, his assistant. “Did the boxes of candies go out on Monday?” Out of the office for a two-day meeting, he didn’t inquire if Yaci’s scheme had been set into motion.

“Yes, I mailed them myself.”

“Thank you,” he said, though he didn’t feel grateful. Quite the opposite, he felt nauseated. He went into his office, stashed his briefcase on an empty chair, and snatched the container of fish food from under the fifty-gallon fish tank.

This scheme, this ludicrous plan he agreed to tore at his gut. It was wrong. He knew it, but his drive to succeed pushed him forward, urged him to go beyond what was right and deceive the only person who had truly mattered. “Damn it.” He opened the food, sprinkled the flakes into the tank, and watched the angelfish devour it. A therapeutic task that usually helped him unwind. Not today.

If Lyse found out about his deception, how would she ever forgive him? He’d walked away from her at seventeen to pursue his need to succeed. And here he was jerking her around again.

He put the food away and dropped into his chair beside the round table in the middle of the room.

“You got a response!” Yaci came in his open door. “Lyse Haynes is coming. The plan worked!”

The plan
: knowing how Lyse wholeheartedly believed in the power of the Valentine’s Day myth, his assistant put a candy heart with FIND ME written in capital letters in the box mailed to her.

More than anything, he wanted her to come to the high school reunion. What he didn’t want was to follow through with the rest of the plan—to do whatever necessary to convince her to persuade her father to sell.

He groaned. The dishonesty disturbed him. He wasn’t a manipulator and didn’t want to lie to Lyse.

“Why the sad face?” Yaci asked matter-of-factly. “Aren’t you excited?”

Excited?
Far from it. Seeing Lyse would be like the cherry on top of his favorite dessert, down right desirable. But misleading her was a different story. If he only had the balls to call and ask her to help with obtaining the office space, he wouldn’t be in this situation. He held meetings with influential people and still couldn’t bring himself to pick up the phone to call her. He didn’t have the strength, didn’t have the courage. What would he say?
Hey, Lyse, this is the asshole that dumped you and didn’t stay in contact because I’m a selfish son of a bitch. Please forgive me and convince your father to sell his vacant property to me.

Nope. For him to pull this off, he had to see her, build back the friendship they once shared, and pray she wouldn’t hate him. Figuring out a way to deal with his idiocy for agreeing to such an underhanded scheme without her finding out would be tricky. He may be a whiz in the science arena, but he stunk at covering up manipulation. “Where is she staying?”

“At your sister’s.”

Shockwaves rocked his body, similar to one of his nitrogen explosions as a teen. Totally unexpected, it sent hot tingles across his body then he couldn’t move, couldn’t grasp the notion he would actually see her after all these years.

“Cooper, are you okay?”

He wiped a hand over his forehead. “Come again.”

“Are you going to be able to close the deal between Lyse Haynes and your company, Redfern, LLC?”

He had no idea. If his marketing department hadn’t insisted Nashville, Tennessee would shoot Heathercream to the top of the “must have ice cream list,” he wouldn’t be in the position of him questioning his motives. “Give me a minute, would ya?”

“Yes. Of course,” she said and stepped out of the office.

He leaned back in his chair, propped his feet on the table, crossing them at the ankles, and stared at the blue sky out the bank of windows.

He’d come such a long way that he still couldn’t believe it. All he had done, everything he became, stemmed from one fateful afternoon when he couldn’t take his best friend out to eat. Because of his eagerness to please Lyse, he accomplished more than he ever dreamed.

He drifted to the moment he realized he had to change the course of his life. Their senior year of high school, her face had lit up about going to dinner before the Valentine’s dance. He wanted to deck Wallace Vandevender for asking her and making him feel unworthy of Lyse’s attention. Anger had engulfed him. Coop equated the moment to an alcoholic hitting rock bottom. He set off on a course to improve his and his family’s lives, to create or do something that made people beam the way she had, and did the unthinkable and withdrew from Lyse’s life. It wasn’t something he wanted to do or had set out to do. It just happened.

With single-minded determination, he turned his family’s cellar into a laboratory and wrote science papers. The money he earned on the weekends at Rill’s Country Store paid for his supplies. His high grade point average mixed with the scientific research awarded him a full ride to college.

By the time he’d graduated, his business hit the local buzz and skyrocketed. He bought his parents a modest home, perfect for them, and sent his younger siblings to college.

“I’m gone for the day,” Yaci said, peeking into the room. “Your box is in the closet in the corner.”

Ah, yes, the finishing touch. Once Lyse hit the town limits, she’d search for the person who possessed the other FIND ME heart.
Him.
“Have a good evening.”

With the reunion a few days away, he had time to get his mind straight before seeing her. Figure out what to say without damaging his integrity more than he already had.

In his gut, he feared there would be no sprinkles or whip cream to soothe the effects of his betrayal.

He dropped his feet to the floor and went to the window.

A line of cars moved in a steady stream. Hands stuck out windows and fingers pointed at the unusual Valentine’s decorations adorned to light poles or the garlands running above the street. This had been a constant scene since the beginning of the month with the number of cars increasing each day. Soon, drivers’ speeds would reduce to the pace of a snail. He dreaded the congestion yet welcomed the revenue at the same time.

One car, silver, stood out. The person didn’t have the windows down, didn’t point at any of the sights. He pressed his nose against the window and squinted. “Holy, hell!” His chest boomed against his rib cage. Ready or not, it was time to deal.

****

Lyse drove by the Welcome to Heather Ridge, Home of the Valentine billboard. Tingles skirted across her skin. For the last hundred miles, the closer she came to Virginia, the more she worried about her spontaneous actions.

Taking off with no consideration to how her absence would affect Dad or the travel agency was out of character. She followed rules and didn’t back talk. Dad, Aunt Claire, and Uncle Lyndon had done so much she didn’t have it in her heart not to do what they asked. It helped they didn’t demand anything ridiculous, too. Telling Dad she would take vacation effective immediately without asking permission was huge, ginormous.

A flashing sign flickered halfway down Heart Avenue, once named Main Street, and drew her attention back to the town. It had to be Heather Ridge Bed and Breakfast—the place where Dad had the foresight to reserve her room.

The B&B was one of four places to stay in town. Ever since Rill’s Valentine FIND ME candy myth took flight, it was as if someone struck a match to gunpowder. Businesses flourished almost overnight. Restaurants went up, parks created, and road names changed to resemble the Valentine’s theme.

She pulled into the parking lot beside the white Queen Anne style house. Gorgeous didn’t come close to describing the landscaping and new balcony. Even the bearing wall, along the parking lot, had flowers cascading over it. She opened the door, climbed out, and smoothed down her knee-length—not a potato sack—dress, and clasped the edges of her sweater together to fight off the chilly breeze.

Every piece of clothing, Nate approved for chicness and flirt-factor. Even before she slipped on her strappy nude heels, her friend had examined them to ensure the heels upped her legs’ sex appeal.

“Hello!” A soft feminine voice with a hint of familiarity called out. “I’m so glad to see you.”

A woman, a few years younger, walked toward her in a wispy jade dress. Her orangish-red hair resembled the embers in a fire in a “oh wow” sort of way.

After an awkward moment, the woman smiled and stretched out her hand. “I’m Felicia Karma.”

She didn’t know if she should laugh or feel bad for the woman’s unusual name. “Hi. I’m Lyse Haynes.”

“I’m the manager at Heather Ridge Bed and Breakfast. When your husband called, he mentioned you’d be here through the weekend.”

“He’s not my husband.” She giggled. “Carl Haynes is my father.”

Felicia arched one of her golden eyebrows. “Listen, it’s none of my business. But know, what happens in Heather Ridge doesn’t stay.”

“Seriously, he’s my father. I’m here to seek out the Valentine’s myth and attend my class reunion.”

“That means…” Felicia touched her hand to her chest. “You found a FIND ME heart?”