Second Chance With the Rebel: Her Royal Wedding Wish (5 page)

“Lucy’s having a party to honor my mother. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

Considering that it had given him grave satisfaction to snub Lucy by giving the event a miss, this news came as a shock to him.

“Oh. That. I wasn’t expecting
you
would come for
that
. There’s been a teensy problem with location. Anyway, it’s not as if she’s your
real
mother.”

Unaware how insensitive that remark was, Claudia forged ahead, her red lips stretched over teeth he found very large.

“I’m afraid the committee has voted to revoke our rental to Lucy. And we don’t meet again until next month, and that’s too late. But you know, the elementary-school gym is probably available. I’d be happy to check for you.”

“No thanks.”

“Don’t be mad at
me.
It’s really Lucy’s fault. Norman Avalon is president of the yacht club this year. Do you remember him?”

An unpleasant memory of a boy throwing a partially filled Slurpee cup on him while he was shoveling three tons of mud out of a ditch came to mind.

“They live right over there. If Lucy paints the place purple, his wife, Ellen—you remember Ellen, she used to be a Polson—will have to look at it all day. She’s ticked. Royally. And that was before the rezoning application. Macintyre, it is just sooo nice seeing you.”

He didn’t respond, tried not to look at Lucy, who had her eyes crossed and her tongue hanging out, her hands still around her own throat.

“Congrats on your company’s success. I know Billy would love to see you if you have time. We generally have pre-dinner cocktails at the club on Friday.”

Behind Claudia, Lucy dropped silently to her knees, and was swaying back and forth, holding her throat.

“The club?” As if there was only one in town, which there was.

“You know, the yacht club.”

“Oh, the one Lucy isn’t renting anymore. To honor
my
mother.”

“Oh.” With effort, since her expression lines had been removed with Botox, Claudia formed her face into contrite lines and lowered her voice sympathetically. “If you wanted to drop by on Friday and talk to Billy about it, he might be able to use his influence for
you.
”

Lucy keeled over behind her, her mouth moving in soundless gasping, like a beached fish.

“Billy who?”

“Billy. Billy Johnson. Do you remember him?”

“Uh-huh,” he said, noncommittal. He seemed to remember smashing his fist into the face of the lovely Billy after he had made a guess about his heritage.

Claudia held up a hand with an enormous set of rings on it. “That’s me now, Mrs. Johnson. Don’t forget—cocktails. We dress, by the way.”

“As opposed to what?”

“Oh, Mac, you card, you. Toodle-loo, folks.”

She turned and saw Lucy lying on the ground, feigning death.

She stepped delicately over her inert body, and hissed, “Oh, for God’s sake, Lucy, grow up. This man’s the head of a multimillion-dollar company.”

And she was gone, leaving a cloying cloud of perfume in her wake.

For a moment Lucy actually looked as if she’d allowed Claudia’s closing barb to land. Her eyes looked shiny again. But then, to his great relief, she giggled.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Lucy,” he said sternly, “grow up.”

She giggled more loudly. He felt his defenses falling like a fortress made out of children’s building blocks. He gave in to the temptation to play a little.

“Hey, I’m the head of a multimillion-dollar company. A little respect.”

And then she started to laugh, and he gave in to the temptation a little more, and he did, too. It felt amazingly good to laugh with Lucy.

“You are good,” he sputtered at her. “I got it loud and clear. Charades. Three words.
She’s killing me.
”

He went over, took her hand and pulled her to her feet. She collapsed against him, laughing, and for the second time that day he felt the sweetness of her curves in his arms.

“Mac,” she cooed, between gasps of laughter. “I’ve always
adored
you.”

“The last time you looked at me like that, I got pushed in the lake.”

She howled.

“What was that whole horrid episode with Claudia about?” he finally said, putting her away from him, wiping his eyes.

The humor died in her eyes. “Apparently if you even think of painting your house purple, you’re off the approved list for renting the yacht club.”

He had a sense that wasn’t the whole story between the two women, but he played along.

“Boo-hoo,” he said, and they were both laughing again.

“I haven’t laughed like that for a long time.”

She hadn’t? Why?
Suddenly, protecting himself did not seem quite as important as it had twenty minutes ago when he had come across her lawn to give her her money back.

“It’s really no laughing matter,” Lucy said, sobering abruptly. “Now I’ve gone and ticked her off—”

“Royally,” he inserted, but she didn’t laugh again.

“And I’ve got a caterer coming from Glen Oak, but they have to have a kitchen that’s been food-safe certified. The school won’t do.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll fix it.”

“We?” she said, raising an eyebrow at him, but if he wasn’t mistaken she was trying valiantly not to look relieved.

“I told Claudia I came back for the party.”

“But you didn’t.”

“When I saw Mama’s place falling down, I realized I might be here a little longer than I first anticipated.”

“Her place
is
in pretty bad repair,” Lucy said. “I was shocked by it when I first came home. I’ve done my best.”

“Thanks for that. I appreciate it. But don’t quit your day job.”

“She would love it if you were here for a while. Being at the gala would be a bonus. For her, I mean.”

Mama
would
love it. But staying longer than he’d anticipated was suddenly for something more than getting Mama’s house back in order. When he’d seen that barracuda taking a run at Lucy, he’d felt protective.

He didn’t want to feel protective of Lucy. He wanted to hand her her money and go. He wanted to savor the fact she was on the outs with her snobbish friends.

But he was astonished to find that not only was he not gloating over Lucy’s fall from grace, he felt as if he couldn’t be one more bad thing in her day. Mama Freda would be proud: despite his natural inclination to be a cad, he seemed to be leaning toward being a better man.

Lucy seemed to realize she was in her housecoat and inappropriately close to him. She backed off, and looked suddenly uncomfortable.

“Claudia is right. I’m embarrassed. What made me behave like that? You, I suppose. You’ve always brought out the worst in me.”

“Look, let’s get some things straight. Claudia is
never
right, and I
never
brought out the worst in you.”

“You didn’t? Lying to my parents? Sneaking out? You talked me into smoking a cigar once. I drank my first beer with you. I—” Her face clouded, and for a moment he thought she was going to mention the most forbidden thing of all, but she said, “I became the kind of girl no one wanted sitting in the front pew of the church.”

“That would say a whole lot more about the church than the kind of girl you were. I remember you laughing. Coming alive like Sleeping Beauty kissed by a prince. Not that I’m claiming to be any kind of prince—”

“That’s good.”

“I remember you being like a prisoner who had been set free, like someone who had been bound up by all these rules and regulations learning to live by your own guidelines. And learning to be spontaneous. I think it was the very best of you.”

“There’s a scary thought,” she said, running a hand through her short, rumpled hair, not looking at him.

“I think the seeds of the woman who would paint her house purple were planted right then.”

“You like the color?” she asked hopefully. “You saw my sample when you came in, didn’t you?”

He hated it that she asked, as if she needed someone’s approval to do what she wanted. “It only matters if you like the color.”

“I wish that were true,” she said ruefully.

“I remember when you used to be friends with Mrs. Billy-Goat Johnson,” he said.

“I know. But I think the statute of limitations has run out on that one, so I won’t accept responsibility for it anymore.” She tried to sound careless, but didn’t quite pull it off.

Suddenly it didn’t seem funny. Lucy had changed. Deeply. And that change had not been accepted by the people around her. He suspected it went a whole lot deeper than her painting her house purple.

Well, so what? People did change. He had changed, too. Though probably not as deeply. He tended to think he was much the same as he had always been, a self-centered adrenaline junkie, driven by some deep need to prove himself that no amount of success ever quite took away. In other words, when Lucy had called him a jerk she hadn’t been too far off the mark.

The only difference was that now he was a jerk with money.

She had helped Mama when he had not, and for that, if nothing else, he was indebted to her.

But now Lucy seemed somehow embattled, as if she desperately needed someone on her side.

Not me,
he told himself sternly. He wasn’t staying here. He owed Lucy nothing. He was getting a few of the more urgent things Mama needed done cleared up. Okay, it wouldn’t hurt to stay a few more days for Lucy’s party. That would make Mama happy. It wasn’t about protecting Lucy from that barracuda. Or maybe it was. A little bit. But tangling his life with hers?

It occurred to him that he may have lied to himself about his reasons for never coming back to Lindstrom Beach. He had told himself it was because it was the town that had scorned him. The traditional place full of Brady Bunch families, where he’d been the kid with no real family and a dark, secret history.

He’d played on that and developed a protective persona: adrenaline junkie, renegade, James Dean of the high-school set. It had brought a surprising fan base from some of the kids, though not their parents.

Not the snooty doctor’s daughter, either. Not at first.

But now, standing here looking at Lucy, it occurred to him none of that was the reason he had avoided returning to this place.

Had he always known, at some level, that coming home again would require him to be a better man?

But would that mean looking out for the girl who had rejected him?

“May I use your phone?” he asked. “My cell got wrecked in the lake.”

Her expression asked if he had to, she suddenly seemed eager to divest herself of him. But she looked around and handed him a cordless. Now that he had decided to be a better man, he was going to follow through before he changed his mind.

He could look at it as putting Claudia in her place as much as helping Lucy.

“Casey?” he said to his assistant. “Yeah, away for a few days...My hometown...You didn’t know I had a hometown?...Hatched under a rock? Thanks, buddy.” He waggled his eyebrows at Lucy, but she was pretending not to listen.

“Look, I need twenty thousand dollars of clothing products, sizes kid to teen, delivered to the food bank, boy’s and girl’s club and social services office of Lindstrom Beach, British Columbia. Make sure some of it gets to every agency that helps kids within a fifty-mile radius of that town...Yeah, giveaways.

“Of course you’ve never heard of Lindstrom Beach. When that’s done—if you can have the whole area blanketed by tomorrow—take out a couple of ads on the local TV and radio stations thanking the Lindstrom Beach Yacht Club for donating their facilities for the Mother’s Day Gala.

“Thanks, buddy. Don’t know when I’ll be back and don’t bother with the cell. I made the mistake of not bringing the Wild Side waterproof case. Oh, throw some of those in with the other donations. I’ll pick up another cell phone in the next few days.”

Lucy was no longer pretending not to listen. She was staring at him as he found the button and turned off her phone. He handed it back to her. If he was not mistaken, she was struggling not to look impressed.

“Just admit it,” he said. “That was great. Two birds with one stone.”

“Everybody does not call you Mr. Hudson,” she said, pleased. “Two birds?”

“Yeah. Claudia’s stuck-up kids just became a whole lot less exclusive, and unless I miss my guess, you are
in
at the yacht club.”

“You hate the yacht club,” she reminded him.

“I’ve always had a strange hankering for anything anybody tells me I can’t have.”

Her arms folded more tightly over her chest and her eyes looked shiny again.

“I didn’t mean you,” he said softly.

“Let’s not kid ourselves. That was part of the attraction. Romeo and Juliet. Bad boy and good girl.”

“I don’t think that was part of the attraction for me,” he said, slowly. “It was more what I said before. It was watching you come into yourself, caterpillar to butterfly.”

“Actually,” she said, and she shoved her little nose in the air, reminding him of who she had been before he’d taught her you didn’t go to hell for saying
damn
, “I don’t want to have this discussion. In fact, if you don’t mind, I need to get dressed.”

“I have to give this to you first. Special delivery,” he said, holding out the money to her. “What was that about rezoning?”

She ignored the envelope. “I think it had to do with the canoes. I think you’re supposed to rezone to run a business.”

But she suddenly wasn’t looking at him. He was startled. Because, scanning her face, he was sure she was being deliberately evasive. What did renting canoes have to do with finally getting rid of the young thugs next door? Though it was Claudia they were dealing with. That was a leap in logic she could probably be trusted to make.

“I can put a lawyer on it if you want.”

“I don’t need you to fix things. I already told you I’m not in the market for a hero.”

“Take your money.”

“No. Are you in my house without an invitation?” she asked, annoyed.

“Boy, I saved you from drowning
and
from Claudia, and your gratitude, in both instances, seems to be almost criminally short-lived.”