Mail-Order Millionaire (26 page)

“About a hundred hailstones. About this size.” He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger.

“Oh Max, I’m so sorry. I was out for a hike, that’s all. It was such a beautiful day.” She sat down next to him on the wooden bench that flanked the rustic wooden table. “I wanted to see those layers of rock you told me about.” Now that he was here next to her all the words she’d been going to say vanished from her mind. She’d lost her nerve.

“You mean you weren’t coming to see me?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

“Of course not.”

Her lips trembled and he wanted to kiss her, to tell her she was going to be his forever. “You were going to climb all the way up this mountain and never even stop by to say hello?”

“Well, maybe just hello. How did you know I was here?”

“Guess.”

She clenched her teeth. “I should have known. What did she say?”

“Only that you were out for a hike. I called her to ask where you were. I had something to tell you, something to ask you.”

Suddenly she found her courage. She met his gaze. “Me, too. I’ve got something to tell you, too. I... I’ve sold the farm and I’m going to quit my job. I’m free for the first time in my life to do whatever I want, to live wherever I want....”

He heard the wind rattle the windows of the tiny shack and felt her words knock the breath out of him. “Sold the farm? Why?”

“Because I couldn’t handle it alone. I was fooling myself thinking I could.”

He buried his head in his hands. Maybe he had a concussion after all.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s your farm. Was your farm. But if you really wanted to sell it, you could have offered it to me. ”

There was a long silence while the hail drummed on the roof.

“I didn’t want you to feel like you had to bail me out. Now what do you have to tell me?” she asked softly.

He raised his head and looked into her dark troubled gaze. “I quit my job. I’m going to be the weatherman for WKEZ.”

Her mouth fell open, her lips formed the shape of a round O but she was too stunned to speak for several moments. “What’s that?” she asked.

“That’s the radio station in Manchester. I can send in my reports from anywhere by phone. I’ll have my instruments and a fax machine and a computer with a modem. That’s how it’s done these days.”

“Where will you send them in from?”

He shrugged. He couldn’t tell her he’d thought he’d send them in from the farm, the farm that she’d just sold. Now there were two of them on the loose, free-floating bodies looking for a home.

“Can you get the farm back?” he asked. “Remember I’ve got a million dollars that’s burning a hole in my pocket. Can’t think of anything better my uncle would want me to spend it on.”

She bit her lip. “I’ll keep that in mind. Tell me, can you get your job back?”

“I don’t want it back. After you left it was never the same. I couldn’t stand the solitude. I know I told you I loved it, but I love you more. There, that’s what I had to tell you,” he said, his head heavy, his heart aching, afraid she didn’t feel the same.

“Max,” she said, alarmed. “You must have a concussion. From the hailstones. Your eyes are dilated, you’re delirious. You said you loved me.” She held his head between her hands, forcing him to look at her, hoping he’d say it again.

He shook his head and crushed her to him. “I’m not delirious,” he assured her. “I do love you. If we can’t have the farm we’ll buy a house somewhere. Anywhere as long as you’ll live with me. Marry me, be the mother of my children, all twelve of them,” he murmured into her ear.

Tears came to her eyes and flowed down her cheeks. She hoped he knew what he was saying, because it was what she wanted to hear. She gripped his shoulders fiercely and kissed him with all the passion she’d kept bottled up. His lips were warm now, as if he’d never been in a hailstorm.

With a surge of energy he lifted her onto his lap and kissed her slowly, starting with the sensitive spots behind her ears and moving to her eyelids and the tip of her nose.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he said, his lips against her cheek. “If you love me.”

“I love you,” she assured him. “What shouldn’t I do?”

“Go out in a hailstorm without a hard hat.”

She ran her fingers through his thick blond hair. “What about you?”

“I won’t, either,” he promised solemnly, and he kissed her again to seal the bargain.

When the hail stopped they trudged back up to the observatory. Miranda changed into dry clothes Max loaned her and she called Ariel.

“He found me,” Miranda reported when her sister answered the phone.

“And now what?” her sister demanded.

“Now we’re going to have a glass of sherry.”

“When are you coming home?”

“That’s the bad news. I don’t have a home. I sold the farm.”

“What? How could you?”

“I thought it was a good idea at the time. Even you thought it was a good idea. I just couldn’t make it on my own, but things have changed....” She smiled as Max came up behind her and circled her waist with his arm. “I’m not on my own anymore. Max and I...”

“I mean, how could you sell the farm without my signature? I own the rights to the stables, at least that’s what Grandpa always said.”

“He did?”

“He knew I had no place to keep the horses in town, and he wanted to be sure I’d always have a place to ride. But I don’t know if it’s legal, there was nothing about it in the will.”

“I’ll find out,” Miranda said. She was afraid to tell Max, for fear he’d get his hopes up, now that she knew he loved the farm as much as she did. But she knew she’d have to try to get the farm back, one way or another.

That night they watched the moon shining on the ice on the distant mountain summits and talked about the past and the future, avoiding any mention of where they’d live. Max felt guilty for letting her sell the farm, she felt guilty for not telling him before she signed the papers. In the morning she left early, after kissing him goodbye. The air was still and clear and she clung to him for just one more kiss, one more assurance that he loved her with or without her farm. And that she loved him with or without his million.

She didn’t tell him where she was going. She didn’t tell him she was scared she’d fail again, fail to recover the farm they both loved. When she arrived in town she went into the bank and opened her safety deposit box. At the polished table, in the quiet of the vault, she read over the deed to the farm, handwritten in her grandfather’s precise old-fashioned penmanship.

Tears filled her eyes as she went over the details, the rights of way, the boundaries and the riparian rights to the brook that ran through the property. Then she saw it, an addendum, something her grandfather, always scrupulously fair and kind, had added to insure that Ariel would not be left out. She’d found what she was looking for. Joy filled her heart as she locked the deed back into the metal box. She wouldn’t have to throw herself on Mr. Northwood’s mercy. She wouldn’t have to offer to buy back the farm at an inflated price.

She drove the few blocks to Green Mountain Merchants and went directly to Mr. Northwood’s office on the first floor. He was there, behind his desk, wearing his usual button-down flannel shirt and corduroy pants from the December catalog.

“Well, Miranda,” he said, looking up at her through his wire-rimmed glasses. “What can I do for you?”

“You can give me back my farm,” she blurted. “I’ll write you a check right now for the same amount you gave me last week.”

He gave her a thin-lipped smile. “So you found out about the road.”

“What road?”

“Oh, come now. I knew it would come out sooner or later. The road that runs along the east side of your farm. The reason they’ve never filled in the potholes is that there’s going to be a four-lane highway there. Isn’t that what you’ve come to tell me?”

Stunned, she rocked back on her heels. “No, it isn’t.” She swallowed hard. “I’ve come to tell you I had no right to sell it to you. It’s not completely mine. My sister has rights to the east side, where the stables are, to keep her horses there. That’s what it says in the deed.”

His face turned the color of the manila folder on his desk. “Are you sure about this? Do you mean you sold it to me under false pretenses?”

“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know about it until today. It would have come out in the title search. But it’s only fair to tell you about it now.” She took her checkbook from her purse and scribbled the amount he’d paid her for the farm and his name on a check and handed it to him.

“I suppose this means you’ll sell your maple syrup direct from a stand along the highway and bypass us altogether.”

“Yes,” Miranda said, her hopes soaring, “along with my Christmas trees and apples. But I’ll leave the clothing to you. And the complaint department. It’s all yours.”

She almost skipped down the hall toward her office to say goodbye to her friends and to clean out her desk. She told them they were all invited to the wedding and then she stopped by the retail store before Ariel heard the news secondhand and not from her.

Ariel was kneeling behind a display of scented soap and bath towels. When she looked up at her sister, her face puckered into an anxious frown.

“You know you were right about your horses,” Miranda said, unable to keep the tears of happiness from welling up in her eyes. “I’ve got the farm back thanks to you and Grandpa. And you’ve got a place to keep your horses forever.”

“What about Max? Was I right when I told you to go up there yesterday?”

“Yes,” Miranda admitted. “And to show our appreciation we’re going to name our first child after you.”

Ariel stood slowly, her eyes wide with surprise. Then, in a burst of joy, she let out a whoop that startled the customers and then she hugged her sister tightly.

Still in a daze of happiness, Miranda drove home along the pitted road soon to become four lanes. When she drove up her driveway lined with spring daffodils she saw Max sitting on the front steps waiting for her. She ran into his arms and he hugged her to him. “Is anything wrong?” she asked, her voice muffled against his sweater.

“That’s what I came to find out. I figured if things didn’t work out, you’d need consolation and if they did, you’d need someone to celebrate with.” He held her by the shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. “Which is it?”

Her smile said it all. Triumph, love and happiness. The details could wait till later.

“This may not be appropriate,” Max said, sweeping her up in his arms. “But I’m going to carry you over the threshold. Right now.”

She threw her arms around him and her dark eyes brimmed over with happiness. “And then what?”

“And then I’m going to kiss you until you’re senseless.”

“That won’t take much. I’m almost senseless now. Then what?”

“Then I’m going to make you a big breakfast.”

She nuzzled his chin. “A man after my own heart.”

“That’s me,” he said and he carried her through the door.

* * * *