The Sweetheart Bargain (A Sweetheart Sisters Novel) (33 page)

What would Mom want? That was the question Diana came back to again and again. She knew the answer.

She just didn’t like it.

“Let’s get their shots,” Diana said, concentrating on the dogs, on doing her job. That was one thing she and Mom had in common. They both found solace in working with animals. Dogs didn’t judge or question, they just loved. She thought of Miss Sadie and Chance, and realized her sister shared the same affinity for furry creatures.

Diana lowered herself to the ground and laid her supplies nearby. Jackson remained standing. Diana bit back a sigh.

For months, Jackson had maintained this invisible wall between himself and his mother, keeping his distance emotionally, physically. Hugs and bedtime kisses had been replaced with a sullen quiet. She didn’t know if the aloofness stemmed from normal teenage divisors, or if he blamed Diana for his father’s absence, or a combination of the two.

“You want to help?” she asked. “After all, these guys are partly yours, since you’re the one who found them.”

“Yeah, I guess they are.” He shrugged.

“I don’t think I told you this, but you did a good job taking care of them. They all look healthy and strong.”

He shrugged, smiled a little. “Thanks.”

Diana waited, but Jackson didn’t move. She told herself not to feel disappointed, that there would come a day when Jackson would seek her out again, when they could build a bridge over all that stood between them. She fished in her bag for the rabies medication and some needles, while the puppies, unaware of what was coming, frolicked on the floor.

Jackson sat cross-legged on the kennel floor beside her, close enough to bump knees. Tears burned behind Diana’s eyes. She turned away and dug in her medical bag for supplies she already had in her hand. “Okay, first puppy.”

“This is Mary.” Jackson picked up the brown-and-gold floppy-eared female. “She’s the nicest of the three, but she keeps the boys in line, so if she gets her shots first, the other two should be more cooperative.”

Diana raised a brow. “Mary?”

Jackson shrugged and handed the dog to his mother. “As in Peter, Paul, and Mary? The puppies are two boys and a girl, and when I was thinking about names, I thought about that group. Because, well, they have that song we both like.”

Her eyes burned again, but Diana worked a smile to her face, and didn’t care that it wobbled. “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

“Yeah.”

“The answer, my friend
,
”
she began singing, low and slow, the words coming back like old friends. By the time Diana reached the close of the chorus, two voices were singing the sweet melody inside that kennel, one soprano, one a deep baritone. Diana grinned at her son and stopped singing because her throat had closed.

“I like that song.”

“Me too,” she said.

Jackson kept his gaze downcast, but she could see a smile toying with the edges of his mouth. “I thought, you know, ’cause we’re taking care of these puppies together, that, well . . . it’d be nice to pick names that kind of go with you and me both.”

“They’re perfect names, Jackson. Absolutely perfect.” Tears brimmed to the surface of Diana’s eyes and blurred her vision. She reached, corralled her son around the shoulder, and drew him to her for a fierce, tight hug. He didn’t squirm or pull away, and after a moment, his arm encircled her waist. He nestled his head in the crook of her shoulder, just as he had when he was a boy and she’d come into his room late at night, wipe away his tears, and reassure him that there were no monsters in the closet, no alligators under his bed. In the soft glow of a Curious George night– light, Diana would hug her son and make his world all right again.

A long time ago, he’d replaced that night-light with a neon lamp shaped like a guitar. He’d stopped calling out when he had nightmares and stopped asking about monsters in the closet. But in this hug on the cold, hard floor of a run-down animal shelter, the sweet connection between Diana and Jackson returned.

Some things, she realized, hadn’t changed at all.

“I love you, Jackson,” she whispered against his dark brown mop of hair.

“Love you too, Mom.” His voice caught on the last syllable. Then he cleared his throat, drew back, and gave his head a shake, more to erase any evidence of emotion, she suspected, than to straighten his hair.

“Let’s get these little boogers their shots. Okay?” Diana swiped away the tears with the back of her hand, then grabbed up Mary and gave her several shots in quick succession, while Jackson handed her dog treats and petted her head. They repeated the actions with Peter and Paul, working together in efficient, quiet moves. She admired the way her son handled the rambunctious pups, calming them and keeping them in line. He kept advising his mother on the best way to handle this one or that one. She smiled to herself because she could have been listening to herself in Jackson’s words.

“You did great, Jackson,” Diana said. “You know, if you ever want to come in and help at the practice—”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

She nodded and decided not to push. She’d asked Jackson a hundred times to come to work with her. When he was little, he’d loved the office, the animals, the staff. But then around eleven or twelve, he’d stopped wanting to go to work with her, opting for a video game or TV show instead. The wall was being built, even back then, she realized, and she had just been too wrapped up in her job and the demise of her relationship with Sean to notice.

“Sounds like a puppy party in here.”

Her pulse tripped and she turned at the sound of Mike’s deep baritone. “Here to adopt a puppy?”

Mike put up his hands. “No way. Heck, I don’t even have a permanent residence.”

A reminder that anything she started with this man would be over before it began. He was married to the U.S. Coast Guard, and when his leave ended, he’d be gone. Charming smile and dancing blue eyes and all. A little fissure of temptation slid through her bones all the same. “We’re just giving the pups their first shots,” she said. “Getting them ready to find homes.”

“I picked up some lumber and supplies.” Mike thumbed behind him. “I figured the least I can do for dashing Olivia’s hopes is to make myself useful around here and get this shelter fixed up and safe.”

“Dashing her hopes?”

“I told her that house is a lost cause, but from what I see and hear, she’s determined to keep trying. Luke was over there today, he said, helping her put in some cabinets,” he said.

Diana admired Olivia for holding on to the house. For not giving up. She had to give her sister—oh, that word still sounded so odd—some credit. Olivia had determination and grit when it came to what mattered to her. A lot like their mother.

“I’m glad she’s holding on to it,” Diana said, and for the first time since she’d realized that her mother had left the house to someone else, Diana meant those words. “It’ll be nice to see someone giving that house the love it deserves.”

“Some people are eternal optimists,” Mike said. “Even when the glass is empty.” He gave the metal post a tap, as if adding a punctuation mark to the sentence. “I’ll let you get back to work with the dogs. I’ve got some work to do, to make this place safe for the animals and the people. Hey, Jackson, want to help?”

Jackson looked at the puppies, then at his mother. Diana could tell her son liked Mike, and knew her dexterous son also liked doing anything that required power tools.

“Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll finish up with Peter, Paul, and Mary, then I’ll come give you guys a hand, too.”

Mike gave Diana a big grin. “You any good with a hammer?”

“As long as I have a big target.”

“This big enough?” He put out his arms, gave her a wink, then walked off with Jackson, chuckling. The two voices, one deep, one still finding its range, carried down the hall, light with laughter. Diana sat back and held one of the puppies to her chest, and the tension she’d been carrying for so long slowly uncoiled its grip.

Twenty

Olivia was still singing—badly and off-key, but she didn’t care—when she stepped out of the shower. The delicious warmth that had filled her after she and Luke had made love lingered long after she headed for the shower while he stayed in the kitchen to wait for the pizza guy.

She swiped a circle of steam off the mirror’s face. Her reflection showed a happy woman, a woman who had taken a risk that she’d vowed to avoid. It exhilarated and terrified her all at once, but the song in her heart overrode everything.

She’d fallen for Luke Winslow, and fallen hard.

She kept on singing while she dried her hair, applied her makeup, and pulled on a pair of skinny capris and a V-necked butter-yellow T-shirt. A swipe of cherry-colored gloss on her lips, and then she was done and heading down the stairs, toward the scent of pepperoni and cheese. “Sorry I took so long. I hope the pizza isn’t cold.”

She stopped. The pizzas sat on the kitchen table, unopened, beside a white bakery box that hadn’t been there earlier. Miss Sadie stood by the door, tail wagging. The new cabinets gleamed, blank oak faces waiting for hardware. Yet the silent room held an air of emptiness.

Olivia peeked in the other rooms, but Luke was gone. No note, no explanation.

“Did he go home to shower?” she asked Miss Sadie. The bichon yipped, wagged her tail, then sat down and put up her paws, already begging for pizza crust.

Olivia grabbed a pair of shoes, then headed next door, carrying the boxes of pizza and bakery goodies. She had no idea where those had come from but had one prime suspect. Greta. Another of her sweet but overt attempts to bring Olivia and Luke together. Either way, the cookies would make a perfect dessert for after the pizza and after more . . . well,
more
. When Olivia reached Luke’s porch, she paused a second to straighten her hair, then knocked.

All the way over here, the song she’d been singing in the shower had resonated in her mind, pinging off the happy bubble in her chest. She smiled when Luke opened the door. “Hey, where’d you go?”

“I’m sorry. I probably should have said something before I left. I . . . I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said. “I was wrong for misleading you into thinking we could have something.”

Just like that, the bubble burst and the song died. “
Mislead
me?”

He had gone back to the stone-faced man she had first met in the yard all those weeks ago. His blue eyes had gone icy, his jaw a block of granite. “I made you think there was a future with me. And there’s not.”

A half hour ago, they’d been on the floor, making love, sharing their bodies, their hearts. She had felt a connection between them, she was sure of it. Or had Luke just been a supremely good actor? “What the hell happened, Luke? A little while ago, everything was fine and now . . . I don’t know what to think.”

He let out a long breath and his gaze went to that far-off spot, the one she couldn’t see, the place she couldn’t reach. “If we’d met a year ago, six months ago, maybe things would be different. Back then, I was thinking about settling down after my commission ended. Maybe get a job at the airlines, or as a private pilot. But that’s out of the question now, and always will be. I’m done flying.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re done as a man.”

He turned to her and now the ice in his eyes had given way to an angry fire. “I was done the day of the accident. I
killed
a man that day. I’m not some hero or the kind of man a woman like you deserves. You need someone you can depend on, who’s there for you over the long haul. That’s not me. Not anymore.”

She started to speak, but he cut her off.

“You don’t know the man I am, Olivia, and if you did, you wouldn’t be standing on my porch.” He let out an angry gust. “I never should have let things get out of hand between us.”

“Get out of hand? You make it sound like making love with me was a mistake.”

“It was.”

The words stung like a slap. She stared at him for a long, cold second while the world went on and her heart stopped. “Yeah, I guess it was. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think you were different.” Then she dropped the boxes to the porch and turned away, before Luke saw her cry.