Unexpected Bride (20 page)

"I am being honest with you. I want to avoid anything serious, Abby."

"This," she said, gesturing toward her wet hair and clothes, "isn't serious. We're just goofing around."

"Goofing around?" he repeated the phrase as if he'd never heard it before.

"I'm not even staying in Cloverville." But the truth was. she'd begun to consider opening more than an office. She'd thought about opening up her heart—to Clayton. Good thing his honesty had saved her from making another mistake.

"So you really don't want the empty office?" he asked. With a trace of disappointment?

"I still want the office. I think Cloverville would be an ideal location for my third branch of Temps to Go."

"But Cloverville wouldn't be an ideal location for Abby Hamilton?"

"It never was," she reminded him. "So don't worry. I'm not looking for a husband. Or even a boyfriend." She'd learned long ago that she couldn't trust anyone to love her. "I just want an office space."

"I never would have thought you and I would have something in common."

"An aversion to relationships." She'd acquired hers by way of necessity and self-preservation. How had Clayton, with the positive example of his parents' loving marriage, come by his?

"I have two plans," he told her. "One's for the business. I want to expand the agency and my investments even more, make sure there's enough money for Mom to live comfortably and to put Rory through college. Of course, he has to make it through high school first."

"He will," she assured his concerned big brother. She'd nag Rory until he did. "So is your other plan personal?" If so, that was the plan that interested her far more.

He nodded. "That plan's a lot shorter."

"No lofty goals?"

"Just one. To stay single." The insurance agent in him explained, "I'm not willing to take a risk like marriage or children."

Her breath hitched with the awareness of why he considered her high-maintenance. Because she was a single mother, Clayton had probably automatically assumed she was on the prowl for a daddy for her daughter.

"You sound determined," she observed.

"I am. I've taken on all the responsibility I can handle."

"Then I guess your mother will just have to accept the fact you're never going to give her grandchildren."

"Yes, she will." He glanced at his watch again. "I'm really late. I have to go."

Standing in a puddle of soapy water. Abby watched Clayton walk away. Mrs. Mick wasn't the only one who'd have to accept that Clayton was never going to settle down. He wanted no wife, no children, no more responsibilities.

Abby blinked against the water dripping from her hair into her eyes. The soap stung them and made them tear.

"How'd you get all wet?" Colleen asked her as Abby stormed into the McClintocks' sun-filled kitchen. "There's not a cloud in the sky."

"Oh, there is," Abby assured her. "There's been a dark cloud hanging over my head since the minute I came back to Cloverville."

A laugh sputtered out of Colleen as she rose from the stool she'd been sitting on. "How very Eeyore of you. You've been watching too many
Winnie the Pooh
videos with Lara."

"You know that black cloud." Abby insisted as she walked over to the refrigerator and opened the freezer compartment. She reached for a sugar-free Popsicle. "You call it Clayton."

Colleen laughed again. "Clayton, a black cloud? The description fits him pretty well." And she didn't know half of what had happened between Abby and Clayton.

Abby inwardly sighed. Clayton had been honest with her. She wasn't mad at him; she was mad at herself, for being disappointed.

When was she going to learn to have no expectations? Lara's father should have taught her the lesson, once and for all, that just because a man
seemed
responsible, it didn't mean he was.

"Where've you been?" she asked the younger woman. "I've hardly seen you at all the past few days. And you live here."

Colleen blushed from the point of her widow's peak to the tip of her pinky toes. "I—I..."

Curiosity drew Abby's attention away from her frozen treat. "Colleen, what have you been up to?"

"N-n-nothing."

"You've talked to Molly!" Abby pointed a grape Popsicle at her. "She's fine and there's no reason for me to stay here any longer. You're all just conspiring to keep me here."

But Clayton. Clayton wanted her gone, so he could avoid her. So he could avoid any serious involvement. Didn't he realize that his family wasn't enough, that he needed more in his life?

He needed her.

Abby shook her head. No, no one but Lara had ever needed her.

"I swear I haven't talked to Molly," Colleen insisted, the color in her face fading to paleness. "I wish I could, though."

Abby narrowed her eyes, trying to gauge the younger woman's mood. "Are
you
okay?"

"Of course. I'm fine." Colleen assured her, even as her voice trembled with emotion. "I understand Molly being confused and needing time to think."

Abby sighed. "Yeah, so do I."

"Too bad other people wouldn't honor her request," Colleen grumbled.

"Clayton giving you a hard time, too?"

"Hmm...Clayton?"

"He suspects I know where Molly is." Not that he'd bugged her a whole lot about Molly. They'd talked about other things, or they hadn't talked at all. Abby shivered.

"You should get out of those clothes. How'd you get so wet, really?" Colleen asked.

"I was washing Mr. Carpenter's windows." When Clayton had interrupted her, just like he had her sleep every night since she'd returned.

"Okay." With that single word her friend accepted her explanation, while simultaneously letting Abby know she was aware that a lot more than window-washing had taken place.

"Mrs. Mick still out with Lara?" she asked, then bit on the Popsicle to finish it.

"I don't know where they are," Colleen said. "I just got home."

Since it was already well after closing time at the insurance agency, Abby wanted to ask where she'd been, but she withheld the question. Since Colleen had accepted her explanation, Abby had to reciprocate. "Mrs. Mick took Lara to Rory's soccer game today."

Colleen nodded. "Clayton left work early to go to the game."

But he hadn't gone straight to the soccer field. He would have had to change his clothes first. "So he made you close up the office, instead of going to the game?"

"He has to be there. He's the coach."

He coached the games. No wonder Mrs. Mick wasn't back yet with Lara—no doubt, the game had started late. And maybe Clayton had suggested ice cream again. Abby's heart clenched. She worried about her daughter's growing attachment to Cloverville and especially to certain residents of the town.

"I don't know who Lara has the bigger crush on," Abby said. "Rory...or Clayton?"

Colleen shook her head. "I can't imagine anyone having a crush on either of them. But at least Rory can sometimes be fun."

"Does Clayton ever lighten up?" Abby asked. When he wasn't with her, that is?

Her young friend shrugged. "Actually, he can be a lot of fun, too, when he lets himself relax."

"How often does that happen?"

"Not often."

Abby shouldn't care. They weren't friends. They really weren't
anything.
But her heart shifted in her chest, aching for him. He'd had to grow up much too fast, but then again so had she. They had a lot in common.

Colleen slid her arm around Abby's shoulders. "Don't let him get to you. If you'd let me tell him the truth..."

"No!" Abby's voice cracked as she shouted out the word.

"But that's why he has such a problem with you." Colleen said, her voice thick with regret. "He thinks you hurt me, when it was actually..."

"The past, Colleen. It doesn't matter. The town's forgotten about it. Even Mrs. Hild and Mr. Carpenter have forgotten about it." Or if not forgotten, at least forgiven.

"Turning the reception into a welcome-back party for you and Lara was brilliant."

"Your mother
is
brilliant." Sometimes she wondered if the McClintock children realized just how lucky they were to have her.

"The way everyone responded had to prove to you that the town does really welcome you back." Colleen squeezed her shoulders. "You can move home now, Abby."

The remains of the Popsicle melting in her hands. Abby pulled away from Colleen to walk over to the sink. "Cloverville is
not
home."

"So where is home? I know you've packed up the apartment in Chicago."

"I had a reservation in Raleigh." Which she'd had to cancel, since Molly still hadn't come home or phoned her. "When I lost Miss Ramsey, it was time to move out of the city."

"It's time to move back home."

"Colleen..."

"I want you to move back here," she said as she joined Abby by the sink. "Then maybe I won't feel so guilty."

Abby washed off her fingers, then dried her hands and gave her slim friend a hug. "Don't. I don't regret anything, and neither should you."

"But I do." Colleen said, her pretty eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Please think about moving back. I'm sure Lara would love growing up in Cloverville."

Abby was also pretty sure her daughter would love growing up where Abby had always wanted to grow up, in the McClintock house.

But that wasn't possible. For either of them.

"Can we go to the school, Mommy?" Lara asked, tipping her head back to stare up with a beseeching gaze.

Abby smiled. Despite the two years of preschool she'd had, Lara still couldn't wait to start "real" school. She'd be in kindergarten in the fall, and she'd made Abby promise to find a school district where she'd have to ride a big yellow bus.

"Honey, school is out for the summer." Abby's arms strained as she pushed her daughter higher on the swings at Cloverville Park.

"But the school swings are bigger. I saw them last night when we were there for Rory's game. When the game was done. Clayton pushed me on them." Her voice rose with awe. "He pushed me
really
high."

Good for Clayton. Resentment burned in Abby's heart. He was so good with her daughter. If he had no intention of getting "involved," he shouldn't be so sweet to the child. She sighed, suspecting he couldn't help himself. Clayton had always been a natural father figure. He should have some kids of his own. But, then, they weren't part of his "plan."

Abby could understand that. And falling in love, giving her heart to someone who didn't want any part of it, wasn't in
her
plan, either.

"Why can't you push me high like Clayton?" Lara asked, looking back at her mother over her shoulder.

"He has longer arms and legs than I do," Abby explained.

"He's really big," Lara agreed, sounding awestruck.

"Yeah, really big." Abby's face flushed as her thoughts detoured to parts of Clayton other than his arms and legs. She wondered...

"Speak of the devil," Lara said.

"What?" Abby asked, waving a hand in front of her sweaty face.

"Isn't that what you say when Clayton walks up and you're talking about him?"

"Yes, she calls me the devil," Clayton agreed as he joined them near the swing set. He wore a white T-shirt and navy-blue running shorts above his long legs.

He was a handsome devil. His brown hair, disheveled by the brisk morning breeze, tempted her fingers.

"I'm not wrong." Abby murmured, just for his ears, as she leaned closer to him. "You are the devil."

Her breath caressed his throat, raising the short hairs on the nape of his neck. He stepped closer, until his shoulder brushed against hers. Then he put his hand over hers on the seat of Lara's swing, giving the little girl such a big push that she squealed with delight.

"Higher! Higher!" she shouted, her face flushed with excitement and her eyes warm with affection as she looked down at Clayton.

Clayton's heart shifted in his chest. Damn, she was getting to him. And so was her mother. "You girls are up early."

"So are you." Abby pointed out.

"I was out for a run." He couldn't sleep much, not with thinking about Abby.

"Do you have ADD, too?" Lara asked.

"What? No, I don't have it." Clayton was mesmerized by Lara, who tipped her head back to smile at him. her curls nearly brushing the wood chips on the ground beneath the swing set. "Do you?"

"No," Abby answered for her daughter. "
I
have it."

Clayton blew out a short breath. "Well, that explains a few things."

"Explains, not excuses," she said, realizing that his knowing about her ADD made no difference to Clayton.

"Don't put words in my mouth," Clayton protested.

Lara's eyes widened with interest in this adult conversation.

"You can pump your legs and swing by yourself for a minute." Abby told her daughter now as she wrapped her fingers around Clayton's forearm and pulled him away from the swing set. Muscles tightened and warmed beneath her grasp. Fingers tingling, she released him and stepped back. "I can put words in your mouth because I know what you think, Clayton—at least about me."

"And I know what you think about me." He chuckled. "I'm not the devil, Abby."

"Neither am I, and I'm sick of you treating me like one." She shifted deeper into the odd shadow cast by the park's statue of Colonel Clover, tempted to tell Clayton the truth about the night the statue took its disastrous battering. But the secret was not hers to tell, and knowing the truth wouldn't make any difference to Clayton.

"Abby..."

'There's nothing I can do to convince you to let me lease the office space from you?"

He shook his head. "It took you eight years to come back. You hate this town. Why would you want to open an office here now. when you said yourself that you have no intention of moving back?"

"You really don't want me to have any reason to even
visit
Cloverville," she said, fully understanding why he kept refusing to lease her the space.

"I don't care if you visit," he insisted. "I don't care what you do."

"Liar," she accused him, realizing that for the first time in their lives, Clayton hadn't been honest with her. But she suspected he wasn't being honest with himself, either. "If you didn't care, you'd lease me the space."