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Not that the house had ever been hers, Violet reminded herself. But in her heart, it was the same thing. She pressed her lips together, staring into the dark, jittery liquid. “Let me get this straight—you want me and the boys to come live in the house—”
“Well, in the apartment over the garage, if that’s okay. But yes.”
Violet chewed the inside of her cheek to keep the flutter of excitement leashed. It was Violet herself who’d convinced Doris to renovate the space a few years ago, for families who might prefer a self-contained area with its own kitchen to staying in the bed-and-breakfast proper. The apartment wasn’t big, only one bedroom, but flooded with light in the winter, tenderly shaded by a dozen trees in the summer. And the sofa bed didn’t smell like old gym socks.
A dream she’d given up, twice, now hovered again in front of her, a firefly begging for capture—
Stop it, she told herself. Don’t you dare let yourself get caught up again in something that never existed except in your own head.
“And in exchange,” she said, not looking at him, not showing her hand, “you want me to help you put the inn back in order?”
“And then stay on as breakfast cook after we’re up and running again. Like you did for Doris.” She could feel his gaze on the side of her face, earnest and warm. Another man hell-bent on rescuing her. “I can’t pay you much to start, but at least all your living expenses would be covered.” He paused. “And if you wanted to work part-time somewhere else and needed to leave the boys…I suppose we could work something out about that, too.”
Violet’s eyes shot to his. Having no idea about his renovation plans, she’d only planned on asking for the cook’s job. Funny, she mused, doing her best to keep from slipping into that open, steady gaze, how guilt so often motivated the innocent far more than it ever did the guilty.
“Wow,” she said, looking away again. “That’s really generous.”
“Not a bit of it. You’d be doing me a huge favor. Because I’d have to hire someone eventually, anyway,” he said to her slight frown. “So who better than someone who already knew the drill?”
Another sip of hot chocolate was in order while she pretended to think. Rudy apparently took her hesitation for bitterness. With good reason.
“Violet,” he said in that gruff-soft way of his that would be her undoing if she wasn’t careful. If he wasn’t. Two years without a man’s touch is a long time. Becoming a nun, she thought ruefully, had never been on the short list. Yet another reason why she hadn’t exactly immediately embraced the idea. Because hanging around Rudy Vaccaro…
Yeah, she needed that aggravation like a hole in the head.
“I know this isn’t what you’d hoped for,” he was saying, “but I can’t undo what’s done. Or give you the place just because—”
“Of course you can’t give me the house!” she said, startled that he’d even think such a thing. “Yes, I’m disappointed, but I’m not delusional!” She already knew he’d bought the house outright. Which made him borderline insane as well as impossibly generous. Another strike against him. “The house is yours, fair and square. I mean, if there’s no will, there’s no will, right?”
He looked at her again, oozing concern and macho protectiveness, and she wanted to say, Quit it, will ya? because her body and her emotions and her head were on three different pages, which was not good.
“So Doris did tell you she was leaving it to you?”
Violet nodded. “A month before she died, maybe, she swore she was going to put it in writing, so there’d be no question. I knew Doris ever since I was little, I usedta work there during the summers when I was a teenager. I’d—” Her words caught in her throat. “I’d never known her to break a promise before.”
But then, her life was a junkyard of broken promises, wasn’t it?
“And you never had a chance to search the house?”
Violet looked right into those night-darkened eyes and half wanted to smack him one. “Jeez, what is it with you? I would think finding that will would be the last thing you’d want.”
“So maybe I’m just making sure I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
After a moment, she averted her gaze. “Not too long before Doris passed, her daughter Patty came up here from Boston and strong-armed the old girl into a nursing home. And of course, the minute Doris was out, so were the boys and me. A week later, the house went up for sale. I’m guessing Patty got power of attorney or whatever.”
“So when the old lady died, everything went to Patty.”
“Exactly. And obviously she wasn’t about to let me in to go looking for a will she’d hardly want me to find.”
“If there was one.”
Violet hesitated, then lifted the cup to her lips again. “If there was one,” she echoed over the stab of betrayal.
One wrist propped on the steering wheel, Rudy leaned back in his seat, momentarily unable to look at the tough little cookie sitting beside him. He suspected, though, that it wouldn’t take much to rip away the calluses buffering her flat, resigned words. He didn’t doubt her story for a minute—this was no con artist sitting beside him. But realizing his dream at the expense of somebody else’s had never been part of the plan.
He looked at her profile, all those crazy curls now free of the hat, and felt pulled apart by a weird combination of protectiveness and frustration. “I know I’m a stranger to you, but trust me, Violet—I don’t get my kicks from putting women and children out on the street.”
She stared straight ahead for several seconds before she said, “First off, I’m not out on the street. And anyway, it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know.”
“No consolation to you, I’m sure.”
“No, but…” Her lips pursed, she swished the hot chocolate around in the cup. “Look, I’m sorry for reacting the way I did tonight. At the diner. You’re right, none of this is your fault, and it was pretty poor of me to take out my frustrations on you.”
“Forget it, no apology necessary.” He fisted his free hand to keep from touching her—taking her hand, squeezing her shoulder. Something. Anything. “I understand your husband left you and the boys?”
“Yeah,” she said after a moment. “He did. We’ve been divorced for a year. But since I’m not a big fan of being pitied—”
“Then there’s nothing to worry about here. Pity’s for the pathetic, Violet. People who make poor choices because they’re too dumb to see the pitfalls.”
“And how do you know that’s not the case here?”
One side of his mouth lifted. “Okay, so how about we agree that any decision made before we’re twenty-one doesn’t count?”
Her soft, half laugh died a quick death. “Oh. I take it—”
“Yep. Me, too.” Rudy let out a long, weighty sigh. “That bundle of attitude you saw me with tonight? It’s just been her and me since she was six months old. I only know her mother’s still alive because I run a periodic check to find out. Whether she knows—or even cares—if Stace and I are, I have no idea. So…what I’m seeing on your face right now? Is that pity? Or simpatico?”
“It’s amazement. That any woman could be that stupid.”
“You don’t know me, Violet.”
“I know enough. In the space of a cuppla hours, you stood up for a stranger in public, gave that stranger a twenty-dollar tip, brought her hot chocolate and offered her a job and place to live. Any woman who tosses out somebody like that…” She shook her head. “Stoo-pid.”
“Yeah, except she wasn’t a woman, she was a kid. We both were. I was twenty, she was eighteen. Too young.”
“Says who?” Violet said, a dark flush tingeing her cheeks. “I was eighteen when George came along, and I sure as hell didn’t bail on him. Unlike Mitch, who after eight years and two kids decided…whatever it was he decided. That he wasn’t cut out for family life, I suppose. Unfortunately he came to that conclusion the week before Christmas. Two years ago.” She smirked. “There was a fun holiday, let me tell you. Nothing says lovin’ like a note and a couple hundred bucks left on the kitchen table. Although we—or at least, I—still hear from him.”
Something in her voice—like a faint, bitter aftertaste you can’t quite identify—put Rudy on alert. He also decided he liked her much better mad than sad. Or, worse, in that dead zone where you try to make everybody think you’re okay. Mad, though…he could work with that. Because where there was anger, there was hope.
“He sees the boys?”
Curls quivered when she shook her head. “Although he says…he’s working up to it.”
“What on earth—”
“He says he’s figuring things out,” she said wearily. “In his head.”
“As in, a possible reconciliation?”
“Who the hell knows?” She rubbed her forehead. “Although, believe me, I’m not holding my breath. Promises…” Her mouth flattened. “Anybody can make a promise. Keeping it is something else entirely.”
As Rudy fought the temptation to ask her if she wanted a reconciliation, he realized, too late, that he’d inadvertently stripped away those calluses, leaving her tender and vulnerable and probably mad as hell at him. Feeling like an idiot, he touched her arm, making her jump.
“Hey,” he said, his voice thick. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m…” She sucked in a breath, shaking her head. “Here’s the thing—you can chug along for years, getting by, making do, on whatever scraps you can piece together. You learn to find contentment, even joy, in the small stuff, like your baby’s smile or a new lipstick. Hanging out with friends on the first really warm spring night. And little by little, you start to inch forward. Or at least, you think you are. Sure, life slings mud at you, but you either wipe it off or you get real good at ducking. Only then…”
One hand waved, like she was struggling for the words. “Only then, out of the blue, some totally unexpected opportunity comes along, and suddenly you’re thinking in terms of bigger. Better. More.”
She looked away, but not before he saw her eyes fill. “I know,” he said softly, and she blew up on him.
“You don’t know! You don’t know anything about it, or me, or what that sorry, run-down place represented! Not just to me, but to Doris, who loved that house like it was her child. Who thought of her guests like family, because they made her feel needed. Important. Like she mattered.”
Blinking, she faced front. “I never expected Doris to offer me the house. I always assumed it would go to her daughter. So when she said she wanted to leave it to me, you have no idea how…honored that made me feel. That she trusted me to make the most of her gift. I had such plans, Rudy,” she said softly. “Such wonderful plans.”
Frowning, Rudy tucked his sleeve into his palm and brushed her cheek, blotting a tear that had spilled over, her frustration mingling with his. “But even if Doris had left you the house, how would you have managed? You couldn’t really open it again, not yet. It needs too much work.”
She frowned at that last little bit of hot—now cold, probably—chocolate in the bottom of her cup, then swirled it around and drank it anyway, grimacing. “I was going to sell it, Rudy,” she said flatly, not looking at him. “Sell it and get the hell out of here, finish my education. Set aside a college fund for the boys. Buy a car with less than 150,000 miles on it. Doris and I used to talk about it all the time. That’s why I know she’d wanted me to have the house, to give me a shot at my dream, the same way the house had allowed her to live hers.”
If nothing else, all those years of being a cop had taught Rudy a thing or two about reading people, about picking up clues from their body language, how most people’s voices change when they’re not being straight with you. And right now, Violet Kildare was setting off alarms loud enough to hear in China.
“So,” he said, casually, “you never actually wanted to run the inn?”
“Run the inn?” She burst out laughing. “Heavens no! Believe me, my aspirations, such as they were, never included turning into Doris Hicks’s clone.”
“Oh. Well. I guess I must’ve misunderstood, then.” He squinted over at her. “Darla seemed to think you had a real thing for the house itself.”
Even in the darkened car, he saw her blush. “The house was only a means to an end,” she said into her empty cup, then slid her eyes to his, her lips barely curved. “It’s getting late. I need to get back before Betsy freaks.”
Rudy let their gazes mingle. “That mean you’re not accepting my offer?”
She tapped the cup’s rim once, twice, then leaned over to screw it into the cup holder under the radio. “Can I think about it for a couple of days? Until school starts again, day after tomorrow?”
Rudy started. “Day after tomorrow…? I thought school started on Monday?”
“Uh, no, since yesterday was New Year’s? As it is the only reason they don’t start back tomorrow is because of some in-service day or something.”
Oh, crap. That should go over big with a certain party. Why had he assumed he’d have at least a week before they had to deal with that particular trauma? “Yeah, sure,” he said over the Good going, Dad reverberating through his brain. “Since I imagine it’ll be a day or so before we have heat and utilities, anyway. Here.” He reached for his wallet again, extracting one of his old cards. For a second, he stared at the tiny, grainy photo of him in uniform, then handed her the card. “My cell number’s on there, in case you need it.”
Nodding, she took the card. “I’ll let you know, then.” She pushed open the door and climbed out, then looked back, obviously relieved that that was over. “Thanks again for the tip,” she said, her breath a cloud around her face, then disappeared.
“So what was that all about?” Bets asked the minute Violet walked back inside. The noise level had dropped dramatically in the past half hour, thanks to two-thirds of Betsy’s spawn being down for the count. Only little Trey was still awake, cuddled next to his mother in a new-two-brothers-ago blanket sleeper, thumb plugged in mouth as they finished up CSI. Quiet and immobile, the kid was actually cute.
Like most of Mulligan Falls’s residents, Bets already knew about Rudy being the inn’s new owner. If you wanted to keep your business private, hiring Linda Fairweather as your Realtor was a bad idea. That’s how Violet knew about Rudy’s paying cash for the inn. And that he’d bought it sight unseen. Nice guy, but definitely certifiable.
Wriggling out of her coat, Violet sat on the edge of Joey’s recliner, trying not to touch the upholstery with actual skin. Betsy wasn’t a horrible housekeeper, but the chair had weathered the five kids in Betsy’s family as well as her three. Not that Violet’s were neat freaks, God knew, but her friend’s boys truly saw the world as their canvas.
“Rudy offered me my old job,” she said, trying to finger comb her tangled curls. “When the inn’s ready to open again, I mean. Apparently he’s going to completely refurbish it. Until then, if I want, I could help with the rehab.” Intent on catching the end of her program, Betsy was only half listening. “He also said the apartment over the garage is ours, if I want it.”
At that, her friend’s head whipped around, plucked eyebrows arching up underneath spidery bangs. “You gonna take it?”
“I told him I’d think about it.” After several seconds of the Golden-Eyed Stare for which her friend was famous, Violet said, “You’ll have your house back in a couple of days.”
“Did I say anything?” Betsy said, one hand pressed to a chest that had once provoked envy in every girl in junior high and wistful lust in every boy. “Have I ever complained about you guys being here, even once? And if this doesn’t work out, you know you’re welcome to come back, anytime. For as long as you need.”
Translation: Betsy was going to miss the hundred fifty bucks a month Violet had been giving her toward the utilities and “wear-and-tear,” as she put it.
But Violet only reached over and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Really, I don’t know how I would have made it through these last six months without you.” Because, if nothing else, Bets had given them a roof over their heads and something at least remotely resembling stability. Nothing to be sneezed at.
The credits came on, scrolling lickety-split over the promo for the next program. Noting that Trey had at last conked out, too, Betsy stabbed the remote, then shifted on the sofa, the baby’s head on her lap. A wicked grin stole across a living advertisement for twelve-hour lip gloss. Really, you could shellac floors with that stuff.
“I got a glimpse of that Rudy fella out the window,” Betsy said in a low voice. “He as good-looking up close as he is from a distance?”
Yeah, she’d known this was coming. Joey, God bless him, was more the teddy bear type—long armed, pudgy and slightly shaggy. Violet shrugged, thoughts of Rudy’s distinct lack of pudge setting off a few all-too-familiar tingles in several far-too-neglected places. “I s’pose. He’s no pretty boy, though. Everything’s where it should be, but nothing out of the ordinary.” Except the eyes, she thought, their laser brilliance burned into her brain. Betcha those eyes could get some women to do just about anything. “A big guy. Useta be a cop. In Springfield.”
“Mass?”
“Yeah.”
“A flatlander, huh?” Bets said, head propped in palm, still grinning, her other hand absently stroking little Trey’s damp hair back from his forehead as he slept. “So what made him chuck it all to move up here to Boonieville?”
“I have no idea,” Violet said, wobbling a little when she got to her feet. “But I’ll betcha dollars to doughnuts, he doesn’t stay.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because they never do,” Violet said simply.
“You did what?” Stacey shrilled a scant yard from Rudy’s ear two days later, on their first drive to her new school. And yeah, she’d definitely been pissed when she’d found out it started today, until Rudy pointed out that at least going to school got her out of wallpaper stripping detail.
Although bitterly cold, the morning was nothing short of spectacular. Cloudless, picture-puzzle blue sky. Sun streaming through bare-branched trees. Glittering patches of snow. Perfect. The juice was back on, heating oil was being delivered that afternoon, the phone people were promising tomorrow between one and five, and the Dumpster—delivered yesterday—was rapidly filling up with shreds of linoleum and dreary carpet and basically anything receiving at least two “Gross!” votes.
Violet hadn’t contacted him—yet—but she’d said not before today, anyway, so he was hopeful on that front.
Okay, maybe hopeful wasn’t exactly the right word. Anxious, maybe.
What the hell, he wasn’t some freaking dictionary. All he knew was, those big gray-green eyes and that pale skin and the way she smelled and her obviously bruised emotions were doing a real number on his head. If she said “yes” things were liable to get a lot more complicated than he needed right now.
Because, frankly, after sitting with her in his car the other night…well, Rudy wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to forgo female companionship. The kind of female companionship that some people—his eyes cut to his glowering daughter—might take exception to. But you know what? He’d cross that bridge when—and if—he came to it. For the first time since he could remember, more things were going his way than not, leaving him pretty much in a “bring it on” kind of mood.
Which is why, since he figured his daughter would appreciate a heads-up, he’d finally told Stace about his offering Violet the job. And the apartment. If she didn’t accept, it was no big deal. Right?
“Unknot your panties, Stace,” Rudy said mildly, his breath catching at the flash of red out of the corner of his eye, a cardinal and his wife out for breakfast. “This has nothing to do with your life.”
“How can you say that?” she said, appalled, and Rudy belatedly remembered that the life-impact Richter scale for teenagers (which his daughter was, in spirit if not yet in years) was a hundred times more sensitive than it was for other humans. “I mean, it’s bad enough we had to move here in the middle of the freaking winter—”
“Okay, first off, you don’t get to say freaking. Because I said so,” he added, and she clamped her mouth shut. “And we’ve been over this. We need to start fixing up the place now so I can start taking spring and summer bookings. Which might, if I’m lucky, tide me over long enough to replace the windows and the heating system. I didn’t really have a choice, Stace—”
“Of course you had a choice, Dad! Nobody forced you to buy the inn! Or leave Springfield! Or invite this woman we don’t even know to live with us—!”
