Winning His Heart: The Millionaire's Homecoming / The Maverick Millionaire

CHAPTER FIVE

KAYLA LOOKED BRIEFLY WOUNDED and then she just looked mad. David liked her angry look quite a bit better than the wounded one. The wounded expression made her look vulnerable and made him feel protective of her, even though he had caused it in the first place!

“Are you talking about the house?” she asked dangerously.

He answered safely, “Yes,” though he was aware, as was she, that he could have been talking about Kevin.

“Do you ever get tired of being a wet blanket?”

“I prefer to think of it as being the voice of reason.”

“I don’t care to hear it.”

David didn’t care what Kayla cared to hear. She obviously was in for some hard truths today, whether she liked it or not. Maybe somebody did have to protect her. From herself! And apparently, no one had stepped up to the plate to do that so far.

“That house,” he said, his tone cool and reasonable, “is doing a long, slow slide into complete ruin.”

“It isn’t,” she said, as though he hadn’t been reasonable at all. “And it isn’t a hopeless cause!”

There. He’d said his piece. Despite the fact that he dealt in investments, including real estate, all the time, his expertise had been rejected.

He could leave with a clear conscience. He had tried to warn her away from a house that was a little more—a lot more—of a project than any thinking person would take on, let alone a single woman.

“I’ve already ordered all new windows,” she said stubbornly. “And the floors are scheduled for refinishing.”

A money pit, he thought to himself. He ordered himself to shut up, so was astounded when, out loud, he said drily, “Kayla to the rescue.”

She frowned at him.

Stop! David yelled at himself. But he didn’t stop. “I bet the dog is a rescue, too, isn’t it?”

He had his answer when she flushed. He realized Kevin wasn’t the only one he was angry with.

“There was quite a large insurance settlement,” she said, her voice stiff with pride. “Can you think of a better use for it than restoring Kevin’s childhood home?”

“Actually, yes.”

She was in his field of expertise now. This is what he did, and he did it extremely well. He counseled people on how to invest their money. Blaze Enterprises was considered one of the most successful investment firms in Canada.

“A falling-down house in Blossom Valley would probably rate dead last on my list of potential places to put money.”

“Are you always so crushingly practical?”

“Yes.”

“Humph. Well, I’m going to buy a business here, too,” she said stubbornly, her swollen brows drawing together as she read his lack of elaboration for what it was: a complete lack of enthusiasm.

“Really?” he said, not even trying to hide the cynical note from his voice.

“Really,” she shot back. Predictably, his cynicism was only making her dig in even deeper. “I’m looking at an ice cream parlor.”

“An ice cream parlor? Hmm, that just edged the house out of the position of dead last on my list of potential investments,” he said drily.

“More-moo is for sale,” she said, as though she hadn’t heard him. “On Main Street.”

As if the location would change his mind.

He told himself he didn’t care how she spent her money. Didn’t care if she blew the whole wad.

But somehow he did. Given free rein, Kayla would rescue the world until there was not a single crumb left for herself.

There was no doubt in his mind that More-moo was one more rescue for her, one more thing destined for failure and therefore irresistible. It was time for him to walk away. And yet he thought if he did not try to dissuade her he might not be able to sleep at night.

Sleep was important.

“Nobody sells a business at the top of its game,” he cautioned her.

“The owners are retiring.”

“Uh-huh.”

She looked even more stubborn, her attempts to furrow her brow thwarted somewhat by how swollen it was.

It was none of his business. Let her throw her money around until she had none left.

But of course, that was the problem with having tasted her lips all those years ago. And it was the problem with having chased with her through endless summers on the lake. It was the problem with having studied with her for exams, and walked to school with her on crisp fall days, and sat beside her at the movies, their buttered fingers accidentally touching over popcorn.

It was the problem with having surrendered the first girl he had ever cared about to his best friend, only to watch catastrophe unfold.

There was a feeling that he had dropped the ball, maybe when it mattered most. He couldn’t set back the clock. But maybe he could manage not to drop the ball this time.

Whether he wanted to or not, David had a certain emotional attachment to her—whether he wanted to or not, he cared what happened to her.

At least he could set Kayla straight on the ice cream parlor.

“There is no way,” he said with elaborate patience, “to make money at a business where you only have good numbers for eight weeks of the year. You’ve seen this town in the winter. And spring, and fall, for that matter. You could shoot off a cannon on Main Street and not hit anyone.”

“The demographics are changing,” she said, as if she hoped he would be impressed by her use of the word demographics. “People are living here all year round. It’s become quite a retirement choice.”

“It’s still a business that will only ever have eight good weeks every year. And even those eight weeks are weather dependent. Nobody eats ice cream in the rain.”

“We did,” she said softly.

“Huh?”

“We did. We ate ice cream in the rain.”

David frowned. And then he remembered a sudden thunderstorm on a hot afternoon. Maybe they had been sixteen? Certainly it had been the summer before the kaleidoscope, before he had kissed her, before Kevin had laid claim, before the drowning.

A group of them had been riding their bikes down Main Street and had been caught out by the suddenness of the storm.

It had felt thrilling riding through the slashing rain and flashing lightning, until they had taken cover under the awning of the ice cream store as the skies turned black and the thunder rolled around them.

How could he possibly remember that Kayla’s T-shirt had been soaked through and had become transparent, showing the details of a surprisingly sexy bra, and that Cedric Parson had been sneaking peeks?

So David had taken his own shirt off and pulled it over Kayla’s head, making her still wetter, but not transparently so. He could even remember the feeling: standing under that awning on Main Street, bare chested, David had felt manly and protective instead of faintly ridiculous and cold.

How could he possibly remember that he’d had black ice cream, licorice flavored? And that her tongue had darted out of her mouth and mischievously licked a drip from his cone? And that he had deliberately placed his lips where her tongue had been?

How could he possibly remember that he had felt like the electricity in the air had sizzled deep inside him, and that ice cream had never since tasted as good as it had that electric afternoon?

David shook off the memory and the seductive power it had to make him think maybe people would eat ice cream in the rain.

“Generally speaking, people are not going to go for ice cream if the weather is bad,” he said practically. “One season of bad weather, you’d be finished. A few days of bad weather would probably put an ice cream parlor close to the edge.”

“Well, I like the idea of owning an ice cream parlor,” Kayla said firmly. “I like it a lot.”

He took in her eyes peering at him stubbornly from under her comically swollen forehead, and knew this wasn’t the time.

“Your ambition in life is to be up to your elbows, digging through vats of frozen-solid ice cream until your hands cramp?”

“That sounds like I’m selling a lot of ice cream,” she purred with satisfaction.

“Humph.”

“My ambition,” she told him, something faintly dangerous in her tone, “is to make people happy. What makes anyone happier than ice cream on a hot day?”

Or during a thunderstorm, his own mind filled in, unbidden.

He said, “Humph,” again, more emphatically than the last time.

“It’s a simple pleasure,” she said stubbornly. “The world needs more of those. Way more.”

He had a feeling if he wanted to convince Kayla, he had better back his argument with hard, cold facts: graphs and projections and five years’ worth of More-moo’s financial statements. What would it hurt to have one of his assistants do a bit of research?

“I would like to bring in specialty ice creams. Did you know, in the Middle East, rose petal ice cream is a big hit?”

He felt she had already given her ice cream parlor dreams way more thought than they deserved.

David was pretty sure he felt the beginnings of a headache throbbing along the line of his forehead and into his temples.

“I bet people would drive here from Toronto for rose petal ice cream,” she said dreamily.

David stared at her. She couldn’t possibly believe that! Why did he feel as if he needed to personally dissuade her from unrealistic dreams?

Because he had failed to do so when it had really mattered.

Don’t marry him, Kayla.

Tears streaming down her face. “I have to.”

He could only guess what that fateful decision had put her through. He was going to guess that being married to Kevin had been no bed of roses. Or rose petals, either.

And yet here she was, still dreaming. Was there a certain kind of courage in that?

He hated coming home.

“I’ll go see how the kids are doing with finding the dog,” David said gruffly.

He could clearly see she wanted to refuse this offer—a warning she wasn’t exactly going to embrace his unsolicited advice about the ice cream parlor with open arms—but her concern for the little beast won out.

“You have a cell?” he asked her.

“In pieces on the road, probably,” she said wryly.

“I’ll call here to the clinic, then, when I find out about the dog. Is he a certain breed?”

“Why?”

“If the kids haven’t found him, or I don’t find him hiding under a shrub near where you got stung, I’ll find a picture on the internet and have my assistant, Jane, make a poster. She can email it to me, and I’ll have it printed here.”

Under her comical brows, Kayla was transparent. She was both annoyed by his ability to take charge and his organizational skills, and relieved by them, too. No doubt it would be the same reaction when he presented her with the total lack of viability for operating an ice cream parlor in Blossom Valley.

“He’s a toy Brussels Griffon,” she said, hopeful that he would find the dog, yet reluctant to enlist his aid and hating that she was relying on him. But Kayla was as emotional as he was analytical, her every situation driven by her heart instead of her head.

He put it into his phone. A picture of the world’s ugliest dog materialized, big eyes, wiry hair popping out in all the wrong places. The hair springing from the dog’s ears and above his eyes reminded him of an old man, badly in need of an eyebrow and ear trim.

“Is it just me, or does this dog bear a resemblance to Einstein?” he muttered, showing her the picture.

“Hence the name,” she said, and he smiled reluctantly. Damned if the dog didn’t bear a striking resemblance to the high school teacher, Mr. Bastigal, who had emulated his science hero right down to the crazy gray hair and walrus mustache.

When she nodded that the dog on the screen resembled hers, he slipped the phone into his pocket and vowed to himself he would find it. He ran a multimillion-dollar empire. Trouble-shooting was his specialty. One small dog was no match for him. It looked like Einstein. That didn’t mean it was smart.

And while he was tracking down the doggie, an assistant could do the homework on More-moo, not that it mattered. He was willing to bet Kayla would find another failing business to ride to the rescue of once she was given the reality check on More-moo.

“I’ll leave Mary a business card with my cell number on it. You can call me if you change your mind about the ride home.”

“I won’t.”

He scanned her face, nodded and left the room, leaving the card with Mary, as promised. Mary seemed to want to catch up—she’d been the nurse here way back when he was lifeguarding, and she’d seemed old then—but he begged off, claiming responsibility for the dog.

David Blaze had had enough of old home week. Except, as he walked back out into the sultry heat of the July day, he glanced at his watch. He hadn’t been here a week. Nowhere near. It had been thirty-two whole minutes since he had last checked his watch in the snarled traffic of Main Street.

CHAPTER SIX

KAYLA WAS AT HOME, and in bed. She could not sleep. She ordered herself not to look at the bedside alarm, but she did, anyway.

It was 3:10 a.m.

She was exhausted, and wide awake at the same time, possibly from the drugs in her system.

But possibly sleep eluded her because she had become used to her little dog cuddled against her in the night, his sweet snores, his wiry whiskers tickling her chin, his eyes popping open to make sure she was still there, staring deeply at her, his liquid gaze holding nothing but devotion and loyalty.

Unlike her husband.

Wasn’t that why she was really awake? Contemplating what David had told her about the day of the drowning?

She had called David a liar.

But in her heart, she had felt the sickening reverberation of truth.

That, Kayla decided, was what was hateful about being awake at this time of night. She was held hostage by the thoughts that she could fend off during the day. During the day there was so much this old house needed, it was overwhelming.

But being overwhelmed was not necessarily a bad thing. It could occupy her every thought and every waking hour. Between that, the new dog and looking for the perfect investment opportunity, she was blessedly busy.

But on a night like tonight, thoughts crowded into her tired mind. Even before David had said that about Kevin flirting with a girl instead of doing his job, Kayla had lain awake at night and contemplated her marriage.

She tried to direct her thoughts to good things and good memories, like the night he had proposed, so sweet and serious and sincere.

I want to do the honorable thing. For once.

She frowned. She hadn’t thought of that part of it for a long time, and not in the light she was thinking of it now. Had he loved her, or had he done the honorable thing?

Crazy thoughts. Middle of the night thoughts. Of course he had loved her.

In his way. So what if his way bought flowers when they needed groceries? That was romantic! And he had been a dreamer. That was a good memory. Of them sitting at the kitchen table, in the early days of their marriage sipping the last of their coffee, his face all intense and earnest as he described what he wanted for them: a business of their own, a big house, a great car.

Disloyal to think his dreams had been grandiose and made it impossible for him to settle for an ordinary life. Within days of finding a job, it would seem his litany of complaints would begin. He wasn’t appreciated. He wasn’t being paid enough. His boss was a jerk. His coworkers were inferior, his great ideas weren’t being listened to or implemented.

She never stopped hoping and praying that he would find himself, that he would grow up to be a man with all the best characteristics of that boy she had grown up with—so fun-loving and energetic and full of mischief.

Kevin had rewarded her unflagging belief in him by increasingly taking her for granted. He had become careless of her feelings—though the old charm would return, temporarily, when she threatened to leave or when it managed to bail them out of one of his predicaments yet again.

The old charm. The one thing he was good at. What had David meant about Kevin flirting with a girl? Had he been talking to her? Or more? Touching her? Kissing her?

Had Kevin had affairs during their marriage?

There. She was there, at the place she had refused to go since her husband’s death. It felt like she had just plunged into a hard place at the core of her, that did not go away because she pretended it was not there, that had not been a part of her makeup before she had married Kevin.

Was it this very suspicion that had caused it? This suspicion, and so much disappointment that it felt so disloyal to look at?

She had wondered about Kevin’s fidelity even before David’s shocking revelation outside of the clinic that afternoon. It seemed to her the more Kevin failed at everything else, the more she had become lonely within their marriage, the more he had exercised his substantial charm outside of it.

Where had he been, when speeding toward home too late at night, the car sliding on ice and slamming into a tree?

No seat belt. So like Kevin.

He had been chronically irresponsible, and others had picked up the tab for that.

It felt like David’s fault, David’s sudden unexpected presence in her life, and his revelations of this afternoon that had brought these thoughts, lurking beneath the surface, surging to the top.

Kayla blinked back tears. It had just all gone so terribly, terribly wrong. The tears felt weak, and at the same time, better than that hard, cold rock she carried around where her heart used to be.

And now David was back, and words she had not allowed herself to think of in those five long years of marriage to Kevin were at the forefront of her mind.

Don’t marry him, Kayla.

She considered the awful possibility that David, who had withheld his forgiveness, had not been the cause of Kevin’s downward spiral, but that he had seen something about his oldest friend that she had missed.

And who was withholding forgiveness now? It was pathetic. But now that her feelings had surfaced, she was aware one of them was anger. It was useless to feel that way. Kevin was dead. It could never be fixed.

“Stop it,” Kayla ordered herself, but instead she thought of how David’s hand had felt on her thigh, how she had leaned toward him, wanting, if she had only seconds left, one last taste of him.

Those thoughts made her feel restless, and hungry with a hunger that a midnight snack would never be able to fill.

Irritated with the ruminations of an exhausted mind, she yanked off the sheet that covered her, sat up and swung her legs out of the bed.

She padded over to her open window, where old-fashioned chintz curtains danced slowly on a cooling summer breeze. The window coverings throughout the house were thirty years behind the current styles, and one more thing on the long “to-do” list.

Which Kayla also didn’t want to be thinking about in the dead of night, a time when things could become overwhelming.

She diverted herself, squinting hopefully at her backyard. The moon was out and bright, but the massive, mature sugar maple at the center of the yard, and overgrown shrub beds, where peonies and forsythia competed with weeds, cast most of the yard in deep shadow where a small dog could hide.

Her little dog was out there somewhere. She had no doubt he was afraid. Poor little Bastigal was afraid of everything: loud noises and quick movements, and men and cats and the wind in leaves.

It was probably what was making him so hard to find. All afternoon he had probably been quivering under a shrub, hidden as the hordes of Blossom Valley children ran by, calling his name.

And it was hordes.

Walking home from the clinic there had been a poster on every telephone pole, with a picture of a Brussels Griffon on it that looked amazingly like Bastigal.

Under it had been the promise of a five-hundred dollar reward for his return.

And David’s cell phone number. Well, she could hardly resent that. Her own cell phone had been left with her bicycle, her purse, her hat and her crushed sunflowers on her front porch. Blossom Valley being Blossom Valley, her purse was undisturbed, all her credit cards and cash still in it. But her cell phone had been shattered beyond repair, and since she had opted not to have a landline, it was the only phone she had.

So she could not resent the use of his number, but she did resent the reward. Obviously, she could not allow him to pay it, and obviously she did not have an extra five hundred dollars lying around. It hadn’t been a good idea, anyway. She had no doubt the enthusiasm of the children, reward egging them on like a carrot on a stick before a donkey, was frightening her dog into deeper hiding.

She looked out the window, willing herself to see through the inky darkness. Was it possible Bastigal would have found his way to his own yard? Would he recognize this as his own yard? They’d only been back in Blossom Valley, in their new home, for a little over two weeks. She hadn’t even finished unpacking boxes yet.

But through the open window, Kayla thought she heard the faintest sound coming from between the houses, and her heart leaped.

Grabbing a light sweater off the hook behind her closet door, glad to have an urgent purpose that would help her to escape her own thoughts, Kayla moved through her darkened, and still faintly unfamiliar, house and out the back door into her yard.

Hers.

Despite the loss of the dog and her undisciplined thoughts of earlier, the feeling of having a place of her own to call home calmed something in her.

She became aware it was a beautiful night, and her yard looked faintly magical in the moonlight, not showing neglect as it did in the harsh light of day. It was easy to overlook the fact the grass needed mowing and just appreciate that it was thick and dewy under her feet. There was a scent in the air that was cool and pure and invigorating.

She heard, again, some slight noise around the corner of her house, and her heart jumped. Bastigal. He had come home after all!

She rounded the corner of her house, and stopped short.

“Mrs. Blaze?”

David’s mother turned her head and looked at her, smiling curiously. And yet the smile did not hide a certain vacant look in her eyes. She was in a nightgown that had not been buttoned down the front. She also wore a straw gardening hat, and bright pink winter boots. She was holding pruning shears, and a pile of thorny branches were accumulating at her feet.

Kayla noticed several scratches on her arms were bleeding.

It occurred to her she hadn’t really seen Mrs. Blaze since taking up residence next door. She had meant to go over and say hello when her boxes were unpacked.

In a glance she could see why David’s mother had not told him who had moved in next door. She was fairly certain she was not recognized by the woman who had known Kayla’s husband all of his life, and Kayla for a great deal of hers.

“It’s me,” Kayla said, gently. “Kayla Jaffrey.”

Mrs. Blaze frowned and turned back to the roses. She snapped the blades of the pruners at a branch and missed.

“It used to be McIntosh. I’m friends with your son, David.” Why did I say that, instead of that I was Kevin’s wife?

Not that it mattered. Mrs. Blaze cast her a look that was totally bewildered. A deep sadness opened up in Kayla as she realized she was not the only one in Blossom Valley dealing with major and devastating life changes.

She stepped carefully around the thorny branches, plucked the dangerously waving pruners from Mrs. Blaze’s hands and set them on the ground. She shrugged out of her sweater and tucked it lightly around Mrs. Blaze’s shoulders, buttoning it quickly over the gaping nightie.

“Let’s get you home, shall we?” Kayla offered her elbow.

“But the roses...”

“I’ll look after them,” Kayla promised.

“I don’t know. I like to do it myself. The gardener can’t be trusted. If roses aren’t properly pruned...” Her voice faded, troubled, as if she was struggling to recall what would happen if the roses weren’t properly pruned.

“I’ll look after them,” Kayla promised again.

“Oh. I suppose. Are you a gardener?”

What was the harm in one little white lie? “Yes.”

“Don’t forget the pruners, then,” Mrs. Blaze snapped, and Kayla saw a desperate need to be in control in the sharpness of the command.

She stooped and picked up the pruners, then took advantage of the budding trust in Mrs. Blaze’s eyes to offer her elbow again. This time Mrs. Blaze threaded her fragile arm through Kayla’s and allowed Kayla to guide her through the small wedge of land that separated the two properties. They went through the open gate into the Blaze yard.

Kayla had assumed, looking over her fence at it, that Mrs. Blaze gardened. The lawn was manicured, the beds filled with flowers and dark loam, weed free. Now she realized there must be the gardener Mrs. Blaze had referred to.

Kayla led David’s mother up the stairs and onto the back veranda. Again, she had been admiring it from her own yard. Everything here was beautifully maintained: the expansive deck newly stained, beautiful, inviting furniture scattered over its surface, potted plants spilling an abundance of color and fragrance.

She had been holding out the hope her own property was going to look like this one day. Now she wondered just how much time—or staff—it took to make a place look this perfect. Once she had her own business, would she be able to manage it? She tried not to let the thought make her feel deflated.

Kayla knocked at the door, lightly, and when nothing happened, louder. She was just about to put her head in the door and call out when from within the house she heard the sound of feet coming down the stairs.

She knew from the sound of the tread it was likely David—and who else would it be after all—but still, she did not feel prepared when the door was flung open.

David Blaze stood there, half-asleep and half-naked, unconsciously and mouthwateringly sexy, looking about as magnificent as a man could look.