Life Happens

Praise for the work of Sandra Steffen

“Steffen is one of those authors whose characters and their emotions ring true, which makes each book a heartfelt treat.”

—Romantic Times

“Steffen’s characters are thoroughly and thoughtfully conceived…the charm of this tale lies in her lovely portrayal of complex family relationships.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Cottage

“Sandra Steffen is a veritable master at creating characters. On a scale of 1–10, a 15!”

—ReaderToReader.com

“Steffen knows exactly how hard to tug on readers’ heart-strings for maximum effect.”

—Booklist

“Warm, unforgettable characters come to life in Sandra’s small-town setting.”

—Round Table Reviews on Come Summer

“A compelling, heartwarming tale. Steffen is a talented author to watch.”

—Bestselling author Kat Martin on The Cottage

“A charming, intense story. High drama and gentle reflection—the perfect mix.”

—Bestselling author Stella Cameron on The Cottage

“A powerfully riveting story that pulls the reader from page one and doesn’t stop…one of the most original plots I’ve ever seen…flawless characterization.”

—Romance Reviews Today on Come Summer

Sandra Steffen

Sandra Steffen has always been a storyteller. She began nurturing this hidden talent by concocting adventures for her brothers and sisters, even though the boys were more interested in her ability to hit a baseball over the barn—an automatic home run. She didn’t begin her pursuit of publication until she was a young wife and mother of four sons. Since her thrilling debut as a published author in 1992, thirty-three of her novels have graced bookshelves across the country.

Professional reviewers have called Sandra a veritable master at creating characters, and her books well written, satisfying and intelligent. Her most cherished review came from her youngest son recently when he said, “Mom, I hear your voice as I’m reading your book.”

This winner of the RITA^® Award, the Wish Award, and the National Readers Choice Award enjoys traveling with her husband. Usually their destinations are settings for her upcoming books. They are empty nesters these days. Who knew it could be so much fun? Please visit her at www.sandrasteffen.com.

Life Happens
Sandra Steffen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

From the Author

Dear Reader Friends,

I hope you enjoy Life Happens. I won’t apologize if this story makes you cry. If it does, I would have to apologize for making you smile, too. It’s human nature to feel as though laughter is somehow our due and tears our punishment, but aren’t both part of life?

The idea for Life Happens woke me from a deep sleep and came to me complete with a beginning, a middle and an end. It was the first time it had happened this way. From the moment of its conception, I knew I had to tell this poignant story, which began as a tribute to my beloved brother, who died on a blustery night in 1995. The details that led to that day aren’t unique: the diagnosis, the prayers, the bone-marrow transplant that failed, the hole his death left in our family. Just as losing Ron taught me more about life than death, Life Happens became a story about life, too, and the bond between a mother and child, and a man and a woman, a bond so strong it waited nearly two decades to spring up, so fierce it was painful and so full of hope and joy it became a power unto itself.

Like so many of life’s mysteries, Life Happens was a blessing in disguise, for it has led me down this path to this moment. I’ve been blessed many times over, with family and friends, laughter and luck, and with this gift I’ve been given that wakes me in the middle of the night with stories that insist upon being written. There is one more blessing I can’t fail to mention, and that blessing is you, dear reader friends.

Until next time and always…

Sandra

In loving memory of my brother, and all our brothers—

and sisters—who’ve fought life’s battles and lost,

and for all those who’ve won.

“The highest reward for your toil is not what you get for it but what you become of it.” —John Ruskin

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 1

M ya Donahue felt naked. And not in a good way.

What had she done?

Most of her hair, her beautiful, long, lustrous hair, was gone. What was left stuck out in four- and five-inch tufts, as if she’d gotten caught in some cosmic blender. She turned her head slightly. It was no use. It looked bad from every angle.

What had she been thinking?

She could have blamed it on the weather. For generations, the descendants of the Irishmen and Scotsmen who’d settled along this stretch of the rocky coast of Maine had insisted that days like this were at the root of all evil. The day was wet, windy and a little wild, but to blame? It wasn’t the weather. More likely it was the month. April was always a dangerous time for her.

“A trim?” Rolf had asked when she’d arrived at the trendy hair salon located directly above Brynn’s, her clothing boutique in Portland’s waterfront district.

For weeks she’d been watching Rolf’s clients traipse past her display windows, looking, if not gorgeous, at the very least fresh and totally transformed. During the lull after lunch today, Mya had flipped the Closed sign in the window and crept upstairs. Shutting the door on a gust of wind and the bawl of a far-off foghorn that sounded suspiciously like the voice of reason, she’d heard herself say, “Surprise me.”

Surprise me? Had she lost her mind?

Mya loved new trends: clunky-heeled shoes and boots of all kinds, low-slung pants and the latest jewelry. But other than an occasional trim, she never changed her hairstyle. Until today.

Even the window-shoppers and early tourists who’d never seen her before had watched her closely the rest of the day. Those who knew her were downright blunt.

“Whoa,” her after-school clerk exclaimed.

“You cut your hair!” the woman who owned the bookstore next door had said, in case Mya didn’t know.

Joe, the kindly deliveryman said, “Don’t worry. It’ll grow back.”

By the end of the afternoon, Mya had been ready to tell even the paying customers to stick their opinions. The old Mya would have. But the new Mya didn’t. The new and improved, cool, calm and collected Mya counted to ten and clenched so hard she nearly cracked a tooth.

Looking at her reflection in the safety of her own living room, she pulled at the wayward tresses. It was no use. She turned her back on the baroque mirror. Beseeching her two closest friends, she said, “What do you think?”

“Did you consult the personal emotional tides of the moon chart I gave you last Christmas?” Suzette Lewis asked.

Mya all but dropped her face into her hands. Until she’d met Suzette, the only thing she’d known about her astrological sign was that she was an Aries. “Do I look like I consulted anything?”

Suzette studied the uneven blond tendrils encircling Mya’s head. Petite and at times just a little too perky, Suzette said, “It isn’t that bad.”

Coming from Sunny Suzie, that meant it wasn’t that good, either. The accompanying smile was a bold-faced lie.

“Claire?” Mya asked the other woman.

As droll as Suzette was sunny, Claire O’Brien wore her dark hair long and loose, much the way she wore her clothes. Unlike Mya and Suzette, Claire wasn’t from Maine. Originally from upstate New York, there was something mysterious about her. Mya had never had a truer friend, or a more honest one, which Claire proved when she said, “In the future, I wouldn’t change your hairstyle the same week you become engaged.”

Suzette dropped into an overstuffed chair. “I still can’t believe you’re engaged.” Not many thirty-year-old women could pull off that whine. “I’m the one who’s always dreamed of marrying a doctor. It was my appendix that ruptured.”

Fighting queasiness, Mya muttered, “Don’t say ruptured.”

Pouting, Suzette said, “Fine. It was my appendix that expanded violently, and who was just coming off duty in E.R.? Only the best-looking doctor in the English-speaking world.”

Mya stopped tugging at her hair long enough to admit that Jeffrey was incredibly good-looking, although that wasn’t why she’d started seeing him.

“You’re right, Suzette,” Claire said from the sofa. “It was terribly inconsiderate of Mya to answer her phone in the dead of night when you called, sobbing. And it was thoughtless of her to throw on her clothes, brave a blinding snowstorm and her fear of hospitals and drive you to the Emergency Room, then wait not only until you came out of surgery, but until you were out of recovery, too.”

“Gosh, when you put it that way, maybe Mya does deserve that two-karat rock more than I do, even though I am the one who had emergency surgery. But Claire, she doesn’t even care about diamonds.”

Mya could only shrug, because it was true. Most of the time, she forgot the ring was there, which explained the fast little jolt she felt each time she caught the flash of it in her peripheral vision. She’d only been engaged for four days. Surely, she would get used to it.

“Where is the groom-to-be, anyway?” Suzette asked.

The door opened, and the three friends turned with varying degrees of interest. Mya was the only one who groaned, for it wasn’t Jeffrey at all.

“The cavalry to the rescue,” Claire said under her breath.

Never one to waste the spotlight, Mya’s mother lowered her umbrella and beamed all around. “Everyone I’ve talked to today has had it, HAD IT with this weather. That’s some dice-job, Mya.”

What little hair was left on the back of Mya’s neck stood on end. “This dice-job cost me eighty bucks.”

The older woman answered without missing a beat. “Which only proves what I’ve always said. Just because something’s more expensive doesn’t mean it’s better. Now let’s have a closer look.”

Mya had little choice but to succumb to the inspection that followed. After much tongue clicking and head shaking, her mother rummaged through her big, red purse for a pair of red-tipped scissors. Red was her mother’s favorite color. She wore red nail polish, red lipstick, red blush on her cheeks, red shoes, red everything. Even her ’95 Impala was red.

“Well? What do you think?” Mya asked.

“I think you paid too much. I only charge my customers twenty dollars for a shampoo, cut and blow job.”

Suzette gasped. Claire smirked. And Mya said, “I believe you mean blow-dry, Mom.”

“That’s what I said.”

Mya lifted her eyes heavenward. On her worst days, it behooved her to admit, with great lamentation, that it was still slightly, minutely, yet terrifyingly possible that she would become her mother.

Of course, that was her mother’s dream. “Let’s go to the kitchen. I think I can fix this.”

And the thing was, Mya was sure she could.

Millicent Donahue owned a hair salon, aptly named Millie’s Hair Salon. Despite the fact that the term had gone out of style in the eighties, she still called herself a beautician. For years the salon had been a bone of contention between mother and daughter. Eventually they’d called a truce of sorts. Now, Mya needn’t feel obligated to have her hair trimmed at her mother’s salon, and her mother needn’t feel obligated to shop at Mya’s store. Not that Mya carried red sweatshirts with glitter and sequins, anyway.

Mya pulled out a chair, her mother started clipping, Claire uncorked the wine and Suzette began unwrapping the trays of food she’d gotten from her favorite deli over on Market Street. The wind howled and rain pelted the windows. Sitting in her warm kitchen, surrounded by these quirky women who loved her, Mya relaxed. She liked her house. Built some eighty years ago of stone quarried from the area, it was a good house, Cape Cod in style, small and sturdy with a steep roof and a bay window overlooking the street. Oh, it wasn’t on Keepers Island, and it was old and drafty, but it had character and was close enough to the Atlantic to feel like home.

“I thought Jeffrey was going to be here,” Millicent said around the hair clip in her mouth.

“He had an emergency.”

“An E.R. doctor,” Suzette grumbled. “Do you have any idea how many women aspire to marry a doctor?”

“I didn’t aspire to marry anyone.”

“Go ahead. Rub it in.”

Mya smiled into her chest.

“I still say it isn’t fair,” Suzette said.

“What isn’t fair?” Millicent asked.

Pouring the wine, Claire said, “Don’t mind Suzette, Ms. Donahue. She’s just bitter because Jeffrey saw her naked first and still chose Mya.”

“My daughter is a goddess.”

Drolly, Mya said, “No goddess ever had this haircut.”

“Rolf’s an idiot.”

For once, Mya wasn’t even tempted to argue.

In seemingly no time at all, her mother stepped back and handed Mya a small mirror. Although still slightly shocking, evened up here and there, the tousled style looked pretty good on her, all things considered.

Her mother said, “You haven’t had hair this short—”

Their gazes locked.

With the barest lift of one penciled-on eyebrow, Millicent said, “—in a long, long time.”

Mya should have known she needn’t have worried.

Her mother was the first to look away, and Mya was left feeling a dozen emotions, none of them pleasant. So what else was new?

Oblivious, Suzette said, “What do you say we move this party out to the dining room and away from any airborne hair?” Taking a small tray in either hand, she headed for the door, disrupting Jeffrey’s three cats that had somehow wound up at Mya’s place.

“What do you have there?” Millicent asked.

“There’s crab dip with tofu and whole-wheat crackers, goat cheese and fruit and honey, and—” The door swung shut on the rest of the recitation.

Millie reached into the cabinet for the chips and into the refrigerator for the dip. “Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.” When she was certain Suzette was out of hearing range, she lowered her raspy voice and said, “If that girl gets any perkier, I’m going to bite through my tongue.” She followed Suzette to the dining room.

Mya’s thoughts exactly. It was no wonder she worried.

It was quiet in the kitchen suddenly. Too quiet. Finding Claire watching her, Mya handed over the other tray.

Claire put it right back down again. “You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?”

“Serve red wine with cheese? I’m living dangerously.”

Claire didn’t pretend to be amused.

And Mya said, “Not you, too.”

“I’ll say my piece, and then forever hold it. You’re going to get married.”

“I thought you’d be happier for me.”

“I am happy for you.” She must have read Mya’s expression, because she said, “This is my happy face.”

Another time Mya might have smiled.

Claire forged ahead. “You don’t find it at all unsettling that you accepted Jeffrey’s marriage proposal because of something Dr. Phil said on national television? Love is a decision. Where does he get this stuff? Will I take a cruise or climb Mount Everest? Shall I fix green beans for supper, or corn? Should I flunk the kid I caught cheating today or call him in and talk to him? Those are decisions. Trust me, love is not a decision.”

“You don’t believe I love Jeffrey?”

“I think you’re fond of Jeffrey, much the way you’re fond of your new living-room rug. Jeffrey is a nice guy. In fact, there should be a law against anybody being that nice, Suzette notwithstanding.”

“What’s wrong with nice?”

Claire gaped. “You chew up nice people for breakfast and spit them out before lunch.”

“How flattering.”

“Come on, Mya. A woman like you hasn’t remained single this long for lack of opportunities. Don’t even try to tell me Jeffrey’s marriage proposal was your first.”

Mya floundered for a moment. “Now I really am flattered, because the truth is, I haven’t had all that many marriage proposals.” She prayed Claire didn’t expect her to be more specific.

“That’s because you almost never let a man close.”

Relieved, Mya said, “Jeffrey is attentive, intelligent, ardent and imperturbable.”

Claire fanned herself with one hand. “You’re making me hot. Tell me something. Why is it that your every description of Jeffrey begins with a vowel?”

Leave it to a high-school English teacher to notice that.

The kitchen door opened, and Suzette stuck her head inside. “Did you talk to her?”

Mya threw up her hands. “You two planned this?” Looking at these women whose personalities were at opposite ends of the spectrum, she said, “Let’s just suspend my personal belief for a moment. Let’s say love isn’t a decision, and the fact that Jeffrey makes me think, makes me feel special and safe, and he’s a good kisser isn’t enough reason to marry him. How does a woman decide who to marry?”

With a flourish, Suzette took a sheaf of papers from her oversize purse. “I put that question to my second graders this morning. Claire, did you ask your class?”

“That was an assignment gone wrong. Trust me, you don’t want to hear the results.”

Suzette nodded. “My students’ answers were problematic, too.”

Now Mya was curious. “What did they say?”

“Nobody believes in true love anymore. Not even eight-year-olds.”

“Maybe they’re too young to make a decision,” Claire said.

New lease or not, Mya gave her the finger.

Waving as if at a bothersome insect, Suzette said, “I asked my students how they would decide who to marry. The smartest girl in the class said you wait until you’re old, at least twenty, and you go on a date, and if you believe half his lies, you go on another, and at the end of the summer you get married.”

Mya smiled.

Suzette didn’t. “Her best friend said you don’t decide. God does. You have to wait until you’re grown up and see who you’re stuck with. The boy who sits next to her stood up and declared that no age is a good age to get married. You got to be a fool to get married.”

“Nine will get you ten he’ll be sitting in the back of my class ten years from now,” Claire said. “If he’s still in school then.”

“That’s awfully judgmental!” Suzette admonished.

“You say judgmental, I say realistic. Potato, po-tah-to.”

It was like watching a tennis match. Times like these, Mya understood why she’d started watching Dr. Phil’s program every chance she had.

“Are you bringing more chips?” Millie called from the next room.

Suzette dashed toward the door with the bag of chips, practically tripping over one of Jeffrey’s cats. When the door stopped swinging, Claire said, “And that’s another thing, Mya. You’re a dog person. You don’t even like cats.”

Mya scooped two of the oversize fur balls off the kitchen counter before they sampled the crab dip. Depositing them, none too ceremoniously, in the back room, she closed the door and brushed at the cat hair they’d left on her green silk blouse. “You have it all wrong. Those sneaky, obese, flea-ridden creatures don’t like me.”

“What’s not to like?”

Back in control, Mya let that go.

Claire looked worried, but she said, “Listen. It sounds like Jeffrey’s here. We’d better get out there and save him from Suzette.”

Right behind her, Mya said, “You mean from my mother.”

Oh, sure. Now Claire laughed.

“You’re positive you don’t want something to drink?” Mya held up the bottle of wine.

Jeffrey put it back on the coffee table where she’d gotten it. “Booze and E.R. duty don’t mix.”

The man was just about perfect, no doubt about it. “You’re not hungry?” Mya asked. “Not even for apple slices dipped in honey?”

Everyone had gone, and Mya was trying to put things away. Uninterested in putting anything away, Jeff put his arms around her. “I’d rather have a different kind of honey.”

Claire was right. Jeff was so nice he was corny. Corny wasn’t all. Thirty-two years old, Jeffrey Anderson stood six feet three inches tall, had linebacker shoulders, a wash-board stomach, hands and feet like a Labrador puppy and the sex drive of a seventeen-year-old. The thought burned through Mya’s mind before sliding away to a place she didn’t go anymore.

Nuzzling her neck, Jeff said, “I have to be back at the hospital in thirty-eight minutes. We can spend the next half hour doing anything you want, anywhere you want.”

Now what kind of woman could complain about that? He knew all the moves, and she would have to be a fool to waste them. And yet she always had the feeling he was asking for permission. Jeff was a gentleman. There was nothing wrong with that. Still, sometimes she wished he would just take her, devour her, infuse her with passion and delight until she writhed in ecstasy.

He turned her gently into his arms and kissed her again. Holding her to him, molding and kneading until she groaned, he eased her backward toward the sofa, where they’d last made love. She’d had a crick in her neck for two days.

“I think what you have in mind is best suited to a bed, Doctor.”

His face lit up as she reached for his hand. He’d lit up this way when he’d first laid eyes on her earlier tonight, too, although he still hadn’t said anything about her hair. He would either say something nice, or he wouldn’t say anything at all, of that she was certain. Jeff was a nice guy. Mya’s relationship with him was the most calm and rational one in her life. Until recently, she and her mother had rarely missed an opportunity to argue. Claire was of the opinion that the Donahue women weren’t happy unless they were miserable. Claire should talk. She could learn a great deal from Dr. Phil, if only she would tune in.

There was no reason in the world to be thinking about this, especially when a virile, nearly naked man was undressing her, caressing her, kissing her. Where was her blouse, anyway? Jeff peeled away her bra and covered her breasts with his big hands. Pleasure surged through her.

Mya was five-four-and-a-half, and at times Jeff seemed as big as a house. He was her safe place in the storm of life. She’d discovered it that night in the emergency room. It was the first time she’d set foot inside a hospital in years. She wouldn’t have then if she’d had a choice. She’d managed to remain stoic through the harrowing drive to the hospital, Suzette whimpering in the seat next to her. And then she’d managed to get Suzette into a wheelchair and through the automatic doors. She’d given the night nurse all the pertinent information. After they’d wheeled Suzette away, and Mya was alone in the cold, austere hospital, panic had set in. She’d shaken with the effort to hold herself together. And there was Jeffrey coming off duty, bringing her a cup of steaming coffee and the offer of a broad shoulder to cry on.

Jeffrey Anderson was just about the nicest, kindest man she’d ever met, and she’d found herself wondering if she’d been holding the wrong kind of man at bay. He’d asked for her phone number. And she’d given it to him. She was sure he wouldn’t call, even more sure she wouldn’t go out with him if he did. She was wrong on both counts.

He’d called, and it had felt good to talk with him over dinner. And later, it had felt good to kiss him. After a few dates, it had felt good to make love with him. What was so wrong with feeling good? He didn’t curl her toes. So what?

The wind howled and rain ran in sheets down her bedroom window. The room was shadowy and drafty. Goose bumps rose on her skin as he lowered her to the bed and eased down next to her. Heat emanated from him, drawing her closer.

The mattress shifted and their breaths mingled. She was tangling her legs with his when she glanced at the foot of the bed. Two cats sat nearby in the oblong patch of light spilling from the hall. A third had stopped in the doorway. All three were watching.

“Jeffrey. The cats.”

He groaned when she stopped doing what she’d been doing and removed her hand, but he heaved himself away from her and gathered up his cats. “I swear you guys do this on purpose.” Shooing them all into the hall, he closed the door. “Now, where were you?”

She laughed, and it almost sounded wicked. It had been a long time since she’d been wicked. He returned to her, and she enjoyed it so much she couldn’t help laughing again. He kissed her, stroked her, caressed her, until a deep feeling of peace entered her being. She spoke his name on a whisper, and he came to her, the joining of man to woman pure and pleasurable. Those first delightful tremors were just beginning when one of the cats yowled in the hall. The other two took up the cry.

Feeling her stiffen, Jeff said, “Pretend we’re in the jungle.”

Mya laughed, and he smoothed one fingertip along her cheek, down the length of her neck, skimming the outer swell of her breast, her waist, until he found what he was after. He was an ardent lover, mindful of her needs, and vocal about his. And yet she was distracted. Who wouldn’t be distracted with three cats yowling outside the closed bedroom door?

A memory came, unbidden. Hazy and as if from a great distance, she glimpsed for but a moment, two lovers too young to know what they were doing, and a passion so consuming nothing could have kept them from doing it. She stopped the thought, her mind suddenly blank, her body and soul empty.

“I love your hair.”

Mya started. “What?”

“Your hair. I like it. Very sassy.”

He’d waited until it was pitch-dark to tell her. But it made her smile, and it brought her to him once again.

She moaned softly.

“Do you like that?” he asked, his voice low.

“I think you should do it again, just so I can be sure.”

This time he chuckled, but he acquiesced, and yes, she liked it. Maybe it wasn’t ecstasy. Accepting the weight of him, and the warmth of him, it was enough.

Ecstasy was overrated, anyway.

“I love you,” Jeff said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” He sauntered to the foyer, bending to pet each cat on his way. He looked back at her from the door. Giving her a smile, he was gone, sated and content.

She envied him that contentment.

Where had that thought come from? Turning, she found all three cats staring at her, as if Jeff’s leaving was somehow her fault. Jeff worked long hours. And when he wasn’t working, he was at her place. It made sense that his cats were better off here.

“What? He has his house. I have mine.”

The white cat jumped onto the back of the sofa. The yellow two continued to stare at her from the easy chair.

“You heard him. He’ll call tomorrow.” And then, because she couldn’t be cold or cruel, even if she wasn’t a cat person, she added, “Don’t worry, he’ll be back.”

No swish of their tails. No meows. No purring. Nothing.

Why anybody bothered talking to cats, she didn’t know. Cinching the sash of her long silk robe, she padded to the kitchen. The moment she started the electric can opener, all three cats came running.

She doled out the bribe, and watched them enjoy it. The white one even let her pet him, and she had to admit, his fur was soft and warm. Leaving them to their late-night snack, she wandered through her little house. It was nearing the witching hour, and it had been an eventful day. Her hairstyle had been salvaged, she was learning to coexist with Jeff’s cats, and she’d avoided a blowup with her mother. Maybe she’d finally grown up—perish the thought—but she was thirty-six.

She looked out the kitchen window. The rain had let up and the wind had died down. Dark, damp and cold, it was a good night to brood. It was what the old Mya would have done. What good had it ever done? What good would it do tonight?

She did an about-face. Instead of brooding, she was going to leave this mess for tomorrow and go to bed. She hadn’t taken three steps when a knock sounded on her door. She paused at the lamp she’d just turned off. Her neighbors never stayed up this late. Jeff had a key, so it couldn’t be him. Maybe Claire or Suzette had returned for some reason. She doubted it was her mother.

The knock came again.

Turning the lamp back on, she went to the door and peered through the peephole. The room pitched, and one hand flew to her mouth.

A girl wearing faded blue jeans and no jacket stood on the porch. Mya felt frozen in time and in place, and yet she opened the door, a wild gust of wind hitting her in the face.

After looking Mya up and down, eyes the same brown as her own narrowed. “I would have knocked sooner but I was waiting for the Minute Man to leave.” With a snide curl of her lip, the girl said, “Hey, Mom. Long time no see.”