Where You Least Expect It (5 page)

“Thank you.”

“Is that why you left Oregon?”

He nodded. “It’s one of the reasons I left home, yes.”

The boulevard slowly gave way to the two-lane route that led out of town. They walked in the grass to the right of the road, the woods a couple of feet away alive with the sound of crickets and locusts. Here and there lightning bugs relieved the darkness.

“Any children?”

The question was asked so quietly he almost didn’t hear it.

He didn’t answer for a long time. They passed onto the bridge where he’d met up with her the day before, then over it. “Yes. One. A boy.”

He hadn’t planned to answer her. But it had been so long since he’d talked to anyone about his son, Joshua, that the name just came out. And the instant it did, the tension coiling in his muscles seemed to ease.

“You lost him along with your wife?” she asked quietly.

He looked at her in the darkness, only then realizing they had stopped outside a once-white picket fence; the small house beyond was quiet and dark. “Yes.”

One minute he was trying to make out her beautifully familiar features in the dim light, the next he felt her warm, soft lips against his. A mere whisper of a touch.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again.

Aidan’s throat threatened to close up even as his physical need for the woman standing a hairbreadth away surged high. “So am I.”

Then he was kissing her.

He groaned at the gentle sweetness of her mouth as he threaded his fingers in her hair, tilting her face up so he could better meet her lips. Did she have any idea what he felt for her? How much it meant to him to share what he had with her, without worrying that she would someday hurt him with the information? Could she know how much he wanted her in that one moment? How intensely he longed to caress her bare skin, stroke her slick heat, then bury himself deep inside her?

Her soft gasp told him that she just might.

“Penelope! Is that you and that damn dog of yours?”

Aidan watched Penelope’s eyes open wide, her lips freezing against his. She pulled back, putting a hand to her mouth as if caught doing something forbidden.

“Your grandmother?”

She nodded, seemingly incapable of words.

He stood for a moment watching her, waiting for her to invite him in.

Instead, Penelope turned to open the gate and let Max free from his leash. “Thank you for walking me home.”

There was the rustle of clothes nearby. Then a rusty female voice, sounding very close, said, “Oh, good. You brought me the man I asked for.”

P
enelope wanted the earth to crack open so she could be swallowed up. She wanted to be somewhere, anywhere other than here.

“Grammy!” she whispered fiercely.

Penelope glanced at Aidan.

“Good evening, Ms. Moon,” he said, a tinge of amusement in his voice.

“Don’t ‘Ms. Moon’ me. Get in here and let’s have a look.”

Penelope watched helplessly and hopelessly as Mavis opened the gate and grabbed Aidan by the front of his nicely starched shirt.

“Grandmother, Aidan was just leaving.”

“No, he wasn’t.” She slid Penelope a glance as she led Aidan to the porch. “He just got here.”

“But he’s not…I mean, he isn’t—”

“What, girl? Spit it out already and be done with it.”

“He’s not here for you.”

Penelope wasn’t sure who was more surprised, Mavis or Aidan or herself, as she stumbled into the dark house after them.

It wasn’t completely dark. Candles flickered in the dining room, casting an eerie red glow that seemed to warn her away rather than invite her in. Uh-oh. She’d forgotten what state Mavis had been in when she’d left her this morning, then again this afternoon. The doors were still missing. The walls were still covered with photos of her mother. And there was the unmistakable scent of bleach everywhere.

Penelope tried a light switch. Nothing. She bit back the desire to ask her grandmother what had happened to the electricity. Despite everything, she desperately wanted Aidan to think her a normal, everyday woman. Not someone who lived with an eccentric old woman who every twelve months or so took a dive into the deep end.

Mavis snorted. “Well, he has to be here for me, because he certainly couldn’t be here for you. You don’t need a man. Remember?”

Penelope winced away from her words.

“Come in here and let me have a look at you,” she heard her grandmother say.

“Hmm,” she heard Mavis hum. “A little on the young side, aren’t you?”

Penelope slowly walked over to stand in the doorway to the dining room. She gasped. Both at the change in decor and her grandmother’s open perusal of Aidan, whom she’d positioned in front of a stand of candles. The dining table was covered with thick red velvet that seemed to drip over the sides. Candlesticks and candleholders were scattered everywhere, black candles of varying sizes filling the room with the scent of wax and making it even hotter than it had been already.

Penelope wanted to groan. A week ago Aidan would have found a fairly normal scene. Mavis probably would have been in the brightly lit, clean kitchen kneading dough for homemade bread, or reading a book in the living room, or even sitting out on the porch mapping out the stars.

Instead, what he encountered would no doubt confirm every strange thing the townsfolk had ever said about the Moons—and then some.

Mavis circled Aidan. “Young, but you’ll do.”

“Gram!” Penelope stepped between the two. “Aidan is my guest. Not yours.”

The old woman stared at her.

Penelope found herself sputtering. “Well…actually, he’s not even a guest. He just…walked me home.”

“Of course. Because both you and I know that you don’t have any friends.”

“And when was the last time you had someone over?” Penelope said without blinking.

She noticed her grandmother flinch. But she couldn’t deal with that now. As far as she was concerned, Mavis deserved anything she could fling her way.

She turned quickly to Aidan. But what could she possibly say?

“Can I make you some tea, Aidan?” Mavis asked.

Penelope glanced over her shoulder to find her grandmother stirring something in what looked suspiciously like a cauldron atop a gas camping stove.

She nearly fainted dead out.

The expression of horror that Penelope wore touched Aidan in a way that few things ever had. He wanted to help ease her mind, reassure her that while her grandmother’s actions were indeed strange, he’d come across people that unsettled him far more than the thin old woman whose dark eyes sparkled with a humor he doubted her granddaughter saw.

Aidan cleared his throat. “So long as the tea doesn’t have a pinch of eye of newt in it, I’m game.”

Penelope stared at him as if he’d gone as insane as her grandmother.

“Actually, it’s chamomile. Grown in our own garden.”

“Then, I’d love some.”

Mavis made a strange sound then left the room, leaving the two of them alone.

Aidan’s gaze flicked over Penelope’s pale face in the warm candlelight. Someone else might have shouted or railed or been rude to the old woman who had caught them both off guard. Or grabbed him by the arm and taken him back outside, slamming the door after them—he glanced in that direction, just now realizing there was no door.

But not Penelope.

He took in the proud way she held her shoulders, as if bracing herself for the worst. But not making any apologies or explanations.

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” she said quietly.

He squinted at her unblinking comment. “I know,” he replied, a shudder rushing through him.

Her soft voice spoke to him on so many levels. No, he didn’t have to stay. Not here in this house. Not at the bed-and-breakfast. Not in Old Orchard, period.

But, damn it, he wanted to.

He didn’t want to go back to Mrs. O’Malley, collect his suitcase and go to meet the last Greyhound out of town. And a small voice told him he didn’t have to.

The revelation was freeing and exciting and frightening all at once.

He cracked a smile. “I like your grandmother.”

Penelope seemed doubtful at first. Then she smiled shyly. “She’s not usually this bizarre. She’s going through one of her episodes.”

She gestured vaguely with her hand. “What I meant to say is that every now and again she goes through these odd stretches.” She looked down so far, her chin made contact with her chest. “You should have been here two years ago when she set up shop in the front yard advertising for personalized curses and spells.”

Aidan reached out a finger and lightly ran it over her cheek, marveling at the smoothness of her skin. “I don’t know. I think last year’s marijuana-growing incident tops that one.”

“You weren’t in Old Orchard for that, were you?”

“No. But the story was still big news.”

She rolled her eyes. “God. Everyone knew about that?”

“Pretty hard to keep news like that quiet in such a small town.”

“I know, but…” She sighed.

She didn’t finish her thought. And she didn’t need to. Aidan knew all too well what she was trying to say.

“I bet business picks up at your shop during these…stretches.”

Penelope gazed at him for a long time before finally smiling. “You’re right. It does.” She fingered the bracelet around her wrist. “Just today I could barely deal with all the customers.”

“Did they ask about Mavis?”

“They asked why we don’t have any doors on the house. I told them we were having them replaced.”

His hand was still resting comfortably on her shoulder, his finger almost absently stroking her cheek. God, what he would have given to kiss her in that one moment. But even if her mere existence convinced him to stay in town, no matter how strongly his instincts were telling him to leave, he would have to fight his attraction to the woman before him. Because even if he was wrong about his past catching up with him, he knew that wouldn’t always be the case. One day very soon everyone would see him for who he really was. And he thought it only fair that Penelope do that without any false hope that circumstances could be otherwise.

“Here we go,” Mavis said, reentering the room with a small tray of mismatched cups.

Penelope gave him a beseeching look. He chucked her under the chin. “I won’t stay long. I promise.”

“Actually,” she whispered. “I was going to ask you never leave….”

From the moment the words exited her mouth, well into the following day, Penelope couldn’t bring herself to believe she’d said what she had to Aidan. As she counted out change for Jolie Conrad, she hoped her cheeks weren’t flaming red and that her thoughts weren’t transparent.

“Is everything all right, Penelope?”

She stared at the woman she had gone to school with. Jolie had always been kind to her. And unfailingly bought teas and lotions from her once a month. But Penelope had never really felt close to the woman who was now the fire chief of the town. She glanced down to where Jolie held the hand of little Eleanor Johansen. Jolie and her husband Dusty had taken the girl in while her father recovered from massive burns sustained when he’d tried to save his wife and Ellie’s mother from their burning house a year and a half ago. She’d heard Elva say something about the now five-year-old being the glue that Jolie and Dusty had needed to paste their lives back together. Secretly Penelope had always known the two would find their way back into each other’s arms.

She cleared her throat as she realized Jolie waited for an answer. “I’m fine.”

“Spot!” Ellie cried, tugging her hand from Jolie’s and chasing the black-and-white cat around the counter.

Jolie looked first at the girl and the feline, then back up at Penelope. “Spot’s been hanging out here?”

Penelope made a fuss over closing the register and straightening the jars of cream on the counter. “Not that I’ve noticed.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jolie smile.

“I wondered where the little troublemaker had gotten to now. She comes by the station for a few minutes, then up and disappears. Which means…”

Penelope looked at Jolie. “Which means what?”

Jolie shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s just that every now and again even I believe the rumors about her.” She stepped around the counter to collect the five-year-old. “Come on, Ellie. Say goodbye to Miss Moon so we can go home to make those cookies to take to your daddy.”

“How is Mr. Johansen doing?”

Jolie’s smile widened. “Better. His latest skin grafts are taking and physical therapy is going well. Ellie and I are trekking up to Toledo for a visit where he’s being treated. The doctors say he may be able to come home for good in a couple of months.”

Penelope shared her smile. That was, indeed, good news. She already knew that Jolie’s husband, Dusty—who had long since turned in his firefighter’s hat for a hammer—was overseeing the rebuilding of the Johansen house. She passed it every day on her walk home.

“See you later, Penelope.”

“Hmm. Yes, ‘bye! Goodbye, Ellie.”

“Goodbye, Miss Moon.”

After the pair was out of sight, Penelope rounded the counter and went to stand in front of the windows overlooking Lucas Circle. How familiar everything looked. How reassuring. She’d grown up in this town, but she’d never really taken a good look at it or the people who inhabited it. That she was doing so now…

Spot rubbed against her right ankle and meowed.

Penelope stared down at the restless cat. “What is it, girl? Do you want to go outside?”

She opened the door, expecting the cat to dart out, but instead Spot sat down and stared up at her.

That’s odd…

“Afternoon, Penelope.”

She nearly jumped out of her skin as she looked up to find Aidan standing in the open doorway.

Spot got up then and sauntered through the door, both Penelope and Aidan watching her.

“Um, hi,” she said, feeling the heat return to her cheeks.

“Was that Jolie I just saw leaving?”

She nodded and turned away from the door, leaving him to catch it and decide whether or not to come in. After last night’s debacle and what she’d said, she wasn’t sure which she wanted him to do. But she was relieved when the bells sounded as the door closed and he was inside rather than out.

She busied herself with picking up the two boxes that had been delivered earlier and putting them on the counter.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it.”

She made a face. “Pardon me?”

He gestured toward the windows. “I was just saying it was a nice day. Much too nice to be inside. Especially on a Saturday.”

She located the box cutters and opened the first package. “Saturday’s when I do my best business.”

Actually, the past few days she’d done more business than she had in the entire previous month. This morning, she’d taken in enough to nicely add to the little nest egg she’d been building ever since she’d started working at the shop. Her first profits went straight to the running of the store. Second went to the upkeep on the house she and Mavis shared. The rest, well, the rest she quietly tucked away for a rainy day. Only, she wasn’t sure what constituted a rainy day and what she would do with the funds once she figured it out.

Of course, she preferred not to think about the reason behind the pickup in business. It seemed that while she’d been at the planning committee meeting, Mavis had been spotted in town wearing her most hideous housecoat and the fluffy pink slippers Penelope had bought her as a gag gift one Christmas. She’d reportedly been picking through the red and white annuals planted in half-barrels every ten feet or so, and pinching off dead blooms, all the while talking to herself.

“Have you ever taken a vacation, Penelope?”

She blinked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language. “Vacation?”

“Mmm-hmm.” He grinned. “You know, as in taking time off, away from the shop.”

“Who would pay the electric bill at the house?”

Assuming that someone actually used the electricity at the house. Last night it had taken her a half an hour and a flickering flashlight to discover that Mavis had turned off all the switches in the fuse box. Penelope had turned them all back on, then placed a lock on the fuse box when she was done, hoping that in the morning her electric alarm clock would still be working and would wake her up.

“Everyone needs a little time off,” Aidan said quietly.

“Do they?” She sifted through green packing peanuts and took out boxes of Mountain Tea she’d ordered from Greece. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Have dinner with me.”

Her gaze riveted to his face. “What?”

The little crinkles around his rich brown eyes deepened as he grinned. “I asked if you would do me the pleasure of having dinner with me. Tonight. Take time out from being yourself for just an hour or two.”