Man With A Mission

Jackie looked around as they drew away from each other. There were file cabinets against the wall, a map of the city tacked up on one side, a large one of the county on the other. A small portable bar sat under the city map, with a coffeepot on it and a box from the bakery. A low table held a cordless phone atop a phone book. A quilt rack took up considerable space in one corner of the room.

“Are you going into business, Adeline?” Jackie asked, knowing that Addy’s skills as a quilter were legendary. She’d made one for each of Jackie’s girls when they were born. “Have you found a way to make quilting profitable?”

Adeline looked amused by that suggestion. “As if,” she said, then lowered her eyes and looked away for a moment, as though uncomfortable holding Jackie’s gaze.

Jackie had a horrible premonition. “This is Hank’s office,” she guessed.

Adeline smiled and sighed, as though she’d suddenly made up her mind about something. “It is. I’m tidying things up while he moves things in. And the quilt rack is here because I’ll be his office staff and help organize all the men.”

Jackie’s horror was derailed for a moment. “All the men? Does he have partners?”

“No. I thought you knew he started Whitcomb’s Wonders.” Adeline went on to explain about the on-call service of tradesmen and craftsmen Hank had started. If anyone had told her, she hadn’t listened. She automatically tuned out when his name was mentioned.

“You know, he’s been back in Maple Hill for six months, Jackie,” Addy went on. “It’s time you two stopped pretending the other doesn’t exist.”

Great. The ten pounds Parker’s massage had alleviated were now back with a vengeance and, against all anatomical good sense, sitting right in the middle of her shoulders. She started to back toward the door. She would never deliberately hurt Adeline, but she would avoid crossing paths with Hank at all costs.

“It’s great that you’ll be here,” she said diplomatically. “Maybe you and I can have coffee or lunch.”

“It’s childish and nonproductive,” Adeline said, ignoring Jackie’s invitation. Exasperation was visible in her eyes. “You’re going to be in the same building. You have to come to terms with this.”

“We’ve come to terms with each other, Addy.” Jackie put both hands to her back, the pressure there tightening at the very mention of Hank’s name. “We like pretending the other doesn’t exist. Then we don’t have to remember the past or deal with each other in the present.”

“You were children when all this happened,” Adeline reminded her. “Certainly you can forgive each other for behaving like children.”

Jackie closed her eyes tightly against the image her brain tried to form of that time. She didn’t want to see it. There’d certainly been grave and very adult consequences for the actions Addy considered childish.

“Just wanted to welcome you to the building,” Jackie said, stepping out into the hall and turning to force a smile for Addy. “If there are any problems with the space, please call,”

Addy sighed dispiritedly. “I will, Jackie. Thank you.”

Jackie headed back the way she’d come, eager now to get upstairs. With Hank Whitcomb occupying office space in the basement, this would no longer be the place to hide from her councilmen.

In the dark corridor before she made the turn, she collided with something large and hard in the shadows. She knew what it was even before firm hands grabbed her to steady her.

Could this day get any worse? She drew a breath and cloaked herself in mayoral dignity. “Hello, Hank,” she said.

CHAPTER TWO

HANK KNEW HE’D COLLIDED with Jackie even before he heard the sound of her voice. Her scent was different, but she was using the same shampoo she’d used seventeen years ago. The collision brought her cap of red-blond hair right under his nose, and the peach and coconut fragrance filled his senses with memories he’d kept a lid on for most of his adult life.

He saw her slender and naked in his arms, her gray eyes looking into his as though he controlled the universe. He saw her laughing, her eyes alight. Then he saw her crying, her eyes drowning in a misery to which he’d hardened his heart.

Why had he done that? he wondered now, as though he’d never considered it before. Then he remembered. Because she’d taken all their dreams and thrown them away.

He felt a curious whisper of movement against his hipbone and suddenly all memories of her as a girl vanished as he realized that her rounded body was pressed against him. For an instant he entertained the thought that if things had gone according to plan all those years ago, this would be his baby.

But the intervening years had taught him not to look back.

Aware that he held her arms, he pushed her a step back from him, waited a moment to make sure she was steady, then lowered his hands.

She hadn’t had this imperious manner then, he thought, looking down into her haughty expression.

“Jackie,” he said with a quick smile. If she could behave like cool royalty to show him she didn’t care about their past, he would be friendly, to prove that he held nothing against her, because it had never really mattered anyway. “How are you? I wanted to talk that day we met at the dentist, but you were in such a hurry.”

She looked as though she didn’t know what to do for a moment. He liked seeing her confusion. The day he’d left Maple Hill, she’d made him think he was wrong, and that had confused him for a long time. Pay-back was satisfying.

She folded her arms over her stomach, then apparently deciding that looked too domestic, dropped her arms and assumed a duchess-to-peasant stiffness.

“I’m well, thank you,” she replied. “I just came to welcome you to City Hall.”

“I appreciate that.” He smiled again, taking her arm and trying to lead her back toward the office. “Mom’s in…”

She yanked her arm away, her duchess demeanor abandoned in a spark of temper. She caught herself and drew another breath. “We’ve already talked,” she said politely. “I told her if you have any problems, to let us know.”

“Shall I call you?” he asked, all effusive good nature.

Her eyes reflected distress at the thought, though she didn’t bat an eyelash. “No, Will Dancer will be taking care of tenants. Extension 202.”

He nodded. “We’ve been in touch a couple of times about updating the building’s wiring with circuit breakers.”

“We can’t afford to do that,” she said.

He shrugged a shoulder. “It’ll reduce your insurance on the building. Dancer thinks it’s a good idea. And I’m pretty reasonable.”

He realized the opening he’d given her the moment the words were out of his mouth.

“Really,” she said, old pain furrowing her brow. “That’s not the way I remember it.”

He didn’t understand it. It had been all her fault. So why did the pain on her face hurt him?

She turned and started to walk away.

He followed, determined to maintain the I-don’t-care-it-doesn’t-matter pose. “I meant,” he said calmly, “that I provide a good service at a reasonable price.”

“Well, that’s what the city would be looking for,” she said, steaming around the corner, past the other offices and toward the stairs, “if we could afford to do such a thing. But Will Dancer notwithstanding, we can’t.”

She turned at the bottom of the stairs to look him in the eye. “I hope you didn’t move your office here in the hope of securing City Hall business.”

He liked this part. “I have City Hall business,” he said, letting himself gloat just a little. “Dancer hired me to replace all the old swag lamps with lighted ceiling fans. He also invited me to submit a bid for rewiring.”

She’d always hated to be thwarted. Curiously, he remembered that with more amusement than annoyance.

“Just stay out of my way,” she said, all pretense dropped and her finger pointed at his face.

He thought that a curious threat coming from a rather small pregnant woman. It suggested black eyes and broken kneecaps.

He rested a foot on the bottom step, his own temper stirred despite his pose of nonchalance. “I know it’s probably difficult to grasp this,” he said, “when you’ve been prom queen, Miss Maple Lake Festival and all-around darling of the community, but you don’t control everything. I am free to move about, and if that happens to put me in your way, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to deal with it.”