“I’m just curious where this all comes from.”
She thought about it for a moment, realizing she’d never analyzed herself that much before now. And she certainly had never been with a man who showed so much interest.
Not even her real fiancé.
“One of my fears came true,” she said, surprised at how easy the admission rose. “The fear of walking into an empty house at night.”
“What happened?”
“I found my dad on top of the next-door neighbor.”
His jaw dropped. “Gross.”
“On so many levels, you can’t even imagine. But he couldn’t lie his way out of it when his thirteen-year-old daughter was the witness. At least my mom finally filed for divorce.”
“Wow.” He put the cup down and studied her. “That must have wrecked you.”
Again, the fact that he actually thought of it in terms of what the event did to her touched her. Folded her heart in half, to be honest.
“The divorce wrecked my mom more,” she told him, easily opening up on a subject she normally kept locked and hidden. “But mostly because she would have happily gone on believing his lies because she had a good life with a lot of money and friends. All of that dried up at the hands of a slimy divorce attorney.”
“So now you don’t trust men,” he said, as if it was so simple and he’d figured her out.
“I trust men,” she replied. “It’s liars and cheats I don’t trust.” The oven beeped as the aroma of buttery biscuits filled the kitchen.
“I’ll have to remember that,” Mark said.
“I doubt you ever lie or cheat, Mark. You’re too busy taking in strays and making biscuits for the poor.”
He smiled at her. “You sure do know how to package things to make them seem better than they are.”
“It’s my gift,” she said, sliding off the stool. But something told her she wasn’t making Mark better than he was. He was really that good.
Setting the bar so high for other men that all they’d ever do was walk under it.
“Get dressed, Em. We need to swing by Heaven’s Helper on the way to the dance studio.”
“The fun never ends.” She tried for sarcasm, but failed. For once, she didn’t feel sarcastic. She was up early, facing fears, smiling at her home brew, and writing off men she hadn’t even met yet.
Man, she was in such deep trouble.
Chapter Nine
“Some things never change,” Mark mused, looking out the window of the sedan that had picked them up in front of the resort to bring them to their morning dance lesson. “The Super Min being at the top of the list.”
Emma dipped down to share his view out the window, taking in a small beach town that mixed genuine old-school tropical charm with a few contemporary touches. “That gas station convenience store where you got the biscuits?”
“Yeah.” And where he got grilled by Charity Grambling, who remembered every detail of his and Julia’s life. He finally shut her up by pulling the fiancée card. Which meant his “engagement” to Emma would be all over Mimosa Key in a matter of hours.
“The whole place is so quaint,” Emma mused, looking around. “But not in a ‘let’s build a quaint town to attract tourists’ way. It feels so genuine.”
“That’s Mimosa Key,” he said. “Real old-school Florida.”
The driver, a soft-spoken retiree named Al, eyed Mark in the rearview mirror. “I take it you’re here for the Mimosa High reunion?”
“I am,” he confirmed.
“Move away long ago?” the driver asked.
“I left after high school, and my parents moved off the island about twenty years ago. I’ve been back once or twice to visit since then.”
“I’m not a local,” the driver said. “I moved down here after sixty-eight years of Pittsburgh winters. But I’ve been talking to a few of the folks here for the reunion, and apparently a lot has changed, especially since the resort opened.”
“Barefoot Bay sure has changed,” Mark agreed. “There was nothing but a few houses up there. And east of that, there was an old goat farm some ancient Italian guy had and lots of canals and mangroves.”
“Goat farm’s still there, but it’s a whole little petting zoo touristy place now and part of the new baseball stadium. Have you heard we have a minor league team, the Barefoot Bay Bucks?”
Mark nodded. “I did hear that. Have they started playing yet?”
“Exhibition preseason games. In fact, there’s one later this week, on Friday afternoon. You can bet I’m taking that day off.”
Mark turned to Emma and gave her a nudge. “I love baseball. We should go.”
She agreed easily, the sunlight and playfulness of the morning still making her eyes spark and making him more and more certain this whole “engaged for the crowd” thing was a good idea. The sleeper sofa sucked, but everything else was good.
“We didn’t tell him about these,” she whispered, tapping the plastic container full of biscuits she held on her lap.
“Oh yeah.” Mark leaned forward. “Before you go to the dance studio, can you swing by Heaven’s Helper? Assuming it’s still there.”
“It is.” The driver raised his eyebrows in the rearview mirror. “Don’t get a lot of Casa Blanca guests who want to go to the food bank and thrift store.”
“Well, we do.” He gave a wink to Emma. “My fiancée had a hankering to make biscuits.”
She lifted one shapely brow. “Hankering?”
“Too old-school?”
“Too…cute.” She turned away with an eye roll, as if it pained her to admit anything he did was cute.
“Here we are.” The driver pulled into a small parking lot, and Mark turned, sucking in an audible breath that he covered with a cough. What the hell had he been thinking coming here?
He recognized the bittersweet taste of grief as it rose up with surprising insistence at the sight of the small wooden sign that said Hope Presbyterian. He’d only been thinking of Heaven’s Helper, the tiny storefront across a side street from the church.
He hadn’t really been thinking that coming to “the Helper,” as his mother had called the operation that served the homeless on the mainland and a few struggling folks on Mimosa Key. This also put him in front of Hope Presbyterian—the very church where he and Julia took their vows again after they’d infuriated two families by eloping. And where he’d said good-bye to her sixteen years ago in front of a weepy gathering of a few hundred people.
Damn it.
“You okay?” Emma’s question, along with a tender hand on his arm, pulled him out of the instant fog.
“Fine, why?”
That brow lifted again, but not in humor or sarcasm. More like real concern. “You sure?”
“Of course.”
But she just looked at him. “Hey, the honesty thing isn’t just for the villa. It’s for whenever we’re alone.”
The driver had gotten out of the car to get her door, so they were alone. “It’s not important. I’ll tell you later.”
Al opened Emma’s door, and she turned to get out, taking the plastic container with her but eyeing Mark before she stepped out of the sedan. He recognized her look. It was very much like the challenging glare he’d given her when he playfully handed her a biscuit tube to open so she could fight her fear.
But this was different. This was no little lighthearted phobia.
He got out of the car and let out a slow breath while his gaze traveled across the street to the church. It had a Spanish vibe, like much of the island, with a red clay roof, yellow stucco walls, and big brown double doors…doors he and Julia had burst out of to a spray of flower petals. Doors he’d last pushed through fighting tears and hugging friends.
What in God’s name had he been thinking coming here?
“I’ll wait at the car,” Al said.
Mark fixed his gaze on the cottage that housed the food bank and a small thrift store, pointedly not looking at the church.
“Y
ou said your mom volunteered here?” Emma fell into step with him, holding the biscuits close to her chest, the way he wanted to hold his personal pain.
“Yeah, when I was a kid and in high school. That was our church.”
She glanced past him to look at the church, quiet for a moment. “Where did your parents move?” she asked.
“Over on the mainland, near Tampa. After my dad retired, they wanted to live near my sister and her kids. Where are your parents?” he asked, wanting the subject off him and his family and his youth and this church.
“My dad’s in California, but my mom still lives in upstate New York, where I’m from. Skaneateles. Ever heard of it?”
“Sure. The lakes are pretty up there. Any brothers or sisters?”
“No siblings.” She slowed her step and looked up at him. “Will you tell me why you tensed up when we pulled into this lot?”
He surprised himself when he felt his lips curve in a smile. “You won’t let it go until I do, will you?”
“You know me well.”
“About as well as you know me, which is pretty impressive, considering we met yesterday.”
He kept his gaze on the tiny food bank/thrift store cottage, remembering coming here as a kid after school to see his mom and get a treat from Mrs. Reinhardt, who always had jelly doughnuts under her counter. She got the previous day’s unsold sweets from the local doughnut shop and kept a treasure trove for special guests, like him.
“I think I know,” Emma said as he pulled the door open and held it for her.
“You think—”
“Mark Solomon!” An older woman stood up from behind a counter, holding out her hands in exclamation. “I heard you were on the island!”
“Mrs. Reinhardt.” He felt his face light up at the sight of a woman who’d been like an aunt to him when he was a kid, still able to see that younger version in her bright blue eyes, not the gray-haired, crinkly faced lady she’d become in the past forty years. “You’re still working here?” he asked. She had to have left her seventies behind a few years ago.
But here she was, stocking cartons for the hungry.
“Of course I am!” She came around the counter and threw her arms around him. “I’ll leave when they bury me next to my dear, sweet Fritz.” She gave a squeeze and leaned back to look at him. “Oh, if you’re not still the best-looking man on this island and possibly in the state.”
He put his hands over hers and laughed. “And you’re still a flirt.”
“Only with you.” She patted his shoulder and glanced at Emma. “Hello.”
“Mrs. Reinhardt, this is Emma, my…” Holy crap, he had to lie to this sweet old woman now. He never imagined she’d be here.
“I know who she is,” she said, throwing another embrace around Emma. “The whole island is talking about your engagement. Emma DeWitt, is it? Oh my word alive, look at you! So pretty and sweet. Welcome to Mimosa Key, future Mrs. Mark Solomon!”
Mimosa Key really was the world’s smallest island for news, Mark remembered. Of course the news would spread past the reunion and all over the island. He really hadn’t thought this idea through, but had to live with it now.
Emma seemed unfazed by the affection, returning the hug and laughing easily at the Mrs. moniker that was just hung around her neck.
“Now, Emma, I’m sure Mark has told you all about me,” the woman said, adding a playful wink. “As if he remembers the old church ladies.”
“Of course I do, Mrs. Reinhardt,” Mark assured her.
“Oh, hush up with that Mrs. Reinhardt business, Mark. I see plenty of snow on your roof. You can officially call me Carla now.”
All those years growing up on this island, and he’d had no idea that was her name.
“We brought biscuits for the food bank,” Emma said, holding out the plastic container and getting a wide-mouthed, open-eyed look of astonishment.
“And she has a heart for the needy!”
Emma slid a sideways glance. “Honestly, it was Mark’s idea.”
“Oh my dear Mark.” She took the biscuits and beamed at them. “There’s a surprise for you under the counter.”
Smiling, Mark stepped around her work area and, sure enough, there was a box from The Donut Hole, one of his favorite places in Mimosa Key. “Jelly?”
“Of course,” she said. “You know what my Fritz used to say. Life is like a jelly doughnut. Sometimes you get all the good stuff in the first bites, and sometimes you have to plow through the dough before you hit the motherlode!” She gave a hoot. “Oh, that man had the sayings.”
Mark remembered Fritz, who’d been quite a bit older than his talkative wife, and vaguely recalled his mother telling him that Fritz had died maybe fifteen years ago. He must have been in his own fog then.
“Oh, our Mark was always such a delight,” she rattled on to Emma. “Why, I remember when you got…I mean, the last time I saw…” Her words faded, and she gave him a look he easily interpreted: sympathy, pity, and here came the tears.
“But he’s happy now,” Emma interjected, and immediately, Carla’s expression morphed from agony to joy.
“Yes! Yes, he is, and that is simply wonderful. I mean, it’s…wonderful.”
What was wonderful was how skillfully Emma deflected that conversation.
“But can I just say it took you long enough?” Carla added in a hushed whisper.
“I was waiting for…” He put his arm around the narrow shoulders next to his and gave Emma a grateful squeeze. “Perfection.”
“Oh my word.” Carla put both hands over her mouth. “I can’t contain my happiness. What does your mother think? Have you met her yet, Emma? We used to be the dearest of dear friends, but you know, the only way people keep in touch nowadays is on that darn computer, and I just can’t be bothered with all that Face business.” She turned back to Emma and gave her an unexpected hug. “Like an angel, you are. Such a gift. Straight from God to Mark.”
Over the thick shoulder, Emma looked up at him, a mix of tease and torture in her golden-brown gaze. “Thank you, Carla,” she said, giving a little eye roll to him. “I don’t know if I’m from God, but I’m happy to be here.”
“From God,” she insisted, turning her attention to Mark. “When’s the big day?”
He glanced at Emma, not wanting to contradict anything she’d say.
“We haven’t set a date yet,” she said easily.
“Then let me know when you do, and I can put it in the church newsletter. Everyone will be so happy for you, Mark.”
He promised they would and talked some more before they left. When they hugged good-bye, Carla whispered, “She’s delightful, Mark. I’m happy for you.”
Guilt squeezed, and he almost told her the truth, but bit it back, giving her a kiss on her gray hair instead.
As they walked back to the car, Mark took Emma’s hand, which was free of the plastic container now. “You’re really good at this.”
“Told you. I lie for a living.”
“You’re not just lying.”
She laughed. “I’m superlying?”
“You’re making sure I don’t have to handle conversations I’d rather avoid.”
“Wasn’t that the price of my villa in paradise?”
He gripped her hand a little tighter. “I didn’t think we’d be seeing people like…that. Damn near family.”
“Well, you grew up here, Mark. You’re bound to see people you know well.”
He’d planned to avoid any of that, too, including his old house…and Julia’s. He’d stayed in touch with Julia’s mother, but she’d died a few years after her daughter had. Mark had sadly lost touch with Julia’s father after that. The last time they’d talked, Wayne Coulter sounded down in the dumps. Talking to a sad old man who’d lost his only daughter and then his wife was just another thing Mark preferred to avoid.
“The real problem is going to be the next time you have to face Carla and tell her we broke up,” Emma said. “But don’t worry, yo
u can tell her it was all my fault. Don’t slip off that pedestal on my account. Just say I dumped you.”
He hesitated on the next step. “That sounds…” He looked to the side, and his gaze fell on the church, the kick to his chest almost stealing his breath. “Sad.”
“The story of our breakup or the sight of the church where you got married?”
He looked at her, astonished. “How did you…”
“Am I right?”
Of course she was. “Julia and I went to the mainland and got married by a Justice of the Peace, but her parents wanted a wedding, so we had a small one here.” He blew out a slow breath. “And had her memorial service in the same church.”
“Oh.” She touched his shoulder, a gentle, sympathetic pressure that actually helped. “So why did you want to come here today?”
He smiled at her. “You made me forget.”
For a long moment, she looked at him, then she lifted their joined hands. “Why don’t you come with me now?”
“To the car?”
“To the church.”
He stepped in the opposite direction. “Why would I do that?”
“Face your fears, coach. And since I’m nicer than you, I’ll only make you do it once.”
Slowly, he shook his head. “This isn’t the same as a little tube that pops when you hit the counter.”
She squinted her eyes to challenging slits. “I thought you were fearless, Mark Solomon.”
“I…I…” He looked at the church doors. Not that fearless.
“You don’t have to, but I’d like to see the church. And…” She held his hand close to her mouth and pressed the lightest kiss on his knuckles. “It might help you.”
“I don’t need help,” he said. “Let’s just go learn how to dance. That, I need help with.”
She shrugged off the joke. “Your call. I understand.”
Maybe she did. He wasn’t at all sure how he felt about that.
Chapter Ten
Twenty minutes at Allegro, the dance studio that was upstairs from the local florist, and Emma decided that Mark had effectively squashed the emotions and memories that had plagued him when he’d seen the church. And while she’d love to take credit for that, she knew the real reason was the next challenge in their brief courtship: a whirlwind of a dance instructor named Jasper Vonderleith.