Here with Me

“Not with me, next to me.” Pearly looked as if she were going to argue, so Lee continued, “Don’t get any ideas, Pearly Gates. Just because you’re in love, doesn’t mean I will be. I’ve tried a relationship in the past, and it’s obvious I don’t have what it takes. Plus, I like my life just as it is.”

Pearly had come back from a trip to Europe with a new boyfriend. Not quite a new boyfriend. An old boyfriend she’d rediscovered. Their story was the talk of the Square.

Pearly had gone to a small European country, Eliason, for a wedding, and had discovered her childhood sweetheart had been an ambassador to the country for years before he’d retired. They’d picked up their tumultuous relationship and when Pearly had come back to Perry Square, the ambassador had followed.

“Sure, you love your life,” Pearly said, still grinning. “I loved mine as well. But even though finding my Buster has changed it, it’s a change for the better.”

“Pearly—” Lee started to warn her, but at that moment her customers came up and asked about a painting. While she answered them, Pearly sneaked out.

The coward.

Lee didn’t even want to hear the rumors that would be flying up and down the square before tomorrow’s breakfast.

Pearly Gates would make a mountain out of this molehill.

Another match?

Ha.

Perry Square might have had a number of matches of late, but Lee Singer wasn’t about to join the ranks. She was wise enough to learn from her mistakes.

There was absolutely no way she was matching with anyone.

Not even if her new tenant was one of the best-looking men she’d seen in a long time.

The next day, Adam Benton got out of his SUV and breathed deeply, then exhaled slowly. He studied the twin cottages. They looked exactly as he remembered them. Two one-story buildings with well-weathered clapboard siding and huge front porches complete with rockers and tables.

As he drank in the sight, he felt as if he were coming home, which was ridiculous. Home was New York.

This?

The cottage just outside Erie in Northeast Pennsylvania was just a place where he used to live near this girl he used to know.

And that girl, Mary Eileen Singer, had never really liked him much.

He smiled and acknowledged she had every right not to like him. He’d tormented her with all the gusto a young boy could.

A loud squawk from the back of the SUV announced that Jessie was ready to be set free.

“Hey, there, kiddo,” he said as he worked the myriad of hooks and buckles that locked the baby into the car seat.

Actually, now that Jessie was mobile, he should probably start thinking of her as a toddler.

“Here we go,” he said as he lifted her out of the car.

Jessie immediately arched her back, her nonverbal cue that she didn’t want to be held. He set her down and she squealed with delight.

“Don’t eat the grass,” he warned as her chubby fingers grabbed a large hunk and started pulling.

She giggled, not the least bit intimidated. “What on earth am I going to do with you?”

That’s what this break was all about—figuring out what to do about Jessie.

He remembered all those years ago. His parents had died, and he’d gone to live with a foster family. Then one day, his social worker had announced she’d found his uncle, and that this unknown relative had agreed to let Adam come live with him.

He hadn’t been thrilled about going to New York. But over time, he and Paul had sort of meshed. Adam had continued living with his uncle while he’d gone to college and things had been great. Two single guys in the city.

A year after Adam started, Paul met Cathie.

Adam remembered those first few months Paul had dated her. Adam had been obnoxious.

That seemed to be a theme in his past—obnoxious.

He hoped he’d grown out of it.

He watched as Paul and Cathie’s daughter picked the grass and let it run through her fingers.

She didn’t seem to be too affected from her loss. Adam, on the other hand, was reeling from losing Paul and Cathie two months ago.

They were the only family he had—except for Jessie, their daughter. His cousin and goddaughter.

Adam Benton might know how to handle himself in the business world, but he wasn’t equipped for this, for dealing with an eighteen-month-old.

Jessica Aubrey Benton was his responsibility.

Paul and Cathie had trusted him to raise her.

When the lawyer had told him, it had shocked him. He’d assumed they’d named Cathie’s folks Jessie’s guardians.

Cathie’s parents had assumed the same and had been equally shocked.

But Paul and Cathie had named him guardian in their will. Their choice still didn’t make sense to Adam. But he’d picked the toddler up from her grandparents just two weeks ago, determined to take some time with her and decide what to do.

He shook his head as he watched Jessie gleefully wiggle her fingers in the long grass.

Give him a room full of corporate execs. Give him a computer system that needed to be created from scratch…that he could deal with.

Even give him the new computer chip that he hoped would put Delmark, Inc. on the road to success and he was in his element.

Yes, Adam Benton could cope and plan on par with just about anyone when it came to business matters.

But Jessie?

He just wasn’t sure what to do with her.

He loved her, but he wasn’t prepared for taking over her care on his own.

After the will had been read, Cathie’s parents had immediately started pressuring him to let them have her and raise her. Part of him agreed it was the best idea. The other part felt obligated to honor Paul’s request.

He was torn and needed time to sort out what was going to be best for Jessie.

But he wasn’t going to figure anything out standing in the driveway. He got busy unpacking the car. Once he got Jessie’s box of toys, she was content to play with them on the porch. As soon as she’d dumped the box, she’d drop them all back in, then start again.

He hadn’t brought much. A few suitcases for each of them, his laptop, printer and fax machine, and Jessie’s toys and her portable crib.

When everything was in the living room, he scooped up Jess and her toys, and she played while he set up the crib in the bedroom. As soon as it was up, he laid her down. She must have been tired because she was almost agreeable as she settled down for her nap with just a token of a complaint.

Adam cracked her bedroom window so he could hear her, and went out to the front porch. It had two rockers on it, just as it always had. They looked weathered enough to be the same two that had sat here years before.

Nothing about the twin cottages on the lake seemed to have changed, unlike Mary Eileen.

Lee.

She’d changed her name.

Well, not really changed it, but altered it.

Not that he could find fault with that. He’d altered his as well.

He’d almost forgotten Mary Eileen Singer until he’d read an article a month ago. It talked about how a small shop on Perry Square was making big waves with its unique jewelry. He hadn’t connected the girl he knew with the jewelry artist Lee Singer until he’d seen her picture. At the time, it had spurred a passing memory of his time in Erie.

But after he lost Paul and Cathie in the accident, he’d known Erie was the perfect place to get away and figure things out. He’d known that Lee would—

He broke off his thoughts of the past as a Jeep came down the long dirt driveway.

She was here.

Her shoulder-length brown hair was pulled into a casual ponytail. He knew if he were closer he could see the hints of red that threaded through its strands.

What he could never be sure of was how her eyes would look. They were the type of neutral color that seemed to change day to day, much like the lake. Sometimes almost blue, sometimes a dark gray that almost bordered on black.

She spotted him on the porch and waved. She didn’t look overly excited to see him.

Well, that was one thing that hadn’t changed, because Mary Eileen had never been overly enthused with his company, although she’d always been kind and polite.

It was that kindness he remembered the most. Maybe that’s why he’d returned? The article appearing the day before Paul and Cathie’s accident—the day his world had tilted on its axis and changed so fast—seemed like a sign.

Maybe that’s why he’d been drawn back to this spot. He needed something stable, something he could count on. This place was the only stable thing he could recall now that Paul and Cathie were gone.

Mary Eileen Singer’s kindness was like that…dependable. He hadn’t seen her in eighteen years, but he knew in his gut that quality about her hadn’t changed.

“Mr. Benton,” Mary Eileen called as she approached. “Are you all settled in?”

“Yes, thank you. I didn’t bring much, so it didn’t take long. It was nice of you to stop by and check on me,” he said.

“I wasn’t being nice. I started to tell you, before you so abruptly left—”

She was scolding him, he realized, and resisted the urge to grin at the thought. He hadn’t been scolded…well, in a very long time.

“—that I live in the cottage next to yours.”

“I thought you might.”

“But you left so fast that I didn’t have a chance,” she continued; then what he’d said hit her and she paused a moment, then asked, “What do you mean, you thought I might live here?”

He knew he should have told her earlier who he was when he first saw her again, but some devil of an inclination wanted to see if she’d recognize him.

She hadn’t.

He should have felt a sense of satisfaction that he’d changed that much. He had worked hard to become Adam Benton, trying to leave the troubled boy he’d been behind.

He’d obviously succeeded.

And yet, he’d thought maybe Mary Eileen would see through his facade.

“I know, Mary Eileen, because I’ve been here before. Not for a long time, but I remember how much this place meant to you.”

“What do you mean you’ve been here before? I would have…” She stopped a moment and stared at him.

“Matty Benton,” she whispered.

She did remember.

He felt suddenly lighter than he had in a long time.

“You said I wasn’t a Matt, and not really a Matty. What do you think of an Adam?”

She continued to study him and Adam felt a bit naked. Not in a no-clothes sense, but rather in a she-could-see-all-the-things-he’d-rather-keep-hidden sort of way.

She’d always made him feel like that.

But this was slightly different. Her study left him feeling more than a sense of coming home. It left him wanting to reach out and pull her into his arms.

He wondered how she’d react.

He doubted she’d melt into him and cover him with kisses.

No, he rather thought she’d deck him.

The thought made his smile broaden.

“Well?” he prompted.

She nodded slowly. “Yes, Adam suits you. It’s who you are. Matthew Adam Benton.”

“Adam Mathias Benton.”

“Oh, la-di-da,” she said with a laugh. “To be honest, that suits you even better.”

“And you, Lee instead of Mary Eileen.”

“Mary Eileen was a bit too long to fit on my artwork, so I started signing Lee and by the time I got to college it just stuck.”

“It suits you as well.”

“So, Adam,” she smiled as she said his name, “what brings you back to Erie from New York?”

How to answer that.

There were a dozen different ways, and all of them would be accurate up to a point.

“Da!” Jessie cried in a voice so loud it was hard to believe it came from such a tiny body.

“Pardon me,” he said, running into the cottage before Jessie tried to get out of the crib herself.

“Da,” she repeated as he came into her room.

Da.

Short for Adam.

He was swept away by the memory of Cathie working with Jessie, trying to get her to say Adam. Da was as close as she’d come.

He tried not to think of his uncle’s wife. Cathie had had a sense of happiness that had simply radiated in everything she’d done.

As he lifted Jessie out of the crib and she smiled at him, he was hit with a wave of regret that Paul and Cathie had missed that smile, just as they’d miss so many things in the coming years.

“Da,” Jessie said and started a string of babble that he couldn’t understand, but seemed of the utmost importance to Jessie.

“Come on, short stuff. I want to introduce you to someone.” He took the baby to the porch, but Lee was gone.

“Maybe later then,” he murmured to the baby.

Chapter Two

A baby was crying. But Lee was lost in her art. She was working on a new piece. Though she knew she should attend to the baby, she continued working. Ignoring everything but work…

Lee awoke from the nightmare drenched in sweat. She’d had variations of the dream before, but not in months. She didn’t have to be a psychiatrist to figure out hearing Adam’s baby today had triggered tonight’s foray into the past.

Knowing she wouldn’t be going back to sleep until she wound down, she got out of bed and stood at her bedroom window. It faced the other cottage.

Normally, the memories here in her grandmother’s cottage helped keep the nightmares away. She looked at her cottage’s twin. When she was very small, her great-aunt had lived there. Now, behind its door was Adam Benton.

Matty.

He must be why she’d been working on that particular piece of jewelry in her dream.

She turned away from the window and opened a small chest at the foot of her bed. It was stuffed with childhood mementos.

She pushed aside a high-school pennant, an old diary, and some photographs before she finally found what she was looking for. The small seashell-covered Popsicle-stick box she used to keep trinkets in was exactly as she remembered it. Inside was the first piece of beach-glass jewelry she’d ever made. The worn chip of clear glass was shaped like a heart. The piece she’d been working on in tonight’s dream.

As she fingered it, she couldn’t help remembering that last meeting with him so many years ago.

She got up and went back to the window. Eighteen years ago. She smiled remembering her grandmother’s story about the dew. But no prince had ridden to find her that day, just Matty Benton announcing he was leaving for New York.

He’d left this small piece of glass on the fence post that day.

And now he was back.

Everything always happens for a reason.

Her grandmother had believed in things like destiny and magic. Even if she’d never set foot on the Irish shores, she’d been at heart an Irish woman with a gift for the blarney.

Magic does exist, she’d told Lee.

While her parents had been busy with work, busy chasing after their next big deal, her grandmother had told her stories of Ireland. She’d always had time for Lee.

Her mother and father had built big careers, while her grandmother had built love. Her parents were in Philadelphia now, still working day-in and day-out.

To Lee, career should be a four-letter word.

To this day, her parents frowned on Singer’s Treasures.

After all, it wasn’t a real job. She kept very short hours at the shop—noon to five—preferring to do most of her work here at the cottage. And recently, she’d hired someone to help out part-time.

Not a real job, was her parents’ refrain. Her mother’s lecture the other day had been much the same as all the others. There was no future in her work.

Try as she might, Lee had never been able to make them understand she worked to support her living; she didn’t live to work.

There was a difference.

It was a difference they had never been able to appreciate.

A movement caught her eye. A curtain billowed at Adam’s cottage.

Maybe the baby was up, scared to wake in the dark in a strange house. Maybe it had cried, prompting her dream.

Lee slid her window open, so she’d be able to hear any noise, but all she could hear was the familiar sound of waves lapping the shore.

She slipped a throw over her shoulders, made her way through the dark house that hadn’t really changed since her childhood, and out onto the porch.

Still nothing.

It must have been her imagination.

She sank into one of the rocking chairs. Creaking it back and forth as she gazed out over the star-studded sky and the last traces of her nightmare faded, she lost herself in the natural beauty of the lake, remembering why she loved it here.

“Can’t sleep?” came Adam’s voice from the step.

She jumped. She hadn’t heard him coming over. “You startled me.”

“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t sound overly contrite. He took the other rocker without waiting for an invitation.

They rocked together in companionable silence for quite a while.

Finally Lee said, “Won’t your wife miss you?”

“I don’t have a wife, Lee.”

She wanted to ask who the woman in the park was then, but she didn’t. She simply asked, “Is your baby all right by herself?”

“The cottages sit so close to one another that I’m sure I can hear her if she calls. I left the window open. She’ll holler if she wakes up again. You might have noticed, but she’s not exactly quiet and subtle.”

Lee laughed. “She does have a good set of lungs, as my grandmother used to say.”

So where was the baby’s mother? Lee burned with curiosity, but couldn’t think of a way to ask without seeming as if she were prying. Pearly wouldn’t hesitate just to ask, but Lee couldn’t, so she said nothing.

The silence didn’t feel awkward. They simply rocked and stared out at the dark expanse.

Adam was the first one to speak again. “I was sorry to hear when your grandmother passed away. She was a true lady.”

It had been five years, but Lee still missed her grandmother’s gentle presence in her life. “Thank you. How did you hear?”

“I have the Erie paper mailed to me in New York. I didn’t want to lose my connection to this place. I had some happy memories here.”

“Oh.”

“I saw the article about Singer’s Treasures last month. I didn’t know you were the up-and-coming artist they were talking about until I saw your picture. You won the Jones Award for Art. That was impressive. I almost called to congratulate you.”

“Really?” He’d followed her through the paper? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

As if he sensed her feelings, he said, “It’s not as if I got the paper to monitor you.”

“I never thought that,” she denied.

“You wondered if maybe I was some sort of stalker.”

“No, I didn’t.”

He tsk-tsked.

Really, tsk-tsked, like Pearly Gates would tsktsk someone.

“You sound like an old woman,” she said, teasing him. “Tsk-tsk, deary, and all that.”

“Picking on me already, Singer? As I recall, you were always picking on me.”

“Funny,” she said, “I seem to remember it the other way around.”

“Rather than argue who was the pickee and who was the picker, I’ll say good night. Jessie gets up very early. She hates to miss out on anything by sleeping.”

“Good night,” Lee said.

She watched him walk back to his place. When his cottage door shut, she went back in as well and went to bed. When she finally slept, she dreamed the same dream she’d had regularly since that morning when she was ten.

A dark, shadowy figure of a man leaning down toward her whispering her grandmother’s words, “Magic does exist.”

For the first time in a long time, she wished she could believe it were true.

The room was bright when Lee opened her eyes the next morning.

Way too bright.

And loud.

Normally the only sounds in the morning were the waves and maybe an occasional bird. Today, something was disturbing the usual peace and quiet.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Lee groaned as she crawled out of bed. She’d tossed and turned all night—not because she’d had a repeat nightmare. Instead, every time she did manage to fall asleep, she saw him.

The dark man of her dreams.

It was disturbing.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Her sleep-muddled mind slowly cleared and she realized that the noise was someone pounding at the door.

Pulling on an old robe, she went and opened it. Adam stood, holding his squirmy baby.

“I woke you,” he said. “I’m sorry. Go back to bed.” He turned around, as if he were going to leave.

“Don’t be silly. It’s way past time I was up. Do you want some coffee?”

“I’d love some, but I don’t have time. I have a teleconference.”

“It’s Sunday.”

“I know, but this last month has been crazy. The talk is about two weeks overdue, so I took it when I could. Unfortunately, I foolishly thought I could manage it with Jessie, but she’s bent on exploring the new house. She’s already unrolled all the toilet paper, emptied out the bottom cupboard, and—”

“I get the picture. You want me to watch her while you finish your meeting?”

“I was hoping you might. I mean, I know it’s an imposition. I’d be happy to pay you. It’s just this is important and I have to—”

Part of Lee wanted to say, No…I don’t do babies. But Adam looked slightly desperate, and the toddler was adorable. Blond hair in a wild, Eienstein-ish style, with light blue eyes and a huge smile.

Just because Lee had decided not to have children didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy other people’s.

“Go ahead and go,” she said. “I’m sure I can handle…” She paused. “Jessie, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Jessie.” He handed her the baby.

Lee felt the old familiar stab of pain as she took Jessie in her arms. After all this time, she’d hoped the ache would lessen, but it hadn’t. And she was beginning to suspect it never would.

Adam set a bag on the floor. “There are diapers, some Cheerios, some toys…”

“We’ll figure it out. Just go.”

“Thanks,” he called as he sprinted back across the short bit of yard that separated the two cottages.

“Well,” Lee said, studying the beautiful little girl in her arms. “Maybe I should introduce myself, Miss Jessie. I’m Lee. I knew your daddy way back when. He was Matty then. And though he might think you’re a handful, let me assure you, he was worse.”

The toddler babbled. Lee thought she caught an occasional real word in the mix, but she thought that might be wishful interpretation on her part.

“Want to help me make some coffee?” The next burst of babble seemed to be positive, so Lee assumed Jessie’s answer was a yes.

“Good. I’m absolutely worthless without a jolt of caffeine in the morning.”

Half an hour later, Lee had managed to dress…just barely. In the time it took her to slip a T-shirt over her head, Jessie had run across the hall to the bathroom and unrolled half the toilet-paper roll.

“My grandmother would have said, ‘she’s full of piss and vinegar, that one.’ I never quite figured out what that meant, but having met you, I believe I have an inkling.”

Jessie didn’t seem to take offense. She started shredding the long string of paper into smaller gobs.

“I think it might be better if we found something to entertain you,” Lee said. “Let’s go for a walk on the beach.”

Jessie cooed her agreement and Lee scooped her up. She was enveloped in the scent of freshly washed baby again. She inhaled deeply and felt tears well in her eyes as an all too familiar pain asserted itself.

She brushed the tears away and tried to ignore all the what-could-have-beens as she concentrated on the what-was.

And what-was today was a beautiful blue sky, a warm spring sun and Jessie, who seemed eager to embrace her new temporary home.

“Come on, Jessie,” Lee said, and they left the cottage.

Adam was pacing. He knew that it wouldn’t help, but he had so much nervous energy.