Her Holiday Prince Charming

Selling the place would rid him of the obligation to keep it up. Even more important than ending the time drain of weekly trips from Seattle to make sure nothing was leaking, broken or keeping the place from showing well was that his grandparents had been the last of his relatives in this part of the sound. Once the place was sold, he had no reason to ever come back.

Considering all the plans he’d once had for his own life there, nearly all of which had failed rather spectacularly, that suited him just fine.

His potential project had yet to ask a single question. He, however, had a few of his own.

“Have you owned a business before?”

He thought the query perfectly reasonable.

She simply seemed to find it odd.

“Never,” she replied, sounding as if she’d never considered running one, either. Still holding her little boy’s hand, she set her sights on the open door behind the L-shaped checkout counter. “Is that the way to the living area?”

He told her it was, that it led into a foyer.

Wanting a whole lot more information than she’d just given, he followed her with the child looking back at him over the shoulder of his puffy blue jacket.

The instant he met the child’s hazel eyes, the boy ducked his head and turned away.

With a mental shrug, Erik focused on the mom. She looked very much like the spa-and-Pilates type married to some of his high-end clients. Yet the car she drove was a total contrast—economical, practical. “Are you into outdoor sports?”

“We have bicycles,” came her distracted reply.

“Mountain or street?”

“Street.”

“For racing or touring?”

“Just for regular riding.”

“Do you know anything about mountain bikes?”

“Is there a difference?”

That she’d had to ask had him moving on. “What about hiking or camping?”

“Not so much.”

“Water sports? Do you windsurf, paddleboard, water ski?”

“Not really.”

He took that as a no. “Do you know anything about sporting goods?”

Clearly on a mission of her own, she answered his last query with a puzzled glance and moved past the stairs, one set leading up, the other down, and into a spacious living room.

The empty downstairs space was interrupted only by the kitchen’s long island near one end and anchored by a ceiling-high stone fireplace at the other. The bare walls all bore a pristine coat of latte-colored paint.

It was toward the kitchen that she motioned. “Mind if I look back there?”

Not at all pleased with her responses, he told her he didn’t and watched her head for the glass-faced cupboards.

Her sandy-haired son darted straight to one of the large picture windows lining the opposite wall.

“Have you ever worked retail?” he asked her.

“Never,” she replied once more.

“Wow, Mom. Look! It has a park!”

Rory’s glance cut to where her little boy pressed his nose to the wide window near the fireplace. A large meadow stretched to a forest of pines. Between the dawning potential in the place and the feel of the tall, decidedly distracting male frowning at her back, she hadn’t noticed the expansive and beautiful view until just then.

What she noticed now was her son’s grin.

That guileless smile added another plus to her escalating but decidedly cautious interest in what surrounded her. “It sure does, sweetie. But stay with me. Okay?”

Yanking his unzipped jacket back over the shoulder of his Spider-Man sweatshirt, he hurried to her, his little voice dropping as he glanced to the man who remained on the other side of the white oak island.

“Does he live here?” he asked, pointing behind him.

She curled her hand over his fingers. “It’s not polite to point,” she murmured. “And no. He lives somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know, honey.”

“But it’s a long way, huh?”

“Why do you say that?”

“’Cause he said he came in a plane. It floated here.”

From the corner of her eye, she noticed the big man’s brow lower in confusion.

“He came by floatplane,” she clarified, easing confusion for them both. “It’s a plane that can land on water. It flies just like any other.”

“Oh.” Tyler screwed up his nose, little wheels spinning. “Why didn’t he make him a boat?”

He remembered what Erik had said he did for a living.

There wasn’t much Tyler heard that he ever forgot. She’d come to regard the ability, however, as a double-edged sword. While her bright little boy absorbed information like an industrial-strength sponge, there were things she knew he’d overheard that she truly hoped he’d forgotten by now. Things certain relatives had said that had confused him at the time, hurt him and made her even more fiercely protective of him than she’d been even before he’d lost his dad.

Since no response came from the other side of the island, she told Tyler it was possible that Mr. Sullivan did have a boat, but that it was really none of their business. Right now, they needed to look at the rest of the house.

There were certain advantages to a five-year-old’s short attention span. Already thrilled by the “park,” Tyler promptly forgot his interest in the boat their guide did or did not have and, like her, poked his head into the pantry, the mudroom and downstairs closets.

There was no denying his attraction to the cubbyhole he found in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Her own interest, however, she held in check. A person couldn’t be disappointed if she didn’t get her expectations up to begin with.

The property was nothing she would have considered even a week ago. It had none of the little neighborhood atmosphere she’d looked for. None of the coziness she’d craved for herself and her son. It felt too remote. Too foreign. Too...unexpected.

Her option was an unknown apartment in an as yet undetermined area near a job she still had to find.

Her hopes rose anyway, her mind racing as Erik led her back down from the three bedrooms and two baths that would be more than adequate for her and her son.

Phil had said to keep an open mind about this place.

Despite its drawbacks, it was, indeed, full of possibilities. But it wasn’t just Tyler’s surprisingly positive reactions or the idyllic views from some of the windows that tempered her misgivings. What Phil hadn’t mentioned was that this wouldn’t just be a place to live. It would be her source of income.

She could have her own business. Be her own boss. That meant the means to support her son would be dependent on her, not on someone else with obligations or agendas of their own. It would be up to her if she succeeded or failed. And while the thought brought as much anxiety as anticipation, mostly it brought a surprising hint of reprieve.

She could start over here. She could finally, truly move on.

By the time they’d worked their way back downstairs, Tyler knew which room he wanted to be his. He wasn’t quite so sure what to make of their tour guide, though. Every time he’d looked over his shoulder to see if Erik was still with them, he’d moved closer to her or tightened his grip on her hand.

Considering the man’s easy self-assurance, it struck her as odd that he appeared equally undecided about Tyler. Because he’d yet to say a word to her son, she wasn’t sure if he simply didn’t know how to relate to small children or if he was one of those people, like her father-in-law, who felt a child was to be seen and not heard and otherwise ignored until they became of an age to engage in meaningful conversation.

Maternal instincts on alert, the moment they reached the foyer, she asked Tyler to see if he could spot deer in the woods from the living room window. He was barely out of earshot when she felt Erik Sullivan’s disconcerting presence beside her.

“Your son seems to like the place,” he pointed out, joining her by the mahogany newel post. “What about you? You haven’t said much.”

Erik would admit to not being particularly adept at deciphering women, even when they did speak. No often meant yes. Don’t often mean go ahead. Nothing always meant something, though finding out what that something was could be akin to pulling an anchor out of dried cement. But this woman hadn’t given him so much as a hint about any conclusion she might have drawn.

“Do you have any questions?” he prompted.

“When did you say the store usually opened for business?”

“April. The first or second week.”

She lifted her chin, her thoughts apparently coming in no particular order.

“Phil Granger said you know I can’t qualify for a mortgage just now.”

“We’re aware of that,” he assured her.

“Were your grandparents planning to carry the mortgage themselves?”

“A second party will carry it. So,” he prodded, “you’re interested, then?”

She wanted to smile. He could see the expression trying to light the flecks of bronze in her deep brown eyes. She just wouldn’t let it surface.

“That depends on what they want for it. And the terms. How much are they asking?”

He should have been relieved by her interest. Would have been had she been even remotely qualified to take on the store.

“That’s...negotiable.”

“But they must have a price in mind.”

“Do you have any business experience?”

It was as clear to Rory as the doubt carved in his handsome face that he had serious concerns about her ability to make a go of the store his grandparents were selling. Unflattering as his obvious skepticism was, she couldn’t fault him for it. They had run the business for decades. They’d probably poured their hearts and souls into the place that had defined them for years. This man hadn’t had to tell her for her to know how much the store and their home had meant to them. The shelving in the spare room upstairs—his grandma’s sewing room, he’d said—had been built by his dad. The beautiful, lacquered banister beside them had been lathed by his grandfather.

He’d casually mentioned those things in passing. With his big hand splayed over the grapefruit-size mahogany ball atop the newel post, his thumb absently rubbing its shiny finish, she realized this place mattered to him, too.

Her only concern now was that he trust her with it.

She took a step closer, lowering her voice so Tyler couldn’t overhear.

“It’s not that I’ve never had a job,” she informed him quietly. “I was a file clerk while I worked on an associate’s degree. After that, I spent four years as a legal secretary before Tyler came along. I went back to work transcribing documents at another law firm ten months ago. I’d still be doing that if they hadn’t let me go because the firm merged and they cut my job.”

Skipping over the five-year gap in her résumé, she aimed for the heart of his concern. “I’ve just never owned a business. Or sold anything other than whatever the PTA was selling to raise money for school projects.

“I’ll admit that when I got here,” she hurried on, hoping he’d overlook that last part, “the last thing I expected was a store. But you said it’s a good, solid business. If your grandparents didn’t usually open it until April, that would give me four months to figure out what needs to be done and how to do it.” All she had to do was get past the daunting little fact that she had no idea where to start.

“Look,” she murmured, too tired after too many sleepless nights to care how much of herself she exposed. “I’ll admit I don’t know a...a...”

“A bivy sack from a bobber?” he suggested.

“Exactly. And until now,” she said, muscling on, “I’d honestly never thought about owning anything like this. The only sports I know anything about are tennis and golf.” And that was only because her husband had wanted her to fit in at the club. She was so not the rugged, outdoors type. “But I’ll do whatever I have to do to provide for my son.

“This could be a good place to raise him. He could help me in the store. I think he’d love that. He’d even have his own park,” she pointed out, thinking of how badly she wanted them gone from the exclusive community that had come to feel like a prison. She’d hoped for a normal neighborhood, but breathing room would be a good thing, too.

“I’ll never be able to replace the security he had before his dad died, but it’s up to me to give him as much stability as I can.” Her voice fell with her final admission. “I think I can do that here.”

Her last words were as soft as the utter conviction in her eyes. Erik saw a plea there, too. Quiet. A little raw. And a lot uncomfortable for him to witness in the moments before he glanced to where her son seemed to be counting something at the window.

He’d been about that age—five or so, if he had to guess—when his grandfather had put him to work stacking canned goods on shelves. After that, he’d practically begged to come over so he could help.

He’d once thought this would be a good place to raise a child, too.

“There’s one other thing,” she admitted, her voice still quiet. “Tyler has never lived anywhere other than in the house we’re leaving. We have to be out in three days. Until the job thing happened, I’d thought we’d be settled in our new house well before Christmas. He didn’t have a very good one last year and it would be really nice to find a place that I don’t have to move him from again.” Practicality, or maybe it was weariness, kept her tone utterly matter-of-fact. “So how much is it?” she asked. “And how do I make this happen?”

He didn’t know which struck him more just then: her absolute determination to do whatever she had to do to care for her child or the naked vulnerability lurking in the depths of her eyes.

As if she knew what he saw, her glance hit the floor.

Her determination to hide that vulnerability pulled at something unfamiliar deep in his chest, even as he steeled himself against it.

He hadn’t been told how she’d been widowed. Or how long she and her child had been on their own. He had no idea if her marriage had been as good as his parents’, as much a failure as his own had been or some form of tolerable in-between. He knew only from what she’d said about her child’s loss that it was entirely possible she still grieved the man she’d lost, too.

He wasn’t a particularly sensitive or sympathetic man. Or so he’d been informed by his ex-wife and certain of the arm candy who trolled the circles he moved in. But he wasn’t at all comfortable being privy to something so personal. It disturbed him even more to find himself wondering what it would be like to mean that much to a woman.

Equally unsettling was the fact that an hour ago, she hadn’t even known the store existed. “I can’t give you the terms.”

She hadn’t a clue what she was getting into.

He knew for a fact that he was no longer comfortable with what he’d agreed to do himself.

“My agreement with Cornelia...Mrs. Hunt,” he corrected, “is that she or her assistant will discuss those details with you.”

Reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, he extracted one of the same pearlescent cards Phil had given her yesterday. “Did you take the ferry or do the loop through Tacoma?”

“Ferry.”

“Which one?”

“Southworth. It lands at Fauntleroy.”

By land or water, either way it would take her a while to get back to Seattle.

“Then I’ll give you directions to their office from the dock. I have another meeting in Seattle at noon.” Card in hand, he pulled his cell phone from another pocket and keyed in a number.

With the instrument to his ear, he turned away, started to pace.

Rory glanced at her watch. It was already after eleven o’clock.

She was about to mention that when she remembered his mode of transport was infinitely faster than hers. He was already into his conversation with Phil, anyway. She couldn’t hear what he said, though. She knew only that he looked oddly resigned when he turned a minute later to inform her that Phil wanted to talk to her.

By the time the woman who had appeared out of nowhere yesterday told her everything was ready to proceed with the sale and confirmed their meeting that afternoon, Rory couldn’t shake the feeling that nothing could possibly be as simple as Phil had made it sound—and that Erik Sullivan had more of a role in the sale than anyone was letting on.

Chapter Two

The directions Rory had been given led her to the Ballard neighborhood in northwestern Seattle and a weathered, two-story redbrick building much like the others along an old business section of the waterfront. What distinguished the structure was the trail of plaster dust and debris leading from the open front door to the Wolf Construction Dumpster at the curb.

Inside, sheets of milky construction plastic masked two stories of interior scaffolding and what appeared to be something grand under construction. The filmy barriers did little to deaden the occasional clatter and boom of interior demolition. The noise was muffled considerably, however, behind the closed door of the only completed space—an unexpectedly feminine and elegant ground floor corner conference room in shades of ivory and pale taupe with a view of a marina, Shilsole Bay and snowcapped Hurricane Ridge beyond.

The long banks of ivory-draped windows caught Tyler’s attention the moment they’d walked in. Rory had thought the boats in the inlet had drawn him. Until she noticed Erik.

A walkway ran behind the buildings. She could see him outside, pacing past the rows of windows, bare-masted sailboats bobbing in the background. Apparently oblivious to the chill, he had one hand in a front pocket of his jeans, his head down against the breeze as he talked on his cell phone.

He did not look happy.

Logic told her he could be talking about anything. But the unease joining her curiosity and uncertainty over this meeting made her fairly certain his scowl had something to do with her.

“We’re so glad you liked the place,” said Phil, leading her across the floor, the click of her heels on polished oak suddenly hushed by the pale blue Aubusson rug. “With everything so unsettled for you, we didn’t know if you’d see the advantages of taking on a business right now. Especially one that you might not ordinarily have considered.”

Wearing a cream blouse and slacks slung with a thin gold belt, the woman Rory met yesterday took her and Tyler’s coats and motioned to one of the Queen Anne chairs at the circular conference table. The light from the ornate crystal chandelier above it made the mahogany surface gleam like glass. “Cornelia did feel you’d consider it, though,” she added, “given your circumstances.”

“Which are very close to what mine were at one time,” came a voice from a small alcove.

A statuesque, elegantly mature lady in pale lavender cashmere emerged from the washroom, carrying roses she’d just freshened. Her silver-blond hair was coiled in a chic chignon at her nape. Diamonds glinted from her ears. The rock on her left hand, a huge pink diamond surrounded by a dozen of brilliant white, flashed in its platinum setting as she set the vase on a marble credenza with a quiet clink.

“Please pardon the mess out there, Rory. We’re a work in progress at the moment. I’m Cornelia Hunt,” she said, intent on putting her guest at ease as she held out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Feeling a distinct connection to Alice after she’d slipped down the rabbit hole, Rory clasped the woman’s hand. She had dressed that morning in a casual black turtleneck and skinny denims to look at properties and apartments, not to meet well-dressed ladies in what could have passed for a drawing room in a palace.

“The pleasure’s mine,” she returned, fighting the urge to curtsy.

“You only met briefly, so I’ll officially introduce you to Felicity Granger. Phil is my assistant. She’s also an academic counselor at the university. She’s really rather brilliant at helping others with their life decisions, so I brought her in to help me with my work.” Her green eyes seemed to twinkle as she smiled. “What have you been told about the arrangements so far?”

“Hardly anything. The man who showed us around...Erik,” she identified, still aware of him pacing, “wouldn’t even give me the price.”

“I don’t doubt that you have questions,” Cornelia conceded. “I’ll have Phil start answering yours and explain the details while I get us some coffee. Or would you prefer tea?”

Rory told her coffee was fine, thank you. And that yes, cocoa for Tyler would be nice. Even as she spoke, she wasn’t at all sure what struck her as more incongruous just then: that Cornelia Fairchild Hunt, the very pleasant wife of a reportedly eccentric computer-genius billionaire, was getting her coffee. Or the mound of dingy canvas mail sacks piled beside a delicate French provincial writing desk.

On the desk’s surface, dozens of what appeared to be opened letters teetered in stacks.

Phil took the chair next to Rory. Seeing what had her attention, she adjusted her overlarge glasses and leaned toward her.

“There was an article in the Seattle Washtub recently about how Cornelia helped a young entrepreneur get the break she needed with her business. Ever since then, requests have poured in by email and snail mail for her in care of the newspaper and the offices of HuntCom asking for her help from other young women. And for them. Like you,” she explained. “The reporter who wrote the article said she’s bringing another sackful over this afternoon.”

“A reporter is part of this?”

“Don’t worry,” Phil hastily assured. “Cornelia wants to stay under the radar with her project and she trusts Shea Weatherby to help her with that. As for anyone else we might need to talk with, we only identify our clients to those directly involved in her situation.”

The assertion was hugely reassuring to Rory. She’d already supplied enough fodder for gossip in certain social circles to last a lifetime. Nearly every member of those circles would have sold their summer homes to mingle with a Hunt, too. But all that mattered to her just then was that this meeting was confidential. Her relationship with her in-laws was strained enough without word getting out and embarrassing them because their son’s widow apparently needed to be bailed out by strangers. For Tyler’s sake, she needed to make as few waves with them as possible.

Thinking about her in-laws reminded her that she needed to call them about Christmas.

“The volume of requests Cornelia is receiving,” Phil continued, mercifully sidetracking her from the stomach-knotting thought, “is why she needed to hire help. I just love what she’s doing.”

“I really am at a loss here,” Rory admitted. “What is she doing?”

“She’s being what the first woman she helped called her,” her assistant replied. “A fairy godmother.”

She had a fairy godmother?

“On to the details.” Phil pushed a pale blue folder toward her, the snowflake polish on her nails glittering. “If these terms are agreeable to you, Cornelia will purchase the property you saw from the owners and you will purchase it from her for the amount stated on line one. To keep everything legal and as simple as possible, your down payment will be one dollar. Your balance will be interest-free with the first payment due September first. You’ll have had five months of cash flow by then.”

Disbelief held Rory’s tone to nearly a whisper. The number couldn’t possibly be right. “The property has to be worth three times this.”

“Oh, it is. And that’s what Cornelia will pay the owners for it. But that’s your price. Of course, there is more to the sale.”

Ah, yes, Rory thought, unable to understand why Cornelia would take such a loss for her. The strings.

“Cornelia has added a few perks,” Phil chose to call them. “She believes the best route to success is to have a good adviser. Since it’s understandable that you’d know little about this particular business and since the Sullivan’s grandson is reasonably acquainted with it, she arranged for Erik to be your mentor for the next six months. He’ll help you with your inventory, suppliers, getting part-time help and whatever else it will take to get your new venture up and running.