The Mummy Proposal

Her lips curved upward even as the light faded from her eyes. She said in a low, cordial tone, “You have a reputation for making the women in your life very happy, while they are in your orbit.”

Nate certainly tried. What point was there in spending time with someone unless it was a pleasurable experience? That didn’t mean, however, that he pretended something was going to work long term when it clearly wouldn’t.

“I don’t fall in love easily.” Although not for lack of trying. He wanted to be married and have a family.

She studied him as if trying to decide whether or not he was the womanizer some made him out to be, then brought out a bowl of fresh fruit, a loaf of artisan bread and a block of sharp cheddar. “Have you ever been in love?”

Nate handed over the serving board and bread slicer. “Once, with Landry’s mother.”

Brooke set to work preparing a snack, with the skill of a mom who spent a lot of time in the kitchen. “What happened to break you up? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

Normally, Nate followed the gentleman’s rule and did not talk about his previous relationships with women. For some reason, this was different. He wanted Brooke to understand. “I was working really long hours, getting my company off the ground,” he admitted, moving restlessly about the sleek, utilitarian kitchen. “Seraphina was pretty involved in planning our wedding, and she had an old friend living in her building. Miles Lawrence was trying to make it as a stand-up comedian, and she went to as many of his appearances as she could. I didn’t worry about the amount of time they spent together. As it turns out, I should have,” Nate reflected ruefully. “She broke off our engagement to run away with him.”

“And had a child,” Brooke interjected, perceptive as ever.

Reluctantly, Nate met her eyes. “Some eight months later.”

Her hand froze in midmotion. She stared at him, already doing the math. “Is it possible that Landry is yours?”

Nate had been wondering the same thing. All he could go on was what he knew for sure. “The birth certificate lists Miles Lawrence as Landry’s father.”

She went back to slicing up fruit and arranging it on a serving platter. “What about this Miles? Where is he?”

Nate lounged against the counter and watched the competent motions of her dainty hands. “Jessalyn told me yesterday that he left Seraphina before the baby was born. Miles wanted to focus on building an act that revolved around being a single guy, one always in love with a woman he could never hope to get.”

Brooke looked horrified. “Don’t tell me the man insisted he had to be chasing skirts to get material….”

Nate folded his arms across his chest, sharing her disdain. “Apparently so. Anyway, Seraphina was still in love with him and hoped he would come around and change his mind about marrying her and building a family together, if she gave him a little time. That’s what Jessalyn told me. But they never had a chance to find out. He died in a plane crash when Landry was just two months old.”

Brooke offered a commiserating glance. “So Landry never knew him.”

Nate shook his head. “According to Jessalyn, all he has are a few old photographs and stories from his mom.”

Brooke’s smooth brow furrowed. “So what are you going to do?”

What could he do? “Raise him as mine.”

“Without finding out?” Once again, Brooke looked shocked.

She was beginning to sound like his attorney. “There’s no point in it. I’ve already agreed to adopt Landry and bring him up as my son.” What counted, Nate knew, was the commitment made, and kept. Love would follow, over time. At least he hoped that would be the case. Thus far, Landry didn’t seem to have his heart open to anything except rebellion.

The tromp of youthful footsteps sounded on the back stairs. Seconds later, Landry and Cole came barreling into the kitchen. Cole nodded at Nate, then turned back to his mom. “Where have you been?” he demanded.

“We thought maybe you got lost,” Landry added, ignoring Nate altogether and looking at Brooke with concern.

Abruptly, the teenager swung around toward Nate, suspicious as ever. “How come you’re up?” he demanded.

Nate straightened. He had to find a way to get Landry to respect him. The first step was telling it like it was, in situations like this. “I heard something and thought you might be taking off again,” he informed him matter-of-factly.

An inscrutable light came into Landry’s eyes. It was followed swiftly by a smirk. “And so what? You were going to stop me?”

Nate nodded with the quiet authority he knew Landry needed. “That’s my job now.”

When Landry sullenly turned away, Nate knew he’d gotten his point across.

“It’s going to take time for Landry to adjust,” Brooke told Nate, after the boys had taken their snacks and headed upstairs.

How long? Nate wondered, aware that Landry was already giving Brooke a much easier time.

But then again, Nate realized, Brooke wasn’t the adult legally aiding Landry’s great-grandmother in keeping Landry here against his wishes ….

Brooke patted his arm before heading back upstairs, too. “In the meantime you’ve got to be patient and follow the plan you’ve set out and give him plenty of positive things to do.”

NATE KNEW BROOKE WAS right. So first thing the following morning, he took Landry to the academic camp where Cole was enrolled in the summer program. He and Landry talked to the director, took the tour. As they headed back to her office, the teen shrugged and muttered, “I guess it’ll be okay. Can I be in the same group as Cole?” The director nodded.

Nate filled out the paperwork, wrote a sizable check and said goodbye to Landry. Then he headed for downtown Fort Worth, and the weekly meeting with his four business partners at One Trinity River Place.

Knowing the four guys would have invaluable advice to offer, since they were all experienced parents, Nate filled the group in on everything that had happened the last few days, starting with Jessalyn’s phone call and the letter from her late granddaughter, Seraphina.

“Time helps,” Travis Carson said, with the expertise of a widower who had shepherded his own two daughters through the demise of their mother.

“In the meantime … I have to agree with your lawyer,” Grady McCabe told Nate seriously. “You are jumping the gun a bit, deciding to adopt Landry before the two of you have had a chance to develop any real rapport. The promise may not ring true to him.”

Nate respected Grady’s inherent ability to look at the big picture. Not just in the skyscrapers and other mixed-use development projects they built, but in their personal lives, too.

Dan Kingsland added matter-of-factly, “I know you’ve already hired Brooke Mitchell….”

Nodding, Nate was glad he’d had the foresight to bring her on board. She was the one ray of sunshine in his chaotic life right now.

“But redecorating your house just highlights the fact you’re going to have to make a lot of changes to take Landry in,” Dan continued. “I can’t say how he would respond to that, since I’ve never met him, but I know my three kids would interpret it to mean they’re a burden.”

Jack Gaines added, “The faster change occurs, the harder it is to accept.”

Nate knew Jack and his daughter had just weathered a lot of upheaval due to a hasty wedding in their family. But that had worked out okay in the end, too. “I have faith Brooke Mitchell will be able to pull this off,” he told his friends.

“The home makeover, sure,” Grady said. “Everyone knows Brooke can work miracles in that regard. That’s why her services are in such high demand.”

“But she’s not going to be there two weeks from now when the task is finished,” Dan cautioned.

“At that point,” Travis interjected, “you have got to be prepared to parent solo. And the rest of us know from experience that is one of the hardest things to do.”

But it could be done, Nate thought, as the meeting concluded and he headed home to confer with Brooke over the lunch hour. All he needed were a few more tips and parental insights from her to get Landry moving in the right direction. After that happened, Nate was confident that the tension in his household would fade.

When he drove in the front gates, he expected to see the cleaning van on its way out, not furniture dotting the lawn. Nor a Cadillac next to Brooke’s van, with a faculty parking sticker for a local university prominently displayed. Curious, Nate walked across the lawn, hearing the voices as he rounded the house.

“You gave me no choice,” the bearded, white-haired man said. “You’ve been ducking my calls.”

“I had hoped,” Brooke said archly, “that would be enough for you to get the message.”

The elderly man countered, “You and Cole have to be at the publication party for Seamus’s book.”

Wary of intruding, but not about to leave Brooke to fend for herself if help was needed, Nate reluctantly stayed where he was and continued listening in.

“If you and Cole don’t show up, people will start asking questions.”

“And we wouldn’t want that, would we?” Brooke’s voice rang with contempt. “We wouldn’t want anything to reflect poorly on the university!”

“We were protecting you and Cole.”

“While turning a blind eye? If you had wanted to help, you should have let me know what was going on, long before that night.”

“Brooke …” The gentleman held out a hand in entreaty.

She glared. “You have to leave.”

He pushed a book and what looked to be some sort of engraved invitation into her hands. “Not before you agree to attend the party.”

Her expression distraught, Brooke backed away.

Enough was enough. Nate walked briskly around the landscaped swimming pool toward the caretaker’s cottage. He extended a hand toward the bearded man. “Nate Hutchinson. And you’re …?”

“Professor Phineas Rylander, from the university where Brooke’s husband taught. I was just inviting her to a pre-publication party that the English department is giving for her late husband, Seamus. It’s his last work and we are very happy to be able to promote his collection of poetry. Naturally, we want Brooke and her son to attend.”

Brooke pressed her fingertips to her temple. “I don’t think it’s going to be possible.”

Professor Rylander refused to give up. “I beg you to reconsider.”

Nate clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“I—” the man began.

“I’ll walk you to your Cadillac.”

Reluctantly, the professor assented. Nate escorted him out, waited until he drove away, then returned to Brooke. She was sitting on one of the half-dozen pieces of mismatched furniture that had been moved to the lawn outside the cottage. She had the book and the invitation in her hands, and was staring down at the photo on the jacket cover.

Nate followed the direction of her gaze.

Seamus Mitchell had been handsome and distinguished. Yet Brooke was regarding the photo with utter loathing and contempt. Not exactly the reaction Nate would have expected. “Are you okay?”

She rose with quiet dignity. “No, I’m not,” she said frankly. “And you know why?” Bitterness underscored her every syllable. “Because I know what it feels like to be betrayed by a loved one, too!”

Chapter Four

Brooke hadn’t meant to blurt that out. But now that she had, she found she needed to unburden herself to someone who knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of such betrayal. Carefully, she set the book and the invitation on the chair she had been sitting on. “My husband didn’t just die of a heart attack.” That scenario would have been so much simpler to deal with. “He was in another woman’s bed at the time.”

Nate responded with an oath that perfectly summed up Brooke’s feelings on the matter. Appreciating his empathy, she swallowed around the tight knot of emotion in her throat. She threaded both hands through her hair and continued with as much grace as she could muster. “The university didn’t want a scandal. And there would have been one had word about what really happened gotten out, since Iris Lomax was Seamus’s graduate assistant.” Brooke exhaled deeply. “So the head of the English department, Professor Rylander, told everyone—including me—that he and Seamus had been out jogging when Seamus had the coronary.” Her son still thought that was what had happened ….

Nate gave her a look that said, Not cool. He reached over to squeeze her hand. “How did you find out that wasn’t the case?”

In the worst possible way. Brooke lifted her gaze to his. “The nurse in the E.R. had no idea there was a mistress involved. She thought what the paramedics on the scene had initially been led to believe—that Seamus had been having sex with me at the time of his coronary. She had questions about Seamus’s medical history, including a very mild heart attack the previous year that I knew nothing about.” Brooke added with self-effacing honesty, “I have to say the way I reacted was not one of my finer moments.” She was still embarrassed about how she had completely lost it.

Nate kept listening, his eyes kind.

Needing him to understand, as well as needing to unburden herself, Brooke confessed, “I had come to terms with the fact that my husband flirted with women the way some people breathe. I just thought it ended there.” Her former naivete still hurt and embarrassed her. “Finding out it hadn’t, and that Seamus had been taking some performance-enhancing drugs to keep up with all his extramarital activity—despite the known risks to someone who had already suffered a mild heart attack—was pretty devastating.” She had been angry at her husband for his recklessness and his infidelity, and furious with herself for being such a fool.

“Does Cole know any of this?” Nate asked softly.

Relief softened the set of Brooke’s shoulders, worked its way down her spine. “Heavens, no,” she muttered emotionally. “He still thinks his oh-so-charming father walked on water.” Despite the fact that Seamus had barely known Cole existed, except on the few occasions when the Irish poet had trotted him out, to show him off and enhance Seamus’s own ego. “Which is why I don’t want to take Cole to the book party.”

Nate’s eyes narrowed. “You’re afraid someone will say something,” he guessed.

“Although many faculty members remain in the dark about the circumstances surrounding Seamus’s death, I have since come to realize some knew about his philandering.” She took a deep breath. “Some of them thought I knew and was turning a blind eye, to keep the marriage intact. Others actively covered for him when he was out carousing, and helped him keep his infidelity from me.”

“So if any of them were to look at you sympathetically …” Nate guessed where this was going.

Brooke nodded. “Or just react in a way that would stir questions in Cole’s mind, it could be a problem. I worked very hard during the years of our marriage to protect Cole from anything unpleasant. Right now, he’s secure in his father’s love and the memories he has of our times together as family. He doesn’t realize that anything was amiss.” She crossed her arms self-consciously. “And I don’t want to do anything that would take away from that. Because there were parts of our lives together that were very good.” Times when Seamus had really poured on the Irish charm. “And that’s all I want to dwell on. So going back to the English department, where Seamus and I first met …”

Once again Nate looked shocked. “You were his student, too?” he asked in surprise.

“I took one of his classes when I was a senior,” Brooke admitted, with no small amount of cynicism. Looking back, she could see how gullible, how ripe for the picking she had been. But at the time, their age difference and Seamus’s history as a tortured artist, and a known womanizer with a penchant for getting involved with female students, hadn’t mattered. With effort, Brooke found her voice. “He was twenty years older than me, and when the writing was going well—as it was at the time—he was very sweet and kind and funny and loving.” That was all she had seen. All she had needed to see.

“He made you happy.”

Not ashamed to admit it, Brooke nodded. “When he asked me to marry him and give him a child, I was thrilled. I’d finally have a family again, and so would he.” Maybe she’d been blind, but her first years as a devoted wife and mother had been one of the happiest times of her life. “We had Cole right away. Seamus wrote a few new poems and continued teaching. And I became consumed with building a part-time business on the side, and being a mom.”

“And later?”

“We still had good times. But Seamus was under a lot of pressure. In academia, what they say about publish or perish is very true. The powers that be were on him to produce another book of poetry the university could promote.” She swallowed uncomfortably. “Seamus didn’t think it was that simple. He wanted to wait to be inspired, but that wasn’t an option if he wanted to keep his standing in the department. So eventually he did what was expected.” Brooke tried not to dwell on the fact that Seamus’s mistress had no doubt supplied the muse for the latest collection of love poetry, just as Brooke had allegedly inspired his earlier work.

She sighed and went on. “He had just submitted Love Notes from the Soul to his previous publisher, The Poet’s Press, and was waiting to hear back about whether or not they were going to buy it, when he died. Eventually, they decided they wanted to publish it posthumously, since it was his last work.” Even though it wasn’t his best work. Far from it, actually.

Nate studied her, as if sensing there was more. “So what are you going to do?” he asked finally.

Brooke put away her lingering feelings of anger and resentment. “I’m not sure. The university has notified all the newspapers in the state that the book is coming out, and they’re trying to get it reviewed. Since Seamus isn’t here, they’d like me to speak with the press and help promote it.”

“But you don’t want to,” Nate noted, perceptively.

She picked up the invitation and advance copy of her late husband’s book and held them at her side. “Every instinct I have tells me it would be a mistake, especially since my feelings on the matter are so complicated. So I’m going to sidestep that minefield and let the university handle it. In the meantime—” she put her personal angst aside and got back to the business at hand “—I’d like to show you what I’ve done with the guesthouse.”

“THIS IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING,” Nate murmured several minutes later, after he had completed the tour of the caretaker’s cottage. The mismatched furniture had been covered with soft blue denim slipcovers, and colorful braid rugs adorned the newly polished wide-plank pine floors. Art was on the walls. Blue-and-white paisley draperies dressed up the plantation shutters on the windows. The old appliances in the kitchen sparkled, and a round table for four had been brought in and set with dishes that were as pretty and useful as everything else in the home.

Nate cast another glance at the cotton quilts on the beds, the fresh towels, rugs and shower curtain in the lone bathroom. It was like a guesthouse out of a magazine, with all the comforts one could possibly desire. “How did you make it so livable so fast?”

“Well, as you can see, I had everything moved onto the lawn, then had the cleaning service do a thorough scrubbing of the space. I put half the furniture back, keeping the pieces that were in the best shape and leaving the others outside. Which brings me to my next question.” She walked out to the yard and gestured at the odds and ends. “Do you want to put these things into storage or give them to an auction house for resale, along with everything you won’t be using?”

“Auction everything.” The money from the sale would go a long way toward funding the makeover.

Brooke made a note on her clipboard. “You said you wanted to get away from the black-and-white color scheme.”

“Right.” Nate sauntered back into the cottage and gestured toward the inviting decor. “I want the main house to look as comfortable as this.” Like the cozy, welcoming homes all his married friends had. A place where he could come home and put his feet up.

Brooke tapped the pen against her chin. “That’s a pretty big undertaking. We’re talking about furnishings for ten thousand square feet of space. And we’ll have to come up with a new color scheme.”

Nate felt his eyes begin to glaze over. That always happened when the discussion turned to decorating. “Whatever you decide is fine with me.”

She looked at him, clearly unconvinced.

He lifted both palms in surrender. “I’m not kidding—I like your taste. You understand a lot about boys and what they need. Speaking of which …” He took a deep breath and plunged on. “I’m planning to take Landry to get a haircut this evening after camp. And then to buy the clothes he needs. Any chance you and Cole might want to join us?”

Brooke hesitated.

Nate knew he was pushing it, dragging her further into this situation. But he had no choice. Edging closer still, he threw himself on her mercy. “I know nothing about any of this. And Landry can tell. You, on the other hand, are Supermom.”

She raked her teeth across her lower lip. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do,” he said. “I could use your help. Please don’t make me beg….”

As their eyes locked, Nate sensed a wall going up between them. “I meant what I said yesterday. You’re going to have to learn to do this on your own eventually,” Brooke stated, sizing him up with golden-brown eyes.

“Eventually being the key word,” he agreed.

After another moment, she finally relented, as he had hoped she would.

It was Landry Nate had trouble convincing.

“No way!” the teen said when he and Cole got home from camp, and they were told the plan. “I’m not getting a haircut, and I don’t want or need any new clothes.”

“Why do I have to go?” Cole chimed in.

“Because you need a haircut and a new pair of shoes,” Brooke told him firmly.

Cole apparently knew that tone, Nate noted. Both boys sighed in resignation and tromped back out toward the driveway, muttering under their breaths the entire way.

“Nicely done,” Nate said, falling into step beside Brooke.

Her expression as resigned as her son’s, she murmured back, “Don’t congratulate either of us until we complete our tasks.”

Nate wasn’t sure what she meant. He found out twenty minutes later, when they entered the unisex hair salon. Brooke went over with Cole to talk to the stylist taking walk-in appointments, and then sat down to read a magazine.

Landry glared at Nate, cutting off any attempt on his part to do the same. “If I have to do this, I’m doing it my way,” he growled as another available stylist walked toward them.

Figuring anything would be an improvement if it got the hair out of the boy’s eyes, Nate nodded and gave him free rein. “I’ve got a call to make. I’ll be right outside.”

He stepped out into the mall. When he came back twenty minutes later, Cole was finished. His hair was cut in traditional adolescent-boy layers. He looked preppy and well-groomed. Brooke seemed pleased.

Landry was finished, too.

“You don’t like it, do you?” he challenged, after Nate had paid the cashier.

But Brooke’s son did. “You look like a punk rocker,” Cole observed admiringly.

Which, Nate figured, Landry had done to tick him off.

Aware that Landry was waiting for him to lose his cool, Nate glanced at the new cut. The hair on top of Landry’s head was short, spiky and stood straight up. The rest was thinned and layered, and fell almost to his shoulders. “Looks trendy,” Nate said, and left it at that.

The teen scowled. “You can’t like it,” he insisted.

Which meant, Nate thought, Landry didn’t like it.

Nate shrugged. “Your hair, your choice.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed. All rebellious teenager again, he pointed out, “You didn’t say that when you were making me get my hair cut.”