“They open, dump, get bored and move on to the next one. And that leaves me to collect up everything they dumped, and get it back in the box. As I’m collecting, I’m checking for jewelry. At this rate I’ll have this whole room done by noon.”

She laughed.

And he sighed with relief. But the relief didn’t last long. With her tears dry and her mood improved, he knew she’d never tell him about her dad. And he couldn’t just say, “Hey, I saw Monty running out of your house this morning.” It would be awkward for her, like dropping someone in an ice-cold swimming pool.

Still, he couldn’t let this go. He’d been the one to tell Monty she was doing well. He’d thought he was doing her a favor. Turns out he had everything all wrong. And somehow he had to fix it.

“So what happened this morning?”

She strolled back into the bedroom and walked over to Helaina, who’d dumped out a box of panty hose.

“What is this?”

He grabbed the ball of panty hose and stuffed it back into the shoe box. “My grandmother never met a pair of panty hose she didn’t want to save.”

“My grandmother saved them, too. She used them as filler when she made stuffed animals or couch pillows.”

“Thank God. I was beginning to think my grandmother was nuts.” And he’d also noticed Missy had changed the subject. “So what happened this morning?”

She sucked in a breath, ruffling Lainie’s dark hair as the little girl picked up another shoe box, popped the lid and dumped the contents.

Bingo. Jewelry.

He swung around to that side of the bed. Beads and bobbles rolled across the floral comforter. “Well, what do you know?”

Missy caught his gaze. “Don’t get your hopes up. Most of this looks like cheap costume jewelry.”

He picked up a necklace, saw a chip in the paint on a “pearl.”

“Drat.”

“Finding jewelry is a good sign, though. At least you know it’s here somewhere.”

He dropped the string of fake pearls to the bed. “Yeah, well, she has three furnished bedrooms. I found clothes in the drawers in the dressers in each room. All the closets are full of boxes like these.” He sighed. “Who wants to go play in the yard?”

Missy laughed. “Is that how you look for jewelry? In the yard?”

He faced her. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m sort of, kind of, the type of guy who doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

Shaking her head, she laughed again. “So how do you intend to find the jewelry?”

He shrugged. “Not sure yet. But I’m an idea guy. That’s how I got rich.” It was true. Even his writing was a form of coming up with ideas and analyzing them to see if they’d work. “So eventually I’ll figure out a way to find the jewelry without having to look through every darned drawer and box in this house.”

“Well, I’d volunteer to help you, but I have some thinking of my own to do today.”

“Oh, yeah.” He sat on the bed, patted the spot beside him. That was as good of an opening as any to try again to get her to talk to him. “I just told you I’m a good idea man. Maybe I could help you with that thinking.”

“No. You and I have already been over this. Your idea to solve my financial problem was to give me money.”

He remembered—and winced.

“So this morning I need to go over my books again, think through how I can get a van and an assistant.”

“Why the sudden rush?”

She shrugged. “No reason.” She clapped her hands. “Come on, kids. Let’s go.”

A chorus of “Ah, Mom,” echoed around him.

He rose from the bed, suddenly understanding that maybe she didn’t want to talk about her dad because the kids were around. Which meant they wouldn’t talk until the triplets took their naps. “I promised them time in the sandbox.”

She sighed. “They’re not even out of their pajamas yet.”

“How about if you go get them dressed while I clean up some of this mess? Then I’ll take them when you’re done.”

“I do want that thinking time this morning.” She blew her breath out in another sigh. “I don’t know how to pay you back for being so good to them.”

“I already told you it makes me feel weird to hear you say you want to pay me for playing. So don’t say it again.”

She laughed. Then she faced the kids. “All right. Let’s go. We’ll get everybody into clean shorts, then you can go out to the sandbox with Wyatt.”

Owen jumped. “Yay!”

Lainie raced to the door.

Claire took her mom’s hand.

Wyatt watched them go, then fell to the bed again. She’d been beaten by her dad, left by her husband with three babies, and now struggled with growing a business. It didn’t seem right that he couldn’t give her money. But that ship had sailed. Worse, he had to confess that he was the one who’d told her dad how well she was doing.

Wyatt looked at his watch, counting down the hours till naptime, feeling as if he was counting down the hours to doomsday.

CHAPTER SEVEN

STILL TOO WORKED UP to sit at a table and run numbers, Missy pulled a box of flour from her pantry, along with semisweet chocolate chips, sugar and cornstarch. Wyatt taking the kids without pushing for answers as to why she was so upset was about the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her, so she would repay him with a cake. A fancy chocolate cake with raspberry sauce.

While the cake baked, she took snacks and juice boxes out to the kids, with an extra for Wyatt. Though he accepted the cookies and juice box, he more or less stayed back, but she understood why. Not only had he seen her sobbing that morning, but she’d rejected his advances the night before. She didn’t blame him for not wanting to talk to her.

But the cake would bring them back to their normal footing.

As it cooled, she put raspberry juice, cornstarch and a quarter cup of sugar into a saucepan. After it had boiled, she strained it to remove the seeds, then set it aside. Using more chocolate chips, she made the glaze for the cake.

By the time the kids returned to the house for lunch, the cake was ready. As usual, Wyatt didn’t come inside with them. He went to his own house for lunch. But that was okay. While the kids napped, she’d take the baby monitor receiver with her and deliver the cake to him.

The kids washed up, ate lunch, brushed their teeth and crawled into their little beds.

Missy took a breath and tucked the monitor under her arm. She grabbed the cup of sauce in one hand and the cake in the other and carried the best looking cake she’d ever baked across her yard, under the shrub branch and to his porch.

She lightly kicked the door with her foot. “Wyatt?”

He appeared on the other side of the screen. “Yeah?”

She presented the cake. “I made this for you.”

He glanced down at the cake, then back at her. “I thought we talked about you baking me a cake?”

She laughed. “It’s a thank-you for helping me out this morning. Not a thank-you for playing, because we both know that’s wrong. It’s thanks for helping me.”

When he said nothing, she laughed again. “Open the door, idiot, so we can cut this thing and see if it tastes as good as it looks.”

He opened the door and she stepped inside the modest kitchen. She set the cake on the table. “Where did your gram keep her knives?”

He walked to the cabinets, opened a drawer and retrieved a knife.

“Might as well get two forks and two plates while you’re gathering things.”

He silently did as he was told. She happily cut the cake. Dewy and moist, it sliced like a dream. She placed a piece on each plate, then drizzled raspberry sauce over them.

Handing one to Wyatt, she said, “There was supposed to be a whipped cream flower on each piece, but I didn’t have enough hands to carry the whipped cream.”

He sniffed a laugh, but didn’t say anything.

That was when she felt the weirdness. Something was definitely up.

“The cake really is just a simple thank-you. No strings attached.” She paused, pointing at his piece. “Try it.”

He slid his fork into it and put a bite in his mouth. His eyes closed and he groaned. “Good God. That’s heaven on a fork.”

Pride tumbled through her. “I know! It’s a simple recipe I found online. But it tastes like hours of slave labor.”

She laughed again, but Wyatt set down his fork. “We have to talk.”

At the stern tone of his voice, her appetite deserted her. She set her fork down, too. “You want to know what made me cry this morning.”

He squeezed his eyes shut again, then popped them open. “Actually, that’s the problem. I already know what made you cry this morning. When I was bringing the kids back after their surprise visit to my house, I overhead you and Monty.”

“Oh.” Embarrassment replaced pride. Heat slid up her cheeks. Her chest tightened.

“I heard him ask for money.”

She said nothing, only stared at the pretty cake between them.

“I also heard what you said about him beating your mom, you and your sister.”

She pressed her lips together.

“But that’s not the worst of it.”

Her head shot up and she caught his gaze. “Really? What can be worse than my dad beating me? About living a lie? About worrying every damn night that he was going to kill my mom, until she finally did die? What can be worse than that?”

“Look. I know it was a terrible thing.”

“You know nothing.” And she didn’t want him to know anything. If she believed there was a chance for them to have a relationship, she might have told him. The timing was perfect. He already knew the overall story. She might have muddled through the humiliating details, if only because she was sick to death of living a lie. But knowing there was no chance for them, not even the possibility of love, she preferred to keep her secrets and her mortification to herself.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.” His quiet acceptance tiptoed into the room. From his tone she knew he wasn’t happy with her answer, but he accepted it. “But I have to tell you one more thing.” He dragged in another breath. “One day last week I ate at the diner. When I was done, I went back to the kitchen to say hello to your dad, and somehow the subject of you and your business came up—”

She jumped out of her seat. “Oh, my God! You told him?”

“I’m sorry.”

She gaped at him, horrible things going through her brain. She’d spent years staying away from her dad, not going to town picnics and gatherings or anything even remotely fun to protect her kids. And in one casual conversation, Wyatt had ruined years of her sacrifice.

She grabbed the monitor and turned to leave.

“I’m sorry!”

She spun to face him. “He’s a leech. A liar. A thief. I don’t want him in my life! I especially don’t want him around the kids!”

“Well, you know what?” Wyatt shot out of his chair and was in front of her before she could blink. “Then you should tell people that. Because normal people don’t keep secrets from their dads. Which means other normal people don’t suspect you’re keeping a secret from yours.”

Her chin rose. “I guess that means I’m not normal, then. Thanks for that.” She pivoted and smacked her hands on his screen door, opening it. “I need to get back to the kids.”

When she was gone, Wyatt fell to his chair. Part of him insisted he shouldn’t feel bad. He hadn’t known. She hadn’t told him.

But he remembered his charmed childhood. He might not have been well liked at school, but he was well loved at home. What the hell did he know about being abused? What did he know about the dark reasons for keeping secrets?

He’d been born under a lucky star and he knew it.

He scrubbed his hands down his face. Looked over at the cake. It was the best thing he had ever tasted. Missy had talent. With a little help, she would succeed. Maybe even beyond her wildest dreams.

But like an idiot, he’d blocked his chance to help her, by offering her money so he could stop being attracted to her.

Her life was about so much more than sex and marriage and who was attracted to whom. It was about more than being praised and admired. All she wanted to do was make a living. Be safe. Keep her kids safe.

And Wyatt kept hurting her.

He was an idiot.

Missy spent the rest of the kids’ nap in tears. Not because Wyatt had ratted her out to her dad. He couldn’t have ratted her out. As he’d said, he hadn’t known she kept her success a secret from her dad. Because she didn’t tell anybody about him.

And if she really dug down into the reasons she was suddenly so sad, so weary of it all, that hit the top of the list.

She didn’t talk to anybody. At least not beyond surface subjects. No one knew her. It was the coldest, emptiest, loneliest feeling in the world, to exist but not be known. In high school, she could pretend that the life she led during the day, in classes, at football games, cheering and being chosen to be homecoming queen, snowball queen and prom queen, was her real life. But as she got older, her inability to have real friends, people she could talk to, wore on her. And when she really got honest with herself, she also had to admit that her company was a nice safe way of having to connect with people in only a superficial way. Once a wedding was over, she moved on to new people. No one ever stayed in her life.

Of course, she had wanted to connect with Wyatt, but he didn’t want a relationship. He wanted a fling.

She swiped away her tears. It didn’t matter. She was fine. When her dad was out of the picture, her life was good. And that morning she’d scared him off. He wouldn’t be back. And if he did come back, testing to see if she was serious about her threats, she’d call the police. After a night or two in jail he would stay away for good. Because he was a coward.

Then the whole town would know and she’d be forced to deal with it. But at least her life wouldn’t be a lie anymore.

And maybe she could come out from under this horrible veil of secrets that ended with nothing but loneliness.

When the kids awoke, she kept them inside, working on a special project with them: refrigerator art. She got out the construction paper, glue and little round-edged plastic scissors. They made green cats and purple dogs. Cut out yellow flowers and white houses. And glued everything on the construction paper, creating “art” she could hang for Nancy to see on Saturday when she babysat.

And outside, Wyatt sat on the bench seat of his gram’s old wooden picnic table, peering through the openings in the tall shrubs, waiting for them to appear.

But the kids and Missy didn’t come outside. Because she was angry? Or sad? Or in protection mode?

He didn’t know.

All he knew was that it was his fault.

He rose from the picnic table and walked into his house, back to the bedroom littered with shoe boxes. He sat on the bed and began the task for looking for the jewelry, trying to get his mind off Missy.

It didn’t work. He was about to give up, but had nothing else to do—damn his mother for canceling the cable. So he forced himself to open one more box, and discovered a stack of letters tied with a pink ribbon. He probably would have tossed them aside except for the unique return address.

It was a letter from his grandfather, Sergeant Bill Mc-Kenzie, to his grandmother, sent from Europe during World War II.

Wyatt sat on the bed, pulled the string of the bow.

Though his grandfather had died at least twenty years before, Wyatt remembered him as a tall, willowy guy who liked to tell jokes, and never missed a family event like a birthday party or graduation. He’d liked him. A lot. Some people even said Wyatt “took after” him.

He opened the first letter.

Dear Joni…

I hope this letter finds you well. Things here are quiet, for now. That’s why I have time to write. I wanted to thank you and everyone at home for your efforts with the war bonds. I also know rationing is hard. I recognize what a struggle it is to do without and to work in the factories. Tell everyone this means a great deal to those of us fighting.

The letter went on to talk about personal things, how much he missed her, how much he loved her, and Wyatt had to admit he got a bit choked up. A kid never thought of his grandparents loving each other. He’d certainly never pictured them young, fighting a war and sacrificing for a cause. But he could see his grandmother working in a factory, see his grandfather fighting for freedom.

What Wyatt hadn’t expected to find, in letter after letter, was how much encouragement his grandfather had given his grandmother. Especially since, of the two, she was safer.

Still, his gram would have been a young woman. Working in a factory. Going without nylons—which might explain why she saved old panty hose. Getting up at the crack of dawn, doing backbreaking labor. He’d never thought of his grandparents this way, but now that he had, their lives and their love took on a new dimension for him.

Hours later, feeling hungry, he ambled to the kitchen and saw the cake. He took a chunk of the half-eaten slice he’d left behind. Flavor exploded on his tongue like a recrimination.

He sat at the table, staring at the cake. His grandfather was such a people-smart guy that he never would have let anyone suffer in silence the way Missy was. Sure, she baked cakes and attended weddings, looking pretty and perky, as if everything was fine. But everything wasn’t fine. She worked her butt off to support her kids, and probably lived her life praying her dad would forget she existed.

And Wyatt had blown that in a one-minute conversation after eating pie.

He had to do something to make that up to her. He had to do something to make her life better. He already watched her kids while she worked every morning, but from the way she’d kept them inside after their naps, she might be changing her mind about letting him do even that.

So that left her business. If he wanted to do something to help her, if he wanted to do something to make up for the things he’d done wrong, then he had to figure out how she could afford to hire an assistant and buy a van.

Without him giving her money.

The next morning, Missy got up, put on a pot of coffee, poured three bowls of cereal and three glasses of milk, and sat at the table.

“So what are you going to do today?”

Owen said, “Pway with Wyatt.”

She stirred her coffee. “That sounds like a lot of fun, but he might not come over, so you should think about what you’d like to do with your sisters.”

Lainie’s head shot up and she gave her mom a wideeyed look. Claire’s little mouth fell open. For the past two weeks, they’d enjoyed a small heaven, playing dolls without being forced to also entertain their brother. Neither seemed happy to have that change.

A knock at the door interrupted them, turning Missy around to see who it was.

Wyatt opened the door. “I brought your cake plate and sauce cup back.”

She rose, wiped her sweating palms down her denim shorts. She took the plate and cup from him. “Thanks.”

He smiled slightly. “Aren’t you going to offer me a cup of coffee?”

Actually, she hoped he’d just go. Like Owen, she’d gotten accustomed to having someone to talk to, to be with. She hadn’t even realized it until the night before, when she’d thought about how everybody came into her life, then left again. Even Wyatt would soon leave. But as they were jointly caring for her kids, and he helped her deliver her cakes, spending entire Saturdays with her, she’d been so preoccupied with her work that she’d been growing accustomed to having him around.

But he’d told her he didn’t want to be in her life, and she had accepted that. She wished he’d just leave, so she could start her healing process.

Still, after years of working at the diner as a teenager, if someone asked for coffee, she poured it. “Sure. I have plenty of coffee.”

He ambled to the table. “Hey, kids.”

Lainie said, “Hi, Wyatt!”

Owen said, “Hey, Wyatt.”

Claire smiled. Owen said, “Are we going to pway?”

Wyatt pulled out a chair and sat. “As soon as I talk to your mom about some things.” He pointed at the boy’s bowl. “Are you done eating?”

Owen picked up his little plastic bowl and drank the contents in about ten seconds. Then he slapped the bowl on the table and grinned at Wyatt from behind a milk mustache.

Wyatt laughed. “Now you need to go wash up.”

“You can all wash up, brush your teeth and head outside. Wyatt won’t be far behind.”

Missy knew that probably sounded rude. At the very least high-handed. But she’d made up her mind the night of the wedding. Even before he’d seen her dad at her door. If she got involved with him, she wanted something more. He didn’t. Plus, in another day or week, he’d be gone. He wasn’t really her friend, didn’t want to be her lover, except temporarily. She had to break her attachment to him.

The kids scrambled along the short hall to their bathroom. She sat across from Wyatt.

“I’m not going to talk about my dad.”

“That’s not what I came to talk about.”

“It isn’t?”

“No. You know yesterday how I told you I was a thinker?”

“I thought you were just bragging.”

He winced. “I was…sort of.”

Her eyebrows rose, as if she was silently asking him what the hell that had to do with anything.

He squirmed uncomfortably. “The thing is, last night as I thought about your situation…”

“You can’t help me. I have to handle my dad alone.”

“I’m not talking about your dad. I’m talking about your business.”

“And I thought we’d already been over this, too. I don’t want your money.”

“I’m not offering you money. I solve business problems all the time. And sitting there last night, I realized that if I’m such a hotshot, I should be able to solve yours, too.”

She laughed. That hadn’t occurred to her, but it was true. If he was such a hotshot he should be able to muddle through her measly little expansion problem. “Without offering me money.”

“Right. We took that off the table the first week I was here.”

“So. Now you’re going to think about my problem?”

He picked up the saltshaker, turned it over in his hands as if studying it. “Actually, I solved it.”

She snorted a laugh. “Right.”

He finally caught her gaze. “I did. I don’t know if you’re going to be happy with the answer, but I took all the variables I knew into consideration, and realized that if I were in your position, I’d use the house as collateral for a line of credit.”

She gasped. “Use my house?”

“I woke up my chief financial officer last night and had him run some numbers.”

Wyatt pulled a paper from his back pocket. “He checked the value of your house against comps in the area, and estimates your house’s value here.” Wyatt pointed at the top number. “Which means you could easily get a hundred thousand dollar line of credit with the house as collateral.”

She raised her gaze to his slowly. “But then I’d have a payment every month.”

“You’d also have a van and an assistant, and you could take more weddings.”

The truth of that hit her with a happy lift of her spirits. Though part of her struggled against it, her mind shifted into planning mode. “And maybe birthday cakes.”

“And birthday cakes.” He smiled sheepishly. “I ate that whole damned cake.”

“Wyatt! That much sugar’s not good for you.”

“I know, but I’m out of food except for cereal, and I couldn’t go to the diner.”

Her face heated. “You can go wherever you want.”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll give money to a guy who beat his family.”

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