An Accidental Mom (12 page)

His mother had worked hard all her life. Max couldn’t remember her ever taking more than a day or two away from the diner. “What about this place?” he asked. “Andy’s a great guy, a terrific fry cook, but I’ve seen him make change. You don’t want him keeping the books.”

“You’re right. He means well, but his math skills sure leave a lot to be desired.” Georgia leaned forward, waved Max closer. “But I have it all figured out,” she whispered. “Piece of cake.”

“Easy as pie,” Robert added.

“Simple as—”

Hands up in mock surrender, Max laughed. “Okay, okay. I get it. So out with it, already. What’s this idea of yours?”

Robert slid a fat brown envelope from his inside jacket pocket. “Open it.”

The envelope contained the deed to Georgia’s Diner, a topographical map of the lot, a license to operate an Amarillo business, and an inventory of the restaurant’s equipment. Max was more than happy to provide them with a little free tax advice. He leafed
through the documents and then, folding them up again, nodded. “Everything appears to be in order.” He held out the folder. “You planning to hire a live-in manager?”

Georgia and Robert exchanged a glance. “Sort of,” she said without taking the envelope.

Max donned his most professional pose—elbows on the table, hands clasped atop the paperwork. “You aren’t planning to leave on your world tour tomorrow, so it isn’t like there’s any big rush. You have plenty of time to find someone trustworthy to run the place while you’re gone.” Grinning, he shrugged. “Who knows? You might miss the place.”

Georgia wrapped a hand around her beau’s arm. “Not a chance. I’ve given this place my all. Rarely spent a dime of my tip money, put most of the profits back into the business.”

Max said, “Which is why it’s the busiest eatery in town.”

“Which is
also
why I’m the tiredest diner owner in town. I have some zip in my step…or soon will, thanks to ol’ Robert, here, so—”

“Hey,” the man teased, “who you callin’ old?”

“I want to enjoy what’s left of my life. No more getting up at 3:00 a.m. to drive to the markets for vegetables and meats. No more baking pies ’til all hours of the night. No more smiling when some trucker complains that his burger wasn’t cooked enough…or that it was overcooked. No more soups to stir, or chili pots to scrub.”

“Mom,” Max said, blanketing her hands with his, “no one is saying you don’t deserve some freedom
from this place. You’ve been a slave to it most of your life!”

He’d seen expressions of anger, weariness, joy and disgust on her face, but Max had never seen
that
look before. She continued to sit there, blinking and silent, refusing to take back the diner’s paperwork.

When Georgia looked down, turned her engagement ring around and around, Max thought he’d figured it out.

“Mom, it’s been in your family since Great-Grandma Georgia first moved to Amarillo. You can’t be seriously considering selling the place….”

Her head snapped up. “’Course not,” she said. “I want you to have it. Lock, stock and griddle brick.”

Max laughed nervously. “Me? You’re kidding, right?”

He glanced from Georgia’s serious face to Robert’s and back again. “You’re
not
kidding.” The documents suddenly seemed too hot to touch, so he sat back and crossed both arms over his chest.

“Even if I was interested, I can’t afford it right now. Everything I have is tied up in the house in Chicago, in the firm. It’d take weeks to liquidate.”

“Maxwell Sheridan, don’t you insult your mama that way! I wouldn’t dream of taking a dime from you. Why, you wouldn’t let me pay a penny of your college tuition. And when you went into that business out there in Chicago, you wouldn’t let me help you.”

She turned to Robert. “Do you realize that every time things got tough around here, money-wise, this boy bailed me out? Why, there were times I’d have
gone belly-up for sure if he hadn’t come to the rescue.”

She faced Max again. “And you refused to let me pay those loans back. You’ve bought and paid for this place twice over, way I see it!”

“Mom…”

“Son, you love this place every bit as much as I do. You’d hate seeing it go to strangers.”

She was right on both counts. “But, Mom, I’m a lousy cook, and—”

“Andy has agreed to stay on.”

Max frowned. “—and I’m clumsy as they come. I don’t think I’ve ever delivered a meal without spilling something.”

“Vera will stay, and so will Betty. They’re two of the finest waitresses in all of Texas.” Georgia winked. “I oughta know, I trained ’em myself!”

True again. But he didn’t say so.

“Think of yourself as the overseer,” Robert suggested. “Someone who balances the books, orders the food, counts the cash.”

Georgia nodded. “Right! And you wouldn’t even have to set foot in the kitchen if you didn’t want to.” She hesitated. “’Til the health department did its annual inspection, that is.” Another pause. “And of course you’d pass, ’cause, like I said, I trained Betty and Vera my very own self.”

It was definitely something to think about. Because he didn’t relish the idea of going back to Chicago, picking up where he’d left off, even if the money he earned out there did guarantee Nate could attend the Ivy League college of his choice.

His mother had been right about something else, too: he
had
felt good, real good, since coming home. And Nate had taken to the place like a fish to water.

Then there was the matter of Lily….

“Like you said,” Robert said, “we’re not going anywhere tomorrow, or even the next day. Take some time, bounce the idea around a bit.”

Max didn’t have time; he had promised Donald Wilkes he’d have an answer by tomorrow. But he nodded anyway. “I’ll give it some thought.” Then he added, “When do you need to know?”

Georgia looked suddenly guilty, like a little girl caught with her fingers in the cookie jar. “Just take your time, son.”

But she hadn’t meant a word of it; the tension in her voice told Max she had something up her sleeve. If experience hadn’t long ago taught him it would be a waste of time and energy to ask
what,
he’d nag it out of her.

Still, she hadn’t had to write it on the menu board: they needed to know ASAP.

So now he faced
two
deadlines. Three, if he counted the self-imposed restriction he’d put on himself where his future with Lily was concerned.

“Pray on it, son,” Georgia said, patting his hand. “The Good Lord will let you know what’s best for you and Nate.”

Not a chance, he thought, echoing his mom’s earlier quote. “Mind if I take these with me?” he asked, pointing to the papers.

“If you make the right choice, they’re yours.”
Georgia slid them to the edge of the table. “So be my guest.”

“I’m going up to bed now,” he said, bussing her cheek. And reaching across her, he shook Robert’s hand. “Drive safe goin’ home.”

He was halfway up the back stairs when he heard his mother holler, “Pray on it, son!”

Max took a deep breath. “Okay, Mom.” Maybe prayer was his only way out.

It never had worked before, no reason to believe it would work now.

But he was pretty much out of options…so what could it hurt?

Max tossed and turned until his sheets were in a knot. Since it was obvious sleep would elude him, he got up and headed for the living room.

He stood for a long time, just looking around at the tables and chairs, at flea-market paintings on the walls, at the place he’d called home as a boy, as a young man.

This was a good room, filled with plain colors and plainer furnishings, where on Sunday mornings his father sat in the big easy chair, giving the newspaper a hearty
flap
every time he turned a page. “You’ll put me in the loony bin with your paper-snapping,” his mother would say.

But it hadn’t been a scolding, not really; their eyes would meet, and his dad’s wry grin and his mom’s merry wink were proof that, different as they are, man and woman could share…life.

Shortly after her husband’s death, Georgia began
turning on his desk lamp every night before going to bed. “He needs the light to guide him,” she’d say as she twisted the tiny brass button on its base ’til one
click
echoed in the quiet night. “Not much light, just enough, so he won’t trip or stub his toe on his way to our room.” She wound his pocket watch every night, too, and gently laid it atop the blotter, arranging the fob in an
S
pattern…
S
for Steven. Then her fingertips would graze the top rung of his desk chair, lingering.

Max was grateful for having grown up in a house filled with love like that. It had surrounded him as a boy, like warm tidal waters and fresh, sunny air. No wonder it had been so easy to recognize love when he saw it for himself.

His mother didn’t look at her new fiancé in quite the same way she’d looked at Max’s dad. But then, Robert probably didn’t look at Georgia as he’d looked at his first wife, either. They’d met each other in time, and that was all that mattered. Max was grateful for that, too.

He heard Nate in the next room, muttering in his sleep. Max closed his eyes and reveled in the sound. He’d almost lost the boy, twice. He was thankful that he’d been an eyewitness to back-to-back miracles, and now his one and only son grew more healthy and robust with each passing day.

Lily had been right…he had needed to count his blessings.

He sat on the hard wooden chair that matched his father’s desk and adjusted the lamp’s goose-neck until its dim beam illuminated the documents his mother
had given him. Should he run the diner so it could remain in the family? Or go back to Chicago, where a big house and a corner office in a fancy skyscraper waited for him?

The steady
tick-tick-tick
of his dad’s pocket watch seemed to be telling him,
“Stay, stay, stay…”

Max padded into the kitchen on socked feet, turned on the flame under the teakettle. It was all the light he needed to see his favorite cup, resting upside down in the drainboard. When the water was hot, he’d make himself some hot chocolate. Wouldn’t be as tasty as the stuff Lily whipped up, but maybe it would make him drowsy.

He needed a good night’s sleep, because tomorrow, first thing, he’d book a flight to the O’Hare airport, take a cab to Wilkes Towers and start the “I’m outta here” ball rolling. Max wasn’t sure exactly when he’d made the decision. He only knew that he couldn’t go back to that life, or that world. Not when everything he’d ever wanted was already here.

He’d keep things to himself for a while, at least until his house was on the market and he’d discussed a fair and reasonable settlement with the Wilkes partners.

It felt good, knowing he was home again—home to stay. So good that he turned off the teapot before the water even began to simmer. What did he need with store-bought cocoa when he’d found the girl who would make it for him from scratch!

Max tidied his sheets and climbed back into bed. On his back, with fingers linked behind his neck, he stared at the ceiling. Was God really up there, some
place far beyond his boyhood toys in the attic and abandoned birds’ nests still tucked among the eaves? Could He truly hear the voices of nondescript humans calling through the clouds and the stars for help from on high? And if He heard, why had He so often turned a deaf ear to
this
human? Max wondered.

He remembered Lily’s words in the car that day, when Nate asked a similar question. “Maybe He isn’t saying yes or no,” she’d said. “Maybe He’s saying ‘wait.’”

Wait.

The silence was interrupted only by the tire-
hiss
of the occasional passing car. It was easy to wait, when the world was at rest, when life was so quiet. Not so easy in the bright light of day. At least, not without practice.

He’d waited a lifetime for Lily. He could wait a few more days, until he could turn the last page on the Chicago chapter of his life.

“H
ey, Lil…I have to go to Chicago. Sure would be nice if you could come, too—”

Lily listened to the message three times before throwing her purse across the room. What had cut off the end of his message?

She dialed the diner, hoping Georgia would be there.

“Geor-gia’s,” the redhead sang into the phone.

“Hi, Georgia. It’s Lily.”

“Howdy, kiddo!”

“How’s the leg?”

“Still attached, last time I checked.” She chuckled. “Robert says if I stick with my physical therapy, I might be able to throw this nasty cane away by Valentine’s Day.”

“That’s wonderful news. I’ll keep you on my prayer list. Make sure you keep doing your exercises.”

Another chuckle. “Thanks. I think.” Georgia paused. “So what can I do for you, kiddo?”

“When I got back from Lake Meredith, there was a strange message from Max on my answering machine. I was just wondering if—”

“What were you doing up there
this
time?”

“Oh, some goofy hikers left a bunch of twine at their campsite, and a spike buck got tangled in it. Ended up pinned to a tree trunk. Boy Scouts troop leader called me from his cell phone.”

Georgia clucked her tongue. “Those addle-brained fools. Is the li’l guy all right?”

“Will be, once his cuts and scrapes heal. I just got him settled in a stall.”

“So, about this message from Max…”

“He said he was on his way to Chicago.” Lily’s heart pounded at the thought. “When did he leave, exactly?”

“Day before yesterday. But don’t worry, he’ll be back.”

“He will?”

“Has to. He left Nate with me.” Georgia’s laughter filtered through the phone line.

“You wouldn’t have his phone number handy, would you?”

“Home, office, fax or cell?” Georgia asked.

“I’ll try all of them.” Her hand trembled as she wrote down the numbers Georgia dictated. “Just one more question. Is he…is he coming back for good?”

“I sure hope so.”

Georgia didn’t sound as jovial, as sure of herself,
suddenly, and it made Lily’s blood run cold. “Well, thanks. Take care of yourself.”

If the woman had more to say, Lily didn’t hear it. Dazed by the news that Max had left town, she hung up without another word.

Suddenly, she was reminded of her conversation with Cammi the other day. Her sister had followed Reid all the way to Montana or Idaho or…Lily couldn’t remember where. The only thing that really mattered was that the trip had a happy ending— Cammi and Reid wound up together.

And they were married.

And now they were going to have a baby.

Lily raced up the stairs, dialing Cammi’s number as she went. “Hey, can you do me a huge favor?” she asked when her sister answered the phone.

“If I can, ’course I will.”

“I’ll need you to feed the animals for a couple of days. Do you think Reid will mind helping?”

“I’ve done it all before. I don’t need his help.”

“I just brought home a spike buck. Nothing serious wrong with him, but he’s strong as a bull elephant. Reid will need to hold him while you change the bandage on his leg.”

“What happened to him?”

“Long story. Mind if I tell you when I get back?”

“Mind telling me where you’re going?”

“Chicago.”

“Ah, I should have known.” Cammi sighed. “When are you leaving?”

“I’m packing as we speak,” she said, throwing her
suitcase onto the bed. “Hopefully, I can get a flight out of Amarillo International today.”

“I’ll pray that you get your flight, that you arrive safely, that you find that knucklehead when you get there…and drag him home!”

“Thanks, Cam. I owe you big time for this one.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Cammi said, snickering.

Lily put jeans and sweaters, a business suit and a simple black dress into the suitcase as she asked how Cammi was feeling. She prayed her sister wouldn’t miscarry this child, as she had her last. Satisfied Cammi was doing well, Lily hung up and ran downstairs to write her father a note: “Going to Chicago. Explain later. Call you when I get there. Take care! All my love, Lily.”

All the way to the airport, she prayed.

Prayed there’d be a seat for her on a standby flight, that she wouldn’t get lost in the maze of terminals that made up Chicago’s O’Hare.

Prayed she’d be able to find her way to a hotel in the city, that there’d be a room available.

Because wasn’t Chicago known as “Convention City”?

Or was that New York?

Lily prayed that once she got hold of Max, he’d sound genuinely happy to hear from her.

But most of all, she prayed he wouldn’t tell her he intended to stay in Chicago permanently.

Because if he said that, Lily would have to pray for the strength to return to Amarillo without him.

Lily sat on the edge of her hotel room bed and used her cell phone to call Max’s. On the third ring, she began rehearsing what she’d record on his voice mail; on the fourth, he said, “Sheridan.”

“Max. Hi. It’s Lily.”

“Hey, there! Good to hear from you. Did you get my message?”

“Part of it. Something cut you off after your invitation to Chicago.”

“No way. Man. Well, no wonder you never called me back, then.”

“That’s only half the reason. I had an emergency.”

“Everybody’s okay back there, I hope.”

She smiled. How like him to worry about the people she loved. “Everyone’s fine. It was an animal rescue kind of thing. I was at Lake Meredith all weekend. And like a ninny, I forgot my cell phone.”

“So, how are ya?” he asked.

“Cold.” And it was true. “I could probably have lived my entire life without knowing why they call Chicago the Windy City. I don’t know how people stand it!”

“Whoa. You’re in town?”

Maybe she shouldn’t have come. Maybe politeness had made him invite her.
Maybe you should answer his question.
“Yes. I’m staying at the Sheraton Towers.”

“No kidding? When did you get here?”

“About an hour ago.”

“You here ’cause of my message?”

Why else would she have traveled nearly nine hundred miles, enduring a luggage search and being
frisked at both ends of the line! “I was just curious to see how the other half lives.”

Max laughed. “You’re in for a major disappointment, then. I’m glad you decided to come, though, whatever the reason.”

He
was the one and only reason!

“Say…have you had anything to eat yet?”

“Not since this morning.”

“I have a few loose ends to tie up here. How ’bout when I’m finished, I pick you up and buy you some dinner?”

“Sounds great. What time should I be ready?”

“I’ll give you a call as soon as I finish up. What’s your room number?”

She told him, then hung up, immediately wishing she’d asked what kind of dinner he had in mind. Because Lily would hate to show up in blue jeans if he had something fancier in mind—

The phone interrupted her reverie.

“Hey, Lil,” he said when she answered. “How would you feel about joining me for dinner at one of the partners’ homes? The firm’s senior partner is throwing a shindig to show off his new house. Mansion is more like it,” he said, laughing. “The thing has ten bedrooms, eight bathrooms and five fire-places! We’ll leave there with full bellies, ’cause his wife Brandy really knows how to put on a banquet!”

Brandy? Lily had a feeling she was going to put the proverbial bull in a china shop to shame. Already, her hands had begun to shake. “Sure. Why not?”

She agreed to meet him in the lobby, seven o’clock sharp. The alarm on her night table said 3:04 p.m.
More than enough time for a nap before she showered and dressed for the…
banquet.
Lily opened her suitcase and had started putting clothes on hangers when the phone rang again.

“Make it six,” Max said. “I want to show you my office before we head over to Donald’s house.”

He sounded so businesslike, so matter-of-fact. Maybe the icy temperatures had that effect on his vocal cords. Had he missed her as much as she’d missed him? Had he thought about her nonstop, dreamed about her, pictured her during idle moments?

“Lily?”

“Yes?”

“Thought we’d been disconnected for a minute there. So, what do you say? Okay if we meet at six instead of seven?”

“Sure,” she said again. “Why not?”

This time when the call ended, Lily lay down on the thick quilt covering the massive bed. How would she wear her hair? Was the little black dress she’d brought elegant enough for a banquet in a mansion? Max would be introducing her to the other partners in his accounting firm. Because he intended to ask her to stay here with him? Or simply because he didn’t want to attend the function alone?

The clock said 3:45 p.m. now. She’d left the house at eight in the morning, managed to snag a seat on a standby direct flight from the Amarillo airport to O’Hare. Stretching, Lily yawned. “Guess you’ll find out soon enough,” she said, closing her eyes.

From Max’s office, tucked in a corner on the penthouse floor of one of the city’s tallest skyscrapers,
Lily could see most of Chicago. She didn’t know much about commercial real estate, but she knew the price rose with the elevator.

“I’m impressed,” she said.

“Don’t be. I’m not.”

There it was again—that incredible nonchalance that had led her to believe the firm was made up of a couple of college buddies, that maybe they’d rented the ground floor of a house-turned-office on a busy side street.

“You have every right to be proud of what you’ve accomplished,” she insisted, running a fingertip along the arm of his desk chair. Its buttery brown leather matched the sofa and love seat that faced one another along a mahogany wall lined with hardcover books.

“Didn’t say I wasn’t proud.” He shrugged and pocketed his hands. “I’m just not impressed.”

“That’s okay. I’m impressed enough for the both of us.”

He sat in the enormous chair and pulled out a desk drawer. “Mind waiting while I make a quick call to Nate?”

“Take your time,” she said, taking a seat in one of the beige upholstered wing chairs facing his desk. “Tell him I said hi.”

She watched him chat with his son, laughing and nodding in response to something the boy had said. If Max didn’t love that kid with everything in him, Lily thought, he’d missed his calling as an actor. He seemed to have infinite patience with Nate, whether
the boy was recounting a movie he’d just seen, word for word, or singing a song he’d just learned.

“I miss you, too, kiddo. Kiss Gramma good-night for me.” He paused, listening, and Lily knew even before he responded what Nate had said, for Max’s face lit up brighter than the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.

“I love you, too. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“He’s some kid,” she said when he hung up.

Max stared at the phone for a moment. “You can say that again.” He met her eyes. “I want you to know, I took your advice.”

Brows raised, she asked, “What advice?”

Max stood, shoved the chair under the desk. “You were right. I have plenty to be thankful for.”

She got to her feet, too, and followed him to the massive double doors.

“You gave me a lot to think about, which is why I’m here in Chicago. Had some tough decisions to make, and your ‘count your blessings’ advice made me decide to—”

The many-buttoned black phone on his desk buzzed, cutting off the rest of his sentence.

His shiny shoes thudded softly as he crossed the Persian carpeted floor. “Sheridan,” he said into the mouthpiece. He listened a moment, then said, “Why don’t you just take a cab?” Another moment of silence. “All right. I’ll be there in—” he checked his watch “—give us fifteen minutes. What? Oh, ‘us.’” He glanced at Lily. “Nobody you’d know. Friend of mine from Amarillo.”

Whoever was on the other end of that call made
him nervous. Max ran a hand through his hair even before he hung up. And when he met her eyes this time, she got the feeling Max wasn’t really seeing her at all.

“You ready?” he said, opening the door.

Lily nodded and stepped into the enormous, well-appointed waiting suite. Here, as in his office, the furnishings were rich in texture, subtle in color. Wood tones and earthy hues were in abundance, from the recessed light fixtures in the ceiling to the plush carpeting underfoot.

Max Sheridan was a wealthy man, perhaps more so than her father. And like her dad, he’d never gloated or boasted about it. In fact, to look at him, to talk to him, a person would think he was barely making ends meet!

He walked ahead to push the elevator button. “Ritzy digs, eh?” he teased. “Rent around here is sky-high, so I talked the guys into buying the space. Best investment we ever made.”

She couldn’t help but notice that he held his head higher here, spoke with a quiet authority that hadn’t been necessary back in Amarillo. There, he’d donned blue jeans and cotton shirts; here, he wore a suit that screamed “made in Italy!”

“It’s a beautiful office,” she said.

As the brass-doored elevator hissed shut, Max jutted out his chin and folded his hands behind his back. “It’ll do.”

If he could be that casual about opulence like this, what must his home look like!

“If we get out of Wilkes’s early enough, maybe
I’ll drive you over to my house—see what you think of the place.”

In the months since his return to Texas, Lily had learned he’d been blessed with many gifts. ’Til now, she hadn’t realized mind reading was one of them.

But wait… Why would he care what she thought of his house—unless he planned to ask her to share it with him?

He’d lived there with his wife. In fact, Melissa had died at that address. Lily seemed to be moving farther and farther from her “rose-covered cottage” dream….

“Have I told you that you look gorgeous tonight?”

Lily blushed. “Only about a dozen times.”

“Yep,” he said in his thickest Texas drawl. “Y’clean up purty good…fer a li’l farm girl.”

Wink or no wink, his teasing comment made Lily bristle. No one had ever called her a
farm girl,
not even in jest. She’d been born and bred a rancher’s daughter, and grew up to be proud of it!