Blossom Street Brides (35 page)

“She remembered the baskets in a storage unit?” Amazing, seeing that half the time her mother didn’t recognize Lydia any longer.

“And she had lots of yarn there, too.”

“So you’re the one who took those baskets around town?” Brad asked, and sounded shocked and amazed.

“Yup. And Ava helped deliver them, too.” She waved her fork at them. “Don’t let your dinner get cold. This is really good. My favorite.”

“About the counselor.”

Casey’s shoulders sagged. “Okay, okay, I’ll go talk to her. It is a woman, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Lydia assured her.

“I’ll go.”

“Thank you,” Brad told her.

Casey frowned again. “Only because you want me to, but I’m not going to like it, and I’m not promising to tell her the dream, either.”

“All we’re asking is that you be open and willing.”

Casey sighed as if a huge demand had been made of her. “I’ll try.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Lydia said.

Brad dug into his spaghetti and meatballs, took one bite, and looked up. “Hey, this
is
good.”

Max climbed the stairs to Annie’s condo and knocked on her front door. He figured he had a good chance of catching her at home at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning. It wasn’t likely to be a pleasant meeting, but he felt obliged to make one last attempt to reason with Bethanne’s daughter.

He rang the doorbell, and then, planting the tips of his fingers in his back jean pockets, he waited, his heart pounding, praying what he had to tell her would make a difference.

To Max’s surprise, it wasn’t Annie who answered the door. Instead, it was Grant Hamlin, her father. This meeting was going to be even worse than he’d expected.

“Max!” Grant sounded just as shocked to see him.

“Annie home?” Max asked.

“No,” he said starkly. “You just missed her.”

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

Grant shrugged. “I can’t say.”

Max nodded but didn’t budge.

“She knows how much I like Starbucks coffee. You know Annie. She loves her dad, so she volunteered to run down to the corner to pick me up a cup.”

“She’s a thoughtful daughter.”

Grant stared at him hard. “She is that, all right.”

“Can I wait here for her?”

“By all means.”

Max hesitated. He didn’t like the look in Grant’s eyes, and he wasn’t sure he should trust the other man. “You don’t mind my waiting?”

“Not at all. It might do us good to talk man to man, just the two of us.”

“I agree.”

Grant stepped aside and held the door open for Max. “Make yourself at home,” he said, and gestured toward the sofa. Bethanne’s ex-husband claimed the chair, and for an awkward moment all they did was stare at each other.

“What’s your business with Annie?” Grant asked.

Max sat close to the edge of the sofa cushion. “Bethanne mentioned that you’ve taken her under your wing at the real-estate office.” It bothered him as much as it did Bethanne that Annie worked as a receptionist when she was vastly overqualified for the position.

“My Annie’s got the same organizational skills as her mother.”

“How does she like working for you?” Although he asked, Max didn’t expect the truth.

Grant shrugged. “So far so good. She’s getting a little
antsy to get her Realtor license. All in due course. I’ll let her know when she’s ready to start training.”

Max decided to let the comment slide rather than point out the obvious. With Annie’s business acumen and attention to detail, she was more than ready. Max found it difficult to understand why her father would want her in a lesser position.

“You didn’t mention why you stopped by,” Grant prodded.

Mainly because Max hadn’t been given the opportunity. “I wanted to tell Annie that I’ve decided to move my wine-distribution business to Washington State.”

Grant seemed unable to hide his surprise. His eyes widened a fraction, and for a moment it seemed he didn’t know what to say. “Really?”

“It wasn’t an easy decision.”

“From what I heard, the cost of moving a business such as yours is prohibitive.”

It was going to hurt financially—that was certain—but in the long run it should work out well. “It isn’t about the money.”

Grant shook his head in disbelief. “It’s always about the money. I’m surprised you haven’t figured that out before now.”

“For some that might be the case,” Max agreed, resisting adding anything more.

Grant crossed his arms. “I suppose you’re making this gallant sacrifice for Bethanne’s sake.”

“Yes.” And for Annie and Andrew and Courtney and
Bethanne’s first grandchild, but Max felt it was better not to mention his reasons.

“You love her that much?” Grant asked, as if even now he found the move unbelievable. Drastic, even.

“More, and because I love Bethanne, I love her children, too.”

“My children,” Grant said forcefully.

“Your children,” Max agreed. “You’re their father. Nothing’s going to change that, and I wouldn’t want it to. When Bethanne and I decided to marry, I fully intended to love her children.”

“Right noble of you,” Grant muttered sarcastically. “So you’re moving to Seattle.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“It’ll take a few months, I suspect. Rooster and I talked about it quite a bit before he left.”

“Rooster left? Another business trip?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Max wasn’t going to let Grant sidetrack him with questions about his partner.

“In other words, you’re going to be around Seattle on a permanent basis?”

“Yes.” That was sure to upset Grant.

The other man went silent for several seconds. “Your being here could get downright
uncomfortable for you
,” Grant suggested. The last few words hung in the air between them like a wire walker suspended above Niagara Falls.

“What are you suggesting?” Max asked, confronting Grant head-on. He didn’t like the sound of this threat.

“I’m saying such a move might mean trouble for you in the future,” Grant murmured. “I have Annie on my side, and we both know how miserable Bethanne is without her daughter. Annie’s a bit of a drain on me, but she serves her purpose. I could change things and coax her to reunite with her mother.”

This situation with her daughter had torn Bethanne apart. Grant knew it and used Annie against his ex-wife for his own selfish purposes.

“Spell out exactly what you mean,” Max demanded.

Grant laughed as though Max’s anger amused him. “I have the power to make you and my ex miserable.”

“And you’d use Annie to do it?”

“Without a qualm, but,” he said, and raised his index finger, “I have a solution.”

Max brought his hands together and clenched them into tight fists. The hairs on the back of his head stood up, and even before Grant spoke, Max knew he wasn’t going to like what the other man had to say.

“A solution?” he repeated.

“Yes.” Grant relaxed in the chair, looking smug and confident. “Like I said, I could convince Annie to make amends with her mother or I could make sure Bethanne paid the price for dumping me when she did.”

Grant seemed to conveniently forget that he was the one who’d walked out on their family. He’d been involved in an affair long before he’d divorced his wife.

“Is there a
but
in this as well?” Max asked. “You know,
but
something could change your mind?”

Grant shrugged. “This hasn’t been a great year for real estate,” he commented.

Max had heard the market was picking up. That didn’t appear to be the case with Grant, however. Bethanne had told him this was the third or fourth brokerage firm her ex-husband had been with since their divorce.

“Finances are tight for me at the moment,” Grant admitted. “It’s a temporary situation that should be rectified soon, but at the moment I’m low on funds.”

Outraged, Max bolted to his feet. “You want me to pay you to persuade Annie to mend fences with her mother?”

Again, Grant’s answer came in the form of a nonchalant shrug.

“That’s blackmail.”

“Call it what you will, but I’d prefer to think of it as a business proposition. I do something for you and you do something for me. You know what I mean. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

Max was so angry he was afraid he was about to do something he would later regret.

“I’m sure we could come to amicable terms.”

“I don’t think so,” Max said between gritted teeth.

Grant sighed as though disappointed. “It’s a pity.” He glanced at his watch. “I can’t imagine what’s taking Annie so long, but you can bet when she arrives you won’t get a warm welcome.”

“Actually, Dad, I’m here,” Annie said, stepping out from the hallway and into the living room.

“Sweetheart,” Grant said, and rose to hug his daughter. “I was just telling Max—”

“I heard what you had to say to Max,” she said, and glared at her father. She braced her hands against her hips, and her face was red with anger. “I’m a bit of a drain, am I? You want to hurt Mom? And this conversation with Max isn’t the only one I heard. I came back while you were on the phone with Monica.”

Grant’s eyes rounded with surprise before he recovered. “Honey, you only heard one side of the conversation—”

“It was enough,” she said. “More than enough, actually. All this talk about Mom breaking your heart and how you’ll never be able to love again was nothing more than a bunch of bull.”

Max could see his presence wasn’t needed or appreciated. This was between Annie and her father. “I’ll go. Can we talk later, Annie?”

She nodded. “And thank you,” she said, as she cast him an apologetic look.

As he walked out the door, a smile came over him as he heard Grant try to explain away the proposal Annie had heard. He wasn’t privy to Annie’s response, but from the little he did hear, Bethanne’s daughter was having none of it.

Max’s steps were lighter than they had been in a long while as he returned to his wife. He parked in the garage and whistled as he let himself into the house.

“I’m home,” he called out as he stepped into the kitchen.

“I’m out here.” Bethanne was on the back patio, planting flowers in the wooden boxes he’d installed along the top of
the railing. She wore garden gloves and a big straw hat. Max joined her and slipped his arms around her waist from behind, kissing the side of her neck.

“This is a warm welcome. Where’d you go?” she asked.

“Out.”

She made a dismissive sound. “I know that tone of voice. You’ve been up to something, Max Scranton.”

“Could be. Need any help here?” he asked, resting his chin on her shoulder, admiring his wife’s amazing green thumb.

“Are you volunteering?” she asked.

“Not really, but I felt I should ask.”

She laughed softly. “That’s what I thought. Say, how about a motorcycle ride this afternoon?”

Max released her. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

His wife twisted around so that she faced him and frowned, her gaze full of questions. It wasn’t like Max to refuse to ride. “What’s up?”

Bethanne had a smudge of dirt on her cheek, and, using his index finger, Max wiped it off. “Have I told you recently that I’m the luckiest man in the world to be married to you?”

“No, but I’ll accept the compliment. However, I feel that I’m the lucky one. I still can’t believe you’re moving to Seattle for me.”

“For us.”

Bethanne braced her forehead against his chest, and it looked as if she was about to cry again. When he’d first told her of his decision, his wife had been so overwhelmed she’d been unable to speak.

Now that it looked hopeful that Rooster and Lauren would get back together, moving the wine-distribution company to the Puget Sound area made even more sense.

The doorbell chimed, and Bethanne and Max broke apart. “Will you get that?” his wife asked, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her gloved hand.

Max shook his head. “I have a feeling you’re going to want to answer this yourself.”

Bethanne frowned, and when the doorbell sounded again, she hurried into the house and to the front door. After a couple moments, Max wandered back into the kitchen in time to see Bethanne and her daughter hugging each other.

“I’m so sorry, Mom, so sorry. I’ve been an idiot about you and Max. Can you both forgive me?”

Bethanne sobbed and clung to her daughter.

They continued to hold each other for a long time. Max walked over to the corner of the kitchen counter and pulled out a box of tissues. Bethanne’s gaze caught his, and she smiled through her tears.

“Dad lied to me,” Annie said as the two women came into the kitchen arm in arm. “And then he tried to lie his way out of it.”

Max handed both women a fresh tissue. Then, to his surprise, Annie broke away from her mother and hugged him. “I need to apologize to you, too. I’m sorry for the horrible things I said to you, Max. You love my mom, you honestly love her.”

“I do, and I care deeply for you, too, Annie. You’re part of Bethanne, and I love those she loves.”

“I’ve been such a brat.”

“You won’t get an argument from me,” Max said and chuckled.

“What happened?” Bethanne asked after dabbing the moisture out of her eyes.

Annie’s gaze went from her mother to Max and then back again. “Dad stopped by this morning, and he complained about my brand of coffee. He’s really picky when it comes to coffee, so I volunteered to get him a cup from the Starbucks on the corner.”

From what Max knew of the other man, Grant was picky about a lot of things other than a certain brand of coffee.

“I left,” Annie continued, “and realized it was cooler out than I had expected, so I came back into the condo for a sweater.”

Max suspected it had been something like this.

“Dad didn’t hear me come in. He was in the kitchen on his cell with his back to me, talking to a woman named Monica. It was clear he was involved with her romantically, which I sort of knew, because she calls the office three and four times a day, always with a convenient excuse.

“I tried to ignore what Dad was saying, but it was pretty graphic as he described what he intended to do to her physically.”