One Millhaven Lane (4 page)

 
"I knew if I did, I'd forgive you, then you'd expect to resume where we'd left off like nothing had happened." She knew him well, certainly better than he did her. Back then, he believed that an apology would absolve any transgression. She trusted that he knew differently now.

"I know you regret your mistake, Nate. Maybe this was the way it was meant to be for us. Who knows for sure? Maybe if I had forgotten and forgiven, we'd be married and divorced today." Asia flashed back to that day and how he'd accused her of sleeping with someone else. Actually, it was more conclusion than allegation. If he'd come to her and asked, 'How could you sleep with another man?', they could have argued it out. Or if he had said, 'Brittany Vance told me the damndest story today. She said you cheated on me with Jim Kinsman. Can you believe the stories that woman manufactures?' They could have discussed the rumor like rational people, like people who trusted each other. But he hadn't. He didn't think to give her the benefit of doubt. That hurt the most.

"At first," she said, "I didn't know who I was angrier with, you or Brittany. God, how I despised her. You can't know how hard I fought against taking her behind the bleachers and using tweezers to individually pull every hair from her miserable head."

He chuckled. "No court would have convicted you."

"Not if the judge knew what was good for him." She giggled, raised her head and looked at him. "Brittany or anyone else tries something like that again and someone's going to get hurt."

"Don't worry. It won't happen again. How'd you come by your shop?"

She was happy he switched topics. Brittany shouldn't take up any more of their time.

"Don't you know?"

"I heard gossip, and your mother told me about your career change, but I'd like to hear the story from you. Didn't you like nursing?"

"It was everything I'd imagined." She took a deep breath, then exhaled. "Ironically, it was nursing that led me to
Aphrodite
. One of my first patients took a shine to me.

"After back surgery, she required convalescent care. She had no one to look after her and asked if I'd be interested in private duty nursing. I thought about the offer for a while and eventually, accepted. My wisest decision ever.

"Before her accident, she handled every aspect of the day-to-day operation of the shop. After her release from the hospital and before she became mobile, she had me ordering supplies and performing other services for the shop. 'All part of my duties', she said, 'as a caregiver'." Asia smiled. "She was a wily one. I didn't know it at the time, but she was grooming me to take over when she was gone. I had no idea she would leave me her entire estate, nor did I know how wealthy a woman she was."

"Who was her beneficiary before you came along? She must have had someone."

"Nieces and nephews, but no one close. She never said, but I think she'd willed everything to various charities and the church."

"You didn't get any flak from her family over her will? Relatives tend to come from the woodwork when there's money involved. Everyone gets in the running for their share."

Asia was reminded of her brother Bobby. She wondered why he hadn't shown up for his split of their mother's estate, not that there was anything to share, but he didn't know that. Like Nate said, everyone wanted their cut, entitled or not.

"None that I know of." She smiled, recalling the first time she entered the shop. "The moment I stepped inside
Aphrodite
my fate was sealed. This strange feeling overcame me. I don't know how to describe it. Like that was where I belonged. Strange, huh?"

"A little, but how strange is it we found our way back to each other after eighteen years?"

"And now here we are again and back together. Who would have thought?" Not Asia, who awoke that morning dreading the trip to the Grove and never thinking today would end with her in Nate's loving arms.

"What kind of a shop is it?"

"You mean you've never been curious enough to check it out?" She had a difficult time believing that. She knew that Nate had kept in touch with her comings and goings over the years; at a distance, of course. For a number of reasons, he wouldn't have sauntered into the shop but he, at least, would have walked past.

"You lie," she said, slapping his chest.

"I could never locate it."

So, he had attempted to find
Aphrodite
. "I've been told it's difficult to find. I'll take you first chance we get. To answer your question, I sell everything from doorstops and hangars to candles and elixirs."

He looked at his wristwatch and groaned. "I don't want to leave."

Asia didn't want to move either. Why couldn't they stay this way forever? "Can't someone take your shift?" she asked, feeling hopeful.

"I would, if I could. The rookie had oral surgery this morning, and I'm working his shift."

"Bugger." Now that Asia had Nate back in her life, she would resent even a minute apart from him.

He lifted his arm from beneath her and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Looking over his shoulder at her, he said, "If there were any way I could stay, I would. You know that, don't you?"

She nodded, watching him throw on his clothes. There wasn't much time for him to shower and dress before the midnight shift started. She followed him down the stairs and helped him into his jacket.

"Take care," she said and kissed him goodnight. "I don't want anything happening to you."

"It won't. I promise." He kissed her, like it was the first time their lips had ever touched.

Savoring the delicious feeling of being loved, she swung the door closed and flipped the dead bolt.

After she watched him drive down the lane, she walked into the living room and picked up her book and afghan from the floor, reasoning how to extend her stay in the Grove. Dorothy knew the business as well as Asia and could manage the shop in her absence. The shelves were well stocked and the storeroom filled literally floor to rafter with every imaginable item. She always prepared ahead and was thankful now she had. Once she saw her mother's lawyer in the morning, she'd call Dorothy and give her the good news. Crystal might feel slighted, but Asia would make it up to the young woman.

Without turning on the light in the kitchen, she grabbed a bottle of water from her bag on the counter and drank until her thirst was satisfied. She yawned and absently set the bottle on the counter, her mind reliving the glorious night she and Nate had shared.

A noise on the porch caught her attention. Her first inclination was that Nate had returned, then thought better of the notion when she remembered the hour. He wouldn't intentionally be late for work and definitely not without an excellent reason. If it wasn’t Nate, who was it? A burglar, she thought. If she were in Boston, she’d be more inclined to believe that. Still, though, crime happened everywhere, and the Grove was not immune to violence or law offenders. She peered out the window and saw nothing but darkness. She cocked an ear and listened. Nothing. If someone had attempted to break in, they’d changed their mind. She let out a relieved breath and turned toward the hallway. She only walked a couple of steps when the door rattled. She stopped abruptly and turned. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the knob, waiting for it to turn. When it didn't, she called out, "Who's there?"

A gust of wind clattered the kitchen window.

Nature, Asia thought, breathing again. That's all it was. Nature.

Chapter Three

The next morning, Asia awakened with the rising sun and a smile. Humming, she bounced from bed and into the shower, where she thought of Nate and what they'd shared last night. It had been wonderful being with him again. He'd put on a few pounds and there was some white sprinkled among the chestnut hair, but he was still the sweet, gentle and courteous man she'd fallen in love with her junior year in high school.

His periwinkle blue eyes had popped when he looked at her, just like they always had.

He'd never stopped loving her. She hoped nothing or no one would stand in their way this time. But if the past repeated itself, she knew how to handle the Brittanys of the world now.

No one would get in her way of a happy-ever-after. Not this time.

Moments later, with upswept hair and dressed in a navy pantsuit, she skipped down the stairs, through the hallway and into the kitchen where she grabbed her purse and headed out the door.

On the way to the garage, she noticed footprints in her mother's flowerbed below the dining room window and stopped. She studied the prints. A size twelve if she were to guess, the pattern distinctive of a hiking boot. She recognized the tread. She had the woman's version at home in her shoe closet.

The same kind Nate wore last night.

***

On the short drive to her lawyer's, Asia was back to thinking about the rattling doorknob last night. It hadn't been nature, after all, and if it wasn't Nate coming back for something he thought he left in the house, who was it? She shrugged. The print could have been there a while and she'd never noticed and the shaking door and rattling doorknob last night was the wind, just as she'd suspected. Yes, that was it. She let out a deep breath and relaxed.

She parked on the street in front of Harry's office.

Seconds later, she was brushing a knuckle against the hardwood and peeking around the door into his office.

Harry stood in front of bookshelves, holding a law journal in one hand.

"Hi, hi," she said from the doorway. Her mother's lawyer looked every bit his seventy-one years, and every bit the barrister in striped trousers and suspenders.

Harry turned and looked at her over the rim of his glasses, smiling. "Asia. My, don't you look dapper."

She walked over to him and leaned in to accept his kiss on her cheek.

 
He kept his hands on her arms and appraised her.

"How is it possible that you become more lovely every time I see you?"

She smiled. "You’re too kind."

He smiled and led her to a leather chair in front of his desk and ushered her to sit.

After she made herself comfortable, he walked around his desk and sat.

"Your timing is perfect," he said, shuffling papers in a file. "Two of the insurance checks arrived earlier in the week and the last, in this morning's mail. As you know, two of the policies were small."

"Yes, and the third, the largest. Isn't that the case?"

"It is." He stared at her a moment.

Asia could see that something troubled the old lawyer. With a gentle voice, she nudged him. "What is it? If you're worried there isn't enough money to pay Mom's funeral expenses, don't be. I settled the account."

"It isn't that at all." Harry grimaced. "It seems your mother borrowed against the policy over the years and never set up a repayment plan. The accrued interest is substantial and ate heavily into the proceeds."

Asia was puzzled. Her mother had never said anything about being short of money. If she had, Asia would have given her whatever assistance she needed. Why hadn’t she said something to her?

"Was she in trouble?"

"It wasn't anything like that."

"What was it then?" Asia had a feeling she wouldn't like Harry's answer.

"She borrowed the money to help out your brother."

"Bobby?" She'd been right. She didn't like the response.

"To bail him out of jail, probably." The mention of her wayward twin always angered Asia. As a child, he couldn't seem to keep out of trouble. Halloween tricks escalated from annoying to harmful, which later led to malicious acts all year round and a rap sheet a city block in length. Everyone had predicted he headed for juvie court. They hadn't been wrong.

"I don't know for sure," Harry said.

"I do. Mom would never have turned her back on her children, even a drug addict, thieving taker like Bobby." Her voice had taken a hard edge. Bobby brought out the worst in her.

"Asia."

She detected a note of reprimand in Harry's voice and apologized. "Bobby was always a sore subject with my mother and me. She couldn't see him for what he was, what he'd become and I couldn't see him the way Mom saw him."