What a Woman Wants (A Manley Maids Novel) (30 page)

S
EAN
called in the troops the next morning, and the Manley crew descended on Casa Martinson ready and willing to help out. He could always count on his family.

“Hey, Livvy,” said Liam when he arrived. “Still on for a repeat trouncing, er, racquetball game? Cassidy and I will give you a chance to win back your dignity, but I wouldn’t hold your breath if I were you.”

“When this is all over, you’re on. Be prepared to lose and lose big. Right, Sean?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” If they were still talking at that point, that was.

Mac walked in then. “Come on, Jared. Either you’re going to help or not, but you don’t get to claim invalid status when it suits you.” Mac walked around Jared’s crutches with a lack of patience that wasn’t like her.

Bryan’s, on the other hand, was perfectly normal for him. Hell, with the three kids he’d brought along, it was downright heroic.

“What’s with the kids, Bry?” Sean asked, taking a fist-thump from the twins. The youngest, a little girl, just stared up at him with big brown eyes and a baby doll in her arms that was almost as big as she was.

“Don’t ask,” Bry grumbled. “Tommy! No lightsaber battles in this house. You’ll break something. Shit.” He took off running after the twins.

Maggie, their little sister, shook her head and sighed a sigh that was bigger than she was. “He’ll never learn. The boys will never give up the lightsabers.”

Sean coughed to cover his laugh. Bry definitely had the worst assignment out of all of them.

L
IVVY
was used to working with a group of people, but ones who knew each other as well as these guys did made for an, um, interesting day. Lots of laughs, lots of insults, but also lots of work. They made quick time in the downstairs rooms, covering every inch she and Sean had and then some.

They moved upstairs after lunch, converging on the hall of portraits by mutual decision.

“It’s got to be here,” said Liam. “
Generations of Martinsons
has to mean this. They’re all here.”

His brothers and sister and their friends took down every picture and searched the frames for clues while the kids ran up and down the hall, playing hide-and-seek and running the poor dogs ragged.

Maggie hit maximum overload an hour after lunch, plunking herself, her doll, and Davy down in the middle of the hall, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and let the Stormtrooper battle wage on around her.

Livvy sat down next to her. “I never had any brothers. What’s it like?”

Maggie blinked up at her, sucking furiously on her thumb, her little face all scrunched up, adorable as anything. “Noisy.”

Livvy laughed. “I get that.”

Actually she could
hear
it. The crash and yelp that accompanied an “
en garde
” from the bedroom on the right didn’t bode well.

She got up and held out her hand to Maggie. “You want to come with me while I see what your brothers are up to?”

“Are you gonna punish them?”

“No, honey. I wouldn’t do that.”

“You should. That’s what Kelsey says.”

“Who’s Kelsey?”

“My sister. She says the boys are fences.”

“Fences?”

“Menaces,” said Bryan as he hung Martinson Relative Number Fifty-Six back on the wall.

Lady Heather Martinson Capshaw of the Baltimore Capshaws. An advantageous marriage since Livvy remembered hearing that name. Big in exporting.

“And she’s right; they
are
menaces. Their mom needed a break, so I took them for the day. How the woman does this day in and day out, I’ll never know.”

“Because she loves them.”
Real
mothers did what it took to keep their families together.
Real
mothers didn’t abandon their kids.

But real mothers also wanted what was best for their kids and maybe Sean was right; maybe her mother
had
thought the best thing for her would be to have the Martinson millions at her back.

Livvy shrugged. She’d never know now. It was too late to ask any of the players. It was what it was and there wasn’t anything she could do to change it.

Not the past, but what about the future?

“Yo, bro.” Bryan balanced another frame in his hands. “Wanna check out the top of this frame? Looks a little—”

“Loose?” Sean leapt over Petra and caught the frame before it landed, the two of them handling it as if they’d done it a thousand times before.

Maybe they had. They’d grown up together, knew each other in ways no one else could.

She looked at Mac and Liam. Mac was handing Liam a piece of wire to restring the painting he’d checked, no words necessary between them.

They’d come when Sean had asked, no bones about it, and pitched in as if this was as big a deal to them as it was to her.

They were a family.

She took Maggie’s hand. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go see what your brothers are up to.”

S
EAN
watched Livvy and the little girl walk down the hall together,
want
rooting him to the spot. She’d make a great mother. For all her lack of a role model in that department, Livvy knew what was important in a parent. As a child who’d been practically abandoned by hers, she’d make sure nothing like that would ever happen to
her
children.

Sean knew first-hand how important security and stability were to kids.

He wanted kids with Livvy. Wanted to see her face in theirs, see her mannerisms as they grew, watch her caring and loving them in a way parents should. He’d been lucky to have Gran; Livvy had had no one. Not really. Merriweather leaving her the estate was too little too late because when it came down to it, money was only a means to providing a house for kids; parents provided the home.

“You’ve got a funny look on your face,” said Liam.

“That’s his normal look,” said Bryan. “It’s always funny.”

“Ha. Ha.” Sean rolled his eyes. “Come on. Let’s get back to work. We’re almost halfway done.”

Mac groaned. “Halfway? You mean there are more portraits? How many generations are we talking?”

Sean pointed down the next hallway. “The Martinsons loved to show off every member of their families.”

Jared tapped her on the arm. “Buck up, buttercup. We’ve got a long way to go.”

M
AC’S
boyfriend, or whatever he was, hadn’t been kidding. They’d decided to
re
tackle the library when the portraits didn’t yield anything on the chance that she and Sean had missed something. There were enough things to search in that room that Livvy didn’t try to talk them out of it.

She still couldn’t believe they’d come to help her.

Sean played gopher as the rest of them searched the books, bringing them dinner and drinks, and keeping the kids occupied. He’d brought a few animals down from the barn into the salon. Livvy had raised her eyebrows (still both of them!) when he’d suggested it.

“The kids are more important than any room,” he’d said. “At least in that one, we know the potential problems. I’ve cleaned it before; I’ll clean it again.”

He’d even cooked dinner. If everything else hadn’t sealed the deal on her feelings for him, that, and his family, did.

She wanted one. Just like them. With kids running all over the place, significant others around, and the security of knowing someone would always have her back.

The thought choked her up. For so long she’d thought she’d never have a normal life, with kids and a house full of in-laws, but now, seeing this, she wanted it. Wanted to be part of a big, boisterous, chaotic family.

Maybe even this one.

There was so much love between them, she could have felt left out if they’d let her. But they hadn’t. They’d included her in every conversation, explaining references she didn’t understand. They’d included the kids in their discussion. Even Bryan was overly attentive to the kids, cutting their chicken for them (“Knives are weapons,” he’d said) and helping Maggie “feed” her baby doll.

The domesticity was worth more than any mansion, and when they hadn’t found the clue by the kids’ bedtime, Livvy was okay with it. What they’d shown her today, what they’d given her, was worth more than money.

“We’ll find it tomorrow,” Sean said as they waved good- bye to everyone from the front steps.

She allowed herself to lean back against him when he rested his hands on her shoulders. “We’ll
try
to anyway.”

“We’ll find it, Livvy. We will.”

She turned in his arms. “It’s okay if we don’t. The inheritance would make my life easier, but it’d never been part of my plan. This isn’t the be-all for me; it was a nice
what if
. But if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. I still have a life to go back to.”

One that she hoped would include him. She didn’t say it, though. There were still too many variables and they didn’t need to examine their future right this minute when the next twenty-four hours were so crucial.

It was the next eight of them, however, that she wanted to focus on.

She led him upstairs.

D
DAY
had arrived.

Sean came awake to the scent of Livvy’s lavender shampoo and her breath fluttering across his chest. Not a bad way to wake up. And not a bad way to go to sleep. They’d made love well past midnight and he still couldn’t get enough of her. If today weren’t the deadline . . .

“Come on, Livvy. Time to get up.”

“Mmmm. Don’t wanna.”

She was utterly adorable in the morning. All day, she was on the go with a fire and passion he loved, but he loved this time, too. The soft, cuddly, softer side of Livvy.

Face it, Manley. You love her.

Now
that
was a way to wake up.

“Come on, sweetheart. We don’t have a lot of time left.”

“I know, I know.” She shifted off him and Sean wanted to pull her back.

Tomorrow he’d do that. After this was all over.

“I’m going to go to the historical society,” she said, dragging the sheet with her as she stood. “Maybe they know something. Want to come?”

Sean grabbed a pillow and stuck it across his groin. Yes, actually he did, but not to the historical society. “No sense both of us doing something one can. I’ve got a few things to do around here and see if I can come up with anything else. You go and we’ll meet back here.”

“Before going to Mr. Scanlon’s office to concede defeat, you mean?”

“Hey, it’s not over ’til someone starts singing. And lucky for you, I can’t carry a tune.”

He walked her out to her car, catching her when she stumbled on that stupid brick, then waved good-bye as she left.

First order of business: he was fixing that brick and the rest of the path that’d been damaged in the peacock hunting frenzy.

It turned out to be the best peacock hunting frenzy in the history of Martinson peacock hunting.

He’d found the clue.

S
EAN
stared at the clue. Here, buried beneath that cockeyed brick, was the ticket to the rest of his life.

And the end to Livvy’s plan for hers.

Sonofabitch.

He crumpled the paper, wishing it were that easy to get rid of it.
Do I or don’t I?

Should he tell her? Should he make
her
dream come true or
his
?

Sean raked a hand through his hair and looked around him. There was no guarantee that he had enough money to buy the place. Yes, he hoped he did—as far as the last offer he’d taken on the phone, he had enough to match it, but there was still the variable of Scanlon. What offers was the lawyer fielding?

But this clue . . . This was the guarantee. Keep it from her and the place was his at the original amount. He’d be able to buy back the cottage and build that honeymoon suite on the lake’s island. This was it. His dream. His way to make a name for himself. To have the chance to achieve the same level of success as his brothers. To be a leader in his field.

Or give it all up so Livvy could bake her pies in her family’s ancestral home and her sheep could eat his golf course.

He’d never forgive himself.

He leaned on the shovel, his chin on his chest. There was his answer. Because, in the end, it came down to what he thought of himself, not what others thought of him. He had to live with himself. Face himself in the mirror every day.

He couldn’t if he hurt Livvy.

He ran back to his room, booted up his laptop and his smart phone, and went through the necessary hoops to have the clue read to him.

This is the last one, Olivia. You needn’t figure anything out or find anything more. Simply present it to Mr. Scanlon by the specified time and date, and he will have the answers to all your questions. I congratulate you. You have now, truly, become one of the Martinsons, a fine, illustrious family.

~Merriweather Knightsbridge Martinson

There it was. Livvy had won. The house would be hers.

Sean smiled. He probably ought to be crying, but he liked that Livvy would get it. Liked that Merriweather hadn’t defeated her in this. Liked that she’d won.

He smoothed out the clue. All Livvy had to do was present this to the lawyer by—he looked at the clock on his laptop. Shit. Twenty-two minutes. And Livvy wasn’t back yet.

He
was going to have to take it in.

Luckily, the dogs were still tied up on the patio, so he could leave them there. He grabbed his keys and his phone and ran out to his truck, then peeled out of the driveway. He’d call her once he delivered the clue because he needed to focus on driving the thirty miles to the attorney’s office or it wouldn’t matter what he’d decided because if this clue didn’t get there on time, Livvy would be SOL.

L
IVVY
pulled into the driveway with fifteen minutes left on her deadline. Even if she
had
found the clue, she’d never make it to the lawyer’s office in time. It was over. She’d lost. Merriweather had been proven right.

Self-pity was threatening as she climbed out of her ratty old Baja until she heard Davy howl. She ran down the path to the house, bypassing the area Sean was fixing, then onto the patio. Why were the dogs out here alone and where was Sean? And why was Davy hanging from the fence by his cast?

She looked over the hedge. The stupid, tail-less peacock hadn’t learned its lesson, standing there preening as if it still had all its glory.

She really didn’t like peacocks.

She took Davy off the fence and sat on the warm slate with him. The others gathered around, their wet noses and warm, breathy snuffles soothing her disappointment over losing out on her inheritance.

Stupid really. It was just a house. If the day with Sean’s family had shown her anything, it was that
people
mattered. Relationships mattered, not houses or money. You couldn’t put a price on relationships.

And the one with Sean was priceless. If nothing else came from this treasure hunt, he had. He was the greatest treasure of all, and she wasn’t going to let another minute pass without telling him so. Merriweather wasn’t going to suck the joy out of her life any longer. Livvy had given her too much power already. That, too, was over.

She shortened Davy’s leash so he couldn’t reach the fence and set him next to Micki with a stern, “Stay” to both of them, then went off in search of Sean.

What she found, instead, was worse than losing the inheritance.