Man With A Mission. Muriel Jensen

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ for something we’re not sure we should have. You deserve to be happy, Hank. And if you won’t reach for that happiness, I’m going to keep working on it for you. So, when can you see Laural McIntyre?”

      Hank drew himself out of moody thoughts about his father to the present and the urgent need to get out of meeting the visitor from New York.

      “Actually, I’m meeting Jackie on Saturday,” he said, walking his mother up the porch steps.

      She brightened instantly. He could see her smile in the porch light. “You are? Where?”

      “Perk Avenue Tea Room.”

      She looked puzzled. “Where?”

      “It’s a new coffee bar, tearoom, desserty sort of place on the square.” She didn’t have to know that they’d be “meeting” because Jackie was cutting the ribbon for the grand opening, and he was helping with the wiring for the sign, which wasn’t expected to arrive until late Friday night.

      His mother studied him suspiciously. “You were fighting the last time I saw you together.”

      He nodded. “But you didn’t see everything. I ran into her later, we talked, and…I’m seeing her next week.” A slight rearrangement of the truth, but the truth all the same.

      “Well, see now, that wasn’t so hard.” She gave him a quick hug. “Will you tell me all about it after?”

      “The shop, yes,” he said. “Jackie, no.”

      She shrugged, seemingly undisturbed. “I’ll just ask the girls at Sunday School. Thanks for dinner, sweetie.”

      “Sure, Mom.” He ran down the steps as she closed and locked the door.

      Great. Jackie’s girls were in his mother’s Sunday School class. She’d mentioned that once, but he’d forgotten.

      When he’d been a kid, she’d had spies everywhere. It had been impossible to see a girl, cruise downtown, or sneak a beer without someone reporting him to his mother.

      It was annoying that he was thirty-five, and nothing had changed.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      HE MET HIS MOTHER’S SPIES on Saturday. He’d been working at Perk Avenue for several hours when the crowd began to gather out front for the ceremony. He’d turned the sign on and it glowed brightly, a tall cup of neon mocha complete with a swirl of whipped cream standing beside a fat teapot. Underneath, the name of the shop was written in elegant neon script. The whole sign appeared to sit atop a triangle of neon lace.

      The two matrons who owned the shop applauded their approval then wrapped their arms around him.

      Hank went back inside as several people in the gathering crowd came forward to congratulate the women. He was collecting his tools when the front door burst open and a little girl in a flared red coat and matching hat ran in. Long straight blond hair fell to her shoulders. In her gray eyes was a desperate look. He recognized her as Jackie’s youngest. He studied her one brief moment, realizing that except for a slight difference in the shade of her hair, this was what Jackie had looked like as a child.

      “Hi,” he said finally, coiling a length of wire. “Lost your mom?”

      She shook her head, looking left, then right.

      He took another guess. “Bathroom?”

      She nodded.

      He pointed to the little alcove directly to the right of the door.

      “Thank you!” she called as she ran off in that direction.

      A moment later, a child he recognized as the little one’s older sister walked in wearing a pink coat but no hat. She had thick dark hair caught at the side of her head in a ponytail. This child must take after her father. His mother had told him Jackie’s girls were Erica and Rachel. He couldn’t recall which was which.

      She surveyed the room, then her dark eyes fell on him in concern. A child taught to be wary of strange men. Jackie was doing her job.

      He pointed to the alcove behind her. “Your little sister’s in the rest room,” he said.

      She started away, then turned to ask, “How did you know she was my sister?”

      “I know your mom,” Hank explained. “And I’ve seen the two of you with her.”

      “Are you her friend?”

      “Ah…not exactly.”

      “You don’t like her?”

      Tricky question. “Actually, she doesn’t like me very much.”

      “How come?”

      She was beginning to remind him of her mother even if she did look like her father. She had a compulsion for detail.

      How did one explain to a child about a bright love affair that had been halted abruptly by one lover’s reluctance to follow the other? You didn’t, of course.

      “We had an argument a long time ago,” he replied, “that we never really fixed.”

      She frowned at that. “Mom never lets me and Rachel fight without making up.”

      Aha. This was Erica.

      “Adults probably get madder than children,” he said. “So quarrels are harder to fix.”

      The little one ran out of the bathroom, hat slightly askew. Erica straightened it for her. “This is Rachel,” she said.

      He nodded. “And you’re Erica.”

      She smiled and came forward to shake his hand.

      “I’m Hank Whitcomb,” he said, thinking her social skills were as polished as her appearance. He wiped his hands on a cloth out of his box before taking hers.

      “Our mom’s the mayor!” Rachel said with a wide smile, also offering her hand. “We’re supposed to smile and be polite!”

      Erica gave her a mildly impatient look. “He knows who we are. He’s a friend of Mom’s.”

      “I thought Mom just had friends who were other ladies.”

      WHILE THE WIDE WHITE RIBBON for the ceremony was still being stretched across the front of the shop, Jackie ran in search of her girls. She was sure they were fine, but bathroom runs never took this long. She’d thought a quick trip inside the shop would be the quickest solution to Rachel’s second glass of milk that morning. After all, the café wasn’t really open yet and there was no one inside. Erica had followed her sister in.

      But a mother’s trepidation filled her anyway as she pushed the door open, knowing that safety should never be presumed, that it only took a moment for…

      Her heart lurched in her chest at the sight of her girls in conversation with a large man in jeans and a chambray shirt. His clothes were streaked with СКАЧАТЬ