The Happiness Pact. Liz Flaherty

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СКАЧАТЬ you do all that? You’re rich. You always have a beautiful girlfriend. Or more than one.” She grinned at him. “You know where babies come from.”

      “No.” His voice was quiet suddenly. Serious. “I want to love somebody, Lib. I don’t have to be completely over-the-top about it, but I want to care about someone and have a family with her. I want her to care about me and having kids and maybe planting flowers. Someone’s gotta use those garden tools in the garage.” He smiled as widely and charmingly as ever, but his eyes remained solemn. “I’m thirty-four—no one knows that any better than you, since you’re even older than I am—and if I’m going to umpire my kids’ baseball games, I need to do it before my knees give out. I don’t want to wait on the kid thing.”

      “What if this woman you care about has a career? What then?”

      He put an arm around her shoulders and spoke patiently, just as though she were a small and not-too-bright child. “I do believe two-career families flourish all over the world, even on the shores of Lake Miniagua, Indiana.”

      “What if she doesn’t want kids?” What if this woman he cared about was like Libby? She wasn’t going to think about that. Not on her birthday. Or his. For this day, her secret would just stay in the dark place she kept it.

      He hesitated, and she sensed his withdrawal. It was as if a cold breeze shot between them, leaving gooseflesh on her arm.

      When he spoke, his voice was stiff, as chilly as the air outside the windows that looked out over the six hundred frozen acres of Lake Miniagua. “I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. You asked me what my wish was, and that was it.”

      He had been her friend her whole life. When no one asked her to dance in the seventh grade, he had—and he’d seen to it his friends followed suit. When she’d had her appendix removed during freshman year, he’d brought her homework and helped her do it. Her mother died when she was fifteen, and he’d supported her through all the stages of grief—over and over again—until she could bear it. Her father’s suicide a few years later had thrown her right back into the maelstrom of mourning, and Tucker had been there for her again even though life had dealt him some hurts of his own.

      He’d bought her the telescope that time. “See the stars?” he’d said. “They’re still there. Wish on them if you want, but they’re their own reward. No matter what happens, the stars will guide you to a safe place. You’ll be able to see Venus up close and talk to her whenever you like.” He’d never laughed at her assertion that Venus was indeed her guardian planet—and feminine in the bargain.

      Seventeen years later, most of which he’d lived in Tennessee, she still wished on stars, talked to Venus and counted on Tucker to be there if she needed him. The least she could do was try to make this one wish come true for him.

      “I’ll help.” She nodded and smiled thanks at Mollie when the bartender topped off their cups. “I’ll introduce you to women. I know you better than most anyone, and I see people every day. What are your specs?”

      “My what?” The coolness was gone, but now he looked befuddled.

      “You know, specifications. Blonde? Brunette? How old?”

      He shrugged, and she knew the I-don’t-care gesture was legitimate. While Tucker had dated a lot of beautiful women, he’d dated even more who weren’t.

      “You know me as well as I know myself,” he said. “If you want to play matchmaker, I’ll go along for...oh, say six months. Provided.”

      She raised an eyebrow. “Provided?”

      “Provided we use the same six months for me to grant your wish. You introduce me to prospective wives and mothers to my children and I’ll introduce you to adventure. What do you say?”

      She arrowed a look at him. “I say you had one too many of those hot chocolates.”

      “Hey, if I know anything, it’s adventure. That’s why when Jack and I divided up the CEO job at Llewellyn’s Lures, I got all the travel parts. Even when I headquartered at the Tennessee plant, I traveled to Michigan at least a half dozen times a year. That meant I stopped at all points in between just in case I’d missed something along the way.”

      “I can’t travel. I can’t afford it, for one thing, and I have the tearoom, for another—which I’m going to enlarge this year by making the carriage house into a smallish event center. I need my adventures to be of the cheap, two-hour variety.”

      “You have Sundays and Mondays off and an assistant manager who’d love to have some time in there without her micromanaging boss.”

      As much as Libby hated to admit it, that part was probably true. Neely Warren had owned her own tearoom in Michigan before retiring to the lake with her husband a few years before. She’d been one of Libby’s most loyal customers, and when her husband asked for a divorce, Neely asked Libby for a job. Libby had agreed hesitantly, but it had been one of the best decisions she’d ever made.

      “All right,” Libby said cautiously. “Let’s try it. You need to come to my church tomorrow. There’s someone there I want you to ask out. She’s a single mom, and she’s really nice. She has a beautiful garden, so I’m sure she likes planting flowers, too. I’ve never been to her house, but if it doesn’t have the four-and-two combination, you can buy a new one.”

      “Tomorrow is New Year’s Day. It’s my birthday.” He looked at the clock behind the bar. “Well, actually, it’s already my birthday. I think people should sing to me again.”

      “It’s also Sunday. St. Paul’s has never yet closed due to hangovers within its congregation. And you don’t need to be sung to anymore.”

      He sighed so deeply she felt its vibration in the arm that lay alongside hers. She got gooseflesh again. “Okay. Fine. Ten o’clock service?”

      “Yes.” She got to her feet. The Grill would close soon, and Jack and Arlie already had their coats on.

      “I’ll be there.” Tuck finished his coffee and stood, holding her coat for her to slide her arms into. “Ground rules. I won’t hold you responsible if you introduce me to entirely unsuitable women—”

      She planted her hands on her hips, her coat hanging loose from one shoulder. “I would never—”

      He talked right over her, tucking her arm into the empty sleeve. “—and you won’t screech and get all girly when I choose adventures. Shall we shake on it?”

      She extended her hand, then snatched it back. “I never screech.” Except for that time there had been bats in the attic of the tearoom and Tuck and Jesse had come to get them out. She’d cowered under a table in one of the dining rooms. Screeching the whole time.

      “Then you won’t have a problem agreeing not to.” Tuck grinned at her, and she knew he was remembering the bat incident. The fact that he didn’t mention it was only one of the things that endeared him to her.

      “Okay.” She slipped her hand into his, her breath catching a little at the warmth of his touch. They might have been just friends forever, but he was still an attractive guy and she was a girl who hadn’t had a boyfriend for a while. She withdrew her hand, pulling on her gloves. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

      “Right.”

      “Actually, СКАЧАТЬ