Marrying Maddy (6 page)

“And yet I've heard through the household grapevine that you've got some sort of pool going with the staff as to when Maddy and Joe get back together. If that's not meddling, Allie, I don't know what is.”

Almira stopped on the wide staircase leading to the first floor, and turned to confront her firstborn granddaughter. “You're trying too hard to be obtuse, dear. I'm not just helping Maddy, and you
know it. So why don't you just be a good girl and go to work, and let me handle things here.”

Jessie blinked back sudden tears. “He made his choice, Allie.”

“Uh-huh,” Almira said, touching a hand to Jessie's forearm. “And it was a good one, as he chose a Chandler. And just think, he only missed by one. But I've got it all in hand, dear, I've got it all in hand. Now, before you go running off to work, Jessie, why don't you go next door and introduce yourself to our new neighbor, just as your brother and sister have done. Never let it be said that Chandlers don't know the proper etiquette required of longtime residents when someone new comes into the neighborhood.”

Jessie nearly tripped on the last step leading to the huge marble floored foyer of this mansion that had been built just after the first World War, back when craftsmanship was mandatory as well as economical. “Go over there and introduce myself? You've got to be kidding!”

Mrs. Ballantine appeared in the foyer as if conjured out of the mist, holding the beige linen jacket of Jessie's suit as well as her purse and car keys. “Miss Jessie?” she said, her face and eyes blank enough to make her a real contender in any high-stakes poker game.

Jessie took the suit coat automatically, shrugged herself into it. “What…what do I
say
to the man?”

“Nothing much, dear,” Almira said. “Just accept his offer to take you out to dinner this evening. Take him to the club, as your guest, feed the poor, suffering man some red meat. That will be more than sufficient.”

“Offer to take me…to take me
out to dinner?
To the club? Aren't Maddy and Matt having dinner there tonight with…oh, wait. Wait just one cotton-picking minute! Are you saying you actually have some sort of
game plan
in effect here? What do I do Thursday—seduce the guy in the gazebo?”

Almira looked at Mrs. Ballantine. Mrs. Ballantine looked at Almira.

“Not bad, not bad,” Almira said. “In fact, I wish I'd thought of that one, as the gazebo is just outside Maddy's windows.” She looked over at Mrs. Ballantine, just for an instant.

Mrs. Ballantine blinked. Just a blink, nothing more, but Jessie had seen it.

“No! Absolutely not. You said you'd set it all up, Allie, that you're through meddling. How do you keep your lies straight? You tell so many of them. Well, I will
not
be a party to this. Not to
any
of it. You understand? That's my
sister
up there,
scratching,
” she ended, wildly pointing in the direction of the stairs. “Shame on you. Shame on you both!”

“Oh, all right, all right,” Almira said, her expression making it clear how sad she was to have this kink thrown into her well-laid Machiavellian plans.

Jessie relaxed. “I'm glad you've finally come to your senses. Both of you,” she ended, glaring at Mrs. Ballantine before snatching her purse and keys from the housekeeper. “I was really beginning to worry there for a moment. I'm sorry if I yelled.”

“You never yell, darling. You're a lady down to your toes. Sadly.” Almira put her hand against Jessie's upper arm and began gently steering her toward the front door. “Besides, I just remembered that I
have to drive to Reading with Maddy this afternoon. Something about going straight to the supplier to check on the correct shade of linens for the dining tables. I'm sure we'll be back in time for dinner, but you never know, do you? It would be pointless having you and Joe at the country club if Maddy isn't there.”

Jessie dug in her heels again just as Mrs. Ballantine opened the front door. “Isn't there? Allie, what are you planning now?”

“Nothing, dear, nothing. You've discovered all my plans and shot them down quite effectively. But it is comforting to know you'll be here to entertain Matt if we are late for some reason. You're such a good hostess. Now, have a good day at work, and please don't detain me any longer. You know how Francis can pout when I'm late.”

The door shut on Jessie's last “But…but…” and Almira and Mrs. Ballantine stood there quietly for a moment, saying nothing.

Then they exchanged high fives….

J
oe pushed back the cuff of his blue dress shirt and checked his watch one last time. Six o'clock.

Six o'clock, and no Jessie Chandler.

It would seem that Almira's Grand Plan had hit a snag, because Maddy's older sister was supposed to have picked him up at five-thirty.

Or maybe he had been expected to pick her up? No, that couldn't be. He distinctly remembered—

“Ah, the hell with it,” Joe muttered, grabbing his sport coat from the back of the chair and slipping it on. The evening was a bust, he was hungry and he was going to drive around town until he found a restaurant that appealed to his sophisticated palate. “It was a lousy plan anyway.”

A passing thought that if he didn't have to be in a sport coat and tie he should change into something more comfortable came and went, as he was willing to bet Maddy had never seen him dressed this way before. It might give her a whole new image of him,
if he happened to see her on his way out to find himself some friendly golden arches. If he was in a really haute cuisine mood, he'd spring for a double cheeseburger.

Still, he missed his jeans and sweatshirts. They had been one of the beauties of being a struggling software inventor. Casual dress. Sometimes downright sloppy dress. Making it to the big show hadn't changed his wardrobe all that much, as it seemed that khakis and knit shirts were the uniform of the computer world. Starched shirts, ties and wing tips were about as common in his business as manual typewriters.

He made it halfway down the stairs when he remembered that he'd left his car keys on his bureau. Or maybe on the bathroom floor, when he'd stripped, showered. He really wasn't sure. For a bright man, he felt like his brain had become prone to sudden, unexpected “crashes” ever since that first, bizarre phone call from Almira Chandler.

“I'm falling apart here,” he told himself, bounding back up the steps two at a time. “And no wonder I can't find anything. I could put my whole condo in this place and still have room for an eight-lane bowling alley. With snack bar,” he ended, stomping down the hallway to the master suite.

He must have been out of his mind to buy this house. This huge, rambling house. This house that cried out for a wife, and a bunch of kids, and a twenty-foot-high Christmas tree in the foyer, with the curved stairway as the backdrop.

There should be Easter Egg hunts on the vast lawn. Birthday parties in the huge breakfast room,
intimate dinner parties in the smaller dining room, all-out bashes that took up the entire first floor.

And he could picture all of it. With Maddy by his side, with their kids digging their fingers into their very first birthday cake, or sleeping in their rooms as Mommy and Daddy made an early night of it themselves.

Only he was alone, and if Maddy married this Garvey guy, and he held to his promise to give her this house as a wedding present, he'd never see any of it. Garvey would.

The street kid part of Joe growled low in his throat as he pushed open the door to the bedroom suite and headed for the bureau. Then he stopped cold, looked at the framed, blown-up photograph of him with Maddy on the beach in Atlantic City.

He picked up the photograph, then sat down on the edge of the bed, tracing a finger over Maddy's smiling face. They'd been so happy, so carefree.

So unaware that love never was, never had been, enough.

They'd been so happy, so damn happy. They'd met in a small coffee shop after the university library had closed for the night, sharing the last open table as they'd sipped coffee and munched on nearly day-old doughnuts. Talking until the owner threw them out, walking the streets of University City Philadelphia until the sun came up, startling them both.

They'd hardly been apart that first night. If Joe believed in love at first sight, he would say he'd been in love with Maddy since they'd both tried to sit down at the same small table at the same time.

But he knew that wasn't it. He hadn't fallen in
love with her until he'd realized that he'd been talking about his software ideas for three hours and she hadn't once yawned or moaned or thrown a coffee cup at him.

“Why didn't you tell me to shut up?” he'd asked her.

“Because you seem so happy, talking about your work…and because I can't seem to get enough of your smile,” she'd answered with an honesty that staggered him.

That had been the beginning. And if all they'd had was their beginning, that would have been fine. The middle had been great, too, and they'd just about moved in together as he completed his work in the library and she studied for finals. They were together so much that it just seemed silly not to bring clothing to each other's apartments, spend most of their nights together.

Young love, first love, whatever kind of love it had been, it had been great. No arguments, no problems. Just lots of love, lots of laughter, lots of sweet, searing lovemaking, lots of cold pizza for breakfast.

Until, shortly after her last class for the semester, he'd asked her to marry him, and the talk finally turned to their future.

“Oh, Maddy, why couldn't your father have been a plumber, or a carpenter?”

Joe stood up, replaced the photograph and grabbed his keys. That wasn't the answer, he knew. If the two of them had come from more similar circumstances, they still would have differed in many ways.

Ways that made them interesting to each other. Ways that drew them to each other.

Ways that had torn them apart.

But people could learn, couldn't they? They could change? Or did they only learn how to hide their spots better, like a leopard hunkered down in tall grass?

Joe slammed out of the house, sick of thinking, of having his thoughts go round and round in his head until they began to argue with themselves.

Besides, it was too late to back out now. He was here. Maddy was here.

And the wedding was scheduled to take place in exactly one week. If he was going to do more than upset Maddy, make her hate him more than she already believed she did, he'd better start figuring out some way to get back into her good graces. Back into her arms. Back into her life.

Or at least insinuate himself into the Chandler household, where he had his only ally. A nutcase, a hopeless romantic with a mind a combination of Dear Abby and Genghis Khan, but an ally nonetheless.

He'd reached his car before he realized he'd not only lost it, but he'd gone even farther around the bend of mental idiocy than he'd thought possible.

He turned, looked back at his new house. “Keys. I forgot to put the damn house key on my damn key chain.”

Joe figured he had two ways to handle this.

He could get in his car, find the nearest fast-food restaurant, chomp down some of his favorite saturated fat and cholesterol…or he could go next door and ask if they happened to have an extra key to his house.

They wouldn't, of course. That was the sort of
thing people did in his old neighborhood. Gave a key to the next-door neighbor “just in case.” Just in case someone got locked out. Just in case someone was needed to feed the goldfish while someone was in the hospital or on vacation. Just in case a kid was stranded outside because his mom was late coming home from work on the bus.

Just in case someone's mom hadn't been seen for more than a day and a night and someone decided to take a peek inside and found that mom lying on the floor in the living room, past any neighborly help.

Shaking off that thought, and the memory of the phone call he'd gotten at his dorm from Mrs. Petinsky, Joe cut across the wide sweep of lawn dividing his new house from the Chandler mansion. He vaulted over the white split rail fence and looked down to see that the Chandlers' freshly cut lawn was making a shag rug out of his shiny black shoes, and kept on going.

Maddy was in that house. His life, his future, was in that house. And no matter how pathetic he'd look asking if someone could help him get back into his own house, he was going to go for it. After all, what did he have to lose?

“Dignity. Self-respect. Just small stuff,” he muttered to himself as he pressed the doorbell, then bent down to wipe bits of grass off his shoes and cuffs.

Moments later the door was opened by a fairly tall young woman with chin-length brown hair and huge blue eyes. She was a pretty woman, definitely one of the Chandlers. Jessie, he thought the name was.

She looked about as happy to see him as she
might be if he were a door-to-door salesman standing there holding a bunch of brushes in one hand and a bottle of Super-Dooper Cleaning Fluid in the other.

“Yes?” she said, still standing half behind the door. “May I help you?”

She knew who he was. She'd have to, as he'd seen the outline of three female bodies yesterday, standing behind a window, spying on him.

But, hey, if she wanted to pretend she didn't recognize him, he could play along. He was flexible. Nobody could say he wasn't flexible. Except Maddy.

“Hi, there, ma'am,” he said brightly, putting out his right hand. “My name is Herb Gattling and I'm running for United States Representative in your district. Hope I can count on your vote this November. If you want, I can explain my position on automatic pay raises for Congress every six months. If elected, I think I'll be all for 'em.”

“Joe O'Malley,” Jessie responded, trying not to smile as she took his hand in hers, felt his warm, dry grip. “I knew I shouldn't try to pretend otherwise. I recognize you from the cover of
Newsweek.
Hello, and welcome to Allentown. Please come in. Oh, and I'm Jessie Chandler.”

“Jessie of the First Place cup in the Junior Ice Skating Tournament? Jessie, who got straight A's all through school, so that her sister could spend her school days hearing teachers remind her that she wasn't quite the student her sister had been? Are you really that Jessie?” Joe ended with a smile as he stepped into the foyer. “The one who taught her little sister how to ride her first bike, apply her first
mascara and who, if not quite worshiped by that same little sister, has certainly been put on a pedestal by her. Right?”

“Maddy talks too much,” Jessie said, grimacing as she led the way into the larger of the two drawing rooms. “Matt, Joe O'Malley is here,” she said, and Joe hesitated only a moment before walking into the room as a tanned man dressed in a casually open-necked white dress shirt and slacks stood up and moved toward him.

“Mr. O'Malley,” Matt said, shaking his hand. “Matt Garvey. I'm very pleased to meet you.”

You wouldn't be if you knew what I was after,
Joe thought, his own handshake also firm, maybe too firm. Hell, a little not so friendly arm wrestling could always be an option. Joe was game.

“Thank you, Mr. Garvey,” he said, smiling his most ingratiating smile. “I'm pleased to meet you as well.” Then he looked at Jessie Chandler, who seemed to be memorizing the pattern on the Oriental carpet at her feet. “I just came over to use your phone, call a locksmith. It seems as if I've somehow locked myself out. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?”

Jessie shot him a look that seemed a little intense.

“No…oh, no, not at all,” Jessie said, seating herself on a dark green couch and motioning for both men to sit down as well. “I was just entertaining Matt while he waits for Maddy, my sister, to come back from an errand.” She turned to Matt, smiled weakly. “I'm sure she won't be much longer.”

“That's all right, Jessie,” Matt said. “We all know Maddy can get sidetracked when she's shopping. It's how I ended up with that electric tie rack
last month. Unless I'm keeping you from something…?”

Oh, brother. These people were being so damned polite to each other. Almost as if they were strangers who had just met, which couldn't be possible, because Almira said Matt had been a friend of Ryan Chandler's for about three years. They had to know each other.

So why the stilted politeness? Maybe, Joe considered, they really didn't like each other, and stilted politeness was just another way of verbally slapping each other in the face?

Or maybe they liked each other too much, and stilted politeness was the only thing that kept them from falling into each other's arms.

Now, there was a thought worthy of Almira Chandler. Except that Almira had said no such thing to him, hadn't even hinted at it. Which she would have done, Joe thought, if she'd thought he needed to know.

But would he need to know? Would he even want to try to get Maddy back by pointing out that it was possible her worshiped, perfect sister had a crush on her fiancé, and possibly vice versa?

Nah. He wouldn't use information like that, even if he knew it for certain. Maddy would come back to him because that was how their lives were supposed to be played out, side by side with each other.

As if the thought of her had conjured her, the front door opened and Maddy all but ran through the foyer, calling out as she headed for the drawing room. “Matt? I'm
so
sorry I'm late. It was like I needed dynamite to get Allie to move, I swear. As
if I wanted to spend another minute looking at so much as one more—”

She skidded to a halt just inside the drawing room entrance. “You,” she mouthed silently, closing her eyes for the space of two heartbeats. “I'm sorry,” she said, smiling in recovery as she continued into the room. “I didn't know we had company. Jessie?”

“This is Mr. O'Malley, Maddy,” Jessie supplied helpfully. She shouldn't have wasted her time, because the woman had a pretty face, but she didn't have a liar's face. Not with that tendency to blush that had her cheeks turning a delightful pink. “He's our new next-door neighbor. He's locked himself out.”

“Really?” Maddy responded, one eyebrow lifted. She had a much better liar's face, Maddy did, and Joe silently applauded her. “How…nice. Except for the locking yourself out part, of course. I think we actually have a spare key, Jessie, if you want to ask Mrs. Ballantine. Mrs. Harris was always locking herself out. So happy to meet you, Mr. O'Malley.”