The Creed Legacy (15 page)

You could tell a lot about a person by what they liked to read.

A Single Father’s Guide to Communication with a Preteen Girl.

Well, Carolyn thought, trust her to meet up with a guy who was both sensitive and masculine
after
she’d been spoiled for functional relationships by Brody Creed.

Presently, Bill returned with her latte, looking pleasantly rueful. “Confession time,” he said, with a sigh, as he sat down again. “I’m on the rebound, Carol—Carolyn. I didn’t mention that in my profile.”

“No,” Carolyn said, oddly relieved. She reached for her latte, took a sip. It was very hot. “You didn’t.”

“Her name,” Bill told her, “is Angela. We’re all wrong for each other.”

Carolyn considered the foam on her latte for a long moment. “His name is Brody,” she said. “Two people were never more mismatched than the two of us.”

A silence fell.

“Well, then,” Bill finally said. “We have
something
in common, don’t we?”

“Are you in love?” Carolyn asked, after a very long time and a lot of latte. “With Angela, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” Bill replied. “One minute, I want to spend the rest of my life with the woman, the next, I’d just as soon join the Foreign Legion or jump off the Empire State Building.”

Carolyn wanted to cry. She also wanted to laugh. “Love sucks,” she said, raising her latte cup. Bill touched his cup to hers.

“Amen,” he said. “Love definitely sucks.”

I
F CAROLYN HAD
had any say as to whom she fell in love with, she would definitely have chosen Bill Venable, brave fighter of forest fires, devoted father of a nine-year-old daughter, all-around good-looking hunk of a guy.

Alas, she
had
no such influence in an unpredictable universe, but she knew early on that she’d found a valuable ally in the man who bought her a latte.

“So, tell me more about Angela,” she said, stirring her latte and avoiding Bill’s gaze. “Does she live in Lonesome Bend?”

Bill cleared his throat, looked away, looked back. Finally nodded. “She teaches third grade at the elementary school,” he said.

“I see,” Carolyn answered, without guilt, because in many ways, she
did
see. “So what’s the problem between the two of you?”

“She doesn’t like my job,” Bill answered, after pondering a while. “Fire fighting, I mean. Too dangerous, keeps me away from home too much, et cetera.”

“Yikes,” Carolyn observed. “How does Ellie feel about Angela?”

“She adores her,” Bill admitted. “And the reverse is true. Ellie thinks Angela would make the perfect stepmother. It’s a mutual admiration society with two members. Trust me, this is not my daughter’s usual reaction to the women I date.”

“So the fundamental problem is your job?” Carolyn inquired, employing a tactful tone. While she understood Bill’s dedication to his work, she sympathized with Angela, too. Love was risky enough, without one partner putting his life on the line on a regular basis.

Bill thrust out a sigh. “Yeah,” he said.

“Maybe you could look into another kind of career,” Carolyn suggested, already knowing what his answer would be.

Bill shook his very attractive head. Too bad he didn’t arouse primitive instincts in Carolyn the way Brody did, because he was
seriously
cute. “I
love
what I do,” he replied. “Flying an airplane. Putting out fires. It is a definite high.”

“But…dangerous,” Carolyn said.

“Well,” Bill affirmed, “
yes.
But I’d go crazy doing anything else. The boredom—” He fell silent again, his expression beleaguered. Obviously, he’d been over this ground a lot, with Angela and within the confines of his own head.

Carolyn waited a beat, then went ahead and butted into a situation that wasn’t any of her darn fool business in the first place. “What about your daughter, Bill?” she asked gently. “How does Ellie factor into this whole job thing?”

He sighed, shook his head again, aimed for a smile but missed. “I love that child with all my heart, and I want to do what’s best for her,” he said. “Keep her safe and happy and healthy. Raise her to be a strong woman, capable of making her own choices and taking care of herself and, if it comes to that, supporting a couple of kids on her own. But—”

Again, Bill lapsed into pensive silence.

“But?” Carolyn prompted quietly, after giving him a few moments to collect his thoughts.

“But,”
Bill responded, managing a faint grin, “like I said before, I love what I do. Doesn’t that matter, too? And what kind of example would I be setting for Ellie if I took the easy route, tried to please everybody but myself?”

Carolyn toyed with her cup, raising and lowering her shoulders slightly in an I-don’t-know kind of gesture. It was remarkable, connecting so quickly with another person—a
male
person, and someone she hadn’t known existed until she signed on at Friendly Faces.

They were so simpatico, she and Bill, that anyone looking on would probably have thought they’d been close friends for years.

Too bad there was no buzzing charge, no
zap,
between them, like there was between herself and Brody and, it was a sure bet, between Bill and his Angela.

“No,” she said, in belated response to his question. “Of course you can’t live to please other people, not if you hope to be happy, anyhow.” Carolyn paused before asking, “Does Ellie worry about you, when you’re away fighting fires, I mean?”

Bill gave a raspy chuckle. “Probably,” he acknowledged. “Ellie never lets on that she’s scared something might happen to me—she just tells me to be careful. The thing is, even though she’s only nine, she seems to get where I’m coming from better than Angela does.”

Carolyn took a sip of her coffee, which was finally cool enough to drink without burning her tongue. Now, she thought, with the inevitable rush of reluctance, it was
her
turn to open up.

Sure enough, Bill ducked his head to one side and a quizzical little quirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You’re a beautiful woman, Carolyn,” he said. “Half the men in the county, if not the state, must be trying to catch your eye. What prompted you to sign up with an online dating service?”

“Curiosity?” Carolyn speculated, blushing a little.

He smiled, settled back in his chair, watching her. “Are you looking for friends, a good time, or a partner for life?” he asked.

There was nothing offensive in his tone or manner, and he positively radiated sincerity. Bottom line, Bill was easy to talk to, perhaps
because
he was a virtual stranger and, therefore, the two of them had no issues, no shared baggage, nothing to get in the way of friendship.

“It’s not a new story,” she replied, quietly miserable. “I fell for the wrong man, I got hurt—fill in the blanks and you’ll probably have it just about right.”

Bill arched an eyebrow, waited. On top of everything else working in his favor, the man was a good listener. And all she could drum up was a walloping case of
like.

He was the big brother she’d never had.

The pal.

And he wasn’t even gay, for Pete’s sake.

Carolyn squirmed on her chair, not sure how much more she ought to say. This
was
their first meeting, after all, and as genuine as Bill Venable seemed, it certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that she was totally, completely, absolutely
wrong
about him.

It had happened before, hadn’t it?

Once, she’d been convinced that she knew Brody Creed, through and through. After a long string of shallow, going-nowhere-fast relationships, she’d believed in him, been convinced he was The One, taken the things he said and did at face value, only to be burned in the back draft of all that passion when he showed his true colors and lit out.

And there was that other lapse in judgment, too— when she’d thought she’d hit her stride by becoming a nanny. She’d trusted her movie-star boss implicitly, admired his down-to-earth manner, his apparent devotion to his wife and small daughter.

Until he’d come on to her, forcing her to abandon a job—and a child—she’d loved.

Carolyn closed her eyes, remembering—
pummeled by—
the rearview mirror image of little Storm running behind her car, screaming for her to come back.

Come back.

Without saying a word, Bill reached across the table and took her hand in a brotherly way. Squeezed it lightly.

Carolyn opened her eyes again, smiled weakly. Enough, she decided, was enough. For now, anyway.

“I should be getting home,” she said, bending to fumble under the table for her purse. “My cat will be wondering where I am.”

Bill sighed, glanced at his watch and nodded. “I’m sure Ellie’s perfectly happy at her grandparents’ house,” he said agreeably, “but it’ll be suppertime soon, and when I’m in town, I try to make sure we’re both sitting at the same table for at least one meal a day.”

“That’s nice,” Carolyn said, feeling awkward now.

Supper, for her, was usually a lonesome affair, something she did to stay alive.

She and Bill rose from their chairs at the same moment.

He walked her to the door, opened it for her, waited until she stepped out onto the sidewalk.

It was a balmy May evening, shot through with the first faint lavender tinges of twilight, and there were lots of people out and about, just strolling, or talking to each other under streetlamps that would come on soon, glad to be outdoors.

Winter was long in Lonesome Bend, and good weather was not only savored, it was also celebrated.

Friends smiled and waved, their expressions both kindly and curious as they took note of Carolyn’s escort, a man few, if any of them, actually knew.

By the time she went to bed that night, she thought, with a little smile, word would be all over town. Carolyn Simmons was
seeing someone,
and that someone
wasn’t
Brody Creed.

Since her car was parked on the street, in plain view of at least a dozen fine citizens, she felt no compunction about letting Bill walk her to it and open the door for her.

“I had a great time,” he said, his gaze direct as he waited for her to get settled behind the wheel.

“Me, too,” Carolyn said, fastening her seat belt and sticking her key into the ignition.

“Friends?” he asked, with a wry grin.

“Friends,” Carolyn agreed.

Bill stepped back, waved and watched from the sidewalk as she drove away.

“W
HO IS HE?”
Tricia demanded eagerly, when she entered the shop the next morning.

She hadn’t even put away her purse yet.

Carolyn, smiling to herself, pretended a keen interest in unpacking the most recent delivery of goat-milk soap.

“And don’t say you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Tricia warned, waggling a finger. Her eyes sparkled with mischievous affection. “Three different people called the ranch last night to ask about the hunk you had coffee with.”

Carolyn chuckled. “His name is Bill Venable,” she said, “and he fights forest fires for a living. Flies one of those airplanes that spray chemicals on the hot spots.”

“Like in that old Richard Dreyfuss movie?” Tricia asked. She was having a hard time bending far enough to stow her purse on its usual under-the-counter shelf. The baby bump seemed to get visibly bigger from one day to the next. “What was it called?” She stopped to stretch her back, her hands resting on either side of what had once been her waist. “I remember. It was
Always.
And Dreyfuss’s character went out in a blaze of glory, didn’t he?”

“I don’t recall,” Carolyn lied, still stacking neatly wrapped bars of soap on the counter. The truth was, being a classic movie buff, she’d long since picked up on the similarities.

“Did you meet him through that website?” Tricia persisted. “Friendly Faces?”

“Yes,” Carolyn said, making a production of removing the now-empty carton the soap had arrived in and heading toward the storage room. It was company policy to recycle cardboard boxes, among other things.

Tricia was waiting when she came back. “Do you like him? Are you going to see him again?”

Carolyn laughed. “Yes, I like him,” she said, with exaggerated patience, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if he asked me out at some point.”

Tricia’s beautiful blue eyes widened. It was hard to tell if she was excited or alarmed by the prospect.

Probably, she was both.

“Will you go? If he
does
ask you, I mean?”

“I haven’t really decided,” Carolyn said, with breezy nonchalance. She was looking up at the batik of the Weaver now, trying to absorb some of its serenity. “I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by how
normal
Bill turned out to be.”

“Normal,” Tricia echoed, her tone making it clear that she wasn’t planning on dropping the subject anytime soon. “What did you
expect
him to be like, Carolyn?”

Carolyn tilted her head to one side, studying the Weaver, wishing she could afford to buy the piece and keep it forever. There was something so soothing about the thing, about the figure of a woman drawn with indistinct lines, strokes of color and shapes that were hardly more than suggested.

“Carolyn?” Tricia persisted, standing beside her now, giving her a poke with one elbow. Since just about everything on Tricia’s body was rounded into soft curves, it didn’t hurt. “Talk to me.”

Carolyn sighed and turned to look at her friend. “I guess I thought there was the outside chance he might be another Ted Bundy,” she confessed.

Tricia rolled her eyes, and then laughed, and then looked serious, all in the space of a few seconds. “Brody isn’t going to like this one bit,” she said. Tricia wasn’t normally given to mood swings, but there were a lot of hormones splashing around in there.

A flash of…
something—
resentment? Triumph?— plucked at Carolyn’s heartstrings. “Too bad for Brody,” she replied.

Tricia studied her face. “Unless, of course, that’s
exactly
why you’re thinking about going out with this Bill person. To make Brody jealous.”

Carolyn’s mouth dropped open. She felt an indignant sting race through her, even as she recognized a disturbing quality of truth to Tricia’s words. She
hadn’t
set out to stir up Brody’s envy, not consciously anyway, but there was no denying, in retrospect, that the idea gave her a delicious little thrill.

She gasped, horrified by the insight, and put a hand to her mouth.

Tricia smiled. “Oh, relax,” she said, patting Carolyn’s upper arm briefly, in a demonstration of feminine solidarity. “I know your intentions were honorable.” She paused, looked speculative again. “But what
were
your intentions, exactly?” she asked, her tone and expression kind.

Carolyn sighed, her eyes burned and she swallowed hard before answering, in a small voice, “I just want to—to
get over
Brody Creed. Move on. Have a home and a family of my own.”

Tricia gave her a quick, impulsive hug. Awkward business, with that pumpkin-shaped tummy of hers. “Listen to yourself, Carolyn,” she said. “You want to
get over
Brody?
You still care for him
. Doesn’t that mean something?”