The sun was just rising over the eastern horizon and slipping fingers of pink into the trees and garden growth when Nicki parked in front of the McCade house.
She didn’t dare look down at herself for fear she’d retreat to her own home and change.
“People wear shorts all the time,” she scolded herself. And her new shorts were perfectly respectable. They ended just above the middle of her thigh and were finished with neat and tidy cuffs. The T-shirt was one like any other woman wore, even if it did cling to her skin in a way completely new to her.
Yet echoes from the past still came—echoes of the small cruelties of other children, of her father’s disinterest, of her ex-husband. He had run around with women who dressed like hookers, but he still wanted a staid and proper wife at home to mollify his uptight family.
She didn’t know…. Things might have been different if Butch hadn’t needed to take over the family business, but his brother’s death had thrust him into the role. Ironically, Butch had proven a talented corporate shark—a little too talented for Nicki’s taste. He’d stopped caring who he hurt on his way to the top of the business world, though she would have sworn he started out with a conscience and a sense of decency. Although…maybe she just wanted to believe that, because she needed to believe there was a reason she could have loved him in the first place.
Nicki sighed and touched the cuff of her shorts. She hadn’t thought much about her ex-husband in years, but maybe it was natural to think about him now. Luke McCade was the only other man she’d ever loved, and here she was, dressed to attract him, wanting to think he was nothing like the man she’d married.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” she murmured.
She didn’t have to let the past rule her future, but she also didn’t have to repeat her mistakes. Butch and Luke were both ex-jocks who’d turned into tough businessmen. Both had managed to touch her heart in a way that no one else had.
And she wouldn’t let it happen again.
The next time she fell in love, it would be with someone worth loving.
Nodding firmly, Nicki got out of the car and made her way around to the back of the house with a canvas sack of items she thought would be useful. In the dawn, the tangled growth looked even more daunting than before, but she squared her shoulders and knelt by the flowerbed that had upset Professor McCade the previous day.
Grass was easiest to identify, so she took out the old kitchen knife she’d brought and dug at the base of a large clump. Shaking the dirt free from the roots, she tossed the tuft to one side. As she worked, she began to recognize the different varieties of garden plants she’d studied the night before, along with the invasive weeds. As carefully as if she were handling paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe or Monet, she worked around the delicate roots, separating the desired growth from the undesired.
Cool air swirled pleasantly around her bare limbs and penetrated the thin cotton of her T-shirt, while the scent of damp, living things filled her lungs. It was so earthy and sensual, she shivered with pleasure. What else had she been missing while she was hiding in her books and classes and practical clothing? It wasn’t a new thought. Since seeing Luke again, she’d become more aware of her body than at any other time in her life. She didn’t like knowing it was Luke who’d made her respond that way, but she liked the feeling, nonetheless.
Birds in the nearby trees began chirping as the sun rose higher, and they darted into the air with a piercing and melodic song.
Every now and then Nicki looked at the relatively small amount she had accomplished and then at the large garden with its meandering paths and sitting areas. It would take her a long time to make everything nice again, and she planned to enjoy every minute. It wasn’t every day you got to restore a work of art, and the Little Sergeant’s garden was pure art.
She kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toes in the cool grass, then smiled and moved another couple of feet along the flowerbed.
Luke groaned as he rolled over in bed, stuffing his face in a pillow to block the morning light. His head felt like he’d drunk a bottle of scotch, but he hadn’t done something that stupid since the night he’d smashed his fist into his best friend’s face.
Their friendship had survived the incident, but Luke felt guilty each time he noticed the scar above Randy’s eye and remembered how criminally stupid he’d acted over his cheating fiancée. He’d vowed never to lose control like that again.
Prying one eyelid open, he looked at the clock and glared.
“How in hell can it be five after eight? I’ve only been asleep for ten minutes.”
It was so quiet he could hear a fly buzzing at the window, and a part of him wanted to be smug over Nicki’s failure to show. Yet, another part had wanted her to keep that promise, because Nicki was Nicki and he’d never known anyone quite like her…although whether that was good or bad, he hadn’t decided.
Groaning again, he pulled on a pair of jeans and trudged down the hall to his grandfather’s room.
“Granddad?” He tapped on the door, but silence reigned. Luke’s breath froze as he looked inside, only to leave in a whoosh when he saw the empty bed. “Silly,” he muttered. It wasn’t Granddad’s physical health that was the problem—John McCade had the constitution of an ox. The doctor claimed he’d live to be a hundred.
Luke descended the stairs two at a time, only slowing when he saw his grandfather sitting in his customary chair. He was fully dressed, something he hadn’t done on his own in weeks, and was staring out the French doors. Anticipation seemed written into every line of his body, and Luke wondered if he was remembering Nicki’s promise to work on the garden that day.
Remembering would be a good sign.
It could mean…
No. Luke shook his head. It was dumb to start hoping those things. Hadn’t he just lectured Nicki on accepting reality?
“Yes, yes. Exactly,” his grandfather murmured, nodding as he spoke. He took a swallow from a can of the nutrition drink the family kept stocked for him. “That’s just the way the Little Sergeant would do it.”
Curious, Luke walked to the French doors. His eyes widened.
Piles of weeds dotted the yard, testifying to her hard work. But it was the sight of Nicki that sent shock waves through him. Her creamy legs rose forever before they were concealed by pale blue shorts. Her waist was slim—he could have spanned it with his hands—and she had a firm, round bustline that her close-fitting blue T-shirt did nothing to conceal.
Without stopping to consider his actions, he stepped outside, his bare feet curling into the damp grass.
“Did I wake you up?” Nicki asked before he could open his mouth. “I’m sorry.”
“Actually, I had no idea you were out here.”
“Good. I didn’t want to disturb anyone.”
If she hadn’t wanted to disturb anyone, she wouldn’t have worn the kind of clothes that gave men heart attacks, Luke thought. But he kept his mouth shut. This was the kind of heart attack that made dying worthwhile.
Then Nicki yawned and stretched, the thin cotton of her T-shirt pulling across her breasts. His mouth went dry. “Where did you get those?” he muttered, unable to stop himself.
“Get what?”
“The…uh…those.” He motioned to her shirt and shorts, marveling at how delicately built she seemed. He would never have guessed she could look so…so good.
Actually, good seemed like the worst understatement, but he was too stunned to think straight. Admittedly, he’d always preferred well-endowed women, but Nicki had a sweetly balanced body that curved in all the right places. The thought of adding anything else to that delectable balance was just plain criminal.
“It was your idea,” she said innocently. “Wearing shorts, that is. I thought it made sense, particularly when I was working in the garden. What’s the big deal?”
Luke opened his mouth, then shut it again. Who could have believed Little Miss Four-Point-O could shock him speechless? He was the one who shocked her—that’s the way it was supposed to play out. In an attempt to gather his senses, he looked around the garden. Nicki had obviously been working her tail off for hours, while he’d had his face stuffed in a pillow. Granted, he’d been up until two in the morning in a futile attempt to catch up on company business, but he still felt guilty about it.
“When did you get here?” he asked.
She shook her hair back from her face. “Around dawn.”
“You’ve done a lot.”
Nicki frowned. She almost wished Luke hadn’t come outside. She’d enjoyed the solitude and feeling of accomplishment that pulling weeds had brought and didn’t want to start second-guessing what Luke thought about her new clothes. He was certainly acting strangely about them.
Maybe he didn’t approve, after all.
Or maybe she looked terrible and he was just being too polite to say so.
All at once Nicki’s sense of proportion reasserted itself, and she nearly laughed.
Luke?
Too polite?
Luke McCade had never been “too” polite about anything. She was certain his mother had tried to instill manners in him, but the lessons obviously hadn’t taken.
“What are you smiling about?”
Nicki glanced at Luke and tried to keep from getting embarrassed that he was watching her closely. “Was I smiling?”
“Yeah. Kind of a Mona Lisa smile, the sort of smile that makes a guy nervous. So ’fess up.”
“You’ll just have to live with uncertainty.”
“You’re a hard woman, Nicki Johansson…though I suppose you do have some soft spots hidden somewhere.”
His gaze lingered on her chest and she gulped. Something in his brown eyes suggested masculine approval, which gave her a heady sensation. Even when she was married, she was never so aware of herself. But Luke had always had an alarming affect on her.
It was strange to think he might be looking at her in a whole new way. Strange…and annoying. Why did some men have to have everything dressed up in a pretty frame before they could see anything worthwhile in the picture? She was the same Nicki she’d been the day before, just with a few less layers of cloth covering her.
“I’d better get back to work,” she said, her smile dying away entirely.
It wasn’t that she wanted Luke to admire her, but the whole situation made her feel odd. It didn’t help that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. She’d noted right when he’d stepped out that Luke still had an athlete’s physique, with six-pack abs and sculpted shoulders. He wasn’t covered with hair like her ex-husband had been—a definite plus—and he was neither posturing nor self-conscious about his missing shirt. He just stood there, looking sexily half-asleep, with his half-fastened jeans and shoeless feet.
Averting her eyes, Nicki knelt again at the flowerbed and began tugging at a stubborn weed. One thing she’d already discovered was that weeds all seemed to have tough roots, while the plants she wanted to stay were far more fragile.
A hand reached over her shoulder and yanked the weed away with a single flick of the wrist.
“Thanks,” she murmured. Luke radiated heat, and the contrast between his warmth and the cool, fresh morning air made her skin tingle.
“No problem.” To her shock he knelt next to her. “I’ll be the brawn, you be the brains,” he suggested. “Just tell me what to pull.”
She tensed, trying not to read anything into the comment. Just because he’d tormented her about being a whiz kid when she was tutoring him, it didn’t have to mean anything now. “I thought you had work to do.”
“This is work.”
“Other work. You know, with your company.”
“It’s still early. I can pull weeds for a while. It isn’t fair for you to do everything.”
He sounded sincere, which made Nicki even more confused. She knew there were good and decent men out there, but she certainly didn’t expect expressions of fair and unfair from Luke. With the possible exception of her ex-husband, he was the most self-centered, arrogant egotist she’d ever known.
Right?
Nicki put her head down and scowled. There she went, getting carried away with herself again. Self-centered egotists did not put their lives aside to help their grandfathers. Luke might be too pragmatic to enjoy art and take interest in the things of importance to Professor McCade, but she was beginning to see that he wasn’t nearly as self-centered as she wanted to think.
They worked in silence, Luke staying next to her and helping with the weeds. He still acted half-asleep, and several times she had to stop him from pulling out perfectly fine growth.
The cool in the air lingered for another hour. Nicki would have continued working even after the heat index rose, just to prove to Luke that she wasn’t a wimp, but he got up first and dusted his hands.
“Let’s knock off for the day and see if there’s anything cold to drink in the house,” he suggested.
“Oh, well, I should go home and shower, then come back,” she said, conscious that her new T-shirt stuck to her skin—not to mention the dirt under her fingernails and stains on her knees. Gardening might be satisfying, but it wasn’t clean.
“Naw, you look fine,” Luke said instead. “Besides, I’ll bet you haven’t eaten breakfast, and all Granddad has had is one of those canned thingies. We’ll eat, then you can work on the inventory and I’ll get hooked up with my office. They’re probably going crazy by now, wondering why I haven’t answered the phone.”
“Do you ever take a vacation?” Nicki asked curiously. With his money, he could surely afford to relax while he was looking after his grandfather, but he seemed to spend a lot of time on business.
“I don’t need vacations. I like my work—there’s nothing like pulling off a good deal.”
She bit the inside of her mouth to keep from saying anything. It shouldn’t be her concern that he hadn’t said anything about the satisfaction of employing so many people or building worthwhile things. Surely those meant more than a “good deal.”
“Come on,” Luke said, taking her hand and tugging her toward the house.
Nicki hastily brushed at the bits of grass clinging to her. “Wait,” she said, dragging her feet long enough to pluck a lily from one of the beds.
Inside, she handed the flower to Professor McCade, who touched it with a gentle finger. He didn’t say anything, or even smile, but once again Nicki had the feeling that he was more aware than he let on. The lily’s fragrance filled the room, and he turned it from side to side, staring into the velvety petals.
Something flickered in his eyes. The hint of a happier memory? She couldn’t be certain, but it seemed as if some of the heavy sadness had lifted from his shoulders. Could depression be his problem? She’d heard that it could be misdiagnosed, particularly if the patient wasn’t up-front about their feelings or acted different at the doctor’s office than at home.
“Are you hungry, Granddad?” Luke asked, putting a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “I’ll fix you something.”
His grandfather still didn’t say anything, but Luke didn’t seem to expect a reply. He just headed out of the room, his mouth straighter than before.
Nicki took another look at Professor McCade. He’d been gruff and untalkative at the yard sale when she’d bought the painting from him, but it was his appearance that had shocked her more than anything. In the years since she’d seen him, deep furrows had appeared around his mouth and forehead. His thick salt-and-pepper hair had turned snowy white, and his sunken eyes, once twinkling with gentle humor and enthusiasm, looked as still and impenetrable as chunks of coal.
“Professor…?” she said quietly. After a long moment, he finally turned his head. “I never thanked you for everything you taught me. It changed my life.”
Something flickered in his face, almost like a smile. “We change our own lives—others can only influence the course.”
“Then, thank you for your influence.”
Without another word he turned back to the garden, his brief awareness of her appearing to fade. Nicki traced her way to the kitchen, trying not to feel any worse for the McCade family than she already did.
She found Luke opening a carton of low-cholesterol egg product. He smacked into her as he reached for a bell pepper on the counter, and sighed.
“Sorry. I’m not sure this is going to work, Nicki.”
“What isn’t going to work? Me working on the garden? You didn’t have to help,” she said, instantly indignant. “I’m happy to do it myself.”
“I wanted to help, but I have my own work to do and it’s going to be a distraction knowing you’re out there working too hard. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate your willingness to do something for Granddad, but, hell, there must be a dozen messages on my cell phone right now and twice that many e-mails.”
She glared. “I may not have your muscles, but I’m perfectly capable of pulling a few weeds without you hanging around. I’ve never done it before, but there isn’t any reason I can’t do it just fine.”
Luke grimaced, knowing he’d invented an excuse to avoid talking about the real problem. “I’m sorry, you’re right, this isn’t about the garden.”
“Then what is it about?”
He sighed again. The past months had become increasingly difficult, having to face the truth that he couldn’t help Granddad, couldn’t fix things no matter how hard he tried. It was enough to make a man insane being so helpless, and then along came Nicki, with her new clothes and the lingering look of innocence in her eyes.
Or maybe it wasn’t innocence. Maybe it was the way she still had hope and enthusiasm, which made him start thinking that things might turn out all right, after all.
But it wasn’t all right.
Granddad wasn’t going to get better.
“You said that yesterday,” Nicki murmured, looking puzzled.
“Said what?”
“That he isn’t going to get better.”
Dammit. Talking out loud was getting to be a problem around Nicki. It was probably due to spending so much time alone the past few weeks with nobody to really talk to but Granddad, who hardly talked at all. Oh, there had been the endless phone calls and e-mails involved with keeping his company running, but that was business.
It was strange, he missed being around people, but he didn’t miss the hustle and bustle of his office as much as he’d expected. For someone who spent six days a week, twelve hours a day working, it was an uncomfortable realization.
Although it wasn’t hot yet, the atmosphere in the house felt stifling and Luke pushed open the back door. It looked onto the old kitchen garden. To one side there was a small greenhouse. He’d helped his grandfather build it when he was ten. He and his cousins had practically lived at this house and in that yard when they were kids. This town, this house, they were pieces of his childhood—some good, some bad…all going to hell at the moment.
He stepped outside and Nicki followed.
“Luke? I still don’t understand. What’s the problem? If this isn’t about me working on the garden, what isn’t going to work?”
“Having you here at all.”
“Oh.”
The hurt in her eyes shouldn’t have affected him, but it did. God, he didn’t want to hurt Nicki. Again. He’d hurt her enough in high school when he’d been too selfish to see anything beyond his own dashed ambitions and consuming anger. He might have a hard time trusting women, but he didn’t want to be mean to them, either.
“I know you mean well,” he said quietly. “But the truth is, you’re still hoping about Granddad, and you make me hope, too, and that’s too hard.”
“I didn’t say anything about that today.”
“But I could see it when you brought that flower to him. You were hoping it would spark a response, weren’t you?” He rushed on without giving her a chance to answer. “And for a minute I was standing there, hoping for the same thing, even when I knew it wouldn’t happen.”
Nicki fingered the blossom of a climbing rose that had wound itself around the porch railing. “What’s wrong with hope?”
“Nothing, I suppose. Except you’re on step one, just figuring it out, and I’m on step ninety-seven. And steps two through ninety-six are hell. I can’t go over them again.”
“I’m not asking you to. Besides, after you left the living room he—”
“No.” Luke made a quick, cutting motion with his hand. How many times had he seen Granddad act more like himself, only to slip back into that gray mental fog? “I don’t want to hear about it. And you are asking me to start those steps over, whether you realize it or not. Only you don’t have any idea what it’s like to have someone fade away in front of you. My dad traveled a lot for business, but Granddad was always there, filling in when my father couldn’t be around. You can’t begin to know how this feels.”
Her chin lifted fractionally. “You’re right. I also don’t know how it feels to be loved the way he loves you, without conditions or limits, or to have someone to count on that way.”
Great, now Luke felt even more like a skunk.
Still, he had forgotten that he was lucky, too. He’d had his grandparents and mother and father and the rest of his family. Nicki didn’t have anyone. When everything was added up, he definitely preferred his bottom line to hers.
“I’m sorry, you’re right.” Then he swallowed, a terrible question occurring to him. “You think I’ve given up too soon, don’t you? About Granddad?” He waited, uneasy that Nicki’s opinion was becoming important to him.
“I…I don’t know. Maybe. Life isn’t a math equation. I’ve seen people at the nursing home that were practically unresponsive because of apathy or depression or mental neglect, and I’ve seen them slowly wake up and become themselves again. It doesn’t happen with everyone, but it can happen.”
Luke thought about the way he’d felt since Nicki’s return to his life. She’d awakened his body, but she’d also stirred things in his mind. His grandfather wouldn’t notice Nicki’s newly revealed feminine attractions, but if she could reach his mind…
Who was he to try and prevent that?
He also had a dismal conviction that he’d been worried more about his own feelings than helping his grandfather. The unusual peace he’d felt working with her in the garden was unsettling. He was a high-pressure guy. He liked the fast pace of business and the city. He wasn’t the type for kid’s birthday parties and parent-teacher conferences.
He was pretty sure his father must have felt the same way. David McCade had done what was expected of him by getting married and having a family like everyone else in Divine. He’d loved his wife and kids, but he’d been away three weeks out of four working as an agriculture consultant—hardly the picture of a guy who enjoyed being a full-time husband and father.
“Do you still want me to leave?” Nicki asked.
He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. As stubborn as she was, she’d go if he said yes. But if anyone could reach his grandfather, it would be Nicki. And if there was the tiniest chance of her being successful, it was worth suffering his own inner turmoil to see it happen.
“No. I’m sorry I acted so badly. I’ve been frustrated and I took it out on you. If it happens again, tell me to stuff it.” He grinned. “That’s what you used to do.”
She gave him a shaky smile and his heart lurched. Why did Nicki have to seem so vulnerable?
He swallowed.
And so different?
Was she even aware of that smudge of dirt across her shirt? Of course not. He’d never met a woman so unaware of her appearance in his life. The women he dated wouldn’t be caught dead pulling weeds in a garden, and the only shorts they wore were designer tennis whites.
A clatter in the kitchen ripped his attention away from the matter, and he frowned.
“What’s going on in there?”
Nicki looked equally curious and they went back inside to find his grandfather chopping the bell pepper that Luke had pulled out earlier.
“Granddad?”
“Got hungry,” John said. Though his hands were shaky, he dumped the diced peppers into a bowl. “Need chives,” he added gruffly.
Luke and Nicki glanced at each other.
“Do you have chives?” she asked.
“There might be some in the old vegetable patch,” Luke murmured. “Grandmother put chives in lots of her recipes. And I think they have bulbs or reseed themselves, or something.”
He seemed stunned, teetering between hope and disbelief, and Nicki was tempted to kiss him…purely out of happiness, of course. She didn’t know if the professor’s attempts to cook his own breakfast meant anything or not, but it was better than seeing him sit in a chair and stare into space.
Thrilled, she hurried out the back door. The vegetable patch was another overgrown wilderness, but she quickly spotted chives in what must have been an herb garden. She broke off several spears, still thinking about Luke. She understood why he was trying to push her away, but that didn’t mean he was right.
The vegetable patch needed as much or more work than the rest of the yard, so it seemed a good bet she’d stay busy for several weeks. She’d need to get more sunscreen, and maybe a broad-brimmed hat for working outside in the sun…as well as more shorts and T-shirts.
Not that it had anything to do with Luke or the way he kept looking at her, she kept telling herself. The shorts and T-shirt were just more comfortable to work in, that’s all.