The Millionaire's Homecoming

There was a feeling that he had dropped the ball, maybe when it mattered most. He couldn’t set back the clock. But maybe he could manage not to drop the ball this time.

Whether he wanted to or not, David had a certain emotional attachment to her—whether he wanted to or not, he cared what happened to her.

At least he could set Kayla straight on the ice cream parlor.

“There is no way,” he said with elaborate patience, “to make money at a business where you only have good numbers for eight weeks of the year. You’ve seen this town in the winter. And spring, and fall, for that matter. You could shoot off a cannon on Main Street and not hit anyone.”

“The demographics are changing,” she said, as if she hoped he would be impressed by her use of the word demographics. “People are living here all year round. It’s become quite a retirement choice.”

“It’s still a business that will only ever have eight good weeks every year. And even those eight weeks are weather dependent. Nobody eats ice cream in the rain.”

“We did,” she said softly.

“Huh?”

“We did. We ate ice cream in the rain.”

David frowned. And then he remembered a sudden thunderstorm on a hot afternoon. Maybe they had been sixteen? Certainly it had been the summer before the kaleidoscope, before he had kissed her, before Kevin had laid claim, before the drowning.

A group of them had been riding their bikes down Main Street and had been caught out by the suddenness of the storm.

It had felt thrilling riding through the slashing rain and flashing lightning, until they had taken cover under the awning of the ice cream store as the skies turned black and the thunder rolled around them.

How could he possibly remember that Kayla’s T-shirt had been soaked through and had become transparent, showing the details of a surprisingly sexy bra, and that Cedric Parson had been sneaking peeks?

So David had taken his own shirt off and pulled it over Kayla’s head, making her still wetter, but not transparently so. He could even remember the feeling: standing under that awning on Main Street, bare chested, David had felt manly and protective instead of faintly ridiculous and cold.

How could he possibly remember that he’d had black ice cream, licorice flavored? And that her tongue had darted out of her mouth and mischievously licked a drip from his cone? And that he had deliberately placed his lips where her tongue had been?

How could he possibly remember that he had felt like the electricity in the air had sizzled deep inside him, and that ice cream had never since tasted as good as it had that electric afternoon?

David shook off the memory and the seductive power it had to make him think maybe people would eat ice cream in the rain.

“Generally speaking, people are not going to go for ice cream if the weather is bad,” he said practically. “One season of bad weather, you’d be finished. A few days of bad weather would probably put an ice cream parlor close to the edge.”

“Well, I like the idea of owning an ice cream parlor,” Kayla said firmly. “I like it a lot.”

He took in her eyes peering at him stubbornly from under her comically swollen forehead, and knew this wasn’t the time.

“Your ambition in life is to be up to your elbows, digging through vats of frozen-solid ice cream until your hands cramp?”

“That sounds like I’m selling a lot of ice cream,” she purred with satisfaction.

“Humph.”

“My ambition,” she told him, something faintly dangerous in her tone, “is to make people happy. What makes anyone happier than ice cream on a hot day?”

Or during a thunderstorm, his own mind filled in, unbidden.

He said, “Humph,” again, more emphatically than the last time.

“It’s a simple pleasure,” she said stubbornly. “The world needs more of those. Way more.”

He had a feeling if he wanted to convince Kayla, he had better back his argument with hard, cold facts: graphs and projections and five years’ worth of More-moo’s financial statements. What would it hurt to have one of his assistants do a bit of research?

“I would like to bring in specialty ice creams. Did you know, in the Middle East, rose petal ice cream is a big hit?”

He felt she had already given her ice cream parlor dreams way more thought than they deserved.

David was pretty sure he felt the beginnings of a headache throbbing along the line of his forehead and into his temples.

“I bet people would drive here from Toronto for rose petal ice cream,” she said dreamily.

David stared at her. She couldn’t possibly believe that! Why did he feel as if he needed to personally dissuade her from unrealistic dreams?

Because he had failed to do so when it had really mattered.

Don’t marry him, Kayla.

Tears streaming down her face. “I have to.”

He could only guess what that fateful decision had put her through. He was going to guess that being married to Kevin had been no bed of roses. Or rose petals, either.

And yet here she was, still dreaming. Was there a certain kind of courage in that?

He hated coming home.

“I’ll go see how the kids are doing with finding the dog,” David said gruffly.

He could clearly see she wanted to refuse this offer—a warning she wasn’t exactly going to embrace his unsolicited advice about the ice cream parlor with open arms—but her concern for the little beast won out.

“You have a cell?” he asked her.

“In pieces on the road, probably,” she said wryly.

“I’ll call here to the clinic, then, when I find out about the dog. Is he a certain breed?”

“Why?”

“If the kids haven’t found him, or I don’t find him hiding under a shrub near where you got stung, I’ll find a picture on the internet and have my assistant, Jane, make a poster. She can email it to me, and I’ll have it printed here.”

Under her comical brows, Kayla was transparent. She was both annoyed by his ability to take charge and his organizational skills, and relieved by them, too. No doubt it would be the same reaction when he presented her with the total lack of viability for operating an ice cream parlor in Blossom Valley.

“He’s a toy Brussels Griffon,” she said, hopeful that he would find the dog, yet reluctant to enlist his aid and hating that she was relying on him. But Kayla was as emotional as he was analytical, her every situation driven by her heart instead of her head.

He put it into his phone. A picture of the world’s ugliest dog materialized, big eyes, wiry hair popping out in all the wrong places. The hair springing from the dog’s ears and above his eyes reminded him of an old man, badly in need of an eyebrow and ear trim.

“Is it just me, or does this dog bear a resemblance to Einstein?” he muttered, showing her the picture.