Forbidden Love

“You say ‘find someone interesting’ as if all I’d have to do is put my hand in a hat and pull out the man of my dreams. It’s not that easy out there. The good men are all gone.” She gave a casual shrug. “The hat’s empty.”

“That’s nonsense. There are plenty of good men out there. It’s just a matter of giving them a chance to prove themselves.” The frown on Bea’s gracefully aged face added another row of wrinkles to her forehead. “You’re just never going to find the one who’s right for you if you keep turning down the interesting ones and turning the rest into buddies.”

“Grandma,” Amy said patiently, “I’m here to get you back into your house. Not discuss my nonexistent love life.” Prepared to move on to something more productive, she held up the list, only to lower it as her brow pinched.

“Who did I turn down that was interesting? You don’t mean Scott, do you?”

“My heavens, no,” came the gently chiding reply. “I know your parents thought he was perfect for you. And he would have fit right in at your father’s accounting firm. But frankly, dear,” she said, dropping her tone in deference to her room’s open door, “whenever I saw you together, I never had the feeling there was any passion there. A woman needs passion in her life,” she informed her, much as she might speak of the need for a good mechanic.

“She needs a man who makes her melt when he touches her and makes her feel that she’ll simply not be the same without him in her life. That is not what I sensed between you and Scott. I’m talking about that new man in your apartment building. The geologist. Didn’t you say he was attractive? And what about the new principal at your school?”

Amy glanced toward the doorway herself, though there wasn’t anyone in the bright hallway who would have been able to overhear, much less care about what they were discussing. It just disconcerted her to know that her grandmother had been aware of something like passion—or the lack thereof—in her relationship with Scott Porter.

The woman was absolutely right, though. There never had been any spark or fire between her and the promising young accountant. Not even in the beginning of their two-year relationship. But then, there had never been any real passion in her life. Period.

She was not, however, going to get depressed about it now. Being home for the summer was enough to cope with at the moment.

“The geologist isn’t interested in a relationship. Not the kind I’m interested in, anyway,” she replied, knowing for a fact that she’d find no passion there. She preferred fidelity in a man. “He was going out with the nurse in Three B and the masseuse in One C until they found he was two-timing them. Rumor has it he’s currently working on the Rosenburg twins on the first floor. As for our principal,” she said, glancing again at the paper she held, “we play softball together, but he’s just a friend. It’s never a good idea to date someone you work with, anyway.”

From the corner of her eye Amy saw Bea peer at her over the tops of her bifocals. Before her grandmother could pursue the subject, however, Amy changed it. She simply didn’t feel like explaining that the problem probably wasn’t with the men, but with her.

“I called all the contractors on this list,” she repeated, referring to the sheet of aqua stationery covered with Bea’s surprisingly bold script. “Triple A Renovators will be there this afternoon, but they won’t give you separate bids for the wheelchair ramps and the room addition. With them, it’s all or nothing. Cedar Lake Construction will have someone out to give us an estimate Thursday morning. And Four Pines Remodel and Repair can’t take another job before September, and I’ll be gone by then.”

Bea made a faint tsking sound. “That’s too bad about Four Pines. They do such good work.” Straightening the sheet tucked at her waist, she watched Amy bend over one of the Danish Modern visitor’s chairs by the plant-lined window and stuff the paper into her oversize canvas tote bag. “There’s really no one you’re interested in?”

Amy didn’t consider herself a particularly virtuous person. Her faults were myriad and, compared to certain members of her family, her accomplishments few. If she could claim any redeeming trait at all, it would be patience. The virtue helped enormously when working with six-year-olds, which she did nine months out of the year, from September to June. But patience was an absolute necessity when it came to surviving her family.

“No, Grandma,” she replied quietly. Of all her relations, she most admired the outspoken and energetic octogenarian watching her so closely now. Her mother’s mother was her own woman. She did things her own way, whether or not convention approved, and she possessed the energy and outlook of a woman twenty years her junior. It had taken a broken hip to even slow the woman down. And then, she’d fallen while painting her kitchen cabinets fire-engine red. To add a little life to the place, she’d said.

If Amy had had the nerve, she would have loved to emulate her grandmother’s sometimes outrageous sense of style. But she had grown up to realize that she was really just a practical, beige sort of person, and whatever sense of whimsy she found herself wanting to indulge, she shared only with her first-graders.

“There really isn’t anyone I’m interested in,” Amy finally concluded.

Recognizing a dead end when she saw one, the elderly woman picked up three bottles of nail polish from the tray table straddling her bed. “Pity,” she murmured, and finally let the matter go.

“By the way, dear.” Glass clicked lightly as she tried to decide between shades of bright coral or a more subtle mauve. “I called Culhane Contracting for an estimate, too. Michael Culhane is sending his nephew over this morning so he can look at the house.”

Amy’s head snapped up. Her grandmother was studying one gnarled hand, her rose-tinted lips pursed in concentration.

“Culhane?”

“Mmm,” Bea hummed, still undecided about the color. “I heard from Mae Cutter that Nick is working for his uncle’s construction company now. He’s finishing up a medical office for her grandson and his partner over on Maple Grove. He’s doing nice work, too. From what I hear. Mae said her grandson is pleased, anyway.”

Confusion swept Amy’s expression as she watched her grandmother calmly hold the bottle of coral next to her skin, then do the same with the mauve. It made no sense that Nick Culhane would be working for a builder in such a small town, no matter who owned the company. The last she’d heard, he was an architect in New York. A very successful one, at that. It made even less sense that her grandmother would want anything to do with him.

“What’s he doing in Cedar Lake?” She shook her head, her confusion compounding by the second. “And why are you even talking to him? Have you forgotten what he did to Paige?”

Bea’s weathered hand remained splayed as she patiently glanced up at her youngest grandchild. “Contrary to what your mother sometimes thinks, Amy, there’s nothing wrong with my memory. I remember exactly what he did to your sister. He walked out on her a month before their wedding. That was ten years ago. And it has nothing at all to do with getting an addition built onto my house. The more companies I get bids from, the more informed a decision I can make about who to hire. A woman should always have options.”

She glanced back at the bottles, choosing coral. “Stop scowling, dear. It causes wrinkles.” Behind the bifocals, her eyes narrowed on the hall beyond the wide doorway. “I do believe I see Nick coming now.”

Amy dutifully straightened the scowl, but her usual easy smile was conspicuously absent as she watched her grandmother push aside her polish in preparation for her company. The recalcitrant woman certainly sounded lucid to her, but she couldn’t help but think that her favorite relative’s mental acuity had finally slipped. Bea Gardner tended to disagree with half of her family and barely tolerated the rest, but she was loyal to every last member when it came to defending them to the rest of the world. Amy had inherited that unquestioned loyalty in spades. She’d barely been seventeen when Nick Culhane had told Paige he couldn’t marry her, but she could still remember how badly he’d hurt her older sister.

The sound of heavy footsteps grew closer, the rhythm steady and certain—until it went dead silent at the doorway.

“Nick,” Bea said, by way of greeting.

“Mrs. Gardner,” came the deep, rumbling reply.

“Well, do come in.” Extending her hand, the gesture faintly regal, she motioned toward the foot of her bed.

“You remember Amy, don’t you?”

Amy wasn’t in the habit of being rude. Refusing to develop the tendency now, she turned with the thought of offering a polite hello—and felt her heart catch as her breath stalled in her lungs.

He stood six feet behind her, a mountain of leanly muscled masculinity in chambray, worn denim and work boots. Maturity had carved character into a face that had already been impossibly handsome, deepening the creases bracketing his chiseled mouth, fanning the tiny lines from the corners of his eyes.

She didn’t remember him being so big. Or his eyes so blue. His dark hair was meticulously cut, his face and forearms tanned from working long hours in the summer sun. He was hard and honed, the sort of man who dominated whatever space he occupied, and Amy felt an overwhelming urge to back up as his guarded glance slowly moved over her face and slipped down her slender frame.

“Yes. I do,” he replied in that polite way people have when a memory is there, but vague. Clearly cautious, he turned his attention to the woman holding court from the bed. “Since you have company, maybe we should discuss our business later.”

“Amy isn’t company,” Bea countered, sounding every bit as businesslike as he did. “She’s family. And your business is with her. My granddaughter has kindly come from Eau Claire to rescue me from this…place…my daughter has stuck me in and is handling what I obviously can’t. She’ll take you out to the house so you can do whatever it is you need to do to figure your estimates.

“As I told you on the phone,” she continued, ignoring both Amy’s look of surprise and Nick’s sudden and definite hesitation, “I need a new bedroom built downstairs. I won’t be able to climb the stairs to my old one,” she explained, sounding more annoyed with the inability than inconvenienced by it. “And I need a wheelchair ramp so Amy can get me in and out of the house. I can’t leave here until the ramp is in, and I would really like to return to my home.”

A wistful smile touched her once-full lips. “I’ve already missed seeing my lilacs bloom, and I know my roses need tending. Would your uncle’s company be able to take on the work now, assuming we agree on a price, or would there be a wait?”

“I can’t answer that until I know exactly what you have in mind for the addition.”

Bea inclined her head at his hedge. “Well, then, there’s nothing for me to do other than leave you in Amy’s capable hands. She can explain what I need, and we’ll go from there.

“You’ll call me this afternoon?” she asked her granddaughter.

“Of course.” She could count on it.

“Good. Then, if you’ll excuse me, I want to do my nails before bridge this afternoon.” She picked up her polish again, her shrewd glance cutting to the man who’d taken a step back to let Amy pass. “Thank you for coming, Nick. I wasn’t sure you would.”

Amy could practically feel his big body stiffen, though all she saw for certain was the jump of a muscle in his jaw a moment before he spoke. To his credit, not that Amy was inclined to give him much, his deep voice betrayed no reaction at all to her grandma’s doubt.

“My uncle owns the company, Mrs. Gardner. It’s not up to me to turn down business. It’s good to see you looking so well,” he concluded, deftly refusing her a chance to unearth what he’d rather leave buried. “I’ll get back to you with an estimate as soon as I can.”

Taking another step back, he caught Amy’s eye and arched one dark eyebrow. “Shall we?”

He looked remarkably unhurried as he stood waiting for her to precede him out the door. Or so it seemed until she noticed the little knot of muscle still twitching near his ear. Uneasy herself, rather wishing she hadn’t given her grandmother carte blanche with her services, she picked up her bag and slipped the straps over her shoulder.

This was one little twist she hadn’t imagined in the scenarios that had plagued her every time she’d thought about coming home the past couple of weeks. She’d known she would run into resistance from her mom about moving Grandma Bea back into her home. And she’d known Paige would side with their mom for reasons that had nothing to do with their mother’s objections, but which would still leave Amy to deal with the task by herself. She’d just never dreamed she’d have to deal with the man who had broken her sister’s heart.

Amy knew what it was to lose a friendship because love just wasn’t there. But she couldn’t imagine a worse breach of trust than for a woman to put all her faith and hope in a man, then have him leave her for another woman.