The Millionaire She Married

“She lives in Los Angeles now.”

“What does she do there, rob banks?”

Jenna gave him a too-sweet smile. “She’s an artist. And a very talented one, too.”

“Still the rebel, you mean.”

“Lacey makes her own rules.”

“I believe it—and how’s your mom?”

Jenna didn’t answer immediately. Sometimes she still found it hard to believe that Margaret Bravo was gone. “She died two years ago.”

He looked at her for a long moment before muttering, “I’m sorry, Jenna.”

He’d hardly given a thought to Jenna’s mother while she was alive. Mack McGarrity didn’t put much store in family ties. But right now he did sound sincere. Jenna murmured a reluctant “Thank you,” then spoke more briskly. “Seven-thirty, then. My house.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Bring the divorce papers. You do have those papers?”

“I’ve got them.”

He had the papers. Relief washed through her. Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as she’d feared.

Chapter Two

Jenna walked home from the shop. It was only three blocks to the big Queen Anne Victorian at the top of West Broad Street where she’d grown up. She enjoyed the walk. She waved to her neighbors and breathed the faint scent of pine in the air and thought about how much she loved her hometown. Tucked into a pocket of the Sierra foothills, Meadow Valley was a charming place of steep, tree-lined streets and tidy old wood frame houses.

At home, Jenna found the note Lacey had left on the refrigerator.

“Last-minute hot date. Don’t wait up.”

Jenna grinned to herself at the words scrawled in her sister’s bold hand. When Lacey said, “Don’t wait up,” she meant it. Since about the age of eleven, Jenna’s “baby” sister had never willingly gone to bed before 2:00 a.m. Lacey loved staying up so late that she could watch the sun rise before calling it a night.

Jenna’s grin became a frown.

Without Lacey, she and Mack would be alone in the house.

She crumpled the note and turned for the trash bin beneath the sink. She saw Byron then. He was sitting on the floor to the right of the sink cabinet door, his long, black tail wrapped neatly around his front paws.

“I don’t want to be alone with him,” Jenna said to the cat. “And do not ask me why.”

The cat didn’t, only regarded her through those wise yellow-green eyes of his. “Don’t look at me like that,” she scolded as she tossed the note into the trash bin and shoved the cabinet door shut.

The cat went on looking, beginning to purr now, the sound quite loud in the quiet kitchen. Byron never had talked much. But he could purr with the best of them.

Jenna scooped him up and put him on her shoulder. “If you fall all over yourself rubbing on him, I’ll never forgive you.” She stroked the sleek raven fur and the cat purred all the louder. “I mean it,” she grumbled, but the cat remained unconcerned.

“All right, all right. Dinner for you.” She scooped food into his bowl, then left him to his meal.

In the downstairs master bedroom she changed from her linen jacket and bias-cut rayon skirt into Dockers and a camp shirt. She purposely did not freshen up her makeup one bit or even run a comb through her straight, shoulder-length blond hair.

And when she returned to the kitchen for a tall glass of iced tea, she pointedly did not rush around whipping up a little something to tempt a man’s palate. She was not dressing up for Mack and he was getting no dinner. She had one order of business to transact with him. She wanted the final divorce papers he was supposed to have signed five and a half years ago. And then she wanted him back in Florida where he belonged.

Ten minutes later she answered the doorbell. It was Mack, grinning that knee-weakening grin of his. A pair of waiters stood behind him.

She blinked. Waiters? Yes. Definitely. Waiters. In crisp white shirts, black slacks and neat black bow ties. One carried a round table with a pedestal base, the other had a chair under each arm.

“What in the—?”

“You didn’t cook, did you? Well, if you did, save it. I’ve brought dinner with me.”

“But I—you—I don’t—”

“You’re stammering,” he said with nerve-flaying fondness. Then he gestured at the waiters. “This way—Jenna, sweetheart, you’ll have to move aside.”

“I am not your—”

“Sorry. Old habits. Now, get out of the way.”

He stepped forward, took her by the shoulders and guided her back from the door. Then he gestured at the waiters again. They followed him into the front parlor, where they proceeded to set up the table on her mother’s hand-hooked Roosevelt Star rug.

In the ensuing seven or eight minutes, Jenna tried to tell Mack a number of times that she wasn’t having dinner with him. He pretended not to hear her as the waiters trekked back and forth from a van out in the front, bringing linens and dishes and flatware and a centerpiece of flower-shaped candles floating in a cut-crystal bowl. They also brought in a side table and set it up under the front window. They put the food there. It looked and smelled sinfully delicious.

When all was in readiness, one waiter lighted the candles as the other pulled out Jenna’s chair for her.

Jenna sent a glare at Mack. “I don’t like this.”

He put on an innocent expression, which she did not buy for a nanosecond. “Come on, Jenna. It’s only dinner.”

The waiter waited, holding the chair.

Jenna gave in and sat down, thinking that Mack McGarrity might have managed to develop a little patience, he even might have learned how to relax. But in this, he hadn’t changed at all. He still insisted on doing things one hundred percent his way.

Mack slid into the chair opposite her. He gestured to the waiters and one of them set a bread basket on the table, along with two plates of tempting appetizers: stuffed miniature Portobello mushrooms and oysters on the half shell, nestled in chipped ice. The other waiter busied himself opening a bottle of Pinot Grigio, which Mack sampled, approved and then poured for Jenna and for himself.

That done, Mack signed the check.

The moment the front door closed behind the waiters, Jenna placed one mushroom and one oyster on her plate. She also buttered a warm slice of sourdough bread. Then she rose from her chair. She dished up more food from the offerings on the side table—a good-sized helping of salade ni

oise and a modest serving of sautéed veal scallops with marsala sauce.

She sat down and ate. The appetizers were as good as they looked, as were the salad and the veal. She did not touch her wine.

As she methodically chewed and swallowed, Mack kept trying to get her talking. He asked about her shop and complimented her on the changes she’d made in the decor of her mother’s front parlor. He wondered aloud where Lacey was and tried to get her to tell him more about her sister’s life as a struggling artist in Southern California.

Jenna answered in single syllables whenever possible. When the question absolutely required a longer answer, she gave him a whole sentence—and then went back to her meal.