On Temporary Terms

Her knees trembled and her mouth was dry. She was such a fraud. From the beginning, she had known that going out with Duncan Stewart was a bad idea. She had rationalized to herself that getting on good terms with him could mean an opportunity to press the case for selling his grandmother’s business.

And yet as the evening unfolded, Abby had let herself be sidetracked by the warmth of the Scotsman’s wicked smile. This was exactly the kind of thing that made mixing business with pleasure problematic. She was supposed to be initiating contact with Duncan’s grandmother and explaining why selling Stewart Properties could be in Miss Isobel’s best interests. Instead, Abby had forgotten her mission, endangered her stellar reputation in the law office and danced perilously close to becoming Duncan’s temporary fling.

* * *

The following day on her lunch hour, she and Lara munched apples and did their customary two-mile walk. Lara, being Lara, didn’t bother to hide her eagerness for details. “Spill it, Abby. Give me every juicy tidbit. My vicarious love life is all I have at the moment.”

Abby swallowed the last bite of fruit and tossed the core in a public trash receptacle as they rounded the corner and headed away from downtown. “I had fun.”

“That’s it?”

“He’s interesting...well traveled, well-read. A gentleman.”

“Well, that sounds boring as hell.”

“No, it doesn’t. You’re just being mean. It was nice to spend time with a man who can carry on a conversation.” She didn’t mention the whole dessert thing. Even now she couldn’t think about the bread pudding incident without getting aroused and flustered.

“So no sex?” Lara eyed her with an expression that was equal parts resignation and disappointment.

They finished the third circuit of the block and turned back toward their respective places of employment. “You know me, Lara. I’m not impulsive, especially when it comes to intimacy.”

“You went out with a client. That’s a start.”

Abby stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, her heart pumping, and stared at her friend. “I thought you said my dating him was okay?”

Lara’s smile was smug. “It’s not up to me, now is it? At least tell me he kissed you good night.”

Abby shoved her hands in the pockets of her black dress pants and started walking again. “Yes. So?”

“Are we talking a polite peck on the cheek?”

“Not exactly.”

“You’re such a tease.”

Lara grabbed her arm, but Abby evaded the hold and kept walking. “I have an appointment in fifteen minutes. Gotta get back.”

“Well, shoot.” Lara glanced at her watch and realized what time it was. “This conversation isn’t over.” She raised her voice to be heard as Abby headed in the opposite direction.

Abby gave her a wave over the shoulder. “See you tonight.”

Fortunately for Abby, Lara was more circumspect during their once-a-month book club meeting that evening. The dozen women in the group ranged in age from Lara and Abby’s twenty-something to eighty-one. This week, they were meeting in a back room at the pizza shop.

Over cheesy slices of thick-crust pepperoni, the conversation zipped and zinged from one topic to the next before settling on the plot of the novel they were supposed to have read. Abby had finished most of it. The heroine died of a terrible disease two chapters from the end, so she had lost interest.

Lara loved stirring up controversy and discussion. While Abby’s friend debated whether or not the hero’s character was supposed to symbolize lost dreams, Abby surreptitiously fished her cell phone from her purse and checked for messages. She hadn’t heard a peep from Duncan since he left her last night. Maybe her insistence on talking to Miss Izzy had scared him off.

He seemed pretty mad when she suggested it, but then again, not so mad that he hadn’t kissed her until her toes curled and her limbs turned to water. The man knew how to kiss.

If he’d changed his mind about the second date, it was probably a good thing.

When the waitress came to do drink refills, Lara lowered her voice and leaned in. “Whatcha doin’, kiddo? This is supposed to be a work-free zone.”

“It’s not work,” Abby said. “I was only checking to see if I had a text from Duncan. He asked me out again for Friday night, but I made him mad, so he may be done with me.”

“What did you do that was so terrible?”

“I told him I would only go out with him a second time if he would take me to see Miss Izzy beforehand and let me tell her about the offer we have for her property.”

Lara sat back in her seat and pursed her lips. The conversation ebbed and flowed around them. “I’m impressed. Playing hardball.”

“It’s not that,” Abby whispered. “But Mr. Chester asked me to take care of one thing while he’s on leave, one simple thing. All I need to do is tell Miss Izzy about the offer. If she’s really dead set against selling, all she has to do is say no. I will have fulfilled my obligation, and that will be the end of it. I don’t know why Duncan is making such a big deal about it.”

“I’ll bet I do.”

“How could you possibly know what that Scotsman is thinking?”

“He didn’t really want to move here, right?”

“Correct.”

“And if Miss Izzy accepts the offer being brokered by your law firm, Stewart Properties changes hands and Duncan is off the hook. The poor man probably feels guilty, because deep down, he wants you to convince his grandmother to sell out. But that makes him a bad person, so it’s easier to keep you away from her.”

“Well, it’s a moot point because I don’t think his dinner invitation is still on the table.”

Lara reached for a breadstick and dunked it in homemade marinara sauce. “The man wants you, Abby. He’ll figure out a way to have you and appease his conscience at the same time. You wait and see.”

Four (#ua6ff186d-e259-57f9-8317-194b78bc74de)

By Thursday evening, Abby’s spirits hit rock bottom, and her opinion of Lara’s romantic advice fell lower still. Forty-eight hours had passed and not a single word from Duncan Stewart. The man kissed her as if she had been the only oasis in a trackless desert, and then he had simply walked away.

She almost opted out of dinner with friends. It was difficult to fake a good mood when all she wanted to do was watch romantic comedies and mope around her small house. In the end, she went, but only because the outing took her mind off Duncan and the affair that never was.

No matter how many times she told herself it was for the best—that it was completely inappropriate for her to date the grandson of one of Mr. Chester’s influential clients—she didn’t believe it in her heart. How long had it been since a man was really interested her? Almost never?

Duncan Stewart might ruin her for other men, but that was a risk she was prepared to take. Even knowing he would be in Candlewick a limited amount of time, maybe only two years (and that their affair would likely be far shorter than that), was not a negative.

He fascinated her. For once in her neatly planned life, she wanted to make the rash, dangerous choice. She wanted Duncan.

When dinner wound to an end, she decided to leave her car at the restaurant and walk the relatively short distance home. She’d had several glasses of wine, so she didn’t want to take any chances that she might not be in full control. The night was crisp with a hint of autumn, but not cold. Other people were out and about on the streets even at this hour.

Crime was virtually nonexistent in Candlewick. Some people compared their little town to the fictional Mayberry.In many cases, that description wasn’t far off.

By the time she made it to her street and up the block to her own sidewalk, it was late. Sleepy, and still caught up in wondering about Duncan, she didn’t spot the intruder at first. Then something moved in the shadows, and she sucked in a sharp breath.

Frozen with fear and in quick succession disgust, she called out to the shadowy figure. “What are you doing here, Daddy?” She stayed where she was out at the road, not wanting him to follow her into the house.

The large hulking shadow turned into an old man under the harsh glare of the streetlight. Once upon a time her father had been handsome and dapper. Even now—when he wanted to—he could clean himself up, get a haircut and present to the world a reasonable facsimile of a sophisticated adult.