A Mother's Wish

“We agreed,” she whispered.



“Agreed to what?” Lindsey prodded.



“That we weren’t going to see each other again.”



“Obviously he changed his mind,” Lindsey said, as excited as if she’d just discovered a twenty-dollar bill in the bottom of her purse.



Unwilling to trust her daughter’s assessment of the situation, Meg stared at her best friend.



“Don’t look at me,” Laura said.



“I’m sure you’re wrong,” Meg said to Lindsey, her heart still beating a little too fast.



“Why else would he send flowers?” Lindsey asked calmly.



“He wanted to say he was glad we met, that’s all. I don’t think we should make something out of this,” she said. “It’s just … a courtesy.”



“Call him,” Lindsey pleaded.



“I most certainly will not!”



“But, Mom, don’t you see? Steve’s saying he likes you, but he doesn’t want to pressure you into anything unless you like him, too.”



“He is?” Whatever confidence she’d felt a moment earlier vanished like ice cream at a Fourth of July picnic.



“The next move is yours.”



“Laura?”



“I wouldn’t know,” her fickle friend said. “I’ve been married to the same man for twenty-six years. All this intrigue is beyond me.”



“I agree with your daughter,” a shy voice said from the other side of the counter. “You should call him.”



It was Meg’s customer, Judith Wilson. Meg wasn’t sure she should listen to the older woman who faithfully purchased romance novels twice a month. Judith was a real romantic and would undoubtedly read more into the gesture than Steve had intended.



“See?” Lindsey said excitedly. “The ball’s in your court. Steve made his move and now he’s waiting for yours.”



Meg didn’t know what to do.



“It’s been three days,” Lindsey reminded her. “He’s had time to think over the situation, and so have you.”



“Call him,” Laura suggested. “If for nothing more than to thank him for the flowers.”



“Yes, call him,” Judith echoed, clutching her bag of books.



“It’s the least you can do.” Once more it was her daughter offering advice.



“All right,” Meg said reluctantly. The flowers were gorgeous, and thanking him would be the proper thing to do.



“I’ll get his work number for you,” Lindsey volunteered, pulling the Yellow Pages from behind the cash register.



The kid had Steve’s shop number faster than directory assistance could have located it.



“I’ll use the phone in the back room,” Meg said. She didn’t need several pairs of ears listening in on her conversation.



She felt everyone’s eyes on her as she hurried into the storeroom. Her hand actually shook as she punched out the telephone number.



“Emerald City,” a gruff male voice answered.



“Hello, this is Meg Remington calling for Steve Conlan.”



“Hold on a minute.”



“Of course.”



A moment later, Steve was on the line. “Meg?”



“Hello, Steve. I know you’re busy, so I won’t take up much of your time. I’m calling to thank you for the flowers.”



A long pause followed her words. “Flowers? What flowers?”



Three



“You mean you don’t know anything about these flowers?” Meg cried, her voice raised. Steve could see that he hadn’t done a very good job of breaking the news, but he was as shocked as she was.



“If you didn’t send them, who did?” Meg demanded.



It wasn’t difficult to figure that one out. “I can make a wild guess,” he said with heavy sarcasm. He jerked his fingers through his hair, then glanced at the wall clock. It was close to quitting time. “Can you meet me?”



“Why?”



Her blatant lack of enthusiasm irritated him. He’d been thinking about her for three days. Nancy was right—he liked Meg Remington. She was a bit eccentric and a little on the hysterical side, but he was willing to overlook that. During their time together, he’d been struck by her intelligence and her warmth. He’d wished more than once that they’d decided to ignore the way they’d been thrown together and continue to see each other. Apparently Meg suffered no such regrets and was pleased to be rid of him.



“Why do you want to meet?” she repeated, lowering her voice.



“We need to talk.”



“Where?”



“How about a drink? Can you get away from the store in the next hour or so?”



She hesitated. “I’ll try.”



Steve mentioned a popular sports bar in Kent, and she agreed to meet him there at five-thirty. His spirits lifted considerably at the prospect of seeing her again. He must’ve been smiling as he hung up because his foreman, Gary Wilcox, cast him a puzzled look.



“I didn’t know you had yourself a new girlfriend,” Gary said. “When did this happen?”



“It hasn’t.” The last thing Steve needed was Gary feeding false information to his sister. Nancy and her outrageous ideas about marrying him off was enough of a problem, without Gary encouraging it.



“It hasn’t happened yet, you mean,” Gary said, making a notation in the appointment schedule.



Steve glanced over his shoulder, to be sure Gary wasn’t making notes about the conversation he’d had with Meg. He was getting paranoid already. A woman did that to a man, made him jumpy and insecure; he knew that much from past experience.



An hour later Steve sat in the bar, facing a big-screen television with a frosty mug of beer in his hand. The table he’d chosen was in the far corner of the room, where he could easily watch the front door.



Meg walked in ten minutes after him. At least Steve thought it was Meg. The woman carried a tennis racket and wore one of those cute little pleated-skirt outfits. He hadn’t realized Meg played tennis. He knew she didn’t run and disliked exercise, but …



Steve squinted and stared, unsure. After all, he’d only seen her the one time, and in the slinky black dress she’d looked a whole lot different.



Meg solved his problem when she apparently recognized him. She walked across the room, and he noticed that she was limping. She slid into the chair beside him, then set the tennis racket on the table.



“Lindsey knows,” she announced.



Steve’s head went back to study her. “I beg your pardon?”



“My daughter figured it out.”



“Figured what out?”



“That I was meeting you,” she said in exasperated tones. “First, I called you from the back room at the store, so our conversation could be private.”



“So?”



She glared at him. “Then I made up this ridiculous story about a tennis game I’d forgotten. I haven’t played tennis in years and Lindsey knows that. She immediately had all these questions. She saw straight through me.” She pulled the sweatband from her hair and stuffed it in her purse. “She’s probably home right now laughing her head off. I can’t do this …. I could never lie convincingly.”



“Why didn’t you just tell your daughter the truth?” He was puzzled by the need to lie at all.



Meg’s look of consternation said that would’ve been impossible. “Well … because Lindsey would think the two of us meeting meant something.”



“Why? You told her I didn’t write those letters and e-mails, didn’t you?”



“No.”



“Why not?”



Meg played with the worn strings of the tennis racket as her eyes avoided his. “I should have …. I mean, this is crazy.”



“You can say that again.” He tried to sound nonchalant and wondered if he’d managed it. He didn’t think so. He was actually rather amused by the whole setup. Her daughter and his sister. The girls were close in age and obviously spoke the same language.



“Lindsey’s still got romantic ideas when it comes to men and marriage, but …” Meg paused and chanced a look at him. “She really stepped over the line with this stunt.”



“What did you say about our date?”



Meg’s hands returned to the tennis racket. “Not much.”



Steve hadn’t been willing to discuss the details of their evening together with Nancy, either. Nothing had surprised him more than discovering how attractive he’d found Meg Remington. It wasn’t solely a sexual attraction, although she certainly appealed to him.



Whenever he’d thought about her in the past three days, he’d remember how they’d talked nonstop over wine and dessert. He remembered how absorbed she’d been in what he was saying; at one point she’d leaned forward and then realized her dress revealed a fair bit of cleavage. Red-faced, she’d pulled back and attempted to adjust her bodice.



Steve liked the way her eyes brightened when she spoke about her bookstore and her daughter, and the way she had of holding her breath when she was excited about something, as if she’d forgotten to breathe.



“Your sister—the one who wrote the letters—is the same one who sent the flowers?” Meg asked, breaking into his thoughts.



Steve nodded. “I’d bet on it.”



Meg fiddled with the clasp of her purse and brought out a small card, which she handed him.



Steve raised his arm to attract the cocktail waitress’s attention and indicate he wanted another beer for Meg.



“I shouldn’t,” she said, reaching for a pretzel. “If I come home with beer on my breath, Lindsey will know for sure I wasn’t playing tennis.”



“According to you, she’s already figured it out.”



She slid the bowl of pretzels closer and grabbed another handful. “That’s true.”



Steve opened the card that had come with the flowers and rolled his eyes. “This is from Nancy, all right,” he muttered. “I’d never write anything this hokey.”



The waitress came with another mug of beer and Steve paid for it. “Do you want more pretzels?” he asked Meg.



“Please.” Then in a lower voice, she added, “This type of situation always makes me hungry.”



She licked the salt from her fingertips. “Has my daughter, Lindsey, been in contact with you?”



“No, but then I wouldn’t know, would I?”



Meg was holding the pretzel in front of her mouth. “Why wouldn’t you?”



“Because Lindsey would be writing to Nancy.”



Meg’s head dropped in a gesture of defeat. “You’re right. Much more of this craziness and heaven only knows what they could do to our lives.”



“We need to take control,” Steve said.



“I totally agree with you,” was her response. She took a sip of her beer and set the mug down. “I shouldn’t be drinking this on an empty stomach—it’ll go straight to my head.”



“The bar’s got great sandwiches.”



“Pretzels are fine.” Apparently she’d realized that she was holding the bowl, and she shoved it back to the center of the table. “Sorry,” she muttered.