A Family to Cherish Read online

  His mind flashed back to the vision of Sophie in Meredith’s turret room. Bowing. Curtsying. Sashaying around as if wearing a fancy ball gown.

  His girls cared nothing for that sort of thing. Never had, never would. A pair of little jocks, just like their mother.

  He grabbed up Rachel, hugged her, tucked her into her booster seat and secured her seat belt. He’d throw a frozen pizza into the oven and “nuke” green beans, the only vegetable both girls liked.

  Then baths. Story. Bed.

  Only then could he ponder the price tag for Sophie’s dental work. Work that would be essentially complete in two-and-a-half years, just about the time Rachel would need to start.

  He refused to sigh. Or whine. Or beat his head against a wall. For the moment, anyway.

  As he backed onto the two-lane country road, visions of the gracious Victorian swam into focus. Corner brackets. Framed ceiling lights. Muraled upper walls. Built-ins everywhere, a sign of a well-done Queen Anne. Shelves, closets, cabinets, pantry cupboards. This grand old lady had them all and he’d always longed for a chance to work on her, but not with Meredith Brennan.

  Never with Meredith Brennan.

  Chapter Three

  “Tell me again why you can’t do this, Matt.” Meredith gazed up at her newly married half brother late Friday. She encompassed the entire mansion in a wave of her hand. “You said yourself the building’s in decent shape, that it just needs a little sprucing up to be spa-ready.”

  Matt slanted her a no-nonsense look. “My exact words were ‘it needs a doll-up and major revisions on utilities to bear the load of spa equipment.’”

  “So…”

  He stood his ground, solid. Determined. “Cam’s your man. He’s an expert at classic home refurbishing, he’s approved by the Landmark Society, he’s experienced and he’s the best around. You saw what he did with the Kinsler estate.”

  She had, but… “I—”

  “Mere.” Matt grasped her shoulders with two firm hands. Sympathy met her gaze, but behind the kindness lay straight-up honesty. “I’d do it if I could. But Phase One of Cobbled Creek is almost completely sold and I’ve got Phase Two ready to go. It’s March and we’re moving into prime building season. And since my father-in-law is my partner—” his eyes twinkled into hers “—you don’t mess with time frames that cost the business money.”

  “Money’s not a problem,” Meredith told him. Her bequest from her late grandfather had secured the sprawling Victorian. The just-upgraded loan from her grandmother would cover the remodeling. And hopefully a partnership with her old friend Heather Madigan would provide the necessary customer base, crucial to developing a new business.

  “Not your money,” Matt explained. “Mine. Outdoor construction time is finite here.” Matt jerked his head south where the shaded foothills of the Allegheny Mountains rolled in splotched gray and white, stick trees poking up, bereft and dark, the late-winter look unappealing. “With the first section of the subdivision nearly complete, I’m already digging basements for the next group.” He pressed her shoulders with gentle affection. “Stick with Cam. Unless you’re too afraid.”

  Afraid? Her? Of Cam Calhoun? As if.

  Meredith shrugged Matt off. “I’m not afraid of anything. I’d just rather not open up a box that’s best left shut.”

  “It’s business, kid.” Matt’s military training kept him on the upside of common sense. “And speaking from experience, we can’t afford to let old wounds adversely affect business relationships in a town this size. We make amends and move on.” He jerked a shoulder toward the rambling house. “With two kids to take care of, Cam could use the work and you need someone good enough to create what you envision here. I’m a construction guy. Not a fine carpenter.”

  His words tipped the balance. Meredith knew what she wanted, she’d envisioned the finished product that would allow beautiful but affordable spa luxuries to the men and women of Allegany County. The recent upsurge in employment and business made this move timely. Grandpa’s money made it affordable.

  But why Cam? Of all the craftsmen in all the world…

  Reality smacked her. Wellsville and Jamison weren’t that big. And fine carpenters weren’t common in large metropolises. Here?

  The local towns were blessed to have a craftsman of Cam’s caliber available. She huffed a sigh, folded her arms and dropped her chin. “Okay.”

  Matt laughed, gave her a brotherly chuck on the arm and headed toward his truck. “Gotta head out. Callie’s got a doctor’s appointment in thirty minutes.”

  “Aha.”

  He met her up-thrust brows with a wink. “It’s too early for big announcements, but prayers are appreciated.”

  “Oh, Matt.” Meredith hugged him before he climbed into the truck. “I’m so happy for you. And a baby…”

  “Not gettin’ any younger,” Matt told her, “so we decided not to wait.”

  “When?”

  “Thanksgiving if all goes well.”

  “Perfect.”

  Matt’s crooked grin showed his full agreement. “’Bout as close to that as you can get on Earth, sis.”

  He drove off, leaving her to contemplate her current predicament. Was she stupid to have invested in this old place? Or was she savvy to have recognized the amazing potential?

  Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

  Sage words. Sound advice she wished she’d embodied a few years ago before losing her heart to a man who led two lives, a man like her trouble-making illicit father. If she’d heeded her mother’s wisdom back then, she’d have averted a lot of unnecessary drama.

  A stupid mistake, one she would never repeat and would rather forget. She hoped coming home to Allegany County allowed just that.

  * * *

  Some days Cam hated that the cemetery stood half a mile east of their home. Others, like today, he welcomed the proximity. Once the girls awoke, his hours would race from one task to another, a typical Saturday in the life of a single parent. And then he’d play catch-up on Sunday, taking care of menial tasks left undone during the busy week before starting all over again Monday morning. But he refused to dwell on the negatives. His beautiful girls made the time, the work and the sacrifice worthwhile.

  Cam would have said the chill morning fog painted the trek from the gravel-stone path to the gray stone marker in monochromes, if he was prone to drama.

  He wasn’t.

  But the sigh in his heart softened his jaw as the etched words became more legible with each step.

  Kristine DeRose Calhoun

  Beloved wife, mother and daughter

  The stark reality of the carved letters sucker-punched him every time. The all-consuming ache he’d felt those first weeks and months had dulled to an old sore, but he couldn’t come to the graveyard to pay respects without remembering Kristy there, on their old couch, gone forever.

  Irreparable harm. That’s what he’d done. Not like he’d gone to bed expecting her to die, but he’d gone to bed cranky and bad-tempered, as if her time, her work with the girls, her tasks were less important than his. Sometimes that hurt more than her death, that he’d minimized her worth in sharp words that last night.

  He laid the single red rose on the grave, a tribute to an old promise, when Kristy had scoffed at the idea of money wasted on twelve flowers, destined to be tossed away within days. “One flower,” she’d told him, smiling, trailing her hand along his scruffy cheek. “Just one, now and again. To show me you care.”

  He had cared. Did care. As he stared at the single flush of color against dull grays of the early-spring graveyard, he wished he had a chance, one more chance to say he was sorry.

  So sorry.

  But he’d blown that, too, so he leaned down, laid his hand against the cold, smooth s
tone, and prayed the prayer that remained unanswered, a prayer for forgiveness.

  The hard, flat surface yielded nothing, but he was used to that. He straightened and tipped the visor of his faded baseball cap, but didn’t wink like he used to when she was alive.

  Because she wasn’t.

  * * *

  “Meredith!”

  Meredith turned from the display of nineteenth-century-styled tinware and laughed as Rachel Calhoun raced around two tables of carved wooden bowls to tackle into her on Saturday morning. “Hey, Rach. How’s it going?”

  “Rachel. Walk,” Cam said.

  “Sorry, Dad. Meredith’s here!”

  “I see that.”

  Cam’s tone said she ranked pretty much last on the list of people he hoped to run into this cold, rainy Saturday, but she’d figured that out the other day. Meredith looked around, searching, then raised a brow of question to the little girl wrapped around her legs. “Where’s Sophie?”

  “Indoor soccer practice,” Rachel explained. “I already had mine.”

  “Which explains the cool athletic look you’re sporting,” Meredith noted. Rachel’s face brightened and she turned this way and that, peering over her shoulder in an unsuccessful attempt to see the number on her jersey. “I’m number seven, see?”

  “It’s a great number.”

  “Sophie’s number seven, too.”

  “A little odd, but still wonderful,” Meredith said.

  “It was my Mommy’s number in high school,” Rachel continued. “We asked the coaches if we could both use it ’cause we’re on different teams.”

  “A marvelous family tradition.” Meredith stooped low and met the little girl’s frank gaze. “Your mommy must be very proud to have two beautiful athletic daughters following in her footsteps.”

  “She’s dead.”

  Silence yawned. Meredith swallowed hard, saw the stark honesty in the little girl’s expression, and looked up to Cam for confirmation. The look of loss in his light eyes offered affirmation. Meredith gave Rachel a quick hug. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t know that.”

  Rachel mused, then nodded. “You’re new. And she died when I was really small. Daddy remembers. So does Sophie. And I kind of do. A little.”

  Meredith looked into this miniature version of Cam’s blue eyes and read the wistfulness there, a pensiveness that suggested she didn’t really remember but longed to.

  Meredith’s heart opened wide, along with her arms. She hugged Rachel, then rocked back on her heels. “So. Are you good?” she asked, nodding at the light blue soccer uniform.

  Rachel beamed. “Yes. Very.”

  “I’m not a bit surprised.” Meredith laughed and stood, then grimaced as her knees unlocked.

  “Are you all right?”

  Cam’s voice actually sounded concerned, but that was because Cam Calhoun was one of the world’s nicest guys. “Fine. My knees do not like that position, though, and they remind me that I’m not twenty anymore. Or seven.” She smiled down at the little girl, then redirected her attention to Cam. “I assume since I haven’t heard from you that you’re going to pass on my project?”

  “No.” He frowned slightly, as though her assumption surprised him, but then why hadn’t he called? Gotten back to her? It had been…

  “It’s only been two days,” he reminded her. “And I need to get a better look at the upstairs measurements to do a full write-up, but as long as you’re not in a huge hurry for the work to be complete—”

  Meredith didn’t clamp her guilty look in time.

  Cam sighed and maintained eye contact using that assessing expression he seemed to have perfected. Patient with a hint of long-suffering that said more than words ever could. “What time frame were you expecting, Meredith?”

  She flinched and admitted, “Six weeks.”

  “Twelve,” he countered in a flat voice. “And that’s pushing it. It’s March. We’d be looking at a July finishing date.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Always.”

  She smiled, his one-word answer reminding her that he was generally serious. And sincere. And heart-wrenching handsome, with or without his glasses on. And a widower.

  She hadn’t counted on that last fact. And while it shouldn’t make a difference, she’d taken stoic comfort in his married state these past two days when old memories ran like creek water on a summer’s day. But now twelve weeks of working together to get Stillwaters into shape?

  “What will take so long?” His look of impatience made her rephrase the sentence. “I’m sorry, that sounded rude. I meant what aspects of the job push it to twelve weeks? The new plumbing? Electric upgrades?”

  “My job.”

  She frowned, not understanding.

  Cam tipped his head. A tiny wrinkle between his brows begged to be smoothed away.

  Meredith ignored the plea.

  “I’m a teacher.”

  Well, that explained those practiced classroom looks. The steady gaze, the heightened expectations. “A teacher? Really?”

  “Is it that surprising, Mere? It’s been fourteen years.”

  Oh, she knew that. She’d spent those fourteen years working, training, finessing and climbing her way up the ladder of spa success only to crash when the spa owner’s daughter decided her four-year business degree from a third-tier school bested fourteen years of hard-earned experience. Jude Anne Geisler played the trump card well, offering to let the world know that Meredith had been running around with Sylvia Sinclair Bellwater’s husband.

  By that point it didn’t matter that Meredith had been duped by the successful businessman and his clever alias. Her fault, she knew. She squelched an urge to get even because the man she knew as Chas Bell had a wife and three kids who would be hurt if those allegations became public. Sylvia Bellwater didn’t need to go through what Meredith’s mother had endured. Not at her hands, anyway.

  And she knew Chas would eventually be found out. Scum had a way of rising to the surface.

  But it wouldn’t be because of her, so she sidestepped the drama while the resort owner’s daughter stepped into the management position Meredith had primed herself for the past five years.

  Nepotism and her own stupidity put her out of the job she’d worked for, and brought her back home to Wellsville and Jamison. She lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “I didn’t know.”

  “So I’m working full-time until the end of June. I’ve got two busy little girls.” He chucked Rachel under the chin. She grinned up at him, the wide smile flashing love and devotion between father and daughter. The exchanged look drew Meredith back in time, to another little girl, gazing at her dad in adoration. Only that little girl had been sadly misled. This one wouldn’t be.

  “And outdoor soccer season is starting.”

  “And they both play, which puts you in a time crunch.” Meredith tipped her smile down. Rachel grinned up at her with Cam’s eyes. Cam’s face. Cam’s light hair.

  “Yes. I generally only take on big projects in the summer, so you’re timing isn’t good—”

  She frowned, disappointed.

  “And pouting will get you nowhere.”

  “That wasn’t pouting. It was frowning. Huge difference.”

  Her quick retort made him smile, and the minute he did, fourteen years melted away in a flash of warmth. “Let’s go with slight difference. More accurate. So if you’re still interested…”

  “In getting the work done,” she interjected, then sent him an innocent smile.

  “Exactly.” His expression said nothing else was on the table, so that was good, right? “I can come by later today, finish measuring and give you an estimate. Then you can decide.”

  “I’ve already decided,” she told him. When he looked surprised and a little discomfi
ted, she went on, “I checked out your references from Matt, viewed the Kinsler place at length, and worked out an arrangement with Grandma for the loan. We’re good.”

  “You’re giving me carte blanche without an estimate? That’s not good business.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing.” She faced him square. “I’m cutting a deal with a skilled craftsman who is known throughout the town as fair, conscientious and amazing.”

  His eyes sparked at the word amazing and if she was interested at all, she’d have thought she noted a glimmer of something not exactly business-related in his expression.

  If you were interested? Are you kidding me? Did you not see that look, that flash of light in his eyes? Come on, girl, get back in the game.

  “Cameron.”

  A cross-sounding voice interrupted their conversation. Rachel stepped closer to her father, and Meredith wished she could mimic the little girl’s wrinkle of displeasure, but grown-ups were required to maintain a game face in public. Right now Meredith considered it a really stupid rule.

  “Mrs. Dennehy. How are you?” Cam kept his tone easy while Meredith considered ways to put the meddlesome old woman in her place. Claire Dennehy had sharpened her tongue at the Brennan family’s expense for a long time. Of course, Meredith’s father had given the town plenty of reason to gossip. Gambling, drug addiction, womanizing and illegitimate children made for great backyard fodder, but Claire and Cam’s mother had gone above and beyond in their condemnations, which meant Meredith’s teenage relationship with Cam put both women in a tongue-wagging tizzy.

  The fact that they ran into each other here, in John Dennehy’s old-fashioned mercantile, gave Claire a new opportunity to scold, but if Meredith was going to make it in this town, she needed to toughen up. And Rachel didn’t need to hear the old woman’s caustic drivel. “Rachel, would you like to look at some wallpaper samples with me?”

  “Wallpaper?” Rachel wrinkled her nose, puzzled.