Separate Bedrooms...?

Cara leaned into Neil, burrowing her cheek against his shoulder. “It wouldn’t be a bad deal for a man who liked Italian food,” she said with an attempt at humor. “You’ve eaten my lasagna.”

“I sure have, and you’re tempting me to volunteer.”

“I wish.” She kissed him on the cheek and stepped away, gazing at him searchingly. “You wouldn’t really consider a pretend marriage, would you, Neil?”

“No, because you’re not serious about it,” he chided her.

But the look on Cara’s face said she was very serious.

And he was seriously tempted!

Dear Reader,

While every romance holds the promise of sweeping readers away with a rugged alpha male or a charismatic cowboy, this month we want to take a closer look at the women who fall in love with our favorite heroes.

“Heroines need to be strong,” says Sherryl Woods, author of more than fifty novels. “Readers look for a woman who can stand up to the hero—and stand up to life.” Sherryl’s book A Love Beyond Words features a special heroine who lost her hearing but became stronger because of it. “A heroine needs to triumph over fear or adversity.”

Kate Stockwell faces the fear of knowing she cannot bear her own child in Allison Leigh’s Her Unforgettable Fiancé, the next installment in the STOCKWELLS OF TEXAS miniseries. And an accident forces Josie Scott, Susan Mallery’s LONE STAR CANYON heroine in Wife in Disguise, to take stock of her life and find a second chance….

In Peggy Webb’s Standing Bear’s Surrender, Sarah Sloan must choose between loyalty and true love! In Separate Bedrooms…? by Carole Halston, Cara LaCroix is faced with fulfilling her grandmother’s final wish—marriage! And Kirsten Laurence needs the help of the man who broke her heart years ago in Laurie Campbell’s Home at Last.

“A heroine is a real role model,” Sherryl says. And in Special Edition, we aim for every heroine to be a woman we can all admire. Here’s to strong women and many more emotionally satisfying reads from Silhouette Special Edition!

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

Separate Bedrooms…?

Carole Halston

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAROLE HALSTON

is a native of south Louisiana, where she lives with her sea-faring husband, Monty, in a rural area on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, near New Orleans.

Fans can write Carole at P.O. Box 1095, Madisonville, LA 70447. For a free autographed bookmark, they should send a self-addressed, stamped business-size envelope. Romance readers can visit Carole’s Web site by first accessing http://www.eHarlequin.com.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

“Who’s next, please?” Neil asked as his customer turned to leave with a newly purchased set of brake pads. Half a dozen people were milling about near the long counter of the auto parts store Neil managed and would eventually own after he’d finished buying out his father’s interest.

Why hadn’t Cara come out of the office to help out? he wondered, looking over his shoulder. It wasn’t her job to wait on customers, but Cara was the type of loyal employee who pitched in and did whatever needed to be done without being asked. She knew the whole operation of the business about as well as he did. After all, she’d worked at Griffin Auto Parts either part-time or full-time since she was fifteen, and she’d celebrated her twenty-ninth birthday a couple of months ago.

Through the plate-glass wall, Neil spotted Cara’s glossy black curls and frowned, instantly concerned. Seated at her desk and gazing at a computer screen, she was blotting tears from pink cheeks with a tissue. As though sensing his scrutiny, she turned her head and saw him.

Hey, what’s wrong? he telegraphed.

She managed a brave smile and waggled her hand, mouthing the words, I’m okay.

“I guess I’m next,” a woman said, repeating herself with a hint of impatience. Reluctantly Neil returned his attention to his customer, who fished around in her purse for a full minute before she finally pulled out a receipt. “My husband sent me to pick up this part he ordered a couple of days ago. Someone called and said it had come in.”

“That was me who called.” Cara spoke from beside him, her voice slightly husky. She took the receipt from Neil’s hand. “Let me take care of this. You can help someone else who might need some automotive expertise.”

“Thanks, Cara,” Neil said. He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze that not only spoke his gratitude, but offered comfort for whatever was troubling her.

It was old habit to feel protective and brotherly toward Cara LaCroix, whose name gave clues to her mixed Italian and Cajun French ancestry. He’d known her since she was born. They’d grown up in the same neighborhood right here in Hammond, Louisiana. An only child, Neil was five years older than Cara, the youngest of eight. For some reason, she’d always seemed to idolize him, and he’d thought she was cute as could be with her plump little body, big brown eyes and tangle of black curls.

Neil had picked her up off the sidewalk on any number of occasions when she’d toppled her tricycle. He’d brushed away her tears with awkward tenderness and given her a pep talk. When she’d graduated to a bicycle, he’d done repairs—tightening the chain when it came loose or adjusting the seat. He was enrolled in college by the time she’d become a teenager and begun dating. Instead of turning to her brothers for advice about boys, she’d come to Neil. He’d always listened and tried to be wise.

Before the day was over, Neil figured he would learn what was bothering Cara. He hoped it was nothing serious. If there was a problem he could help solve, well, he wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever was in his power to bring a happy smile back to her pretty face. One of his main pleasures in life now was being around Cara and enjoying her full-fledged love of life.

Customers continued to arrive in a steady stream right through the noon hour. Finally about two-thirty, business slacked off to a more normal flow that Neil’s two sales clerks, Jimmy Boudreaux and Peewee Oliver, could easily handle.

“You eat lunch yet, Boss?” asked Peewee, an African-American man in his late twenties whose nickname certainly didn’t describe his muscular build.

Cara had just come out of the office. She answered for Neil. “No, he hasn’t eaten.” She spoke to Neil, “I ordered you a roast beef po’boy earlier. It’s in the refrigerator.”

“Thanks,” Neil said, smiling his appreciation. “That was sweet of you.”

“Somebody has to see that you don’t go hungry now that your mom and dad have moved away to Florida. I’ll bet you skip at least one meal a day,” she chided him.

Neil couldn’t honestly deny her accusation. If eating wasn’t convenient, he could easily skip a meal. He’d regained some enjoyment of food during the last three years since he’d lost his wife and small son and his whole world had disintegrated, but food would never taste as good as it had when he’d been a happily married man with a family. None of life’s rewards would ever be the same again. That was something he accepted.

At least the terrible grief had softened with time into sadness. The key to surviving tragedy, he’d discovered, was keeping busy and not thinking a lot about himself.

“Hey, skipping a few meals doesn’t hurt me,” he declared, gesturing toward his tall, lanky frame. “It’s my diet plan.”

Cara made a batting motion with her hand. “Diet plan. You could eat a million calories a day and not gain a pound. All I have to do is take one bite of a rich dessert and the scales jump five pounds.”

“You worry too much about your weight.”

“If I don’t, I’ll end up wearing the same large sizes as my three sisters.”

“Their husbands don’t complain, do they?” Neil draped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a brotherly hug. “Come and share my po’boy. You probably had a salad for lunch that didn’t even satisfy your hunger pains.”

She sighed, walking along with him toward the small room that served as an employees’ lounge. “I did. And I’m starving. The salad had that nasty nonfat so-called Italian dressing on it.” She shuddered. “No self-respecting Italian that I know would make a dressing without real olive oil.”

Neil grinned at her expressiveness.

At the door of the lounge, Cara came to a standstill. “I’d better get back to work.”

“Take a break and keep me company,” Neil urged. “We haven’t had a chance to chat today.” He hadn’t forgotten that she’d been crying earlier, and he was still concerned about the reason.

“Okay, but I can’t promise I’ll be very cheerful,” she said, relenting.

“Why not? Are you feeling depressed about your grandmother’s health?”

Cara nodded, blinking hard to hold back tears that suddenly welled up in her eyes. Neil gently drew her inside the lounge and pulled out a chair at the table while he lectured in a sympathetic tone, “We’ve already talked about this. Sophia is a very religious woman. She’s not afraid of death. She’s even looking forward to being reunited with deceased loved ones in Heaven.”

“I know all that.”

Cara resisted letting him seat her. “You sit down,” she said. “I’ll get your po’boy for you. What would you like to drink?”

“I can wait on myself. You don’t need to serve me.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Sit.”

Neil was already on his way to the refrigerator. He was more interested in getting to the bottom of her unhappiness than he was in having his lunch, but he figured he might as well humor her. After retrieving the sandwich loaf, he unwrapped it on the counter and used a kitchen knife to cut each half loaf into quarters. Then he transferred the po’boy over to the table, the white butcher paper doubling as a plate. Before he sat down across from Cara, he got each of them a canned drink from the refrigerator, a diet cola for her and an iced tea for himself.

“Help yourself,” he offered and bit into crusty French bread.

“I shouldn’t.”

“Sure tastes good. If you take the edge off your appetite, you can eat a light supper.”

“That’s true. And, darn it, I’m starving.” She picked up a sandwich section and began to eat it, obviously relishing the taste of roast beef and provolone cheese. Still, her expression remained downcast, Neil noticed with compassion.

“Back to our conversation about Sophia,” he said when she’d dusted the crumbs off her fingers and sat back. Going on past experience, he knew that pouring out her thoughts and feelings to him would be therapeutic. “Is she going downhill faster than the doctor told the family she would?” Several months ago, the oncologist in charge of Sophia’s care had given a life-expectancy range of eight months to a year. Sophia had opted not to subject herself to chemotherapy when she was diagnosed with lymphoma.

“No.” Cara’s voice broke, and tears spilled down her cheeks. She wiped them away impatiently.

“Something happened since yesterday. Tell me about it. Maybe I can help.”

“You can’t help.” She sniffled and pointed a forefinger toward the uneaten half of his po’boy as a reminder that he should keep eating. Neil dutifully picked up another sandwich quarter to pacify her. Cara filled him in without any more prodding. “This morning I stopped off at my parents’ house on the way here to spend a few minutes with Nonna, like I do several mornings a week.” Neil nodded, familiar with her routine. He didn’t need her to explain that nonna was Italian for grandmother.

Cara went on, “I let myself in through the back door and went straight to Nonna’s bedroom, figuring I’d poke my head in the kitchen and say hi to Mamma on my way out. The door to Nonna’s bedroom was open and I heard Mamma’s voice and Nonna’s voice. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but before I could call out, I started listening to their conversation. Nonna was telling Mamma that she’d dreamed I’d gotten married. She described my wedding gown and the dresses my attendants wore. She described the flowers in the church. Neil, you should have heard Nonna’s voice. She sounded so happy, recalling every detail of her dream.” Cara bit into her quivering bottom lip and wiped away two more huge tears.

“Go on,” he prompted gently, getting the picture now, but wanting to let her finish out her explanation.

“Then she and my mom talked about the fact that I’m twenty-nine years old and not even engaged to be married. Nonna said if only her dream had been real, she could die without a single regret. Her main reason for trying to hang on was wishing she could see me settled down with a good husband.”

“You poor kid. What a guilt trip.” Neil’s warm sympathy was mixed with exasperation. “That family of yours mean well, but they’ve been putting pressure on you to find a husband since you were twenty years old.”

“It’s because they all love me. They can’t conceive of anyone, man or woman, staying single and being really fulfilled and content.” Cara sighed, slumping forward and resting folded arms on the table. “I agree with them. That’s the hard part. I’d give anything to be planning a wedding for Nonna to attend while she’s still strong enough. Not just for her sake but because I’d like nothing better than to be getting married. I always planned to be a wife and mother, but it just hasn’t happened.”

“The right guy will come along. You have to be patient.” Neil had pushed aside the remains of his lunch. He reached over and clasped her forearms, giving them a reassuring squeeze.

“I’ve been patient! What if I keep waiting for Mr. Right and he doesn’t come along? What if he’s already come and gone, and I didn’t recognize him? Neil, how will I know a certain guy is the one?”

“Your instincts will tell you he’s the one. When you imagine living the rest of your life without him, you won’t be able to stand the thought.”

“Is that the way you felt when you proposed to Lisa?”

“Yes.” Neil quickly shoved the memory back behind a closed door of his past, but not before he’d been flooded with painful remembrance.

“I’m sorry.” Cara took one of his hands between hers, their roles quickly reversed with her offering him support. “That question just slipped out. I know you can’t bear reminiscing because you’re still grieving over Lisa and little Chris.”

“I’m okay,” Neil assured her. He stood up. “Don’t brood over what you overheard this morning, Cara. I’m sure you’re doing a lot to make Sophia’s remaining time on earth happy, just by being yourself.”

She sat there instead of rising to her feet. Neil looked at her questioningly.

“Do you have another minute?” she asked. “There’s more.”

He waited for her to elaborate, suddenly uneasy for reasons he didn’t quite fathom.

“Last night Roy asked me to marry him.”

Neil slowly sat back down. Roy Xavier was the automobile salesman she’d been dating for quite a while, but Neil hadn’t gotten the impression she was serious about the guy. “What was your answer?”

“I sort of turned him down.”

“‘Sort of’?”

“I told him the truth. That I like him and enjoy his company on our dates, but I don’t think I’m in love with him.” She studied Neil’s face closely, an anxious frown cutting tiny lines between her eyebrows. “You seem relieved I didn’t say yes.”

“Your announcement took me by surprise,” he said, not comfortable with admitting that he was relieved. Neil didn’t understand himself why his gut reaction to the idea of her marrying Roy Xavier had been so strongly negative, other than the fact that nobody she’d ever dated had seemed good enough for her.

“I wasn’t prepared for him to propose,” she confided. “I stammered around, like an idiot. Thoughts were whirling around in my head. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, plus a part of my brain was ticking off Roy’s qualifications that would make him a good husband for me.” She used her fingers now to tick off those qualifications as she listed them for Neil. “He’s a good-hearted guy. He’s successful at his job. Most months he’s the top car salesman at the dealership. He’s a church going man. He’s from a large family. I haven’t been around his parents a lot, but I like them just fine, and he seems to like mine.” In her expressive way, Cara threw up her hands. “Why not marry Roy? That’s the question. Especially when I’ll be thirty years old my next birthday.”

“You said yourself you’re not in love with him. Not after dating him for what, six months?”

“Six and a half months actually.” She resumed her argument with Neil and with herself. “Maybe there are some people in the world who don’t ever fall head over heels in love. Maybe with those people, love grows gradually out of respect and affection. Romantic love doesn’t last anyway, right?”

“Cara, you’re trying to talk yourself into marrying Roy Xavier.”

“You think I’d be making a big mistake?”

Yes. Neil clamped his jaw closed to keep from speaking the definite reply that rose to his lips. “What I think doesn’t matter. It’s your life and your decision. But don’t feel pressured into marrying Roy or anybody else just because you’re tired of being single and would like to make your grandmother happy.”

“But you don’t dislike Roy?”

“I don’t know Roy well enough to like or dislike him. He seems like a nice enough guy,” Neil added, aware that he sounded grudging.

Cara held out her left hand and gazed wistfully at her bare ring finger. “He didn’t buy an engagement ring. He said we could go shopping together and pick one out.”

“So Roy hasn’t given up hope that you’ll say yes, I take it.”

“Oh, no. He was disappointed by my reaction to his proposal, naturally, but he’s willing to give me some time.” She placed her palms on the table and levered herself up. “Thanks, Neil, for listening to another segment in the Life of Cara soap opera. I feel better now, more able to cope. Talking to you about a problem always has that effect on me.”

Neil didn’t feel good at all about the outcome of the heart-to-heart talk they’d had. In fact, suddenly his mood was lousy.

“Boss, a sales rep is out here and wants to talk to you.” Peewee stuck his head in the doorway to speak to Neil. He named the muffler company the sales person was representing.

“Tell him I’ll be right out,” Neil said.

“Will do.” Peewee left.

Cara came around the table. “You go and talk to the rep. I’ll tidy up,” she said.

“You’re not the maid around here.”

Neil had made that point clear in an employees’ meeting recently. He’d posted a new sign, restating his father’s old rule that each person using the lounge was to clean up after himself or herself out of consideration for fellow employees. Cara hadn’t complained to Neil, but he’d noticed that she was taking it upon herself to clear the table and tidy up when her co-workers didn’t bother to pick up after themselves.

“Don’t be so doggoned self-sufficient,” she scolded him, slapping his hand lightly away as he reached for his empty beverage can. “I like to do something nice for you when I get the chance. It’s payback time.” Cara stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek, then gave him a shove toward the door.

“Thanks, Cara.”

“You’re welcome.”

With efficient movements, she crumpled up the butcher paper around the uneaten portion of the po’boy. He’d gotten down most of his three-quarters of the sandwich, much to Cara’s satisfaction. Now if he didn’t eat a square meal for supper, at least he’d had some nourishment today, she reflected.

Cara only wished she could do more than help Neil run his business and make sure that he ate right. She worried about him and her heart ached for him when she thought about all that he’d been through, losing his wife and child. They’d been killed in a terrible ten-automobile pile-up on a Memphis interstate. Lisa and three-year-old Chris, along with a dozen other people, had simply been unlucky enough to be on the highway at the wrong time.

Neil had been out of town, doing his job as a sales rep for a major manufacturer of automobile parts. Cara sensed that in low moments he might sometimes wish he’d perished with his family instead of having been spared their fate. But she thanked God for sparing him. She loved Neil every bit as much as she loved her four brothers, and, truth be told, she was closer to him than to Tony or Michael or Sal or Frankie.

Cara had been raised with the philosophy that everything happens for a reason, and all events figure into a divine plan that humans may not comprehend. It was impossible to understand why a wonderful guy like Neil would have such a horrible thing happen to him, but Cara couldn’t help but be glad for herself that he’d come back into her life three years ago when he quit his job and moved back here from Memphis, a thirty one-year-old widower.

Every day when she came to work she looked forward to seeing Neil. What was it he’d told her today about knowing when Mr. Right came along? An empty can in either hand, Cara paused on her way over to the recyclables bin, recalling Neil’s exact words: When you imagine living the rest of your life without him, you won’t be able to stand the thought.

What she couldn’t imagine was ever wanting to work at a different job with another boss besides Neil. Whether or not she married Roy, Cara would keep her job. She would continue to see Neil every day. Their relationship wouldn’t change.

With the lounge restored to a spic-and-span state, Cara returned to the office and tackled her work with renewed energy. Somehow her ruminations about her stable job situation had eased a great deal of the anxiety of deciding whether to accept or reject Roy Xavier’s marriage proposal.

Chapter Two

“Thank you, Aunt Cara!” chorused four-year-old Lea and Lauren in unison. They’d just ripped open Cara’s birthday gifts, identical little-girl makeup kits. “Now we can put on makeup and look pretty, like you!”

Mia, the twins’ mother, feigned insult, arms akimbo. “Your mommy puts on makeup once in a while and looks pretty, too, when she has time.”

“It doesn’t do your Aunt Cara a lot of good to primp,” Cara’s oldest brother Tony addressed his young nieces, a wide grin on his face.

“Oh, no, here we go again,” groaned Cara, clapping her hands over her ears.

Tony raised his voice. “Because Aunt Cara can’t seem to catch her a man to marry.”

“Stop picking on your baby sister,” scolded Rose LaCroix, eyeing her eldest son fondly.

The twins were more interested in their pile of presents than in adult verbal exchanges. They tore the wrappings from two more packages and drew general attention back to themselves, but Cara knew it was only a matter of time before she came in for more half teasing, half serious ribbing about her single status. She’d almost come to dread large family gatherings like this one.

Today the crowd on her parents’ rear lawn included all eight LaCroix siblings, the wives and husbands of the seven who were happily married, twenty-five grandchildren and assorted neighbors and relatives. Cara hadn’t counted heads, but there were between fifty-five and sixty people present. The youngest was her brother Sal’s six-month-old baby boy, Stevie, who was being passed around and tossed in the air and played with. The oldest was Sophia, holding court in a lawn chair and looking frail in a new ruffled pink duster.