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Can he juggle everything...including her?
After raising his siblings and running the family pub for more than a decade, Aiden Walsh has set his own dreams aside. Until the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen stumbles into his bar, and his arms. Too bad Rebecca Day is the school psychologist in charge of his brother’s future. Who’s he kidding? He doesn’t have room in his full life for romance anyway. But forced to join Rebecca and her group of troubled teens on an Adirondack retreat, he realizes keeping his family afloat isn’t enough for him...not by a long shot.
“I don’t want to like you.”
Rebecca peeked up at Aiden. The air seemed to crackle between them, as if charged by an electric current.
“Me neither,” he said.
“Nothing can come of this,” she told him.
“Probably not.”
“I can’t be last on your priority list.”
“And I don’t have room to add you.” He raked a hand through his hair and released a shaky breath. “Back to reality. The one where we’re wrong for each other. Where none of this—where we don’t work.”
He turned on his heel and trudged away.
If they were so wrong for each other, why did it feel so right?
Dear Reader,
Before I became a full-time writer, I was fortunate to work as an educator. One of my favorite parts of the job was interacting with at-risk youth. These students tend to be the most resistant, the most likely to act out and disrupt and the least likely to pay attention or participate. I chose to focus on their potential rather than their behavioral problems. I wanted to relate to and connect with them. Many didn’t have the best home lives, weren’t successful in school, didn’t feel in control of their world or themselves. I hoped that if I believed in them and provided a safe place where they felt accepted, they would see that they could change old habits and become the best versions of themselves.
I love hearing from former at-risk students that they’ve graduated high school, are attending college, finishing a trade program or employed. Without the dedication of my colleagues, these children might not have had the bright future they deserved. Programs such as wilderness retreats take kids from their harmful routines and behaviors and help them reconsider themselves and their world. I’ve seen this powerful transformation time and again, and it inspired me to use such a program as the backdrop in Under an Adirondack Sky. I hope you find this story as uplifting to read as it was to write! I’d love to hear from you anytime at karenrock@live.com.
Karen
www.millsandboon.co.uk
KAREN ROCK is an award-winning young adult and adult contemporary author. She holds a master’s degree in English and worked as an ELA instructor before becoming a full-time author. Most recently, her Mills & Boon Heartwarming novels have won the 2015 National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award and the 2015 Booksellers’ Best Award. When she’s not writing, Karen loves scouring estate sales, cooking and hiking. She lives in the Adirondack Mountain region with her husband, daughter and Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Visit her at karenrock.com.
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To all of the education professionals and parents of at-risk youth—thank you for your dedication, your compassion, your faith, your support and the strength and conviction you have that every person can make a difference in a child’s life, especially you.
Contents
COVER
BACK COVER TEXT
INTRODUCTION
Dear Reader
TITLE PAGE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DEDICATION
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 SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EXTRACT
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
REBECCA DAY SHRUGGED on her raincoat and eyed the rain tapping against The Koffee Kat’s storefront window. It turned SoHo’s block-paved streets into an impressionistic blur, the sidewalks uncharacteristically empty of tourists, the iron-trimmed buildings seeming to slide down like melting wax. A cab lurched along the road, sending up fans of dark spray.
Should she splurge and grab one instead of taking the subway? Given her crazy end-of-spring cold, it’d be justified. Given her overdrawn bank account, however, she knew better. A heavy rush of air escaped her.
“Toots, we need to talk.”
At her boss’s voice, Rebecca’s fingers stilled on her top button. So close to a clean getaway. After her twelve-hour shift, she needed a bowl—no, an IV bag—of chicken soup. Stat. Tomorrow she’d return to her primary job as a school psychologist after the district’s spring break vacation. Ten days off and she could use ten more, though she didn’t dare ask for sick time, not with her overdue tenure still an undecided question by the stalling school board.
Were they planning to let her go?
She swallowed painfully and forced her mind off of possibly losing the dream job she’d sacrificed so much to finally land.
“Sure. What’s up?” She eyed her employer’s hangdog expression and tried to ignore the flutter of nervousness in her stomach. Given the steadily dwindling business this past month, accompanied by her boss’s grumps and his wife’s sighs, she’d been preparing herself for what could be bad news.
“You’ll need a seat for this.” Mr. Roselli’s baritone echoed in the now empty coffee shop. How many customers had she served today? Fifty? Seventy-five? Not even close to their usual draw. Since the Death Star of all cafés—JavaHut—opened across the street, the mom-and-pop SoHo business at which she moonlighted had been hemorrhaging clients.
“Sure.” She reopened her coat, pulled out a chair and glanced up at a Leaning Tower of Pisa wall clock. Midnight. “Is something wrong?” Once she sat, she dabbed at her running nose and clamped a hand on her jittering knee. Counted the black-and-white hexagon floor tiles. Tried not to look scared.
Mr. Roselli let out a long, deep breath. “Rebecca. We’re closing The Koffee Kat.”
Her mouth dropped open. No. Mr. and Mrs. Roselli had owned this establishment for over forty years and his father another fifty before that. She glanced at the framed pictures of their hometown in Italy and generations of family members. This was more than a business. To her and to them.
A faint waft of fresh roasted beans whispered through the air as a painful silence descended. She struggled to speak and, despite the remnants of warmth coming from the bakery ovens, she shivered. Now that she thought about it, she should be tasting the first batch of lemon-almond biscotti Mrs. Roselli baked for the morning rush. But instead of pans clanging, she heard a muffled sob from the kitchen.
Her heart broke. Why would this happen to such kind people? For a fleeting moment she imagined calling her Fortune 500 CEO aunt for help. It wouldn’t be breaking the moral code about taking favors she’d made for herself when she’d left her guardian’s privileged nest. This was aid for someone else. A very good cause. And so deserving.
“Mr. Roselli, I’d like to help.” Rebecca’s words ended in a coughing fit that she muffled with the crook of her arm.
The older man’s weathered face creased in a sad smile. “I know you would, sweets.” His thick eyebrows knitted. “But me and the missus have made up our minds to buy one of those Florida condos. Our daughter lives there in a gated community. Keeps out the riffraff.”
Rebecca imagined living in such a safe, predictable environment and suppressed a shudder. She liked chaos. Choices. Freedom to live by her own rules rather than the constrictive ones she’d grown up with in her aunt’s Upper East Side penthouse and elite world. Despite Aunt Kathryn’s infrequent appearances in Rebecca’s childhood, her caretaker had known of each of Rebecca’s infractions, especially the one that’d nearly landed her in jail and destroyed her life...
“But you’ll be losing your home, your friends, everything...” Her aching throat closed. NyQuil. She should have paid closer attention when she’d grabbed it instead of DayQuil when she’d sprinted to the convenience store earlier to replenish her supply.
Would another dose of it hurt? She’d already thrown back a mouthful of the chalky cherry goo a half hour ago. It couldn’t be worse than the way she felt. Her body ached, temples throbbed, throat felt scraped by glass, and her nose was so raw she flinched when she touched it. She never would have come to work today if she hadn’t needed the money so badly.
The gray-haired owner shook his head. “The only thing I’ll miss are wonderful friends like you. The rest is always replaceable.”
Rebecca smiled at his brave words and agreed. And then it hit her. She’d need another job. Since her ex-roommate Laura, an old college friend she’d reconnected with when she started working at the Koffee Kat, moved out, Rebecca had been struggling to manage the rent on her illegally sublet SoHo loft. Losing was more like it. The extra income from her second job at the coffee shop was the difference between home and homeless. But more importantly, she needed these warmhearted people who made her feel like family—or what she imagined a family would feel like.
But looking into Mr. Roselli’s weary face, Rebecca realized that she wasn’t the victim. Her eyes narrowed at the glowing orange and green neon lights across the street’s shining pavement. She’d be darned if she’d apply for a position at the new JavaHut. In fact, she’d boycott the whole chain—and avoid the one in her neighborhood, too.
Goodbye to the part skim milk, part half-n-half mocha latte with extra caramel and whipped cream she ordered every morning on her way to school. Somehow she’d find a way through her fifteen-hour workday without a bag of chocolate-dipped espresso beans. Think of the money she’d save... It’d be a tough day without it, but she’d make a clean break from her habit if it killed her. Her stomach lurched. Maybe it would.
“I’m so sorry. When are you closing?” After reaching into her purse, she gulped more medicine and set down the bottle. It toppled on the granite-topped table, empty, and panic seized her. She’d drained it in—what—two hours? Three? Was that too much? She’d been so determined to return to school healthy and finally get some answers on the timing of her tenure decision that she’d lost track. Plus, hadn’t her pharmacist showered doom and gloom about mixing meds when he’d dispensed the muscle relaxers she’d been prescribed after pulling her hamstring during a martial arts class? How many of those pills had she taken to keep moving today? Her brain fogged as she fought to concentrate.
“Actually, this is our last day.” The white metal chair beside Rebecca protested as Mrs. Roselli joined them. She smoothed her floral skirt and lifted watering eyes to her. “We would have told you sooner but we didn’t think the place would sell so quickly—or that they’d want us out right away.”
Mrs. Roselli’s eyes flitted outside and Rebecca’s stomach twisted as she followed the other woman’s gaze. “They bought it, didn’t they? JavaHut?”
Mr. Roselli harrumphed and passed his wife one of Rebecca’s tissues. “What’s important is that we got a fair price and Margaret can finally retire. See the grandkids. Right, my love?”
She managed a tiny smile and gripped his hand in a way that made the familiar emptiness in Rebecca swell. Would she ever have a relationship like that? A family? Whenever she pictured it, she imagined her own, lonely version, where she’d been the last entry on her aunt’s priority list. A tax write-off each year when her relative insisted Rebecca attend expensive business trips on the pretext of “celebrating” her birthday. She’d never accept a serious relationship where she was less important than a career or a bank account.
Mr. Roselli was right. What mattered was that they were leaving together. She should be happy for them. Was happy for them. For herself? Not so much. Who did she have left? Her chubby pug, Freud, was the only plus-one in Rebecca’s life, though she loved her little mouth-breather with a passion.
She closed her raincoat and returned their hugs, careful not to get too close in case they caught her nightmare of a cold. Gratefully, she accepted the white envelope they slid across the table, then walked out into the humid, glistening world that was a spring-soaked Manhattan night. Taxis and buses flashed by in lighted, swishing blurs; though if the out-of-focus effect was from her own tears or the rain, she wasn’t sure. Either way, life was misery.
It wasn’t until she’d walked for over ten minutes, deep in thought, that she realized she’d missed her subway entrance. That figured. Could the night get any worse?
She pulled out her cell and asked her neighbor, Marcy, to take out Freud. Since Marcy had a parrot Rebecca watched when Marcy went on business trips, they’d worked out a trade once Laura left.
After the call, she contemplated her contacts list and scrolled to her aunt’s number. Kathryn Lindon. How easy it’d be to press that dial button and see if her connected relative could help her find a second job. She owed her aunt a thank-you for the gifts she’d sent while on a recent Paris trip—something she always did when traveling—an expensive raincoat and purse delivered yesterday. They were the kinds of items she tried never to sell in a consignment shop, since her aunt would consider that the ultimate insult.
Yet if Rebecca phoned, she’d only get Kathryn’s voice mail, followed by a call tomorrow from the cowed assistant through which Rebecca and her aunt usually conversed.
Nope.
No support there, unless the expensive flowers and a card bearing the generous check her aunt used to discharge (pay off?) her obligations would suffice. The cash would help. The I-told-you-so’s that’d come with it...not so much.
No doubt Aunt Kathryn would repeat the doom-and-gloom prophecies she’d made when Rebecca graduated from her master’s program three years ago.
“Use your head,” Rebecca could hear her aunt say over a glass of pinot. “You’re working a low wage job and spending nearly all of it to share a space slightly bigger than a walk-in closet. Start a private practice and move home where you belong.”
And the worst thing? It’d been tempting. Taking the hard road was...well, hard, and getting more difficult by the day. Especially with her school dragging its feet on granting her a permanent position. Denial of tenure was a scarlet letter D on your résumé, alerting every other district that you weren’t good enough. Made even getting an interview near to impossible.
If she didn’t get tenure at her current school, she’d fail at her bid for independence and not have the life she’d dreamed of, one filled with people who made time for her...put her first. Was that too much to ask? Laura had joked that Rebecca’s expectations were so high no one could reach them, but she’d rather be alone than compromise, even when her chances looked worse by the minute. Somehow, loneliness was more bearable when you were actually alone.
Rebecca sighed and shoved her phone back in her pocket.
No. She wouldn’t call.
Aunt Kathryn’s way of helping was money. Rebecca, on the other hand, wanted to make a difference by doing—exactly why she used her psychology degree to work in a public school system with at-risk teenagers. She didn’t want anyone else growing up feeling as though their problems didn’t matter...that they didn’t matter.
She’d just lost one job that mattered a lot to her. Tomorrow, when she confronted her principal about why the school board still hadn’t voted to grant her tenure, something they always did months earlier, in January, would she discover she might lose two?
Suddenly the rain picked up and a gust flipped her umbrella backward. If the car heading Rebecca’s way hit the huge puddle beside her, she’d be—
She shook her drenched self.
—a drowned rat.
Gross. How many toxins swam in that street soup? She mashed her broken umbrella closed and took deep, calming breaths. Guess this night could get worse. What she really needed was a friend. When a rivulet of cold water snaked down her back, she ducked beneath the nearest awning, and her breath caught at the bright sign in the window.
The White Horse Tavern.
She’d heard of it...but where?
The place looked friendly enough, at least, and was a good spot to take temporary refuge from the storm. Rebecca reached for the wrought iron handle and her hand slipped, missing it completely. She stepped closer and wobbled, tilting to the left. Why was she so woozy? A couple whisked open the door and paused, eyes wide as they took in her weaving form.
“Sorry,” she muttered, and stumbled to the side. The berth they gave her spoke volumes. If only they knew cold medicine was her drink of choice—the effects of which, combined with her muscle relaxers, were kicking in with a vengeance. Everything seemed fuzzy. She needed to get her bearings before heading home. Maybe she should splurge and grab a cab. Rebecca felt less and less sure she’d make it on her own, after all.
* * *
AIDEN WALSH RETURNED the departing couple’s wave and leaned against the wooden bar. It was 12:40. A little early for closing time, but this was Sunday. His younger siblings returned to school from their break tomorrow. Besides, it’d be just like rebellious Connor, his fourteen-year-old brother, to still be on the Xbox. With a superintendent’s meeting tomorrow, Connor’s expulsion on the table for a school yard brawl that’d happened the day before vacation, the kid needed to toe the line. Help, not hinder, what was already an impossible family situation.
Aiden squeezed out a washcloth over the cleaning fluid pail, hard. If his brother wasn’t readmitted, how would Aiden pay for private education, or worse, home school the kid? Money and time. Two things always in short supply.
“Excuse me,” a young woman’s voice called from the open door. “Are you still open?”
With a suppressed sigh, Aiden glanced up and spied an unsteady woman bracing herself in his doorway. He tried not to stare, but she looked like she’d face-planted in a puddle then fallen asleep in it. With her eyes at half-mast, her nose and cheeks red, and the ends of her blond hair dripping, she reminded him of his cat, Grinch, when he got caught in the rain: woeful and bedraggled in a way that made Aiden chuckle and then scold himself...and want to make it better.
“Come in.” He strode forward, his pace quickening as she swayed. No one passed out in his bar. Especially not a lady. His hand snaked around her waist and held fast as her exotic scent washed over him.
There was no other way to describe it: she looked and smelled expensive, from the satiny feel of her coat to her leather purse. In fact, noticing the designer plate plastered across the top of the bag, he remembered seeing the same kind in a Fifth Avenue window, a purse his sister had pointed out. Three thousand bucks. Enough to pay for Connor’s braces, Ella’s much begged for dance classes, or remodeling the bathroom with safety gear for his Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother.
Pick a bill, any bill, he’d often thought, after his father had died ten years ago and Aiden started struggling to keep the family and their business afloat as the eldest of seven children. Sometimes it seemed like he was the one drowning; his feverish, crazy work schedule was all that kept him and his family above water.
The woman blinked up at him with wet-spiked lashes and the sudden flash of blue eyes knocked the wind out of him. “I need to dry off.” Or at least he thought that was what she said. She slurred slightly, enough to make him wonder how many bars she’d visited before wandering into his. Uptown girls didn’t usually venture into a small operation like the White Horse.
“This is the place for it.” He helped her to a wooden bar stool, the dampness of her coat seeping through his shirt and slacks.
She blew her nose and swiped at the water dripping down her cheeks. “I look like a drowned rat.” Was it his imagination, or were there tears in her eyes? He’d seen plenty of people weep into their cups at his tavern, one of the many reasons he never imbibed himself. Yet her sorrow looked deeper than that.
“Here.” He handed over a bar towel and squinted at her. “And you don’t resemble a rat. A cat maybe,” he mumbled to himself, then clamped his lips shut. What an idiot. “I’m Aiden.” He flicked his eyes her way, but she seemed lost in her own world, running the cloth over her hair and face. In her state, she’d never remember what he said.
“I’m Rebecca. So how do I look then?” She shoved back her hair and peered at him with questioning eyes.
Under the soft glow of the antique light fixtures, her skin gleamed, her heart-shaped face prettier than he’d first thought. Her small nose flared above a mobile mouth with a generous upper lip. And those eyes. He couldn’t look away from them. “Fine,” he blurted, then hustled behind the bar.
“Loose lips sink ships,” his grandmother had always said. And his life was already the Titanic. He needed distance from his new customer. She was short-circuiting his brain, one already over-taxed with handling his chaotic family and hectic business.
He had no room in his life, or thoughts, for romance. Letting himself imagine otherwise was a fool’s path he’d gotten lost on once before. He’d never risk it again. But a lost girl caught in the rain had a way of making a lonely man dream.
He pulled out two mugs and filled them with coffee, a warm mist washing over him as he poured the black brew. Rebecca needed the wake-up before he settled her in a cab heading for home and out of his complicated life.
“How do you take your coffee?” He passed a mug her way and reached into the mini fridge below for the milk.
“Caramel and whipped cream.”
His chin slammed into the bar edge. “What?”
When she shook her head, a long lock of hair fell across her high forehead. Fetching.
“Something sweet then.”
He pushed a sugar jar her way. “Help yourself.”
“I’m trying.” Her words came out in a half sob, half laugh.
He threw back a gulp of the bitter brew and burned his throat. How long had that pot been sitting? Mary Ann usually came down after tucking in their siblings and changed it before heading home on the weekends. But he hadn’t seen her in hours. And he could use her right now. Rebecca looked seconds away from inviting him to her pity party and he had no intentions of RSVP’ing.
She leaned over and slurped from her overflowing mug, the quantity of milk and sugar she’d added making it spill on the newly wiped counter. She wasn’t kidding about wanting a fancy concoction. Where she came from, they probably served it on a china saucer instead of a soaked cocktail napkin. The light gleamed on her golden hair as she straightened and suppressed a grimace with pressed lips.