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“The one and only.”
“But she used to date my kid brother.”
“There ya go,” Mark said, as if that proved his point.
And maybe it did, since Nate remembered Miranda as a long-legged coltish teenager. Which he supposed had been exactly what she was at the time. How long ago had it been? Fourteen, fifteen years? And why he remembered this one girl—out of all the girls Nick had dated—was a mystery. Maybe because Miranda had been beautiful even then. Or maybe he just remembered that summer visit so well because it had been the first time he and Angie had brought the babies home to meet their grandmother and uncle. Will and Cate were thirteen now, so it had been thirteen years. Jeez, how fast the time had gone.
“I can’t get over running into you like this,” Mark said, clapping him on the shoulder. “It’s really great to see you looking so well, Nate. How long will you be home this time? Or is the real question how long Uncle Sam can run the country without you?”
“He’s been running it without me since May.” Nate eyed the buffet table again. “I’m a civilian again.”
“What?” Mark’s eyes widened with envy and surprise. “Don’t tell me you’re retired!”
Nate nodded as he used a spoon to scoop some sort of rice mixture onto his plate. “Retired.”
“Wow. Wish I could figure out a way to do that. Of course, I should have followed your example and taken the military route. Twenty years in the air force and here you are.”
“Twenty-two years and, yes, here I am.” Nate wasn’t sure where, exactly, here was. But here he was, nonetheless. “Listen, it’s great seeing you, too. But I probably should get on through this line before the backup causes a food fight.”
“Not enough food for that. Don’t know what happened. It isn’t like the Danvilles to skimp on the buffet. Maybe they didn’t expect such a crowd. You may not have heard that the bride left Scott at the altar last time they tried this. She ran off with some guy in a Batmobile. The family should have known everyone would turn out to see what would happen this time. Why, even you’re here.” Mark laughed. “But seriously, now that you’re back, we’re not going to let you be a stranger. Deb’s around here somewhere. I know she’ll want to say hello. Why don’t I find her and we’ll—”
There was a long drumroll, picked up from outside where the musicians were stationed and carried throughout the house by the sound system. Nate felt a moment’s relief that it overpowered whatever plans Mark had been about to make. It wasn’t that Nate was averse to seeing old friends and renewing old friendships. He’d been looking forward to it, in fact, knew it would be easier to make a life here, where he had roots, a history.
Angie had always planned for them to return to Rhode Island when he retired from the air force. No matter where in the world they’d been stationed, she’d worked hard to maintain the relationships they’d left behind. It was important, she’d said, that their children have a sense of home, a place where they felt they belonged. Now, especially, Nate saw the wisdom in that. The kids had never lived in Newport, had only visited from time to time, but already they were settling in as if they’d never lived anywhere else. Angie had been right about that, too…yet another example of her foresight. Nate was consistently surprised to realize just how well she’d prepared them to go on without her.
The drumroll faded and a deep voice announced, “The bride and groom will be cutting the wedding cake out on the east veranda in a few minutes. After the toasts, Scott and Molly will share their first dance as husband and wife. Guests are encouraged to make their way to the veranda now. That’s the east veranda. Dancing will be outdoors near the pergola.”
In the general hubbub that followed the announcement, Mark gave Nate a see-you-later clap on the shoulder and disappeared into the crowd, presumably in search of Deb. Nate left the buffet line, too, and wandered back to the table where his date was waiting. “They’re going to cut the cake,” he said as he slipped into the chair beside her and placed the plate of food on the table. “Do you want to go to the east veranda and watch?”
Charleigh Shepard was one of those women who improved with age, the years mellowing the taut angles of her elongated face and settling easily into the spareness of her body. At forty, she had looked older, but at seventy-three she had an agelessness that was both confident and benignly charming. Nate had never been able to decide if the softness had developed over the years as a natural evolution of her life experiences or if she’d cultivated the change within herself. He only knew she was his mother and that she was beautiful. Even when she allowed herself to frown…as she was doing now. “I watched the wedding,” she said. “Isn’t that enough?”
He laughed. “Now, Mother, you’re the one who wanted to come to this wedding. If you’ll recall, I suggested it would be more fun to stay home and play poker.”
She had a way of looking at him that said more than he wanted to hear about whatever topic she wasn’t going to discuss. It was a trick he tried on a regular basis with his own children. To no effect, unless he counted the times they laughed hysterically while imitating Dad-trying-to-give-us-the-look. “Okay,” he said now, giving in without her having to say a word. “I know I said I wanted to plunge right into the social scene. And I do. I just wanted another month to anticipate it.”
“You’ve had a month,” she replied tartly. “And the only thing you’ve done is putter around the house and aggravate the children. And me.”
“That’s not true. The kids always act that way. So do you, for that matter. And I’ve been fixing up the house and…and…” He warmed to his defense. “I’ve bought a building near the harbor that I’m going to renovate into a coffee bar. And I signed up to run for a seat on the city council. If that’s not plunging into life in the community, I don’t know what is.”
Charleigh sniffed, unimpressed. “At the rate your campaign is progressing, Nathaniel, even I won’t vote for you. For heaven’s sake, look around. Here you are at a wedding, surrounded by potential supporters, and if you’ve shaken one hand, I’ll eat my hat.”
“It would probably taste better than that rice,” he said. “And on the contrary, I have shaken hands. With Mark Olivant. Over by the buffet table. You remember Mark?”
“Of course I remember Mark. I also remember that he lives in Jamestown, not in Newport, not in our ward, and he will not be voting in our city elections in November.”
Nate frowned, undaunted by his mother’s chiding. “Jamestown, huh? Well, I won’t be shaking his hand again. Can’t waste perfectly good handshakes on nonvoters.”
Charleigh’s smile was affectionate, if slightly reluctant. “It’s good to have you home, son. Nicky isn’t quite the source of entertainment you’ve always been.”
“That’s because he pops in and out as if the house had a revolving door, never giving even ten minutes’ alert that he’s coming home and barely five minutes’ warning that he’s leaving again. If he’d spent the last twenty-five years only visiting you once or twice a year, you’d probably find him much more entertaining, too.”
“I’m thinking of moving to Florida,” she announced evenly as if she were merely musing on what the weather would be tomorrow. “Your aunt Tilda loves it there. She’s been begging me to buy a place near hers and I’ve just about decided to go down next month and check it out.”
This was new. And unsettling. “I offered to get a place of our own, Mother. I can still do that.”
She smiled softly, a little sadly, and patted his hand. “The house has been too empty for too long. It’s right that you and your children should have it. Lord knows, Nicky would sell it if he got half a chance. Revolving door notwithstanding.”
Nate acknowledged that with a rueful grin. “Or worse…raze it and build some architectural nightmare in its place.”
“Angie and I talked about this, Nathaniel. We agreed that the children need the security of living in the home in which you grew up. What they don’t need is a grandmother trying to fill their mother’s role…and you know I’d try to do that. I can’t help myself.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Nate said, wanting to believe it. “No one will ever take Angie’s place. Or her role in the children’s lives.”
“Maybe not for Will and Cate. But the little ones? Kali and Kori are barely seven. They’re still forming…and as much as I hate to say this, Nate, it’s clear to me that you’re not entirely comfortable with being a single parent.”
“No, I’m not,” he agreed, stung not so much by the truth of that as by the awareness that she knew it. “It’s going to take a while to be entirely comfortable with anything. If it’s even possible. Angie’s only been gone a year.”
“And she was dying for three years before that. You’ve grieved for her, Nate. Your children have grieved. Now it’s time for you to start out as you mean to go on. By plunging into life. For the children’s sake if not for your own.”
He thrummed his fingertips on the table, heard voices and laughter coming from the east terrace where the cake cutting must be commencing. “You sound like Angie,” he said finally. Because, really, there wasn’t anything else to say. His mother was right. Angie had known he’d be scared out of his wits at the idea of raising their children to adulthood without her. It wasn’t that he thought he was a bad father. On occasion, he was positive he’d been a damn good one. So far, anyway. But he’d depended on Angie to smooth any rough edges, to balance his tendency to issue orders, as he had been accustomed to doing in the military. He’d counted on her to be around to share the responsibility with him. He’d never in a million years thought he’d have to bear it alone. Angie had known all that, just as she’d understood, too, that he’d be tempted to allow his mother to take on some of that responsibility if she offered.
“She hoped you’d remarry, Nate. You know that.”
“Yes, I do. She probably figured I’d totally mess up the kids if left to my own devices. But, personally, I think she was wrong about that.”
Charleigh smiled. “I think so, too. But I did promise her I’d make certain you got into the social swing and stayed there. So let’s go see if the wedding cake looks better than this.” She nodded at the untouched food on the plate. “And then I’ll have some wine and watch you dance.”
He was already on his feet, extending a hand to help her up…because she’d raised him to be a gentleman. Not because she needed any help. She was a spry seventy-three and could probably dance circles around him still. “I wasn’t planning on doing any dancing.”
“Nonsense,” she stated succinctly, rising easily and taking his arm. “You can ask some lovely young woman to dance, or if you prefer, I can do it for you.”
“Angie put you up to this, didn’t she?”
“I do have an occasional idea of my own, but Angie did mention, several times in conversation, that you’re a wonderful dancer and shouldn’t be allowed to pretend otherwise.”
“How about I pretend I was adopted?”
“Too late, I’m afraid. You’ll just have to face your fear of rejection and ask someone to dance. It won’t kill you.”
“Oh, nicely put, Mother.” He guided her toward the terrace doors and the sounds of the orchestra playing an overblown version of “The Way You Look Tonight.” “So…are you going to tell me who you want me to ask or do I have to go through a painful process of elimination?”
“I saw that lovely Miranda Danville talking to you across the buffet line. Why don’t you ask her?”
“She used to date Nicky.”
“Yes, but I think we should forgive her that lapse. She was very young then.”
“And I was married and a new father.”
“And now you’re not.” Charleigh nodded, decision made. “You’ll ask Miranda. After we’ve tested the cake and had some wine.”
The idea of dancing with Miranda was undeniably appealing. Also a trifle intimidating. She was beautiful. Not that dogs howled maniacally at his approach, but he knew his face was more character actor than soap opera star. And Miranda was also young. Not that he was old, but Mark had just told him that women like her looked at men like him as…well, older. Not that age mattered. Angie would be the first to point that out if she were here. Which, of course, she wasn’t.
Which brought him right back to the question of how to ask a young and beautiful woman to dance.
He was still pondering the how of it when his mother eventually pushed away her cake plate, dotted her mouth with a napkin and lifted her eyebrows expectantly.
“More cake?” he asked hopefully.
Her smile told him the grace period was over even as her attention moved past him and up. “Why, Miranda,” she said graciously, “how lovely to see you.”
A long, slow tingle slid the length of his spine as he pushed back from the table and stood, turning to see the woman, who’d occupied most of his thoughts since she’d hit him in the chest with her salmon, standing at his elbow, a bottle of club soda clutched in her hand.
“You remember my son Nathaniel?” Charleigh said.
“Oh…yes, of course,” Miranda answered, clearly not remembering until that very second. “Nate.”
“I’m Nicky’s older brother.” He couldn’t believe he’d said the O word first thing. Way to go, Nate. “But I hope you won’t hold that against me.”
She smiled a little uncertainly. “I, uh…no. No, I always rather liked Nick. Although I haven’t seen him in some time. A long time, actually.” Her smile hesitated, turned from him to his mother. “How is Nick?” she asked as if she thought, perhaps, she ought to ask.
“Still wildly attractive and unattractively wild. From a mother’s standpoint, anyway.”
“Oh.” Miranda’s lovely eyes—blue with an intriguing touch of gold—flickered to Nate’s, returned to Charleigh. “I see his picture on the newsstands occasionally.”
Charleigh smiled, proud of her youngest child despite his shortcomings. “He’s very popular at Soap Opera Digest.”
Mainly because his private life was as full of bizarre intrigues as his alter ego’s, Daxson Darck, on Sunset Beach. But Nate didn’t feel the need to point that out. Nor did his mother.
Miranda hesitated, then turned to Nate. “I got some club soda,” she said, offering him the bottle. “For your shirt.”
Nate took the bottle from her hand with no intent of touching her except in the most casual way. But she had a grip on the club soda, almost as if she was reluctant to let it go, and his fingers lingered for a moment on hers. The spark of recognition flared, instantaneous and erotic. And he pulled back from the exchange almost as quickly as she.
“It’s so interesting that you should walk up just now, Miranda,” Charleigh was saying with a conversational smile. “Because Nate was just talking about you.”
“He was?”
A soft touch of color bloomed on her cheeks and despite every effort to stay unaffected, Nate was charmed to the core. She had felt it, too, that moment of awareness. It might have been a long time since he’d shared that first recognition of electric attraction, but it wasn’t the sort of thing a man forgot.
“Was he explaining how I ruined his shirt? I still can’t believe that happened.”
“Our tongs collided,” Nate informed his mother, pointing to the stain, which until that minute he’d forgotten was there. “It was fate.”
Charleigh glanced at his shirtfront. “Fate?”
“I was hungry. She was tossing salmon.”
“How serendipitous.” Charleigh’s smile turned to Miranda. “No, actually he was wondering aloud if I thought you might dance with him. If he asked. I was just telling him I was sure you would when, suddenly, here you are.”
Miranda looked surprised, but she didn’t seem appalled by the thought of dancing with him. Nate considered that a positive sign. Below the drape of the tablecloth, his mother’s foot nudged his. “Miranda,” he asked obediently, “would you like to dance?”
“Um, sure,” she replied doubtfully, her gaze flickering to his chest, then back to his face. “Unless you’d rather get some club soda on that stain.”
“Probably best to let the dry cleaners treat it,” Charleigh said, apparently believing he’d take any excuse to get out of dancing.
But even mothers were wrong on occasion. And although he might be on the shady side of forty, he was a long way from passing up the opportunity to hold a beautiful woman in his arms. “The club soda will wait for me,” he said. “The music won’t.”
He took her hand, seeking, and finding, that shiver of electric response, and led her to the dance floor, where he drew her into his arms. The song was as soft as the night air around them. And Nate felt like a young man at his first formal dance. Expectant. Excited. Uncertain.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “It’s been quite a while since I was in this position.”
She held herself rather stiffly, not exactly melting against him, but she looked up at that and smiled. And his heart skipped a beat. Maybe he was too old for this. “What position?” she asked. “Dancing?”
“Having my mother kick me in the instep until I asked you to dance. She thinks I’m backward with women.”
Miranda’s eyebrow arched prettily. “And are you?”
“I don’t know. I never thought so before.”
“Before she kicked you?”
He grinned. “Sometime around then, yes.” Relaxing into the rhythm of the music, he tried to draw Miranda closer, but she resisted, one palm pressed rather solidly against his chest. He didn’t insist, of course, but wondered if maybe she hadn’t wanted to dance with him. Maybe Mark had been right and women like Miranda viewed men over forty with suspicion. Or distaste.
But he knew he hadn’t imagined the attraction. Or the subtle blush still lingering in her cheeks. He felt the attraction now, was reasonably sure she was feeling it, too. And she didn’t seem the type to be nervous about dancing with a man, even if he wasn’t exactly the Prince Charming she might have had in mind.
On the other hand…there was her palm maintaining a curious, if not completely unreasonable, distance between them.
And then it hit him.
The stain on his shirt bothered her. She either didn’t want to come into contact with it or she felt afraid of making it worse if she did. He had to restrain a ridiculous grin from eating up his entire face. Either reason was perfectly acceptable to him as utterly, unexpectedly charming. She was worried about the stupid stain and it was all she could do to be out here dancing, instead of inside, at one sink or another, scrubbing salmon juice out of his shirt.
He stopped in midstep. “I’m sorry,” he said, taking her hand and turning toward the house. “But I can’t concentrate on anything except getting that club soda on this shirt.”
Her relief was instant and companionable. “I was thinking the same thing. The longer it sets, the harder it will be to get out.”
“My thoughts exactly,” he replied, intrigued by the warmth in her hand and completely captivated by the smile in her eyes.
Chapter Two
Nate snapped the front pages of the Providence Journal to a comfortable reading position and settled in to enjoy his morning coffee with the news. He got through the headlines and one paragraph of the lead article before getting up to top off the coffee and check the fridge for orange juice. Back to the table, he reread the paragraph, then decided a little toast would go well with the juice and tide him over until breakfast. Once the bread was in the toaster, he stood, somewhat impatiently, and waited for it to brown. He wondered what Miranda Danville was having for breakfast or if she ate breakfast at all. Lots of girls didn’t.
Not that Miranda was a girl.
Oh, no. She was a woman. Definitely. He could still feel the soft, very womanly curve of her in his arms.
Not that she’d really been in his arms.
The dance hadn’t lasted a minute. But the memory of her serious, somber expression as she’d watched him dab club soda onto his shirt stayed with him. She’d been so intent on the stain, so concerned about her part in ruining his shirt, that he wasn’t even startled when she’d grabbed the towel from his inept hands and worked diligently on blotting the stain herself.
Not that he hadn’t been startled.
The sheer force of the attraction that had cut through him at her touch was enough to scare any man. Any man with good sense, that is.
Not that standing here thinking about her like this showed particularly good sense.
She was too young for him. Or more aptly, he was too old for her. He was the father of two thirteen-year-olds and two seven-year-olds. He’d been several years into his career before she was out of braces. He’d been married since she was in grade school. If he were going to date—and he wasn’t sure as yet that he was ready—it ought to be with someone closer to his age and experience. A widow, maybe. A single mother. Someone who understood the intricacies of family life, the challenges of parenting. That couldn’t happen with someone like Miranda.
Not that it couldn’t happen. But it didn’t seem very likely.
Why was he even thinking about her? The truth was, she couldn’t be the least bit interested in dating someone with his experience. His years and years of experience.
Not that experience meant he had nothing to offer. He was, after all, a hell of a nice guy. Angie had told him that repeatedly and he had no reason to believe she’d lied about it. He had means, too—a decent retirement income on top of the substantial wealth he’d inherited by virtue of being born his father’s son. He had a Juris Doctorate, too, so he could practice law again, if he wanted. That wasn’t too shabby a list of qualifications, he thought, and then wondered why he was listing all he had to offer a woman when he’d already pretty much decided he wasn’t even ready to date.
The encounter with Miranda Danville had spooked him, that was it. He hadn’t expected to feel that sort of instantaneous, animal attraction, wouldn’t have thought he could feel it again. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to feel it. Attraction led to liking and liking led to intimacy and intimacy led to love and…well, loving someone again seemed like one hell of a commitment. It was one thing to think he might want to marry again someday but a whole other thing to realize love—and the inevitable possibility of losing that love—was part of the deal.
But he was getting way ahead of himself. Worrying about something so far-fetched seemed ridiculous. Well, not that far-fetched. His eyesight was still as keen as ever and he hadn’t imagined the look of awareness in Miranda’s lovely blue eyes. Nor had he invented the intriguing blush of color he’d seen on her pearly cheeks. The attraction he’d felt had been mutual. He knew that as well as he knew his name. It was the what-came-next that had him buffaloed.
The toast popped up, nutty brown and crisp, and he gingerly snatched it out and dropped it onto the counter as he searched through the cabinets for a plate. He wasn’t exactly at home in the kitchen, even though he’d grown up in this house and ought, at least, to remember where Maggie kept the dishes. But he wasn’t accustomed to fixing his own toast. Or being alone in the kitchen. His mother had left early, off on another of the day-long antique hunts she loved, dragging Maggie, the live-in housekeeper and cook, who was more friend than employee, more companion than help, along with her. The two women had waved a cheery goodbye to Nate, who had been intrigued by the novelty of a little Sunday-morning silence. With luck, Kali and Kori might sleep until he’d finished the paper. Will and Cate, being teenagers, invariably slept through the morning hours whenever possible.
Returning to the table with the toast, he took a sip of coffee and picked up the newspaper again. The coffee had cooled and he should have buttered the toast before sitting down again, but he was determined to read the newspaper before the children invaded his solitude. Even if he did find it difficult to concentrate.