Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove Series, Volume 3 (26 page)

“I beg your pardon? What isn't?”

“The thing I said about being stupid.” She gazed past him to the traffic streaming by. “You've been very kind, and I'm grateful.”

Praise disconcerted him, so he ignored her remark. “I don't see anything wrong with your engine.”

“I can't believe this is happening now, on top of everything else.”

“Everything else?” Linc wondered if he was going to regret asking.

“My fiancé. Geoff. Ex-fiancé, I should say. He's a thief.” She bit down hard on her lower lip. “I broke off the engagement, and my family's upset—not because I canceled the wedding but because I didn't have the sense to know that the man I loved is completely unsuitable as a husband and a failure as a human being.” She expelled a deep sigh. “I apologize. None of this has to do with my car. Frankly I have no idea what I would've done if you hadn't stopped. Calling my father wasn't an option.”

This was the first time Linc had taken a good look at her…and he saw that she was even lovelier than he'd realized.

“You think you know someone and you think you love
him and then you learn the truth and it's just so…so heart-wrenching to discover that the person you loved isn't the person you thought he was.”

Linc started to move away from the vehicle. “When's the last time you gassed up?”

Her brow furrowed. “You think I might be out of gas?”

“Let me get in and see.” The woman seemed incapable of clear thought. Linc slid into the driver's seat and turned the key. Sure enough, the needle pointed to empty.

Apparently she was going through some sort of emotional breakdown. Lucky him that he'd stumbled onto her path. This was what he got for playing the Good Samaritan. No good deed goes unpunished, and all that.

The woman slipped into the passenger seat next to him and shut the door. She began to tremble with what he assumed was the effort not to weep. “I'm so sorry. You're being kind and I'm being hysterical. How stupid of me not to know I'd run out of gas.” She closed her eyes and lowered her head.

“It happens to the best of us,” Linc said in what he hoped was a comforting tone.

She turned to him with her nose red and her eyes swimming with tears. “Do you ever feel that nothing you do is right?” she asked him.

Despite the fact that he felt as if he'd stepped into the middle of a soap opera, Linc nodded.

“Me, too.”

This was becoming awkward. “I have a gas can in the back of my truck,” he said, eager now to be on his way. “I'll drive to a gas station—pick up a couple of gallons. That should be enough to get you wherever you're going.”

“You're leaving me here?”

“Uh… Do you want to come with me?”

“Could I?”

Linc's mind darted in ten different directions at once. He couldn't believe he'd offered, any more than he could believe she'd asked.

To avoid wearing down her battery, he turned off the ignition and passed her the car keys.

“My name is Lori Bellamy,” she said and held out her hand.

He shook it, almost shocked by the softness of her skin against his calloused fingers. “Linc Wyse.”

“Hi, Linc.”

“Hi.” The awkwardness returned, the same unease he experienced whenever he was around women, especially petite ones. Small women like Lori made him feel clumsy and…too big. Linc moved carefully and spoke quietly, not wanting to overwhelm or frighten her.

He got out of her car, hurried to his truck and cleared off the passenger seat.

Once she'd clambered inside—with his assistance—she snapped the seat belt into place and smiled over at him. “Are you always this kind?”

“I have a sister,” he said. “If her car had broken down I'd want someone like me to stop and help.”

He started the engine and merged with the traffic. They sat in silence as he drove, but it wasn't uncomfortable anymore, nor did he feel the need to make conversation. After a couple of minutes, she murmured, “You're very easy to talk to.”

“Me?” he asked, startled.

She nodded. “You listened patiently even though I was saying the most ridiculous things.”

“Like what?”

She grimaced. “About Geoff. You stopped to help with my car—not to hear about the shambles my life's in.”

“Sometimes it's good to talk to a stranger.” Linc didn't know that for a fact, but it made sense.

“Well, I certainly didn't mean to blurt out the most humiliating details of my life.” She gave a short, embarrassed laugh. “My car running out of gas just seems to confirm that my life's in a downward spiral.” She shrugged despondently. “I guess Geoff proved that I don't have very good judgment about men.”

Linc grinned. “Then we're equal. Because when it comes to male-female relationships I'm at a complete loss.” Feeling emboldened, deciding to take a chance, he took his eyes from the road long enough to look in her direction. “Would you like to have dinner with me?”

“Tonight?”

“Ah…sure.” Actually, any night would be fine with him. It wasn't as if he had a calendar crammed with social events. “Tonight would work,” he said in an offhand way.

“Okay, but only if you let me treat, seeing all the trouble you've gone to on my behalf.”

He hesitated, afraid he was about to ruin the most promising encounter to come along in the past few years. “Sorry, I can't do that. It's not how my daddy raised me,” he added, trying to inject a bit of humor. He paused to gauge her reaction. “Call me old-fashioned, call me a male chauvinist, call me whatever you want, but I intend to pay for our dinner. I asked
you
out, remember?”

“Old-fashioned,” she repeated. “I prefer
old-fashioned.
Isn't the term
male chauvinist
kind of dated, anyway?”

“You mean it's old-fashioned?” he said, and they both laughed.

Linc found a gas station and asked the attendant for
directions to the nearest restaurant. It was a mom-and-pop burger joint. They ordered hamburgers and french fries and sodas and talked nonstop for two hours. Lori told him about Geoff, and he told her about his sister moving to Cedar Cove. Then he described his shop and how he'd changed the name to Three Wyse Men when he and his brothers took over. She explained that she worked in a boutique near the mall and had recently moved to Cedar Cove.

They might've stayed longer if he hadn't noticed obvious signs that the place was closing. Linc hated to see the evening end. Unlike most women, Lori made him feel relaxed and comfortable. Their conversation interested him. Apparently neither of them was skilled at small talk, and when he mentioned that, she'd said, “So what? We'll talk about big things, then.” And they had.

Everything changed once they were in the truck again and he was taking her back to retrieve her car. The silence seemed strained when it hadn't been before. Linc didn't understand why and wondered what he might've said to upset her. He decided to find out, but didn't know how to broach the subject, how to ask what was bothering her.

“Linc?” She put her hand on his arm. “Do you mind if we just sit here for a moment?” He'd parked on the roadside, a few yards from her car.

“No…I mean—no, of course I don't mind.”

She turned and stared at him with the biggest, darkest brown eyes he'd ever seen. “You have trouble with relationships, right?”

He nodded.

“I do, too. But I feel different with you.”

He nodded again, unsure how to explain his feelings in words.

“You're a good person. You stopped to help me when everyone else drove past.” She gestured at her car. “No one cared except you.”

He wanted to brush aside her gratitude, but she seemed so intent that he didn't speak for fear of destroying the mood.

“You care about your family, too, and you've kept your dad's business going. I admire that.” She closed her eyes, then opened them. “I'm sick of it all.”

“Sick of what?” he asked, puzzled by the abrupt leap.

“Dating.”

“Does that mean you won't go out with me again?” He couldn't keep the disappointment from his voice.

“No…listen, don't say anything yet, but I'd like to suggest something so far out in left field you'll probably jump out of your truck and head for the hills.”

“What?”

She chewed on her lip, then shook her head. “No, it's too crazy. Never mind.”

Linc couldn't imagine what she was about to suggest and wished she'd blurt it out, damn the consequences.

“I'm an old-fashioned kind of woman.” She paused. “Just like you're an old-fashioned kind of guy.”

Linc agreed; he liked that about her.

“You seem to have problems with relationships and it's the same way with me.”

Again, he agreed.

“You're as sick of the whole dating game as I am, right?”

“Right.”

Lori drew in a deep breath. “You want to skip all that?”

“I…beg your pardon?” He was missing some step in her logic.

She kept her gaze fixed squarely on something ahead,
although he couldn't tell what. “Would you be interested in skipping all the stuff that leads up to…marriage?”

The silence seemed to echo. “Lori,” he said cautiously. “I might be wrong about this, and if I am, if I'm being presumptuous, forgive me.” He swallowed. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

She cleared her throat. “I know this is probably the most bizarre, impulsive thing you've ever heard, but I have to ask.”

“You're serious?”

“Yes,” she said solemnly. “We both want to get married, right?”

That was true. Linc could feel his pulse speed up.

Lori continued. “You've been burned. I've been burned. Let's do away with all the nonsense. Let's just go for broke and do it. Would you be willing?”

“I never expected a woman to propose to me, but seeing that you have…”

“Did I completely throw you?” she asked.

She had, although Linc wouldn't admit it. “Do you want an answer now?”

“Please.”

He took a quick breath. “Okay. I'm willing to give it a try if you are.”

Lori's smile lit up her whole face as she grabbed his arm. “I can't believe we're doing this! It's crazy!”

“I guess it is.”

She rested her head against his shoulder and expelled her breath, as if some great weight had been lifted from her.

“Then we're getting married,” he said.

“We're getting married,” she repeated.

“Soon?” he asked.

“Soon.”

Twenty-Four

B
en was feeling—and acting—more like his old self lately, which greatly relieved Charlotte. She knew he'd spoken with David twice in the past few weeks. While the first call had disturbed him, he'd been less agitated after the second one. In the days that followed, his mood had lightened considerably.

Ben hadn't shared any of that conversation with her but Charlotte knew he'd contacted Roy McAfee shortly afterward. At first Charlotte was disappointed that Ben hadn't confided in her. Since then, she'd worked it out in her mind. Thoughtful man that he was, Ben didn't want to involve her in this latest mess with his son.

“Ben,” she called, fussing with her hat in front of the mirror. She so seldom wore a hat these days, but this was a celebration and nothing said that better than a nice hat. In their last conversation, Olivia had told her she'd decided on a hat, too—for different reasons, obviously—but this was also why Charlotte was wearing hers. To make sure her daughter didn't feel self-conscious. Olivia had a lovely wig, but found it hot and uncomfortable, so her family and friends urged her to go without.

“Are you ready to leave?” she asked Ben.

“The grand opening's not for almost an hour,” he called back.

Charlotte secured the fedora with a fancy pin that had belonged to her mother. “Ben, darling, I don't want to be late.”

“Charlotte,” he said, joining her in their bedroom. “It'll only take five minutes to get to the tearoom.”

“But there might be a crowd.”

Ben hugged her around the waist. “Very well, my dear, if it'll reassure you, we can leave now.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

After months of construction, her granddaughter's Victorian Tea Room was about to open. The pink building with the lavender trim was the talk of the town, and that wasn't surprising. There'd never been a place in Cedar Cove like it.

In preparation for her granddaughter's venture, Charlotte had collected her most cherished recipes. Ben had helped her type them. Then, with no small amount of fanfare, they'd delivered the binder to Justine. Charlotte was delighted to see that a number of her recipes had been included in the tearoom menu.

Charlotte sprayed on some cologne—Evening in Paris, her lifelong favorite. Just as she'd finished, she heard the doorbell. What terrible timing!

When she walked into the living room, she saw Roy McAfee, coat still on, briefcase in hand, talking to Ben.

“Roy, how nice to see you,” she said politely.

She waited for Ben to announce that they were leaving for the tearoom. Family and close friends were gathering there before it opened for a blessing ceremony. Pastor Flemming would invoke God's blessings on this enter
prise, and Charlotte didn't want to miss a second of it. But instead of deferring Roy's visit, her husband invited him to take a seat.

“We won't be long,” Ben said, apparently guessing her thoughts.

“Would you like me to make coffee?” she asked the two men.

“No, thanks,” Roy said. “I just need to give Ben a report.”

It was clear that Ben had hired Roy to check up on something and that something undoubtedly concerned David.