Yours, Mine...or Ours?. Karen Templeton

else’s had never been part of the plan.

      He looked at her profile, all those crazy curls now free of the hat, and felt pulled apart by a weird combination of protectiveness and frustration. “I know I’m a stranger to you, but trust me, Violet—I don’t get my kicks from putting women and children out on the street.”

      She stared straight ahead for several seconds before she said, “First off, I’m not out on the street. And anyway, it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know.”

      “No consolation to you, I’m sure.”

      “No, but…” Her lips pursed, she swished the hot chocolate around in the cup. “Look, I’m sorry for reacting the way I did tonight. At the diner. You’re right, none of this is your fault, and it was pretty poor of me to take out my frustrations on you.”

      “Forget it, no apology necessary.” He fisted his free hand to keep from touching her—taking her hand, squeezing her shoulder. Something. Anything. “I understand your husband left you and the boys?”

      “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “He did. We’ve been divorced for a year. But since I’m not a big fan of being pitied—”

      “Then there’s nothing to worry about here. Pity’s for the pathetic, Violet. People who make poor choices because they’re too dumb to see the pitfalls.”

      “And how do you know that’s not the case here?”

      One side of his mouth lifted. “Okay, so how about we agree that any decision made before we’re twenty-one doesn’t count?”

      Her soft, half laugh died a quick death. “Oh. I take it—”

      “Yep. Me, too.” Rudy let out a long, weighty sigh. “That bundle of attitude you saw me with tonight? It’s just been her and me since she was six months old. I only know her mother’s still alive because I run a periodic check to find out. Whether she knows—or even cares—if Stace and I are, I have no idea. So…what I’m seeing on your face right now? Is that pity? Or simpatico?”

      “It’s amazement. That any woman could be that stupid.”

      “You don’t know me, Violet.”

      “I know enough. In the space of a cuppla hours, you stood up for a stranger in public, gave that stranger a twenty-dollar tip, brought her hot chocolate and offered her a job and place to live. Any woman who tosses out somebody like that…” She shook her head. “Stoo-pid.”

      “Yeah, except she wasn’t a woman, she was a kid. We both were. I was twenty, she was eighteen. Too young.”

      “Says who?” Violet said, a dark flush tingeing her cheeks. “I was eighteen when George came along, and I sure as hell didn’t bail on him. Unlike Mitch, who after eight years and two kids decided…whatever it was he decided. That he wasn’t cut out for family life, I suppose. Unfortunately he came to that conclusion the week before Christmas. Two years ago.” She smirked. “There was a fun holiday, let me tell you. Nothing says lovin’ like a note and a couple hundred bucks left on the kitchen table. Although we—or at least, I—still hear from him.”

      Something in her voice—like a faint, bitter aftertaste you can’t quite identify—put Rudy on alert. He also decided he liked her much better mad than sad. Or, worse, in that dead zone where you try to make everybody think you’re okay. Mad, though…he could work with that. Because where there was anger, there was hope.

      “He sees the boys?”

      Curls quivered when she shook her head. “Although he says…he’s working up to it.”

      “What on earth—”

      “He says he’s figuring things out,” she said wearily. “In his head.”

      “As in, a possible reconciliation?”

      “Who the hell knows?” She rubbed her forehead. “Although, believe me, I’m not holding my breath. Promises…” Her mouth flattened. “Anybody can make a promise. Keeping it is something else entirely.”

      As Rudy fought the temptation to ask her if she wanted a reconciliation, he realized, too late, that he’d inadvertently stripped away those calluses, leaving her tender and vulnerable and probably mad as hell at him. Feeling like an idiot, he touched her arm, making her jump.

      “Hey,” he said, his voice thick. “You okay?”

      “Yeah. Yeah, I’m…” She sucked in a breath, shaking her head. “Here’s the thing—you can chug along for years, getting by, making do, on whatever scraps you can piece together. You learn to find contentment, even joy, in the small stuff, like your baby’s smile or a new lipstick. Hanging out with friends on the first really warm spring night. And little by little, you start to inch forward. Or at least, you think you are. Sure, life slings mud at you, but you either wipe it off or you get real good at ducking. Only then…”

      One hand waved, like she was struggling for the words. “Only then, out of the blue, some totally unexpected opportunity comes along, and suddenly you’re thinking in terms of bigger. Better. More.”

      She looked away, but not before he saw her eyes fill. “I know,” he said softly, and she blew up on him.

      “You don’t know! You don’t know anything about it, or me, or what that sorry, run-down place represented! Not just to me, but to Doris, who loved that house like it was her child. Who thought of her guests like family, because they made her feel needed. Important. Like she mattered.”

      Blinking, she faced front. “I never expected Doris to offer me the house. I always assumed it would go to her daughter. So when she said she wanted to leave it to me, you have no idea how…honored that made me feel. That she trusted me to make the most of her gift. I had such plans, Rudy,” she said softly. “Such wonderful plans.”

      Frowning, Rudy tucked his sleeve into his palm and brushed her cheek, blotting a tear that had spilled over, her frustration mingling with his. “But even if Doris had left you the house, how would you have managed? You couldn’t really open it again, not yet. It needs too much work.”

      She frowned at that last little bit of hot—now cold, probably—chocolate in the bottom of her cup, then swirled it around and drank it anyway, grimacing. “I was going to sell it, Rudy,” she said flatly, not looking at him. “Sell it and get the hell out of here, finish my education. Set aside a college fund for the boys. Buy a car with less than 150,000 miles on it. Doris and I used to talk about it all the time. That’s why I know she’d wanted me to have the house, to give me a shot at my dream, the same way the house had allowed her to live hers.”

      If nothing else, all those years of being a cop had taught Rudy a thing or two about reading people, about picking up clues from their body language, how most people’s voices change when they’re not being straight with you. And right now, Violet Kildare was setting off alarms loud enough to hear in China.

      “So,” he said, casually, “you never actually wanted to run the inn?”

      “Run the inn?” She burst out laughing. “Heavens no! Believe me, my aspirations, such as they were, never included turning into Doris Hicks’s clone.”

      “Oh. Well. I guess I must’ve misunderstood, then.” He squinted over at her. “Darla seemed to think you had a real thing for the house itself.”

      Even in the darkened car, he saw her blush. “The house was only a means to an end,” she said into her empty cup, then slid her eyes to his, her lips barely curved. “It’s getting late. I need to get back before Betsy freaks.”

      Rudy let their gazes mingle. “That mean you’re not accepting my offer?”

      She tapped the cup’s rim once, twice, then leaned over to screw it into the cup holder under the radio. “Can I think about it for a couple of days? Until school starts again, day after tomorrow?”

      Rudy started.