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A month went by.

  She did the best that she could, laying the groundwork for the new parameters in which she and the girls found themselves. Going to PTA meetings and even attending a football game at Andrea’s school. She learned the names of all of Beth’s friends and did her best to coax the names of Andrea’s friends out of her.

  As far as her relationship with Andrea went, there were good days and there were bad days. But she gave herself points for trying and she suspected Andrea did, too.

  Elisha even tried her hand at cooking and decided that some things weren’t meant to be conquered by her. She left that to Mrs. Wentworth. On the woman’s days off, they ordered out. She did everything she could to live up to her promise to Henry, taking on both roles of mother and father the way he had done after Rachel died. And every day, amid the tiny triumphs and small battles that were won, she died a little more.

  She missed her old life. Missed the excitement of working on a new project with an author. Missed brainstorming to come up with a new idea for a new book. As much as she loved the girls and, surprisingly, loved being there for them, she still couldn’t help feeling that there was a hole in her life.

  She’d made a dreadful miscalculation, Elisha thought sadly one late-Saturday afternoon. She’d discovered that, at bottom, she just wasn’t the homemaker type. At least, not on a 24/7 basis. It wasn’t that she couldn’t handle her new role. She just didn’t derive the same sort of satisfaction as when she made Ryan Sutherland see her validity as an editor.

  Did that make her a bad person? A selfish person? She didn’t have an answer for that.

  There were a lot of things she didn’t have the answer for these days, but then, she’d come to accept that life was a continuous learning process. Maybe the final exam came at the end. She didn’t know. What she did know was that she missed going into the office. Missed the meetings. Even missed the all-hands-on-deck crises.

  She tried very hard not to.

  There’d been calls. From Rocky, from some of her authors, like Sinclair. But there hadn’t been one from Sutherland, and the absence of his calls bothered her more than the presence of the others. In an effort to wean herself from her former life, she’d tried to cut her ties for the time being and let her answering machine take the calls that had come in.

  She’d done too good a job. Without her other world, she felt as if she was dying on the vine.

  “I’m going out, Aunt Elisha,” Andrea announced as she sailed through the living room when the doorbell rang. She appeared to be trying to get to the front door before another round of interrogations could get under way.

  She wasn’t fast enough.

  Pulling herself out of the mental tailspin, Elisha beat her niece to the front door. Hours on the treadmill at night to rid herself of her excess energy were not for nothing, she thought proudly. She’d managed to build up her stamina.

  “Okay, stop,” she ordered her niece. “What, where, who, when?”

  Andrea rolled her eyes. But her manner was far less defiant than it had originally been. She’d grudgingly allowed that her aunt did care about her and that as the resident adult, that gave her the right to know some things.

  Andrea rattled off the answers. “Movie, at the Cineplex, James, Maggi and Adam. Now—until one.”

  Elisha shook her head. “Twelve,” she corrected. “Your curfew’s for twelve o’clock, remember?”

  Andrea groaned, then immediately resorted to begging. “Please? It’s not a school night and the movie gets out at ten-fifty. James’s father is driving us there.”

  She was prepared for this. It made her nostalgic for negotiations over book content. “Eleven-thirty and I get to meet this James, Maggi and Adam.”

  Andrea sighed as she shifted from foot to foot. “This isn’t fair, you know.”

  In the beginning, Andrea had managed to pull the wool over her eyes a lot. But Beth turned out to be a faithful ally and could be counted on to give her sister up in the name of truth and justice. And chocolate ice cream.

  “It’s the way your dad did things,” Elisha pointed out.

  “Yeah, it is,” Andrea admitted grudgingly. “Okay. I’ll tell them to come in.” But as she began to open the front door to call her friends in, she stopped for a second and looked over toward her aunt. “You need a life, you know.”

  Elisha laughed. “I have one.”

  Andrea looked at her seriously. “No, you’ve got Dad’s life and even Dad didn’t look a hundred-percent happy with it.” She paused, her sharp eyes analyzing her aunt. “You’re pretty miserable.”

  Elisha felt uncomfortable. Andrea was hitting too close to the truth and she didn’t want it to show. “No, I’m not.”

  But Andrea wasn’t about to be dissuaded. “You’re not the Aunt Elisha I knew.”

  I’m not the Elisha I knew, either.

  Elisha shrugged casually, dismissing the observation. “Things change.”

  Andrea frowned. It was clear that as far as excuses went, she considered this one lame. “They don’t always have to change drastically.” And then a light entered her eyes as her young mouth curved. “What about that muscle you brought to drag me out of Alex Taylor’s house last month. Ronald? Roger?”

  “Ryan,” Elisha corrected. “Ryan Sutherland.” She said the name as if he hadn’t been on her mind, off and on, mostly on, for the last few weeks. “What about him?”

  “Why don’t you go see him? Or have him come over?”

  Elisha stared at her. “You mean like a date?” she asked incredulously. Quickly, she squelched the idea before she could begin entertaining it. “I’m past dating men, Andrea.”

  A patient look came over the girl’s face. She placed a hand on her shoulder. “I know you’re old, Aunt Elisha, but you’re not that old,” she teased, and then grew serious again. “At least go back to work. You’re not going to be happy until you do. And if you’re not happy…” She let her voice trail off.

  Out of the mouths of babes, Elisha thought as Andrea went to bring her friends back inside to be introduced.

  Elisha turned around to see that Beth had been standing behind them, listening to everything. Elisha had come to learn this was how the little girl became such a clearinghouse of information.

  Now that the subject was on the table, Elisha decided she had nothing to lose by asking. “Okay, how do you feel about me going back to work?”

  Beth cocked her head, thinking. “Will you still be able to read me bedtime stories?”

  She laughed. “Absolutely.”

  Beth raised and lowered her small shoulders. “Then sure, it’s okay.”

  Elisha looked at her. Was it really this simple? Had she been agonizing over nothing? “You don’t mind?”

  Beth shook her head, her chocolate-brown hair swishing back and forth along her cheeks. “You like working. I heard you tell Mrs. Wentworth.” She looked up at her intently with Henry’s eyes. She almost sounded like Henry when she said, “I want you to be happy.”

  Impulsively dropping to one knee, Elisha hugged the little girl to her. “Anyone ever tell you what a wonderful kid you are?”

  A muffled little voice protested, “Aunt Lise, you’re squishing me,” just as the front door opened again and Andrea returned with her friends.

  With a laugh, Elisha released her. “Sorry,” she apologized as she rose to her feet. She felt lighter than air.

  “Rocky?”

  Rocky’s voice immediately perked up. “Lise, is that you?”

  She wasn’t sure how he would react. Granted that he’d made her feel that she was valuable at the house, but she had gone on leave with no notice whatsoever. He could hold that against her. Or very possibly, the house might have already moved on. Carole Chambers might have wound up doing a bang-up job. Like Anne Baxter in the movie. Just her luck.

  “Yes. Look, I’m not going to beat around the bush. I don’t know exactly how to put this, but—”

  Rocky cut her off with a groan that seemed to come from his
very toes. “You’re never coming back,” he guessed morosely.

  “No, I want to come back.” She heard him make a strange, gurgling noise. “Rocky, are you all right?”

  “All right? I’m terrific.” His voice fairly trembled with relief. “After all these years, I just realized that there really is a God.”

  She released the breath she’d been holding. “You mean it’s all right? I can come back?”

  “All right?” he hooted. “You always did have a flair for understatement. The Mona Lisa was ‘all right.’ This is fabulous. How soon can you start? Can I Express Mail something to you? Better yet, I can drive up tonight and—”

  He sounded much too eager. She knew Rocky, he probably thought she was in the depths of despair, the way he’d predicated, and was saying this to make her feel better. “Rocky, I appreciate you trying to make me feel as if I’ve been missed, but it couldn’t have been that bad.”

  “Not that bad? If you want to know the truth, I was going to call you Monday and beg. Offer you my firstborn if you came back.”

  She smiled to herself. She’d missed talking to Rocky. Missed being part of the literary world that had been her life for close to a quarter of a century. “You don’t have a firstborn.”

  “I could. Someday. Single people can adopt. Until then, I’d give you an IOU.” He grew serious. “I know you wanted to do the right thing by your nieces, but maybe we can work out some kind of compromise. It’s been hell around here without you. Sinclair’s falling to pieces, swearing he can’t write a single word. Nothing the editor I assigned to him says helps. And Sutherland just called this morning to tell me that if I didn’t give him someone with a brain to work with, he was going to leave.”

  Sutherland wasn’t given to empty threats. “But you have him working with Carole, right?”

  There was a very long sigh accompanying his response. “Right.”

  “I’d imagine that, aside from being easy on the eye, Carole would go along with anything he had to say.”

  “Seems he got accustomed to working harder. He doesn’t like ‘yes women’ as he put it. I don’t know how serious he was about leaving, but—”

  “You don’t have to worry. He won’t leave.” The first thing she was going to do was call Sinclair and get him back on track. Then she’d tackle Sutherland. Elisha could feel her juices flowing just at the thought of jumping back into the fray.

  “Then you’re serious? You’ll come back and take him on?”

  Take him on. That was the way to put it, she thought. “Consider it done.”

  “Elisha, I think I seriously love you.”

  “Funny, I was just about to say the same thing to you.” She owed him the truth. If that involved an “I told you so,” he’d earned it. “I was going crazy out here.”

  “Knew you would. Being noble can only go so far. Besides, if anyone can juggle house and work, you can. How are the girls?”

  “Doing well.” Now. She thought of the conversation she’d had the other evening with Andrea, and then Beth. “Seems they really don’t need 24/7 care. I have a feeling I was stifling them, hovering the way I was.”

  “You always were a control freak.” He laughed. “So, you’ll start Monday?”

  “Monday.”

  Being Rocky, he had to ask, “You’re not just toying with me now, are you? I won’t get a call Monday morning saying you changed your mind again, will I? Because my heart couldn’t take another reversal.”

  It was her turn to laugh. She decided to call Sinclair tonight with the news. Dealing with Sutherland was going to require more than a phone call. Maybe she’d go see him in person. “Tell your heart not to worry. There’ll be no phone calls on Monday, at least, not with excuses. I’ll be coming in.”

  “If you don’t,” he warned, “I’ll come and get you.”

  “Duly noted. By the way, let me tell Sutherland about the switch back.”

  “Hey, be my guest. The man’s way too macho for me to deal with. He makes me nervous.”

  Yeah, me, too. But maybe in a good way.

  She thought about how good it was going to be, coming back. Getting into what she loved doing again. “I’ve missed you, Rocky.”

  “Same here.”

  She was smiling when she hung up. It looked as if her life wasn’t quite set yet. And that was a good thing.

  CHAPTER 35

  The feeling of surprise and pleasure melted the moment Ryan became aware of displaying it. Very possibly, it was one of the few times in his adult life that he’d relaxed his guard enough to allow his thoughts to register on his face. He realized the last time had involved Elisha Reed, as well.

  The evening air chilled him despite the heavy fishnet sweater he wore. With his arm stretched across the doorjamb, he stood barring the entrance into his house like an overqualified bodyguard rather than the master of his domain.

  She saw his eyes sweep over her. No doubt meant to intimidate her. But she’d been to hell and back, tangled with a teenager and survived, and in the process, been torn apart and rebuilt. She’d learned, in the last couple of months, that despite everything, she could survive and keep on surviving. Well.

  She’d also learned that, good intentions to the contrary, she wasn’t a hausfrau, as Rocky had pointed out. But she’d discovered to her surprise she wasn’t a hundred-percent career woman, either.

  At least, not anymore. There was room in her life for both. As well as for expansion. Her life was not set in stone the way she’d once believed. More like Jell-O, always in flux as long as she remembered to jiggle the plate every so often.

  She viewed Ryan Sutherland through the eyes of a woman who had gone through all that and decided that she wasn’t “done” with men yet. That maybe Andrea’s comment about her still being able to venture out into the social world of men and women had some validity to it.

  At least it was worth a try.

  And she knew just who she wanted to try it with. Someone who presented “no strings.”

  What was she doing here? Ryan wondered. She wasn’t his editor anymore, bringing to mind that old saying, Careful what you wish for. He’d made no secret of the fact that he didn’t want to be edited, and suddenly, he wasn’t, not really. You never know what you have until it’s gone.

  He made no effort to move back, gave no sign that he wanted her in his house. As far as he was concerned, she’d bailed on him. He had no patience with people who viewed commitment so lightly. She could have found a way, despite her obligations. People did it every day.

  “If he sent you here to talk me out of it, you can forget it. I’m leaving Randolph & Sons. I’ve made up my mind.”

  So it shall be written, so it shall be done. Maybe he fancied himself an Egyptian pharaoh, Elisha thought. She managed to suppress her smile only marginally.

  “And we all know what a bastion of immobility that is.” The wind was sharp and she was getting cold. Elisha nodded toward the interior of his house. “May I come in?”

  He wondered what she’d do if he said no and closed the door in her face. After a moment, he stepped aside, allowing her admittance.

  Without waiting for an invitation to stay, she shrugged out of her coat and casually placed it over the back of the gray leather sofa. There was just the faintest aroma of chili in the air. Did he cook, too? Of course he did. The man did everything. Except remember his manners, she mused.

  She turned to face him. “If by ‘he’ you mean Rocky, he didn’t send me.”

  The look on Sutherland’s face told her that he didn’t believe her. But for the moment, he didn’t press the issue. Instead, he asked, “So you’ve suddenly had this yen to turn up on my doorstep because…?”

  It suddenly occurred to her that her absence might not be the motivating factor for his leaving. This isn’t the time for self-doubt, Lise. Besides, working with Carole would drive God away.

  “Because I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

  One dark, expressive eyebrow rose, foresh
adowing his query. “Tell me what? I’ve never cared for games, Max. Spit it out.”

  She spread her hands out on either side of her. All she needed was a drumroll. “I’m no longer on a leave of absence.”

  His look cut her dead. “Good for you.”

  This wasn’t what she’d expected. Could she have been so wrong about his reaction? She tried again. “I’m back at Randolph & Sons.”

  As far as he was concerned, it was a matter of too little too late. She should have never left in the first place. And that vapid, golden-haired Barbie doll she’d left to fill in for her was an unpardonable sin.

  Sutherland crossed his arms before his chest and gave her a steely look. “Means nothing to me.”

  She’d dealt with temperamental authors throughout most of her career. He wanted his ego stroked. But he was in for a surprise. “It should. I’m going to be your editor again.” She smiled. “I hear you and Carole Chambers didn’t quite hit it off.”

  His look became a glare. One that was as hard as nails. If she hadn’t been privy to the nicer side of him that time he’d come to help her find Andrea, she might have been intimidated. But she’d seen the man beneath the mask and that gave her leverage.

  “Chambers.” He sneered, dismissing the woman with a wave of his hand. “Now, there’s a waste of skin if there ever was any.”

  Because it cost her nothing, Elisha pretended she didn’t wholeheartedly agree with him. “She seemed to be a really big fan of yours.”

  Sutherland snorted. He refused to believe that the savvy woman before him actually thought there was merit to her replacement. “The only one Carole Chambers is a fan of is herself. She’d work with the devil if it was to her advantage.”

  Elisha looked up into his eyes, her own brimming with humor. “I kind of have the feeling that she probably did.”

  “Now, there you’re wrong. Chambers didn’t work, she pandered. She simpered. She spent so damn much time flattering me, all I could think of was getting my hands on a glue gun and firing it across her lips.”

  “Ouch.” Elisha winced, even though his words brought her immense pleasure. She pretended to look surprised. “I thought you liked having people agree with you.”