Phone bill.
Credit card application.
Something addressed to “Occupant.” He tossed that one straight into the trash.
An ivory vellum envelope. His mother’s trademark stationery, addressed in his sister’s handwriting. He stared at it, trying to figure out what Leslie might have sent him.
An invitation to someone’s birthday? No. His grandmother’s birthday was in the fall. So was Leslie’s. His mother had just had hers and if there’d been a celebration, he hadn’t been invited. He’d sent flowers, though, and a week later had received a stilted thank-you note—in an envelope exactly like this one.
So what could this be? He picked up the envelope, turned it over and studied the flap.
What the hell? Go for it.
It was an invitation to his sister’s wedding. He sure couldn’t have predicted that.
The inner envelope was addressed to “Nick and Escort.” Great. They expected him to subject someone to a Durrance family function. On the bright side, they didn’t want him to be in the wedding party. And if he worked at it, maybe he could come up with an excuse not to go at all.
He read the card. Leslie was to marry Gerald Bedford III. The third in a succession of stuffed shirts. Nick had only seen them together twice and that was all it had taken to know this was not a match made in heaven. It was, however, the blending of two prominent Collingwood Station families. The wedding would be some shindig and it was taking place three weeks from Saturday. For a moment he speculated on the need to hold a wedding on such short notice. Surely his sister wasn’t having a shotgun wedding.
Nah.
Leslie was too cautious and too smart to let anything like that happen.
He slid the invitation under a magnet on the fridge door and snagged another beer while he was there. That’s when he noticed the light flashing on the answering machine.
Three messages.
One from a subcontractor.
One from Leslie, sweetly asking if he’d received the invitation, saying how much she looked forward to having him there on her special day and apologizing for the short notice but it was the only time she and Gerald could clear their calendars and the only time the country club was available and blah, blah, blah.
Poor Leslie. She was too much like their mother for her own good, except she didn’t nag as much. Maybe if he’d been around more after their father died, she wouldn’t have been so influenced by the family matriarch.
The third message was from the matriarch herself, asking him to inform her, at his earliest convenience, as to the name of his date so she could finalize the seating plan and place cards.
Jeez, Mother. Would you like that in triplicate?
He punched the Delete button.
He stared a minute at the unopened beer in his hand and decided to put it back in the fridge. He’d promised Maggie he’d be there first thing in the morning and he wanted to have a clear head.
He unfolded the newspaper and flipped it open. What he needed was a distraction. A good story about an armed robbery. He turned the page. Murder and mayhem. Another page. The daily horoscope. He rolled his eyes but couldn’t resist scanning the list until he came to Capricorn.
Your life will take a surprising turn today. Whether it’s business or personal, roll with the punches and you’ll reap the rewards. And if you go the extra mile, there could even be a happily-ever-after in your future.
Roll with the punches? Reap the rewards? Who writes this stuff? Come to think of it, though, there had been a few surprises.
Maggie Meadowcroft.
Allison Peters Fontaine.
Leslie’s wedding.
As for rolling with the punches, he’d been doing that all his life. But happily-ever-after? Maggie had been the day’s only prospect. She was new in town so she wouldn’t have heard the mostly unfounded rumors about his bachelor lifestyle. But she also believed in the zodiac and in getting signs from dead people, so in spite of the crazy attraction he’d felt for her, Maggie Meadowcroft was not the woman for him.
So much for horoscopes.
MAGGIE SPRAWLED on the floor of her aunt’s guest room with four of Collingwood High’s yearbooks spread open in front of her. Nick’s freshman photograph had made her laugh. He had a bad haircut, a Star Wars T-shirt and a shaky smile. Over the next few years, an interesting transformation had taken place and by his senior year, Nick Durrance was no laughing matter.
He had probably been the high-school crush of every girl at Collingwood High. He would have been the boy they wanted to go to senior prom with and he definitely would have been the boy their fathers wanted them to stay away from.
Allison Fontaine had been Allison Peters in those days. The girl with movie-star hair and a perfect smile. The girl every other girl wanted to be. Their senior write-ups said that Allison’s favorite pastime was “taming Nick.” Nick’s was “breaking hearts.”
According to what Allison had said that afternoon, some things never changed. Except the part about her taming Nick, of course. The whole world could see that Allison and John were happily married and very much in love, with a gracious home and two adorable children. They had everything they wanted. And Maggie doubted that John had ever needed taming.
She leaned in for a closer look at Nick. Aunt Margaret’s pearls swung forward and she caught them, liking the feel of their smooth coolness between her fingers.
At some point, the sci-fi fan who’d played trombone in the school band had been replaced by a rebel without a cause. If what she’d seen today was anything to go by, the defiance in those dark blue eyes had intensified with time. What had happened during Nick’s high-school years? Had his father’s death been solely responsible for the transformation?
She looked at Allison’s picture again. Maggie hadn’t been cool enough or pretty enough to be a cheerleader or prom queen like Allison but that hadn’t stopped her from having a wild crush on the hottest guy in school. At the time she’d have given anything to have her heart broken by him. That hadn’t happened and if she was careful, it wouldn’t happen with Nick, either.
Her family had always told her that she had a gift for being able to see inside people and to bring out the best in them. Sometimes it was frightening. People kept some scary stuff hidden inside. Maybe… Now, there was an interesting thought… Maybe she could help Nick.
Hmm.
“What do you think, Aunt Margaret?”
She waited for an answer, but either her aunt had no comment or she was preoccupied with something else.
Maggie pondered the thought some more and before she knew it, all kinds of ideas were tumbling through her head. Helping Nick discover himself and bringing out all his positive traits was definitely something she could do. Once she got to know his family—and since this was such a small town, their paths were bound to cross—she’d have even more insight into what was keeping him from being happy.
Yes, her plan sounded better and better the more she thought about it.
Nick Durrance, tortured soul. In need of help.
Maggie Meadowcroft, makeover specialist. To the rescue.
Chapter Three
The next morning Maggie was up at dawn, trying to organize her ideas into a coherent state. Nick had said he’d be here “first thing” to work out an estimate for the renovations. They hadn’t had the best introduction yesterday. He’d made it clear that he thought she was a flake, and he certainly wasn’t the first. She knew her ideas seemed a little strange to some