The Happiness Pact
Autore
Liz Flaherty
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Chapter One
LIBBY WORTH TAUGHT the primary class at St. Paul’s when Mrs. Miller wasn’t there, tended bar at Anything Goes Grill when Mollie needed a night off and quilted with friends on Sunday afternoons. She made pastries for Anything Goes and the Silver Moon Café because she loved to bake and because sometimes she needed the money. She owned, operated and loved the Seven Pillars Tearoom and lived in a spacious apartment above it with her Maine coon cat, Elijah.
Her very favorite thing was to stand in her backyard and peer into the eyepiece of her telescope. Her knee-trembling, heart-pounding fear of thunderstorms was no match for her fascination with the light show offered by the sky. Besides, Venus was her guardian planet. Other people had guardian angels, she was fond of saying, but her mother made sure she had a whole planet.
She liked country music, high school football and reading travel brochures. She never went anywhere—she’d only been in the states whose borders kissed Indiana’s—but someday she was going to visit all those places. Someday.
Seventeen and a half years ago, on prom night, she’d been in an automobile accident that killed three people and forever changed the lives of the other nine in the church van they’d used for transport. The losses had caused ripples in the small community of Lake Miniagua that could still be felt all this time later. The wreck had come almost exactly a year after Libby’s mother’s death from cancer, and a year before her father’s suicide.
Everything had changed with that painful string of events, naturally enough, but she’d made a life for herself in its aftermath. Although that life was mostly uneventful, she never lost the feeling that any minute now, the other shoe would drop.
Today was New Year’s Eve. It was also the day she turned thirty-four. Looking into the mirror in the corner of the tearoom kitchen that morning, she’d been pretty sure her jaw was softening and the double chin she’d always had a touch of was generating a third tier.
“Yo, Lib.”
The shout from the front foyer of the big old Victorian on Main Street startled her before she could get good and depressed about the life she had a feeling she’d slept through. She looked up at the schoolhouse clock on the wall and flinched when she saw that it was nearly a quarter past eleven. The tearoom had opened for business ten minutes ago and here she was standing in the kitchen with an unbaked quiche in her hands.
She slipped it into the empty oven. “Be right there!” She stopped in front of the mirror again to tuck her brown hair behind her ears—she’d forgotten to put it in its customary braid that morning—and frowned at her round face with its freckled nose and slate-gray eyes. She pushed her wide mouth into a smile, tucking in the corners with her fingertips the way her mother had when she was a child. The memory made the smile genuine, and she stepped through the door.
Tucker Llewellyn, the best guy friend a girl ever had, was at the antique buffet that she really needed to move. While there was enough space for the swinging door to clear the piece of furniture, there wasn’t enough room to keep her from walking smack into him.
He caught her before they both fell, pulling her clear of both the buffet and the door. He gave her a quick hug and kissed her forehead in the process. “We have to quit meeting like this. You know the lake grapevine. We’ll be having kids by sunset.”
She laughed, shaking her head and pushing away from him. “We’ve had that talk. I don’t want kids. I want excitement. Adventure.”
“Hey, look at my nephew, Charlie. Believe me, that kid’s absolutely an exciting adventure.”
“You’re right about that.” Libby handed Tucker his regular to-go cup of coffee. “You want an early lunch?”
“I do, but I can’t. Jack and I are working this morning to keep the office from being such a crazy place when the plant opens back up after New Year’s. I came by to remind you about the party at Anything Goes. Want me to pick you up?”
She quirked an eyebrow at him. “So I can drive us both home?”
“Probably.” His grin was not only infectious, it was gorgeous. As were his cornflower blue eyes, streaky blond hair and the way he tilted his head to one side when you talked to him. It was a pity the man she’d known ever since he was born the New Year’s baby when she was twenty-seven minutes old had absolutely no romantic effect on her. He might be her favorite man in the world—she was closer to him than to her brother—but he was just Tuck.
And he invariably drank too much at their shared birthday party. When it came to liquor, he was a complete lightweight. He probably was about other things, too, but she loved him anyway.
“We’re thirty-four, although you are a day older than I am,” he said, reminding her of what she’d been perfectly content not thinking about. “You’ve been driving me home from birthday parties ever since high school. It’s my turn.”
“At least. The way I figure it, you need to drive me home until we’re in our fifties.” She waved when the front door opened, admitting Marie Williams and her daughter, Kendall. Marie had been in their high school class, and Libby thought resentfully that she still looked seventeen. She could probably still do the splits and be the top tier in a cheerleader pyramid if she was so inclined. “Do you want to take Jack some coffee?”
But Tucker didn’t answer her. His attention had already strayed. He went to greet Marie with a hug, seeming not to be in a hurry anymore. Libby shook her head, ignoring a ribbon of sadness the couple’s seemingly mutual attraction created at the back of her mind. She liked being single, always had, but sometimes it would be nice if someone looked at her the way Tuck was looking at Marie.
“Hey, Kendall.” Libby plastered on a smile for the twelve-year-old who’d gone to stand in front of the shelves holding the tearoom’s collection of cups and saucers. “Choose your cup and we’ll fill it with whatever you want to drink.”
“Can I drink soda out of these cups?” The adolescent reminded Libby of herself at that age. She was a little overweight and awkward in the bargain, and Libby sometimes had the impression she was a disappointment to her busy beautiful-people parents.
“You sure can. I drink water out of them all day long. Help yourself to whatever you want and give Elijah a good rub—I tossed him on the floor this morning when I got out of bed, and he’s feeling neglected. You want quiche when it comes out of the oven? It’s your favorite kind today.”
“Yes, please.”
“Hey, Lib, can I get Jack a cup, too?” Tucker stood near the coffee urn. Marie went to join her daughter at a corner table.
“It’s been a whole three minutes since I asked you if you wanted some for him.” Libby moved to fill a cup for Tucker’s brother. “You picking me up at seven?” She smiled sweetly and tipped her head in Marie’s direction. “Or do you have another date by now?”
“Be nice.” He took the cup from her. “I’ll see you tonight.” He bent his head to peck her cheek as he always did, but she was turning to look at the door at the same time and the kiss landed on her mouth.
It wasn’t a peck, exactly. And Libby felt a little ripple along her spine.
Obviously she needed some caffeine to clear her head.
* * *
OTHER THAN AN addiction to coffee and tea, Libby wasn’t much of a drinker, but she loved the bourbon-laced hot chocolate that was a specialty of Anything Goes Grill. She usually had just one, and even then only on special occasions. Like when the Miniagua High School Lakers had won the football sectional in November or when the tearoom had ended the previous year not only in the black, but in the very black.
Even more occasionally, if she was out with friends and one of the others was driving, she’d have two mugs of the delicious concoction. They always sat at the bar and begged Mollie for the recipe, but she never gave it. Libby tried to duplicate it every time she filled in for the bartender but hadn’t yet mastered it. She had never had more than two hot chocolates from the Grill.
Until now.
All the presents—mostly gag gifts but some not—had been opened. Midnight, complete with many champagne toasts and a cacophonous rendering of “Auld Lang Syne” and the birthday song as a medley, had come and gone. Jack’s fiancée, Arlie, who was the resident designated driver, had confiscated Tucker’s keys.
The Grill emptied quickly. By twelve thirty, there were fewer than a dozen people at the tables, four or five more at the bar.
“You know—” Libby spoke softly, because the sound of her own voice was intolerably loud in her ears “—my real wish now that I’m thirty-four is for a little adventure. Nothing big like a trip to Europe or Hawaii, just something more exciting than deciding which quiche and which tea are the specials of the day.”
Tucker blinked owlishly. “Huh?”
She’d forgotten the hearing loss that made him tilt his head. It made him seem exceedingly adorable, especially after she’d partaken of three mugs of the Grill’s chocolate.
Rather than raise her voice, she moved to sit beside Tucker in the chair her brother, Jesse, had vacated when he’d left a few minutes past midnight. Libby repeated her birthday wish.
He blinked again. “You have very pretty eyes. Did you know that?”
She rolled them. At least, she was fairly certain she did. They didn’t seem to be stopping quite where she wanted them to. “They’re battleship gray.”
“No.” He leaned closer to stare into them. “They have little blue sparkles around the edges of—what is it you call the colored part?”
“I call it Iris in my right eye and Georgina in my left. And there isn’t any blue there, unless bourbon and Mollie’s secret ingredient interfere with your vision. Which could well be,” she conceded and peered into their mugs. “These are empty.”
Mollie brought clean cups. “Chocolate’s all gone, but the coffee’s fresh and free. Enjoy.”
“So, about this adventure. What would you like to do?” Tucker sipped his coffee, then gave it a suspicious look. “This might keep me awake.”
Libby gave the question some thought. “I’d like to go skiing. I’ve never done that. I mean—it is winter.”
“I noticed that. The snow was a dead giveaway.” He nodded, his lips pursed as if he were in deep thought. “What else?”
“Parasailing. Zip-lining. Niagara Falls. Go to a casino with a whole two hundred dollars I don’t mind losing. Can you imagine that? I’ve whined over a twenty before.” She leaned in close again and whispered into his good ear. “Skinny-dipping. Of course, I’d wear a swimsuit, because I wouldn’t want to scare the fish or anything.”
He squinted at her. “It’s not skinny-dipping if you wear a swimsuit.”
She straightened, offended. “It is if I say it is.”
He started to answer but must have thought better of it and nodded.
“What’s your birthday wish?” She took a drink of coffee, reflecting that it tasted better than the chocolate had. Maybe she wasn’t meant to drink alcohol. Although that buzz—which was already settling down into a quiet little hum—was kind of fun.
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
He shrugged. “Okay. But I’ve never told anyone this.” He raised a peremptory finger. “Don’t laugh, either. You know how easily I cry.”
She snorted. She could count on one hand the times she’d seen him cry, not counting when they were in the same room in nearby Sawyer Hospital’s newborn nursery—and anything she said about that would be pure conjecture. The last time had been at Arlie and Jack’s impromptu engagement party only a few days before. Libby had been the one who brought him to tears, and she’d loved it. “Let’s hear it, big boy. Your secret will be safe with me.”
After clearing his throat, finishing his coffee and clearing his throat again, he said, “I want to get married. I want to have a kid. I want to buy a house that’s just a house—you know, four bedrooms, two baths and a basketball hoop in the driveway. With a garage that’s too full of sports equipment and garden tools to get the cars in it.”
She stared at him, aghast. “You have the Alba...the Hall. It’s a mansion. Why do you want a house?”
“You can call it the Albatross—Jack and I do. We both hate it, but I’m the one stuck living in it since Grandmother died in the spring. We’re thinking about selling the whole estate. That’s what I wanted to talk to Marie about this morning—she’s a Realtor.”
“Oh.” Libby was a little pleased by that, although she couldn’t have said why. “So, why don’t you do all that? You’re rich. You always have a beautiful girlfriend. Or more than one.” She grinned at him. “You know where babies come from.”
“No.” His voice was quiet suddenly. Serious. “I want to love somebody, Lib. I don’t have to be completely over-the-top about it, but I want to care about someone and have a family with her. I want her to care about me and having kids and maybe planting flowers. Someone’s gotta use those garden tools in the garage.” He smiled as widely and charmingly as ever, but his eyes remained solemn. “I’m thirty-four—no one knows that any better than you, since you’re even older than I am—and if I’m going to umpire my kids’ baseball games, I need to do it before my knees give out. I don’t want to wait on the kid thing.”
“What if this woman you care about has a career? What then?”
He put an arm around her shoulders and spoke patiently, just as though she were a small and not-too-bright child. “I do believe two-career families flourish all over the world, even on the shores of Lake Miniagua, Indiana.”
“What if she doesn’t want kids?” What if this woman he cared about was like Libby? She wasn’t going to think about that. Not on her birthday. Or his. For this day, her secret would just stay in the dark place she kept it.
He hesitated, and she sensed his withdrawal. It was as if a cold breeze shot between them, leaving gooseflesh on her arm.
When he spoke, his voice was stiff, as chilly as the air outside the windows that looked out over the six hundred frozen acres of Lake Miniagua. “I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. You asked me what my wish was, and that was it.”
He had been her friend her whole life. When no one asked her to dance in the seventh grade, he had—and he’d seen to it his friends followed suit. When she’d had her appendix removed during freshman year, he’d brought her homework and helped her do it. Her mother died when she was fifteen, and he’d supported her through all the stages of grief—over and over again—until she could bear it. Her father’s suicide a few years later had thrown her right back into the maelstrom of mourning, and Tucker had been there for her again even though life had dealt him some hurts of his own.
He’d bought her the telescope that time. “See the stars?” he’d said. “They’re still there. Wish on them if you want, but they’re their own reward. No matter what happens, the stars will guide you to a safe place. You’ll be able to see Venus up close and talk to her whenever you like.” He’d never laughed at her assertion that Venus was indeed her guardian planet—and feminine in the bargain.
Seventeen years later, most of which he’d lived in Tennessee, she still wished on stars, talked to Venus and counted on Tucker to be there if she needed him. The least she could do was try to make this one wish come true for him.
“I’ll help.” She nodded and smiled thanks at Mollie when the bartender topped off their cups. “I’ll introduce you to women. I know you better than most anyone, and I see people every day. What are your specs?”
“My what?” The coolness was gone, but now he looked befuddled.
“You know, specifications. Blonde? Brunette? How old?”
He shrugged, and she knew the I-don’t-care gesture was legitimate. While Tucker had dated a lot of beautiful women, he’d dated even more who weren’t.
“You know me as well as I know myself,” he said. “If you want to play matchmaker, I’ll go along for...oh, say six months. Provided.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Provided?”
“Provided we use the same six months for me to grant your wish. You introduce me to prospective wives and mothers to my children and I’ll introduce you to adventure. What do you say?”
She arrowed a look at him. “I say you had one too many of those hot chocolates.”
“Hey, if I know anything, it’s adventure. That’s why when Jack and I divided up the CEO job at Llewellyn’s Lures, I got all the travel parts. Even when I headquartered at the Tennessee plant, I traveled to Michigan at least a half dozen times a year. That meant I stopped at all points in between just in case I’d missed something along the way.”
“I can’t travel. I can’t afford it, for one thing, and I have the tearoom, for another—which I’m going to enlarge this year by making the carriage house into a smallish event center. I need my adventures to be of the cheap, two-hour variety.”
“You have Sundays and Mondays off and an assistant manager who’d love to have some time in there without her micromanaging boss.”
As much as Libby hated to admit it, that part was probably true. Neely Warren had owned her own tearoom in Michigan before retiring to the lake with her husband a few years before. She’d been one of Libby’s most loyal customers, and when her husband asked for a divorce, Neely asked Libby for a job. Libby had agreed hesitantly, but it had been one of the best decisions she’d ever made.
“All right,” Libby said cautiously. “Let’s try it. You need to come to my church tomorrow. There’s someone there I want you to ask out. She’s a single mom, and she’s really nice. She has a beautiful garden, so I’m sure she likes planting flowers, too. I’ve never been to her house, but if it doesn’t have the four-and-two combination, you can buy a new one.”
“Tomorrow is New Year’s Day. It’s my birthday.” He looked at the clock behind the bar. “Well, actually, it’s already my birthday. I think people should sing to me again.”
“It’s also Sunday. St. Paul’s has never yet closed due to hangovers within its congregation. And you don’t need to be sung to anymore.”
He sighed so deeply she felt its vibration in the arm that lay alongside hers. She got gooseflesh again. “Okay. Fine. Ten o’clock service?”
“Yes.” She got to her feet. The Grill would close soon, and Jack and Arlie already had their coats on.
“I’ll be there.” Tuck finished his coffee and stood, holding her coat for her to slide her arms into. “Ground rules. I won’t hold you responsible if you introduce me to entirely unsuitable women—”
She planted her hands on her hips, her coat hanging loose from one shoulder. “I would never—”
He talked right over her, tucking her arm into the empty sleeve. “—and you won’t screech and get all girly when I choose adventures. Shall we shake on it?”
She extended her hand, then snatched it back. “I never screech.” Except for that time there had been bats in the attic of the tearoom and Tuck and Jesse had come to get them out. She’d cowered under a table in one of the dining rooms. Screeching the whole time.
“Then you won’t have a problem agreeing not to.” Tuck grinned at her, and she knew he was remembering the bat incident. The fact that he didn’t mention it was only one of the things that endeared him to her.
“Okay.” She slipped her hand into his, her breath catching a little at the warmth of his touch. They might have been just friends forever, but he was still an attractive guy and she was a girl who hadn’t had a boyfriend for a while. She withdrew her hand, pulling on her gloves. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Right.”
“Actually, you’ll see each other in the car. Arlie’s the designated driver, remember?” Jack, a bearded, glasses-wearing replica of his ten-months-younger brother, grasped Tuck’s scarf and towed him along, gesturing for Libby to precede them toward the door.
When they reached Seven Pillars, Tucker walked Libby to the back door. “Happy birthday, older-than-me.” He scrubbed a hand through her hair, which she’d worn down for the occasion. The friction created sparks.
“Happy birthday, sweet young thing.”
He hugged her, then kissed her cheek. She thought she felt a few more sparks, but that must have been leftover effects of the hot chocolate. Had to have been.
“Tomorrow, after church and once I meet your friend, you and I are taking off.” He smiled cheerfully. “You’ll want to dress warm and bring an overnight bag.”
Libby’s mouth dropped open, although she didn’t realize it until his tap on her chin prompted her to close it. “Overnight bag?”
“Yup.” He winked. “The adventure begins.”
