Mrs. Scrooge Page 11

  "Too bad you aren't going to the party. Maybe your fairy godmother will be there looking for you."

  "Right," said Sam with a rueful laugh. "And maybe she'll turn me into Cinderella."

  * * *

  TWO TABLES AWAY; Patty and Professor Scotty exchanged knowing glances.

  "Cinderella!" Patty breathed softly. "It's so romantic. I can't wait to see her face."

  "And I can't wait to see his," said Scotty. "This is a fine plan, my dear child. A fine plan."

  "I knew the minute I saw Murphy that he was the one."

  "I wonder how long it will take them to agree with our assessment."

  "My mom can be real stubborn."

  "Murphy has been known to dig in his heels."

  "My mom thinks Rocky Hill is the best place in the world."

  "Murphy was looking for a way out from the day he was born."

  "She thinks marriage is forever."

  "He's been divorced."

  They looked over at Sam and Murphy who were engaged in intense conversation, their heads pressed close together over the appetizer tray like old friends exchanging intimate confidences.

  Patty grinned at the older man. "I think they're a match made in heaven."

  He patted her hand. "So do I, dear girl. So do I."

  Chapter Nine

  It struck Murphy halfway through his interview with the chief honcho of CNN on Friday morning that he should be a hell of a lot happier.

  So far everyone liked him, from the secretaries to the cub reporters to the executives who wouldn't know how to file a wire story if their collective lives depended on it. Every time he turned a corner he bumped into a familiar face and fielded another invitation to have lunch or dinner or drinks ASAP.

  They were going to make an offer. Murphy didn't have a doubt in the world that they would. Interviews at his stage of the game were strictly pro forma matters. Social exercises rather than business deals. Sometime between now and Christmas the phone would ring and this seriously intelligent man on the other side of the desk would make an offer that would be just shy of knocking Murphy's socks off.

  It was exactly what he'd thought he wanted back when he stormed out of the Telegram office in late October. Why then was he finding it so damned hard to muster up any enthusiasm?

  "Murphy?"

  Murphy jumped at the sound of his name. "Yes?"

  The chief honcho laughed politely. "I asked if you want to go up to the dining room for lunch."

  "Sure," said Murphy, rising from his chair. "I'm in no rush to get back."

  "The Dover sole is superb."

  Murphy smiled as the other man rose. "I'll consider it."

  He knew it wouldn't hold a candle to the hearty, delicious concoctions Sam Dean had been supplying the past few days.

  "It feels like the old days on the Geneva beat, doesn't it?" asked the chief honcho as they headed toward the private elevator at the end of the hall.

  "Sure does," said Murphy, his tone bland.

  "Those were the days," sighed the executive.

  No, thought Murphy in surprise. As good as those days had been they couldn't hold a candle to the fun he'd had in the snow with Samantha Dean.

  Don't even think it, boy. You're everything that woman and her kid don't need. You'd only hurt them when you left.

  Shut up, Dad. This time you're probably right.

  * * *

  IT WASN'T THE SAME without Murphy.

  Sam was amazed to discover how much she missed seeing him Friday afternoon when she stopped off at O'Rourke's to leave the trays of sandwiches and appetizers for the gang. Not even Scotty's courtly manners and effusive praise for her daughter's brilliance could ease the void Murphy's absence created.

  Sam fumed all the way to Princeton Junction and her storefront. Scotty had said that O'Rourke would send a cousin around later to return the empty trays. What kind of nonsense was that anyway?

  He's only being considerate, Sam. There's no reason to get all bent out of shape.

  He had a life of his own. He had every right to spend the day in Manhattan job hunting, if that's what he wanted to do. What correspondent in his right mind wouldn't welcome a job offer from CNN? Just because her future was there in New Jersey was no reason to imagine the Garden State held any long-term allure for O'Rourke.

  Her stint as chief cook for O'Rourke's Bar and Grill was as temporary as his stint as bartender. In fact, someone was interviewing for the spot that very afternoon. Soon his dad would be back mixing drinks and a cook would man the stove in the kitchen, and she and Murphy would go their separate ways.

  In just a few days Murphy had become part of her daily life. She looked forward to seeing him, to talking to him, to making him laugh with stories about her years in cooking school and her tribulations raising a girl genius. He could be sardonic and he could be silly and while he wasn't the polished, sophisticated man of her dreams, he possessed a rough-and-tumble attractiveness that could be quite appealing.

  The simple fact of the matter was she liked him. She liked him a lot. It was wonderful to be around a man who found the details of your everyday life as fascinating as Murphy seemed to find hers. She couldn't think of too many thirty-six-year-old men who would have been able to enjoy an impromptu snowball fight with the same zest that Murphy showed the night before.

  "So where are you then, O'Rourke?" she said to the empty storefront. Why wasn't he back at the bar where he belonged, keeping Scotty and Joe and the rest of the gang company?

  And, while she was asking questions he'd never answer, why was he taking another woman to the TriCounty Small Business Association's Annual Masquerade Ball?

  * * *

  WHEN SAM GOT HOME from working at the store, Patty and Caroline were seated at the kitchen table, chatting away like old ladies at a quilting bee, and Sam found herself annoyed that Patty hadn't seen fit to at least take something out of the freezer for dinner.

  "Are you staying for dinner?" she snapped at her best friend.

  Caroline's pale brows arched. "Such a gracious invitation, Samantha. It breaks my heart to decline."

  Caroline stayed a few more minutes, and Sam managed to muster up enough enthusiasm to give the woman a quick hug good-bye.

  "Are you okay?" Caroline asked before she disappeared down the driveway to her car. "You're not yourself."

  "Don't I wish," Sam muttered, glaring at her beautiful blond blue-eyed friend.

  "You're overtired." Caroline turned up the collar of her cashmere coat. "Get a good night's sleep. Everything will look brighter in the morning."

  Sam shivered as a blast of cold air whipped around her shoulders. "A likely story."

  "Trust me," said Caroline, winking at Patty. "I know what I'm talking about."

  "What was that all about?" Sam asked the minute she closed and locked the door.

  Patty's eyes were wide and innocent behind her glasses. "What was what?"

  "That wink."

  "What wink?"

  "You and Caroline are up to something."

  Patty looked away, her braids falling forward over her shoulders.

  Sam sighed loudly and tugged at one of her daughter's plaits. "Don't encourage Caroline," she warned. "We made a pact not to exchange Christmas gifts this year and I, for one, intend to stick with it."

  To Sam's horror, Patty's lower lip trembled. "I hate it when you say things like that."

  Sam scrunched down next to her little girl. "You know our budget, sweetheart. I'd rather spend my money on—" She stopped, suddenly uncertain whether or not the Santa Claus issue had been satisfactorily resolved last year.

  "That's all right," said Patty, her voice breaking. "I know Santa Claus is just a myth for children, and I know you want to get me presents but—" Her narrow shoulders shook as Sam gathered her into her arms.

  "Don't cry. I know I've done a lot of complaining about bills this year, what with the store and school and everything, but Christmas will be the same as it ever was. I promise
you."

  "I know," said Patty, her eyes glistening with tears. "That's the problem." She sniffled loudly. "I wish we could have the Christmas candles outside this year."

  "The candles aren't free, honey. Besides, don't we have enough to do with decorating the inside of the house?" Their neighborhood had a long-standing Christmas tradition that Sam devoutly wished would disappear. Every Christmas Eve the residents lined their driveways and the street with tiny white paper bags. Inside each bag a fat white candle rested in a bed of sand. At dusk the candles were lighted and the flickering flames burned until well past midnight, ushering in Christmas.

  For years Patty had been begging Sam to let them join in the spectacle, but Sam had always been too broke to buy the supplies or too busy working until late on Christmas Eve to participate. And there was certainly no way on earth she would let her daughter, brilliant though she was, play with fire.

  Sam knew she'd acquired the nickname "Mrs. Scrooge" from her family for her avid disinterest in all things Yule these past few years but she'd never imagined Patty had taken it so to heart.

  "I don't think you're fair," Patty said, pouting. "Just you wait until the store opens and we start to show a profit."

  "I don't care about that."

  "Sure you do, honey. Maybe we could even get you that upgraded computer you love so much."

  "I don't care about some stupid computer." Patty pulled out of Sam's grasp. "I just want you to be happy!"

  "I am happy, Patty." Where on earth had this come from? A second ago they'd been talking about the luminaria that lined the street on Christmas Eve.

  "No, you're not."

  "Of course I am! How could I be anything but happy with a daughter like you?"

  "I won't be with you forever," said her brilliant, but painfully young, little girl. "One day I'll go off to college and you'll be all alone."

  Out of the mouths of babes. . . Sam's heart twisted. It seemed as if Patty had been at the center of her life for as long as she could remember. She'd grown up just one step ahead of her baby daughter and found it impossible to imagine her life being any other way.

  "Don't rush things, sweetheart. There's still plenty of time."

  "I wish you were married," Patty blurted out. "I wish I had a father."

  What point was there to reminding Patty that she did, indeed, have a father? Expensive presents at Christmas and birthdays did not a father make. Ronald Donovan was nothing more than a name on a birth certificate, tucked away in a safety deposit box and all but forgotten.

  "You have Grandpa Harry and all of your uncles," Sam offered, removing Patty's glasses and drying them with the hem of her soft cotton sweater.

  "But they don't belong to me."

  "People don't belong to other people," Sam reasoned, although she knew all too well what her daughter meant. "There are an awful lot of people who love and care about you, Patty. That's not something to take lightly." She slipped the glasses back on her daughter's serious, freckled face.

  Was that a twinkle she saw in her daughter's bright blue eyes? "I still wish I had a real dad living right here with us."

  "I'm afraid you only have a real live mother and she'll have to be enough."

  "I still wish you were married."

  Sam laughed and shrugged her shoulders. "Well, sometimes so do I."

  "Really?"

  "Really." The years from seventeen to twenty-eight had disappeared in the blink of an eye. Sam felt as if she'd gone from schoolgirl to mother in an instant. Her life had been filled with caring for Patty's ever-increasing needs, earning a living, then the backbreaking job of school and starting a new business.

  Even if she had been interested in romance along the way, she doubted if she'd have been able to squeeze a man into her schedule.

  Funny how Murphy O'Rourke had been able to fit right into her schedule, making himself a part of her routine as if they'd been friends for years instead of only a few short, days. She thoroughly enjoyed his company, and Patty was positively smitten in a way that Sam had never seen before.

  Admit it, Sam—you're pretty smitten with him yourself.

  She blushed under her daughter's knowing glance. Fat lot of good it did, being smitten with Murphy O'Rourke. He thought of her as a funny-looking younger sister and nothing more. She wasn't his type, and nothing on earth was going to change that.

  Besides, if she were going to get serious about a man at last, she certainly wouldn't pick a footloose and fancy-free foreign correspondent as her heart's desire.

  No, she wanted a quiet and stable businessman whose roots were as firmly entrenched in central New Jersey as hers were. She wanted a man whose idea of high excitement was running down to Kmart for a new snow shovel.

  And, more than anything, she wanted a man who thought tall, skinny brunettes with brilliant red-haired daughters were the answer to a single man's dream.

  Murphy O'Rourke?

  Not very likely.

  Sam sighed and kissed her daughter's cheek. "Give me a smile. We're in this together."

  "Yes," said Patty, forcing an answering smile. "Just you and me."

  * * *

  MURPHY HUNG OUT in Manhattan for a few hours after his meeting with the chief honcho at CNN. He wandered in and out of some of his old favorite watering holes, half hoping to bump into some of his pals from the Telegram, but no dice. Apparently other men his age had more important things to do.

  In fact, they were probably all hot on the trail of a story that would have won Murphy the Pulitzer.

  Traffic on Ninth Avenue was backed up halfway to Wall Street, and Murphy had to maneuver his way around a water main break, potholes and sidewalk Santas to get down to the Holland Tunnel and take an alternate route back to the sanity of central New Jersey.

  As it was, he snarled his way home and stormed into the bar a little after six with all the charm of Conan the Barbarian.

  "Down, boy!" One of the regulars hoisted a wooden chair and aimed its sturdy legs at Murphy who considered biting them off and spitting toothpicks at the clientele.

  "I take it your meeting was unproductive?" Scotty's tone was smooth and conciliatory.

  "Mmmph." Murphy's tone was not.

  "Traffic heavy?"

  "Hmmph." Good going, O'Rourke. Prehistoric man was probably a better conversationalist. He wanted to complain about the traffic, about the crowds in the city, about CNN and the demise of expense account lunches but, to his surprise, there wasn't anybody in that bar he could talk to.

  Scotty would lecture him on responsibility. His old man, who was watching him from behind the bar, would tune him out with a quick "I told you so." Angela, the waitress, would snort and tell him about her sore feet and varicose veins.

  Sam would listen.

  The thought was there, full-blown, as if it had been waiting in some dusty corner of his brain for him to notice. Sam was strong and opinionated, it was true, but there was a warmth about her that intrigued him. She was independent and ambitious and all of those terrific things but she was also a woman and that was what called to Murphy that night.

  He tossed his tie and his trench coat over the bar and grabbed for his leather jacket hanging on the wall hook. "I'll be back in a few hours."

  His father looked up from counting swizzle sticks. "Unfinished business?"

  "Yeah," said Murphy, heading for the door. "Unfinished business."

  He couldn't remember if she lived in big Rocky Hill or little Rocky Hill and once he got that straight he called her Dane instead of Dean. Finally he called on one of his pals on the local police force to at least point him in the right direction. An hour and a half after his quest began, he turned onto a quiet street of middle-aged frame houses with neatly fenced yards. Number thirteen, nineteen—there it was.

  Twenty-three Harvest Drive.

  The house with the police car in the driveway.

  * * *

  IT WAS DEFINITELY one of those days.

  First Murphy wasn't at the bar. T
hen Patty lured her into one of those deep, soul-searching conversations about wanting a father that invariably tore at Sam's heartstrings and called up all manner of maternal guilt. Now her cousin Teddy, a twenty-year man on the local police force decided to stop by and drop a bombshell on her doorstep.

  "Frank's getting married this weekend!" Sam's voice rose an octave in surprise.

  Teddy, a big bear of a man, laughed as he gulped down a cup of coffee in the front hall. "I can't believe it, either. Never thought he'd give me a sister-in-law, that's for darn sure."

  Frank was Teddy's twin, equally big and equally jovial. Sam couldn't count the times both men had pitched in to help her and Patty over the rough spots. Frank operated a hot-dog cart in mid-Manhattan, which turned into that New York City perennial each Christmas—a roasted chestnut stand.

  "So what's the deal, Teddy? Does he need the wedding catered?" The thought of turning out one hundred dinners on short notice made Sam blanch but there wasn't anything she wouldn't do for her cousin. She was already planning her shopping list.

  "He's renting Uncle Joe's restaurant."

  Sam whistled. "I'm impressed."

  "What he needs is—" Teddy stopped and peered out the glass panel next to the door. "You expecting company?"

  "No, I'm—oh, yeah. A delivery boy is coming by to return some trays."

  "Pretty old delivery boy," said Teddy. "Looks kind of rough around the edges, if you ask me."

  "Murphy!" Sam leaped to the door and swung it open, battling down a sudden rush of excitement racing through her veins. "What are you doing here?"

  He waved the round metal trays overhead. "You need these, don't you?"

  Teddy broke in with a theatrical cough. "You know this guy, Sammy?"

  Her cheeks reddened as she ushered Murphy into her growing-smaller-by-the-second front hall. "Teddy, this is Murphy O'Rourke. His dad owns O'Rourke's Bar and Grill."