Ask Mariah Read online

  The girl standing next to him stopped crying. He turned to her in relief. "All right, Rose?"

  Rose pointed toward home.

  "How about a triple-fudge sundae after dinner?" the man tried again. "And we'll go to the zoo on Saturday. You love the zoo."

  "He might end up giving them the house before he's through," Nora said with a chuckle.

  "You are bad," she replied as Rose ran to join her sister. She felt sorry for their father. He looked like a nice guy who was completely at his wits' end. "It's strange," she said, watching him move from bribery to threats. "The girls haven't said anything to him. I wonder if they speak."

  "They may not talk, but they can certainly scream." Nora winced as a loud, piercing shriek rang down the street.

  Their father grabbed each girl by the hand and tried to drag them into the school. Joanna had seen enough. She walked down the steps with a welcoming smile.

  The girls looked up at her and their screams stopped with such abruptness that the silence was deafening. Joanna smiled a little nervously, not sure what to do now that she was here. She was rewarded with two matching exuberant grins. She couldn't believe the instant turnaround.

  "Mama!" they cried. "You came back."

  Joanna's mouth dropped open as the two girls hurled themselves into her arms, laughing and crying and calling her Mama. She couldn't do anything but cuddle them. They wouldn't have settled for less.

  Their father looked shocked. His light blue eyes widened in disbelief. "My God," he said. "You look just like her. The same dark hair, the same eyes, the same mouth."

  Joanna swallowed hard as his intense gaze moved from her hair, to her eyes, to her lips. "Their -- their mother?" she asked tentatively.

  "Yes." His voice turned gruff. "She died a year ago."

  Joanna's heart broke at the thought of these young girls being motherless. No wonder their father looked frazzled and the girls had difficulty separating from him. He was the only parent they had left. Still, she felt uncomfortable about her own position and decided it was time to clarify the situation.

  "My name is Joanna," she said.

  "No, Mama," one of the girls corrected her.

  "I'm sorry. You must think we're crazy. It's just the resemblance." He waved a hand toward the girls. "Look at them. Don't you see yourself?"

  Joanna licked her lips. Yes, there was a slight resemblance, but it was just in the coloring of their hair and eyes. She didn't really look like them. Although ... A stray thought ran across her mind that if she did have children they would probably look something like these two.

  "I guess we do look a bit alike," she conceded.

  "More than a little. My name is Michael Ashton," he added. "These are my daughters, Lily and Rose."

  "It's nice to meet you." She extended her hand and an incredible feeling of warmth crept through her as Michael's fingers curled around her palm. "I'm Joanna Wingate."

  "Wingate? That doesn't sound Italian."

  "I'm not."

  "Angela, my wife, she was Italian." He cleared his throat. "So, do you want the girls to call you Miss or -- "

  "It's Miss, but Joanna will be fine,"

  "Joanna," he repeated with another long, searching look. His gaze turned toward the girls. "I know she looks like Mommy, but she's not. She's ... Are you their teacher?"

  "Yes. First grade, right?"

  "We already did kindergarten," Lily explained.

  "That's good. I bet you learned a lot, too," she said. "How would you like to be in my class this summer?"

  Both girls beamed at her, their tear-streaked faces glistening like rainbows in the morning sun. Joanna took each one by the hand. "Tell me your names again."

  "I'm Lily, And she's Rose. She's the youngest by two minutes," Lily added. "Sometimes people can't tell us apart. Especially when we dress the same."

  "But you'll know who we are, because you're our mommy," Rose said with a quiet intensity that wiped the smile right off Joanna's face.

  "I'm not your mother, Rose, but I'd like to be your friend. Do you think we could be friends?"

  "How come you don't want to be our mother anymore?" Rose asked in confusion.

  "She's your teacher," Michael said firmly. "Rose -- "

  "It's okay," Joanna interrupted as Rose began to sniff. The last thing she wanted to do was start another round of crying. She turned to Michael. "Why don't you go now? The girls and I will work this out."

  "Are you sure?" Michael asked, but he was already backing toward his car, sensing freedom.

  No, she wasn't sure. But she had a feeling she would have an easier time dealing with the girls alone than with him. "We'll be fine. Say good-bye to Daddy, girls."

  Rose and Lily waved, but they offered no loving words of departure. Nor did they hug him or give him a kiss. Strange, Joanna thought. One minute they didn't want to leave him, and the next they seemed happy to turn their backs on him.

  "Mariah was right," Lily said to Rose. "She told us to go to school, remember?"

  Rose nodded in agreement.

  "Who's Mariah?" Joanna asked as they walked into the school together.

  "She's a lady in a crystal ball," Lily replied.

  "Oh." That seemed to explain everything.

  Chapter Three

  Michael was still thinking about Joanna Wingate when he parked his car in the subterranean garage beneath the Embarcadero Center in downtown San Francisco. The woman's resemblance to Angela was incredible. For a second he'd felt as if he'd seen a ghost.

  Although he saw Angela in his daughters' faces, they were children. Lily and Rose reminded him of the Angela he'd met when he was a mere boy and she was just a child. But this woman, this Joanna Wingate, had to be close to Angela's age, which made the similarity startling.

  Still shaking his head in bewilderment, he reached for his briefcase and the set of blueprints he had picked up at the printer. The upcoming ritual of work pleased him. He wanted to forget what he had just seen. He wanted to pretend that nothing was wrong. But as he boarded the elevator for the sixteenth floor, he knew something was definitely askew.

  Who was Joanna Wingate? Why had she suddenly appeared in his life now -- now that he had gotten used to Angela being gone, when he had begun to think that the girls would give up their crazy fantasy that Angela was coming back.

  Stepping off the elevator, he walked toward the double glass doors that led into the offices of Lawton, Hill and Cox, his home away from home for the past nine years. He had started out at the bottom of the heap in the prestigious architectural firm, working at a drafting table in a tiny cubicle with no windows.

  He now had an office that overlooked the Bay Bridge. Instead of working on small parts of big jobs, he had become a project leader, overseeing five other architects and numerous support staff in the design and construction of high-rise office buildings.

  As he stepped through the doors of his office, he breathed a sigh of relief. The thick burgundy carpeting that sank beneath his feet and the rich look of brass and glass felt right. He knew what to expect from his job, from his coworkers, and from his clients. His business life was predictable, and he was always in complete control.

  "Michael, we need to talk," said Jackson Cox as he walked out of the conference room.

  Jackson, one of the senior partners in the firm, was a short, balding man with a frenetic personality. He smoked cigarettes almost as fast as he talked, and his eyes darted constantly around the room as if he didn't want to miss the latest happening. Jackson was their marketing man, the one who went after the big jobs, the driving force behind Lawton, Hill and Cox's rise to the top.

  "What's up?" Michael asked as Jackson kept pace with him down the long hallway.

  "Gary Connaught just bought the Stratton Hotel. He wants to tear it down and build a fifty-story office building."

  "The Stratton? That's a San Francisco landmark. It's been around forever."

  "Exactly, It's old, crumbling, and the owners are going bankrup
t. Connaught snapped it up for a song. He wants you to design the new building." Jackson slapped him on the back. "Congratulations."

  Michael stared at Jackson for a long moment, flooded with conflicting thoughts. It was a hell of an opportunity; Jackson was right about that. But the Stratton? A lot of people would be upset to see that building go down in a pile of rubble. He had to admit to feeling somewhat bothered by the idea.

  A long time ago he had dreamed about restoring old buildings, museums, cathedrals, libraries, civic centers. But Lawton, Hill and Cox rarely restored; they built new, they built high, they built bigger than anyone else. And they made a lot of money. Sometimes his conscience called him a sellout. Most of the time he ignored it. Today he couldn't.

  "Are you sure Connaught has thought this thing through?" he asked. "The Stratton means something to the people of San Francisco. Nixon stayed there when he was president and -- "

  "Nixon is dead," Jackson interrupted.

  "Mae West stayed there."

  "She's dead, too."

  "And Lucille Ball."

  "Dead. All dead. The Stratton is past its prime. It's time to move on, and frankly I thought you'd be delighted to put your signature on a brand new fifty-story tower. Do you want me to tell Connaught you're not interested?"

  "No." He immediately shook his head. "Of course not."

  Jackson laughed and slapped him on the back again. "Thank God. For a minute there I thought you were turning into some self-righteous restoration fanatic."

  "Who me? Never." But his voice didn't sound as confident as his words.

  Jackson's eyes narrowed. "You okay?"

  "I'm fine."

  "Good, because Connaught is important to us. We need one hundred percent from you, Michael. Hell, make that one hundred and fifty percent."

  Great, which left him with minus fifty for the girls and the rest of the family.

  "I've set up a meeting with Connaught for nine a.m. tomorrow morning," Jackson added. "See what you can dream up between how and then."

  "Tomorrow? I'm still working on the Dutton project."

  "Pass it down the line. I want you on this one. You're the best we have."

  As Jackson left, Michael set his briefcase on his assistant's desk. Helen Reed, a slender blonde with hazel eyes and creamy skin, slammed down the phone.

  He looked at her in surprise. Helen rarely had words with anyone. She was one of the friendliest, nicest people he'd ever met. In fact, sometimes she was too nice. Her biggest fault was letting other people take advantage of her. "Something wrong?"

  "Tony is back in town."

  Anthony De Luca, his best friend and former brother-in-law -- the biggest troublemaker to come out of North Beach in the past fifteen years? He smiled at the thought. Not that he wasn't still pissed that Tony had taken off so soon after Angela's funeral. Tony could have stuck around. He could have helped with the kids, with the rest of the family. But as usual Tony had bailed out.

  But he knew his friend had been devastated by his little sister's death, and he could hardly blame the guy for wanting to crawl away and lick his wounds. He'd wanted to do much the same thing. But that was the difference between them -- Tony cut and ran whenever problems came up while he usually had to stay and clean up the mess.

  "When you call him back, you can tell him -- " Helen's voice faltered.

  "Tell him what?"

  "That I'm engaged to be married. That I don't need grief from him."

  "Why didn't you just tell him that?"

  "Because he wouldn't let me get a word in. He just kept talking about how he's bought a boat, and he's come home, and I should wear something sexy when he comes to pick me up tonight." Helen shook her head, bitterness filling her eyes. "As if I've been sitting here on the edge of my seat, desperately waiting for his call."

  Michael didn't think it would be prudent to mention she'd done exactly that for almost six months, until she'd gone to a reunion party of their old high school gang and fallen in love with Joey Scopazzi.

  "I'm sure he'll stop bothering you once he finds out about you and Joey."

  "I hope so." Helen cleared her throat as she changed the subject. "I understand Mrs. Polking quit."

  "She didn't like wearing green paint."

  Helen smiled. "Too bad. Green might have been an improvement."

  "By the way, any messages from Happy Hollow School?"

  "No. Why?"

  "I dropped the girls off there this morning. They must not have burned down the school yet."

  "Shall I call another agency for after-school care?"

  "Please. See if you can find someone with a sense of humor, someone pretty and fun, young." Michael suddenly saw Joanna in his mind, her warm brown eyes, her soft skin, her gentle manner -- her eerie resemblance to the woman he had sworn to love for all time. Maybe that's why he'd felt such a connection to her. It couldn't be anything else.

  "I don't think Mary Poppins is available," Helen said. "Maybe you should think about getting someone for the girls on a long-term basis."

  "I can't get a nanny to stay three weeks, Helen. One month would look long-term to me."

  "I'm talking about dating again, meeting someone else. The girls could use a woman's influence."

  "The only woman they want is their mother," he said, adding under his breath, "And they think they've found her."

  "What did you say?"

  "Nothing." He looked up as someone called his name from down the hall. "Speak of the devil."

  Tony De Luca strolled down the corridor, a big grin on his tanned face. He wore faded blue jeans, a light blue T-shirt, and a baseball cap. The guy never changed. While Michael grew older Tony seemed to stay the same, a happy-go-lucky, carefree guy.

  He and Tony had met in sixth grade. They had been best friends ever since. When Michael's mother had decided to remarry for the third time and move to New York just three months before Michael's high school graduation, Michael had moved in with the De Lucas, so he could finish his senior year. The De Lucas had given him the stable family life he had always wanted. When he married Angela he and Tony had truly become brothers.

  "Talking about me again?" Tony asked. "Hi, beautiful," he said to Helen. "Miss me?"

  "Uh, Tony. Check out the finger," Michael said pointedly.

  Tony's grin faded as he looked down at Helen's hand. "What's that?"

  "An engagement ring. I'm marrying Joey Scopazzi in three weeks." Her words came out rough and edgy.

  "You're what?" Tony asked in a shocked voice.

  "I'm getting married."

  "But -- but why?"

  "Because I ..." She looked at Michael as if she couldn't remember why.

  "Because you love Joey," he prompted.

  "Right, because I love Joey."

  "Joey Scopazzi? The kid who wore braces for eighteen years, whose glasses always slid off his face into his tapioca pudding? You're marrying him?"

  "He doesn't wear braces or glasses anymore, and yes, I'm marrying him. I want a family and a house and kids, things you don't have any interest in." She stood up abruptly, clutching a batch of papers to her chest. "Excuse me, I have copies to make."

  Tony shook his head in bewilderment as she walked down the hall. "Engaged? I can't believe it. She's been following me around since seventh grade. We've been dating on and off for twelve years. She's always been there for me."

  "But you haven't always been there for her. She's an attractive woman -- "

  "Yeah, yeah, I know. Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

  "Tell you? I got three postcards from you in the past year, none with a return address."

  "I can't believe she got engaged that fast. She knew I was coming back. I told her I needed time to think after Angela died."

  "People take a couple of weeks to think, a month at the most. You've been gone almost a year." He opened the door to his office, and Tony followed him inside.

  "So I had a lot to think about."

  "Did you come to any conc
lusions?"

  "As a matter of fact, I did." Tony smiled proudly. "I bought a boat, Michael. She's a beauty. Wait until you see her."

  "The boat is here?"

  "Yeah. The brother of a friend of mine has been sailing out of the San Juan Islands up north, but he needed some quick cash and decided to sell his boat."

  "And you just happened to have some cash? What did you do -- rob a bank?"

  "I saved it."

  He laughed. "No way."

  "I did. Okay, I had a few good hands of poker, too."

  "Did you cheat?"

  "Does it matter?" Tony asked with a grin. "Anyway, I came home to pick up the boat, say hello to the family, and see if Helen wants to go back with me. She would love the Caribbean."

  "Helen?" Michael sat down behind his desk. "My loyal assistant who never calls in sick, who never arrives late, and who dutifully calls her mother every day of the week? That's the woman you're thinking of asking to sail across the world with you?"

  "She's great in bed."

  "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."

  Tony sprawled in the chair in front of Michael's desk. "I didn't know she was fooling around with Joey Scopazzi. Why did she have to pick him? Why couldn't she find someone who didn't grow up with us, who wasn't such a weasel?"

  "Joey is a nice guy. He runs his father's dry cleaning business now. He's very responsible."

  "Yeah, and he sounds like a lot of laughs. So, what's new around here, besides Helen and Joey?"

  He smiled. Tony would love his next piece of news. "Frank and Linda are planning a surprise party for your parents' fortieth wedding anniversary on Saturday night."

  "Oh, man." Tony propped his feet on the edge of Michael's desk. "Anniversary parties and weddings. My timing sucks."

  "As always. Maybe that's why your old girlfriend is marrying someone else."

  "She's not married yet."

  "Why can't you just accept that Helen is with someone else, and be happy for her? Be her friend."

  "I don't know how to be friends with a woman. If there's no sex involved, what's the point?"