The Best Next Thing

“They’re used to me being fine. Hugh was adjusting to his new role in the company—he’s just been promoted to a junior executive position and is assisting my COO. He had a lot on his plate. And Vicki was traumatized, she was mugged a day or two before I was hospitalized. My mother was taking care of her. I just had the flu.”

The statement was telling. It seemed like his family relied on him to be the strong one, to take care of them when they were sick or in trouble. Miles was the previously infallible head of the family.

“How’s Vicki?”

“She’s fine.” He shook his head with a wry chuckle that attractively accentuated his dimple. “She hates that I had Brand assign a close protection officer to her after the mugging. I imagine she must be making the poor guy’s life hell.”

“So why were you hospitalized?”

“Are you ready to order?”

They both looked up when their server—a woman who looked around seventy—spoke.

Charity had been so engrossed in the conversation that she hadn’t even noticed the woman approach. And she definitely hadn’t given any thought to what she would eat. And, judging by the startled look on his face, neither had Miles.

“I think I’ll have the chicken and mushroom pie,” Charity decided impulsively. “With milk tart for dessert.”

“Same for me. Pie. But I’ll have the cake for dessert.”

“Anything for the pup?” The server—Estie, according to her name tag—asked with a twinkly smile. Miles grinned appreciatively at the question.

“I think she’s fine for now. Thank you for asking.”

The polite thank you surprised and charmed Charity. He wasn’t a rude man. Just abrupt and to the point. He didn’t usually seem inclined to bother with social niceties like minding his p’s and q’s.

Estie shuffled away, her fuzzy slippers sighing against the ground as she walked.

“She’s wearing bunny slippers,” Miles muttered, his voice choked, and his eyes shining with suppressed laughter.

“I know.”

“That’s fucking ridiculous.”

“I like it,” Charity confessed. A giggle burbled from her lips, and the lighthearted sound surprised her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had made that sound. Or when last she had just wanted to laugh with someone.

“Me too,” Miles said, a chuckle escaping, and the happy sound matched her effervescent giggle. That seemed to surprise him as much as her laugh had shocked her. He blinked for a moment, before shaking his head and laughing again and this time, she joined him.

They exchanged shy glances after the uncharacteristic bout of shared laughter, and Miles cleared his throat before taking a sip of water.

“Well?” Charity prompted him, and when he looked confused she reminded, “You were going to tell me why you were hospitalized.”

“I started coughing…I was disoriented and dehydrated, despite drinking what I thought was a fair amount of fluids. When my brother found me, I was incoherent and confused. Turns out I had bronchitis, which—left untreated—developed into bronchial pneumonia. By the time I was hospitalized, I was facing the very real possibility of acute respiratory distress syndrome. Which could have resulted in permanent lung damage. I was fortunate that my stubbornness didn’t get me killed.

“It was a little…humbling. I’m healthy, I stay in shape, I eat all the right things. I can’t remember ever being seriously ill, not even as a child. A cold here and there, sure—but nothing like this. It was a wake-up call. I hate being so bloody incapacitated, but I know I have no one to blame but myself.”

“Why did you choose to come here? It’s cold and wet and miserable this time of year. And I’m sure you had other options in more tropical settings.”

“It’s cold and wet and miserable,” he repeated. “But it’s also peaceful. And it holds one very important advantage over my other holiday homes.”

She considered that comment but couldn’t figure out what that advantage could be.

“What?”

His lips quirked and he gave her a hooded look that she could not decipher.

“It has you.”

“Oh.”

Was that a come on? She flushed, not quite sure what to make of that comment. But ridiculously flattered by it, no matter what it meant.

“And before you read anything shady into that,” he clarified quickly. “By you…I mean Mrs. Cole.”

The clarification confused her, and her brows knitted as she considered his words. “We’re the same person.”

“Are you?”

No…they weren’t. And it was alarmingly astute of Miles to pick up on that. Charity felt more exposed than she had in years. And it terrified her.

Terrified and exhilarated her. It felt wonderful to be seen again. Recognized as an attractive woman who had very little in common with the ageless, sexless, frosty persona she had created out of fear and desperation.

Before Mrs. Cole, she had been Charity Davenport, grieving widow of the saintly Blaine Davenport. And further back still, she had been the pastor’s wife—smiling, serene, and counselling to others, while screaming and dying on the inside.