Love Overboard Part 14

Stephanie grinned because the image of Ivan Rasmussen as a shoe baron was ludicrous, and because while he was trying to sound disgusted, it was obvious from the way his voice cracked that he saw the humor in it, too.

"It's not funny," he said, smiling. "Well, yeah, I guess it is sort of funny. Can you imagine me running a shoe factory?"

"No."

"My great-great-grandfather started this leather business when there was an abundance of hides in the area. Over the years it evolved into a shoe factory. Unfortunately, as you saw during the ride here, this shoe factory is the only industry for miles. People in this town have lived and worked here for generations. Without Rasmussen Leather Products the town would die."

He got out of the car and opened the pa.s.senger door for Stephanie. "We'll walk to Ted's house. It's just down the street. Ted is the factory foreman. When I was a kid my dad used to bring me here to see the shoes. I hated the factory, but I loved Ted. He knew how to skip stones across the river behind the factory, and he could spit farther than anyone on the face of the earth..."

"And he knew how to make stink bombs."

"Yup. He knew how to make stink bombs."

He picked a stone up and sailed it through the air, into the back end of the parking lot. "When my dad died, I took a look at the books of this sad old factory and discovered it had been running in the red. I loved my dad. He was a good man, and he wasn't stupid, but he had no talent for running a business. No one had made any improvements in this place in fifty years. It was in such bad shape, I couldn't get anyone to loan me money to modernize it."

Stephanie stopped walking and looked at him. "My Lord, you sold Haben to save this factory, didn't you?"

"All these people would have been out of jobs. I couldn't do that to them." He threw his arm around her and started her walking again.

"Anyway, once I made some initial changes, I was able to persuade a bank to finance the rest. And I changed the direction of the product. Went back to making quality, hand-sewn shoes. Just a few styles. Docksiders and cla.s.sic Wellingtons. It'll take a while before it's on its feet, but I think if the operation stays simple, it can eventually turn a nice profit. Hopefully I can get my nose out of it soon and let the factory go back to running itself."

Stephanie felt a lump-in-the-throat surge of love and respect for the man next to her. She was proud of him. Proud to be his lover and his friend. And his wife? How about his wife? She shivered and took a deep breath. Stephanie Rasmussen. Yikes!

Ivan stopped in front of a freshly painted white house that looked like all the other white houses, and he pointed to a maroon pickup in the driveway. "Look familiar?"

The kitchen door to the little Cape Cod slammed shut. A dog barked, raced into the driveway, stopped short, and ran back into the yard. The sound of voices carried over the noise of the excited dog. Stephanie and Ivan exchanged glances.

"I know that voice," Stephanie said.

"I think we hit the jackpot."

No one noticed them when they walked around to the back, because everyone was too absorbed in the problem at hand. Melody and Lucy each had a handle on the black plastic body bag stuck half-in and half-out of the small bas.e.m.e.nt window.

"This is impossible," Lucy said. "We should have taken him up the stairs the way I wanted."

Melody dug her heels in and pulled. "It seemed like a shortcut. I mean, we always dumped him out of windows before."

"Yes, but they were big windows," Ivan said.

Both women yelped and dropped the bag. The body slid back through the window and landed with a m.u.f.fled thunk. A third familiar voice could be heard cursing in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Ivan raised his eyebrows. "Ace?"

"I've sort of adopted him," Melody said. "Daddy's giving him a job at the factory."

Things began to come together in Ivan's mind. "My Lord, you're Ted's daughter. The skinny kid who went to Juilliard."

"And when I graduated from Juilliard, I went on tour with a band, but I found out I wasn't the touring type, so I came home. Thanks to you, I have a home to come home to."

Ivan turned his attention to Lucy. "What are you doing here?"

"Helping cousin Melody. We have to return Mr. Kulecza."

"I didn't know Melody was a cousin," Stephanie said.

Lucy nodded. "On my mother's side. I guess that makes you cousins-in-law or something."

There were a lot of scuffing and thumping noises coming from the house. The door was flung open, and Ace backed out, dragging the bag. He saw Ivan and paled. "Oh c.r.a.p!"

Ivan pointed at the bag. "Mr. Kulecza?"

"It's not really as bad as it seems," Melody said. "I can explain."

Ivan had a flashback of past conversations about broken pigs' legs and cancerous growths and wasn't sure he wanted to hear the explanation.

Melody saw the tense set to his mouth and decided not to wait for encouragement.

"Everyone in town was really upset when they found out you had to put Haben up for sale to save the factory. We tried to raise enough money to pay for the changes ourselves, but we couldn't even come close. Then Lucy had a brainstorm. She found out Stephanie had just come into a ton of money and wanted to leave New Jersey. It was too good to be true. Not only would Stephanie be the perfect person to buy Haben, but she'd be the perfect person to match up with you. All we had to do was get you two to fall in love and get married, and you could live Habenly ever after."

Ivan stood statue still while he absorbed what he'd just heard. The whole d.a.m.n town had plotted to get him married. And worse than that, they'd plotted to get him back into Haben. He felt like a gold digger! An opportunist! He was touched by their concern, and he was furious at their meddling.

"Just exactly what did you do to ensure we'd fall in love?"

Melody backed up a step at the controlled anger in his voice. "Well, we thought it would be good if we could get Stephanie to take a cruise, but she wouldn't cooperate. Lucy tried all summer to get her on the boat, but no, Stephanie didn't have time. So as a last resort we came up with this plan to get her on board as cook. We broke a whole lot of stuff and set her up with workmen who would overcharge, then when we knew her money was short, we offered her Stanley Shelton."

Stephanie gasped. "You wasted my money! How could you do that? I needed that money."

"We couldn't think of anything else to do. Besides, we have almost all of it in a bank account for you. Lenny Schneider fixed your porch for free, and Hyram Mayler didn't actually give you a new water heater... he gave you your old water heater back. The only thing we didn't count on was the toilet. It got cracked by accident. I haven't any idea how your toilet got cracked."

A muscle twitched in Ivan's jaw. "Why did you stow away on the Savage?"

"To keep an eye on you." Melody defiantly stuck her nose into the air in response to his threatening tone. "We weren't sure how much pirate blood you'd inherited."

"I see." He looked at Stephanie, who was standing rigid at his side. Her face was set in a mask of grim disbelief. He curled his hand around her waist, nestling her a little closer, and gestured at the body bag. "Mr. Kulecza. Doesn't he have any relatives? I can't believe someone gave you this guy to throw out of windows."

Laughter flashed across Melody's face. "He's just a dummy. We borrowed him from Zembrowsky's Funeral Home. My cousin Joey works there. They use Mr. Kulecza to show off the caskets. They named him Mr. Kulecza because he looks like Bucky Kulecza. Remember old Bucky? Used to make lasts?" Melody stooped to unzip the bag. "He's really lifelike. They use this same stuff to make the robots at Disneyland.

"Things didn't look as if they were going so well between you guys, so we thought we'd borrow Mr. Kulecza, dangle him in front of Stephanie's window in the middle of the night, and she'd get scared and turn to you. It sounded great when we thought of it, but dopey Ace stashed Mr. Kulecza in the wrong closet. Then when we tried to dangle him and make ghost sounds, the wind picked up, and he crashed through Stephanie's window."

Ivan thought Mr. Kulecza was lucky not to have a bullet hole in the middle of his plastic forehead. He put out a tentative finger and touched the mannequin's cheek. "What about Mr. and Mrs. Platz?"

"It was a pity haunt. An act of mercy."

Stephanie knew from police work that surprise and stress were capable of distorting perception. She silently repeated that truth over and over as she rode back to Camden with Ivan.

Melody and Lucy and Ace and possibly seven hundred other people had connived to return Haben to the Rasmussen family. Ivan had nothing to do with it, she told herself. He had proposed because he loved her. It had never occurred to him that he could regain Haben through marriage, right? Right. Why was she even thinking such trash?

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat. She couldn't shake the doubt. If it had occurred to all those shoemakers, it could have occurred to Ivan. She waged a mental debate. Low self-esteem, she told herself. She couldn't believe Ivan would want to marry her for herself. That was ridiculous, she decided. She liked herself. Her esteem was just fine and dandy. He'd be lucky to get a prize like her. Oh yeah? came the reply. What about Steve? He didn't want her. Stephanie smacked her forehead. Steve was gay, for crying out loud. He wanted Roger Beldon! She shook her head. She was getting weird. Her CPU was overloaded.

"Ivan, I need to get away for a while."

He'd known it was coming. She hadn't spoken a word since they'd left the factory parking lot, but the air had crackled with unspoken accusation and painful confusion. He knew she was waging a silent war, debating the possibility of dishonorable intentions on his part. It was understandable. His first thoughts had run along the same lines. He'd listened to Melody's explanation and suddenly felt revolted at the thought of marrying Stephanie to get Haben back.

Of course, the plan had been for them to fall in love, and that wasn't nearly so mercenary. But it had raised uncomfortable questions all the same. Questions Stephanie was going to have to answer all by herself. A good marriage had its share of blind faith. Stephanie was going to have to look inside herself and decide if she had enough faith in his love to marry him. And he was going to have to sweat it out, he thought ruefully.

Stephanie stopped for a light, stretched her cramped arms toward the windshield, and flexed her fingers. She'd been on the road for nine hours. It seemed like nine days. She'd gone home to Jersey City to regroup and think things through, and had found out that home was no longer in New Jersey. It was nice to see her parents and friends, but she'd been a visitor. Her home was in Maine now, and she'd been anxious to return.

Anxious to return. The phrase stuck in her mind as she slowly drove through the town of Camden, over the Megunticook River, and north on High Street. She decided that anxious was exactly the right word to describe her feelings.

She'd left without much of an explanation to Ivan and wasn't at all sure what she'd find waiting for her at Haben. She'd simply said she'd needed to get away, and she'd headed south, smarting under the realization that she'd been manipulated by strangers, friends, and relatives. She'd probably looked like a blithering idiot, not even recognizing her own water heater!

By the time she'd reached New Jersey, she'd gone over every detail and was laughing out loud. The whole scheme had been outrageous. And doubting Ivan's love had been equally insane. Several times she'd started to call Ivan from New Jersey but had hung up even before she'd finished dialing. The telephone seemed inappropriate for the message she wanted to convey. Now she was going to see him, face-to-face, and she was nervous.

The nerves disappeared when Haben came into view. Someone had decorated the front porch with pumpkins and Indian corn, and a cutout of a ghost had been taped to the front door for Halloween. This is the real Haben, she thought. It wasn't staid and stuffy, and she'd be foolish to try to force her preconceived ideas of stately elegance on the big old house. It was daily disasters and fun on holidays, and it probably really did have a ghost who broke toilets. Ivan was right when he said it was a house that needed children and dogs and an orange cat. She glanced down at the small ball of orange fluff sleeping on the seat next to her. It was a step in the right direction. Maybe next month she'd get a dog. The kids might be harder to come by.

She pulled into the driveway, slung her purse over her shoulder, and cuddled the kitten in the crook of her arm. She wasn't surprised to find the front door unlocked.

It all felt very right. As if the house were waiting for her. And she knew Ivan would be waiting for her, too, because Ivan loved her. It was a love she would be able to count on for the rest of her life. A love she would return.

The foyer floor had been freshly polished, pots of mums decorated tables and cozied up corners. The clocks ticked in cadence as if they were the heartbeat of the house. A sliver of golden light shone under the closed kitchen door. Stephanie pushed the door open and found Ivan standing at the counter, chopping vegetables. He wore khakis, a bulky sweater, and loafers. His hair had been cut and his beard shaved off, but he was still heart- stoppingly handsome and frighteningly virile. He seemed as at home in the kitchen as he'd been at the helm of the Savage.

"Making supper?" Stephanie asked.

He turned at the sound of her voice, the surprise apparent on his face. He recovered quickly and smiled at her, and the smile said it all. Welcome home, I missed you, I love you. It took her breath away, and she wondered how anyone could say so much with a simple smile.

"I'm making an omelet. Are you hungry?"

"Yeah." She smiled back at him. "I'm starved."

He took the kitten from her and held it up for inspection. "Is this a new boarder?"

Stephanie nodded. "It's a wing chair cat."

"What's its name?"

"Whiskers."

"Are you hungry, Whiskers?" he asked the cat, taking a bowl from the cupboard. He filled the bowl with milk and set the bowl and the cat on the floor. Then he gathered Stephanie into his arms and kissed her. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too."

"Yeah?"

She laughed softly because he was so obviously pleased. "Why isn't Lucy making supper?"

"Lucy and Melody haven't moved back. They weren't sure they were welcome."

"Hmmm. I see that didn't stop you."

"My rent is paid through May."

Stephanie wrinkled her nose. "Sorry I left in such a huff, but it was a little embarra.s.sing to discover a whole town had conspired to get me married. I can hardly wait to get my hands on Lucy, Melody, and Ace."

"You're not mad at them?"

She twisted her mouth into a fiendish smile. "I don't get mad-I get even. Their days are numbered. At this very moment there are two handsome bachelors packing their bags in New Jersey."

"What about Ace? Isn't there a bachelorette en route to Maine for Ace?"

Stephanie shook her head. "Ace isn't ready for marriage. But when he is, I'm going to cut him down at the knees!" She raised her eyebrows at Ivan. "And I suppose you've moved into the master bedroom?"

He kissed her again. Long and sweet. "Mmmm. Aunt Tess insisted on it."

"You're pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?" she said, teasing.

His hand tightened at her waist. He hadn't been sure of anything except his love. She'd been gone for almost two weeks, and he'd awakened every morning dry-mouthed with fear that she wouldn't return. Not a phone call or a postcard, and now here she was, looking at him as if she had the world by the tail. He had a strong inclination to shake her until her teeth rattled. Instead, he kissed her hard, crushing her against him.

She slid down from the kiss and rocked back on her heels, licking tingling lips. "Maybe I'm not as hungry as I thought," she said. "Not for supper anyway."

Ivan held her at arm's length and looked at her. "Are you sure?"

He didn't have to say more. They both knew what he was really asking. Are you sure you love me? Are you sure you're ready to make a binding commitment to that love? Are you sure you don't need more time?

Stephanie gave him a big smackeroo-type kiss. "Yes!"

Ivan pressed his face into her silky hair and swallowed, allowing relief and joy to wash away two weeks' worth of loneliness and doubt.

Mine, he thought happily, hugging her, swinging her off her feet with a loud war whoop. He scooped her into his arms and carried her up the stairs to the master bedroom. He struck a match to the kindling that had been stacked in the black marble-and-mahogany fireplace and waited while the larger logs caught. He lit the candles in the wall sconces and turned down the thick down comforter. Then he undressed her very slowly, covering her with kisses where her clothing had been removed.

When she was entirely naked and shivering with expectation, he reached into the night- stand drawer and took out a small box. "I bought this the day you left. Sort of a token of faith, I guess."

He opened the box and removed a perfect diamond in a simple gold setting. He held the ring between his fingers and solemnly offered it to Stephanie. "Once this ring goes on, it never comes off, Steph. Will you marry me?"

She'd always expected falling in love would be a gradual, logical process, but a pushy ghost had tumbled her down a hill-right into the arms of a pirate. And then she'd been maneuvered into bed by an entire town of backwoods matchmakers. Not your average romance, but it didn't matter. She loved Ivan Rasmussen and his haunted house and his beautiful ship and his silly shoe factory. She slid the ring onto her finger and looked into his smoky gray eyes.

"Yes, I'll marry you. But I'm not sure about sleeping in the master bedroom." She gave an involuntary shiver and drew the quilt over herself. "I have this creepy feeling we're being watched."

A gust of wind whipped through the room, the bedroom door slammed shut, and there was the soft tread of feet on the stairs to the cupola.

"Must be the cat," Ivan said.

"Maybe," Stephanie said slyly. "Maybe not."