Maybe This Time

343 Pages·2009·1.47 MB·English

by  Jennifer Crusie

ALSO BY JENNIFER CRUSIE

Bet Me
Faking It
Fast Women
Welcome to Temptation
Crazy for You
Tell Me Lies
Maybe This Time

JENNIFER CRUSIE

ST. MARTIN'S PRESS
NEW YORK
Contents

Title
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and
events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination
or are used fictitiously.

MAYBE THIS TIME. Copyright (c) 2010 by Argh Ink, LLC. All
rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St.
Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
ISBN 978-0-312-30378-5
First Edition: September 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is for
Sarah and Cecilia
who want cereal for breakfast every day
and who fill those days with joy.
My Thanks To
THE GLINDAS and the ARGH PEOPLE,
who suffered through this book with me

GAIL HOGAN,
who helped me with the TV research and who is nothing like Kelly O'Keefe
HEIDI and DAN CULLINAN,
who suggested the salvia
BROOKE BRANNON, SUE DANIC, MOLLY HASELHORST,
LANI DIANE RICH, ROXANNE RICHARDSON, and ANNE STUART,
who beta read brilliantly

RACHEL PLACHCINSKI,
who gave me the original house that became Archer House, a picture of
herself as a small child that became Alice, a translation of American English
into British English for one character, and constant support throughout the
writing of this (as in, "Hurry up and finish the [British expletive deleted]
book, Crusie")
JODI REAMER and AMY BERKOWER,
who went above and beyond the call of agenthood . . . again
JENNIFER ENDERLIN,
the finest editor an author can have
and
HENRY JAMES and TRUMAN CAPOTE,
who were here first.
Maybe This Time

This book takes place in 1992.
Because.

One

Andie Miller sat in the reception room of her ex-husband's law office,
holding on to ten years of uncashed alimony checks and a lot of unresolved
rage. This is why I never came back here, she thought. Nothing wrong with
repressed anger as long as it stays repressed.
"Miss Miller?"
Andie jerked her head up and a lock of hair fell out of her chignon.
She stuffed it back into the clip on the back of her head as North's neat,
efficient secretary smiled at her, surrounded by the propriety of his Victorian
architecture. If that secretary had a chignon, nothing would escape from it.
North was probably crazy about her.
"Mr. Archer will see you now," the secretary said.
"Well, good for him." Andie stood up, yanked on the hem of the only
suit jacket she owned, and then wondered if she'd sounded hostile.
"He's really very nice," the secretary said.
"No, he isn't." Andie strode across the ancient rug to the door of
North's office, opened it before the secretary could get in ahead of her, and
then stopped.
North sat behind his walnut desk, his cropped blond hair almost white
in the sunlight from the window behind him. His wire-rimmed glasses had
slid too far down his nose again, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up over his
forearms-- Still playing racquetball, Andie thought--and his shoulders were
as straight as ever as he studied the papers spread out across the polished top
of the desk. He looked exactly the way he had ten years ago when she'd
bumped her suitcase on the door frame on her way out of town--
"Miss Miller is here," his secretary said from behind her, and he
looked up at her over his glasses, and the years fell away, and she was right
back where she'd begun, staring into those blue-gray eyes, her heart
pounding.
After what seemed like forever, he stood up. "Andromeda. Thank you
for coming."
She crossed the office, smiled tightly at him over the massive desk,
decided that shaking his hand would be weird, and sat down. "I called you,
remember? Thank you for seeing me."
North sat down, saying, "Thank you, Kristin," to his secretary, who
left.
"So the reason I called--" Andie began, just as he said, "How is your
mother?"
Oh, we're going to be polite. "Still crazy. How's yours?"
"Lydia is fine, thank you." He straightened the papers on his desk into
one stack.
A lot of really big trees had died to make that desk. His mother had
probably gnawed them down, used her nails to saw the boards, and finished
the decorative cutwork with her tongue.
"I'll tell her you asked after her."
"She'll be thrilled. Say hi to Southie for me, too." Andie opened her
purse, took out the stack of alimony checks, and put them on the desk. "I
came to give these back to you."
North looked at the checks for a moment, the strong, sharp planes of
his face shadowed by the back light from the window.
Say something, she thought, and when he didn't, she said, "They're all
there, one hundred and nineteen of them. November nineteen eighty-two to
last month."
His face was as expressionless as ever. "Why?"
"Because they're a link between us. We haven't talked in ten years but
every month you send me a check even though you know I don't want
alimony. Which means every month I get an envelope in the mail that says I
used to be married to you. And every month I don't cash them, and it's like
we're nodding in the street or something. We're still communicating."
"Not very well." North looked at the stack. "Why now?"
"I'm getting married."
She watched him go still, the pause stretching out until she said,
"North?"
"Congratulations. Who's the lucky man?"
"Will Spenser," Andie said, pretty sure North wouldn't know him.
"The writer?"
"He's a great guy." She thought about Will, tall, blond, and genial.
The anti-North: He never forgot she existed. "I'm ready to settle down, so
I'm drawing a line under my old life." She nodded at the checks. "That's why
I came to give you those back. Don't send any more. Please."
After a moment, he nodded. "Of course. Congratulations. The family
will want to send a gift." He pulled his legal pad toward him. "Are you
registered?"
"No, I'm not registered," Andie said, exasperated. "Technically, I'm
not even engaged yet. He asked me, but I needed to give you the checks
back before I said yes." She didn't know why she'd expected him to have a
reaction to the news. It wasn't as if he still cared. She wasn't sure he'd cared
when she'd left.
"I see. Thank you for returning the checks."
North straightened the papers on his desk again, and then looked
down at the top paper for a long moment, as if he were reading it. He'd
probably forgotten she was there again because his work was--
He looked up. "Perhaps, since you haven't said yes yet, you could
postpone your new life."
"What?"
"I have a problem you could help with. It would only take you a few
months, maybe less--"
"North, did you even hear what I said?"
"--and we'd pay you ten thousand dollars a month, plus expenses,
room, and board."
She started to protest and then thought, Ten thousand dollars a
month?
He straightened the folder on his desk again. "Theodore Archer, a
distant cousin, died two years ago and made me the guardian of his two
children."
Ten thousand a month. There had to be a catch. Then the rest of what
he'd said hit her. "Children?"
"I went down to see them at the family home where their aunt was
taking care of them. They'd been living there with their father, their
grandmother, and their aunt since the little girl was born eight years ago, but
the grandmother had died before Theodore."
"Down? They're not here in Ohio?"
"The house is in a remote area in the south of the state. The place is
isolated, but the children seemed fine with their aunt, so we agreed it was
best that they'd stay there with her in order to disrupt their lives as little as
possible."
And to disrupt yours as little as possible, Andie thought.
North waited, as if he expected her to say it out loud. When she didn't,
he went on. "Unfortunately, the aunt died in June. Since then I've hired three
nannies, but none have stayed."
"Lot of death in the family," Andie said.
"The children's mother died in childbirth with the little girl. The
grandmother died in her seventies of a heart attack. Theodore was killed in a
car accident. The aunt fell from a tower on the house--"
"Wait, the house has towers?"
"It's a very old house," North said, his tone making it clear that he
didn't want to discuss towers. "The battlements are crumbling, and she
evidently leaned on the wrong stone and fell into the moat."
"The moat," Andie said. "Is this a joke?"
"No. Theodore's great-great-grandfather had the house brought over
from England in the 1850s. I don't know why he dug a moat. The point is,
these children have nobody, and they're alone down there in the middle of
nowhere with only the housekeeper taking care of them. If you will go down
there, I will pay you ten thousand a month to . . . fix them."
"Fix them," Andie said. Ten thousand a month was ridiculous, but it
would pay off her credit card bills and her car. In one month. Ten thousand
dollars would mean she could get married without debt. Not that Will cared,
but it would be better to go to him free and clear. "What do you mean, fix
them?"
"The children are . . . odd. We wanted to bring them here in June after
their aunt's death, but the little girl had a psychotic break when the nanny
tried to take her away from the house. The boy was sent away to boarding
school at the beginning of August, but he's been expelled for setting fires. I
need someone to go down there and stabilize the children, bring their
education up to standard for their grade level so they can go to public school,
and then move them up here with us."
Andie shook her head and another chunk of hair slipped out of her
chignon. "Psychotic breaks and setting fires," she said, as she stuffed it back.
"North, I teach high school English. I have no idea how to help kids like this.
You need--"
"I need somebody who doesn't care about the way things are supposed
to be," he said, his eyes sliding to her neck. "I think that's where the nannies
are going wrong. I need somebody who will do the unconventional thing
without blinking. Somebody who will get things done." He met her eyes.
"Even if she doesn't stay for the long haul."