Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “That doesn’t make me want to keep her,” I mused. I had already been feeling like I wanted to get rid of Ruth Powers anyway. This just made me feel like there was more of a reason.

  Eleanor only shrugged. “I have to give Ruth credit where it’s due. She’s a good admin when she does her job. It might be that you could talk to her or something. Or if you didn’t value that sort of informant behavior, you could just tell her that you have a zero tolerance policy for gossip. I don’t know. I keep thinking if Mr. Moss hadn’t told her that he welcomed her bullshit, she might not have been so apt to hand it to him.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” It was a very insightful and fair thing for her to say. I couldn’t help but think that she was probably a better person than I was. At least in this case.

  “I didn’t come in here to talk about Ruth or Owen Phillipson though,” Eleanor told me suddenly.

  I frowned. I wasn’t sure what else we could have to chat about. Then Eleanor’s gaze slid down to the floor as though she were dreading what she was about to say. Was she going to quit? I felt like that would be a horrible turn of events.

  Wait. I should want her to quit. Talk about punishing her for past events! Making her quit should be the ultimate goal. “What is it you needed to tell me?”

  “At my sister’s bridal shower, I ran into Alice Phipps. She was just a few years behind you and Brock Mortensen.” Eleanor spoke quietly.

  Her words threw me for a moment and then I recalled that I had asked her to look into Brock Mortensen for me. “Okay. I think I vaguely remember someone named Alice, but that doesn’t matter. What kind of information did Alice have to share?”

  “She thinks that your sister must have started dating Brock Mortensen after he got out of jail.” Eleanor seemed to be speaking quickly as though she had a lot to get out.

  But I was stuck on one fact. It was something that completely baffled me. If he had been in jail, why would Thayla have started dating him? I could not imagine why that would seem like a good idea to my sister.

  “Brock was serving a short sentence for assault,” Eleanor continued grimly. “I don’t know if you remember Emmaline Potter. She was a few years ahead of me, but still behind you.”

  “Yes. I remember her.”

  “Brock beat up her father and broke his jaw.” Eleanor shook her head. “He was trying to help his daughter get the man out of her house. I guess he was very abusive.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. All I could think about was my mother saying that Brock and my sister were planning to live with them for a few months after the wedding. I thought about my mother and my father and what could happen if that criminal were living in their house. “I have to get through to my sister. I have to figure out if she knows about this!”

  Eleanor bit her lip. She did not look sure. She should have been though. She should have been ready to throw down in the name of sisterhood, right? “I’m not trying to say that your sister should stay with the guy, Kevin.”

  “Then why do I get the feeling you’re about to really piss me off?” I growled. I was already feeling that surge of adrenaline that I got right before a big confrontation. Broke a guy’s jaw? I wanted to meet up with that bastard in a back alley with a two-by-four in my hand!

  Eleanor actually rolled her eyes at me. Why did that make her look younger and more vulnerable? I actually saw just a hint of that girl I had fallen so hard for all those years ago. “Kevin, think about it. If you try to tell Thayla that her boyfriend is a two-time loser and you won’t let him into your parents’ house, she’s going to just want him all that much more!”

  “No!” I argued and shook my head, but the logic of what she was saying was hard to get around. “My sister’s not that stupid.”

  Eleanor was just staring at me. Not a word passed her lips. She just stared. Why did that make me feel so hot and cold all at the same time? I should have been ready to throw this woman out my door and never look at her again. But I couldn’t do it and I would be lying to myself if I thought that I could.

  Chapter Ten

  Eleanor

  Why are men always so ready to go into every situation as though they are planning to wage war? Why couldn’t they ever seem to see the logical or even the obvious emotional content? It was like I could see all of it playing out on Kevin’s face. He looked angry and maybe even scared on behalf of his family. And yet the guy was ready to go boss around a sister he had not talked for more than a decade. How far was that really going to get him?

  “Kevin, you’ve been gone for a long time,” I told him quietly. I was trying to sound reasonable and maybe even a little empathetic. “I remember when my sister dated this guy named Karl Kitson. The idiot was psycho. He was so controlling and he cheated on her all the time. I could not believe that my sister didn’t see what was going on. But she didn’t. She was blind to his faults. And he really took her for a ride. But she never would listen until she was ready.”

  “And what happened to that?” Kevin snorted derisively and shook his head. “Is this where you tell me that you saved your sister by being calm and rational and letting her make her own choices?”

  “Uh, no. Karl stalked her for years. Like three years. And then he found something he liked better, the stalker ex-girlfriend of my sister’s current fiancé.” Yeah. I could absolutely see him trying to work all of that out in his head. It’s weird. I think anyone would agree where that’s concerned. “The two of them are apparently so united in their hatred that they are actually getting married.”

  “That’s demented. Are you saying that I have to wait for Brock to find someone else?” He looked pissed. Actually, he was starting to look more and more pissed with each passing second.

  “That would be ideal, wouldn’t it?” I actually chuckled at that notion. “Except that would mean that Brock would have a new woman to torture and I think that’s horrible. I wish it was possible to just throw a guy like that into a cell and throw away the key. He’s just going to keep hurting people until he’s permanently taken out of the game.”

  “Then you have to go with me to tell my sister!” Kevin half stood up from his desk.

  I was already shaking my head. “You don’t talk to her for what? Fifteen years? Then you come home for a few weeks and you start poking at her love life and telling her she can’t date the man she decided to marry? You really think you would listen to that if your positions were reversed?”

  Thankfully I could see the moment that the logic in what I was saying set into his head. Kevin sank back into his deep executive chair and looked disgruntled. “Well, that sucks.”

  “It really does. But you have to find another way.”

  “How?” He was looking at me with such a mystified expression that I wished I could offer him something other than the obvious. “Maybe you should try talking to her, striking up a few conversations, getting to know her again.”

  “We were never close,” he said flatly. “Less than close. Try, we were always trying to kill each other and make ourselves only children.”

  “Right.” I remembered this from when we were young. It had been a constant source of aggravation to his mother. My mother hadn’t appreciated it either. My mother had often been openly critical of other people’s children when they did not appear to follow her rules. “I suppose you could try it on an adult level. You guys aren’t kids anymore. Why is there a need for childish patterns of behavior?”

  “You mean like living in your parents’ house until you’re forty-two?” He asked dully. “Because we have that down.”

  “Is that why you were so critical about the idea of me still living with my parents?” I wondered out loud. As soon as the words were out I realized that I didn’t want the answer. I didn’t want to know what he was critical about where I was concerned.

  Kevin looked momentarily surprised. He was still in his office chair. I was standing in the doorway. This really wasn’t the place to have this conversation and yet I was totally going to hav
e it. Kevin offered me a long look. “I’m sorry about that. I suppose I do get a little judgy about people who live with their parents until what seems like they’ve worn out their welcome.”

  He got up from his seat and came a little closer. No. A lot closer. He was staring down at me with such intensity that I felt as though there were fire crackling over my skin. Every nerve was alive with excitement. I could smell him. Sandalwood and spice. Simmering just beneath the surface of that handsome exterior that never failed to make me swoon. He leaned very, very close to me. I inhaled sharply but only got a huge breath of Kevin. It made me dizzy. My nipples peaked and I had to clamp my thighs together to keep myself under control. What was wrong with me?

  “I never thought that about you,” Kevin whispered. “I never thought you were that kind of woman. You’re not like my sister. I was only reacting to the information that I’d been given. That’s it.”

  “I suppose that’s fair,” I murmured. My heart was pounding. It was quite possible that I was going to faint. The thought made me desperate to focus on anything other than how attracted to him I was. So, I thought about his sister instead. What would that feel like? To know that your sister was just mooching off of your parents well into her middling years? I would have been furious with Lena. Absolutely furious. And probably mad at my mother too.

  “Can I ask you something?” I glanced at him and was surprised to see that I could no longer read his expression at all. What had happened? A second ago he had looked fairly open minded and maybe even agreeable. Now not so much.

  “Go ahead,” I told him with a pretty big dose of fear in my gut. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Your mother,” Kevin told me firmly. “I was just talking to my mother last night and she let some stuff slip… It’s not really important anymore. I was just wondering…”

  “Wondering what?” I could not imagine what his mother would have to say about anything where we were concerned.

  “My mother was all upset last night because she told me that your mother had never wanted me to marry you. She had been against the match from the beginning.” Kevin pursed his lips and looked very troubled. “I just never got that impression from your mother and I was wondering what your thoughts were on that subject. That’s all.”

  “My thoughts…” I felt my voice die off and I wondered if the total state of shock in my heart showed on my face. “My mother…”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to dredge up the past. I was just hoping that my mother was wrong,” Kevin said firmly. “I would like to put her mind at ease.”

  “Wait,” I whispered. My heart had stopped. I was pretty sure that it had anyway. I felt as though I were standing on the edge of a huge precipice. I was going to fall. I was going to drown in the abyss and I would not even know what had happened. “You’re saying that your mother claims my mother was responsible for ending the wedding?”

  “Yes. That Wanda—your mother—had never wanted us to get married. She felt you could do better. And that was why she had convinced you not to go through with it.” He held up his hands suddenly. “Please don’t be offended. I’m not trying to make you out to be at fault for any of this. I’m not blaming your mother either. I figured that she probably had her reasons.”

  “Had her reasons…” I was having difficulty forming the words that I needed to say. “That’s not what happened at all.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It was your mother.”

  “Mine?” He looked utterly confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your mother told my mother the morning of the wedding that she thought I needed to know that you had—had,”—I could not get the words out—“you had a child with someone else. My mother told me that your mother confided in her that I needed to know about this because it would deeply affect us as a couple and that it wasn’t fair for me not to go into the marriage knowing the truth.”

  I had always wondered what his face would look like if I ever told him that. If it ever came out. All of it. What would Kevin Landau look like? Would he be glad to have it in the open or contrite, or something else altogether? Now I knew. Kevin looked absolutely baffled. Like he didn’t know what I was talking about. Did that mean he was still unwilling to cop to the lie?

  “You believe that I have a child with another woman?” Kevin finally spoke again, but it sounded as though he were choking over every single word. “That’s why you left me at the altar?”

  “Yes.”

  “Eleanor, that’s not true.”

  I drew back. I felt as though I’d been slugged. Why would he lie about this now? Why would he bother? It wasn’t like I needed to hear a lie or believe one. We weren’t together. We weren’t going to be together. There was no more reason to lie to me.

  What a bastard.

  Of course, about that time Ruth Powers came barreling back into the office. She was waving a sheaf of papers in her hand. “I found the disclosure!” Ruth panted. “I found it. I found the paragraph about the COBRA benefits. I found it!”

  This was my opportunity. I didn’t need to be here. I didn’t understand what this was all about anyway. Why did Kevin Landau suddenly care about Owen Phillipson and his wife? What did it matter how much Owen was going to have to pay for COBRA benefits? It wasn’t Kevin’s problem. It wasn’t even his concern to know if Owen’s wife was pregnant or not. It just wasn’t any of his concern.

  Ruth was whispering to him about her findings and her calculations and right now I decided that it was a good time for me to leave. I had nothing else to offer this conversation.

  So, I turned without a word and left Kevin’s office. Or rather Mr. Moss’s office. My former boss’s office that now belonged to my former fiancé. The man I had been so excited to share my life with until I found out that he had already promised to share it with someone else by having to raise a child with that woman.

  I still didn’t know who it was. That bothered me. I couldn’t help but wonder the answer. The question had lain dormant for so many years. Now Kevin was back and suddenly all I could think about was what had happened all those years ago. How could the boy I trusted so implicitly have been lying to me all along?

  My feet kept walking past my office and all the way to the exit. I didn’t want to be at work anymore. I had been here since six o’clock this morning. I was tired. It was four in the afternoon. I wanted to leave. So, I was going to leave and that was that.

  I left my jacket in my office. I didn’t care. I needed to get to the car. I was going to—I didn’t know what I was going to do. Maybe I needed to just go shopping or something. I would hit some of the old specialty shops down in Tower Grove and look for the best wedding gift ever for my sister. Or just a gift. A sister to sister gift.

  “Eleanor!” Ruth was chasing after me. What the hell? I didn’t want to talk to Ruth!

  I turned at the last second and raised my eyebrows at Ruth Powers. “How can I help you, Ruth?”

  “I just wanted to tell you that I don’t know what game you’re playing at, but I don’t appreciate you trying to get me fired.” Ruth’s voice was low and fierce. She sounded angry and almost dangerous. Her glowering expression was enough to make my blood curdle.

  How odd. I had just argued for keeping this woman employed. But there was no way that she would be able to believe that. Not now. Not when she was so convinced that I was the devil.

  “Ruth. I’m sorry if that’s what you believe.” I shrugged. It wasn’t like I could just push it off. “I hope you realize that this isn’t true. But if you don’t, that’s your problem.”

  There we go. That was a perfect way to end the day. Telling a coworker that you were fine with them hating you and probably trying to help you lose your job even though you had just put in a good word for them.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kevin

  I could not stop thinking about Eleanor’s words. I hated that she was so right. At least about my sister. That stuff about me having a kid with so
me other woman? What. The. Hell? I didn’t even know where to start with that. It seemed possible that someone had lied to her. But who would do such a thing? I didn’t even think her mother would be capable of something like that. And my mother? No way. She would have never done something like that.

  But I had to stop. I could not just dwell on that. I had to think about something else. That’s why I couldn’t help but be a little pleased to see my mother’s car in the driveway when I got home. Mom didn’t drive anymore. Thayla drove it. That was evidenced by the myriad dings on the poor old station wagon. The Subaru had once been my mother’s prize possession. Mostly because my father had allowed her to buy a foreign car when she begged him for one. Now it was a hunk of light blue junk. Thank you, Thayla.

  My sister was in the kitchen when I stepped into the house. My mother was there too. My father was still in his recliner. It was quite possible that he had only gotten out of the thing for meals and hopefully to go to the bathroom. Hopefully.

  “Hello, Thayla.” I made extra effort to be warm and inviting toward my sister.

  She grunted of course. She was wearing a pair of khaki pants and a pink polo shirt. Was this some kind of work uniform? “I was wondering,” I began conversationally. “Where are you working?”

  Thayla gave me what could only be described as a suspicious glare. “The Sweet Shop. It’s a gift boutique down near the shops by Tower Grove Park.”

  “How do you like it?” I could not even wrap my mind around the notion of working in retail. I don’t like people that much. Not in the kind of nonstructured encounters that happen in retail anyway.