Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy

by Dee Bridgnorth

  I cleared my throat. That was not just unexpected. It was—well, the word intriguing came immediately to mind. “Wow.”

  “Right?” Damion looked rather pleased with himself. “I have to say that I’m rather proud of this idea.” He sobered just a bit. “Even though it’s not technically my idea. Well, it isn’t all my idea.”

  “Eleanor?” I guessed. “It has her stamp on it.”

  “The woman is kind of diabolical,” Damion told me. “Seriously. I sort of wrote her off in the beginning. She was way too pushy. She kept badgering me for information on this takeover. She was sure that it was my office that was being sold and she was determined to get the first dibs or something. I don’t even know. But I did know that her sister was going to be the only woman I could ever imagine spending my life with. So I tolerated Eleanor.”

  “And now?” I prompted. I really wondered what a man like Damion Alvarez thought of a woman like Eleanor Schulte who would not be intimidated or impressed by him in the least. “What do you think of her now that you know her a little better?”

  Damion pointed at me and started to laugh. “I think that you are going to run a merry race trying to figure out how to stay ahead of her. That’s what I think!”

  I laughed. I couldn’t actually argue with that logic. Damion was right. About more than one thing actually. “Okay. So let’s say that I’m interested in this notion of yours.”

  “The job?”

  “Yes. The job.”

  “All right,” Damion said eagerly. He put his feet down and sat forward in his seat. “You could move back to Kansas City. I imagine you would like to do that.”

  “Probably.” I didn’t want to talk about my beautiful apartment sitting empty even though I was still paying the rent. My stuff was in it. I liked my stuff. I liked my place. I was pretty sure that Eleanor would like my place too. “But that’s not really the issue. Let’s talk employment contracts. Because I’m getting a little tired of making money hand over fist for everyone else while I work my ass off for a very small percentage of the profits.”

  “Fair enough.” Damion did not seem to care. What the hell? It was like the guy was willing to make me a sky’s the limit offer. “What do you think is fair?”

  “What would my position be?”

  “Recruiting manager. You’d be in charge of the entire operation.” Damion went from lackadaisical to very serious. “You know that market. You know the clients and you know what kind of assets are available. That’s important. You can bring that to the table, right?”

  I didn’t even have to wonder. “Yes. I know what IT schools are churning out. I know which ones can offer me the best grads. I know who has the best placement programs and who lets their graduates go without even a recommendation. I know what companies hire and when they do most of their looking. I also know when Midwest IT does a good portion of their recruiting.”

  “And I’m sure you have a laundry list of stuff you wished that you could fix,” Damion added.

  “Hell yes.” That wasn’t even a question. Was it? “Don’t we all?”

  Damion had taken a breath to say something else when my door came open and I found myself staring at the most unlikely person ever to stand in my office. My sister’s expression was wide eyed and worried. She looked harried. And my immediate feeling when I saw her was total dread.

  “Oh, thank goodness!” Thayla burst out as she pushed her way inside. “What is wrong with this place? It’s like nobody works here or something.”

  “Long story.” I stood up. “Thayla, what are you doing in my office?”

  “You have to come home. It’s Dad.”

  “You couldn’t call?”

  “I was already right here.” She looked around and frowned. “Where’s Eleanor?”

  It was possible that I nearly blew a fuse when she asked me that. “Excuse me?”

  “I expected to see Eleanor. That’s all.” Thayla shook her head. “I’ve been calling you. You don’t ever answer.”

  “I don’t have any…” I looked down at my phone and realized that there were at least a dozen missed calls. They were just on a list of numbers that I had placed on a “do not disturb” list. My family was at the top of that list. “Sorry. What’s going on?”

  “Dad fell out of his chair,” Thayla told me hurriedly. “He’s refusing to go to the hospital.”

  “Dammit to hell,” I muttered. I glanced at Damion. “If you’ll excuse me?”

  “Certainly.” Damion waved to someone else who was coming into the office behind Thayla. “Hello there, Eleanor. You’re just in time for some excitement it would seem.”

  “What excitement?” Eleanor frowned. Then she looked at Thayla. I expected her to boot my sister out of the office. Boy was I out of some loop from the Twilight Zone. “Thayla, are you all right? You look worried! What happened? We only left the restaurant like ten minutes ago!”

  “Wait. I’m sorry.” I felt as though everyone in this room knew what was happening except me. “Did you just say the restaurant?”

  “Yes.” Eleanor waved her hand at me. “Just don’t worry about it right now. Okay? Totally not worth it.”

  “Not worth it?” I was about to lose my damn mind. “And what is wrong with Dad?”

  “Your father?” Eleanor looked to Thayla. “What happened?”

  “He fell out of the chair. Won’t go to the hospital.” Thayla was already heading for my office door. It was like Eleanor was the one she had come to see anyway. “Do you have time to swing by and help me? I’m not sure what I’m going to find. Mom called me from home.”

  “Of course!” Eleanor sounded as though she and Thayla weren’t just acquaintances. They seemed like BFFs. What kind of alternate universe had I just entered? “Let’s go now. I’ll drive.”

  “Thank you!” Thayla was already heading for the door as though she had forgotten I was here.

  “Damion, good to see you.” Eleanor waved at her future brother-in-law. “You can show yourself out I’m sure. Tell my sister hello.”

  “Of course!” Damion got up out of his chair as though he were completely at ease here in my office. Then he looked at me all of a sudden. “Are you all right? I can give you a ride to your parents’ place if you’d like.”

  “What? No!” I drew back.

  This was all weird. No. Weird wasn’t even the right word. It was just completely out of whack. I could not figure out what was going on or what was happening right here under my nose. That was it.

  “Hey, just relax. I’m sure it’s all going to be fine.” Damion nodded at me as though we were somehow old acquaintances or friends. “My father has these spells all the time and hits the ground for a few minutes or hours even and then he’s fine. He would kill us if we tried to take him to the hospital. And believe me, my brother and I have tried. I thought he was going to cut us both off without a penny. But that’s how those old guys are, right?”

  Somehow, oddly, Damion’s words actually offered me a bit of reality. “You’re right. My father is crusty and grouchy as hell and probably just tripped on his way to the bathroom.”

  Damion grinned at me. Then he chuckled. “Women. They make too much out of everything.”

  “I suppose they do,” I agreed slowly. Although I fully intended to find out what in the hell was going on between my sister and Eleanor Schulte before today was over. I wasn’t entirely certain I could take any more surprises. Not without winding up on the floor myself.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Eleanor

  If I had to make a list of the most awkward moments that I could imagine, I’m pretty sure that this one would rank right up near the top. You know, that moment where you show up at your ex-fiancé’s house with his sister so that you can help her deal with a problem concerning her aging parents. Yeah. That pretty much covered the weird factor. Of course, you had to add in the whole thing where I wasn’t really sure if there was a bit of romance blooming between me and my ex. Then there was the thing w
here his sister’s family didn’t actually realize that we were friends. And of course, we can’t forget the fact that our mothers were evidently the worst frenemies in the St. Louis metropolitan region at one time.

  “Thank you for coming over here with me.” Thayla was practically tiptoeing her way up the front walk. “I’m pretty sure that my mother is in there having a heart attack or something.”

  At some point in the last twenty-four hours the weather forecasters had sworn that we were supposed to get some sunshine in order to dry things out. They had apparently gotten it very wrong though because right now there were huge thick flakes of snow falling from the sky. The snowflakes covered my hair and my lashes and I kept shaking off my jacket in order to avoid dragging so many of the wet little buggers into Thayla’s parents’ house with me.

  “I have a feeling that your mother probably already has this under control,” I told Thayla. I could not even begin to imagine what my mother would have been like if my father had decided to fall out of his chair. Mom probably would have scratched his eyes out. “Moms are just sort of like that…”

  I swallowed whatever else I had been about to say when I heard the screaming. It was coming from inside the house. It sounded like the high pitched tones of a female voice and the much lower tones of a male voice. Thayla did not stop and listen at the door. She hurriedly turned the knob and pushed her way inside.

  “Mom? Dad? It’s Thayla!” Thayla stuck her head inside the door. Five seconds later she pulled it out. Then she pressed her hand to her chest and looked as though she were going to be sick.

  “What’s wrong?” I whispered. I put my hand on the door. “Let’s just go in together.”

  “Okay,” Thayla said weakly.

  Back down at the curb, I saw Kevin’s SUV pulling in. He parked in the snowy driveway just in front of his father’s old beat up truck. The flakes were coming down thicker and thicker now. I needed to get in and get out and figure out why I was even here. This was so messed up! I didn’t belong here. What was I thinking?

  Thayla grabbed my hand. She was shaking. I didn’t know if it was anger or fear or just some huge emotional response she could not quite get a handle on. I walked into the house behind her. The first thing that registered was the mess. At first I thought there had been a fight. A huge one. Then I realized that things weren’t exactly what I had first thought.

  The living room looked as though it had been liberally sprinkled with junk. Tons of it. But this was the sort of junk that people order off the television or from mail order catalogs. At least if you were a huge fan of hunting and fishing you would order this stuff. Animal calls and fishing lures and tackle bags and boxes of fishing line. Hats of every size, shape, description, and camo pattern known to man. Fleece vests in every hunter orange color in the spectrum. There were stacks and stacks of the stuff everywhere and most of it still appeared to be in unopened boxes.

  “Is it always like this?” I whispered to Thayla.

  She barely shook her head as though she were afraid to answer. “No. It’s like the closets all exploded or something.”

  I vaguely recognized the room. It was the same living room where I had always sat to wait for Kevin while he went upstairs or while I waited for him to come downstairs. It was the same fireplace in one corner, stairs in the opposite corner, television in the middle of the wall, and then of course a small loveseat and the recliner.

  Mr. Landau was on the floor in front of the recliner. Mrs. Landau was nowhere to be found, but I could certainly hear her. She was in the kitchen shouting as she banged the pots and pans around with as much enthusiasm as you could possibly imagine any one person having.

  “Dad?” Thayla knelt down beside her father. “Dad, are you all right?”

  He appeared to be out. Like totally and complete senseless. I knelt beside Thayla and carefully placed my fingers on his neck to find his carotid pulse. It was there and it was actually quite strong. It was almost like he had fallen or something and was just having trouble getting his bearings.

  “You just sit in there day in and day out like some bump on a log!” Katrina Landau shouted from the kitchen in the next room. “You don’t even care! You act like there’s no reason to even get our ass out of that chair! And then I find out that you’ve been hoarding all of this stuff? What is wrong with you? When are you ever going to use it? You never go anywhere, you horrible man!”

  “Mom?” Thayla called out.

  There was a pause in the tirade. That was good at least. Maybe it meant that Mrs. Landau was lucid enough to listen to reason. “Thayla? Is that you? What on earth are you doing home?”

  Thayla glanced up at me, her expression both alarmed and confused. “You called me and said that Dad fell. Remember? What was doing when he fell?”

  Eleanor had totally expected to hear the woman talking about how Mr. Landau had fallen while getting up out of the chair or trying to get up on a stool or one of those typical household moments when that kind of thing happens. What I didn’t expect was for her to come banging out of the kitchen waving a wooden spoon in front of her like a weapon.

  “I knocked him out of that stupid chair!” Katrina Landau said fiercely. “I am so tired of that useless man! I smacked him over the head with my soup spoon and then I dumped him out onto the floor!”

  That seemed to baffle Thayla. I couldn’t blame her. I felt my heart in my throat and I wondered if I was going to get the spoon next. “Hello, Ms. Landau.”

  “Oh. Eleanor Schulte.” Mrs. Landau seemed surprised to see me. “Kevin mentioned that you were working for him recently. Is that why you’re here?”

  “Actually, I’m here for Thayla. She and I are friends. I was worried about her and about you both when I heard there was a problem. I figured I could maybe be of assistance in some way.”

  “Oh, I can’t imagine how we would need your assistance.” Mrs. Landau seemed confused. “This is family business, and thanks to your mother”—came the snide reply—“you’re no part of our family.”

  I chose to ignore that. Thanks to my mother. Wow. Evidently Katrina Landau was feeling extremely forward today with her opinions. “Why does Mr. Landau just sit in the chair?” I asked the question out loud hoping it might cause someone to actually think about this issue. Had anyone actually determined whether or not the man was healthy or did they just assume that he was? “Is he injured or something?”

  “Nope. Just lazy,” Mrs. Landau informed me. Then she waved her big spoon at the boxes and boxes of hunting gear. “Except apparently he is planning an enormous hunting trip. Ha! Do you have any idea how much of his pension he’s probably wasted on this nonsense? We will never get that back! Never!”

  “It’s my money!” Mr. Landau seemed to come roaring back to consciousness. Or maybe he had never really been out. He might have been pretending. I could see why he would. The old barrel-chested man struggled to sit up with Thayla’s help.

  All at once Kevin came bursting into the house. It occurred to me that he’d been right behind us outside. I saw him get out of his SUV in the snowy driveway. Right? So, where had he been for the last several minutes?

  Kevin took one look at his father and then reached down to help him the rest of the way up off the floor. “Dad! Are you all right?”

  “What in the hell do you care?” Mr. Landau fired back at his son.

  I was utterly taken aback by the venom that Mr. Landau seemed to hold toward Kevin. It was like he hated him. The fury of it was horrible to behold. I glanced from Katrina to George to their daughter and then to Kevin. Maybe it was time to clear the air.

  “Okay. Stop.” I held up my hands. “What is really going on here?”

  I addressed the question to all four of them, but it was Katrina Landau who put one fist on her hip and used the other hand to wave that stupid spoon at me. “Don’t you start, young lady. As if any daughter of Wanda Schulte has the right to come banging in here demanding answers or asking about anything!”

  “Wa
nda Schulte is dead,” I reminded Katrina flatly. I really didn’t want to talk about my mother. “I get it. My mother spread awful rumors about your son after Kevin and I broke up. I’m sorry. I didn’t even know that she’d done that. What do you want? An apology from the grave?”

  Katrina gasped and sucked in a huge breath as though I had just deeply insulted her. “You brazen little hussy! You’re back in town now and you think you can just steal my son from me again? Not likely!” She waved her spoon as though she were trying to suggest that I might be next.

  Both Thayla and Kevin were now staring at their mother with something approaching shock and horror. Thayla was the first to speak. “Mom! Eleanor is my friend! Don’t talk to her that way!”

  “Your friend?” Katrina snorted and swung around to look at her daughter with suspicion. “How is she your friend?”

  “Yeah,” Kevin added. “How exactly?”

  It was possible that Mr. Landau was actually considering making a run for it. The older man kept edging toward the front door as if he were looking for a handy escape while his wife was distracted by the rest of us.

  “Thayla and I met at the shop where she works,” I explained calmly. “She was wonderful enough to help me pick out the perfect wedding gift for my sister. We started to talk. We’ve had lunch and dinner a few times and honestly, I think we’ve realized we have a lot more in common than we ever knew.”

  “It’s been a blast,” Thayla said with a mulish stubbornness bordering on defensiveness. Then she pointed at her brother. “So don’t go getting your panties all in a twist just because you think you should have dibs or something.”

  Kevin rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Thayla. If you want to be friends with Eleanor that’s your business.”

  I was kind of stung by his callousness. What else was going on here? Then I realized that he was staring at his mother. Were they all thinking that Katrina was going to lose it here? Did Katrina secretly hold a grudge against me because my mother had a tendency to spread rumors in order to get people to see things her way? Now that just wasn’t fair.