Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy

by Dee Bridgnorth

  I stared Katrina Landau right in the face. “My sister has always maintained that our mother was one of the pushiest and meanest women in town. I’m sorry if that means she was spreading rumors about Kevin. I didn’t realize that. My mother and I didn’t talk all that often. At least not in a meaningful way. She said lots of stuff but she just wanted me to listen. She had a lot of stuff to say about my younger sister. She was angry with Lena because she wasn’t more like me. But she was angry with me because I hadn’t managed to marry the man she wanted me to.”

  “Which was who?” Katrina snorted as she absently waved her spoon in the air. “I’m sure she had some rich man all picked out.”

  “I’m sure she did.” I shrugged. “I never knew who it was. She died. Remember?”

  That seemed to soften Katrina. At least a little. “So you’re back then, hmm? You want to pick up where you left off with my Kevin?”

  Kevin pinched the bridge of his nose and looked more than mildly annoyed. “Mom, please stop. Eleanor and I are trying to start over. Yes. But it’s none of your business.”

  “I’m your mother!” Katrina looked utterly taken aback.

  “I’m a grown ass man,” Kevin growled. And then he pointed at his father. “And this isn’t about me. What is going on with you and Dad?”

  “I told him that I wanted him to help with the Thanksgiving preparations,” Katrina finally mumbled. “He told me he didn’t care. Then he finally got up, but he started pulling all of these boxes out of that closet under the stairs! He said he was going on a hunting trip over Thanksgiving and wasn’t going to be here anyway.” Katrina looked absolutely crushed. “It’s going to be our first big family Thanksgiving in forever! Kevin is home and Brock will be here…”

  Funny how that sentence transformed everything. I looked at Thayla. She still seemed determined. So I gave her a little nudge and was so incredibly proud of her that the nudge was all it took.

  “Well then,” Thayla told both of her parents firmly. “Dad, I’m sorry but your hunting trip is going to have to wait.”

  “Huh?” George Landau gazed at his daughter with watery eyes as though he could not believe she would argue with him.

  Thayla gave a hard firm nod. “That’s right. I need all of you here, and Eleanor too. Because when Brock Mortensen shows up at Thanksgiving, we are going to give that man the heave to and send him packing once and for all.”

  “Thayla!” Katrina gasped. “Surely you don’t mean that! Brock is the love of your life!”

  “Oh no, he is not!” Thayla told her mother. “The man is mean and he’s stealing all of my money. Why do you think I can’t pay you rent money or help out with the groceries?” Thayla didn’t wait for her mother to answer. “It’s because I’m too busy paying his rent and giving him every dime I make so he can drink it away! He threatens me! He’s stealing and I’m tired of it. But he’s mean as hell and I need all of you to help me.”

  “Oh my word!” Katrina whispered. “That man had better watch out! Nobody treats my baby like that and gets away with it!”

  There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that Katrina meant what she said. I just hoped Thayla would hold firm to her decision to boot Brock out of her life, that Brock would allow himself to be booted, and that somehow we would all get through this holiday unscathed. Yeah. It was going to be a reality television holiday.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Kevin

  I was pretty sure that none of this made sense. And honestly I’m not even talking about the fact that my father has evidently been spending horrendous amounts of money on things like hunting hats and deer calls. What was the guy doing? Sitting in his chair ordering off of every television commercial that came on?

  No. I could not think about that right now. I probably needed to just come to grips with the idea that it didn’t make sense. Yes. That was the best way to think about all of this right now. None of it made a damn bit of sense.

  “Hey.”

  I glanced at Eleanor. “So, do I dare ask what’s been going on with my sister?” I knuckled my right eye where a headache was forming. “Or how about my job? You know, since Damion Alvarez came marching into my office and offered me a new position right after telling me that it was your idea.”

  “I doubt he said it quite like that,” Eleanor murmured. She was standing in the corner of my parents’ living room unpacking the contents of one box into a larger box with what appeared to be a duplicate order. “Besides, you want to go back to Kansas City. Right?”

  “Yes.” The word came out, but I wasn’t actually sure anymore. No. I was sure. It was the circumstances surrounding everything else that I wasn’t sure about. “I never had a baby with another woman, Eleanor.”

  She smiled. Why did that statement get a smile? She was still packing up boxes. Why was she doing that anyway? Was she just looking for something to do? Maybe that was reasonable. This entire evening. Afternoon. Whatever it was. It was uncomfortable and just straight-up weird.

  “I know you didn’t have a baby with another woman, Kevin.” Eleanor exhaled a long breath. “I don’t honestly know why I ever believed that to be true to begin with. It’s just not in your character.”

  What is it about hearing someone say words like those that inflates the male ego to epic proportions? I felt as though I could have jumped over the moon right then. Eleanor Schulte had just paid me a compliment. She had complimented my character. That was a big deal. Right?

  “And I never intended to go behind your back with any of this.” She was nibbling her lower lip now and I got distracted because the woman has the most kissable lower lip I could possibly imagine.

  Then I realized what she’d said. “I never thought you went behind my back,” I told her quietly. “Never. I was a bit surprised when Damion Alvarez came to me. But I wasn’t angry with you because of it. I know you, Eleanor. You’re not the kind of woman to stab a guy in the back. You’d rather stick the knife between his eyes.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.” She was chuckling to herself now.

  I moved in quite close to her. “I think I can remember sneaking a few kisses in this living room when we were young.”

  “Really?” Her dark eyes were sparkling with good humor. “Because I seem to remember your father sitting right there in his chair staring at us, not unlike he’s doing right now.”

  I turned. “Dammit, Dad! You were in the kitchen.”

  My father actually looked a bit offended. “Yeah. But I wanted to be right here in my chair.” He was holding a huge ice pack to his head. “Why don’t you two go upstairs if you want privacy? You think I’m going to worry about chaperoning a bunch of thirty year olds?”

  I raised an eyebrow at Eleanor. She was already gesturing to the pile of stuff she was attempting to consolidate into boxes. But I wasn’t going to let her wiggle out of this offer. Not that easily. Grabbing her hand, I towed her toward the stairs.

  “Come on,” I told her eagerly. “Let’s go up and I’ll give you the tour.”

  “You kids have fun,” Dad grunted. “And don’t use protection.”

  The words sort of drifted up the stairs after us causing me to stop, lean back down over the railing, and give my Dad what I hoped was an appropriately shocked look. “Excuse me?”

  Dad made a face. “Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me. I told you not to use protection. Your mother is driving me insane whining about her lack of grandchildren. The quicker you knock her up and marry her, the quicker your mother will shut up about it.”

  I did not have words. I was still sputtering when Eleanor and I got to the top of the stairs. She did not seem bothered by this crass reminder of our age and status in life. She was too busy laughing her ass off. Something that basically stopped when we reached the upstairs hallway and she got a good look at the wallpaper.

  “Oh my goodness, it’s like entering a time warp!” Eleanor whispered. “I can’t believe your parents haven’t done something about this place. It
screams eighties!”

  “Actually I think it probably screams seventies. I don’t know,” I told her with a grimace. “I stopped listening years ago.”

  “So, parents’ bedroom at the end of the hallway,” Eleanor told me. “Right?”

  “Yes. Thayla on the left. I’m on the right. And that’s pretty much the tour.”

  Eleanor raised an eyebrow at me. “Because you’re still sharing a bathroom with your big sister?”

  “She’s such a slob.” I wondered if Eleanor would get upset with my disparaging comments about Thayla now that the two of them were friends. That was a strange development I wasn’t sure what to make of. That was for sure.

  “She’s not a slob,” Eleanor snorted. Marching down the hallway to my sister’s closed door, Eleanor grabbed the knob, opened the door, and gestured that I should have a look. “You don’t know your sister at all.”

  I was about to argue and remind Eleanor that I’d had decades of knowing Thayla to fall back on. Then I actually looked inside the bedroom and found myself staring at a scene from some magazine ad. The room looked perfect. Utterly and completely perfect. There wasn’t a bit of clutter. The bed was perfectly made with pillows in all kinds of welcoming textures. The furniture was all vintage and looked as though my sister had spent quite a lot of time and money finding each piece just because it would fit perfectly into her final scheme. Her chintz reading chair had been placed into an alcove by the window and looked so inviting that I almost wanted to go in and see what she’d been reading. I think it was safe to say that I had just found the eye in my parents’ proverbial storm of a house.

  “Wow.” I swallowed and thought of my modest and very teen-aged room back on the other side of the hallway. “I feel a little embarrassed to show you my room now.”

  Eleanor closed Thayla’s door. “Your sister is going to be working with my sister and some of her local real estate friends on staging houses that are for sale. I wanted you to know because you need to realize that Thayla is way more than you give her credit for.

  I pushed open the door of my own bedroom and stepped inside. It wasn’t that I had ever actually doubted that… Okay, that is a total bullshit fiction. I shook my head and walked into my room. “I’ll admit that I never would have expected that of Thayla. I don’t know if you fostered it, discovered it, or what, but I’m grateful, Eleanor.”

  “You started it,” Eleanor informed me.

  I felt like she might be trying to give me more credit than I deserved. I turned on the bedside lamp and flopped down onto the double bed. The mattress groaned and sagged and I wondered if they could hear us downstairs in the kitchen. How classy would that be? Eleanor and I up here on the bed, getting a little frisky, and my parents and sister downstairs in the kitchen starting to speculate about the possible upcoming due dates for their future grandchildren.

  “I didn’t start anything,” I told Eleanor. “I believe the only thing I’ve been thinking about since I got back here that involved my sister was how absolutely bitchy and lazy she was, and how I was worried about her bringing Brock Mortensen into our family.”

  “Exactly.” Eleanor pointed at me. She wiggled her finger as though she were accusing me of something. “You cared far more than you give yourself credit for. You wanted to make sure that your sister wasn’t getting in over her head with Brock. So you spoke to me about it.”

  “So I did,” I murmured. Had I expected Eleanor to take up this whole cause with such dedication though?

  “I just started talking to your sister about her life and her interests and her boyfriend because that was the way to get her to tell me about Brock.” Eleanor pressed her lips into a thin line. How was it that we were alone together in my teen-aged bedroom and we were talking about my sister? Ugh!

  “Eleanor, I appreciate what you did. Believe me. I’m not criticizing you at all. I just don’t want to talk about my sister.” There. It was out.

  “Oh. I guess… Well, I suppose that makes sense, doesn’t it?” Then she tilted her head to one side and I realized that with her hair down and her sweater barely exposing a goodly portion of her shoulder, she looked rather irresistible. “So what do you want to do?”

  My mouth went totally dry. What did I want to do? I wanted to ravish her. I wanted to undress her slowly and then carefully kiss my way all over every inch of her skin. I wanted to forget that there had been fifteen years between now and the last time I had kissed her. I wanted to make love to her, for real now because we were adults and we actually had that option. But I felt as though I could not say all of that out loud. Not right now. Not yet.

  “How about you just have a seat on the bed and we’ll sort of figure it out from there?” I finally said.

  For just a moment I thought she was going to sit down with me. Then all of a sudden she burst out laughing. I paused. And then I thought about what I’d just said. Yeah. I had sounded like a total teenager creep. That was for sure. A classic hey baby, just relax moment and I had walked right into it.

  It was a last ditch effort, but I sat up and reached for the stack of board games that had been gathering dust on my bookshelf for about a million years. In fact, I think it was quite possible that the last time any had been off the shelf, it had been downstairs on the dining room table sitting between myself and the lovely lady now in my bedroom.

  “Care for a rematch?” I asked Eleanor.

  Her eyebrows went up. “Where? Here on the bed?”

  “Sure.” I pulled out the plastic box that contained tiny dice with letters all over them. Boggle. This had been one of the ways that Eleanor and I had passed time as kids. “Unless you think you need a big table and total concentration to win. You know. Because you could never beat me anyway.”

  “What?” She plopped down on the bed across from me and settled herself with her legs crossed. I noticed that she had removed her boots and seemed quite comfortable. “You beat me? Never! You must be rearranging history to suit yourself.”

  “Uh huh, because you know who writes history?” I teased her. “The winners.”

  “Or the people who whine the loudest,” Eleanor retorted. “Which is totally what happened here. Go ahead. Set it up. I’ll rematch you. And I bet I’ll kick your ass too!”

  I handed out the little tablets of paper and pencils that we’d kept to make lists of our words. The object was to find as many words made up by letters that touched on the gameboard. Forward or backward. It didn’t matter. The second I shook up the dice and all of the letters fell into place on the little grid, we were both looking up at the clock.

  “Time!” I called out.

  She nodded. “One minute. Go!”

  Furiously writing down whatever we could find on the board, we were both so intent on the game that it was almost as though we had been transported back more than a dozen years to a time when things had been simple. This had been our usual Friday night activity. Sometimes we would catch a movie. Sometimes we would get dinner. But we didn’t have a lot of money. Neither of us were big spenders. And we’d enjoyed playing word games together.

  I was distracted now by the sight of Eleanor, her hair falling down beside her cheek as she bit her lip and wrote down words as quickly as she could. She was more beautiful now than she had been back in the day. She was more precious. And right now I wondered if she had any idea just how badly I wanted to kiss her or to take her in my arms and make sure that she knew she was the only woman I would ever want. Then. Now. Or at any random time in the future.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Eleanor

  There is something daunting about becoming an adult and realizing that all of the old social conventions that had once ruled your life were no longer really a thing. At least that was how I felt about being upstairs in Kevin Landau’s bedroom with him.

  There was a word game between us. That was true. It made a very interesting and flimsy kind of buffer. But the thought that weighed so heavily on my mind included his father’s last words about Kat
rina wanting grandchildren and just getting on with it. Gee. No pressure. Right?

  When you’re seventeen or eighteen or even nineteen and engaged, everyone is absolutely paranoid that you’re going to pop up pregnant. They watch you like a hawk. No kiss can get too heated. No hand may stray into uncharted territory. And yet now it was like the entire world had flipped upside down. So, his father wanted us to be up here having sex? Hmm. Okay. What about me? Did I even want to have sex?

  Sex. The word was totally on my brain. And then I saw it on the gameboard and that just made me nearly choke while trying not to laugh. Of course, I also spotted hot, wet, and even of course—the word yes. As in yes, yes, yes!

  I felt my cheeks heat up. This was getting steamy and I don’t even think that was Kevin’s intention. It was just hard not to sit here on his bed and think about all of the times I had dreamed about being on or in or anywhere near his bed. The entirety of my teen-aged years had been eaten away with dreams about Kevin Landau. Now I was sitting here on his bed and all I could think about was the possibility that I had not remembered to wear matching bra and panties and that I might even be wearing something old and totally unsexy because that’s how real underwear is in spite of all the Hollywood hype stating otherwise.

  “Time!” Kevin said quickly. He rolled onto his back and stretched his arms above his head. The action tightened his abdominal muscles and also seemed to make his slacks look a bit tighter around his very thick and very powerful looking thighs. “No more, Eleanor. That would be cheating!”

  “I wouldn’t want to cheat.” I set the pencil down. “Uh. You go first. I’m pretty sure you got most of the ones that I did.”

  He picked up his pad of paper but did not roll onto his side or into a sitting position. He just started reading there on his back. “Hot, wet, let,” he said suggestively. No wait. Was he really being suggestive or was my brain just going there because it could not help itself? Ugh!