It seemed like a part of Jett, though, still saw herself as the girl she had been years before, still stuck in that spiral of insecurity. Even though she had nothing to feel unsure about.
She was gorgeous, almost painful to look at sometimes, knowing you couldn't touch, but wanting nothing more than to reach out.
Alright.
No.
That was enough of those kinds of thoughts.
Her parents were sitting a few feet away from me, for chrissakes.
Besides, I was only torturing myself.
She was off-limits.
Even if she wasn't, the woman could barely tolerate me on a good day.
There was never going to be anything between us.
"Alright. Time to get to work," Jett declared, slamming a hand down on my knee so she could haul herself onto her feet. "Don't fill up on too much beer," she admonished before practically skipping away, followed by an equally excited Kathy.
"You two seem to be getting on much better," Mitch observed when we were once again alone, hand already reaching for the remote, looking for the game that would be on in a few.
"We have come to a bit of an understanding," I told him.
"What kind of understanding is that?"
"That we're both relatively pleasant people to everyone but each other. And if we aren't looking for reasons to snipe at each other, that we get along alright."
"It always surprised me that you two never got on. I've never met anyone who didn't love Jett. And you've always been popular with everyone at the plant."
"I think it may have more to do with a core misunderstanding about our places in your life, in your family business," I told him, wondering how much was too much to say, what was her story to tell.
"I guess that makes sense. You stepped into the place she vacated."
"Exactly," I agreed, wanting to let it drop, understanding that Jett would only find peace if she were the one confronting her dad with her issues.
"She's coming back."
"What?" I asked, jolting a bit at the shock.
"Not for your job, of course," he clarified, sending me a smirk.
"For what job then?"
"Jett is a little proud. When she went off to college, I think she saw herself through the eyes of people who were prejudiced against people with large amounts of wealth. It screwed with her head. that's why she sold her car, why she doesn't touch the money that is rightfully hers. She felt like she needed to prove herself, make a name for herself. One that had nothing to do with Kensley Automobiles. And, honestly, with a little distance from the whole thing, I can understand that. But she will be coming back."
"How do you know that?"
"She doesn't tell me a lot about her plans. But she tells Kath. And Kath talks to me. Jett only plans to be in the city a few more years at the most. She misses a small-town community. She wants a house, not an apartment. She wants to be close to us again. I figure she will use some of her trust or her savings to buy herself a house. That will keep her busy for a while. Fixing it up with her mom. But I know my girl. She's gonna get bored. she's going to need an outlet for it."
"So you think she'd come back to Kensley?" I asked, not seeing it myself.
"In a different capacity. I think she is going to eventually approach me about the fact that we have no social media, that if we want to appeal to this new class of millionaires coming up, we need to be accessible in a way that is familiar to them."
And she would be able to pull that off.
With her social media 'fiddling.'
Actually, I could see that.
Because it was clear that Kensley did mean something to her. Even if she didn't have the right vision for how to create new cars for the future, she did have the knowhow to make sure the company would stay relevant.
She would get to be a part of the family legacy without having to battle with her father over ideas.
"It's part of the reason I always secretly hoped you two would get over your issues. One day, I am going to take a step back. It would give me peace of mind to know that the people I'd like to leave in charge can stop yelling at each other for long enough to run the company."
Run the company?
I knew Mitch liked me. I knew that he was comfortable with me taking more of a leadership role. But it never would have crossed my mind that he expected me to co-run his family business with his daughter. I never would have even allowed myself to hope for such a thing.
"Yeah, you heard me right," he agreed, taking in the shock that had to have been plastered on my face. "I want you two to take over someday. As a team. So this holiday, it is giving me hope that this would be a possibility in the future. You know, if you want that kind of responsibility," he added, looking a bit unsure. A man like Mitch Kensley did not look unsure often. Which meant that my answer was clearly important to him.
While I never could have expected him to leave so much in my hands, there was no denying that it was like my childhood dreams come to life. Kensley Autos was my life. And now, apparently, my future, my legacy.
That, well, that meant everything to me.
"I would be honored to have that responsibility," I told him, and no one could doubt the sincerity in my tone.
"Good. When the time comes, we will talk about it. But Kathy would not be happy to hear us talking business on a holiday. So, for now, we will watch the game."
Watch the game we did as the sounds of chopping and chattering came from the kitchen.
At some point—and I wasn't even fully aware of doing this—I shifted my position on the couch, giving me a much worse view of the TV, but a much better view of the kitchen. And, more specifically, Jett.
Unaware of any eyes on her, she alternated between smiling and laughing with her mother to leaning over whatever task she was doing, brows a little furrowed, hips swaying along to music which seemed to shift away from Cat Stevens and toward what seemed to be Christmas carols.
"Need a refill?" I asked Mitch, jerking my chin toward his dead soldier, looking for an excuse to make my way into the kitchen, to be a small part of the goings-on.
"That'd be great. See if you could sneak some food, too. I'm starving."
"I'll see what I can do," I told him, having to remind myself to keep my steps calm and casual as I made my way into the kitchen, happening to walk up behind Jett, looking over her shoulder.
"What are you making?"
"Jesus, you scared me," she said, her knife flying out of her hand.
"Maybe you'd have heard me if you weren't belting out Let It Snow," I told her, nudging her hip with mine as I moved in toward her side. She sang atrociously off-key too. Which was unexpectedly charming.
"Oh, Jetty loves snow. She used to go to sleep every night in elementary school with her pajamas inside out, hoping it would make it snow. Even in the summer," Kathy added, smiling.
"I was an optimistic kid. Or I was in the know about some prescient insight about upcoming global warming as I grew up."
"Do you like snow, Trip?"
"I like it when I don't have to drive to work in it," I told her.
"Mitch didn't send you in here on some covert mission to steal food, did he?" Kathy asked, clearly knowing her husband too well.
"I offered a beer. But he might have suggested a little thievery."
"Mom stopped baking pies ahead of time because she would wake up on Thanksgiving morning to find he'd taken slices out of each of them."
"Well, if they are as good as you claim, can you blame him?"
"Do you hear that, Ma? He doubts our baking ability."
"Well," Kathy said, clucking her tongue, "We will just have to show him, won't we?"
"One of the few times I will be happy to be proven wrong. Seriously, what are you making?" I asked as she grabbed her knife again, slicing the top off what seemed to be some kind of squash.
"Oh, another of Jetty's traditions. She makes us pumpkin soup served in squash bowls."
"You serve so
up in a hollowed-out squash?" I asked, a bit overwhelmed by the pageantry of it all. "For family?"
"It's nice to be able to go over-the-top," Jett explained. "Even if no one sees it but us."
"We know you must be starving, Trip. It's going to be another two hours, give or take. If you want to sneak a little snack, we won't hold it against you."
Jett's raised brow said otherwise.
"I think I am going to wait it out. You guys aren't slaving away so I come to the table too full to enjoy it all."
The smile that spread across Jett's face let me know I said the right thing.
And I was kicking myself for taking too much pride in that.
I grabbed the beers, resisting the urge to sneak a piece of the cornbread that was set to cool on the counter.
Moving past Jett, I leaned over her shoulder one more time, seeing all four of the squash lined up, ready to be filled.
"Looks good, Princess," I said, lips close to her ear so that only she could hear.
The problem was, it was close enough that I felt the shiver that moved through her at the sound of my voice.
Christ.
Sure, I had been dealing with my attraction toward her since I had met her, but I had never once stopped to wonder if she felt anything even remotely similar for me.
Because she outwardly seemed to despise me.
That said, any outsider would think I felt the same way toward her. Even if, underneath it all, I was hiding a pretty fierce attraction.
Was it possible that Jett did as well?
Had the thought even crossed my mind the day before, I would have scoffed.
But that shiver...
That had nothing to do with being cold. She had her sleeves rolled up, had a barely noticeable bead of sweat in her brows. She was hot.
Yet she shivered.
Because of me.
Because of my closeness.
Because of my breath on her ear.
Sure, an argument could be made for it being an involuntary thing.
I just wasn't inclined to buy into that.
Not given our history, not given the passion with which she fought with me.
Maybe, all long, she had been fostering something other than blind hatred toward me as well. Even if she wasn't fully aware of it. Even if she would never even admit it to herself.
Some things were chemical.
You couldn't control it.
I dropped down on the couch, cracking open the beer she had picked out— always impeccably chosen by Jett even though she couldn't drink it herself—and tried to remind myself that her being attracted to me didn't change anything.
She was still off-limits.
She was still the daughter of the boss.
She was still someone I could never lay a hand on. No matter how hard it was getting to control that urge.
I sat there staring at the TV, not really seeing any of it, until Kathy suddenly appeared, eyes a little tired, but smile warm.
"We are close to serving," she informed us. There was something suggested in her voice, something I didn't know her well enough to place.
"She means it is time for us to break out those suits I told you we needed to pack," Mitch translated, making me immediately hop up to do so.
I wasn't much for suits. I rarely had cause to wear one. That just wasn't the life I led. I didn't run in suit-wearing circles.
I actually had to buy one just for this occasion because my old one was a piece of crap cheap black thing I got on a sale years before when I had needed it for a funeral.
"I'll be right back down," I told Kathy who was pulling off her apron, likely off to change too.
I noticed as I passed that Jett was gone. When I got in my room, stripping out of my clothes, I could hear the footsteps of her in the room above, moving around, likely removing her clothes as well.
It took actual work not to picture her up there doing so, forcing myself to focus on what I was doing instead, getting myself together.
By the time I heard the click of her heels on the stairs, I was finished with the damn tie that had evaded me for a while.
I rushed out of the room, finding myself curious to see her all dressed up.
I'd seen her in various outfits over the years. She always had a good sense of style, looking put together in anything she wore. But I had never seen her dressed formally. Mitch was not a formal kind of guy, so none of the work events required any sort of dress code.
I just rounded the corner when she stepped onto the landing on my floor.
"Wow."
It was out of me before I could stop it. A knee-jerk, honest reaction. That alerted her to my presence, making her jolt and turn fully, giving me an even better view.
The dress skimmed her curves and skirted the floor in a deep red wine color, the V of the bodice low enough to show the barest hint of cleavage, forcing you to want to pull it wider, see what she was hiding underneath. The material itself looked buttery smooth, begged to be touched.
If all that wasn't bad enough, when she moved, I was made acutely aware of the slit that slid up her thigh, exposing the very top of her thigh above her knee.
Another place to spread the material, spread her, get a taste.
Damnit.
I needed to think of literally anything other than that.
"I've never seen you in a suit," she said, voice as soft as her eyes seemed to be as they moved over me.
"I've never seen you in a dress like that," I responded, letting my eyes do one more once-over, trying to convince myself that once would give me my fill. When I knew that the only sight better than her in that dress would be her out of that dress.
"It's new," she said, self-consciously running a hand down her belly then off her thigh when she caught what she was doing.
"You should wear it daily."
To that, her smile spread, until it was beaming. "I think it might be a tad too dressy for work and running errands."
"Everyone should see you in that dress."
"Are you drunk?" she asked, the smile wobbling a bit.
"What? No. Why?"
"You're being weirdly nice to me," she said, gathering her hair, pulling it to one side of her neck, the motion showing her back as she turned toward the stairs again.
"Wait," I said, moving in behind her, hands reaching out, grabbing both ends of the top of her dress that she hadn't zipped.
"Oh, I was going to have my mom do it for me. I tried for an embarrassingly long minute to try to get it."
"I got it," I assured her, feeling the heat of her skin against my fingertips as I grabbed the zipper, slowly pulling it up. So slowly that it would almost be comical, but in that moment, it felt right, felt necessary, to take my time with it, to be close to her when she would let me.
But too soon it was over and we needed to go down. We could both see Kathy moving around the kitchen in her heels and ice blue dress.
"Here," I said, offering her my arm as she debated her ability to get down the stairs in heels with a dress easily tripped upon.
Her gaze moved over me once again before her hand gathered a bit of her skirt in her other hand as she laced her arm through mine.
"You ready to eat?"
"I'm a little light-headed," I admitted. I could normally go a while without eating with no issue, but the run—which, admittedly, I had gone so hard on because I was trying to work through some of my sexual frustration—had me hungrier than usual.
"Well, it's a good thing that we are about to feed you then."
"Oh, don't you two make a beautiful picture?" her mother exclaimed as we finally hit the bottom landing. She didn't immediately release me, and I was certainly not going to pull away first. "Trip, would you mind handling the turkey? I already have Mitch on pouring the drinks."
Without a choice, I slid my arm from Jett's, moving across the room to help her mother.
From there, it was a blur of their bodies moving in and out of the kitchen until the table was set,
all the while waving us away when we tried to get up to help.
It was an enormous table. But every square inch of it was covered in an almost obscene number of dishes.
Turkey, fluffy mashed potatoes, a giant bowl of stuffing, corn, broccoli, honey glazed roasted whole rainbow carrots, roasted Brussels sprouts, baked macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, golden cornbread, puffy biscuits, boats of gravy, bowls of cranberry sauce that didn't come from a can. And, of course, the soup in squash bowls sitting directly on our plates that were trimmed in autumnal plaid colors.
It was insane.
In the most amazing way possible.
"Alrighty, well," Mitch said, breaking the silence as we all seemed a bit overwhelmed by the spread before us. "We don't usually do Grace, but we do tend to go around the table and list something we are thankful for this year."
That, at least, was something familiar to me. My mother and I had a similar tradition. Even in the lean years. She believed it was important, no matter how bad things were, to be grateful for something. And so we always had to each come up with three things.
Some years, it was for basic things many took for granted. We were thankful for heat, for light, for food in our bellies. Other years, fuller years, we were thankful for more superficial things.
"Trip, you're the guest," Mitch went on. "Would you like to lead us off?"
"That's an easy one. This year, I am thankful to have been invited to celebrate with your family on a holiday that would have otherwise been very depressing."
"We are so happy to have you," Kathy said, reaching over to place her hand over mine, giving it an affectionate squeeze. "I am grateful for your presence at our table."
"I am thankful that you and Jetty worked out your differences," Mitch added, and I knew he meant that from a deeper level, one surrounded by his dreams for the future.
"Pudge?" Kathy prompted.
Jett's lips curved up at one side, mischief dancing in her eyes as her gaze slid to me. "I am grateful for the opportunity to prove to Trip that my pie will always be far superior to diner pie."
With that, well, we dug in.
And it was like nothing I had ever experienced before, like I knew I would never experience again unless I was invited back to this table.
There Better Be Pie Page 8
