Absolutely, Positively

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “Is there someone else?” Harry asked softly.

  She grimaced. “No.” She paused to slant him a sidelong glance. “I take it you’re not involved with anyone else, either, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “You’re right. There’s no one else. There hasn’t been for quite a while.”

  “Same here. Doesn’t sound like either of us leads an exciting social life, does it?”

  He smiled. “I’m hoping to change that.”

  “You’re right, you know,” Molly said with a sigh of regret. “We’ve got absolutely nothing in common. What on earth would we talk about on a date except the Abberwick Foundation?”

  “I don’t know. Want to find out tomorrow night?”

  Molly felt as though she were standing on the brink of a giant, bottomless whirlpool. She was gathering the nerve to dip one toe into the swirling currents when she suddenly remembered a previous engagement. She was amazed at the degree of disappointment she felt.

  “I’m busy tomorrow night. I’m going to take my sister shopping for her college wardrobe. She starts her freshman year in the fall.”

  “Friday night?”

  Molly took a deep breath and prepared to jump into the whirlpool. “All right.” Panic set in almost immediately. “But this will be just a test date. First, we find out whether or not we’re going to bore each other silly over dinner. Then we’ll decide what to do after that.”

  Harry smiled. “I won’t rush you into anything. I’m the slow, methodical type, remember?”

  Except when you’re plucking knives out of thin air, Molly thought.

  3

  Josh wandered into the kitchen shortly after seven. He was dressed in jeans and a green pullover. His hair was still damp from the shower. He yawned, dropped onto one of the black wire-frame chairs in front of the granite counter, and reached for the French press coffee pot. The rich aroma of the Gordon Brooke Special Dark City Roast blend wafted through the air.

  “ ‘Morning, Harry. Sorry about interrupting things last night.”

  “Forget it.” Harry spread the Post Intelliencer out on the counter. He handed the sports section to Josh and then turned to the headlines.

  Both men fell into a companionable silence as they munched cereal, drank coffee, and read the morning paper. The routine was a familiar one. They had observed it together ever since Josh had come to live with Harry at the age of twelve.

  The pattern had altered when Josh had started college at the University of Washington. He could have continued to live at home with Harry and commute to the UW, but both of them had known that it was time for Josh to have his own place.

  Nevertheless, the condominium was still home. Josh showed up at the front door during school vacations, some weekends, and not infrequently in the evenings if he happened to be at loose ends or wanted to talk about his studies. The unplanned appearances were rarely a problem. Harry was almost always home alone with his books. Last night had been an anomaly.

  But Harry was no longer irritated by Josh’s unannounced arrival the previous evening. To his quiet astonishment, he was feeling remarkably cheerful in spite of the fact that it had taken him much longer than usual to get to sleep. The prospect of tomorrow night glimmered on the horizon, casting a pleasant glow over the entire day.

  Josh finished his first cup of coffee. He looked up from the sports page, a speculative gleam in his dark eyes. “Been a while since I’ve come home unexpectedly and found you making out with a date.”

  “I was not making out with her.” Harry frowned over an article on inflation. “We were discussing business. I told you, Molly’s a client.”

  Josh helped himself to a second cup of coffee. “I got the feeling she’s more than a client. You two been seeing each other long?”

  “I’ve been doing some consulting work for her for about a month.”

  “Consulting?”

  “Right.” Harry turned the page.

  “Help me out here, Cousin Harry.” Josh grinned. “I’m a little confused. Are you dating her or not?”

  “Since when did you become so interested in my love life?”

  “Since I discovered that you had one again. It’s been over a year, if my calculations are correct. Congratulations.”

  Harry said nothing.

  “It’s about time you started dating again.” Josh’s tone grew serious. “You’ve been living like a monk since Olivia broke off the engagement.”

  “How would you know? You aren’t here most of the time these days.”

  Josh waved his fork in a vaguely menacing manner. “Ve haf vays of knowing these things.”

  Harry frowned. “What ways?”

  “I recognize that box of condoms stashed in the bathroom cupboard. It’s been there ever since you stopped seeing Olivia. The same number of little packets inside, too.”

  “Hell, I don’t believe this.” Harry sank his teeth into a slice of toast. “Talk about an invasion of privacy.”

  “I worry about you, Harry. You have a tendency to brood.”

  “I don’t brood. I contemplate things for long periods of time. There’s a difference.”

  “Call it what you want.” Josh shoved bread into the toaster. “I know you better than you think.”

  “That possibility makes my blood run cold.”

  Josh’s eyes widened innocently. “I only have your best interests at heart.”

  “I’ll console myself with that thought.”

  “Molly Abberwick seems nice.”

  “She is.”

  “You got back here early last night after you took her home.”

  “Yes.”

  “Going to see her again soon?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Harry said, “I’m taking her out to dinner tomorrow night.”

  “Aha. Don’t forget to move the box of condoms back into the drawer beside your bed.”

  Harry refolded the paper with painstaking care. “Last night you said you wanted to talk to me. Is something wrong?”

  The amusement vanished from Josh’s eyes. “It’s Grandpa.”

  “Again?”

  “Yeah. He’s giving me static about going back to school in the fall. Says I’m wasting my time. Two years is enough college for any Trevelyan. He wants me to join his pit crew.”

  “That sounds familiar.”

  Josh buttered a slice of toast. “I was wondering if you would talk to him. Make him understand.”

  Harry gazed absently at the clouds that were moving across Elliott Bay. “I’ll talk to him, but I can’t promise to change his mind, Josh. You know that. He’s stuck in a time warp.”

  “Yeah, but he’ll listen to you. I tell myself it doesn’t matter what he thinks. I’m going to finish college and go on to grad school regardless of his opinions.” Josh shrugged. “But sometimes he gets to me.”

  “I know.”

  “If Dad were still alive things would be different. It would sort of take the pressure off me. But as it stands, I’m all Grandpa has left.”

  Harry said nothing. Unlike Josh, he had no illusions on that score. He knew that there would have been more, not less pressure on Josh if his father had still been alive. But Wild Willy Trevelyan, daredevil motorcycle stunt driver, ladies’ man, and unofficial poster boy for the macho, hard-living lifestyle, was dead.

  Wild Willy had been killed seven years earlier when he had tried to ride his overpowered cycle across a mountain of cars that had been set ablaze. A thousand spectators, including his twelve-year-old son, Josh, had witnessed the engine explosion that had caused Wild Willy’s death.

  Josh had gone into a state of shock. No one in the family knew what to do. Josh’s mother had been killed in a carnival accident shortly after he was born. His reckless, embittered grandfather, Leon Trevelyan, was no fit parent for a young, dee
ply traumatized boy. Most of the other Trevelyans were too broke to assume the responsibility of an extra mouth to feed.

  Newly arrived in the Northwest, Harry had also been present in the audience the day Wild Willy had been killed. He had recognized the dazed look in Josh’s eyes. In the months since the death of his own parents, Harry had grown accustomed to seeing that same expression every time he had looked into a mirror.

  Harry had brought Josh back to Seattle after the funeral. No one in the family had argued about the decision. They had all been vastly relieved to have Harry take charge of the boy.

  Josh had eventually begun to recover from his grief, but it was obvious by the end of that first summer that there was nowhere for him to go. Fall was approaching. Harry registered him in a Seattle school.

  It became clear very quickly that Josh was highly intelligent. Under Harry’s guidance he had developed a passion for math and science.

  For his part, assuming responsibility for his young cousin had given Harry a badly needed sense of focus. Things had settled into a stable routine that had worked surprisingly well for several years.

  Then, one day shortly after Josh’s sixteenth birthday, Leon Trevelyan had appeared at the front door of Harry’s condominium.

  Leon had wanted his grandson. He intended to teach the boy how to drive a race car.

  Fortunately, Josh had been at school that day. Harry had taken his uncle Leon into his study, closed the door, and proceeded to wrestle with the devil.

  Harry had known from the outset that he could not afford to lose. Josh’s future had been at stake. Failure would have meant consigning the boy to the path his father and grandfather had traveled. It was a dead-end road.

  Harry had won the battle.

  He pushed aside the old memories. “Don’t worry,” Harry said. “I’ll deal with Leon.”

  Josh looked enormously relieved. “Thanks.”

  Harry went back to his paper.

  “About this date you’ve got for Friday night,” Josh said.

  “What about it?”

  “No offense, Harry, but from what I saw last night, you’re a little rusty.”

  “Rusty?”

  Josh grinned. “In exchange for getting Grandpa off my back, I am prepared to give you some advice.”

  “I don’t think I need any advice.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that,” Josh said. “It’s a jungle out there these days.”

  Tessa Calshot was refilling a glass container of whole cloves when Molly walked into Abberwick Tea & Spice Company on Thursday morning.

  “’Morning, Molly.” Tessa hoisted the plastic sack of cloves. The sleeve of her faded, 1930s vintage thrift-shop dress fell back to reveal the elaborate tattoo that decorated her right arm. “Be careful when you go into your office. Kelsey’s in there. She’s experimenting with a new version of her ground spice dispenser.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  “Ever vigilant, that’s me. Especially so since that little episode with her tea-brewing gizmo.” Tessa shook the last of the cloves out of the sack. “Took me most of the morning to clean up after the explosion, if you will recall.”

  “Only too well.” Molly grinned at her assistant.

  Tessa spent her nights playing lead guitar for an all-female band called Ruby Sweat, but as far as Molly was concerned, her true talent lay in the marketing and merchandising arena. She had a natural genius for the field, although few traditional businesspeople would have recognized it. Tessa was not exactly the conservative type.

  Her spiky hair was rarely the same color two days in a row. This morning it was neon green. Her lipstick was brown. She favored pre—World War II era dresses that hung oddly on her short, sturdy frame. She paired them with large, clunky platform shoes and a number of small steel chains. There was a gold ring in her nose and another through her eyebrow.

  Molly wouldn’t have cared if Tessa came to work stark naked. Tessa was a natural saleswoman. She could have made a fortune in commissions at Nordstrom if she had been willing to dress to suit the corporate image of the sophisticated fashion store. Fortunately for Molly, she refused even to consider the notion.

  Tourists, who comprised a large share of Molly’s customers, found Tessa fascinating. They frequently asked to take her picture after they had made their purchases. They couldn’t wait to show the photos to their friends back in Kansas. Pictures of Tessa constituted proof positive that things really were different out on the Coast.

  Seattleites, on the other hand, long accustomed to the colorful offbeat barristas who operated the city’s innumerable espresso machines, felt comfortable with Tessa. She reminded them of the counter assistants who sold them their daily lattes. The connection between the familiar world of the Seattle coffee culture and that of the more exotic realm of tea and spices was a subtle one, but it was effective. Molly and Tessa had deliberately exploited it.

  “How did the meeting with T-Rex go last night?” Tessa asked as she closed the glass container.

  “It got complicated,” Molly said.

  Tessa leaned her elbows on the counter. “So? Did you fire him like you promised?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Tessa looked surprised. “You mean he finally approved a grant proposal?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What, exactly, did happen?”

  “Let’s just say I changed my mind.”

  “No kidding?” Tessa arched black brows that appeared to have been drawn with a wide-nibbed marking pen. “When you left here yesterday afternoon you swore that T-Rex would get no more chances to savage one of your precious grant proposals. You said that turning down the Wharton Kendall proposal was the next-to-the-last straw. I distinctly heard you say that if Trevelyan nixed Duncan Brockway’s grant, the man was definitely road kill.”

  “Things change.” Molly decided there was no point being secretive. “I’ve got a date with him tomorrow night.”

  Tessa’s eyes widened in shock. “A date with T-Rex?”

  “Kind of a stunner, isn’t it?” Molly paused beside a shelf to rearrange a collection of designer teapots. “You know, maybe it’s time to stop calling him T-Rex.”

  “You told me he was cold-blooded and utterly ruthless. You said he shredded the work of innocent inventors as if it were so much raw meat. You said that hiring him to help you vet grant proposals had been the equivalent of hiring Tyrannosaurus Rex to baby-sit small, furry mammals.”

  Molly thought about Harry’s mouth on hers. She could still feel the heat he had generated. It was more intense than any of the thirteen different varieties of chile peppers she stocked.

  “Let’s just say I was definitely wrong about one thing,” Molly said. “He’s not cold-blooded.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Tessa shook her head. “The guy talked you into a date?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Aren’t you worried that you’ll die of boredom?”

  “I don’t think boredom will be a problem,” Molly mused. “And that’s another distinction that must be made between T-Rex and Harry Trevelyan. From all accounts, dinosaurs had tiny little two-watt brains. The same cannot be said of Dr. Harry Trevelyan. He’s what they call a polymath these days.”

  “What’s a polymath?”

  “The modern term for a Renaissance man. Well-versed in a wide variety of subjects.”

  “Oh.” Tessa looked dubious. “Brainpower does not necessarily make a man an interesting dinner companion.”

  “Harry is plenty interesting, believe me.” Molly inhaled the scents of fine teas and fragrant spices. She glanced around the shop with proprietary pride. Automatically, she checked to see that all was in readiness for the day.

  The ritual was a familiar one. She had been going through it faithfully since the first morning she had come to work. That had been when she
was twenty years old, the year her mother had died. Molly had been forced to drop out of college to support herself, her sister, and her father.

  The Abberwick fortunes, never stable, had taken another serious downturn that year. Jasper had borrowed twenty thousand dollars to finance the development of a new invention, and the bank wanted its money back. The loan officer had been under the impression that Jasper had intended to use the cash to make household improvements. He did not take kindly to the discovery that the money had been poured into a failed design for robotic control systems.

  Jasper had been educated as an engineer, but he was constitutionally incapable of holding down a regular job. The compulsion to design and invent always got in the way of even the most liberal corporate routine. Jasper had chafed under any sort of restriction. He had to be free to pursue his dreams.

  Molly’s mother, Samantha, had loved her husband with patience and understanding. She had also been practical. It was Samantha’s steady paycheck that had kept the family afloat during lean times.

  Things changed with Samantha Abberwick’s death in a car accident. Kelsey had been only nine at the time. The family had been devastated, both emotionally and financially.

  Molly had missed her mother desperately, but there was scant time to grieve. Too many things had to be done. Kelsey was Molly’s top priority. And then there was the family’s fragile financial situation. Without the income from Samantha’s job to rely upon, disaster loomed.

  Jasper Abberwick was the epitome of the absentminded inventor. In the days following his wife’s death, he could not deal with the realities of the family’s cash flow problems. He took refuge in his basement workshop, leaving Molly to confront the crisis.

  Molly had assessed the situation, and then she had done what had to be done. She had left college for the working world.

  The shop she now owned had not been named Abberwick Tea & Spice in those days. It had been called Pipewell Tea in honor of its owner, Zinnia Pipewell.

  It had been located in a dingy hole-in-the-wall near the Pike Place Market. Business had not been what anyone would have called brisk. Seattle was a city addicted to coffee, not fine tea. Zinnia could barely afford an assistant.