by Summer Devon
“I suppose I wouldn’t consider it for a minute.”
Her startling eyes stared into his face, searching for something—one of the first times she had looked up at him that morning. Quite a change from the night before when every time he’d glanced over at her, she was goggling at him with those disconcerting blue-gray eyes.
“Why not, if it’s a good plan?” she asked.
“Well, I suppose I don’t consider you a good risk. Based upon your record.”
Her brow furrowed then she slowly said, “Oh. Wait a minute. Record?”
He met her stare squarely now, and she must have seen what he knew.
“You mean criminal record, don’t you.” She sounded as if she was talking to herself. “How did you know about that? You couldn’t have discovered that between last night and this morning.”
He sighed. “One of the swim team mothers told me you served time in prison.”
Janey slammed her hand on the table. The silverware jumped and so did Toph. The waiter twisted and gave them an inquiring glance.
Janey blushed. She shook her head at the waiter and gave him a sheepish smile. She slid down in her chair and stared gloomily at Toph. “So I bet the news is all over the school. Oh damn. You think the guidance counselor you talk to won’t say anything. You think the principal has some principles. Well damn, I thought we did such a good job. Rachel would hate everyone to know. I wouldn’t have cared, but Rachel will be mortified.”
His heart ached for her. Poor woman, trying to get on with a life, and get past her mistakes. “Listen, Janey. She’ll survive. And you can move beyond this. Let me take a look at your plans. At the very least I can offer suggestions and—”
“No. That’s not going to work yet. Not if what you said about Rachel…” Her voice trailed off.
She picked up most of the folders and shoved them back into her bag. She hesitated and handed him one folder. “Here’s the main idea, but I don’t want to waste your time with more than that. I can’t explain why. I made a promise to Rachel, but if it’s only because… Well, I am sorry. I have your card. Do you mind if Rachel calls you tonight? Will you be home? Or can she call you on your cell phone? And then I can call you, say, tomorrow?”
“Sure. Of course. Why don’t you settle down and finish your coffee?”
She slipped out of her seat. Her slightly frantic air of mystery was replaced by a more cheery, but still bustling manner. “I have to go home and make ten loaves of bread for a friend. I appreciate your time, Mr. Dunham. I look forward to talking to you tomorrow.”
They shook hands, another firm, warm grip. He watched her walk away.
Now that was an appealing body. Nicely rounded. She wore some sort of baggy, dull gray suit she probably thought made her appear professionally asexual, but the suit didn’t begin to hide her curves. She’d have to wrap herself in several thick layers, maybe a few sweatshirts several sizes too large, to hide that feminine shape. And the dark gray didn’t tone down the effect of her bright hair and full, pale lips.
She must have recognized the tall gangling man who ran the cash register because she stopped and gave the guy a huge hug. Heck, he hoped she knew the man.
Toph didn’t usually like habitual huggers. They made him uncomfortable and, more often than not, the hugging struck him as false affection. But he would not have minded having those arms around him. And holding that appealing shape in his own arms.
He sniffed in self-disgust. How many minutes ago did he tell himself he didn’t want any more wounded types in his life? Time for him to think about business, not sex. He could force his mind onto something else for ten minutes. Maybe.
He flipped open the folder. By the second page, he sensed the small surge of excitement. He detected the sweet and heady scent of a good idea.
Despite the amateur presentation, she’d made an interesting plan. She would be flexible and offer anything from catering a single big event to cooking up a month’s worth of meals as a gift to a new mother. She’d give private cooking lessons too, if people allowed her to use their kitchen. Her goals were too intimate to grow into a huge business with franchises. She’d given him the kernel of a plan for a small, creative business with one enthusiastic heart at its core.
His favorite kind of business.
Toph considered impulsiveness one of his major character flaws. He didn’t often curb this failing, however, because in the past it had served him well. Except perhaps in the case of Bea and her personal ambitions, and even that hadn’t been a complete disaster. Not when you considered the product of her ambitions, Cynthia.
So he’d go find Janey Carmody again and perhaps shove her toward her dream.
After a quick stop at his office and a short meeting with Jack, he headed over the mountain, back to West Farmbrook.
As he drove, he planned out a speech. No promises. He’d have to find out if she was a drinker. And perhaps he should have the finicky Mickey taste her cooking.
Today he’d tell Rachel’s mother that he still wanted to talk to her references, but if she could offer something as collateral or somehow reassure him she wouldn’t cut and run, he could be interested.
Huh. Maybe she’d hug him with joy. And maybe even give him a kiss. She had the most marvelous lips.
Business, he reminded himself. Strictly business.
Chapter Four
Margaret was waiting in her car when Janey drove up. She followed Janey into the kitchen and dumped two shopping bags of clothes. She sank into a chair and shoved at the bags with her foot. “For the girl.”
Janey rummaged through them, and pulled out a purple Lycra top. “Rachel’ll be in heaven.”
“You’re so lucky she tolerates used clothes. My two would rather die than wear anything that touched someone else’s skin.”
“Huh.” Janey had heard this line from Margaret before. She’d given up on pointing out that unless Rachel wanted clothes from sale time at Target or Walmart, she wasn’t going to get new. “Rach might get picky someday, but we’ll cross the fashion bridge when we get to it.”
“So is it true? You went out with the Mr. Dunham.”
Janey dropped the jeans she held back into the bag. “Wow, I knew you were good, but that’s amazing. How’d you know?”
“My neighbor’s son’s girlfriend saw you in La Bella Luna.”
“Oh. Right. Last night.”
“You mean there’s more?” squeaked Margaret, abandoning the nonchalant act. “Is that why you’re dressed up? You went out with him again?”
“Yes, but—” Janey didn’t get a chance to explain.
Margaret leaned back in the chair and burst into applause, bracelets jangling along with her frantic claps. “Hooray! This is so perfect. I happen to know that at least three ICMs are after his ass.”
Janey made a rude sound. “Yeah, and that’s some kind of record, Marg. You went less than three minutes before mentioning Them.”
Margaret took off her heavy glasses and knuckled her eyes. She ruffled at her black hair, cut in a fashionable short style that probably looked perky on someone with fewer chins. The expensive and gruesome haircut hadn’t been improved by orange “sun” streaks. She reached for her glasses and blinked through them a few times. “I’ll stop, I promise. Talking about ICM is just a-a habit at this point.”
The Inner Circle Moms. The elite stars who’d formed Margaret’s greatest aspirations and terror since grade school—back when they were ICBrats, Janey assumed.
Margaret had the proper buckets of money, yet despite years of going to charity events, she’d never managed to grow close to any member of the circle. Perhaps the problem lay in the fact that Margaret was fat, noisy and had a tendency to breathe through her mouth. Or perhaps she wanted in way too badly, and went at it like an overeager puppy who knows better but just can’t help jumping up.
Janey got a couple of plates down and put the jar of chocolate macadamia nut cookies on the table. “You know it’s bad for you. You’re the o
ne who enlisted my help to break their horrible spell over you.”
The chastened Margaret nodded and pulled a ball of fuzzy wool and huge needles from her handbag.
Janey opened the jar of cookies and took one. “I thought you hated knitting.”
Margaret’s eyes, large behind her glasses, widened. “Well, um…”
“Wait. Damn. Don’t tell me. They are knitting.”
Margaret pulled the jar over and helped herself to a couple of the cookies.
“What did you tell me after you found out about the Spa Weekend that everyone in the PTA went on but forgot to invite you to?” Janey demanded.
“I was going to stop. Cold turkey,” Margaret recited through a mouthful of cookie.
“Right. And when you didn’t even get the invitation to the Arbonne makeup party? What did we agree?”
“Life’s too short to bother with them. Get out of middle school, Margaret,” Margaret mumbled.
“And when your neighbor had that Creative Memories scrapbooking party? And only asked you because you knocked at her door? We’re not even talking real parties here, Marg.”
Margaret jammed the rest of the cookie into her mouth and held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. No more Ms. Pathetic Woman.”
Janey patted her friend’s large shoulder. “Get a life, Marg. Didn’t you say you were an accountant before the kids were born? Do some accounting or something. If I open a business, I’ll hire you.”
Margaret grinned, showing cookie-flecked teeth. “Don’t worry. I’m going to write a book about this place.”
“What? Farmbrook? There’s nothing to write about. From what you tell me, the biggest scandal in town was that Mr. Pletzger—”
“Fletzger.”
“Right, Mr. Whatshisname went nuts and beat his neighbor with the guy’s garage sale sign when the police refused to arrest him for visual pollution.”
“No, see, I know who’s sleeping with whose husband, and who got kicked off the historical committee for getting drunk once too often. It would be a great book.”
“Nothing that happens around here is worth writing about. You need a life, Margaret. Go to New York. Be bored in a museum. Go.”
Margaret eventually went, taking a few cookies with her. “I have to pick up my Effexor prescription and get to Body Express for my thirty minutes of torture. And I think I’ll get to work on that book. Next time I see you though, we’re talking about you and Mr. Gorgeous Dunham,” she warned.
Janey wrapped up the rest of the cookies, changed her clothes and got to work.
“In the reign of James the second,” Janey warbled as she folded and shoved at the dough for Beth’s loaves,” it was generally reckoned that a mar—”
She stopped short at the sound of a key sliding into the lock. Janey glanced at the dog clock over the kitchen counter. It had just woofed eleven. Way too early for Rachel.
She nervously wiped her floury hands on a towel and took a step toward the door.
Tarnation.
Nervous was the completely correct response. When the door swung open, she looked into a lazy, smiling face. Another TD&H, only in this case, it was one of Penny’s men. The worst of her sister’s allotment of men from Hades. It had been twelve years, but the tall, dark-haired man had barely changed. Heck, maybe he hadn’t changed his clothes much in that time, either. He still wore grubby blue jeans, a flannel shirt and hiking boots.
Zack the loser. Zack, Rachel’s father.
Janey gasped. “My god! What are you doing here? Why do you have a key to this apartment?”
“Is that any way to greet the long lost Pops?” He dropped the duffle bag in his hand and slipped past her. He fished out the last Sam Adams and used the opener from the side of the battered fridge.
Zack tilted the beer and drank half of it. As he drank, he watched her. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I see by the hips that you’re the sister. How you doing, nerdy girl? Where’s Pen?”
“In the pen. She’s been there for a few months on a plea bargain. She’ll be out in three years, probably.”
Zack shrugged. Something in his quick ID of her and his offhand manner told Janey he already knew Penny was in prison. Who’d tell him? Rachel? Janey doubted it. Probably Penny herself.
They’d been known to reunite every now and then when Janey wasn’t around. Penny knew better than to tell Janey or Rachel when she allowed Zack back in her life.
He wandered to the pantry. She caught herself examining his back and legs as he squatted down to grab the cookies at the back of the bottom shelf.
Angry with herself, she shoved a bowl into the sink and viciously scrubbed it out. She hated the way her body noticed lowlifes like him. Must have been the punk genes she shared with Penny. Addiction to dopes like Zack had nearly ruined her life. She’d rather drink Drano than go to bed with this particular scum bucket, but it was unfair that the jeans, flannel shirt and unshaved face looked good on him even after he hit thirty-five. Though now she noticed he’d put on some weight and had the start of a beer belly. She peeked at him again. Good. He had that plumber’s assistant thing happening. His butt crack showed—major uncool flaw.
She turned back to the dough and gave it a few good pounds with her fists. “How did you end up with a key to this place?”
He straightened up with a hand full of Fig Newtons that he tossed into his mouth like raisins. Thank goodness he hadn’t located the cookies she’d made for Beth.
Through a mouthful he said, “It’s just about mine. This is my home sweet home. I grew up in this hellhole. Didn’t you know? This property belongs to my uncle. He lets Pen rent it cheap and in exchange she don’t get on my ass about child support.”
“Oh, no. Penny didn’t say a word. Neither did Mr. Blair. God.”
“Yup. That’s about how I feel, but I gotta lay low for a time and turns out this is as good a place as any.”
“No.”
He grinned at her. “Sorry, hon. It’s me or the highway.” Zack ambled closer to her and she got a whiff of his stale body reek and the beer and cookies on his breath. “Course, if you gave me the time of day, I’d be willing to give you something fine in return. I could bet we’d have a real fun—”
She held the handful of dough in front of her as if she could use it as a weapon. “Get lost, Zack. You don’t frighten me.”
He did, of course. He always had and he knew it. He knew her animal self checked out his body, though he probably made that assumption about every female on the planet.
Come on! Janey’s brain yelled at her animal self. Grow up, already! Would you get some sense? She’d been reminding herself of that since high school. Even then her dislike and discomfort around Zack cancelled any pheromones he might have exuded.
He slugged down the rest of the beer and gave an earthshaking belch. Very charming.
“Your choice,” he said, indifferently. “Where’s the kid?”
“School.”
He yawned loudly and wandered down the hall, unbuttoning his shirt.
She watched him, her heart sinking below knee level. “Where are you going?”
“I’m beat. Spent the night on the road. Gotta get some sleep.”
“Not in there!” she squeaked. “That’s my room.”
He turned to leer at her. “Hey, I’m never too tired for a good time, y’know.”
“Zack. Listen, please. This is Rachel’s home. You know she doesn’t deserve to be kicked out.”
“I ain’t kicking her out.”
“But I can’t stay here if you’re here.”
He shrugged.
“Zack, are you willing to take on the job of caring for Rachel? You have to feed her, give her rides, make sure she has decent clothes.”
He shrugged again. The man had reasonably broad shoulders. Maybe he’d built up the muscles using the shrugs method.
She walked down the hall after him, ready to argue, when there was a tap at the door.
She trott
ed back to the kitchen. She still clutched the dough, and plopped it onto the counter before opening the door.
Mr. Dunham smiled down at her. Okay! Her animal self perked up as a bolt of interest shot through her. How about this one?
Her brain sensibly refused to answer.
He closed the door. “Hope you don’t mind my disturbing you again so soon?”
He brushed past her. Didn’t men ever ask to be invited in? At least this one smelled good. A good, clean, spicy scent that reminded her of a breeze.
She half wished she hadn’t changed into jeans and her ratty, pink, long-sleeved tee-shirt.
He caught sight of the empty beer bottle sitting on the counter, scowled at it for a moment then shifted his gaze to her.
“Want a cup of coffee, Mr. Dunham?” she blurted.
Still frowning, he nodded. “Sure. I’ve only had six cups this morning. Call me Toph, Janey, please.”
Janey grabbed the sack of beans from the freezer and poured some into the grinder. Stay put, Zack, she prayed.
Zack obviously ignored her prayer. He came wandering out of the bedroom just as Mr. Dunham—no, Toph—pulled out a tall stool to take a seat at the counter that divided the kitchen from the living area.
The two men eyed each other. If they’d been dogs, there would have been a lot of growling and raised hair and maybe even some lunging. Certainly no friendly butt-sniffing.
“That your boyfriend?” Zack asked.
At the same instant, Toph asked. “Is this your roommate?”
“Mr. Toph Dunham, this is, um, Zack…” What was his last name? She’d tried hard to forget it and apparently succeeded. She hoped it was the same as the landlord. “Blair.”
They stared at one another for a few tense seconds. And then Zack’s glance dropped. He looked sideways to the door and back up again. He took a step backward and grunted almost apologetically. Zack had crumbled faster than one of Beth’s meringues. Amazing how quickly they settled who was alpha dog.
Toph tilted his head and his mouth curved into a thin, derisive smile as he continued to study Zack. “Any relation to Rachel?” The slight dimple on Zack’s chin, the almond-shaped eyes, had all been perfectly replicated on Rachel’s sweet face.
