Marking Time

by Marie Force

  “What time is it?”

  Jack choked back a yawn. “Almost two.”

  The trip had taken more than twenty-one hours in the U-Haul. They’d shared the driving duties, but he’d stayed wide-awake while she was at the wheel.

  “I need some navigating help,” Jack said. “Keep an eye out for Interstate 65 south. Reid’s place is about twenty miles outside the city.”

  They crossed the Cumberland River on the way into downtown Nashville on Interstate 40. “Check out the building that looks like Batman,” Jack said.

  “That’s the AT&T building. The blue one’s the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.”

  Amused, Jack glanced over at her. “Is there anything you don’t already know about this city?”

  “I guess I’ll find out, but I’ve read everything I could find.” Kate peered out the window as the city unfolded. “There’s I-65.”

  Jack handed her the directions as he merged into the southbound lane. “What exit is it?”

  “Umm, seventy-four.”

  Thirty minutes after they left the city lights behind, they took the final turn on the rural road to Reid’s property.

  “There’s the sign.” Kate pointed to the archway over a paved road. The name “Matthews” was carved into a sign at the top of the arch. White split rail fencing ran the length of the road and the long driveway. “Wow,” Kate said. “I’ll bet this place is something in the daylight.” The fence went on until it disappeared into the darkness. Huge trees that might’ve been oaks lined the driveway.

  “Reid said the guesthouse is a mile from the road on the right,” Jack said.

  They saw the outside light that had been left on for them before they saw the guesthouse itself. “That’s the guesthouse?” Kate said. “I had pictured a little cottage.”

  Jack pulled the U-Haul into the driveway in front of the two-story house. “I guess the main house is another mile and a half up the driveway.”

  “I can’t wait to see that.” Kate hopped down from the truck and stretched. She grabbed their bags from behind the seat and followed her father to the door, which was unlocked. “Oh, it’s so cute!”

  The house was furnished with a combination of antiques and country-style furniture. A stone fireplace dominated the living room.

  “Reid left a note,” Jack said. “It says, ‘Welcome Jack and Kate! Make yourselves at home. Bedrooms are upstairs. Towels are in the bathrooms. Sleep in and come up to the main house for brunch whenever you get up. Look forward to seeing you. Reid.’”

  “That’s nice,” Kate said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m beat.”

  Jack stretched and yawned. “Me, too.”

  They took their bags upstairs to find bedrooms.

  “Dad?” Kate said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Today was fun. Thanks again for all of this.”

  He kissed her cheek. “My pleasure. Get some sleep.”

  When Kate woke up the next morning, she couldn’t remember where she was. Then it came back to her in bits: the U-Haul, the Batman building, the carved “Matthews” sign, and the larger-than-expected guesthouse. She was finally in Nashville, or, well, twenty miles south of the city. With a big yawn, she looked over at the bedside clock. Ten fifteen. The room was awash with sunlight. Like the living room downstairs, the cozy bedroom was decorated with country touches. Dark wood antique furniture, walls adorned in rose-colored silk, and lace curtains on the windows that complemented the high four-poster bed with the white eyelet duvet.

  Kate was stretching out the kinks when her dad knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” she called.

  “Morning,” he said. He looked like he, too, had just gotten up.

  “Morning. Did you sleep?”

  “Oh yeah,” Jack said with a big smile. “Eight, beautiful, uninterrupted hours.”

  Kate chuckled. “I’m starving.”

  “Well, let’s shower and get dressed so we can go find Reid. I don’t know about you, but I want to see what the main house is like if this counts as the guesthouse.”

  “I hear ya. Give me thirty minutes.”

  Jack had unhooked Kate’s car from the U-Haul by the time she joined him downstairs. Kate was surprised to find that it was almost as cold outside as it had been at home.

  He tossed the keys to her so she could drive them up the hill. They were able now to see the rolling green hills that made up Reid’s property and the white split rail fence extending as far as she could see.

  “Holy shit,” she muttered when she caught her first glimpse of the massive Tudor-style home at the top of the hill.

  “I’m supposed to tell you not to swear, but holy shit is right.”

  “It makes Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Greenwich look like a shack.” Kate parked in the large driveway next to a black Mercedes SUV and a silver Saab.

  Before they could ring the bell, the door opened and a uniformed maid greeted them. “Hello, Mr. Harrington, Miss Harrington, I’m Martha. Do come in,” she said in a lilting Southern drawl as she waved them into the foyer. “Both Mr. Matthews are here.”

  As Martha led them into what she called the drawing room, Kate noticed the house screamed of the kind of old money she’d experienced in her grandparents’ home. But this house was even more spectacular: antiques, paintings framed in gilded gold, huge mirrors, chandeliers, and rich velvet draperies.

  And waiting for them in the drawing room were two of the best looking men Kate had ever seen. Her friends had always claimed her father and Uncle Jamie were “hot.” Kate thought they were insane. Her dad and Jamie were old! But with her first look at Reid Matthews, she finally got it. He was the same age as her dad, and there was no denying it—he was hot. And the son—whoa, Kate thought for the second time that morning, holy shit!

  Reid walked over to her dad and shook his hand with enthusiasm. “So great to see you, Jack. You haven’t changed a bit. I would’ve known you anywhere.”

  “You, too. Thanks so much for the hospitality.”

  As they exchanged greetings, Kate took the opportunity to study Reid. He was tall but not quite as tall as her dad. His light brown hair was sprinkled with shots of silver, and his brown eyes were almond shaped and almost sleepy looking. But it was his cheekbones that took him from plain good-looking straight to hot. Just as she realized she was staring, Jack put his arm around her.

  “Reid, this is my daughter, Kate.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Kate,” Reid said in a honey-coated Southern accent as he shook her hand. “And this is my son, Ashton.” The younger man had dark blond hair, green eyes, and a football player’s build. The only feature he shared with his father was those amazing cheekbones.

  Ashton shook hands with Kate and then Jack. “Pleased to meet you, Kate, sir,” he said in the same deep drawl.

  Jack guffawed at the word “sir.” “Call me Jack, please.”

  “Y’all must be ready to eat,” Reid said. “Martha’s cooked up a feast for us, so come on along.”

  Jack complimented Reid on his home as he led them into the dining room, where the imposing table could easily seat thirty.

  “It’s a bit much, huh?” Reid said with an amused expression.

  “It’s amazing,” Kate said.

  “Ashton is the fourth generation of Matthews men to live here,” Reid said. “But he recently escaped to an apartment in the city.”

  “I ran for my life,” Ashton joked.

  Martha fussed over them and plied them with fried eggs, biscuits and gravy, grits, sausage, and croissants.

  Half an hour later, Jack held up his hands with a groan. “I surrender, Martha. I simply can’t eat another bite.”

  She laughed. “You sure are a charmer, Mr. Jack. Yes, indeedy.”

  “He always was,” Reid said with a wink for Kate. “The girls at Berkeley loved your daddy.”

  “I’ve always heard it was Jamie who had them hanging all over him,” Kate said.

  “Jamie was in a l
eague all by himself,” Reid said.

  Jack laughed. “That’s a fact, but as I recall, you did just fine yourself. I can’t believe it was twenty-five years ago.”

  “Seems like yesterday,” Reid said wistfully. “Those were the best years. My great escape from Tennessee.”

  “It was fun,” Jack said with a faraway look on his face. His ringing cell phone brought him back to the present. “Excuse me. It’s my wife.” He got up and left the room.

  “Jamie said your dad recently remarried,” Reid said to Kate.

  “That’s right. His wife’s name is Andi, and they have three-month-old twins, Johnny and Robby.”

  “Don’t get any ideas, Dad,” Ashton teased.

  Reid laughed. “Don’t worry. That ship has sailed for me.”

  “I think that’s what my dad thought, too,” Kate said, and both men laughed.

  “So, Kate, Dad says you’re here to strike it big,” Ashton said with a hint of amusement.

  “That’s the goal.”

  He lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “So you can really sing?”

  Kate wasn’t sure she liked his attitude. “Try me.” She folded her arms and tilted her head defiantly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I could sing something, but you’d just say it was rehearsed. So tell me what you want to hear.”

  Ashton appeared to give this considerable thought. “I know,” he said with a grin. “Sing ‘Crazy’ for me.”

  Ah, a gift. Patsy Cline was one of her favorites. Without breaking eye contact with Ashton, Kate belted out the song with a few twists all her own that she had perfected during the long summer spent singing at the hotel.

  “Don’t tell me you challenged her,” Jack said when he came back into the room.

  Reid and Ashton seemed stunned, and Kate knew she probably looked smug. Whatever. He’d pushed her buttons, so she’d let him have it.

  “Wow,” Reid said.

  Ashton sat back in his chair. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Wow.”

  Now Kate was embarrassed. “My Dad tells me you have an apartment I can rent,” she said to Reid, trying to ignore the gaze that Ashton continued to direct her way.

  “That’s right. It’s being painted this weekend. You should be able to move in on Monday or Tuesday at the latest. It’s fully furnished, and I checked it myself yesterday. Everything’s in good shape.”

  “Thank you,” Kate said.

  “It’s a great place,” Ashton said. “You’ll like it.”

  While she wasn’t entirely sure she liked him, she took his word for it about the apartment complex.

  “I’m actually headed back to the city,” Ashton said to Kate. “Do you want to come along? I could show you around.”

  “That’d be great,” Kate said, anxious to see the city. “Do you want to go, Dad?”

  “I think I’ll stay here and catch up with Reid.”

  “I’ll bring her back later,” Ashton said to Jack.

  Kate handed her car keys to her dad and kissed him on the cheek. “See you in a bit.”

  After they left, Reid took Jack out to show him the stables. “That girl of yours can sing, man,” Reid said.

  “I know. We gave her a guitar when she was twelve. About a year later, she came out of her room and said, ‘Listen to this.’ We were stunned. She’s been playing and singing ever since.”

  “I know some people in the business. I could make a few calls.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think that’s how she wants to do it. Why don’t we see what happens.”

  “This must not be easy for you.”

  Jack sighed. “You have no idea. I feel better knowing she has you and Ashton to call on if she has any problems.”

  “We’ll take good care of her. Don’t worry.”

  “I appreciate that. I really do.”

  “There does come a time when we have to let them go their own way. I wasn’t happy about Ashton moving into the city, but he needed some space and privacy. He has a right to that.”

  “He’s a nice young man. It couldn’t have been easy bringing him up on your own.”

  “He’s my best friend. That boy has never been anything but a total joy to me. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him when Cindy died.”

  “I sure was sorry to hear about that.”

  “We had a rough go of it for a while there.”

  Jack could still see a hint of sadness in his friend’s eyes. “You never remarried?”

  “Never even came close,” Reid said with a shrug. “When you had what I had, well, it’s not easy to replace. I understand you’ve had your own struggles.”

  “The last few years have been a bit of a roller coaster ride, to say the least.”

  “Jamie said Kate’s mother is almost fully recovered.”

  “Yes, Clare’s doing much better.”

  “And you’re recently remarried?”

  Jack nodded. “I met Andi about a year after Clare’s accident. By the time she recovered after three years in a coma, Andi was living with us, and we were expecting the twins. It was a tough situation.”

  “Jesus,” Reid said as they leaned against the white fence to watch a trainer work with a black thoroughbred. “I imagine so. What did you do?”

  “Well, Clare decided to end our marriage, which I guess was the right thing in light of all that had happened. But it was hard. We’d been married for twenty years—every one of them happy until all this happened.”

  “So you married Andi.”

  Jack nodded. “Three months ago. The babies arrived right in the middle of our wedding.”

  Reid hooted. “You’re kidding!”

  “Nope,” Jack said with a grin. “It was quite a day.”

  “Let me see, you have Kate and the twins… ”

  “Jill is nineteen and a sophomore at Brown. Maggie will be thirteen next month, and I adopted Andi’s son, Eric, who’s almost eight.”

  “I lost count.”

  Jack grinned. “Six.”

  Reid shook his head with amusement. “You sure have been busy since I saw you last. I’ve read a lot about your firm. You guys have made quite a name for yourselves. And Jamie married your sister. How about that? I remember Frannie visiting you in California.”

  “She’s hardly changed since then. They’re great together. They have twins, too. A boy and a girl who’re fifteen months.”

  “God, my life is so boring compared to y’all. All I do is work while the two of you are single-handedly populating the world. Eight kids between you!”

  “We have babies, Reid. We’re forty-six-years-old, and the two of us are chasing babies. Enjoy the boredom. Embrace the boredom.”

  Reid laughed. “It sure is good to see you.”

  Ashton drove Kate into the city in his still-new-smelling silver Saab.

  “Nice car,” she said.

  “Thanks, it’s the first thing I bought when I graduated from law school in May and went to work.”

  “Where did you go to school?”

  “I stayed right here and went to Vanderbilt for undergrad and law school. I thought about going out of state, but I didn’t want to leave my dad. I’m all he has.”

  He said it so matter-of-factly that Kate’s initial assessment of him went up a notch. Maybe he wasn’t as arrogant as he had come across earlier. “Where do you work?”

  “I’m an associate with a firm downtown that specializes in entertainment law. That’s what this town’s all about.”

  “But you don’t have to work, do you?”

  “Do you?”

  Kate laughed. “I guess not, but I can’t see living off my dad for the rest of my life. He’d never stand for that anyway.”

  “And you think mine would? He wanted me to come into his company, but I’ve always wanted to be an attorney.”

  “What does his company do?”

  “Mostly commercial real estate development. The company’s called RMD, Reid Matthews Development. You’ll see h
is signs all over town. He has a hand in most of the pies that are baked around here.”

  “And he has no need for an attorney?”

  “He has a stable of them. Maybe someday I’ll do that, but I want to do this for now. It’s a fun job.”

  Kate’s cell phone rang. “It’s my mom,” she told him. “Hi, Mom. Sorry I didn’t call. We got in at two in the morning.”

  “Everything went well?” Clare asked.

  “Yeah, it was great. No traffic and good weather. Dad’s friend Reid’s house is amazing. His son Ashton is taking me into the city right now for my first look.”

  “I’m glad to hear you got there okay. Have a good time, and call me when you get settled.”

  “I will. When are you heading out?”

  “Maybe Wednesday. I’ll let you know.”

  “Okay. Talk to you soon. Love you.”

  “You too, sweetie.”

  Kate closed her cell phone and turned back to Ashton. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be.” He took the Green Hills exit. “I’ll show you where the apartment is.”

  “Oh, cool.”

  They drove through a beautiful area peppered with stately old homes, bars, restaurants, and shops.

  “There’s the Bluebird,” Ashton said, pointing to the famous café. “That and Mabel’s are the only real music joints in this part of town. The rest are downtown.”

  “The Bluebird has open-mic nights on Mondays. I want to go tomorrow.”

  “Do you have original material? You can’t do covers there.”

  “I have a bunch of my own songs.”

  “Make sure you also bring a signed lease with you. You’ll have to prove you live in the city.”

  Ashton navigated through a busy area before he turned left into the Westchester apartment complex. Six buildings, each with four brick-front town homes, made a square around the parking area. A pool and fitness center sat at the far end of the landscaped parking lot.

  “It’s really nice,” Kate said.

  “Home sweet home.”

  Kate giggled. “I love your accent.”

  “At least I don’t sound like a snotty Yankee.”

  “Neither do I!”

  “All right, darlin’, if you say so.” His dimpled grin was full of easy charm as the breeze floating through the open window ruffled his blond hair. “Your apartment is in that building, and mine’s over there.” He pointed to the other side of the parking lot as he turned the car around to head back out of the complex.