by Julia London
Well, she noticed him now. The man standing before her was quite handsome with his grayish-green eyes, the shadow of a beard, and his thick, dark gold hair that reminded her of baked sugar, wet and pushed back. The T-shirt he wore had the arms cut out and the faded words Vandelay Industries, a reference from the old Jerry Seinfeld show, which would suggest that he’d had a sense of humor at some point in his life. His arms and shoulders were muscular, and his gray terry gym shorts revealed a pair of muscular legs.
Altogether, he was astonishingly sexy in a sweaty kind of way, and of all the things Jane had thought of him, sexy had never been one of them—Caligula, yes; sexy, no.
“Good morning,” he said, then downed a glass of OJ and put the empty glass on the counter. He looked at Jane again, then down at himself. “Is there something on me?”
God, had she just been staring at him? Yes, she was staring! “Sorry,” she said quickly. “Good morning.” Alert once more, she walked across the kitchen and extended her hand.
He took her hand in his very large one and grasped it firmly, giving it a good shake. Jane’s hand felt warm; she quickly withdrew it and stuck both hands in her back pockets.
Mr. Price smiled a little lopsidedly as his gaze casually flicked over her. He nodded to a big coffee mug on the counter. “I just made a pot. Do you drink coffee?”
She glanced at the mug and noticed the pancake mix and bowl as well. “None for me, thanks.” A cup of coffee sounded great, but Jane didn’t want to come across as though everything had been hunky-dory in his little kingdom and they were just having a friendly cup of Joe. Mr. Price obviously didn’t care one way or another; he helped himself to a cup, then leaned back against the counter, sipping from it.
Jane had never been good with silence and felt an insane need to fill this one. “So . . . when did you get in?” she asked, walking around to stand on the other side of the island from him.
“A little past midnight. Riley was still up, but Levi was asleep when I looked in on him.”
They waited up for you, pal. “We decided that it might be very late and it would be better to see you first thing this morning.”
He smiled a little. “No one was more bummed than me that I didn’t get here earlier. I’ve been really anxious to see my kids.”
The man actually looked chagrined, which surprised Jane. She had him down in the cold and heartless column.
Mr. Price suddenly glanced at his watch. “What time do they get up now that school is out?”
“Levi is already up this morning. He’s upstairs, watching SpongeBob. But it’s been pretty fluid. I wasn’t sure what schedule to keep them on . . . since we haven’t had a lot of time to talk.” That would definitely let him know where she stood with this job, and Jane braced herself, ready for anything he might throw at her.
But Mr. Price did not respond right away. His eyes lingered on her. And then he surprised her by smiling. “We haven’t, have we? I thought about what you said on the phone, Jane—okay if I call you Jane?”
“Yes . . . sure.” He could call her whatever he wanted—she was not backing down.
“Anyway, you were right—I should have called you earlier and discussed expectations.”
Jane blinked.
“The only excuse I have is that it’s been an insane spring. I am the president and partner of our firm. We just landed a major account, so we’ve all been working to make sure it gets off the ground in the right way, which, unfortunately, it has not, and it has required my personal attention. I regret I couldn’t be here, but the end of the school year necessitated I do something quickly. I understood you to be highly qualified and was confident you could handle this unusual situation.”
“I was,” Jane agreed. “I mean, I am.”
“Then we’re in agreement—we both thought you could handle it.”
That didn’t sound exactly as he’d meant it.
“Nevertheless, I’m sorry for not having talked with you sooner.”
His speech was smooth, very neutral, very cultured. Jane could imagine him wearing a letter sweater on some Ivy League campus. She, on the other hand, had worn jeans and T-shirts on a Texas campus and somehow was feeling a little silly for having bothered him. “No need to apologize,” she heard herself say, and inwardly winced at how easily she’d said it.
His gaze flicked over her again. “Are you settling in okay?”
“Sure,” she said a little hesitantly. “Your house is so beautiful. And the nanny quarters are fabulous. I couldn’t ask for better.”
“Good.” He sipped his coffee, pondering the cup a moment. “I had a chance to talk to Riley last night.”
Oh yeah, here it was. This was where he’d say he wasn’t comfortable with the way she did things, that he needed someone with more practical, hands-on experience with kids, and not someone who had just read about it in a textbook. Let him say it. Jane was ready for him—she had been since that phone call.
“I know Riley can be tough,” he admitted. “She told me about the day you took the phone away, and I have to say, I probably would have done the same thing.”
Wow. That was not what Jane had been expecting, not at all. In fact, it threw her so far off balance that she self-consciously pushed her hair behind her ears. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks for that.”
“And I apologize for our phone conversation. The most I can say for myself is that there is a current of fear that runs through a parent when they hear something about their kid when they are halfway around the world. I suppose I reacted from that fear.”
“Sure,” she said softly. “I should have realized that.”
“However, having said that,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “I would like for you to talk with me before you discipline my children or allow them to do something foolish like dye their hair pink.”
“Yes, that pink—”
“I was shocked to find that bright pink hair on my twelve-year-old daughter, Jane. What were you thinking?”
She gaped at him. “Me? You have it wrong, Mr. Price. I didn’t encourage her. In fact, I was as surprised as you. She just . . . she just did it.”
“And you didn’t think to correct it?” he asked flatly.
Jane’s hands found her waist. “That sort of correction requires a salon,” she said evenly.
“I would have reimbursed you for it. Didn’t you think the pink was a little extreme? How long has she been walking around like that?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for any girl, no, but I also thought that it is just hair, and hair can be fixed. As for how long? She colored it Thursday night, Mr. Price, when you didn’t come home as she was expecting.”
He blanched. Then frowned into his coffee cup. “Well,” he said. “I would like it to be fixed. And for future reference, I would like to know about things like that, and about Levi’s . . .” He swallowed hard and put the cup down, his expression clearly pained. “What I am trying to impart is that I am striving to maintain what is normal and customary for my children to the fullest extent that I can.”
Normal and customary. Like there was anything normal or customary about the kids’ lives right now. “Okay,” Jane said cautiously. “I understand that. But when you are away, it’s clearly not always practical—”
“I don’t think I am asking for anything that you wouldn’t expect from any other parent.”
“Right. But most parents are not in Germany.”
“You can always text me. I will respond immediately.”
He was crazy. “So . . . if you are in Germany, and I have a problem with one of the kids, I should text you and get a response before I do something like take Riley’s phone?”
Mr. Price obviously could see where this was going. He pushed away from the counter, braced his hands against the island between them. He leaned toward her, his eyes locking on hers. “I don’t mean that you should text me before you put Levi in time-out, Jane. But you should do so before you do something drastic. Taki
ng Riley’s phone was drastic—that is her primary connection to her only surviving parent. Now, I recognize that there is a certain learning curve in getting to know our family, but the three of us have been through a very rough couple of years. I trust that you will use your best judgment, but until we are all settled in, I would prefer you speak to me before you do anything. Okay?”
Her thoughts were suddenly jumbled around the notion that he was deigning to trust her, like he was cutting her a break, and the fact that his eyes were so piercing.
Mr. Price straightened up and looked at his watch again.
“If I could just clarify,” she said quickly, before he could walk out or change the subject. “In the event you do not respond quickly, I have the latitude to do what I think I need to do to correct behavior, right? I mean, it’s not really practical to try and nip a situation in the bud when I have to wait for . . .” She was going to say something to the effect of having to wait for orders to come from on high, but she thought better of it. “. . . for you if there is a delay. I would lose any credibility I had with them if that happened.”
He glanced up from his watch. He probably wasn’t used to people questioning him. She’d had a principal like that once, and he—
“I agree.”
He agreed? She didn’t believe him. “Really?”
He allowed her the barest hint of a smile. “Really.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “And if that happens, I need you to back me up,” she added warily. “Like with Riley’s phone. I don’t think you can just give it back and leave her the impression that all she has to do is bide her time until you show up again.”
One of his dark brows rose above the other. “You don’t, huh?” He chuckled. “I will definitely clarify my expectations with the kids.”
Jane was having a very difficult time reading him. “Fair enough,” she said, and nodded. “There is just one other thing, Mr. Price.”
“Asher. God, please, call me Asher. ‘Mr. Price’ sounds so . . . official.”
“Okay . . . Asher. I took the job with the understanding the hours were flexible and I’d have time to work on my thesis. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons after three—and weekends.”
“Right, Tara explained the terms to me. You can start now.”
“Start what?”
“Your days off. You can start today.” He looked at his watch again. “If there is nothing else, I’d like to make breakfast for my kids.”
Jane debated telling him about the dirt in the pool, which had required Jorge’s intervention and his entire morning. “No. Nothing else.”
“Then I’ll see you back here Monday morning.”
Ooo-kay. Orders given; troops dismissed. He was going to trust her with his kids but treat her like a servant. She wasn’t some girl just out of school. She was a teacher, a professional. Did he honestly think he could treat her like that?
He looked at her impatiently, as if she should have been gone already.
“Have a good weekend,” Jane said curtly and walked to the door, pausing momentarily to steal another look at him. But as she turned, she saw that Riley had slipped into the kitchen and wondered just how much of that conversation she’d heard.
9
Jane’s unplanned freedom presented the dilemma of what to do first. Obviously, her thesis was the most pressing thing that required her attention. And there was certainly the hospital, where she would begin her search.
But Jane followed her pattern of late and chose avoidance; she opted to run.
She put on a pair of knee-length running pants, running shoes that had seen better days, and a T-shirt with the neck cut out, which she knotted at her waist.
The trail Levi had indicated his father had taken began in a corner of the backyard and went down toward the lake, disappearing into a thicket of cedars and oaks. It was a shaded path, an important consideration in Texas in early summer.
Jane jogged down the hill and into the trees. At the bottom of the hill, the trail forked and a smaller path turned into deeper woods. Jane followed that one, and a few moments later, she ran into a clearing with a small spring.
Nice. Judging by the picnic table and a tire swing, it was a private swimming hole. There was a little house, complete with a porch and windows. It was an extravagant little playhouse, but that didn’t surprise Jane; everything at Summer’s End was extravagant.
Someone had been here recently. Brush was stacked in a pile, and a leaf blower and extension cord had been left behind on the porch of the playhouse. Jane walked around the spring, dipping down to put her hand in the water. The temperature was startlingly cool, and the small leaves constantly shed by the live oaks were floating on the surface. But the trail ended here, so Jane reversed course and ran back to the other path.
She ran through oaks and cottonwoods, past blooming cactus and limestone, running parallel to the lake about a mile until the trail met a wider, public trail. She ran until she began to feel her legs, then turned around and started back.
The day was heating up; she was running out of steam. When she reached the last stretch of trail to the house, she slowed to a walk, eyeing it. All uphill. “No way,” she muttered, and with her hands on the small of her back, she strolled down the smaller path to the private swimming hole to catch her breath.
It was a rustically pretty setting. Jane could imagine herself here on her day off. With a couple of beers. She could sit under the big oak tree, stick her feet in the water, and relax. Even better—she could work on her thesis at the picnic table. Maybe this was the sort of setting she needed to get those creative juices flowing.
She decided to check out the little house. Jane tried the door, but it was locked, so she peered inside through one of the windows. The glass was filmy and it was hard to make anything out inside, save one remarkable thing—the walls were wildly and colorfully painted.
Jane cupped her hands around her eyes to have a better look. The walls were, indeed, covered with bright paints, and mostly pink. On one wall, it looked as if someone had splashed the bright pink paint over a mural. Directly across from where she stood, the name Riley had been written in childish scrawl.
“Aha.” This had been Riley’s playhouse, her own private art studio. “Not a bad idea,” she said aloud with some admiration. Riley had painted her laptop, and Levi said she had more paintings, which, predictably, Riley had refused to show Jane. But Jane had an idea—maybe this was one way to reach the girl. Maybe she could bring Riley down here and encourage her to express her obvious frustration in a creative way. Maybe it would help her loosen up a bit.
“Great idea, Janey,” she congratulated herself as she started back. If she could have patted herself on the back as she’d run up the hill, she would have.
Jane’s cell phone was beeping when she reached the guesthouse; she had a missed call from Jonathan. She got a glass of water and ran cold water on her face before calling him back. “Hey,” she said when he answered the phone. “Sorry I missed you. I was out for a run.”
“Out running, huh? Do you have time for that? I thought you might be working on your thesis or something,” Jonathan said lightly.
“Right,” Jane said, and looked at the untouched files and laptop on the table. “Got it right here. So how are you?” she asked, turning her back on her thesis.
“I’ve got some news—we finally got booked into the Foghorn,” he said, referring to his band, Orange Savage.
“Jonathan, that’s fantastic! When?”
“In a few weeks. Do you think you can come?”
Jonathan’s band had been trying to get booked into that venue for what seemed like forever. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss it,” she said sincerely.
“Really?” He sounded a little surprised. “Great. So . . . how are you, Janey?”
She looked around at the boxes. “I’m definitely getting settled,” she lied.
“And the kids? Is that situation any better?”
“Ah, well .
. . ,” Jane said. She sat down and began to unlace her shoes with one hand. “Their dad finally came home.”
“Yeah? What’s he like?”
“He wasn’t as bad as I feared, but he’s no Uncle Barry.” She laughed. Uncle Barry was the type who had never met a stranger. The moment you showed up at his house, you were wrapped in a tight bear hug and comfort food was shoved at you while Uncle Barry talked up a storm.
“Cool. Maybe now you can relax and start looking.”
“Yep. I’m going to do that.” She tossed one shoe into a box.
“Like . . . when?” Jonathan asked.
She tossed the other shoe into the box and rubbed the back of her neck. “This week. I told him I need time off and he said okay, so—”
“So . . . this week,” Jonathan said. “This week you’re definitely going to take some steps to find your birth mother. Right?”
“Right,” she agreed automatically. Right, right, right. No more excuses.
“I hope you do,” Jonathan said and laughed a little. “I’m starting to wonder, you know? You’ve been out there a little over two weeks, and every time I talk to you, I don’t sense any urgency on your part in finding your birth mother.”
She was supposed to have a sense of urgency? Jane didn’t agree with that, but she couldn’t disagree that she’d been dragging her feet. In all honesty, she was afraid. She didn’t really know what she was doing anymore, or what she might find. It just seemed nice, for a bit of time, to exist in this space between not knowing and knowing the truth about herself.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Jonathan asked.
“I’m working on it?” Jane offered hopefully.
Jonathan was silent for a moment. “Okay. Okay,” he said, but Jane had the sense he wanted to say more. “Well, look, let me get off the phone. I’ve got to get to rehearsal. I’ll call you later, okay?”
Was she imagining an issue where there was none, or did he seem a little angry? “Sure,” she said uncertainly, and Jonathan hung up before she said anything else.
She stared at her cell phone, debating whether or not she should call him back and try and smooth things over. Unfortunately, she had nothing promising to say to him. She couldn’t answer her own questions, much less his.
