“Trent. Stenner?”
Jennifer tried again to catch Darcie’s gaze, but her friend was fully occupied with staring at Trent, just short of slack-jawed. “I remember you, I just never expected you to be here and—oh, my God, you’re the person who called Jennifer about the dealership listing?”
“Jennifer?” he repeated, sounding puzzled. Then he looked over his shoulder toward her and repeated with no puzzlement, but a lot of other emotions she couldn’t sort out, “Jennifer. Jennifer Stenner.”
She pulled the bandanna off her hair, refusing to run her hands through it or otherwise try to arrange it. But she stood straight, head up, jaw level with the floor, the way she’d been trained.
“Yes, Jennifer,” she said. “Jennifer Truesdale.”
Trent’s lips moved in silence. Possibly with a curse. He dipped his head infinitesimally in acknowledgment.
Jennifer looked him directly in the eyes—eyes she couldn’t see because he’d turned toward her, leaving his head backlit by the window and his face in shadow.
Darcie looked from one to the other of them.
“I…I think I hear my radio. In the car.” Darcie’s words were a blatant lie. She had a radio on her shoulder that wasn’t making a peep. She eased a couple steps toward the door. “I’ll just…”
Neither Jennifer nor Trent said a word as Darcie slid out the door and got in her car. Jennifer’s peripheral vision told her Darcie left the car door open and kept her gaze on the showroom. She’d bailed on being a participant in the upcoming discussion, but she was there as backup.
Jennifer took a step to the left. Trent shifted, too, to remain face-to-face. Now the window revealed half of his face and the shadow masked the other half—as her face would be half in shadow, half in light to him.
She saw an extremely masculine face. No prettiness in it as there could be with handsome men, but rather strong, broad lines. His dark hair was cut short, emphasizing his distinct hairline and the shape of his head.
Trent broke the silence. “Why did you let me— Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”
“That would have been rather awkward, don’t you think?”
“Any less than this?” His words were dry.
“No. Perhaps not.”
“You… You were hired to clean the dealership?”
“I have the listing. Cleaning is a bonus.”
His mouth twitched, as if it had started a grin, then abruptly stopped.
“The listing? You’re the agent? How the hell did you get the listing?”
His tone held no anger. Solely astonishment.
Which she could understand. The divorce had not been amicable. If the decision had been left to Eric or his parents she would never have had anything more to do with anything carrying the Stenner name, including Ashley. But those decisions hadn’t been up to the Stenners.
“Judge Hector Dixon assigned the listing to me,” she added, certain he would recognize the name.
Judge Dixon had done a great deal more than that.
After Eric left town so abruptly, just as divorce proceedings were revealing what a shambles he’d made of their finances, the judge had helped the employees try to keep the place running during a search for a buyer. When that had failed, the judge had negotiated with the creditors and the manufacturers to keep Stenner Autos from going directly into bankruptcy.
“Still, tight-knit little Drago, huh?” This time Trent’s tone held an edge. “All the connections clicking right along to keep the haves having.”
In a way he was right. It had been the judge’s way of helping her out. But she could tell by his tone that it didn’t sit well with him.
She was not going to let that cost her a potential buyer. Right here, before she even had a chance. She had too much riding on this.
“Connections don’t change that this dealership offers a good business opportunity to the right owner. You know Zeke Zeekowsky is bringing part of his high-tech operation to Drago, don’t you? There’ll be new residents as well as more people coming through, so there’ll be a bigger pool of customers for the dealership, along with possibilities for related business.”
“I don’t—”
“A smart businessperson looks beyond personal concerns in making a decision.”
“Whoa—I’m not anywhere near making a decision. You’ll have to wait, learn to be patient, like everybody else.”
His emphasis gave the words significance, even if she hadn’t already interpreted it from his look. She’d gotten that look a lot. The look that said people thought she was accustomed to getting what she wanted when she wanted it. The look that said they thought life had been easy—too easy—for her.
“You should be ready to make a decision. This is a great opportunity. Combining Drago’s new prosperity with a name that has meant a lot in this community for a long time is a smart business move.”
“I’m only here to check things out,” he said firmly.
Check things out. That could be as little as the cursory view he’d already had.
“Thoroughly checking out the dealership and this wonderful business opportunity will start with returning tomorrow at your scheduled time,” she said, as if nothing else were possible. “Then looking around town, talking to other Drago businesspeople and studying the projections I’ve put together.” Updating those projections had prevented her from starting the cleaning earlier.
She felt her breath back up behind her closed-off throat as he looked slowly around the empty, dim dealership, then back at her.
“All right.”
He headed out, and she let a breath out in small, inaudible drafts.
“Ten tomorrow,” she said, holding the door open for him.
Darcie got out of her patrol car, studying them as she approached.
“Ten,” he confirmed. “But don’t bother cleaning anymore. I’ve already seen it this way, so it would be a waste of energy.”
He and Darcie exchanged nods in passing. She came to stand beside Jennifer in the doorway. When Trent raised his hand in farewell as he backed out, Jennifer consciously eased one hand’s grip on the door to return the gesture.
“Whew, he grew up nice, didn’t he?” Darcie said.
Jennifer emitted a noncommittal grunt.
“Is he still playing pro football?” Darcie pursued.
Jennifer controlled the urge to wince. A beat later she realized she didn’t need to—didn’t need to control the urge, didn’t even need to wince.
Because Eric wasn’t around to rant about how his talentless brother had the career Eric should have had, only Eric wouldn’t have been living like some damned monk. And the way he played—Christ, he never got his name in the paper. Lunch-pail player, John Madden called him on Monday Night Football. F—ing boring, was what Eric called him.
Eric would have had a spectacular career. Eric would have been a star. Eric would have been living the high life. If only he’d had some luck. If only things hadn’t gone against him. If only she hadn’t dragged him down.
“Retired after last season,” Jennifer said.
Trent’s car rolled out of sight. She and Darcie stepped inside.
“Oh, yeah. I remember. It was all over the Drago Intelligencer. Well, if that’s retired, sign me up for the old folks’ home, especially with Zeke back in Virginia for three weeks.” Darcie grinned at Jennifer. She didn’t return the grin. “Oh, come on. Trent’s a babe. But he doesn’t seem to think that gives him carte blanche to roll over people.”
“I wouldn’t care if he was Genghis Khan. All I care about is if Trent’s truly interested in buying Stenner Autos. Or if he’s yanking my chain for some unknown reason.”
“Why would he do that? I only saw him for a few seconds, but he didn’t seem— Hey, what are you doing? He said not to bother cleaning anymore. Besides, you’ve said all along that a smart businessperson would look past a little dust and dirt to see this as a great opportunity.”
“I’m not relying on him
meaning what he said or being a smart businessperson.”
Trent Stenner anticipated.
Even more than his honed reflexes, the ability to anticipate had given Trent a career in football. And anticipation had allowed him to put his solid but unspectacular income to work with investments that now amounted to a sizable nest egg.
He studied—game films, prospectuses—and then he used that knowledge. It had been his way since he was a kid, right up until thirty-six hours ago.
But in the past thirty-six hours, he’d forgotten all about studying, which had resulted in failing to anticipate finding Jennifer Truesdale Stenner acting as a skivvy at Stenner Autos.
His first reaction to the woman he’d startled had been empathy. Sorry he’d given her cause for worry by walking in on her as she worked alone in the dealership, and impressed by the way she gave no quarter verbally.
In the oversize and dirty shirt and with that faded scarf covering Jennifer’s trademark blond hair at the same time it dropped shadows under her eyes, the woman had looked delicate. Almost fragile.
Glowing and confident. That’s how he remembered Jennifer. Always on Eric’s arm. Always smiling. The golden couple—literally, with their nearly identical fair hair.
Quite a contrast.
But he still should have recognized her. Because he should have anticipated how things worked in Drago. The Dixons, Truesdales and Stenners had been doing each other favors for generations. Although, from what their parents had said, Judge Dixon hadn’t done Eric any favors in arrangements with the creditors. Trent hadn’t been interested in details of Eric’s problems, but it had been hard to miss their outrage during his dutiful phone conversations.
A phone call had started all this, too. A phone call from his father.
As a rule, his mother made the calls, then pulled his father into the conversation. The only other time he’d heard from Franklin Stenner had been the day Ella had had her heart attack. So Trent had been surprised—and worried—to hear his father’s voice when he answered the phone.
This time, though, his father had asked him to come out to Florida to their retirement home, a shock of another kind.
“I have something to discuss with you,” his father had said. And would say no more.
Now, thirty-six hours and thousands of miles later, Trent felt the muscles in his forehead contract into a frown as he turned his rental car onto the Interstate ramp thirteen miles outside of Drago. It was only a few miles down the Interstate to reach Pepton, where he’d find the closest motel.
Unlucky thirteen, his father had said of those miles. If the Interstate had passed as close to Drago as it did to Pepton, Drago’s businesses would have benefited. That was Franklin Stenner’s eternal regret.
Exiting at Pepton, Trent decided Drago hadn’t lost much by not acquiring shoe-box motels, chain restaurants and all-night gas stations. From what he’d seen, Drago remained as it had been when he was kid. Wide streets flanked by mature trees so regularly spaced they looked like sentinels. Neat yards around solid houses. Pepton used to look like that.
He checked into one of the box motels, mentally retracing the steps that had brought him here.
He’d made the red-eye out of San Diego last night for Florida. This morning—God was it only this morning?—over one of Mom’s lavish breakfasts, complete with homemade coffee cake, his father had told him what he wanted.
“The dealership should be in Stenner hands,” his father had said. “You’re a Stenner. You should feel this as strongly as any of us. I’d go back and run it again myself, except…”
He’d looked out the glass doors to where Ella Stenner had been weeding tubs of blue flowers after Franklin dismissed her, saying, “We’re going to talk business.”
“Mom doesn’t want to go back,” Trent had surmised.
“The doctor says she can’t take living in the Illinois weather anymore. Never bothered her before, but that’s what this fancy specialist says.”
Trent wondered if Franklin would have listened if the doctor hadn’t been a fancy specialist—and no doubt expensive.
“Eric—” That was the only word Trent got out.
“Last thing in the world I want is for Eric to go back to Drago. He did his damnedest. No one can fault the boy. It was that harpy Jennifer Truesdale. Saw her chance to make the big time, got her hooks in him in high school and never would let go. Demanding this, demanding that. Drove the boy right into debt.
“He’s much better off since he divorced her. It’s a damned shame courts automatically give children to the mother, but that’s the only downside. Now he’s making a new start, and without that albatross of a woman, he’ll get the success he’s always been meant to have.”
Before Trent could form a response, his father had knocked all thoughts of Eric from his mind.
“But that leaves the dealership that’s carried the Stenner name proudly since your great-grandfather started it sitting closed and for sale to satisfy those damned jackals of creditors. For sale to anybody who comes along! You’re going to change that, Trent. You buy our dealership, so we can make it something proud again. That’s what you’re going to do.”
Beneath his shock, part of Trent had recognized that these words were the closest Franklin Stenner had ever come to asking his younger son to do something for him. It sure as hell was the closest he’d come to indicating he thought his younger son could accomplish anything.
But Trent wasn’t anybody’s fool. Even his father’s.
He looked around now at the cookie-cutter motel room as he stowed the last few clothes he’d brought in the closet, and his mouth twisted. Well, not a complete fool, anyway.
He’d made his father no promises, despite the older man’s sales pressure, which only would have gotten worse. That’s why Trent opted to fly to Chicago and drive to Drago right away, rather than stay overnight as his mother had wanted. Trent left their house in Florida barely three hours after arriving, promising only to check out the dealership.
The same promise he’d made to Jennifer Stenn—no, Truesdale, she’d made a point of that—less than an hour ago.
A Jennifer Truesdale he hadn’t recognized. Not from his memories and certainly not from his parents’ descriptions. What he’d been told and what he’d seen didn’t add up.
Trent pocketed the motel key card and the rental car keys again.
In order to anticipate, he had to study. In order to study, he needed the right information.
He closed the flimsy door and headed for a return trip to Drago.
Might as well get started with uncovering the right information.
Chapter Two
Trent had been gone from Drago a long time—long enough to rate as an outsider, if he hadn’t always been one.
He supposed an insider would accept it as business as usual that word of his return got around so fast—as evidenced by the arrival hard on his heels of half a dozen people at the surprisingly full café.
But even he was not entirely surprised when Darcie Barrett strolled in, giving him a narrow-eyed nod. He doubted he’d been here five minutes before someone called her.
Darcie sat at the counter while he finished his dinner of fried chicken—real fried chicken, with the skin on and more than a passing acquaintance with oil—green beans, tomato slices and early season corn so fresh he barely stopped himself from moaning with pleasure at each bite.
No one would have heard, because two of his high school football teammates, among the first to arrive after him, sat opposite, talking and laughing over old plays, old jokes and old triumphs.
He remembered the good. He also remembered the bad of those years. But then most of the bad had been in private, away from the public eye.
With his dinner plate empty and first Fred, then Bobby saying it was time to head home to their families for their own dinners, Darcie moved in.
“You want some pie?” she asked, sliding into the bench opposite him as Loris cleared his plate.
&nbs
p; “You angling for my tip, Darcie?” demanded Loris. “I was about to ask the boy.”
Darcie’s gaze traced his neck and shoulders, both showing the result of long, hard years of training. “Boy?”
“He’s a boy to me. I remember him comin’ in here in diapers.” Now that was one effective way to prick a man’s ego. “Yup, him as dark as Eric was fair. Just goes to show, doesn’t it? Peach or apple pie, Trent?” she demanded before he could consider what it might be going to show.
“Peach. Do you have any—?”
“Cinnamon ice cream. Yes I do. It’s gotten to be a favorite around here, and I tell everyone you’re the reason it’s on the menu.”
She bustled off to another table.
“That’s true, peach pie and cinnamon ice cream’s a specialty because of Trent Stenner—that’s what she tells everyone,” Darcie said. “So I’ve got to believe she was telling the truth about the diapers, too. I wonder if ESPN would be interested in a we-knew-him-when piece that included that tidbit.”
His mouth quirked. “I wasn’t exactly a darling of ESPN when I was playing. If you’d offered them a we-knew-him-when piece then, they would have said, ‘Who?’ And now I’m not even playing. So you’ll have to content yourself with trying to embarrass me to the home crowd.”
“And don’t think I won’t,” she said cheerfully. Then her tone changed. “What are you going to be doing now that you’ve retired?”
He smiled at Loris, who delivered his pie, turned it so the point faced him, then dug in and enjoyed the first sweet, spicy, warm, cold pleasure.
“Now, why did that sound like an official question?”
“Not official. Professional, maybe, but not official. And it’s natural to have some professional curiosity, because it sounds like you’ve been practicing to go into my line of work. I heard you started off asking questions the minute you walked in the door.”
He kept eating his pie.
“Plan on becoming a detective, Trent?”
“Strictly amateur.”
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