“Jenny! We care. You know—”
“I know that none of you except Amy ever bothered to really look at me. To see my life. Or my daughter’s. I’ve been background—wallpaper—all my life to your great achievements and exploits, Mark. And then I moved on to the same role in Eric’s life. Which was probably the only time I’ve really had Dad’s approval. But I will not let my daughter be wallpaper. I will not.”
Silence. Her words seemed to spread in that silence like ripples on the water.
“I’m sorry, Jenny. I really am. I had no idea you felt that way. You should have spoken up sooner. I know Mom and Dad made a big deal of what I did, and you were the quiet one, but to feel like this all these years. Wallpaper? I had no idea… Hey! Maybe that’s what Amy wanted you to tell me. Maybe she’s been feeling that way, too. You think that’s it? You think that’s what Amy thinks I needed to find out from you so we won’t split up?”
Jennifer gaped at the man’s colossal ability to make it all about him. Again. Right there in midsentence of actually starting to get a glimpse of how she’d felt all these years, to make the U-turn right back to himself.
And then she laughed. Because crying about it seemed as useless as crying about grass being green.
He stared at her, clearly taken aback. But after a couple minutes, as her laughter eased into gasping breaths and she wiped away tears with her fingers, an expression came over his face that she hadn’t seen there before.
Mark Truesdale was abashed.
“I am sorry, Jenny,” he said softly.
She met his gaze. Slowly, she smiled.
“Maybe there’s hope for you after all, Mark.”
When Trent parked his car beneath the tree between the lot and the car wash, he had every intention of going directly inside.
Then he saw Barry, the kid whose job he’d made permanent after the Fourth of July cookout. Well, one of the two kids. Because it was only fair to make the same offer to Jonas Meltini, the other kid Jennifer had hired. Barry had been grateful; Jonas had been blasé, though he had accepted.
That’s when Trent had connected the talented player Coach and Josh Kincannon had talked about with their employee. The one he often had a hard time finding when work needed doing.
Barry appeared to be taking his lunch break from washing cars. Not just running them through the car wash next door, but, judging from the equipment, hand washing any missed spots, along with vacuuming and wiping down the insides. Jonas was nowhere in sight.
But what caught Trent’s attention was the football Barry tossed in the air with one hand while he ate a sandwich with the other.
“How ’bout tossing that ball this way?” he asked.
Barry’s head snapped around. “Yes, sir, Mr. Stenner.”
He scrambled to his feet, dropping the sandwich on a plastic wrapper.
He threw the ball with some juice. Trent had no trouble holding on; as a safety he’d worked on his receiving skills to make the most of any opportunities to intercept.
“You’d better finish that sandwich before the ants have it,” he said.
“Oh.” Barry sounded deflated. “Yes, sir.”
Not moving any closer, Trent turned the ball over in his hands while the kid wolfed down the sandwich. The ball, though worn, felt so familiar, like a talisman of another life.
When the kid’s hands were free, Trent tossed it back to him.
“Glad to see you use two hands,” he said after the kid caught it.
“Yes, sir. I was only doing the one-handed drill to get the feel. So two-handed would feel easier and if I had to catch one-handed…”
“Not a bad idea. Toss it back.”
A grin bloomed that seemed as out of proportion to the kid’s face as his feet were to his body.
They tossed the ball back and forth with varied tempos, easy, with a bit of zip, off pace, a passable spiral and Trent’s dying-duck specialty to mimic a tipped ball in order to practice snaring those free balls.
They spoke little. A phrase or two of advice or praise from Trent. Heartfelt thanks and unending sirs from the kid.
“I gotta quit now,” Trent said with regret. “Meeting at the bank.”
“No, you don’t. I mean, the meeting’s off, sir. Ms. Truesdale had to leave. She had Jorge call the bank and reschedule for tomorrow.”
Reprieve! And yet also, regret. He pulled in a breath scented from the rosebushes she had planted out front, and it stirred the regret deeper. She wasn’t inside. He wasn’t just a few strides away from being able to wander into her office to see her.
“Oh, yeah?” Trent gestured for the kid to keep tossing. “Where’d Ms. Truesdale go?”
He shrugged. “Some guy came.”
Somebody about taxes? A creditor checking on them? Maybe an automaker rep? One thing for sure, whoever came for whatever reason, it wasn’t going to be fun. “Glad I was gone,” he muttered.
“Oh, he wasn’t here to see you. He was here to see Ms. Truesdale.”
“Oh, yeah?” Now why did that please him? Must be a sign he was getting the hang of this retirement business, because he sure liked the idea that this headache wasn’t aimed at him. “Maybe he wanted a job.”
“I don’t think so. She seemed kind of upset when they left.”
Trent caught the ball. “They left together.” And sent it back.
“Yeah.”
The ball returned to him and this time Trent held it for an extra beat. “What did this guy look like?”
“Older guy.” That didn’t help, since Barry would consider any adult older. “Taller than you. Lightish hair.”
Trent held up his hands, halting the game of catch. “I’ve gotta get to work now. So do you.”
“Yes, sir. I will, sir. Right now.” The kid practically ran to get started.
Trent swung into Jennifer’s office and stopped dead. A woman he’d never seen before sat at Jennifer’s desk. An attractive, but tired, woman.
“Who are you?”
“Give me one minute.” She hit several keys, her focus intent. Twenty seconds, and she looked up. “Hmm? Oh. You must be Trent Stenner.”
“Yes, I am. Who are you?”
“I’m Anne. Anne Hooper.” She leaned across the desk and extended a hand that looked as if it had spent more time at hard labor than a keyboard.
“Nice to meet you, Anne. Now, what are you doing here?”
“Oh. Jennifer didn’t tell you? I thought she’d called you right after…but clearly she didn’t. I’m doing the books. Jennifer hired me this morning. I’m setting up everything so I can access accounts from home. I’ve talked to the bank about adding encryption that—”
“That all sounds good, but where’s Jennifer?”
“She took off a while ago. She had an unexpected visitor.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Her brother came by.”
Trent felt as though he’d been braced to make a tackle, then discovered nothing there to grab except air.
A light was on in Trent’s office when Mark drove Jennifer to Stenner Autos to get her car after he treated her and Ashley to dinner.
It wasn’t the most comfortable meal she’d ever eaten, through no real fault of her brother’s. Ashley had basked and glowed in his presence, reminding Jennifer painfully of herself. And forming a stark contrast to how Ashley reacted to Trent.
They dropped Ashley off at home, but Jennifer still needed her car.
“Uh, Mark, I forgot something in the office. No need to wait for me.”
“If you’re sure you’ll be okay. I’ll call you. And thanks, Jennifer.”
“Not sure I helped any.”
“You helped a lot.”
Using her keys, she came in quietly and reached the open office door. Trent frowned at something on his computer screen, his face intense. He should have been intimidating, perhaps even frightening with that expression. For no reason at all, she felt her lips lifting.
“You left the alarm off,” she sai
d.
His head jerked up and his gaze locked with hers with the same concentration he’d devoted to the screen.
“No need. I was still here.”
“That’s not what you told me. You said when I was alone I should have the alarm on.”
“Yeah, well…” He hitched his uninjured shoulder. “You should.”
Before she could respond to that slight—and totally unapologetic—emphasis on the pronoun, he continued. “You okay?”
“Fine. Why wouldn’t I be? Oh—because I missed the appointment. I’m so sorry about that.”
“I’ll survive.”
“Yes, but now we’re behind. And it’s my fault. I don’t know when we’ll go over that application before the meeting tomorrow.”
“In the morning,” he said with a careless shrug.
“I’m scheduled from the minute I get in, and I can’t get in earlier, because I’m not dropping Ashley off at her friend’s house until nine.”
“I’ll bring doughnuts to your place in the morning and we’ll do it then.” She had no time to protest—and really no reason to protest, except doughnuts were not the most healthful of breakfasts—before he continued. “I heard you had a visitor. Your brother, right? Unexpected?”
She sank into the chair beside his desk and expelled a breath.
“Yes, it was my brother. And unexpected isn’t the half of it. He’s never come to see me. Ever. And now…this…”
She closed her eyes, remembering cathartic truth telling.
“What does he want from you?”
She opened her eyes, nearly as surprised by the edge in Trent’s voice as she’d been by her brother’s arrival.
“What makes you think he wants something from me?”
“Because you haven’t had much contact with your family, and usually when people show up suddenly like that, they want something from you. And frequently it involves money.”
She couldn’t argue with his logic. Yet she had a sense of something else behind his words. Had he experienced something similar?
You could ask him.
She heard the words as if spoken in her head.
No. She wouldn’t ask him. They had gotten along surprisingly well so far, but as business associates. Two people rowing the same boat. No sense in rocking it with personal questions.
“He does want something from me. But it’s free—advice.”
He leaned back, crossing his hands behind his head, looking from beneath his dark eyelashes. “Yeah? You going to give it to him?”
“Aren’t you surprised he wants my advice?”
After her initial pique, she’d been astonished. Her brother, always the darling of their family, coming to her and asking for advice.
“No.” He left it at that, without giving her any idea of what he meant.
“Well, I was.” Although she needed a stronger word—shock, maybe, or better yet, stupefaction—for her brother coming to her for advice and listening to her. Eventually. “His wife’s kicked him out. He asked my advice to get her back.”
“Maybe he’s not as stupid as I thought.”
She gaped at him a moment, before a giggle bubbled up from somewhere so deep in her she had forgotten it existed.
“Yes, he is.” She giggled again. “He didn’t think of it. Amy—his wife—told him to ask me how to make things right.”
“Okay. He’s still stupid. What does Amy want you to tell him?”
“I told him I didn’t know. But he wasn’t satisfied with that. He was so desperate… He really does love her.”
His upper and lower eyelashes nearly came together as his light-colored eyes pinned her, seeming to see inside her.
Only when she saw that did she realize she’d sounded like a starving urchin with her nose pressed against the bakery window when she’d said, “He really does love her.” Pathetic and needy. And she’d vowed never to let herself be that way again. Never to allow herself to need a man’s approval so much that she’d fall into that trap.
“Don’t you?” Trent said.
Lost, she blinked at him. “Don’t I what?”
“Know what Amy wants you to tell him. Seems to me it would be related to your childhoods. You’re one of the few people around from his childhood that his wife would know.”
Her brain was buzzing. With how he’d zeroed in on it. But also with other thoughts. Thoughts about his childhood. About his relationship with his family.
Why did he never talk about them?
The hell with it, she would ask him.
“What about your family, Trent?”
“What about them?” His lack of reaction didn’t ring true. He at least should have reacted to the out-of-the-blue question.
“You so rarely talk about them. I can’t believe you aren’t hearing from your father.”
“Hearing from and talking to are two different things.”
“Oh.” It made her sad. Sadder than she would have expected. “I’m sorry you don’t have a good relationship with your family. I know, I know, that sounds weird considering I haven’t seen much of mine, either. But…”
A flicker. No more than that. But something crossed his face. Trouble was she had no idea what had flickered.
“Oh, I get my fix of family. Just not my family. Linc calls me a family parasite.”
“What!” Outrage overrode her suspicion that she was being detoured. “How dare he. How—”
“Whoa, Jen.” He laughed. “He was only agreeing with me. Actually, I suggested the term family vampire and he said it was too harsh, because I don’t suck the life out of other people’s families. I just don’t contribute.”
She felt chilled. Chilled to the heart.
She stood. “I’d better go. But… Thank you, Trent.”
“No problem, Jennifer. No problem at all. Good night.”
“See you in the morning,” she said, heading out the door. “And turn on the alarm after I leave.”
She heard a chuckle behind her. It’s what she’d intended, so the sense of success had to be the reason she felt so warmed by the sound.
The doughnuts smelled mouthwateringly sinful when Jennifer opened the door to Trent the next morning. Her resolve to have only grapefruit slid away unmourned.
“It’s such a nice morning, we’ll eat on the balcony,” she said.
She’d decided to have breakfast outside after considering how she and Ashley bumped and brushed when they sat at the counter to eat. And Trent was a considerably larger presence than Ashley. Jennifer had awakened especially early and finished in the bathroom early so she’d be certain to be ready before Trent arrived, no matter how early he was.
“Sounds great. I’ve been wanting to see this balcony. Where is it?”
“The far end of the apartment, which isn’t very convenient for the kitchen.” She shrugged, guiding him down the hall. “They took space from the second floor of each of the stores, so the apartment’s long and skinny, with the hallway winding around.”
“I smell guacamole,” Trent said as they neared a turn in the hallway.
“Guacamole? I don’t have any guac—”
At that moment, Ashley emerged from the bathroom.
Jennifer took in the situation in less than a heartbeat, which put her way ahead of the other two. But then she had an advantage—she was female, and she wasn’t in shock.
At least not as much shock as her daughter.
Trent gawked. But give him credit, he did clamp his mouth shut almost immediately. Ashley, on the other hand, could have used this jaw-dropped, eyes-starting, hands-to-heart pose to audition for any horror movie ever made—and she’d get the part.
Green goop covered her face except for a strip of orangish red down her nose and bare circles around her eyes, explained by green disks held in hands slathered in white. Her hair hung in slimy hunks on a shawl-wrapped towel over her old chenille bathrobe faded to the color of dust.
Clearly, Ashley had used the extra bathroom time made available
by Jennifer’s early rising to try out remedies culled from the most recent stack of beauty magazines from the library.
“Ahhhggg!” Ashley’s squawk was strangled, probably because the green goop appeared dry enough to keep her face from moving.
It didn’t stop the rest of her from moving, however. Jennifer grabbed Trent’s arm and pulled him against the wall to keep from being run over as Ashley made for her bedroom.
The door slammed behind Ashley, and Trent jumped.
“What on earth…?”
“Beauty regimen,” Jennifer said, pushing open the sliding-glass door to the balcony.
There went her hopes that Ashley and Trent might be edging away from the tension that had seemed to exist between them from their first meeting, and toward a true niece-uncle relationship. Ashley would redirect her embarrassment to anger, and she’d divide it between the witnesses to her embarrassment, Jennifer and Trent.
Jennifer sat wearily, then poured Trent’s coffee.
“She smelled like…like a salad.” Trent still sounded shocked.
He sat opposite her, his knee brushing the side of her leg as he settled in. The contact sent a shiver of shock through her, like static electricity from rubbing a carpet during the winter.
“Avocado facial mask, tomato and lemon to bleach freckles, mayonnaise to condition hair and cucumbers to treat eyes.” And now Jennifer understood Ashley’s willingness to do the grocery shopping lately.
“My God.” He peered at her across the small table. “Did you ever…?”
Well, if that wasn’t just like a man. Forcing her into a corner. What did he want her to say? That she’d used every potion and concoction that magazines, her allowance and ingenuity had allowed in pursuit of beauty?
“At that age? Sure.”
His hand hovered over the largest chocolate doughnut in the bakery box he’d opened. “Why?”
He was mean. No two ways around it. He’d take candy from a baby, a bone from a puppy, and the last shred of feminine ego from a woman.
“Because I foolishly cared what guys thought of me then. Now, shall we get started?”
He didn’t respond. She had the feeling his thoughts were continuing on a track unconnected to her words.
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