Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “I like it okay.” She only shrugged. Wow. Thayla was just great at this conversation thing. I couldn’t imagine her interacting with customers all day. “I work evenings mostly. It’s fun.”

  “That’s good,” I said lamely. Good God. Listen to me! I was having as much trouble making conversation with my sister as any other socially backward guy around. What good was I going to do with her Brock Mortensen situation if I couldn’t even manage to connect with her?

  “I have to be at work in thirty minutes,” Thayla told me. My mother was busy at the stove with a roast. “Enjoy your evening.”

  “Thayla, wait!” I could not let her leave without just saying something. “Can I walk you to the car just for a second? I wanted to ask you about something.”

  If she had looked suspicious before, now she looked absolutely hunted. She shrugged and then grunted a goodbye at Mom before reaching for the kitchen door. The two of us stepped outside. Thayla did not even get halfway to the driver’s door of the car she had appropriated from Mom before she turned on me.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” she snapped.

  “You do?” That was good, because I had no freaking clue. “What am I going to say, Thayla?”

  “You’re going to tell me that when you were in high school, Brock Mortensen was a wild kid who was always in trouble. You’re going to tell me that he’s not worth a damn.”

  “Okay.” It could be mentioned here that at least she had saved me the trouble of trying to broach that topic of conversation. “So let’s pretend that’s what I was going to say. What is your response?”

  “He’s not like that anymore!” Thayla burst out. She had more animation in her face in that moment than I had seen on her during her lifetime. “He’s not a criminal! And the fact that he went to jail? That’s all just lies! Lies!”

  “People do not spend years in jail because someone lied, Thayla,” I told her quietly. “Brock assaulted that poor woman’s father.”

  “He was getting involved in their relationship,” Thayla said mulishly. “He shouldn’t have done that. If he hadn’t butted in, then Brock wouldn’t have had any reason to hurt him.”

  “I see.” I wondered if she had any idea what kind of logic that was. “So if our father or mother decided to get involved in your relationship with Brock, what would happen then? Would that entitle Brock to beat the crap out of Dad? What about Mom? What happens if Brock gets mad at Mom? Because you know that our mother isn’t going to stand there and let that man just run all over her. What will happen if she disagrees with him or argues, Thayla?”

  Thayla bit her lip. “Nothing! Nothing will happen. He’s not like that. He’s a good man. He’s just been misunderstood.”

  Like her. The words weren’t said, but they were inferred. They were hanging there beneath the surface like a huge scar that could not be hidden. My sister was misunderstood. I think I got that. But it wasn’t like Thayla ever did much to try and help us get her either. She had a massive chip on her shoulder. She was belligerent and grouchy and always ready to be rude.

  “Thayla,” I said quietly. “Does Brock treat you well at least? I know that people can change.”

  “So? You think he’s beating me? You think that I would just allow that?”

  “I don’t know what you’d allow.” I realized that this was absolutely true and that it was also a bit sad. “I don’t know you that well. So I’m acknowledging that and I’m also trying to say that you are my sister and no matter how much we have fought in the past, I have no desire to see you hurt. So I’m asking because in spite of the fact that we have nothing in common, you’re still my sister.”

  “He’s never hurt me. I know that he drinks sometimes. He’s trying to get a job. It’s really hard when you’ve got such a bad reputation.” She bit her lip, gnawed on the lower one actually. And finally she gave a helpless shrug. “You could help him you know.”

  “I could?” I raised my eyebrows. “How is that?”

  “You could hire him. He could empty trash bins or something,” Thayla said quickly. She was talking faster and faster. “You could hire him to be a guard or something. You could give him a job. He’d have benefits and everything!”

  Wow. That was a bit of a blow to whatever was going on inside my gut. I couldn’t even guess. “Thayla, that’s not exactly how it works. I don’t own the building. My company doesn’t either. The building manager is the one who hires for that kind of job.”

  “So you could put in a good word for him,” Thayla insisted.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Putting my reputation on the line by suggesting someone hire Brock Mortensen, ex con and beater of women and old men? No thanks. But I sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know. My position here in St. Louis is temporary, Thayla. I’ll see what I can do, but no promises.”

  “That would be great!” She was beaming at me, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.

  If there was ever a time ripe for me to ask her something in return, now was it. I swallowed because I really wasn’t sure I actually wanted to hear the answer. “Thayla, did you ever hear a rumor that I’d had a kid with some woman and that this illegitimate secret child was the reason why Eleanor Schulte left me at the altar?”

  “That’s stupid,” Thayla murmured. But what I could see of her expression in the back porch light suggested I wasn’t actually as far off the mark as I might have hoped. “I think… That is to say”—my sister fidgeted—“I did hear something right after you left town, but that was just gossip. I don’t think anyone actually believed that crap, Kevin. You’re not that sort of guy. It was probably just someone spouting off after you left because the way you ran off made it seem like you had a guilty conscience.”

  “A guilty conscience,” I murmured. Had it seemed that way to people? What was the rumor now? That I had moved my mistress and my secret love child to Kansas City with me and then lived happily ever after?

  “Most people think you’re married with kids and just living and working in Kansas City to get away from all of the drama that happened here.”

  “Wait. What drama?” I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. “The drama was over after the wedding wound up getting canceled. There was nothing else. No other drama.”

  “Are you kidding?” Thayla was actually laughing at me now. “Wow. You never ask the right questions. You know that?”

  “Okay.” I humored her. What choice did I have? “If I asked the right questions, what would they be?”

  “You would ask what happened a few weeks after you left when your mother and her mother got into it when they were at the beauty parlor.” Thayla relished this. I could tell! Her face was plump and red with that eager look of anticipation. Like she was about to get the thrill of her life.

  “Excuse me?” I growled the words. “A confrontation in the beauty shop? What are you talking about?”

  “They used to have the same hairdresser,” Thayla explained. “A few weeks after you left, Mom went to her appointment and discovered that Mrs. Wanda Schulte was just finishing up. Some people claim that the hairdresser forced the confrontation just to see what would happen. She should have well known to keep those two clients far apart at that point.”

  “It would seem so,” I said drily. “Who knew that a beauty parlor could be the scene of a throw down?”

  “Our mother accused Wanda of lying to get her daughter to call off the wedding. Wanda called Mom a lying whore—that’s how I heard it at least—and then Mom popped Wanda in the mouth. They started grabbing and yanking hair and rolling around on the floor.”

  I could not even begin to visualize this nonsense. My mother had gotten into a knock-down-drag-out fight with Eleanor’s mom over the ending of our relationship? It sounded impossibly preposterous.

  “I also heard that one version said they pretty much destroyed the shop. Knocked over a bunch of storage bins and rolling drawer units. Curlers everywhere, stuff all over the floor, and apparently Mom destroyed W
anda Schulte’s new hairdo.” Thayla was now laughing so hard that she could barely talk. “It was a real neighborhood scandal. I can’t believe you never heard about that.”

  “But why would they fight? It was over and done.” I was still unclear as to why this was such a big deal. I had been gone at that point. What was there left to fight about?

  “Mom claims that Wanda was lying about you to get Eleanor to call it off.” Thayla shrugged and opened the car door. “I don’t know any more than that. You’d have to ask Mom.”

  Like I was going to dredge all of this up after she had gotten so upset the night before. I chuffed out a little breath and wondered if there was any way to salvage this conversation. Although, it had been more productive than I might have imagined. “Thanks for talking to me about this, Thayla.”

  “No problem.” She paused before closing her driver’s door. “Don’t forget that you promised to try and get Brock a job.”

  “I told you no promises,” I reminded her. “I will look into it, but I don’t know if I even have that power.” In fact, I hoped that I did not. Unless it meant I could keep an eye on the ass and wait for him to show his true colors. I simply did not believe that he had turned over a new leaf of any kind.

  “I know that. But trying is good. You’re the kind of person that gets results when you make an effort.” Thayla made a face at me. “It’s disgusting actually, from my perspective anyway.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that. I suppose if you were the less successful sibling it would always feel that way. “Have a good night at work, Thayla,” I said lamely.

  She started the car and backed out of the driveway. She narrowly missed the mailbox on her way out. I figured it would not be long before she would wind up hurting herself and the car once again. Driving had never really been Thayla’s thing.

  The headlights disappeared down the street. I wondered how often she actually saw her boyfriend and future husband. Did he come by often? Was it just my presence here keeping him away? I could not imagine Brock Mortensen sitting in the living room watching hunting shows with my father. I couldn’t imagine him helping with dishes in the kitchen either.

  I turned back toward the kitchen door and realized that I was standing out here in the freezing cold night stalling because I didn’t want to go back inside. A beauty parlor fight? Really? How was I supposed to deal with that? It was embarrassing!

  Staring up at the sky, I saw the glow of the city reflected back at me. There were no stars here. Not visible ones. The place was far too lit up all the time to even begin to allow you to see the stars. I knew that there were thousands upon thousands of people in this city staring up at the sky right now. What I could not get out of my head was the possibility that Eleanor Schulte was one of them.

  Eleanor. She was a problem that I was going to have to figure out. I could not deny that she had helped me out with the information on Brock Mortensen. She was right. I couldn’t just tell my sister that there was no way in hell I was going to let her marry that asshole. It wasn’t my place. That meant I had to find another way.

  With one last sigh, I trudged back inside the house. My mother was waiting. I needed to speak to her about something. Maybe not Thayla’s boyfriend or her fight with Eleanor’s mom in a beauty shop. I couldn’t go there right now. I could not even begin to wrap my mind around the horrible thing that Eleanor had bluntly accused me of. Having a child with another woman. Lying about it. No doubt she believed I was still lying about it. I could not begin to unpack that right now with my mother of all people. But I had to come up with some kind of conversation to prevent the evening from dragging on and on.

  Chapter Twelve

  Eleanor

  Retail therapy is not usually my thing. I don’t like stores. I don’t like people. I don’t like people in stores. You get the picture, right? But there is something to be said for wandering around a few little specialty shops in Tower Grove’s “downtown” area. Of course, this basically just involves a trip to South Grand near Tower Grove Park where both sides of the street are covered in everything from restaurants featuring Ethiopian or Thai food, a Mediterranean market, and even a pole dancing academy. Yes. Pole Dancing. It’s all the rage for anyone attempting to build up those core muscles.

  He’s still lying about the baby. The kid is probably in high school and driving. Where is it? Boy or girl? If he’s going to keep lying about this I should just write him off. What good is a man who just lies like that?

  But I could not get his expression out of my mind. The man had been absolutely shocked. He hadn’t had a clue what I’d been talking about. He really hadn’t. And I wasn’t entirely certain I could give Kevin Landau that much credit as an actor. So what was really going on?

  Focus. Shopping. Mostly for distraction purposes. This time of evening, everyone in the area is packed into the restaurants so the shops aren’t nearly as busy. I looked for this little vintage boutique called The Sweet Shop. I don’t shop very often, but when I do I like to go in there and have a look at all of the cute gifts and boutique clothing.

  The bell jingled merrily as I walked inside. Like I said. I don’t shop very often. And it was plain to see when I walked in that there had been a definite change in how the displays were arranged. It was actually a really good thing. I had to stop and do a double take at the window displays on either side of the entrance.

  They weren’t just jumbles of merchandise hanging on racks anymore. I could recall a time when whoever was in charge of displays would just hang a quilt or a very distinctive vintage scarf or a set of curtains behind a bunch of tables strew with so much stuff that you could have easily spent a good twenty minutes just staring and trying to see everything packed onto every flat surface available for the purpose.

  Now I found myself pausing to look at the inviting windows and feeling frankly surprised at the change. One entire window featured a single rack of scarves that included specimens of such a variety of colors, and textures, that you almost just had to walk in there and take a look. But that was probably the best part. It was obvious that you could go in and have a look. There was no longer too much clutter blocking the way.

  The second window on the left side of the entrance was actually set up to look like a little reading room. The vintage table and book were joined by a stunning wingback chair in chintz fabric that perfectly complimented the gray and pink stripes of the chair. There was a floor lamp, a little tray sitting on an ottoman, and it had been set up to appear so inviting that I was tempted to go buy the stuff outright as a set.

  I walked into the boutique feeling welcome and more than pleased to be there. I headed for the rack of scarves in the front window and immediately found something that my sister would love for Christmas. That’s another hang up that I have. I never buy anything for myself. It is always for someone else. I just can’t justify wasting money on myself for anything but work clothing and there is no way that I could find an occasion to wear a frilly white and pink scarf to work. Never.

  “Hi there! Welcome to The Sweet Shop. Just let me know if you have any questions.” The store clerk was nearly hidden behind a mountain of blouses on the front counter that she was carefully tagging.

  “Thank you!” I called out.

  It was odd. I fingered the long chain of a necklace attached to a huge yellow stone inside a sort of cage worked around the stone in gold jewelry wire. I could not place the voice, but I knew that I recognized it. That didn’t happen to me very often. Usually I was really good placing voices with people and their names. It came from making about a million cold calls over the course of my career as a recruiter.

  I wandered through the store for a few minutes glancing at merchandise, but not really focusing on it. I wanted to get a good look at the clerk. I needed to see who she was. I was almost positive that I knew her from somewhere. The towering stack of blouses on the counter was certainly an effective barrier. The clerk was absolutely dedicated to her task. I could watch her very caref
ully tagging each one, placing it on a hanger, stowing it on a rack and then using a steamer to gently remove any wrinkles that might have happened to the garment in the carton.

  “Those are very pretty,” I told her, reaching out to finger the cuff of one blouse. “I bet they will be a quick seller for the Christmas shopping crowd.”

  “Oh for sure.” The voice was very conversational and warm with politeness. “I doubt these will last the week. Did you want me to look for a size so that you can try one on?”

  “Oh.” I was taken aback. “For myself?”

  “Sure!” Then the clerk stepped out from behind the pile on the counter and looked me right in the face.

  I could tell the precise moment she recognized me because it was pretty much the second that I recognized her too. I was face to face with Kevin Landau’s sister, Thayla. She was dressed in khaki pants and a pale pink polo shirt. It had the store logo on the breast pocket, but it certainly did not flatter the wearer. If anything, the pink color made Thayla’s face look sallow. Her expression was pleasant, but she had a bit of a red pug nose and a weak chin. Her hair was brown and extremely lank. She had made an attempt to pull it back into a bun, but the result looked like a little knob of hair and it wasn’t at all attractive.

  “Eleanor?”

  “Yes. It’s Thayla, right?” I didn’t want her to feel like she had to be polite to me since I was a customer, but it was a bit of an unfair advantage on my part. “I had no idea you were working here. But then I don’t come in all that often anyway.”

  “Oh. I’ve only been here a month or two.” Thayla looked mildly uncomfortable. She was fidgeting with the price gun and the hanging tags. “But I really like it. I was at a veterinary office before.”

  I couldn’t even imagine that. I like animals. I don’t like it when they’re hurt. “That must have been a hard job.”

  “Not to mention gross.” She wrinkled her nose. “I think my brother mentioned that you’re in the recruiting business like he is.”