She shrugged. “Well, it’s a big day for you.” The basket swung in front of her. “And Sunny and I will make absolutely sure that no more pickles go up anybody’s nose. Right, Sunny?”
Sunny scrubbed pee off his shoes. “Yeah.”
Though it was absolutely uncalled for, Jett could still see the guilt lingering in her eyes. “It wasn’t a big deal, Sarah. Really. It took less than a minute for them to get it out.” He smiled good-naturedly, all the while trying not to think too hard on the memory summed up in three words: tears, chaos, money.
Jett craned his neck as he pulled on his coat. “Hey, guys! Sarah brought you muffins.”
“Saaaraaaah!” The twins rounded the corner full speed. Both faces were covered in what he guessed was mayonnaise. Maybe whipped cream. The point was they weren’t crying.
Sarah took in the twins’ hugs and passed them each a muffin. Her eyes passed to the baby recliner still in its box in the corner. “Maybe when you get back we can put that together.”
He followed her eyes to the recliner. “Yeah. Definitely.”
“Good.” She gave a pleased smile. A smile that looked a whole lot like the kind Cassie gave just before their almost kiss.
Jett scratched the back of his neck, feeling very uncomfortable. If he was a wise man, he’d stop asking for Sarah’s help. But what were his options lately? Sarah had volunteered herself, every time, with no expectations. No spoken expectations, at least.
Still, with every kind word or deed, he felt the debt getting heavier and had a growing feeling he knew in what currency she dealt.
“You know, Sarah,” Jett began, “you have done so much for us. I know you’ve said no already, but really, let me pay you.”
Sunny perked up from the couch, several potato chips falling to the floor. “Her? What about me? I woke up to Drew in my bed this morning. You know how I knew he was in my bed? He peed in it. You know what it’s like to wake up to the growing sensation you’re in an ocean?”
Jett stepped toward Sarah, taking out his wallet.
Sarah’s basket, along with her body, backed up. “No, Jett. I couldn’t.”
“I insist.”
“No. I insist.”
Sunny waved his hands all over. “You heard her. She insists. I, on the other hand, am not insisting. I need the money. Drew ate one of my shoes yesterday. Ate it. Like a li’l puppy dog.”
Jett forced himself to overlook Sunny’s concerning statement, giving one last push for Sarah. He pulled out a couple of twenties. “Just enough to cover some food, then. You guys can order pizza.”
But Sarah put a hand over his, pushing the bills away. “No. This is what neighbors do. We are there for each other when they need help. I’m sure you’d do the same for me.”
“It depends on if your plight included kids.” Jett paused, feeling himself giving up. There would be no winning this battle. He pushed the wallet back into his pocket. “You set the bar pretty high for neighborly conduct, Sarah.”
“Yes, she does.” Out of nowhere, Sunny snatched the twenties from Jett’s hand. “You’re a very honorable neighbor, Sarah. We are in awe. But you and I will also need some pizza.”
“Well . . . oh.” Jett paused, then looked down at TJ in his arms. He had held him so much the past few days he was starting to forget when the kid was there. “Probably should take him before I go.”
“Probably.” Sarah grinned as she took TJ, waving his little arm as Jett closed the door behind him.
He would not feel guilty. He’d done his duty. He’d tried several times to pay her for her help.
Still, Jett couldn’t help wondering, as he drove downtown, what a bum deal it was for her. She was a nice woman, a beautiful woman. Friendly. Easygoing. Tidy—although what woman really wanted that as a top-five characteristic?
Perhaps that was what was wrong. He could write down plenty of good traits, but the missing piece was still missing. What would he call it? That gelling. Conversation unstifled, words and unspoken wishes mixing with laughter that came only too easily, breaking layers with each smile, digging deeper each time their eyes met. In two—and a tenth—dates (counting a failed one), he had already rooted himself too deep to move planters now.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with Sarah. Just that Cassie was everything right.
A light dusting of snow covered the sidewalks of downtown Gatlinburg. Shop windows decorated by the marketing savvy caught the eyes of pedestrians with their glittering merchandise beneath festive trees and waving snowmen. The town of Gatlinburg conspired together to create an even jollier atmosphere for potential shoppers, offering the siren call of conveniently placed speakers playing holiday songs. Jett gripped his lifeline of late—Guatemalan coffee, black—and moved along. The backside of his hand was already starting to stiffen in the cold.
He couldn’t remember a December in Tennessee this chilly. Georgia winters had been far more temperate, and if he recalled correctly, this time last year he’d been cruising along in a coworker’s speedboat on an unconventionally warm weekend day. Jett zipped up his jacket; just thinking about gliding through the lake at thirty miles an hour on a day like today made him shudder.
He let go of the zipper. His fingers felt oddly wet all of a sudden, which, as he was learning in his new state of life, was never a good sign.
He grimaced and with deep hesitation put his fingers to his nose for a quick whiff.
Not again.
One glance down confirmed TJ’s gift upon the brilliant green of his down jacket.
These kids were merciless.
Through the thick crowd he spotted the DCS building a handful of buildings ahead. He started to pull off one sleeve of his jacket.
“Jett?”
Cassie?
His smile brightened as he watched her part from the sea of oncoming pedestrians. Her legs looked particularly long and lean in jeans that clung to her calves. Sleek gray boots with tiny heels covered her feet, and she looked warm in a white pea coat and thick collars wrapped in one of those uneven, stylish ways around her neck. Her hair curled around her shoulders, framing her heart-shaped face, highlighting a relaxed smile and pink lips. It was clear as day she’d put more time into her appearance today than for any of their two-and-a-tenth dates.
“Well, look at you. I hope you aren’t off to some lunch date with another man.” Jett paused, his arms halfway out of his jacket, as she stopped before him. “He’d fall for you in a second.”
“Look who’s talking here. I don’t recall you wearing a fancy polo on our date. And I believe you called my T-shirt-and-ponytail ensemble stunning. What about all this talk about going for the outdoor-girl type?”
“Oh, believe me, with you I can be both.” But the charm of his words diminished significantly, he realized, with the fact he was currently trying to pry his fingers out of his feces-covered coat with coffee in hand. He successfully yanked one arm out, and her attention was drawn to the jacket.
“Um, Jett. What are you doing?”
He pulled his arm from the other side. “I’m warm.”
“It’s sixteen degrees outside.”
“Surely not,” he said, cautiously laying the clean part of his jacket over his arm. “I’d say it was well over thirty. Practically balmy.”
Cassie pointed to the First Tennessee Bank sign directly above them. It proudly stated the weather, all sixteen degrees of it.
His “fancy polo” proved to be about as useful as a paper towel as his chest left the safety of the warm down and faced the bitter wind alone. He tried with everything in him not to shudder.
“Hey, crazy.” Cassie’s brows drew together as she leaned in, eyes on the jacket. “I think you got something on your coat.” A breeze lifted her hair and left a few sweet flurries.
“I don’t think so.”
“Right there, see? Looks like maybe a bit of mustard . . .” Suddenly she began rummaging in her purse.
“Oh, yes. Maybe so—”
But
just as he started to relax, waiting for the pack of paper towels to appear—women were always so resourceful—she whipped out an old, crumpled, impossibly thin, single-ply tissue and held it in the air. She began to straighten it out, and even then, it began to tear.
“It’s not much, but maybe it’ll at least keep it from dripping until you find a towel—”
“No, that’s okay.”
“Really, it’ll just take a sec.” And then her hand moved toward him, her perfectly soft, delicate fingers—protected by just a whisper of cotton—drawing in toward their filthy target.
He wasn’t about to explain. Twenty feet from the DCS building he wasn’t about to get this close and open that can of worms.
In a moment of either sheer brilliance or absolute panic, he took a step back, twisted his ankle, and flipped his entire steaming cup of hot coffee on his coat. “Whoa,” he said loudly just as Cassie reached out and grabbed him by the arm.
“Jett!” She stared. “What just happened?”
“I slipped. Watch out for the—” He looked down to the pale slab of dusted sidewalk. “—black ice.”
“Black ice?” Her gaze moved to the ground beneath him. “There’s no black ice.”
“That’s exactly why black ice is so dangerous. It’s invisible.” He scraped his boot against the perfectly safe, nonslippery surface. “See? We’d better move over there. I practically did it again.”
His entire body started to tingle from the cold as she let him guide her toward the window of a store, amusement highlighting her face. “Oh, sure. This is terrifying. I can only imagine what you’d be like in a real snowstorm.”
“Look who’s talking, Girl Who Calls 911 Over Cats in Pine Needles.”
“We’re a real pair, aren’t we?” Cassie grinned, several snow flakelets resting lightly on her rose-brushed cheeks. “So,” she forged on, “besides dousing yourself in coffee and trying to get hypothermia, what are you doing out and about?”
“Me? Oh—” A holiday bag wacked him on the shoulder as a shopper passed. “Christmas shopping. I was just about to go in here.” He jutted his thumb behind him.
Her eyes drifted dubiously over his shoulder to the awning. “In there.”
Vaguely, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a silky robe covered in paper hearts. No doubt one of the general stores selling everything from root-beer-scented candles to beef jerky; tourist traps like that were a dime a dozen around town.
“Yeah. Still looking for something for my aunt and uncle. These places are corny, I know, but they’re great for one-stop shopping. I can always find something eclectic for my uncle.”
Her eyes became mirthful. “Is that so? You’ve done it before?”
“Plenty of times. You can only buy so many ties before you have to get creative.”
Her smile widened. “Right. ‘Creative.’” Her phone beeped, and her expression changed. “Well, I’d love to stay and watch exactly what you pick out, but I have to meet a friend. Are you going to the parade Saturday?”
“I’ll be in it.”
“Really?”
“Sure. What’s a parade without a fire truck? We’re runner-up to Santa Claus as far as enthusiastic kids are concerned.” He hesitated, the choice of words reminding him of the impending meeting, a meeting he was getting later for by the second. “Anyway, it was great bumping into you—”
“And watching you spill coffee on yourself,” she added.
“But, uh, see you Saturday, after the parade?” Then he remembered the little hitch—or rather, three little hitches—getting in his way. It would be painful to ask Sarah again, especially the way things were heading. “Maybe?”
Oddly enough, the same cloudy expression fell over her face. “I’ll be working that night. Doing a volunteer thing with the Leadership Club for some shut-ins. But maybe. Either way, I’ll be sure to wave from the crowd.”
“I’ll be on the lookout.”
Both Jett and Cassie backed away slowly, regretfully, she seemingly as committed to her appointment as he was, yet seemingly wishing just as much as he to stay. He backed up to the storefront door, turned the knob, gave her one last wave. Her grin was as bright as a lightbulb as she watched him turn. Her steps seemed to slow, in fact, until he had no choice but to actually go in after all.
The smell of spandex met him, and even before taking in the floor-to-ceiling rows of cheap, lacy intimate wear on plastic hangers, he knew his mistake. A neon-pink sign hung above the register, and a woman with thin, permed hair teased into a ponytail began striding toward him. “What’ll be your pleasure, sir? Looking for something—”
Jett scrambled back out the door and practically tripped, this time for real, on the sidewalk. Even several buildings down, from the front of the DCS building, he heard Cassie cackling.
He straightened his shirt. “That’s not Buck’s General Store, in case you’re wondering,” he called.
“Oh, really? I didn’t know,” she called back, grinning elfishly before stepping inside.
She had just gone into the very building he needed to go into.
Not to mention the top half of his body was numb.
There were a few other stores in the immediate area to solve that problem, but hiding out in nonlingerie stores wouldn’t help in the matter of getting to his meeting. He’d have to chance it.
Cautiously he looked inside the windows of the government building before stepping inside. Cassie was nowhere to be seen.
He made his way to the front desk.
The receptionist, a man wearing what appeared to be a permanent work frown, looked up. “May I help you?”
“Yes, I’m here to see—” But just then he heard Cassie’s voice floating through the hall. “—the restroom.”
The man’s eyes didn’t so much as blink. “You’re here to see the restroom,” he repeated.
Jett nodded. “And then I have an appointment.”
“To the left, down the hall. Make a right after the water fountain. Hit the cat poster, and you’ve gone too far.”
“Left, then right after water fountain but before poster. Got it.”
“Cat poster,” the man corrected and set down his pencil. “There are other posters, but turn before the cat poster. Not the vaccine poster or the domestic-abuse poster or the poster with the statistics about tax fraud. The cat poster. The cat is a Siamese with a ball.”
Cassie’s voice grew louder, and Jett saw her silky hair peeking above the window in the hall door to his right. He put up a hand. “Cat poster. Got it. Thank you,” he said and scurried to his left and around the corner.
“I’m just beginning to call around, Cassie,” the woman was saying. “I wish I could give you and the girls something definitive, but one of their relatives hasn’t even called me back yet—”
Cassie sounded deflated. “No, I understand. I just feel, for their sakes, how imperative it is to know what to expect in the near future. Or far future.”
Jett caught a glimpse of the woman touching Cassie’s arm. “Believe me, I wish for that kind of answer in this job every day too. But right now, there’s so much potential for the unknown that I don’t feel comfortable leading you guys one way or another. Let’s keep our appointment for after the holidays, and, at the very least, I’ll see you at the first PATH class on the thirty-first. Until then, know that unless I give you a call, nothing has changed. And if something does, trust me, I’ll be calling you as soon as I can.”
“As soon as you can,” Cassie repeated. “Really, Rachel. Please.”
The woman nodded.
Cassie’s voice was empty, all the bounce in her step from those former moments with him gone. “You have a Merry Christmas.”
Cassie Everson. It was impressive how much she cared for the girls at her job, endearing to see her standing up for them firsthand. Those kids were lucky to have someone like her in their corner.
Jett waited until Cassie was safely out of sight before venturing into the waiting area. Rachel leane
d over the desk, checking the clipboard.
“Have you gotten a Jett Bentley in yet?” she was asking just as he stepped up.
“So sorry I’m late.” He put out his hand. “I’m Jett. Thanks for being willing to meet with me.”
Rachel shook his hand. “It’s fine. I’ve been behind all morning anyway. Come right this way.”
The moment Jett sat in the chair opposite her desk, he set his crumpled jacket on the floor. He saw a Purell bottle and quickly gave himself a couple squirts. “I’m here to discuss my sister’s children. They have recently come into my care.”
Rachel nodded. What was earth-shaking, life-altering news to him didn’t faze her—someone who dealt with misplaced children for a living. Nevertheless, her lack of reaction was disappointing. Calm, much too calm, for what it meant in his life.
“You should already have a file on them. I, uh . . .” Jett rubbed the knees of his pants uncomfortably. “I had to file a report sometime about a year ago.”
“I see.” She reached for her cup of coffee. “How many children?”
“Three. The twins are just over three years old, and the youngest, a boy, is somewhere around seven weeks.”
“Quite the newborn.” Rachel sipped her coffee. “And under what condition did they come to you?”
He paused. “As in . . . ?”
“As in are they healthy? Are they dealing with medical issues, abuse?”
He dodged the question. “To the best of my knowledge she never hit them.”
“Yes, but I think we both know physical abuse isn’t the only type out there.”
Rachel asked him several more questions and listed off a dozen potential behavior responses of a child affected by different forms of trauma. A few of the issues hit the target for Dakota or Drew, or even TJ, and he shifted his legs uncomfortably.
How much could he share here? How much did she need to know about Trina for this conversation? He found himself afraid to be too specific. Instead, he avoided details for her sake, choosing to round up his answers by saying, “My sister was in no shape to take care of the kids at this time. Several days ago she took them to my home and left them. Now I’m struggling to know what to do.”
The Dating Charade Page 12