by Gina Wilkins
“I wouldn’t mind, if you think it would make things easier for you.”
“No. But thanks, Tanya. I appreciate the offer.”
She was relieved, she assured herself. She didn’t particularly want to be involved in such a tense and emotional conversation between Kent and his parents. But somehow she felt as though she should be there. Or at least, that he should want her there.
And maybe she was getting all weird again, because she didn’t understand exactly what it was that bothered her about his excluding her. Why, she thought irritably, did she seem so determined to find problems between them when none existed?
CHAPTER NINE
KENT SAT IN HIS CAR outside his parents’ house late Tuesday afternoon staring at the front door with a scowl on his face. He hadn’t dreaded seeing his parents this much since he’d been a teenager in trouble—maybe since he’d actually committed the transgression he was about to confess to them.
He wanted to be irked with Tanya for insisting he do this. But the thing was, she had every right to want him to exorcise this painful memory because it had, indeed, been standing between them—even if he hadn’t realized it until the truth had come out. And his parents really did have a right to know what had happened while he had still been dependent on them for the most part.
Living with the fear of the past being exposed was almost as bad as the reality, itself. At least, he hoped the next hour or so wasn’t going to turn out to be too painful.
As he closed his car door behind him and headed for the front porch, he huddled into his coat, aware of the dramatic difference between Florida’s balmy weather and North Carolina’s winter chill. He hoped the cold, gray day wasn’t an omen for the upcoming discussion.
He didn’t bother to knock or ring the doorbell. Whether he still lived here or not, this was home and he was always welcome. Stepping into the entryway, he closed the door behind him, thinking of Tanya’s offer to accompany him today. He really was pleased that she’d been willing to provide him emotional support, he assured himself—but for some reason he hadn’t wanted her to be involved with this meeting with his parents. Dean tended to yell when he got mad—and he was going to be mad—and Kent didn’t want Tanya to see his family in a less-than-favorable light.
Seeing no one in the front of the house, he headed for the kitchen, where the odds were always good of finding someone. He heard voices from the hallway as he approached. He grimaced, because he could tell immediately that someone had already put the family into a bad mood. Not an auspicious sign for the purpose of his visit.
“I just don’t know what the girl was thinking,” Milo was saying bitterly when Kent walked into the big room. “After all we’ve told her, I just can’t believe she would do something like this.”
Sophia, Kent decided. He wondered what his sister had been up to.
His parents and great-grandparents were sitting around the kitchen table with cups of coffee and slices of cake in front of them, but no one looked particularly interested in eating. They were all frowning to various degrees.
“We don’t know this for sure. It’s only a rumor. But surely she won’t let this go any further,” Juliana predicted with a shake of her head. “She knows how it would upset everyone in the family.”
“What’s Sophia been up to?” Kent asked, moving straight for the coffeemaker.
In response to his voice, everyone looked around. His mother and great-grandmother gave him weak smiles of welcome, but neither Milo nor Dean’s expressions lightened.
“The girl’s been getting cozy with Justin Murphy,” Milo pronounced in a tone of absolute disgust. “Of all the idiotic things she could do…”
Kent paused in the act of cutting himself a slice of carrot cake. Of all the things he had expected to hear, this had not been one of them. “What do you mean, she’s getting cozy with Murphy? In what way?”
“It’s not such a big deal,” Nana said repressively. “There’s just a rumor that Sophia was seen with Justin at a club in Daytona. It might not even be true.”
Setting his plate and cup on the table, Kent sank into a chair. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Do we look like we’re kidding?” Dean demanded, his face as dark as a thundercloud.
“It was just the one night,” Juliana fretted, looking from her husband to Dean. “They probably just happened to be in the same place at the same time.”
“Sophia won’t get involved with Justin,” Patsy asserted with a confidence that looked a bit forced. “She knows he’s completely unsuitable. He’s wild as a hare, too immature to settle down. Look at the way he’s treated poor Lucy Gunter. The boy couldn’t even commit to anything long enough to finish school.”
Kent winced.
“Not to mention that he thinks I was somehow involved in his father’s death,” Dean muttered.
This time it was Patsy who flinched. “Don’t even talk about that.”
Kent sat quietly eating his cake while the others continued to complain about Sophia’s actions. Milo and Dean both insisted that they were going to forbid her to ever see Justin Murphy again despite Patsy and Juliana’s warnings that twenty-eight-year-old Sophia was not going to respond well to being given ultimatums about her personal life.
After a while, Juliana looked at Kent with an apologetic expression. “We’ve been rather ignoring you, haven’t we, hon? Was there something you wanted when you came by this afternoon?”
He hesitated only a moment before answering with a smile, “I was just hoping you’d been baking again, Nana. The carrot cake was delicious.”
Compliments about her cooking always pleased her. She jumped to her feet. “Let me get you some more coffee. Are you sure you don’t want another little piece of cake? You didn’t have very much. It’s good for you, you know. All those carrots and raisins and walnuts.”
Only his great-grandmother would consider her rich, moist carrot cake a health food, he thought with a smile. “No, thanks, Nana, I’m full. But I will take some more coffee.”
“You’re sure you don’t need anything, Kent?” Patsy searched his face as if seeing something there that concerned her.
He waged another momentary mental debate. On the one hand, this seemed like a pretty good time to bare all. Everyone was so perturbed with his sister that maybe his long-ago offense wouldn’t seem nearly as bad in contrast.
But, no. They didn’t need anything else to worry about right now, and hearing that someone out there had an ax to grind with Kent, and was digging into his past to do so, would be very troubling to them. “There’s nothing that can’t wait, Mom,” he said gently. “Don’t worry about it.”
TUESDAY WAS TANYA’S father’s fifty-fifth birthday. Her mother had planned a big birthday event at their old-money country club, and Tanya was, of course, mandated to attend. Everyone expected her to bring Kent, so he made an effort to look his best, though he couldn’t exactly say he was looking forward to the party. These sedate country club affairs seemed so stuffy and dull compared to the casual, relaxed bashes his own family favored.
He certainly couldn’t say that Tanya looked either stuffy or dull when she opened her door to him that evening. Her bright red dress was cut into a deep V neckline that drew his eyes to her ultrafeminine figure, and ended high enough on her leg to show an alluring length of calf. The diamond necklace he had given her, and which she almost always wore, glinted from her décolletage, and more diamonds sparkled from her ears. She wore her hair up to reveal the back of her neck—reminding him inexorably of the way she always purred when he kissed her just there—and her smiling lips glistened with a red gloss that all but begged him to kiss her.
He dreaded seeing that smile fade. “You look fantastic.”
She beamed. “Thank you. You look very handsome, yourself.”
“Why don’t we stay home and admire ourselves and skip out on this shindig?”
She laughed. “Nice try, but no. My mother would probably send someone to fetch us.”
He sighed heavily, then motioned toward the door. “We’d better go. We’re getting close on time.”
“But wait. I wanted to ask how things went with your parents today.”
“We’ll talk on the way,” he said, shamelessly stalling. “You know how your mother gets when you’re late.”
She looked as though she would have liked to dally, but the reminder of her mother was enough to make her reach for her bag and wrap and the gaily wrapped gift for her father.
“Now,” she said, as soon as they were strapped into Kent’s car. “About your talk with your parents. How did it go? Were they mad? Did they understand why you waited so long to tell them?”
“I didn’t tell them,” he admitted, focusing intently through the front windshield as he drove.
There was a pause, and then she asked in a very measured tone, “You didn’t tell them?”
“No.”
“You didn’t get a chance to go see them today?”
“I saw them. I went to the farm with every intention of telling them.”
“And you got cold feet?”
“That’s not it,” he said, turning defensive. “It just wasn’t a good time.”
“There hasn’t been a good time for the past eleven years, has there, Kent?” she asked, her voice cool.
He blew a hard breath through his nose. “You want to let me explain what happened?”
“Sorry. What did happen?”
“The family was all upset over something Sophia did this past weekend. Even if I could have gotten their attention, I don’t think they’d have been all that interested in something I did all those years ago. Besides, they didn’t need the extra distress today.”
Tanya thought about it a moment, then asked in a somewhat conciliatory tone, “Is Sophia all right?”
“Sophia’s fine. Just stupid.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Apparently, she was seen with Justin Murphy at a club Sunday night, though you know how things get exaggerated through the gossip channels. Still, my parents and great-grandparents were upset.”
“Sophia was seen with Justin? But—”
“Yeah. He’s supposed to be dating your friend Lucy, isn’t he? Have you heard anything from her?”
“Um, no. Not today.”
“Maybe she doesn’t know anything about this?”
“If the gossip’s already out there, she knows,” Tanya said with a shake of her head. “Someone is always delighted to call Lucy and let her know when Justin’s been misbehaving. Just out of concern for Lucy’s feelings, of course.”
“Of course.” Kent was all too familiar with people who loved to stir up trouble under the guise of “only trying to help.”
“So, you don’t really think anything’s going on between Sophia and Justin, do you?”
He shook his head a bit more forcefully than necessary. “She’s headstrong, but she wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“And if she did?” Tanya sounded curious now. “What would happen?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, struck by the question. “I never even considered anything like that. I mean, my family detests the guy. His family detests all of us. I can’t see any way to reconcile that, do you?”
“It would be difficult,” she admitted. “I doubt that Sophia really wants to play Juliet to Justin’s Romeo.”
Kent grunted and turned the car into the crowded parking lot of the country club. Giving the keys to a valet, he escorted Tanya inside, wishing he could be a little more enthusiastic about the upcoming evening.
He could tell that she hadn’t been entirely satisfied with his excuse for not talking to his parents. He knew she would start in on him again later, and he wasn’t looking forward to that, either. It annoyed him that she had him on the defensive this way. After all, it was his business whether or not he told his parents, not hers.
But he smiled when she looked at him and tucked his resentment away, telling himself there was no need to let one little annoyance ruin their evening.
They weren’t late, exactly, but it seemed that most of the other guests had already arrived by the time they walked into the room Tanya’s mother had reserved. Glittering chandeliers lit the well-dressed crowd, and tables loaded with food and drinks lined the walls, while uniformed servers worked the room skillfully and unobtrusively. Soft music drifted from unseen speakers. Conversations were in progress, quiet but lively. It was exactly the sort of party that bored Kent most. Unfortunately, he was required to attend quite a few of them, both in his professional life and because of his relationship with Tanya, whose society mother lived for these affairs.
Speaking of Tanya’s mother…
Alison Wells zeroed in on them the moment they walked through the doorway, making her way to them through the crowd with single-minded determination. In her early fifties, Alison was tall, slender and still beautiful. She had ash-blond hair, wide-set blue eyes and a graceful way of moving that automatically drew eyes wherever she went. Tanya had inherited her brown-eyed-girl-next-door looks and her shorter, rounder build from her father’s side of the family. Kent suspected that Tanya had always compared herself to her mother in appearance, and found herself somewhat lacking, though he wouldn’t change a thing about her appearance, himself.
Dressed in her trademark royal blue, Alison paused in front of them and leaned down to allow her daughter to kiss her cheek. “I’m so glad you could make it,” she said, what might have been the faintest hint of reproach in her voice.
Tanya immediately looked guilty. “We aren’t late, Mother.”
“Of course not, darling. It’s just that your father has been so impatient for you to get here.” Alison turned then to Kent, holding out one slender hand to him. “Hello, Kent. It’s always good to see you.”
“You, too, Alison.”
She had insisted almost from the beginning that Kent call her by her first name. He thought it was because hearing him call her “Mrs. Wells” made her feel too old.
“Just set your gifts on that table over there,” she said, motioning toward a linen-draped round table that almost overflowed with wrapped packages. Setting his present on the pile, Kent wondered dryly how many silver picture frames and monogrammed golf balls Douglas Wells would unwrap that evening. Kent had tried to be a bit more creative, himself, though he didn’t have a clue whether Doug would like the gift.
Alison then drew them over to her husband, who was surrounded by friends. “Douglas, look who finally made it.”
Making an obvious effort not to look annoyed, Tanya greeted her father with a hug. “Happy birthday, Daddy.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. You look pretty as a picture tonight in that red dress.”
“You’re just saying that because you want a birthday present,” she teased him.
“You know me too well,” he joked in return. Turning to Kent, he extended his hand. “Kent. How’s it going?”
“Just fine, thanks. Happy birthday.”
“Thank you. Looks like your season’s starting out pretty well,” Douglas added. Despite living in the heart of NASCAR country, Douglas hadn’t been much of a race fan before Tanya and Kent had started dating. Since that time, he’d made a point to follow Kent’s career, and seemed to be getting into the sport, though the appeal still eluded his wife. “Second place wasn’t too shabby in Daytona, was it?”
“Better than third,” Kent replied with a shrug. “I would have preferred a win, of course.”
“That’s understandable. I’m pretty competitive, myself.”
That was an understatement. Douglas Wells was known as a bulldog in his profession, pursuing court victories as tenaciously as Kent had ever chased a checkered flag. Kent had thought on several occasions that he would hate to face Doug from the other side of a courtroom.
He wondered uncomfortably how the fiercely honest, law-abiding district attorney would feel about having a potential son-in-law who’d been thrown out of a univer
sity for cheating on a test. Not to mention how that district attorney’s cream-of-society, obsessively upstanding wife would feel about it.
Someone slapped him hard on the back of the shoulder. “Hey, Kent. How’ve you been?”
He turned to find Tanya’s twin standing behind him. Looking like a younger version of their brown-haired, brown-eyed father, Trevor was a likeable guy who worked at being the family clown. Both he and his older brother, Mark—a tall, golden-haired physician who had gotten their mother’s looks—openly doted on their only sister and were quite protective of her. He’d heard them squabble like typical siblings with each other, but he knew they would turn as a fiercely protectively unit on anyone who dared to hurt any one of them.
He’d been aware that there had been some doubts within the family when it had become clear that he and Tanya were getting seriously involved. Douglas had wondered openly about Kent’s hectic, extremely demanding schedule. Though she hadn’t said in so many words, Alison seemed more concerned about his profession, itself. Her high-brow family background had not included stock car racing among its interests.
As for Tanya’s brothers, they had seemed more uneasy with his fame. Both had alluded without much subtlety to the women fans and racing groupies who followed the circuit, many of them dreaming about meeting and dating a driver. The opportunities for infidelity were rampant, and Tanya’s brothers had worried about her getting hurt, especially after what she had been through with her former boyfriend. Kent had taken pains to reassure them that he wasn’t just leading her on.
He’d been a goner almost from the day he’d met her, and he’d made no secret of his infatuation. Why would he want anyone else when he had Tanya Wells in his life? he had wondered sincerely.
Greeting her twin, he wondered if Trevor was looking at him differently than usual. Had Tanya told Trevor something of the tension between them, or had he simply picked up on it because he knew her so well? Or was Kent just imagining undertones that weren’t there at all?
It was going to be a very long evening, he thought with a smothered sigh.