The Complete Novels of the Lear Sister Trilogy

by Julia London

  Jake noticed the change in Robin’s demeanor the moment she came back into the dining room and plopped down at her computer with a determined look on her pretty face. She ignored him, was even a little stiff with Romeo (which didn’t bother Jake in the least), and punched the computer keys like pop-up weasels. That was all just as well, because he had decided that intriguing or not, this flirting thing was dangerous business. The last thing he needed was to have some sort of fling with a client, because nothing would come back to bite him in the ass faster than that. And there was no question in his mind that this flirtation could ever be more than a fling, period. He harbored no illusions otherwise.

  A fling would be an enormous irritant right now. He had enough going on with school and Cole, and there was the constant distraction of work, and Zaney, and his mom’s health, and Lindy’s infatuation. He hated telling women he didn’t want to see them, and generally tried to avoid those situations altogether. Which meant he hadn’t dated seriously in a long time, mainly because of a lack of money and time. But things were a little different now. After all, he wasn’t getting any younger. He had bought the house in the Heights with the vague notion that he might want to settle down someday, and someday was staring him in the face. Lindy was a great gal—what more could a guy want?

  Something. This guy definitely wanted something more. He just didn’t know what it was, and thinking about it only made his head hurt.

  So Jake forced himself to ignore his little problem, and ignore the conversation going on behind him between Robin and Romeo. Actually, he had no idea what they were talking about, but whatever it was, he really did not care for the way Romeo spoke to Robin, his tone condescending, like she was stupid. Robin was anything but stupid. Crazy, maybe—but not stupid. The man sounded like a patronizing buffoon.

  Jake moved upstairs to work so he couldn’t hear them any longer, and was actually beginning to make some headway when his cell phone rang—Mom.

  “Jacob, where are you?” she asked when he answered.

  “At a job. What’s up?”

  “It’s Cole. The principal called and said he wasn’t in school again today—”

  “Goddammit, I’m going to kill him if I find—”

  “He’s home,” his mom quickly interrupted him. “He just came wandering in like he always does after school. He doesn’t know that I know he ditched school today. I thought you might want to be here when I talk to him.”

  “Yes, I definitely want to be there,” he said through clenched teeth. “Look, Mom, it’s time he came to live with me,” he blurted. “I’ve been thinking about this—he needs to learn how to be a man, and I’m going to have to be the one to teach him. It’s too hard on you.”

  “You know how I feel about that, Jacob. You aren’t home enough as it is.”

  “I’ll be home more.”

  “How are you going to do that? Are you going to give up school? You were so hellfire bent on it, even though I told you it’d take away from your obligations. Now you don’t have the time to give to him. I’ll grant you he needs to learn to be a man, but he needs someone who can devote his full attention to it. You can’t do that.”

  “Maybe not, but you can’t deny he’s running roughshod over you, Mom,” Jake insisted. “He needs a firm hand. He needs to be jerked up by the short hairs once in a while and know he’s going to find his butt on the end of my boot when he cuts school.”

  She paused, lit a smoke, and exhaled wearily. “Are you coming over or not?”

  Jake sighed, looked at his watch. “Yeah. I can be there in an hour,” he said and warned her to keep an eye on Cole before he got there. He clicked off the cell phone and stared blindly out the casement window at the thick, lush lawn surrounding Robin’s house. Maybe his Mom was right. Maybe his vow at Ross’s funeral was just a wish, not really a promise. He didn’t have time for Cole; he barely had time to breathe. He was working hard, trying to make something of himself . . . but for what? So he could be a rich and lonely old man some day? He was thirty-eight years old and had so far managed to avoid a long-term commitment. Cole was in desperate need of one, and Jake worried if he was even capable of giving him his full commitment.

  Whatever the answer—and Jake really wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer—he had the immediate problem of Cole’s cutting school to deal with. Lost in thought, he walked down the curving staircase to the entry, lost in thought, packed up his things, and left to fight Houston traffic to have yet another heart-to-heart with a lost kid.

  Robin never heard Jake leave, and in fact, was a little surprised he’d managed to get out without her noticing. Perhaps she was actually able to focus on her work. Or perhaps it was because Evan had talked and talked and talked until her head was pounding. Who could even hear themselves think in all that racket? And then he was pacing about the dining room, complaining that he was hungry, and somehow convinced her to try a new restaurant with him.

  But when they got there, Evan was smiling in that familiar way of his, like he knew something about her that perhaps Robin didn’t know herself. She hated that look; it implied an intimacy that just wasn’t there. She decided, over appetizers, that this was the perfect opportunity to explain that they were not getting back together again, and if he ever brought wine to her house again, she just might clock him one. She owed him at least that much—after all, she had slept with him last night. She could understand where a man might misconstrue things.

  But when she told him, as nicely as she could, that last night had been one huge, monumental mistake, Evan got a little pissy. After he insisted she’d liked it, Robin said again, “I had too much to drink, Evan. I got carried away when I should have showed some restraint. But I need to tell you that even though we did . . . it . . . that it really has no bearing on my feelings about . . . about . . .”

  “Wanton and meaningless sex?” he snapped.

  “About us,” she had said, ignoring his jab. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

  Evan lowly leaned back in his seat and glared at her, finally managing to say (through a jaw that was clenched tightly shut), “You can be pretty damned arrogant at times, Robin. And cruel. I wonder why you think it is okay to toy with people like this.”

  There was that arrogant thing again, and it pricked her hard. “I am trying to be honest,” she said. “You should try it because I think you’ve been trying to rekindle something with me for several weeks—”

  “You ran off to London. How could I try and do anything? Okay, fine. You made some huge mistake. But we have to work together and I don’t want to screw that up.”

  “Me, either,” she said softly and contritely.

  Evan downed his wine and said, “I won’t go so far as to say I understand you, but okay. Colleagues only, right?”

  “Right,” she said, only she didn’t feel right at all. Not at all.

  While Robin was sipping Chianti, Jake was concentrating on what the instructor was saying about load balances. Engineering II was not his favorite class to begin with, but it was a hell of a lot harder with Cole on the brain. When he’d confronted Cole at his Mom’s, the kid had sat slumped down on the couch, his spindly legs spread wide apart, glaring. “You’re going to school, Cole,” Jake had said. “If I have to take you myself every single day, I will.”

  “When are you gonna stop acting like you’re my father? You ain’t my father! You don’t have no say over me!” Cole had instantly shot back.

  “Like hell I don’t have any say over you. I may not be your father, but I am your uncle, and like I told you, I’m all you’ve got.”

  “Everyone’s always telling me what I don’t got,” he’d complained.

  “Maybe what I need to do is have a visit with your school to see if something else is going on that causes you to skip class and not learn proper English,” Jake had snapped.

  Cole’s brown eyes had grown wide at that threat. “I don’t want you to go to my school.”

  “All the more reason to go then
,” Jake had said. “If you won’t go to school like you’re supposed to, then I’ll go down there and find out what’s up.”

  “I don’t have to take this shit!” Cole shouted and had vaulted off the couch, bounding up the stairs two at a time.

  “You watch your mouth!” Mom had shouted up after him. They heard the slam of his door, and Mom had sighed wearily. “I might as well be raising Ross all over again.”

  Jake had left before she could start her litany of complaints.

  He was late for class, sneaking into the last seat. “Thanks for deciding to join us this evening, Mr. Manning,” the grad student instructor drawled. Jake frowned as the rest of the class turned around to have a look. Smirking, the instructor resumed his lecture, and Jake tried to concentrate. But by the end of the class, having lost most of what the instructor had said, he waited impatiently for last week’s assignments to be handed out. When the instructor at last came to Jake, he shook his head, handed him a paper that had a bright red D scrawled across the top. “You’re going to have to apply yourself, Mr. Manning, if you want to pass this course. There are names of students who will tutor for a fee in the library. I suggest you call one.”

  Jake pushed down the desire to deck the pompous smart-ass, and went to find Lindy.

  She had picked a table in the corner of the cafe, had spread her papers wide so no one would join her. Her face lit up when Jake approached. “I finished the assignment for Planning III,” she said happily, “so I’m all yours. I figured you didn’t have much time to do the assignment, but I think between the two of us we can work through it tonight.”

  He couldn’t help but wince inwardly at her smile. Lindy was the kind of girl that could make a man very happy, such a nice girl that he thought he really ought to have his head examined. But the surprising and alarming truth was, he found an overbearing, stuck-up prima donna more interesting than the June Cleaver scene. He sighed, dropped his backpack, and folded his arms on top of the table. “Lindy, we really have to talk,” he said and watched the smile fade like a light from her attractive face.

  Chapter Twelve

  Evan drove her home, barely managed a good night. Robin let herself in through the kitchen, paused there to toss her doggy bag of ravioli into the fridge (she was not the type to leave food behind when her cupboard was Sahara-desert bare), then walked through a house as empty as she felt inside.

  She didn’t like the feeling of emptiness. She didn’t like hurting Evan, either, or the fact that she couldn’t seem to form decent relationships. It always felt like there was some hard and high wall she was struggling to climb, but to what? God, who knew? She was too tired to think about it, thought it funny that a day of accomplishing absolutely nothing could exhaust her so. The moment her head hit the pillow, she fell into a deep sleep, interrupted only by one of those pesky dreams in which she was drowning.

  When she awoke the next morning, she felt very strange, as if someone else had stopped by to inhabit her skin. The antsy feeling was so unlike her and so uncomfortable that she hurried out to the dining room to work, anxious to do something, anything, to make the feeling go away. She was still in her Curious George pj’s, engrossed in her research of bubble wrap when Jake let himself in the back door, carrying three pink flamingos and an Igloo lunch box.

  “Morning,” he said stoically, put the flamingos down, and walked to the foyer. Robin gathered her robe more tightly around her, took a sip of very blah coffee, and attempted to focus on the information on her screen. But then Jake climbed up the ladder, reached high over head, and began to pry old trim from the top of the paned glass windows that graced the top of the eighteen-foot entry.

  All thoughts of bubble wrap flew out of her head. Robin surreptitiously watched him over the rim of her coffee cup. As he strained to reach the trim, she could see the outline of his hips fitting snuggly in a pair of faded denim jeans, his broad muscular back beneath a very thin T-shirt, and the flash of that tattoo she was dying to see.

  Okay. She had been around the world more than once, had dated more men than she could remember anymore, and rarely, rarely, had the physical presence of one man gotten under her skin like this. She was attracted to Jake Manning, big time. She continued to covertly watch him from behind the cover of her laptop, and miraculously, for the first time, she began to see past his butt to what he was actually doing. It fascinated her—he moved smoothly, working quickly and evenly, as if the dismantling of her home was the easiest thing in the world to do. She admired the way he didn’t waste a moment, how everything was done with maximum efficiency.

  She watched until it became apparent she was going to get nothing done again today if she kept it up, and retreated to her bedroom for a shower and a little regrouping. She dressed in a denim skirt and pale blue raw silk blouse, then slipped on some sandals, figuring since there weren’t going to be any high-powered meetings on North Boulevard this afternoon, she might as well be comfortable.

  When she returned to the dining room, Jake was gone again and her answering machine was blinking. She returned calls to Lucy and the account rep in the valley. She made calls to her attorney and her old college roommate, Cecilia Simpson-Duarte, who was hosting a charity event. She even took a phone call from Joe Miller’s secretary, who called to confirm a meeting in Minot, North Dakota, the following week, which, even though it was only Minot, made Robin oddly ecstatic.

  Now if only Eldagirt Wirt would call. From the looks of the LTI and Dun & Bradstreet reports, the Wirt Company was probably the best option of the two. With a groan, Robin picked up the phone, dialed the number to Wirt Supplies and Packing that she now knew by heart, and got the receptionist again. “Wirt. How may I direct your call?”

  “Robin Lear calling for Eldagirt Wirt, please.”

  The girl sighed wearily. “She’s not in at the moment. May I leave a message?”

  Okay, Eldagirt’s work habits—as in never—were really beginning to annoy Robin. “Do you expect her in today?”

  “Yes, I expect her in today,” the girl said. “Girt is a very busy person, Miss Lear.”

  “I am sure she is,” Robin hastily agreed, wondering just how busy a person who made bubble wrap could be. “But I’ve been trying to get hold of her for two days now.”

  “One and a half. You’ve called her four times in twelve work hours.”

  Well, hell, bite her head off, then. “Is there a convenient time to call?” Robin asked, trying to put the image from her mind of a woman named Eldagirt blowing up each individual bubble in the rolls of wrap she made.

  “It would be better if she could call you this afternoon. She’s in and out a lot with her son. Is there a number she can reach you?”

  Oooh, her son. Now she got it—the woman was not committed to her job. “Why, yes, there is a number. It is the same number I have left four times now. Shall I repeat it?”

  “No,” the girl said coldly. “I’ll be sure and tell her you called.”

  “I just bet you will,” Robin muttered as she hung up the phone. “And while you’re at it, tell her to get a real name!” she added petulantly, heard a strange scraping sound, and jerked around. Jake was standing under the archway, holding a stack of drop cloths. “And may I just add for the record that I don’t know how she runs that show if she’s never there!” she added testily.

  “Ah well, you know what it’s like to be a busy executive,” Jake said as he strolled into the foyer and began to spread the drop cloths. “A long lunch, a round of golf with your client, then a meeting with the sales force to assure yourself that the business didn’t get up and walk out the door while you were screwing around.”

  Robin snorted at his warped perspective. “Please. When I actually have an office, I can hardly grab lunch most days because there is so much to do.” She did not add that most days, she was busy trying to set up deals that were doomed from the start.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve worked in enough executive’s houses to know it’s not exactly nose to the grind
stone all day, either.”

  “Oh yeah?” she asked, following him into the entry.

  “Like this heart doctor’s garage apartment I did a few months ago. This guy’s wife went to the gym every day at two. And every day at two-oh-five, he came home with his girlfriend. God’s honest truth,” he added at Robin’s dubious look. “And every day at three-fifteen, they scooted out of the drive just before the wife came home from the gym.”

  “I don’t believe you. Where was this, anyway?”

  “River Oaks.”

  “River Oaks?” she asked excitedly. “I grew up there!”

  “I thought you said you grew up in Dallas.”

  “I said that’s where we started out. Then we moved to River Oaks. So who was it?”

  “Marvin Hanes.”

  With a shriek, Robin slapped a hand over her mouth. “Dr. Marvin Hanes? The Marvin Hanes? Dad used to play tennis with him! Oh my God! What is it with men?”

  “With those men, it’s a power thing,” Jake said nonchalantly, bending down to examine several cans.

  “What do you mean, a power thing?”

  “The more women, the more powerful they feel.”

  Robin collapsed against the brick wall, her arms folded across her middle. “It’s just so . . . disgusting. Why can’t men be faithful?”

  “Wait, wait,” Jake said on a laugh. “Don’t lump us all in with the sorry lot of dog. There are men who can be faithful.”

  Oh yeah, right, like Dad. “Name one,” she challenged him.

  “Me,” he said in all earnestness.

  Robin blinked; he steadily returned her gaze, and funny, she desperately wanted to believe if there was any man on the face of this earth who would honor one woman, it was Jake Manning. “Really? So if a better deal came along, are you saying you would not dump your girlfriend in a heartbeat?”

  The color seemed to drain from his face so quickly that her heart skipped a beat. “I don’t have a girlfriend if that is what you are after. And what do you mean, a better deal?”