The Complete Novels of the Lear Sister Trilogy

by Julia London

  When at last he had turned into the drive, she had silently cheered herself. Her perseverance had paid off! It was a sign from the Relationship Gods that she had finally done something right, that she did have it in her! But then Jake had gotten out of his truck, and she had seen the look on his face and felt that horrible rush of fear and regret all over again. But it was also the moment she knew that she really loved him, without reservation, loved him so much that it was reverberating throughout her entire body.

  And she still felt that way, the feeling growing stronger each day.

  Unfortunately, she had also discovered that opening the door to her heart did not make everything right with the world like it did in the movies.

  First, there was the money thing. Or her sudden and serious lack of it to be exact, along with the new and intimidating sensation of getting an overdraft statement from the bank. Robin Lear, negative fund balance. Yikes.

  All her life, she had never wanted for money. If she ran out (which she did on a pretty regular basis), she simply dipped into the account her dad had set up. But after the horrible showdown at Blue Cross Ranch, she wouldn’t touch a dime of Lear money that she hadn’t earned. Her new and fervent determination never to accept another dime from Dad had left her to her own devices. Only, she had no devices. And she didn’t earn nearly enough to support the lifestyle she had created. Jesus, but this house, the renovations, her extensive wardrobe cost a lot to maintain. Not to mention the cost of shoes and handbags and food. There ought to be a law for what food cost.

  Actually, it was much worse than that—she didn’t know how to stop spending. When her paycheck from LTI was deposited in two-week intervals, she resumed her lifestyle, certain that she would do better. And then she would proceed to her usual rounds of fine dining, lots of good wine, an occasional long-distance outing. By the end of the said two-week interval, she found herself staring at a long line of zeroes and minus signs in her checkbook. Her hopeless money management was made worse by the fact that all those little sayings Grandma and Grandpa had said throughout the years were beginning to make sense. Just to name a few: Money doesn’t grow on trees, young lady! Do you think it rains pennies? You’re just throwing good money after bad! Frightening how accurate they were.

  Of course, this was not something she could confide in Jake, seeing as how he was so sensitive about money to begin with. And while he could be really irritating with his remarks about her spending (Don’t you think if you are going to shell out a couple of grand, you might want to know more than it’s a jazz thingie?), she had to hand it to him—he did seem to keep a pretty firm rein on his spending. Like down to the penny.

  Mia was no help, and in fact, she was really pretty dangerous. Mia Carpenter lived off her family’s oil money and had never worked a day in her life—unless one counted that three-month stint at Tina’s boutique. If she wasn’t shopping, she was sleeping, and up until this year, Robin had been her staunchest supporter. But the week they flew to Paris to look at wedding gowns, Robin began to see a side of Mia she didn’t particularly like.

  The problem was, with all those minuses in her checkbook, Robin could not live up to her share of the shopping and was forced to watch Mia spend without thought. Okay, she was ready to handle that—it wasn’t like dropping a couple of grand here or there was new to Robin. But what she wasn’t prepared for was the horrible discovery that without a lot of things to seek out and buy, she and Mia had precious little in common. In fact, she didn’t particularly like Mia. All the woman could talk about was what a bastard Michael was while she looked for a wedding gown. When Robin tried to engage her in conversation that was a little more meaningful, Mia acted bored and quickly changed the subject. Remarkable—after twenty years of friendship, Robin discovered Mia had the personal depth of a tea saucer.

  Just one more thing Grandma was right about. God, was there no end?

  Honestly, Robin couldn’t get back to Houston fast enough.

  To Houston, where Evan was there waiting for her. Evan, brilliant Evan, who knew every aspect of the freight business. He grasped everything so quickly, immediately placed it in a proper context and explained it to her, taught her so much about the business. He showed her how Lou Harvey was manipulating his books so his operation would look more profitable than it was. He taught her how to age the equipment in Girt’s operation so they could offer a fair price for it. He showed her a neat little trick for figuring out profits-to-earning margins. And he managed to keep tabs on what American Motorfreight was doing so he would not be out maneuvered. How could she not admire that?

  But while Evan was very good at what he did, he could also be terribly condescending. He spoke to her as if she was stupid, performed the same analysis she did without even looking at what she had done, and sent her expensive gifts for things so trivial as to be laughable (Good job with Lou on the phone yesterday!). Robin was beginning to realize that Evan didn’t believe anyone was as smart as he was, with the possible exception of her father, and even that was debatable. It was bad enough she was struggling to understand the business, but Evan’s constant disregard of her abilities was confusingly hurtful. There were times Robin was convinced she was an idiot, incapable of carrying the mantle of the family business. Still other times she mentally kicked herself for letting Evan’s arrogance derail her—she could do this!

  And to confuse matters, he kept bringing up the new vice presidency in Dallas. “Sort of a super VP, in charge of acquisitions nationwide.”

  Of course she was interested, notwithstanding her desire to be some place other than where Evan was. But still, the job sounded perfect on those days she wasn’t assailed with doubts of her abilities. At the very heart of all her doubts was the increasing and monstrous desire to finish the acquisition, to hold that single accomplishment up to everyone around her and dare them to discount her now, to call her window dressing. In fact, it was so important to her that Jake’s annoyance with the whole Evan thing was taking a toll on the extraordinary affection and love she felt for him. No matter how she tried to convince him that Evan wasn’t interested in her, but rather, the deal, Jake would not believe it.

  To be fair, in spite of the friction about her job, everything else about Jake was wonderful. Robin loved his company, thought him terribly sexy and handsome. He was a good man, an exciting lover. Still, Dad’s ridiculous and unfair objections to Jake weighed heavily on Robin, and she remained cut off from her father because of it, waiting for Dad to make the first move toward an apology.

  By the looks of things, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

  Mom had gone back to California, leaving the old man at Blue Cross. Even Rebecca had bailed after a week. When she called Robin to see if she was “still seeing Jake,” she said that Dad had become even harder to be around after Robin and Jake had left. “I just couldn’t take it anymore. He had to go back to New York, anyway,” she reasoned, more for her own benefit than Robin’s.

  “He is going to die all alone, you know it?” Robin had said, tears welling. “But that’s the way he wants it.”

  “Don’t say that, Robbie!” Rebecca had said angrily, and their frustration with one another and the way they each viewed their father hung between them, finally forcing them off the phone. That was the way with Dad. Every conversation with him or about him ended in hurt.

  Well, for her part, Robin was prepared to show Dad he was so wrong about her. She’d never take a dime of his money again, would show him that she was capable and worth a whole lot more than he ever gave her credit for. Hello.

  And she was working so hard toward that end that she was taken a little off guard the morning Jake said he was through with her house, with the exception of the cleanup.

  She had just hung up with Girt—things were looking really good for their purchase of Wirt, which made the old girl very happy, particularly since American Motorfreight had lowballed their offer. “Those assholes are trying to take advantage of David’s situation,” she compla
ined. Robin’s thoughts were on that when Jake made his announcement. It startled her because she really hadn’t thought of anything but this acquisition, and especially and very specifically had not thought about life after Jake and the work on the house. She instantly had a hard time imagining working each day without seeing Jake and Zaney. Worse, she really didn’t have the money to furnish it. What was she to do with this huge house? What was she to do with Jake, not to mention herself?

  That night, they went to Jake’s to grill steaks and share a bottle of wine, although neither of them was very talkative. Robin felt almost disembodied. It was as if some monumental milestone had been reached, but instead of celebrating, they were having a wake. She didn’t care for the feeling at all and attempted to make small talk to avoid the tension as she made a salad.

  “What are you going to do next?” she asked Jake.

  He crunched a piece of celery. “I have two jobs lined up. One is a garage apartment redo a couple of blocks over from your house. The other is adding on to servant’s quarters in River Oaks.”

  “Not Mia’s, I hope,” Robin joked.

  Jake couldn’t muster more than a smile and merely shook his head. “What are you going to do next?”

  “Me? Finish this acquisition,” Robin said and tossed a handful of chopped radishes into the bowl.

  “Then what?”

  Then what? Robin couldn’t look at him, pretended to be chopping more radishes. “I guess you mean after the acquisition.”

  “Well, you have to be finishing that soon, right? What will you do then?”

  Wholly unprepared to answer, Robin forced a laugh. “Just keep working, I guess.”

  “Where? In your house, or a new office?”

  Jeez, what was this, twenty questions? She did not want to have this conversation right now. “I guess a new office is possible.” She tossed some dill weed in the bowl and steeled herself. “Maybe Dallas.”

  Expressionless, Jake looked at her. It was almost as if he expected it. He put down his wineglass. “I better check on the steaks,” he said and walked outside.

  Okay, so now she felt like the Wicked Witch of the West. What was she supposed to do? Ignore all offers of gainful employment? Give up her career? Live on her good looks and charm?

  She testily continued with the salad, tossing huge chunks of Raymond’s killer tomatoes in the bowl. She heard Jake’s cell phone ring, heard him talking. In a moment, he came back with the steaks and put them on the counter. “That was Cole. Tara broke up with him.”

  “Oh no!” Robin momentarily forgot her anger. “Why? Did she say why?”

  “No. Just said she didn’t want to go steady anymore. Who knows? Probably a bigger and better deal came along.” He turned away from Robin, rummaged through the pantry.

  “Maybe it just wasn’t working out,” she offered.

  “And maybe she was just too wrapped up in herself.”

  Robin stopped chopping, looked at Jake’s back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He shrugged.

  “Am I imagining things? For some reason, I have the distinct impression you aren’t talking about Tara.”

  Jake slowly turned, tossed a package of buns onto the counter. “You’re right. I’m not talking about Tara.”

  “Are you talking about me?”

  He clenched his jaw and nodded.

  “Well, isn’t that rich!” she said sharply, tossing down the knife. “Suddenly I am too wrapped up in myself?”

  He picked up his wineglass, took a swig. “Well, now that you mention it—there doesn’t seem to be any us with you. Dallas, Robin? Since when?”

  “I don’t know!” she exclaimed hotly. “Evan keeps telling me about a new vice presidency—”

  “Yeah, I knew he figured in there somehow.”

  “Just stop it, Jake! This insane jealousy—”

  “Not jealousy, baby. I despise him.”

  “Well, stop despising him. You really have no reason—”

  “Like hell I don’t. But that’s not important. What’s important is that we have to figure out where we are going, Robin. What are we doing? Anything? Or am I the only one in this? Why the hell are you thinking of going to Dallas?”

  “Please don’t start this now,” she said wearily, turning back to the salad.

  “Not now? Then when? When do we decide what we are doing?”

  “Why do we have to decide anything?” she cried to the ceiling.

  “Because I love you and you are talking about moving to fucking Dallas,” he said low. “We have been dancing around this ring of fire since we left your father’s ranch.”

  “Don’t push me, Jake,” she warned.

  “I don’t push you, Robin, I never push you,” he said hotly. “Maybe that’s what I’m doing wrong!”

  She turned so quickly to dispute that ludicrous statement that she knocked the salad bowl to the linoleum. “Dammit,” she muttered and went down on her knees.

  Jake joined her, helping to pick up the lettuce and radish. They cleaned it up in cold silence; when Robin stood again, Jake caught her by the wrist. “Look,” he said, his voice much softer, “I love you. And I can’t help that I want more.”

  Robin bit her lip, looked down at the bowl of spoiled salad.

  “I have an idea,” Jake was saying, brushing a tress of hair from her temple. “Let’s take Cole and go down the coast for a couple of days. Maybe do some fishing. But let’s just get out of Houston and decide what we’re doing. We owe that to ourselves at least, right?”

  Yes, they owed it to each other. Jake’s question was legitimate—it wasn’t his fault that that she didn’t know the answer. “Where?” she sniffed.

  “I know where there are some nice fishing cabins down around Port Aransas. We’ll just go down there, turn off the phones, and talk about what we want to do.”

  “Okay,” she murmured, nodding. “Okay. When?”

  He shrugged. “Tomorrow afternoon? We can make a long weekend of it. I can finish up what I have left to do at your house in the morning, and then we’ll go, okay?” he asked, gathering her in his arms, holding her tightly to him.

  “Yeah,” she sighed and buried her face in his shoulder. “That would be great.”

  The next day, as planned, Jake finished up the work on her house while Robin packed for the long weekend and made a call to Lucy, to tell her she’d be out of town for a few days.

  “Oh yeah? Where to this time? London? Madrid?”

  Robin laughed. “Port Aransas. I’m going fishing.”

  “Fishing!” Lucy exclaimed. “You don’t fish! You never fish!”

  She never did anything before Jake came along. “I’m going to learn.”

  Robin and Jake said good-bye to Zaney when he left early that afternoon, his destination, “to see a dude about a band, man.” Then Robin reviewed the alarm instructions with Grandpa for the hundredth time since buying the place, in case he felt the need to come over and check on things. Which he often did. But for what, exactly, he couldn’t say. And finally, she paid Raymond, who gave her a dozen gargantuan tomatoes to take along to the coast.

  They had just finished packing her car (the tomatoes posing a bit of a problem) when the phone rang. “Thank heavens, I’m glad I caught you,” Evan said breathlessly when Robin answered. “What is this about you going fishing?”

  “I’m just getting away for a couple of days,” Robin said as Jake walked in the front door. Self-consciously, she pushed her hair behind her ear and turned away from him.

  “Well, you need to postpone your little outing. We have to get to Minot right away.”

  “Minot? Why?”

  “Lou Harvey has a new twist we need to consider, one that may make this look a lot better than we originally thought. But American Motorfreight has already offered for Girt’s outfit, so we need to wrap this up before she accepts.”

  Robin laughed. “Girt’s not going to accept their offer—they low-balled her.”

  “Wel
l, that’s not what she told me this morning. Look, Robbie, I’m sorry to ruin your plans, but it is only Thursday, and most people work the whole week . . . ”

  “All right,” she said, sighing. “When do we leave?”

  “First thing in the morning. Tell what’s his name that we’ll have you back in a couple of days, and he can bait your hook then.”

  “Shut up, Evan,” she said.

  “I’ll pick you up at seven in the morning.” He hung up.

  Robin clicked the phone off. She was aware of Jake standing somewhere behind her, could feel his gaze boring through her.

  Slowly, she turned around.

  With his arms crossed over his chest and his weight on one cocked hip, he stared at her, waiting.

  Robin could feel his displeasure emanating across the room. “Umm . . . that was Evan. We have to go to Minot.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  A muscle in his jaw jumped. “It can’t wait?”

  “No.”

  “You’re certain.”

  It was a statement, not a question, and it was clear that even if Robin wasn’t certain, he sure was. She sighed wearily. “Jake . . . it’s my job. I have to go.”

  He clenched his jaw tighter, looked at the floor. “No, Robin, it’s not your job. It’s Evan. He doesn’t want you to be with me.” He lifted his gaze. “Don’t go. Call him back and tell him it will have to wait.”

  She gave a little groan of indignant surprise. “You can’t be serious. This is my job, and this little trip of ours was a last-minute thing. Surely you can understand—”

  “This little trip,” he repeated, rubbing the back of his neck. “I thought this little trip was important to us. I guess I really was the only one to understand that. But you know what? I’m tired of trying to understand. I’m done. We’re done.”

  “What?” she said, her heart starting to race.