Clean Slate

by Holley Trent

  “Then she ended up having another who looked exactly like the first,” Trinity added. “I can’t imagine what her emotional state would have been like.”

  “That’s easy, and it hasn’t changed. She generally feels like she’s too stupid to live,” Ben said with a scoff. “She doesn’t think she’s worthy of forgiveness. Thinks she deserved to have her son taken.”

  Trinity nudged her fiancé. “Jerry, you’ve got to talk to her. You need to make her understand it’s not her fault.”

  “I know, pix. I will. I’ll try.”

  Ben believed he would. Of all the things he knew about his brother from a year of acquaintance, at the top of that list was that Jerry was very protective of the people he cared about. Jerry cared about his mother, even though hardly knew the woman. He was generous with his love. Ben could see it in the way he interacted with Trinity—small gestures like how he’d pull her onto his lap in the N-by-N barn to look at things on his computer, or how he’d always let Trinity have the last little bit of coffee in the carafe because she needed it more than him.

  Ben wanted to love someone like that. He just hadn’t understood the cause of that void in his heart until a quiet, beautiful woman he’d never really had a conversation with offered to be his wife.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Daisy forced the vile swill down her throat, and wheezed as a burn spread through her torso. Even her skin prickled, and suddenly she understood where the idiom “that’ll put hair on your chest” sprang from. Stuff had both a snap and a kick.

  She flicked the little tester cup into the garbage, and wiped her sweaty palms dry on her shorts. “Blech.”

  She’d walked the entire tasting route in the brewery and had tried samples of approximately ten different beers, based solely on their labels. She didn’t know a damned thing about beer, so she just looked for whichever ones had pretty pictures of maidens frolicking in fields or stalks of wheat. The worst one, dark like cola, had a picture of a hibernating bear on the tap. Her body’s reaction after taking a gulp of the bitter stuff was the far opposite from relaxing slumber. She’d actually shouted “Whew!” when she’d tossed the two ounces back, that’s how potent it was.

  Her usual alcohol tolerance was in the wine cooler range, and beer? Well, beer reminded her too much of her ex-husband. The smell of it. The taste of it, always on his tongue.

  “Blech,” she said again with a shudder as she unscrewed the cap of the bottle of water she’d been nursing for the past hour. She drank the remnants, and still had that taste in her mouth, but at least she felt a little less like a bumbling idiot. What had she been thinking, practically throwing herself at a man she hardly knew?

  But, who could blame her?

  Working with Jerry during Natural by Nicolette’s first year in business had been bad enough for a woman fresh out of a divorce. The ex-model had a smile that could melt a woman’s panties off, and that was just his standard expression. When he tried to be charming, he could render a woman to babbling idiocy. Before she could even manage to work up something interesting to say to the guy, he and Trinity had hooked up.

  “Oh, well,” she’d thought at the time. Just her luck.

  Then Ben showed up as if by magic—like someone had done a replicating spell on Jerry to produce a younger offspring with nearly identical features. Well, Ben’s blue eyes were brighter and he wore his hair more conservatively. They were both tall and built like the swimmers they were, but Jerry had about an inch and ten pounds on his “little” brother. Even with that taken into account, Ben was more than just a suitable substitution for his brother, at least in her book. In some ways he was better. Where Jerry had a bit of a dark streak threaded through his personality, Ben was naturally sunny. She needed a little sunshine in her life. All flowers need sun.

  She scanned the walls around her in search of a sign pointing toward a bathroom. She found it, and backtracked toward the entrance, catching sight of the Bavarian cuckoo clock over the bank of benches.

  “Shit. Six more hours here. What the hell am I going to do for six hours? Maybe I’ll go sit on the bus,” she said to her feet.

  A pale pair of hands grabbed her wrists.

  Daisy stopped, squeaks from her cheap canvas sneakers providing accompaniment to the action, and lifted her baseball cap’s brim to find Trinity wearing her patented one-eyebrow query.

  “Where are ya going, Daisy?”

  Jerry and Ben were a few yards away, heads bent over an exhibit detailing the use of barley and hops in beer. Ben had his arms folded over his chest in a manner that made the muscles of his biceps stand out in great relief. Daisy wanted to walk over and wrap her fingers around one. She’d probably giggle at it and say “Nice” because she was that kind of lame.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and groaned. “Uh…bathroom. The bathroom. I need to…” She cleared her throat. “Did the tour, you know.”

  “Right. We’re about to go through. You want to hang? We’ll understand if you don’t want to do it again, but I don’t really want you walking around by yourself, either.”

  Daisy shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts and chuckled. “You may be my boss, but I think I’ve got a few months or a year on you, Trinity.” She stared at her feet some more. “I can take care of myself.” God, for that matter, Jerry was her boss, too. She didn’t really want two of her supervisors babying her all afternoon. Especially not after her eavesdropping incident on the bus. Awkward.

  She looked up again, only to find Ben watching them.

  His eyes widened as if he were surprised to see her there.

  “Shit.”

  Trinity ignored her obvious distress. “Sure you can. This kind of place is more fun in groups. Come on! Make memories with us.” Trinity’s lips quivered as she suppressed a laugh.

  Daisy couldn’t tell if it was at her expense or not, but all the same, she’d pass. “I don’t want to inconvenience you. You don’t really have to lug me around. I…”

  “Shush. Go pee.” Trinity pointed to the restroom entrance.

  Bossy little thing.

  “Go.”

  Daisy put her hands up and skulked away. “All right.” This will end badly.

  “Change of plans!” Trinity said, looping her arm around Daisy’s waist as she exited the bathroom. Trinity walked her toward a bench where the guys were sitting.

  They both stood as they approached, and Ben’s grin made Daisy study her shoelaces again. Dammit, that face.

  Trinity continued. “We’re going to hit the attractions first, then try to get the boys sloshed on the way out. That way they can sleep it off on the way back to Chowan, but I doubt there’s enough beer in this entire brewery to get the job done.”

  “Must be nice…” Daisy hiccupped. “…to have such a high alcohol tolerance.”

  “Yeah, I’d say so. One Jerry could drink three of me under a table.”

  “Must be nice…” Daisy hiccupped again. “…to have such high metabolism. Probably never gains a pound.”

  “Yeah, right? In the year I’ve lived with Jerry, that guy has never gained weight unless he wanted to. Hate him.”

  “Whatever. You’re a twig.”

  They started up the hill back in the direction of the attractions with the guys keeping a respectable distance a few paces back from them.

  “Hey, you know as well as I do things start to slow down at twenty-five. I gotta work hard to keep the weight off, especially when Ben is around because the guy gets bored and cooks. I worry I’m not going to fit into my wedding dress.”

  “Bored?”

  “Yeah. When he’s not puttering around the barn, he’s at our house trying to find ways to entertain himself. Sometimes that involves massive quantities of butter and carbohydrates. I wouldn’t dare complain. I’ve learned to boil eggs and broil steaks in the past year, but that’s about the limit of my expertise.”

  Daisy whipped her head around to ogle her blonde companion. “Really? You’re a chemist and you can�
�t cook? That doesn’t sound right.”

  Trinity shrugged. “Believe it or not, the skill set doesn’t transfer. I can formulate chemicals by memory, sure, but ask me to make pancake batter and you’d might as well head to the hardware store and buy a tub of drywall mud. The results would be just as palatable.”

  “I could show you a few things if you’d like.”

  Trinity turned her face slowly toward Daisy and offered her an expression she couldn’t parse.

  “Uh, I mean…” Daisy wanted to smack herself. Really? Offering to teach my boss how to cook? Maybe I’ll go on and offer my resignation next. Save her the trouble of firing me.

  “Okay. Next weekend, maybe? Clara’s flying in before the wedding and I wouldn’t want her to think I can’t keep her son fed. Not that he wasn’t doing fine before I came along.”

  “Huh?” She said “yes,” stupid.

  “Can you fry chicken? I always get the outside really hard but the middle turns out raw. At eight bucks a pound…”

  “Yeah, I know how that is.” Actually, no she didn’t. When Daisy bought chicken, she bought whole fryers or trays of drumsticks—not the primo expensive boneless skinless stuff. “My granny taught me all the tricks. Fried chicken is best if you steam it first.”

  “I have no idea what that means. Come by around eleven, maybe, and stay for lunch? You need to tell me what to buy.”

  “Okay.” Daisy breathed out a miniscule sigh of relief as Trinity nudged her into the line for a log flume ride.

  Perhaps the retreat wouldn’t turn out to be so horrible, after all. She could show Trinity and Jerry she wasn’t just N-by-N’s soap-making automaton.

  Mostly at work, Daisy just did what Momma said. She followed Momma’s recipes, which were really Nanna’s who’d got them from her own mother, and added whatever scents, herbs, and oils Nikki had okayed for the season. Momma never strayed from those old recipes—never adulterated the tried-and-true blends. Daisy was ready to take some risks and devise some younger, hipper formulations. She was tired of the old granny floral scents and the oatmeal soaps they made that were so good for eczema, but not much else.

  She wanted, for once, to make a soap that was just for fun. Something that’d make her feel nice when she sank down low in the pitiful peach fiberglass bathtub in her rental house. Something with a scent that would take her away. She’d been wanting to pitch an idea to Nikki for six months, but every time she opened her mouth to talk to the little dragon-in-charge, no words came out. She became mute. During Monday meetings she always let her mother do the talking, even when Nikki asked folks to pipe up with any new ideas for their product development brainstorming. The words would form in her chest, then Daisy would just sink down lower in her chair, absolutely terrified someone would pay attention to her. If they paid attention, they had an opening to reject her. Insult her.

  She clucked her tongue as they wove around the bend in the line. Maybe a sheep’s milk soap, scented with violet…

  “What are you thinking about, Daisy? You look a million miles away right now,” Jerry asked. He leaned against the wood rail dividing the queue from the pathway beside the attraction, and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “She’s probably solving the world hunger problem, and when she comes up with the solution she’ll keep it to herself.” Ben wore an impish smile as he settled beside his brother, and gave Daisy an assessing look.

  She fought not to look away—not to be a coward for once—and as a reward for her unwilling tenacity, the longer she looked, the softer Ben’s expression became. He really was handsome—the kind of good-looking that was hard to stare at for long.

  Trinity gave her a nudge. “Yoo-hoo, Daisy.”

  Daisy broke free of his gaze and cleared her throat. “Sorry, I was thinking about soap.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Jerry asked with a smirk. “You’re standing in line with the coolest people in the entire company and you’re thinking about work? Honestly, I feel a bit insulted. How ’bout you, pixie?”

  “Nah, but my ego is smaller than yours. What’s wrong, Daisy? Worried you ruined a batch by being here?”

  They moved forward in the line. They were nearly at the turnstiles between the queue and the ride’s loading area.

  “No, nothing like that. I’m not thinking about manufacturing. I’m thinking about product development.”

  “Ooh,” Trinity crooned. “You holding out on us? What’d you have in mind?”

  Daisy opened her mouth but no words came out. She shook her head. “Nothing. Just something my imagination keeps turning over.”

  “You and your mom working on some kind of surprise for the holidays again? Those starlite mint soap rounds from last year were so adorable.”

  “Oh, those were really Momma’s thing. She used to make them with Nanna.” Daisy had hated making those soaps, no matter how cute they were. She actually hated the smell of all sorts of mints. They reminded her of long church services and how she used to root through Nanna’s purse in search of entertainment during them.

  “I can’t believe how fast they sold out. That reminds me…” Trinity slipped her phone out of her pocket and tapped out a message on the touch screen. She hit send and shoved it back into her shorts.

  “Did you seriously just text message Nikki an item of business for Monday’s meeting?” Jerry asked, shaking his head.

  Trinity shrugged and wagged a finger at him. “Hey, I’m helping you do your job, here. Remember last year how we all ended up working overtime those three weeks before Christmas because we underestimated how many shipments of tinsel-tone nail polish and minty soap we had to send out? You really want to be dealing with production snafus again this winter or do you want to be at home cuddling?”

  Jerry mumbled something incomprehensible and wrapped his arms around Trinity’s neck from the back.

  Trinity’s eyes lit up. “Did you just admit I’m right? That never happens.”

  Jerry mumbled some more and buried his lips in the hair at the side of Trinity’s neck.

  The display made Daisy smile as she climbed the stairs to the turnstile. Trinity needed a Jerry. Without him, she’d been uptight, high-strung, and a challenge to work with. Jerry had, with a great deal of finesse from Daisy’s perspective, taken the know-it-all down a peg or two for the sole fact that he knew more. He was the kind of guy who could beat the pants off pretty much anyone on Jeopardy without his smile ever wilting, but he tended to downplay his intelligence. His regular brush-off was, “I don’t have to prove it.”

  But what of Ben? Did he have an intelligence that rivaled his brother’s?

  When Daisy turned to look down the stairs to where Ben last stood behind Jerry and Trinity, she startled to find him two steps behind her, following her up the queue. He offered her a smile so incendiary, Daisy had to turn around to see who he was looking at.

  There wasn’t anyone else there. The platform ahead of them was empty. Her face burned hot, and suddenly, breathing seemed a lot like a major test she hadn’t studied for. She pulled her baseball cap down further over her brow and managed to draw in a shallow breath as she turned.

  The ride attendant beckoned her forward. “How many in your group, ma’am?”

  “Four.”

  “Perfect.” He waved all four of them forward.

  Jerry hopped into the back compartment of the log that had stopped in front of them, sat, and held his arms up for Trinity to step in. She climbed over the side and had a seat between his legs, leaning back against his chest.

  Ben stepped over into the front compartment, and Daisy stood frozen.

  “Something wrong, ma’am?” the attendant asked.

  Daisy clucked her tongue a few beats. “Um, I guess I didn’t remember there only being the two benches. I guess I can just sit this one out or wait for the next…”

  “Jesus, Daisy, Ben’s not going to bite you,” Jerry said.

  “Um.”

  Ben made a beckoning gesture with his hands. �
��Get in.”

  She turned around and assessed the people in line behind her. They grew impatient as the queue of logs filled with people waiting to debark backed up.

  Jesus.

  She took Ben’s outstretched hand, and carefully stepped into the damp enclosure. She squatted onto the cushioned bench between his legs and stretched her own legs out into the log’s hollow front.

  Gripping the railings at the sides, she gritted her teeth.

  Oh my God.

  “Ready?” the attendant asked, eyeing her specifically.

  She nodded. “Sorry.”

  “Enjoy the ride. Please hold onto any hats or other loose possessions and keep your hands inside the log at all times.” He took his foot off the front of the log and let it bob down the line toward the start of the meandering track.

  She sat tense, hyperaware of the man whose thighs grazed her hips, and tightened her grips even more on the handles.

  I bet my hips look a mile wide from where he’s sitting. She let go of the sides just long enough to smooth her T-shirt down over her backside.

  “Daisy, take off your hat if you don’t want to lose it. This thing has at least two drops and the wind is high today,” Trinity called up.

  “Oh.” Daisy put her hand on the brim and peeled the cap nearly off, then jammed it back down. With the one hundred percent humidity level at the moment, her hair would be a big embarrassing triangle by the time they made it back to the boarding zone.

  Ben said something fast she didn’t quite catch.

  She turned around to look at him right as a gentle spray of water shot out at them from a bed of flowers they bobbed past. He had a hand held up to shield those cornflower blue eyes from the sun and the other hand extended.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand what you said.”

  “Sorry. I sometimes forget what my accent must sound like to people who don’t speak Dutch. I said I can put your hat in my pocket if you’d like.” He pointed to the deep well of his cargo shorts, or at least she thought she saw him doing it through her periphery because at the moment, the movement of his lush lips hypnotized her. “Deeper than yours.”