“Word travels fast,” Jason said. The night just past was so much in his thoughts he found it hard to mind that by now likely everyone in Lusty knew he and Phillip were dating Leesa.
Dating is such a high school term.
“Yes, indeed it does.” Craig’s grin was completely unrepentant. “We just don’t see why y’all should be treated any differently than the rest of the family. But don’t worry. It’ll only be you men who are teased—and it won’t be unkind.”
The rest of the family. Jason was surprised just how good that thought felt.
By the time Ginny brought the tea, everyone had decided on their lunch. The brothers Jessop each ordered the meatloaf, which was the special that day. Since Jason and Phillip had both gone without breakfast—they’d told Leesa they’d have a morning snack of her and had—they were both famished.
“I’ll have the steak, with fries and gravy. Medium, please, Ginny.” Jason handed her the menu.
“The twin pork chops for me, please.” Phillip said. “Also fries, and a salad too, with Italian dressing.”
Conversation during lunch was light, focused on family. Both men mentioned their wife, Anna. More the tone than their words gave away the deep love and respect the men held for their wife. At first, Jason had thought that having been born in Lusty, and therefore raised in a community that encouraged ménage relations, contributed to the ease with which it seemed those relationships thrived.
But Jason had also noticed the same trait between Mel Richardson and Connor Talbot, two men who called themselves co-husbands to their wife, Emily Anne. He’d learned that they weren’t life-long friends but had both bonded over detective work—and love for Emily Anne.
Maybe family and environment have nothing to do with it.
They all sat back, having cleaned their plates. The Jessops traded a look, and then Craig sat forward.
“We wanted to talk to you about your business,” Craig said.
“We’ve looked at your prospectus and done some research into the clients you’ve chosen, as well as the investment packages you offer,” Jackson said. “I have to tell you, what you’ve done is absolutely brilliant.”
“It is,” Craig agreed. “Most fund managers look to make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, and so aim toward the upper tier of income earners for their client base. Your targeting mid-range clients with sound, proven investments really is unique in these times.”
“We weren’t looking to make a lot of money,” Jason said. “We were more interested in the long game. Our goal was to earn steady and increasing returns for our investors.”
“We did our research, too, and it seemed to us that too many firms looked for the big and the flashy, only to sputter out after a decade.” Phillip nodded. “That approach? In our estimation, it never works for long. Most funds don’t last that long. In fact, in our research, we found only one other fund that has—LTT Venture Capital. It’s a much larger and more robust enterprise, but basically, it appears to have the same basic strategy. Well, that and an uncanny knack at picking winners.”
“What we wouldn’t give to learn from the geniuses behind that,” Jason agreed.
The expression on Craig’s face matched the one his brother wore…and just that tiny clue was enough to jog Jason’s memory.
“Oh, my God. It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the geniuses behind LTT!”
“What?” Phillip looked confused. But he caught on fast, maybe thanks to the expression Jason knew he wore.
Craig nodded. “The initials stand for Lusty Town Trust. We started out as teenagers and seemed to have a knack, as you noted, for picking winners. The Town Trust invests in every business the family owns, in one way or another, of course.” Craig chuckled. “So they invested in us, and we called it LTT because it sounded important.”
“But we are damn proud that we increased the Town Trust’s account a hundredfold.” Jackson’s smile was all of that.
“We still do some investing, of course,” Craig said. “But the Town Trust’s capital is so enormous now that other firms have been contracted to handle things for the family. That much money? You really have to diversify.”
“I was convinced that the only way to succeed meant I had to focus like a laser on the goal and take one step after the next to achieve that end. To be driven, dedicated, and serious.” Jason had thought that and had worked hard at precluding anything that might detract from the ultimate goal. Now he was beginning to question that belief. In fact, he was beginning to question damn near everything.
“Well, you’re right, to a point,” Craig Jessop said. “But if you don’t let yourself have a life, what the hell are you working for?”
“The one thing we can tell you, without a doubt?” Jackson leaned in closer. “We were damn good in our chosen profession before we even met our Anna. But after? When we’d wooed and won her? It was as if we’d suddenly become twice as smart and twice as lucky.”
“So being driven, no mistake about it, that’s good,” Craig said.
“As long as you are in control of the steering wheel,” Jackson said, “and plan a route that will bring you happiness. There really is more to life than money. That is the one lesson that every child raised in Lusty is taught.”
“That was something that was a strong growing-up principle for us, too,” Phillip said. “Grandpa Christopher couldn’t abide a child—or grandchild—who expected a free ride, just because he’d been successful building his business.”
“And that was the principle behind how we structured The Benedict Fund,” Jason said.
“Kate has often related the story told her by her mother-in-law, Madeline Kennedy Benedict,” Craig said. “Apparently your grandfather, Christopher, went through a phase when he was in his teens when he believed himself to be ‘the cock of the walk.’ It was Sarah Carmichael Benedict who disabused him of his assumed air of entitlement.”
“My father told me that the death of Grandpa Christopher’s younger brother Edward, who was killed in the Second World War, deeply affected him,” Phillip said. “He’d wanted to enlist himself but had been denied because farming was considered crucial to the war effort. When peace arrived, he decided to leave Lusty, to prove to himself that he could build a life from his own skills and hard work. That he deserved to be alive when his brother was not. Dad got the impression, from this way his father told it, that when he looked back on his own life, he wished he could go back and kick his own ass.”
“The loss of a brother, especially under those circumstances, can change a man,” Craig said.
“Yes,” Jason said. “And so, too, can the discovery of a family—and a family history.”
Jackson Jessop looked over at his brother then reached forward and patted Jason’s hand. “The most important trait a man can possess, in my mind, is the ability to be able to reassess in light of new facts. Adaptability is the key to survival in nature—and happiness, for those of us at the top of the food chain.”
“I’m glad you joined us for lunch today. Thank you,” Jason said.
“Now if you could point us to the best place to acquire some home-office furniture,” Phillip said, “we’d be grateful.”
The brothers Jessop both grinned, and Craig even chuckled.
Jackson raised his glass, toasted them, and downed the rest of the tawny liquid. “Men, do we have a place for you!”
Chapter Eleven
“You’re looking…happy.”
Leesa spared a glance for her bff. They were both huffing and puffing their way along the indoor running track at the gym. Not that they were running. They were speed walking, or more precisely, their version of it. They’d decided to change up their routine and had added this new phase to their workout.
She and Rachel intended to give the elliptical the same amount of time as they usually did. Provided, of course, they had enough left in their respective tanks to do that after this new addition to their routine. It hadn’t sounded like it was such a big
add, but it used some different muscles than the elliptical did. Leesa was feeling it, and that just annoyed her.
“I look happy?” Leesa repeated Rachel’s words. “I never knew that I had been looking unhappy.”
Rachel laughed. “All right, Sarge, let me put it this way, then. You look like a woman who’s enjoying a sex life.”
“I hope I look like a woman who’s enjoying a great sex life.”
Rachel’s chuckle drifted back as her friend picked up her pace and moved slightly ahead of her. Leesa guessed by the fact that her own smile was stretched wide she didn’t mind the gentle teasing. It had been only a few days, but with that first evening, her sex life had been better than during the entire course of her marriage.
“I was going to ask for details,” Rachel huffed. “But considering your answer, I don’t think I need to.” They had half the track left and focused their attention, and energy, on finishing this second lap. Leesa had never had a female friend close enough to share those kinds of details. Maybe I could with Rachel. After a couple of glasses of wine. She kept her gaze on the finishing point, which had been their starting point. Two laps, they’d said, and now, two laps were done. They’d sandwiched the track between the weights and the elliptical, and that had been a good decision.
The sounds of construction reached her from outside. They’d only begun working on it, but already Leesa was anticipating the completion of the swimming pool.
“It’s a good thing that being an athlete has never been one of my dreams,” Rachel said.
“I hear you.” Leesa kept walking, but at a much slower pace than she’d used on the track. She took the time as a cool-down, stopping and throwing a few leg stretches in to keep it interesting.
By the time they made it to the workout room, Leesa had her breath back. She grabbed a towel and headed to her machine.
She followed her usual routine, starting out slow and building her pace. Beside her, Rachel appeared recovered from the walk. Conversation ended as the last ten minutes loomed.
“Oh, thank God.” Rachel bowed her head over her machine.
Leesa would have laughed at her friend’s outburst if she’d had the energy. A thought occurred to her as she was cleaning her machine. Leesa frowned, shot a covert look at her bff, then decided that instead of worrying, she’d just ask.
With clean machines and fresh water, they sat on the bench along the wall. No one else was in the room at the moment, but she knew that likely would change before long.
“So…I have a concern about you, my friend, and I’m just going to ask it straight out.” Leesa used her water bottle to indicate the equipment. “You’re not killing yourself over this because you think you have to in order to keep up with those husbands of yours, are you?”
Leesa couldn’t recall hearing Rachel lament the age difference between herself and her men, one of whom was more than a decade younger. But just because Rachel hadn’t said anything didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking—or feeling—an inadequacy. We women tend to do that from time to time.
“Not really.” Rachel sat, eyes closed, her head resting on the wall.
“‘Not really’ isn’t a no, girlfriend.” Leesa hadn’t thought that either Brandon Gillespie or Trace Langley would be the type of man who would make her friend feel she needed to improve herself for them. If I was wrong about them, there’s going to be hell to pay.
Rachel must have heard something in Leesa’s tone, because she opened her eyes and looked at her.
“All these years, before I met them, I just assumed I could never have another child, because, well, I’d only gotten pregnant once.” She sat up straighter. “But now I think that was bullshit thinking on my part. So, we’ve decided to try, even though they are perfectly okay with my not getting pregnant… It’s kind of one of those emotional mine fields, I guess. Once I considered that I could get pregnant, then, well, I really wanted to try.”
“And you wanted to get yourself in a bit better condition, physically, before you did?”
“Yeah.”
Leesa didn’t need to know anything more. The beauty of Rachel’s smile said it all.
“You really want to have another baby? Even though Libby is a teenager?”
“I want to have their baby—one that will have been conceived in love, real love. I’ve never regretted having Libby. She’s the one pure thing to come out of my first marriage, and I wouldn’t, even now, change a thing. But to believe there were limits for me, and now to know there aren’t? That my husbands love me absolutely no matter what the future brings? That’s powerful magic, my friend. Very powerful magic.”
“It is, indeed.” Leesa wouldn’t argue the point even if she could. She knew what Rachel had been through. If anyone deserves to be happy in this life, it’s her.
“What about you, girlfriend?”
“Me? What about me what?”
Leesa had heard the term, “like a doe caught in the headlights.” Now she knew what that facial expression felt like.
Rachel giggled. “Just look at you! You know, wanting to have the baby of a man you love isn’t weird science or anything.”
Oh, crap. Leesa had forgotten one of the principle tenets of life. Once you let someone in past your boundaries, they tended to settle down there and get comfy. Her mind scrambled for a throwaway line, or at least tried to find a way to change the subject. Then she met Rachel’s gaze and read the love there. Just as her concern for Rachel had been born from love, so, too, had Rachel’s question just now.
Rachel Cosgrove Gillespie-Langley was the first real, close female friend she’d had since high school. Though it made her uncomfortable, she understood that honesty was the only valid coin between them.
“I don’t know if I’m in love with those two Benedicts,” Leesa said. “I mean…yeah, great sex, but it’s really more than that. I just don’t…” Why she felt panic starting to rise within her, she had not a clue.
“Hey!” Rachel slid closer and slipped her arm around her. “Of course, you don’t know that yet. You three really haven’t been together all that long. I guess what they say is true, about a woman in love wanting to share that state with her besties.”
“The truth? The one I’ve barely actually acknowledged to myself? I want to be in love with them, and that makes me nervous that I might screw things up.” Leesa licked her lips and nodded. “And one more thing, just between us? I told them at the beginning that I wasn’t interested in a picket fence, kids, and a dog, but I think…I think that might have been a fib.”
“Not a fib,” Rachel said. “Just one of those things we tell ourselves when we believe what we really, deep down want is way out of reach and totally impossible.”
“I like your interpretation better. I hated to think that I was being a liar.”
“You’re just a woman faced with two very dynamic men.” Rachel grinned.
That smile inspired one of her own. “Okay, I’ll go with that. I’m still going to live this whatever we have one day at a time.”
“Grandma Kate really has it right, you know. Things will turn out the way they’re meant to be.”
Leesa thought so, too. She just hoped that how things were meant to be was exactly the way she wanted them to be.
* * * *
“Wow, J. Coop. You look dumbstruck.”
Phillip’s words brought Jason’s head up. He met his cousin’s gaze then nodded. “Dumbstruck is a good word. Yeah, you could say that.” He’d just come back to the house from a short run out to the grocery store. He’d planned a short trip out for steak then would get busy on getting to work on his client files.
Their home office was the best-outfitted home office they’d ever had. And every single item here, except their laptops, had come from the “family warehouse.” That had been another, as Phillip put it, “dumbstruck” moment.
“I ran into a couple of people at the store. I think you’ve met them. Jordan and Peter?”
“I have. They’re married to
Tracy of the amazing cream puffs, aren’t they?” Phillip sat back in his chair, giving Jason his complete attention.
“They are indeed.” Jason didn’t know if he could put into words the emotions that were tumbling through him. “I had been under the impression that their last name was Kendall.”
Phillip tilted his head. “It isn’t?”
“No, they decided to have their names changed for two reasons. First, because each of the men wanted to carry the other’s name, because they are married to each other, as well as to Tracy. And also so that they reflected both men’s paternity for their children. They’re, all three of them, the Alvarez-Kendalls.”
“Alvarez.” By the expression on his cousin’s face, Jason knew he recognized the name and was trying to place it.
Phillip shook his head. “Who did we used to know of by that name?”
“Julián Alvarez. Mega venture capitalist who left New York just as we were beginning to make some headway in our own business.”
“Now I remember! The man who walked away from it all at the top of his game. Is he related to Peter?”
“Julián is Peter’s brother. And apparently, he’s living a couple of hours from here, at the edge of a city called Divine. He owns a ranch, with his best friend, Chris, and their wife, Gwen, whom Julián met when he worked the rodeo circuit.”
Jason was still blown away that the man he’d once seen give a seminar wearing a three-piece Armani suit had worked the rodeo circuit.
“Well, that’s a hell of a coincidence, isn’t it?” Phillip asked.
“Oh, it is. Then I ran into Craig Jessop, and we chatted for a moment. Do you recall that movie we saw a couple of years back? Finesse?”
Phillip’s face split into a huge grin. “It’s still one of my favorites. It won a couple of Oscars, I think.”
Jason folded his arms in front of his chest. “It did. And one of them was for the screenwriters. A set of triplets. I think the tabloids used to refer to them as the three Valentinos. Their names are Paul, Wes, and Lucas Jessop.”
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