Rob didn’t seem to have heard a word Cole said. “Jenna.” He kept his voice even and low. “Five minutes.”
Jenna checked the shop, seeming to take the temperature of the crowd, Cole, her father. Then she turned to the barista.
“Dana, a plain coffee to go, please. And a glass of ice water.”
It was the addition of the water to the order that let Cole breathe easier. He knew damned well Jenna had asked for that only to ensure she had something to toss on Rob if he wouldn’t leave.
Still, he wished she wouldn’t put herself through this. Or that there was some way he could help her.
As if she could read his mind, she caught his eye and gave a tiny shake of her head. The gesture was small enough that he was pretty sure no one seated at the tables would have noticed.
From the way Rob’s eyes narrowed, though, Cole was pretty sure he’d caught it.
Sure enough, a moment later Rob had focused on him again. “We haven’t officially met. Rob Elias. And you’re Cole Dekker.”
Cole nodded. He wasn’t shaking hands with Rob. Forget what it could do to his bid for mayor—he didn’t want to have anything to do with this man, just on the basis of what he had done to Jenna.
“You come in here a lot?” Rob asked. Fishing. Definitely fishing.
“Cole’s headquarters are two doors down.” Ram stepped up beside Cole, the to-go cup in his hand. They turned in unison to form a wall between father and daughter. “Here’s your coffee, Mr. Elias. Have a nice day.”
Rob tried to look around them, but with Cole and Ram standing shoulder to shoulder, it was the equivalent of a fence in front of Jenna. He scowled.
“Jenna . . .”
Cole felt a hand on his shoulder. A second later, Jenna’s head popped into the space between his and Ram’s.
“Coffee’s on the house. You can go now.”
Rob scowled.
Cole cheered silently.
Rob turned and marched toward the door. As it slammed behind him, Cole saw Rob toss his untouched coffee into the trash can on the sidewalk.
Jenna’s soft sigh echoed in his ear. He twisted to face her.
“You okay?”
She nodded, her focus on the room, Ram, anyone but him. “Just ducky.”
Ram patted Jenna’s shoulder. “You sure about that?”
Her arms were crossed again. Protective. Huddling. But her mouth was set and her eyes were hard. “I have to be.”
It hit Cole, then, in a whole new way. She wasn’t talking about this moment. She was talking about her whole life. She’d never—okay, barely—had a father to stand up for her, to dote on her, to protect her the way Ram did his girls. Cole had no doubt that her mother and that crazy aunt of hers had stepped into the gap very nicely, but there were—what—five girls in that family? Every adult must have been stretched thin. Every kid must have grown up learning how to fend for herself, because if she didn’t, no one else could.
It was almost a shame he and Ram had stepped in. Jenna was probably itching to throw water all over the asshole. Cole would have loved to watch it.
Instead, he could only grab her favorite iced tea from the cooler, pop the top, and hand it to her. She took it automatically. After the first sip she stopped, frowned, then looked up at Cole. It was so easy to see her pulling the pieces from her memory. So easy to see how much it meant to her that he remembered what she’d asked for the last time Rob confronted her here.
For a moment, he caught a glimpse of wetness in her eyes.
“Thanks,” she whispered. “I, um, I’d better go. Class.”
“You sure you’re okay to drive?” Cole asked.
“Yeah.” She smiled from the tea to him. “I am now.”
Chapter Ten
Cole was on his way to the court date that couldn’t be postponed when he checked his phone and saw the text from his mother.
WTG on winning the primary. This means we get to see you tonight. Dinner is at six.
He frowned at the phone. He had no memory of setting up dinner with the family. On the other hand, it was quite possible that he—
His phone buzzed again.
Don’t strain yourself. You didn’t forget to put it into your book. This is a spur of the moment event. But it’s not a request.
Yeah, that sounded like Mom, all right.
He made it through court intact—never a certainty with this judge—and headed for the grocery store. Mindful of what his schedule was going to be like for the next couple of months, he filled his cart with only the best canned vegetables and frozen meals. God only knew when he’d be back. Plus, this way he could assure his mother that he was eating healthy stuff at least once in a while.
Maybe he should make a point of cooking for himself once a week from now until the election, if only to be sure he had a break.
Maybe he could invite Jenna to share those meals.
Maybe they could get distracted and end up ordering pizza.
“There are worse things in life,” he said, tossing an economy-sized bag of frozen peas into the cart.
The flowers he grabbed on the way to the checkout were well worth the extra few bucks when he handed them to his mother that evening.
“Thank you,” she said, burying her nose into the bouquet of hydrangeas. “One of your best guilt offerings yet.”
“Why do I need to be guilty this time?”
“Oh, no reason. I’m sure every mother learns that her son won a primary by seeing it on the news.”
Shit.
“I didn’t know you’d want me to— Hey. Wait.” He followed her into the dining room. “It was Tuesday. You work until eleven on Tuesdays. Plus the last time I called you after a late shift, you threatened to make campaign signs with my baby pictures on them.”
“Naked baby pictures. That’s an important detail.” She shrugged. “I know all that. But I’m still allowed to torture you. It’s one of the perks of parenthood.”
“And then you wonder why I don’t come home very often.” He couldn’t keep the laughter from his voice. Judy Dekker often said that the best part of motherhood was harassing and embarrassing her kids. Given how often she seized the opportunity, he didn’t doubt it.
“Your father will be here any time,” she said, pointing to a chair. “And Abby and the kids will be here for dessert. Nathan has a soccer game, and Paulo is in Boston for business, so they’re running late and wild.”
“Can you name a time when they wouldn’t be?”
“Good point.” She sat in her favorite maple rocker and adjusted the pillows behind her back. “So? Are you pleased with how the election is going so far?”
“It’s still early, and last night wasn’t exactly a surprise.” At least, not the part that she was talking about. The rest, though—
Uh-oh. He wasn’t going to think about Jenna. Not in front of his mother.
“I think you’ll be able to beat Tadeson, but I don’t think it’s going to be a cakewalk.” Mom frowned. “It would help if he would do something stupid again. That whole thing when he got caught taking home the office recyclables to cash in himself—that was barely enough for people to remember. How’s his marriage? Should we send him a hooker-gram?”
“You know, Mom, people who don’t know you ask me why you’re not working on my campaign. But everyone who does know you just nods sadly and tells me to keep you far away.”
“Wusses. Nothing but wusses.”
Thank God his father picked that moment to walk in.
“Cole! You’re alive!”
“You sound so surprised.” Though given the post-Jenna exhaustion, Cole was still rather amazed himself.
“Relieved, mostly. Funerals are expensive.”
There was nothing like a night with his parents to help him remember to never take himself seriously.
/> Dad moved on to his two favorite topics—the idiots at work and the state of dinner—and between bites of spinach lasagna, they got caught up on the family, the jobs, and the town. It wasn’t until his plate was clean that he realized the golden opportunity that had been handed to him.
“Question,” he said as his father eyed the lasagna remaining in the pan. “Did you know Rob Elias when he lived here? Before he moved away, I mean.”
Dad sat back and transferred his gaze to Cole. “Yeah, I knew him. Not well. He was a year, maybe two behind me in school. But we were in the same Scout troop for a while.”
“What was he like?”
“Couldn’t light a fire for shit, I can tell you that.”
Bruce Dekker, soul of tact.
“You gotta remember, we were kids. Everybody’s an idiot when they’re a teenager.” Dad peered at Cole from beneath his eyebrows. “For example, there was that time you didn’t want to go to school so you heated the thermometer with a blow dryer so your mother would think you had a fever.”
“Except I went overboard and she thought I was going to start convulsing at any moment and called 911. I know. But maybe we could save the embarrassing stories of my youth for a better time, like a debate. Right now I’m interested in Rob Elias.”
“Why?”
Mom had returned to the room so quietly that Cole had missed her entrance.
“Sorry?”
“Why are you so concerned about him all of a sudden?”
Cole weighed his words carefully. “I met him today.”
Dad sat back in his chair. “How’d that happen?”
“We were both at a coffee shop. He recognized me and congratulated me.” Then, because Cole knew that word would get back to his mother somehow anyway—probably via Ram’s Nonny—he added, “His daughter was there, too. Her sister owns the place. Rob wanted to talk to her, but she made it clear she wasn’t interested, so Ram and I—uh—helped make sure he didn’t get to her.”
Dad raised an eyebrow. Mom rolled her eyes.
“Please tell me you didn’t try to escort him out like when you thought someone was breaking into the Baker place and it turned out to be Mr. Baker without his beard.”
“No, Mother. I had a bit more restraint than that.” This time.
His father scratched the side of his face. “You want the truth, Cole? I don’t remember too much about him. He wasn’t the top kid in the school, but he wasn’t one of the stoners or the ones just making an appearance until they turned sixteen. He wasn’t quiet, but he didn’t go out of his way to be noticed, either. I remember working with him on some things at Scouts, and as long as it didn’t involve a fire, he was okay. He was competent but not exceptional, I guess you’d say.”
It wasn’t what Cole had expected, but neither was it way out of line with what he knew. “Was he into student government in school?”
“Rob? No. Oh, I think maybe he might have been head of the Model UN—yeah, I’m pretty sure he was in that—but nothing else.”
Model United Nations was definitely more of a fit.
“The one thing that stands out, now that I think of it, is that he always had your back. If somebody needed a few bucks, or couldn’t make sense of the algebra homework, or had a teacher riding your ass and you couldn’t figure out what to do about it, Rob was the one you talked to. He didn’t do anything official but he always seemed to know the right thing to say. And if he didn’t know, he’d say so, but then he always knew who could help.” Dad nodded slowly. “I guess that was the big thing. He was a people person. He knew who was good at what, and if you had a problem, he knew who to hook you up with to make sure you got things solved. It didn’t seem so remarkable at the time, but now that I think about it, you know? That was a pretty damned fine talent to have.”
One that would have come in very handy in Rob’s political life, for sure.
“It’s a shame, what happened to him. He could have gone places.”
“He did,” Cole said. “Costa Rica.”
“And then prison.” There was no hint of Mom’s usual smile as she rocked. “I know I was joking about creating a scandal for Tadeson, Cole, but you want to stay far away from Rob Elias. Even if all he does is say hello to you, it would be far too easy for someone to get the wrong impression.”
“Your mother’s right.” Dad pushed his plate away and rested his arms on the table. “I know you were trying to help, and I’m proud of you for stepping up. But if I were you, I would stay far away from anyone named Elias.”
***
Margie’s birthday had always been an excuse to forget it was late September and have one last beach day, no matter the weather. Which was how Jenna found herself spending the last Sunday of the month huddled in a jacket around a campfire on the shore of Calypso Lake, doing her best to toast a rack of marshmallows without either burning them or freezing her ass off.
“Margie, I vote that from now on we celebrate your birthday a month early. This is ridiculous.”
“You’re only saying that because you’re too skinny. You still need more meat on your bones. Look.” Margie hefted her ample self off the log she was using as a chair and extended her arms, no doubt to show off the short sleeves on her T-shirt. “The supermodel look doesn’t work in this climate.”
“Yeah, and your warmth doesn’t have anything to do with the peppermint schnapps you added to your hot chocolate,” Bree said.
Margie winked. “Be prepared and all that jazz.”
Jenna laughed along with the others but wondered how her own favorite Boy Scout was doing this evening. Thanks to her classes, his campaigning, both their job schedules, and general family and life stuff—not to mention the fact that Kyrie was back in town until Columbus Day—they had managed only a handful of nights together since the primary. It definitely wasn’t enough for Jenna. Just the other day, she’d caught herself doodling anatomically accurate pictures of Cole in the margins of her notebook during statistics.
Damn, but it was nice to feel healed. To be here, laughing and shivering with the people she loved most in the world. To feel enticing and alluring and alive once more.
She might have to find a way to stash a mattress in the kitchen at headquarters and convince Cole to stay late tomorrow night.
Suddenly, the wind off the lake didn’t feel nearly as cold.
“Hey, Paige e-mailed today,” Annie chimed in. “She said that she wanted to send you a special birthday present, Margie, but the only bagpiper she could convince to perform in nothing but a kilt had let his passport expire.”
“Why?” Margie tossed her head back and wailed to the heavens. “Why must you torture me so?”
When the laughter faded away, Neenee pointed her hot dog stick at Jenna. “You’ll have better luck with those marshmallows if you actually put the stick near the fire. And how’s the job search going?”
“Not bad.” Jenna moved the marshmallows a fraction of an inch closer to the heat. The line between golden and flaming was one that was swiftly crossed. “I actually have an interview next week with a place up in Brockport.”
“When?” Margie hefted her mug of spiked cocoa. “Need a chauffeur?”
“This is a Skype interview.” Thank God. Convincing Margie to let her go alone would have been a complication no one needed. “If I make it past this one, the next one will be on-site.”
“What’s the job?” asked Bree.
“PR assistant. Very entry level, but the company looks like they’re growing, and I know someone who did an internship with them over the summer and said it’s a good work environment.”
“Why isn’t she applying?” Neenee pushed Jenna’s wrist down another inch. Definitely the action of someone who preferred her marshmallows charred.
“She said she would, but her boyfriend is out in Silicon Valley and she wants to find something closer to
him.”
“Men.” Margie shook her head sadly. “They always mess up a good thing.”
“Hey, they have their appeal,” Kyrie added.
Margie snorted. “You have to say that. You’re—what’s the phrase? Oh yeah. ‘Blissfully engaged’.”
“You love Ben and you know it, Margie, so no whining allowed.”
“Oh, he’s a nice guy, I’ll grant you that. If you have to be with someone, you could have done a damned sight worse. But I still say, if you’re going to run off and leave your family and never come home and leave us all whimpering in sorrow for the rest of our lives, then you know, maybe there should be more reason than just some man, no matter how cute his tushie might be.”
Laughter and catcalls erupted around the fire. Jenna joined in but her heart wasn’t in it. Margie’s words had left a hollow pit of agreement in her gut, thrusting her forward to the day when she would end up leaving town.
She wanted to go. She did. But oh, she was going to miss being close enough to meet her mother for an impulse lunch, or stop by Margie’s shop to harass her.
And damn. The marshmallows were now a three-alarm blaze.
Jenna waved her stick and tried to pull herself from the doldrums.
“Margie,” she said, “what are you doing checking out Ben’s butt? He’s probably thirty years younger than you.”
“Yeah, maybe so, if you’re going to be all official about it. But I don’t feel like more than, oh, twenty-five, twenty-six. So if you’re talking emotional age, he’s older than me.”
Kyrie pulled her phone from her pocket. “Dear Ben,” she pretended to type. “Never ever let yourself be left alone in a room with Margie.”
“Speaking of men who mess up your lives,” Annie said, “I finally sat down with our father last week.”
Well, that definitely brought a halt to the laughter.
Neenee stopped trying to pluck a marshmallow from Jenna’s branch and turned to Annie. “Sweetie? What . . . why . . . what made you . . .”
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