by Jacquie Gee
“Oh, I dunno.” I wring my hands. “I can’t exactly sleep with a man who’s mad at me.”
Trent laughs. “Mad is for dogs. I could conceivably still be angry, not mad.”
“So, are you?”
He raises a wiry brow. “Let’s just say I’ll get over it. Eventually.” He throws the door back. “You first.” He extends an open hand. I squeeze past him, through a waft of his cologne, and into another small hallway, where I’m hit with a mix of spicy, cinnamon, doughy, baking.
“Is that monkey bread I smell?”
“Yeah.” He grins. “You know monkey bread?”
“Sure do.”
“And chocolate cinnamon babka.”
“Shut. Up.” I shove him backward, Elaine-like from Seinfeld, then feel instantly silly for doing it. Didn’t take too long to get comfortable with him, did I? “You bake babka?!”
“I do, at that.” He nods, shrugging off my assault.
“You know how to make those traditional recipes down under?”
“We’re located beneath you; we’re not actually beneath you.”
“Oh, so, sorry,” I say, and he laughs.
“Truth be known, I’m a displaced Scot.”
“A what?”
“A Scotsman posing as an Aussie.”
I stop and stare.
“Not as uncommon as you think. Way back, a lot of Aussie came from Scotland. Guess they had the most criminals.” He elbows me and winks. “Though I'm the second generation born now, so I’m sure there’s not much Scot left in me,’cept for maybe me looks.”
“So that’s where you got them?”
He grins and reaches around me, closing the door behind. The small passageway we’re in turns very dark.
“Where are we?” I ask, a little unnerved.
“Under the old back stairs, where I boxed them in to create the entrance to your mom’s new place. Watch your head.” He reaches out, putting a gentle hand on the back of my neck to help me duck as we pass through the part in the passageway where the ceiling is lowest. His other hand falls on the small of my back guiding me along through the darkness. My skin flinches at his touch. That hasn’t happened in years. “Here we are.” We stop outside, what used to be my mother’s sewing room, I’m pretty sure, although my navigation is badly off.
My father enclosed our old side porch when I was small, converting the open space into a closed one. Mom claimed it for a sewing room. I used to love to sit in there and play. Much of this section of the house no longer looks as it did when I lived here. Trent’s made so many changes. He grabs the handle on the door to the mystery room and flings it open, wide.
“Hope you don’t mind.” He slaps on the lights. “But I don’t believe in beds.”
I blink wildly, my eyes adjusting to the light. When at last they do, I see what he means. Two good sized hammocks hang wall to wall, strung side by side. Each is attached to the walls on either end of the room, by sets of grappling hooks. My stomach drops like a stone. He’s not serious. He can’t be serious. Well, I guess that solves the sleeping together conundrum.
“I find you get better sleep in one of these versus a bed. And they take up less room,” Trent proudly says.
“Pillow?” he asks, reaching back out into the hallway, into a cupboard.
“Please,” I shakily say.
“Yeah, rookies like to have them.” He jokes, pulling a pillow and a blanket from the rack. He Frisbees them both in my direction. I catch them as he laughs.
They are soft and girlie-looking, coated in flowers, like they were selected and sent to him by his mother, or once belonged to a girlfriend. Girlfriend? Oh good gobs, I never even thought to ask. He could have a girlfriend. These could be hers. I could be about to sleep with someone else’s man.
“What’s the matter?” He notes my sour expression. “You not game?”
For a moment, I think this is a wild joke, and he’s going to announce it and lead me off to another room with an actual bed, and then I realize he’s not joking. “No, I’m game?” I say, my competitive nature coming out.
He sports a cheeky grin, like he knows something I don’t, and proceeds into the room, placing both hands on the ropes of the far hammock, and leaps up, rolling in, landing in the center of it on his back. The hammock creaks as it swings. "Well, are you gonna get in yours, or what?” Trent ask.
I stare at the foreign object like it’s a bad slice of cheese.
“You’ve never slept in one of these before, have you?”
“Can’t say that I have, no.” I look up. I doubt many women in North America have spent the night in a hammock in their own house. I swallow hard and stare at him.
“Then you’re in for a treat tonight, mate. Here, let me show you.” He alley-oops out of his, back to the floor. “This is how’s it’s done. You put a hand here.” He shows me. “And a hand here. It’s all about the roll.” He winks. “You want to get a lot of spring but not too much roll.” He demonstrates, gracefully flopping onto his again. “Your turn,” he says, lying his hammock, ropes creaking, a muscled arm tucked under his head.
I squirrel up my face. I can’t believe I’m about to do this. “You can really sleep in one of these?" I ask.
“Like a baby,” he says. “Go on. Give it go.”
I stare at the ropes, not remembering which hand goes where.
“Get a good grip on the ropes, then hop,” he says.
“Hop?” I swallow.
“Yeah, you know, like a rabbit. Spring off your toes.”
I feel my face turning red. I’m not much of a hopper.
And here my biggest fear was that I’d have to sleep with the man. “There’s no other way to get?”
“’Fraid not.” He laughs. “You want for me to get you a step stool?”
“No. No, no.” I shake my head. I feel a challenge coming on. I take a breath and smooth my skirt. Whatever he can do, you can do better, Becca. I feel my pride twinge as I step up to the side of the hammock. Tentatively, I run my hands along the ropes trying to remember where to grip. All I wanted was to go to sleep tonight. I didn’t want to learn circus tricks.
“Steady now,” Trent coaches. “The key is to hold the ropes still enough to make the roll.”
I nod.
“Up and over, alley-oop. It’s simple,” he says.
“Right, alley-oop,” I repeat.
Taking a stance, I’m not one bit convinced it’s that easy, but be darned if I’ll let this foreigner show me up. I clutch the outer rope and the hammock sways. Biting my lip nervously, I round my shoulders and rock up onto my toes, then spring, launching myself— all the way across the mesh and onto the floor, with a thud. It happens so fast, I haven’t time to put my arms out. My back takes the worst of it.
Trent snickers, then snorts, looking down over his hammock. “Maybe a little less spring next time.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I stand, dust myself off, and approach the ropes again.
“Now, arch your back,” he tells me. “No. Not like that. The other way ’round.” How many ways are there to arch a back? “No. Not that hand. Use your left—” he barks at me.
I feel like a fish out of water, a child learning to swim. Flashes of the day Dad tried to teach me how to conquer the rapids course through my brain. I twist and turn, trying to follow his directions, struggling to figure out exactly what on earth he means. Trent tries hard not to laugh. “Here, let me go get that stool—”
“No.” I stop him.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” I bounce up onto my toes. “I can do this.”
“All right, then. Remember, just jump and roll. Not too fast. Just nice and steady.” He shows me with a hand. “Jump and roll. Jump and roll.”
Jump and roll, I repeat in my head as I lift off the balls of my feet, round my back, close my eyes, and all at once, I’m in—
—and out again, flung to the floor for the second humiliating time.
Trent laughs wildly. “I�
��ll go get the stool.”
“No. Don’t be ridiculous. I can do this.” It’s a matter of pride now. A matter of Lane pride, which is a very stubborn thing. I snap to a stand and assume the position, jump, tuck, and roll, and land—plop—in the center of the swinging hammock’s gut.
“There you are!” Trent cheers, as I swing, pleased with my accomplishment, yet somewhat startled by the side-to-side motion.
“You see?” He lifts his head and smiles at me from across the room. “Not so bad, is it?”
I nod and pant. “Can’t imagine how I’m going to sleep the whole night without falling out of it, but, yeah, sure, whatever you say.”
“Lucky for you, we don’t have a whole night.” He laughs, reaches up and claps his hands together, and it shuts off the lights. So he’s the kind that orders a clapper.
“You’re a real trouper,” he says through the darkness. “My last girlfriend completely refused to even try this.”
So he doesn’t have a girlfriend…
“G’nite,” he says, rolling over.
“G’nite.” My hammock slowly swings side to side, and my stomach begins to unclench. It’s then I realize I’ve left my blanket and pillow behind on the floor. Dabbit! I glance down at them.
“Want me to get those for you?” Trent asks.
“Would you mind?”
He leaps from his hammock and retrieves in one fell swoop, then springs back into his own again with the ease of a sleek jaguar. The creak of swinging ropes grates against the silence of the room. “You can drop the death grip on the sides now,” Trent whispers to me. “You won’t fall out.”
A nervous bubble of laughter escapes me, and I relax my hands. “How did you know that I was doing that?”
“Experience.”
He rolls onto his side, leaving me his back, which also must take experience. I fix my pillow under my head, and the two of us lie there, side by side, suspended in mid-air, the sound of crickets outside serenading us to sleep.
Trent stirs, then whispers, gently through the darkness. “Your mother, she’s slipping fast.”
“I know,” I whisper back. “It’s worse than I imagined.”
Chapter 20
"Coffee?" Trent joins me at the bridge the next morning, where I'm leaning on the railing, staring over the water, watching the sun grace the new day’s sky.
“Thank you. Did I wake you?” I accept the cup.
“No. Not at all.” He raises his cup to me. “Someone’s got to get up and attend to the monkey bread.” He starts back toward the porch.
“Trent!” I call.
“Yeah.” He turns.
“About yesterday, when I barged into the restaurant—”
“Don’t worry about it.” He waves the thought away.
“No. I am worried. I need you to know something.” I raise the coffee to my lips. “I really do appreciate what you’ve done for my mother. And me.”
“My pleasure.” He turns and heads off again, then turns abruptly back. “Come to think of it, there're a few things I need you to know too.” He pauses as if working up the courage to say what he needs to say, which is good, because I won’t have to figure out a way to ask him all the things I wanna know. His eyes find the ground and then slowly rise back up. “I want you to know that I in no way implied your mother was incompetent,” he blurts. “I merely suggested to the judge that it might not be the most appropriate time to discuss the issue at hand, whilst she was still undergoing assessment for competency—”
“And is she?”
His face goes blank. “I really think you need to talk to your mother about this.”
I feel my guts tighten. How am I supposed to do that when Mom doesn't understand?
“Can I ask you something else? Why Pamela? Why not you?”
“Well, I didn’t think it proper for a man to be attending a woman’s doctor appointment. Especially an older woman, but I also didn’t think it proper to leave her alone in that room, in her condition. She refused for me to involve Aunt Penny. So I thought of Pamela. Besides, she’s really grown to like Pamela over the year. And her Chinese doctor, as she calls him. So, I thought it was a good idea for her to have note-taker go in with her. So did he. And who am I to argue with the doctor?”
“I suppose that was a good idea.” I grin, crushed by a terrible sense of guilt that it wasn’t me. It should have been me. But I’m glad at least Mom had someone to go with her. I take a small sip of my coffee and turn my eyes from him, feeling dastardly ashamed.
“You have to understand,” Trent moves closer. “It was the only thing I could think of fast enough to circumvent what Jebson Jefferies was up to. The judge wasn’t fooling around. It wasn’t looking good, and it was the only way I could think to buy us time until I could figure out a way to notify you, so that’s why I involved Mrs. Peterson.”
“You knew about that? About her calling me?”
“I was the one who asked her to. I figured as town court reporter she'd have access to documents I didn't. And since she was present for the proceedings, I thought it would be less of a violation of your mother's trust to ask Mrs. Peterson to locate you and advise you of what was going on, since your mother was craftily keeping your whereabouts from me. And she wouldn’t let me go to Aunt Penny, so I had no other choice. Though I really don’t think she understood how serious things were getting. I figured as a court reporter, your mother would accept Mrs. Peterson meddling in her affairs, from a legal standpoint. Though your mother was under so much stress, I doubt she remembers any of it.” He glances away and back again. “I just couldn’t risk breaking your mother’s trust, you know? I couldn’t risk her locking me out of her life, forever. I’m the only friend she has around here…” His voice trails off quiet. He realizes what he’s said. His face turns slightly red. “I didn’t know what else to do. It all happened so fast. And your mother’s so blinkin’ secretive. Honestly, I didn’t know about the prelim-hearing until the very last minute, when she asked me to come with her.”
“She asked you?”
“Oh, yeah. I’d have never gone otherwise. Never even known.” He sips his coffee. “Your stubborn mother thought she could handle it all herself.”
Of course, she did. I lift my cup to my lips. “So like my fierce and independent mother.”
Trent gets a devious sparkle in his eyes. “Nut doesn’t fall far from the tree, I’m thinkin’, eh?” He grins.
I glare at him sideways, striking him down. Cheeky little brat, isn’t he?
“I’ll tell you one thing.” He leans onto his back. “That Jebson Jefferies is one dangerously, devious dude.”
“Believe me, I know.” I slurp my coffee.
“Anyway.” Trent pushes up from the rail, stuffing one hand in his pocket. “I did my best to hold things off until you got here and could investigate things further, including what’s going on with your mother. And to be clear, I in no way intended to have her to be declared incompetent by the courts. So if anyone claims that was my objective, that’s an outright lie.” He tilts his head sincerely toward me.
“Note taken,” I say.
“All right, then. I should be going.” He turns, cradling his cup and meanders back toward the porch.
“Trent!” I call, and he swings back around. “Thanks,” I say. “For everything.”
“No problem.”
Are you going to let him go, Becca? Do you seriously wanna drink this coffee alone?
“Trent?” I shout again.
He turns, shifting his weight and dragging one shoe through the gravel in the most enticing way.
“Wanna join me?” I hold up my coffee mug. “Unless, of course, the monkey bread can’t wait.” I grin, trembling inside.
“I suppose I could do that.” His face breaks into a deep-dimpled smile. That insatiable smile of his, the one that does weird things to my skin. “Just let me freshen my joe.” He salutes with his cup, then jogs away, returning in seconds holding a new, mug of fresh-roasted sw
eet -smelling coffee.
“Mmmm,” I sniff. “I want what you’re having. What is that?”
“You want me to—” Trent jerks a thumb back toward the house, and shifts as if to go get me some.
“No, no, no. I’m good.” I shake my head and tip up my cup, then settle back onto the rail.
He leans against it next to me, and sighs. “Great morning, isn’t it?” His gaze floats out over the river, toward the bay. The sun has just begun to spill over the top of the black-blue water. He sighs like he’s completely content. “Then again, every morning is good here. Gotta love this small town.”
“Or not?” I laugh, glancing sideways at him.
“What do you mean? You don’t?” He looks perplexed.
“No.”
“You’re not serious,” he guffaws.
“No. I never have.”
“Why? What’s there not to love?”
“Well, the mayor for one.” I slurp my coffee. “And then there’s… just about everything else.”
“Present company excluded, I hope.” He shifts his weight and leaning his back against the rail, displaying that wonderfully taut chest of his. “I mean, where else can you enjoy a mean sunrise like this?” He draws in a breath and stares out over the bay. “And the view—” he lets the breath out— “it’s second to none.”
He’s got me there. The sunrises here are spectacular.
“This, from a man born and raised in Australia?” I counter.
Trent smirks. “Yeah, Australia has its plusses, too—and its minuses.” His gaze becomes lost over the bay. There’s a sudden sadness in his eyes I’ve not seen there before—a strange fall of a melancholy drape.
“Like what?” I push, though I sense I shouldn’t.
“Oh, I dunno.” He becomes very serious. “A lot of things.”
“Such as?”
He hesitates, then flashes me a cold look. “I’m not sure I’m prepared to share all my secrets with a stranger.”
“We’re not strangers. We just spent the night together.” I glance at him, wryly.
“Touché.” He raises his mug to me. “So, why don’t you like it here?” He craftily changes the subject. “Because that could be a deal breaker, you know? A serious deal breaker.”