He reached over and rubbed a bit of lipstick off her cheek. “You mussed you! Why wouldn’t you muss me?”
Jenni giggled. “We’re going to be okay. I promise.”
They went to the door, and her mother opened it, looking Tony up and down, before presenting her cheek for Jenni to kiss. “Hi, Mom. I’ve missed you.”
“Is that why you got married without me? Now tell me how you met this young man!” Tony’s first impression of Judy Thompson was that she was much shorter than her daughter.
Jenni reached for Tony’s hand and followed her mother inside, where they were led to a formal living area. Jenni sat on the couch and pulled Tony down beside her before answering. “I first saw him in line for the cruise ship. He was a little surprised by Kaya and Bridget.”
Her mother sighed. “I should have known those two were the friends you were going on the cruise with. I hope they behaved.”
“They sang I Got You Babe to each other on the last night of the cruise in front of a roomful of people,” Tony offered.
Jenni glared at him. It was the first time he’d opened his mouth since meeting her mother, and it was to insult her friends.
Judy sighed. “I’m sure that was pleasant.”
Jenni had only ever brought the twins to her mother’s house one time, and the two of them had argued with each other. They hadn’t been invited back. “We had fun, Mom. I kept running into Tony on the ship, and we got married our third night.”
Her mother shook her head. “So you knew each other for less than forty-eight hours?”
“A little less,” Tony said. It was obvious Jenni didn’t want her mother to know they’d actually met at the altar.
“I can’t believe you married someone you knew for such a short time. Where will you live?”
“For now we’re going to share my apartment in Roanoke, but we’ll look for a house together.”
Her father stepped into the room then, his gaze going from Tony to Jenni and back. Jenni stood up and embraced her father, kissing his cheek. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hello.” His gaze was steady on Tony as he hugged her. “Introduce me.”
Jenni stood back and took a deep breath. “This is my husband, Tony Jarrett. Tony, this is my father, James Thompson.”
Tony stood up and offered his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, sir.”
“What do you do, Tony?” her father asked.
Tony stood, not sure if he should sit down before her father or what was expected. He knew basic manners. He didn’t know how to act around people like this. “I’m a CPA. I work for a firm in Grapevine.”
“What firm?” her father asked.
After Tony named the firm, he added, “I’ve been there for four years. I’m working my way up to being a partner.”
“That’s a good goal.”
“Thank you, Dr. Thomspon.”
“You know who I am, then?” her father asked, one eyebrow raised. “You didn’t marry my daughter to get your hands on my money, did you?”
“No sir. I’m not sure I’d have married her if I’d known you were her father, to be honest with you. I’m very much a man who believes in independence in all things.”
Jenni took Tony’s hand and pulled him onto the couch, sitting beside him. “He’s a good man, Dad. No worries there.”
Her father sat down on a sofa across from them, obviously not convinced yet. “Where did you grow up, Tony?”
“Arlington. I went to UTA for grad school, just like Jenni.”
“We didn’t want her to go to UTA.” Her mother’s voice was flat.
Tony wasn’t certain how to respond to that. “I see.”
“We were hoping she’d go to a good college back East, but her choice was UTA, for whatever reason. She had the test scores and grades to go wherever she wanted.” Her father frowned at Tony as if it was his fault she’d gone to a college they didn’t want her to go to years before he’d met her.
“She seems to be happy with where UTA took her in life.” Tony hated that her parents were talking about her as if she wasn’t there. No wonder she hadn’t wanted them to be involved in the planning of her wedding.
A young woman stepped into the room. “Dinner’s ready.”
Jenni stood, ready to get the evening over with. “I’m starving,” she said.
Three hours later, Tony was relieved to finally be able to leave the house. Jenni hugged both of her parents goodbye.
“When will you be back?” her mother asked.
Jenni shrugged. “I have to go back to work on Thursday. I’ll probably be here close to Easter, like usual.”
“Are you working on Easter again this year?”
“Probably. But we can come for dinner that night.”
“I’ll count on that,” her mother told her. “I’ll send a wedding gift to your apartment. If you need help decorating when you move into the new house, let me know.”
Jenni smiled. “Thanks.”
They walked to the truck, and Tony opened her door for her to get in. He’d never done that before, but under her father’s gaze, he didn’t feel like he could do anything else.
After he’d pulled out of the driveway, he released a breath filled with pent-up emotion. “Now I know why you didn’t want them at the wedding.”
“They love me!” Jenni said, knowing it was true. “But they don’t approve of anything I say or do. I could have married the boy they wanted me to marry, and I still wouldn’t have done it right. My dress would have been wrong, or my veil would have been too short or too long.” She groaned. “I forgot to take our wedding pictures. Mom would have been happier with me if I’d taken them!”
“I’m sure she would have. Oh well. We’ll be back, I’m sure.” He shook his head. “Is your trust fund tied to them?”
“No, it was from my grandmother. She said that no woman should ever be reliant on her husband for wealth, and she shouldn’t need to work if she didn’t want to. So she left me a whole lot of money so I wouldn’t feel the need to work or marry young.”
“Do any women feel the need to marry young in this day and age?”
She shrugged. “Some do. I didn’t. There are still a lot of girls who go to college to get their MRS degree.”
“Their MRS?” he asked.
“You’ve never heard that? Their missus? They go to college to find a man to marry?”
He laughed. “Nope. Never heard that one.”
“You’ve obviously never lived in a female dorm.”
“Nope…I wanted to, though.”
She grinned at his teasing. “I think tonight went really well, considering my parents are my parents.”
“Just don’t make me see them too often.” He sighed. “And it’s going to be a pain if you work totally different days than me.” He didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to him she might not have weekends off.
“I know, but I don’t have the seniority to do anything else.”
He frowned. “My work is mostly solitary. I’ll talk to the partners, and maybe they’ll let me change my days off. I can work on the weekends as well as during the week.”
“That would be great if you can swing it.”
As he drove back toward Roanoke, his thoughts were on the people he’d met that night. Their world was so different from his own, it was as if it was another planet. “That was a weird experience…sitting in a house like that and letting people serve me food.”
“It always feels weird to me now as well. I mean, it didn’t when I was living there, but after a month of being in college and eating in a cafeteria, I realized just how strange my life had been.”
“You didn’t realize before that?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.
“No, not really. I didn’t have any super close friends in high school, and if I had, they would have been friends from the same social status. I had no way of meeting real people. I know that sounds strange, but I don’t know what else to say. The people I knew were as fake as my parents.”
She sighed heavily. “No, fake isn’t really the right word. Their whole world seems very pretentious to me. No one needs to shop for school clothes in Manhattan when there’s a perfectly good Walmart around the corner.”
“Walmart? Do you think your mother has ever set foot inside a Walmart?”
Jenni laughed. “The idea of it is kind of scary, isn’t it? No, I guess I don’t think she’s ever been in a Walmart, and that’s the whole thing. Who doesn’t go to Walmart? I mean, it’s the most annoying store on the planet, and you stand in line forever, but everyone goes there. It’s the best place to buy almost everything. So why has my mother never been to Walmart?”
“I don’t know! She’s your mother, not mine. I only know what I’ve read about them, and what I saw tonight. I know my mom has been to Walmart a million times. It’s her go-to place.”
“Because your mother is normal, and my family is as far from normal as they get. They love me as much as they’re able to, and I live with knowing that.”
“What would make you feel better?” he asked.
She shrugged. “We could stop for ice cream? Would that be okay? Heidi’s answer would be Taco Bueno tacos, but we just ate. I could enjoy dessert, though.”
“Just so you don’t eat as many as you did that one night at dinner on the cruise…”
“Wait! Did you see when they pushed all their desserts in front of me and snapped that picture?”
“I saw you with a bunch of desserts in front of you. Are you trying to blame your friends for that too?”
She groaned. “They were to blame! Those two need to be locked up somewhere…separate cells though. No one needs to deal with the two of them together.”
He laughed softly. “I saw them push the desserts in front of you. When they snapped the picture, I almost laughed. I would have if I hadn’t been so annoyed with how obnoxious they were.”
Jenni shrugged. “Good friends are worth keeping, obnoxious or not.”
“That they are.”
He pulled into a Braum’s parking lot. “When you say ice cream, I can only assume you mean Braum’s.”
“Well, of course! What else could I possibly mean?”
“Well, you could mean Dairy Queen, and I’d take you there if that’s what you wanted, but I’d be disappointed in you and your taste buds.” He parked the truck and turned to her. “I’d have had to figure that growing up on all that fancy food broke you, so you didn’t know what was good.”
She made a face. “Trust me. I know good food!”
Thirty minutes later, they were on their way home again. “Thanks for being willing to stop for ice cream. I’m not sure I would have been able to steady my nerves without it,” Jenni told him.
He laughed. “You’re going to be a bear when you’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
She went still. “Pregnant? You want kids?” She couldn’t believe they’d never actually discussed children. Of course, they’d been a bit preoccupied in the short time they’d known each other.
He blinked a few times. “Yeah. You don’t?” He was sure he’d talked to Dr. Lachele about wanting kids. He’d always wanted several, having hated being an only child. Finding out he had siblings he couldn’t contact had only made the feelings worse.
“No. I’ve never wanted kids.”
His heart fell. How could Dr. Lachele have matched him with a girl who didn’t want children? “Really?”
Jenni realized she’d teased him enough. “Nope. Five or six would make me happy. Of course, my mother would be absolutely scandalized. How could someone of my breeding not know how to prevent children?”
“Will you still work?”
Jenni shrugged. “Probably. I don’t see myself wanting to give up my education by staying home. Do you have strong feelings either way?”
“Not really. I guess I’d prefer you were home with the kids until they were in school, but if you’d prefer a nanny or something, I’m fine with that.”
She sighed, relieved. “I just hope I can have kids. My mother had a hard time, if you’ll remember.”
“You don’t seem to be a whole lot like your mother.”
“Thank you, Tony. No one has ever said anything kinder to me than that.”
Chapter Eight
The first couple of weeks of marriage were an adjustment for both of them. Jenni had to work her usual long hours, and with it being tax season, Tony was working sixty hour weeks anyway. They decided to start looking for a house after April fifteenth, because that’s when his schedule would be freed up more.
So one Wednesday afternoon in late April, they met with a real estate agent, and began shopping for houses in Southlake. Tony immediately went into sticker shock. “We can’t afford any of these!” he said to her while they followed the real estate agent in her car. “What did you tell her our price range was?”
Jenni shrugged. “I figured anything under a million would be fine.”
He choked. “Anything under a million? Are you serious? Unless nurses make a whole lot more than I think they do, that’s a ridiculous figure!”
“I have a trust fund…”
“You have a million-dollar trust fund?” He took a deep breath, because that had sounded like an accusation, and he hadn’t meant for it to. “Do you really want to spend your whole trust fund on a house?”
She shrugged. “It would be a fraction of my trust fund. And I think it would be smart to just pay for it, and then not worry about having a mortgage. You could take the money and invest it however you wanted.”
“I don’t know if I’m ever going to get used to having access to that kind of money,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not criticizing you for having it, and I don’t want you to think I am, but it’s weird.”
“At this point, it’s still in a separate account. Do you want access to it?”
He thought about that for a moment. “No, I don’t think I do. I’d rather keep it like it is. You have access to that, and I have access to both of our incomes.”
“That works.” She reached over and squeezed his hand as they pulled into another driveway. “Look at this one with fresh eyes, knowing the money is there. I really liked the huge bathroom at the last house.”
“But it was so big! What would we do with all that space?”
“Live in it. We both want a big family. What would it hurt to have what we want?”
He couldn’t look at money the way she did, but he didn’t argue with her. As they followed the real estate agent through the house, she pointed out various features. “This one comes with all stainless steel appliances. There are four bathrooms and six bedrooms. There’s even a den on the first floor that would be perfect for a home office for you,” she said to Tony.
Jenni looked through the house, liking that the master bedroom was on the first floor, as well as one other bedroom. “This would be a nice set-up for when the kids are small,” she told Tony. “There’s even an intercom system that connects to the upstairs rooms, so we wouldn’t have to worry as they’re a little older and upstairs on their own.”
The bedroom had huge his and hers closets, as well as the exact bathroom Jenni wanted, with a huge garden tub, and a separate shower. Even the commode had its own separate room with a door. “I love this one,” Jenni announced after they’d been through the whole house.
He frowned. “I just can’t see spending that much on a house.”
She sighed. “Then we’re going to have to leave the Southlake area. Do you want to go to Roanoke?”
“I hate the idea of you spending that much money on a house, and me not even helping with it.” That was at the core of his problem. He didn’t want it to be her money paying for it.
She shrugged. “Up to you. I think we should put an offer on it, but I’m not going to push too far.”
The agent was watching them carefully. “Do you want me to step out so you can discuss it?”
Jenni
shook her head. “No. If he doesn’t want it, then we’re not getting it.”
“Oh, it’s not that at all. I love it. I just don’t think we should put that kind of money on it.”
Jenni tilted her head to one side for a moment, thinking. “What if we went to a lawyer and had him put it in writing that the house would be mine if we ever split?”
“Could we do that legally in Texas?” He didn’t know enough about divorce laws to know if it was even possible.
“No idea, but if it will make you feel better about it, we can try. I love this house, and I want it. It’s the perfect location, and just what I had in mind.”
Tony frowned, rubbing the back of his neck. He wanted her to have what she wanted, knew she had the money, but something was holding him back. Pride maybe? He felt like he should be able to give her the things she wanted, but with her money, it was the other way around. “I guess.”
“Really?” Jenni practically squealed, bouncing up and down.
He nodded, against his better judgment. He wanted her to be happy, and if this house would do it, then he’d buy it. He looked at the real estate agent. “We want to make an offer.”
The agent smiled, pulling out a piece of paper.
Jenni insisted on going out to celebrate that night, and Tony agreed, though after what they’d just offered on the house, he didn’t think they should ever spend another dime for the rest of their lives.
While they ate, Jenni carefully brought up money. “I’m planning on paying for the house upfront, but I think we should have a joint checking account that you manage. I do spend money a lot more frivolously than I should, given my profession.” She wasn’t sure she really meant what she was saying, but she knew they were words he needed to hear.
He nodded. “I think a joint checking account would be smart. I’ll deal with our paychecks and day to day expenses. It’s what I’m good at.”
“What about my trust fund? Do you want access to that?”
He frowned. “How does your fund work? Are you paid a monthly allowance, or what?”
She nodded. “I'm allowed to pull out up to ten percent for a home, but other than that, I get a monthly payment. More than enough to keep me happy for my entire life. I could quit work tomorrow and never know the difference in my income.”
Teasing in Texas (At the Altar Book 10) Page 8