by Sandra Brown
"You know what we mean, dear," Sarah said. Tears were glistening in her eyes. "You're all we have left. We—"
"That's not so!" Jenny cried angrily, getting out of her chair. "You have Cage. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm ashamed of you both. Sarah, do you realize how you hurt Cage last night? You might not be pleased with everything he does, but he's still your son. You wished him dead!"
Sarah bowed her head and burst into tears. Jenny, ashamed of her outburst, sat back down. Bob patted Sarah's shoulders in a feeble attempt to comfort her.
"She was distressed last night when the two of you raced out of here," Bob explained to Jenny. "She realized what she had said and was sorry about it."
Jenny sipped her coffee until Sarah's tears subsided. Finally she set her cup in her saucer. "I've decided to leave."
As Jenny had anticipated, they were stunned. For several moments neither of them moved. They stared at her with blank, disbelieving eyes. "Leave?" Sarah wheezed at last.
"I'm going to move out of the parsonage and begin a life of my own. For years I've been living here, biding my time until Hal and I got married. Perhaps if we had married and had children…" She let that thought dwindle away. "But since we didn't, and since we never will now, there's no reason for me to stay. I have to make a future for myself."
"But you have a future with us," Bob argued.
"I'm a grown woman. I need to—"
"We need you, Jenny!" Sarah cried, clamping a damp, cold hand on Jenny's arm. "You remind us of Hal. You're like our own daughter. You can't do this to us. Please. Not now. Give us time to adjust to Hal's death first. You can't go. You just can't." She broke down again, burying her face in a sodden tissue.
Jenny felt a cloak of guilt closing around her. She had a responsibility to them, didn't she? They had taken her in and given her a home when she had had nothing. Didn't she owe them something? Time? A few weeks? A few months?
The thought of it depressed her, but then duty often did feel shackling.
"All right," she conceded dispiritedly. "But I won't live under Mrs. Hicks's censorship or anyone else's. I was engaged to Hal and I loved him, but he's dead. I've got my own life to lead."
"You've always been free to come and go as you like." Bob said, happy now that talk of her leaving was over. "That's why we bought you the car."
That wasn't the kind of freedom Jenny referred to, but she didn't think they would understand if she tried to explain it to them. "My other condition is that you both apologize to Cage for what you said last night."
When they would have protested, she stared them down. Their eyes fell away from her steady gaze. "Very well, Jenny," Bob said at last. "For your sake we will."
"No, not for my sake. For his and for yours." She stood up and headed for the door. "I think Cage will forgive you because he loves you. I only hope God will."
* * *
The grocery baskets crashed together. Jenny's rattled upon impact. A box of detergent toppled over. Canned goods rolled about noisily. A roll of paper towels bounced onto the carton of eggs.
"Hi."
"You bully. You did that on purpose."
His grin was slow, lazy, and totally unrepentant. "It's a great device to meet a pretty woman on a slow afternoon. Crash into her grocery cart. Then she's flustered, sometimes angry, but always at your mercy. Ideally I try to lock up the wheels of the carts." He glanced down and frowned. "You were too quick for me."
"You're without conscience, Cage Hendren."
"Absolutely."
"Then what happens?" Jenny asked him. "I'm fascinated."
"You mean after—"
"After you've crashed into her grocery basket and gotten the wheels locked together and she's flustered, etc. What do you do then?"
"Ask her to go to bed with me."
Jenny took that piece of information like a soft cuff on the chin. "Oh." She maneuvered her basket around his, which was empty, and continued down the aisle of pet food. Since the Hendrens didn't have a pet, the attention she gave the shelves was rather ludicrous.
"Well, you said you were fascinated," Cage said defensively, pushing his cart up beside hers.
"I am, I was, but I thought you'd lead up to the seduction a little more subtly."
"Why?"
"Why?" She spun around to look up at him, letting her perusal of tender morsels and chewy bits lapse for the moment. "You mean it's that simple? Just like that?" She snapped her fingers.
He wrinkled his brown in feigned concentration. "Not always. A few times it has required more time and effort." His golden brown eyes swept over her, taking in her neat slacks and cotton knit pullover. "Now, take you for instance. I'm betting you'd be a difficult case."
"Why do you say that?"
"Will you go to bed with me?"
"No!"
"See. I'm right every time." He tapped his forehead with his index finger. "When you've been doing this sort of thing as long as I have, you learn a few things along the way. You develop a sixth sense. I could tell immediately that I would have to use the long, slow, easy approach with you. It was the way you frowned slightly when the box of Tide mashed your bag of marshmallows. A dead give-away that you weren't going to be easy."
She gazed at him in mute wonder for several seconds, then burst out laughing. "Cage, I swear, you're amoral."
"Shameless." He winked. "But I'm sincere."
She turned out of the pet food aisle into another. He barged in front of her, blocking her path. "You look terrible."
"Is that an example of the long, slow, easy approach? If so, it needs work," she said dryly.
When she tried to go around him, he adroitly turned his basket sideways to block the aisle entirely. "You know what I mean. You look tired. Way too thin. What are they doing to you over there?"
"Nothing." She avoided his eyes.
But she knew she wasn't deceiving him any more than she had been deceiving herself. The Hendrens hadn't listened well to her declaration of independence. Or else they had listened, but were ignoring what she had said. They had every day's activities outlined for her before she came down to breakfast.
First there had been all the acknowledgments to be written after Hal's funeral. She had been almost grateful for that job because it had allowed her to call Cage and ask him to pick them up and mail them. That had created an opportunity for his parents to apologize to him.
It had been an awkward reunion. Cage had stood at the front door, looking like he feared they wouldn't invite him in. Jenny had held her breath, unable to distinguish the words he and Bob exchanged in the hallway. Then he was standing in the living room, looking at Sarah, who was huddled on the sofa. At last she raised her head.
"Hello, Cage. Thank you for coming by."
"Hello, Mother. How are you feeling?"
"Fine, fine," she said absently. She shot a questioning glance toward Jenny, who nodded her head slightly. Sarah wet her lips. "About the other night, the night of Hal's … funeral. What I said—"
"It doesn't matter," Cage had rushed to say. He crossed the room and knelt on one knee in front of his mother's chair, covering her pale, bloodless fingers with his hand. "I know you were upset."
Jenny's heart had gone out to him. He wanted so badly to believe that. But whether Sarah's apology was sincere or not, whether he believed it or not, they were at least voicing aloud the sentiments they should feel.
Jenny's chores at the parsonage seemed endless. The Hendrens had even discussed the possibility that she continue Hal's crusade to help the political refugees in Central America. Even the thought of tackling such a campaign exhausted her, and she refused to speak at rallies and such. But she had taken on the job of sending out a newsletter that detailed the problems as she had witnessed them firsthand and asked for donations to further the relief cause.
She knew her eyes were shadowed with fatigue, knew that she had lost weight due to a notable lack of appetite, knew that she was wan and pale from not spending any
time outdoors.
"I'm worried about you," Cage said softly.
"I'm tired. Everyone is. Hal's death, the funeral, it's all taken its toll."
"It's been over two weeks. You spend more time in that parsonage than ever. That's unhealthy."
"But necessary."
"The church is their calling, not yours. They're going to make an old woman out of you if you let them, Jenny."
"I know," she said wearily, rubbing her brow. "Please don't badger me about it, Cage. I told them I needed to move out, but—"
"When?"
"The day after the funeral."
"Why didn't you?"
"They got so upset, I couldn't. And, really, it would have been cruel to move out right after they had lost Hal."
"So what about now?"
She smiled and shook her head. "I don't even have a job. At least not a paying one. I know I've got to make a life for myself, but I've let them manage things for so long, I don't know how to go about it."
"I've got an idea," Cage said suddenly and grabbed her arm. "Come on."
"I can't leave the groceries."
"You don't have the ice cream as an excuse this time. I caught you before you got to the freezer."
Figuratively she dug her heels in. "I can't leave a full basket of groceries in the aisle of the store."
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Cage said irritably. He spun the basket around and, taking long striding steps, pushed it to the front of the store. "Hey, Zack!" The store manager peered over the partial wall of his office. He was counting back money to someone who had cashed a check.
"Hiya, Cage."
"Miss Fletcher's leaving her groceries here," he said, parking the basket near a display of pots and pans that could be obtained with saved coupons. "We'll be back for them later."
"Sure, Cage. See ya."
Cage picked up a Milky Way bar as they passed the candy counter and saluted the manager with it before looping his arm over Jenny's shoulders and leading her from the store.
"Did you steal that?"
"Sure," Cage said, peeling the candy open and cramming half of it into his mouth. "This half's for you."
"But—" He stopped her protest by popping the remainder of the candy bar into her surprised mouth.
"You never stole a candy bar?" Jenny shook her head, shifting the huge bite of candy from one side of her mouth to the other in an effort to chew it before it choked her. "Well, it's about time you did. Now you're my partner in crime." He opened the door of his Corvette and gently, but inexorably, pushed her into the passenger's seat.
Cage drove through the busy downtown streets with only a little more discipline than he drove on the highway. He turned into a curbside parking space in front of a row of offices. When he got out, he reached beneath the seat of the car and took out a cloth bag. It was the kind the city used to cover parking meters on holidays. He slipped it over the meter in front of the Corvette and winked at Jenny before catching her elbow and ushering her to the door.
"Can you do that?" she asked, worriedly glancing at the covered meter.
"I just did."
He unlocked the office and she stepped in ahead of him.
But she came to an abrupt halt on the other side of the threshold and stared around her in dismay. The room was in semidarkness, but it only looked worse when Cage went to the window and adjusted the dusty blinds to let in more sunlight.
Jenny had never seen a room in such disorder. A sad sofa, straight out of a fifties television situation comedy, was pushed against one wall. The rose-colored upholstery, which hadn't had much going for it in the first place, was grayed with generations of dusty. The cushions were hollowed out in their centers.
Ugly metal shelves took up another wall. They were stuffed with papers and ledgers and maps, the corners of which were curled and yellowed.
Every available ashtray was full to overflowing.
The desk in the middle of the far wall should have been junked years ago. A deck of playing cards held up the corner where one caster was missing. It was piled with dated magazines, littered with empty coffee cups, and crisscrossed with scratches and scars. An egotistical vandal had carved his initials in one corner.
Jenny turned to Cage slowly. "What is this?"
"My office," he said abashedly.
Incredulity caused her jaw to drop open. "You actually run a business out of this trash heap?"
"I wouldn't go so far as to call it that."
"Cage, if Dante were alive, this is how he would describe Hell."
"That bad?"
"That bad." Jenny ambled toward the desk and picked up a half inch of dust on her finger when she dragged it over the marred surface. "Have you ever had this place cleaned?"
"I think so. Oh, yeah, once I hired a janitor service. The guy they sent over was a real cutup. We got to drinking and—"
"Never mind, I get the picture." She edged around an overflowing waste paper basket and went toward a door she assumed belonged to a closet.
"Uh, Jenny…" Cage lifted his hand and tried to forestall her, but it was too late.
As the door opened a giant wall calendar swung outward and tipped her on the shoulder. She jumped back, startled. But not nearly as startled as she was when the calendar seesawed back and forth until it came to rest on its nail and she saw the glossy photograph.
The pouting redhead was sporting a strategically placed shiny blue star that had "Deep in the Heart of Texas" inscribed on it. Pillow-sized breasts with nipples as large and red as strawberries took up a good portion of the picture.
Cage cleared his throat uncomfortably. "A crew of roughnecks gave me that last Christmas."
Jenny shut the closet door firmly and turned to face him. "Why did you bring me here?"
He pushed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, withdrew them, then lightly slapped his thighs nervously. "Here, Jenny, sit down," he said, suddenly lunging forward to clear off a place on the sofa for her.
"I don't want to sit down. I want to get out of here so I can breathe some fresh air. Tell me why you brought me here."
"Well, you said you wanted a job and I was thinking—"
"You can't be serious," she interrupted him, gleaning his thought.
"Now, Jenny, hear me out. I need someone to—"
"You need a demolition squad, then a bulldozer. After they're done, I suggest you start from scratch." She headed toward the door.
He blocked her escape and clasped her shoulders. "I'm not talking about someone to clean it up. I'll get it straightened up. I thought you could answer the telephone, do general office work, you know."
"You've survived without someone all these years. Who's been taking your calls?"
"An answering service."
"Why change now?"
"It's damned inconvenient to check in every hour."
"Wear a beeper."
"I tried that."
"And?"
"I had it hooked to my belt, but I, uh, lost it."
Her eyes flew up to his. He looked away guiltily. "Hm, I can see how having it hooked to your belt could get inconvenient." She tried to move around him again. He held her forcibly.
"Jenny, please, listen. You need and want a job. I'm offering you one."
"A chimpanzee could be trained to sit and answer a telephone. Besides, you said you have an answering service."
"But how do I know they get all the calls? Besides, there are other things to be done."
"Such as?"
"Correspondence. You'd be surprised how much."
"Who's doing it now? You?"
"No, a friend of mine."
She gave him another I'm-on-to-you-mister look and he sighed in exasperation. "She's about eighty-seven and myopic and uses a vintage typewriter. The capitol T is always half a step up from the other letters. And she has a crooked S."
Narrowed green eyes glared up at him suspiciously. "Was that a subtle play on words?"
"No, I swea
r, but I'm glad you caught it anyway. It means you're not a totally hopeless case."
She ignored that and gazed around her. "You don't even have a typewriter."
"I'll buy one. Any kind you like."
The thought of being more productive was intriguing and challenging, but she knew she couldn't accept his offer. With a defeated stoop to her shoulders, she shook her head. "I can't, Cage."
"Why not?"
"Your parents need me too much."
"You hit the nail on the head. They need you too much. Do you think you're doing them any favors by waiting on them hand and foot? They're middle-aged, but if they don't have a purpose in their lives, they'll grow old very fast. They need to get their lives going again, but they won't ever do that if they become so reliant on you.
"I've never had a child, so I don't know what it's like to lose one. But I can imagine that the temptation would be to curl up and die yourself. If you keep catering to Mother and Dad, that's what they're likely to do."
He was right, of course. Every day the Hendrens seemed to shrivel up more. And as long as she was convenient for them to rely on, they would use her until all their lives had been wasted.
"How much would you pay me?"
His face broke into a strong, wide grin. "Mercenary little bitch, aren't you?"
"How much?" she demanded, not nearly as piqued by his vulgarity as she should have been.
"Let's see," he said, rubbing his jaw. "Two-fifty a week?"
She had no idea if that was fair or not, but she wanted to leap at it anyway. Still, she hedged, pretending to be considering it. "How many paid holidays do I get?"
"Take it or leave it, Miss Fletcher," he said sternly.
"I'll take it. Nine to five with an hour and a half off for lunch." That would give her time to go to the parsonage and take the meal with the Hendrens, though the thought of eating lunch out every day was much more exciting. "Two weeks paid vacation, plus all the holidays the postal service takes. And I'll work only until noon on Fridays."
"You drive a hard bargain," Cage said, frowning. Actually he was thrilled. If he'd had to double the salary and meet any conditions, he would have done so to get her free of the parsonage and out from under his parents' control.