by Sylvie Kaye
"Sometimes trust simply takes letting go.” Ken smiled at Eric.
Eric munched popcorn.
"I guess I'm not ready to let go yet,” Jilly said.
"Or is it that your aunts aren't ready to let go of you?” Ken raised his brow.
"Maybe I'm not ready to let go of them."
"Enough.” Eric looked pained. “You two lost me two let-go's ago."
Jilly commiserated with his confusion. She felt just as lost.
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Chapter Twenty-Three
Zack showed up on Jilly's doorstep with his toolbox in hand, looking like a big teddy bear, all cuddly and reliable and comfy to be around. Jilly had missed him more than she cared to admit.
Of course, if she admitted the truth, the fuzzy bear in her bedroom didn't melt her bones or race her pulse, and she didn't lust over it.
After a cool, “Hello,” Zack went straight to the job at hand, Aunt Vinny's rocker. “Looks like a hammer mugging.” Hands on his sexy hips, he stared down at the lopsided rocker in the parlor.
On closer examination the chair did look like a crime scene, assaulted and battered.
"Don't be silly, Zachary,” Aunt Vinny piped up, crocheting while seated stiffly on the sofa. “We don't own a hammer. Maybe Papa has one in the storage room, but neither my sisters nor I, or Jilly for that matter, know how to use one. If you recall, that's why we hired you."
She tittered away with what Jilly thought was overkill. She doubted her aunt gave as many details to her priest during confession.
Still she went on. “The chair crumbled suddenly. All on its own. Luckily, I wasn't rocking in it at the time."
Zack shook his head while testing one wooden rocker with his foot.
Aunt Vinny stood and fled the room. “I think Adele needs my help in the kitchen.” Her fading words echoed down the hall.
Leaving Jilly alone with Zack in the same room, completely unchaperoned. Quite a shock. Jilly stood next to him, a word apart, breathing the same air he breathed, inhaling his musky aftershave—which smelled like temptation and gave her a pheromone rush. Now that she had him to herself, she couldn't think of anything to say. Nothing sane anyway.
"Let me show you how pink my bedroom is,” popped to mind. That would've been a prelude to getting him between her pink sheets and was off limits according to his edict from the weekend. Not to mention her bedroom was in her aunts’ home.
"Nice tool belt.” More verbal foreplay to touching below the belt, which she couldn't do in her aunts’ house either.
His stare switched from the chair to her eyes. The gray in his eyes surrounded her like a mist, sinking her further into his thick fog. “I'm glad you showed up,” she said at last. “I didn't like the way we left things this past weekend."
"Me either.” He touched her cheek and her heartbeat slowed.
Not wanting to rehash the trust issue from the weekend, she changed topics. “Do you feel as if my aunts have abandoned us?"
He shifted his eyes. “I'm sure one of them is lurking somewhere.” He peeked under the fringed lampshade.
Jilly laughed. “No, we're completely alone."
"At last I've won their trust. Now I only have to work on their niece."
Jilly fidgeted, glanced away at the rocking chair. There was that ‘trust’ word again.
Following her gaze, he said, “I'd better get started on the rocker.” He flipped the chair over, then spread himself and his tools out beneath it.
Jilly stayed, unable to pass up the opportunity to ogle his muscles in action—even with his clothes on. She curled up on the rug beside him to hand him tools and to dream up naughty scenarios.
Zack was stretched out on his back beneath the upturned rocker, head turned toward Jilly when the aunt's feet came into view.
"We tried and tried,” Aunt Adele said, holding the hand sweeper over him. “But none of us can open the dust cup to empty it."
Zack craned his neck upward from beneath the rockers as Jilly offered, “Let me try."
Before Jilly spoke her last syllable, Aunt Adele jiggled the dirt cup open, and dust sprinkled down like fairy dust onto the zipper of his jeans.
Jilly gasped. Aunt Vinny gasped too, but hers sounded faked.
"Oops,” Aunt Gloria said.
Aunt Adele tsked, “My, my."
Zack sprang up, bumping his head on one of the wooden rockers of the chair. The air reeked with a rotten egg smell. He brushed at his pants, but the powder didn't flick off. Instead his broad hands rubbed it in.
The dirt stuck like a magnet.
Aunt Vinny smiled. “No harm done."
"No, no harm.” He rubbed the top of his head where he'd bumped it and massaged whatever remained on his hands into his hair.
Aunt Vinny smiled wider.
Jilly blinked as her eyes reddened. The stench obviously getting to her.
While Aunt Adele dithered apologies, Aunt Gloria looked stone-faced.
"Dinner's in ten minutes.” Aunt Adele turned to leave. “Maybe you'd better wash up now, Zachary."
No one was surprised when he didn't stay for dinner, going back to his hotel room to shower instead.
The next night was canasta as usual, Zack noted. What wasn't usual was Jilly not having to drive her aunts over to Hannah's place? Or pick them up afterward.
Eric offered to drive them and the aunts accepted. He arrived promptly at seven thirty. Zack still wasn't sure if he trusted him completely around Jilly, in spite of his alleged relationship with Ken. The man spent too much time with her for Zack's liking.
While Eric waited for the ladies, he admired the repaired rocking chair. “Nice work.” He plopped himself onto the seat. “If you have the time, Ken has an idea for a custom piece he's been hankering after."
"I'm kind of full up.” Zack smiled at Jilly. He was hoping she'd keep him fully occupied.
Eric rocked back and forth a few times, breaking in the newly repaired rockers until the aunts showed up. The ladies carried a cake server, a photo album, and a tote spilling over with lace and needles.
Yeah, Zack thought, that must be one helluva card game they played.
When Eric stood up, he flicked at his hands. “Yuck.” He wiped them on his pants. “What kind of wood is this? No offense, Zack, but the sawdust stinks."
"Oh.” Aunt Adele adjusted her hold on the cake dish. “I had an accident with the chair and the hand sweeper yesterday. Vinny must've missed that bit when she swept up this morning."
"I'm sorry. I-I got distracted when I swept under the bookcase.” Aunt Vinny seemed flustered. She must've had another memory lapse, Zack figured.
"It's all cleaned up now.” Eric brushed his palms over the arms of the chair once more and then onto his pants before ushering the ladies out the front door.
"I don't get it.” Zack scratched his head, then winced. He'd forgotten about the bump he'd gotten from the rocker the night before. “It's as if somehow your aunts know we've parted ways on our views concerning togetherness."
"Oh? I thought we'd gotten past that misunderstanding.” Jilly sucked her sexy bottom lip beneath her pearly teeth, tempting him to want that lip between his. But he stopped himself. He'd meant it when he vowed no more sex without trust.
Obviously, he hadn't made himself clear to Jilly. Keeping his hands off her without her cooperation would be difficult. If he resisted while she persisted, he didn't stand much of a chance of holding out for long.
He sat her down on the blue velvet sofa. “Let's talk.” His voice softened. He didn't want to rile things up like he had out at the swamp. He wanted her to agree with him. Somehow.
She smiled at him with her bright blue eyes. Blazing a trail right to his heart. His groin. He sighed. She wasn't making this easy.
Curling her legs up onto the sofa, she appeared relaxed. No tension, no stress, no eye tics.
Glad not to be squeezed into her schedule, like another chore with ‘x’ amount of minutes meted out for t
alk and lovemaking. If you could call her hurry-up-and-get-it-up attitude lovemaking.
But tonight she wasn't rushed. The evening stretched before them like a long, hot summer. This felt like the perfect time to discuss more serious issues.
"I understand why your aunts don't trust men. Because of their experiences with The Incident and Cousin Neville...and other members of the opposite sex in the family. Except Grandpapa, of course.” Now that he started, he'd rather have bitten his tongue. His words sounded awkward, stilted.
Jilly smiled, tolerantly. Maybe at the men in her aunts’ lives, but probably at Zack and his lousy job of explaining his feelings. Still, she looked at ease. No twitches or tight muscles that he could spot. So he forged forward.
"I gather from your aunts your father didn't help either...to form your views on men...or trusting in them."
Jilly nodded. Still amiable and attentive. And smelling sweet like vanilla wafers, which for some reason softened his heart and his brain, almost making him forget about the messy triangle she'd entangled him in. Sex and trust and a relationship.
But he shook off her scent and said in his defense, “I'm not any of those men, Jilly. I'm me. And I'm different from every one of them."
"I've noticed.” She smiled, lovingly. Anyway he wanted to take the glint in her eyes for love.
"I can't allow us to continue to have meaningless sex.” There he'd said it. Loud and clear. No misunderstanding that.
"Define meaningless.” She tilted her head.
"Lacking serious feeling or intention."
"Sex with you means a lot to me. I feel a closeness to you. A warmth.” She touched his arm. His flesh flamed despite his honorable intentions. “I like you, Zack."
"I want more than like,” he murmured.
"But you're leaving and I'm staying."
"Once I finish the construction project, I can work anywhere I please."
"That might be your intention now, but you don't know what's going to happen. No one knows what the future holds. Suppose your father offers you a partnership rather than lose you. Or some Wisconsin girl with lots of time and no aunts falls onto your mattress. I wouldn't ask or expect you to pass up a better future because of me."
"I want you in my future,” he said simply.
"Now. But things change. Situations change, people change. Everything always changes."
"That's where trust comes in."
She let out an exasperated breath, but smiled. “We're never going to see eye to eye on this."
He leaned in. “Yes, we could. If you stay open to it. You don't even have to try, just be open to it.” He stared into her bottomless blue eyes.
Her lashes fluttered yes.
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Chapter Twenty-Four
Saved by the bell.
The doorbell, in this case. Jilly leaped up to answer the door and forego the serious talk Zack seemed hell-bent on discussing.
"I'm back.” Mischief glittered in Eric's green eyes when Jilly answered the bell.
"So you are.” But why, she thought, waving him inside. “You smell much better."
"That rocker had some raunchy sawdust on it. I stopped by the apartment for a quick shower after I dumped, or rather, dropped the ladies off at Aunt Hannah's to play cards.” He whooshed by Jilly and headed into the parlor.
Jilly closed the door and joined the men in the other room. Eric avoided the rocking chair and plopped himself onto the opposite end of the sofa from Zack.
"Welcome back.” Zack's voice lacked enthusiasm.
Eric held up his hands like an announcer to gain audience attention. “I have some really good news."
"What?” Jilly squeezed between the two men like a referee. “You know how I hate to guess."
"Or wait.” Eric laughed and his mustache twitched.
Zack forced a grin she noticed.
"So tell me, quick.” Jilly patted Eric's hand to coax him along.
"There's an opening in the bookkeeping department where I work.” Eric grinned. “It's a great starting position. I'd like to recommend you for the job."
She was speechless. Her dream job was within reach. All the benefits that went with a higher paying job flashed through her mind—affording a companion to chauffeur her aunts around, spare time for herself.
"That's great. Congratulations.” Zack hugged her close.
"Before you get carried away.” Eric snatched Jilly from Zack to turn her toward him. She caught a glimpse of Zack's frown before she faced Eric again. “You need your degree."
Whatever joyful words Jilly was about to utter dried up. “The new semester starts in a week, but I still need three more courses. I couldn't swing a degree until spring. Can they wait that long to fill the position?"
"Sorry.” Eric shook his head.
Zack pulled her toward him again, putting a comforting arm around her shoulder. He was always so sympathetic to her needs. He made it difficult not to want him, not to give in and give a serious relationship with him a shot. “Let's not jump off the scaffold yet,” he said. “There has to be a way to work this out."
"Right.” Eric tugged her toward him. “Take all three courses and get it over with now."
"I wish. Between a fulltime job and my aunts, I can't handle that many classes.” Not only were the men tugging her back and forth, they were doing the same with her dreams.
"How about minus the aunts?” Zack asked.
"Where are we going to stash them?” Eric asked.
"Nowhere.” Jilly knew they were kidding, but she jumped up anyway.
"I'm serious.” Zack slapped his hand to his knee. “Can you handle the course load and your job if your aunts weren't a consideration?"
"Just the job and the classes?” Jilly paced across the pink-and-green carpet studying the designs. “It would take hard work but, yes, I guess I could do it."
"Then it's settled. Next week when the semester starts, sign up for the three courses. I'll take over here in the evenings."
"I can't let you do that.” Jilly paced toward Zack. “You and my aunts don't exactly get along."
"I'll be here anyway.” He shrugged. “I have to fix the wrought iron balcony. After that I can putter. There's always something to do around a house."
"There's more involved than tinkering around the house. There's running involved. Running errands and shuffling my aunts to various functions.” Jilly paced faster. “Granted, they don't have much of a social life, but I hate to deprive them of what little they do have."
"I can handle canasta nights.” Eric raised his hand. “And tutor you. I'm great with figures."
Zack outright scowled at Eric's last offer.
Jilly ignored his frown and grabbed Eric's hand. “Thank you. That's so sweet of you."
"I'm sweet, too.” Zack looked up, his eyes connecting with hers.
"Yes, you are,” she said. “Too sweet. I can't take advantage of your offer."
"Sure you can,” Eric volunteered for Zack.
With a persuasive smile, Zack nodded. “Believe him. I won't feel the least bit put out."
"Then it's a done deal.” Eric clapped Zack on the back and Zack reciprocated.
Jilly wanted to protest, but their enthusiasm sucked her in.
Eric broke the news about the job opportunity to her aunts when he picked them up from Hannah's. By the time they arrived home, they were over the top with delight. A celebration including Aunt Adele's special tea recipe and bourbon balls was quickly thrown together.
"Are these made from real bourbon?” Zack asked, biting into one of the delicate chocolates.
"Oh, no,” Jilly said. “They're named after Bourbon Street. Right, Auntie?"
Her aunt smiled.
Some days Jilly's aunts were a handful.
Right now, Zack's hands were steering his truck over to their place. Unlike last week, when his knuckles turned white while wheeling the ladies around the Old Metairie neighborhood in search of a glove shop that
had apparently closed its doors years ago.
Aunt Gloria admonished her sisters, “A lady must always wear gloves. Grovers’ Gloves."
Except with her jogging suit from the sneer on Aunt Vinny's face.
Then there was the day he'd driven the aunts to a church social. He'd ended up playing Bingo for three solid hours, after he fixed the lopsided leg on the table used by the farsighted preacher who'd had enough trouble calling numbers without listing at an angle. Zack was starting to feel like their personal Man Friday, make that Handyman Friday.
So far he'd installed a closet shelf, shimmed the storage room door, spackled a cracked ceiling, and puttied a few loose windowpanes. Not to leave out securing the wrought iron rail on the balcony. While out there, he'd watered the flowers. The thirsty red petals had perked right up as a show of their thanks.
That had been a few weeks ago. When he pulled the truck up, he glanced at the boxes wondering if the flowers were ready for another drenching.
He waved to the neighbor Mickey Muller while he trotted across the courtyard. Next week, Zack planned on tackling some leaky pipes in the bathroom. The plumbers down at the job site promised to run interference if he ran into any serious problems.
Zack liked doing things around the place. He liked the beaming thanks he got from Jilly. With one slight kiss, she softened his heart, and hardened his arousal. But he kept to his guns. No sex without trust. Not that there were any chances to risk his mindset with the tight schedule she was on.
Grabbing an awl from his tool case, he walked the perimeter of the house, checking the wood shingles for rot. He supposed the aunts were warming to him. Last night, Aunt Adele had asked, “Zachary, what's your favorite meal?” Once he told her, she announced she was going to fix kielbasa and sauerkraut for dinner tonight.
Aunt Vinny was needle pointing a souvenir pillow of New Orleans for him. She'd stitched in a bright green alligator, Mardi Gras masks in brilliant purple, gold, and green, and an ominous looking voodoo doll with colorful feathers sprouting from its head. She'd even told him, “Keep the change,” when he handed her a quarter after color matching and purchasing her Floche thread at the sewing shop.