by Julia London
“He’s working. I’ll have him call you,” Jane said, vying for time. To do what, exactly, she had no idea.
“He needs to call me today, Miss Aaron.”
“He will. I’ll be there soon.”
Jane clicked off and looked at Riley. “Levi,” she said simply. “He’s been acting out in camp again.”
“Told you,” Riley said. “He’s always gets like this when Dad is gone a lot.”
“Like what?”
“Wild,” Riley said. “You haven’t seen it yet. It starts small, then gets really bad.”
Jane sped up.
Levi was unrepentant. He told Charlotte he didn’t have to do anything she said, and Jane could scarcely make him apologize. In the car, he climbed into his booster, then kicked the back of Riley’s seat. “Hey!” Riley snapped. “I’m on your side, doofus!”
“Levi, what is the matter with you?” Jane demanded as they drove away from the camp. “I thought you liked camp.”
“I hate camp!” he shouted. “It’s stupid!”
“Stupid is not a word we use,” Jane said automatically, the habit ingrained from teaching. “What happened today?” she demanded of Levi. “Did someone say something to you? What happened that made you throw a rock at a kid? You could have hurt him!”
Levi kicked the back of Jane’s seat. “I just don’t like camp.”
“Levi, this is very serious. I am going to have to call your dad just so you can go back tomorrow.”
“No! Don’t call him. I don’t want to go back.”
But Levi loved camp. Jane looked in the rearview mirror at him. “Come on, buddy, tell me what happened.”
The poor kid looked down. When he looked up again, he had tears in his eyes. “Jackson said my mommy is dead because she was crazy.”
Jane gasped with fury. Her hands closed painfully around the steering wheel. “That is not true, Levi, not true at all. Your mother had a car accident, that’s all. I don’t want you to worry. I am going to call your dad, and he is going to take care of this,” she said.
Levi didn’t say anything to that; he just stared out the window, looking terribly forlorn. He needed his father. Both these kids needed their father.
Back at Summer’s End, Jane tried to call Asher, but she was told he was in meetings and could not be reached. So she texted him and told him she had removed Levi from explorer camp, that Charlotte desired a call, and if someone didn’t do something about Jackson Harvey, she would. She got one word back from Asher: Done.
Early that evening, Jane dispatched Levi to get a trowel from the garage for some work in the garden. She was watering the tomato plants when Asher appeared at the garden’s edge. He was still in his suit, holding his briefcase. “I called Charlotte,” he said simply. “I called Jackson’s mom, too.”
Jane dropped the hose. “And?”
“She claims that Levi is doing a good job of name-calling himself and that he’s the one doing the bullying. It’s a he-said, he-said thing.”
“Levi is not a bully,” Jane said adamantly.
Asher frowned a little. “No, he’s not a bully. But Levi can act out with the best of them. I’ll talk to him.”
“Are you going to keep him in camp?”
“Are you kidding?” Asher asked, and for a moment, Jane’s heart sank. “Of course I am. He’d be crushed,” Asher finished, and Jane sighed with relief.
“Daddy!” Levi flew around the corner of the guesthouse with his trowel in hand.
Asher whirled around, squatted down, and caught Levi in his open arms. He picked his son up, hugged him closely. “Hey, buddy. I love you, man. I love you all the way to the moon, you know that? What happened today?” he asked, dipping down to get his briefcase before walking away from the garden.
Jane stood staring at the spot of ground where Asher had just stood. A moment later, she picked up the hose and the trowel Levi had dropped and continued working.
That night, after a frozen Kashi dinner and a lot of time staring at her thesis, Jane was unable to sleep for thinking of her many ponderous issues.
When at last she did sleep, it was fitful. She tossed and turned her way into an erotic dream. There was a man on top of her, his hands stroking her skin, his mouth hot and wet, moving down her body. “Who are you?” Jane whispered. He looked up and smiled. Asher.
Jane bolted upright, wide awake, her heart pounding, her body inflamed. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. What in the hell was going on with her?
19
Whatever Asher said to Levi must have worked, for the rest of the week passed without incident at camp and at home. Jane didn’t see Asher at all; her only contact with him was a couple of text messages inquiring about preparations for the pool party.
“Linda Gail Graeber must be beside herself,” Carla said midweek. “She’ll be bragging about this to all her friends.”
By Thursday, Jane still had not heard from Emma, and when she dropped Levi off at camp, she decided to swing by the offices.
“Hey, Jane!” Emma chirped when Jane walked in. “I was just about to call you.”
“You were?” Jane asked, her heart suddenly racing. “Did you find out anything?”
“I sure did. I’m sorry it took so long, but Macy had to find time to come down and look through some files, and that took forever—but the good news is, we have it all on microfiche, and let me tell you, there is no rhyme or reason to the way things have been filed around here. I’m going to talk to Ed about it. It’s ridiculous and a huge mess. Now here is the bad news . . .”
Jane’s heart skipped.
“We had to order the microfiche from storage, and it’s not indexed, so you’ll have to go through about thirty years’ worth on an ancient old reader.”
Okay, okay, that was not so bad; she could deal with that. “When?” she asked.
“We’ll have it on Monday. When would you like to come in?”
“Tuesday afternoon,” Jane said instantly.
“Great!” Emma said brightly. “I’ll see you Tuesday.”
Friday dawned a cloudless, beautiful-blue-sky day. Levi was up before nine, dressed in his board shorts. Riley woke up two hours later and began complaining the moment she did. She had a headache, she didn’t want to go, she would get sunburned.
“You’re coming to the party, and that’s that,” Jane said. “If you say another word, I am going to call your father.”
Riley snorted. “What’s he going to do, come racing home to spank me?” she said as she disappeared into her room. But an hour later, she came out again, wearing the new suit.
At the appointed time, Jane met Linda Gail and company on the driveway. The big gold minivan cranked to a stop, and a boy, who looked to be about ten, jumped out first. He was holding two big water blasters. “This is so awesome,” he cried, looking up at the house.
Linda Gail and Tracy followed. Linda Gail was wearing a black cover-up and flip-flops. “I see you’ve met my son, DJ. That’s short for Davis Junior. DJ, if I so much as see that gun pointed at anything beyond the perimeter of the pool, you will be taken home. Do you understand?” Linda Gail commanded, but she failed to wait for DJ’s reply before turning a bright smile to Jane. “Thanks so much for arranging everything, Jane,” Linda Gail said. “These kids have been looking forward to this all week. I hope you don’t mind, but I brought some pimiento cheese and Cheetos.” She handed a big Tupperware container to Jane and hoisted a shopping bag onto her arm. “The house is beautiful,” she continued as she grabbed giant beach bags, towels, and sunscreen, which she pushed into the hands of her children.
“Please come in,” Jane offered. “Riley and Levi are already in the pool. I’ll take you out.”
As they walked through the house, Linda Gail said again, “The place is really spectacular.”
“Isn’t it?” Jane agreed. “I still can’t believe I’m working here.”
“Susanna Price did all the decorating herself. She had a very good eye,” Linda Gail said with grea
t authority as they stepped outside.
The patio area was something else to behold. It was covered in satillo tile and padded red teak furnishings. There were two mosaics embedded in the tile, pretty patterns that broke up the monotony of the red. Huge clay pots contained crepe myrtles with impatiens planted at their base.
Jorge had helped Jane set it up for the party, arranging two of the teak lounges under an enormous umbrella. Underneath a vine-covered pergola was a teak table with chairs arranged around it and a large cooler with snacks and drinks for the kids. Jane planned to grill hot dogs later.
Linda Gail and Jane settled under the umbrella. DJ and Levi were already in the pool, making pretzels out of neon-colored pool noodles. Riley and Tracy were standing a little apart on the edge of the pool, Tracy chattering away, Riley with her big sun hat and arms folded tightly across her body. There was a breeze coming up off the lake, rustling the tops of the cottonwoods, and the view of Lake Del Lago was stunning. It was really a perfect day for a pool party.
Jane fetched iced tea for her and Linda Gail, and settled in to watch the kids.
“This is nice. Really nice,” Linda Gail said. “I could definitely get used to living like this,” she added with a laugh. “I like Riley’s hair pulled back like that. You can see her face. She’s going to be a beauty, just like her mother.” She settled back in her seat. “You know Summer’s End was the first mansion they built up here.”
“I didn’t know that,” Jane said. Riley and Tracy were now climbing on the grotto, up to seats carved into the stone. Jane considered that a promising sign.
“Oh yes,” Linda Gail said. “I heard Asher paid a small fortune at the time just to get out of Austin.”
The way Linda Gail said that—paid a small fortune to get out of Austin—sounded strange to Jane.
“So tell me about yourself,” Linda Gail said before Jane could ask what she meant. “Do you have family in Houston?”
“I do,” Jane said with a smile. “A big one.” She told Linda Gail about her family and the restaurant.
“That sounds like a fun group,” Linda Gail said. “Really, Jane, you’re so pretty and vibrant to be stuck in this town.”
Jane laughed. “I don’t know about that. This seems like a great place to be.” She looked at the kids, the boys engaged in a noodle war now, and the girls talking. Riley had dropped her arms and was facing Tracy, who, by the look of things, was still doing all the talking. “It’s your turn, Linda Gail. Where do you work?”
“I work for Wyatt Clark,” Linda Gail said. “I bet you’ve heard of him.”
Jane shook her head.
“You haven’t heard of Wyatt Clark? How long have you been in Cedar Springs, now?” Linda Gail declared and sat up. “He just might be the most tragic man in all of America. That man has cried tears as big as your fist.”
“Really? Why?”
“I’ll tell you why. Listen to this story,” Linda Gail said, and proceeded to tell Jane about the love triangle her boss had been caught up in. “I run his office,” she said, finishing her rather long-winded tale of the poor man’s convoluted love life. “He may have put the deal together for the Hill Country Resort and Spa, but I am the one making sure that thing stays on track. It opens next summer.”
“I’ve seen it,” Jane said. “That’s a huge resort.”
Linda Gail smiled proudly. Then frowned. “You never heard of Wyatt, huh? That honestly surprises me, because let me tell you something, there are no secrets in Cedar Springs.”
Jane blinked with surprise.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Linda Gail said cheerfully. “If you think no one knows about the Price family, you’re wrong. Everyone knows. They just won’t say.”
Stunned, Jane slowly put her tea down. “What about the Price family?”
“Didn’t they tell you at Marty’s?”
“Marty’s?”
“The placement agency,” Linda Gail said impatiently. “Marty Wilson owns it. They didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
Linda Gail waved a pudgy hand at her. “I’m probably making a bigger deal of it than it is,” she said. “It’s nothing, really. Susanna Price had a couple of issues, that’s all.”
Now she had Jane’s undivided attention. “What sort of issues?”
“I’ll put it this way. The Prices are a good family, don’t get me wrong. And Lord knows Asher has worked hard to be a good husband and a good father. But it wasn’t any great secret that the Prices weren’t the most normal family in Cedar Springs.”
“What are you saying?” Jane asked. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Asher’s mother plays bridge with my aunt, and, you know, I’ve heard things.”
“Like?” Jane pressed.
“Not anything to be alarmed about,” Linda Gail added hastily. “It’s just that Susanna Price did things that people in Cedar Springs don’t do. For instance, just before she died, she went down to Hilltop Photography Studio on the square. She told them that she was going to turn forty-five in the next couple of years and she wanted a portrait of herself before she got too old and didn’t look so beautiful.”
“That doesn’t sound so strange,” Jane said. Self-indulgent, maybe. Hardly crazy.
“Well, no . . . but what Susanna wanted was a nude portrait of herself. And they did it! Several different poses, all black and white. People in Cedar Springs don’t do stuff like that, and I thought . . . I thought maybe you’d heard. Or seen it,” Linda Gail added hopefully.
Jane shook her head. “Is that all?”
“Is that all?” Linda Gail laughed. “Some people think that’s art, and I suppose Susanna was one of them. But some people think you do something like that, you’re knitting with only one needle.”
Jane didn’t think a nude portrait made Susanna crazy, but she could see that some might believe the slightest deviation from the norm was suspect. “Mr. Price never said anything—”
“Oh no. He wouldn’t. In spite of their problems, he was entirely devoted to her. Honestly, if you want to know what I think, I think the only real issue was Riley.”
“Riley?”
Linda Gail nodded and leaned over the arm of her chair. “I suppose you know she was suspended from school for fighting last year.”
“No,” Jane said, her thoughts racing now.
Linda Gail chuckled. “They didn’t tell you much of anything, did they, sugar? Well, my Tracy has always liked Riley, even though Riley has made it hard. Apparently it’s not hard to pick a fight with her. Tracy says that Riley and her dad don’t get along. But you know how that is with these preteens, they—hey!” Linda Gail suddenly shouted.
Jane was startled, too, by the blast from DJ’s water blaster. She looked up; Levi was bent over with laughter, and DJ was grinning like a little devil, filling up the blaster again.
“That little stinker!” Linda Gail said, and heaved herself out of the chair to give DJ a lecture.
Jane got up, too, to have a word with Levi. She maneuvered him away from Linda Gail, who was giving DJ a good dressing-down. But Levi was so intent on the tongue-lashing DJ was receiving that Jane was having trouble steering him. She heard Riley say, “Dad, what are you doing here?” and thought she’d misheard.
Jane turned around and was surprised to see Asher standing on the patio, his gaze on her.
On all of her.
20
Jane Aaron was hot; there was no pretending otherwise.
Asher had not fully appreciated how hot she was the night he’d seen her floating alone in the dark. He’d been aware of her lush shape, but standing here now, in the light of day . . . hell. She was hot.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, abashedly glad he’d had Tara rearrange his schedule so that he could come home and join the party. He’d expected to find them all playing in the pool, maybe even lounging on towels around the edge. He had not expected that Jane would have ditched the functional bathing suit for a neon green bikini an
d one of those short little skirts. Or that she would look so amazing.
She seemed startled that he was there. He smiled; his gaze flicked down to the tip of that tattoo on her abdomen that taunted him, then up again. “How are things?” he asked, concentrating on keeping his eyes on hers.
“Great!” Jane said. Her hair was tied in that loopy knot at her nape, but she smoothed back the curls that had escaped it. “Is everything okay?”
Apparently he needed an emergency to be home. “Perfect.” He meant her, of course, and the force of that secret admission rocked him back on his heels.
“You’re home so early,” she added, as if he’d misjudged the time and mistakenly left the office too soon.
“It is shocking, I know,” he said with a wry smile. “But it seemed like a good day for a pool party.”
“Asher! What a great surprise!” Linda Gail called to him. Asher looked over Jane’s shoulder to see Linda Gail in her big straw hat waving her fingers at him. “We weren’t expecting you!”
“Slow day,” he called back, and to Jane he said, “I’m going to change and join you, if that’s okay.”
“Sure, of course.” She pushed those pesky strands of hair back again, but they floated back over her brow.
“Daddy!” Levi shouted. “Daddy, watch me!”
Asher forced his gaze away to Levi and watched him jump off into the deep end, then swim to the edge and climb out.
“Cool!”
“That’s DJ!” Levi shouted, pointing at Linda Gail’s boy. “He brought his water blasters!” Levi jumped back into the pool.
Asher noticed Riley sitting up on the grotto in one of the built-in seats. He had to admit, she looked great in her new swimsuit, although he wasn’t crazy about the henna tattoo. She was sitting with Tracy, their heads bent together, talking, Tracy’s hands moving as she talked. “Hello, Riley!” he called to her.
Riley lifted her hand and waved, then quickly turned back to Tracy.
“We are going to put some snacks out,” Jane said, drawing his attention back to her. She was looking at him curiously and, he thought, a little suspiciously, as if she didn’t believe he really had come home to join the pool party.