Nervous Jared. Playful Jared. Sweet Jared. Her head was beginning to spin with all the possibilities.
“Am I allowed to ask about that, by the way?” he asked, safely hidden on the other side of the kitchen island.
“About dating a culinary student?” She leaned across the countertop—easy to do, as there was nothing on it but empty takeout cartons. “I think it might be a bit late to ask me to cook. You just bought dinner.”
“No, I mean about Wally. Is your long-term career plan to sit around and wait for him to die?”
She didn’t like this conversation nearly as much as the other one. “Yes.”
“That doesn’t strike you as odd?”
“If I recall correctly, you said dabbling sounded wonderful. Also, Mr. Judgment? You live in a tent.”
He didn’t have time to switch to his condescending self—though the warning signs were there—before they were interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up.
“Are you expecting someone?” she asked, startled. She wasn’t normally so skittish at the thought of company, but her recent Janice ambush still loomed formidable in her mind.
“No.” Jared’s voice was gruff and his movements terse as he moved to the bay window near the front of his house. She allied herself at his side as they peered through the cheap plastic blinds that served as his only window covering.
A sleek silver sedan pulled up next to Jared’s Ferrari. Every time she saw the For Sale sign in the window of the car, she had to fight a desire to tell him to keep it. Now that she had firsthand knowledge that his small feet and shiny car were in no way indicative of his prowess, the car kind of appealed to her. It was so delightfully cliché. So delightfully him.
She was aware of Jared gripping her shoulder seconds later. His hand—so strong and capable, a surgeon’s tool—squeezed her so hard she almost let out a cry.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Who is that?”
“I apologize in advance for what you’re about to see,” he murmured as a man exited the car. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”
Gretchen could make out the tallish figure of a well-dressed man stepping through the shadows and onto the porch. Crisp summer linens weren’t something everyone could pull off, but they worked on this guy, rendering him elegant and cool.
Jared released her hand, and she looked over just as the little-boy face disappeared, replaced once again with the grim exterior he showed the rest of the world. Grimmer, if such a thing was possible. He pulled the front door open before there was enough time for a knock to sound.
As if expecting him to be waiting, the man nodded once and strolled inside. “Jared,” he said shortly.
Gretchen watched the interaction, curious about the tense way each man held himself. They could have been a pair of marionettes, for all they moved without ease or animation, no expression crossing either face.
“What are you doing here?” Jared asked.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’ve been trying to. It appears my success rate leaves something to be desired.”
Certain Jared would once again fail to follow the dictates of common human courtesy in introducing her, and determined not to be pushed aside again, Gretchen stepped forward with her hand extended. “I’m Gretchen. It’s nice to meet you, uh...?”
“Dr. Fine,” the older man said, accepting Gretchen’s outstretched hand. She was about to voice her confusion over the name when he put his second hand over hers and gave the same firm, perfunctory doctor shake she’d received from Jared the night he’d asked her out.
His dad. The villain himself. The measuring stick Jared refused to allow himself to outgrow.
“Another Dr. Fine. I seem to be surrounded by them.”
She’d thought it was a pretty good joke, but Jared’s dad barely noticed, fixating on her arms instead. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t let some jerk with his nose in the air judge her for her ink, but the disapproval was practically coming off this guy in waves—especially when he noticed her what-had-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time miniskirt. His brows snapped together, and he released her hand with a fake smile stretched across his face.
“I’m sure you won’t mind giving my son and me a minute, will you, sweetheart?”
Well, at least Jared came by his arrogance honestly.
“There’s no need.” Jared stilled her with a hand on her arm. “She’s with me.”
That statement wasn’t quite as comforting as one might hope. While she appreciated the effort, Gretchen felt as though she were standing between two columns, cold and crumbling, either one of which might topple on her at any second.
And then one of them fell.
“Let me guess,” the elder Dr. Fine said, his disdain a palpable, dirty thing. “I’m looking at none other than the cause of your midlife crisis. Is that it? Is she why you’re giving everything up for a mediocre medical practice and obscurity?”
Gretchen wanted to rankle under his words. She wanted to be strong, to fly up in her own defense. Heck—she wanted to elbow punch the bastard and flee to the safety of Jared’s backyard tent.
But something about the curl in his lip made it impossible to do anything but gape. That’s exactly how Janice looked at me the other day. Visions of her future self, the sagging forty-something college dropout, practically twinkled in this man’s eyes.
“I think maybe you should go,” Jared said coldly. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me, Jared. And you know it.” He addressed his next remarks to Gretchen. “Though I wonder if anyone has bothered to tell you. Do you have any idea what you’ve done here? Do you know who this man is?”
The condescension in his voice hit her hard. It wasn’t like Gran’s condescension, a warm sort of affection she’d come to recognize as her own. Or Jared’s condescension, which came from a place of uncertainty rather than malice.
His just felt cruel.
“Of course I know who he is,” she said quietly. “Don’t let the tattoos fool you, sir. I’m fully capable of reading and writing and even forming coherent thoughts from time to time.”
“Then you’re aware of his professional history?”
“I am.”
“Then you know what he’s giving up. You know what you’re doing to his career.”
No. That wasn’t fair. She knew she wasn’t the ideal partner for a man like Jared, that her way of life existed leagues from his own, but she’d never stepped in the way of his work. Never.
“Am I missing something here?” she asked, more to Jared than his father.
Jared scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s kind of complicated.”
“No, it’s not. It’s not complicated at all.” The elder Dr. Fine appeared to be losing his patience, his stance shifting, his hands picking up gestures at an alarming rate. “He was recently offered the job of a lifetime—and turned it down for reasons I couldn’t even begin to understand. Until now, that is. Funny how quickly things can become clear when a woman sways into the picture.”
His words landed on her like a sucker punch, robbing her of breath and sending the room spinning.
“Jared, can we talk?” she said, her teeth clenched. She turned to the elder Dr. Fine with a tight, “Excuse us for a moment.”
“I’m sorry about this.” Jared grimaced as they ducked into the hallway—not exactly private, but enough out of the line of fire to allow her to breathe again. “He’s not normally a stop-by-for-a-chat sort of guy.”
“I’m less worried about your father right now and more concerned about you. What haven’t you told me?” Her voice caught in her throat. “Jared—I thought you promised me you wouldn’t lie.”
“I’m not.” He gripped her hands, her fingers going almost instantly num
b. “Gretchen, I swear I never intended to keep anything from you. He’s just angry at me for turning down a job offer.”
“A job offer?”
“In Washington, DC,” he added almost absentmindedly as he rubbed her hands. “They wanted me to run the offices of Make the World Smile. I didn’t say anything because I turned it down. It’s a nonentity. It’s nothing.”
It didn’t sound like nothing. Her head whirled with the meaning of what he said—particularly that bit about Washington, DC—but Gretchen latched on to what seemed the most important part. “And when you say to run the offices, you mean...?”
“In charge. Head honcho. Master of their domain.”
Despite her sudden loss of air—or perhaps because of it—she choked on a laugh. “You’ve really got to stop saying that.”
A hesitant grin moved across his face, and the fight practically melted out of her, oozing onto the bland beige carpet. She’d have to take to wearing all white, her surrender was that obvious. She had no way of standing up to him like this. Still. A girl had to try.
At least this girl did.
“Why didn’t you take it?” A horrible thought occurred to her, his father’s words still ringing in her ears. “It’s not because of me, is it?”
“No. Yes. Maybe.” He gripped her tighter. “I don’t know.”
She snatched her hands back. She might have only known Jared a short time, but one thing had been patently, painfully clear right from the start. This man disliked his father—disliked him so much he made her own family look like The Brady Bunch. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to distance himself from his paternal ties.
Including dating someone like her.
Especially dating someone like her.
“Don’t freak out, please,” he begged. “I turned the job down for the same reason I moved to Pleasant Park in the first place.”
“Which is?”
“To start over. To find myself.” He shook his head. “Isn’t that ridiculous? I sound like I’m twenty-two and about to go backpacking across Europe.”
Forgive her for being self-centered here, but, “What does that have to do with me?”
“I don’t know yet, but please believe me when I say that it does.”
That answer meant nothing to her. And everything.
“Now I somehow have to go out there and explain that to a man who refuses to see the world through any lens but his own,” he added grimly. “You have no idea how hard that is for me.”
Yes, she did. Never what her teachers would term an overachiever, not once the top of the curve, she still knew exactly how much of Jared’s strength it would take to sit across from that man and have a real conversation. She knew how much he’d want to run, how terrible he’d feel about himself if he gave in and did just that.
She knew it all.
And Jared? He had no idea, no clue how hard she’d fallen. She’d been in love with him before he even realized she existed. She’d continue loving him long after he realized there were better ways to deal with an antagonistic parent.
“You can go in there and talk to him,” she said, shutting herself down, jutting a hip to show the hard-ass attitude she was far from feeling. “And you will go in there and talk to him. Not because you’re the famous Dr. Fine or because a roller derby girl is telling you to. You’ll do it because you owe it to yourself to hear what he has to say.”
“And you?” he asked, not blinking.
She paused and glanced up at the doorway, where the elder Dr. Fine appeared. “Me? I’m going to take the very large, very angry hint looming in the shadows. It was lovely to meet you, sir, but I think it’s high time I let you two enjoy a nice chat.”
She tried to sneak away without causing any more rifts in the father-son dynamic, but Jared disarmed her by taking her hand and giving it a squeeze.
Thank you, he mouthed.
I’m doomed, she didn’t dare mouth back.
* * *
If someone—not naming any names, though she might be short, annoyed with him and beautiful—had asked Jared to sit down and make a list of all the real, factual reasons he didn’t get along with his father, he would have been hard-pressed to fill the page.
He’d seen enough of the world and more than enough of real trouble to know that his life and upbringing were tinged with gold around the edges. Money, education, food, clothing...he’d never lacked anything on the bottom levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If he opened his mouth to make a request, it was granted.
But Jared had also seen enough of the world to realize that Maslow, the expert the entire Western world relied on to absolve it of its collective guilt, was wrong. A man didn’t need food and shelter more than he needed acceptance. A man didn’t need education more than he needed affection. He’d seen families crowded five to a room, their health nonexistent, stomachs tight with hunger, and known an aching jealousy for the lives they led.
“Quite a lovely place you have here,” his father said dryly. “Very luxurious. Your girlfriend do the decorating?”
“Don’t you dare say another word about Gretchen,” Jared said, his voice taking on a gunpowder edge. “I haven’t let you dictate who my friends are before, and I’m not about to start.”
His father sat across from him on one of the two chairs in his living room, his hands clasped in his lap as if to hold him in place. The man had never been good at being restful. That was one thing they had never shared.
Of course, they shared quite a few other traits. Jared got the temper and the unsteady character, the domineering manner and the cruelty. The elder Dr. Fine had all the finesse and good looks Jared himself was lacking. Tall, well-built, quick to smile. The tools necessary to hide as a monster among men.
“Don’t think I’m judging, because I’m not. She’s lovely. Exactly what a man needs from time to time.” His dad offered a small smile—one that didn’t reach his eyes.
No. Jared’s stomach recoiled. That was one thing they definitely didn’t have in common. Not anymore.
“You wanted to talk, so talk,” Jared said tightly. The sooner this was over with, the sooner he could hear the satisfying crunch of his father’s tires making their departure.
The elder Dr. Fine consulted his watch, a worn leather thing that had belonged to his own father. Little touches like that existed everywhere in his house and in his life—antiques and heirlooms and gifts from patients, the mementos that meant something to normal people. They were all part of the paternal charm his father exuded, the one that made people trust and like him.
“The jungle has hardened you. You used to be better able to hide your dislike of me.”
“Maybe the jungle made me realize what a waste it is to say anything other than what I think. Time is a luxury, Dad. Along with everything else in your life you take for granted.”
“Fine. I’ll be the villain and you the saint. You’ve always been most comfortable that way.” He leaned on his knees, drawing closer to Jared without actually narrowing the distance between them. “But that doesn’t mean we aren’t on the same side for once.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve already turned down the position. It’s done.”
“Don’t do this because you’re mad at me. It’s petty and beneath you.”
“It has nothing to do with you! This is about me. My life.” Or lack thereof. “I appreciate that everyone seems to assume I’m somehow destined for this job, but that’s not who I am anymore.”
His dad gave a bitter laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it’s who you are. It’s all you’ve ever been.”
“Why do you even care so much?” he asked, half to himself. “You never even wanted me to join Make the World Smile in the first place.”
The day he’d signed up had always been one of the best i
n his memory—followed closely by the day he’d made the decision to go into plastics instead of orthopedics. He’d practically lived for those moments back then, those rare opportunities to throw off the yoke of his paternity.
How sad that seemed in retrospect. Real memories were forged of tiny triumphs, of meaningful kisses and friendly banter.
“Yes, it certainly seemed that way, didn’t it?”
Jared gripped the edges of his chair. “What did you just say?”
His father released a sigh. “Enough with the antagonism. I’m old, Jared, and I’m tired of playing these games with you. I’m sorry I was never able to be the father you wanted, but we don’t always get to select our strengths and weaknesses in this life. Believe me, if that was the case, I would have chosen differently.”
But Jared wasn’t about to let go. Maybe a man didn’t get to choose his strengths and weaknesses—maybe he would always be one outburst away from breaking down entirely, one mistake away from losing it all—but that didn’t mean he was past hope. His tenacity had served him well in the field; his perseverance was a real asset in business. And there was no denying that something about him appealed to Gretchen. That alone gave him value. That alone made him strong.
“What do you mean, it seemed that way?” he persisted.
“Nothing.” His dad sighed. “You were determined to make your own way. And you made it. Congratulations.”
Jared examined the man opposite him, a man so much better at schooling his features than Jared had ever been. One of his dad’s many talents was the ability to manipulate people without their ever knowing it. He stole their strengths, magnified their weaknesses, turned them into malleable bits of bone and flesh.
How easy would it have been for his dad to manipulate a younger version of himself? He’d been so wrapped up in his plans for the future that all it would have taken was one word, one push in the opposite direction, and he’d have been off and running.
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