by SUE FINEMAN
“Furniture polish,” said Jenna.
“Well, I don’t like it.”
Of course not. She didn’t like anything.
Jenna brought Katie inside, got her aunt settled, and went to the kitchen to look for something to fix for dinner. She had to go grocery shopping, but she didn’t have much money left. The mood Aunt Mattie was in, she didn’t dare ask for money now.
She looked over to see Al watching her rummage through the cabinets, looking for something to eat. He handed her a twenty dollar bill. “Order a pizza.”
“Thanks. Do they deliver out here now?”
“I think so. If they won’t deliver, I’ll go pick it up. Whatever kind you like.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Now Al understood why Jenna hadn’t been around the inn lately. The old woman was brutal. Had he made a mistake in letting Mattie stay in the inn? Jenna looked beaten down already, and Mattie had just gotten home. What would it be like next week and next month? Would Jenna stay that long? Why would anyone hang around to be badgered and belittled?
Listening to Mattie rag at Jenna made him thankful for the way he’d grown up. He didn’t have a father, but his mother dished out love and encouragement like spaghetti. Instead of criticizing Jenna, Mattie should be thanking her. If not for Jenna, she’d probably be in a nursing home by now.
It was hard to look at Jenna without remembering high school. She was nice to everyone in the ninth grade, but halfway through the next year, she began to change. She dumped her friends and started hanging out with Brian and his crowd. She was probably just trying to fit in, but she went about it all wrong. Brian had always had a cruel streak, and he manipulated people into doing things he didn’t have the guts to do himself.
<>
A sexy, blue-eyed blonde beckoned to Al in his dreams that night, and he woke fully aroused. He lay wide awake for several minutes, listening to the night sounds and trying to get his mind off Jenna and her soft lips.
The old inn creaked and groaned in the wind. This building had been battered by the wind for over a hundred years, and if taken care of, it could last another hundred years. If someone else had bought this property, they might have torn it down, but this old inn had a lot of character, and there was enough land around it to ensure privacy. Maybe it would never be an inn again, but it could be a nice home for a big family someday. It wasn’t much bigger than Blade and Maria’s house, the last one Al had designed for the family.
Everyone in the family had a bedroom for his mother, and she made the rounds, staying with everyone for a few days, filling their freezers with Italian delicacies and spoiling her grandchildren. She’d taken care of them all after Al’s father was killed in a work-related accident, and now they took care of her. He didn’t remember his father, but he remembered how his mother held the family together on Social Security and baby-sitting. When Nick showed up one day, dirty and so skinny there wasn’t much there but bones and bravado, Ma took him in. He was the cousin from New York, the one who’d been beaten and neglected by his alcoholic mother, the kid who was scarred on the outside and the inside. The kid he loved like a brother.
Someday, if he could find the right woman, he wanted a family like his, with kids who’d fight the outside world to protect one of their own.
<>
Sophia Donatelli was in Nick’s office downtown when a distinguished older gentleman walked in.
“Sophia?” He took her hand. “I haven’t seen you in ages. How have you been?”
For a minute, she couldn’t place him, and then she knew. Phillip Collier. Gina dated his son before she married Will. Phillip’s hair had turned white and there were wrinkles around his eyes, but he was still an incredibly handsome man.
“Phillip, it’s nice to see you again. How’s the family?”
“I lost my wife three years ago. The kids are all married, and I have four beautiful grandchildren. What about you? Grandchildren?”
“Seventeen so far. I’m so sorry to hear about your wife, Phillip. I didn’t know she’d passed away. Are you retired now?”
“I tried it for a few months and then went back to my law practice. With Helen gone, it was too lonesome at home.”
Sophia knew all about lonesome, since her dear Vincent had been gone for more years than they’d been together, but with seven kids, she’d always managed to keep busy.
Phillip’s mustache curled on the ends when he smiled. Vincent had worn a mustache when they’d first married, and it tickled when he kissed her.
She watched and listened while Phillip talked with Nick about an older home he was thinking of buying and having remodeled. “George Smith said your company did that kind of work.”
“Sure we do,” said Nick. “Where is this house?”
“It’s at the end of Gig Harbor bay. My doctor tells me to get more exercise, and I thought if I lived there, I might walk more.”
“My doctor tells me the same thing,” Sophia told him, “but the kids won’t let me walk alone.”
“Why?”
Nick put his hand on Sophia’s shoulder. “She had a little stroke a few years ago.”
Sophia pushed the thought away with her hand. “It was minor. I take blood pressure medicine now.”
“I had a heart bypass the year Helen died,” said Phillip. “Why don’t we walk together, Sophia?”
“Well, I—”
“Great idea,” said Nick, and before Sophia knew what had happened, she’d agreed to meet Phillip at seven the next morning to walk around the harbor.
<>
After lunch the next day, Al left to get his computer, Katie napped with Callie, and Aunt Mattie snoozed in the chair in her bedroom in front of the television, when a shiny gold Cadillac pulled up outside. A minute later, Bruce and Louise Baxter walked toward the door. Brian was nowhere in sight, which was just as well. His parents were a handful all by themselves.
Jenna met them at the door. “Katie is taking her nap. I can bring her by later if—”
Bruce puffed on his cigar. “We came to see where my granddaughter is living.” He pushed his way into the foyer, his cigar clamped between his teeth. Jenna waved her hand and wrinkled her nose to give him a hint, but it was hopeless.
Funny how they’d never come to see the apartment in Seattle. Maybe they were hoping to catch Nick here. “Please don’t smoke in here. It makes Katie wheeze.”
“Nonsense,” said Louise. And that was the last word Jenna could get in. Louise walked around talking. The furniture was old and worn out, it was placed all wrong, the kitchen needed to be modernized, the living room drapes were faded and dusty, and who let a cat inside? In the meantime, Bruce’s cigar stunk up the place.
“Don’t smoke in here,” she said over Louise’s chattering.
“I’ll smoke anywhere I damn well please.”
A deep voice from the doorway said, “Not in here, you won’t.” Al set the box he carried on the table in the foyer and grabbed Bruce’s arm. “Outside with that.”
They were almost to the front door when Bruce yanked his arm away and stopped cold. Al snatched the cigar out of Bruce’s mouth and threw it out the door. It landed near the Cadillac.
“Who in the hell do you think you are?” Bruce yelled.
Jenna stepped up beside them. “Al, this is Bruce Baxter, Katie’s grandfather. Bruce, this is—”
“I don’t care who in the hell he is. Get your things and get out. Find another place to live. I’m buying this place, and I don’t want you here.”
Louise squealed. “Buying? But Bruce—”
Al pointed to the front door. “Get out of my house.”
Louise started, “Well, if you aren’t the rudest—”
Jenna yelled over Louise’s shrieking voice. “My aunt and my daughter can’t take the smoke.”
Bruce’s eyebrows came up. “The old lady is here? I’ll just—”
“You’ll just leave her alone. She’s trying to rest.” As if anyone could ‘rest’ with
this racket.
Bruce looked Al up and down. “Are you the one who hit my son?”
“Yeah. He was interfering with the work.”
“Your name is Donatelli?”
Al propped his hands on his hips. “Yeah, what of it?”
“I told Brian he should sue you for assault.”
“Fine. Sue me. Now get the hell out of my house, and don’t come back.”
The two left muttering to themselves. Al turned to Jenna. “Didn’t you tell them who owned the inn?”
She waved her hand at the departing car. “They don’t give anyone else a chance to speak.”
Al walked around the living areas opening windows. It was a little cool outside, but he expected his family over this weekend, and he didn’t want the place smelling like a fire sale. “If they come back, don’t open the door. One of my sister’s kids has asthma and they’ll be here for Sunday dinner.”
“Your sister and her kids?”
“My whole family, or most of it. They all want to see the inn, and they’re bringing the food. Knowing my mother, there’ll be enough to feed a small army.”
“How many are coming? Do I need to find the leaf for the table?”
“Probably.” Al had to stop and count. Tony and Catherine were in California, so they wouldn’t be here, and Vinnie and Vickie had other plans. “Angelo and Teresa and their twin babies, Nick and Cara and their three, Gina and Will and their two boys, Maria and Blade have six kids, but they’ll only have five with them. And my mother. That’s twenty, give or take.”
Jenna nearly choked on a laugh. “Twenty people?”
“Plus the four of us.” There were usually ten more at these Donatelli family dinners. If it was up to his mother, it would be every Sunday instead of once a month.
“Jenna,” Mattie called. “Is something burning?”
“Not anymore.” Jenna walked into the bedroom. “Katie’s grandfather came to visit, and he smokes cigars.”
“You know I don’t allow smoking in the inn.”
“I know. Good thing I didn’t marry his son, huh.”
“Well, you should have married somebody instead of having a bastard.”
Jenna left the room. She’d made a mistake coming back here. She should have told the people at the hospital to send Aunt Mattie to a nursing home. Living in a dumpy little apartment trying to get by on unemployment and child support while she looked for a decent job would be better than staying here. Aunt Mattie had always been overbearing and critical. Uncle Charlie had made life tolerable, but when Uncle Charlie died, all the warmth went out of this place.
At least Katie was happy. She had kitties to play with.
<>
Al finished moving his office and set up his computer. He’d already strung in some extra power and a high speed internet connection, but it took time to get everything set up and positioned like he wanted. He put his computer in front of the window so he could watch the boats and barges out on the sound while he worked. Some people might find it distracting, but he couldn’t work facing a wall. He had to see outside.
He had his file cabinet nearly filled when he heard a sound at the door. Katie was rubbing her eyes, and she had tear streaks down her cheeks. “What’s wrong, punkin?”
“Aunt Mattie don’t like me.”
“Did she say that?”
“She told Mommy I was a bassard.”
Al knew he shouldn’t get involved, but he hated to see a kid hurt by this kind of thoughtless remark. Picking on Jenna was one thing. Laying that kind of garbage on an innocent kid was something else. He took Katie’s hand and they walked downstairs to find Jenna. She was in the kitchen. “We have a problem.”
“Was she bothering you?”
“I don’t want her in my office, but that’s not the current problem. She overheard you and Mattie, and now she thinks she’s a ‘bassard.’ I don’t think she knows what it means, but she caught the tone of voice. Aunt Mattie doesn’t like her.”
Jenna sighed deeply. She leaned down to hug Katie. “Aunt Mattie doesn’t like me either, honey. She’s a grumpy old lady who doesn’t know what she’s saying half the time.”
“Why is she so grumpy?”
“Because she’s old and her arm hurts. Stay away from her for a few days, okay?”
“Okay.” The kid saw a cat and ran off to play.
Jenna calmly stirred the stew cooking on the stove, and then she marched in to talk with Aunt Mattie. “Let’s get one thing straight. Any discussion of my marital status is off limits. Don’t you ever call Katie a bastard, and if you make my little girl cry again, we’re out the door and you’ll find yourself in a nursing home.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Katie overheard one of your tirades. No more lecturing, Aunt Mattie. Whether I marry or not is none of your damn business. I gave up my life in Seattle to come here and help you through a bad time, and all you’ve done is bitch at me. Enough already.”
“Don’t you talk to me like that,” she snapped.
Jenna was livid. She’d grown up with this crap, and she wouldn’t subject her little girl to it. “You’ll either treat me and Katie better or we’re leaving. Your choice.”
Aunt Mattie didn’t respond, so Jenna pushed on. “I’ll do the shopping tomorrow morning, but I’ll need money for groceries.”
“I’ll put you on my bank account, but you can’t use it for anything else but groceries and my medicine.”
“Then what do you want me to do with all your bills? Al shouldn’t have to pay your overdue electric bill.”
“Then pay the bills, but that’s all. I don’t want you squandering all my money.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Jenna said mostly to herself. If she spent a nickel on herself, the old witch would probably have her arrested.
After dinner, while Aunt Mattie sat at the kitchen table sipping her tea, Jenna loaded the dishwasher with the good china. She wanted to have the dishes and the dining room clean for Sunday. There’d be a lot of kids here. She’d have to clear the clutter from the living room and bring some of Katie’s toys downstairs.
Al was lucky to have a big family, people who cared about him. All she had was a sweet little girl and a surly old lady she couldn’t please.
She thought she’d be glad to be back at the inn, but now that she was here, she couldn’t wait to leave. Aunt Mattie’s venom was spilling over to Katie, Al hated her for the way she’d behaved in the past, and being here reminded her of the people she’d lost.
Her parents’ personal things were stored in one of the attic rooms, and she wanted to go through them while she was here. Aunt Mattie wouldn’t let her do it when she was a kid, but she was no longer a kid, and Aunt Mattie didn’t have to know what she was doing.
Maybe she could find some record of her parents’ investment in the inn. Aunt Mattie seemed sure they’d only put fifty thousand into it, but Jenna remembered them selling the house so they could buy a half-interest in the inn.
Aunt Mattie and Uncle Charlie didn’t have to spend their own money raising her or putting her through college. Her parents had money when they died. They didn’t spend it on her, so what did Aunt Mattie and Uncle Charlie do with the money?
Chapter Four
Al hammered the PRIVATE PROPERTY sign into the ground beside the driveway. A few feet down the drive, he put the other one into the ground. NO TRESPASSING. The sign for the inn had to come out, but before he could get the job done, Brian Baxter drove in and parked down by the inn. Since the guy’s daughter was living here, Al couldn’t stop him from visiting, but he hated like hell to have that creep hanging around the property.
Walking down the drive toward the inn, Al saw Brian take two big suitcases from the trunk of his car. Oh, no! If Jenna wanted to live with that jerk, she’d have to do it somewhere else.
Sprinting down to the car, Al asked, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Moving in. What in the hell are you doing here?
My old man is buying this place, and he wants you gone.”
“He’d better have at least ten million, because I won’t sell it for less.”
Brian looked stunned. “You own this place?”
“Yeah, and I don’t intend to share my home with the likes of you, so put your junk back in your car and get lost. If you want to visit with Katie, call Jenna and make arrangements.”
Al walked inside and twisted the lock. If he had to, he’d put a gate across the drive to keep the pests out.
Brian pounded on the door and demanded to talk with Jenna, but Jenna was helping Mattie with her bath. “She’s busy,” Al said through the door.
“I’ll wait.”
“Fine, but you’ll have to wait out there.”
Al poked his head in Mattie’s open bedroom door. Mattie and Jenna were in the bathroom. He could smell the steam from here. “Jenna, Brian is on the front porch with his suitcases. I told him you were busy and he said he’d wait.”
She groaned. “Did you tell him—”
“I told him to get lost. I’m not sharing this place with Brian Baxter. If you want to live with him, you’ll have to go elsewhere.”
Jenna came out, water splashed all over her clothes and anger burning in her eyes. “Live with him? You’ve got to be kidding.”
Mattie yelled, “You get back in here right now.”
Jenna helped her aunt get dressed and washed out the tub before she opened the door. Brian was pacing on the porch. The second she opened the door, he stopped pacing and lit into Jenna. “Why are you living in his place? Do you two have something going on? If you do, I’ll take Katie away from you.”
No, he wouldn’t, because he didn’t want the responsibility, but she resented the implication and the threat. “I’m here to take care of my aunt. Come in and meet her.”
She walked into Aunt Mattie’s bedroom with Brian and introduced them. “Aunt Mattie, this is Brian Baxter, Katie’s father. Brian, this is Mattie Worthington.”
“Yeah, yeah, nice to meet you,” said Brian. Without giving Aunt Mattie a chance to speak, he turned back to Jenna. “I don’t care what that stupid wop says, I’m moving in with my daughter.”