“They’re good people.”
“Yeah, they are. But sometimes it’s like you…I don’t know, like you drink in my family like a man dying of thirst.”
“Are you saying I’m like a family—what? A family vampire?”
“Vampire? Hmm.” Linc finally shook his head with regret. “No, not a vampire. More like a parasite.”
“Gee, thanks, Linc.” The fact that Trent laughed—and meant it—showed how comfortable he was with the Johnsons. It was also rather nice knowing that if he ever told Mama Johnson that Linc had described him as a parasite on the family, she’d have her son’s hide.
“Okay, okay, maybe one of those parasites that sort of helps the host. But also is having a fine time hanging on. Unless you’re a masochist.” He seemed to consider that. “Nah, you’re no masochist. So you really enjoy it. But you get enough of whatever you need by hanging around with the Johnsons instead of with your own family.”
“My own?” Trent snorted. Linc was among the few people in the world who knew the story of the Stenners from Trent’s viewpoint. “Right.”
“Okay, so you don’t want to get cozy with Ma and Pa Stenner—although it does seem that one word from your father and—”
“Linc.”
“Fine, fine. I won’t say it, even though it is the truth. I’ll just get to my point and say that you don’t want to get cozy with your parents or your dear old brother—I understand that. But why not start your own family?”
“Yeah, I can just see that. I’m sure I’ve learned great skills in being a father. Or a husband.”
“Plenty enough people who don’t find what they want in the family they were born into build a good family themselves.”
“Not me. It’s the last thing I want.”
Linc stared at him for another long moment. Then he shook his head. “Well, whether you want to or not, you’re going to be dealing with family of sorts, since you’ll be working with your sister-in-law—”
“Ex.”
“So you keep saying,” Linc said, as if scoring a point. “But there’s nothing ex about your niece. She’s family. You can’t deny that. And you’re not only going to be with her mama, you’re going to be working basically for that sweet little girl.”
Not so little in her own eyes, Trent thought. And definitely not so sweet.
But he didn’t say it. Linc would pick up the concern sliding like fog into Trent’s bones, which would only extend this lecture on family.
“It’s real interesting to see this Sir Galahad role,” his friend continued, “from a man who’s never liked being wanted or needed too much.”
Wanted? All that was wanted was his money.
Needed? There clearly were things Jennifer and Ashley needed. Like lettuce that didn’t need resuscitating. Like a better place to live. Like a reliable car.
When he’d made use of Jennifer’s declaration about not driving his BMW in Drago to get her out of that wreck she drove, she’d blushed.
Not a cute, aw-shucks kind of blush. But the kind that looked as if it hurt. As if both the thought that had caused it and the actual flow of blood under the skin caused pain.
At that moment, he’d experienced the same weird, mixed feeling as when a Steelers running back had broken a bone in his arm from falling awkwardly after Trent’s tackle. It was a clean hit, he hadn’t meant to hurt the guy, he’d do it again because tackling the guy was what needed doing, and it wasn’t even his tackle that had hurt him. Still, you hated to see a guy hurt.
“I’m needed to run a car dealership, Linc. That’s all.”
Chapter Five
“Nice ride.”
Jennifer looked up from the list she was writing—already four legal-pad pages long—and found Darcie grinning at her from outside the car that had arrived today. Apparently Trent had arranged it from California.
She ignored a twinge of embarrassment over her previous “ride,” and grinned back. “It’s a dealer’s car. Both Trent and I will be driving them.”
“What do you hear from Trent? He’s been gone, what? Five days?”
“Oh, he’s so busy taking care of things there, it could be weeks.”
“Don’t worry. He’s coming back. Otherwise, he wouldn’t—”
“I’m not worried,” she rushed to lie. “I know he’s coming back.”
“Yeah? Well, good. So, what are you doing here?”
“Writing to-do, to-figure-out and to-research lists that go on for miles.”
“I can see that. But I meant here. In the library parking lot.”
“Oh, waiting for Ashley. I checked a few things out.” She gestured to the pile of women-in-business books on the backseat. “But she was still looking, so I came out here to work on my lists.”
“Still looking, huh? With school nearly out, it can’t be homework, and I thought she’d already read every word there was on horses, so…”
Jennifer sighed. “Fashion and beauty magazines.”
Darcie bit back a laugh. “Oh, Lord. Is she still on that kick?”
Ashley had been junior princess in the spring’s Lilac Festival court and had developed a massive case of hero worship for one princess. That hero worship had evaporated when the princess’s feet of clay tripped her up. But Ashley had continued poring over every magazine and book she could get her hands on. Since their stringent budget hadn’t run to buying copies, Ashley had haunted the library, reading the new issues on the spot, and checking out older copies.
“Not only is she still on that kick, but she’s taken down the horse and puppy pictures and put posters of boys on her bedroom walls. She tells me they’re singers and actors. But, I swear, Darcie, I’ve never seen a single one of them in my life. She told me their names, and I still have no idea who these people are.”
Darcie laughed. “We’re getting old, Jennifer. That’s all there is to it. I hate to tell you—it’s part of the process.”
“I know.”
“But?” Darcie prompted. “I see you chewing on your lip, so I know you’re worrying about more than posters on her walls.”
“It’s just… This is such a tough age. And important. She needs to take school seriously. Her grades now set the foundation for high school, and then college…. And I’m afraid with being a manager at the dealership, I won’t be around as much.”
“The reason you could be around before was Roscoe had no business. Just about any other job would mean you’d be around less. Just level with her. Quit trying so hard.”
“I have to try hard. I have to show her how a woman can be a success. That’s one reason I couldn’t pass on this opportunity at the dealership…. It’s not that I don’t want her to be interested in beauty and fashion and even boys—eventually—but I don’t want her to get obsessed. I don’t want her to measure herself by her popularity. I don’t want her to get her priorities so screwed up that she messes things up for herself. Important things like college. Like life.” She produced a sorry-sounding laugh. “In other words, I don’t want her to follow in my footsteps.”
“First, that wouldn’t be so awful, you know. Second, she has you for a mother, so she’s way ahead of where you were. Third, you don’t have to win her approval, you know. You just— Oh, hi, Ash. Wow. That’s quite an armful. Here, let me come around and get the door for you.”
In minutes, a foot-high stack of magazines was added to the collection of books in the backseat, Darcie had bid them both goodbye, added, “Call me if you want to talk,” to Jennifer, along with a significant look toward Ashley, and they started the crosstown drive to the apartment.
“Ashley, I want to talk to you more about this new job I have.”
“I know all about it. You’re going to work with him.” She made the pronoun venomous.
“You hardly know Trent—your uncle.”
“I know about him. I’ve heard,” she said darkly.
Jennifer wondered if she’d infected her daughter with her own doubts about Trent and why he was doing w
hat he was doing. “You shouldn’t just believe what you hear about people. You have to make up your own mind.”
Her daughter shot her a look, but with pedestrians crossing in front of the car, Jennifer couldn’t take her eyes off the road to interpret what it meant.
Unsure of her own thoughts on the topic of Trent, she shifted to the practical. “This job is going to mean changes for us.”
“What kind of changes?” After that suspicious-sounding question, Ashley abruptly sat up, her face transformed in one of her lightning changes of mood. “Are we moving?”
“No. Maybe eventually, but right now I can’t afford it.”
“When you can afford it, will we go home?”
“Home?” Oh. Jennifer’s heart constricted. Of course. The house Ashley knew as home. “No. No, we won’t be going back. Even if I could afford a house, someone else lives there now, Ashley. It’s their home.”
“Then who cares about these stupid changes?”
She ignored her daughter’s sulkiness. “I’m going to be working more. And I won’t be able to adjust my schedule as much as I could when I was working with Roscoe. We’ll have to be even better about planning ahead with things like parties and rides. You might have to ride your bike places more often.”
Ashley rolled her eyes. Jennifer allowed herself a moment’s nostalgia for when Ashley had so desperately wanted her first two-wheeler.
“I might also need you to be at the dealership with me sometimes. If there’s no one to look after you or—”
“I’m not a baby. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“You’re not a baby,” she agreed. “But there are going to be times I don’t want you alone at the apartment, and you’ll have to live with that.”
Ashley humphed and sank in her seat.
“This job is a great opportunity,” Jennifer said, taking a new tack. “Not many women are managers at car dealerships, and I’m going to have the chance to show it can be done.”
And the chance to make her daughter proud of her.
Please, God, please let that be true.
“A job like this can give us the financial resources to do things—important things,” she hurried on before Ashley could present her priority list for allocating their funds. “Like send you to a good college.”
“What if I don’t wanna go to college?”
Jennifer gripped the wheel hard enough to press her nails into her palms. “You are going to college, Ashley. And you are going to get a degree.”
“Hey, Trent.”
His first suitcase hadn’t even cleared the trunk of the rental car he’d picked up at O’Hare when a voice came from behind him. He completed the motion of setting the suitcase on the motel’s cracked concrete parking lot.
“I didn’t expect a greeting party, Darcie.”
“No party. Just me.”
“I’m touched that you would come fifteen miles out of your jurisdiction just to welcome me back,” he said dryly.
“Eleven miles—we cover part of the county—but who’s counting? It’s come to my attention that a number of inquiries are being made, and when I started tracing them, oddly, they all seemed to start in California.”
Linc. He was not going to apologize for his friend acting on his belief that the best defense against any decision turning bad was gathering every iota of information possible, because Trent shared that belief.
“I’d be a fool not to gather information with all the money I’m investing in the dealership.”
“If the inquiries were limited to the dealership, I wouldn’t be here. But digging for information on Jennifer, her background, her finances, the divorce?” On that last word, her level tone shifted to accusatory. “Nosing around town was bad enough, but this goes way beyond that.”
Along with studying and anticipating, Trent had one more attribute that had brought him a hell of a lot further than anyone had predicted: he adjusted. Even to surprises.
“Judge Dixon made her part of the deal, so that’s reasonable, too.”
But not something he’d known Linc was doing. When he got Linc on the phone, he would decide how much of that information to wring out of him, and whether his friend had crossed the line.
Darcie stepped closer, her eyes nearly level with his. “Here’s what you need to know. The Stenners haven’t done Jennifer any favors. Ever. After a long time of being blind, people in town are starting to wake up to that fact. They don’t want her to feel bad or have her pride bruised. Pride’s what she’s got left. Along with a good brain, a big heart and a daughter she adores. You do anything to hurt her or take advantage of her in any way, and you’ll have more than your conscience to answer to. Are we clear?”
“You’re entirely clear.”
“Good. In that case—” and damned if she didn’t give him a genuine smile “—you are welcomed back. See you ’round.”
He watched her car turn and head out before he hauled out the next suitcase.
Great.
Darcie Barrett apparently thought he’d returned to Drago with the sole intention of picking up where Eric had left off in making life miserable for Jennifer and Ashley.
His parents thought he was here to rescue the Stenner heritage.
Linc thought he was here from bleeding-heart syndrome.
Jennifer? She seemed torn between Darcie’s and his parents’ views.
And him? Having rented out his town house, disposed of his belongings and made arrangements for his car, he was a man cut loose. A man who didn’t know what the hell he was doing here. Right back where he’d started life and had sworn to escape forever.
Jennifer knew she was talking too fast. She couldn’t stop herself. Everything that had happened at the dealership, everything she’d done, practically everything she’d thought pertaining to the business tumbled out.
Not because Trent had caught her off-guard when he’d pushed open the showroom’s now-dazzling glass doors half an hour ago. Because this time he hadn’t—even though he had arrived a day earlier than he’d told her to expect him in his one phone call since he’d left for California. This early arriving appeared to be a habit with him.
Still, the place looked great and she was prepared.
Trent Stenner had swooped into Drago and turned her life upside down. He’d raised her expectations and hopes. But until he’d walked back in the door and her heartbeat had multiplied as if it was on fast-forward, she had not let herself truly believe he would return. Oh, she certainly hadn’t allowed anyone to see her doubts. She’d veneered every conversation, every encounter, every answer with impregnable and absolute confidence. And there’d been lots of conversations, encounters and questions.
But, by herself at night, watching shadow patterns created by light seeping unevenly through her worn curtains, she had worried.
“…and I’ve lined up want ads to go in the Drago Intelligencer, plus three other area newspapers, but I didn’t want to submit them in case you…uh, until you could look them over.”
“We’ve hired people by using your grapevine. Why put in want ads?”
“To let more people know Stenner Autos is back in business without spending a lot of money. Want ads are much cheaper than display ads, so they make sense until we have more inventory. Plus, people around here read want ads religiously, so they’ll get in the habit of thinking about this as a possible place to buy their cars.”
“Better be more than a possible place,” he muttered. “Even though nobody around here has money for a new car. Even a used car.”
He hadn’t been grim before.
Oh, God. What if he’d come back solely to tell her to her face that he’d changed his mind?
Panic later, she bargained with herself. Right now, you have to think.
What if Trent did regret his decision? If he backed out, he knew he’d lose a lot of money. On the other hand, if he’d given up the dealership as a lost cause already, he might try to cut his losses and just leave.
No, th
at was one worst-case scenario she couldn’t let herself imagine. She’d sold her car, she’d quit her job at Roscoe Realty. And she’d promised Ashley things would be better.
Trent Stenner might be able to afford to give up, but she couldn’t.
So, she couldn’t let him give up. She’d just have to manufacture enough fake confidence to carry both of them.
“People still need their cars fixed,” she said, so firmly that the statement sounded totally confident, even to herself. “Even more so if they’re not replacing them with newer models.”
“You said something about that before. But Jorge can’t get the service section going until we have mechanics.”
“Technicians. They call them technicians. Or techs.”
He grimaced, but didn’t argue. “Okay, until we have techs hired, we can’t even start to let people know we’re in business to fix their cars.”
“Then I’ll place those additional want ads right now.”
She immediately turned without looking at him, and headed for the room she’d taken as her office. She heard skepticism in his grunt behind her, although she chose to focus on the fact that he hadn’t stopped her.
As a sign of faith went it was tiny, but she’d take it.
“I don’t want to hear any more.” Trent’s voice sounded angry.
Standing in the empty service bay where she’d come to look for Jorge, Jennifer could hear him, but couldn’t see him.
“Yeah, I listened before, but I know what I need to know. No more, Linc.”
Ah, he was on the phone. Somewhere. He was silent for quite a while, but she’d narrowed the possibilities down, and crossed to the door outside.
“All right…Yeah, yeah, I promise.” Trent raised his head as she came around the corner, his gaze so intent it almost knocked her back. Sitting on a metal bench behind the building, he was hunched over, and when he spoke again into the phone, he still sounded angry. “I told you I would. I’ll call you later. Bye.”
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