Men Times Three

by Edwards, Bonnie

  If he pressed, he might invite baggage to fall open and reveal secrets he shouldn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know. He knew enough. Her tears were not for him. That was enough.

  “I want to show you something.” The idea came to him from nowhere. But that wasn’t true; the idea came so she’d know there were times his baggage floated to the top of his mind, too. In spite of his best efforts to keep it buried.

  She raised her face and grinned. “Sure. What is it?”

  “Just a place I haven’t thought of in a while. Want to see it?”

  In the truck on the way over, he asked how things had gone with Kylie. “Think she’ll throw any muck in the works about selling the inn?”

  “She’d like to wait before making any decisions. She got excited at the idea of opening for business, until Marnie made it clear she wants to sell.”

  “What about you?”

  “I don’t know. I see the lure of both ideas. Quick money is always nice. I mean, who wouldn’t want one-third of a holiday property with acreage? But once we decided to discuss our situation this morning, she seemed more focused on getting to know us. She asked questions about our families. I have two brothers and Marnie has one.”

  “She said she’s never met any family but Jon. So, it was just Kylie and her mom?”

  Holly nodded. “My Aunt Trudy. Kylie didn’t know her father. But I don’t think she cared much for our grandfather. He made a bad first impression.”

  “I can imagine.” Jon Dawson often made bad last impressions, too. “My brother steered clear of a lot of subjects with Jon. Kept to things they agreed on, like fishing, building, woodwork and tools.”

  “Guy stuff. Things Jon would consider manly. When he was alive, he seemed to prefer the company of his sons and grandsons to having us girls visit. I can’t understand why he’d disown my aunt. What’s the big secret? An out-of-wedlock baby isn’t the worst thing a daughter can do. And it certainly isn’t rare or shocking. Not even twenty-five years ago. She went to college, got knocked up and came home.” She shrugged.

  “You’d have to know more about Jon to understand. He had some odd ideas is all.” The subject made him uncomfortable. “TJ was closer to Jon than anyone I know around here. You should ask him. Or better yet, your father. He’ll know. Especially if you send him a picture of Kylie.”

  She frowned and then her eyes went wide. “It’s her looks. It’s her—oh, my God—Grandad was a racist?”

  He should have let it go. “That’s an ugly word, Holly.”

  Her voice went hard. “He kicked his only daughter out when she was nine months pregnant.” Her face twisted. “If it was just the pregnancy, he’d have done it right away when she told him.”

  “I should have kept my mouth shut.” He felt sorry for Kylie. That must have been an ugly meeting with Jon. “And now, we’ve brought someone else’s baggage into what we’ve got going.”

  Holly nodded, but her frown said she was still working things out. “All we can do as a family is let Kylie know that we’re not like him.” When she raised her gaze forward, he saw a sheen of tears that threatened to fall. “I’ll take care of that.”

  Deke’s revelation took a while to sink in, but Holly did her best to set aside thoughts of her grandfather’s behavior. Such a foolish man to cause decades of hurt and loss. Her father and uncle had tried to reach out to Aunt Trudy many times in the early years of separation, but she’d been every bit as willful and stubborn as Jon. As far as Holly was concerned, it was up to her generation to improve the situation.

  From what she’d learned of Kylie last night over wine, cheese and female bonding, it shouldn’t be too difficult for the family to heal.

  The three of them would reach a consensus on the inn. As Kylie had pointed out, they had time to decide and there was no need to rush into a permanent decision. She seemed very willing to dig in deep to get the work done.

  Deke pulled into a rutted lane that swung off TJ’s driveway and parked several yards in. “This is it. This is where I want to build my own place.”

  “It’s lovely. Looks like you could build a beautiful home here.” Holly jumped down from his truck and stepped to the center of the concrete pad to judge the four corners. Family sized. “I do believe you’re a nester, Deke O’Banion.” She turned in a circle.

  He flushed and finally stepped onto the foundation with her. He paced off the distance from one side to the other. “Not anymore. These days I’m all about good times.”

  “So? What’s the floor plan?” This didn’t count as baggage because house plans were part of the future, not his past. It may be a technicality, but she could live with it. His eyes lit up at her question and she was glad she’d asked.

  He slipped his hands to his broad waist and frowned. Then he set his arms wide to encompass one large corner. “This will be the kitchen here. With a large window to catch the morning sun, and I figure sliders about here…” He rambled his way through the entire main floor while she watched him in awe.

  She hadn’t seen Deke quite like this. He was happy. She’d seen horny, focused, sated, hungry and even ticked off with work and his brother, but not swimming in joy. It mesmerized and held her and very nearly infected her.

  Seeing his plans and dreams for a home designed with a family in mind made her heart race with unspoken dreams. Bad idea, this. She looked away toward the trees and saw the dark cool shade and nothing else.

  “What about you? What do you see in your future?” he asked, blowing her thoughts of nothingness to brilliant shards.

  She pursed her lips and tried not to bring too much of what used to be into the now. “At one time I thought I wanted children, but I haven’t considered a family in a long while.” Jack had been dead set against having a baby. He didn’t want to ruin a good thing and told her he wanted her to himself. She ran her hands up her chilled arms. She had always hoped Jack would change his mind one day.

  When he’d opted for a vasectomy without discussing it with her first, she demanded a separation. He’d betrayed her trust that they’d always share in decisions. Once she’d left him, she’d felt more optimistic about life. She got her groove back, so to speak, and the separation had moved into divorce.

  Except for sex, of course, but even that was over now.

  “Are you okay?” He pulled her into his chest and wrapped her in his arms. “Cold?”

  “Just a chill.”

  “Someone walk over your grave?” But he turned and kept her close to his side as he led her toward his truck.

  “More like a memory,” she tested.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought you here. I didn’t mean to bring up anything painful.” He reached for the passenger door and opened it. He waited while she stewed about mentioning Jack and the reason for their divorce.

  “No worries. There’s no baggage about a family. I just haven’t thought about one for a while. Things didn’t work out that way for me.”

  “Doesn’t mean they can’t though, right?”

  “Right.” She grinned and, for the first time in over a year, felt happy about her options. “You’re absolutely right, Deke. There’s nothing to stop me from getting everything I want for myself. My future’s bright and rosy again.”

  She saw affection in his eyes and it didn’t scare her.

  Not a bit.

  A looming shadow of Jack’s comments about wanting her all to himself brought her back to reality with a thump. If she wanted to move ahead, she had to clear her path. “I need to make a phone call, Deke. I doubt it’ll be a pleasant one. But it will feel good to have it behind me.”

  “Anything I can do to help?” Concern shadowed his eyes.

  “Just be here when I’m done, okay?”

  “Always.”

  She stepped away from Deke and the truck and walked a couple yards into the heavy brush around his foundation. The air in the cool shade turned to a fresh pine scent while birds twittered overhead. She walked in far enough that the trees
and bushes would absorb the sound of her voice while she spoke to Jack. She may raise her voice and didn’t want to be overheard. She listened to her voice mail messages to gauge his mood.

  They were angrier than the last time she’d checked. If she had to shock him into listening then she’d yell loud enough to rattle the trees.

  She took three deep breaths to calm her nerves but her stomach still clenched in dread. He answered on the second ring. The roar of traffic told her he was in the car. “Took you long enough to get back to me,” he said without so much as hello. Jack’s way of saying he was disappointed. She refused the bait.

  “Hi,” she said in a breezy tone. “You called?”

  “Yes. I called. Every day since you left. When are you coming home?”

  “When I’m ready. This is not the way to make me want to talk to you, Jack. Your messages were nasty and uncalled for. I told you before I left that you’ve got to move on. Things are different now.”

  “Different? I’ll never be different, Holly. I’ll never move on. Never. Now when the fuck are you coming home?”

  She straightened and went still inside. Wary and aware. “I’m not coming home. Not to you. We’re divorced.” She’d assumed her voice would get louder if she got this angry. She was wrong. Her words came soft but hard as forged steel. “You signed the divorce papers. I’m free of you. Stay out of my life, Jack. I mean it.” She was shaking when she hung up and shut off her phone. By the time she stumbled out of the brush, she was fighting back tears of anger. She must have looked like hell, because worry washed over Deke’s face.

  He rushed to her but she put up her hands to ward him off. She got control through sheer force of will. Jack’s fury had reached out like a psychic slap. She told herself it was over, but a small voice reminded her Jack hated to lose. Had he been faking when he’d signed the divorce papers? Maybe he’d played her for a fool.

  Maybe he’d never intended to let her go. The dark thought came out of nowhere and everywhere at the same time. She shook it off.

  “What’s wrong? You look like someone died.” Deke wrapped her into his chest and she hung on, waiting for the fear to ease and the shaking to stop. She buried her nose in his plaid shirt and took comfort from his heat.

  She shook her head, determined not to bring Jack into this time with Deke. “Baggage has a way of weighing you down, even when you try to leave it behind.”

  “Tell me, Holly.”

  She wiped her hand down her face, pulled herself together. “No. It’s over now. And like I said, my future’s bright and rosy again. This should have been dealt with ages ago. My family told me to make a clean break, but I wouldn’t listen. I wanted to be nice. I hate confronting ugly feelings and I screwed up.”

  He nodded. “You’re divorced?”

  “Yes, and I let him hang on instead of dealing with leftover feelings.”

  “Leftover feelings. Huh.” A frown filled his face as he struggled with what to say next. He’d been hurt. The hurt was in his eyes, the way his shoulders stiffened and the way his arms dropped from around her. “I drowned my leftover feelings in beer.”

  She nodded. “I saw the cases. But you haven’t had much to drink since I’ve been here.” One at a time seemed to be his limit. And he drank iced tea just as often. “But then, maybe you’ve moved on?” The way Jack should.

  “I have.” He glanced over his shoulder at the foundation of his future home. “And it feels good.”

  “It’s healthy. And that’s why I’m concerned about—”

  “What spooked you, babe. The ex?”

  She shook her head. Some small part of her still held a loyalty to Jack. She didn’t want to discuss his inability to cope with their divorce. It seemed petty to talk about him when Deke had never met him. But Marnie knew him and it may be time to share more about Jack with her. “It’s nothing, really. Nothing to worry about.”

  She lost the conviction in the words when Deke turned back onto the road to the Friendly Inn and she caught a glimpse of a car similar to Jack’s. “It’s so gloomy this morning,” she said, “is that car grey or silver?”

  “Looks blue to me,” he said. “Why?”

  “It seems familiar, but the color’s wrong.” Still, it unsettled her to know that Jack had been driving when they’d spoken. She hadn’t thought to ask where he was, and normally he’d be at his desk at this time of day.

  10

  Marnie hugged her first mug of coffee to her chest and leaned against the kitchen table, prepared to be reasonable. She started with a simple question for Kylie. “You seriously think we can make a go of a business together?”

  “It’s worth a shot. I’ve never done anything like it and I’d like to try.”

  “But the inn is in bad shape. I’m afraid we’d find ourselves in a hole so deep we’ll never get out. I’ve already got a business partner that’s a pain in the neck. I don’t need another one.” She hated being difficult but she had to be straight about this. “In business, there’s no room for guessing games and innuendo. We need to be straight with each other.”

  “You think because I haven’t run an inn before that I’ll make a lousy partner?” Kylie slammed the carafe back onto the warming plate.

  “Now you’re insulted and that’s not my intent. I don’t know how you’ll be to work with. But running a business is harder than you think. People always think there’s no boss to answer to.”

  “Right.”

  “Wrong. Every guest who walks through that door and signs in is the boss. You need to think of nothing but their comfort, their needs, their pleasure. And you have to think ahead of them.” The inn was shaping up inside and she could see how Kylie’s inexperienced eye could want to make it homey and welcoming. “Going into a business shouldn’t be an emotional decision. There’s a lot to consider.” And the people you had to work with and around was a big part of the decision. “I just don’t know you well enough to trust that we could make a go of this.”

  “If your partner in the club is so hard to deal with, why not dissolve the partnership and give this a try?”

  “Giving it a try won’t pay my bills. The club’s about to take off.” She heard Dennis’s whine about how long she’d been saying those words. “I just need a little more time with it.” If Mike the DJ didn’t leave because they couldn’t afford to give him a raise. And if they could find a loan, and if Dennis would actually handle his side of things and—

  “What if you left the inn to Holly and me? Would that work?”

  “No, it wouldn’t.” She needed the money, plain and simple. “Unless you pay me my third. Do you have that kind of money? Because Holly doesn’t.”

  “Of course not. My mom lived well and put me through school, but when she died I cleared off her car loan and paid for the funeral. I can afford to put in a year here, but after that, the inn will have to support me or be sold.”

  “If the inn was a success, would you want to live here?”

  But Kylie didn’t need to answer, because the glow in her eyes said it all. She wanted the place, wanted it bad. “I don’t know.”

  Holly walked in. “Morning, ladies. I got up early and went to give Deke that tip I mentioned last night.” She poured herself a coffee. She took a sip while her gaze bounced from one to the other. “I see you’ve started the discussion without me. Let me guess, Marnie still wants to cut and run and Kylie wants to give running the inn a whirl.”

  “If Marnie wasn’t so stubborn—”

  “If Kylie would listen to reason—”

  “Does anyone want my opinion?”

  Finally she’d get Holly’s support and it would be two against one. “Of course,” Marnie said. “Kylie, this doesn’t mean we’ll go our separate ways. We’ll still get to the family bonding—”

  “I want to stay,” Holly said.

  “—Just because we won’t be working together doesn’t mean we won’t play together.” She froze. “Like hell you do!”

  “I want to stay
,” Holly repeated in a firm voice Marnie hadn’t heard before.

  “Why?” she asked, when she already knew. “It’s Deke, isn’t it? I thought this was all about sex and fun and good times.”

  Holly hid her mouth behind her mug. “This isn’t about Deke at all.”

  “If it’s not Deke, then why?” She thought back to the moment Holly arrived. “I knew you were hiding something. You looked so relieved to be here when you climbed out of the car, but then you smoothed your expression when I answered the door. What’s really going on with you?” She focused on Holly and tried to see the truth behind her eyes.

  Holly shrugged. “I think we can give this a summer. You can be here on your days off.”

  “Which is never.” She couldn’t leave the club to Dennis. A band of pressure formed across her forehead as she turned and walked out, too stunned to talk about it anymore.

  But she wasn’t stunned; she was hurt. Betrayed by her own flesh and blood. Her cousin. The one family member she’d always counted as a best friend.

  Holly turned to Kylie. “She’s stressed. Worried about a lot of things that have nothing to do with the inn.”

  “I think it’s me. She hates the idea of sharing her inheritance with a stranger and I can’t say as I blame her.”

  “That may be a part of it, but she’ll come around. Marnie’s got a good heart and loves family. It’s that club. Her partner’s such an ass and she’s desperate to be rid of him.”

  “Why are you willing to stay? Don’t you have a job and a life in Seattle?”

  “I have a new job I don’t like much. A new apartment I think is fine, but my ex is a pain. The time I spend here will give him time to believe we’re over.”

  “But you’re divorced.”

  “To the world we are, but to Jack, I’m not so sure. I may have messed up badly by continuing to sleep with him.”

  Kylie’s understanding nod eased her mind. “My mom did that with a long-term guy once. Big mistake. We had to move in the middle of the night because he started coming around drunk and demanding to move back in.”