“Regardless,” he stammered. “I can’t have friction, Jen. You mean too much to me.”
She crossed her legs and jiggled her foot.
“The storefront is Grace’s idea. Uncle Howie loves a good backcountry adventure, and his enthusiasm rubbed off. Mom got on board, and it’s just dawning on me right now that part of her thumbs-up was because it meant Ryan would stay put. I should have brought you into the loop, but honestly, Jen, the dots never connected. Please don’t be pissed.”
“Him being around all the time changes things.”
“Why?”
She shifted and sighed. Her foot never stopped.
“Jen,” he grated out. “What’s going on?”
She shot from the chair, tugged her jacket into place and avoided his eyes. “It’s personal.”
“And you don’t do personal,” he muttered.
“Look.”
She only said that one word, so he waited for the accompanying thought, but it never came.
“Are we finished here?” The tone she used worried him. Had his brother done something stupid? The sparks flying between Ryan and Jen were obvious to him. And Samantha. What did all this mean?
John wished he had a better understanding of male-female relationships because he was in over his head.
“Jen. I need to know we’re okay.”
She didn’t sigh as much as she hissed. A worrying sound.
“Oh, for god’s sake, we’re fine. I need a break. Why’s that such a big deal?”
He adjusted his tie and ducked his head. She was not fine, and it was a very big deal. But what could he do?
She took the reins and reminded him of the meeting. Then she pointed out two things on his schedule. Finishing, she eyed him with a bland expression.
“I know when I’ve been dismissed.” He chuckled. “It’s a damn shame, though, that this is my office.”
The corner of her mouth almost curved.
“Well played.” Jen smirked. “And on that note.”
She stood, whirled around, and walked to the office door before pausing. He didn’t expect a closing salvo, so the one she delivered reminded John how fucked he was without her.
“I’ll leave some daily reminders that you can keep on your phone. And you have a dinner reservation at Mama Rosa’s on Friday. That gives you a couple of days to figure out how to ask Samantha for a real date.”
His jaw dropped as she left.
She knew him so well. Left on his own, he’d flounder awkwardly without the pre-arranged reservation to force his hand.
“Mom! Aunt Grace! What are you doing here? I thought you were hanging at the beach.”
Ryan moved to bear hug the two women, making an extra effort to fawn over his mom.
“Looking marvelous as always, Lady Iris.”
She beamed at his use of the old joke from the Broadway play, Mame, and ruffled his already disheveled hair. Dropping into a low curtsey, she laughed merrily, called him Lord Dudley, and then hugged the stuffing out of him.
“I’m good, Mom,” he assured as she held his face in her hands and subjected him to the X-ray version of a maternal pat down.
“You look like a hippie.” Aunt Grace chortled.
He eyed her and had a good laugh. “Excuse me?” Ryan sniggered. “But what poor gypsy did you mug for your getup?”
“I beg your pardon,” his aunt bit out like a curse. “I’ll have you know my wardrobe is one hundred percent vintage.”
“Give it a rest, Grace,” his mom inserted. “Just because you’ve had the same day of the week underwear for the past forty years doesn’t make you a style icon.”
The identical twins fell into each other’s arms with their howls of laughter splitting the air. He’d never get enough of their tit-for-tat way of engaging.
“Is that why Uncle Howie never knows what day it is?”
He waggled his eyebrows with snarky suggestiveness and made both ladies howl even more.
Grace broke off first and waved her arms around. “This place is fantastic, Ryan. I love all the wood.”
“We lucked out. The natural accents are a bonus. Won’t take much to give the space a rustic vibe.”
His mom wrapped her arm through his. “Daddy would have loved this idea. He was so crazy for nature and the outdoors.”
Ryan smiled. “I’m gonna blow up that picture of me, John, and Dad from our camping trip in Montana and have it cover a whole wall in the kid’s department.”
Constance Nelson Lloyd teared up and covered her mouth with her hand. It took him a long time after his father died to understand the difference between happy and sad tears. When he or John did something to honor Gregory Lloyd’s memory, happy tears took center stage. He gently patted his mother’s hand on his arm and smiled down at her lovingly.
“Why are you here, Mom?”
He saw the look exchanged by the sisters and wondered what they were up to.
“Well, to be perfectly honest, we came back early after your brother snapped at me on the phone.”
“John snapped at you? John Lloyd?”
She smacked his arm. “Don’t be smart. Yes. Your brother. He snapped at me.”
Hmph. “I didn’t realize John had the capability to snap.”
He heard his aunt’s amused snicker but didn’t look over his shoulder to see what she thought was so funny.
“What did you say that earned a real human reaction?”
Grace didn’t give her sister a chance to respond and trampled right into the conversation. “First, he called your mother out, and then, he got super defensive.”
“About what?” he asked.
“All I did was ask about Jenna, and he went from his usual self to something a bit more spirited.”
“What about Jen?” he snarled.
Releasing his arm, his mother took a big step back, crossed her arms, and studied him. Grace moved in behind her and rested her chin on his mom’s shoulder. It was all kinds of disconcerting to have identical faces staring at him.
“Well, I don’t know, darling. What about Jen, hmm? Both you and your brother seem to share a dramatic reaction to hearing her name.”
No use in denying it since he’d walked straight into that one.
“Let’s not go there, but pretend we did,” he said with a mocking grin. No way was he defending his reaction to anything involving his brother’s assistant.
The twins laughed in unison.
“Okay. I’ll give you a pass. For now.”
Ryan grumbled dramatically and smacked his forehead. “Shit. You handing out a pass demands a quid pro quo. All right, then.” He sniggered. “Out with it. What have you done?”
His aunt gleefully ratted on her sister. “Your mother was grooming Quinn Montgomery.”
“Yes, I know,” he smartly bit back. “It’s your mess. You clean it up.”
“Done,” his mother drawled with a half-smile.
“While we’re being honest,” he told them, “I have a confession. Well, two.”
Aunt Grace made a dismissive sound and rolled her eyes. “Is this about your super-secret Denver homestead?”
“Seriously?” he dryly muttered. “Care to tell me how you knew that?”
“The Chamber of Commerce recognized the name on the deed and reached out with a howdy.”
Ryan blinked at his mom and came to grips with this news.
“Okay,” he said. “So you know about the cabin. Do you also know about Goober?”
“Um, what?”
He looked at his mother’s perplexed smirk and chuckled. He was relieved that his parent didn’t know everything.
“I have a dog. His name is Goober. He’s your first fur grandbaby, Mom!”
His aunt started laughing. “You guys are so twisted!”
“Let me see a picture,” his mom demanded.
He took out his phone and scrolled the pictures till he found one of him that his backcountry guide had snapped. It was of him and Goober stretched out in
a hammock. Asleep.
“He’s adorable. Look, Grace! I’m a granny at last!”
“If it had to happen to one of us, I’m glad it was you first,” Grace jeered. The two stuck their tongues out at each other and tossed a few snarky comments back and forth.
Ryan relaxed and enjoyed their playful exchange until his mother suddenly turned on a dime and pinned him with a look that froze him in place.
“Who is your brother seeing?”
“What? Who?”
“Answer me, Ryan. Your brother, John. Who’s he seeing?”
“Uh … where’d you hear that he’s seeing someone?”
“From him.”
“Oh.” Ryan wondered what else he could say besides that.
He should have seen it coming. I mean, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen this ploy played out a million times before. It was a Connie and Grace signature move. The two should have been FBI investigators.
When he didn’t answer, she pulled a mom move out of thin air. “Next Friday. Dinner. You, your brother, and your plus ones. I’ll text you with the details.”
He was still grappling with the conundrum she’d thrown in his lap when she patted his cheek and took her leave.
Well, at least he had till next week to figure out his next move with Jen.
Chapter 9
The bag of groceries Jen dragged home was heavier than it first seemed. Possibly due to the fact she’d lugged the damn thing across town by means of public transportation.
“You’ve heard of Uber, yes?” she mumbled aloud as she fumbled with the key to her apartment.
Dropping the heavy bag to the floor, she shoved it with her feet until it was far enough inside for the door to close.
Alone at last, she slumped against the wall and flung her purse onto a Parsons table along with her keys.
The day had been nonstop hellacious, but she was determined to leave all that shit at the door and concentrate on her much-needed me vacation.
Taking a deep breath, she inhaled and then exhaled loudly before heading to the guest room to change out of her work clothes.
It took only minutes to slip off the business suit and hang it up. Wearing nothing but her underwear, she brushed the suit with a lint brush and inspected it for problems.
Her shoes were next. Wiping the heels off with a soft cloth, she lined them up on the fourth shelf of a shoe cabinet and surveyed her footwear collection.
Her eyes swept the bedroom she’d transformed into a dressing room. Two clothing racks hung with smart suits, blouses, and skirts lined two walls. An impressive antique carved mahogany cheval mirror took up a corner. A cumbersome wardrobe was crammed with the assortment of accessories and handbags she used to complete her look.
Removing her simple jewelry, Jen placed the pearl earrings and silver bracelet she’d worn into a crystal dish.
Next, she removed her lingerie and tossed everything in the hamper. Getting her laundry sorted out was one of the many things she had planned for her time off.
Jen surveyed the room once more. Assured everything was neat and tidy, she strolled buck-naked from the room, picked up the grocery bag, and moved it further along the entry hall. The minute she entered the living room and her very quirky shabby chic home came into view, all her tension vanished.
In her bedroom, she removed the pins from her hair then bent over and violently shook her head until nothing remained of the tightly styled chignon she preferred for work. Just like so many other things, she didn’t want people to judge her by her hairstyle, and while something shorter might have been easier, the truth was that she preferred her hair long. So she’d learned how to manage the heavy locks into something she called ‘business severe.’
From an overflowing basket of clean laundry she’d never put away, Jen fished around till she found some comfy undies, a shirt, and some yoga pants.
Her room was a certifiable mess—as usual. She saved her OCD-light behaviors for the office and let her inner slob have free rein at home. Best of both worlds!
Stepping over the towel from this morning’s shower, she swept a stack of magazines off the bench at the foot of her bed, stepped into a pair of sensible white panties, and plopped down. She stretched out her legs in front of her then rotated her ankles to release the pops and cracks a day in heels had caused.
Remembering John’s frustrated scowl when she left the office was only going to make her feel bad, so she pushed the image aside—for now.
Not as easily dismissed was a late afternoon phone call from Ryan. He began by apologizing, but she didn’t know why and then moved into a free-form tirade about his mom and something about the twins being a terror before ending with what she was relatively sure was an invitation for dinner. As in a date. Next Friday.
She informed him she’d be on vacation. As if that somehow explained her turning him down.
He promised to behave.
She got pissy.
In the end, she agreed not to change her number or leave town in the next week, but that was all the ground she gave.
Whatever. She shrugged and pushed everything aside except her plans for the next ten days.
Bra in place, she pulled a top over her head made from some soft, nubby material that was comfy as hell. The stretchy yoga pants slid on with ease.
She stood and hugged herself with both arms.
“Now this is what I call a vacation wardrobe.” She chuckled.
Dragging the groceries across and around her normal clutter, Jen unloaded a week’s worth of nutritionally bankrupt junk food onto the kitchen table and tried to straighten up as she put the stuff away.
She flipped on the sound system in the living room as she went about her vacation pre-gaming and enjoyed her current favorite, a station that played early 90’s music.
Rocking along to “Suicide Blonde,” she expressed her love of all things INXS then danced her way through an embarrassing “Achy Breaky Heart” that would make Billy Ray groan.
With a remote control doing double duty as a microphone, she paraded around her apartment and belted out “Hold On,” her absolute favorite Wilson Phillips ballad.
“I’m on vacay, bitches,” she hollered into the air of her apartment. Punching her fist above her head, Jen grunted, “Yes!”
This was what she needed. A chance to pull back and get her shit in order. She had major projects on the terrace and in her grandmother’s old greenhouse plus a stack of books up to her knees sitting on her TBR list.
She couldn’t think about work or John’s growing co-dependence on her to guide him through the dating maze.
And she couldn’t think about Ryan or his unnerving connection to tantric sex. Doing so wouldn’t lead to anyplace good.
One delivered pizza—pepperoni with extra cheese—later, she was stuffed and far enough into her chill zone to set up camp on the sofa with her favorite blanket, the TV remote, a bottle of incredibly cheap red wine from Trader Joe’s, and the secret stash of M & M’s she kept in a Ziploc bag under a bunch of junk in the side table drawer.
Life was good.
She dozed off around one in the morning during a marathon binge watch of Friends.
Ryan caught sight of his and John’s reflection in a window as they stood side by side in the same pose—chins lowered and arms crossed. They were annoying the shit out of a work crew as they took a walk-through of the storefront and had stopped to survey a design plan propped up by a makeshift easel.
“Half the gear we offer won’t translate well in a showroom, so we’re doing a lounge area with table video where customers can browse the big-ticket stuff. The Lloyd branded kayaks are backordered, and the full camp package, the family of four model, is setting sales records.”
John grunted to let him know he had heard what he said.
“What’s this?” he asked with a finger pointed at the layout.
Ryan leaned in and checked before responding. “Uh, that’s something new. Added a kid zone.”
�
�Really?” John remarked with an air of interest.
“Yeah,” Ryan assured his brother. Chuckling, he drawled, “Chelsea Matthews made an impression on me! Butterfly nets, telescopes, fossil dig equipment. Kids are curious about everything. We can have a blast with a special section just for the young.”
“And young at heart. I’d add that to the marketing. Not everyone can go spelunking or climb a mountain.”
“Good point,” he murmured. On his phone, he entered a quick note to talk to the design team about access for the disabled and products for seniors that could carry the Lloyd seal.
“Chelsea’s really something.”
His brother’s observation made Ryan’s brow arch. He fed his long hair behind both ears and fixed John with a sober look.
“I like that you like this woman and her kid, bro. Not exactly eloquent but you know what I mean.”
John smirked. “I have no goddamn idea what I’m doing. All I know is that I can’t wait to get to work every morning just to see Samantha and talk to her. She’s all I think about.”
“This thing is serious, then. Isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” John grumbled. “Is that how it works? Does thinking about someone all the time mean it’s serious? Shit, Ryan. Feels damn serious to me, but I’m not the only one in this thing. Samantha is hard to read. And you know I’m not good with shit like that to begin with.”
Does thinking about someone all the time mean it’s serious? Ryan was asking himself the very same question about Jen. He’d gone from snark-fueled fuckery for the hell of it to being more than a little obsessed with anything concerning the uptight woman.
“And Mom. Jeez. She’s making it worse.”
“Brought it on your own damn self,” Ryan muttered. “You shouldn’t have told her anything. Now we’re both under the microscope, you dipshit.”
“Sorry. I told you I’m not good at this.”
John stared at him before quietly asking the million-dollar question about the King Kong-sized monkey in the room.
“So what’s up with you and my assistant?”
Ryan pursed his lips and snarled. “How the hell do you put up with that picture-perfect bullshit she has going on? Do you know she lines up her pens?”
Enduring (Family Justice Book 8) Page 55