“That’s not the only time,” Greg retorted. “She used blind puppies for another beauty pageant. They’re all born blind, by the way.” He chuckled. “She knows how to work the sympathy card. She’s smart. I like that. A good woman wins at all costs. I could use a girl like her on Team Cranken.”
James had never suspected what life must have been like for Isabel. He’d imagined—as most people did—that she simply breezed through her days, looking down on everyone else who had less. But this atmosphere was like a lion’s den, and he thought he could see the forces that had created Isabel Baxter. She was kinder than this group—gentler. She didn’t seem to have their instinct to crush the competition. If Isabel had these people to rely on in her formative years, he could only imagine the courage it would take for her to open up and be genuine—with anyone. He didn’t like the way Greg was talking about her. Someone needed to stand up for Izzy.
“She’s not in the beauty pageants anymore,” he countered. “She’s opening a store, actually.”
“That’s a real thing?” Greg’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought that was just a wicked rumor.”
“No, it’s real. Everyone deserves a fresh start.”
Greg huffed something halfway between a laugh and a snort. “Well, mark my words, she’ll have a sympathy card up her sleeve somewhere. Maybe she’ll play up her own injuries. Whatever she does, it’ll work. She’s got the touch.”
A sympathy card—like a woman with Down syndrome working in the kitchen? He didn’t like the possibilities, and he shoved the thought away.
“Okay, she’s coming this way.” Greg nudged James and drained another flute of champagne. “Give me some space.”
“What?” James demanded.
“Oh, don’t be like that.” Greg rolled his eyes. “I think we both know that you don’t have the resources for the Baxters. Now get lost.”
James shot him an icy look but stood his ground.
Isabel had worked her way around the room, and she fluttered a wave in James’s direction as she headed back. When her gaze fell on Greg, her smile faltered, but she didn’t change course. Her black dress was feminine and clung in all the right places, but it still left an awful lot to the imagination. Even so, James didn’t like the way Greg leered at her. He had an urge to remind him that her face was up about ten inches.
“Sorry to abandon you like that,” Isabel said as she came over. She gave Greg an uncomfortable look and turned away from him slightly. “Did you survive?”
“Oh, I’m tougher than you think,” James said with a dry laugh. That was a pointed message to Greg, if the other man cared to take it. James took her by the elbow and steered her away. The smaller man glared in their direction, obviously not used to having his peevish demands thwarted. James felt a surge of satisfaction. If he did nothing else tonight, he’d thoroughly annoy that little troll.
“By the way,” James said, leaning down so only she could hear him, “that Greg guy is no friend of yours.”
Isabel glanced back. “Really? What did he say?”
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
James’s cell phone vibrated, and he pulled it from his pocket. He had a text from Mr. Baxter:
Come by the house. I have some documents for you to take care of.
That was nebulous. Mr. Baxter was never one to explain, and he expected a prompt response. James paused for a moment, weighing his options. This party was a school of sharks, and he couldn’t say that he was completely comfortable leaving Isabel alone with Greg Cranken.
“What is it?” Isabel asked.
“Your dad wants me to swing by the house.”
“Oh, feel free to go,” she said with a slight shake of her head. “I don’t mind.”
“Yeah, but I kind of do,” he replied, keeping his voice low. “These are your friends?”
She nodded. “Why?”
“I hate to say it, but I don’t think these people like you.”
Was that harsh? Probably, but how else was he supposed to phrase it?
“Oh, you mean Greg.” She looked back over her shoulder. Greg had another glass in hand and was chatting with two women. Greg looked in their direction, his expression sour.
“Yeah, Greg.”
“He’s always been like that. Don’t worry about him.” She appeared entirely unconcerned. “He’s just...it would take me a month to explain him to you.”
James glanced at his watch. “I’ll tell your father that I’ll go by in the morning.”
“Are you honestly worried about me?” she asked with a low laugh. “I’m a big girl, you know.” Despite her words, she deflated slightly as she glanced around the room.
She was an adult. He knew he was being too protective. These were her friends, after all, and this party was in her honor. Who was he to her, anyway?
“You know what,” she said after a moment. “Let’s go.”
It was James’s turn to balk. “What do you mean?” he asked. “I don’t want to cut short your fun. Apparently this is a welcome-back party. Maybe there’s cake.”
She shook her head. “Do you ever just get tired of it all?”
“The social shark pool?” he asked with a wry smile.
“Yes, the shark pool.”
“Sometimes,” he agreed, and truthfully, that had been a factor in his decision to settle down in Haggerston after law school. He liked the idea of community and family. He liked being able to count on people, not constantly watch for the knife in his back.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she murmured into his ear. “I’m still a shark. Just a wounded one, and I can sense them circling.”
“You aren’t like them,” he said with a shake of his head. “Not from what I can see.”
“It’s a choice,” she replied, sadness in her dark eyes. “I know how to hurt every single one of them—Greg included. I could crush them all with a snip here and a withering look there. But I don’t want to play these games anymore. Not only am I no longer the most beautiful woman in the room, which is a major loss to my arsenal, but it takes too much bile. You have to let yourself marinate in it in order to be sharp enough to cut. Does that make any sense?”
“Yeah.”
But looking into her face and seeing her emotions sparkling in her eyes, he admired her for that choice. Vulnerability in the face of all of this—that was bravery.
Isabel started toward Carmella, presumably to make her excuses, and James typed a response to his boss:
Be there in twenty minutes.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE DRIVE TO the Baxter residence was oddly quiet. Isabel seemed to be caught up in her own thoughts, staring out the window at the twilit fields. James glanced toward her once more as he turned onto Mr. Baxter’s road. Some cows stood still, sleeping on their feet, and a sliver of a moon rose over them. The fields, which were so green in the daylight, looked gray in the dusk, as if the plains were soaked in darkness. A silvery splash of moonlight shone off fence posts as they rumbled past.
Greg’s comments about Isabel being smart enough to use sympathy to sway people nagged at James. Would she use Jenny for her own benefit? Isabel had admitted tonight that she could still be a shark.
Jenny was vulnerable because she wanted to please people so badly. She wanted to be liked. She wanted to fit in. But she wasn’t stupid, either, and eventually she would sense that Isabel didn’t really like her—if that were the case—and that would hurt Jenny deeply. Jenny went through life with her heart open to the world—she didn’t have the defenses that other people took for granted. For Jenny, it would just hurt more.
“So that Greg guy—” James glanced toward Isabel. She looked up, her dark eyes gleaming in the low light, and for a moment, he almost forgot what he was going to say.
“What about him?
”
“He was telling me about how you won Miss Montana.”
She smiled, the scars along her cheek tugging slightly. “My glory days.”
“So how did you win?” He laughed uncomfortably. “I mean, obviously you were gorgeous—”
“It isn’t all about looks,” she said with a shake of her head. “It’s about heart, too, you know.”
“That’s what Greg said.” Sort of. If he’d wadded it up and reformed it. “He said that you were working with war amputees?”
She nodded. “I needed to find a cause. Every girl needs a cause if she’s going to get anywhere in the competition.”
“A cause?”
She shot him a wry smile. “Something to show that you care about more than your own face. Beauty isn’t only skin-deep, you know.”
He chuckled. “So I’ve heard. So you chose war amputees?”
“Well, we had a gardener who was a Vietnam vet, and he’d lost one hand above the wrist. He could still do all the work—he was really inventive that way—and I used to watch him, wondering what I would do if I only had one hand.”
“So he was a friend?” James pressed.
“A friend? No, he was an employee.”
James’s stomach sank. This was sounding a little too close to Greg’s version of things.
“But you knew him?”
“Not really. I’d watched him. I mean, he was the gardener, after all.”
She’d picked a cause and used it for her own purposes. James listened in silence as she talked about how her father had asked the gardener if she could interview him, and how she had come face-to-face with the casualties of war for the first time in her young life.
“What is he doing now?” James asked.
“Who? Greg?”
“No, the gardener. I mean, after you’d gotten to know him and all of that, did you stay in contact?”
Isabel was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. He moved on to another job at some point. I don’t remember. Maybe he retired? He was an old man already. My dad might recall.”
“So this man wasn’t really a personal thing, just...a cause.” He inwardly winced at his barbed tone.
“That’s not really fair.” She glanced toward him uneasily, her earlier candor evaporating. “I was eighteen. What kinds of causes was I supposed to have personal investment in?” She eyed him speculatively. “Those are some mighty big expectations to have for a small-town girl with a wealthy father. No, I didn’t get cozy with the employees. I was the boss’s daughter. I tried to see something beyond my own nose, though, and apparently, it resonated with people at the competition. Is that so terrible?”
Was it fair of him to judge her for playing by the rules of the game? How was an eighteen-year-old girl supposed to have any perspective when it came to causes and world issues? She was a kid—a privileged kid who had never had to face any hardship. He couldn’t rightly blame her for some questionable judgment.
“What did Greg say, exactly?” Isabel said after a moment.
“It doesn’t matter.” He didn’t want to repeat Greg’s criticisms.
“It really does.” She fixed him with a direct stare. “Because you’re not telling me everything, and I have a feeling I’m getting slammed behind my back.”
“Beautiful people always get slammed behind their backs,” he said, attempting a joke, but the humor appeared to bounce off of her.
“What did he say?” Her tone stayed level, and James sighed.
“He said that you have a history of using the sympathy card to win,” he said bluntly.
“That’s part of the competition,” she replied with a shake of her head. “Evening wear, swimsuit, world peace and something that sets you aside from the pack—an ability to sympathize with someone less fortunate that you.”
“Yeah, I get it,” he said softly.
“Do you really?” she retorted. “Because I’d hate to have you wondering if I’m a complete hypocrite, using people for my own devices.”
“I didn’t say that.” He shook his head. “I was just wondering what the story was, that’s all.”
“Why?” She eyed him appraisingly. “Are you worried about Jenny?”
James was silent. He wasn’t sure how to address that last statement, and he couldn’t lie to her, either. He was most definitely concerned about Jenny.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” she asked, surprise tingeing her tone.
He glanced back at her. “It had crossed my mind. Jenny is sensitive—”
“What kind of person would I be to use her?” Her voice cracked and she looked away, her dark hair falling to cover her face.
“Don’t cry,” James said.
“Cry?” She turned toward him again, anger snapping in her gaze but her eyes dry. “I’m not crying. Do you think I’m a woman who sheds tears to manipulate men, too?”
This conversation was getting wildly out of control, and he winced. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Look, I’m not using Jenny. Did I feel sorry for her after she was treated like a second-class citizen in that restaurant? You bet I did, and when a decent person sees someone treated badly, they do their best to make it right. Feeling badly for someone and then not doing anything about it is, frankly, useless.”
He had to agree, and he was beginning to wonder if he’d just really put his foot in it. “I guess a beauty competition and real life are two different things.”
“What about you?” she pressed. “Have you ever tried a case that you didn’t feel personally connected to? Did you ever defend a client with an argument that you didn’t fully believe in?”
James sighed. Of course he had. That was what law school was all about—learning how to fight for your client and trust the system to balance it all out. It was his legal obligation to give his client every ounce of his expertise. Anything less than that would be unfair.
“I really thought you were different,” she said, bitterness entering her tone.
“Hey,” James said, stung. “You know, it doesn’t really matter what people say about you. What matters is what is true.”
“So I shouldn’t take it so hard when my supposed friends trash me?” she retorted.
“Don’t think I’m one of the people trashing you,” he corrected her.
She remained silent as they pulled into the drive that led up to the house. It was lit up from within on the first floor, and one window on the third floor glowed dimly. He parked in a pool of light and turned toward Isabel.
“I’m always going to be looking out for Jenny,” he said, trying to piece together his thoughts. When it came to forming a legal argument, he could do it in his sleep, but this was about his own personal feelings, and those didn’t come together quite so easily or so gracefully. He swallowed. “I’m her legal guardian. I’m all she’s got, and I’ll be looking after her for the rest of our lives. I worry about her. It’s not easy for her, and I’m that brick wall between her and a very unfair world. I take that role pretty seriously.”
She nodded. “Fair enough.”
“I’m not meaning to take this out on you, and I do appreciate how you’re trying to help her, but just—” He heaved a sigh. “I don’t know how to sugarcoat this... Just be careful. Sometimes things flow along so easily, and they might flow right over Jenny before you notice.”
“I told you before that I would be careful, and that hasn’t changed.”
He could tell that she wasn’t thrilled with him right now, but when it came to Jenny, he couldn’t take chances. His sister got knocked around enough, and he knew her well enough to see that this wasn’t just a part-time job for her. This was something deeper, something that mattered more to her. After tonight, he was convinced that Isabel was tougher than she looked. Jenny wasn’t. She needed her big
brother to make sure that she didn’t get caught up in the Baxter machinery, because if there was one thing he knew for a fact, it was that the Baxters got what they wanted. Every time.
* * *
ISABEL TROTTED UP the front steps to her father’s house after James. Her heels tapped lightly against the wood, and she brushed a dark tendril away from her face. So much for all her effort to get dressed up tonight—she’d lasted all of forty minutes at Carmella’s party. And now, apparently James thought worse of her after meeting her friends. That stung. This whole town seemed to be enjoying her downfall just a little too much, and she’d thought James could see past all of that. Maybe she’d expected too much.
Carmella would be miffed at her early escape, and she’d have to make it up to her somehow. With chocolate? It was worth a try. Her problem with James wouldn’t be so easily resolved.
James glanced back at her uneasily, and she realized belatedly that her father wasn’t expecting her—he was expecting his lawyer. Never in her life had she ever worried that her presence might be a disappointment to her father, but things were changing around here, and for a split second, she did worry.
James knocked on the front door, and after a moment, her father opened it. He wore his usual khaki pants and a salmon-colored polo shirt, open at the neck so that his gray chest hair tufted out. His eyes widened in surprise when his gaze fell on her.
“Hello, James,” her father said. “And Izzy. What brings you by?”
“We were together when you texted me,” James explained, and her father turned to look at James with an arched brow. She could sense the questions beneath that look, and she had to curb the urge to roll her eyes. Was this going to be the new norm around here—show up at her father’s house for a chilly welcome?
“I took him along to Carmella’s dinner party,” Isabel explained. “Not that it matters. Daddy, do you always call on James at this hour?”
She’d meant the comment to be a joke to break that layer of ice, but her father didn’t smile. He just stepped back and let them in. Britney was nowhere to be seen, and the house smelled faintly of coffee and toast.
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