“I was thinking more like our relationship is too close,” Jesse said.
His eyes darkened, forcing her to lean more heavily on him, since her legs weren’t doing any job of supporting her.
“That could be worse,” Lauren said before she realized she’d vocalized her thought. “Professionalism and all that.” And the secretive way the Morrison estate had been settled. Lauren hated to think it, but she didn’t know if her bosses could fairly represent Jesse’s interests, given their close ties to Ken Kostner. It wouldn’t be intentional. Bile burned the back of her throat. Or, at least she didn’t think it would be.
“Not to mention the potential for gossip getting out,” she blurted to fill the sound void caused by her retreat into her thoughts about work. “You remember how it was with us back in Chenango Falls?”
He squeezed her arm, sending a shiver through her, despite the blast of afternoon heat coming through the now-open door.
“I remember.”
The shiver went into overdrive. Yeah, she remembered, too.
C H A P T E R 8
Jesse had heard from Lauren’s engineer friends by yesterday afternoon and emailed them his plans, but he hadn’t heard back from her, which gave him a bad feeling. And it hadn’t raised his spirits this morning when he’d gone to the local home improvement store with Sonja’s notarized document to open a line of credit for the materials they’d need to get started on the work and had been told Sonja would have to come in herself to set up the line.
“Jesse-Daddy home,” Shelley said with a flying leap into his arms when he walked into Sonja’s duplex. It squeezed his heart at how quickly the little girl had attached herself to him and Sonja and living here. He hoped the adjustment to moving to the cottage, their own place, would be as smooth. He hugged her to him. That was a concern for the future. He had enough immediate ones. He hadn’t gotten his DNA results yet, either.
“Are we ready to get going?” His dad rose from the recliner where he’d been reading to Shelley. “Sonja’s finished her showing and is on her way home to stay with Shelley.”
“About that.” Jesse explained about the line of credit and materials. “I hope we don’t lose all of today.” He didn’t add that he hadn’t a minute, let alone a whole day to spare, if they were going to meet the time frame of the condemnation notice and establish their residence in the cottage for the approval of his guardianship of Shelley.
“Maybe this is better news.” His father reached down and picked up an envelope from the table next to the chair.
Jesse’s windpipe constricted so he couldn’t draw a full breath when he caught the return address on the mail. The testing facility in Charleston. Had Lauren gotten her copy at the office yesterday? Was that why she hadn’t contacted him? She didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news. He squeezed Shelley to him again.
“Too tight.” She pushed at him. “Down.”
He placed her on the floor. No. Fierce denial ran through him. He knew she was his, like he’d once known Lauren was his.
His phone pinged in his pocket. Who would be texting him, except Lauren? Jesse forced air into his lungs as he pulled the phone from his pocket.
Good news. Call me.
“Lauren. She wants to talk.” He slapped the unopened envelop against his thigh.
“Go ahead,” his dad said. “Shelley and I will finish our story.”
“Pa, story.” She pointed at the book.
He bent and kissed her soft curls. “I’ll be right back after I make my phone call.” Jesse stepped into the hall to the kitchen.
“Hey!” Lauren answered. “I’ve got some information for you.”
“About the DNA testing? I got something from the center today, but I haven’t opened it.”
“That and the condemnation notice.”
It might be the connection, but to him it sounded liked she lowered her voice for the second half of her reply.
“I know you and your dad planned to work today, but can we get together first?”
“Sure.” He leaned his shoulder against the wall. His dad could watch Shelley and Sonja could go set up the line of credit at the home improvement store. “What time do you want me there?”
“Not here. I could use some time out of the office. I’ll come to you at the house. And go ahead and open the letter from the testing center.”
“All right!” Lauren wouldn’t be encouraging him to open the letter if it wasn’t something good.
“See you in about a half hour,” she said.
Lauren hung up, and Jesse tore open the envelope. He read down the sheet. “She is mine. I knew it,” he whispered.
“Did you say something?” his dad asked.
He looked up from the letter. “The DNA test. Shelley’s mine.” If it weren’t a chick thing, he’d say he was giddy.
“I knew that,” his dad said. “Didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” He had known in his heart. “But I have it in writing now.”
“So, this wraps it up? The guardianship. You’re her father. You don’t need to be named her guardian.”
“I’m not sure it’s that easy. Lauren will tell me when she gets here.”
“Lauren’s coming here? You’re not going to her office?”
Spoken aloud, it sounded a little strange for just a business relationship.
“Tell you what. When Sonja gets here, we’ll take Shelley and go to the home improvement center and get that line of credit straightened out.”
Leaving him and Lauren alone in the house. “Works for me.”
Sonja rushed in the front door. “Sorry, I’m later than I said. Caroline called. She may have someone to watch Shelley for you. I’ve got the information on my phone.” She fumbled in her purse for it.
His dad stood, Shelley on his hip, and touched Sonja’s arm. “You can give him the sitter information when we get back.”
Sonja gave his father a warm smile so like one Jesse had seen on Lauren’s face for him many times in the past.
“Back from where?” Sonja asked.
“The home improvement center. I’ll fill you in in the car. Lauren will be here in a few minutes to talk with Jesse. He got the results from the DNA test.”
“From your faces, I’d say good news.”
“The best,” Jesse said, his voice hitching.
“So, lets you and me and my granddaughter head to the store and give Jesse and Lauren some privacy to talk legal stuff.”
His father exchanged what could only be called a private smile with Sonja. They were smiling about him and Lauren? He studied the pair. Not entirely, from the low charge electricity in the air. Sonja and Dad? He’d think about that later, maybe throw out the possibility to Lauren that something might be developing between their parents. More likely he was thinking in that direction because that’s where his thoughts kept going about him and Lauren.
Jesse leaned over and gave Shelley a peck on the cheek. “You be a good girl for Grandpa at the store, and I’ll see you when you get back.”
“Good girl, Pa.” The little girl nodded emphatically.
Jesse watched the trio leave, reread the DNA results unable to resist a fist pump, and then paced the living room a couple times before heading to the kitchen to put on a fresh pot of coffee. That done, he checked the kitchen clock and took the cinnamon rolls he’d picked up at Caroline’s out of the bag on the counter, warmed them in the microwave, and arranged and rearranged them on a plate on the kitchen table. He frowned. He was turning into a regular cooking show competitor. Presentation is everything.
Jesse added plates for them to the table, along with sugar and creamer. There was nothing wrong with a little party to celebrate good news. Besides, it wasn’t that he didn’t have party experience of all kinds—participant and organizer. Memories of the Team Macachek Christmas party Lauren’s aunt had pushed them together to organize flooded his head. It had been an obvious ploy to get them together after an earlier breakup. A ploy that had worked at the time
.
That team party had been the last one Lauren had gone to. He blinked, but the pictures wouldn’t go away. She’d been drop-dead gorgeous, her glittery teal dress falling softly from her bare shoulders to just above her knees, clinging in all the right places to emphasize her curves. They’d danced to what had been their song. “I’ll Wait for You.” He’d promised he would. And he hadn’t. A lump formed in his throat. In truth, it had been more of a disappearing act on his part after the accident. But it looked the same. When she’d finished college and law school, he hadn’t been there.
But that race had already finished, and he couldn’t change the results. The DNA test results were something else, something to celebrate, as was the possible sitter for Shelley, and his dad being here for him. Despite the crunch placed on him by the condemnation notice, for the first time since his racing accident, Jesse felt he had a future ahead of him, both personal and professional. He heard a car pull into the driveway.
And he wasn’t going to let anything stop him from going full throttle into that future.
Lauren nibbled her bottom lip as she pulled open the screen door to her mother’s side of the duplex. She knew all the legalities of condemnation proceedings. Acer and Acer sometimes consulted on behalf of the city on them. She knew estate law. The firm had taken all the right steps. But the Morrison file didn’t have any notices in it.
She stepped into the empty living room. When Lauren had called the planning board secretary, the woman had said the discussion of the condemnation was in one of the board’s earlier meeting minutes. The secretary was sure the city attorney’s office had drafted the intent notice shortly afterwards to be sent to Mr. Morrison’s executor or heir, depending on whether or not the estate had been settled when the notice had been sent, and to the local newspaper.
Lauren’s follow-up with the city clerk had confirmed that the condemnation hearing notice had been posted in the paper and that the other notice should have been mailed the same day. The clerk had offered to get Lauren dates, but Lauren had said she could just as easily check the newspaper. The woman had gone on about how sad it was that neither Mr. Morrison’s heir or representative had come to the initial condemnation hearing and that “the lovely old mansion” had been allowed to deteriorate. The clerk had wished Lauren luck when she’d said Jesse wanted to save it.
“Anyone here?” Lauren called. Jesse’s and his dad’s trucks were both parked out front.
“I’ll be down in a minute.” Jesse’s voice came down the stairs.
That would give her a little more time to couch how to ask Jesse and, maybe better, his dad if any notices had been sent to their California home. It was possible the notice had been sent to Jesse at his California residence, and not Acer and Acer, if the estate had already been settled. Both of the Acer brothers had curtly told her all the documents pertaining to the Morrison estate they’d received were in the work folder. She’d attributed the curtness of their replies to Jesse not jumping at Ken Kostner’s offer or her not pushing the sale hard enough to him. From the dates of the newspaper posting, the estate could have already been settled when the city sent the notice, which meant it would have gone to Jesse.
Jesse had said the estate was settled six months ago. But the deed to the property hadn’t been updated until she’d done it after Jesse had arrived in Indigo Bay. No matter how she framed the question to Jesse in her head on the drive over, in the context of the information she’d gotten, it sounded like either her accusing him of blowing off the notice or some kind of conspiracy on the part of the city and Acer and Acer. But that was ridiculous. Acer and Acer was a well-respected firm. Or it had been. Her thoughts went to the firm’s lack of recent new business.
“Hey, you here with me?”
Jesse’s tease brought her out of her internal fog. A conspiracy, right. She’d been reading too many suspense novels. “I was thinking.”
“About me?”
“Yes.”
“Good thoughts? I couldn’t tell from your expression.”
“About your legal situation, the condemnation,”
“Of course.”
Jesse shot her a lopsided grin that could have been a further tease or a cover for the uncertainty she’d glimpsed in his eyes. If that’s what she’d glimpsed. Whatever, the smile knocked her heart off-kilter and drew her to the symmetry of his lips. Lips that had felt like coming home when he’d pressed them to hers the other evening. Maybe Jesse had been right when he’d said he could ask one of the partners to take over for her. Maybe they were too close, or still too attracted to each other, too affected by their past.
“I think you’ve gone missing again.” He took her elbow. “What did you have for breakfast? I’d like to think my very presence sends you into a dreamlike state, but based on past experience, it’s more likely you’re hungry.”
“A cup of coffee. I was rushed this morning.”
“Have just the thing for you, then.”
That’s what she was afraid of.
He guided her to the kitchen. “Fresh coffee and cinnamon rolls from Caroline’s. Nothing like some caffeine and sugar to get your metabolism buzzing.”
Between the memories she could no longer keep compartmentalized in her mind and his warm fingers on her arm, she was already buzzing more than she needed or wanted to be. She had to get back on track with the business-like meeting she’d planed on the drive over. The cozy table for two with settings placed next to each other, rather than across the table didn’t help.
“Go ahead and sit,” Jesse said. “I’ll get us each a mug of coffee.”
The sweet cinnamon aroma of the rolls made her stomach gurgle in hunger. “Excuse me.” Or was it nerves about asking Jesse about the earlier condemnation notice? When had she ever been afraid to ask Jesse anything? Then again, when had his answer to a question put so much at stake for so many people—his and his daughter’s livelihood, her mother’s finances, her job.
That is, if Jesse hadn’t read or had blown off a prior notice.
She swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth. The Acers were crafty in serving their more favored clients, like Ken, but not dishonest. With Ken interested in buying the mansion property and not knowing what Jesse’s plans were if he did, she could see the brothers shrugging off the condemnation notice in the newspaper. She’d been trained better than to assume wrongdoing based on circumstantial evidence.
“Here you go.” He placed her mug in from of her and slid into the chair next to her, yanking his thigh away when it brushed hers. “I, uh, thought sitting next to each other would be better if you have documents or whatever for me to look at with you.”
Jesse was concerned about the place settings looking like he was making a move on her? Lauren hadn’t seen the degree of uncertainty she’d caught in his eyes for a long time, probably not since their first kiss at seventeen.
“And here I thought it was to get close to me.”
His eyes widened, and one corner of his mouth tipped up.
She had said her thought aloud and, worse, had warmed to his efforts.
Lauren cleared her throat and stirred creamer into her coffee before taking a sip. “I need to ask you an important question.”
Jesse raised an eyebrow.
“One I need you to answer, even if the answer doesn’t show you in a good light.”
“If it’s about why I left you. Truthfully, I wasn’t myself after my accident and Mom’s death. I am now. If I could have a do-over, I’d handle things differently. I still l …”
Lauren called on all of the strength she had to lift her hand and press her fingers to his lips to stop Jesse from finishing. Her emotions about him, her unfounded suspicions, her career were too jumbled to hear what she knew he was going to say.
“Before the estate was settled, did you receive any notices about the possible condemnation of your uncle’s property before the one you received here.” There. She’d gotten the question out in a professional tone despite Jesse’s almo
st declaration and his warm breath on her fingertips having reduced her insides to mush.
“Not what I was expecting,” he said with a sheepish grin.
Lauren gripped her mug like the coffee was her lifeblood. “Did you? Could you have tossed it, unread?”
Jesse leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. “I did not. Why?”
“The planning board secretary said the city attorney drafted a notice about the original condemnation meeting to be mailed to you or to Acer and Acer, if the estate was still in settlement when it was sent. We don’t have that notice in your file at work.”
He unfolded his arms. “When I was at my worst, I didn’t care enough about my mail to go through it to throw something out. Anyway, wouldn’t the notice come signed receipt required? The one here did. Your mother signed the delivery confirmation.”
“Maybe that was because it was a second notice, because you didn’t show up at the original meeting?”
Jesse pushed away from the table and walked to the coffee maker to refill his mug. “Because I didn’t know about it. Or try this, because it didn’t require a signature, the first notice got lost in the mail and no one knew that.”
She picked up a crumb from her cinnamon roll and dropped it on her plate, unable to meet his eyes. “I didn’t consider that.”
He leaned against the counter. “Look at me. Please.
She lifted her head.
“Since I found out about my inheritance, I’ve wanted it more than anything I’ve wanted in a good long time, except the people I care for. I’ve blown enough important things in my life and regretted it.” Jesse paused.
Lauren’s heart slammed against her chest at the thought that she might be one of those important things.
“I wouldn’t have blown this. If you’re looking for someone to blame, look closer.”
Her lungs constricted. Bottom line, the only one closer was her mother. “Mom is on your side of this.”
“We have sides? Which side are you on? By closer, I meant your law practice.”
Sweet Entanglement (Indigo Bay Sweet Romance Series Book 12) Page 9