Bound to You Page 13

  She almost headed back upstairs then stopped, wondering if she could trust Sam with Ethan while she dressed.

  He seemed to be watching her as she moved about. “We’re cool,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  He’d done fine so far, so she decided to stop worrying. “Thanks.”

  Ethan was a slow eater, since he liked to sing through his meals. He’d probably still be sitting there by the time she returned.

  Brianna came stomping down the stairs, her hair a mess, her short robe hanging open.

  “I’ll keep him today if you want,” Sam said. “I’ll take him around and show him off.”

  Jenna thought about that for only a second. Sam lugging Ethan all over town to meet his wild and rowdy relatives? His friends, who might be anybody? “No, you don’t have a car seat. Bri will be here.”

  She pointed back up the stairs. “We have to hurry. We overslept.”

  Brianna looked at the clock in pieces on the table, then the clock on the wall. “Oh!” She turned herself around. “But you have to give me back the phone since I’ll have the baby.”

  “Fine. Just hurry.”

  Sam glanced at her and she saw the look in his eyes, the hurt feelings written all over his face, but what could she do? She was letting him stay in the house and spend time with his son. She didn’t have time to work out any other problems.

  Sam was still at the table working on the clock when she rushed back down, dressed and ready to go. She gave Ethan, who was still eating, a kiss on the head. She’d been thinking as she’d dressed.

  “You can spend all the time you want with him, here,” she told Sam. “But he can’t go anywhere without a car seat.”

  “Okay,” he said without looking up.

  Brianna came running down fully dressed now and her hair brushed. She grabbed the keys by the garage door. “C’mon.”

  “Forgetting something?” Jenna said, about to lift Ethan from his chair. He wasn’t fully dressed but he wouldn’t be getting out of the car.

  “Sam’s here,” Bri said. “I’ll just drop you off and come right back.”

  She lifted Ethan, anyway. She wasn’t really concerned Sam would run off with Ethan anymore, but she also doubted he knew much about children. She didn’t have time to sort out the details.

  “That was mean,” Bri said as she climbed behind the wheel and Jenna strapped Ethan into his car seat.

  She rushed around and got in the passenger seat. “What was? Let’s go. I’m late.” And she’d left her coffee behind.

  “Sam.”

  Jenna pulled down the visor for the mirror, to finish putting on her makeup. “We’re all adjusting. Don’t badger me this morning.”

  Brianna backed out of the garage and set off driving. “Did you see how he ran off Scumbag Stewart last night? I saw it all from my window.”

  “All of what? What happened?”

  Bri swerved through morning traffic, driving more recklessly than Jenna usually tolerated, but she was too late to care this morning. She struggled not to smear mascara all over her eye.

  “He went out ready to kick some ass,” Bri said. “Brandon ran for his life. It was awesome. I like him. If you won’t marry him, maybe I will.”

  Jenna stared at her sister in alarm. Was she thinking of getting married to avoid the problems in their life? Just as Jenna had almost done? “You’re not marrying anyone. Period. And especially not Sam.”

  “Why not?” Bri teased. “Because you want him? I saw you two. All kissy kissy.” She made smooching sounds.

  Jenna had only thought she was alarmed before. Her sister had seen that?

  “And then this morning it’s like you didn’t want him to be there.”

  Jenna stared straight ahead, then yelled when Bri ran a yellow light that turned red before they’d cleared the intersection. She quickly looked around for signs of a cop car.

  “If we get a ticket because of that….”

  “Relax. Jeez.”

  Bri screeched to a stop in front of the six-story bank building where the law firm occupied a floor, double-parked. She held out her hand for the phone. Jenna found it in her purse. “Remember you have my son in the car, please,” she said as she got out, blowing Ethan a kiss.

  “I’m not in a rush now,” Bri said. “All I have to do is go home and ask Sam to marry me. Since you don’t want him.”

  Brianna drove off almost before Jenna could close the door, let alone respond. She rushed inside and hit the elevator button, but her mind was still back at the house with Sam, and in the car with Bri. Bizarrely, even though she knew it was ridiculous, and knew her sister was winding her up and trying to get her to admit she still had feelings for Sam, it made her slightly jealous to think of Brianna pursuing Sam, and perhaps Sam responding. It made her want Sam all the more.

  It was no fluke Brianna had been accepted at Vanderbilt. She really was kind of brilliant.

  Jenna hit the elevator button again and was about to take the stairs when the doors opened. She also felt bad for not trusting Sam to sit with Ethan for twenty minutes until Brianna returned. But she’d been in too much of a hurry to make important decisions about her son’s safety.

  She stepped into the cool, plush lobby and smiled at the receptionist, a middle-aged woman who still had a gorgeous head of long red hair.

  “Mr. O’Hara wants to see you,” she said as Jenna signed in.

  “Mr. O’Hara?” He was a name partner, the seniorest of the senior partners.

  “You heard me.”

  Jenna checked her watch. She was four minutes late. Twice because of Ethan, and once because of Brianna, she’d already been late three times this year. Today was her own fault. Mr. O’Hara was rigid when it came to punctuality. On the day she was hired she’d been sent to his office where he’d made that point clear. He’d also made sure she understood being Larry Morgan’s daughter, and Simon Morgan’s granddaughter, would get her no special treatment.

  And she’d never asked for any. She’d done her best over the past two and half years. She’d always received positive performance reviews.

  But Mr. O’Hara had never called her into his office.

  This couldn’t be good.

  At her desk, Jenna logged on to her computer, dropped off her purse, then headed down the series of hallways to Mr. O'Hara's office, her heartbeat speeding with each step. His secretary waved for her to go on in.

  The door was open but she knocked anyway, suddenly so nervous her mouth went dry.

  “Shut the door," Mr. O’Hara said, sounding serious. But he always sounded serious.

  She did, then crossed the room and sat before the huge, shining wood desk. Mr. O’Hara, a tall, thin man with thick white hair, was probably over retirement age, though Jenna imagined he wasn’t the type to ever retire. Not until he had to.

  She was about to apologize for being late when he held up a hand.

  “I got a call at the crack of dawn from Kenneth Stewart. About you.”

  Jenna clasped her shaking hands together, her stomach clenching painfully. This was bad. Worse than she’d imagined. Brandon had gone to his father.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “As you may know,” Mr. O’Hara continued, “this firm has represented the Stewart family for years. It seems there's been some unpleasantness. Unpleasantness concerning you. Some demands have been made.”

  She’d been sitting ramrod straight in the chair, but now she let her shoulders slump back. “Yes, sir.”

  Brandon had said she’d regret turning down his offer, and now she knew she was about to.

  CHAPTER TEN

  As soon as Jenna and her sister, and his son, left the house, Sam packed up his tools and left the house himself. The white, sterile, mausoleum of a house gave him the creeps, especially while he was there alone. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but he could almost feel Larry Morgan watching him invisibly, hating him, wanting him gone.

  He headed out to Jack’
s house to take a shower and change clothes. He’d tried his best not to take offense that Jenna didn’t trust him to watch Ethan alone in the house, but it was hard. What did she think would happen in half an hour? Did she think he was an idiot?

  But she’d been in a hurry and he’d yet to prove himself. And she was right. He didn’t have a car seat and couldn’t be toting Ethan around town. He hadn’t even thought of that.

  At Jack’s he found his brother in the living room watching TV. He should have been at work. All his brothers worked hard, but Jack had always worked the hardest. Sam had never known anything to keep Jack from work. Not sickness or injury. Not even the sicknesses and injuries of family members. Jack owned three companies and was so hands-on he had a hard time keeping employees. He wanted to do all the work himself. Sam had worked for him once, during high school, for about a month, until he’d found himself mostly standing around watching Jack work. Eventually, he couldn’t see the point in showing up.

  Finding Jack at home on a workday was disturbing. He was getting worse. His mother had advised them all to leave him alone and give him time to sort it out on his own. But that wasn’t working. He certainly wasn’t getting any better.

  And Sam didn’t know what to say or do.

  He remembered the picnic basket he’d dropped on the lawn and went to see if it was still there. It was, right where he’d dropped it. He picked everything up and carried it all over to the garbage cans at the side of the house. The landscape lighting was still on and he turned them off.

  The food was ruined. Ants were crawling all over an airy basket of strawberries and the champagne was swimming in water instead of ice, so he threw that all out, but he kept the champagne and flowers and then carried everything else, the basket, cooler, and blanket out to his truck to return to Becky later. When he went back inside the house, Jack hadn’t moved a muscle.

  “Why don’t you just call her?” Sam asked.

  Jack sent a quick glare in Sam’s direction. “I thought you were going back to Texas.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “You know,” Jack said, channel surfing with the sound muted, “you’re full of crap.”

  Sam sat down. He’d had a rough night and was tired, and in no mood to argue. “Probably. What’d I do now?”

  “You didn’t have to go take care of Granddad. He still had two kids and five grandkids out there in Tejas. A handful of great-grandkids. They were taking care of him.”

  “They were checking in on him,” Sam calmly corrected his brother. “Not taking care of him. Different thing. He was almost ninety and living alone.”

  “You had a live-in nurse taking care of him.”

  “Not till after the first stroke.”

  “If you say so.”

  “So,” Sam said, “just to get this straight. I’m working things out with Jenna and you’re sitting here on a work day blaming me for… what?”

  Jack held a beer bottle by his side and turned it up to drain the last few drops. “I don’t know.”

  “All right,” Sam said, standing. “Be a stupid jackass if you want but don’t try to drag me down with you. I’m through with all that. I’m gonna take a shower.”

  “I don’t need your itinerary,” Jack said.

  Sam took a shower then went back downstairs and found his brother right where he’d left him. He’d apparently only moved to get up for another beer. At nine o’clock in the morning.

  Sam almost left then turned back. “What’s the deal? With you and Angie? What really happened?”

  “She wouldn’t leave,” Jack said. “So I made her leave.”

  That wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. “So, what’s the problem?”

  “She left.”

  Sam shook his head and turned to leave himself. “You’ve lost your mind, bro.”

  Sam got in his truck and had driven about a quarter mile when he realized he’d left his phone on the counter in the bathroom. Cursing, he turned back.

  As he went back in the house, Jack watched him go upstairs, and was still watching as Sam came back down. As Sam was on his way out, Jack said, “She got a job in Cincinnati.”

  Sam strolled over to rest his hands on the back of a chair, still wary of getting sucked into his brother’s dark mood. “Well, that’s too bad.”

  “No, damn it,” Jack said, seeming agitated now. Possibly the first signs of life he’d seen from him his brother since Sam had returned home. “I mean before. A good job with a big company. One she couldn’t pass up. Director of business development? What is that?”

  Sam shrugged. “Directing the development of business?”

  Jack ignored him. “But she wouldn’t take it. Said she’d rather stay here.” He laughed as if disgusted. He was drunk, or getting there. “With me. But she had to go. What was she gonna do? Stay here while I’m out at work all the time? Hate me for it? She was always bitching about how I was never home. So I talked her in to leaving. And she left. So, you can tell everybody it’s over and they can leave me the hell alone. I’m not gonna marry her and she doesn’t want me to.”

  Sam moved around the chair and sat down. “So, what? Now you’re mad at her for doing what you told her to do?”

  “Yes,” Jack said. “And no.”

  He missed her. Sam could relate. In fact, this all sounded a little too familiar. He’d tried to do what he’d thought was best for Jenna and had ended up hurting her instead. And himself. “You know, you’ve got a lot of people who want to do their jobs and help you. If you’d let them. You own the companies, man. You have managers. Let them manage and get your butt to Ohio.”

  Jack shook his head lazily. “I’m in talks to buy that HVAC company….”

  “Why?” Sam asked. “Why do you need another one?”

  Jack sent him a hateful glance then stared at the TV again.

  “Fine,” Sam said, anxious to leave. “I’m heading out to the farm. I can’t deal with you this morning.”

  “Do whatever you want,” Jack said. “You will, anyway.”

  A renewed sense of determination came over Sam to work out things with Jenna. The fear he’d once felt at the idea of commitment had now turned into a fear of turning into the miserable sloth his brother had become.

  ***

  Sam pulled to a stop in front of his parents’ sprawling farmhouse. Instead of downsizing now that all the kids were grown, his mother kept adding on to the house. He’d noticed when he’d first arrived home that she’d added tennis courts in the open space where he and his brothers used to play touch football. She’d also added an impressive waterfall to the pool, probably trying to compete with Jack’s pond for the kids’ attention.

  He saw his mother, Sandra Strickland, who most people called Sunny because in her youth she’d apparently had a sunny personality, walking up from the stables. She was dressed in jeans, boots and a bright pink shirt, the dogs on her heels. She smiled and waved when she saw him. And came to give him a hug when he walked over to meet her, and called him Darling Samson.

  He handed her the flowers he’d planned to give Jenna, which were beginning to wilt, then grabbed his tools and walked with her up to the house, noticing, probably for the first time, how beautiful she still was at sixty-five.

  She kept her shoulder-length hair colored a light shade of brown, close to her natural color, and always salon styled. Her nails were always manicured, even though she still worked a lot with the horses and loved to garden. She still had the body of a twenty-year-old, almost.

  “I tell you what,” she said, nodding to his tool case, “if it wasn’t for you, I’d never know what time it is.”

  “That’s because all your clocks are a hundred years old.”

  “This one, the broken one, was made by my great-great-great grandfather and is probably two hundred years old.”

  She still had her Texas accent even after living in Tennessee for most of her life. She pronounced the word hundred ‘hunnerd.’ Of course, she teased them all about t
heir accents in return. It made him a little bit homesick. When he was in Texas, he missed Tennessee. When he was in Tennessee, he missed Texas. His mother had always said he had the soul of a ramblin’ man, just like his paternal grandfather.

  “I wish you’d come visit more,” she said. “Once or twice a year just doesn’t cut it, darling.”

  “It’s a long drive,” he said.

  “Hop on a plane. They have those, nowadays.”

  “I have a ranch to run.”

  “Daddy’s itty bitty ranch? Phooey. Little Bucky runs the ranch. Don’t you try and fool me with all that nonsense. You’re not a cowboy. You don’t know what a real cowboy is. You shoulda seen the cowboys in my day, buddy. Would have scared the pants off you, even as big as you are now.”

  They’d already had this discussion, many times over the past three years, and he knew he couldn’t win, so he let it go. Inside the house, she put the flowers in a vase then went to wash her hands at the kitchen sink. Sam sat at the table.

  “Well, you don’t have the baby with you,” she said, turning around to lean against the sink while she dried her hands, “so I take it things didn’t go so well.”

  “No, it’s fine. We’re working it out.”

  “I’m dying to see him. We all are.”

  “Jenna’s bringing him out to the party.”

  “In two weeks?” she said, raising her voice. “Oh, no, no, no. I can’t wait two weeks. Did you bring pictures at least? I need to see his face.”

  And have proof this mystery child actually existed? “I forgot. I’ll get some.” Even if he had to take pictures of Ethan with his phone. He should have thought of that before. A picture of his son on his new tricycle would have been perfect.

  Marna, the housekeeper, was puttering around the kitchen, eavesdropping. She was getting well into her fifties now and had put on a little weight, but still had a baby face. She was the only person he’d ever seen with violet eyes. “Have you eaten yet, hon?” she asked him. “I’ve got a whole world of leftovers from breakfast. I can fix up some fresh biscuits in a heartbeat.”