Long Shot hg-1 Page 6

  Jen gave him a blazing smile that had him picturing her in her underwear and glasses again. That made him back away, because what she was getting out of this situation was entirely different from what he was, and he hated how uneven it felt. Again. He was never balanced around her.

  He ambled back to the barn. “So we done here?”

  “I wasn’t aware there was a ‘we,’” she said, “but yes.”

  Of course there wasn’t a “we.” He did not look over at the center of the field.

  Tapping on her computer, she went right back to work, her fingers blurry, her delicious bottom lip caught between her teeth. The sight of her drew him forward until he looked over her shoulder at the screen.

  The open document was titled “Changes.” Other programs made a patchwork of the screen—spreadsheets and graphs and a website or two. She moved between them with lightning speed. Then, suddenly, she snapped the laptop shut, shoved it into her purse, and straightened. She jumped when she finally realized how close Leith had gotten. She swallowed, glanced down his body and back up to find his eyes again. Selfishly, he was more than a little happy he’d managed to disarm her. Or maybe it was he who was unarmed and defenseless, because the urge to push her against the crates and kiss her suddenly overtook him.

  “Um.” She held her purse strap in a death grip. “I have to head over to Town Hall now.”

  “Meeting with Mayor Sue?” He still didn’t move, even though he blocked the door.

  “I refuse to call her that. That woman made my life miserable five summers running. It’s bad enough she’s my boss again.”

  “Miserable? Really?” He didn’t remember that, didn’t remember Jen ever being affected by criticism or bad air. It was strange for him to hear, when he thought he’d known her so well.

  Jen blew a piece of hair off her forehead. “She’s predisposed to hate anything I do. I’m always running uphill with her. I’m surprised she let me do this.”

  “Let you? They’re not paying you?”

  “No. I took vacation.”

  Dumbfounded, Leith cocked his head and planted his hands on his hips. The girl had worked at least two jobs every summer she’d been here. She’d checked her bank balance nearly every day. All she’d ever talked about was being someone, being a success. Work, work, work. What else didn’t he know about her? What else had he gotten wrong?

  “So why are you doing this?” he asked, voice soft. “Really. This doesn’t . . . seem like you.”

  Her facial features tensed. “You can’t say that.”

  He had to look away because the urge to want to know her was building and building, and he wasn’t sure if he should let it. “You’re absolutely right.”

  She cleared her throat but said nothing.

  “So.” He stepped closer, even though there was scant space left for him to erase. A little cloud of dust rose between them where he’d scuffed the dirt with his boot. She had to tilt her head back to look at him, and he tried not to remember that this was exactly how she’d looked with her back against the Stone Pub wall the night of their first kiss. “Is this who you are now? Is this what you do? Save small town festivals?”

  “No.” She licked her lips, and the way she stared into his eyes had him feeling eighteen all over again. “Just this one.”

  Chapter

  5

  “Leith MacDougall, what a surprise!” Evidently Sue McCurdy did know how to smile, and it was when the town’s celebrity was in touching distance. Today’s Syracuse T-shirt was navy blue, and the age-inappropriate hairstyle was pigtails sticking out from just behind her ears. The mayor stood in the open door of Town Hall, beaming right over Jen’s head at the big man at her back. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  Leith moved to Jen’s side, crowding her on the small front stoop, their arms touching briefly. “Just dropping off Jen,” he said.

  Sue blinked at Leith, then shifted a confused glance to Jen, as though seeing her for the first time. Jen understood. Leith somehow managed to consume the atmosphere and draw eyes wherever he went. If he were a true celebrity, his pockets would be full of women’s underwear. Dimly, Jen wondered if he’d ever found the pair of hers they’d lost in the dark woods one night a long time ago.

  Jen wished Leith would leave. Not because she wanted to be rid of him, but because she needed to exhale. From the second he’d turned his giant truck into the fairgrounds and the sun had hit that quiet spot in the center of the field where he’d told her he loved her, she’d been holding her breath. There was a great pain in her chest because of it.

  Appropriately, the picnic blanket that night had been red plaid, not his family tartan or anything, but appropriately Scottish looking. The evening had started sad, with the two of them knowing she was leaving, and ended in catastrophe.

  Only a few minutes earlier, as she’d stood outside the barn, she’d been relieved Leith couldn’t see her face, because she was sure there was no color in it. She’d wanted to clamp her hands over her ears. That stupid spot on the grass had beat like a diseased heart: loud, erratic, deadly. She’d turned back around, and the sight of him—older, bigger, longer hair—had nearly brought up ten-year-old tears from where she’d shoved them deep inside.

  He was so nonchalant, so frustratingly cool. Maybe he’d buried his memories of that night the way she’d buried her tears. Nothing ever fazed him, Aimee had said, but how could even he not be affected by the fact that they were standing in almost the exact place they’d said good-bye?

  Maybe he’d finally forgiven her. Maybe he hated her and was doing a damn fine job of covering it up.

  That second thought made her want to throw up.

  “Thought I’d come say hi, too,” Leith said to Sue, “and to let you know Chris’ll be taking over your yard when I’m gone.”

  “Are you helping Jen?” Sue asked Leith, her eyes brightening. “Because that would be just fantastic.”

  The smile he gave Sue was pure gold. “Wish I could, Mayor Sue.”

  The mayor leaned forward conspiratorially. “But you’re going to throw, right? Your last hurrah before you leave us for good?” Leith was laughing in a genial, polite way until Sue added in a syrupy voice, “It’s what your father would have wanted; I’m sure of it.”

  Maybe Sue didn’t notice, but Jen did—that little hiccup in Leith’s laugh, the slight narrowing of his eyes. Then those were gone, leaving Jen to wonder if she’d actually seen them.

  “I’m sure he would have,” Leith slowly replied, “but I just haven’t been training like I should. Out of practice, you know. Besides, I’ll be gone by then. The Carriages—you remember them? Rory and Hal, the Hemmertex president? Anyway, Rory called me out to Stamford to redesign their entire property. I’ll be going back and forth until I find permanent digs down there.”

  Now it was Jen’s turn to blink. Not that he owed her any information of the sort, and not that they’d really talked about anything other than the Highland Games in the past, oh, hour or so since they’d reconnected, but she was still shocked to hear it. Leith MacDougall was really up and leaving Gleann. It wasn’t just talk.

  Sue stood back, a girly pout pushing her bottom lip forward, and sighed.

  “So,” Leith said to Jen after an awkward pause. “You good here? Or you want me to stick around in town and take you back when you’re done?”

  Jen shook her head. It was only a fifteen-minute walk back to Maple, nothing by New York City standards, but that wasn’t why she said no. “I want to go see Aimee when I’m through here. Thanks, though.”

  “’Kay.” He touched Sue’s arm in good-bye, but didn’t reach for Jen. Just gave her a weird, tight-lipped grin, eyebrows raised, and then bounded back down the steps.

  She didn’t exhale until his rumbling truck made a U-turn and headed up toward Maple. He didn’t once look back.

  “So what can I do for you?” Sue’s arms folded under those boobs, and she glared down at Jen with a look she knew all too well. Like Jen was s
eventeen again and she’d given the mayor’s three Yorkies the wrong food at the wrong time of day.

  Guess what? She wasn’t seventeen anymore, and she wasn’t doing this for Sue. Above everything, Jen was a professional. “I have a bunch of questions for you before I give my recommendations to the city council. Do you have time?”

  Sue flattened her back to the wall to allow Jen to pass, but Jen still inadvertently brushed against that chest.

  “He’s leaving, you know,” Sue said as she turned into her office at the front of Town Hall. “It would be kind of stupid to start something with him again. I remember how you two were back in the day.”

  Jen froze in the doorway of the cramped office, flabbergasted and unable to speak for several moments. Sue flicked annoyed eyes at the windows, as if Jen didn’t already know she was talking about Leith.

  “Thanks for the advice, Sue, but nothing is starting up between us again.” Jen sat in the lone chair opposite the mayor’s saccharine statue of three Yorkie puppies. Tugging her laptop out of her purse, she muttered under her breath, “Glad you noticed, too. That’s not creepy at all.”

  * * *

  Dusk fell fast over Gleann, and then suddenly it was full-on night, someone somewhere having flipped a switch to send the world into black. Jen had forgotten that about this area, how there weren’t miles of lights in all directions eating up the darkness. She’d forgotten that she liked it.

  Jen let herself in the front door of the Thistle. The interior was shadowy dim except for a pale glow filtering through the giant sheets of plastic marking off the stripped-to-the-studs front room. The soft light came from the kitchen, but the B&B was so quiet, Jen assumed Ainsley and Aimee must be in their apartment above the garage and had just forgotten to turn off the lights. Then she heard Aimee’s low voice drift out from the kitchen.

  “Aim?” Jen called quietly as she tiptoed down the hallway. For all she knew, Owen could be back there with her sister, putting on a show for the deer in the backyard.

  No man’s voice followed Aimee’s, just silence. Still, Jen peeked carefully around the corner, one eye scrunched shut, for fear of what she might see. But Aimee was merely sitting at the country table, head in one hand, the other pressing the phone to her ear. She was nodding and saying “Uh-huh, uh-huh. I’ll ask Jen.”

  “Hey,” Jen whispered, and knocked lightly on the door frame to catch Aimee’s attention.

  Aimee startled, her head snapping up. Her face turned chalk white. Her wide, terrified eyes belonged to someone who’d been caught with a bloody knife. She pulled the phone away from her mouth and stared at it like it was the murder weapon and she hadn’t realized the horror of what she’d just done.

  Jen had no idea what was going on, but her stomach dropped.

  She eased into the kitchen, whose light suddenly didn’t feel so soft, and pressed both hands into the back of the chair opposite her sister. “Everything okay?” she mouthed.

  She could hear a garbled woman’s voice inside the phone, but no distinct words.

  Aimee licked her lips and said into the receiver, “I have to go. Talk to you later.”

  She hung up, her hand shaking.

  “What’s going on?” Jen nodded at the phone. “What are you going to ask me?”

  The back screen door opened and Ainsley pounded into the kitchen in her tiger-striped pajamas. The garage wasn’t attached to the Thistle and you had to cross the backyard to get from the apartment to the inn. “Okay, Mom, it’s nine. My turn to talk. Oh, hey, Aunt Jen.”

  “Hey, Sleepy McGee.”

  Aimee rose from her chair and was turning toward her daughter when Ainsley saw the silent phone on the table. “You already hung up? Crap. I wanted to tell Grandma about Bryan’s slingshot.”

  “Watch your language,” Aimee said in a dull voice that lacked authority.

  “Grandma?” Jen squeaked. No way. Couldn’t be . . . “Not Mom. You weren’t talking to Mom. Were you?”

  Aimee brushed her dark bangs off her forehead and took forever to answer. At least she looked Jen in the eye when she did so. “Yes,” her sister said, with a forced strength cut by a clearing of her throat. “Yes, I was.”

  Jen still wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. She looked to Ainsley for a second opinion, but the girl seemed as confused as Jen felt.

  “What’s going on?” Ainsley asked, her big blue eyes darting between her mom and her aunt.

  “Ainsley, could you go back to your room?” Aimee asked quietly.

  “Can I take your phone? Call her back?”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “Now.”

  Ainsley left, but not before Jen saw the disappointment smeared over that young face. What on earth was going on?

  “Ainsley wanted to know her grandma,” Aimee said before Jen could ask. “And I thought it couldn’t hurt to try.”

  Oh, Jesus. “Seriously?” Jen fell into a chair. “How long has this been going on?”

  “A few years now. After we left you in New York. It started slow, a phone call every couple of months, just so they could connect, you know?”

  “And now?”

  “And now”—Aimee pulled out the chair she’d vacated and sat, lifting pained eyes to Jen—“It’s a weekly thing. Mom and Ainsley . . . they talk a lot.”

  Jen just stared, the explanation difficult to process. Did Aimee even remember all the shit Mom had put them through? Didn’t they have the same memories, the same hurt, even if they didn’t have the same father?

  “You know Ainsley,” Aimee said with an artificial laugh. “She can talk to anyone, be friends with anyone. But she wanted a grandparent, and Mom was the only one I could give her.”

  In a terrible way, Jen understood. Whatever Mom had inflicted upon her and Aimee growing up, the woman was half a country away. And Ainsley wasn’t Aimee or Jen.

  “It sounded like you talk to her, too,” Jen said, and Aimee nodded. Jen ground fingers into her temples. “So does she know what you’re doing with Owen?”

  Aimee sat up straighter. “That’s none of your business, Jen. Owen is mine and I know what I’m doing.”

  “Are you forgetting what Frank did to Mom? All those women around town, flaunting themselves in front of her? All those scenes? Do you remember bailing her out of jail for attacking that one who came to the house? Owen isn’t divorced. I heard he’s still living with his wife. You don’t think this sounds horribly familiar?”

  Aimee thrust out a hand. “Stop. There is nothing to be ‘fixed’ with Owen and me. You don’t know the whole story and, honestly, it’s none of your business. Stay out of it.”

  Jen wondered if Aimee kept any vodka in the freezer.

  “She’s different now.” Aimee laid her hands flat on the table. “She really is.”

  Jen highly doubted that. The woman had just gotten worse every year her girls had aged. “You were talking about me. She knows I’m here?”

  Aimee swallowed. “Yes. She wanted to talk to you.”

  Jen froze, her body welded to the chair. “She said that? In those words?”

  “Well . . . no.”

  A strangled laugh escaped Jen’s throat. “Of course not. Was she drunk?”

  Aimee’s cheeks flushed. It was clear she wanted to say something, then gave a little shake of her head. Heavy silence weighted down the air between them. The kitchen was fogged with tension. Aunt Bev’s grandfather clock chimed the incorrect time out in the hall.

  “It’s been ten years, Jen. You have no idea what she’ll say now—”

  “I don’t have to know! She slurred enough the day I left for Austin. That I was ungrateful. That I was abandoning her. That I thought I was all high and mighty, but that I really wasn’t worth anything. Those are the kinds of words that stick.”

  Aimee nodded sadly at the table. “I see.”

  It was then Jen finally noticed the smell of cookies and the timer on the stovetop counting down the final seconds of baking. Just anothe
r normal evening for Aimee. A normal, weekly evening. The buzzer went off and Aimee rose to pull out the tray of chocolate chip.

  “What did she want you to ask me? I heard you, before I came in.”

  Aimee shoved a spatula under each cookie and slid them one by one onto a cooling rack before answering, her back still to Jen, “She wanted to know if you were planning on sending a check this month.”

  So now Aimee knew. Jen fought against the urge to scream in frustration. To kick a chair halfway across the room. To stomp out of the house. “See? She hasn’t changed at all.”

  “Jen.” Aimee finally turned around, hands braced behind her on the counter edge. “That’s not the point. You’ve been sending her money?”

  Jen shook her head, but not in denial.

  “If you’re so worried she’s still drunk all the time, if you hate her that much . . . why?”

  Salty, stinging tears filled Jen’s eyes. The day had finally caught up with her—first facing Leith and his indifference, then clawing her way uphill with Sue, now this.

  She calmly rose. “If you’re going to play the ‘that’s none of your business’ card, then here’s me, playing mine.”

  Chapter

  6

  Leith had his bare feet kicked up on the rickety coffee table with the angel inlays and the chipped legs, TV muted and tuned to the Red Sox game he wasn’t even watching. Ten o’clock at night and Jen still wasn’t back. He knew this because he’d positioned the pink velour recliner to perfectly view her driveway and side door.

  The security light over 738’s porch flicked on as Jen appeared, walking slowly, head bent, that damned purse dragging one shoulder down. She carried a brown takeout bag from the Stone in the opposite hand.

  He sank deeper into the recliner and nudged back a corner of the lace curtain. It could have been the harsh glare of the motion-sensor light, but there was a pale haggardness to her face. If he didn’t know that she always managed to hold herself together no matter the situation, he might have named it sadness.