Refuge on Leebrick (The Hills of Burlington Book 4) Page 2

  Jake just smiled even as he answered. “Beth is queen of our kitchen. She likes to experiment and as you can see the results are awesome. I’ve pretty much given her free rein in the kitchen and whatever budget she wants.”

  “I have a feeling you’d do a lot more than that to keep that smile on her face especially after all I read this afternoon.” Tom studied the man sitting across from him thinking about what he’d been able to find out in the course of the afternoon. Shock didn’t come close to his reaction after hearing the news Jake had a daughter he’d never before heard anything about.

  “Any holes you need filled in?” Jake asked easily. It didn’t surprise him at all that Tom would do his own research on the situation. Now that it was out in the open as both he and Beth decided it needed to be he had no problem talking about it.

  “How is she doing?” Tom asked quietly. He knew losing your parents was difficult enough. To lose them in such a violent way that shouldn’t have happened at all was beyond his comprehension. But he also knew Beth wasn’t alone in what she had dealt with. What she was likely still dealing with. “How are you doing?”

  Jake heard the question that was under the spoken words. Knew too if he were to ever answer the question honestly and forthrightly this man would be one of the few he would do so with. “I’m doing good. Buying the paper with Mark was probably one of the smarter things I’ve done if for no other reason it’s kept me busy.” He gave his old college friend a look that said far more before reaching behind him to open the fridge. “I need busy,” he said as he pulled a couple more beers out. Handed one across the table before opening his own.

  “Lizzie and Jett were just about the best of us,” Tom said somberly. He’d known Beth’s parents. Had worked with both her mother and the man she’d loved like a father. They had all been friends. Good friends. That wasn’t always a commodity in their business with all the competition that went on behind the scenes and sometimes in front of the camera as well. “Whenever we found ourselves within a hundred miles of each other we’d try to get together. Most often we did because I could just never pass up the chance to see them.” He stared off into space, remembering those times that would never come again. “It hit me, Jake.” He shook his head as he remembered exactly where he was and what he was doing when he’d heard the news. “I was covering the election in Mexico when the news came through. It literally stopped me in my tracks. I’m not even certain how I finished the interview I was in the middle of. When I did I spent the entire trip back to the hotel on my phone trying to find out what the hell was going on. Praying that they were wrong.” He looked at Jake, saw the same in his eyes that he knew was in his own. Deep resounding grief. “Even though I knew deep down they weren’t.” He took a long drink of his beer without tasting it. “I ordered up a couple of bottles of the hotel’s best which wasn’t all that great. By the next morning the only thing I learned was there was no way to get drunk enough to forget something like that.”

  “Amen,” Jake said as he lifted his bottle in a toast to what couldn’t be achieved no matter the amount of alcohol imbibed. He had tried the same to no avail. After a few silent moments as they both remembered good friends who’d been lost Jake answered the other part of Tom’s question. “Beth was on her own for some time after they died. I didn’t realize how bad it was. She pretty much holed herself up in their home. To this day I’m not altogether certain how much interaction she had with others except their lawyer.”

  “Not good,” Tom said knowing from experience that he could only take a couple of days of his own miserable company.

  “No, but I don’t think she had a lot of choice. There was no real extended family to turn to. By the time we finally connected she was at the end of her rope.”

  “She seems to be doing better from what I saw tonight,” Tom said as he thought about the young woman he’d met for the first time that evening when he arrived for the promised dinner. She had stayed and eaten with them before excusing herself. “I caught that she had plans for the evening but not what they were.”

  “She, my Aunt Charlie, and Mallie, who is Aunt Charlie’s granddaughter, are partners in the local skating rink. They’ve got a major party booked there tonight so they’ll all be on the scene, I guess you could say, making sure everything goes okay.”

  Tom thought about how young Beth had seemed. At that age he would have been one of the party goers not the rink management. “How did that happen?”

  Jake leaned back with a slight smile on his face that could almost be taken for a smirk. “God, that’s a story if there ever was one,” he said, the amusement in his voice unmistakable.

  “Sounds like it,” Tom said waiting for the other man to explain why.

  “Aunt Charlie and Mallie pretty much just showed up unexpectedly on my doorstep one morning,” Jake began remembering back to those first couple of weeks after he’d arrived in Burlington. “It had been a rough week. I had just connected with Beth by email and was waiting to hear back from her. And while I waited I worried about how I was handling things and whether I’d already messed up.” He cupped his hands around the bottle that was near empty and moved it from side to side. “They had grand plans about buying the local skating rink and as Mallie was going through it all, telling me all about it, she tells me they decided they needed a man to close the deal.” He shook his head as he remembered the look on Mallie’s face at the time. She was never going to be a great poker player, that was for sure. “What it came down to was that the current owner wasn’t taking them all that seriously. In turn Aunt Charlie and Mallie felt he was asking way too much money for the place and they weren’t having any success in talking him down.”

  “And that’s how they came to decide they needed a man,” Tom said connecting the dots of all Jake wasn’t saying. “That had to grate.”

  “I’m not certain it bothered Aunt Charlie that much but yeah, Mallie wasn’t happy about it.”

  “So you became their partner.”

  “Pretty much but even in the beginning I went into it with the thought that it might be something I could involve Beth in. That was also when I told Aunt Charlie and Mallie about her. I didn’t want them to agree to it without knowing the full deal.”

  Tom thought about what he was hearing. Jake had always been one to look at the long picture. And more than just about anyone else he knew he’d always had an innate sense of fair. That apparently hadn’t changed over the years. “So Beth took your place,” he said the obvious before asking what wasn’t. “Does she like it?”

  “For the moment, yes.” Jake pulled another couple of beers from the fridge. If it became necessary Tom could bunk in the spare bedroom. It wouldn’t be the first time. “She’s learning the business from a couple of different aspects, the financial end, managing personnel, special events like tonight, and just about anything else that comes up.”

  “Good experience,” Tom said thinking that while it might be just that he would hate every moment of it.

  “It is that but I think its greatest value is that it’s kept her busy when she needed to be,” Jake said thoughtfully. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t thought of before. “She’s around a lot of people of varying ages not to mention that she and Mallie are close in age and get along great.” He sent his long time friend a sharp smile. “Also not to mention my Aunt Charlie who sometimes seems to have more energy than the younger two of their little trio. She adores Beth and the feeling is very much reciprocated. In some ways she’s probably been better for Beth than all the rest of us put together.” He gave his friend a wry look that said far more than words could. “Including yours truly.”

  “Different generation,” Tom said after a few moments. At Jake’s questioning gaze he went on. “She can allow herself to have strong feelings for your aunt without any sense of guilt that she’s replacing her parents in her life.” He shrugged knowing that was only part of it but Jake was nobody’s dummy and would figure the rest out for himself. But because he kne
w the man well he continued with the rest of his thoughts. “You’re different. You are her parent and from what I understand, someone her parents spoke highly about to her through most of her life. You’re an extension of her parents, not a replacement. There’s a difference surprisingly enough, at least in the human mind.”

  Jake listened intently, agreed with most of it and was relieved by the last of it despite having told himself the same for months. He was also surprised. “When did you get the degree in psychology?”

  Tom just smiled. Some things never changed. “I’ve always had it. While you were majoring on how to sneak around war-torn countries I was majoring in psychology so I could understand all the crazy stuff you got yourself into.” He leaned back into his chair, more at ease than he’d been in weeks. Coming here had been a good choice. Probably the best one he’d made in a while.

  “I thought you were majoring in business,” Jake said, his eyes sharp on his friend. He knew they’d had conversations about it. Knew Tom would have rather have gone into just about anything else than the business world of corporate shenanigans. Though how anyone could believe journalism hadn’t become just that was living in an alternate world.

  “So did my parents,” Tom said, amusement threading through his voice that he made no effort to hide.

  Jake sat up straighter. He knew at least half a dozen guys from college who if they’d made the same statement it wouldn’t have surprised him one damn bit. But coming from Tom it shocked him clear to his toes. “How did they take finding out you didn’t?” he asked slowly, wondering too when they’d found out. Especially since he was only now finding out.

  “Mom took it in stride.” Tom let his memories flow back to that day. He’d known it wouldn’t be easy and even at that young age had a healthy respect for his folks. “My Dad blustered a lot, slapped his knee more than once probably imagining it was my head.” He felt the smile nudging at the corners of his mouth again. For all that he’d been concerned about their reactions it hadn’t been all that bad. “Looking back, it was probably tough for my dad since he’d just spent quite a bit of time congratulating me on graduating with honors. I don’t think he expected that. Hell, he splurged and took us to Denny’s.”

  “For your old man that was akin to anyone else taking their kids to a five-star restaurant.”

  “Yeah, the man kept track of his bucks.” Tom remembered too some of the sacrifices his father had made for him to be able to graduate with honors. “But in the end he was okay with it. Probably even more so when I got my first job. In his mind that probably assured him that it wasn’t an empty investment.”

  “Your first job wasn’t exactly in the field you studied.”

  “No, but the field I studied helped me a lot in that job and just about all the others I’ve had since.”

  “All your jobs have been the same as mine for the most part. Journalism…such as it is.”

  “A lot of people to deal with, some nice and some not.”

  “That’s the truth,” Jake agreed without a moment of hesitation.

  “So, now that we’ve taken that little side trip, how do you think your daughter is adjusting to losing her folks…moving here…dealing with you?” Tom asked adding the last with a smile. It had been very obvious from the moment he’d walked in the house that Jake and his daughter were close. Maybe still a bit cautious with each other but how could that be anything but normal considering they were in many ways still getting to know each other after a life time apart.

  Jake thought about how to answer the same questions he often asked himself. “She calls me Jake. That was a big deal to her in the beginning. It took me a while to figure that out but when I did I told her Jake was fine. But a couple of times she slips and I’m Dad.” He shrugged as if it was no big deal when they both knew it was. “I think she likes it here. I know she likes being close to my cousins,” he gave the other man a rueful look. “Most of whom are women,” he added on as if that explained everything. Then his tone was quiet, serious as it always was when he thought about Lizzie and Jett. “And I know she still grieves for her parents, misses them more than she admits. Hell, who wouldn’t. I still miss my mother and she’s been gone over ten years now.”

  It was a few moments before Tom said anything in response. When he did he spoke softly into the quiet that had fallen around them. “You know, a lot of people like to say that old cliché…time heals. But in truth we heal ourselves. Time simply gives us the ability to do so. It sounds to me like that’s exactly what Beth has discovered.” Tom looked steadily at his friend. “You, too.”

  “Yeah,” Jake agreed quietly. “We’re getting there.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mary glanced through the peep hole in her front door mostly out of habit more than anything else. It wasn’t late at night or the earliest morning hours when it seemed people habitually came banging on her door as was the case at that moment. What she saw almost stopped her in her tracks. Almost. Instead she grappled uncharacteristically with her front doorknob, finally getting it to turn and opened it to face the woman standing patiently on her doorstep.

  “Leslie. What on earth?” Again, Mary found words escaped her as they rarely did.

  “May I come in?” Leslie Haungs asked kindly in a voice polished both by her New England upbringing and years in the publishing industry that had been neither kind nor patient. She was both and had determined early on she wasn’t going to change who she was and would do the job as she chose. As a result others around her had done the same with greater success than those who hadn’t. She’d always looked upon that simple fact as proof that her mother’s constant mantra during her own childhood had been unsurprisingly accurate. Being kind and friendly always trumps acting as if you’re the queen of your own kingdom. As Leslie waited for one of her best known writers to decide whether or not she was welcome she wondered idly just how many times she’d heard her mother spout that piece of wisdom to her over the years.

  “Of course.” Mary stood aside so her long-time friend and agent could walk past her. “Just keep going and to the right. I just put on a fresh pot of coffee.” Mary quickly played through her head all the possible motives the woman walking towards her kitchen could possibly have for showing up unannounced. For that matter why she would show up at all. Came up with not a single one. She wasn’t at all surprised as she followed Leslie into the small kitchen to find her calmly pouring herself a cup of coffee as if they had only seen each other the day before and was a regular visitor to her home.

  “I can only imagine what’s going through your mind.” Leslie Haungs leaned back against the edge of the counter and sipped her coffee. It was scalding hot but she preferred it that way. Always had.

  “Probably. You usually could.”

  “I doubt strongly that anything you’re thinking in this case comes close.” Leslie moved away from the counter so she could sit at the small table in the center of the room. Even as she did so she took in her surroundings and silently admired her client’s taste. So far everything she’d seen had been pure Mary Lane. She wondered with a quiet sigh what the woman she’d long admired and respected would think of her purpose for being here once she found the nerve to share it with her. With a deep breath she delved in without any dancing around. It wasn’t her way and she knew Mary wouldn’t appreciate it. “Have you been keeping up with things enough to know what the situation is with Liana?”

  Mary knew exactly what the other woman was referring to but kept her expression as bland as she was able. She had long ago schooled herself in the art of appearing oblivious to that which she didn’t care to comment on until she fully understood the lay of the land. And all the outlying acreage as well for all the good it rarely did her.

  Leslie sighed heavily. Some things never changed. Of all her authors Mary had always been the easiest to please and the most difficult to read. But she knew her and knew her well. Mary knew exactly what she was talking about and didn’t like it. Not one whit. Well, in that
at least they were both of a like mind. She was none too pleased with the situation either. It was at times like this that early retirement looked far better than it did on just about every other day when it didn’t.

  “Okay. How about I give you my opinion on the situation neither one of us cares to discuss.” She watched Mary’s subtle shift in expression as she stood quietly waiting. Leslie gently ran her fingertips along the small yet charming table topped with a linen tablecloth covered with plump cherries. “Additionally, I’ll share with you my personal thoughts of what I’ve been dealing with from some of your fellow authors.” She watched Mary open…then just as quickly close her mouth. No, nothing changed there, Leslie thought to herself. She was also thinking that this visit was probably the smartest thing she could have ever done to help deal with the mess that had been slowing brewing to a near boil. The woman now sitting at the small table in the small kitchen in the very small and quaint house was an enigma in the world of publishing. Many of her clients had class but few of them had the standard of class Mary Lane possessed. She had never quite put her finger on exactly what it was that made her stand out, other than being the easiest of all her clients in just about every way. But whatever it was, it had been that which had made her take the ridiculously long and tedious trip to this little town by the Mississippi River. Had been the driving force in her decision to visit her client and discuss the situation in person rather than over the phone which had been her first inclination. One she had discarded almost as quickly as she had considered it. Some things needed to be done in person. And if she was completely honest with herself, which she prided herself on, she wanted to see Mary again. Over the years she’d become far more than a client. She’d become a close friend, something that had snuck up on her when she wasn’t looking over the long years they’d known each other. And that, she admitted to herself, was also a large part of why she’d made the trip rather than the phone call. She wanted to see her…make certain she was happy.