That Thing Called Love

Tasha nodded. “I’m sorry, Jen. But I think you’re probably right. Look.” She leaned into the table. “You can’t do anything about it tonight, and I don’t like the idea of you going home to brood. You said Austin’s sleeping over at Nolan’s, right?”

“Yes. Part of me is so relieved that I don’t have to pretend in front of him. But you know me too well. Because as much as I’d love to tell you you’re wrong about the brooding, I have a feeling that rattling around the house alone is going to make tonight seem like a dog year.”

“So don’t go home. Things quiet down around here after seven. You can hang around here until then, or run errands or whatever and come back. Either way, I’ll have Tiff close for me tonight. You and I are going to the Anchor. There’s always some distraction to be had there. We can get stinkin’ or we can just feed the jukebox and knock ’em dead at darts. Whataya say?”

She really wasn’t in the mood for the local bar. But neither did she want to go home to take up pacing again. Plus, if she knew nothing else, she could rely on one thing: being with Tasha would help. “Deal. I think I’ll hang here until you’re ready. That’ll give me plenty of time to decide whether darts or getting stinkin’ is the best way to go.”

CHAPTER THREE

JAKE COULDN’T SETTLE DOWN. He’d driven around the area to refamiliarize himself with the spots he remembered and to check out the changes—surprised at how many of the latter there were. Back at the inn, he’d explored both his suite, which had taken all of five minutes, and the grounds of his former in-laws’ resort, which had at least used up a little time. He’d called room service to deliver his dinner, because he was too wired to sit in the dining room.

But now it was only six-thirty and the walls were closing in. He had to get out of here.

Grabbing his hoodie, he pulled it on, zipped up, then wrestled his sport jacket on over it as he headed for the beach. He’d walk into town. See if he couldn’t kill some more time.

He barely glanced at the rugged, panoramic mountain range across the water that stopped the tourists in their tracks. Head down in the wind, hands jammed in his pockets, he strode purposefully along the boardwalk, one of the additions that was new to him.

Moments later, he reached Razor Bay—only to discover they’d already rolled up the streets.

“Shit.” How could he have forgotten that? It used to be just one more reason added to the many that’d had him dying to get out of this backwater burg. There was bugger all to do in the low season. Hell, it only offered a limited selection of distractions during the high.

The Sunset Café, Bella T’s Pizzeria and a new Vietnamese sandwich place were still open, and those likely only because it was Friday night. At least in the summer both Harbor Street and Eagle Road were jumping until eleven.

Remembering Austin talking about his friend’s mom getting them pizza, he almost went into Bella T’s. He tried to convince himself that he had an urge to do so simply because the place was new to him and he was curious. But he wasn’t that good a liar. He knew damn well the fuel driving that machine was the off chance of seeing his son.

Even if Austin was in there this very moment—and what were the odds of that?—did he really want a public face-off with the kid? Jenny was right: he needed to give Austin time to get used to the fact that he was back in town.

He didn’t know why just thinking her name made a vision of his son’s guardian dragon pop into his head. But not only could he see her shiny hair, those big dark eyes and smooth olive skin, the damn mental picture was high-def.

He blinked the image away. Where the hell had that come from? She was so not his type.

He gave his shoulders an impatient hitch, looking for a more comfortable fit in his skin. The more he thought about it, the more his earlier idea—to have li’l Ms. Salazar help pave the way with Austin—seemed like the way to go. At the time it had merely been one of those throwaway ideas that sometimes popped off the top of his head. But it was a solid plan.

Of course, it was also predicated on her agreeing to it. And given her opinion of him, that was one big-ass if.

Suddenly recalling the Anchor, he headed for the narrow walkway that was cut between the General Store and Swanson’s Ice Cream Shack. The pedestrian shortcut led to Eagle Road, which paralleled the long curve of Harbor Street and comprised the rest of the town’s business district, and to the parking lot behind that. As Razor Bay’s sole bar, if you didn’t count the one off the lobby at The Brothers—which tonight he definitely did not—The Anchor was one place still bound to be open.

He spotted the white-framed mosaic sign he remembered the instant he cleared the tiled walkway connecting the two streets. It spelled out the bar’s name in sea-hued bits of tile on the bump-out over the marine-blue building’s three front windows. The same twin neon anchors from his youth flashed yellow and blue on either end of the sign, and what he’d swear were the same neon beer signs dotted the windows.

He felt an edge of anticipation and had to admit he was curious. He’d left town before he was old enough to be allowed in the bar. Back in the day, he’d tried to lay hands on some fake ID with the thought of going there, but it hadn’t panned out.

He snorted. Hell, even if he’d scored the best fake identification ever produced, it wasn’t as if there’d been a hope in hell he’d have gotten away with using it. Not in the Anchor. In a town this size, everyone pretty much knew who everyone else was.

Pulling open the door, he walked in.

Dimly lit, the interior sported dark wood-plank floors scuffed from years of foot traffic, and matching, if less beat-up, walls covered in black-framed photos that appeared to be black-and-white shots of midcentury Razor Bay. He wouldn’t mind taking a closer look at those.

A long bar with tall stools took up most of the back wall, and the two blackboards behind it, whose chalk menus were highlighted by art lights, showed a surprising selection of microbrewery beers and ales. A jukebox, pinball machine and a couple of dartboards took up a small slice of real estate down at the end of the front wall to his right. Tables and chairs took up the rest of the floor, and a few small booths occupied the wall opposite the gaming section.

He didn’t know what he’d expected, but this was a bar pretty much like you’d find anywhere, if a touch more hip than he’d anticipated. But at least he could kill a little time here with a beer and those photos.

“Well, would you look at what the cat dragged in,” a deep voice drawled from one of the booths.

Jake froze midstride, and for a single hot second he was a fourth-grade boy again, forgetting for a moment that his dad had walked out on him and his mom, because he was finally on the much-coveted big kids’ fourth-to-sixth-grade upper playground at Chief Sealth Elementary. He’d had one perfect moment—until a boy two grades older came up to him, gave him a shove that almost knocked him off his feet and said, “Heard you got what you deserved. If your tramp of a mama hadn’t got herself knocked up, my dad would still be with me and my mom.”

It had been a shock on every level because how many darn families did his until-recently-adored father have? And Jake sure hadn’t started the new school year expecting to be pushed around by his previously unknown half brother. A brother, he’d learned over a course of several school-yard confrontations, whom their mutual father, Charlie Bradshaw, had totally ignored even when they’d lived in the same town—the way Charlie ignored him now that he’d moved on to a new family.

But the little flash down memory lane was just that—there one second and gone the next. Shaking off the mix of confusion and rage that dealings with Max Bradshaw had always given him, he strolled over. “Well, hey, big brother,” he drawled right back. “Long time, no see. I hear somebody thought it was a good idea to give you a gun. Tell me that doesn’t scare the shit out of the general populace.”

“Oh, most people don’t have a thing to worry about.” Max gave Jake a pointed look. “You, however—” His gaze grazed Jake’s chest as if visualizing a bull’s-eye.

It was never easy to tell when Max was serious and when he wasn’t, but Jake gave him the same cool look either case would garner. “So what number wife are you up to now? Three? Four, maybe? Any nieces or nephews I oughta know about?”

The words had barely left his mouth when he felt an odd regret. He and Max actually shared several traits, and when their father had waltzed out of town, they’d had a narrow window of opportunity to bury the hatchet somewhere besides in each other’s skull. After all, they were probably the only ones in Razor Bay who truly understood how the wreckage Charlie left behind affected the other. It had been a rare chance to take comfort in having someone who got it, someone with whom you didn’t have to pretend you didn’t give a damn that Charlie Bradshaw was a great dad as long as you were his current favorite, but that he forgot you even existed the moment he moved on. And they might have.

If hating each other’s guts hadn’t been so well ingrained by then.

Even in the dim light he could see his salvo cause something dark to flash across his half brother’s deep-set eyes. But the other man merely shrugged a big shoulder. “No wives, no kids. You’re the one who started early and followed in the old man’s footsteps.”

You opened yourself up for that one, Slick. But, ouch. It was a direct hit, and one that gouged at a long-festering guilt, more than a decade old.

Because as much as he’d like to blow off his half brother’s potshot as the usual sour grapes, Max wasn’t wrong. When Jake’s high school girlfriend Kari had gotten knocked up in their senior year, he had started out with good intentions, fiercely determined to man up in a way that his own dad never had. And for a while, he had done just that.

In the end, however, he’d turned out to be nothing but a chip off the old block.

The knowledge rankled now just as much as it had back then, so instead of acting cool and shrugging off Max’s remark the way he should have, he snapped, “You don’t know a damn thing about me, bro. You didn’t when I was nine and you turned the big kids’ playground into a battleground, and you sure as hell don’t now. When are you gonna get it through your head? My mom and I didn’t make the old man leave you and your mother, any more than whoever that other woman was made him leave us. When it comes to Charlie’s wives and kids, he’s got the attention span of a fruit fly.”

His half brother dug his knuckles into his forehead just above the bridge of his nose. Then, dropping his hand to splay atop the scarred table, Max looked up at him. And blew out a breath. “Yeah,” he agreed, his deep voice a tired rumble.

Jake took a seat in the booth across the table from Max. “You know what?” he said in a low voice.

“I don’t have the heart for this anymore. I’ve got enough on my plate just trying to make up for my past and hoping to hell I do a decent enough job to get to know my kid. I don’t have enough energy to fight you, too.”

Max gave him a puzzled look. “You do get that you’re handing me a whole shitload of ammunition, right?”

Jake shrugged. “You’re gonna do what you’re gonna do—it’s not like I can stop you. So fuck it.”

“Right.” Max shifted in his seat. “Fuck it. We’re not in high school anymore.” He leveled a look on him. “Don’t get the idea you’re ever gonna be my bud, little Bradshaw. But I can probably stomach being around you now and then.”

Jake had to swallow a grin at the “little Bradshaw” crack. That was a good one. He wasn’t particularly small: he missed the six-foot mark by a fraction of an inch. But Max was a good six-three and twenty pounds heavier. “Give me a minute,” he ordered. “I’m kinda overwhelmed here. I’m not sure I know how to handle so much enthusiasm coming my way.” He shook his head as he met the gaze of the man across the table. “The thrill of it all just may kill me.”

“We can only hope.”

A cardboard Anchor Porter beer coaster landed on the table in front of him and he looked up at a cheery, college-age blonde.

She gave him a toothy grin. “Well, hey there, new blood. Haven’t seen you before. Trust me, I’d remember.” Then she waved the mild flirtation aside. “Get you boys something?”

“Him another table,” Max said.

Jake flashed the waitress a smile. “My brother’s such a kidder.”

She did a double take. “Shut the front door! You two are brothers?”

“Half,” Max emphasized. “We’re half brothers.”

“Half, whole.” Jake shrugged. “What’s the diff? Blood’s blood, right?”

Max gave him a disgruntled glare. “Give it a rest, Jake...before I’m tempted to spill yours.”

“Whatever you say, my brotha.” He winked at the blonde. “Give old Bradshaw here another of whatever he’s drinking and I’ll have a Fat Tire.”

“One Bud tap and a Fat Tire coming up.”

“Budweiser?” Jake asked, turning his attention back to Max as the girl headed to the bar. “Seriously?”

Max rolled his muscular shoulders. “It’s a good American beer. And it doesn’t have a stupid name. Hell, I could’ve given you a fat lip for free.”

“And have, on more than one occasion. But it’s Fat Tire, philistine. I’m guessing you don’t get out of this burg very often.”

“Why would I want to? I’ve got everything I need right here.”

Jake shuddered. If he had to stay in Razor Bay a second longer than it took to make Austin trust him, he’d open a vein.

The waitress was back with their beer almost before their exchange ended, and he dug his wallet out of his hip pocket, paid for the order and dropped a hefty tip on her tray.

Max studied him. “It’s easy to tell you live in a big city.”

“Why? Because I tip?”

His half brother scowled. “I tip. Maybe not fivers for a four-dollar bottle of beer, but I tip. But I was talking about that metrosexual thing you’ve got going.”

“The hell you say!” He might like the amenities of a big city but, he’d never had a manicure or facial in his life.

“I do say.” Max gave him a feral grin. “You’re a pretty boy.”

“I’m ruggedly handsome.” He bounced a fist off his chest. “A manly man.” Then he shrugged. “Still, you’re right about the big city. I own a loft in Soho.”

“We talking New York City?” Max grimaced, then unknowingly echoed his own sentiments. “Christ. I’d open a vein if I had to live there.”

“How do you know? Have you ever been?”

“Nope. I’ve never had my balls waxed either, but I can tell you without a doubt that I wouldn’t like it.”

Unable to help himself, Jake laughed even as he hunched in a little over his own cajones. “Yeah, because the two things have so much in common. You ever been anywhere, Max?”

“Sure.” He hitched a shoulder. “California. North Carolina. Afghanistan. Iraq.”

“Of course. What else would a law-and-order type do but join the—what?” A laugh escaped him. “No, wait, this is a no-brainer. You couldn’t be anything but a jarhead. Or I suppose one of those Navy SEALS or Green Beret dudes.”

“Please. Like I’d join either of those pussy branches of the service. I was one of the few, the proud, boy.”

“And now you’re the sheriff of Nottingham.”

“Deputy of Nottingham. The sheriff’s about a hundred years old.”

But Jake was barely listening. Hearing a raunchy feminine laugh on the other side of the room, his head snapped up. That couldn’t possibly be...

His gaze cut through the crowd that was beginning to fill the watering hole, tracking the sound to its source. And discovered that—hell—not only could it be, it was. Jenny Salazar was at the bar, laughing with the bartender and another woman.

She looked different tonight. Not at all like the little girl he’d first mistaken her for. Her lips were red and soft looking. Her hair without those braids was longer than he’d realized, a shiny rippling curtain of dark against the red sweater she wore. And her—

“What the hell are you staring at?” Max twisted in his seat to look over his shoulder. Then with a nod he settled back. “Ah. Tasha. She has that effect on guys. Not sure why—it’s not like she’s drop-dead gorgeous. Still, she’s got a way of stopping the show.”

Jake tore his gaze away. Gave himself a mental smack to get his head back in the game. And discovered that even then he didn’t have any idea what Max was babbling about. “Who?”

“Tasha Riordan. The strawberry blonde? That’s not who you’re looking at? Who then—Jenny?” He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t want to go there.”

That got his full attention. “I don’t? That is, I really don’t—my interest in her isn’t like that.” At least not much. He gave his head a shake. “But just to clarify, why don’t I? Is she yours?” He didn’t question too closely why the idea bugged him.

But his half brother seemed almost appalled by the idea. “No!”

“Okay. Some other guy’s?”

He shook his head.

“She’s a nun, then.”

Max gave him a what-the-fuck? look. “Here’s a thought. How ’bout you try not to be any more of an idiot than you already are.”

“I’m groping in the dark here, bro. She a lesbian?”

“Jesus. No. She’s just...sweet. Loyal. A good friend to everyone. Not someone for a guy like you to be messing with.”

“Yeah? Does she roll over and wag her tail when you scratch behind her ears, too?”

Max scowled, but Jake was too familiar with the expression to be intimidated. “What? She’s a woman, big B. You make her sound like an old dog.”

“You don’t understand.”

“No shit. I thought she was a kid when I met her this afternoon, but she herself disabused me of that notion right from the get. I take it she’s single, so I don’t see the problem if some guy—not me, but someone—wanted to slap the moves on her. So if she’s none of the things I’ve already mentioned, what does that leave? Terminal?” He shook his head. “No, the conversation I had with her didn’t leave me with that impression—she’s not inward looking enough. Leper?” He was enjoying his brother’s disgust at his guessing game, until a sudden thought turned his blood to ice and drop-kicked the smile right off his face. “Christ. Rape victim?”

“No. Where do you come up with this shit?”

He shrugged. “I’m a journalist. I’ve seen things.”

“I thought you were some hotshot photographer for National Explorer.”

“I am. Well, a photographer anyway. The hotshot part’s still a work in progress. But just because most of my work is told through the lens of a camera, doesn’t mean I’m not a questioning kind of guy.” Jake glanced over at the woman under discussion once again. She and her friend had migrated to a table. The friend, who had taken a chair facing him, did have something, he admitted. But it was Jenny, sitting in profile to him, who commanded his attention.

Well, of course she did. She held considerable sway over any relationship he might forge with Austin.

He looked back at Max. “I talked to her for all of maybe fifteen minutes this afternoon. So tell me about her. How does she fit into Austin’s life?”

“She’s like his sister.”

“Yeah, I got that. What I don’t get is, how did that happen? No way in hell they’re related. Kathy was an only child, and Emmett had one older sister who never married.”

Max shrugged. “She came here when she was fifteen—” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Sixteen?” He shook his head. “The exact age doesn’t really matter. She came here as a teen in the midst of a huge scandal. I was home on leave when she hit town.”

That caught Jake’s attention, but his brother immediately gave the air a negligent swipe with one big-knuckled hand.

“Not her scandal. It was her old man’s. He’d been all over the news because of some big swindle that crashed down around his ears and landed him in Monroe. Jenny came here with her mother.” Max’s face hardened. “Who, as far as I could tell, planted her skinny socialite ass in bed from the shame of it all, while her underage kid kept the two of them off the streets by doing housekeeping at The Brothers after school and on weekends.”

“And Emmett and Kathy just invited two strangers with a questionable past to move into their home?” In a way it sounded like something they’d do. But in other ways, it wasn’t like them at all, especially in light of Kari’s death, which couldn’t have been more than a year or two before that time.

Max shook his head. “That was a while later. When they first got here, Jenny and her mother rented the Bakers’ little place.”

“Christ.” He shifted uncomfortably. “That old rehabbed chicken coop?”

“Yeah. Where her mom just curled up and died. I’m talking literally. From what I heard, the woman couldn’t live with her loss of status and just willed herself to die. But it took her a while. By the time she passed, Jenny was a senior and had been working for the Pierces almost two years.”

“So—what? They just replaced Kari with her?” Even as the words left his mouth, he knew he was the last person with any room for righteous indignation.

But somehow that didn’t stop him from feeling it.

Max gave him a look that suggested he was thinking the same thing. But he merely said, “The one time I went to their house to see Austin, I was strongly discouraged, so I’m hardly an expert on their mind-set.”

That sidetracked Jake. “You wanted to see Austin?”

“I thought I should meet my nephew.”

He simply stared at Max for a moment before admitting, “It never occurred to me you were his uncle. But you are, aren’t you?”

“Not as far as Emmett and Kathy were concerned,” Max said drily. “They said considering my background with you and the fact that the little dude didn’t know me from Adam, they didn’t see the point in my spending time with him—that he’d only be confused.” He shrugged. “They were probably right. I mean, you and I never acted like real brothers. Why should my relationship with your get be any different? But I always wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have pressed them a little harder. Done more. Hell, I put more effort into getting to know the boys over at Cedar Village,” he added, naming the home for delinquent boys on Orilla Road outside town.

Then he shook his head. “That’s not what we were talking about, though. Because one thing I do know about the Pierces is that they sure as hell mourned Kari. So I doubt replacing her with Jenny entered into the equation. I think they saw a hardworking girl who was the age their daughter had been when she died and who was struggling to make ends meet—and thought they could help. In the end, I believe they came to think of Jenny as the next best thing to a daughter.”

“What about her? What did she get out of the relationship, besides the obvious?”

Max’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like what you’re implying, bro.”

“She went from the Bakers’ chicken coop to the Pierces’ big Craftsman.”

“Where she refused every enticement to live a life of leisure.” Max looked him in the eyes. “And you know she could have. But Jenny kept working at the inn and, after graduating, put herself through college. With no help from the Pierces, from everything I’ve ever heard. She earned her promotions with good, old-fashioned hard work. And she moved out of that big Craftsman. Bought the little cabin she lives in from Emmett.” Max gave him a hard look. “So, you don’t want to be calling that kettle black, pot.”

Jake scrubbed his hands over his face. “I know. I know.”

“I’ll tell you what I think she got from her relationship with Emmett and Kathy. They were considerably older than her own parents, and I think she looked on them as sort of grandparents. You gotta know how they spoiled Kari—”

He nodded. God, did he ever.

“They did the same thing with Austin, but Jenny curbed it wherever she could. So the kid is less spoiled than his mother was. And she flat-out refused to let them spoil her.”

“Yeah, she’s a goddamn paragon,” Jake muttered, staring across the room at her profile.