Balancing Act (20 page)

“I wish Seth was here.” Zach sighed as he tried to fix his main mast again. “He could help with this.”

Tessa turned away with a frown. She refused to feel guilty for cutting Seth out of Zach’s life. It would have been simpler all around if she’d kept their working relationship just that. It was Thursday afternoon and she was getting ready to leave for work. Her uniform was in her duffel bag, and she was clothed in a bulky knit sweater and leggings.

“I have to go, honey,” Tessa said from the door. “Don’t forget, Mrs. Flores will be down to help you get squared away for bed, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Bye, Tess,” he said, then looked up at her. “Do you feel okay? You look kind of pale.”

Tessa smiled. “I’m fine, but thanks for asking.”

She got hung up in traffic and arrived at the club with fifteen minutes to spare before her shift started. With a practiced hand, she put her hair up in a ponytail, then used hot rollers to make it curl. She peeled off her clothes and pulled on the slinky uniform and thigh-high stockings that went with it. Without giving it a second thought, she did what Tiffany taught her, pushed her breasts up and pulled the top down until everything threatened to–but never quite did–spill over the top. Tessa grimaced. It did seem to help the tips.

Right before midnight a new group of men came into the club. It was obvious this was not their first stop at a place that served alcohol. Tessa hoped they would head in the opposite direction, and then sighed when they ended up at one of her tables.

“Would you gentlemen prefer beer or wine?” she asked in her sweetest voice, smiling at all of them without looking at any of them.

“Well if it isn’t my dear little cousin,” a man next to her said in a drawl she had hoped never to hear again. “All grown up and showing it all off as usual. Some things never change.”

Tessa felt the blood drain from her face and hoped it didn’t show beneath her makeup. Peter was here? She inched away from him, but he seemed content to run his gaze insolently up her legs, pausing at her bare midriff before staring at her chest. Tessa told them which beers they had and what was on tap before taking their drink orders, never acknowledging what he’d said for her ears alone. When she returned to the end of the bar, Tiffany was there.

“Anything wrong, honey?”

Tessa nodded. “A relative, a real slimeball, came in with that last group. He tried to rape me when I was a kid.”

Tiffany stood a little straighter and looked that way, frowning thoughtfully.

“We’re not that busy tonight, baby. I’ll take that table. You worry about the rest of your customers.”

Tessa smiled in gratitude. She felt Peter’s eyes on her several times as she worked. It took all her willpower not to let him unnerve her. She sighed in relief when he left about an hour before closing. After the lights came up and the last customer left, she removed her makeup and scrubbed her face before changing back into her sweater and leggings. Grabbing her oversize bag, she headed for the door.

The temperature had dropped since she’d arrived at work and she shivered in the night air. Lucy walked with her. The two women said goodnight and headed for their separate cars. Few vehicles were on the road at four in the morning, so it didn’t take Tessa long to realize someone was following her. She was two blocks away from home, but turned away and headed in the opposite direction to a police substation. No way did she want whoever it was to know where she and Zach lived.

As she pulled into the parking lot, she saw the car that was following her speed up and disappear down the block. Tessa wasted no time. She pulled back out and hurried home, checking her rearview mirror more often to make sure the car was no longer behind her.

She could think of only one person who might follow her. Peter. Tessa shivered. She sat in her car as she pulled herself together. It reminded her of the way he had always maneuvered to get her alone at Mont Clair. Now, though, she had more to worry about than herself. There was Zach. The feeling someone was watching her persisted over the next few weeks, and Tessa found herself altering her route each night to be sure no one was following her before she would at last head home.

October gave way to November and Zach’s eleventh birthday. He asked for the usual video games, but he also wanted to go fishing. Tessa splurged and made arrangements to take him out on a charter fishing trip on the bay. They got up early Sunday morning, giving her just a couple hours sleep after getting home from work. The day was overcast with a brisk wind coming off the ocean.

“It’s going to be a little choppy,” the guide told them as the captain headed out into the bay, “but we’re headed for a cove that should provide some shelter and some good fishing for your brother.”

Tessa smiled, a little unnerved by how shaky she felt. The movement of the boat cutting through the waves made her queasy. She wrote it off to a lack of sleep and a lack of breakfast, and tried to ignore the feeling, but it persisted. If anything, it was worse once they anchored in the cove.

Taking pity on her, the captain handed her some crackers. “Try this and see if it helps, Miss Edwards. I’m afraid a lot of the motion sickness remedies have to be taken before you start showing symptoms, but this might settle your stomach.”

Tessa nodded, nibbling the crackers while keeping her eyes on the horizon. The crackers did seem to help get rid of her nausea, but only sleep would help her fatigue. She leaned her head back against the side of the ship and watched as the guide helped Zach. He was having such a great time, Tessa had to smile. It was money well spent to see his freckled face light up and split into a huge grin. She hadn’t seen him enjoy himself this much since their sailing trip with Seth. Her mouth pulled down at the corners and she bit her lower lip to keep it from wobbling as she stared off to the side and out on the bay. She was just tired and overemotional. She was not missing Seth.

When Zach landed a channel cat around midday, Tessa cheered. The nausea had gone, and even though she was still tired, the rocking of the boat no longer bothered her. Tessa took a picture as the guide helped Zach hold up his fish.

Zach laughed at something Tessa said as they walked back along the dock. His laughter cut off. Curious about what had distracted him, she looked up to see Seth walking toward them, a tall blonde chatting companionably with him. A barrage of emotions struck Tessa all at once. She was amazed how much hurt still flowed through her at seeing him with someone else. On the heels of that was embarrassment at how she knew she must look. After two hours’ sleep and a day in the wind, she felt like her eyes had sand in them, she wore no makeup and had crammed her hair up under a baseball cap.

“Seth!” Zach piped up, so much excitement in his voice Tessa couldn’t bring herself to make him stop.

She hung back while Zach raced the few feet that separated them, bubbling over about his fishing trip and learning to sail at camp. While Seth listened attentively to her brother, Tessa felt the other woman’s gaze sizing her up. She wanted to care, to be able to say it mattered to her, but a wave of tiredness washed over her again, along with another bout of nausea. What did it matter what this woman thought of her? What she’d had with Seth was over.

She attempted to smile and stepped forward. She had to have enough self-respect to show him she didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

“Come on, Zach,” she stated, meeting Seth’s gaze with her chin raised. “We need to go. Please tell Mr. Barrett goodbye.”

Seth’s gaze shifted from Zach to her and his expression hardened. “You look beat, Tessa.”

It was one thing to feel it. It was another to have it put into words. The awkwardness stretched as Tessa bit back the acid reply that first sprang to mind.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us, darling?” the blonde at Seth’s side asked as she put a proprietary hand on his arm.

Something flickered in Seth’s eyes. He barely glanced at his companion as he said, “Stacey, Tessa Edwards. Tessa, this is Stacey Winchester, my…fiancee.”

The final two words hit Tessa like a splash of cold water. Drawing upon manners drilled into her from the time she was old enough to walk, Tessa smiled. “Congratulations to you both.” Her glance flicked between them, both tall and blessed with Nordic good looks. He’d found a clone, someone to fit right in with his family. “You appear well-suited. If you’ll excuse us, we need to go.”

“That’s right,” Zach said. “Tessa needs sleep. She doesn’t get home from work until four, but she still got me up at six to come fishing, so she’s tired. I guess that’s why she got sick on this boat even though she never got sick on your boat, did she Seth?”

Oh, Lord!
Sometimes she wished Zach would be a little less forthcoming with information. Tessa wanted to jump off the dock, anything to avoid those golden eyes once again staring at her.

“No,” Seth agreed. “She never did.”

Tessa avoided his gaze, focusing instead on his beautiful, sophisticated-looking companion. “It was a pleasure to meet you.” This time she grabbed her brother by the hand and dragged him after her. “Zach. Let’s go.”

She made it almost to the parking lot before she stopped and threw up over a trash can. As she gagged, Zach hovered next to her.

“Tessa? Are you all right? Should I go get Seth? He could help.”

“No!” Tessa wiped her mouth. “Let’s just go home. Please, Zach. I don’t want to talk about Seth anymore.”

She got into the driver’s seat and started the car, but tears clouded her eyes to the point she couldn’t drive. She swallowed several times, but it was no use. At last a small sob escaped her.

“Tessa?” Zach asked again, his tone filled with worry. “Are you sad about Seth?”

She nodded and looked out the window on the driver’s side door.

“Why did you really leave Barrett?” Zach asked. “I thought you loved your job.”

Tessa was too tired to pretend anymore. “I didn’t leave, Zach, I was fired.”

“Seth fired you?” Zach demanded in an incredulous tone. She could already see him stiffening with indignation, ready to leap to her defense.

“His father, but Seth knew.”

“Why did they fire you? Did you do something wrong?” Zach’s voice was quiet, almost subdued.

Tessa sighed in defeat. “Zach. I have to ask you a question, and I want you to be honest with me. You aren’t going to get into any trouble.”

She looked at him and he nodded.

“The night I came back from Chicago, did you get on my laptop computer?”

“Yes.”

He was so subdued now, she almost didn’t continue, but she wanted it out in the open. “Did you somehow get into one of the accounts at Barrett?”

“Yes.” Zach clenched his hands on his jeans. “I was mad. Seth made you cry, and I wanted to pay him back. I found a number written on an envelope you brought home one day, and I started playing with it. You always use the same username and password, and once I got into Barrett’s system, it was easy then to find the account. I didn’t mean anything by it. I didn’t think it had worked. I kept getting an error message…”

“And you didn’t realize you’d transferred ten thousand dollars from that bank account into mine?”

“No.” Tears welled in his blue eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Tessa nodded and put the car in gear. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Zach. But in the future, don’t do anything like that again. It’s a crime. What you did was a crime. It could have gotten you put in jail. We were lucky. All that happened was I lost a job.”

“But you lost Seth too,” Zach said with more truth than he could even imagine.

“Yes,” Tessa agreed. “I lost Seth too.”

Zach wanted to play his new video game when they returned home, so Tessa went back to her bedroom to take a nap. She woke up late in the afternoon, once again feeling a wave of nausea overcome her. She should know better than to go to bed on an empty stomach, she thought as she staggered into the kitchen and found some crackers.

* * * *

“Seth Barlow-Barrett!” Stacey said as she watched Tessa and Zach disappear down the dock. “Why on earth did you tell that poor girl I was your fiancee? That’s not the same ‘Tessa Edwards of the Loudoun Edwards’ that mother was going on about a couple of months ago, is it?”

“Yes.” Seth stared at the pair until they turned a corner out of sight. He dragged his gaze back to his sister. “Come on, Stacey, humor me.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do! You’ve been an absolute bastard, darling, for the past three months, ever since you got back from that West Coast trip.” Stacey pulled Seth along with her down the dock. “Bran says he won’t even go near you at the office. You’ve turned down every single one of Mother’s invitations to dinner, and you know they’re not invitations. They’re command performances.”

“Hmph,” Seth snorted and looked back over his shoulder, hoping for one more glimpse of Tessa. She had looked exhausted, her eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep. Where was she working that she didn’t get home until four in the morning? Was that where she had been that night just a couple days after she left Barrett?

Had he made a colossal mistake?

Seth followed his sister to the sailboat her fiance had bought her. She was as nuts about sailing as the rest of the family. He made all the appropriate noises. It was a boat with beautiful lines, but his mind was still on Tessa.