Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) (10 page)

“This
isn’t Jericho, Charles,” she admonished him.
 
“This is Boston.
 
Keep your
windows closed.
 
Carjacking actually
happens here.”

“I
didn’t plan to fall asleep,” he said, as he moved to get out of his car.

“Stay
right where you are,” she said.
 
“There’s
nothing wrong with my two hands.”

Charles
smiled as she walked around the front of the car and got onto the passenger
seat.
 
She was out of uniform now, and
had on a nice pair of jeans and a cotton sweat shirt.
 
Although her hair was loose down her back, she
still looked very young.
 
And very fit.

She sat
her huge shoulder bag on the floor between her legs.

“That
a big purse,” Charles said.

“When
you rely on the kindness of friends and public transportation, you have to be
prepared for any clothing changes, any weather changes, anything.
 
I come prepared.”

Charles
smiled.
 
He’d never met a woman quite
like her.
 
“Had dinner yet?”

“No.
 
But you have.”

“I
have not.
 
I had a beer, nothing
more.
 
I preferred to break bread with
you tonight, not two crusty old white guys.”

Jenay
laughed.

“What’s
your favorite restaurant?
 
We’ll go
there.”

“When?
 
Now?”

“Why
not?”

Jenay
smiled.
 
“Yeah.
 
Why not.”

“So
where do you, Jenay Franklin, like to go?
 
And I know it’s not this place.
 
I
know it’s not Capani’s.”

“Most
definitely not!
 
But as for my
favorite?
 
Nothing fancy. I like Red
Lobster.
 
What about you?”

Charles
cranked up.
 
“Are you kidding?
 
I’m from Maine, sweetheart.
 
The lobster capital of the world!
 
Red Lobster it is!”

Jenay
felt elated, as he backed up, and sped off.

But
Red Lobster on a Friday night was so crowded that they would have to wait
another hour before they could be seated.
 
Jenay and Charles both were already dead on their feet.

“Let’s
go to the house,” she whispered in his ear as they huddled in the overcrowded
vestibule inside the restaurant.
 
“I’ll
throw us something together.
 
At least we
can kick off our shoes and relax.”
 

Charles
loved the idea.
 
He placed her arm in his
and headed back outside.
 
“You and those
shoes,” he said with a laugh.

They
sat at her small, kitchen table and ate the last of her spinach omelet.
 
Charles thought she was kidding when she
suggested it. He was a big man with a big appetite.
 
But it was loaded with turkey bacon, with
cheese, with roasted red peppers and other veggies.
 
It was delicious.

“And
you graduate when again?”

“June
5
^th
.
 
In a little over a
week.
 
But who’s counting?”

He
smiled.
 
“You’re excited?”

“Very.”

“What
about your parents?
 
You heard from
them?”

“No.
I haven’t called them.”

“I’m
sure they would like to hear from you.
 
They’re your blood.
 
You need
somebody to look out for you in this world, Jenay.
 
I don’t know what I would do if my sons
didn’t stay in touch with me.”

Jenay
didn’t respond to that.
 
It was her
parents who decided she wasn’t good enough, not the other way around.

“So,”
he said, as he cleaned his plate and pushed it away, “what do you normally do
on a big Friday night?”

“A
number of things,” Jenay responded.
 
She
was still eating.

“Such
as?”

“Well,
I might study if I needed to.
 
Or I’ll
catch a movie or go out with some friends.
 
Or I’ll just read and enjoy a good book.”

“I
don’t get it.
 
A girl as gorgeous as
you.
 
Where are all the handsome young
men?”

“Being
handsome and young, I suppose.”
 
She
didn’t finish eating, but she pushed her plate aside.
 
“They don’t interest me.”

Charles
considered her.
 
“Why are you bothering
with me then?” he asked.

She
smiled.
 
“I’ve only seen you twice in
seven weeks, Charles. You’re hardly a bother.”

But
he continued to stare at her.
 
She hadn’t
answered his question.

She
felt as if she was putting it on the line.
 
“You’re different,” she said.

“How
so?” he asked.

“Just
different.”

“You
mean because I’m white?”

“Because
you’re not like any other guy I’ve known before.
 
You tell it like it is, for one thing.
 
You don’t beat around the bush.
 
You don’t flatter me to get into my panties,
you just get in.”

Charles
laughed.

“And
when I needed you, after that accident, you were there.
 
You’ll never know how good it felt when I
stepped out of that car and saw you coming.
 
It was a very special feeling.”

“Yeah,”
Charles admitted, “it was for me too.”

Jenay
looked at him.
 
“It was?”

“Hell
yeah.
 
When I realized you were involved
in that accident, my goodness.
 
I
couldn’t get there fast enough.
 
I
thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest.
 
I was mortified.”

Jenay
wanted to ask him why would he be so mortified, since he really didn’t know her
like that, but she already knew why.
 
It
was the same reason she was so glad to see him.
 
But she had to ask him anyway.
 
“Why were you so mortified?” she asked him.

Charles
hesitated.
 
Jenay thought he was thinking
about how to respond, but he wasn’t.
 
He
already knew the answer.
 
“Because it was
you,” he said.
 
“Because in my eyes,
you’re different too, Jenay.
 
You’re a
very special lady.”

Jenay
wanted to smile, but a question was on her tongue.
 
So she asked it.
 
“What about you?” she asked.
   
“How do you normally spend your Friday
nights?”

“When
I’m not working you mean?”

“Yes.”

Charles
hesitated.
 
“I’ll usually go out.”
 
He hesitated again. “Or invite someone in.”

Jenay’s
heart began to pound.
 
“A female?”

Charles
nodded.
 
“Yes.”

“The
same female, or various ones?”

Charles
didn’t want to respond to that.
 
So he
didn’t.
 

But
his silence spoke volumes to Jenay.
  
She
stood up.

“What’s
wrong?” he asked, surprised by her sudden movement.
 
He stood up too.

“Nothing’s
wrong.
 
I just know I’d better get some
rest.
 
I’ve got to be to work at six in
the morning.”
 

“Six?
 
Capani’s opens at six?”

“No,
not the restaurant.
 
I help out a friend
on the weekends.
 
He owns a small
catering company.
 
He’s doing a party
tomorrow afternoon.”

This
concerned Charles.
 
“My goodness,
Jenay.
 
Do you get any rest?”

“It’s
not every weekend.
 
And the weekends when
he needs my help, yes, I get rest.
 
Like
I need to do now.”

Charles
knew what it meant.
 
She was politely
asking him to leave.
 
His honesty had
blown it.
 
He had all but told her he was
seeing other women. Numerous other women.
 
She wasn’t interested in being yet another one.
 
But it did feel strange to Charles, being
turned down.
 
It was a first for him in
many, many years.

“I’d
better leave you to it then,” he said, as they began to walk toward the
door.
 
When they arrived at the door, he
turned back around.

“My
interest in you isn’t only sexual, Jenay,” he felt a need to say.

Jenay
studied him.
 
“What is it then?”

Charles
couldn’t answer that either.
 
“I don’t
know,” he said.

“And
neither do I,” she responded.
 
“So what
good would come of it?”

He
knew it was true.
 
He hadn’t even
intended to look her up today.
 
Why was
he there now?
 
What was it about her that
had him even there?

“Good
night, Jenay,” he said, leaned over, and kissed her sweetly on the lips.

Jenay
leaned into his kiss, and very much wanted more, but she couldn’t allow
it.
  
He wasn’t in town for her, he was
in town handling his business and happened to run into her.
 
She wasn’t about to get it twisted.

“Good
night, Charlie,” she said, and opened the door to facilitate his exit.

CHAPTER NINE

One Week Later

Brent
Sinatra hurried into the family home just as his younger brother, Tony, was
coming out of the library.

“Where’s
Dad?” Brent asked.

“Funny
thing,” Tony said, a book in his hand.
 
“Many people, I daresay most, usually says hello when they enter a
home.”

“Anthony!”

“He’s
upstairs,” Tony quickly responded.
 
“Gosh!
 
You’re getting just like
him!”

But
Brent was already heading up, taking the stairs three at a time.
 
When he entered the master bedroom, and saw
his father standing at the peninsular inside his room-sized, walk-in closet, he
hurried to him.

“How
could you do it, Dad?”

Charles
was buttoning his dress shirt.
 
He looked
at his oldest child, the child, now twenty-two, that he fathered when he was
seventeen years old.
  
Of all of his four
sons, he had hoped Brent would want to follow in his footsteps.
 
Of all of his four sons, Brent was the one
who least wanted to follow in his footsteps.
 
“Good morning,” Charles said.
 
He
was as calm as his oldest son was animated.
 

“How
could you say no, Dad?”

Charles
looked at Brent with a cold gaze Brent knew all too well.
 
Come to
me right
, his father used to tell them when they were children,
or don’t come to me at all
.
 
Brent settled down.
 
“Good morning,” he said.

“When
did you get in town?”
 
Charles asked.

“I
just got here.”
  

“You
have one semester left before graduation.
 
Don’t blow it.”

“I
won’t.”

“Don’t
drop out like your brother Tony did.
 
Talking about he’s going to Africa.
 
He’s going to be a missionary.
 
All of that money I spent on his education, and he wants to do something
that doesn’t even require a degree!
 
I
didn’t get to go to college when I was his age.
 
And he thinks I’m going to let him throw it all away?
 
He’ll be back in school next term.”

Why
was he telling Brent that?
 
Brent already
knew all of that.
 
“I’m not dropping out,
Dad,” he said.
 
“Kerstin called and told
me what happened.
 
Her father’s very
distraught.”

“Oh
yeah?
 
And how is that my problem?”

“You
won’t give him the loan.
 
He was counting
on that loan, Dad!”

“The
bank won’t give him the loan.”

“And
like everything else around here,” Brent reminded his father, “you own the
bank.”

“I
own one of the banks in town, that is correct.
 
But if my bank, if Jericho Mutual turned him down, he should try the two
other banks in town.
 
I’m not the only
show in town.”

“But
you’re the only show with the capital for his kind of investment.
  
He even asked me if he should apply, and I
told him sure.
 
I was certain you
wouldn’t turn him down.
 
Not Kerstin’s
father!
 
I plan to marry Kerstin
someday.
 
Her father is going to be my
father-in-law.
 
Do you know how
embarrassing that is?”

Charles
grabbed a tie from a rack of ties and began putting it on.
 
“You should have stayed out of it, son,” he
said.

“How
was I to know you’d turn him down?
 
And
don’t tell me you didn’t see the application.
 
Mr. Hopson wanted a loan to open a major department store.
 
It would have had to reach your desk!”

“Watch
your tone,” Charles warned his son.

“But
it’s wrong, Dad.
 
Kerstin’s upset, her
father and his business partners are upset.
 
You could have approved his loan.
 
You could have given the man a chance to make his dream come true.
 
But that would have been too much like
decent, wouldn’t it?
 
Too much like
showing compassion for people.
 
And you
wonder why everybody in this town hate your guts.
 
They hate you because they know exactly what
kind of ruthless man you are!”

Charles
grabbed his son by the catch of his shirt and jacked him up against the
wall.
 
His face had that hard edge Brent
knew so well.
 
“Who do you think you’re
talking to?
 
You’re going to make me give
that man my money?
 
Is that what you
thought you were going to come here to do?
 
He may be your girlfriend’s father, and you may love him to death.
 
But I don’t share such sentiment toward the
man.
 
I did my homework.
 
He didn’t want a loan from my bank because
I’m your father and he wanted to throw some business my way.
 
Are you kidding me?
 
He came to me because he already has a loan
with Farmers’ Merchant Bank, and he already has a loan with Maine Federal!
 
And both of those loans are damn-near in
default!
 
And you expect me to fork over
a quarter million dollars to a man like that?”

Charles
calmed back down.
 
“And you’re right,” he
continued.
 
“Everybody knows exactly how
I am, including Kerstin’s father.
 
He
knew exactly how I was when he walked into my bank asking for that loan.”
 

Charles
released his son’s shirt.
 
“Get the fuck
out of my face,” he said as he released him. “He wanted charity, why did he
come to me?
 
Do I look like a fucking
charity?”
 
He looked angrily at his
son.
 
“Well do I?”

Brent
was breathing heavily.
 
One day he was
going to rise up against his father.
 
He
had the personality for it.
 
But that day
wasn’t going to be this day.
 
“No, sir,”
he said.

Charles
stared at his oldest son.
 
He hated to lose
his temper with any of his boys, but when they came to him with that stupid
stuff, what did they expect him to do?
 
Applaud them?
 
Agree with them?

“Stay
out of it, son,” he ordered.
 
“This is
between Freddy Hopson and me.
 
If your
girlfriend blames you for my actions, she wasn’t worth having to begin
with.
 
Life’s too short to waste your
time on fools.
 
Dump her and find
yourself a real woman.
 
Life’s too short
to settle for anything less.”

But
Brent was still seething.
 
“It’s always
about money with you,” he said.
 
“Isn’t
it?”

“Money?”

“That’s
why you took Russ Ferraway’s land.
 
And
Joe Mason’s.
 
Isn’t it?
 
It’s the talk of the town.
 
Even when he tried to catch up all of those
late payments, you wouldn’t let him.”

“He
knew what time it was.
 
He knew that note
had already come due.
 
He could have sold
that Mercedes and tried to catch up that note.
 
But he didn’t.
 
And what did I
just tell you?
 
That’s my business.
 
Stay out of my business.”

“But
what if he raises the money now, and pays the back payments?”

“It’s
done, Brenton.
 
We called in the
note.
 
Joe Mason either pays the full
amount, or nothing at all.”

“And
you take over his property,” Brent said, as if his father was committing a
crime.
 
“Land you don’t even need.”

But
the subject was closed as far as Charles was concerned.
 
“Find yourself a woman of substance, Brent,”
he said.
 
“Life’s too short.”

Brent
looked at his father with an anger he could barely contain.
 
“You don’t care, do you?
 
You don’t care that everybody in this town
hates you?”

“Everybody
in this town fears me,” Charles said.
 
“There’s a difference.”

Brent
was shaking his head.
 
“No, sir,” he
said.
 
“No, it’s not.
 
There’s no difference at all.
 
And
 
then for a man like you to tell me to dump Kerstin and find myself a
woman of substance?
 
Yeah, right.
 
Find yourself a heart, Pop.
 
Find yourself a heart!”

Brent
said this, and then angrily left his father’s bedroom just as Tony was walking
in.
 
Brent, in fact, brushed against Tony
as he walked past him so fast, that Tony tilted sideways.
 
Tony looked across the room at his
father.
 
Conventional wisdom was that his
father was the asshole of assholes in Jericho County.
 
But unlike the county, Tony never bought
it.
 
Tony knew better than that.
 
“You okay, Pop?” he asked as he walked toward
him.

Charles
grabbed his tie pin, and slipped it onto his tie.
 
His oldest boy just told him he had no
heart.
 
He had no heart, he said.
 
“I’m fine,” he replied.

“Don’t
listen to Brent,” Tony said as he turned his father toward him, and began to
straighten his tie.
 
He knew his father
was still reeling.
 
He knew his father
hated that his oldest son felt that way about him.
  
“Brent’s always blowing smoke.
 
He says you have no heart,” Tony said as he
placed his hand on his father’s chest.
 
“But if you have no heart, then why is it hammering?”

Charles
placed his hand on top of his son’s hand.
 
To the world, Tony was known for his beauty and his wit.
 
Just a gorgeous boy from birth, and with the
funniest tongue.
 
But he was so much more
to Charles.
 
He was smart, and sharp, and
he understood his old man better than any child Charles had.
 
But that didn’t mean they were close.
 

Charles
moved past his son, walked out of the closet, and headed for the nightstand
beside his bed.

Tony
was disappointed.
 
He wanted to connect
better with his father.
 
But his father
had to want it too.
 
Yet every time the
opportunity rose up, his father clamped it back down.
 
He followed him out of the closet, looking at
the open suitcase on the bed.
 
“I thought
you didn’t have to be in New York until tomorrow,” he said.
 
“You’re headed there now?”

Charles
began putting on his Rolex.
 
He had
decided to go a day early to New York, just for the change of pace.
 
Nothing more elaborate than that.
 
But then he looked at that Rolex again, at
not just the time, but the date.
 
June 5
^th
.
 
It had been a possibility for the past week,
but every time he thought about it, he dismissed it.
 
What
good would come of it
, she had asked.
 
And it was a question he still couldn’t answer.
 
But he made up his mind right here and right
now.
 
“Boston,” he said to Tony.
 
“I’m going to Boston first.”

“Boston?
 
Why Boston?
 
Another investment opportunity?”

“Something
like that,” replied Charles.

Tony
knew when his father was shutting him out.
 
He was so accustomed to it that it was as clear to him as if his father
had sounded a cymbal.
 
“Well alrighty
then,” he said.
 
“I’ll leave you to
it.”
 
And he left.

As
soon as he did, Charles stopped all movement, took in a deep breath, and then
exhaled.
 
He was going to Boston, not to
attend some drab meeting, but to look up Jenay again.
 
Ever since he met her at Donnie’s reception,
and saw her again a week ago, he’d been thinking about her.
 
Even dreamed about her yet again!
 
Not just that face, and those lips, and that
brown body that sizzled against his skin.
 
He dreamed about
her
.
 
About her laughter, and her almost slue-feet,
and the way he nearly died when he thought harm had come to her.