Authors: Susan Squires
“Time for Michael and me to get going,” she said. “Thank goodness it’s not a long walk to the house. I find all of this exhausting.”
Looked like sex with Michael was going to have to take her mind off a lot of things.
“I’m going to go get my tarot deck,” her mother said, standing.
CHAPTER SIX
Kemble called Jane’s house at a little after seven the next morning. He’d kept several other people up almost all night, but things were pretty much fixed. A few calls this morning and he’d be set. Or rather they’d be set. His actions had to satisfy two people now. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt Jane. Which was why the call.
“Hello?” Jane had such a sweet voice.
“Uh, hi. You sleep okay?”
“To tell the truth, not really. You?”
“Well, I had a lot to do.” Actually sleep hadn’t entered into his night at all, for several reasons. Start easy, he told himself. “They don’t require a rubella vaccination anymore.”
“Oh, good. I remembered that Dr. Por
ter’s office is closed on Thursday.”
“Just be sure you have your driver’s license. Do
. . . do you have a dress you’d like to wear?” He was fully prepared for a shopping trip. He’d get an idea where she wanted to shop, and then arrange for it to open early.
“I thought I’d wear the suit I wore to Keelan and Devin’s wedding. I was just sending it out to be cleaned, but I think it will be okay.”
Practical Jane. “Excellent.” He cleared his throat. “Have you, uh, told her?” Jane had refused to let him come in last night when he took her home.
“Yes. She’s
. . . very happy for me.”
Kemble bet she was. Mrs. Holmby didn’t think things would change. She thought she’d still be able to order Jane around and now she’d have all the money she wanted for her booze deliveries. She probably thought Jane would spend days with her so she could have someone to berate and belittle and only give Kemble nights. Not happening. He was going to protect Jane from her mother if it was the last thing he did. Or the last thing Jane wanted.
“I . . . I was thinking, Jane. . . .” Oh, this was going to be hard. “We can’t live with your mother. You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course I know that.” She sounded a little insulted.
He pushed on. “Do you think she can live alone?”
There was a pause. “No.” He heard a sigh. “That’s one thing that was keeping me up last night. I suppose we’ll have to find a place for her that has some
. . . supervision. It may take a while, but I can live here until we get it sorted out and convince her to make the change.” Jane sounded as doubtful as he was that they’d ever convince her mother to move into a facility capable of caring for her. Because she’d know that alcohol would be off limits.
But Jane was staying with her mo
ther for one more night over Kemble’s dead body. “I’ve got a place lined up now.” He let it lay there. Silence on the line. “Jane?”
“Kemble, she
. . . she won’t go on such short notice.”
“That’s why there’s a social worker coming over from the county this morning in about an hour.” He rushed forward before she could protest. “I did the research on the process, completed the report online and outlined the circumstances. Then I pulled some strings with Supervisor Phillips. Voil
à. Visit this morning. If the social worker doesn’t think she’s capable of living on her own, she’ll write the order to get your mother a psych eval. I’ve got a judge ready to order mandatory rehab. She doesn’t have to go to a county facility. She just has to go somewhere. I’ve got a wonderful place in Long Beach all ready for her. Right on the water. Everything contained in a twenty-story building, with full facilities for detox as long as she needs it, and a great staff of psychiatrists. Afterward she can stay there as a permanent resident. They’ve got four levels of assisted living. It’s got a movie theater, a full gym.” Like Mrs. Holmby wanted to work out. “Lots of classes. It’s not far, so you can still visit, with a security detail of course.”
“A
. . . a security detail?”
The other shoe. His mouth was dry. “You’ll be a Tremaine after today.” And
incur all the dangers that came with that.
Her voice got a little rueful. “Well, not a very important Tremaine. No magic.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he insisted. “The Clan won’t know that.”
Big breath on the other end of the line. Don’t lose heart now, Jane, he thought. They were going through with this. He needed to go through with this. She let the breath out. “Okay. Will
. . . will Mother be gone today?” she whispered. “Oh, dear, I sound like a horrible daughter.”
“You’re not. No one I know would have put up with what you have. It’s time to have a life of your own, Jane.” He was going to see that she did.
“I . . . I was just wondering. Because if she’s still here, I could stay here. . . . Or if we can find someone to come over . . . but no one could stand a whole night with her, and we’d just get a call at the Breakers in the middle of the night. . . .”
“You’ll be able to say goodbye before we head to the courthouse.” That ought to be an event. But he wasn’t going to delay the ceremony. He was going to lock Jane in now, before she changed her mind. She might be a little teary after what was likely to be a monumental scene with Mrs. Holmby, but he’d hold Jane together. “They won’t allow visitors during the detox phase. That’s usually thirty days. But we’ll go over to see her as soon as we can.”
He didn’t want to give Jane time to dwell on that part. He cleared his throat. He so hoped Jane would be pleased with his wedding gift. “And we won’t be staying at the Breakers tonight. You deserve a place of your own, and a little distance from the family wouldn’t exactly be bad for my mental state either. I bought us a house, Jane.” He couldn’t help the note of pride in his voice. Not many men could have pulled that off overnight. “Well, we’re renting until the escrow closes, but we can go there tonight. It’s one of those fully furnished houses in that development at the bottom of Hawthorne Boulevard. Close to the Breakers, but a place of our own.”
“Kemble,” Jane gasped. Then her voice dropped to a whisper again. “I heard the furnished ones sold for ten million dollars when the development first opened. You can’t spend that much on a house. Oh my goodness, they’re probably even more expensive by now. What would your father say?”
“Don’t panic. Senior can’t say anything about it. I used my own money. You do know I draw a salary from Tremaine? A very good one. And since I don’t use it because I live at home, I’ve invested it. For twenty years.”
“And you have that much?” Jane’s voice was small.
“I have a lot more than that. I’m good at investing. Of course Father advises me.” His personal financial status was more Senior’s doing than his own. Big surprise.
“Oh.” Long pause.
“Jane?”
“I never really think about how rich your family is.” Her tone sounded a little remote.
Kemble felt the sands shifting under his feet. She’d been over at the Breakers almost every day since she was eleven. It wasn’t like his family was trying to hide the fact that they had money. What was going on? Oh. That makes her feel like an interloper. Okay. Got it. “I’m glad I’m rich, Jane. Gives me the ability to take care of you the way you deserve,” he said gruffly. There. I’m pretty sure that’s what a man in love would say. “And Edwards is on board with providing security. He’s augmenting the system in the house today. He’ll put extra guys over there. It’s a gated community, of course, but this house belonged to a single guy, a basketball player or something, who was a little paranoid. So it’s got its own wall around the grounds, fully electrified, a ton of bells and whistles, security-wise, according to the agent. You’ll be safe.”
He heard the doorbell chime. Mrs. Holmby shouted for whoever it was to go away. Her speech was already slurred, even this early. Good. If the social worker had seen Jane’s cheek last night, there’d be no question. Kemble had referenced the many visits of the police in the on-line report, and the latest report would document the incident, Jane’s injury would be noted and her refusal to press charges. He hoped that did the trick.
“I’ve got to go,” Jane whispered.
“I’ll be over in half an hour,” he said, “with all the information about New Beginnings in Long Beach.”
“Okay,” Jane whispered and the phone went dead.
Kemble grinned to himself for the first time in a while. That had gone pretty well. He liked taking care of Jane. He’d done the right thing asking her to marry him. If he couldn’t have magic, it was time to make another life.
*****
Jane got out of the Escalade on her own. Kemble was busy talking to Edwards in the big circular drive in front of the door to the Breakers, thanking him and Ernie for being witnesses. Kemble tried to slip money into Edwards’ hand, but the man wouldn’t take it.
“Ernie and I were honored to stand up for you and Mrs. Tremaine.”
Kemble didn’t press. He stuffed the bills into the pants pocket of his suit. “Yell Mrs. Tremaine around here now and you might get trampled in the crowd,” he said dryly. “I’m just sorry we couldn’t have invited family and gotten you two out of witness duty.”
“Can’t risk more than we must,” Edwards said philosophically. “Your father knew the family couldn’t come.”
“I made him explain to Mother,” Kemble said with a rueful smile. “I’m such a coward.”
“Your mother’s a formidable woman.” Edwards grinned.
“Speaking of which, why don’t you come in and protect me from her? I’m sure there’s champagne in the offing. I ordered a delivery this morning.”
“A little bubbly never goes amiss,” Ernie agreed with a wink. “Especially at a wedding.”
Jane thought Kemble looked pretty satisfied with himself as he clapped Ernie on the back and gestured them both in. His easy camaraderie with the security staff made their job easier. Did he even realize that it was an example of his instinctual leadership? Probably not.
Jane watched Ernie and Edwards move through the great doors of the Breakers, feeling overwhelmed. It had all happened so fast.
The day
had started out with her mother attacking the social worker with the little carved wooden stick with a hand at the end she used to scratch her back. Jane had managed to restrain her at the cost of some whacks for herself. The screaming was actually the worst. She’d heard so much of it in the last month her nerves were just frayed. She’d had to lock her mother in her room with a chair under the doorknob, apologizing over and over again, and swearing she didn’t lock her mother up usually. She guessed the interview was a foregone conclusion at that point. She’d never been so glad to see Kemble in her life when he pulled into the driveway.
The social worker signed a seventy-two
-hour hold in the locked portion of New Beginnings. Kemble assured Jane that a judge was even now in the process of ordering rehab and the staff at New Beginnings would take over from there. But Jane felt awful when the ambulance came and took her mother away in restraints, screaming betrayal and Jane’s perfidy at the top of her lungs. Neighbors up and down the street came out to look. Several had the gall to cheer as the doors on the ambulance shut. Kemble was standing on the lawn talking on his cell phone to New Beginnings, leaving Jane to stand in the driveway alone. Not that he wasn’t supportive. He was trying to give her a life. Why didn’t that make her feel good? After the ambulance departed, he’d left to attend to the house he’d bought for them. She pulled herself together and dressed in the light gray suit. Perfectly adequate to get married in, since she’d taken a damp cloth to the stain left by an hors d’oeuvre that fell off the tray she was carrying at the wedding.
Now, Kemble came up and put his arm around her. His touch made her shiver, but the heat of his arm on her back made her want to lean into him and let his warmth suffuse her. She wasn’t sure he’d want that. “You’ve been a trooper today.”
“Have I?” Only if being a trooper equaled being numb.
“None better.” He left her side to retrieve her small overnight bag from the back of the Escalade. “Let’s go in and get something to eat. I bet you’re as starved as I am.”
“I doubt that,” Jane said. She wasn’t hungry at all, though she hadn’t eaten all day. She was married to Kemble Tremaine. She still couldn’t believe it. She should feel like she belonged at the Breakers now. But she somehow belonged less than she ever did, even though Edwards called her Mrs. Tremaine. She wasn’t Mrs. Tremaine. That would always be Brina. She wasn’t even Maggie or Keelan. They had Tremaine magic.
The door stood open. The house was dim inside. She and Kemble pushed through together. Jane’s low heels clicked across the tile in the foyer.
“I wonder if Mr. Nakamura put champagne in the bar cooler to chill,” Kemble said, taking her hand and drawing her forward. The electric shock she got from his hand wasn’t static electricity. More like sexual electricity, if there was such a thing. It made her blink. I’m a wife. And tonight I’ll have to be a wife to Kemble. She was so not ready for that. That was the other thing that had kept her up all night, besides her mother, and the guilt of taking advantage of his situation. She was a selfish b—witch. Who was also a virgin. Kemble was in for a disappointment if he wanted someone talented at making love. This was going to be a disaster.