“That will work for us. We’re going to the early service at church and we’ll leave from there. We should be there by eleven. That should give us enough time to tour the town and be at the restaurant before noon.”
“Perfect,” Tom said. “Why don’t we meet at the town hall. It’s centrally located.”
“Oh, but we want to see where you’re living,” she protested.
“It’s a small inn, Mother. I have a room. There’s nothing to see. I still haven’t found a house.”
“I know it’s an inn, but I’d like to see it,” she said stubbornly. “That way I can picture you there, even if it is only temporary.”
It was one of her idiosyncracies that she liked knowing the details of her children’s living arrangements. She’d visited every dorm room, every sorority house and fraternity, every tiny apartment each of her children had resided in. Tom should have expected she’d want to see the inn. Still, he argued against it. “Mother, you’re not going to be here that long. Let’s not waste the visit on a tour of my nine-by-twelve room.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she agreed reluctantly, then said with enthusiasm, “Perhaps we should help you look for a house while we’re there.”
“Absolutely not,” he said more sharply than he’d intended. “I’ve seen almost everything that’s on the market. I’m just trying to narrow it down.”
“Then we could help,” she persisted. “It’s no trouble, darling. I’ve always been able to see the potential in places. In fact, once you’ve chosen something, I can come over with my decorator and help you whip it into shape. You’ll need something large enough for entertaining, and it should be in the best neighborhood. After all, you are a public official.”
“Mom!” He needed to get her attention. “Enough. I don’t need anything fancy. I can slap a little paint on the walls if it needs it. The last thing I need is a decorator.”
“Well, surely you’ll want some of the family heirlooms,”
she continued, undaunted. “That awful place you had in the last town was nowhere for priceless antiques, but I’m sure you can improve on that.”
Tom would rather live in a tent than be surrounded by the ornate McDonald treasures. “We’ll discuss it when I see you,” he said. If he put his foot down in person, she might actually hear him. Then again, that had never worked for his father. She’d been running roughshod over him for their entire forty years of marriage.
Jeanette exited the church, stopped for a moment to speak with Pastor Drake, then turned and bumped straight into Tom.
“You!” she said, taking a step back.
Had he been in church? That would explain his perfectly tailored navy blue suit, crisp white shirt and polished Italian loafers. She couldn’t help recalling what Helen had said about him coming from money. He looked every inch the scion of some old Charleston family. Of course, the dimple in his cheek and the twinkle in his eye also made him seem sexy and accessible. It was a potent combination.
“Well, this is an unexpected surprise. You’re just the person I needed to see,” he said, seizing her hand and drawing her away from the crowd.
Jeanette tried to yank her hand away, but he had a surprisingly strong grip. Warm and solid. The kind of grip that would feel reassuring if circumstances were different.
“Will you let go of me?” she demanded.
“Will you at least hear me out?” he asked.
“Why wouldn’t I hear you out?”
He shrugged. “Good question, but our brief history sug gests you’re not always open to spending time with me.”
“You’re not asking me on a date again, are you?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means my parents are arriving here in approximately fifteen minutes and I need backup.”
She stared at him blankly. “Backup? Why?”
“My father hates everything about my being town manager here and my mother wants to choose my new home and decorate it,” he said, sounding a little frantic. Jeanette’s lips twitched. This vulnerable side of him was oddly appealing. “You’re scared of Mommy and Daddy?”
“You won’t say it like that once you’ve met them. My father is a tyrant and my mother is a force of nature.”
“And you want me to meet them after you’ve made them sound so charming?”
“Okay, bad planning on my part. The point is that they are always on their best behavior around strangers. I can feed them at Sullivan’s and have them on their way by two if you’ll help me out by tagging along. I swear it’s not a date. I just need you as a buffer.”
Jeanette found herself enjoying his discomfort. She actually wanted to meet the two people who could throw this self-confident man into such a dither. And it might be nice to see another dysfunctional family in action. It might be reassuring, somehow, to have proof that she wasn’t the only one on the planet who had parental issues. And it wasn’t as if they were dating and meeting his parents was a major moment. As he’d said, she’d be merely a buffer. No big deal.
“There’s just one thing,” she said. “How would you explain me?”
“As a friend,” he said at once. “That’s the truth, isn’t it?
We’re friends, or at least getting there.”
“Casual acquaintance is more apt, but I get why you’d need to call me a friend if you’re including me in this lunch.” She hesitated, then nodded. “Okay, then, as long as there are no hints…” She gave him a stern look. “None, whatsoever, that we are anything more than friends, understood? I don’t want to hear even the tiniest suggestion that we might be friends with benefits.”
“Of course not,” he said solemnly. “Then you’ll do it?”
“I’ll do it.”
He snagged her hand again. “Good, we’re meeting them at the town hall—” he glanced at his watch “—in less than ten minutes. The one thing you don’t ever want to do is keep them waiting. It’s important to make a good first impression.”
Something in his voice alerted her that he hadn’t been entirely honest with her. “Why do you care what kind of impression I make? I’m a buffer, that’s it. It might be even better if they hate my guts on sight.”
“Possibly,” he conceded. “But there’s no point in either of us enduring a ten-minute lecture on the lack of respect implied by tardiness.”
“Agreed,” she said, amused.
Her oddly upbeat mood lasted until she spotted Mr. and Mrs. McDonald—surely it had to be them—emerging from a shiny black car almost the length of a city block. They’d parked across the square from the town hall, which put them some distance away, but she knew in her gut she wasn’t mistaken about who they were. Her horrified gaze barely skimmed over the man, but the woman…she would recognize her anywhere. An image of that artfully colored blond hair, pale complexion and the arrogant lift to her surgically perfected chin was burned into her memory.
“Those are your parents?” she asked. “Over there, getting out of that limo?”
Tom shot a quizzical look at her. “Yes. Why do you look like that? You’re pale as a ghost.”
“I can’t meet your parents,” she whispered, frantically trying to get him to release her hand so she could bolt. Why hadn’t she made the connection before now? It wasn’t as if she’d never heard his last name or didn’t know he was from Charleston. She just didn’t believe in coincidences, that was all. Or she hadn’t wanted to believe in this one. It had been too awful to contemplate.
Tom was still staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“Why can’t you meet my parents? Jeanette, what’s wrong?
Is it the car? They have money. So what?”
“It’s not the car,” she said in an oddly choked voice.
“Believe me, that car is the least of it.”
“Then, what? Tell me quick, because they’ve seen us, so it’s too late for you to run.”
“It’s your mother, Tom,” she said, still struggling to break free. “I know her. And you do not want us face-toface. You need to trust me about that.”
He stared at her blankly. “You know my mother? How?”
“Do you really want to waste time chitchatting about the details? I need to go before they get over here. I can explain later.”
“Tell me now,” he said tightly.
“I know her from Chez Bella’s in Charleston. I gave her a facial once.”
He still looked blank. “Are you embarrassed about that for some reason? You shouldn’t be.”
“It’s not about being embarrassed,” she said indignantly. “She sued Bella. Claimed I almost destroyed her skin. That suit could have cost me my job, my reputation. The only reason it didn’t was because Bella had heard that she’d done the same thing at another spa in town. She’s allergic to some ingredient. Her dermatologist has explained it to her, but for some reason she refuses to accept that she can’t have the same treatments that all her friends have, so she just moves from spa to spa, raising a ruckus along the way. She freaks because her skin breaks out in hives. Now, will you let me go before she and I have this out right here?”
Tom was staring at her incredulously. “My mother sued you?”
“Not me, the spa. She probably doesn’t even remember me, but I remember her. Now, let me go.”
This time when she jerked away, he released her. Jeanette didn’t wait around to see whether his mother recognized her or not. All she cared about was getting away before she yanked the woman’s perfectly coifed, bleached blond hair out by its roots.
7
“Who was that young woman and why did she run off?”
Tom’s mother asked the instant they reached him. “She looked vaguely familiar.”
Tom wasn’t about to bring up the Chez Bella incident, not until he’d heard the whole story from Jeanette. It would be just like his mother to make a federal case out of something like a skin rash, even if she’d been responsible for causing it by not disclosing her allergies. She’d had a habit of denying anything that didn’t suit her. It didn’t surprise him that she might ill-advisedly ignore her dermatologist’s warnings just to have the facial her friends were raving about.
But if it had been such a big deal, why hadn’t Jeanette mentioned it before now? Surely she must have wondered if his mother and the woman who’d filed the suit were related, if not one and the same person. He had a whole lot of questions and no answers, so for the time being he just forced a smile.
“She didn’t run off. She’s on my Christmas festival committee, so we were discussing a few details. She didn’t want to intrude on our family get-together. She knows we don’t have a lot of time.”
His mother looked as if she wasn’t buying a word, but his father was clearly disinterested in the whole discussion.
“So,” he said, a scathing note in his voice, “this is it?
What we’re seeing right now is Serenity? Not much to it, is there?”
“This is the downtown,” Tom said, trying not to sound defensive. “Those big-box stores over your way all but destroyed small, family-run businesses, but it’s coming back. The drugstore weathered the tough times, the hardware store has reopened under new management, and two other spaces have been leased since I got here. A clothing boutique is opening in one and a florist in the other. One of my main priorities is trying to attract a few more businesses into this area. And the local garden club has organized a beautification program. They’re installing all the pots of flowers at the doorways of businesses and will maintain them. Give us another couple of years and we’ll have this area rejuvenated.”
“Waste of time,” his father scoffed. “These little shoestring operations can’t compete.”
“They can under the right conditions,” Tom countered. Before his father could argue, he held up his hand. “Let’s take a tour. Would you like to walk through town hall? It was built in the early 1800s. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places. Someone in town had the good sense to fight to preserve it. All the renovations through the years have been done with great attention to the original detail.”
His mother’s expression brightened. “I’d love to see it.”
“Don’t know why you care about a pile of old bricks,”
his father grumbled, but he kept pace with his wife and son as Tom described the Colonial-style architecture that had been the inspiration for the small, brick building with its white columns out front. It was set at one end of Town Square, right in the heart of what had once been the thriving hub of Serenity. Its sweeping lawn was well manicured, and several towering old oaks shaded both the structure itself and the carefully placed benches. The garden club tended the beds of flowers around the perimeter. Just recently they’d replaced the summer blooms with bright yellow chrysanthemums. Inside on the left was an open area where residents could pay their tax bills. On the right was a large meeting room for the monthly council sessions. A wide staircase toward the back led to the handful of offices housing town officials, including Tom’s large corner office overlooking the square. The office wasn’t huge or lavishly furnished by Charleston standards, but it was impressive just the same. And the furnishings had been chosen with care, most of them at least a century earlier. The desk immediately sent his mother into raptures.
“Oh, just look at this wood,” she murmured, rubbing her hand over the smooth, dark surface. “It’s quite remarkable to be in this condition after so many years. It must make you think about all those who’ve worked here before you, Tom.”