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And that’s the way it was going to stay.
“Okay, you liked her. You wanted to help her. Why does that equal you living here, in her house, instead of with your mother and Angela at your family’s place?” Her voice dripped dislike. “Don’t tell me you’re not one big, happy, rich Winfield family?” She could tell by the look in his eyes, and the way his jaw clenched, that he was mentally arguing over how to answer. “Come on, Jack, what’s the story?”
Finally his eyes shifted away from her face and he muttered, “You know my father died only a few months ago.”
She bit the corner of her lip, trying hard to remember Mayor Winfield had actually been someone’s father. Swallowing her dislike, she murmured, “Yes, I know. I’m sure that’s been painful for you.”
“It’s been difficult. I never realized…”
“What?” she prompted.
“I don’t know. How much I cared about him, I guess?” He gave a sad laugh. “How much I’d miss him, even as I find out day by day how very little I knew him.”
Having lost her dad at a young age, Kate could understand that feeling of wishing she’d had a chance to know a parent. “I’m sorry, Jack. I know how it is to lose your father.”
“I know you do. You were a kid when you lost yours, right?”
She nodded. “Six.”
He shook his head. “Awful. Your mom was so young to be a widow.” He lowered his voice. “And she never remarried.”
No, Edie had never remarried. She’d instead wasted decades on a man who was married to someone else. Kate rubbed a weary hand over her brow. “No. But we’re talking about your father.”
“Yes, we are,” Jack replied. “He left a mess behind him.”
More than you could possibly know.
“I told my mother I’d come help her out this summer, sell some real estate, get some paperwork taken care of.”
“And you can’t do that on Lilac Hill?”
“I’m a grown man, Kate. Can you picture me living in my mother’s house for a month, being scolded not to let my shoes scuff up her tile floor, and to be careful not to rumple the plastic on the sofa in the parlor?”
She couldn’t help it. She burst into laughter. “She has plastic on the sofa?”
A faint smile crossed his lips. “Yeah.”
“Does it ever come off?”
He shook his head.
“Not even if the First Lady came over?”
“Well, maybe the current one. But definitely not a Democrat. And certainly it wouldn’t come off for me!”
Suddenly his childhood sounded less golden than she’d always imagined. “Sounds like you were the classic poor little rich kid.”
“I did okay. Thankfully, your mother was around a lot.”
Kate’s smile faded. Yeah, her mother had been around the Winfields a lot more than he knew. She wondered what he’d think about that.
In her heart she knew it would hurt him, just as it had hurt her to learn a parent she loved really hadn’t been perfect. Maybe if she were a vindictive person…or maybe if Jack weren’t already mourning his father’s death…she’d have told him. As it was, she simply couldn’t. No matter what he’d done to her, no matter how much his broken promises had hurt her, she couldn’t repay him with that kind of spite.
His sister was much better at that, she recalled.
“Anyway, I wanted to be on my own,” he continued. “There aren’t a lot of furnished short-term rentals around. Your mom seemed happy to let me stay here for a month. End of story.”
Kate sensed it wasn’t really the end of the story, but she was too tired to think about it tonight. She still hadn’t quite absorbed the fact that she was here, back in Pleasantville, this time not only for an afternoon, but for weeks.
And Mr. Gorgeous was her next-door neighbor. Oh, joy.
“You need to leave,” she finally said, wanting him out of here before she did something terribly stupid. Such as kick him, kill him. Or even worse, kiss him. “I’m tired and I want to go to sleep.”
He looked around the empty room. “Uh, where?”
“I brought a sleeping bag for tonight.”
