Eight
Annabeth Connelly stole into Hank Osbourne’s study and quietly blew her nose. She needed a few minutes to compose herself. As if the shock of finding out she was a grandmother hadn’t been enough, the scene she’d just inadvertently overheard when she’d tried to use the powder room a few minutes ago had scattered her already frazzled nerves. Despite her son’s claims to the contrary, there was more to his marriage to Julianne Marchione than providing a blanket of legitimacy for their son. There was passion. Rousing passion, judging from the sound of it.
“Fake marriage, my ass,” she muttered. Will and Julianne were a ticking time bomb, and Annabeth wasn’t sure she wanted to be around when they exploded. What must it be like to be so attracted to another person? Annabeth sat down on the leather sofa, releasing a heavy sigh. She’d never know the answer to that. Her experiment in the free love her flower children parents preached about had landed her pregnant and alone at sixteen. She’d been paying the price ever since. Passion just wasn’t part of the picture for a single mom struggling to raise a son and herself at the same time. Not for Annabeth, anyway.
“Um, can I get you something? Or someone?”
Annabeth shot to her feet and turned toward the darkened corner of the study. A teenage girl dressed in a kitschy peasant dress and cowboy boots emerged from the shadows. Feathers dangled from her pink hair as the bangle bracelets lining her arms jingled merrily with each step. Another teen appeared beside her, a tall boy, dressed in baggy jeans hanging low enough to give Annabeth, and everyone else, a view of the plaid boxers he wore beneath them. His face was hidden beneath a baseball cap and a hoodie advertising some clothing store, which he’d pulled up over his head to give him that thug look kids seemed to think was cool. Annabeth found it unnerving as she backed toward the door.
“Oh, please, don’t leave on our account. We didn’t mean to startle you. My dad would kill me if he thought we’d run you out of here.” A pained expression crossed over the girl’s face.
“Your dad?” Annabeth asked. She tried to recall what she knew about Hank Osbourne. Apparently he was just as mysterious as the Wizard of Oz he was nicknamed after, because she couldn’t remember if the man was even married. Most likely, he was since he was a successful, handsome man. It was hard to imagine him not being snatched up by some woman.
“Um, yeah. I’m Sophie. Sophie Osbourne. I live here. Well, not all the time. Mostly I live in Philadelphia with my mom. And Kevin, my stepfather. And the twins, Mark and Matt. They’re eight.”
Annabeth relaxed a little as Sophie talked, the girl’s earnestness taking the edge off her sudden appearance. She still wasn’t sure about the tall boy, though. “What about him? Does he live here, too?”
“Um, oh gosh! No! This is Walker. He drove me down.” Sophie turned to the boy and smacked him on the shoulder. “Take off your hat in the house, Walker, and say hello.”
Walker pushed off his hood and removed the ball cap. “Yo,” he said, revealing a mouth full of braces.
Annabeth couldn’t help but smile, remembering those awkward days when Will struggled with growing into his body. Walker obviously still had a while to go in the man-child stage.
“So, um, are you okay? Um . . . ma’am, can I get you something?” Sophie walked over to the box of tissues on the desk and carried them over to Annabeth. “You seem a little upset.”
Annabeth tried not to cringe at being called ma’am. Sophie was apparently affected enough by Annabeth’s distress when she’d entered the study to offer comfort. It was sweet, especially when most teens would probably have laughed.
“I’m better, thank you.” Annabeth gave them a reassuring smile.
Sophie answered with a huge grin of her own. “Oh, good. This is supposed to be a happy occasion, right? I mean, it’s a wedding! How cool. Are you a friend of the bride or the groom?”
“The groom. I’m Annabeth Connelly.”
“Wow! Are you Will’s sister?” Sophie asked, her excitement bubbling over.
Annabeth was used to the question, but it still embarrassed her to answer it. “No, I’m his mother.”
“Man, you’re pretty hot to be a mom of a guy that old.” Walker’s voice was filled with so much awe, Annabeth nearly laughed.
“Wow,” Sophie said. “Like, he must be thirty. And you’re so . . . young.”
“It’s because I was sixteen when I had Will.” Annabeth watched as her words registered with both teenagers. Walker immediately took a big step back from Sophie, and Annabeth had to bite back another smile. She never passed up an opportunity to use the scared-straight approach to make a point against teen pregnancy. Someone should at least learn from her mistake.
“Oh.” Sophie twisted her hands in front of her. “Well, you should be happy, right? Will is getting married and you have a new grandson. It should be a nice ceremony, even if they are doing it in my dad’s family room. So unromantic. I hope he thought about flowers and stuff. He isn’t always tuned in to what needs to be done at a social event. My mom says it’s because he’s socially inept. Too military minded, whatever that means. But all guys are kinda like that, you know?”
Annabeth didn’t think Hank was socially inept. Every time they’d met over the past four years, he’d been the opposite, actually; more gallant, a perfect gentleman. In fact, she’d been guilty of comparing other men to Hank and finding them lacking. Friends said she was too picky, when she’d only been adhering to a standard set forth by a man who would likely only be an acquaintance in her life.
She hated to burst Sophie’s bubble. “Actually, there weren’t any flowers or music. It wasn’t that kind of ceremony.”
Sophie’s jaw dropped. “What? They already had the ceremony? I missed it?” She turned to Walker, her eyes slits in her pretty face. “I told you not to stop at IHOP! Now I’ve missed the wedding.”
Walker took another step back. “Whoa, chill. I was hungry. Anyways, you can still show your earrings to the designer. She’s probably had a few glasses of bubbly, which means she’ll be easier to convince to buy your jewelry. After a few drinks, my mom will let me do whatever. How do you think I got the car for the weekend?”
“I’m afraid that won’t work, either. No champagne.” All in all, the ceremony was pretty bare bones. Annabeth had hoped for at least a photo to preserve the occasion for Owen when he was older—they were doing this for him, after all—but she’d dismissed that idea after glimpsing her son’s tortured face when he’d stormed out of the powder room earlier. “And if you’re looking for Julianne, she’s already left. She wanted to get back to the hospital to see Owen.” The bride’s face hadn’t been much better when she’d exited.
Sophie plopped down on the sofa with an emotional sigh, mirroring Annabeth’s actions from moments before. “Wow. I’m gonna get grounded for sure, and all for nothing. My one chance to get a top designer to see my jewelry, and I blew it.”
Walker sat down on top of the coffee table in front of her. “No, I blew it, Soph. I’m really sorry. We shoulda just stopped at a drive-through or something.”
Annabeth handed Sophie the box of tissues as she sat down beside her. “Your parents don’t know you’re here?”
“Well, obviously my dad was gonna find out, but it would have been worth the punishment if I could get Julianne Marchione to use my necklaces or earrings in one of her photo shoots. I didn’t even know my dad knew her until my mom was blabbing to all her friends that one of the players on the Blaze had knocked up a famous fashion designer.” She looked up at Annabeth sheepishly. “Sorry. I mean, well, about the knocked-up part.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. That’s exactly what happened.” Annabeth reached up to finger one of the earrings dangling from Sophie’s ear. “Did you make this? It’s stunning.”
The earring, a cascade of wire-wrapped clusters of purple amethyst briolettes topped with moss aquamarine stones, shimmered in the room’s low light. As the owner of an antiques shop, Annabeth had developed an eye for distinctive and original jewelry, and Sophie’s creation was unique and very fashionable. Not to mention marketable.
The girl reached up and withdrew the earring from her ear and handed it to Annabeth for a closer look. “Yeah, I have a matching necklace for them, too.”
“Soph is a whiz at making jewelry,” Walker chimed in, admiration in his voice. “You should see what she can do with a soldering iron. And those thingies she makes with the leather, they’re—”
“Walker, I don’t think Annabeth cares about my jewelry.” Sophie snatched back the earring and began putting it back in.
“Actually, I do.” Annabeth looked over at the girl’s stunned face, her hand poised with the earring halfway in her earlobe.
“You do?”
“I own a small antiques store in a very trendy summer resort town. My customers love one-of-a-kind jewelry like yours. I’m sure it would sell quite easily.”
Sophie’s face lit up, nearly matching the soft pink of her hair. “Really, Annabeth? Oh my gosh, that’s so mad!”
“But”—Annabeth held up a finger as Walker and Sophie were fist-pumping one another—“only if you tell me why you need the money. If you’re using it to buy drugs, the deal is off.”
“Hey!” Walker cried.
“Drugs? No way,” Sophie protested. “I’m so not into that!”
“Yet you’d risk getting grounded to sell some jewelry. Why?” Annabeth had worked with enough teenagers to know things weren’t always what they seemed. Her gut was telling her Sophie was sincere. She hoped her gut was right.
“I’m perpetually grounded. I have a D in physics, so I’ll likely spend my summer trapped at home watching the twins while my mom plays tennis at the club and weekends at the shore with her book club.” Sophie leaned back against the sofa cushions and crossed her arms in disgust. “My friend Lizzie moved to L.A. last year and I want to go visit her. My dad keeps saying he’ll take me, but since there’s no professional football team in Los Angeles, that isn’t likely to happen. So I wanna buy my own ticket. Lizzie says I’d like California. I wouldn’t stand out so much there. I just want to meet people like me, you know?”
“The kids at our school are all rich, WASPy tight-asses,” Walker added. “They don’t appreciate Sophie’s artistic genius.”
Annabeth’s heart squeezed tightly in her chest at Walker’s words. She could easily relate. At fifteen, she’d been thrust into a small-town school in the heart of the Bible Belt weeks after her free-spirited hippie parents had been killed in a car accident. Her parents didn’t believe in the institution of marriage or school or anything else, instead roaming the country wherever the wind blew them. Needless to say, the transition to normal life was a bumpy one for Annabeth, and acceptance was difficult to achieve. Of course, showing up to school pregnant at sixteen hadn’t helped.
“Here.” She pulled a business card out of her clutch and handed it to Sophie. “I’ll be in the store tomorrow afternoon. Why don’t you call me then and we can chat about what you have and work out the details of getting your product to the shop.”
Sophie hurled herself into Annabeth’s arms. “Oh, Annabeth, I love you!”
“Sophie Claire!”
The three of them jumped to their feet at the sound of Hank’s voice.
“Dad!” Sophie squeaked.
“What are you doing here?” Hank demanded.
Sophie clenched her fingers in her skirt. “Um . . .”
Hank ignored his daughter. “And more importantly, how did you get here?”
“Yo.” Clearly, Walker didn’t possess innate self-preservation skills, or he’d have kept quiet.
Fisting his hands at his hips beneath his unbuttoned suit jacket, Hank glared at Walker behind his wire-framed glasses. Not quite as tall as Will, Hank still wasn’t a small man. She could see well-defined pectoral muscles beneath his crisp dress shirt. A small abrasion, likely from his razor, marred his rugged jaw, but it didn’t detract from his handsomeness. His nostrils flared briefly when his steely blue eyes came to rest on her. Annabeth had to lock her knees at the fierceness of his gaze.
“You got in a car with him?” He sliced a finger through the air at Walker. “On the highway with Mr. T-bone-his-mother’s-car-the-day-he-gets-his-license? What were you thinking?”
“It wasn’t like that! That old geezer didn’t look where he was going when he pulled out. It wasn’t my fault.”
“Daddy, Mom exaggerated that whole thing just so you would back her up when—”
“Enough!” Hank bellowed.
The room was silent as Hank took a few calming breaths, one hand massaging the back of his neck. Annabeth really didn’t want to overstep her bounds, but she didn’t feel right leaving the kids defenseless, either.
“Walker, why don’t you go to the kitchen and help yourself to a piece of the cake I brought. Someone should enjoy it,” she said, ruefully.
Right on cue, Walker’s stomach growled. He looked from Sophie to her father. Sophie rolled her eyes at him before nodding at him to go. Hank leveled another fierce glare at Annabeth as Sophie sidled up closer to her. Annabeth answered his gaze with a raised eyebrow. If he wanted her to leave, he’d have to ask her.
Hank sighed. “Does your mother know you’re here?”
“Not exactly.” Defeat rang in Sophie’s voice.
He pulled his cell out of his pocket. “For crying out loud, she’s probably worried sick.”
“I doubt it.” Sophie dropped back onto the sofa. “She and Kevin took the twins to Hershey Park today.”
“And not you?”
“I’m grounded. My physics grade is still in the toilet.”
“So you came here instead of studying because . . . ?” Hank prodded his daughter.
“’Cause I wanted to spend time with my father.” She picked at the chipped blue nail polish on her thumb, avoiding her father’s face.
Hank slammed his phone on the desk. “Bull!”
Sophie leaped up from her seat. “Of course not! Why would you want to spend time with me, anyway? I came to meet Julianne Marchione. To show her my jewelry and see if she might want to use some with her gowns. Not that you’d understand!”
“Jewelry? What jewelry?”
Annabeth’s heart nearly broke at the crestfallen look on Sophie’s face. “God, Dad, don’t you even listen when I talk to you? Mom and Kevin have the twins always distracting them, but you don’t even have that as an excuse. Nobody hears a word I say.”
Sophie headed for the door, but her father blocked her way. “Hold up. I do hear what you say. I just assumed the jewelry you make is for your friends. Not to make money.” He ran a finger over the sparkling earring Annabeth had held earlier. “Is this yours? It’s beautiful.”
Hank’s tender tone with his daughter stilled Annabeth’s breathing. She’d always wanted a father to listen to her at her darkest hour. How her life might have been different had she had one. Except then she might not have had Will. And that thought choked her up even more.
“I should go check on the guests,” she said, making her way past them.
“No!” Sophie cried. “Please don’t go, Annabeth. Dad, Annabeth is going to sell my jewelry in her store. We were just talking about it.”
“Is that so?” Hank’s measuring glance focused in on Annabeth. She licked her lips.
“It is, right, Annabeth?” Sophie sounded nervous, as if her father would force Annabeth to retract her offer.
“Yes, we have a deal.” She smiled at Sophie before turning her gaze on Hank, daring him to contradict her.
He contemplated them both before speaking. “On one condition.”
“Daaaad!” Sophie wailed.
“That physics grade has to go up a letter grade before you can work on any new jewelry. If it does, you can spend all summer working in her store for all I care.”
“Really? Can I, Annabeth?” Sophie’s eyes beamed.
Annabeth looked at the girl’s father, who raised his own eyebrow in challenge.
“Sure,” she heard herself saying. “I can always use the help during the summer.”
“Ohmigod! This is so sweet!” Sophie hugged her dad before wrapping her arms around Annabeth. “I’m sooo glad I came today. Meeting you is the best thing that ever happened to me!” She flounced out the door to find Walker.
They both stood there in silence staring at the door. Feeling the need to flee with Sophie, Annabeth retrieved her clutch from the sofa.
“Mrs. Connelly.” Hank’s nearness startled her.
She looked up to find him watching her carefully. “It’s Miss. I’ve only ever been a Miss.”
Hank lifted a hand in agitation and rubbed the back of his neck again. She’d rattled him. Good.
“Yes. Miss. I apologize.”
He paused for a moment to study her face. Annabeth felt heat flare in her cheeks. He was looking at her differently. Like a man who was interested in her. She’d seen that look many times before. Unfortunately, like the men before him, he wouldn’t find her interesting once he got past her good looks.
Hank seemed to shake himself. “Thank you. For backing me up there. She’s a little . . . impetuous, but she’s a great kid. You shouldn’t worry about having her underfoot all summer, though. Physics doesn’t come that easily to her. She’s not very theoretical.”
Annabeth took exception to his remark. Unexpected motherhood had stalled her own education, and she had only a high school GED. Her son never lorded his Ivy League degree over her head, but she knew she was definitely inferior to him academically. Obviously, Hank Osbourne, with his multiple college degrees, felt the same way about his own daughter.
“Shame on you! You should encourage your daughter to succeed. I truly hope she surprises you. And when she does, I’ll be delighted to have her work for me.”
He didn’t recoil from the bite of her words. Instead, his lips curved into a wolfish grin. “I do, too, Miss Connelly. In fact, I may pay for her tutor to come every night before the final exam in two weeks so she does well on it.”
Annabeth tried to stalk past him, but he stopped her at the door.
“Aren’t you curious about why I want her to succeed?” he breathed into her ear.
She turned her neck to meet his gaze, but said nothing.
He pulled the door open. “Because then I’ll have an excuse to spend my weekends in Chances Inlet with its extraordinary . . . scenery,” he murmured as she stepped over the threshold into the foyer.
Annabeth didn’t dare look back. She was torn—on the one hand, hoping Sophie would surprise her father, but on the other, wary of having Hank Osbourne pursuing her. Hank was a part of her son’s world, not hers. He’d quickly realize that fact when he arrived in Chances Inlet.