Polished Slick (Natural Beauty) (21 page)

He stood on his toes, scanning over heads in the room in search of Trinity. Where was she?

Becky stuck her face in front of the camera and said, “See? She’s got my baby working in hazardous conditions! What if my baby had been standing there?”

Paul wasn’t paying her any attention, as he’d worked himself into the departing crowd with his mic.

Becky walked toward the door, far too casually, but Nikki woke up from her angry daze, grabbed Becky’s skinny faux-tanned arm, and held her still.

Nikki had come by
her
tan via DNA. Her father was Lumbee. Can’t buy that in a bottle.

“You stay right there, bitch, or I’ll fix that nose of yours again,” she said through clenched teeth, then dragged Becky back toward the office with a strength Jerry found improbable. Must have been the adrenaline.

The reporter had moved away in search of the cause of the disruption, but Jerry already knew who’d caused it. Of course Becky would try to distract all the major parties while her little bomb-making buddy made the plant and hid to activate it.

Trinity. Where’s Trinity?
Jerry followed Charlie’s retreating figure out the double doors on the heels of all the frightened party guests, and saw Preston trying to flee through the sheep pasture.

Idiot.

Jerry kicked off his flip-flops and caught up to Charlie within seconds. Charlie ran like shit in loafers. Together they tackled the big man right over an unfortunately situated deposit of ewe manure.

* * *

Trinity had never seen Charlie speechless. In the two years she’d been in his acquaintance, the man had always had a quick comeback for pretty much every situation that required one…and some that didn’t. But as he stood there at the doorway of Nikki’s office, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest, he didn’t have a damned thing to say.

Trinity couldn’t blame him. If one of Jerry’s exes surfaced and showed up with short, unnaturally blonde hair and a nose job resembling the one she was born with, she’d be stunned to silence, too. The fact that Nikki’s only response was to cackle, then excuse herself for a nap, indicated she really didn’t know how to handle the situation, either.

Becky squirmed in her restraints and kicked her legs futilely. She really
was
stupid. The most she’d do was knock over her chair and
then
what? Then she’d be stuck on her side and still tied up.

“Becky, I really don’t get you,” Charlie said. “The last time you were here, you claimed you wanted to have a relationship with Gabby.”

Was that before or after Nikki broke her nose?

“Time before that, you swore you were cleaning up your act—that you were going straight, remember? You said you were going to make Gabby proud.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m a work in progress.”

“Work harder, because you seem to be having a hard time understanding that raising hell here to seek revenge on Nikki doesn’t merely
annoy
me. It’s not harmless fun. The money coming out of this business is the reason Gabby’s college fund currently has more in it than just enough to pay for a six-pack of ramen. How’d you end up hooking up with Rococo, anyway?”

Becky rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and hummed some tune Trinity didn’t recognize.

“All right. It’ll all come out when the sheriff gets here, I guess. Or maybe I can call Ma in. Let her talk to you.”

Becky’s eyes went wide. “Don’t you dare! That woman treats me like a yeast infection that won’t go away.

“You know, that may be the most poignant thing to ever come out of your mouth.”

Trinity backed out of the office then, figuring Charlie could handle the would-be impostor on his own from there. The sheriff had to be near. It’d been almost twenty minutes since Gramma Stacy called.

Preston grew restless tied up near the workbench.

Jerry had gagged him only after the big man sang like a canary and told Charlie the whole plot was Becky’s idea. Then in the same breath, he’d expressed his appreciation for the fitness of Trinity’s rear.

Jerry and Juan had worked together to turn his chair toward the wall.

Jerry was watching the office door, so when Trinity came out he waved her over and patted his lap.

She eyed him warily, and he gave her a cheeky grin. “It’s not a secret. Show up to work with matching hickeys, and people start putting two and two together.”

Trinity slapped a hand up to her neck.

Jerry laughed and patted his lap once more. “You heard Charlie, family business. I don’t think anyone’s going to bat an eyelash over a display of chaste affection. Of course, if it bothers you that much, you can get your own chair. I think you’ll find this email jaw-dropping, however.”

She turned in a full circle, scanning the room, and realized no one was paying them a damn bit of attention. Even if they were, so what? There was this drop-dead gorgeous geek inviting her to sit on his lap. It was almost worth being fired over. She accepted a seat on her flesh and blood throne and Jerry pushed them up closer to the desk edge.

“What is it? More modeling offers?”

“Oh, let’s not even go there. Most of that stuff is being shunted into my spam folder, except for a couple of high-dollar things I may talk myself into. I’ll make nice for the camera if it means I won’t be paying off a mortgage for the next twenty years. Anyhow, remember when we were driving back from Corolla how I told you about that hotel clerk?”

“Yeah.” She craned her neck around and excitedly met his gaze. “You contacted her?”

Jerry shook his head. “No. I was too much of a coward. It just felt weird, you know? So I kept putting it off. Well…”

A few clicks of his mouse positioned the long email message at the top of the first paragraph.

Trinity read silently all the way through, but it wasn’t until the second time she read it the importance of the message hit home.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Clara Thys

I hope this message has reached the right person. We believe you are someone my mother wishes to connect with, although we’re really working off of a guess. It’s either an educated guess or us acting on a painful case of coincidence; we’re not sure which. Anyhow, I am writing this message on her behalf, as her English spelling is not so good.

My name is Benjamin Thys. Clara Thys is my mother. She believes she is your mother as well. I hope this does not frighten you. You were not a recent discovery of ours. Mother and I have been watching and waiting for news for many years.

You see, I am a swimmer. Well, not so much nowadays, but still to some renown here in Belgium. I’ve got the long arms and legs for the sport. I wasn’t good at much else, being so thin. Mother started me young. Now I mostly coach. Anyway, a certain advertisement caught Mother’s attention about ten years ago. It was in my own sports magazine—a photograph of you modeling swim trunks. It said your name was Jeremiah Rouse. Rouse—she knew that name. She knew your face (you’ll see why in a moment), but the name Jeremiah was a surprise to her. That wasn’t the one she’d given you.

Anyhow, just in case she was wrong she didn’t say anything. She quietly gathered clippings, and then you disappeared. She panicked for a long time thinking something had happened to you, but then you showed back up on the radar. Knowing where you worked, I figured it might now be easy to contact you. What could asking a few questions harm, huh?

She wants you to know she doesn’t want anything. She just wanted you to know she’s been worried about you and what you must think of her…if you think of her at all. I don’t know the story of what happened and why you were taken. She says it’s a story for you alone and maybe someday you’d like to piece it together—hear the other side.

Ben closed with some contact information and an invitation to respond—or not—as Jerry saw fit.

“Wow,” Trinity said, stunned. That damned ad campaign seemed to be bringing a lot of people together. “What are you going to do?”

“Well, first I’m going to open these attachments,” he said, gripping her a bit more tightly around the waist and resting his chin on her shoulder.

“You haven’t opened them yet?”

“Nope. I guess I was scared.”

“Of what?”

“That whoever it is actually looked a little like me. You know? That would make all of that more real.”

“You don’t think it could be? You think it’s a scam?”

“Oh, I think it’s rather probable, actually. But it just feels like if I open those files, I actually have to do something about it.”

She turned her head a bit to the side so his lips grazed the side of her face. “Do you
want
to do something about it?”

He was quiet for a moment, brooding. “Yeah. I do.”

“Then open them.”

He exhaled, and let the mail client fetch the attachments. They downloaded slowly through the barn’s pokey Internet connection, then opened side-by-side on the wide-screen monitor.

“Damn,” she murmured.

He let out a nervous laugh. “Indeed. Guess Dad has some explaining to do, because that guy could be my goddamned twin. And his mother…well, I guess that’s where the blond comes from because it sure didn’t come from Dad.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Trinity hadn’t wanted to intrude on Jerry’s confrontation with his father, but he insisted if she were there, he wouldn’t lose his shit on the guy.

Jerry wanted to give him a fair opportunity to explain himself before he contacted Clara, and if they ended up arguing he wouldn’t likely get the information he needed. So, the three of them sat in his dad’s home office with the door cracked.

Kate pretended to not be interested in what they were doing in there, but judging by her frequent trips past the door for nothing in particular, she had to have been listening.

“Yes, Clara Thys is your mother,” Dad said, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes with his fingertips.

“And Ben Thys?”

Dad stopped rubbing. His face was stony when he folded his hands together on the desktop.

Jerry didn’t think he would answer, but after a minute he stood from his leather desk chair, and shut the office door completely. He returned to his seat and buried his face in his hands. “Ben is my son.”

“So...what? You’ve gotta explain this to me, Dad, because this kind of shit is what you see in straight-to-video movies.”

“Jerry, it’s complicated.”

“Oh, I’m sure. It would have to be, keeping a secret like that for thirty-two years. And how old is Ben?”

“Thirty.”

“Okay, so that implies that there was a relationship and not just a one-night stand.”

“Yes.”

“What happened? Have some overlap with your women, and decided to break it off, but couldn’t do it cleanly?”

Dad blew out a breath, and shifted his gaze toward the ceiling plaster. “Let’s put it like this. The last time I saw Clara—when I took you—she was pregnant. I didn’t know it until after I did what I did.”

“And what exactly did you do, Dad?”

“There was some paperwork I asked her to sign. I told her it was to establish your dual citizenship, which was a lie. In truth, the papers were forms granting me permission to take you out of the country without her accompaniment. Her English was very poor, you see.”

“I see.”

“Yes, well, after I returned to Belgium she understandably had her hackles up. She was angry that I’d tricked her, but more so that I wasn’t honest about the status of my relationship with Kate. Kate and I were on and off, so I didn’t mean to be deceitful.”

“Right,” Jerry said dryly.

Dad’s lips flattened into a tight line. “She told me there would be another boy, and that I’d never get to see him unless I brought you back. She couldn’t really afford to press, though.”

“So you kept her from me, and yourself from Ben because you’re an idiot and a jackass.”

Trinity gave him a nudge with her sharp elbow, and he closed his eyes and tried to refocus his breathing, meditating on calming things like sunny days at the beach, the smell of surfboard wax, and the softness of Trinity’s hair. Wasn’t helping.

“I made a mistake, Jerry. A really
big
mistake. Kate didn’t want kids, so I had a big enough problem bringing home this one little towheaded thing, but to confess there was a second?”

“So sorry to create chaos in your life, Dad.”

“Hey, I deserve that. If I had it to do differently, I would. I swear I would. I’d have you both.”

“Or Clara would.”

“Well…”

“Okay! Well, I’m going to just go mull this over. I’m going to a hotel. I can’t stick around here.”

“Jerry, I—”

“Save it, Dad. Listen, if it had been me? I can’t say I know what I would have done, but I think I had the right to know all these years I had a sibling. A
full
sibling, Dad?” He threw his hands up. “All these years and your wife has been treating me like some kind of freak. I know why now. I’m thirty-two. Thirty-
two
, Dad. That’s a lot of years of guilt you’ve been piling up. Hope it’s been worth it.”

“I regret a lot of things, Jerry.” Dad’s expression was pained, seeming to almost beseech Jerry to forgive him for other things left unsaid.

“If Jeremiah isn’t the name Clara gave me, then what was?”

Dad wrung his hands. “Louis. Kate thought it’d be better if…if you weren’t a junior.”