“Don’t look like that,” Vic commanded. “You’re not being sent to the executioner’s block.”
Maybe not, Jenna thought. But the cake sure tasted like part of a condemned man’s last meal.
CHAPTER TWO
BY THE TIME Jenna got home that afternoon, her mind was more made up than ever. There was no way she could face a powerful, sophisticated businessman like Mark Bishop and ask him a bunch of silly questions about love and romance and how he’d found the girl of his dreams.
But at the same time she couldn’t help sympathizing with Vic and her dilemma with her sister. The easiest solution, Jenna decided, was to farm out the article to one of FTW’s many freelancers. Even on such short notice, one of them would be glad to take the job. She could start calling them right after she got the boys settled down for the night. If she had to, she’d pay for the piece out of her own pocket. End of problem.
That decision made, Jenna turned her attention to dinner. She would have preferred to take a warm bath and put her feet up with a good book, but no such luck.
Her older brothers were coming over. Christopher had been in a major funk this week because his girlfriend, Amanda, was out of town visiting her family. Trent, now a full partner in the family construction business, wanted to celebrate the completion of their most recent job, a large office complex on Magnolia Street. Jenna’s sons, Petey and J.D., always enjoyed having their uncles in the house, and her father was eager to try out his new grill. The evening promised to be noisy, lively and exhausting.
She fixed a salad and baked potatoes to go with the steaks her father grilled. While Christopher and Trent roughhoused with her sons in the living room, Jenna slipped peach cobbler into the oven and swallowed two aspirins to quell the headache building behind her eyes.
The meal was a success. The fellows were always appreciative of her cooking and had the good sense to remark on it. Afterward, as Jenna placed the cobbler and ice cream on the table, there were groans that they were too full, but she noticed that this didn’t stop them.
Her father launched into a speech about barbecuing techniques. Christopher said that Amanda had called him and missed him already. Trent was helping the boys scoop ice cream while they playfully fought over who got the biggest helping. The closeness, the good-natured ribbing, the relaxed laughter—it was into this familiar family patter that Jenna brought her own contribution to the conversation: Vic’s attempt to coerce her to go to New York.
Talk at the table ceased as if someone had just discovered a bomb planted in the centerpiece. Five pairs of eyes turned in her direction.
After a lengthy silence, Trent was the first to speak. “Wow,” he said as he returned to scooping ice cream. “Victoria must be really desperate.”
Jenna was momentarily speechless. Maybe it was her headache. Maybe it was the heat from the kitchen that had caused an unpleasant line of perspiration to form along the small of her back. Or maybe it was just the offhand, incredulous way Trent had said it, as though Vic’s suggestion was unthinkable. Whatever it was, her brother’s comment rankled. Why was it so impossible to believe his kid sister might be able to handle the interview?
Jenna decided she had to know.
“Why wouldn’t she ask me?” she said. “I’m an equal partner at the magazine. We share a variety of jobs. I can still carry on an adult conversation. Unless, of course, I’m trying to talk to you.”
“Yeah, but…” If he’d missed the sting in her words, Trent certainly couldn’t have misinterpreted her frown of displeasure. He subsided with a grumpy scowl of his own and focused on his bowl of ice cream.
Her father made the situation worse. “New York?” he exclaimed, as though he found the words offensive. “You can’t go there.”
Jenna turned her frown on her father. “Why not?”
“We need you here at home.”
“That’s a lousy reason and you know it. It’s two days. I’ll be back before you and the boys finish the leftover cobbler.”
Her father’s chin set in the same stubborn lines that used to irritate her mother so much. “I don’t like it. It’s much too dangerous. You’re a small-town girl, and the big city’s not the place for you, Jenny-girl.”
Jenna could feel the spoon in her hand cutting into her palm she gripped it so tightly. “For heaven’s sake, it’s New York, not Bangkok. I commute into Atlanta five days a week. I think I can handle it.”
William McNab apparently failed to notice the irritation in his daughter’s voice. “Big-city Atlanta is not the same as big-city New York. Things are different here in the South.”
She batted her eyelashes dramatically. In a heavy Southern accent, she said, “Land-sakes, Papa. I think I can handle being among those darned Yankee carpetbaggers. But if I can’t, why, I’ll just skedaddle back here to the plantation.”
Trent chuckled around a mouthful of cobbler. “Make up your mind, Jen. Are you Lois Lane or Scarlett O’Hara?”
“Knock it off, Trent,” Christopher warned softly, obviously sensing trouble ahead.
Trent looked momentarily confused. Her father sighed, then tossed his oldest son a humor-her look. “Explain the difference to her, Chris.”
Christopher was an Atlanta police detective and could probably regale them with a dozen grim tales from the mean streets of New York. But Jenna, feeling more annoyed by the minute, wasn’t willing to listen. She raised a hand to stop him, then addressed her father.
“You know, Dad, I’m a grown woman now. I’ve been married and divorced, and I’m the mother of two children. What I am not anymore is Jenny-girl. I am not a child, and I am perfectly capable of conducting this interview and hailing cabs and riding the subway and— J.D., stop that!”
Six-year-old J.D. had been trying to start a duel with his brother using a spoon that still dripped ice cream. He jerked his head up guiltily. Jenna gave him “the look,” then went around to his side of the table to wipe at the spot he’d made on the tablecloth. She kept her head down, focused on the task at hand because her throat was suddenly clogged with frustrated, angry words unfit for the boys’ young ears.
Used to defusing potentially dangerous situations, Christopher spoke up. “Take it easy, sis. Dad didn’t mean anything by it. He just worries about you. We all do.”
She glanced up, looking at her brothers and her father in turn. They didn’t appear a bit apologetic, only surprised by her attitude. She was a little surprised by it herself. Just how long had this resentment about the way they saw her been boiling up inside?
Next to her, seven-year-old Petey finished scraping out his bowl. He smiled at her. “I think you’ll be great, Mom. You can do anything.”
Probably just a ploy to get a second helping of dessert, Jenna thought. But she couldn’t help feeling a swell of ridiculous pleasure. At least someone at the table thought she was an adult capable of more than baking a passable peach cobbler.
She leaned over, captured her son’s tousled blond head with one arm and planted a kiss on his forehead. “Thank you, sweetheart,” she said as he reddened and squirmed out of her grasp. “You believe in your mom, don’t you, honey?”
“Uh-huh,” Petey replied. “You can tell him all about us. How you ran the pumpkin patch for school last year and how you got Randy’s dad to pay for Little League uniforms and the special Easter baskets you made for Gramma Resnick’s nursing-home people…”
“And how you’re a good cook,” J.D. offered.
The smile froze on Jenna’s face. Neither one of the boys had a clue what conducting an interview