fit and trim because he worked out religiously. Right now he was mopping at the perspiration on his forehead. He had his mother’s finely chiseled features, her dark hair, her ready smile. He also had his mother’s gentleness, which wasn’t to say he didn’t get angry or belligerent; he did, but it never lasted more than a few seconds. With other people. Never with him. Jake hated his guts and made no secret of that hatred.
Rifkin gently knocked the tobacco from his pipe on the edge of the bench as he stood up to greet his son. He smiled. Jake grimaced.
“I’m here, let’s get out of this heat. I don’t have much time.”
“Excellent idea. How are you?”
“Miss Clara changed her will again today.”
“That’s hardly news. You busy?”
“Semi. June is always slow, you know that. I hope this impromptu dinner isn’t because you’re going to tell me you’re going away for the entire summer and leaving me with all your cases the way you usually do. We’re supposed to be a partnership. That means we share the load.”
Rifkin clapped his son on the back. He felt Jake flinch. “Now, Son, would I do that to you?”
Jake reared back. When his father used that particular tone of voice, he knew he wasn’t going to like whatever he was about to say. And, when he referred to him as Son as opposed to Jake, then Jake knew that whatever his father wanted to discuss was serious. Shit, he had his whole summer planned out. His lady of the moment, one Amanda Pettijohn, was not going to like this one little bit.
“Yeah, Rif, you would do that to me. You did it last year and the year before. So, you’re saying you aren’t going away for the summer, is that it?”
“No, Son, I am not going away for the summer. You are.”
Jake was saved from a reply as the hostess appeared and led them to a booth with a view of the canal. Rifkin waved away the menus. Both he and Jake always ordered the same thing when they dined at Backbay: pecan-crusted salmon, shoestring sweet potatoes, Miss Eva’s sweet pepper relish, and Backbay’s house salad with a pecan-grape vinaigrette dressing. Today would be no different. When the waiter appeared, Rifkin ordered their dinners and two bottles of Heineken.
Jake leaned across the table. “What? Where? We don’t have any pending business that requires travel. Do you have a new client? Look, I have plans for the summer. Send one of the paralegals to handle whatever it is that requires travel.”
“I would if I could…Son.”
There it was again, that tone, and the term Son. Jake clenched his teeth. “But you can’t, is that it? Or is it that you won’t?”
“My client specifically asked for you to handle this matter. You’re the logical person, Jake. I think you’ll agree when I explain it all to you.”
Jake was pissed now. He reached for the bottle of beer the waiter handed him. He didn’t bother with a glass but started slugging from the longneck. That in itself should have been warning enough to the elder Forrest that his son probably wouldn’t be happy with what was coming. His father always made a toast to something or other when they dined together.
Jake let his eyes wander around the nautical décor of the restaurant. Suddenly he didn’t like the place. He made a mental note not to return anytime soon. “Who is this mysterious client of yours that thinks I’m the only one who can handle whatever it is that needs handling?”
Rifkin made a production of pouring his beer into a glass. He looked everywhere but at his son, instead concentrating on making sure the suds from the beer didn’t slosh down the side of the glass. “Sarabess Windsor!”
Jake’s face closed tight. “The answer is no, and further discussion is not negotiable, Pop. I refuse to discuss anything that has to do with Sarabess Windsor. If that’s what this dinner is all about, I’ll leave now and go to Burger King.”
“The least you could do, Jake, is show me the courtesy of listening to me. Let’s not create a scene. I’d also like it if you’d lower your voice.”
“Personally, Pop, I don’t give a good rat’s ass what you’d like. If you’re worried about how loud I’m talking, let’s not talk about it at all, and there won’t be a scene. Look, Pop, I understand you have feelings for Mrs. Windsor, have always had feelings for that woman even when Mom was still alive. I didn’t like it back then, and I still don’t like it. You really don’t want to go there with me. Maybe she can jerk your strings, but she sure as hell isn’t going to jerk mine. If you promised her my help, rescind that offer right now. I wouldn’t tell that woman what time it was if she was standing in a dark room. I think I’m going to go to Burger King after all. See ya, Mister Forrest.” Jake was greased lightning as he bolted from the chair and left the dining room.
Rifkin stared at his son’s back as he weaved his way through the tables to the exit. He’d known an explosion was going to happen, so why had he arranged the dinner? Because Jake was right—Rifkin had always been in love with Sarabess Windsor and could deny her nothing.
Now he had to concentrate on eating the dinner that was about to be put in front of him. Food that he knew would stick in his throat. Still, he couldn’t give the other diners something to speculate about. He looked up and smiled at the waiter as he set his food in front of him. “Jake had to leave. I’ll take his dinner to go and drop it off later.”
“No problem, Mr. Forrest.”
“I’ll have another beer if you don’t mind.”
“That’s not a problem, either, Mr. Forrest.”
Somehow or other, Rifkin managed to chew his way through his dinner. He wasted no time with dessert or after-dinner coffee. He stuck some bills under the saltshaker, picked up the to-go bag, and left the restaurant. His next stop: Sarabess and Windsor Hill. To report his failure—a word that wasn’t in Sarabess’s vocabulary.
Chapter 3
Jake did precisely what he had told his father he would: headed straight for Burger King on Bacon Ridge Road. He ordered two Whoppers, a Big Double Fish, fries, a milk shake, and a Coke before he headed to a parking space where he chewed his way through his fast-food dinner. He really had to stop eating this crap even though they said the burgers were flame-broiled, he thought, continuing to chow down on the fast food.
Now he had two things to think about tonight (three, if you counted Amanda Pettijohn): Trinity Henderson, the little girl from his past; and Sarabess Windsor, the woman his mother and his aunt Mitzi had hated with a passion.
As Jake munched his way through one of the two Whoppers he thought about his mother, who had died during his senior year in high school. Nola Forrest had been the sweetest, gentlest, kindest woman in the world. To his knowledge, his mother had never said an unkind word to or about another living soul. She’d loved all children and animals. He knew for a fact that she’d loved him with all her heart.
Their gardens, which his mother had planted and tended, had been written up in every Southern magazine in print. She’d taken him and his friends camping and didn’t mind sleeping in a tent, and she’d laughed about the creepy-crawly things that abounded in all campgrounds. She’d taught him to drive, taught him how to swing a baseball bat. She’d played tennis with him at least twice a week. Even though they’d had a cook and a
