Tori signed off, closed her laptop and hurried to the window. She couldn’t see him, but an old red truck was parked in the back that had to belong to him.
She stopped at her vanity mirror to check her reflection, added a touch of color to each cheekbone, calculatedly tousled her hair and then headed for the back servants’ stairs that ended up off the pantry. That way she wouldn’t run into her mother. She doubted Marian Whitford had ever even seen the kitchen.
Mission accomplished, Tori got down the stairs and through the kitchen without seeing a soul. But just as she got to the back door, Mallory entered from the dining room.
Her sister gave her a wry smile. “Where are you going?” Her smile widened, her gaze straying out the kitchen window toward the truck. “Let me guess.”
Tori sighed. “Mallory…”
“Hey, if I could I’d go for it.” She opened the pantry door and dug around the canisters of flour and sugar and then pulled out a bottle of gin.
Tori frowned.
“I’m sick of mom getting on my case,” Mallory said, shrugging, as she poured a drink. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Tori hesitated. She and her sister had just started to get close before Tori had gone off to college. She didn’t want to stir anything up but she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, either. “You do seem to be drinking a lot.”
“You would, too, if you were married to Richard.” Mallory sighed and then took a long sip. “Go find Jake before he leaves.”
Tori’s chest tightened. The resignation in Mallory’s voice and face really got to her. But there wasn’t much more she could say right now. Later, away from the house, they’d have a talk. When Mallory turned away and headed toward the dining room, Tori escaped out the back door.
As soon as she rounded the hydrangea bush, she saw that the truck was gone. She thought she heard an engine and hurried toward the driveway. Jake stood outside the truck’s open door, pulling on his shirt, while the other man loaded shovels and other equipment onto the bed.
Tori’s mouth went dry as she stared at the stretch of taut skin across his belly until he pulled the shirt hem down. Swallowing hard, she moistened her lips and touched her hair. The other man climbed in, and Jake got behind the wheel and started to reverse the truck before she could get her wits about her.
She rushed toward them but apparently he didn’t see her. He stopped briefly and then shifted into Drive and started to roll forward just as she got to the back of the truck. Tongue-tied suddenly, she hesitated. She hadn’t actually spoken to him before. He probably didn’t even know her name. What the hell should she say?
He started to pull away.
“Jake!”
Slowly he turned to her, glancing out of the open window, his dark eyes not at all surprised as if he’d seen her coming, his lips barely curving into a smile. “Hello, Victoria,” he said casually, as if they’d just talked yesterday.
She smiled back.
And then he drove down the driveway and through the double white gates without looking back.
VICTORIA WHITFORD.
Shit, he almost hadn’t recognized her. When had she gotten back?
Another driver blared his horn at Jake as he pulled his father’s old truck onto the highway and narrowly missed the white Honda.
Hector jumped. “You okay, amigo?”
“Yeah. I forgot this relic doesn’t have any guts. My father should’ve gotten rid of it years ago.”
“No way. Not him.” Hector stuck his arm out the window and hit the outside of the passenger’s door. “This is good enough. He doesn’t go any farther than the Whitfords’ or the grocery store these days.”
Jake shook his head. He hated that his father continued to work when he could retire. Why he even wanted to work for people like the Whitfords was a mystery. Yet he’d meticulously tended their garden for over twenty years, and this was the first time he’d so much as missed a day’s work. Even with two slipped discs and a pinched nerve, he probably would have tried to make it if Jake hadn’t caved in and agreed to take over for two weeks.
He could have trusted Hector with the Whitfords’ grounds. Jake often sent him over to help his dad under the pretense that business was slow and Jake needed to give the man work. But if his father got wind of it, the old man would be climbing into his overalls and work boots in seconds flat.
“Amigo?”
Jake glanced at Hector.
“I think you missed the turn.”
“What?” Jake realized he’d just passed his dad’s street and cursed under his breath.
Hector chuckled. “Who was the chica? An old girlfriend, maybe?”
“Who?”
“The one back there that’s made you loco.”
Jake snorted. “Victoria Whitford? I wasn’t even thinking about her,” he said and ignored Hector’s disbelieving grunt.
“I think she wanted you to stop.”
“I doubt it.” Hell, he didn’t think she even knew his name. She and her sister had always been off-limits. Even as kids they’d had no contact.
His father had forbidden him to so much as speak to either of the girls. Not that Jake had anything in common with them. Most of the time they were off at boarding school. He’d been lucky to keep his ass in River Oaks High without getting thrown out.
“Me, I would have stopped.” Hector slicked back his hair and inspected his swarthy, handsome face in the side mirror. “She looked muy fine.”
Jake smiled. Yeah, she looked good all right. But even Hector’s impressive reputation with the ladies at Huey’s Bar and Grill wouldn’t help him get an invite to the Whitfords’ front door.
“I don’t remember seeing her before,” Hector said. “Only the other one, the blonde.”
Jake used the gravel road running around to the back of his father’s cottage. The same small, two-bedroom house Jake and his older sister had practically grown up in after their mother died. The place belonged to the Whitfords. Just like most everything on the block. “I don’t know. And I sure as hell don’t care.”
Hector eyed him curiously as they got out of the truck. “For someone who doesn’t know her, amigo, it sure sounds like you don’t like her.”
Jake didn’t miss the irony of Hector’s observation. The truth was, it felt damn good to walk away from a Whitford. Not kowtow to them like his father had done for the past twenty years. But damn if he wasn’t curious about what Victoria had wanted. And damn if Hector wasn’t right. She looked mighty fine.
2
