So this was what house flipping was like. Backbreaking, ever more expensive, built on a frail hope, but kind of fun anyway.
Especially with Thing One. He was eternally patient with her dopey questions—she hadn’t been able to figure out how to change a vacuum-cleaner bag the other day—and he never made her feel useless, the way Harry did. And when he smiled at her, she felt a rush of something so sharp and sweet, it actually hurt her chest. Add to this the fact that he walked around half-dressed all the time, and heck yeah!
James knelt down to check something on the roof, then stood and crossed his beautiful arms over his beautiful chest. “Put up or shut up,” he said with a wink.
“Jeesh, Thing One! Such an ego.” She paused. “But you are fun to look at.”
“You look nice, too,” he said. “I’m on fire. Stunned with lust.” Her beige carpenter pants were grubby, the T-shirt from Gianni’s Ristorante Italiano was torn, and her hair was stuffed under a Yankees baseball cap—one didn’t forget where one was born, after all, and Parker had been born at Columbia Presbyterian, New York, New York, thank you too much. She was sweating like a racehorse and could only imagine the shade of red her face had taken on: beet or boiled lobster. Either way, she was not flushed a delicate pink; she knew that. The bathroom had a mirror, after all.
Well. She’d cool off with a swim in another hour or so, and hopefully James would be the one ogling then. Seemed only fair. She knew he didn’t like her swimming—he watched her like Nana watched the kids in Peter Pan when she was out there—but she also knew he couldn’t take his eyes off her, eleven pounds be damned.
So. Mutual lusting. Always fun.
“Parker? Oh, dear God, tell me that isn’t you, sweating like an Ecuadoran stonemason.”
Parker’s eyes widened in shock at the sound of the voice. She turned. Oh, Lord. It was true. “Mom? What are you doing here?”
Althea Harrington Welles Foster Brandheiser Levinstein was staring with openmouthed horror at Parker, the house, the yard. She wore Jackie O–style sunglasses, a long silky scarf and a white linen suit. The car was a red BMW with rental plates.
“This?” Althea said. “This is what Julia left you? Oh, the old shrew! I’d kill her if she wasn’t already dead! She always made it sound like… Oh, Parker, you poor, poor thing. And that father of yours. I’ll kill him, too. I hope he’s someone’s girlfriend in prison. I hope he’s on a chain gang. I hope—”
“Mom! Wow. I can’t believe you’re here.” Parker wiped her forehead with her sleeve and walked toward Althea.
“Neither can I. I’m rather hoping this is a bad dream or a hallucination. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you inherited the Pines. Please.”
“This is it. It’s all I have in the world, Mother dear.”
“Oh, my God. You may as well throw yourself off that dock and hope to drown quickly. The smell in this town! How can you bear it?”
Actually, Parker had gotten used to the smell of baitfish. She gave her mother a robust hug, which Althea accepted, daintily patting Parker’s shoulder. “It is what it is, Mom. But what are you doing here? Why didn’t you call me?”
Her mother removed her sunglasses and gave Parker a level look. “When one hears that one’s daughter has been in prison, one hops on the next plane. Apparently, you’re following your father into a life of crime.”
Parker sighed. “Yes, Mother. That’s it exactly. I’m a drug dealer. It wasn’t prison, by the way. It was just a holding cell. And the charges were dropped.”
“Just a holding cell. Dear Lord, what have we come to? Have you gained weight? You look beefy.”
Only Althea would call a size ten beefy. She herself had the scrawny size-four physique of the desperately middle-aged—those women who were liposuctioned and implanted and had tans applied and paid a personal trainer to deny Nature its due. “And calling me? Why was that a bad idea?”
Althea stared. She might’ve been scowling, but Botox had frozen her eyebrows into that shiny, plasticine look, as well as given her a permanent half smile, so Parker could never tell.
“I wasn’t sure you could get phone calls, dear. I thought time might’ve been of the essence.”
“How did you know I was in trouble?” Parker asked.
“Lavinia tracked me down on Facebook, then called. My goodness, the woman sounds like Yul Brynner on his deathbed.”
“Since when do you and Lavinia talk to each other? She told me she hadn’t seen you since you were kids.”
“Well, I appreciated the call, Parker. I’m here because I thought you might need bail money.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Althea would never win Mother of the Year, but her heart was in the right place.
“What is that?” her mother asked, squinting as best she was able. Beauty stood on the steps, not quite ready to defend the place, not quite ready to back down from a stranger, either. Progress, in other words. “Is that a dog?”
“Shoot, I thought it was a pony. No, you’re right, it’s a dog. Dang.”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, Parker. Did Harvard teach you nothing? And who on earth is that?”
James was coming down the ladder. He walked over, all sweaty male glory, and extended his hand. “Hi. James Cahill. We’ve met a few times.”
Althea deigned to look at him. “Have we?” she asked.
“Yes. At your grandson’s christening and again on his third birthday.”
“He works for Harry, Mom. He’s helping me out.”
“Is he? How fascinating. Put a shirt on, young man. If I wanted to see a na**d man, I would’ve stopped at Chippendales.”
James smiled that wonderful, achingly wide smile, causing Parker’s Lady Land to squeeze hot and hard. He gave Parker an amused glance and went off. He did not, she was pleased to see, put his shirt back on.
Althea huffed. “Well, this ruins my plans. I thought we might spend some time together, do a little redecorating, but I see it’s hopeless. I absolutely cannot stay here.”
“Actually, you could have my room, and I’ll—”
“No. I’ll find somewhere. Surely there’s a B and B around this godforsaken area.”
“It burned over the winter.”
“Small wonder. Well. Give me some time. I’ll see what I can find. Dinner tonight, darling? I’ll pick you up around six.” She put her sunglasses back on and climbed back behind the wheel, then gunned the motor, leaving Parker in a cloud of dust.
“What a happy surprise,” James offered.
“So happy,” Parker said.
“By the way,” he added, “I think you look great, beefy or not.”
“I’m not beefy,” she snapped.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
There was that knowing grin, the I’ve seen you na**d look. “Just…just pipe down, you,” she said.
“Gorgeous.”
“Stop it, Thing One.”
“Stunning.”
“Okay, you’ve pushed your credibility enough for one day. I’m going swimming. Want to come?”
That shut him up. “No thanks. Be careful.”
And as always, she felt his eyes on her as she and her little dog swam through the cold water.
AT SIX O’CLOCK that evening, Parker heard the purr of an expensive car coming down the road.
“Here comes trouble,” she said, opening the front door. James came up behind her, smelling of soap and laundry detergent and sun. So good it should be illegal. She could feel his warmth behind her, and if she stepped back a little bit, she’d be nicely cozied up against his—
“Who’s that?” James asked.
“My next stepfather?” Parker guessed.
“Sweet ride,” he murmured, his breath stirring her hair. And not only her hair. Lady Land perked right up. She cleared her throat and stepped forward a little bit.
Her mother was sitting in the passenger seat of a chocolate-brown Porsche convertible; at least it wasn’t black or red, so points to the driver for not living the total midlife crisis cliché. He was blond, maybe forty years old and wore aviator sunglasses.
