Just Destiny (19 page)

“You don’t even like Annie.”

“I don’t dislike her.” Sometimes a little white lie was necessary. “
You
like her and she makes you happy. That’s all that matters.”

“Thank you.” He gave her arm an appreciative squeeze, then turned her by the shoulders toward the family room. “But that’s not gonna buy you any mercy.”

“Just don’t forget the chips.”

In the family room, Steve handed Jenny a bowl of Fritos and sat down Indian style in front of the coffee table. With efficient flicks of his wrist, he helped her turn over the wooden Scrabble tiles and then mix them up like a scam artist running a street shell game.

They drew to see who’d go first. Steve spelled “howler,” using the double letter with his
H
.

“So…” He arranged and stared at his new letters. “What’ve you been up to?”

“Went back to work this week. Wasn’t great, but it wasn’t as awkward as I thought it would be. I’m teaching a friend how to read, and then I’ve been thinking about getting a little more involved with the Donnatelli Clinic.”

“The place where Gabe volunteered?”

“Yeah. The waiting room could use sprucing up, and they really need some way to entertain kids when the wait is long—which is most of the time. Hammer.” Jenny laid down her tiles. “Seventeen times two is thirty-four.” She picked six more tiles and arranged them on her holder. “Last time I was there, I read them a
Ranger Rick
. It was kind of fun.”

“So you’d go there and read to kids?”

“I don’t know, maybe. I haven’t really thought it through.”

“Don’t they have a TV or toys or something?”

Jenny quirked an eyebrow. “It’s a
free
clinic run mostly by volunteers. What do you think?” Her eyes lit up. “Hey, your firm wouldn’t want to donate money for a children’s center, would they?”

“I have no idea.”

“So ask—or I’ll ask—no, you ask. It’d be better coming from you.”

“I’m just a junior associate, Jen. I’d rather write you a check myself.”

“I’ll take that too. Just think of all the positive publicity for the firm.” She raised her hand as if spotlighting a header. “Local law firm helps inner city clinic.” Jenny threw in a bone. “I’ll even cover it for the paper.”

“I’ll ask.” He tossed down his letters, spelling “warrior.” “Eleven doubled is twenty-two.”

“Great, thanks.” Jenny used the
I
in “warrior” to make “infant.”

“Hey, I forgot to ask.” Steve’s hand hovered over the board as he looked at her. “How’d your spa day go?”

“Spa day?” Jenny rearranged her tiles. Anyway she looked at it, she couldn’t use more than three letters. Darn.

“With Annie. Last week?”

Her and Annie at a spa together? For a whole day? Was he kidding? She’d rather have a full body wax. “We didn’t go to a spa.”

He frowned. “She scheduled you guys a whole day at that place on the Hill.”

Not with her, she hadn’t. What was Annie up to? Didn’t matter, she didn’t want to get involved. “She suggested it weeks ago, but…You must have misunderstood.”

“I guess. Maybe it’s supposed to be a surprise. Don’t say anything, would you?”

Not a problem
. “Okay.”

“When she tells you, act surprised, okay?” He laid down some tiles and picked four more.

“I can do that.” Easily. But she highly doubted she’d need to. “Busy week coming up?”

“Yeah. The hazing case finally starts tomorrow.” Steve popped a few chips into his mouth.

“Ready?”

“Yup.”

“Ribbit. Ribbit.” Jenny’s cell phone croaked. “Excuse me.” She pulled her phone from her pocket. “Hey, Michael.” She waved a hand at Steve and mouthed “go ahead,” as she continued to chat with her brother.

Steve laid out his word, wrote down his fifteen points, collected his letters and arranged them and still Jenny hadn’t made a move. She fiddled with one of her pieces, flipping the blank tile over and over between her fingers while nodding at something Michael said.

“Are you going to play?”

She flashed him a quick frown and laid out her letters, spelling “burp.” Pushing the phone aside, she said, “Eight,” before collecting three more tiles and returning to her conversation.

Steve threw down his next word and recorded his sixteen points. “Your turn.”

“Already?” Her expression lightened. “No, I was talking to Steve. We’re playing Scrabble.” She laid out three more tiles. “‘Road.’ Five.”

“‘Zephyr.’” He used her
R
, and laid the
Z
on a double-letter square. “Thirty-one.”

She flashed a smile and nodded in appreciation before using his
P
to spell “pique” for sixteen points. Ha, if she hadn’t been so careless, she’d have used that double word spot on the other side of “warrior.” She would have seen it if she hadn’t been talking on the phone.

He stared at “pique.” “That doesn’t look right. Is it spelled right?”

Jenny tilted her head sideways and took a second look before pushing her phone aside. “It’s right.” She went back to her brother. “So tell Mom it’s too much. She won’t care if you drop piano during soccer season.”

Steve stared at the word, then reluctantly agreed. He added up her score and grinned; he’d shot ahead of her since she’d answered the phone. Apparently women weren’t so good at multitasking when it came to playing games. They exchanged a few more turns over the next five minutes and now he had a safe thirty-point lead.

“Do you want to finish this later?” he asked.

“Michael, I’ve gotta go. I’ll talk to you later. Love you. Bye.” She slid the phone closed, surveyed the board and then her letters. “Is it my turn?”

“Still. And if you’re not going to use that blank you’ve been flashing at me for the past ten minutes, why don’t you trade it in?”

She frowned. “Stop looking.”

“It’s a bit hard when you put it right under my nose.” Once you glimpsed someone’s letters, you couldn’t unsee them. Wondering where she was going to put that
X
, he glanced at the spot he’d picked out for his next turn, then quickly looked at a different spot on the board in case she was watching him.

“Fine.” Jenny pulled the rack closer to her and quickly rearranged her letters. “Here you go. Wax.” She slapped the eight-point
X
down on his triple letter space. “Three times eight is twenty-four, plus five, is twenty-nine. Eat that, hot shot.”

Grinning, he put his
J
on the triple letter score and laid out the rest of his word. “Twenty-four plus,” he added up the other letters, “eleven…is thirty-five.”

“What’s a ‘jabiur’?”

“A bird. A stork, to be specific.”

“Really? Hmm.” Jenny studied the letters lined up on her rack and then looked at the board, then back to her rack, and then the board again. She worried her bottom lip between her front teeth as she rearranged her letters on the rack again.

Ribbit. Ribbit.

“Do
not
answer that.” He glared.

She looked at the number of the incoming caller and ignored it. Frowning at the board, she laid down her tiles. “‘Piscary.’ Thirty points.”

Sixteen points for “waxy” and then fourteen for “piscary.” He wrote down thirty points and added it to her score, then added in her fifty-point bonus for using all her tiles. She was kicking his ass. What’s a ‘piscary’? ‘Piscary’ is not a word.”

“Sure it is.”

“What does it mean?”

“I forget. It has something to do with fishing or breeding fish or something.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“So? I couldn’t
possibly
know a word you don’t know?” She raised her eyebrows. “What’s with you? I took your word about the bird.”

“‘Jabiur’ is a real word. ‘Piscary’ isn’t.” He pushed her tiles back at her.

Jenny’s eyes widened. “Come
on
. Do you really need to win that badly? Get a dictionary. Go ahead, look it up.”

“It’s not about winning. If you’re going to play, you should follow the rules.”

“You don’t have to be so damn ruthless. It’s only a game.” She glared at him.

“You like that side of me well enough to want me to represent you in court or be your partner in tennis.”

“This isn’t tennis or court, it’s a frigging board game.” Her eyes narrowed and her cheeks flushed with anger as she stood, then stomped out of the room.

He winced at the loud crack of the slamming door. Steve stared at the kitchen doorway. She’d really left? This couldn’t be about the game. Couldn’t be about winning. What had he said? He’d just told her he didn’t think her word was legit and she’d gone nuts.

Steve tapped an index finger on the table. She must be missing Gabe or something. He should have just let it slide, but he was sure she was wrong. Besides, who goes ballistic just because he challenged a call? She’d never make it in professional sports, that’s for sure.

Steve picked up his phone and googled “piscary.” Within seconds he slid the phone shut and fell back against the couch. His breath exhaled in a loud whoosh.

Piscary, a fishery. The right of fishing in waters belonging to another
. Damn.

* * *

Jenny stormed home and slammed the door behind her. What a jerk. She couldn’t believe normally mild-mannered Steve became so competitive at a simple little board game. And he’d acted like an impatient child when she’d been on the phone. Sighing loudly, he’d fidgeted with the tiles and then stared at her, trying to bore holes through her with his eyes—as if she were totally obtuse and hadn’t noticed his other antics. What’s with that? Gabe never minded her talking on the phone during dinner or a movie; why was Steve getting so bent out of shape?

He’d acted like a spoiled brat, and she wasn’t about to feed into that.

Days before Thanksgiving, Jenny was taking a pie from the oven when she heard a “peck, peck, peck-peck.” Woodpeckerish knocking. A Kleenex taped to a twig waved at her from the cracked back door.

“Don’t shoot. I apologize.”

She smothered a smile as Steve walked in the back door, a wrinkled dress shirt hanging over his faded jeans. He plunked down on a stool in front of the counter where she worked.

“I’m sorry I was such an ass.” He looked up at her. “Forgive me?”

“I’ll think about it. But I’m not playing Scrabble with you again.”

“Yes, you will.”

“Don’t think so.”

“We’ll see.” He lifted his nose to the air and sniffed a couple of times, like an animal scenting prey. “Pumpkin pie. Yum.” He picked up a can of Reddi-wip. “Three?”

She plucked it out of his hand, scooped up the other two cans and put them in the fridge. “That’s Michael’s favorite part.” She turned back around.

“Going to your mom’s?”

“And to Judith’s to see the kids afterwards.” She narrowed her eyes, noting Steve’s unshaven face and glum expression. “What’s with the…” she swung her index finger in a circle aimed at his face, “stubble? Going for the bad boy, dangerous look?”

Steve cupped a hand around his jaw and rasped his whiskers. “Like it?”

Jenny wrinkled her nose. “As long as I don’t have to kiss it. Kissing a guy and having his beard scrape your face and his moustache ram up your nose is a definite turnoff.”

“Annie likes it.”

“Well then, you
must
be made for each other,” she joked. He was growing a moustache and beard for Annie? She wouldn’t have pegged him for that kind of guy.

“I’m on vacation. Leavin’ for the folks’ tomorrow and didn’t feel like shaving.”

“Annie and the kids going with you?”

He shook his head. “They’re spending the weekend with Ryan and his family in Florida.”

“Annie too?”

“Yeah. She doesn’t trust her ex with the kids.”

Jenny frowned and leaned against the counter. “And he allows her to tag along?”

“Not for the usual visitation weekends, but there’s no way Annie was going to let him take the kids out of the state without her.”

“And you’re okay with your fiancée spending the holiday with her ex and his family?”

“Why not? It’s not as if they’re alone. Ryan’s a good guy and I trust Annie.” He looked at her. “You’re sharing the holiday with Gabe’s ex-wife and his kids.”

But she didn’t used to be married to Judith and she was spending a few hours, not a long weekend, but whatever. O-kay. Then that didn’t account for his glum look. She pushed the pies aside and leaned on the counter. “Sooo, I take it the jury’s in and it didn’t go well?”

“We lost.”

“I’m sorry. Want a beer? Six beers? How about a martini? I make a killer lemon drop.”

“No, but thanks.” He sighed heavily and picked up her notepad. “I can’t believe I lost. We had all the physical evidence.” He riffled the pages with a thumb. “I thought my closing was brilliant, but apparently not brilliant enough. We should have won.”

“What went wrong?”

He shrugged and stared at the counter as if watching a replay of the trial in the shiny, dark surface. “The medical testimony was solid. I thought I connected with all the jurors…I bet it was chair six.” He raised his head to look at her. “He was a marine in the Korean War.”

“How would an ex-marine hurt your case?”

“It was a hazing incident,” he reminded her. “Hazing, brotherhood, toughness, hatred of homosexuals—it’s all consistent with the marine mentality. He wasn’t a career soldier and he served fifty years ago.” He raked a hand through his hair, ruffling it until it stood straight on end. “Damn it, I should have struck him.”

Jenny didn’t remember enough about the specifics of the case to make the connection. “Remind me again.”

“During rush, this Alpha Zeta Epsilon pledge was beaten. He spent a month in the hospital undergoing kidney dialysis and will probably need a transplant. He had to have surgery to repair his rectum, damaged when they sodomized the guy with a broom handle.”

“Niiice. And, how did these guys get off?”

“The defendants lied under oath. I could
not
get them to come clean. The judge gave me no room on cross and I finally had to let it go—either that or piss off the judge and jury. And…”