Private Parts (10 page)

B
Y
W
EDNESDAY,
T
ROY WAS READY
to give up. Every time he plugged a hole in the dyke, another one sprouted. And he was running out of fingers fast.

Their attempts to get the contract voided were hitting brick wall after brick wall and it appeared nothing short of a lawsuit would accomplish it. A process that would tie their hands until a ruling was rendered, which could take years.

The meeting with the foremen and local union officials on Monday hadn’t gone well. There were threats of lawsuits against
them
for breach of promise. To top it off, tempers had run high, with Palmer nearly taking a right to the jaw when he’d tried to intervene in a shouting match between Ari and one of the foremen.

The fact that the men were all locals didn’t help matters. Wherever any of them went, they were
treated with disdain and Palmer’s house had been pelted with eggs the night before.

Troy had believed he could save the town. Instead, he had doomed it.

He sat in his car inside the Metaxas garage following the end of a grueling day. The string of Christmas lights were half out again, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. At least the house would be quiet. Ari and Elena were at the hospital and wouldn’t be returning till late. Bryna was staying in Seattle, where Caleb continued to work with a team of attorneys trying to find a loophole, a way they could bypass Philippidis and keep going forward with their plans.

Not that they could, even without the legal problems. The company’s resources were tapped out with the advances they’d given the engineers last week in anticipation of the investment capital that was supposed to be coming through this week.

And on top of everything, Troy couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Kendall.

At least five times a day he reached for his phone to call her. And that many times he refrained. What could he possibly say to her? A part of him just wanted to hear her voice. A bigger part of him was angrier than hell and wanted to demand she do something, anything to turn back the hands of time.

No. He wouldn’t be calling her. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. He couldn’t forgive what she’d
done. Her actions had impacted his entire family. And that included the town of Earnest.

Troy rubbed his closed eyelids and then climbed from the car, his footsteps echoing through the six-bay garage as he headed toward the door and the corridor beyond.

“Kalispera,”
Miss Thekla greeted him as he entered the kitchen.

He returned the greeting and asked what was for dinner, not really hearing her response, although he made the requisite sounds of appreciation. Something did smell good, but he had zero appetite.

“Your father’s in the library. He says he’d like you to join him there.”

He thanked her and left the room to go up to his suite and clean up.

Troy had hoped to have a quiet night to himself. A few hours to try to absorb everything that had happened. And examine all the angles to make sure there wasn’t something else he could be doing.

But the truth was, he was drained. Completely, utterly drained. Fresh out of ideas with no clue where to find more.

He trudged up the stairs, down the long hall to his rooms, and shrugged out of his suit jacket, draping it over a wing chair before taking off his tie and rolling up his sleeves. Several splashes of cold water later, he mopped his face with a thick towel and then stood looking into his home office just off his
bedroom. Copies of the blueprints for the new factory were spread out on his desk, with notes stuck to the banker’s lamp and even to the phone itself. This office was better appointed than the one at work, but the business files exactly mirrored the ones at the mill.

He collapsed onto the burnished leather couch against the far wall, the towel still in his hands, staring at everything and nothing.

How had he let it come to this? Had he allowed himself to be so distracted by a woman that he’d failed?

He wasn’t amused by the irony. He was always so careful. Meticulous.

A knock came on the jamb of his open bedroom door. He glanced over to find his father looking around his bedroom.

Troy put the towel down on the low coffee table in front of him. “In here,” he called.

Percy spotted him and walked in his direction. He paused much as he had in his bedroom, taking a look around, then came inside and took a seat next to him on the couch.

“Been a while since I’ve been in here,” he said quietly.

Troy nodded. “Miss Thekla said you wanted to speak with me?”

“Yes.”

Both of them sat there silently, staring at nothing, staring at everything.

With nothing to compete with it, Troy made out the sound of the antique grandfather clock in the downstairs hall ticking the moments away. He was in no great hurry to hear what his father had to say. And, apparently, his father was in no hurry to say it.

Finally, he spoke. “When did you get to be so unforgiving, Troy?”

He turned his head to look at him. “What?”

Out of all the things he might have expected him to say, that wouldn’t have rated a spot on the list.

He’d been prepared to talk about the old mill. The failed plans. Even Ari and Elena’s new addition to the family. But never this.

“I’m not sure I understand…”

His father met his gaze. “You know, I was thinking about that girlfriend of yours…”

Troy narrowed his gaze, incapable of helping him out.

“You know, that girl from a few years ago. What was her name?”

“Gail?” he asked incredulously. “What would bring her to mind?”

His father sat back, stretching his arm across the back of the sofa. He wore a simple but stylish pair of slacks and a dress shirt, as elegant as he’d ever
been with his trimmed silver hair, olive skin and prominent profile.

“I don’t know,” Percy admitted. “I guess I was considering where everyone else stands in their personal lives. Ari…Bryna. And Gail came to mind.” He rubbed his palm against the leather. “She ended up marrying your best friend from college, right? Ray?”

Troy’s jaw locked.

“I always liked Ray. He had a way of telling a story that could hold the entire room transfixed until he finished. You two were as thick as thieves. Wasn’t a thing you didn’t do together. Used to call you Mutt and Jeff,” he said. “And Gail…”

Troy wasn’t entirely sure he liked where this was heading.

“Gail was a beauty. Always thought you two made a great couple.”

Troy held up his hand. “Are you going somewhere with this?”

A quiet chuckle. “Now, impatient you’ve always been…”

He stretched his neck and waited for his father to get to the point.

“You know, you never did say why you and Gail broke up.”

Troy leaned forward and clasped his hands between his knees. “You just said it yourself. She married my best friend.”

He wasn’t sure he liked the look in his father’s eyes.

“Yes, but there must have been a reason that compelled her into another man’s arms…”

Yes, Troy could up with a half dozen explanations and none of them were flattering to the couple at issue.

“Have you ever stopped to think about it? I mean, really considered why she would have left you for someone else?”

“It was hard to think about anything else for a while there.”

“Yes, but did you really think about it?”

He recalled the holiday card he’d received from Gail at the office and his reaction to it.

“That’s a stupid question.”

“Perhaps. But it is a question that deserves an answer.”

Troy stared at him.

Percy shrugged. “True, perhaps I’m not the one that deserves to hear it, but you do.”

“Gee, thanks, Pop.”

“I’m just saying that the day you stop feeling is the day you might as well chuck it all in.”

Troy bristled. “When did you stop feeling like a man?”

He knew it was a mistake the instant the words left his mouth. But there was no taking them back.

“Careful, young man. You’re not too old to get an
ass kicking. And I’m still young enough to give it to you.”

Troy grimaced and looked at his hands clasped between his knees.

Silence fell between them again. An apology was probably in order, but he found it hard in coming. He’d had so much piled on his back these past few days, he didn’t think he could take a single word more.

“Your mom and I were going to travel the world…”

His hands froze at his father’s words.

“We were going to start in Greece. Kos, where her family is originally from, then Constantinople. Then she wanted to go to China.”

Troy looked at him.

His father shook his head. “China. She wanted to go to some small place that’s barely on the map that she’d read about in a book.”

“The Good Earth.”

It had been a long time since Troy had thought about his mother. Longer still since any of them had spoken of her. Her death had been a shock to them all. A simple matter of an aneurysm that had taken her in a blink. One moment she was there, fussing over him and Ari and their father…the next the three of them were standing over her grave trying to make sense of what had happened.

Something had changed in his father then. While
he’d cut back his hours in the year before her death as Troy took more and more control, he’d still been a formidable presence at the company.

But after his wife’s death, he’d practically disappeared. He’d become little more than a ghost at the dinner table, haunting the rooms of the estate. Ari had once remarked that they hadn’t lost one parent during that fateful event, but both.

“What happened to that pretty girl I saw you with at the Christmas party?”

Troy blinked at him. “What?”

“Kendall…wasn’t that her name?”

What did his father know about Kendall? Oh, Christ. He must have seen them slip down the hall together. What else had he seen? And what had Ari been telling him?

Then again, what did even Ari know? He and Kendall had kept their personal liaison personal. No one knew they’d been seeing each other outside work.

Did they?

He washed his face with his hands, remembering his run-ins with Mrs. Foss. Had he really forgotten how small small towns could be? Probably the instant he’d shown up at the bed-and-breakfast, half of Earnest had known he was there.

“You know, Troy, you never were as good as you think when it comes to hiding your emotions.”

“Yes, well, perhaps that’s something I need to work on, isn’t it?”

He pushed from the couch and paced toward the fireplace to his left, stopping to consider the photos on the mantelpiece. There was one of his mother taken months before her death. Another of him and Ari and Bryna on top of a mountain of leaves they’d raked.

He caught himself rubbing an empty spot, then realized that it was where the one with him and Gail and Ray had been.

Why
had
she found her way into Ray’s arms?

“To the contrary, Troy,” his father said, also rising. “I think you need to acknowledge that you’re not a god born of Mount Olympus, infallible and expected to swoop in to solve everyone’s problems.”

Troy watched him walk toward the door. Just beside it, he turned back to face him.

“Your mother and I did all that talking about that trip. Discussing one day. How one day we would go everywhere, see everything.”

He suddenly appeared smaller.

“That one day never came, Troy. I’ll never be able to do any of that with her now.”

He slid his hand into his pocket.

“I don’t want you to wake up one morning with
the same regrets that I have. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. All I’m trying to say.”

Finally, he walked from the room, leaving his words behind him…

“W
HERE WERE YOU LAST NIGHT
?” Ari asked, coming to stand next to him in the kitchen as he was pouring coffee.

“Merry Christmas to you, too, little brother.”

“Merry Christmas. Where were you?”

Troy put the carafe back on the warmer, and looked out the back window at the clear morning sky and nearby hills wreathed in mist. It had rained so much recently that it made the sight now doubly mesmerizing.

Where was he, indeed?

“Why, did you miss me?” he asked with an arched brow.

Ari flashed one of his million-dollar smiles. “As hard as it is to believe, yes.”

He lifted his cup. “Can I have some coffee first?”

He edged around the kitchen island and considered
the array of freshly baked pastries Thekla had set out for breakfast. She and her husband had driven to Tacoma to St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church for Christmas liturgy, a good while away. Nearly everything they needed for dinner was prepped and ready for the oven or for serving later in the day. As usual, it looked like enough to feed the entire town.

Troy winced. The last time Earnest had come together to enjoy Thekla’s food, things hadn’t gone so well. What was he talking about? It was an unqualified disaster.

Ari took the stool next to him. “Elena and I came in at around nine after spending the day with little Amygdalia—by the way, you should come see her. Her cheeks are growing rosier by the day. She’s going to be a little heartbreaker, that one. Caleb and Bryna got in about the same time we did and we all had a nice little gathering in front of the fireplace.”

“And I was missed.”

“Yes, actually, you were.”

His brother’s words warmed him. “I went to see Gail and Ray.”

Ari nearly spewed the bite of pastry he’d just taken across the island. “What?” He quickly swallowed and then coughed. “Pass that one by me again. Because I’m sure I didn’t catch it.”

Troy gave a small smile. “Yeah. Definitely not something I had on my agenda…” He recalled the conversation he’d had with his father. “I got a card
from them at work last week inviting me to stop over.”

“I heard about the card. Patience said you threw it away without opening it.”

“Did she tell you she took it out and put it back on my desk?”

Ari’s smile was his answer.

“Anyway, I thought it was long past time we buried the hatchet.”

His brother fell silent, staring out the window as he polished off his pastry. “Hatchet. If you’d have told me you were going over there, I would have been afraid you would have buried it someplace that would have left you in prison.”

Troy chuckled. “I would never have done that.”

“No. Of course not. Because you’re too much in control.”

“If I’ve learned anything from recent events, it’s that I’m in control of nothing.”

Ari looked at him for a long time. Troy tried to ignore him, showing him his profile. When he did glance at him, he found an odd light in his brother’s eyes.

“What?” he asked.

Ari shook his head. “Oh, nothing.”

“Don’t nothing me. What is it?”

Ari got up to top off his coffee cup and did the same for him. “It’s just that…I don’t know. Maybe it’s the Christmas spirit but…I would have never
expected you to let go of that control you seem to think you wield over circumstances—hell, and the world.”

He sat back down and offered him a pastry from the plate to his right. Troy shook his head, but then changed his mind and took one.

“So how was it? The visit?”

Troy squinted, looking inward instead of out.

The visit had gone surprisingly well. Better than he would have anticipated. He’d nearly turned around at least half a dozen times on his way to Olympia, where the couple had bought a nice house in a new subdivision. But the urge to go back home had never been stronger than when he’d walked up to their door.

Too late, the door had swung inward and there stood Gail and Ray, looking as stunned as he felt…and like the couple that he and Gail had never been. Not truly.

His welcome had been warm and unconditional and had included a few tears, curiously even on his part. And while they were entertaining a handful of couples, they’d graciously excused themselves from the animated dinner table and joined him in the kitchen where they’d spent the next half hour catching up.

Not once had he felt as if he’d been betrayed. That the family unit they made should have been his. Surprisingly, he’d felt happy for them. And had
found it relatively easy to set aside the past and enjoy them as friends.

He couldn’t help thinking Kendall was to credit for that.

What was the saying? You couldn’t get over the last love until you opened your heart to love again.

Of course, he didn’t love Kendall. That was impossible. They hadn’t known each other long enough for that. No, he lusted after her…intensely. Yes, that came closer.

Even as the thought formed, he recognized it for the lie that it was.

The problem was that the reason they weren’t together had nothing to do with a lack of desire for her. This time the betrayal he’d suffered had cut deeper than even that committed by his onetime best friend and ex-girlfriend. Kendall had shown a true waver in morality and revealed herself as undeserving of his trust.

And without trust…

“Hello? Are you still with me?” Ari asked.

Troy glanced down into his coffee. “The visit went well. I’m thinking about calling them in January and inviting them for dinner.”

“Great!”

He stared at his brother.

“I mean, good. It’ll be nice for you to focus on something other than business for a change.”

Troy nodded in agreement. It would be nice.

“Speaking of which…have you spoken to Kendall?”

The pastry in his mouth turned to sand.

He waved a finger. “Off-limits.”

Ari’s expression was curious.

“Where’s Elena?” He tried to change the subject.

“I’m letting her sleep in. Which, of course, she’ll be completely pissed off about when she does wake up. But she needs the rest. Anyway, you’re changing the subject.”

“I’m not changing it because there never was a subject.”

“Blocking it, then.”

He made a face as if to ask, “What’s the difference?”

“You know, we were all aware you two were meeting up outside of work.”

It was Troy’s turn to nearly spew coffee. “What?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s been all the talk. Where you two have been spotted. The bed-and-breakfast…the motel outside of town…Makeout Cove.”

“Christ.” Troy used a napkin to wipe his mouth.

“Yeah. We’ve been taking bets on where you might meet next.”

He raised his hand. “Stop.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so, that’s why.”

Ari fell silent. “You know, she might have had a very good reason for doing what she did.”

Troy pushed from the stool and carried his coffee cup to the sink. “There’s no reason big enough to justify what she did.”

“Isn’t there?”

He turned to stare at him across the island.

“Hey, don’t look at me like I’m the enemy here.” Ari’s shoulders deflated. “I just don’t want you a couple years from now making a Christmas Eve trip to Portland to find she’s moved on with someone else.”

If Troy had still been sitting next to him, he wasn’t sure what he would have done. But clocking him would have rated a high possibility. “Just sayin’.”

“Yeah, well, do me a favor and keep your thoughts to yourself from here on in.”

Even as he said the words, it seemed as if a spotlight had just switched on above his brother’s head. Ari might be a lot of things, but he had never shied away from what he wanted. Even if he’d fallen for a woman promised to another man, and pursuing her meant destroying an important business deal, by God, he was going to do it.

Now Ari and Elena had their first child and were due to be properly married soon.

Troy had to admit that he’d never seen his brother so happy.

The telephone rang on the wall near the door. Ari hurried to answer. Moments later he hung up the receiver.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “But a mudslide is heading for downtown Earnest—”

“What?” Troy was already halfway out the kitchen to change. “There can’t be a goddamn mudslide on Christmas.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Ari said as they both took the steps upstairs two at a time. “But forces of nature tend not to consult a calendar…”

C
HRISTMAS MORNING DAWNED CLEAR
and bright after more rain than Kendall could remember. Which was a good thing, because the damp weather was helping her not at all in her attempt to cheer up.

Her parents’ apartment echoed with laughter as little Mason ran around with the ribbons from the gifts they’d all opened, and Matilda seemed equally more enchanted with the wrapping paper than her presents. The entire place smelled like the turkey her mother was baking in the oven.

The day was much like every other holiday they’d shared together over the years…except that Kendall felt different. Whereas before she might have been down on the floor playing with her niece and nephew and acting like a kid herself, or helping her mother with dinner, or even chatting with her sister while her husband surfed satellite channels for sports coverage,
she instead stood in front of the large balcony doors that looked out over Portland.

Thankfully her sister didn’t dog her with questions or ask if she was okay. After the other day…well, she knew what the deal was. And except for letting her know that she was there if she needed her, she wasn’t pushing it.

Kendall rubbed her forehead, recalling the way she’d practically dissolved into a puddle of tears in her sister’s shocked arms. Celia had been so beside herself at the sight she’d been convinced someone had died.

Somehow, Kendall had gotten out the story. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

And while Celia had tried her best to cover her surprise, she’d been left dumbfounded.

Her always-in-control sister had lost it. Over a man.

Then there was the whole contract angle. On that, Celia had been adamant. No matter the consequences, she advised her to do the proper thing.

Kendall hadn’t had to ask her what she believed that was. She knew.

She needed to set the wrong to right. Not because she hoped it might regain her Troy’s attention. No. She was afraid that was lost forever. Instead, she needed to clear her own conscience of what she’d done.

She’d requested her sister not tell their father. The
fact was, she was ashamed she’d ever believed he’d accept her behavior. He’d raised them to believe that when the day was at its end, it was only knowing you had done your best that allowed you a good night’s sleep. And that your word was your bond. You could have all the material assets in the world, but if you didn’t have a good name, you had nothing.

She frowned. She wondered if anyone had ever told Manolis Philippidis that. She doubted it.

Kendall turned from the window and walked into the kitchen where her mother was testing the turkey thermometer.

“Where’s Dad?” she asked.

“Where he always is. In his office catching a bit of news before one of us calls him back out.”

She smiled. Her dad. The newshound.

After asking if her mother needed help and being told not yet, she rounded the corner and walked up the hall to her father’s small home office—it was more of a den now that there were grandchildren around to spend the night. She knocked lightly even though the door was open and peeked her head inside.

“Anything interesting?” she asked.

He appeared not to have heard her, so focused he was on the tiny television screen he had perched on top of a dresser.

“Dad?”

She walked slowly into the room.

“Kendall, you’ve got to see this,” he said. “Mudslides all over.”

She stared at the small screen wondering how he could possibly make anything out on it. His reading glasses sat perched on the edge of his nose and he had his balding head tilted back so he could see. She watched as under the Happy Holidays banner, scenes from Washington State swept across the display.

“Where are you going?” her father asked.

“Earnest!”