Controlled Burn Read online

  No, they most definitely were not. That two-in-the-morning plan had also included not giving the Broussards the opportunity to tell her not to come. “No, they’re not. But I’m...their granddaughter. Jessica.”

  The man froze in the act of extending his hand to shake hers, and his eyebrows rose. He had great eyebrows, which was ridiculous because when had she ever noticed a man’s eyebrows before?

  “I wasn’t aware they have a granddaughter,” he finally said, and she could tell he was trying to be careful with his words.

  “To be honest, I don’t know if they’re aware of it, either.”

  “Okay.” He dropped his hand. “Do you mind if I ask why you’re here? Is your visit related to the doctor calling Davey?”

  Davey? Not once in her entire life had Jessica heard her father referred to as anything but David.

  She took her time answering, assessing her options. On the one hand, it would be easy to dismiss him as a tenant who should feel free to mind his own business. But on the other, he knew her grandparents well enough to call their son Davey and she didn’t know them at all. When it came to moving them into a better living situation and getting the house on the market, he could be her strongest ally.

  “The doctor refused to talk to me and my father is unavailable. If Joe and... If my grandparents add me to their paperwork, I can help them navigate their options.”

  After a long moment spent staring at her as if trying to read her mind, he nodded. “I’ll introduce you.”

  When Jessica stepped down to let him go in front of her, she realized how tall he was. She wasn’t sure she had an actual type, other than a preference for men taller than she was, but circumstances had led to her last few relationships being with younger men. Judging by the hint of gray peppering his short, dark hair and scruff of a beard, Rick Gullotti definitely wasn’t younger. His blue eyes were framed by laugh lines, and she got the feeling he laughed a lot.

  Worn jeans hugged his bottom half, and a T-shirt did the same for the top. He’d thrown a hoodie on over it, but it wasn’t zipped—which meant he had to be crazy—so his body was well displayed. Very well.

  “How can it be this cold already?” she asked, trying to divert her attention away from the view before she said something stupid, like asking him just how many hours per day he worked out to look that amazing.

  Rick shrugged. “It’s that time of year. It’s going to be warmer the next few days—maybe back up to fifty—and then there’s snow in the forecast. Welcome to Boston in December.”

  “Snow.” She’d gone on a ski trip once, during her college days. There had been a fireplace and alcohol and as little snow as possible.

  “I hope you brought boots.”

  “I won’t be here that long.”

  He gave her a hard look she couldn’t quite decipher and then opened the front door without knocking. She followed him in, trying to block out her father’s voice in her head.

  Crass. Alcoholic. Bad tempers. When she was eleven, she’d had to do a genealogy project in school. They’re just not our kind of people, Jessica, and you’re upsetting me. I don’t want to hear about this nonsense again. That was the last time she asked about her grandparents. Her project was entirely fictional and earned her an A.

  “Rick, is that you?” she heard a woman call from the back of the house, and Jessica’s stomach twisted into a knot. “Did you get the... Oh. You have company.”

  Jessica looked at her grandmother, emotions tangling together in her mind. Marie was tall and slim, with short white hair and blue eyes. And Jessica knew, many years from now, she would look like this woman.

  “Where’s Joe?” Rick asked, and Jessica was thankful he seemed to want them together because it bought her a few more seconds to gather herself.

  “He’s in the kitchen. Come on back.”

  When Marie turned and walked away, Jessica looked up at Rick. He nodded his head in that direction, so she followed. Other than a general sense of tidiness and a light citrus scent, she barely noticed her surroundings. Her focus was on her grandmother in front of her and an awareness that Rick Gullotti was behind her.

  Her grandfather was sitting at the kitchen table, working on some kind of puzzle book with reading glasses perched low on his nose. When he looked up, he frowned and then took the glasses off to stare at her.

  “I found Jessica outside,” Rick said. “She says she’s your granddaughter.”

  Marie gasped, and Jessica felt a pang of concern when she put her hand to her chest. “What? She can’t be.”

  “If her hair was short, she’d look just like you did years ago, Marie,” Joe said, and she wished she knew him well enough to know if the rasp in his voice came from emotion or not.

  “I can’t believe Davey wouldn’t tell us he had a baby.”

  “Davey hasn’t told us anything in almost forty years.”

  “I’m thirty-four,” Jessica said, as if that explained everything, and then she immediately felt like an idiot. “I’m sorry. I should have called first.”

  “Did Davey send you because that damn doctor called him?”

  “I came because of the call, yes.” She couldn’t bring herself to admit yet that her father had no idea she was here or why.

  Silence filled the kitchen, and she became aware that the Broussards had a real clock hanging in their kitchen—the kind with a second hand that marked the awkward seconds with a tick tick tick.

  Jessica was torn. The logical analyst voice in her head—the part of her that had earned her a cushy corner office in her father’s investment business—wanted her to set up a time to speak with them about the doctor’s call and then check into the hotel room she’d reserved. But her inner eleven-year-old wanted to hug her nonfictional grandmother.

  “It’s a long flight,” Rick said, stepping out from behind her so she could see him. “You hungry?”

  His quiet words breaking the silence also seemed to break the tension, and Marie gave her a shaky smile. “Have a seat and tell us all about yourself. Rick, are you going to stay for a while?”

  “I’ll stay for a little bit,” Rick said, and though his voice was even enough, the look he gave Jessica made it clear he wasn’t just a tenant in this house and he wasn’t sure what he thought of her yet. “I want to hear all about Jessica.”

  Chapter Two

  Rick wasn’t sure exactly what to make of Jessica Broussard. The only thing he knew for sure about Joe and Marie’s surprise granddaughter was that she smelled pretty damn good for a woman who’d just flown across the entire width of the country.

  She didn’t look too bad, either. Her long, blond hair was in a long and straight ponytail, and if she was wearing makeup, it was subtle. A soft sweater that looked more fashionable than warm reached her thighs, which were encased in black leggings that disappeared into similarly nonfunctional boots. The soft leather might make her legs look amazing, but they weren’t keeping her feet warm. And she was tall enough so it wouldn’t be awkward to kiss her.

  Not that it mattered, since he had no intention of kissing Jessica. But, being tall himself, it was something he tended to notice about women.

  But what he didn’t know about her was why she’d flown all the way from San Diego to Boston at the drop of a hat to show up on the doorstep of people she didn’t even know.

  “I’m really not hungry,” Jessica said, pulling out a chair to sit. “But I’d love a glass of water if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble at all.” Marie pulled out the chair next to Jessica’s. “Rick, would you get Jessica a glass of water, please?”

  Smiling, he opened the cabinet and took down one of Marie’s “company” glasses, rather than grabbing one of the plastic tumblers they usually used. After rinsing it out, he filled it with ice and water from the fridge.r />
  “Thank you,” Jessica said when he set it down in front of her. But she didn’t take a sip immediately. She wrapped her hands around it as if she just needed something to do with them.

  Instead of taking the fourth seat at the table, Rick leaned against the counter and folded his arms across his chest, watching her.

  “What do you do for work, Jessica?” Marie asked, and he felt a pang of sadness at the anxiety in her voice. She would try not to show it, but the woman was a wreck on the inside.

  “I work for my father, actually, at Broussard Financial Services. We do financial planning and manage investments and things of that nature. As his vice president, I handle everything when he’s unavailable, so of course I returned Dr. Bartlett’s call yesterday. It sounded urgent.”

  “Are there other people in the office?” Marie asked. “If you’re here, who’s running things now?”

  “We do have staff. And I have my laptop. Other than rescheduling a few face-to-face meetings, most of my work can be done remotely.”

  “Let me ask you something,” Joe said, fiddling with his reading glasses. “Does your father know you’re here?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” she answered after a long silence, and Rick got the feeling she didn’t want to answer the question. The granddaughter they didn’t know showing up in Boston unannounced when their son couldn’t even be bothered to return a call was interesting, but he really hoped she wasn’t up to no good in some way. “The doctor couldn’t discuss your situation with me because I’m not on the form, but my father is unavailable, so I decided to come in person.”

  Unavailable. She’d used that word outside, too, and he wondered what it meant. Most people would say he was on vacation or at a remote fishing cabin or chained in a basement somewhere. The use of unavailable seemed deliberate, meaning she didn’t care for them to know what Davey Broussard was up to.

  “I feel bad that you came all the way out here,” Marie said. “Dr. Bartlett overreacted and shouldn’t have called.”

  “Needs to mind his own damn business,” Joe muttered.

  Rick cleared his throat. “Maybe he did overreact this time, but it’s not a bad idea to go over your legal papers and discuss your options once in a while.”

  “We can talk about all that tomorrow,” Marie told them. “Right now I want to hear about my granddaughter.”

  Rick did, too, actually. He watched her slowly relax as she told them about growing up in San Diego. She’d graduated second in her class and gone to the University of Denver for her degree. Then she’d joined her father’s company and worked her way up to second in command, poised to take the reins when he retired. She’d never been married, but she owned a lovely condo and drove a convertible Audi.

  He wondered if Joe or Marie would press for the details she’d left out. There was no mention of her mother or siblings. Had she wanted to join her father’s company or was it simply expected of her? For almost an hour he stood there while they talked, but she never said anything that wouldn’t be out of place in a professional bio.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Marie said after a while, resting her hand on Jessica’s arm. Rick watched the younger woman’s gaze settle on the touch, her smile a little on the shaky side. “I should start supper. Is there anything you don’t like? Or do you have any food allergies?”

  “I... No. I like most foods and I’m not allergic to anything that I know of.”

  “Oh, good. I have a lasagna in the freezer. I can pop it in the oven so we can get you settled in while it cooks.”

  “Oh, I appreciate the invitation, but I really should go and get settled into my hotel. Is there a time we can get together tomorrow to talk?”

  Rick and Joe exchanged amused looks when Marie held up her hands and shook her head. “Oh, you don’t need a hotel, honey. We have a guest room upstairs. It has its very own bathroom and everything.”

  “That’s really generous, but I already have a reservation.”

  “No sense in wasting money like that,” Joe argued.

  “I’ll be working a lot, too. Just me and my laptop, you know?”

  “You can work here,” Marie said. “We have really good internet so Rick can talk to all of his girlfriends on Facebook.”

  “Hey!” He laughed, shaking his head. “I don’t have girlfriends on Facebook. And that’s not why we have internet.”

  “Imagine what people would think if my granddaughter stays in a hotel,” Marie pushed.

  “None of your friends know you have a granddaughter,” Jessica pointed out.

  Joe snorted. “Trust me, they will.”

  Rick pushed away from the counter and walked toward the table. “You may as well just give me the key to your car so I can bring your bags in.”

  “Go ahead and pull the car into the driveway, too,” Joe said. “Get it off the street.”

  “I...” Jessica gave Rick a look that was clearly a plea for help, but there was nothing he could do for her. Marie had made up her mind and she was possibly the most stubborn woman he’d ever met.

  “I would really like for you to stay with us,” Marie said quietly, touching Jessica’s arm again.

  Her granddaughter just nodded, her smile less anxious this time, and pulled the rental’s key out of her sweater pocket to hand to Rick.

  After parking the very compact car in the shadow of his truck, Rick popped the trunk and pulled out her suitcase. Then he wheeled it around to the other side of the car.

  He wasn’t sure what to do about the stuff on the front passenger seat. While he’d noticed she had a small pocketbook on a thin chain across her body, she’d left a tote bag and some other stuff in the car.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he zipped the expensive-looking sunglasses into the case he found and dropped it into the top of the bag. A pen and a tin of mints went in after it, and then he looped a scarf through the tote’s handles.

  He lifted the tote out of the car and noticed a small legal pad had been under it. The house’s address was scrawled across the top, so she’d probably pulled the pad out to enter it into the navigational system. But the list of addresses under Joe and Marie’s house, written in much smaller letters down the page, caught his eye as he was in the process of putting it in the bag.

  The street names were all familiar and when he read the abbreviations and dollar amounts listed with each one, he realized they were meant to be comps—lists of houses for sale in the area that might have a comparable value to Joe and Marie’s.

  So it looked as if their granddaughter had amused herself on the plane by researching their home’s worth. What she might not be aware of was that, with an actual backward, two-car garage—with accompanying driveway—and spacious third-floor apartment, he’d take a wild guess at high six-figures.

  Or maybe she was aware of it and the amount factored into her urgent need to meet her grandparents after thirty-four years. For all he knew, her unavailable father had something to do with it.

  He didn’t want to believe it, though. He’d seen her face when Marie had walked into the room and Jessica wasn’t going to be winning any poker tournaments anytime soon. She’d been trembling. It was subtle, but he’d noticed. And there had been a lot of emotion in her big-eyed expression. He didn’t know her well enough to read them, but it was obvious meeting her grandmother meant something to her beyond dollar signs.

  Jessica Broussard was definitely a mystery, and the only thing Rick was certain of was that, for Joe and Marie’s sake, he was going to have to keep a close eye on her.

  * * *

  A wave of relief had washed over Jessica when Rick walked out of the kitchen. The entire time she’d been talking to Joe and Marie, trying to make a connection with her grandparents, a part of her had been distracted by the man leaning against the counter.

  He hadn’t b
een looming, exactly, but he was a big guy and made for a definite presence in the room. His arms being folded had stretched his lightweight sweatshirt across his shoulders, and when he crossed one ankle over the other, it had the same effect on his jeans and thighs. He was very, very distracting.

  And then he’d laughed, turning her somewhat wary awareness into a much more potent, very different kind of awareness. His laugh was not only warm and rich, but loud, and she realized she didn’t have men in her life who laughed like that. Her father rarely laughed at all, and the men around them tended toward polite laughter.

  “It breaks my heart to have to ask this because I feel like I should already know,” Marie said, breaking into Jessica’s thoughts, “but is your mother that girl he met at college? I don’t remember her name now and he never brought her home to meet us, so I can’t even tell you what she looked like.”

  “My mother’s name is Emily and I know they met at college, but I don’t know if she’s the same one.” She took a long drink of water, wishing there was a way to avoid telling the rest. “She left us when I was three, so I don’t really remember her.”

  “Oh.” Marie fell silent, giving her the sympathetic look Jessica had come to expect years ago on the rare occasion her mother was brought up. “Did he remarry?”

  That made her laugh, though it sounded harsh and humorless. “Several times. He’s currently in the process of divorce number four.”

  And, even though he invariably brought those failed marriages down on himself, divorces were hard on her father and one of the reasons the reins of BFS were currently in her hands.

  She didn’t even want to imagine how he was going to react when he learned she’d handed those reins over to the staff. Not totally, of course, but she’d delegated like she’d never delegated before in order to manage this trip, and her father wasn’t going to like anything about it.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Marie sighed. “I’ve always tried to imagine him happy, even if he didn’t keep in touch.”