And part of the reason Libby spent her life trying to be grounded.
“I think she wanted it to sound romantic and not, you know, slutty. I was fourteen and pretty impressionable.”
“So how, exactly, did this news impress you?”
It changed everything. “Well, the notion that I was a love child from a war veteran had me spending a lot of time dreaming that a handsome soldier might knock on the door someday, freed from prison or back from battle—I don’t know—and claim us as his children.” She dug a fingernail into the soft wood of the table, pressing hard enough to make a fine line. “That, of course, never happened.”
“So how’d you handle that?”
She gave a dry laugh. “Let’s just say that was the official launch of my difficult years. I drank, I smoked pot, I spent way too much time showing my ever-growing bosom to very interested boys, and I generally made my mother’s life sheer hell for committing the crime of telling me one man was my father when he wasn’t.”
She remembered the pain, the emptiness, the sense of abandonment. Somehow, she’d come to terms with it. However, she’d been barely twenty-one when Carlos Sanchez careened into her life. He convinced her she was not a rebound relationship after his divorce, but the real thing. So real they didn’t even need to bother with birth control. This was forever.
Jasmine was conceived, born, and they got married…until Carlos went back to his ex-wife and two kids, and Libby tasted abandonment all over again.
“So she finally told you the truth—or the latest version of it—after Jake died?” Law asked.
The latest version of it. “I don’t blame you for being skeptical,” she conceded. “I was.”
“What made you stop being skeptical?”
She managed a smile and held back the truth, which was that she was still skeptical. But who would lie three times about the identity of a biological father? Who would do that to a person? Her mother wasn’t mean or heartless, just a little unstable. Which was why balance was so important to Libby.
“She told us she waited until he died, because she didn’t want us going after him and demanding…anything,” Libby said.
“Why the hell not?” he shot back. “Maybe he would have liked to have known he had kids.”
“He did know,” she insisted. “He didn’t want to help her. He told her to ‘handle it,’ whatever that means, I assume an abortion. He wouldn’t help her.”
With each statement, he winced like she’d punctuated the comment with a slap.
“Sorry,” she said softly. “I’m just telling you this because you can’t put all the blame on her shoulders. And, to be perfectly blunt, she feels we’re owed something from him.”
Silent, he propped his elbows on the table and his chin on his knuckles, staring ahead, thinking. “And for proof, she has some bogus birth certificates that you already said were changed when you were adopted by ol’ Mike?”
“She has the original birth certificates from July 4, 1971, that were issued at a hospital in Indianapolis. When she arranged for new birth certificates with Mike’s name as our father—which is not unusual, adopting parents do it all the time—the originals were sealed with the county, but Sam was able to get them.”
“But you can’t be sure they are real,” he said.
“They’re real. Sam had the originals verified and checked. He subpoenaed hospital records and put the certificates through whatever legal loops he had to. They’re legit.”
“Okay,” he finally said. “Okay. You have birth certificates that say Jake Peterson is your biological father. That’s not proof.”
“Which brings us back to the DNA.”
He nodded, turning his coffee cup as if they were his thoughts, doubts, and considerations. “I have what I kept of his in storage,” he eventually said. “Not a lot, and maybe not anything that could help you, but I’ll take you there and you can look through it.”
“You’d do that? For me? Why?”
“Uh, because I’m a nice guy?” At her look, he laughed. “I am, Libby. But the truth is, I want to know, too. If the DNA doesn’t match, you can take that up with the great storyteller who raised you. If it does, we have the truth.”
“The truth could cost you the Toasted Pelican.”
“It won’t.”
“Oh, that’s right, you have a will.”
He crushed his empty coffee cup and stood. “And a way.” Taking her empty cup, he gestured for her to stand. “I borrowed Ken’s truck, so we can haul anything out of there if you want to take it home and go through it with some kind of an official taking notes. Or we can sit on the floor of a storage unit and you can go through everything yourself. Your choice, yoga bear.”
She smiled at the nickname, and the opportunity. But the smile faded as she looked up at him. “There has to be an ulterior motive,” she said.
“You really don’t trust people, do you?”
“Would you if your mother had changed the identity of your father three times in the course of your life, the first man you married left you for his ex-wife, and the second for a new trophy?”
“Ouch.”
She shrugged. “No, I don’t trust easily. So why would you do this and not thwart my efforts to keep the place you’ve been willed?”
He braced on the table and leaned closer, getting right in her face. “What do you think my motives are, pretty woman?”
She met his gaze. “You truly believe I’m going to sleep with you?”
He got closer, his lips nearly on hers. “I’ve been waiting damn near thirty years to get you back in a closet, Lib. No whiskey on my breath this time. Maybe I’ll get those seven minutes in heaven after all.”
Her whole being tightened and warmed and longed to give in to the urge to kiss him.
Of course he just wanted sex. But would that be so horrible? Her eyes closed as she leaned nearer. Not horrible at all. Inevitable? Foolish? Thrilling? But not horrible.
She braced for the contact, knowing it would be as warm and wonderful in the daylight as it had been last night. Knowing, too, that it was a slippery slope, but she couldn’t help herself from tensing in anticipation of a coffee-flavored—
“Hi, Mom.” Her ponytail got yanked. “Whatchya doin’?”
Chapter Eight
A centimeter from pressing his lips to Libby’s, Law straightened at the unexpected voice of a young woman who’d snuck up on them. He met jet-black eyes framed by dramatic brows and a cascade of raven hair. Olive-toned skin, bright white teeth, and a long, lean body that was more angles than curves completed the exotic look of someone who could easily stroll down any runway in New York.
Then her words hit him.
Mom?
“You must be Jasmine,” he said without missing a beat.
“And you must be the infamous Law I’ve heard so much about.”
Law couldn’t help smiling back. “That was fast. We’ve only been apart six hours since our moonlight stroll on the beach last night.”
“Oh, I heard about you long before that.”
Libby’s shoulders sank in resignation. “Not sure I’m ready for this, but Jasmine Sanchez, meet Lawson Monroe. Would you two excuse me while I pretend to go to the bathroom rather than endure what I suspect will be a discussion that will either make me cringe or cry?”
“Why?” Law asked.
“Because my lovely daughter only has one flaw. She was born without a filter.”
Jasmine laughed and gave her mother’s shoulder a playful nudge. “Oh, Mom, why pretend it ain’t so? She talked about you after the reunion a few months ago,” she told Law. “And my uncle filled me in on the latest deets over coffee this morning.” She put her hands on her hips and looked from Law to Libby. “Pretty sure Uncle Sam does not know about this clandestine meeting, though, or the midnight stroll.”
“It’s not clandestine,” Libby said, pushing back her chair. “Law took my yoga class.”
“Looked like he was about to take more
than that.” She grinned and checked him out with a playful flicker of appreciation in her eyes. “She said you were smokin’. I mean, for an old guy.”
He laughed. “And she said you were a beautiful young woman,” Law countered. “As beautiful as your mother.”
Libby looked skyward at the compliment, but Jasmine gave a cocky flip of her hair. “Different, anyway,” she said. “My dad’s Cuban, and I got all the Latina color but none of the Chesterfield curves.” She gestured to her body, which couldn’t have been more different from her mother’s.
“So you take after your father.”
“Only in some ways,” she said.
“Jasmine, aren’t you late for work?” Libby asked.
She flicked off her mother’s reminder and continued like no one had spoken. “Not that he’s a bad guy,” she added. “Dad’s heart was with his first family, and he cheated on Mom with his ex. Now, one asks, does that really make him a cheater? We debate that often, and I love the guy, but Mom is right. Cheating is cheating even if it’s with your first wife when you’re married to your second.”
Libby slumped back in her chair. “Wake me when this nightmare is over.”
Law couldn’t help laughing. “The skeletons are flying out of the closet at a pretty impressive rate.”
Jasmine shrugged and tucked a stray lock over her ear. “Hey, I decided years ago that the thing that’s wrong with this world is that people don’t really say what they’re thinking. Did you know they did a study and found that something like eighty-three percent of everything that comes out of our mouths is not completely true? Can you believe that?”
“Not if it’s part of that eighty-three percent, I can’t.”
She let out a musical laugh and pointed to him. “Good one.” She folded herself into an empty chair, as if settling in for a long, honest conversation. “Mom said you were funny.”
“Really, Jasmine,” Libby said. “By now there’s probably a line of people outside Chrysalis waiting for you to tell them how bad they look in a white jumpsuit.”
“And guiding them to a darker, more flattering color.” She gestured for Law to sit, too. “First of all, I’m early. Second of all, don’t mock my superpower.”
“Your superpower?” He looked at Libby for confirmation, but she just eyed her daughter with a mix of adoration and dread.
“You see,” Jasmine said, “women don’t like to be lied to when they’re shopping. When I first started working at Macy’s, years ago, I straight up laid down the truth to my ladies. That dress looks like a hay bag, I told them. Those shoes will slice your toes off after an hour, I warned them. That top makes you look like a cow, I…” She relaxed into a sly smile. “Nah. I kindly suggested something a little less snug.”
“And they kept coming back for more,” he surmised.
“Exactly.” She grabbed her mother’s coffee cup, shook it, and looked exasperated it was empty. “Next thing you know, Bloomie’s stole me, helped pay for my degree in fashion merch, sent me to New York, which sucked like a vacuum cleaner, and now I work at a little shop in the resort as a buyer and personal shopper.” She grinned at him. “Didn’t Mom say you worked at the Ritz in Naples? I bet you could send me some customers.”
Wow, Libby had talked about him. And how could he stare in the face of such utter honesty and lie about where he worked? “I used to work at the Ritz as a sous chef,” he said. “I didn’t interact much with the clientele, sorry.”
“Used to?” Libby sat up a little. “When did you leave?”
“I quit last night, about half an hour before I walked into the Toasted Pelican.”
Libby’s eyes widened in surprise, but Jasmine leaned closer. “Seriously? You quit that job? A sous chef at the Ritz is nothing to sneeze at.”
“Well, I sneezed pretty hard last night. All over my boss and his crappy cognac sauce.”
Jasmine hooted a soft laugh at the comment, but Libby just stared at him.
“So where do you work?” Libby asked.
“At the moment? Nowhere. You have any openings?” He added a smile. “I make a mean steak au poivre, and my cognac demi-glace will bring you to your knees.”
“Oooh,” Jasmine cooed. “A man who could bring Mom to her knees is a mighty man indeed.”
“Jasmine.”
She ignored the warning and Law’s laugh.
“You should cook at the Pelican!” Jasmine said. “We could—”
Her mother held up her hand, and Jasmine instantly closed her mouth. Apparently, even Jasmine the Truthsayer had an off switch when it came to some things.
“We actually have somewhere we have to go right now,” Libby said, pushing up to a stand. “Law and I were just about to leave for a…special errand.”
“What exactly is that?” Jasmine asked.
Libby turned to her. “At least one of us in this family understands the concept of discretion, and I’m practicing it now. We’re leaving, you’re going to work, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this conversation to your uncle.”
Jasmine looked from one to the other, her eyes dancing. “I’d say your secret’s safe with me, but you know better. Be careful, you two, whatever you’re doing.” She stood, too, and planted a kiss on her mother’s cheek. “You were right, Mom. He is a sexy silver fox.”
She pranced away, leaving Libby staring at Law, her cheeks growing pinker by the second.
“And that, my friend, is why I only had one child. She is enough.”
“She’s awesome, Lib.”
“Honest.”
“Refreshing.”
“Terrifying.”
He laughed and reached for her hand. “Come on, Mama. Let’s go on a DNA hunt. Jasmine’s not the only one who likes the truth.”
* * *
Libby was sweating in the first five minutes inside a ten-by-ten-foot storage unit on the third floor of a massive metal building in the warehouse district of south Naples. She could taste the heat.
“Glad I didn’t bother with a shower.” She plucked at the thin top and sports bra and cursed herself for not changing from skintight yoga pants, which were supposed to breathe, but here in the mazelike halls of hundreds of garage-doored storage units, nothing was breathing. “I thought you said this place was air conditioned.”
“It’s air conditioned enough,” Law said, turning cardboard boxes piled in one corner to read the labels. “It’s only about eighty-two in here, which is a good twelve degrees cooler than outside, but it is August in Florida.”
She fanned her face with her hand, leaning against one of the corrugated metal walls. “Air conditioned means under seventy-eight.” Or, preferably, sixty.
Law paused in the act of moving a box, glancing at her with a tease in his eyes. “Maybe you’re having a hot flash, Lib.”
“And maybe you want to eat those pretty teeth, Law.”
He grinned, showing them off. “Have they started yet? The hot flashes?”
“Not yet. How about that erectile dysfunction?” she asked with a fake smile. “You fill that Viagra prescription yet?”
He just laughed. “Nope, and any time you want to test that out, just let me know.”
When he turned to get the next carton, she let her gaze skim over his back. Law’s muscles bunched under his T-shirt, and his curved, hard backside was sheer perfection in gym shorts. Even his legs were strong, dusted with dark hair, and masculine. He might be forty-six, but something told her he’d never popped a little blue pill in his life.
And that just made her warmer.
She forced herself to concentrate on the stacks of boxes in the storage pod, along with a worn leather recliner that belonged in a dump, a mattress and box spring sealed in plastic and leaning against one wall, some kind of metal exercise contraption that looked like a torture device, and a Tiffany lamp that was probably the only valuable thing here.
“What are the chances?” she mused, looking around.
“Of that test run? We can make a go o
f it right here, Lib. That mattress is brand new, and listen, what do you hear?”
In the silence of the enormous storage building, she heard…nothing. The halls were long, and even the ones she couldn’t see had to be empty, because sounds would carry and echo along the metal walls. “I don’t hear a thing.”
“Exactly. We’re alone here.”
“And the idea of stripping down naked in a filthy storage warehouse on a bare mattress with you is so appealing, I can’t even talk about it.” Except that it kind of was.
“I could find some sheets.”
Smiling, she knelt next to a box he’d set down, the words JP books written in Sharpie across the top.
“What I meant was what are the chances of finding DNA in…books?” She slipped her finger over the packing tape.
“Slim. Maybe none.”
That had to be true. “Are books all that’s in the box?”
“As far as I recall.” He hoisted another carton to the floor. “I think I made five boxes for him, so this is two.”
“You packed these?” she asked, surprised by that for some reason.
“Who else?”
She had no idea. “Didn’t he have other people in his life? A partner? Other friends? Customers?”
“I was closest to him, and I emptied out the apartment we shared.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a penknife, holding it out to her. “Don’t break your nails.”
She smiled at the thoughtfulness and took the knife, using her forearm to wipe a trickle of sweat from her brow. “I don’t know,” she admitted on a sigh. “This is probably a fool’s errand.”
“Probably,” he agreed. “But if you want to find something with his DNA on it, that something is only in this little storage box.”
“How long did you live with him?” she asked.
“A few years. Five, maybe. I could see he had some health issues, and I needed a place to live and…”
When his voice trailed off, she looked hard at him. “And?”
He shrugged. “He kept me sober.”