After lunch, they retired to the den. Jase had some calls he needed to make, and she wanted to read a little—not that she could concentrate on Georgette Heyer’s historical with all the talk of CPDs, LOIs, and Phase I Reports going on. None of the terms meant a thing to her, but Jase’s way of handling things was an eye-opener.
The business side of him was all business. His voice became clipped, his face hardened into granite, and he brooked no nonsense. Want and hardship had forged him. He’d gone through fire and come out steel.
Maybe she should have been repulsed, but actually this hard-as-nails aspect fascinated her. If Daddy had possessed even half of Jase’s business acumen, she wouldn’t be pawning clocks on the sly. Laurel winced in sudden sorrow—Daddy had had more weaknesses than letting money flow through his fingers like water.
The phone rang again, but with the opening bars of “Five Foot Two.” Jase’s voice changed, becoming more humanoid.
“Hi, sweetheart. Good to hear from you.”
Laurel smiled. He’d switched into father mode.
“You want how much money for what?…Lolly, don’t you think the one you have is good enough? It’s not as if you’ll be playing tennis at school this fall. You’ve already committed to the volleyball team…My permission?…Okay, give me the guy’s name and where I send it…”
Jase was gesturing at her now, making a wiggling motion with his hand. Laurel stared at him, trying to understand. Did he want her to write something down? There was a tablet in the desk. She stood up and rolled back the top.
He turned away from the mobile for a second.
“My pen, Laurel!” he hissed. “I left it in the kitchen when we were making the grocery list! I need my pen!”
“Gotcha.” She raced down the hall, picked up his Mont Blanc, and was back within seconds, grabbing a notepad on the way.
Jase seized the pad and uncapped his pen. “Thanks, babe. I was about to write on my palm.”
Still holding his phone to his ear, he scribbled an address on the pad. “Uhm-hmm…uhm-hmm…well, okay, but I want to see some follow-through…okay…yeah, uh, okay, I’ll tell Laurel you said that…I love you too, sweetheart. ’Bye now. Take care of Aunt Maxie for me.”
He ended the call, looked at Laurel, and breathed deep. “I never know what she’ll be into next.”
“The tennis camp?”
He smiled in paternal resignation. “Lolly’s usual idea of an emergency. Her instructor mentioned a particular racket he liked, and she wanted permission to go out and buy it immediately—two hundred and fifty dollars on the hoof, and she’s just been playing for three days.”
“Was that all? The conversation sounded a little odd toward the end.” She’d heard her name mentioned.
Jase came around and captured her waist from the back. “That was because she caught on that I’m still at your house.”
“Was she upset?” Lolly was no dummy. She knew what it meant that her father was staying at her house, and teenagers could be real prigs as far as the sexual behavior of their parents was concerned.
Jase kissed the back of Laurel’s neck and smoothed his hands down her hips. “She wants you to come back to North Plano with me.”
“She doesn’t still think I’m her mother, does she?”
“No, you pretty much cleared that up, but she’s got a crush on you—just like I do.”
Laurel smiled and snuggled her buttocks against him, but before they could get anything going, the phone rang again. Jase released her and morphed back into Mr. Tycoon.
Half an hour later, he glanced at his watch and announced he needed to visit the bank before it closed. “I assume First Bosque Bend National is still downtown?”
She nodded. “It’ll be there forever.”
“I need to talk to a banker, someone who knows the local scene.” He stood up. “Gotta go grab a sports jacket and head over there.”
Laurel bit her lip. “Dave is a vice president at First. He moved up when Consolidated bought it. His new wife’s father is a big stockholder.”
Jase’s nostrils flared. “This is about business and growth potential, not about old times.”
And not, she prayed, about me.
Or Daddy.
*
His head buzzing with speculation, Jase swung into traffic and headed to town, which translated to six blocks farther down Austin Avenue.
Laurel had seemed worried about him running into her ex. Was she afraid Dave would say something derogatory about her? Maybe tell Jase why they’d divorced?
Why had the marriage gone bad? Laurel wasn’t the type to play around—but neither was Dave. More likely, the money had run out. In fact, maybe Dave had somehow caused the money to run out. Maybe he’d spent all of Laurel’s inheritance, then ditched her. But that didn’t make sense—Dave was an opportunist, not a high roller.
The light in front of him turned red and Jase braked to an easy stop. Looking around, he noticed that a medical facility was being constructed on the big corner lot where the farmers’ market used to be. Yeah, Bosque Bend was definitely on the move.