Two Roads Home Page 5

  “Okay. If you want some cobbler later, I’ll bring some down. I’m going to get the girls in bed.”

  “You need help?”

  “No, it’s okay. I’ll do it tonight.”

  She was short with the girls, and bedtime was chaos, but when she finally got them tucked in, she went down to the family room. Jesse was stretched out in the recliner with the newspaper over his face.

  She nudged him. “Hey, babe. Why don’t you just go to bed.”

  He slid the paper down and peered at her. “I’m not asleep.”

  She eased down on the arm of the recliner. “What’s going on? I can tell something’s bothering you.”

  “It’s nothing that won’t work itself out.”

  “You’re sure it’s only work? You’re not upset with me about anything?”

  “No. Of course not. It’s just work. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

  That would ordinarily get a rise out of her. But she merely rolled her eyes at him and went to get a load of laundry started. That seemed like a never-ending chore around here.

  She was pouring detergent into the washing machine when she felt Jesse’s breath on the back of her neck.

  “I think I am going to go to bed.” He sounded defeated. “You need help with anything first?”

  “No. I just wanted to get the laundry going first.” She closed the lid on the washer and turned to look at him. In the yellow light of the laundry room, he looked pasty and drawn. “Do you feel okay? You don’t look so great.”

  “I’m just tired.” He embraced her and gave her a perfunctory goodnight kiss. “I’ll see you in the morning. Love you.”

  “Love you too, baby.”

  She straightened up the house and read a couple of chapters in the novel she’d started last week when Jesse was gone. But the living room felt empty without him, and she couldn’t shake the disappointment that while her husband wasn’t traveling, it didn’t quite feel like he’d come home either.

  7

  Oh, my! Something certainly smells delicious!” Mr. Hager stuck his nose in the air and inhaled deeply.

  Audrey knew a hint when she heard one, but she wasn’t biting. “Yes, as I hope my husband mentioned when you booked your room, we aren’t ordinarily open on Tuesday nights. It’s our family night—there are sixteen of us when we’re all here, so we pretty much pack out the great room, unless we can be outside. I hope we don’t disturb you.” They’d had outsiders at their last Tuesday night with the kids, and while it had gone fine, it simply wasn’t the same as when it was just their family.

  “Oh, you won’t bother me,” Mr. Hager said. “I’ll just take out my hearing aids and be none the wiser.”

  She didn’t tell him that their wild games of Slap Jack sometimes literally shook the house. But at least he’d taken the hint.

  Running the inn had taken far more of her time than she’d bargained for. She wasn’t about to start sharing her Tuesday nights, too. She’d have to talk to Grant—again—about his scheduling. Tuesdays were the one night of the week they rarely had guests. It was why they’d chosen that day of the week for family dinners. She should be glad business had picked up to fill the empty night, but now she wondered if they should make it a hard and fast rule that they were closed on Tuesdays.

  “I suppose I’ll go into town to eat,” the elderly man said. “If the cafe in Langhorne is open for dinner.”

  Maybe he hadn’t taken the hint after all. But she played dumb. “If you get there early. They don’t serve after eight.”

  “Well, then I best be getting ready.” The man started up the stairs. “Do I need a key to get back in to the inn tonight?”

  “We won’t lock the doors until you’re in for the night.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “I hope you’ll be staying for breakfast with us in the morning?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ll count on it.”

  A twinge of regret nipped at her conscience. He seemed like a nice man, and he’d told her earlier that he’d lost his wife about this time last year. Though he hadn’t said it in so many words, Audrey gathered that this trip was part of his grieving process, retracing trips they’d taken during their forty-year marriage.

  She and Grant would celebrate their fortieth anniversary not that many years from now, and she could hardly let herself imagine what life might be like without him.

  She shook off the guilt. She couldn’t be responsible for the emotional state of every guest that darkened their doors. She had not signed up to run a counseling center—or a restaurant for that matter. It was already more frazzling than she’d counted on just getting breakfast for guests who wanted their coffee and rolls served anywhere from five a.m. to nearly lunch time.

  She turned back to the fragrant pot roast and potatoes simmering in the roaster and hoped Link remembered that he’d promised to pick up some rolls to go with their feast.

  Grant came in from the backyard with Huckleberry at his heels. They started across the wood floors, mud flying from one of them. Audrey flew from behind the counter and put up a hand.

  “Grant, stop! Look at your shoes! You’re tracking mud everywhere.”

  “Must be Huck. I don’t have any mud—” He lifted one foot and looked over his shoulder. “Oops. I guess it is me. Sorry about that.”

  “Stay right there.” She sighed. “I’ll get a rag. Huck, sit. Stay. Do you have mud on your feet, too?”

  The dog did as he was told, and Grant took off one shoe and balanced on one stockinged foot while Audrey went to round up an old putty knife and some rags.

  Grant leaned on her shoulder and slipped out of his shoes. She followed him to the back deck and helped him scrape off the worst of the mud.

  “You would wear your shoes with the deepest tread,” she scolded.

  “Hey, did you invite Mr. Hager to have dinner with us tonight?”

  She stopped and looked hard at her husband. “No, I did not. Despite his broad hints. You didn’t, did you?” She went back to scraping the clay-like mud from the crevices of his soles.

  “We’d have enough for one more, wouldn’t we?”

  “That’s not the point, Grant. It’s family night. It changes the whole flavor of the evening when we have outside guests.”

  He didn’t say anything and she seized the opening to further make her case. “I really wish you wouldn’t even schedule guests on Tuesday nights. It’s all I can do just to get dinner ready for the kids.”

  “I thought the girls all brought food. Link, too. The idea was that it would be pot luck, right?”

  “It is. And they’ve been great to help, but I’m making the main dish and trying to get the house clean and the tables ready and—”

  “Audrey . . .” Grant chuckled and wagged his head. “It doesn’t even make sense to clean the house before that crew comes.”

  “Well, maybe clean isn’t the word, but still . . . And by the way, I thought we had a no kids policy at the Chicory Inn.”

  He stopped scrubbing and turned off the water. “What are you talking about. You want to ban the grandkids now?”

  “No, silly. I’m talking about last week’s Tuesday guests. The couple with the kids. Did you know they were coming?”

  “He promised me the kids were well behaved. And they were.”

  “This time. But our guests tell their friends about us, and we can’t say yes to some families with kids and no to others. Besides, what parents are going to tell you their kids are brats? You just lucked out that time.”

  “Audrey, what is going on?” Grant studied her. “Have you been saving up this hit list for the past month?”

  “No, but I do think we need to discuss this. If you want to have these weekly family dinners, I think you need to not schedule guests on Tuesdays.”

  “Listen, you’re the one who’s always saying we have bills to pay. We’re lucky to book guests during the week at all.”

  At Grant’s strident voice, Huck lifted his choc
olate head and looked back and forth between them.

  “It’s okay, boy.” Grant stooped to scratch behind the dogs ears, and Huck lay back down. “Audrey, I’m just trying to pay the bills.”

  She opened her mouth out of habit, but she couldn’t very well argue with that.

  * * *

  It was almost four when Jesse pulled into the parking lot of Preston-Brilon. He’d spent the day in St. Louis visiting the firm’s various clients there, but he was still trying to catch up on the work that had piled up on his desk since Chicago.

  He was starving despite lunch with one of the clients. Oh, but it was Tuesday. That meant a big meal—a great meal—at Corinne’s parents’. Corinne was a decent cook, but it was hard to beat these Tuesday family potlucks. Maybe if he stayed till six and just met Corinne and the girls out at the inn, he could get caught up.

  He entered the building and checked in with the department secretary. “Any messages for me, Sharon?”

  “Hi, Jesse. I left a couple of things on your desk, and I’m guessing Ferreman got hold of you? They said they’d call your cell.”

  “Oh, they did. Right in the middle of lunch.” The distributor was notorious for bad timing.

  Sharon looked sheepish. “Sorry.”

  “Hey, not your fault. Okay, guess I’d better go see if I can find the top of my desk.” He turned and started out of the reception area.

  “Oh, I almost forgot . . . Frank wants to see you in his office.”

  Jesse braced an arm on the door jamb. “Now?”

  She shrugged. “He just said when you get back. It didn’t sound urgent.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” He went to his desk, but his curiosity wouldn’t let him sit down. It was unusual for Frank Preston to summon any employee into his office. He was far more likely to come to his employee’s desk, perch on the corner, and have a chat. Something must be up. May as well see what that was about before he dug into his paperwork.

  He went down the hall and knocked on the open door.

  Frank looked up from his desk, smiling. “Jesse, come in.”

  Jesse’s mood lightened. Maybe this was about that raise he’d been promised. Wouldn’t that be fun news to deliver to Corinne?

  “Close that door behind you, would you?”

  “Sure.” Definitely about the raise. Couldn’t risk one of the other sales managers overhearing and demanding the same. Of course, Jesse often suspected he was on the bottom of the managers salary totem pole already. Not that he could complain. He made good money.

  Frank pulled a stapled sheaf of papers out of his top drawer and came around to sit on the corner of his desk, one ankle propped on the opposite knee.

  “I hate to even have to bring this up, Jesse, but”—he held out the stapled pages and gave a sigh that punctured Jesse’s ballooning hope—“Michaela Creeve brought this in to my office this morning.”

  “What is this?” Jesse scanned the title and the seal of the State of Missouri. The Commission on Human Rights? While its significance was still registering in his brain, he flipped through the pages to see Michaela’s feminine, scrolling signature across the final page. He flipped back two pages and saw his name neatly typed into the form. “Discrimination? On what basis.”

  “She claims that you—” Frank cleared his throat. His gaze dropped to the carpeting. “Well, bottom line . . . She’s threatening to file for sexual harassment.”

  Jesse drew back in the chair. “What?”

  “She claims you . . . made improper advances.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. Come on, Frank, you know me better than that.”

  “She says it happened while you were in Chicago together.”

  Jesse shot to his feet. “Frank, I swear to you, I did nothing in the least improper, but if you must know, she made . . . I guess you’d call it advances toward me.”

  “Which you rebuffed?”

  “Yes. In no uncertain terms.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “I don’t know how I could prove it. It started on the flight home—at least the blatant, obvious part . . . Corinne says I’m not always the sharpest pencil when it comes to this kind of stuff, but I realized Michaela had kind of been”—he shrugged—“I don’t know . . . putting the moves on me the whole time.”

  “In what way?”

  “Stuff like . . . leaning against me. Putting her hand on my knee. Flirting . . .” It was embarrassing to even have to voice these things. Because why hadn’t he stopped it after the first incident?

  As if reading his mind, Frank asked, “And did you reciprocate in any way?”

  “No!” He wished it had come out more evenly. He steadied his voice before speaking again. “Absolutely not.”

  “Michaela claims you hugged her.”

  He closed his eyes, fighting the wave of nausea that rolled through his gut. “She hugged me . . . when I dropped her off at her car.”

  “Where?”

  “Here. In the parking lot.” He gestured in the direction of the company parking lot.

  Frank shook his head. “So, on company property?”

  “Yes.” He was surprised to find his voice trembling. He’d done nothing wrong. It was completely unfair that he was being put on the defensive like this. He took a deep breath before speaking again. “I was . . . taken aback when she did that. Hugged me. But—” He tried to remember. “I suppose I probably hugged back. It would have been awkward not to. But I assure you there was nothing inappropriate whatsoever. Shoot, Frank, you know Corinne. I would never do anything to jeopardize my marriage. Or this company. It—”

  “I know, Jesse.” Frank held up a hand. “Unfortunately, it’s your word against hers at this point.”

  “So . . . what do we do?”

  “Well, she hasn’t actually filed with the State Department of Labor yet. This”—he tapped the papers in Jesse’s hand—“is just a ‘courtesy copy’ to inform us of her intentions. And even if she does submit this to the Commission, that in itself doesn’t constitute a legal complaint. You can see there at the top of the first page that this is just the preliminary step to making such a claim. Frankly, I doubt she takes this any further, but we do need to handle it with care in-house.”

  “What does that involve?” Jesse leafed through the papers and saw the phrases “improper advances” and “inappropriate touch” in Michaela’s precise, flowing handwriting. The sick feeling returned with a vengeance.

  “We’ll need to meet with HR and with Michaela. See if we can iron things out. I need you to think this through though. Is there anything else we should know? We don’t want her springing something on us unaware.”

  He blew out a breath and raked a hand through his hair. “I guess you should know that I talked to her on Wednesday. She’d called my cell phone Tuesday night, and I just wanted to establish that I didn’t appreciate getting calls after work hours.”

  “She called you at home? Where did the conversation take place? Wednesday, I mean.”

  “I tried to meet with her in one of the conference rooms but they were all in use, so we talked in my office.”

  “Please tell me you left your office door open.”

  “Of course. But the conversation did not go well. She implied that I’d made advances toward her, and she accused Corinne of being responsible for me ending things with her, which is ridiculous because there was absolutely nothing to end.”

  “Ah . . . Well, that makes sense. Hell hath no fury and all that.”

  Like a woman scorned. He’d never once thought that old adage would have any place in his life. Adrenaline pumped through his veins as the realization dawned: he would have to tell Corinne everything. Whether it ever became public or not, he didn’t want a secret like that between them.

  And he knew how she’d feel when she discovered he hadn’t told her anything that led up to this nightmare. Shocked. Betrayed. Suspicious.

  The same as he would have felt if the tables were turned.
r />   8

  If you can get the girls buckled in, I can get the food.” Corinne shut the refrigerator with one hip and stacked the salad bowl precariously atop the Tupperware that cradled her just-frosted Chocolate Heath Cake—Jesse’s favorite.

  Jesse snapped his fingers. “Come on, girls. Get your jackets and head for the car.”

  “But, Daddy,” Sari whined, “Remember I lost my jacket. At school.”

  “Then grab a sweater or something.”

  “It’s not even cold. Why do I have to wear a coat?”

  “Because it will be colder when we leave Poppa and Gram’s tonight.”

  “I’ll just take my blanket.”

  “No, you won’t,” Corinne yelled from the kitchen. “Wear that yellow sweater Gram gave you. She’ll like seeing you in it.”

  “It’s too itchy.”

  “Sari!” Jesse snapped. “Go right now! You do what your mom says.”

  Corinne caught Sari’s eye and shot her a look that said “you’d better get moving.”

  She appreciated Jesse backing her up, but he had been short with all of them since he got home from work twenty minutes ago. She knew things were stressful at his job, but she hated it when he took it out on their daughters. Of course, she did the same thing when she was stressed. But it felt harsher somehow, coming from Jesse, who was usually so gentle and easygoing.

  She carried the food out to the car, then came back in to help Jesse with the girls. His jaw was tight and he struggled with the zipper on Simone’s jacket.

  “Here . . . Let me get that.” She knelt in front of the toddler.

  He stepped aside and she quickly popped the zipper into place, then tied the strings on the little hood. Measuring her words, she looked up at him. “What’s up with you?”

  “What do you mean ‘what’s up?’ ”

  She shook her head and looked pointedly at Simone, not wanting to argue in front of the girls.

  He took a step toward the garage, but turned on his heel. “Hey.”

  She turned to face him, expecting an apology.