The Parent Trap Read online

  Next time? Best let that drop, he decided as he returned to the kitchen with the second box. He had signed a one-year lease on this place and until that was up he was in no hurry to move again, so there was no point in giving her a chance to say she wanted to move back to the city. He had already accepted the position as PE teacher at Serenity Bay High School, and he had every intention of giving this fresh start his best shot.

  Besides, this was a great house with its front facing onto a quiet cul-de-sac. Jubilation Court—which really was their new address—had lived up to its name from the moment he’d gazed out the kitchen window. He stared out the window now and surveyed the cedar-plank deck and, between the two towering firs growing at the bottom of the slope that was his backyard, the sweeping curve of Serenity Bay and the Salish Sea beyond.

  Okay, maybe jubilant wasn’t exactly right, but in spite of his daughter’s resentment he sensed he could feel settled here, content even. Emotions that had evaded him since his ex-wife had dropped her bombshell. With a shake of his head, he chased the memories away. Fresh start, remember? The old baggage had been left behind. Right? Right. That’s what he told the kids on his soccer team. We can’t dwell on the past, we can only analyse it and improve our game. If they could believe it, so could he.

  Kate, suddenly quiet, was sitting on the floor and gazing intently at framed family photographs when he once again returned to the living room.

  “Are you going to put these on the mantel?” There was no missing the hint of accusation in her voice. “Or did you plan to leave them in the box and hope I didn’t find them?”

  With her long dark hair and engaging blue eyes, she was every bit as stunning as her media-darling mother, and that scared him more than he liked to admit. It also hurt, more than a little, that she thought he would try to erase her mother from her life. He was a bigger man than that, or at least he wanted to be.

  “I had no intention of hiding that box of photographs. Tell you what, why don’t you unpack as many as you want and put them on the mantel right now?”

  Kate rolled her eyes as only a teenager could. “Maybe later. I’m looking for my shoes, remember?”

  How could he forget? And what had become of the little girl who used to hang on every word he said? Huh. Who was he kidding? Long before her fourteenth birthday last month, his little girl had been morphing into a beautiful young woman with a personal sense of style and a mind of her own. He watched her shift boxes, tear flaps open, peer inside and purposefully move on to the next.

  Never get between a woman and her wardrobe, he reminded himself. If he’d learned nothing else about women during his marriage to Georgette, he’d learned that.

  “All right!” Kate’s gleeful exclamation indicated the all-important shoes had been found. Before she picked the box up, she returned to the photographs. “Can I have this one of Mom for my room?”

  “Of course.” It was important that she maintain a connection with the mother who’d moved halfway across the world, he knew that, but he worried that daily phone calls wouldn’t be enough.

  She set her mother’s photograph in the box and closed the flaps. “Did you give her the phone number here?”

  “I did. Emailed it yesterday along with the address and our new cell phone numbers.”

  “Good.” She picked up the coveted carton of footwear and made her way upstairs, leaving the unasked question hanging in the air. When would Georgette call? She had initially promised to call every day but that was impractical, given her hectic travel schedule, but she did her best. She always called on Saturday, though, and he knew Georgette wouldn’t let Kate down. He hoped. She seldom did, and she had to understand what an important day this was for their daughter. If she didn’t call by dinnertime, he would send a text message reminder. If that was too late for her, well, that was too bad.

  He went back to opening boxes and moving them to the rooms where they belonged. As he did, his thoughts drifted, searching for the exact moment his marriage had run off the rails. The reality was that there hadn’t been a moment. He and Georgette had spent most of their marriage slowly growing apart. He’d gradually become accustomed to being the very-much-on-the-sidelines husband of Vancouver’s most talked-about news anchor, and she had eventually stopped trying to turn her “I’d rather be at the gym” husband into a tuxedo-wearing socialite. Even after they knew it was over, they’d both spent several agonizing months coming to grips with it and helping Kate adjust to their new reality.

  The real end had come in the form of a European businessman named Xavier who had swept Georgette off her feet and onto his Paris-bound private jet. She had agreed to Jon’s having full custody of their daughter and generous child support in exchange for summer visits. The first visit should have happened at the end of the last school year. It hadn’t. Then Kate was supposed to join her mother for a week in Rome, but that had fallen through. Instead Georgette had promised to be in Vancouver several weeks ago, and that, too, had fallen through at the last minute. Now it was going to be Thanksgiving. He knew Georgette loved their daughter and wanted to make her a priority. He just wasn’t sure Kate knew that.

  The doorbell rang as he was contemplating, for something like the millionth time, the overwhelming difference between being a divorced guy with shared custody and a single dad with total responsibility for a rebellious teenager.

  Jason Oliver, the real estate agent who’d rented the house to him, had said he would drop by sometime today. Given that Jon didn’t know anyone else in Serenity Bay, it had to be him. Grateful for the distraction from demoralizing self-doubt and disorganized packing boxes, he wound his way through the clutter and opened the front door to a beautiful woman with a paper plate of cookies in her hands and a teenage girl by her side.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m Sarah Stewart. My daughter, Casey, and I live next door and we wanted to welcome you and your daughter to the neighborhood, to Serenity Bay.”

  Jon’s heart sank, and not in an entirely good way. The real estate agent had mentioned that a widow lived next door. This was the widow? This expensively dressed and stunningly beautiful woman whose poise and self-control reminded him of Georgette.

  “These are for you.” Sarah held out the plate.

  “Thanks. I’m Jonathan Marshall. Jon.”

  “We baked them,” the girl said. She looked to be about Kate’s age, but the similarity ended there. This girl’s blond hair was pulled back in a casual ponytail, and Kate wouldn’t be caught dead in faded jeans, high-top runners, and a red-and-white T-shirt with the letters L-O-V-E across the front. The O was a soccer ball.

  He accepted the offering, backed away from the door, and called upstairs. “Kate? Come down and say hi to our neighbors.”

  “Be there in a minute.”

  He gave them what probably looked like an awkward smile. It sure felt awkward. “My daughter’s minutes tend to be a little on the long side. Would you like to come in?”

  “Oh, well, okay.” Sarah cautiously stepped inside and glanced around. “I have to work this afternoon and you have your hands full here so we won’t stay, but we would like to meet your daughter.”

  “Of course.” There was an awkward pause. She had beautiful gray-green eyes, and he wished he hadn’t noticed. “So...where do you work?”

  “I own a clothing boutique downtown.”

  He’d checked out the town before putting an offer on this house. Serenity Bay’s shopping district on Shoreline Boulevard consisted of three or four blocks of high-end shops, art galleries, bistros and coffeehouses, which hardly qualified as “downtown.” Her occupation explained the elegant outfit, though, and justified his wariness. Over the years his ex-wife had become more and more fixated on appearances, until finally his appearance in her life was no longer important.

  Sarah’s daughter was a different matter. “You’re a soccer fan?” he asked, ref
erring to her T-shirt.

  The girl and her mother shared a knowing look and a quick grin, which was both puzzling and just a bit odd.

  “I love soccer! I play on the girls’ team at school.”

  “You do? Then I’ll be your coach.”

  “Cool,” Casey said. “Me and the other girls on the team were wondering—”

  Kate’s descent down the staircase ended the conversation. “Princess is hiding under my bed. I’ve been trying to get her to come out.”

  She’d swapped the pink sneakers for black sandals that had three straps buckled around her ankles and open toes that showed off the black-and-white-striped pedicure she’d insisted she needed before being dragged away from civilization.

  “Princess is our cat,” he said for no particular reason. “Kate, this is Sarah and her daughter, Casey. They live next door.”

  “Hi.”

  The two teens eyed each other self-consciously.

  “Kate’s going into ninth grade,” he said to break the ice.

  “Me, too.” Casey sounded a lot more eager than Kate looked. “I can show you around if you’d like, introduce you to some of my friends. I’ve lived here forever so I know everybody.”

  Jon held his breath.

  “Oh. Sure, that’d be great.”

  To his relief, his daughter’s tone was considerably sweeter than it had been earlier. Was it genuine? Only time would tell, but at least for now she was being polite.

  “It’s lovely to meet you both, but I’m afraid we have to go.” Sarah stepped out onto the porch and her daughter followed. “You’re welcome to drop by my store sometime,” she said, turning back to speak to Kate. “It’s called To the Nines. A shipment of jeans and tees came in yesterday, perfect for back to school. If you’re interested, that is.”

  “Really? Thanks. I’ll check it out for sure.” Kate’s voice held more enthusiasm than he’d heard in weeks.

  Jon indulged in an inward sigh as his daughter retreated upstairs and he watched his new neighbors cross their adjoining driveways. Sarah Stewart’s makeup and blond hair were flawless. Her beige linen jacket and skirt were the kind of classic that came with a hefty price tag. He hadn’t counted on having another woman in their lives who put way too much emphasis on appearances. Not that the woman next door was in their lives, and to be fair, he reminded himself, there were subtle differences. Georgette had never baked cookies, not even the kind sliced from a roll of store-bought cookie dough. His ex-wife’s stilettos had been her personal trademark, but Sarah Stewart’s simple off-white leather flats looked as though they might actually be comfortable.

  And he had to admit that a fashion plate of a woman who was raising a soccer-playing tomboy daughter kind of intrigued him on some level. Yes, her appearance and her occupation represented things he didn’t much care for, but were those sensible shoes an indication that she had more substance than he gave her credit for? Time would tell.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SARAH’S PHONE LIT UP as she was writing up her final sale of the day. A discreet glance showed a text from her daughter, which she would read after she locked up. She’d had a productive afternoon, and that was a good thing since she’d frittered away most of the morning. She was ready for some mother-daughter time, but her customer didn’t need to know that.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bentley.” Sarah folded a brightly patterned silk scarf in pale pink tissue paper, admiring as she always did the delicate fabric as it slid between her fingers. She sealed the paper with a To the Nines label and slipped it into the shopping bag with the blouse and jacket her customer had purchased. “I’ll have our seamstress shorten the skirt as soon as she comes in next week and call you when it’s ready.”

  “Thank you, dear. I want to wear this to my grandson’s christening in Vancouver next Sunday.”

  “You’ll be the most elegant grandmother in town.” Eleanor Bentley had a husband with deep pockets, a hairdresser who kept the gray away and a wardrobe most women would die for. “How is the new baby?” she asked.

  “Oh, he’s the cutest little fellow. I know everyone says that about their grandchildren, but he really is,” the woman said, beaming as she opened her black patent Louis Vuitton clutch and produced a photograph.

  “He’s adorable.” He really was. Sarah made a point of getting to know her customers on a personal level, and Eleanor Bentley was one of her most devoted. Sarah would agree to pretty much anything to make sure she was also a satisfied customer. “He looks like his grandfather.”

  The woman’s smile widened. “He does, doesn’t he? The Bentley men are a handsome bunch.”

  Sarah had learned that Eleanor, while tiny in stature, had raised four sons who all had their father’s height and good looks. The youngest had recently passed the bar and was now practicing law with his three older brothers, as their father had before retiring with his wife to Serenity Bay.

  In some ways, the elder Bentleys’ marriage reminded her of her parents’, minus the bank account, of course. Her mom and dad still lived in Ucluelet, where Sarah had grown up, in a house full of books and cats where her mother gardened and cooked organic food and her father tinkered with various inventions and engineering projects. No designer duds for them and no sign of retirement, either. They were good people and she loved them dearly—so did Casey—but there had been times growing up that she would have given anything to have a conventional family.

  “Speaking of handsome...” Eleanor said. “I understand the new high school teacher moved in next door to you. Have you met him yet?”

  Sarah’s face went warm as she stepped around the counter and handed the shopping bag to the Bentley family’s matriarch. “Just briefly.”

  Handsome hardly did the man justice, but that was no reason for her to be blushing like a schoolgirl.

  “I’ll see you next week, Mrs. Bentley. If you bring the jacket back with you, and shoes you’ll be wearing with this outfit, you can try everything on while the seamstress is here and she can make any little last-minute adjustments.”

  “What a good idea. Thank you, dear.”

  After Eleanor left the store, Sarah flipped the dead bolt in place and returned to the sales counter as her assistant Juliet came out of the back stockroom that doubled as Sarah’s office.

  “The back door’s locked and I shut down the computer,” Juliet said. “And I unpacked the dresses that came in this afternoon. They’re on hangers and I’ve gone over them with the steamer, but they may still need a little touch-up on Monday morning.”

  “Thank you so much. Before you leave, could you put this skirt in the alterations cupboard while I close up?” Sarah checked her watch, then remembered Casey’s text message. She read it while she tidied up the sales counter and slid some paperwork into her briefcase.

  Got the last Twilight movie. Luv ya! PS: 1 ham n pineapple, 1 pepperoni!

  Sarah smiled at the reminder as she replied to her daughter’s message.

  Leaving now. See you in a half hour.

  Today had been busier than usual, but thanks to Juliet’s help with the hordes of back-to-school shoppers, Sarah’s financial records were up to date and ready to go to the accountant, and she’d entered the new merchandise into the inventory database. Now she could go home, change into comfortable clothes, and settle in for movie-and-pizza night with Casey.

  They’d started the tradition right after Sarah opened the store, when Casey was only seven years old, and she was grateful that her daughter was still enthusiastic about it. Yes, she’d raised a great kid, but outside of school, Casey still spent more time with her menagerie of animals or her nose in a book than with kids her own age. Would that change after she started high school? Would her daughter want to spend Saturday evenings with friends? Maybe even a boyfriend, perish the thought.

  Sarah often reflected on her
own childhood and teen years spent as an avid bookworm and a committed wallflower. She’d missed out on a lot and she wanted more for Casey, she really did, but for now these precious Saturday nights were theirs, and Sarah intended to cherish each and every minute of them.

  * * *

  JON PULLED INTO the parking lot next to Paolo’s Primo Pizzeria. He doubted a “primo” pizza could be found in an out-of-the-way place like Serenity Bay, but as the saying went, beggars couldn’t be choosers. If it were just him, he would have settled for whatever he could find in the boxes in the kitchen, and then power through till he had everything unpacked. Kate was “starving,” though, and the only thing harder to handle than a hormonal teenager was a hungry hormonal teenager. Besides, they could both use a break, and one night of cardboard pizza wouldn’t kill them.

  Inside, the warm air scented with freshly baked crust, spicy tomato sauce and melted cheese almost had him buying the primo promise. Two of the half dozen booths were occupied, one by a family of four and the other by a pair of teenagers, maybe sixteen or seventeen, who were obviously on a date, judging by the way they were nestled together on the same side of the table.

  “Be right with you,” a dark-haired woman said, clearing plates and napkins from a recently vacated table, her Italian accent in perfect keeping with the ambient aromas.

  “No hurry.” He scanned the menu options on the wall behind the take-out counter. One large should be plenty for the two of them if they would do different toppings on each half. Kate, who three months ago had announced she was vegetarian, wanted a Neapolitan pizza because everything else was gross. He was debating over pancetta or prosciutto for his half of the pie when he was greeted by a soft female voice.

  “Jonathan? Hi.” His new neighbor smiled up at him.

  “Oh, Sarah. Hi.” She appeared as freshly starched as she had earlier, making him glad he’d pulled on a clean T-shirt before he’d left the house.