Chapter 6
“Well, well, well,” Liz remarked. “What was all that about?”
Jenna had to take several deep breaths before she could make herself reply. “I was trying to offer an olive branch to that man but next time I won’t even bother,” she said tersely. Not that there would even be a next time. She’d make sure there wasn’t.
“Oh, really?” Liz took a sip of her second margarita, looking amused. “From over here it looked like you two were flirting.”
“ What? ” Jenna felt a full-body flush sweep over her in a tide of heat as she shook her head so violently her ears almost rang. “Absolutely not.”
Liz’s smile was teasing as she lowered her glass. “Are you sure about that?”
“Of course I’m sure!” Jenna replied indignantly.
“He insulted me and Miller’s Mercantile again.
The guy is a complete ass .” Her voice rang out a little too loudly and with a pang of unease, Jenna wondered if Jack could overhear her.
Well, who cared? He deserved to be called every insult she could think of.
“So the lady doth not protest too much?” Liz quipped. “Good, because then I might have a chance.”
“You want to date Jack Wexler after what you’ve seen of him?
” Jenna demanded. Not to mention that Liz had to be ten years older than Jack, although Jenna supposed that didn’t matter too much.
Maggie was ten years older than Zach, and they were certainly making it work.
But the thought of Liz and Jack dating… well, she didn’t like it, for some reason.
“I certainly want to get to know him better,” Liz replied equably. “He’s uber rich, good-looking, dresses well, and doesn’t seem to me to be as rude as you think he is. He came over here to introduce himself, after all, and I thought he seemed pretty friendly, in a reserved kind of way.”
“Hmph.” Jenna reached for her empty margarita glass and thrust it at Liz for a refill. She was not going to say anything more about Jack Wexler. She wasn’t even going to think about him.
Liz laughed as she poured Jenna some more margarita. “The look on your face!” she exclaimed. “What can I tell you, the sparks were definitely flying over there when you two were chatting. But as long as you’re sure you’re not interested…”
“Trust me,” Jenna interjected darkly, “I am not interested.” She glanced back at Jack, intending to give him a full-on glare, but he was talking to Maggie and not looking at her, which was, perversely, aggravating. Never mind. She really wasn’t going to think about him.
“Aren’t we meant to be playing Scrabble?” she asked Liz, a little peevishly. “And having nachos?”
“Suit yourself,” Liz replied. “I’m just enjoying watching the world go around.”
Jenna suppressed a groan as Liz trained her gaze on Jack, who was leaning against the counter, smiling at something Maggie had just said.
When he smiled, Jenna couldn’t help but notice, he looked different.
Lighter, the lines of care drawn from nose to mouth and fanning out from his eyes had softened.
How old was he, she wondered. Forty? Forty-five?
Not any older than that, surely. He certainly looked fit enough, even if he’d been ill.
She could see the bulge of the bicep of the arm he had braced against the counter, the sleeves of his button-down shirt rolled up over strong forearms. Not that she was looking, of course. He’d just caught her eye.
“Well, I’m going to play Scrabble,” she declared, and got up to find a board.
Most of the people there, she realized as she took a Scrabble box from the shelves lining one wall, did not seem to be there to play Scrabble, or any other game.
They were happily chatting and laughing as the first platter of cheesy, jalapeno-scattered nachos came out, ignoring the boxes of Scrabble lying about.
Resolutely, Jenna took herself off to a table for two in the far corner and started setting up the board. She’d play by herself if she had to, but she had no intention of fanning the flames of speculation when it came to Jack Wexler, by chatting about him or to him. Definitely not to him.
“Ah, are you playing?”
Jenna looked up, having just put seven tiles on her rack, to see Starr’s Fall’s unofficial matriarch Henrietta Starr standing imperiously in front of her, her gnarled hands clasped on the head of an ivory-topped cane of burnished mahogany.
“It appears that you might be the only one,” the elderly woman quipped with a small, shrewd smile. “Do you have a partner?”
Jenna gestured to the seat across from her. “You’re welcome to join me.”
“Thank you,” Henrietta replied with gracious hauteur, and she perched on the chair, her back ramrod straight, her ankles neatly crossed, her eyes seeming icy-blue—the same shade as Jack’s, almost, Jenna couldn’t help but notice—in her wrinkled face.
Jenna knew Henrietta Starr more by sight than any interaction she’d had with her over the years.
The old lady had been more or less housebound for decades, although Jenna could still remember when she’d been a little kid, and Henrietta had appeared, dressed magnificently in belted suits with narrow skirts and padded shoulders, a fox-fur stole draped over the ensemble, to cut a ribbon or judge a contest on the town green.
There had always been something commanding and frankly a little intimidating about the woman, and there still was, even though she had to be over ninety, and now looked tiny and wrinkled and alarmingly fragile.
The fire in her eyes, that sense of remote confidence, remained the same.
“Do you play Scrabble very much?” she asked as Henrietta laid her cane to one side before taking her own tiles.
“I have in the past,” she replied with dignity.
“And Maggie, the proprietress of this establishment, plays with me on occasion. We’re both equally terrible.
” A smile split her face like a crack in a plate and Jenna found herself smiling back.
“Poor Maggie thought I believed myself to be a champion, but trust me, my dear, I am well aware that my better days are far, far behind me.”
“Well, it’s a relief to hear about your Scrabble-playing abilities,” Jenna told her, “because I’m probably equally terrible.”
“You run Miller’s Mercantile, don’t you?” Henrietta remarked as she carefully arranged her tiles. “I remember when your parents bought that old place. It must have been forty years ago now.”
“Forty-two,” Jenna confirmed with a small smile.
She realized she was a little curious as to what Henrietta Starr had made of her parents—Dave and Polly Miller had been only twenty-seven when they’d bought the falling-down farmhouse that had become the general store.
They’d been hippies twenty years too late, with chickens wandering through the kitchen and cannabis smoke wafting through the air, or something like that judging from the stories they’d told.
By the time Jenna had come along they’d cleaned up their act a little, but the store had remained the lovably ramshackle place it had always been and that Jenna was reluctant to change…
even though her parents had been happy enough to leave it—and her and Zach—behind and embrace their new retired life in Florida, something Jenna found unsurprising considering their history but still managed to hurt.
Children were supposed to be the ones who blithely flew the nest, who forgot to call home, who guiltily sent a card several weeks past a birthday, not the parents, and they hadn’t even sent a card, anyway. Her mother had left a voicemail.
“How time flies,” Henrietta replied dryly, “except when it drags.”
Jenna smiled in rueful acknowledgment at that. She imagined time might drag a little for a woman who was mostly housebound, waiting out her years alone. She knew Laurie visited her, which was very good of her friend. Maybe she should, too.
“All right,” she said cheerfully as she glanced down at her tiles. “Let’s see how good you are.”
“I told you I was dreadful,” Henrietta replied imperturbably. “Are you still running that store?”
Jenna glanced up. “Yes,” she replied frankly, “or trying to.” Somehow it was easier to talk honestly to the no-nonsense Henrietta Starr than it was to the obnoxious Jack Wexler. She could admit her struggles to Henrietta more than that smirking man.
“I’m afraid I don’t shop there anymore,” Henrietta told her matter-of-factly, without so much as a hint of apology. “It’s too far out of town for me to walk.”
“I think you do shop there, actually,” Jenna replied with a small smile. “Doesn’t Laurie Ellis do some shopping for you?” She knew Laurie dropped by the mercantile once a week at least, to pick up a few cans of soup and other staples for Henrietta.
Henrietta drew back, looking startled. “Is that where she gets my shopping?” she exclaimed. “Well, then, let me tell you, dear, you could do with a little more variety in your merchandise, and in particular, your soup.”
“Oh?” Zach had complained about such things before, and it had rankled Jenna considerably, but somehow she couldn’t be offended when Henrietta said it, maybe because she recognized something of herself in Henrietta—or more aptly, Henrietta in herself.
They were both plain-talking, independent people—and she’d probably end up an old spinster too, Jenna thought on something of a sigh.
For some reason, her glance moved back to Jack; he was chatting to Zach now, looking serious as he swept his hair back from his eyes with one long-fingered hand.
Resolutely she turned back to her companion.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she promised. “What kinds of soup would you suggest?”
“Something with a little heft to it,” Henrietta replied with feeling. “If all you’re eating is soup, you want it to feel like a meal.”
“That’s certainly understandable,” Jenna replied with a smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good,” Henrietta replied tartly, and then turned to her tiles.