Chapter 1 Set Me Up
SET ME UP
Seventeen Years Later
“Jocelyn, I’m not in the mood for a lecture.”
“It’s not a lecture. Come on, Mom. There is no reason for you to be here five days a week working from opening until closing.”
“I’m not retiring. I don’t care what you say.”
She hissed out some air between her teeth. “I didn’t tell you to retire. I said to go part-time. You started to, then you picked back up. Why?”
“I didn’t go part-time. There was a lot going on. Last year I was helping Elise with the wedding. Then after they were married, it was time to chill for a bit. The holidays followed and I had a lot to do and catch up on. It was nothing more than that.”
“That’s right,” Jocelyn said. Her brother Gabe married Elise Kennedy last November.
Elise’s mother had little say in the wedding, but Jocelyn and her mother—mostly her mother—stepped up.
“You always spend so much time making the holidays perfect. I love that. You even took time over the summer. Now suddenly you’re back here five days a week for full days. Why? Don’t you trust me to run things?”
There might be some steam coming out of her mother’s nostrils soon if she didn’t back off. “Jocelyn. Don’t go there. I trust you and Gabe to take over the business. But it won’t be tomorrow. There is a lot going on here, but you’ve got free rein of the finances now, right?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“There you go. It was hard for me to give that to you, but I did.”
“Because everything is bigger now. I can do it more efficiently. I’ve got software that you don’t even know how to use.”
Her mother narrowed her eyes. “Don’t throw that in my face about being old.”
She threw her hands up. “I didn’t.”
“But you wanted to. I’m letting you handle the finances, because you’re right, you’re more equipped and on top of things.
You and Gabe and your father. But I’m still here dealing with staffing and other issues that you don’t have time for in the office.
Regardless of what you think, you can’t do it all.
No one can anymore. Do you have time for more? Be honest.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Not really.”
“And do you want to go out in the field and start learning more about the actual work being done? Because last I knew you resisted that.”
Her lips twisted in frustration, the growl barely being contained. This talk wasn’t going the way she’d hoped it would. “I know I’ve got to do it. There is still time yet to learn that end.”
“There is. And that is why I’m here. We are always busy and I’m catching up from taking some time off this summer. Dad and I are going away next week. A vacation you and Gabe pushed on us.”
“Don’t forget Jayce.” Her twin lived in Charlotte and didn’t work for the family construction firm.
“And Jayce. He doesn’t count. He calls to put the nail in the coffin when you and Gabe gang up on us. You all got your way and we are going to Italy. You get your way more than you want to let on. But this time, I’m not backing down. When I want to slow down, I’ll do it.”
Oh boy, her mother just crossed her arms with a solid nod of her head. Jocelyn knew that move. She had it herself. Not even an army tank could get her mother to budge.
“I just don’t want you getting sick again.”
Her mother sighed, her shoulders relaxed, her arms dropped. “It was twenty years ago, Jocelyn.”
Her mother had cancer when she was in high school. It was hard to witness the treatments, hair loss, the exhaustion, nausea and weight loss. Even Gabe didn’t want to leave for college having stepped up to do more around the house and putting her and Jayce in line to do the same.
“I know.”
Her mother walked to where Jocelyn was sitting at her desk and put her hand out. Jocelyn stood and got a hug.
“We are all still traumatized. I get it. But I’m healthy as a horse and strong as ever. You need to let that toxic stuff go.”
“Proof of it is the crap you’re giving me now.”
Stacy McCarthy gave her one more tight squeeze with a short laugh. “That’s right. You’re not winning this. If you want me to back off, step up more.”
“Or we can promote or hire people.” She knew. She did the budgets.
“Nope. I expect better from you. Why pay someone else for what I’m doing and doing better than they could?”
She laughed. “You’re not cocky in the least.”
“Good thing I passed that on to my daughter. Now, we are done with this conversation. Gabe said he’s ordering lunch, so give him your order.”
Jocelyn didn’t need the reminder of lunch. That was what started this entire conversation with her mother.
She walked into her brother’s office next to hers, shoulders slumped, a frown firmly in place, her dejection written all over her. He leaned back in his chair, grinning like the Titanic was unsinkable, rubbing his palms together as if dusting them off.
“Like taking candy from a baby.”
“You suck,” she said after she turned and shut the door. “I think you set me up to get a free lunch.”
“You were in here bitching about Mom being underfoot lately. Rather than just telling her you’re feeling as if she doesn’t trust you, right away, you jump into early retirement again. That’s on you for not reading the room and being honest.”
“Jerk,” she said.
Gabe laughed. “It’s been building and now you know. You’re more annoyed about the fact that Mom threw it in your face that you don’t take part in anything outside the office.”
“I don’t know why I’ve got to,” she said, slumping in the chair across from his desk. “You and Dad have it all covered.”
“Do you want another fight?” Gabe asked. “Because I’ll win this one hands down.”
She knew better than to make the comment, but couldn’t stop herself from repeatedly sulking over the lecture she’d just received.
“No, I don’t need my butt handed to me again,” she said.
McCarthy Construction was going to be handed down to her, Gabe, and Jayce. She and Gabe would run it. She didn’t think Jayce would ever have a part in it, but he’d still own a third.
“Good. Mom knows her limits. So does Dad. You don’t give Dad a hard time and he works more than Mom.”
“Because I leave that to you,” she said. She was done with this conversation. “Where are we ordering from?”
Gabe pushed his cell phone over to her after unlocking it. “This place around the corner has new ownership for the past year. I’ve been hearing good things. You lost. You get to pay. Be happy I’m keeping it close by.”
She felt as if her brother had set her up on purpose.
But it had more to do with the fact that he was right. She should just speak her mind rather than skirt around the truth.
Her mother hovering only irritated her more, making Jocelyn feel that even at thirty-four, after twelve years of full-time work and now managing all the company’s finances, she still wasn’t trusted to run the offices on her own.
She was scrolling through the menu. “I’ll take the Santa Fe grilled chicken with fries.”
Gabe reached for his phone that she’d pushed back. He hit a few things and held his hand out. “Credit card, please.”
She pulled it out of the back pocket of her jeans and tossed it at the smirk on his face. The minute her brother bet she wouldn’t be able to get her mother to cut back her hours, she was positive she was going to lose.
It was a sucker bet, but one of these days she’d get lucky when it came to winning.
Her card bounced off his chest and hit the desk with a loud whack. “This is the last time.”
“You say that all the time,” Gabe said. “It’s only you, me, and Mom, so not much. Dad is off somewhere meeting with people and won’t be back for a few hours.” Gabe tossed her card back to her and she caught it. “Thirty minutes.”
She stood up. “Enjoy it while you can. I’m going to call your wife now and tell her you’re taking advantage of me.”
Gabe laughed. “As if you’d let anyone take advantage of you.”
She was a sucker for trying to beat her brothers in anything. It just rarely happened.
After twenty-five minutes passed, she went to her car and drove the mile to the pub her brother had picked.
The outside looked the same as she’d seen before when she’d passed by. The sign was different, the name too. Rhea’s Chance Pub.
Guess she had paid little attention to it if she hadn’t noticed the name change.
She pulled the door open and realized she’d never been in here so had no clue what it might have looked like before.
The hostess asked, “Table for one?”
“I’m getting takeout.”
“Oh, to the right of the bar. They will get it for you.”
Duh, there was a neon sign on the wall that said “takeout” pretty much shouting for everyone to see where they had to go.
She marched forward and stopped at the bar.
The bartender was helping someone else, but the moment he turned, a wave of heat surged through her.
Not as intense as it had been back in high school, or at least she didn’t think so.
Then again, she probably wouldn’t have recognized it for what it was back then.
“Damn,” Chance Drummond said. “I saw the name McCarthy and had myself a flashback. Didn’t you turn out just fine.”
“Chance,” she said, her grin widening like it always did when she saw him, her heart giving a subtle extra beat. “You haven’t changed a bit. Still telling it like it is to a woman.”
His dark eyebrows wiggled some. “Why beat around the bush? Hang on.” He moved away from the bar and walked through the door. Yep, her eyes went right to his ass. He was a bigger man than he had been as a boy in high school. “Here you go.”
She reached for the bag he’d set on the counter. “Working here or is this your place?”
“What gave it away?” he asked. “The name?”
She held her fingers up in a pinch. “Just a little.” She figured Rhea was his wife or some other woman in his life. Not that she ever figured he’d be the type to settle down.
“Come back anytime,” he said. “I know your office isn’t that far from here.”
“What makes you think I work there?”
“Because you’d do nothing else,” he said. “Am I wrong?”
“Nope.”
“I bet you’re sitting in a nice, air-conditioned office telling people what to do.”
She held back a frown. She wanted to dispute that, but she’d just lost a bet trying to do that with her mother.
“Looks can be deceiving,” she said. “You have a good day.”
“Oh, I will now,” he said, winking at her, then turned back to a customer.
Her heart still raced the same way it had when she was a teenager and he used to talk to her, as if no time had passed at all.