Franci had been so busy over the past few weeks that she didn’t give a second thought to T. J. Brookner. Sometimes when she was at the college, she thought about their brief period of dating and the harsh words from him at their parting, and thought, What a close call! She wondered how long she might’ve hung in there with T.J. ordering her dinner, telling her what to like and not like, if Sean hadn’t turned up. She was just grateful it hadn’t gone on any longer, especially having faced his incredible anger. That had been spooky.
And then, suddenly and accidentally, she stumbled upon a whole new dimension to the man.
After a brief workout in the college weight room and a shower before going home, a couple of female voices carried across the lockers, just as she was drying off.
“Gone, I hear,” one said. “Suspended and likely to be fired. God bless the Internet, huh?”
“Was it like I heard?” asked another female voice. “Caught red-handed? By a nanny cam?”
“Literally with his pants down,” said the first. “It must have been fantastic. How about that? All these years he’s been claiming that just because he’s marginally handsome and the girls flirt with him, he’s been victimized by gossip. Poor, poor Professor Hottie, caught on tape with two naked eighteen-year-old blondes.”
Both women giggled. Franci gasped and dropped her towel to the floor.
“The story is that this particular ménage à trois started in Cabo on his last diving trip. I suppose he thought he was in control of the girls and it turned out they were in the driver’s seat! One of them had a hidden camera and put the movie on the Internet. From the comments on the site, they were hardly the first. This has been going on forever.”
Franci wandered closer to the voices to hear better. Cabo? she thought. What about his “buddy system”? Sounded as if he had a couple of buddies, all right. He was supposed to have been Franci’s boyfriend on that trip to Cabo. So much for that.
“I think he’s scum, but what’s the actual big deal? Is it against the law or something?”
“I dunno what’s against the law—the word is they were all consenting, but the dean didn’t appreciate him boinking the students on a field trip. There’s policy about that sort of thing—no diddling the students. And the gossip has been pretty damning—he’s been manipulating female students into sexually compromising situations for years. Old-timers around here say his wife left him because he couldn’t keep his hands off the freshmen girls.”
“He’s not the first guy who likes younger women…”
The voices drifted off as the door to the locker room opened and the two women exited. And Franci thought dispiritedly, I believed every word he said.
Franci pulled on her jeans and sweatshirt. She was in such a hurry to get out of there, she stuffed her bra in her purse and pulled on her boots without socks. She left the gym without drying her hair and went out in the cold with a wet head. Her stomach flipped and churned as images she just couldn’t block came into her mind. Fresh young women, vulnerable students, taken advantage of by a man of forty, an instructor. Did he trade sex for grades?
You give me credibility, he had said to her. No one gossiped about him when he had a woman with looks and brains as his girlfriend.
So, there was a lot more about the whole relationship than just his controlling nature. She was nothing more than a decoy. She felt violated.
She drove home in a daze.
She drove too fast; she couldn’t wait to get to Sean. It never even occurred to her not to tell him! When she walked in her house, Sean was sitting at the dining room table with the newspaper spread out in front of him. “Where’s Rosie?” she asked, before she even said hello.
“My mom is picking her up and they’re stopping at the store. Maureen’s cooking to—Hey, you’re white as a sheet.” He stood. “What’s the matter? Were you in an accident or something?”
She just stared at him for a long moment. She thought about spilling the whole story right there, but instead she just walked into his arms. “Close call,” she said. “Hold me. I’ll tell you all about it later.”
“You okay?”
She nestled in closer. She realized uneasily that she hadn’t really known as much as she should have about T.J., but she knew everything about Sean. She knew his strengths and weaknesses. He had never lied to her. When she first saw Sean a month ago, she thought he’d reappeared to screw up her life. She’d literally wanted to rearrange his face. Now, she ran into his arms for comfort and support. Her best friend. A man she knew she could trust. “I’ll be fine now,” she said.
Aiden arrived in Virgin River late on Tuesday, planning to stay until Sunday. He hadn’t been there long before he realized the relationships in his family were changing quite a bit, and quickly. He found his scrappy older brother all soft around the edges, doting on his beautiful, sexy young wife, ever at her hand. If he saw her wrestling a full laundry basket into the bedroom, he took it from her. If she had the step stool pulled over to the cupboards to reach into the highest one for a platter, he lifted her down and got it for her. Aiden was anxious to have dinner with them to see if Luke cut Shelby’s meat.
Aiden caught Shelby in a moment alone and asked, “When do you suppose you’re due?”
“How did you guess?”
“I’ve never seen Luke act like this—hovering, protective, sweet.”
“Annoying, cloying and paternal. I don’t have a date—I haven’t been to the doctor yet. But I suspect it happened on the wedding night, just as Luke planned.”
Aiden laughed. “You’re going to want to watch that. Unless you want six of them.”
“Oh, I might have two, but not six.” She grinned. “Snip, snip.”
“Have to admire a forward-thinking woman,” Aiden said with a grin. “Congratulations.”
“I suppose there’s no point in keeping it under wraps anymore, now that you and Sean both know. And if Sean knows, Franci knows. And if we don’t tell Maureen soon, she’ll feel left out.”
“Speaking of Maureen, is she driving you crazy?” Aiden asked.
Shelby shook her head. “I feel so guilty that she isn’t staying with us here, but she’s smart. Two women under the same roof for a long period of time will eventually have a power struggle. But not Maureen and Vivian—they seem to have a special bond. Luke says they’re a couple of strange old broads,” she said with a giggle. “Really, their living situation seems to be working out just fine.”
“You can give the credit to me,” Aiden said.
“Love your humility,” Shelby said with a laugh.
“Seriously—my advice to her was to stay out of the way. I don’t know much about mothers and daughters—maybe they do all right for extended visits. I can tell you that we all worship our mom—there’s no woman I admire more—but I don’t want to live with her for more than four days, tops. I wasn’t that concerned about how you’d deal with her, Shelby. I was afraid Luke would strangle her after a few days.”
“But why?”
“With everyone else in the world, Maureen is easygoing. She knows how to put people at ease, make them comfortable. But with her sons, she has high expectations. She’s been trying really hard to keep a lid on it, but she eventually always has an opinion about how we should live our lives. Not a one of us has gone about things the way she’d like.”
“What? But that can’t be right! She’s totally proud of you all!”
“Uh-huh.” Aiden laughed. “Except for a few little things. Luke avoided commitment for too long after his bad marriage. Colin has had woman trouble of one stripe or another since he was fifteen. She was completely disappointed in me for marrying someone for only three months—she thinks I just didn’t make an effort. Sean has a child because he refused to commit. And Patrick, her pride and joy and baby, is rumored to be thinking of marrying a girl who isn’t just a non-Catholic—she calls herself agnostic. Did you know my mother almost became a nun?”
“I heard that, yes. That might explain some things.”
“Believe me, I know nuns who are more liberal than Maureen…” He laughed and shook his head.
“Your brother is actually worried about her. He’s planning to have a talk with you. Maybe you can help in some way. You seem to have the best rapport with her.”
“What’s up?”
“It could be nothing. I didn’t even really notice at the time. A nice friend of our local minister stopped to talk while we were all having dinner at Jack’s and Maureen completely blew him off. He asked her out to dinner and she lied and said no, because she’s recently widowed. He’s a very nice man—handsome, funny, just a few years older than Maureen. Luke called her on it and she said she would absolutely never date, not even just to be social. Something about all that being for young girls.”
Aiden’s dark brows lifted in surprise. “Is that right? I never gave it much thought, but I assumed she went out occasionally and just didn’t mention it to us. She’s like that—she can be so private she’s almost secretive. I didn’t want to pry, but she was always busy enough that she had to be doing something. Maybe I just hated to think she spent all that time doing volunteer work at the church or hanging out with other widows. My mother is beautiful and she can be a lot of fun. I’ve always been a little surprised she didn’t remarry. In the first couple of years after Da died, I admit I was relieved she didn’t hook up right away.”
“Relieved?”
“I didn’t want to see her make an impetuous move like that out of loneliness and have it turn out to be a mistake. But after twelve years, it’s becoming harder to see my mom all alone.”
“She’s not alone,” Shelby said. “She has a million friends and lots to do, but she believes she’s too old for romance.”
He smiled. “I had a patient last year whose eighty-three-year-old mother just got married for the second time. She wore a lacy white gown.” He chuckled. “And her orthopedic shoes. My patient said her mother was a little flushed for a month. True love. I’d prefer to think my mother was open to something like that than being closed off.”
“Will you try to talk to her, then? Will you be delicate?”
“I have no choice but to be delicate. The only time my mother will discuss anything personal is if it’s about one of us.” He put his arm around Shelby and gave her a squeeze. “Don’t worry about Maureen, Shelby. I think she’s happy with her life. If she’s avoiding how much more fulfilling it could be, at the end of the day it’s her choice.” And Aiden thought to himself that if she’s not even aware of how much more life could give her, maybe she’s the lucky one. For Aiden’s part, he was all too aware what was missing for him.
On the day before Thanksgiving, Maureen planned on baking at Luke’s house. She drove to the grocery, collected all the supplies she needed and then went to Virgin River. Sean was keeping Rosie out of preschool and day care for the day so she could get acquainted with her uncle Aiden before the big dinner on Thanksgiving. Maureen would be doing what she loved most—spending time with her family and making them her special holiday treats. The only thing that would have made it better was if Paddy and Colin could have joined them, but neither one had managed to get leave. It would have been delightful to share Thanksgiving Day with George, but of course he’d be with Noah and his family.
When she pulled into Luke’s cabin complex, Aiden was waiting on the porch, a cup of coffee in hand. She left her groceries in the car and went to him. He set his cup on the porch rail and wrapped his arms around her, laughing and hugging. “You look fantastic,” he said. “I think being a grandmother agrees with you!”