Clean Slate (2 page)

“I’ll tell her,” he conceded.

“And tell her she doesn’t have to rush home. She can stay
as long as she wants, just like you do when you come.”

“She won’t believe me, probably. She’s such a damned
incurable pessimist, but I’ll tell her.”

“And…” Jerry worried his paper napkin into microscopic
specks. “Dad said he’d pay for her plane ticket. I think he already has,
although I told him I’d take care of it.”

Ben closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the
tabletop. “
Verrek
.”

“Why would Louis do that? He knows Kate’s going to find
out,” Trinity added. “Does he have some kind of death wish? As it is, since
finding out about Ben, she won’t let him leave the country on business if she
doesn’t tag along. You guys are both over thirty. It’s not exactly a fresh
wound. Does she think there are a bunch of Rouse spawn all over the globe and
that she’s going to prevent any further humiliation by cutting him off?”

“I don’t know, pixie. Everything’s fucked up. Haven’t you
noticed how off-kilter Dad’s been of late?”

“I’ve noticed.”

“I don’t know what to make of it. He stopped by the barn
last week when you were out at that fine chemicals conference with Nikki. Spent
an hour following me and Ben around.”

Ben picked up his head in time to witness Trinity’s look
of incredulity. He didn’t blame her. Louis Rouse was definitely not the broody
type. “To answer your question, Trinity, Louis claims he has only two children…unless
Moeder
is holding out on him.”

Trinity cocked up a skeptical eyebrow.

Ben shook his head. “No. Either Jerry or I would have to
have a twin for that to be possible, and as far as I know, we don’t.”

The little blonde his brother called “pixie” because of
the haircut she
used
to have leaned
back in her hard plastic seat and crossed her arms over her chest. “So, they
really haven’t seen or talked to each other since Louis took Jerry, and Clara
was pregnant with you?”

“They have not.”

“Shit. And Kate probably thinks otherwise.”

Ben put his hands up in a
beats me
gesture. “Regardless, we’ll have to be very careful about
keeping a bumper between those two women, or
Moeder
is going to bolt. She hates feeling like the whore.”

Jerry stopped tearing paper. “Is that what she’s calling
herself?” His low tenor voice held a bit of an edge.

“Not that word, precisely, but the meaning was implied.”

“But she didn’t know about Kate,” Trinity said.

Ben shrugged again. “She blames herself for a lot of
things. Wouldn’t you, even if it wasn’t deserved? She had a boy. She signed
some papers without having them looked over, then the boy was gone and she
couldn’t get him back.”

“Then she ended up having another who looked exactly like
the first,” Trinity added. “I can’t imagine what her emotional state would have
been like.”

“That’s easy, and it hasn’t changed. She generally feels
like she’s too stupid to live,” Ben said with a scoff. “She doesn’t think she’s
worthy of forgiveness. Thinks she deserved to have her son taken.”

Trinity nudged her fiancé. “Jerry, you’ve got to talk to
her. You need to make her understand it’s not her fault.”

“I know, pix. I will. I’ll
try
.”

Ben believed he would. Of all the things he knew about his
brother from a year of acquaintance, at the top of that list was that Jerry was
very protective of the people he cared about. Jerry cared about his mother,
even though hardly knew the woman. He was generous with his love. Ben could see
it in the way he interacted with Trinity—small gestures like how he’d
pull her onto his lap in the N-by-N barn to look at things on his computer, or
how he’d always let Trinity have the last little bit of coffee in the carafe
because she needed it more than him.

Ben wanted to love someone like that. He just hadn’t understood
the cause of that void in his heart until a quiet, beautiful woman he’d never
really had a conversation with offered to be his wife.

Daisy forced the vile swill down her throat, and wheezed
as a burn spread through her torso. Even her skin prickled, and suddenly she
understood where the idiom “that’ll put hair on your chest” sprang from. Stuff
had both a snap and a kick.

She flicked the little tester cup into the garbage, and
wiped her sweaty palms dry on her shorts. “Blech.”

She’d walked the entire tasting route in the brewery and
had tried samples of approximately ten different beers, based solely on their
labels. She didn’t know a damned thing about beer, so she just looked for
whichever ones had pretty pictures of maidens frolicking in fields or stalks of
wheat. The worst one, dark like cola, had a picture of a hibernating bear on
the tap. Her body’s reaction after taking a gulp of the bitter stuff was the
far opposite from relaxing slumber. She’d actually shouted “Whew!” when she’d
tossed the two ounces back, that’s how potent it was.

Her usual alcohol tolerance was in the wine cooler range,
and beer? Well, beer reminded her too much of her ex-husband. The smell of it.
The taste of it, always on his tongue.

“Blech,” she said again with a shudder as she unscrewed
the cap of the bottle of water she’d been nursing for the past hour. She drank
the remnants, and still had that taste in her mouth, but at least she felt a
little less like a bumbling idiot. What had she been thinking, practically
throwing herself at a man she hardly knew?

But, who could blame her?

Working with Jerry during Natural by Nicolette’s first
year in business had been bad enough for a woman fresh out of a divorce. The
ex-model had a smile that could melt a woman’s panties off, and that was just
his standard expression. When he
tried
to be charming, he could render a woman to babbling idiocy. Before she could
even manage to work up something interesting to say to the guy, he and Trinity
had hooked up.

“Oh, well,” she’d thought at the time. Just her luck.

Then Ben showed up as if by magic—like someone had
done a replicating spell on Jerry to produce a younger offspring with nearly
identical features. Well, Ben’s blue eyes were brighter and he wore his hair
more conservatively. They were both tall and built like the swimmers they were,
but Jerry had about an inch and ten pounds on his “little” brother. Even with
that taken into account, Ben was more than just a suitable substitution for his
brother, at least in her book. In some ways he was better. Where Jerry had a
bit of a dark streak threaded through his personality, Ben was naturally sunny.
She needed a little sunshine in her life. All flowers need sun.

She scanned the walls around her in search of a sign
pointing toward a bathroom. She found it, and backtracked toward the entrance,
catching sight of the Bavarian cuckoo clock over the bank of benches.

“Shit. Six more hours here. What the hell am I going to do
for six hours? Maybe I’ll go sit on the bus,” she said to her feet.

A pale pair of hands grabbed her wrists.

Daisy stopped, squeaks from her cheap canvas sneakers
providing accompaniment to the action, and lifted her baseball cap’s brim to
find Trinity wearing her patented one-eyebrow query.

“Where are ya going, Daisy?”

Jerry and Ben were a few yards away, heads bent over an
exhibit detailing the use of barley and hops in beer. Ben had his arms folded
over his chest in a manner that made the muscles of his biceps stand out in
great relief. Daisy wanted to walk over and wrap her fingers around one. She’d
probably giggle at it and say “Nice” because she was that kind of lame.

She squeezed her eyes shut and groaned. “Uh…bathroom. The
bathroom. I need to…” She cleared her throat. “Did the tour, you know.”

“Right. We’re about to go through. You want to hang? We’ll
understand if you don’t want to do it again, but I don’t really want you
walking around by yourself, either.”

Daisy shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts and
chuckled. “You may be my boss, but I think I’ve got a few months or a year on
you, Trinity.” She stared at her feet some more. “I can take care of myself.”
God, for that matter, Jerry was her boss, too. She didn’t really want two of
her supervisors babying her all afternoon. Especially not after her
eavesdropping incident on the bus. Awkward.

She looked up again, only to find Ben watching them.

His eyes widened as if he were surprised to see her there.

“Shit.”

Trinity ignored her obvious distress. “Sure you can. This
kind of place is more fun in groups. Come on! Make memories with us.” Trinity’s
lips quivered as she suppressed a laugh.

Daisy couldn’t tell if it was at her expense or not, but
all the same, she’d pass. “I don’t want to inconvenience you. You don’t really
have to lug me around. I…”

“Shush. Go pee.” Trinity pointed to the restroom entrance.

Bossy little thing
.

“Go.”

Daisy put her hands up and skulked away. “All right.”
This will end badly.

“Change of plans!” Trinity said, looping her arm around
Daisy’s waist as she exited the bathroom. Trinity walked her toward a bench
where the guys were sitting.

They both stood as they approached, and Ben’s grin made
Daisy study her shoelaces again.
Dammit,
that face.

Trinity continued. “We’re going to hit the attractions
first, then try to get the boys sloshed on the way out. That way they can sleep
it off on the way back to Chowan, but I doubt there’s enough beer in this
entire brewery to get the job done.”

“Must be nice…” Daisy hiccupped. “…to have such a high
alcohol tolerance.”

“Yeah, I’d say so. One Jerry could drink three of me under
a table.”

“Must be nice…” Daisy hiccupped again. “…to have such high
metabolism. Probably never gains a pound.”

“Yeah, right? In the year I’ve lived with Jerry, that guy
has never gained weight unless he wanted to. Hate him.”

“Whatever. You’re a twig.”

They started up the hill back in the direction of the
attractions with the guys keeping a respectable distance a few paces back from
them.

“Hey, you know as well as I do things start to slow down
at twenty-five. I gotta work hard to keep the weight off, especially when Ben
is around because the guy gets bored and cooks. I worry I’m not going to fit
into my wedding dress.”

“Bored?”

“Yeah. When he’s not puttering around the barn, he’s at
our house trying to find ways to entertain himself. Sometimes that involves
massive quantities of butter and carbohydrates. I wouldn’t dare complain. I’ve
learned to boil eggs and broil steaks in the past year, but that’s about the
limit of my expertise.”

Daisy whipped her head around to ogle her blonde companion.
“Really? You’re a chemist and you can’t cook? That doesn’t sound right.”

Trinity shrugged. “Believe it or not, the skill set
doesn’t transfer. I can formulate chemicals by memory, sure, but ask me to make
pancake batter and you’d might as well head to the hardware store and buy a tub
of drywall mud. The results would be just as palatable.”

“I could show you a few things if you’d like.”

Trinity turned her face slowly toward Daisy and offered
her an expression she couldn’t parse.

“Uh, I mean…” Daisy wanted to smack herself.
Really? Offering to teach my boss how to
cook? Maybe I’ll go on and offer my resignation next. Save her the trouble of
firing me.

“Okay. Next weekend, maybe? Clara’s flying in before the
wedding and I wouldn’t want her to think I can’t keep her son fed. Not that he
wasn’t doing fine before I came along.”

“Huh?”
She said
“yes,” stupid.

“Can you fry chicken? I always get the outside really hard
but the middle turns out raw. At eight bucks a pound…”

“Yeah, I know how that is.” Actually, no she didn’t. When
Daisy bought chicken, she bought whole fryers or trays of drumsticks—not
the primo expensive boneless skinless stuff. “My granny taught me all the
tricks. Fried chicken is best if you steam it first.”

“I have no idea what that means. Come by around eleven,
maybe, and stay for lunch? You need to tell me what to buy.”

“Okay.” Daisy breathed out a miniscule sigh of relief as
Trinity nudged her into the line for a log flume ride.

Perhaps the retreat wouldn’t turn out to be so horrible,
after all. She could show Trinity and Jerry she wasn’t just N-by-N’s
soap-making automaton.

Mostly at work, Daisy just did what Momma said. She
followed Momma’s recipes, which were really Nanna’s who’d got them from her own
mother, and added whatever scents, herbs, and oils Nikki had okayed for the
season. Momma never strayed from those old recipes—never adulterated the
tried-and-true blends. Daisy was ready to take some risks and devise some
younger, hipper formulations. She was tired of the old granny floral scents and
the oatmeal soaps they made that were so good for eczema, but not much else.

She wanted, for once, to make a soap that was just for
fun. Something that’d make her feel nice when she sank down low in the pitiful
peach fiberglass bathtub in her rental house. Something with a scent that would
take her away. She’d been wanting to pitch an idea to Nikki for six months, but
every time she opened her mouth to talk to the little dragon-in-charge, no
words came out. She became mute. During Monday meetings she always let her
mother do the talking, even when Nikki asked folks to pipe up with any new
ideas for their product development brainstorming. The words would form in her
chest, then Daisy would just sink down lower in her chair, absolutely terrified
someone would pay attention to her. If they paid attention, they had an opening
to reject her. Insult her.

She clucked her tongue as they wove around the bend in the
line.
Maybe a sheep’s milk soap, scented
with violet…

“What are you thinking about, Daisy? You look a million
miles away right now,” Jerry asked. He leaned against the wood rail dividing
the queue from the pathway beside the attraction, and crossed his arms over his
chest.

“She’s probably solving the world hunger problem, and when
she comes up with the solution she’ll keep it to herself.” Ben wore an impish
smile as he settled beside his brother, and gave Daisy an assessing look.

She fought not to look away—not to be a coward for
once—and as a reward for her unwilling tenacity, the longer she looked,
the softer Ben’s expression became. He really was handsome—the kind of
good-looking that was hard to stare at for long.

Trinity gave her a nudge. “Yoo-hoo, Daisy.”

Daisy broke free of his gaze and cleared her throat.
“Sorry, I was thinking about soap.”

“Are you kidding me?” Jerry asked with a smirk. “You’re
standing in line with the coolest people in the entire company and you’re
thinking about work? Honestly, I feel a bit insulted. How ’bout you, pixie?”

“Nah, but my ego is smaller than yours. What’s wrong,
Daisy? Worried you ruined a batch by being here?”

They moved forward in the line. They were nearly at the
turnstiles between the queue and the ride’s loading area.

“No, nothing like that. I’m not thinking about
manufacturing. I’m thinking about product development.”

“Ooh,” Trinity crooned. “You holding out on us? What’d you
have in mind?”

Daisy opened her mouth but no words came out. She shook
her head. “Nothing. Just something my imagination keeps turning over.”

“You and your mom working on some kind of surprise for the
holidays again? Those starlite mint soap rounds from last year were so
adorable.”

“Oh, those were really Momma’s thing. She used to make
them with Nanna.” Daisy had hated making those soaps, no matter how cute they
were. She actually hated the smell of all sorts of mints. They reminded her of
long church services and how she used to root through Nanna’s purse in search
of entertainment during them.

“I can’t believe how fast they sold out. That reminds me…”
Trinity slipped her phone out of her pocket and tapped out a message on the
touch screen. She hit
send
and shoved
it back into her shorts.

“Did you seriously just text message Nikki an item of
business for Monday’s meeting?” Jerry asked, shaking his head.

Trinity shrugged and wagged a finger at him. “Hey, I’m
helping you do
your
job, here.
Remember last year how we all ended up working overtime those three weeks
before Christmas because we underestimated how many shipments of tinsel-tone
nail polish and minty soap we had to send out? You really want to be dealing
with production snafus again this winter or do you want to be at home
cuddling?”

Jerry mumbled something incomprehensible and wrapped his
arms around Trinity’s neck from the back.

Trinity’s eyes lit up. “Did you just admit I’m right? That
never happens.”

Jerry mumbled some more and buried his lips in the hair at
the side of Trinity’s neck.

The display made Daisy smile as she climbed the stairs to
the turnstile. Trinity needed a Jerry. Without him, she’d been uptight,
high-strung, and a challenge to work with. Jerry had, with a great deal of
finesse from Daisy’s perspective, taken the know-it-all down a peg or two for
the sole fact that he knew
more
. He
was the kind of guy who could beat the pants off pretty much anyone on Jeopardy
without his smile ever wilting, but he tended to downplay his intelligence. His
regular brush-off was, “I don’t have to prove it.”

But what of Ben? Did he have an intelligence that rivaled
his brother’s?

When Daisy turned to look down the stairs to where Ben
last stood behind Jerry and Trinity, she startled to find him two steps behind
her, following her up the queue. He offered her a smile so incendiary, Daisy
had to turn around to see who he was looking at.

There wasn’t anyone else there. The platform ahead of them
was empty. Her face burned hot, and suddenly, breathing seemed a lot like a
major test she hadn’t studied for. She pulled her baseball cap down further
over her brow and managed to draw in a shallow breath as she turned.