Not Quite Dating (7 page)

He shook his head. “Here, give me the keys.”

“Why?”

“I’ll look at it in the morning, when I can see what’s going on.”

“You don’t have to do that. I can have it towed. Have a mechanic check it out.”

Jack kept his hand out, palm up. “Save your money, let me see if I can fix it.”

Jessie vacillated over what she should
do. “You’ve already done enough.”

“Jessie, darlin’, give me the keys.”

She handed them over. “If it isn’t simple, or it costs you money, I wanna pay for it.”

Jack surveyed his greasy hands.

Jessie opened the back door and pulled out a package of wipes she kept there for her son. “Here,” she said, pulling a couple wipes free and handing them to him.

Cleaning his hands, Jack thanked her. “Let’s get you home.”

“I can call my sister.”

“And wake up your son? Come on.” He grabbed her elbow and led her toward the front of the hotel. “A friend of mine borrowed my truck, so we’re going to have to use a different car to take you home.”

“You have a second car?”

“Not exactly.”

Jessie walked faster to keep up with Jack’s steps.

He stopped in front of the valet porter and smiled. “Hello, Wes.”

Wes stood a little taller at the mention of his name. His eyes swept back and forth between her and Jack.

“Hello, Mr.—”

“Jack,” he interrupted. “
Mister
is so formal.”

“Jack,” Wes said, his eyes continuing to shift almost as if he was nervous or something.

“Wes, it appears that one of the hotels guests is having a bit of difficulty with her car.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, miss.”

Jessie smiled and Jack continued to talk.

“Is there a car available?”

Wes took short steps as he walked up to his podium to check a book sitting on top of it. “There is, but Mr.…Jack, it seems we are short a driver tonight. The other two are taking
other people home at this time. No telling when they’ll come back.”

“That’s fine. I can drive the lady home. Can you have one of your runners bring the car around?”

Wes’s head bobbed up and down, his cheeks rippling slightly as he did. “Right away, sir.”

Jessie grabbed Jack’s arm and led him back a few feet. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you home.”

“In a hotel car?”

“Relax, Jessie, we do this all the time.”

First the dress, then the party, now this? Jack was sure to get canned, and it would all be her fault.

A few seconds later, a limousine pulled up into the circular drive and a porter popped out of the driver’s seat. Wes opened the back door and extended his arm to Jessie.

Her feet wouldn’t budge. This couldn’t be the car Jack spoke of.

Jack pushed her forward. “Get in,” he whispered under his breath. “Act like you do this all the time.”

Jessie plastered a forced smile on her lips and quickly slid into the backseat of the stretch limo.

Bedded lighting roped around the doors and seats. Eight or nine people could easily fit into the space. A minibar sat below a flat-screen television; a moonroof displayed the stars twinkling above.

When the front door closed and Jack pushed a button, lowering the glass separating her space from his, Jessie hopped into the seat closer to him. “You know, Jack, you’re crazy.”

“Nice, isn’t it?”

“Nice? It’s amazing.”

Jack pulled out of the drive and into what traffic milled about this late on a Saturday night.

“You were a guest at the hotel, and The
Morrison takes care of their guests.”

“I was an impostor, and you know it,” she scolded as she ran her hand along the soft leather interior with a sigh.

“Darlin’, there is nothing about you that’s fake. Nothing!”

Jack watched
her from the rearview mirror. Jessie was grinning from ear to ear, pressing buttons and checking out the luxuries a limo provided. Adorable, there was no other way to describe it.

“Have you ever ridden in a limo before?” he asked, turning toward the airport.

“No, can’t say as I have. I can’t believe people live this way all the time.”

“Some do.”

“Can you imagine being able to do this anytime you wanted a ride?”

Jack swallowed and kept his eyes on the road. “I’ve met my share of silver-spooned kids…adults who have had access to limos all their lives. You’d be surprised how many of them are a lot like you and me.” He glanced in the rearview mirror to gauge Jessie’s reaction.

She shrugged her shoulders and petted the leather as if it were fur.

What would she think if she knew he had been riding in limos since before he was born? His dad couldn’t be there for him all the time, and he’d needed to get back and forth to school. A driver had been assigned to him and Katie at an early age. When junior high started, Jack asked his dad if the driver could drive a “normal” car so the kids wouldn’t get on him at school. Gaylord told him
to cowboy up and set the kids right himself. He was a Morrison, and Morrisons had money. They spent it, too.

Jack took it upon himself to offer other kids rides all the time, ending the teasing and starting the party. In high school, Jack learned who his true friends were and who the moochers were. Mike, Tom, and Dean stuck; the others fell through the cracks.

“I guess anyone could get used to this. Lord knows I could.”

Jack smiled and wished he could record her words to use later, when he could tell her the truth about himself. “Is there wine back there?”

“Champagne.”

“If it’s OK with you, I can park by the runways and we can watch the jets take off through the moonroof.” The Morrison Hotel sat on the edge of the convention center, which was no more than four miles from the airport.

“Don’t you have to get this back?”

“No, there’s no one to drive her.” Jack pulled down the dark street where other people parked to watch the jets take off. Ontario still wasn’t overpopulated around the airport to the point where you couldn’t watch.

He found a good spot, killed the engine, and joined Jessie in the back. Once seated, he flipped the switch and opened the roof.

“Wow.” Her eyes sparkled.

Jack found the champagne and twisted off the metal covering. “Here,” he said, standing up to poke his head through the roof. He popped the cork and it flew into the bush. The sparkling wine started to bubble over, and Jessie let out a tiny scream.

“Here.” She thrust a towel at him before the beverage could spill onto the floor.

“Thank ya kindly, ma’am.”

Jessie laughed again and handed him a couple of glasses
once he sat back down.

Jack poured her a glass, then filled his own before returning the bottle to the chilled bucket. He lifted his glass and said, “To new friends.”

“I can drink to that,” Jessie said before clicking her glass to his. She sipped the wine and relaxed back into the seat next to him. Her gaze moved to the roof to catch the bottom view of a jet taking off. “You know, I’ve seen people park here all the time, but I never once thought to do it myself.”

“It’s amazing how they keep those hunks of metal up in the air.”

“I don’t get it, either. I’m surprised there aren’t more problems with them.”

“It’s still the safest way to travel,” Jack said.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve only been on a plane once.”

“Really?” That was hard to believe.

“I was twelve; Monica, my sister, was nine. Mom met some guy who told her he was visiting from Seattle. She’d fallen head over heels for him in the course of two weeks during the summer.”

“I take it your mom’s divorced.”

“A few times over,” Jessie told him, without even a hint of a frown on her face. She was obviously used to her mom’s ways. “Anyway, this guy gave her a line about how he’d love to be with her and us kids, but he couldn’t live in Southern California. He had a business in Seattle to run anyway. He couldn’t ask her to leave here and drag us girls up north…blah, blah, blah.”

“Then what?”

“Mom bought us tickets, packed our bags, and took us to Seattle.” She shook her head at the memory.

“I take it that didn’t go over with Mr. Blowhard.”

“No. Mr. Blowhard’s wife wasn’t too fond
of opening the door and finding us there.”

“Ouch.”

“Monica and I never even had a chance to feel the Pacific Northwest rain they always complain about. Mom took us to the airport, where we stayed for nearly two days until we could get a flight home.”

“Two days? Why so long?”

“My mother didn’t have the foresight to buy round-trip tickets or even have enough money to buy our way home. A friend of hers wired money, but we still had to wait on standby in the middle of the night to catch a cheap flight. It was a mess.”

“Kind of takes the fun out of flying,” he told her.

Jessie sipped her wine again. “What about you? Your parents still married?”

“Ah, no.”

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“Well, my mom took off when I was in my early teens. She kept in touch, in her own way—a phone call here, a letter there. She kept my dad on the hook until my sister graduated high school, then she filed for a divorce.” He remembered that day. “It was June. The weather in Texas was starting to heat up. My dad was working too many hours. Then one day I walked in and found my dad sitting in the den, drinking whiskey.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“It was one in the afternoon on a Wednesday.”

“Oh. I take it that was out of character for your father.”

Jack saw true concern lace Jessie’s features when he glanced over at her. “My dad works hard,” he said in a low voice.

“It sounds like you admire your father a lot.”

“I do. He worked hard and managed two kids without the help of a mom. When my mom was around, he worked harder than anyone I knew. We didn’t see him very much, which might
be why she left him. I don’t know. I don’t remember her complaining. Once she left, he was around more. He took taking care of my sister and me to another level. A better level. Anyway, Mom filed for a divorce, and now we exchange Christmas cards. Sometimes not even that.” Last year she was living in Italy with a guy named Pierre or some other god-awful name.

“Your dad took it hard, didn’t he?” Jessie set her glass aside and sat farther back in the seat.

“I think he always wanted her back. Even after leaving him for all those years, he would have taken her back without even an ounce of explanation as to why she left.” Which was sad beyond words. Why anyone would worship his mother was beyond any reason that Jack could see.

“Did your dad ever try to explain what happened with them? Why she left?”

“No. He’s never talked about it. The only thing I came up with is that she didn’t love him. He took care of her financially; she didn’t really want for anything. They didn’t fight. But what did I know…I was a kid.”

“Has your father remarried?”

Jack shook his head. “No.”

“He must still love your mom.”

He thought so, too. He knew now it had been a one-way love from the beginning.

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t even get a card from my dad at Christmas.” Jessie shifted in her seat, kicked her shoes off, and tucked her legs under her.

“Really?”

“Not a word since he walked out on us.”

“Why did he leave?”

Jessie’s eyes gazed beyond the moonroof as she spoke, her thoughts deep in the past. “He wanted nothing to do with parenthood or monogamy. My mom said
he cheated on her from the beginning, but she was willing to look beyond it.”

“Why would any woman look beyond that?”

“Having two kids to feed makes women do all kinds of things. But I’m sure she would have buckled eventually. Anyway, Mom filed for divorce and pinned him down long enough to get the papers signed. After that, he was gone.”

When Jessie shivered, Jack pressed the button and closed the moonroof. He found a switch and clicked on the seat heaters. “Was that hard on her?”

Jessie shrugged. “I’m sure it was. But she quickly replaced him with husband number two, then three. Lately she just shacks up with them long enough until the new wears off, then finds another.”

“That’s cold,” he said.

“It’s the truth. She lives just outside of Fontana, but my sister would rather live with me and Danny than deal with her drama all the time.”

Jack stretched his arm out along the back of the seat. “That’s just smart. No one needs that kind of instability in their life.”

“True.”

“You and your sister are close, then?”

Jessie brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen in her eyes. “Very. What about you and your sister…close?”

“We get along, but I wouldn’t say we’re close. She’s wild, doesn’t want to grow up.”

Jessie laughed. “This from the guy I met coming back from a weekend in Vegas with his buddies, ‘borrowed’ this evening gown and shoes for a near stranger, and sneaked the hotel’s limo to give a girl a ride home. If you’re calling her wild, I think it runs in the family.”

Jack tossed his head back, laughing. He guessed he didn’t exactly look like a choirboy in Jessie’s eyes. “Since you put it that way…”

“Do you see your family during the
holidays? I’m guessing you didn’t for Thanksgiving since you’re still here.”

“I try and get home, but it doesn’t always work out. What about you? Did you see your mom on Thanksgiving?”

“Couldn’t avoid it. When Renee Effinger—that’s my mom’s name—invites you, you better go. If you don’t, be prepared for some serious guilt the next time you see her. It didn’t matter that I’d worked the morning before, didn’t matter that none of us like her cooking, you’d better come.”

“I guess that means you’ll be with her over Christmas.”

“Probably. Danny thinks she’s funny. It’s my sister and me that she rubs wrong. Everyone else loves her. Heck, you’d adore her.” Jessie leaned her head forward onto her bent elbow resting on the back of the seat.

“Has she done anything awful?”

“No, not really. She tried her best raising us. Which isn’t easy when there’s only one income. I know that more than anybody does. I think maybe I’m ticked at her for not finding one guy and sticking with him. How hard can that be? Thousands of people manage to stay in a marriage for years and years. Why can’t she?”

Jack felt her sadness and wanted to wipe it clean off her plate. “Thousands of people get divorced, too.”

“I know. I guess I just want to see her settled. Safe.”

“Stability is important to you.” Now he understood her desire for a rich husband. Jessie thought that with money came stability. Hell, his parents’ relationship proved her wrong. There were no guarantees, even when one of the parties was hopelessly in love with the other.

“It is.”

“I understand. I remember waking on Christmas every year, dreaming that my mom was there. She’d tell us about some horrible thing that kept her away and how she wished she had been with us.”

“But she never came.”

Jack shook his head and cleared
his throat. “Never.”

Jessie reached over and covered his hand with hers. “Life sucks that way.”

He watched her hand playing with his, liked the feel of it. “Enough of memory lane. What about your future, Jessie…what is your last name?”

“Mann, Jessie Mann.”

“What do you see yourself doing in five years?”

Her face lit up and Jack was glad he changed the subject. “I don’t know. I want to go back to school, like I said, maybe get into some type of event coordinating job.”

“You said something about being a wedding planner.”

“Not that I know anything about weddings. My mom’s marriages at the county clerk’s office don’t count. But yeah, I’d love to help brides with what is supposed to be the happiest day of their lives.” Jessie still rubbed her fingers over his. He wondered if she realized what she was doing.

“You do appreciate how weird that sounds after learning about all your mom’s failed marriages.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in marriage. I mean a real marriage, not the temporary state my mom plays in. I can plan more than weddings. There are anniversary parties, birthdays, corporate events. There’s all kinds of things an event planner puts together.”

“I’ll have to find out what the lady at the hotel did to get her job.”

“I’d love to know.”

“I’ll ask her for you.”

She smiled. “Thanks. What about you, Jack, where do you see yourself in five years?”

Jack turned her palm over and rubbed the inside with his thumb. “I like the hotel business.”

“You want to manage a
hotel?”

“Kinda. I want to start a new concept in hotels. One geared for the typical family, with the typical family budget. Nothing over-the-top or high-end.”

Jessie glanced around the inside of the limousine. “Nothing with limos and caviar?”

“That wouldn’t be cost-effective, but minivans and car seats would work. I want to cater to the middle class, but give them some of the same perks The Morrison does.”