Sentimental Journey (5 page)

"I don't blame you at all. If the roles were reversed, I might feel the same mixture of regret and indifference." He released her gaze and glanced at the walnut-cased mantel clock. "Have you
eaten yet?"

Should she lie and claim she had eaten? Jessica toyed with the thought. But she was hungry and the growling of her stomach would tell him she was lying. His sharp gaze was back on her, waiting for an answer.

"As a matter of fact, I was just fixing myself something when the doorbell rang," she admitted. "So I haven't eaten."

"Good, then we'll be able to have dinner together." His eyes briefly noted the blouse and slacks she wore. "There's no need to change. Where we're going, anything else would be out of place. If you're ready to leave, we can go now."

"Give me a couple of minutes to put away the food in the kitchen," she asked as he inclined his head in silent agreement.

Her hands were shaking as she set the chicken and salad back in the refrigerator, and she took a deep breath and tried to calm her rattled senses. She would get through the evening Somehow without letting him see how his company affected her, she vowed to herself.

"Ready?" A dark brow lifted when she reentered the living room.

"Yes." Jessica took her bag from the coffee table and slipped the long strap over her shoulder.

Brodie held the door open for her and waited in the hallway while she locked the dead bolt. Side by side, they walked outdoors. His hand came up to rest on her backbone above her waist. Its guiding pressure was light, but sufficient for Jessica to be aware of the contact and to be unnerved by it. He directed her to a dark blue Cadillac parked at the curb, unlocked the passenger door for her and helped her in.

When Brodie slid behind the wheel, Jessica ran her hand over the cream velour armrest. "It's a beautiful car," she said to break a silence that, to her, had become uneasy.

A smile twitched at the corners of his hard mouth. "I'll tell the rental agency you said so." He slid the key in the ignition and started the engine.

"It isn't yours, then?" Somehow she hadn't expected that answer.

"Not this one." Which indicated that he owned one. As he turned the car into the street, his gaze skipped to her. "I always dreamed of owning a Cadillac. Most poor kids do. As soon as I could afford it, it was one of the first things I bought, Now it's stored in a garage somewhere." He was incredibly indifferent to the fact.

Jessica stared. She couldn't help it. "You do know where it's stored, don't you?"

"In Louisville, I think." His attention was on the traffic. His reply was so absently given that Jessica had to believe he wasn't certain of its location and wasn't bothered that he didn't know. "That sounded arrogant, didn't it?" Brodie shot her a brief, self-mocking glance. "Since I travel a great deal, it hasn't been practical to have my personal car wherever I am for a very long time. I've taken the fact for granted without realizing how it might sound to someone else."

"How did your travels bring you to Chattanooga after all these years?" Jessica questioned. "You never did mention this noon why you were back."

"It was a combination of circumstances," Brodie said, which told her absolutely nothing. "Mostly it's a sentimental journey to see where it all began." Again she was the cynosure of his blue eyes. "You find that hard to believe, don't you, Jessica?" he said, seemingly with the ability to read her mind. "But it's difficult to know where you are if you've forgotten where you came from."

"So you're taking a trip into the past, so to speak." She thought she understood. At the same time, she was also discovering that Brodie was a complicated man with many facets like a well-cut gem.

"Tonight's journey brings me here." He swung the long car into the partially lighted parking lot of a restaurant. "Have you eaten here before?"

It was a nondescript building with a pink neon sign spelling out the word restaurant. It was a busy place as evidenced by the numerous other vehicles parked in the lot and the crowded tables visible through the windows.

"I'm not sure," Jessica admitted.

"It isn't surprising if you haven't." His remark seemed to be a sardonic comment on her more prosperous background. The engine was turned off, but Brodie made no attempt to get out of the car. Instead he gazed at the building, alive with sounds and people. "When I was a boy, my father brought me here every Friday, payday. It was a weekly treat, the one night we ate out. As I grew older, it was a place to hang out with my friends. I checked earlier this afternoon to see if it was still in business, but I can't vouch for the food. Are you game to try it?" His look held a hint of challenge.

Jessica wondered if he thought she was going to become snobbish and indicate that the place wasn't good enough for her. If he did, he didn't know her very well.

"Why not? All those people can't be wrong." She glanced at the filled tables inside.

Brodie opened his door and stepped out. Jessica didn't wait for him to walk around the car and open her door. She did it herself instead and joined him at the front of the car, to walk to the restaurant entrance.

"I have another confession to make," Brodie said as they wound their way through the tables to an empty booth against the wall.

"What's that?" Jessica slid onto the bench seat.

He sat opposite her. "This is also where I brought my dates, especially the more beautiful ones, so I could show off in front of the guys." He was smiling as he answered, a mocking glint in his eyes.

But she didn't return the smile. "Is this where you would have brought Jordanna if she'd agreed to go out with you?"

"More than likely." Brodie nodded, his gaze narrowing fractionally.

"Are you fulfilling a fantasy, bringing me here as a stand-in for my sister?"

"Probably," he admitted.

Jessica was certain the truth was more positive than his answer. A waitress brought them menus, and Jessica opened hers and began studying it. The fare ran the full gamut from sandwiches to salads to full-course meals, breakfasts and desserts. She hadn't made up her mind when the waitress returned.

"Have you decided?" Brodie asked.

"Not yet." She didn't glance up from the menu. "Go ahead and order."

"As I remember, the most popular item on the menu was a hamburger, french fries and a malt. I'll have that. Coffee instead of the malt," he told the waitress.

Jessica closed the menu. "I'll have the same, with the malt, chocolate."

When the waitress moved away, Brodie said, "You didn't have to order that."

"I happen to like hamburgers and french fries," she defended her choice.

"I remember times when I had to wait for my date to order so I would know whether I could afford to have anything. It was always a nightmare wondering if some girl was going to order an expensive steak and if I had enough money to pay for it." His mouth quirked into a dry half smile. "At sixteen, I didn't know what Chateaubriand was, let alone how to pronounce it." He opened a fiat cigarette case and offered it to Jessica. "Cigarette?"

"Thank you." She took one and bent her head to the gold lighter in his hand. A yellow flame curled around the tip of the cigarette and Jessica leaned back, blowing a stream of smoke into the air. She watched Brodie light his own cigarette, noting the expensive gold lighter. "That's a far cry from penny matchbooks."

"What would you know about penny matchbooks?" Brodie mocked cynically.

"A lot of firms use matchbooks for advertisement. It's my job to know the cost of such items." She didn't claim more intimate knowledge than that.

"What's your position with the agency?"

Jessica sensed an implication that her job was a superfluous one. "Uncle Ralph doesn't practice nepotism, if that's what you're thinking," she told him firmly. "True, he did offer me the job because I was his niece, but if I'm not any good, he isn't going to keep me."

"No businessman would be successful if he didn't have that attitude." Brodie neither admitted nor denied that her correction was justified as he repeated his question. "What do you do?"

"I handle the older, more established accounts so I can gain experience before attempting to solicit new accounts," she said, and resented the way he made her feel so defensive.

"Your uncle is missing a bet. If you came into my office with a proposal, I would have a great deal of difficulty looking at you and turning it down."

His look was suddenly very male and very suggestive. Jessica flamed under it and changed the subject to hide the hot confusion rushing through her.

"What do you do? You didn't say earlier."

"I take things that are broken or run-down, repair them and make them run smoothly again." He flipped the ash from his cigarette into the metal ashtray that was blackened by previous smokes.

"What kind of things?" she asked curiously.

"Companies, mostly manufacturing firms."

"So now you own a whole string of successful companies," Jessica concluded.

"No. I buy controlling interest in a faltering company, make it successful again, then sell it for a handy profit."

"What did you do? Go back to school and take a business-management course?"

"No. A long time ago I learned that ninety percent of everything you need to know in life is common sense. The other ten percent I could buy." Brodie studied the smoke curling from the tip of his cigarette, half-burned down. "I was irritated and impatient with school. You learned all the subjects and no one taught you how to apply them in life."

"Is that why you quit?" Jessica wanted to know.

"I quit because I thought I was smart. Later, I didn't go back because I didn't want to find out how ignorant I was. Over the years, I've had to educate myself, but it wasn't easy," he stated.

Unwillingly Jessica felt a glimmer of admiration. Nothing he had said resembled bragging or boasting, just a simple statement of facts. She suspected he was as hard on himself as he probably was with everyone else.

"How did you get started, buying companies and so on?"

"A guy in Knoxville needed some help in his welding shop, but he couldn't afford to pay me the going wage. He offered me a working partnership and I accepted. A year and a half later, a larger welding company bought us out. He stayed on to work for them. I took my money and bought into a repair shop where the same thing happened," Brodie explained with marked indifference. "The third time I realized I didn't need a partner and I didn't need to physically work myself. All I had to do was clean out the deadwood, hire people with the skill to do the work, and modernize methods."

"As simple as that," she said with skepticism.

"Yes, it's as simple as that," he agreed.

The waitress stopped at the booth to serve their food. A slice of raw onion rested on a lettuce leaf beside the hamburger on her plate. Jessica glanced at it before adding mustard to her bun.

Brodie noticed her hesitating look. "Go ahead and have the onion. We can buy some breath mints when we leave."

She had never been with any man who was quite so straightforward. The bluntness of his manner flustered her, plus the fact that he seemed capable of reading her every thought. Jessica merely shook her head in refusal of his suggestion. After swallowing a bite of hamburger she sensed her frustration amused him and attempted to divert his attention.

"You mentioned earlier that you wanted to ask me about some of the old crowd. Who, for instance?" she questioned.

The people he named were ones she either knew or knew about. Jessica suspected he had deliberately chosen people he knew had been friends of either her brother or sister.

When they had finished their hamburgers, Brodie ordered another cup of coffee. Jessica refused the cigarette he offered her and stirred her malt with the straw.

As he bent his head to light his cigarette, she studied the black sheen of his hair. Devil black, she had called it once. It contrasted sharply with the vivid blue of his eyes. His lean, hard features had become encased in a mask that permitted few expressions to flit across its surface.

There were lines crowfooting from the corners of his eyes and grooves slashed into the tan skin on either side of his mouth. It was the compelling face of a self-confident man certain of his ability and his masculinity; two rare characteristics.

His gaze lifted from the cigarette to catch her staring at him. Jessica sipped her malt and tried not to react to the almost physical touch of his look.

"Has the place changed much since you used to come here?" she asked to erase the silence.

"Not much." He glanced disinterestedly around the interior of the restaurant. "It's been repainted and they've moved the jukebox to a different wall. But it's basically the way I remember it."

"It must remind you of a lot of good times," she suggested.

"Yes." Brodie seemed momentarily absent, lost in his thoughts. Then he came back to the present. "It also reminds me of what I never want to go back to being." He took a drink of his coffee and leveled his gaze on her. "We never had much when I was a kid. Our furniture, our car, practically everything we ever owned was secondhand. I was determined that when I grew up, I was going to have the best," he stated.