Free On the Ropes by Holley Trent Page B

needed was a good cry, she would have been on the road to happiness far sooner than she’d managed. She’d needed tools to heal. Stephen wanted to help Jan find hers.
    “Hey,” he said, “I bet you Meg’s not wearing any make-up, either. Does that make you feel better?”
    Jan opened her eyes. “It does. Let’s go see if it’s true.”
    He gestured toward the door. “After you.”
    She didn’t move immediately. She looked toward the door and wrung her hands just like she had last night.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “I guess I feel a bit like the odd woman out. This is your family. I don’t even fit in with mine.”
    That little revelation pulled a knot into his gut, but he didn’t address it. He suspected she’d take it back if she could. He’d promised himself he’d practice a hands-off courtship, but how could he when the woman in front of him was so obviously starved for affection?
    He slung his arm around her waist and guided her through the door. “I’d bet you good money Seth has bags under his eyes the size of your suitcase. No way was getting here this early his idea.”
    She chuckled and they descended the stairs. “Maybe they’re just ready to get out on the beach.”
    “Toby maybe. Meg’s a sun-avoiding vampire. Seth could take it or leave it.”
    No sooner had they rounded the corner did Seth, in the kitchen, hold up two bottles of whiskey from the tote bag and say, “Top shelf.”
    “Yeah,” Stephen said, and he had to give Jan an entreating little tug to move her along. She seemed to have frozen there at the sofa. “I think Dad feels like he has to bribe you to take care of Meg.”
    “I heard that,” came her sharp voice from the parking pad stairwell.
    “She has ears like a hawk,” Seth said.
    “Jesus.” Stephen rubbed his chin and pondered that one out. Seth sucked with idioms. He’d been in the U.S. long enough to have absorbed some peculiar turns of phrase, but sometimes he misheard them or they got jumbled up in his head and came out a mess. “The phrase is eyes like a hawk.”
    Seth shrugged and set down the bottles. “Probably has those, too.”
    Stephen gave quiet Jan a little squeeze at the waist. “See. Big fucking bags.”
    Seth’s eyes widened. “What? The luggage? I know. I told Megan she didn’t need to pack the entire dresser.”
    “No, bro. The dark circles under your eyes. What time did you get up this morning?”
    Seth made some sound between a snort and a guffaw, which out of his broad chest sounded a bit like a foghorn coughing. “Three. We would have been here sooner but I insisted on driving the speed limit.”
    Meg appeared in the stairway, huffing and puffing at the top step, with Toby on her heels. She had a cup carrier in her hands that Seth hurried over to take from her.
    “I think that’s everything out of the car. We can go to the superstore now. Hello, Janette. I didn’t know what you wanted in your coffee, so I ordered it black. There are donuts around here somewhere.”
    “Top shelf in the pantry. I caught Toby in the bag.” Seth cast his stepson a chastising glance.
    Toby gave his best innocent angel look in return and settled onto the big sofa with his tablet computer.
    Janette moved shyly toward the counter.
    When she was at work, she exuded such confidence. She was a force to be reckoned with. Away from work, she seemed very unsure of herself—as if she didn’t know how to navigate free time the way she did her professional life. Then what she’d said about not fitting in with her family came back into his mind. Perhaps her expectations of how people would behave were skewed.
    “Jan, are there discount superstores in Bermuda?” Stephen asked.
    He held down the coffee carrier while she twisted one of the cups out and then grabbed one for himself.
    “No,” she said. “Nothing that large.”
    “Oh, well, you’ve got to experience it firsthand,” Meg said with a snicker and rubbed her ribcage right over her heart. Reflux, he