make Aunt Edie decide she couldn’t trust Jenna enough to leave it to her?
Jenna nodded, unable to speak. She started toward the car.
“You and Pete go on ahead,” Brody said to Celeste. “I’ll bring Jenna back.”
Jenna found her voice at that. “No, I’m coming with you,” she said to her sister. To Brody she said, “I have nothing to say to you.” She turned to walk away but he caught her arm.
“I know how this looks,” he said.
“And I see how it is,” she retorted.
“You’ve got to believe me, Jenna. This was not my idea. Your aunt had her reasons.”
“Reasons put in her mind by you,” Jenna accused. “When I first came here you were trying to talk her into selling the Driftwood, offering to be the listing agent, of course. Now you’ve done even better for yourself. Instead of selling it and getting a commission, you can sell it and keep all the money.”
This was the second man she’d wasted her trust on. She pulled off her engagement ring and held it out.
His eyes grew wide and his tanned face flushed. He shook his head. “No, you can’t mean this.”
“Oh, yes I can. You knew Aunt Edie wanted me to have the Driftwood and you...betrayed me.”
He made no move to take it so she reached over and shoved the ring in his shirt pocket.
“Jenna, please. Let’s talk.”
She shook her head. “From now on all we’ll have to talk about is the running of the Driftwood. Let’s get out of here,” she said to Celeste, and marched to her sister’s car.
It was a silent ride home. For once, Pete was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
After the sisters were in the house, Celeste was the first to speak. “Maybe there’s some explanation.”
“There’s an explanation all right. He talked Aunt Edie into leaving him the Driftwood, probably when they were alone in her hospital room. Which makes him the lowest of the low.” She could hardly get out the next words. “He’s been using me all this time.” Talk about a long con.
“He can’t have been,” Celeste said. “I know he loves you.”
“He loved what came with me. Which he’d have inherited anyway once we were married. But then Aunt Edie had her heart attack before he could officially propose, so he had to go to plan B and hope that I wouldn’t notice.” The tears were flowing again, and Jenna rubbed her forehead as if she could scrub away all the horrible thoughts bouncing around in her brain. “All this time he hung around, acting like Mr. Wonderful. He’s no better than Winston! And what does he need with an old motel? He’s got property all over town.”
“Property all over town,” agreed Jolly Roger.
Jenna ignored him. She fell onto the couch, staring straight ahead, wiping at her streaming eyes and seeing nothing but an empty future. Celeste sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulder.
Sabrina came into the room. “Mom, what’s going on?”
“Aunt Edie left the Driftwood to Brody,” Celeste explained as Jenna struggled to pull herself together.
“To Brody? That’s weird.”
“No, that’s Machiavellian,” Jenna said, blinking back fresh tears.
She would not cry over this in front of her daughter. Would not. A mutinous tear escaped in spite of her determination.
“Does it matter? Aren’t you guys getting married?” Sabrina asked.
“No!”
Sabrina sat down on the little chair with the seashell fabric and gaped at Jenna, who was now reaching for a tissue from the box on the floor by the couch. She’d lost track of how many boxes she’d bought since Aunt Edie died.
At last Sabrina ventured, “What about the house? Do we still have a place to live?”
“She left the house to your mom,” Celeste said.
“That’s good, right? At least we’ll still be here in Moonlight Harbor.”
Where Jenna had planned to live the rest of her life. Now the last thing she wanted was to stay in Moonlight Harbor, working for Brody Green, the user. The same man who’d made such a pretty speech right on this very same couch and given her a ring. She reached for more tissue.
Sabrina knelt at her feet and laid her head in Jenna’s lap. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
After that she said nothing. Neither did Celeste. They simply sat there with her.
They were still there when her mother came in. “Winston told me,” she said. She squeezed in on the other side of Jenna and laid a hand on her arm. “Sweetheart, I’m really sorry.”
“How could Aunt Edie could do this?”