She pasted on her best smile. Sure, it might have looked a little manic, but she could live with that. “Nothing for you to worry about,” she said.
She put the box on the floor beside the door before she turned and strode into the kitchen. She lifted the can of paint stripper she’d brought home from work and a box of matches.
Matt eyed the paint stripper. “You’re beginning to worry me.”
She smiled serenely, picked up her box and headed out the door. Without checking to see if he was following, she marched to the shell of the burned-out car and threw the box inside. A minute later she’d doused it with paint stripper and set it alight.
As she watched the blaze dance, she felt Matt come up behind her. To her surprise, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into him, her back to his stomach. He rested his chin on top of her head. Jena felt quite toasty with the fire in front of her and Matt’s heat behind her.
Jena sank into him as she stared at the flames, but she wasn’t seeing them. Inside her head was a Technicolor replay of her time with her mother.
Her mother.
Not mom. Not anymore. Just mother. Jena shuddered at the memory, and Matt pulled her closer. With his support, Jena closed her eyes and let the memory come.
Her mother stood in front of the mirror in the ladies’ room of the pub. She fluffed her hair as she eyed Jena.
“I want you to go home with Frank,” she said.
“What?” For a second Jena thought she’d misheard.
“He has plans for you.” Her mother nodded firmly. “He’s a good man. Got a head on his shoulders. Knows what he’s aiming for, and he’ll get there. You need to give up this.” She waved her hand to signal she meant Invertary, or perhaps Jena’s life. “You need to go home.”
“Mom, he cheated on me.”
Her mother shrugged. “There isn’t a man alive who can keep it in his pants. You’d best get that through your thick head. So what if he takes a bit on the side.” She looked Jena up and down, her displeasure clear. “Not every man wants a chunky girl in his bed every night.” She turned, perched her bony hip on the edge of the sink and folded her arms over her fake breasts. “You need to grow up. Be realistic. Frank came all this way to take you home. You’re being petty making the man jump through hoops like this. He’s said he’s sorry. He’ll be more discreet from now on. You should think yourself lucky he wants you back.”
Jena gaped at her mother. “Mom, he cheated. He spent years using my money to finance his schemes. Now he's working with the mob. He isn’t a catch. Why are you pretending like he is?”
Her mother shook her head. A mocking smile in place. “You are so naïve. The world is a dirty place, and you do what you can to get ahead. I thought I taught you that. After all, you were a product of my trying to get ahead.” She let out a longsuffering sigh. “Jena, I’ve carried you for years. I would have been famous by now if I hadn’t had to deal with being a single mom. You’ve held me back long enough, and yet here you are, trying to do it again. You won’t introduce me to Josh or Mitch, even though you deliberately moved to the same town, and after everything I’ve done for you.”
Words Jena wanted to say, words she should say, stuck in her throat. All she could do was stare at her mom’s spiteful smile and feel the cut of each word as it struck her.
“Frank’s offered to introduce me to Josh and Mitch. Turns out he knows them from way back. All he wants in return is to take you home and spoil you rotten. I think that’s a fair trade, don’t you? After all, what have you got here? I hear your house is a dump and you’re running out of money.” Her mother laughed. It was nasty. “Did you know they call you Calamity Jena? They take bets on you behind your back. They have a board set up beside the bar where they take odds on some guy getting injured dating you. You’re the laughing stock of Invertary, probably Scotland, and you didn’t even know.” She sneered. “I’m ashamed of you, Jena. You’re over here chasing any man who’ll look at you twice, when you have a great guy like Frank begging you to come home. Do us all a favour. Grow up. Stop playing games. Take your man back. Then we’ll all be happy.” She turned towards the door, smiling over her shoulder at Jena. “After you, honey. Your small-town cop is waiting. I wonder how much he bet on getting lucky with you tonight?”
In a daze, Jena walked stiffly past her mother and out into the pub. Frank was leering at her. His smile said he thought he’d won. He’d played his ace. He’d always known how her mother could cut her down to nothing with a few well-placed words. Her gaze swung past him to Matt. He was being held in place by Grunt. Every muscle in his body screamed with rage, but all Jena saw was the worry in his eyes. Worry for her.
Without a glance at anyone else, she headed straight for him. Matt wouldn’t bet on her, she knew it. Her mother was making up more vile lies.
“I want to go home,” she told him. “I don’t feel well.”
As she knew he would, he whisked her out of there and straight home.
The scene played over and over in her head. Each time her mother looked more malicious. Frank more smugly calculating.
Matt broke into the memory by kissing her neck. Warmth slid through her, melting the ice her mother had left behind. The flames in front of her came into focus once again.
“Feeling better now?” he said against her skin.
“I thought you’d stop me,” she said to Matt.
“Wasn't worth the effort to stop you.” She felt Matt shrug. “This seemed like something you needed to do. What was in the box?”
“Mementoes. Things I thought meant something, but didn’t really.”
“From Frank?” He nuzzled against her hair.
“And my mother.” Jena smiled as she watched the flames dance. “I figured something out tonight.”