1
“I swear she’s marrying him because of his money.”
At eighteen, Lake was too old to be eavesdropping, but she couldn’t help listening to Ginny, her stepmother, speak on the phone. Then again, she loved the gossip, and Ginny loved to talk, especially when it concerned Ginny’s older brother, Reese Jordan, and his soon-to-be wife.
“No, I’m not telling him that. God, he’s my brother, not my son. If Reese wants to get strapped down with a money-hungry wench, then that’s on him,” Ginny said, and the scent of nail polish came through the crack in the door. “He’s lonely. That’s the only reason he’s strapping himself with the bitch.”
Lake pushed the door open another inch and saw her stepmother, a woman no more than ten years older than Lake herself, sitting on the bed painting her toenails. The woman was built like a svelte swimsuit model, and Lake grew annoyed that Ginny was gossiping about her brother when Lake knew Ginny had partially married Lake’s father because of his money.
“You’re such a snoop.” The deep voice came from behind her.
Lake stood, straightened her back, and turned to face her dad. Calvin Heart, one of the leading attorneys in Denver, Colorado, and her father, looked at her with a disapproving scowl. In his early forties, he was the epitome of what a good man should be like. She looked up to him, and he was her role model.
After her mother passed away when Lake was twelve, she and her dad had become closer. They had to just to get through the grief. That had been six years ago, and her father had remarried, which wasn’t a bad thing. Lake wanted him to be happy, and although he’d been married only a short time to Ginny, she knew his sometimes superficial new wife gave him the comfort he needed and deserved. As long as Ginny treated her father right, then Lake was happy with her.
Lake pushed past her dad without saying anything and went into her room. Her father shut the door behind him and crossed his arms over his chest. He’d just come from working out, which was clear by his clothes and the sweat dampening his hair.
“What?” Lake said, not wanting to have to explain why she’d been listening to Ginny or hear a lecture on why it was wrong. When her father didn’t say anything, she breathed out and took her glasses off. Compared to Ginny, Lake was a chunky Plain Jane. She’d been called cute, but when a hot guy at school called a girl “cute,” it certainly didn’t mean he was ready to do anything with her. Hell, she’d been called sweet and smart, but had an excess of baby fat.
“Why are you listening to Ginny’s conversation?”
“I wasn’t.” Her father scowled, and she shrugged. “Okay, I was, but I didn’t set out to listen to her bitching.”
“Lake,” her father said in that parental voice. “I’m serious. I’ve told you not to listen to other people’s conversations. You’re too old for me to have to be telling you this.”
“I walked by, heard her bitching about Reese, and well, I was curious. And you act like I listen to people all the time. This is only the second time I’ve overheard Ginny talking.”
“That’s one too many times, Lake.”
Lake stood, went over to her dresser, and started grabbing stacks of clothes that she’d folded the night before for the weekend trip everyone was taking for Reese’s wedding. “Maybe if she wasn’t on the phone constantly, gossiping and bitching about everything under the sun, I wouldn’t be in the position to listen to what she says.”
Her father just scowled harder. He went over to her bed and sat down, patted the seat beside him, and waited until she moved closer before he started talking. “Ever since I married Ginny, you seem upset. You don’t like her,” he stated without phrasing it as a question.
“I like her just fine, Dad.”
“She’ll never be your mother, Lake, and she isn’t trying to replace her.”
Okay, this conversation was going down a road she didn’t want to take. Exhaling roughly, Lake looked at her door and heard Ginny laughing loudly. “First off, I would never think she was trying to replace Mom. But it’s hard to take her seriously, and hard to see her as some kind of adult figure in my life with the way she acts and the fact she’s only twenty-eight.” She stared at her father, saw that he was motionless, and didn’t even blink after she spoke.
“I love her, Lake.”
“I know, and I’m glad she makes you happy. I want you to be happy.” Why were they even talking about this? “Weren’t we talking about my eavesdropping? How did we get on this subject?” Which, if she was being honest, was a subject she wanted to be done with.