Lovers and Takers (6 page)

But he was definitely a man who marched to the beat of his own drum, and Roni could easily see why his father put so much responsibility on the shoulders of a guy his age.

And tonight was no different.
 
Aubrey treated her, as he treated all women, with nothing but respect.
 
He even sat there and listened with rapt attention as Kara went on and on about some gossip she’d heard on the job when he obviously had more important things he could be doing.
 
But he sat there like a trooper and endured it all.
 

Pam was also there that night, and she was her usual bubbly self.
 
Druce Lincoln, however, was a new face to Roni, although she’d heard Pam and Kara talking about him.
 
And when they were introduced she could see why Pam was so over-the-moon in love with him.
 
With his big laugh and
outgoing
 
personality
, he was certainly a charmer.
 
But all of the pleasantries of five people sitting around the living room of the beautiful, Varnadore home was muted when Jake Varnadore himself came bounding down the stairs.

This was the moment Roni had been dreading.
 
She even had to steel herself for the rejection she was sure she’d receive and that pretty boy self-centeredness she was sure she wouldn’t like.
 
But she smiled anyway.
 
This wasn’t about her, after all.
 
She was enduring this disaster for Kara.

“It’s about time, Daddy,” Pam said with a smile as her father came upon them.

“What do you expect from an old man?” Jake responded with a rakish grin that made Roni feel even more certain that this man could never be interested in a woman like her.
 
He was tall and muscular, powerfully built, with a head full of light brown hair that cascaded around his strong, tanned face, rich blue eyes, and thin, puckered lips.
 
Although she knew he had to be in his early forties given the age of his children, this man could easily pass for thirty.
 

“You aren’t old,” Pam said as her father put his arm around her waist.
 
“My friends are always asking me for your phone number.
 
One even asked if you were my older brother.
 
She wanted your phone number, too.”

Jake thought about that phone call he had received and looked at his daughter.
 
“I hope you aren’t giving out my private number.”

“Don’t be daft!” she said laughingly to her father.
 
“I wouldn’t wish those girls on my worst enemy.
 
Their so high school.”

And you aren’t?
Roni thought to herself.

“Druce is here,” Pam said proudly to her father, moving aside so that Jake could get a look at her young man.

Jake looked at Druce Lincoln.
 
He was well put together as usual, and given his innate salesman abilities, was doing a great job for the company.
 
But he had that phony, hyper-friendly personality down to a science.
 
It was a personality many thought genuine, but Jake saw right through it.
 
Druce’s astonishing sales success was the only reason Jake kept him around and out of the clutches of his competitors.
 
It was a business decision only.
 
But if he ever discovered anything unethical going on with the young man, he wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of him.

“Hello, Druce,” he said, extending his hand.

“How you doing, Mr. V.?”
Druce responded, a grand smile on his face.
 
Jake looked hard at him, not amused.
 
He was not Druce’s friend and didn’t want to be.
 
Druce swallowed hard and wiped that smile off of his face.
 
“How are you doing, Mr. Varnadore?” he corrected himself.

“I’m doing fine, Druce,” Jake said.
 
“Good work on our Pipescrew account.
 
It was a good get.”

“Thank-you, sir,” Druce said, thrilled that he was paying attention to all of his hard work.
 
“Thank-you very much.”

“And you know Kara,” Pam moved on.

“Of course I know Kara.
 
How are you, young lady?”

Kara smiled greatly.
 
“I’m fine, Mr. Varnadore.”

“She brought her cousin along, Daddy,” Pam said.
 
“The lady I told you about.”

“Right,” Jake said, although he truly didn’t remember anything his daughter had said about her.
 
Except that she was Kara’s cousin.
 
He extended his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Miss---”

“Wingate,” Roni said, extending her hand.
 
“Veronica Wingate.
 
Roni.”

Roni, he thought.
  
“Miss Wingate,” he said aloud.
 
“And you’re Kara’s cousin?”

“That’s correct.”

“I’m sure I don’t see the family resemblance.”

Roni smiled.
 
“And you would be right about that.
 
We’re related by marriage.
 
My aunt is her stepmother.”

“Ah,” Jake said, glancing down the length of her.
 
“That explains it then.
 
And call me Jake, please,” he said, causing Pam and Druce to exchange glances.
 
Druce once called him Jake and he gave him the same nasty look he gave him just for calling him Mr.
V..

“Have a seat, please,” Jake went on.
 
“Have these children of mine offered you anything to drink?”

“Of course we have, Daddy!” Pam said.

“They have,” Roni said, sitting back down on the sofa.
 
Aubrey was still seated there, returning a text message.
 

Jake unbuttoned his suit coat, a very elegant Versace suit if Roni had to venture a guess, and sat in the chair flanking the sofa.
 
“So with what did they bribe a smart lady like you to get you to come here tonight?” he asked her.

Roni laughed, crossing her legs.
 
Jake looked down at those legs.
 
“Kara promised she would leave me alone forever if I came tonight.”

“Roni!”
Kara said as Jake laughed.
 
“Mr. Varnadore might not realize you’re joking.”

“I’m not joking,” Roni said and Jake laughed again.
 
She was all right, he thought.

“I didn’t have to bribe her at all, Mr. Varnadore,” Kara said.
 
“She wanted to come.”

Roni wanted to cut a look at that lying cousin of hers, but she didn’t bother.
 
It wasn’t going to matter in the end anyway.
 
Pretty boy Floyd here would try to seduce Roni, Roni would turn him down, and that would be the end of this waste of an evening anyway.
 

“You have a beautiful home,” Roni said, instead.

“Thank-you.”

“I’ve always thought South Beach was the place to be.”

“You live in this area?”

Roni snorted.
 
“I wish.
 
I have a small house in Miami Gardens actually, and I’m struggling just to stay there.”

Kara could not believe her cousin.
 
Rich people didn’t want to hear about your struggles!
 
Too much information
, she wanted to whisper in Roni’s ears.
 

“South Beach has its limits too,” Jake said.

Roni agreed.
 
“No, you’re right about that.
 
There’s no perfect place.
 
But I mean in terms of a family life.
 
I just think having the privacy of a closed estate provides that kind of life.
 
The kind you seemed to have built here for Aubrey and Pam.
 
No wonder they turned out to be such nice people.”

She’d never know how wonderful
that made Jake feel
.
 
Of all of his accomplishments, raising his two children alone after the divorce and doing a good job of it was his proudest achievement.
 
“Thank-you,” was all he was willing to say out loud, however.

And Pam and Kara picked up the torch and began what turned out to be a long conversation about raising families in various neighborhoods around South Florida.
 
Jake, by sitting in the chair flanking the sofa, had the vantage point of being able to watch Roni as she watched Pam and Kara.
  
And he watched her intently.
 
She had a quiet dignity about her, he thought, as if she was in the group, but not of the group.
 
Not because she was above the group, but because she wasn’t the joiner type.

She sat there, her legs crossed, her small, clean hands on her lap, as she listened with rapt attention to two young ladies who were obviously trying to impress their young men.
 
Every woman he’d ever dated since his divorce would be chiming in too, trying to impress him, but Roni, to his pleasant surprise, didn’t even make a pitch.
 
In fact, later, after the talk died down, it was he who had to get her to discuss anything at all about herself.

“So,” he said, when the conversation stalled, “what do you do for a living, Miss Wingate?”

“Call me Roni, please,” Roni said.

“I
will,
thank-you.”

“She’s a lawyer, Mr. Varnadore,” Kara quickly interjected.

Aubrey rolled his eyes.
 
“Shakara!” he said.

Kara looked at him.
 
“What?”

“Dad was talking to Roni.”

“Well you were ignoring me by answering all of those text messages, which is rude by the way.”

“I do have a business to run.”

“That’s your daddy’s business to run, not yours,” she replied.

“Tell him, Kara,” Druce said with a grin.

Jake looked at Roni.
 
Roni smiled.
 
“I run a law center,” she said.

“Ah.
In private practice?”

“Not quite.
 
I run the Wingate Law Center.
 
It’s a non-profit that works to exonerate incarcerated men and women who were wrongfully accused.”

“Oh,” Jake said, fascinated.
 
“Sort of like Barry Scheck’s Innocence Project?”

“Exactly like it, yes.
 
Only not nearly as successful, however.”

“So how does it work?
 
Do you try all of the cases yourself?”

“Oh, no.
 
I try some, but mainly we have a staff of attorneys, all pro bono, that will help us if we convince them that we have a great case.
 
When I can’t convince our volunteer attorneys, but I’m still convinced myself about the merits of the case, I will then handle it myself.”

What a wonderful profession, Jake thought.
 
“Very honorable,” he said, “but frustrating too, I imagine.”

“Imagine it times a thousand and you’ve got the level of frustration we have to endure.
 
But it’s very rewarding, too.”

Jake understood that.
 
His job had him frustrated too many times also, but he loved it.
 
“So before you became the Good Samaritan, what area of law was your specialty?”

“Criminal.”

“Oh.
 
Criminal law all along?”

“Right.
 
I was a public defender for a few years.
 
Had planned to be one for the rest of my career.
 
But that was a long time ago.”

Jake nodded and wondered what ran her away from her field.
 
What case.

“Are you originally from Miami?” he asked her.

“No.
 
Knoxville, Tennessee.”

“Really?”

“Me and Roni both,” Kara interjected.

“How did you end up in Florida?” Jake asked Roni, ignoring Kara.

Roni never enjoyed remembering how it was that she ended up in Florida, but there was nothing she could do about it now.
 
“I met this guy in law school---”

“His name was Curtis,” Kara said.
 
“A real low life.”

“He was not a lowlife,” Roni corrected her.
 
“At least, not initially.
 
But once we graduated from Stanford Law, we became engaged and he wanted us to start our new life in a new place.
 
So we came here.
 
I got a job as a public defender, and he became a prosecutor.”

“And you were married and lived happily ever after,” Jake said, knowing such fairytale didn’t exist.

“No, he got married, to a woman more to his liking, and moved back to California to be with her.”