About That Fling (3 page)

“I’m not sure
old-fashioned
and
fling
belong in the same sentence, dear,” Gertie said as she set a fresh German apple pancake in front of her niece. “In my day, women had to feel guilty all the time. It’s so nice that things have changed. Now they’re free to have casual sex and multiple orgasms and bookshelves full of erotic novels.”

Gert’s voice had taken on a reverence most women her age reserved for their grandchildren or church services, and Jenna smiled in spite of herself as she picked up a pair of silver tongs and plucked a lemon slice from the plate Gertie offered. She squeezed it over the pancake and set the rind aside before drenching the pancake in syrup. “If it’s okay with the two of you, I’d rather be a little old-fashioned and not dish too much detail.”

“Seriously?” Mia gaped.

“Seriously. I kinda want to keep things private. I know that’s lame, but that’s how I feel.”

Gertie smiled and patted her hand. “You’ve always been like that, ever since you were a little girl. Never one to kiss and tell, not even with your friends in high school.”

“You’ve never been one to kiss, period,” Mia said. “I’ve known you almost two years and this is the first time you’ve even dated.”

“It wasn’t exactly a date,” Jenna pointed out, cutting into her pancake with a knife and fork. “But we’re going to have one. Friday, maybe. No sex. Just getting to know each other.”

Mia smirked and picked up a piece of bacon. “Sounds like you already got to know each other pretty intimately. At least tell me if he was good.”

“He was good.” Jenna felt her cheeks grow warm, and she bit into her first piece of pancake. “Okay, better than good. Incredible.”

“Come on, was he one of those slow, romantic types, or more of a sexy alpha male?”

“Mia—”

“You can share with us, dear,” Gertie said. “Indulge a little old lady.”

Jenna tried to muster up a bit of indignation, but all she felt was warm and tingly at the memory of her night with him. “Fine, if you must know. He was definitely an alpha guy. Very dominant and in control.”

“No kidding? I never pegged you as the submissive sort,” Mia mused. “Not that I fault you one bit. That’s always been the sexiest thing about Mark. The whole master-and-commander thing is ridiculously hot.”

“Agreed,” Gertie said.

“Especially after six years of marriage to a guy who used to bicker with me about whose turn it was to be on top,” Mia said, poking at the edge of her pancake. “Suffice it to say, my ex didn’t want to be. Too much work.” She glanced at Gertie and winced. “Sorry. Overkill with the sex talk?”

“Not at all, dear. Sex talk is my favorite. More bacon?”

Jenna accepted a piece and tried to think of a way to change the subject. Thankfully, Mia obliged.

“I almost forgot,” Mia said, dropping her fork and grabbing for her purse. She rifled through it, her mouth still full of bacon as she rummaged through the contents of her oversized tote. “I had some extra wedding photos printed for you, Aunt Gertie. Jenna said you wanted to see them.”

“Oh! Just let me wash up. This is so exciting!” Gertie bustled over to the kitchen sink and returned moments later wiping her hands on her apron. She took the envelope from Mia and sat down. She slid the pictures out and began to flip through them, clucking the whole time.

“You two look so in love—oh, would you look at this one? These lavender rosebuds look gorgeous with that red hair of yours!”

“Thanks, they’re called sterling silver roses,” Mia said. “My mother had them in her wedding bouquet. That’s her veil, too.”

Gertie beamed and flipped to the next image. “This must be your mom here?”

Mia nodded, and Jenna blinked back an unexpected wash of tears. Her own mother had died in a car accident two months after Jenna’s sixteenth birthday, leaving Aunt Gertie to tend to Jenna for her remaining high school years. It was one of many reasons Jenna had been eager to repay the favor by taking Gert in last fall.

As though sensing a shift in Jenna’s mood, Gertie met her eyes. Gert’s expression didn’t change, but she reached beneath the table and touched Jenna’s knee. Jenna swallowed and placed her hand on Gertie’s. Gert smiled, then turned back to Mia.

“Here’s another great one of you and Mark,” she said. “This neckline is so flattering on you.”

Mia laughed. “Gotta show off the pregnancy boobs while I’ve got ’em.”

“You look beautiful,” Jenna said, squelching an unwelcome twist of envy for her friend. She was thrilled for Mia, delighted to see her moving on with her life after a rocky divorce and the loss of a pregnancy just a month after moving to Portland two years ago. It was how the two of them had bonded, as the only unmarried people in a support group for women who’d suffered recent miscarriages.

She reached for Mia’s hand and gave it a squeeze, releasing any jealous feelings she might’ve had.

Gertie gasped. “This photo—this must be the first time he’s seeing you in the dress?”

“I know, isn’t that amazing?” Mia said. “I’ve never had anyone look at me that way before. Not ever.”

“I wish I could have seen it in person,” Gertie sighed.

“You were there in spirit,” Mia said, giving the older woman a quick hug. “It was important to Mark and me to keep things small and intimate—just the two of us and immediate family. I’m sure you understand.”

“Big weddings are too expensive,” Jenna agreed, trying not to think of her own broken engagement, of the two hundred cream-colored invitations buried somewhere in the back of her closet.

Mia nodded in agreement and slid a hand over her impressively large baby bump. “Exactly. It didn’t seem right to spend any money on a wedding. Not while I’m still digging myself out of the financial pit of divorce.”

Gertie continued flipping through the photos. “I know what you mean. I met with an attorney last week about—well, about a new project I’m working on,” she said, glancing at Jenna. “Lawyers are so expensive!”

“Particularly when you’re divorcing one,” Mia muttered. “Not that I blame him for being bitter. I’m the one who had the affair. I’m the one who screwed up.”

Jenna patted her friend’s hand and looked over Gertie’s shoulder at a picture of Mia and Mark feeding each other cake. They looked so happy, so in love.

“You did
not
screw up,” Jenna said, surprising herself with the force of her own insistence. She swallowed back an unexpected memory and focused on Mia. “You have an amazing new husband who adores you and a baby on the way. I know we didn’t know each other during your first marriage or when you and Mark began your—” she swallowed back the word
affair,
searching for a term that wouldn’t send Mia down a path of self-flagellation and guilt. “—your relationship. But I know you had to be terribly unhappy.”

“Unhappiness leads to desperation,” Gertie agreed, holding up a photo of Mia glowing and voluptuous in her maternity wedding gown. “But you’re happy now. That’s what matters.”

“That
is
what matters,” Jenna echoed and nabbed her best friend’s bacon.

“As you’ll see in just a few minutes, things have gotten very contentious between the nurses’ union and hospital administration,” explained Kendall Freemont—the
real
Kendall Freemont—as she pushed a pile of paperwork to Adam from across her desk Monday morning.

“I understand,” Adam said, glancing down at the contract. “Organizations don’t usually bring me in when everyone’s sitting around the conference table holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya.
’
”

“Right,” Kendall said. “I’m sure you see this sort of thing all the time. This is actually my first time dealing with contract negotiations that have taken such a contentious turn.”

“Are you new to Belmont Health System?”

Kendall nodded and folded her hands on the desk. “Not new to human resources, but I’ve only been with Belmont for two weeks. Before this, I worked in HR for a medical center over in Ashland. We had the occasional employee discipline issues and a layoff here and there, but nothing like this.”

Adam nodded and continued flipping through the forms, studying the legal language as carefully as possible for a first pass. “I hear you. Union negotiations can be especially tricky. You’re very smart to bring in outside assistance. Sometimes professional mediation can
really turn things around. Once people are armed with Compassionate
Communication techniques and new skills for conflict resolution, I often find it can turn a bad situation into a workable one.”

“Yes, of course,” Kendall said, fidgeting with a gold pen on the corner of her desk. “The touchy-feely approach is something we haven’t tried yet. I look forward to seeing you work your magic.”

Adam laughed and flipped another page. “I wouldn’t call it magic, exactly. I’m just giving people the tools they need to communicate in a respectful, constructive fashion.”

“As opposed to shouting obscenities at each other and hurling paperclips across the conference table?”

“Right,” Adam frowned. “How’s the CEO’s eye, by the way?”

“Better. He’ll be joining us today, of course. Here’s an agenda for today’s meeting. The list at the bottom has the names and titles of everyone who’ll be part of today’s discussion.”

She slid the piece of paper across the table toward him, and Adam skimmed over it. Ten minutes for introductions, that was good. He’d try to push for twenty, maybe introduce a brief get-to-know-you exercise to help break the ice. He made a note in the margin beside an item about salary cap negotiations. Better to save that conversation for the next meeting, to wait until they’d established a better sense of safety and security.

His eyes dropped to the names of participants. Phil Gallow, the CFO. Adam hadn’t met the guy yet, but he’d heard good things. Brett Lombard from the Oregon Nurses Association—he’d spoken with him in a phone conference a couple weeks ago. Mia Dawson from the NICU—he didn’t know anything about her. Susan Schrader from—

“Mr. Thomas?”

Adam looked up from the paper and caught the worried look in Kendall’s eyes. “Yes?”

“You’ll be—um, well, discreet about all this, won’t you?”

“Labor negotiations are always confidential.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” She fidgeted with her pen. “This organization has had problems in the past with the media.”

“Yes, I read about that. The previous CEO’s wife was running an escort service on the side?”

Kendall pressed her lips together and nodded once. “Yes. It was before my time at Belmont, and obviously that particular CEO is no longer with the organization.”

“But the media hasn’t forgotten?”

“Nor have the employees. Their trust in Belmont’s leadership team faltered after the incident. As I’m sure you’re aware, public perception is vital with a respected organization like Belmont.”

“I understand completely,” Adam said. “I appreciate your desire to keep things out of the newspaper and off the local airwaves. While I can’t control the actions of the bargaining team, I can assure you of my own discretion.”

“Good. That’s good.” Kendall took a deep breath. “I want to apologize again for my failure to make our meeting the other night. Family emergency.”

“Not a problem. I totally understand. I hope everything’s okay now.”

She gave a tight nod, then folded her hands together on the desk. “I—um—I understand you also do other kinds of mediation? Outside the corporate world?”

“That’s correct,” Adam said, not sure what she was driving at.

“Your website mentioned you do—uh, marriage counseling?”

Adam pushed the meeting agenda aside and gave her his full attention. “Not exactly. I spent ten years as a corporate attorney before going through a rather difficult divorce. It gave me some perspective on my career and my life choices, so I went back to school for a degree in counseling. When I’m not working with companies to improve their labor relations, I’m in private practice as a marital mediator.”

“Marital mediator?”

“For couples going through divorce,” Adam said. “Or deciding whether to divorce. The idea is to work through the issues in a spirit of cooperation instead of launching costly legal battles. It’s surprisingly effective, not to mention much less expensive than a courtroom fight.”

Kendall sat nodding, her eyes glittering beneath the fluorescent lights. She didn’t say anything, so Adam cleared his throat. “Are you looking for someone to work with in that capacity?”

She looked down at her hands. “Maybe. I’m not sure. I’m sorry, this is very unprofessional of me—”

“Not at all,” Adam said. “Bridging the gap between emotional and professional is what I do.”

“Yes, that’s why we hired you.” She stood up and ran her hands down her pencil skirt, smoothing out the wrinkles. “Shall we head over to the conference room?”

Adam studied her for a moment, then stood and stepped around the desk. “If you like, I can put together a list of local practitioners. There are some very good marriage counselors in the Portland area. Let me make some phone calls for you, okay?”

Kendall seemed to hesitate, then nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate that. I also appreciate your discretion. With everything.”