Holly Banks Full of Angst (Village of Primm, #1)(20)

“You’re home!” Jack was jovial. Too jovial.

No wonder: a confident, sexy woman with tousled, beach-waved caramel-ombré hair stood in the kitchen wearing a cobalt—no, excuse me, azure—off-the-shoulder peasant blouse with a sassy flounce at the bottom.

Jack’s smile. All teeth. Pasted on his face like an ad for teeth whitening.

And Bethanny. Racer skinny jeans in a low-rise, figure-hugging cut with near-perfect whiskering and fading throughout, mending details at the knee. Tobacco-colored ankle boots. Alex and Ani bangle at the wrist.

Holly shot Jack a look that said, She’s your boss? What the frock, Jack? No wonder he was always working.

“Holly, this is Bethanny Baylor. Bethanny, this is my wife, Holly.” He slunk backward. Literally, took a step backward—like he was afraid of them. And well, he should have been. Because Holly was imagining a full movie sequence playing out in her kitchen: Holly and Bethanny as Yu Shu Lien and Jen Yu in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, reenacting the masterful, perfectly choreographed courtyard sword fight. Sorry, Jackie Chan: for all your lifetime achievements, the best kung fu sword fight—best any kind of sword fight—in movie history was, of course, between two women.

“Bethanny,” Holly said with forced, overly controlled speech, “how lovely of you to join us.”

She needed to be polite. Bethanny was Jack’s boss, after all; she meant a great deal to him—and them. But it wasn’t lost on Holly that Bethanny was also the woman responsible for moving them across the country on such short notice. If it weren’t for Bethanny, Holly’d still be in Boulder City in an established, unpacked house surrounded by a neighborhood filled with kids Ella knew and loved playing with. Ella’d have no problem transitioning into kindergarten were it not for the move to Primm. Yellow? No one gave a flip about yellow or pink in Boulder City. A shirt was a shirt; you could wear whatever color you wanted. Would there have been a PTA in Ella’s school? Sure. But Holly was fairly certain it would be a normal PTA and not some high-octane army of overachieving school moms.

Holly petted Struggle, who greeted her with a wagging tail and a tennis ball. Holly tried tugging the ball from her clenched teeth, which proved difficult because Struggle never let go.

“I apologize for the moving boxes,” Holly told Bethanny. “As you know, Ella and I just arrived a few days ago.” Holly set her car keys on the kitchen table. Studied the lines on Jack’s face. My house is an absolute wreck. Frick you, Jack—this is embarrassing. She gripped the tennis ball, yanked it from Struggle’s mouth, tossed it down the hallway.

“It’s wonderful to finally meet you.” Bethanny offered her hand for Holly to shake. She seemed nice. Despite having ridiculously pouty lips and no wedding band.

Struggle scampered back, dropped the ball at Bethanny’s feet to then stick her nose in Bethanny’s crotch.

“Whoopsie.” Bethanny twisted, swooping her arm across Struggle to dislodge her snout from her nether regions. “No, no.”

“Struggle!” Jack lunged at the dog, pulling Struggle from the space between Bethanny’s legs.

Holly asked Bethanny, “Would you like something to drink? Sparkling water? Iced tea?” The lighting in Holly’s kitchen felt garish. Felt like last call in a bar. Time to sober up and “see” each other for the first time.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Bethanny demurred. “I brought coffee.” She pointed to a cardboard drink holder, and yup! Holly counted two (not three) take-out coffees from Primm’s Coffee Joe. Each cup had an initial written in Sharpie marker: B for Bethanny. J for Jack. Together they read BJ. Such a lovely acronym.

“Where’s Ella?” Holly asked Jack.

“Watching the ponies.”

“Again?” Don’t park my daughter in front of the TV so you can spend time with Bethanny. She canvassed Jack. Leather belt. Blue shirt pressed and tucked into a pair of linen pants. You never dress like that for family burgers on the grill. Holly looked at his feet. Allen Edmonds Voyagers? Seriously, Jack? No. Where are your leather no-brand flip-flops? This is not happening. Holly regrouped, cognizant of the fact Bethanny was his boss. Holly needed to be polite.

“Mommy!” Ella ran in, waving her well-loved Pinkie Pie pony in the air. “I lost my tooth!”

“Wait. What?” Holly asked Ella with a sharp glance toward Jack. “Her first tooth?” she asked him. “And I missed it? How. How’d that happen? I was only gone a few hours.”

Ella pulled her lower lip down, used Pinkie Pie’s foot to point, and sure enough, there was a space on the bottom row where her tooth once was. Nooooooo! Holly missed it. She freaking missed it.

Ella smiled at the woman standing in Holly’s kitchen. “Bethanny pulled it.”

“Excuse me?” Holly bent to Ella’s level. “I’m sorry, honey. What did you say?”

“Bethanny pulled it.”

Holly closed her eyes. Bethanny pulled it. Bethanny Baylor. She stood upright. “You pulled my daughter’s tooth out?” So what if she was Jack’s boss. “Her first tooth?”

“Well, I. It was . . .” Bethanny glanced at Jack for help. “Um. I’m sorry; I guess I wasn’t thinking. One minute I was touching it. And then it happened.”

“One minute you were touching it,” Holly clarified, with a brief check on Jack, “and then it happened?”