A Sinclair Homecoming (The Sinclairs of Alaska) (17 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“P
ERFECT
,” M
IRANDA
MUTTERED
,
glancing up at the dark skies overhead as the cleaning crew and organizers gathered in their parents’ yard. Wade followed Miranda’s gaze and nodded in agreement. That’s all they needed to make things worse: rain. Already their mother was glaring at everyone as if they were the enemy and she was the lone defender of her property. Miranda sighed and looked to Wade. “Might as well get this show on the road, right? It’s not as if it’s going to get better.”

Wade gave a minute shake of his head but he agreed. There was no sense in putting off the inevitable. Jennelle was going to pitch a fit no matter what.

Morgan pulled up and he used that excuse to break away from Miranda. He wanted to be anywhere but here at the moment. Maybe Morgan could give him some words of wisdom to bolster his resolve.

Morgan’s cheeks instantly pinked in the biting cold, which only gave her porcelain skin a fresh hue that immediately made him think of the other times he’d made her blush—and moan—and he had to shelve those thoughts before he made a fool out of himself in front of God and country. “Hi,” he said, smiling. “Ready for this?”

“Are you?” she countered with a small smile of her own but she was the consummate professional both in her manner and her expression. “This kind of cleanup is hard on everyone, not only the hoarder. There are bound to be some memories that pop up as we go through the process.”

“I’m not sure how. That house is not the same house I grew up in. I don’t even recognize it anymore.”

“You will. Once we dig down to the bones, you’d be surprised what comes up. It can be very cathartic but it can also be very painful,” she warned him in a gentle tone that warmed him in places it shouldn’t. He didn’t know if she was this way with every patient’s family or if he was special but he’d like to think it was the latter. “How is your mother today?”

“Ornery as ever. Bound to insult or offend someone before the day is out,” he answered. “But the doctor said she’s healthy enough to participate as long as she doesn’t do any lifting.”

“Well, we have people for that so no worries there. And how are you doing?”

“Terrible,” he admitted, tapping his chest. “I think I might have a heart attack, myself. There’s a tightness right here that makes it hard to breathe. I don’t know why this is stressing me out so much.”

She graced him with another soft smile. “Because your subconscious knows that house has both painful and beautiful memories. You haven’t been dealing with any of them since you left. Today is the day you will. It’s natural to be apprehensive. Just don’t run from it.”

“Funny, ’cause that’s exactly what I feel like doing and then I feel like a jerk for even thinking it.”

“It’s natural,” she assured him. “If at any point you need a breather, let me know. This is about the family’s process, not just your mother’s.”

He nodded and knew he should keep the conversation professional but he suffered the overwhelming impulse to reach out and touch her. He knew that wasn’t appropriate, and she likely wouldn’t appreciate him drawing attention to their private dalliance so he kept his hands to himself. But his gaze must’ve burned with hunger for Morgan’s breath caught and she gave a slight shake of her head. “You must’ve read my mind,” he murmured so only she could hear him.

“I guess I did,” she admitted, glancing away, searching to catch any stares their way. “We need to keep it professional. I don’t need anyone finding out about us.”

Us.
He wished there was an
us
to discover. “I know.”
You look beautiful today.
The words danced on his tongue and nearly tripped from his mouth. “Assuage my ego and tell me that I’m not the only one feeling something here.”

She laughed softly as her gaze darted with guilt. “You are not alone. But I can’t do this here. You and I need to be professional right now.” She took a tiny step forward, acting as if she was flicking something from his shoulder so that she could whisper, “But tonight I’m free if you want to come by...I’ll even cook.”

He grinned. “Can you cook?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

“That’s a date, Ms. O’Hare,” he promised, his mood lightening. “Anything I should bring?”

She met his gaze boldly. “Condoms. Lots of them.” And then she left him to struggle with his sudden erection as she went to talk to his mother. Crafty woman...oh, he would delight in the payback—and so would she.

* * *

H
AD
SHE
REALLY
just told Wade to bring condoms? She pressed a gloved hand to her cheek, unable to believe she’d been so saucy.
Ohhh Lordy
...what was she doing thinking about sex with Wade when she was supposed to be focused on the task at hand?
Get your head on straight.

She approached Jennelle Sinclair, whose expression hovered somewhere between horrified and mortified as total strangers converged on her property, and her daughter, Miranda, who looked ready to go into battle. “Good morning, ladies,” she started with a smile but only Miranda returned the gesture. Jennelle merely sniffed and looked away. A work in progress, that woman. “How are you feeling, Jennelle?” she asked, drawing the older woman into the conversation. “This is a big transition, and I want you to feel comfortable that nothing is being done without your consent.”

“That’s grizzly poop and you know it,” Jennelle spat, embarrassing Miranda.

“Mom, stop it. Don’t start off the day with your sharp tongue,” Miranda warned, shooting an apologetic look Morgan’s way. “I’m sorry. She’s impossible to wrangle on a good day much less a stressful one.”

“Don’t apologize for me. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m the one being forced to suffer strangers going through my things, riffling through my underwear drawer and passing judgment on my life just to satisfy some government agency’s opinion that I am safe to live on my own.”

Miranda’s face showed her frustration, and Morgan stepped in to intervene. “May I have a word with your mother privately?” she asked Miranda.

“Be my guest. Maybe you could dose her with something to change her personality?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Jennelle said with a scowl. “Go on, make sure those people don’t trample my yard.”

Miranda grumbled and walked away, leaving Morgan with Jennelle. “I know this is very hard,” she started but Jennelle cut her off.

“You don’t know anything, girlie. You don’t know what it’s like to be forced from your home or to lose something so precious you don’t know how you’ll ever recover. Don’t patronize me with your doctor speak. We both know I have no choice in the matter. I just want to get it over with so I can return to my life.”

“Jennelle, you won’t heal if you don’t commit to the process. You have the opportunity to start fresh and heal the wounds with your children. Isn’t that worth the sacrifice?” Morgan withheld a sigh when Jennelle didn’t respond. The older woman was too stubborn for her own good. Empathy for Wade’s family’s situation bordered on the unprofessional as she fought the urge to sharpen her voice with the older woman. “Well, the cleaners and organizers are here so let’s meet with them and see how the day is going to go. The weather is not on our side, it would appear, so we need to use each moment afforded to us.”

“Then I’ll hope for snow,” Jennelle muttered, which Morgan ignored. Jennelle was not an easy woman on a good day. It made her wonder what she’d been like before life dragged her down to this bitter place.

They walked over to the assembled group and to Morgan’s surprise, Jennelle kept her mouth shut when Morgan thought for sure she’d have a few gems to share as they detailed how they were going to go into the house, room by room, pulling everything out and placing it in piles to sort and toss.

Morgan’s gaze found Wade’s, and a tingle erupted in her stomach at the banked promise in his eyes. Lord, that man was sexy. He did crazy things to her sense of self that she didn’t quite trust but she craved just the same. For those reasons alone she should’ve rescinded her offer for tonight but she knew with a certainty wild horses couldn’t force her to say those words. For the first time in her life, she felt out of control of her own emotions and it was addicting.

An hour into the cleaning process, as multiple cleaners dressed head to toe in hazmat suits and breathing apparatuses worked like bees to clear out the residence, the first meltdown occurred.

“What are you doing? You’ve ruined an heirloom!” Jennelle screeched, her hands shaking as she held a broken porcelain figurine. Wade, Miranda and Trace were around her, trying to calm her down but she was quickly gathering speed and Morgan rushed over to help. “You said they would be careful! You promised!” Jennelle cried to Miranda, and Miranda looked chagrined at the oversight.

“Jennelle, come talk with me for a minute,” Morgan encouraged her, drawing her away from her children so that the woman could gather her wits. Sometimes patients needed to remove themselves from the situation and those associated with it in order to calm down. “Talk to me about the heirloom.”

“What does it matter? It’s broken,” she cried, big tears rolling down her cheeks. “It’s never going to be the same. Ever.”

“No, it won’t,” Morgan agreed solemnly. “But accidents happen and we have to learn how to move on.”

“This wasn’t an accident,” she said vehemently, wiping at her tears with her free hand.

“And how wasn’t it an accident? Do you feel someone broke your heirloom purposefully?”

“I don’t know but it’s broken and that’s all that matters.”

“Why don’t you show me where you had this heirloom,” Morgan suggested, knowing it was likely the heirloom had been broken long before she’d noticed, and the movers had simply tossed it in the trash pile because that was the rule: anything broken or ruined had to go.

Jennelle paused, not sure if she wanted to comply as if she knew where Morgan was going with this but she nodded reluctantly, and Morgan followed the older woman into the house where a bustle of activity continued unchecked. Jennelle’s face soured into an unhappy pucker as boxes upon boxes of garbage and who knows what were taken from the house, and for a moment it was hard for Jennelle to focus on the task at hand so Morgan gently helped her along. “Jennelle? Show me where the heirloom was.”

By this point, her children had slowly come to stand near their mother, waiting anxiously for her answer. Clearly, Miranda was bothered by the fact that something truly precious to her mother might’ve been inadvertently damaged while the men appeared openly perplexed by their mother’s reaction.

Morgan wanted to explain that this was a normal reaction for a hoarder and it usually had nothing to do with the actual item in question, but right now she needed to focus on Jennelle as this was part of the healing process. Every lost treasure was metaphorical for something else in the hoarder’s mind, although they rarely realized this at the start. “Well, it was over by the mantel,” Jennelle answered, though her lip quivered when she realized the mantel was still covered by an assortment of things. “Or maybe it was in the kitchen...I don’t remember but I know it was in a safe place.”

“Mom...nothing in this house is safe,” Wade murmured regretfully. “There’s a chance it was broken without you realizing it.”

Jennelle whipped her head around to scowl at her son. “That’s ridiculous. I may have a collecting problem but I know where to put things to keep them safe.”

“Mom, if that were true, we wouldn’t be sorting through a pile of trash right now,” Trace said, pointing toward the huge tarp laid out on the front yard covered with items that needed to be sorted, though most of which was going to end up in the trash bin.

“Tell your children about the heirloom...what was it? What did it mean to you?”

“What does it matter?” Jennelle asked bitterly, fighting tears.

“Please, Mom...we want to know,” Miranda said in a gentle tone that caught Jennelle off guard. The mother-daughter dynamic at work was so complicated and needed further help but one crisis at a time. For a long moment Jennelle simply stared at the pieces, lost in herself until she started sharing in a halting voice.

“It was a gift from your father when we were dating,” Jennelle answered, staring at the broken pieces in her hand. “It was the first gift he’d ever given to me. I kept it all these years because each time I looked at it, I remembered how much he loved me then.”

Morgan nodded in understanding, knowing a little bit about the complex nature of Jennelle’s relationship with her husband. Everything in this poor woman’s life was shattered. She was going to need so much help putting it all back together again.

“Mom, we can try and fix it,” Wade said, gently taking the pieces from his mother. “It might not be the same but we’ll do our best to make it right.”

Morgan had a feeling Wade wasn’t only speaking about the broken figurine, and it warmed her heart in a breathtaking way that he was so gentle with his mother in spite of all the trouble she’d caused. “Trace, can you find some glue?” he asked his brother.

Miranda piped in, snapping her fingers. “I have Super Glue in my purse.”

“That should work,” Wade said, and Miranda went to her Range Rover to retrieve it. Trace rubbed his mother’s shoulder and shared a look with Wade that no doubt was about their father, and Morgan knew whatever differences the brothers had, they shared a common disappointment in how their father had abandoned their mother. “Mama, you’re so brave to go through with this,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”

She looked up, tears filling her eyes. “I don’t feel brave,” she admitted. “I feel like everyone is staring at me in my skivvies.”

Wade chuckled and gathered his mother in his arms for a quick hug. “Well, that’s probably natural, right, Dr. O’Hare?”

“Absolutely. And Trace is right. What you’re doing is incredibly brave and even though it’s difficult, when we’re all done, you’re going to be so much happier.”

Morgan could tell that Jennelle wasn’t sure on that score but she jerked a stiff nod and within moments, Trace, Wade and Miranda were able to glue the shattered pieces back together again. Somewhat satisfied, Jennelle allowed work to continue and for a few hours, progress was swift until the time came to go into Simone’s room.