Allison Leigh - Plain Jane and the Playboy / Valentine's Fortune - Plain Jane and the Playboy

His seat belt was giving him trouble. He had to extend it twice before he could get it to fit into the slot.

“Wouldn’t it be easier just to donate a couple of video games and maybe a secondhand game console?” he suggested.

“Easier, maybe,” she agreed looking over her shoulder as she pulled out of her spot, “but not nearly as rewarding.” Books had always been her saving grace, her safe place to go when things became difficult to deal with. “Books spark the imagination.”

He thought of some of his friends’ kids. They spent hours glued to a television set, their fingers flying across a keypad. “So do video games.”

She supposed video games had their place, but she had never cared for them. “Most video games are about blowing things up. Books build minds.”

There was a note of passion in her voice, as if she were defending old friends. “Bet you read a lot as a kid,” he said.

She’d taken a lot of teasing for that, but that had helped her develop a tougher outer shell. “Anything I could get my hands on,” she confirmed. “I loved to escape into stories.” It wasn’t until the word was out that she realized her mistake.

“What were you escaping from?” Jorge asked, his curiosity aroused.

If she’d had more time, she would have come up with some vague, acceptable story. But the question was here and now. She had no choice but to fall back on the truth. “Parents who yelled at each other and ignored me.”

He hadn’t anticipated that kind of an answer. His parents had always been there for him, even when he hadn’t deserved it. Sometimes he forgot that he was one of the lucky ones and that not everyone grew up with a support system to fall back on.

Not that he ever did, he thought, but it was still nice to know it was there if he needed it.

“Must have been rough,” he sympathized.

She shrugged, glad that she had an excuse to avoid his eyes. The last thing she wanted to see there was pity.

“Other people had it worse.” She suppressed a sigh. There was no changing the past. “They were just two people who should have never gotten married. To anyone,” she added. Her father had been completely into his work and her mother had been completely into herself. They didn’t need outsiders in their lives and they certainly didn’t need to be responsible for a child. “I used to wonder why they got married in the first place.”

Jorge thought of all the times he’d seen his father sneak up behind his mother and steal a kiss or nuzzle her. He’d grown up thinking that all parents loved

each other and demonstrated their affection.

“Did you ever ask them?”

“I asked my mother once,” she recalled. “She said it seemed like a good idea at the time.” A rueful smile curved her lips. “One of the longest conversations I ever had with her.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Having someone sympathetic to turn to could help take the edge off rejection.

Jane kept her eyes on the road, even as her mind revisited the past. Even with the distance of time, it was painful to recall. She shook her head. “One mistake was enough for them.”

“Is that what they told you?” Jorge could feel his temper suddenly materializing out of nowhere, flaring and aimed at people he wouldn’t have recognized if he tripped over them on the street. How could people say something that hurtful to any kid, let alone their own?

“In a way,” she recalled. “When I was six, one of the girls at school bragged about getting a new baby sister over the summer. I came home and asked my mother if we could get one and she looked at me for a long time and then said that when people made mistakes, they were supposed to learn from them, not make another one.” She could feel his eyes on her and she flushed, glancing at him. “I didn’t understand what she meant at the time, but I figured it out later.”

The sadness in her voice was hard to miss. But there was no condemnation.

“And you’re not bitter?” he asked in amazement. A background like that was perfect for producing loners and serial killers, yet here she was, sweet and generous to a fault, working at a job that he knew for a fact paid very little, just because she wanted to help children.

“Wouldn’t change anything if I was,” she theorized. “Besides, they did the best they could.”

Jane’s reasoning eluded him. “How do you figure that?”

“I never went hungry.” At least, not for food, she thought. “I had shelter, clothes and a library card.” Mentioning the last item made her smile fondly. It was one of her best childhood memories. “My father took me to get it when I was seven. The only outing I remember with him, actually,” she confessed.

There were no picnics, no trips to amusement parks, no family vacations in her past. She grew up in a house with two self-involved adults, very much alone.

Maybe the man was a workaholic, Jorge thought. “What did your father do for a living?”

“He was an engineer. Aerospace,” she added. A sigh accompanied her next statement. “He was away a lot. NASA had him on speed dial,” she said with a small laugh. “I think he just used work to get away from my mother.” And inadvertently, her, she added silently.

“And your mother?”

Her mother.

There were no fond memories when she thought of the woman, no nostalgia, no sense of any connection at all. Her mother was just a beautiful woman who happened to have the same address as she did.

“My mother peaked at nineteen. She was Miss Texas in the Miss USA Pageant that year. She came in third and said that she was cheated.” Jane shrugged, as if she wasn’t sure whether or not to give that claim any credence. She did know that, as far as looks went, she had always been a huge disappointment to her mother. “After that, she became a professional shopper.”

“She shopped for other people?” He’d heard of those, but thought they were generally employed by celebrities who had trouble going out in public. There was no one like that around here.

“Not other people. She shopped strictly for herself.” She remembered feeling hopeful the first few times she recalled her mother coming home with shopping bags full of things. But there was never anything in them for her. And after a while, she stopped hoping. “She was only happy when she was buying things. That was why my parents argued rather than talked to each other,” she explained. “My father claimed that she spent money faster than he earned it.”

“And did she?”

The short laugh had a sad sound to it. “Absolutely.”

Making a left turn, Jane pulled onto the hospital compound. She hadn’t realized that she’d talked all the way here. It certainly hadn’t been her intention to go on and on like that.

“Well, there you have it.” She tried to make a joke of the fact that she’d revealed so much, “My whole life story. Not exactly a page-turner, was it?” There was a parking structure straight ahead. She drove into it and parked her vehicle in the first space she could find. Turning off the engine, she turned to look at him. She was surprised that Jorge hadn’t tried to jump out of the car. “I didn’t mean to bore you.”

“I wasn’t bored,” he protested. If anything, he’d gained new respect for her.

“Now you’re just being polite.” She released her seat belt. “Shoelaces have more exciting backstories than I do.”

Jorge grinned. The novelty of a modest woman hadn’t grown old yet. “I don’t usually talk to shoelaces,” he told her.

She laughed shortly. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do,” he acknowledged, “and you’re wrong.” He saw her raise her eyebrows in a silent question. “I don’t find you dull or boring.”