In His Good Hands. Joan Kilby
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a big boy.” Renita tossed her ponytail. “He can take care of himself.”
“It’s not just him I’m worried about,” Lexie said. “You’re not as tough as you pretend.”
“I am tough.” Renita’s fists tightened around the plastic hanger. If she was going to be around Brett she would have to develop a hide like a rhino.
“HEY, GRANT.” Brett shifted the phone to his other ear while he gave change to a gym member for the coffee machine. “The financing is all approved, the sale is going ahead. I just wanted to confirm that my salary as manager continues up until the date of the transfer of property. Then I’ll be on my own.” He chuckled as Grant offered commiserations. “I’m looking forward to taking over. Can’t wait, in fact. If you happen to be in town for the grand opening, be sure to come by. I’ll let you know when it is.”
Brett hung up and made calls to a few painting companies and flooring installers. He didn’t have a loan for refurbishment—yet—but there was no harm in getting a few quotes so he’d be ready to roll when he did get the money.
He glanced at his watch. Nearly 6:00 p.m. He needed to get Tegan from his parents’ house, where she was helping babysit his brother Ryan’s little girl.
He left the reception desk to poke his head into the weight room, where Mark was wiping down the seats and handles of the machines. “I’m taking off now,” he told him. “I’ll be back in an hour or so. I’ll close tonight.”
“Sure thing, Brett.” Mark lifted the bottle of spray cleaner. “Catch you later.”
On his way to his parents’ he stopped off at home to pick up a glass coffee table he had no use for. When he’d split from Amber she’d kept the mansion on the Yarra River and bought all new furniture, giving him the old pieces. He knew his mum and dad would be thrilled to get a nearly new coffee table in perfect condition.
A half hour later he pulled into the gravel driveway of the seventies timber cottage where he had grown up. The ramshackle building, added onto in hodgepodge fashion as the family grew, was tucked in an old subdivision of Summerside. The backyard was big enough for a chicken coop, a veggie garden and, when Brett was a kid, for him and his brothers, Ryan and Tom, to chuck around a football. In his big earning years Brett had tried to buy his parents a newer house, but they’d wanted to stay where they had space for the grandkids to play. From the sounds of laughter over the fence, Tegan and little Charlotte were bouncing on the trampoline.
His dad opened the front door, big and bluff as ever. Hal’s graying hair still held traces of blond and his shoulders were as wide as his son’s. “Hey, Brett.” He feinted a karate chop.
Brett parried, only to find himself gripped in a headlock. He hooked a leg around his father’s ankle and got him off balance long enough to break away. Hal immediately twisted his arm up his back with an evil chuckle.
“Uncle!” Brett cried, knowing that otherwise this could go on for twenty minutes or more. Hal released him and he shook his shoulders to relax them. “Geez, Dad, when are you going to take up golf?”
“Golf is for sissies. Mary!” Hal bellowed down the hall. “Brett’s here.”
His mum, short and slight, limped forward slowly, hampered by her prosthetic leg. Brett went to meet her, picking her up and enveloping her in a bear hug.
“Let me go,” she cried, flustered and laughing, pushing back her curly auburn hair. After she was safely set back down, she said, “Are you and Tegan staying for dinner?”
“I have to get back to the gym in an hour. I’m just dropping off that coffee table we talked about. Dad, want to give me a hand?”
Hal followed him out to the car and helped him unhook the bungee cord holding down the trunk of the Mercedes. “How’s it going at the gym?”
“I got the loan. In thirty days the business will be mine.” Brett slid one end of the thick glass out of the trunk over the padding, steadying it so his father could grab hold. When Hal had removed the glass, Brett bent his knees and hefted the marble base, grunting under its weight.
“And the bad news?” Hal asked, somehow hearing it in the tone of Brett’s voice. He balanced the heavy piece of glass on his hip and crunched over the gravel to the front door.
“It’s all good.” Brett shifted the marble to get a stronger grip, then went sideways into the house. “Where do you want this?”
“Over here.” Mary waved him to a spot in the cozy living room in front of the his-and-hers recliners in worn brown Naugahyde.
“Brett’s got himself a fitness center,” Hal told his wife.
“That’s wonderful.” She motioned them a little farther to the right. “Not too close to the fireplace.”
Brett lowered the base, then helped position the glass top. Merlin, the fluffy gray cat, came to inspect the new addition to his home. Mary hunted up a cloth and a bottle of window cleaner.
“I’ll go find Tegan,” Hal said, leaving his wife to do the final touches.
“Thank you, Brett. This table is lovely.” Mary began to polish the glass top. “Doesn’t that girl who tutored you in math in high school work in the loans department? I’ll bet it helped that you knew her.”
Brett picked up Merlin and stroked him until he purred. “Oddly enough, needing math tutorials was no recommendation for a business loan in Renita’s eyes.”
“Renita, that’s her name.” His mum straightened, pressing a hand to the small of her back. “But what do you mean, no recommendation. Didn’t you get what you wanted?”
Somehow his mother always managed to coax information from him that he couldn’t tell his father. “Not the full loan,” he said flatly. “I can buy the gym but not refurbish it.”
Hal came through the door from the kitchen. “The girls are coming in now.”
“Tell your father,” Mary said to Brett. She took a potted African violet off the windowsill and placed it in the center of the table.
Hal glanced from her to Brett. “What is it?”
Brett groaned. “Don’t, Mum….”
“Brett’s got a problem with the bank. They won’t give him enough money. Can we help?”
“No, I’ll be fine,” Brett said firmly. His parents’ meager savings would see them through retirement as long as nothing unexpected came up. He didn’t like asking for help from anyone, and he definitely wouldn’t take it from his folks, who had so little to spare.
“Have you talked to Ryan or Tom?” Mary asked.
“No, and I’m not going to. They both have families and expenses of their own.”
“What about taking in a silent partner?” Hal suggested. “One of your old footy mates.”
Brett rubbed his jaw. It wasn’t a bad idea. Some of the guys could afford to throw a couple hundred grand his way as an investment. But to ask would mean revealing his ongoing problems with Amber and his financial embarrassment. “Nah, I’ll think of something.”
Hal clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Course you will.”
“If you change your mind, you come to us,” Mary said.
“Thanks,” Brett said, knowing he never would.
“Bring Renita around for dinner sometime,” she added.
“We don’t see each other socially.”
“Not even as friends?” Mary asked. “I always thought you had a soft spot for her.”
“I don’t know why you’d think that.” He kissed his mother’s cheek. “I’ll get Tegan on my way