Chapter Sixteen

Jon had reserved a table for the three of them in the hotel’s dining room. Seeing as they had a 6am flight out of Dublin, an early night was planned. He’d been somewhat bemused by his daughter ever since she had gotten back from her day at the farm. When he asked how the horses had gone he’d gotten little in the way of information yet Steph hadn’t stopped grinning and bouncing around while getting ready for dinner.

“So you had a good day then I take it?” he asked bending over to tie his laces.

“Yup!” came back the answer from the mirror where Steph was fooling with her hair parting.

“What did you all day?” Jon was leaning back on the chair now, arms folded and eyes narrowed.

“Um…rode a few horses!” came another short reply.

Hmmm. Steph was normally pretty descriptive about things especially horses so this was getting suspicious.

“And in between?” he asked with arched eyebrows.

Steph was now busy applying lip gloss and engrossed in the mirror.

“Emmmmm……shust shstufff……”, she mumbled through her teeth, lips peeled back to add an even coat of gloss.

Jon cleared his throat,

“What was that in English??”

With a smack of her lips, Steph threw the lip gloss into her clutch bag and turned around to face her father with an exasperated sigh,

“Gee Dad, what’s with the inquisition? I rode a load of horses, learned a bunch of stuff and had a fun day! Happy?”

Jon laughed and held his hands up in defence,

“Whoah okay kiddo! If you say so! Was just wondering s’all!”

Steph just rolled her eyes and grabbed her bag.

“Ready?”

Shaking his head, Jon got up and took his daughter’s arm. As stubborn as he knew himself to be, he was no match for Steph!

Jenn had phoned up earlier to say she’d meet them in the bar. Well actually she’d told Steph, Jon hadn’t had the chance to speak to her since their parting that morning. Just before they walked in to the bar, Steph’s phone buzzed from her bag and she motioned for Jon to go ahead without her. Walking in he looked around and spotted a familiar looking dark haired woman sitting at the bar with her back to him. She wore a simple deep purple summer dress which hugged her figure in all the right places, creased slightly where her legs crossed over at the knee. His eyes travelled down her long, toned legs to where they tapered off into a pair of black heels. She was tapping one foot restlessly against the bar-front and knocking back what Jon suspected to be a large vodka and coke at an alarming rate.

Stepping up behind her, he leaned over slightly and whispered in her ear,

“Hey there good lookin, mind if I join you?”
Jenn, so absorbed in her thoughts, promptly shot up in her seat and let her glass bang down on the counter with a noisy clank.

“Jesus Jon! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

Swinging around in her seat she looked behind him.

“Where’s Steph?”

Jon leaned against the bar and with his hands in his pockets shrugged and rolled his eyes,

“Where she is most of the time, glued to her damn cell phone!”

Jenn relaxed a little and nodded toward her empty glass, “Join me?”

“Just a beer thanks, don’t think my liver is quite recovered enough yet for hard liquor again!”

He grinned and nodded towards her glass, “I see you’re having no such problems!”

She smiled as she nodded at the bartender for the drinks, “Just one or two to help me sleep tonight that’s all.”

Running a hand through her hair to sweep it back off her face she looked Jon over. Dressed in black dress trousers and a pale blue shirt he made a dazzling sight. He was smirking slightly as he leaned towards her once more,

“Think I could come up with one or two more ways to help you get a good nights sleep baby!”

“Jon!”, Jenn hissed at him darting quick looks over her shoulder for fear that Steph may appear.

“What?” The smirk turned into a smile, displaying his beautiful teeth.

“Not here! Steph might hear!”

He took a look over his shoulder and a swig from his beer.

“Relax Jenn! I know my daughter well enough to know that we’ve got at least another ten minutes before she’s finished gossiping to whoever!”

She pressed her lips together and turned back to face the bar.

“Yeah well that’s not the point! Things are complicated enough as they are!” She grimly lifted her glass and took a large swallow.

Jon’s face clouded over with concern,

“Hey hey, what’s all this about? What’s complicated?”

Jenn looked at him and was just about to open her mouth to speak when she spotted Steph walking up behind Jon with a definite scowl on her face. Jon followed her gaze and turned around to see his daughter jump up on the stool beside him and dump her bag on the counter in frustration.

“Hey kiddo! What’s up?”

She looked up at him with cross eyes and stated,

“Mom! That’s what’s up!”

Jon sighed, Dot hadn’t been too happy about Steph coming away with him but he’d insisted on it. Hell, she was his daughter too and this was their project. He put his drink down and waited for her to embellish further.

“She claims we never told her how long we’d be away and that I should keep horses as a hobby and get a “real career” first, blah, blah! We’ve been over and over this and I finally thought she was cool with it! Huh! Apparently not!” She threw an exasperated look at her father. “I mean we’ve been away less than a week and she’s freaking out already, and arrghhh!!” She threw her arms up in anger and looked to Jon for a response.

“Okay honey, just relax. I think you may have just caught your Mom in a bad mood and she’s missing you that’s all.” He put his arm around Steph whose eyes were still blazing with annoyance and squeezed her protectively, “It’ll be ok, I’ll talk to her when we get home alright?” She nodded and smiled a little as Jon dropped a gentle kiss on her forehead.

Jenn had been sitting quietly at Jon’s other side throughout the conversation. Looking up from her glass, she smiled at Steph who gave her an apologetic grin back.

“Sorry about that Jenn! Didn’t mean to rant on and on but don’t worry - you’ll soooo see where I’m coming from when you meet my Mom!”

Jenn paled slightly and took another big gulp from her glass. So Dorothea already disliked her for taking her daughter away for a week huh? ‘God help me if she ever finds out I’ve slept with her husband - EX-husband!!’, she reminded herself fiercely.

Jon stood looking at the two disgruntled women on either side of him and was at a loss for what to do. Grabbing his beer, he knocked the remainder of it back in a few swallows and announced,

“Dinner time I think ladies!!”

Food would help he reckoned, be a good distraction. Because now that he had seen the look in Jenn’s eyes when Dot was mentioned, he had a pretty good idea what all the tension in her was about.