Read Online One Good Turn by Judith Arnold - Free Book Online Page B

attention to his older son. But Luke would never betray Elliott. In spite of the years he’d spent envying him, he never blamed his brother for receiving the lion’s share of their father’s love. Indeed, now that Luke was receiving the lion’s share, he could empathize with Elliott’s need to run away.
    He made a more concerted effort to look interested as his father droned on about his mother’s drinking. But behind his cool amber eyes his mind drifted back to the Saturday he’d spent with Jenny. The museum had been so crowded he’d had to hold her hand in order not to lose her. Her hand was so tiny, it felt like a child’s. Yet her body was definitely a woman’s. He’d been aware of the small, firm swells of her breasts beneath her loose-fitting T-shirt, and the curves of her slim waist, her hips and her calves, visible below the knee-length hem of her denim skirt. He’d been aware of her lightly scented cologne, the feathery whisps of hair that had unraveled from her braid at her temples, the faint sprinkle of golden freckles over the narrow bridge of her nose.
    His father kept yammering about how Yale was superior to Harvard, and Luke thought about what it would be like to kiss those freckles, and her smiling lips, and her breasts, what it would be like to run his hands over those supple legs and compact hips, what it would be like...
    “So, are you making any friends down here?” his father asked.
    Luke coughed and forced his thoughts back to the dinner table. “Yes, a few,” he said evasively.
    “Isn’t your roommate’s sister in town?”
    “Holly,” Luke informed him. “She’s a summer intern at the Corcoran.”
    “Art galleries.” James Benning sniffed. “And her brother wants to go into the restaurant business, of all things. He seemed like a sensible boy, but I don’t know.”
    “He’ll be good at it,” Luke defended Taylor. “He’s learned a lot about the business from his uncle, and he loves what he’s doing.” Taylor’s uncle owned a three-star restaurant in Newport, and Taylor had spent his summers working there ever since he was a teenager.
    “To each his own,” his father muttered with another sniff. Loving what you were doing was all right for some people, apparently, but not for the second son of James Benning. “Well, you’d be wise to steer clear of Taylor’s sister,” he went on. “Another important rule of survival is: never fool around with your best friend’s sister.” He grinned slyly and winked.
    Luke returned his father’s grin. “I’ll remember that.”
    “And you’ve probably met plenty of other women down here, anyway.”
    Luke opened his mouth to tell his father about Jenny, then shut it. He could predict what his father would say if Luke described her. Smith College was acceptable, but the daughter of insurance salespeople was bad, and red hair, even if determined by genetics and not L’Oreal, was
declassé
. An English major was valid, but a school teacher was not. And someone who actually clapped her hands together and insisted on climbing inside a mock-up of the lunar module was sorely lacking in sophistication.
    And Luke hadn’t even gotten her into bed. Why was he wasting his time on a girl like her?
    Because, Luke would say if he had the nerve—because the time he’d spent with Jenny Perrin was time spent happily. Because when he thought about it, it seemed as if much of his life had been a waste of time until the moment she’d marched up to him at a party and said “Hi.”
    Because Jenny Perrin was a miracle worker. That was why.

Chapter Four
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    “I’M SURPRISED YOU liked it,” he remarked as he and Jenny left the church building, the interior of which had been gutted and converted into a flexible performance space. He had asked her if she wanted to see one of the Broadway hits whose touring companies were currently playing in town, but she’d suggested instead that they attend a new play at an experimental theater near