by Brenda Gayle
He kissed her hard. “Yeah, but upstairs. I don’t think I’d survive another session in your boardroom.”
Chapter 18
Nora was distracted when she arrived at her office Tuesday morning. Gary wasn’t at the coffee shop again today. She hadn’t seen him in over a week, and she was starting to wonder if something had happened to him—maybe his MS had gotten worse. She’d even asked Sue about him, hoping that perhaps his schedule had changed and he was coming to the coffee shop earlier or later, but the barista hadn’t seen him either.
Nora didn’t know why his absence worried her so much. She had only spoken with him a couple of times. Still, if he didn’t show up in the next few days, she’d try to track him down to make sure he was okay.
Becca was already in the office, and Nora glanced at her watch even though she knew she wasn’t late. “You’re here early,” she said.
“I wanted to make sure you had everything for the meeting. The rental car’s arrived and is parked out front. You’ve got a bit more time, though. Sylvia called to say they’re going to delay by an hour.”
Nora was surprised. The board meetings always began at ten. She didn’t mind having an extra hour. She could use the time to fine-tune the Wilkinson’s scholarship proposal. The board was going to be thrilled. “Did she say why?”
“Something about a conflict, she said.” Becca shrugged her shoulders. “Did you see yesterday’s paper?”
“No, why?”
“There’s a photo of you at the Graham Foundation dinner on the society page.”
Nora scowled. “I don’t have time to read the gossip columns.”
“Well, you might want to have a look at this one. I put it on your desk.”
Nora saw the newspaper on top of the pile of files she’d need for today’s board meeting. Why would Becca think she’d be interested in this garbage? Nevertheless, she folded it and stuffed it into her satchel. Maybe later.
The drive from Santa Fe to Albuquerque took just over an hour, but Nora always allowed extra time so she wouldn’t have to pay the exorbitant downtown parking rates. She’d discovered a parking lot less than a mile from the Plaza Tower, and usually found the fifteen minute walk a pleasant transition to gear up for, or down from, the meeting.
The day was clear and crisp. There had been a touch of frost the previous evening, but the rising sun had quickly melted it. While there was still a chill in the air, the glorious sunshine made it feel more like mid-April rather than late February.
The elevator stopped on the penthouse floor, and Nora walked down the familiar corridor to the boardroom Sylvia liked to book for CAN’s meetings.
The majority of the twelve-member board lived in Albuquerque and it was an easy destination to reach for the three directors who didn’t. In many ways, Nora would prefer to have the meetings in Santa Fe. She’d love the directors to experience the conditions she and Becca worked in—it might give them a better appreciation for challenges the organization faced—but it wasn’t practical. She couldn’t crowd twelve additional people into her tiny office, and the cost of renting a boardroom was prohibitive. She should appreciate Sylvia’s generosity, except that she didn’t think altruism was the chair’s motivation.
The boardroom was completely glass on two sides, providing a spectacular view of Albuquerque’s skyline even to those approaching it along the corridor.
Nora paused as soon as she got close enough to see into the room. She’d expected to find some of the directors milling around, engaging in the usual pre-meeting chitchat. Instead, all of them were seated at the table, deep in discussion. Nora glanced at her watch and shook it to make certain. It said she was fifteen minutes early.
The room went still as she hurried through the door. All eyes turned to stare at her, and she flushed.
“I’m sorry. I’d been told we weren’t starting until eleven,” she said. Sylvia glared at her from the far end of the table.
“No, no. You’re right on time.” Evan Miller rose to help her remove her coat, and pulled out a chair for her to sit in. She smiled her thanks and opened her laptop.
Of all the directors, Evan was her favorite. He was a retired principal and school board trustee, and could always be counted on to cut through the self-serving b.s. to bring the discussion back to what really mattered—the kids.
As her laptop purred to life she looked around the table. With the exception of Sylvia, no one would meet her gaze.
“Am I missing something?” she asked.
Sylvia passed a newspaper to the director sitting next to her, and Nora watched with a growing sense of foreboding as it was passed from person to person and finally opened on the table in front of her.
Her gaze went first to the photo and she breathed a small sigh of relief, thankful that the photographer had caught her and Hunter arriving at the event rather than leaving it. It was a very nice picture, actually. Hunter looked heart-stoppingly handsome in his tux as he gazed down at her and, she had to admit, she looked pretty good, happily staring up at him.
Then she saw the headline and froze. “Cougar Cages Hunter” She felt an icy hand clutched at her heart at the same time as a burning fury of shame coursed through her. Then anger flooded her gut.
Cougar? That’s ridiculous. I’m not old enough to be a cougar.
She tried for disdain, but she was so breathless from the shock she could barely get the words out. “What’s this?”
“That’s what we were just discussing.” Nobody could do disdain like Sylvia. “I think an explanation is in order.”
“For what?” Calm down. Breathe. She had no reason to be defensive. “It was a fundraiser. I met a number of potential donors, and have a proposal for an amazing new scholarship we can administer for a percentage fee.” She opened a file and handed a pile of papers to Garvis Potter, who was beside her. “Please pass these around. I think you’ll agree—”
Garvis allowed the papers to fall to the table in front of him. He stared down at them as if afraid they would jump up and bite him of their own volition.
“The article says you’re living together,” Sylvia said.
“We are not.”
“But you are staying at the same hotel.”
Breathe. “If you remember, both my apartment and the CAN office were broken into. We were able to move back into the office last week, and I’m staying at the hotel until my apartment can be secured before returning there.”
She shouldn’t have to deal with this invasion of her personal life. She looked along the table, attempting to make eye contact with each director. What business was it of theirs?
“Still, you’ve been seeing Mr. Graham.” It wasn’t a question, and Sylvia’s emphasis made it quite clear what she thought of Hunter.
“Yes, we’ve gone out a few times.” Nora could feel her anger building, and she took a deep breath to control it. She was furious that they would presume to tell her how to live her life. Yet she knew she needed them—CAN needed them. “What business is it of the board who I see on my own time?”
“Oh, I’d say it’s very much our business. You are our representative, our employee. We are a child advocacy agency, and our reputation and credibility depends very much on the reputation and credibility of our staff. It does not send the appropriate message to have our executive director seen gallivanting with this state’s most notorious lothario. It calls into question your judgment, your morals. And that, in turn, calls into question the integrity of this board of directors and the organization we represent.”
Nora was stunned. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Along the table she could see heads nodding in agreement. Only Evan met her gaze, and while his eyes were sympathetic, he didn’t say anything in her defense.
“You don’t even know him,” Nora said. “You don’t know the first thing about him. How can you make judgments about a person’s character by the garbage they print in the newspaper or post on the Internet?”
“Where there’s smok
e, there’s fire,” Sylvia said. “Don’t be naive, Nora. It’s not one or two isolated reports. It’s a consistent pattern of behavior.”
She decided to try a different tact. “He’s very well-connected, you know. There is his relationship with the Graham Foundation, and his grandmother is Libby Hunter.”
“Well, he obviously doesn’t care about maintaining decorum for his family’s sake, does he? Really, Nora, the family connections are irrelevant. Look at Paris Hilton. Her family name wasn’t enough to stop that train wreck.”
“Let’s be clear. We are discussing my own personal time and life. It doesn’t interfere with anything I do for CAN.” This was ludicrous. Did these people realize they were living in the twenty-first century?
“Of course it affects CAN,” Sylvia snapped. She jumped to her feet, banging her hands down on the table. She looked like she was going to say more, but she stopped herself and sat down slowly.
“Nora,” she said more gently, “you have been recommended to join the President’s Child Welfare Task Force. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a huge coup for this organization, not to mention for you personally. But if you continue to see Hunter Graham, I’m afraid your nomination will be blocked by the more conservative elements in Washington. Regardless of his family’s wealth and standing in this state, his personal reputation will only bring your downfall.”
“President’s?” Nora tried to swallow whatever it was that had lodged in her throat. “Of the United States? The President’s Child Welfare Task Force?”
“Yes.”
“But how? Who?” Nora could feel her heart racing. She’d never imagined Washington would recognize her work.
“I believe it was Mr. Bower who recommended you. I told you working with the Texas association was a good idea.”
Nora cringed at the dig. No one could ever accuse Sylvia of taking the high road when she could force someone to eat a little humble pie.
“So you see our concern,” Sylvia continued. “This board wants your assurance that you will immediately end your relationship with Mr. Graham.”
“I understand.” Nora nodded, not in agreement—she wasn’t prepared to give them that—but in recognition of what was being asked of her. She needed time to think.
“Good,” Sylvia said. “I think now might be a good time to take a break. I’ve made us lunch reservations at the usual restaurant on the first floor for noon.” She looked at the clock on the wall. “That will give us a half hour to check our messages before we meet there.” She rose and strode out of the boardroom.
Other directors followed while Nora remained seated, gazing sightlessly down at the newspaper lying in front of her. Evan reached out and squeezed her shoulder as he passed. No one spoke to her.
In a daze, she packed up her laptop and left the boardroom, descending the twenty-two floors in one of the Plaza Tower’s thousand-feet-per-minute elevators.
Once outside, she didn’t know where she was going. She just knew she needed to get away from those people and their pretensions. Walking would help her focus.
Hunter did have a reputation for dating a lot of women, but that didn’t make him a bad person. In fact, she had discovered him to be caring and considerate, and respectful of women. She’d bet he treated women better than many of the directors on her own board. And yet, it hadn’t been so long ago that she had seen him as they did—a shallow gigolo, concerned only with satisfying his own needs.
Cougar? That one really stung. But hadn’t she questioned their age difference, too? Yet, if their ages were reversed, people would be giving Hunter a slap on the back and high-fiving him for attracting some sexy young thing. It was so unfair.
But the President’s Task Force? Jeez. She’d never imagined something like that happening to her. It was the fulfillment of a long-held dream, a sign that she had finally made it. Her hard work over the past ten years was about to be rewarded. And all she had to do was end a relationship that was never going to amount to anything anyway.
Why, then, was she reluctant to do so? Sure, he made her feel attractive and desired, and the sex was great. But she was under no illusions that there was anything more going on than that. Hunter had made it clear that he was only in it for the fun, and she had agreed to those terms.
Was she really thinking of risking her whole future for a few more weeks with Hunter Graham? Of course not. She was just irked that the directors on her board felt they could tell her what to do.
If she wanted the opportunity to be on the President’s Task Force, she’d have to swallow her pride and agree to their demand to stop seeing him.
Hunter would understand. Maybe he’d even be glad that she was ending things—relieved that he didn’t have to deal with a potentially distraught woman. Nora thought about Taylor and her obvious reluctance to accept that things were over with Hunter. He never spoke about any of the women he’d dated, but she’d noticed a definite tension in him whenever he saw Taylor in the hotel lobby or at his restaurant.
Surely he didn’t think Nora would react the same way. Still, the thought that he’d be happy when the inevitable break-up came troubled her in a way she was unwilling to explore.
She glanced at her watch. It was almost noon. She should get back. The directors would be wondering where she was. She looked around. The street was unfamiliar. As often happened, she’d been so consumed with reasoning out her problem that she hadn’t paid attention to where she was going. That wasn’t a problem when she was in Santa Fe, a city she knew very well. But it could be a problem here.
She did a complete 360-degree turn to try to get her bearings. If she turned right around and headed back, she was bound to see the Plaza Tower in the skyline before too long. She couldn’t have gone that far, could she?
Considering it was lunch hour there weren’t many people around. She seemed to have stumbled into one of Albuquerque’s less-affluent areas, outside the main business district. There were a few storefronts and some poorly maintained houses. At the next corner she passed a vacant lot surrounded by a chain link fence. A group of teenagers glared at her.
She heard the sound of an engine backfiring and then a roar as a muffler-less car approached from behind. She turned, alarmed, seeing a blur of white before hearing a series of sharp popping sounds. Something seemed to strike her shouldered satchel, knocking it into her hip, and then she was spinning backward and falling to the ground. She felt her head hit the pavement, but it was the piercing sensation in her shoulder that stung sharpest before everything went black.
****
Nora could hear voices between the poundings in her head. None were familiar.
No, wait. One was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place the woman’s intonations.
Slowly she opened her eyes, and closed them immediately, a moan of pain escaping her as the bright light caused the hammering to intensify against her skull.
“Nora?” The woman’s voice grew closer, and she could feel a cool hand brush against her cheek. “Nora, are you awake?”
More hands—these ones rougher—pressed against her neck and then pulled open an eyelid to shine a light directly into her pupil.
She tried to turn away, but that was a mistake. Any movement sent daggers of pain into her brain. “Too bright,” she heard herself moan.
“Lights,” the man barked, and Nora sensed the room going darker. Still, she was reluctant to open her eyes.
“Nora can you hear me?” he asked.
She didn’t want to speak, but wouldn’t consider nodding her head—all that pain. She felt him take her left hand.
“Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
Okay, that she could manage.
“Good. I’m Doctor Challice. Your sister, Karen, is here with me. Do you understand?”
Squeeze.
“Good. Now I want you to try to open your eyes. Just your eyes. Don’t try to move anything else. Okay? Take it slow.”
Even with the lights turned down the room still seeme
d too bright, and it took Nora several attempts to keep her eyes open. Gradually, Doctor Challice’s face came into view. He was very young, too young to be a doctor, and Nora wondered if she should ask him to stop touching her.
As he leaned back, Karen’s face hovered over her. Why is she here?
“It’s okay, Nora. You’re going to be fine,” Karen said. She had been crying. “Why isn’t she saying anything?” Karen turned to the doctor.
“Give her a few minutes. Between the fall and the anesthetic, it’ll take a bit.”
“What happened?” Nora managed to whisper.
“Do you know where you are?” Doctor Challice asked.
She shook her head and winced.
“What is the last thing you remember?”
“I fell. No, something hit me—pushed me down.”
“Okay, Nora. That’s enough for now. You rest some, and we’ll talk later.”
Nora sighed in relief and closed her eyes.
“Can I stay with her?” Karen asked.
She must have fallen asleep because the next time she awoke the room was much darker—although not in total darkness. She could see bright light coming from the doorway, and hear the sound of distant voices and movement. A shadow rose from a chair at the end of her bed. She recognized Karen coming toward her.
“Nora?” she said hesitantly. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah.” Her voice croaked. “Water.”
“Can you sit up?”
“Don’t know.”
Karen slipped an arm under her shoulders, and Nora was able to raise herself up slightly. The movement wasn’t without considerable pain, but it wasn’t as shocking as before. She sucked deeply from the straw held against her lips, and then relaxed back as Karen lowered her.
The dusky light brought into high relief the anxiety etched onto Karen’s face. How long had she been here?
“What time is it?” Nora asked.
“Just after ten. They brought you in about twelve-thirty. I’m supposed to get the doctor when you wake up.” She reached out and squeezed the rubber call button dangling beside Nora’s head. A nurse appeared in the doorway almost immediately, and then hurried away.