Texas Baby

by Tanya Michaels

  Addie quivered, then screamed. She felt like an elastic band that had stretched beyond its capacity and snapped, shooting out into the cosmos. Giff surged up into her, his embrace tightening as his fingers splayed over her spine. Then they both collapsed against the back of the couch, her head resting on his shoulder.

  He trailed a hand over her hair. "Addie."

  She tilted her head just enough that he could see her sleepy smile. "You lied to me."

  "What?" His muscles bunched beneath her hands.

  "You definitely do not have a problem with rhythm."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Giff got to the office around 9 a.m. on Monday morning, a definite spring in his step as he crossed the parking garage. After he and Addie had kept each other awake into the wee hours of Saturday night, he'd hated to let her go yesterday morning. She'd had to pick up the kids, though, and he hadn't wanted to intrude on the Caines' Sunday together.

  As his mother might have teasingly advised, "Really, dear, there's nothing less attractive than a needy man." So Giff had met his mother for Sunday brunch instead, his way of apologizing for the fact that he and Addie had ducked out of the reception without spending any more time with Grace. His mother had forgiven him with a sly smile.

  "Well, I suppose it's my own fault. I did tell you that you should be passionate about something in your life besides work. But you have to bring Addie around sometime soon. And I want to meet those adorable children I've been hearing so much about."

  "Don't worry, Mom. I plan on their being around a lot."

  Now, as Giff punched the button to call the elevator, he wondered how Addie would feel about his inviting Grace to Friday night's soccer game. He stepped inside the elevator in such a good mood that he found himself whistling along to the former rock song that had been cruelly transformed into lifeless, instrumental background music. There was a ding when he reached the seventh floor and the doors parted.

  Addie! His senses automatically registered her unexpected presence directly in front of him and his joy at seeing her. It took a second later for his intellect to catch up, for him to realize that she was holding a white cardboard box and that her gray eyes were swimming with tears.

  "Addie, what—"

  "You SOB," she grated. "Don't speak to me."

  "What?" After the weekend they'd shared? He'd told her he loved her! Or, implied it, anyway. "I don't…" Except that, suddenly, he did. Bill.

  Panic seized Giff, clogging his throat. He sounded as if he were choking on rusty nails when he offered the only words that sprang to mind—possibly the worst thing any man could say in circumstances like these. "I can explain."

  "Get out of the elevator!" she ordered, her voice harsh.

  He stepped into the office suite but tried to prevent her from entering. They had to talk about this, he couldn't just let her go when she was this upset. Once out of the elevator, he realized that both Gabi Lopez and Pepper Harrington were hovering in the background. Gabi looked upset and unsure, wringing her hands. Pepper stood warriorlike with her hands on her hips, glaring at him as if she were trying to incinerate him with laser beam eyes.

  The second he'd taken to study the other two women had given Addie the advantage. She'd moved fast for someone in high-heeled boots. She hit the down arrow before the doors had fully closed, then used the box like a shield, blocking him from getting anywhere near her while she turned sideways and boarded the elevator.

  "Add—"

  Her silent, betrayed face disappeared behind the metal doors. He stood dumbfounded for heartbeats of time that felt like entire eras dragging by, then whirled around.

  "You!" He jabbed an index finger at Pepper. "What the hell happened here?"

  "Bill fired her," the brunette informed him icily. "Thanks to you, apparently."

  No. Oh, God, no. She must hate him. What had Bill been thinking? Giff had explained to the man….

  If he took the stairs, he might have a chance at catching up to her. He dove for the stairwell. He was lucky that in his rush, he didn't fall and break his neck on the concrete steps. Although he couldn't imagine that doing so would be any more painful than the jagged accusation in Addie's tear-filled eyes.

  The exit door burst open with a clang that reverberated through the entire parking garage. "Wait! Addie, it's not what you think." He sprinted toward her.

  She was standing by her car, trying unsuccessfully to get one of the back doors open. "I don't know what to think. Less than forty-eight hours ago, I told some man that I loved him and then we spent all Saturday night and most of Sunday morning…I knew we had sex, Giff. I didn't know I was getting screwed."

  He flinched. "Whatever Bill told you, it's not true."

  She dropped the box of belongings with a thud. "He said he hired you because someone was stealing proprietary information and selling it to a rival, losing us jobs. Fact?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "And that the whole time you were working on network changes with us, you'd also been instructed to 'get to know us better.'" She made air-quotes, the ugly innuendo dripping from her words like corrosive acid.

  He clenched his fists at his sides, unfamiliar helplessness mingled with rage that she'd been hurt. "No, Addie, that has nothing to do with us. You—"

  "Really? Because I seem to recall you asking me bizarrely out of place questions about how well I knew my coworkers. Considering how little dirt I had to share, I'm surprised you didn't drop me then and there and take Pepper out Saturday instead."

  "Damn it, Addie, stop. Please." Saturday had been special. "It wasn't like that. You know it isn't."

  Fury flared in her eyes, but it self-extinguished, leaving her looking confused and defeated. "Bill told me you brought him evidence against me."

  "He said I had until this Friday, I never—"

  "You were going to string me along for another week?" She finally fumbled open the back door of her car and shoved the box inside so viciously that it slid off the seat into the floor. Giff heard something break.

  "If you would just hear me out, Addie, I promise—"

  "That what? That I won't be sorry? I've been hearing you out. Against my better judgment at times, and this is where it landed me." She opened the driver side door. "You know, you and Jonna talk about Christian like he's a jerk because he left me, but at least he was honest about what he was doing. You lied! You knew I didn't want to get involved, you wore me down, and you were exploiting me the whole time. So, no. I don't think I'm going to be listening to you anymore, Giff."

  She climbed into the car and slammed the door so hard he wouldn't have been surprised if the windows had shattered. Or if a wheel had fallen off. She revved the motor and, not entirely sure what she was capable of when she was this angry, he took several large steps back, prepared to duck behind a concrete pillar if necessary.

  Watching her go felt like having his heart clawed out of his chest. He was in actual physical pain, so much so that it was hard to think. Get it together. He had to focus, had to come up with a plan of action. Somehow he had to win Addie back; he had to find a way to clear her name. And somewhere along the way, he might also try to squeeze in time to drop Bill Daughtrie out a seventh-story window.

  * * *

  "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK you're doing?" There was a part of Giff that was advising him to dial it down, a rational part that recognized Daughtrie having security escort him from the premises wasn't going to help Addie in the long run. But Giff could barely hear that small reasonable part of him over the instincts that were clamoring for vengeance, that wanted to howl because Addie had been misused.

  And blamed him for it.

  Bill half rose from his chair, planting his palms on the edge of his desk. "What I think I'm doing is running my company, son. My company. I heard from Groverton before I even got to the office this morning. We were underbid, and I decided to put an end to this bull. You've worked up the security improvements, I've seen the recommendations. Let's go ahead and put them in
place now. I got rid of the leak."

  "Addie was not the leak!"

  "And did you come to that decision using your…" Bill twisted his lips in an ugly sneer "…brain?"

  "It's not her," Giff repeated flatly.

  Bill reclined back in his chair. "You don't know that. The only shred of evidence you've managed to pin down so far points to her. But even if you were right—and you're not—my problem is taken care of. With the new security measures in place, it will be a damn sight harder for anyone to pull this again. And their scapegoat is gone. Implicating Addie was a one-shot deal and I called their bluff. If it happens going forward, then we'll know instantly it wasn't her and more heads roll."

  You bastard. Bill didn't truly believe she was guilty, he just wanted an expedient solution.

  "And you're not worried about a wrongful termination suit?" Giff would gladly offer his testimony as an expert witness.

  Bill rolled his eyes. "I was well within my rights to fire a suspicious employee. One, I might add, who has missed a slew of time in the past two months and whose professionalism has been called into question of late. I'd like to see her try to scrounge up the money to take on me and my lawyers. Now, if that's all, why don't you get out of my office?"

  Giff tried to see his way through the red haze to a solution. Appealing to Bill's better nature was out; the man clearly didn't have one. So how could Giff use the man's baser nature to manipulate him?

  He took a deep breath. "You told me I had until Friday to investigate this."

  "I invoked my right to change my mind," Bill said in a bored tone. "It's my company. What aren't you understanding about that?"

  "I'd like to make you an offer. Give me until Friday, and I'll give you back every penny you gave me to do this job." Giff saw the light of greed dawn in the man's eyes and knew he had him. After all, Giff's salary had not been insubstantial. And with some of the recently lost jobs, Daughtrie was starting to feel the financial pinch.

  "Maybe I won't find anything," Giff said, "in which case nothing changes for you except that you get that big fat refund. But what if Addie really wasn't behind this? That means you still have someone here in this company cheating you, laughing at you. Wouldn't you want the chance to toss him out on his ass?"

  Bill's eyes narrowed to slits. "Until Friday," he agreed. "But you start activating the new security protocols now. We're not giving anyone the chance to do this again."

  Because he couldn't bring himself to actually thank the man who'd just kicked Addie to the curb, Giff settled for a crisp nod, then strode from Bill's office.

  Addie, I will fix this for you, I swear.

  * * *

  WITH TANNER AT SCHOOL and Nicole in daycare, Addie was huddled in her life-sucks/I-have-PMS flannel pajamas, trying to take advantage of this time alone and work through the worst of her grief and anger. She wanted to scream and sob the way Nicole did when she was too tired to sleep or when a new tooth was poking through the surface of her tender gums. Addie wanted to kick and flail. But ever since she'd driven out of that parking lot, Giff in her rearview mirror, her emotions had been frozen into an iceberg of pain just below the surface.

  Nothing would come.

  Addie was working on the theory that there were two key types of pain. There was the dull stab of trauma you saw coming but couldn't avoid—being downsized in company-wide layoffs, losing a relative who'd been sick for a while, breaking off a romantic relationship that both parties had quietly known for months wasn't working. And then there was the sharp, wrenching agony of the speeding train that came out of nowhere. Losing Zach and Diane. Losing her job.

  Losing Giff.

  Her fingers tightened convulsively on her cordless phone, and she tried once more to call Jonna. She got the voice mail for the second time and hung up. This was not the kind of thing you summarized in a message. You know the great new guy in my life you encouraged me to date? He got me fired.

  Not that Addie for one second blamed Jonna for thinking Giff was great. They all had, even baby Nicole who giggled and cooed whenever she saw his face. Of course, baby Nicole had only been on the planet for a few months and didn't know about concepts like deception and betrayal. Addie didn't realize how hard she was squeezing the phone until the battery compartment fell off and clattered to the floor.

  A sick, panicky feeling had gripped her, one she recognized from this summer in those first days after she'd brought Nicole and Tanner here. She'd felt so horribly isolated then, suffocating on fear. She'd just lost her big brother, who'd also been one of her closest friends; Christian had left her; Jonna had been largely unreachable as she explored a relationship that might well lead to getting married one day and marginalizing Addie's role in her life; and, perhaps worst of all, seeing how frail her own parents had been at Zach's funeral had forced her to admit that they were truly getting up there in years and that one day she would have to take care of arrangements for them the same way she had for her sibling.

  It had been the bleakest time she'd ever known in her life and only in retrospect did she see how much Giff had helped her. Not just by the specific actions he'd taken but simply by being there. The moral support alone had calmed her enough to ease the paralyzing fright and allow her to be productive again. And now that had been yanked away, leaving her more alone and exposed than ever.

  No, that's not true. You still have Jonna, she's just in a meeting right now or something. And Gabi's your friend. Assuming the woman didn't think Addie was a thief and refuse to ever speak to her again for fear of the association hurting Gabrielle's job.

  "Hell with this," she said aloud. "I'll be my own moral support." If she didn't have a friend currently available to listen to her vent, then Addie could always self-medicate with Ben & Jerry.

  Wait, no. They were men. Her lip curled as she recalled Bill Daughtrie's malicious glee in calling her into his office this morning without shutting the door. He'd made sure everyone in earshot knew exactly what was going on, and it had quickly spread to those who hadn't been close enough to catch every word for themselves.

  For a moment, the dread tried to close in again—finding a good job in this economy was difficult enough without being blacklisted because people thought you were a corporate criminal. She shook it off; she'd worry about that part later. For now, forget Bill and Giff and even Ben & Jerry. Resolute, she marched into her kitchen with plans to raid her pantry and throw an all girl party with her friends Sara Lee and Betty Crocker. She thought there might be a Mrs. Smith's cobbler in the freezer.

  She was preheating the oven when the knock came at the door. Her first, nonsensical thought was that Jonna had seen she'd called twice from the house phone and come straight over. But Jonna worked clear across town. Even if she'd reacted so strongly to a couple of missed calls, she couldn't have gotten here this fast.

  Giff?

  He'd certainly been persistent this morning in his attempts to talk to her. Too bad nothing he'd said had made the nightmare of her being fired any easier to accept. On the contrary, his garbled attempts at explanation had felt like getting stabbed in the same wound twice. Yet as another knock sounded her traitorous heart thudded in misguided anticipation. Had being happy to see him become such a Pavlovian response in the past few weeks? If it was Gifford Baker on the other side of that peephole, she was not opening the door.

  "Who is it?" she called, walking from her kitchen to her living room.

  "Pepper."

  Addie felt her eyebrows shoot upward. Pepper was the last person in the world she'd expected on her doorstep. She recalled the woman's announcement just last week that she had Addie's back. At the time, Addie hadn't realized how much she might need that. See, you're not alone.

  You just have very strange allies.

  Addie swung her door open to find Pepper standing on the welcome mat with a white bakery bag, from which emanated the warm, comforting smell of chocolate chip cookies. And to Pepper's left, on the far end of Addie's porch, stood a tense-looking
Giff, who emanated the stench of betrayal.

  Addie's eyes snapped back to Pepper, furious.

  "He's using me as a human shield," the other woman said derisively, "instead of manning up and coming here alone. This way there's a witness if you try to whack him. But you know me, Caine. I wouldn't have agreed to come along if I thought he was making a fool of either one of us. You should have heard him yelling at our boss after you left."

  Addie wrapped her arms around herself. "Your boss." And she hadn't "left" so much as she'd been evicted from the building.

  "Let us in," Pepper coaxed. She wiggled the white bag. "There are cookies in it for you."

  Addie's eyes stung as she heard Giff's voice in her head. There could be a giant pretzel in it for you. She'd told him at the baseball game, "I'm not that easy." Oh, but she had been, hadn't she?

  Pepper wasn't the type to ask for anything twice. Taking advantage of Addie's emotionally dazed state, she elbowed her way inside, Giff on her heels. "Let's hear what he has to say, and when he's done, if you feel like he should be whacked…well, I can be bought."

  Both Giff and Addie swiveled to look at her in disbelief.

  Her cheeks flushed ever so slightly and she looked chagrined for probably the first time in her entire adult life. "That was probably the wrong thing to say, given today's events."

  "Probably." Giff finally spoke. "But in the interest of considering every possible angle, can you be bought?"

  Pepper smirked. "Never say never, I suppose, not if the situation was right and the price was high enough. But I'm not stupid enough for something like this. Why on earth would I set up my own employer to fail? That's classic biting the hand that feeds you and lacks long-term planning skills. If the company folds from lost jobs or you get caught, you're out on the street. And you can't rely on whoever you're in bed with, figuratively speaking, to hire you because they'd already know you aren't trustworthy. I'm not your man."