by Claire Adams
"And you think I can convince her?" he said as he rubbed his hand across his cheek. I smiled as I recognized the habit he'd had since he was a small child. My brother was still in there somewhere, even if he was holding back and hiding from us for now. I wanted to get to the bottom of what had happened after Molly had disappeared, but I didn't dare try and broach that subject while we were trying to solve the problem with my mother. We’d deal with one thing at a time.
"I don't know if you can convince her, but can you at least try?" I asked.
"Bring her to Mass," he said. "I'll talk to her afterwards."
"And what if I can't?" I asked. He had no idea how bad things had gotten, and I was loath to tell him.
"Then we'll go from there, but let's not invite trouble, shall we?" he said as he stood up. "I need to prepare for my early morning service now."
"I'll try and bring her," I said as I moved toward him. He slipped around the sofa and was out of the room before I could tell him how much I'd missed him and how happy I was to have him home again.
Chapter Thirteen
Jack
When I stopped by the house to change clothes before meeting Sloan for dinner, the ever-present butler opened the door. I shook my head as I walked past the man I didn't recognize. My father had insisted that there always be a butler present in the house when he was there, but he couldn't seem to keep one consistently employed. As a result, I had no idea what this man's name was.
"Thank you . . . ?" I said trailing off uncomfortably.
"Martin, sir," he said as he stood stiffly, holding the door for me. He was dressed in a uniform that called to mind England and royalty.
"Thank you, Martin," I said as I moved toward the stairs, wondering how long it would take me to convince my mother to stop this nonsense and live like a regular person.
"Jackson, is that you?" she called from the living room. "Come here and talk to me."
"Mother," I nodded as I entered the room and found her reclining on the chaise that looked out over the lawn. She looked pale, and when I sat down and took her hand, I realized it was cold. "Are you all right?"
"Oh, I'm fine," she said withdrawing her hand and waving me off. "I've just had a long day, and now I'm trying to relax. Is that blood on your suit?"
"Yes, but I’m fine. A little accident at work, nothing to be worried about," I said as I turned the conversation back to her and the full glass of bourbon in her other hand. "Should you be relaxing so much?"
"My husband just died. I think I'm entitled," she said in a brittle voice. "Don't nag me like your brother does."
"I'm not one to nag you, really, Mother," I said standing up and walking over to the window. "But are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm sad, Jackson," she sighed. "But under the circumstances, I believe that's normal, don't you?"
"Mmm-hmm," I nodded as I stared out at the manicured lawn. My father employed seven gardeners to keep the lawn meticulously groomed and, while they did an outstanding job of it, right now it seemed like yet another example of his ridiculous excesses. No one else saw it that way, though. Just me.
"Why are you home so early?" my mother asked as she sipped her drink.
"I'm going to dinner with Sloan," I said. "I need to change before I go."
"Because of the blood?" she asked absently.
"Yes, because of the blood," I said as I turned away from the window and looked down at her. My mother was a strong woman—she'd had to be to stand up to my father—but right now she looked small and fragile, and I was worried about her. "Mother, I think you should take a vacation away from here. What do you think?"
"Where am I going to go?" she said. "Everywhere I go reminds me of your father and the fact that he's not here, and never will be again."
I moved back to the chaise and leaned down to wrap my arms around her as she cried. I hated seeing my mother cry, and I hated it even more that she was crying over my father.
"There, there. You still have a whole lot of life left to live," I said as I rubbed her back and tried to stem the flow of tears. It didn’t do much good.
"I miss him so much, Jack!" she sobbed. "He was my whole world!"
"Yes, that's going to present a certain challenge now, isn't it?" I said feeling the anger begin to course through my veins. I couldn't show her, though. She'd pretend not to understand, and then the wedge he'd tried to drive between us would be complete. I'd worked very hard not to hate my mother, and I wanted to keep things the way they were now that my father was dead. "Perhaps a nice long cruise would help you relax and unwind?"
"I . . . I . . . I don't know!" she cried harder. "I don't know what to do without him!"
"I know, Mother," I said. "I know. We'll figure something out. You're going to be okay. I promise."
She nodded as she clung to me and, as quickly as they'd begun, the tears stopped and she returned to reclining on her chaise. My mother was very good at short emotional outbursts. It was dealing with the cause of them that was her shortcoming.
"You need to get changed for dinner," she said as she returned to staring out over the lawn. Her voice had a dreamy quality to it, most likely created by the bourbon, but I think she liked to believe it was the deep well of emotion that she drew from that fueled it. "Don't let me keep you from your dinner date. I've always liked that Morgan girl. She's smart and well-raised."
"She certainly is," I said as I headed for the door. "Like a good race horse."
"Indeed," my mother said as she slipped back into her alcohol-fueled memories of days gone by.
It didn't take me long to change, and soon I was back in the car headed toward Manhattan. I poured myself a whiskey and sat staring out the window, wondering how we had all wound up here.
*
Jimmy pulled the car up in front of the palatial Blue Water Grill with five minutes to spare. It was located just on the edge of the hustle and bustle of Union Square. It was a large restaurant full of people who were arriving after a full day at work, looking to eat and blow off a little steam. The bar was crowded, and I had to squeeze my way through tightly packed groups of people waiting for tables as I made my way to the hostess stand.
"You're here for Ms. Morgan, aren't you?" a cheerful young woman asked as I stepped up to the stand.
"I am," I said a little confused, but then looked down and saw a picture of myself, obviously cut out of the Times or the WSJ, and chuckled. Sloan was never unprepared.
The hostess led me to a table behind a small crowd and away from the loud crowd. I inhaled sharply as I rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of the woman who had occupied my every waking (and sometimes sleeping) moment in high school. She was dressed in a scoop-neck blouse that threatened to expose more than what was decent. Her hair shone in the soft light of the overhead lamp. When she looked up at me and smiled, I felt the blood rushing away from my brain and heading south.
"You look lovely, Sloan," I said as I quickly took a seat. She knew the effect she had on me and, while it was maddening, it was also reassuring.
"You don't look so shabby yourself," she said with a smile as she signaled to the server who nodded and disappeared. He returned a few minutes later with two dirty martinis and a plate of appetizers.
"You always take care of everything, don't you?" I laughed as I raised my glass and toasted.
"To old friends and new memories," she said as she clinked her glass against mine before sipping.
"So, tell me, Sloan, why have you summoned me here?" I asked and watched a surprised look briefly alight on her face before the calm mask reappeared.
"I told you, I just want to see you and catch up," she said, smiling as she rested her hand on my leg under the table. I could feel the blood surging and making my pants tight, and I fought to keep it under control. I knew that deviating from my plan of keeping everything on the up and up would spell trouble, but Sloan knew my weak spots.
"Sloan . . ." I said wanting to tell her to stop but couldn’t will myself to.
"Sloan, stop," I said mustering the will to move her hand away from where it was headed. My body wanted her, but the rest of me was still bruised by her callousness. "I didn't come here to be seduced."
"Didn't you?" she asked as she narrowed her eyes and slid back so that there was a space between us.
"Why do you always do this to me?" I said as I picked up my glass and sipped. She opened her mouth to answer as the server walked up to the table and set down another plate of appetizers.
"With regards from the chef, Ms. Morgan," he said with a polite smile.
"Oh, do tell him thank you!" she replied with a wide smile and a wink. The server blushed and backed away from the table.
"Why do you always do that?" I asked.
"Do what?"
"Charm everyone," I said as I reached out and took one of the small triangles of toast that held some kind of foie gras topped with caviar. I bit into it and tasted the salty smoothness of the combination.
"I don't know, I can't help it," Sloan shrugged as she picked up the other piece of bread and ate half of it. I'd always liked the fact that Sloan wasn't shy about eating. She'd never held back or pretended to pick at salads when what she really wanted was a cheeseburger. Her lust for food carried over into other things, though, and it made me wary.
"Tell me what's really going on with you," I said as I stared intently into her icy-blue eyes. I knew she was hiding something. I just didn't know what. "Why are you really here?"
"Jack, look, I don't really want to get into that," she said I knew then that there was something she wasn't telling me. "It's not a big deal anyway, and besides, it's your father who died and left you in charge of the company."
"I'm your oldest friend, Sloan," I said quietly. "If you can't tell me, then who can you tell?"
"Why do you always have to pry?" she shot back as she slammed her glass onto the table spilling her drink on the pristine tablecloth.
"Sloan . . ." I said as I moved closer and slipped an arm around her shoulder. I could see that she was in pain, but I knew that it was going to be work to get the splinter that had caused it out from under the surface.
"No, I'm serious," she hissed pushing my arm away. "Let it go, Jackson."
"Sloan, talk to me," I said as I left my arm where it was. She bit her lip and looked down at the table, and when she looked back up at me, I could see that I'd hit a nerve.
"Jack, my own father fired me," she said. "He fired me from a job that I loved and was incredibly good at, and he replaced me with one of the frat brother douche-boys he plays golf with because the guy promised to bring in higher returns than anyone else."
"Oh man, Sloan, I'm sorry," I said holding her shoulder as I shook my head. "Your old man is as much of a bastard as mine."
"He fired me," she said as she picked up her glass and drank deeply. "I've done everything I possibly could to make that division run smoothly and bring in a handsome profit for him, and what does he do to thank me?"
"Fires you," I echoed as I watched one lone tear leak from her eye and run down her cheek. I reached out to wipe it away, but she ducked and shook her head.
"Don't," she said. "Don't pity me. I couldn't stand it if you did."
"I'd never pity you," I said as I slipped my fingers under her chin and lifted her face so that she was forced to look at me. "You're not the pitying type, Sloan. You're a survivor. You know it as well as I do. You always land on your feet, and this time will be no different."
"You think so?" she asked in a small voice. It startled me to hear Sloan sound so vulnerable, but then it occurred to me that I'd never actually seen her in a vulnerable position before. "You really think I'm going to come back from this? I mean, everyone is going to know that my own father fired me. How's that going to play in the big leagues?"
"So what if they know?" I said. "It'll just prove that your father is, in fact, the jerk they all think he is. And you'll prove that you're better than he is by the time you're done."
"But how, Jack?" she asked. "How on Earth am I going to get someone to give me a chance to rebuild?"
I looked down at her lovely face, trying hard to ignore the fact that I'd had crushes on her since I was a teenager, and suddenly I had an idea.
"Sloan, what if you helped me turn a profit for Baby Steps?" I asked. "My miserable father left me the company and then took away access to my own money so that I'd be forced to run it. The will says I have to turn a profit before I turn it over to a new CEO, what if you help me do that and in the process, you rebuild your reputation independent of your father?"
"Are you serious, Jack?" she laughed. "Me? Running a baby company? What kind of drugs have you been taking? I'm an investment banker who works with large funds and international clients! I'm not some kind of soccer mom who spends her days figuring out how to match her child's diapers to its bottles!"
"You're so narrow-minded and self-centered," I said, grinning as I recounted all of the information that Leah had given me on my tour of the facility that morning. "Baby Steps is about a lot more than products. It's about ecological responsibility and efficient supply and demand. It's a global business just waiting to be pushed to the next level."
"Right," she snorted. "By someone like me? I have no children, and for that matter, neither do you!"
"It doesn't matter, Sloan!" I said a little too loudly, making her chuckle as she shushed me. "What matters is that we work together to complete this damn contract so that I can get my life back and you can regain your reputation!"
"Do you really think this could work?" she asked as she returned her hand to my thigh. "Could we work together?"
"Only if you stop putting your hands on me," I said giving her a warning look before I signaled the server to come take our orders.
Sloan backed off, but only a little. I knew that she and I were going to be walking a fine line if we worked together. She would be pushing boundaries, and I would have to constantly reinforce them. It wouldn't be easy, but I knew that if I were going to get the hell away from Baby Steps and my family, I was going to have to man up and deal with the temptations that Sloan presented.
The irony was that here I was on a date with a gorgeous woman who obviously wanted to end up in my bed, and all I could think about was the way that Leah had felt in my arms.
I shook my head and thought, You're going soft, old fella before ordering another drink and turning my attention back to the woman who was going to help me get my life back.
Chapter Fourteen
Leah
"Well good morning, darlin'," Norma drawled as I entered her domain and looked around. In the days after Bernard had died, Norma had draped the office in black bunting and mourned openly. It was disconcerting, but she explained that her southern roots run deep and that a proper period of mourning was essential to completing the rituals surrounding someone's death. Having come from an Irish Catholic family, I understood the process of mourning all too well, but I still thought it was a little over the top.
"Good morning, Norma," I said as cheerfully as possible. "The office looks different. What did you do to it?"
"I pulled down all the decorations, sweetie," she smiled as she finished storing the last of the black bunting in a box that she covered and then ran a strip of packaging tape around before sliding it into the storage space in the corner. "It's time to stop crying and start looking forward again! We've got a lot of work to do, and very little time to do it, darlin'!"
"You're a piece of work, Norma," I said, shaking my head as I walked to the area where each of the mailboxes for the team leaders was kept. I checked mine and found that there was a brand new stack of orders in my box. "Where did these come from?"
"Where did what come from, sugar?" she asked as she worked on opening a tall stack of envelopes. She'd pick one up, slip the letter opener in one side, and slice the envelope open befo
re pulling out the contents and stapling the envelope to the innards. She worked quickly and efficiently. In the few minutes that I was in her office, she must have sorted thirty pieces of mail.
"Where did this stack of orders come from?" I asked as I flipped through the papers. None of the names on the top of the sheets looked familiar, and I wondered if my mail hadn't gotten mixed up with someone else's.
"I don't know. I didn't put them there," Norma said as she looked over her shoulder toward Jack's office. "He did."
"This makes no sense," I said as I walked toward Jack's door, knocked lightly, and then before Norma could stop me, opened the door. "Jack, I . . . oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were busy."
"It's okay, Leah," Jack said as he looked up at me and then back at the icy blonde who was leaning over his shoulder looking at something on the computer screen. "This is Sloan Morgan. Sloan, this is Leah Walsh. She runs the warehouse operations with incredible efficiency, and she's also got a mean skull."
"I see," the woman said as she straightened up and walked toward me with her hand out. "It's nice to meet you, Leah."
"It's nice to meet you, too, Ms. Morgan," I said as I took her hand. She was wearing what looked like a designer dress that fit her perfectly, and I suddenly felt very out of place in my much more casual scoop neck t-shirt, cotton skirt with leggings, and work boots. I'd found that working in a skirt made the warehouse guys treat me more like their boss than their sister, but it wasn't conducive to all the bending and climbing. So I'd put together a mishmash of clothing that seemed to signal my supervisory status while still being practical.
"Please, call me Sloan," she said smiling. Her eyes were blue, like mine, but she had a layer of chilly reserve in them.
"All right, Sloan," I said hesitating a little before turning to the matter at hand. "I've got a whole batch of new customers I've never seen before. Do you know where these came from and how do you want me to deal with them?"
"Ah, yes," Jack said as he ran his hand through his already messy hair. He looked rugged and wild, and I had a hard time meeting his gaze as I listened to him discuss the way the business was going to change. "So, we're going to solicit more online business via omni-channel marketing. That way we'll be able to target the market most apt to use, and reuse, our services. What do you think, Leah?"