“Admit it,” she said, her jaw nearly locking. “You’ve got the empathy of a rock.”
“Comes from having a heart of stone.” Pierce deliberately narrowed his eyes, and once more morphed into Mr. Hard-Ass TV-Detective.
After a beat, she said, “Comes from having a head thick as cement.”
“Uh-huh. Mr. Cement Head, that’s me. And being thick-headed makes this easy for me to say. To you. To Rex. To Michael. I don’t give a damn how awful Rex’s birthmark is.”
Her sharp intake of breath sliced Pierce’s heart like a razor, but had no impact on his tongue. “I don’t give a damn how awful it is his father abandoned him. I don’t give a damn how awful having only two friends in the world is.”
His breathing was shallow, ragged. He paused—out of necessity to catch his breath—not out of courtesy. But the pause gave her the chance to jump in and call him names, accuse him of arrogance and show him the errors of his pigheaded ways. She surprised him again by saying nothing.
Fine. He’d take her silence and have the last word, feeling somewhat ridiculous, but not ridiculous enough to sit there mute when their business and personal reputations could go down the tubes.
“None of those misfortunes, by themselves or together, gives Rex Walker an excuse for stealing someone else’s money. Or for ruining our good names—and our businesses—if news about the embezzlement gets out.”
“So the truth doesn’t matter.”
“The truth definitely matters. That’s different than a happy ending. Tell the truth to our insurance companies, and we’ll have a very unhappy ending.”
She laid down the pencil. “He told me the happiest day of his life was getting hired by you.”
Pierce snorted, fast losing his battle with temptation. The glass slab that functioned as her desktop provided a great opportunity to ogle her long legs. “My happiest day in a long time is today.”
This admission said all he wanted to say about the weasel, but he recognized the point Quinn's silence screamed. You are an idiot. You are the village idiot. You are an idiot's idiot.
Gut burning, Pierce summoned his in-control-CEO voice. “If I’d trusted my gut, I’d’ve let him go three months after I hired him. Today, I’d be ecstatic.”
Maybe not ecstatic. Because, then, he wouldn’t be sitting in Quinn’s office admiring her legs. An insight Pierce kept to himself. She’d cut him off at the knees if she suspected he wasn’t really mesmerized by the spray of white orchids on the credenza behind her.
Crrr-aaa-ck. The pencil she’d been turning over and over between her fingers broke into two pieces. She laid them in the middle of the glass slab as if they were holy relics.
Pierce focused on the orchids, remembering the first one he’d bought her. He’d special ordered it from a place on the Big Island, selecting the nineteenth-century Japanese Imari bowl that now sat empty in a corner behind her. Slow, random images unwound in his mind of Quinn gasping at the white orchid, stroking the bowl, then kissing him on the mouth.
“What cause did you have for firing him that long ago?” Her voice came from far away. “You’ve always said he’s brilliant.”
“Brilliant.” Pierce blinked away the memories and felt a fleeting rush of regret at the same time he said, “Not to mention paranoid, temperamental and egotistical. He’s a loner who constantly wants to bend the rules. He also likes taking shortcuts and expects constant praise. Someday you’ll have to tell me what you and Michael see in him.”
“He’s Michael’s friend.” She said this so fast Pierce almost missed her baffled tone.
‘Oh, well,’ lacked the ring of empathy, so Pierce settled on nodding. You’ve always known what she’d do for Michael has no limits.
The muscles in Pierce’s shoulders burned as if colonies of fire ants were marching across his back in lock-step. He slammed the Michael-door shut. The water under the bridge had risen and washed the bridge away. Relaxing his jaw felt like torture, but he put on his best listening face.
“Right now,” Quinn said in a hushed, earnest tone, “Michael doesn’t need any more on his plate. After all the problems with the pregnancy, the baby’s overdue. He hasn’t slept in weeks. I don’t think he’s eating. There’s a glitch in announcing his new—”
She blew out a breath, looking ready to cry. Except Quinn never cried.
For the first time since storming into her office, Pierce felt bad for dumping on her. She was caught in the middle between Mr. Cement Head and St. Michael. That realization turned on a light in Pierce’s brain and turned his guilt to fresh lava. “Tell me you’re not helping Walker find a new job.”
“Why wouldn’t I help him?” The lift of her chin belonged to a queen.
“Are you nuts?” Pierce clamped his mouth shut. Way to show concern, idiot.
“I like to think I’m humane. Whether I like him or not isn’t the issue. The point is—”
“The point is he stole—”
“The point is he has an aged mother.”
“You’re positive about that?” He didn’t flinch though the look she shot him could set an iceberg on fire. “All right, let’s say he has a mother. Let’s say he adores his mother. Stealing money to care for a consumptive mother went out with Dickens.”
Quinn shot out of her chair. She whipped around her desk and came at him like a feral cat protecting her new litter.
Instinct got him on his feet. The heels on her sexy, leather boots put the top of her head even with his chin.
Two spots on her cheeks flamed as she got right in his face. “And your point is?”
“Believe me, I have a point. One you should listen to.” His heart fired rapidly, but he knew better than to tell her to calm down. Especially with the spooky gray light blazing in her eyes. Not to mention the smoke coming out her ears.
“Please. Take your time.” Her top lip twisted into a sneer that went with arms crossed over her chest. “I have nothing better to do than listen to the great Pierce Jordan pontificate.”
His mouth twitched. Quinn Alexander had an attitude, and she knew how to use it. After the incident in the garage, she was probably a breath away from throwing him out of her office. He tapped an index finger in his palm. “My point is—someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.”
Shoulda told her to calm down.
Hindsight came a fraction of a second too late. Quinn flexed her long fingers, digging her nails into her palms. Pierce didn’t consider himself a candidate for natural deselection so he drew back a little.
Just in case she became physical.
“God save us,” she hissed, “if you’re someone who thinks logically.”
She stepped back from him, watching him like a shark coming closer to baby dolphins, and ripped open the door into the reception area.
“I’ll have a cashier's check to you for two point five million dollars by end of day tomorrow.” Disdain blazed in her narrowed eyes. “I'll include your handkerchief.”
Chapter 4
“Dammit!” Quinn sat in her deserted office at the end of a fourteen-hour work day. She wanted to blame the ringing phone for the garbage she’d keyed into the Excel spreadsheet. Hitting the wrong key for the third consecutive time forced an admission of the truth.
Juggling her finances to pay Pierce had left her brain dead.
Proof positive the human brain requires more than coffee and carbs as a day's sustenance. She punched the speaker phone and chirped in her brightest voice, “Hey, Mom, you're ahead of me. When’d you get home? Don’t you have rush-hour traffic in St. Louis?”
Talk fast enough and maybe, just maybe, she’d fool Sarah Alexander. “I planned to call you.”
“So I’ve saved you some trouble?”
“You’re never trouble.” Quinn closed her eyes and saw her mother at fifty-seven, face unlined, hair ash-blonde, and figure trim enough strangers often mistook her and Quinn for sisters.
“You’re feeling weepy, aren’t you?”
The omniscient-mom tone made the question rhetorical.
“I’m taking the Fifth.” Quinn cocked her stiff neck from side to side, stared out the frosted window and shivered. “Michael called you, didn’t he? He knows me too well.”
“Michael’s a topic for later.” The U.S. Navy could learn from Sarah Alexander about radar.
“Have I ever told you how proud I feel every year you throw your Thanksgiving Bash?” Mom also put heat-seeking missiles to shame.
Quinn’s neck and ears stung. All thumbs, she saved her useless file and started shutting down her PC. The bruise on her cheek ached. Pulsated, as if warning her against lying to a woman whose emotional crystal ball never failed. Was probably at that moment detecting the throb in Quinn’s left hip. The throb was the nastiest reminder of the morning’s garage-adventure.
Hard-wired for stamina, her mother kept going and going and going—like those old Energizer-bunny commercials. She expressed awe at the number of people invited, the menu, the location, Quinn’s generosity. The words of comfort pushed Quinn dangerously closer to self-pity. Despite all the money she’d spent, the plans she’d made, she’d miss the “Bash”—probably her last one—if Baby Quinn entered the world on Thanksgiving Day.
She swallowed, fighting a rush of anger. Dammit, she deserved to wallow a little after her bizarro day. She wanted someone to understand about her scare in the garage.
Recognizing the slippery slope, she stood. Her bare feet sank into the Aubusson carpet. She padded into the empty outer office and turned off the lights she’d requested Sami to leave on as she left. By next year, she’d be lucky if she could afford space in the parking garage after she paid Pierce her share of Rex’s debt. Paying that debt meant the end to the Thanksgiving Bash she’d hosted for four years, providing great food, fun company and fabulous views of The Plaza lighting ceremony that officially kicked off the holiday season in Kansas City.
Her mother continued talking as Quinn returned to her office. She swallowed a groan. Her hips and legs and ribs weren’t letting her forget the garage. Determination to think about anything but the garage set in, and she made small talk, crossing her fingers she could fool her mother. Her gaze followed the downward spiral of several fat snowflakes stuck together, and her neck muscles relaxed, letting her appreciate the dreamy quality of the scene.
“It’s snowing here,” she murmured.
Mercifully, Sarah Alexander took the cue and went with a riff on the weather she hoped for in San Francisco, her every-other-year-vacation destination. Scheduled to leave the next morning, she wanted lots of sunshine. Quinn listened with half an ear and repressed another shiver. Twelve hours ago, she was buttoning her coat to meet Rex in the fog.
“We had fog like London this morning in St. Louis.”
After a double take, Quinn assured herself her mother didn’t read minds.
“Luce was frantic. She called Michael. His cell was busy. He didn’t hear Call Waiting or see her text messages.” Sarah sighed. “They had a burst water pipe in their brand-new house and she wanted Michael to handle it. She called me in tears. He told me yesterday he had this important meeting so I asked my plumber to go by.”
Careful. Careful. Careful. Quinn pinched her lips together and dozens of invisible hot needles stabbed her bruised cheek. She knew better than to lie outright to her mother. Inhaling silently, she eased into the wing chair opposite where Pierce had sat. “I assume she reached him.”
“Not until noon.” Her mother sighed. “She’s terrified about the baby, of course...what’ll happen if she goes into labor and can’t reach him.”
“Our Michael’s got a full plate, doesn’t he?” Sweat slicked Quinn’s hands. She picked up the front page of the Kansas City Star, crumpled it and pitched the wad at the waste basket. The ball bounced off the metal rim and toppled onto the carpet.
“How about overflowing?” Mom sighed louder. “Luce complains he leaves before dawn. Comes home later and later. Doesn’t eat. Doesn’t sleep. She’s worried he’ll never have time for the baby.”
“That should all change once he starts at the Fed.”
Too bad Quinn couldn’t find a job for Rex at the Federal Reserve Bank.
Not in St. Louis.
Definitely not in St. Louis.
Michael didn’t need the hassle of having Rex so near after Baby Quinn’s arrival. The sooner she found Rex a new job, the sooner one more worry fell off her brother’s plate.
Frustration percolated in her stomach. Lolling on her desk, a green-eyed monster winked at her. She crumpled more paper. Resentment flared and she shook her head. Whatever her feelings, she wasn’t jealous of Rex. Absolutely not. Why would she be jealous?
Nervous the mom-radar would pick up on the mental war, Quinn smoothed out the paper and let the conversation run down. Five more minutes, and she’d confess about the nutcase.
Or about Rex.
About Michael being on the phone with her talking about Rex instead of on the phone with his wife talking about their baby.
And as a result of that conversation, she had cashed out her savings, mortgaged her future, and was hoping for the best—keeping it all bottled in so Mom wouldn’t worry.
Quinn wiped her sweaty hands on her greasy skirt. She’d never gone home at lunch to change clothes. Which didn’t matter. What mattered was sending her mother on vacation thinking about her first grandchild instead of worrying about Michael’s stressed marriage. Mom definitely didn’t need the additional anxiety about what happened in the garage.
Because what happened was a fluke.
And finding a job for Michael’s best friend was a favor.
A favor Quinn would fulfill, so why spread the worry?
Silence echoed across the miles. She asked her mother to repeat her last comment. Her mother insisted she’d said goodbye. Doubt flickered in the back of Quinn’s mind. What had she missed? Something important?
Then, Mom did say goodbye, adding, “Whatever’s bothering you—”
“Just tired...” Not to mention feeling damned annoyed about the troubles that came with Rex Walker. No matter what Pierce said, she wasn’t losing her business because of Rex.
“And still weepy.”
“A little,” Quinn lied, her pulse skipping. “But I’ve got a great book waiting at home.”
“Call if you can’t sleep.”
Quinn hung up, before Sarah Alexander, librarian extraordinaire, asked the title.
****
Quinn turned off the lights in her office and stood transfixed by a distant hazy glow. The snow and fog reduced her visibility, but behind the haze, the illuminated replica of the Giralda tower rose. The Plaza landmark always improved her mood. The red-tiled, Moorish architecture provided a constant reminder of her unforgettable summer in Sevilla, Kansas City’s sister city. She’d met Pierce in front of La Giralda.
“Why not slice and dice your heart?” she whispered and switched her mental TV channel.
Images of her with Mom came into focus. Strolling The Country Club Plaza’s blocks and blocks and blocks of boutique shopping. Lobby-hopping the ritzy hotels. Eating at gourmet restaurants. Critiquing the architecture of new buildings and comparing them with the old ones. Throwing coins in Nichols Memorial Fountain.
Without warning the masked face exploded in memory, wiping out the fairy tale she’d woven. Her heart revved up, but she pushed the masked image deeper into the basement of her brain. Think homeless guy. Think nutcase. Try hard to forget this morning. Don’t let a fluke make her afraid to roam The Plaza—or anywhere else. She massaged her arms and her pulse slowed. Putting him behind her made sense...tomorrow.
Tonight, after beating off her own personal fluke, common sense dictated requesting an escort to the car. So what if it was a nuisance for George? She didn’t intend to make a habit of asking him to accompany her to the garage. But the septuagenarian liked her. He wouldn't mind her request.
Of course not. Give him the choice of leaving the over-heated l
obby or trekking into the chilly garage. Naturally, he’d walk her to the car, grinning like a kid with an ice-cream cone.
Quinn swallowed, tasting disgust at her idiocy. Forget George. She was a big girl. A big girl didn’t need someone twice her age as a babysitter.
Especially since she wasn’t carrying a box of greasy goodies.
An anemic rectangle of light trickled from the hall, through the frosted window in the front door, and spilled onto the carpet in the reception area. Too whacked to turn on the closet light, Quinn jerked her coat off the hanger. After paying Pierce two and a half million bucks tomorrow, she’d be lucky if she could afford electricity.
Everything I’ve worked for...She fumbled with her coat, buttoned it in semi-darkness, rummaged in her purse for her cell phone. Probably another luxury after tomorrow.
The taunt sucked out her last drop of energy. Fatigue settled in her aching muscles. She’d feel even stiffer tomorrow. Too bad she’d promised Pierce his check in the morning. Otherwise, she’d stay in bed. All day. Sleep. Forget today. Go into denial-hibernation.
Let Michael and Rex take care of their own lives.
She snorted and straightened her shoulders. Her mother hadn’t raised her to whine. Left alone with two kids under the age of eight, Sarah Alexander had raised her and Michael and never whined.
Quinn took a deep breath, exhaled and dug deeper.
“Dammit!” She never left her cell phone in her car, but this morning...
Wearily, she dragged her butt the dozen steps to Sami’s desk. She didn’t dare sit down or she’d fall asleep. As it was, she could sleep on her feet.
George’s voice came on immediately. “This is George Brown. I’m either on the phone or...”
“Yada, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah.” Quinn hung up, feeling frustrated and silly and defensive for changing her mind about not calling the old guard. She massaged her aching head.
Let another nut come after her. She’d show him. She’d studied Tai’chi and knew karate. Skills she’d forgotten this morning, but now they bolstered her.
The return trip to the closet felt shorter. Her coat, on the other hand, weighed a ton. Or maybe her purse weighed a ton.
Unraveled Page 4