2 Busy 4 Love

by Lucy Hepburn

  So she turned her attention back to Will. “What started it all, Will? Oh, stop it, Bouvier! She whimpers with joy every time you open your mouth, you know.”

  “Shame, I thought that was you.”

  Christy ignored this, as well as the shiver of excitement that raced up her spine. Today was not a good day for flirting. Today was strictly business. But then she broke her stride as the realization came to her: every day was strictly business for Christy Elizabeth Davies…how awful was that?

  “Sorry, carry on. You were answering my question?” Christy said into the phone, as primly as she could without spluttering into laughter.

  “I was, wasn’t I? I’m used to asking the questions, not answering them.”

  Christy smiled. “I gathered that.”

  “Hmm. Well, who knows? I’ve always been good at listening, if that doesn’t sound arrogant.”

  “Not at all,” Christy reassured him. “Did you have a childhood filled with interesting conversation over freshly baked apple pies at the kitchen table? The sort of family where everyone listens to everyone else?”

  Instantly she could tell that her flippant question was unwelcome, although there was no proof apart from a heavy silence on the other end of the line.

  “Will, I wasn’t prying…”

  “Don’t worry, it’s fine,” he reassured her. “Nope, my family was pretty much the opposite of all of that. My mom died when I was twelve. It was just me and Dad, and he never listened to me much.”

  “Oh,” Christy was horrified. “I’m so sorry.”

  “That’s okay. We never really got along. But I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone before: when I was a kid, I’d buy apple pies from the bakery for me and Dad and take them home and serve them up…pretending to myself that they’d been home-cooked by my mother.”

  “That’s…” Christy realized she didn’t have the words to finish the sentence. It was the saddest thing she had ever heard.

  “Don’t worry,” Will went on hastily, as though sensing her distress, “it’s all right, really. I had it better than a lot of people in the world. We had a really sweet housekeeper, Maria, and she was a little like a mother to me.”

  “Mmm.” She was still too choked up to speak. Only a couple of hours ago, she’d had him down as a spoiled rich kid. She silently cursed her poor judgement.

  “Hey, I know where it could have started—something happened when I was fourteen…” he tailed off, then spoke again. “Sorry, you don’t want to hear all this stuff.”

  “Will,” Christy said softly, “I do want to hear. And Bouvier definitely does. Keep talking.”

  “Two beautiful females hanging on my every word? Must be my lucky day.”

  “Don’t push it, though,” Christy warned.

  “Okay, well, when I was fourteen, I was in the drugstore in my hometown, and I overheard the owner, Mr. Gordon, telling the lady in front of me that his wife had injured her back and was upset because she couldn’t do any gardening. He said their garden was her pride and joy, and the thought of it going to ruin was making her fretful.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Christy smiled. “You pulled on your gumboots, picked up a shovel—”

  “Aha, no I did not,” Will cut in. “And that’s the whole point. You know I just told you about Maria? Well, Maria’s son, Carlos, was fresh out of college and looking for work. I knew he was an outdoors type, so I put them in touch, and the rest is history—Carlos runs his own gardening business now, and it’s very successful. I know you might say that all that could have happened without me, but the fact is, the feeling that it was actually me who made something so good come about was the best buzz ever. I don’t think I’ve had any business deals since then that have come close to the satisfaction that gave me—perhaps I’ll always be looking.” He gave a little laugh. “Although these days I keep thinking I’m looking in all the wrong places.”

  “What makes you say that?” Christy asked as she and Toni crossed the third of the four blocks, heading toward Mrs. Ledger’s car.

  She heard him sigh. “Oh, lots of things. I don’t want to knock success, but as my work portfolio has grown, I’ve kind of lost touch with the good stuff, you know? The one-to-one placements, the individual profiling, heck, just helping people!”

  “Like you’re helping me now,” Christy said softly.

  “Am I? I hope so. Anyway, these days all of my energy goes into high-finance ventures, big global organizations, block solutions to human resource management challenges. It’s…impersonal. I guess I’ve been unhappy for a long time, but my way of dealing with that is to just work harder, hoping for…better weather.”

  “How long has this been going on, Will?” Christy asked. “It’s not good to be unhappy.”

  Another sigh. “I know. Days. Months, possibly. But my grandfather died a few weeks back, so anytime I stopped to think about stuff, I just blamed that.”

  “I’m sorry. You’ve had it rough, Will.”

  “Well, Grandpa was a great guy. I did a lot of my growing up with him. It’s been rough, but hey, we all have to go through bad times to appreciate the good ones, don’t we?”

  Christy thought. “Is that from the heart? Or a motivational manual?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well…because I’m not sure I believe that.” Bouvier yapped crossly at Christy for interrupting her beloved Will. “Happiness is happiness; it isn’t something you should, well, pay for with equal portions of grief…or something…” she tailed off, realizing that maybe she’d got in a little too deep. “Ignore me, Will. I’m interfering with your head. It’s insensitive of me…”

  “No, it’s fine!” Will laughed. “Like I said before, not many people pick me up on this sort of stuff. Sometimes I think I’ve cornered the market for introspection. Most people just smile and agree. You do have a point, Christy. Thank you.”

  “No problem…oh! We’re here.” She and Toni rounded a corner and found themselves on the street where she’d been instructed to collect the car.

  “Great. Then my work is done, for the moment,” Will said cheerfully.

  But then Christy stopped abruptly. “No, hold on, something’s up.”

  Toni was looking at her quizzically as Christy gazed down the wide street full of parked cars…but that was the problem.

  “Christy?” Will spoke in her ear, sounding concerned, as Bouvier wagged with pleasure. “What is it?”

  “I don’t like the look of this. I’m looking straight at Mrs. Ledger’s Mercedes-Benz, but it’s the only car parked on my side of the street—all the others are on the other side.”

  “What, it’s illegally parked?”

  “No, at least, not usually. There must be a street cleaning planned for today. I’ve seen that before; everyone has to move their car or else it gets towed. That must be it. Well, at least we’re here in time.”

  But just at that moment, Toni, spotting something in the distance, tugged at Christy’s arm and pointed.

  “No!” Christy squeaked. “The tow truck’s just come around the corner, and it’s heading for Mrs. Ledger’s car!”

  “Run!” Will shouted. “You got the key?”

  “Yup.” Holding Bouvier and the phone in one hand, she rummaged in her bag as she ran until her fingers closed around the jazzy little fob that passed for the ignition-starter of Mrs. Ledger’s expensive car.

  Hampered by Bouvier and the phone, she suddenly had a brainwave and thrust the key fob toward Toni. “Can you drive?” she panted, miming the question as best she could and pointing at the car.

  “Hyundai,” Toni deadpanned. “Driving is believing.”

  Christy handed him the key fob. “Then believe away, as fast as you can!” Toni gave a thumbs-up and sprinted on ahead.

  There was no time to explain to Toni that the key was in fact a memory fob, which activated the car’s systems as soon as it was inside the vehicle.

  “Just
touch the button!” Christy yelled, seeing with relief that Toni had done just that and had climbed into the driver’s seat. The tow truck was almost upon them, its driver flashing the lights as a warning to get going.

  Christy had driven the car before, the last time Mrs. Ledger had required a chauffeur home from the clinic. It was easy, once you knew how it worked. The car recognized the presence of the fob, and the engine woke up all by itself—all the driver needed to do was depress the brake pedal, and the car could move off.

  “What’s going on?” Will yelled.

  “It’s okay, I think,” Christy yelled back. “Toni got to the car, he’s going to move it…oh, Toni!”

  To Christy’s horror, the interior of the car seemed to be coming to life. Toni sat helplessly in the driver’s seat as the seat propelled him forward and upward. He pressed buttons furiously, to no avail apart from switching on the hazard warning lights and the sound system. Al Gore, portentously lecturing the world on climate change at full volume, as Toni’s head progressed to the roof of the car until he had to twist himself sideways to stop an imminent decapitation.

  “Toni, do something!” Christy shrieked. “The car’s adjusting itself to Mrs. Ledger’s height setting automatically, and she’s tiny! Like me! I didn’t notice last time.”

  The tow truck had pulled up alongside, and, far from blaring its horn, the three occupants were roaring with laughter at the sight of a tall, angular Italian with his arms wrapped helplessly around the steering wheel, head jammed to one side, and knees approaching his chin.

  “Will,” Christy wailed, “get onto my iPhone and find a website that deals with programming the settings on swanky cars! Hurry!”

  “Christy, come on! I can only just get this thing to make phone calls—that’d take me hours. It doesn’t sound as though you’ve got that long. What kind of car did you say it is?”

  “A Mercedes—oh!”

  The tow truck driver had jumped down and come over to talk to Christy. By now, Toni’s cheek was pressed against the side window, distorting his face so that it looked like it had melted.

  “O-kay, little lady, fun’s over,” the driver said, not unkindly. “Listen, we work on commission, here, and I really ought to be loading that car up right now…Sheez!”

  The rest of his words were drowned out as Toni, frantically and blindly hitting buttons in the car, set off the alarm, deafening Christy and sending Bouvier into a full-scale diva tantrum that even Will, shouting futilely down the phone, failed to soothe.

  Chapter Thirteen

  WILL

  3:05 p.m.

  “Hit the small button on the fob twice!” Will bellowed down the line. He was frantically thinking back to the hired Mercedes-Benz he’d driven the year before when he was in Chicago on business for the Bank of Manhattan. “That overrides the pre-settings.”

  “What? Okay.” He crossed his fingers as he heard muffled noises of Christy communicating his instructions to the Italian guy. Images of Toni were forming and re-forming in his head—currently an olive-skinned Antonio Banderas look-alike with curly black hair and a dirty mind. He didn’t like it one bit.

  “Christy?” he said, trying to get her attention back.

  “Yes! Bingo! Will, you’re a genius.”

  “Has it fixed it?” Will’s heart leapt.

  “Yup. The seat’s moved back, and Toni’s looking normal again—way to go, Toni! Look, I better drive. Mrs. Ledger’s insurance may not be good for you. Okay? Me drive? Thanks. You take Bouvier.”

  Muffled noises and the occasional doggy whimper told Will that they were settling themselves into the car. A gruff male voice called out in the background. “Don’t try that again next time, kids—I’ll have you down at the yard in a heartbeat.”

  “Who was that?” Will asked.

  “Tow truck guy,” Christy replied. “They’re on commission, but he said we gave him the best laugh he’s had since the days when Saturday Night Live was funny, so he let us off. Thanks so much, Will, we’re moving. How did you manage to download the solution so quickly?”

  “Excuse me?” This girl was unbelievable. Everything had a technological solution to her. “I downloaded it from my personal, vastly inferior memory cache, otherwise known as my brain, thank you very much. Your phone is not the fount of all knowledge and wisdom, you know, Christy.”

  “Oh, but it actually is.” Will smiled at her teasing tone. He’d forgive her for her gadget obsession. With that voice, he guessed he’d forgive her most things. “Right, what’s the easiest way to the clinic?”

  “Straight on, hang left, then right, and you’re there.”

  “Oh, yes! I know exactly where we are now. Will, I do appreciate this, truly.”

  Her voice was low and genuine…and so sexy. “No problem. Happy to help.”

  He hung up to let her concentrate on driving. A warm glow of satisfaction spread through his body. As he got up from the hotel steps, he realized that he’d been talking to her for over an hour. It felt like minutes. He made his way back into the room where the party preparations were continuing, noticing the progress that had been made in his absence. The place looked great, and he was happy for Nina that her party was shaping up so well.

  If only the Italian guy hadn’t been with Christy, everything would be just about perfect.

  His insides churned when he thought of this supermodel being in the exact place that he wanted to be. Sitting next to the woman he’d been thinking about all day. Still, supermodels aside, he’d forgotten what it felt like, making a difference on a one-to-one basis. Not since he’d hooked Carlos up with old Mrs. Gordon all those years ago, solving her garden worries and shaping his entire career, had he experienced such a sense of satisfaction.

  It’s not the big stuff, he told himself. It’s the small stuff that really does it.

  Christy knew that. She was a girl who had real impact on individual lives. But with her, he mused, it was so much more than the tasks she carried out for her clients. It was obvious that she cared. It had been a long, long time since someone had asked him about himself and really seemed to care about his answer. He hadn’t had to think about what made him tick for ages.

  But, hey, didn’t he pride himself on being a caring person, too? Human relationships were his passion, his career! He’d never wanted to do anything else apart from help people maximize their potential…

  Yet still, a strange, hollowed-out sensation was beginning to creep over him. He stopped, accidentally catching sight of his own reflection in a huge, ornately carved gilt mirror.

  “I have lost touch,” he said to the troubled reflection.

  “There you are! Where’ve you been?” Nina’s chirpy voice sailed across the dance floor toward him. He looked up to see her and then had to do a double take.

  His father was standing beside her. Smiling, looking supremely relaxed, leaning in toward Nina as she continued her conversation with him.

  How on earth had he gotten there? And, more importantly, why?

  “Hey, Dad,” he said, momentarily rooted to the spot.

  Had he come to find him? The thought was almost unbelievable. But just then both Nina and his father, looking directly at Will, exchanged a few words before bursting out laughing—an exchange that was so obviously at his expense that, enraged, he suddenly wanted to turn and stalk out of the room. But he stood his ground, burning a hole into his dad with his eyes.

  “Say,” Carl Thompson drawled, walking across the dance floor toward Will. “I hear there’s a woman who’s got you dangling on a string today!”

  “What?”

  “Been hearing all about it from Nina,” his father chortled. “You must be seriously interested, that’s all I can say—I never thought I’d see the day when someone else was calling the shots over you, Will! Is she cute?”

  Will felt that his head might explode. “I kind of thought that’s what you were doing, calling the shots today, Dad.”

&
nbsp; His father laughed, an ugly, mocking chortle. “I hardly think so, Will. You’re the one making a big thing about everything.”

  “Me?” Suddenly Will felt immensely weary. “Okay, if you say so.” His voice sounded heavy with sarcasm. He hadn’t intended it to, but he was temporarily out of smart responses. “Maybe it’s…become a habit, or something. The things we pick up when we’re young are hard to shake.”

  “Meaning?” His father’s voice held a trace of menace.

  “Well, I had to call the shots when I was a kid, after all.”

  That sounded bad, he knew it as soon as he said it. But his father was being so infuriating! Why did Will always feel in the wrong, the big disappointment?

  The two men were practically squaring up to one another, matched in height and build. Will even noticed his father’s strong, protruding jaw and knew that his own would be angled in precisely the same way.

  His father drew back and looked down his thin nose at him. “I don’t think I appreciate your tone, Will. I had to listen to my father talk down to me my whole life—you taking up the mantle now he’s dead?”

  Will looked at him. “I wasn’t talking down to you, Dad. Why would I?”

  “Your grandpa always did, son, and you’re just like him.”

  Will opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again. His grandpa used to say that Carl Thompson didn’t have any gumption, that he was stuck in a rut with his poems and his isolated ways. Well, there was no way he could say that, too, however strong the temptation.

  They could both drown in truth and revelation; none of it was going to help.

  “I just don’t appreciate being laughed at, Dad. That’s all. I should be in Manhattan today.”

  “You said.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Carl Thompson shrugged. “Nina asked me to call in and see how the preparations were coming along.”

  “Oh.” Despite everything, Will still hoped that his father might have said, ‘I came to find you, Will, to tell you I’ve been a jerk…to tell you that I’m sorry.’