by Ann Collins
He thought about her as he carefully backed the tow up, swerving to avoid debris from the neighboring trees. He thought about her as he drove into town. Even as he looked at the damaged storefronts, the signs flung into the road and the occasional insulation peppering the ditches, he was thinking about the woman who had been in his bed last night. He got to his shop and breathed a sigh of relief to see it all intact, with little more than a bit of debris scattered across the lot. The road sign, the one that he had stuck into the dirt, announcing that they were offering free oil changes with tire replacement for a limited time only, was nowhere to be seen.
“Probably in some farmer’s field,” he said to the truck as he patted the dash. He talked to that old workhorse more than he cared to admit to anyone, but his tow truck felt like an old friend. It had been his livelihood for a long time, and before he took the shop over from his father, it was sometimes his refuge. When he couldn’t go home, he would sit out in the truck and sip a beer and think about things.
He shook away those thoughts and set about getting Kara’s car down from the bed. As he did he wondered what she was doing now. Where was she? What did she do for a living? Who was she with? What kind of life did she lead? He realized that even though he knew her very intimately in the biblical sense, he really didn’t know her at all.
But then again, wasn’t that true of all the women he took into his bed?
***
By the end of the day, Anders was beat. He had dealt with half a dozen stalled or wrecked cars, not including the regular appointments and the work that was already backed up in the shop. He had been under cars so often that he forgot to eat lunch, missed dinner and was now ravenous as he closed up the engine of a Ford that had seen better days. He wiped down the lines and stood up, his back aching and his head pounding.
“That’s what I get for skipping lunch,” he said to an empty garage. His crew had come in, even a few of the guys who could have had the day off, but they were loyal. That’s what he loved most about working in a shop like this – they had each other’s backs.
The storm the night before had been worse than anyone had first believed, according to the news channel that was on the television in the small waiting room. There had been at least one tornado, perhaps two. Power lines were still down to most of the town, but Anders had been lucky to have the juice flowing strong to his shop all day. He wondered again about the posh side of town, the place where Kara was going, and whether they had power or not.
He normally didn’t think about a woman this much, but something about her got to him. During the day he had come to the conclusion that it was the mystery of it all, combined with the feeling of rescuing a damsel in distress. She had been in a bad situation, she needed help, and he had been able to provide that and more. It was enough to make him feel like a white knight.
And the mystery – that was something that he rarely had. Sure, he occasionally had a tumble with a woman at the shop, but he knew who they were most of the time. He knew where they worked, what their husbands did, how many kids they had from the number of car seats in the vehicle, and of course, what their home life was like, because they tended to talk quite a bit in bed. Stepping outside their comfort zone tended to loosen their tongues.
But this woman – this one was different. She had said virtually nothing about herself, and hadn’t asked much about him, either. She came across as someone who just wanted to enjoy a small interlude brought on by the storm, but then get back to her real life, where she would never see him again. And then the way she walked away like that, without even saying goodbye…
She definitely intrigued him.
It was a well-needed escape from the business side of things. Despite all the extra work that had fallen into his lap courtesy of mother nature, things were not looking good.
Anders pushed aside the thoughts as best he could as he sat down at the desk, found a candy bar stashed in the drawer and started going over invoices.
What he wouldn’t do for some of his dad’s business smarts. Last fall, Anders had needed to extend the loan to do some urgent upgrades, but work hadn’t increased and he was now well behind with the repayments. Technically, they could probably shut him down. Thankfully they were pretty understanding. He just needed a bit of time, and better luck than he’d been having. He had another meeting with them on Monday morning, and with a bit of luck they’d trust him to carry on.
If the old man could see him now he’d surely be very disappointed. “Not even a dime, son,” he used to say. “Don’t even borrow a dime.”
Anders rubbed his temples. He went through the ledger, studied the figures once again and looked for yet more places he could make cuts.
It was going to be a very long night.
Chapter Four
Kara tipped back her chair and closed her eyes. It was now Monday morning, and she had spent the weekend kicking herself for what she had done. She had barely slept, tossing and turning with the memories that both turned her on and made her feel ashamed. She wasn’t the kind of girl who had a one-night stand, much less with a stranger, and she wasn’t the kind of person who would cheat on her boyfriend.
But that is what she had done…four times, to be exact.
The cab dropped her off at her house and once inside, she eased down on the couch – careful of her knees, which were now turning all the colors of a sunrise – and looked at her cell phone. During the cab ride the signal had suddenly come back with a vengeance, and with it came the messages. There were seven of them, each from her boyfriend, all with that same strange mixture of concern and ownership that he somehow managed to convey.
Kara sighed now, remembering the wave of guilt that had slammed her when she heard Scott’s voice. Kara had called him back with the story about her car and the help of a kindly woman who got her to the local hotel, lying completely about the man who had found her there in the rain. She soothed Scott, told him that she was just fine, she just wanted a hot shower and to sleep in her own bed.
That last part, at least, was true.
She had put off seeing him all weekend, but she knew he would show up for work today and, given his workplace was also her workplace, what then? She wasn’t sure she could hide the guilt on her face. Maybe he would know the moment he looked at her, as though the touch of another man had branded her skin and left its mark. But she kept reminding herself that if she could just get through this day, if she could somehow deflect his questions and get through the lies, that she would be home free.
But there was more to it than just guilt. There was no telling how he would react if he found out. Scott wasn’t physically threatening, but he had a cold streak behind his gentle and courteous exterior. She still remembered vividly the way he treated a fellow employee naive enough to express his affection for her. The guy was new and didn’t realize her and Scott were an item. But rather than simply putting him straight, Scott encouraged him, pressing him to approach her. Kara rejected him, of course, whereupon Scott casually walked up and kissed her hard and deep, then turned back and sneered right at him. It was cruel and unnecessary – a humiliation.
But not only did she not want the potential reprisals, she actively didn’t want to hurt Scott, either. She could deal with the recriminations and guilty conscience all on her own, without drawing him into it.
But if she was really so guilty, why did she keep thinking of Anders, and his hands on her skin, and the way he cried out when he came?
“Stop it,” she hissed aloud, and opened her eyes. It was time to get back to her real life.
Much of that real life was here, in this bank. With her father at the helm, Harlan Savings and Trust had grown enough to compete with the big banks just down the road. It was a family affair – her father was now the president, and her mother had been a loan officer until she got sick. That bank had been what put Kara through college, first through her liberal arts undergrad program, then on to her Ivy League master’s degree in finance.
Never one for trivial things, Kara had practically skipped the rites of passage of high school completely, testing out of as many courses as she could and graduating at the ripe old age of sixteen. Shortly after that she had gone to college, where she put the drive she had inherited from her father into practice – pulling long nights, taking a full load during the summer, and even supplementing it with a night class here and there. She graduated at nineteen, went into graduate school at twenty, and here she was – on the threshold of thirty, but already a vice president at her family’s bank she would one day sit at the helm of.
But right now, her father had firm control.
Alexander Dermot had always been a powerhouse of a businessman, determined to keep up the family tradition of banking that had begun in the early 1800s, when one of their ancestors had worked on the coast of Maine, keeping books for the ships that would come and go across the dangerous waters of the north Atlantic. Money was in their blood, so to speak, and her father worked hard to keep it that way.
Her father started bright and early every morning, including this one. He had been sitting in her office when she showed up at seven that morning. He rose to hug her, insisted that he take a look at her knees, chastised her for not going to the emergency room and told her not to worry about the car – he would take care of it all. Her face flushed with redness as she told him that she wasn’t sure where the car was, and here came another lie: “The highway patrol said they would have it towed, Daddy, and I just let them do it. I figured I would call around and find the garage today.”
“Did I get it right?” she asked.
It wasn’t just the business Alexander controlled. As strong and independent as Kara might be, she inevitably cowed to her father, seeking his permission, fishing for his approval. This is ridiculous , she thought, even when I’m lying I have to know he’s okay with it.
Her father nodded. “Yes you did. I’m sorry you had to go through that all on your own. If I could have gone through it for you, I would.”
But she hadn’t been on her own, not by a long shot. That wasn’t something she could tell her father, though. He was the type of man who had been so in love with her mother that the idea of being unfaithful would never have crossed his mind. And since her mother had passed away when Kara was ten, the victim of a particularly aggressive breast cancer, her father hadn’t gone out on a single date. When she asked him about it, he would simply say that her mother would always be the only love he would ever need.
Kara thought about Scott. Was he the love of her life? Was she ready to spend the rest of it with him? She was quite able to step out on him, wasn’t she? And what would her father think if he knew about that? This was where the need for his approval really bit. It made the guilt feel ten times worse, because she knew very well what her father would have to say on the subject.
I’ve got to stop thinking about this .
She sat up and stared at her computer screen, determined to get back to her life and stop thinking about the man who had invaded it.
Thirty minutes later, she had finally focused on the task at hand, and pushed the weekend to the back of her mind. The commotion in the hallway shook her out of her deep interest in the tax shelter one of the bank’s customers wanted to set up. She listened for a moment, then she heard a voice that made her heart pound.
“Listen, I know things don’t look good on the balance sheet, but I know what I’m doing.”
Anders!
“Don’t make this about ego, Mr. Wallace. Your finances are in bad shape. You need to curtail your spending and increase your income. This is fairly basic stuff.”
And that was the unmistakable voice of her boyfriend, Scott. Of all the banks Anders could have chosen…
“Ego don’t come into it. I know what I’m doing.”
“It’s the way of this bank to give people plenty of time to turn their business round. But when things aren’t going well, we expect them to seek help. I need to see some signs of improvement.”
Kara recognized that tone. It was the one Scott used when dealing with customers in difficulty – halfway between ‘we’re here to help you’ and ‘I’m in control’. Her father was serious about keeping the bank in the black, but he also ran it with a strong sense of social responsibility – hence the line about giving people time. Although she knew for a fact that Scott privately scoffed at this policy.
Despite everything her better judgment was telling her, Kara stood up. She came slowly around her desk, listening intently to what was happening just outside her door. It was early and the bank wasn’t quite in full swing, so it was easy to listen in on the discussion between the two men.
“I’m not saying we’re going to call in your debt, Mr. Wallace. We’ll keep you on board for now. You just need to seek the appropriate advice.”
“I don’t need advice. I know what I’m doing. I just need time.”
“Ultimately,” Scott warned, with a strange kind of relish, “I have the final say.”
Kara stood transfixed as Ander’s leather jacket came up in opposition to Scott’s immaculate suit. She drifted back to the night of the crash…to his house.
“Kara?”
She refocused. The conversation had stopped and Scott was now looking directly at her, as was Anders, his eyes wide with surprise.
“Are you okay?” Scott asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Do please excuse me, Mr. Wallace,” said Scott, remembering his manners. “My…colleague looks a little off-color.”
Kara remained rooted to the spot, startled. She rooted around for something to say, but could think of nothing, and her face flared with a blush. Just at this moment, her father arrived shuffling some papers. Perhaps instinctively picking up on the awkwardness, his papers went still and he paused, assessing the scene laid out in front of him.
“Hello, Kara,” said Anders. “It’s good to see you again.”
Shit!
Scott looked from Kara to Anders, his brow betraying his confusion. “You know…Miss Dermot?”
Anders gave Scott a dismissive stare. “Kind of.”
Kara glanced to her father. He was still stood there, his eyes narrowing as he observed the interaction. Anders was staring right at Kara, and Scott was looking back and forth between the two of them. She knew that her father could sense something here. Time to bring this to an end.
Kara brought her hands together to try to conceal the fact that they were trembling and gave Anders a smile that she hoped was confident. “Good to see you too.” Then she took a step back toward her office, hoping he would get the hint.
And bless his heart, he did, giving Scott a cool nod that indicated their business was at an end.
But before Kara was home free, there was one last parting shot. “Kara,” Anders said, and she turned once more to look at him.
“I picked up your car,” he said. “You can give me a call when you decide what to do with it.”
Kara swallowed hard. “I will do that.”
Then he gave her that smile, the one that had broken through her defenses on Friday night, the one that even now made her weak in the knees, even as her boyfriend stood there and watched.
“Looking forward to hearing from you,” Anders said. A moment later he was gone, the door closing gently behind him.
Kara looked at Scott. It suddenly hit her that he was standing right there, right in front of her, with no idea that she had spent Friday night cheating on him. He had no idea that that she had been unfaithful to a relationship that had already lasted for years and was likely headed to the altar. How could he not sense what had happened? How could he not see it on her face?
“Kara?” he asked, just as if this was any other day.
She had no idea what to say, so she went with the first thing that popped to mind, which was also the weakest excuse possible. “He’s a friend.”
Her father, either through complete disinterest or acute awareness, glanced at Kara one last time, then
turned on his heel and headed back towards his office, shuffling his papers once more.
Scott stared at her, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “A friend?”
“Yes,” she said, turning back to her office, but Scott wasn’t done yet.
“How the hell do you make friends like that ?”
Kara paused in mid-stride and turned back. “What did you say?”
Scott’s mouth twisted in a parody of a smile – he looked as though he had tasted something rather foul but was trying to be polite and not spit it out. “He’s a greaser,” he said to her in a stage whisper, leaning forward earnestly. “He’s got long hair and wears a leather jacket and he probably rides a motorcycle. He’s a mechanic, and a failed one at that – he can’t even keep his grungy old garage afloat. How do you wind up friends with someone like that?”
Kara opened her mouth to defend herself, but what came out was something entirely different. “What’s wrong with long hair and leather jackets?”
Scott rolled his eyes. “He’s probably got tattoos under it, too.”
Yeah – it’s a phoenix on his thigh. You can only see it when he’s naked.
She bit her lip hard to keep from saying the words that had popped into her head. She was supposed to feel guilty! She was supposed to be contrite! How dare she challenge him when he was talking about the very man who had taken her away from him, if only for an evening?
Her face flushed brilliant red as her boyfriend went on and on about the man from the ‘other side of the tracks.’ Finally Kara had heard enough. Her emotions were all over the place, but the biggest one was a strange anger that overrode all the rest. She took a deep breath and held up her hand to silence him.
“I have work to do,” she said, then turned on her heel and strode into her office. She shut the door firmly behind her.
It wasn’t closed for long though. Three sharp, authoritative taps to the glass and the handle turned without invitation. In strolled her father, taking commanding strides, and sat himself down in her client’s chair, again, without requiring an invite.