Still the Best Woman for the Job

by Sharon C. Cooper

  “I know, man. That goes to show you can’t judge them by their looks.” Craig placed an omelet in front of his brother. “You think Jason keeps you on your toes, I feel the same way about Toni. I never told you half the stuff she roped me into when we were dating.”

  “You two are actually perfect for each other, a good balance. You can provide her with stability and keep her out of trouble. She can add some fun to your life, loosen you up a little.”

  Craig held his coffee mug between his hands and stared into the dark liquid. “Yeah, we are perfect for each other.”

  His thoughts veered sharply to the memory of his lips touching her soft ones. He intended to give her a quick kiss goodbye, but that well-intended friendly kiss quickly spiraled into a lip-lock session that he would remember for days to come. Craig couldn’t explain the powerful hold she had on him. All he knew was that he wanted her back.

  Before Cynthia was killed, they had dated for three years and at the time of her death, they were engaged. But not once did he remember his pulse racing whenever she was within five feet of him. Or his throat going dry whenever he saw her in a sexy outfit. And never had he wanted to make love to her so badly that he was willing to forgo all common sense and take her up against a brick house. Which is exactly what he would’ve done to Toni had her cousin not interrupted.

  He blew out a breath and removed his sweaty palms from around his coffee mug before he swiped them down his pant legs. He could still feel her against his body, taste her sweet lips. Craig sat back in his seat. He inhaled deeply and then exhaled deeply a few times until his heart rate returned to normal.

  “So,” his brother strung out the word, studying him as if he knew where Craig’s thoughts were for the past few minutes. “Did you get a chance to talk to Toni about getting back together?”

  Craig cleared his throat and leaned forward, his elbows planted firmly on the table. “Well, she knows my feelings for her haven’t changed, yet she’s still fighting the thought of us being together.” He traced the curve of the handle of the oversized coffee mug. “But I’m going to work like crazy to prove to her that we’re a perfect fit and that I’m not going anywhere.”

  His brother grinned. “And how are you going to do that, especially since you’re technically still a cop?”

  “I’m a detective and that’s different than being a cop. Besides, my gut tells me that although she used my being a cop as an excuse to break up there’s something else keeping her from me. I just have to figure out what that something is.”

  “Well,” Derek lifted his coffee mug for a toast, “I hope you two can find your way back to each other. She’d make a perfect sister-in-law.”

  They tapped their mugs together. “I agree.”

  ***

  Toni pulled into Jenkins & Sons Construction parking lot in no mood to do anything. Her two days off were a welcome break but didn’t erase the memories of the weekend. Her anticipated fun and relaxing long weekend was anything but after dealing with Ronald and Craig Saturday night. If that were not bad enough, she’d been dodging Ronald’s phone calls since Sunday morning, not knowing how else to tell him that she wasn’t interested in seeing him anymore.

  MJ might’ve been right. Men are more trouble than they’re worth.

  Memories of Craig came to mind as she climbed out of her truck. She grabbed her clipboard and headed into the building. Toni might’ve been surprised to see him standing in the doorway of her grandparents’ bathroom, but what didn’t surprise her was how her body responded to him even before he kissed her. The sexual pull between them was as strong as she remembered.

  “Morning, TJ,” the receptionist greeted when Toni walked into the front desk area. A large counter with two desks behind it took up a small portion of the area that was flooded by sunlight from the picture windows at the front of the building.

  “Morning, Tam.”

  Tammy was one of few Jenkins & Sons Construction employees who weren’t family, but their grandfather had a policy. If you worked for the company, that made you family.

  “Looks like the painters finally finished,” Toni said pointing at the wall behind Tammy where the company’s logo, a giant scripted J & S with the words Jenkins & Sons Construction below the letters were painted. “The design came out really nice. I like that they used the red to outline the black 3-D letters. The extra detail definitely makes them pop.”

  “I agree. Your cousin Christina finished painting about an hour ago. Oh and you had a delivery this morning.” She stood from her chair and carried over a large vase of flowers that sat on the desk near the rear of the reception area. “There’s a card.” She pointed and wiggled her eyebrows.

  Toni grinned and accepted the vase of roses, gerberas and lilies. “These are beautiful,” she said and plucked the card from its holder.

  I’m looking forward to Friday night, Craig.

  She held the card to her chest and a small smile touched her lips. A nervous flutter settled in her stomach when she inhaled the faint fragrance and touched one of the delicate petals. Craig sent her flowers at least once a month while they were dating, and Toni didn’t realize how much she missed the gesture until now.

  She took one last whiff of the beautiful flower arrangement and then placed the glass vase on the end of the counter for the office staff and visitors to enjoy.

  “Also, you just had a phone call. Actually, you’ve had a few.” Tammy handed Toni several yellow slips of paper.

  “Thanks. Is Peyton in yet?”

  “Yep,” Tammy said as the telephone started ringing. “She’s in her office, but I think she’s meeting with Jerry.”

  Toni headed toward the stairs. She sifted through her messages as she walked, but stopped short when she read the last two. She didn’t have to ask how Ronald got her work number. What she couldn’t understand was how a grown, successful, Boris Kodjoe lookalike couldn’t move on and leave her the hell alone. Surely there were plenty of women interested in getting with him. Why was he still calling her? It was one thing to blow up her cell phone, but another to contact her at work. This has to stop.

  She glanced at her watch and trotted up the stairs toward Peyton’s office. Toni was behind schedule and needed to get more information on the lateral pipe job that she wasn’t looking forward to repairing. As far as she was concerned, all in-ground work was a pain and this was one job she wished she had the option of handing off to someone else.

  Hearing raised voices Toni slowed when she reached the top of the landing. Suddenly the idea of speaking with Peyton didn’t seem as appealing, especially once Peyton finished with her brother. She was one of the most laid-back people she knew, but her cousin took running the family business very serious and lately Jerry seemed to be on a mission to sabotage everything he touched. Peyton’s brother, despite being one of the smartest men Toni knew, was also one of the laziest people she knew.

  “What is wrong with you?” Toni heard Peyton through her closed office door. “You’re twenty-three years old and still act like you’re five! You say I don’t respect you, but let me tell you something respect has to be earned. If you don’t get your shit together, you’ll be looking for another job.”

  Toni plopped down on the leather sofa outside Peyton’s door, trying not to listen to their conversation, but finding it hard not to eavesdrop considering Peyton was yelling, which was unusual. Toni knew how hard it was for her to reprimand her brother, not because he was family, but because they were so close. When everyone else had given up on him, Peyton was the one who said to give him time, or that he was still trying to find his place in life. But now he had found a way to alienate the one person who had always had his back.

  Toni heard Jerry mumble something shortly before the door flew open and he stepped into the hall. He glanced at her and nodded, but kept walking without tossing out one of his usual wisecracks.

  “Is it safe to come in?” Toni asked, standing at Peyton’s doorway. She glanced around the dimly lit office with
its large clunky furniture leftover from when her grandfather ran the company and wasn’t surprised to see that the blinds, covering the wall of windows, were all closed. The only light emitted in the space was from the floor lamp across the room and the small lamp on the corner of Peyton’s desk. She claimed she did her best work in the dark, which was funny seeing that she was an electrician.

  “Yeah,” Peyton said just above a whisper from behind her desk, her head resting in her hands. “I give up. I don’t know what to do with him.”

  “Well, you said yourself you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.”

  “I know … but he is too smart to let all that knowledge go to waste.” She dropped her hands and shook her head. “I had high hopes for him, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “I heard he’s been skipping out of apprentice classes. Maybe being an electrician is not what he really wants.”

  “Then he needs to tell me. It’s not as if he were forced into the construction trades. Like the rest of us, he had a choice.” She stood and carried a folder to a file cabinet a few feet from her desk. “I only hope he gets his act together before he gets into major trouble. You know what they say about idle minds.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “All right, enough about Jerry. What’s going on with you?” She slammed the file cabinet drawer closed. “I saw Craig at the party Saturday.”

  Toni studied her cousin. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d invited him?”

  Peyton shrugged and returned to her seat. “Didn’t think about it.” She shuffled papers around on her desk and Toni was almost sure her cousin intentionally didn’t tell her.

  “I also heard you had an adventurous evening while the rest of us were mingling with Grampa’s guests. How did you talk your ex-boyfriend into helping you get your new boyfriend out of the house? And rumor has it that you were caught in a serious lip-lock with your ex that left you panting so hard you couldn’t see straight.”

  Toni’s face heated. An image of Craig and their kiss came to mind, and she shifted in her seat. Before Saturday, she had finally reached the point of not thinking about him every second of every day, and now she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Couldn’t stop thinking about his lips against hers, his strong hard body rubbed up against her, making her feel passion she hadn’t felt since the last time they were together.

  “Seeing you stare off into space makes me think it must’ve been some kiss. Does this mean you two are going to try to work things out?”

  Toni shook her head. “I already told you, Craig and I don’t have a future together.”

  For years, she had avoided emotional attachments, but then Craig came along and she made the mistake of letting her guard down. Within forty-eight hours of meeting him, they had established a connection. She shared things with him she hadn’t shared with those closest to her, but there were still some things he didn’t know, things she’d never be able to share.

  Toni’s cell phone rang, interrupting their conversation. She pulled the intrusive device from the holster on her belt and glanced at the screen, groaning when she saw Ronald’s phone number again. It made no sense that he was calling her. She shoved the phone back into the holster.

  “Toni, you owe it to yourself to see if there is still something between you and Craig.” Peyton’s hand shot up when Toni opened her mouth to speak. “And don’t you dare say you broke up with him because of his job.” The authoritative tone Peyton used with her brother moments ago rang out. “I’m not buying that excuse. You dated him for over a year and then moved in with him. All the while you knew what he did for a living.”

  “Have you forgotten that he was almost killed?” Toni spat out and bolted from her chair. Pacing the room, she wondered why she was even having this conversation.

  “But he wasn’t killed Toni. He’s very much alive. I know you took the death of his partner hard, thinking that it could have easily been Craig but–”

  “Stop!” She pounded on the top of the file cabinet and whirled on her cousin. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to get a call, in the middle of the night, telling you that the man you love more than you love yourself has been shot and is in the hospital?” Her anger mounted with each word spoken.

  Peyton shook her head.

  “I didn’t think so!” Toni rubbed her forehead knowing that she needed to calm down, but finding it hard to reign in the explosion of anxiety bouncing around in her gut. “It didn’t matter that he wasn’t seriously hurt. He was laid up in a hospital bed with blood stained clothes, and the sight of that blood scared me to death. I can’t put myself through that again.”

  “I think you’re afraid.”

  “You’re damn right I’m afraid. Whenever I think about the type of calls he responds to on any given night, it turns my blood to ice knowing that he could be killed by some lunatic.”

  “No, that’s not what I’m talking about. You’re afraid of something else. There is something else keeping you away from Craig. Even fear of him dying in the line of duty wouldn’t make you run the way you did. It was at least a month after that incident that you walked away from him.”

  “PJ,” Toni’s warning tone drew a line in the sand and dared PJ to enter into dangerous territory.

  “After the shooting, not once did you give any sign that you were going to leave him because of his job. Within a couple of weeks, you weren’t even talking about the incident. What happened to make you walk away from the man you claimed was your soul mate?”

  “I didn’t claim he was my soul mate,” she said before thinking and finished in a whisper, “he is my soul mate.” She might’ve walked away, but what she felt for Craig she couldn’t deny.

  “Okay, then what happened to make you leave the man who has asked you to marry him more than once and told you that he wanted you to be the mother of his children? What happened to make you walk away from the man you loved, Toni?”

  “PJ, please just leave it alone.” Toni swallowed hard. The despair lodged in her throat threatened to choke her and she knew that if she didn’t get herself together, she would say something that she’d have to take back later.

  Toni swiped at the tears pooling in her eyes, her heart weighed heavy like an ant hauling a brick. She would never be able to tell Peyton or anyone else her real reason for leaving Craig. So many times she wanted to give him an honest explanation of why she couldn’t marry him, but the words would never form. She could never drum up enough courage to share her deepest darkest secret knowing the disappointment she would see in his eyes when he found out why she turned down his marriage proposal.

  She blew out a breath. “Cuz, I love you, and you have always had my back. I’ll never be able to thank you for all you’ve done for me, but my relationship with Craig is no longer open for discussion.” She snatched a Kleenex from the box on Peyton’s desk and dropped back down in the chair she had vacated earlier. “We can either talk about the lateral pipe job,” she dabbed at her eyes, “or we can go over the specs for the Duke Corporation project that’s coming up, but I’m done talking about Craig and me.”

  Peyton studied her for a minute before saying, “Fine. I won’t mention your relationship with Craig again.” She opened an orange file folder that was sitting on her desk and passed a few documents to Toni. “Let’s hold off on reviewing the specs for Duke until Wednesday. That’s the work order for the lateral pipe job and a copy of the letter the client received from the city. Let me know if you have any questions. I told them that someone will be there …”

  Toni half listened as her cousin rattled on about the job. God knows she missed Craig, but what could she do? His job might not have been her only reason for walking away from their relationship, but it still played a huge role in her decision. She would never forget the night that Derek, Craig’s brother, called to tell her that Craig had been shot and was in the hospital asking for her. Shock, fear and a host of other emotions assaulted her all at once sending her into an overwhel
ming panic. Crying on the phone, she contacted Peyton who drove her to the hospital. Toni felt as if she had held her breath from the time she received the call until Craig wrapped her in his arms, assuring her that he was all right. The only other time in her life that fear had gripped her to the point of hysterics - the rape, and she never wanted to go through either experience ever again.

  “Hopefully you’ll be able to write up an estimate for the Smiths and get your assessment of the job to me by sometime tomorrow.” Peyton’s voice intruded on her thoughts. “The city is only giving them ten days to have the leak repaired before they begin to rack up substantial fines.”

  Toni wiped at her eyes again and took a deep breath. Standing, she held onto the back of the chair, more exhausted than she was when she first arrived. Thinking about the night Craig was shot was like reliving the terror all over again. The same emotions she felt back then caused an overwhelming desire to call him. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t fall back into those old habits of checking in, especially not if she intended to maintain their “just friends” status.

  “Okay, I’ll make the Smiths my first stop and then head to Lorraine’s Diner to see what’s going on with their sump pump,” Toni said, her voice sounding as shaky as she felt. “I’ll probably finish the day over on 6th street to see how the guys are doing with the Cole’s kitchen remodel.”

  “Sounds good.” Her cousin studied her. “Are you going to be okay? I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Toni shrugged. “I’ll be fine. It’s just some days it’s still hard.”

  Peyton nodded her understanding.

  Toni’s cell phone rang again when she stepped out of Peyton’s office and this time the screen read unknown.

  “Ronald, I told you to stop calling me! What part of not interested don’t you understand?” Her tone was harsher than she intended, but right now she wasn’t in the mood to deal with his nonsense.