by Docter, K. L
“I worked for the man near eight years. When he saw my heart was on the circuit, he let me go with his blessing. He was more a father to me than my own, and we occasionally ran into each other over the years.” He shrugged. “I knew you didn’t like being tossed all over the country while I tried to find work that would pay enough to get me off the circuit. I was tired of getting tossed off bulls, too. I was ready to rope all of your objections and drag you with me, but then your mama’s aunt came to me and offered to take you in, give you the things you wanted.”
He stopped and took several deep pulls on his oxygen. “I knew the job could tank like so many times before, so I decided it was time to let you go. Find your way to what would make you happy. It about broke my heart to leave you behind.”
“I was so stupid, Dad,” she whispered. “I thought—”
“It’s not stupid to want a better life,” he said around a wide yawn. “You were so much smarter than I ever was, just like your mama. She would have wanted you to go to college to make something of yourself.” He gave her a small smile. “Can’t say I’d do it the same way again. I should have talked to you about it, instead of just leavin’.” He shrugged. “Water under the—”
“Bridge,” she finished for him. It was another of his favorite sayings she’d forgotten. She waved the folder at him. “There’s a lot of water here. I gather your partnership was successful.”
He yawned again. “Bought the breeding operation from the old man six years ago.” His eyelids began to droop but he forced them open. “He died five months later, leaving me the whole ranch. No kids, remember? Told me to pass it on to mine,” he trailed off, “if you ever talked to me again.”
Her heart ached. “We have a lot to catch up on, Dad, so you’re not passing on anything for a long while yet, okay?” She leaned over the bed and kissed his leathery cheek. “It’s time for you to get some rest.”
“Love you, little chickadee,” he whispered, his eyes closing. “Don’t fly away.”
“I love you, too, Daddy,” she said, tears running freely now that he couldn’t see them. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Chapter Twenty
Patrick glared out his office window the following Monday. The ominous thunderheads building overhead fit his current mood. The last thing he wanted was another schedule delay when he’d already dug deep into overtime. He dragged his free hand over the back of his neck while the other hand strangled the phone receiver as he listened to his potential client become his ex-potential client.
“Their bid was how much lower?” Customers seldom revealed why he didn’t get a project so he couldn’t afford to ignore information freely given. Especially when the situation stank like last week’s sewage line break.
This wasn’t the first time in the past few months his rival, Chet Standish Ltd. undercut one of his bids. Once was a coincidence. Twice might be serendipity. But the last four times they’d bid the same job?
His customer ran down with an apology, which forced Patrick to scramble for something to say. “No problem. I understand.” He ended the call with a pleasant “thanks for considering my firm” spiel that threatened to choke him.
The moment the client hung up, Patrick picked up his aluminum pencil holder and flung it across the room. His missile flew through the open doorway connecting his office with the file room, striking a cabinet on the far wall with a satisfying metallic bang.
A pencil rolled across the oak floor back into his office. Jane rushed into the room behind it, wielding a fistful of folders like a weapon. “What’s wrong?”
He cursed. He’d forgotten she was filing in the next room. “I—” he searched for an explanation that wouldn’t make him sound like a complete ass.
He knew he wasted his time when, over Jane’s shoulder, he spotted Rachel. He wasn’t proud of a lot of his actions lately, not where she was concerned. He’d avoided discussing the night his parents’ returned home. Unable to deal with his unreasonable desire for her, he’d put distance between them by treating her like an employee. He’d further strained their relationship when she was pushed into the elevator shaft. He blamed himself for putting her in danger and not protecting her, but he’d taken it out on her instead. He’d meant to talk to her the next day, but he’d gotten the call from Katy about Dixon and the opportunity was lost.
Except for brief appearances at Southgate to instruct her landscaping crew, she’d been at the hospital with her father since his hip surgery. Patrick still slept on his parents’ living room couch. The operative word was “slept”. Except for breakfast, he’d been too busy taking care of Thorne Enterprise projects to join the family for meals, simply falling into his makeshift bed each night like a dead man. The bodyguards had seen more of Rachel than Patrick these past three days, which is why he soaked up the sight of her like a parched man.
Instead of her usual jeans and button-down, cotton shirt, today she wore a blue blouse that looked like silk. He longed to unbutton it and uncover the more satiny texture of her skin beneath. Her multi-colored skirt skimmed her curves like a lover’s hand from the wide black belt at her waist to the swirling hem around her calves. Rachel looked sexy and incredibly touchable and it took everything he had to resist the temptation to cross the threshold into the other room, back her into one of the file cabinets, and touch her everywhere.
Their gazes locked for several heartbeats—long enough for his jeans to strangle his brain cells—before Rachel turned away and walked out of sight. He pushed his hormones down, not sure how much longer he could keep his distance. He knew a relationship with Rachel was temporary—she repeatedly reminded him she was leaving—but he hadn’t wanted the break to be so abrupt. Or so soon.
That Rachel seemed fine with the status quo bothered him, especially since he’d declared his intention to marry her to Dixon. He’d said it to placate the man, but the more he thought about it….
Jane stepped in front of him, breaking his eye contact with the other room. “Patrick? The phone call?” she prompted. “We lost another contract, didn’t we?”
Patrick shook off his distraction to look at his office manager. Each missed contract bothered Jane lately, so he gave a negligent shrug like they hadn’t just lost the multi-million dollar project that would have funded formal offices for Thorne Enterprises. “It’s no big deal, Jane. We don’t have time and manpower for the Schubert complex anyway.”
“Bullshit. You don’t bid projects you can’t complete.”
He smiled wryly. The woman might look like a society matron who took High Tea at the ladies’ club every afternoon, but she tended to speak more like a rough-edged crewman. Her language had toned down in the years since she’d dried out and come to work for him, yet she still didn’t pull her punches. She was honest and outspoken, which is why he trusted her like he trusted his own mother.
“Who got the job, Patrick?”
The sound of a file drawer closing in the other room ratcheted the tension between his shoulder blades another notch. Forcing his gaze back to the woman in front of him, he leaned back in his chair. “Standish got this one,” he said. “He’s either found a way to severely cut corners or he’s so determined to make sure we go under he’ll take losses until we hang up our tool belts.”
Folders fell from Jane’s fingers and scattered across the clutter on his desk. She dropped into the chair in front of him. “Patrick.” Her voice cracked on his name. She pushed her salt-and-pepper hair back from her face with a hand that visibly shook. “I-I, um, oh God, I have…to tell you something.”
Patrick frowned at the way the older woman’s facial expression twisted. He knew her angina escalated quickly when she was under stress. “Whatever it is can wait,” he said. “Where’s your nitroglycerin, Jane?”
“I’m not having a heart attack, just an attack of conscience,” she retorted. Then, she burst into tears.
Rachel rushed into the room, took one look at the crying woman, and glared at him. Shocked, he rose from
his chair. But Rachel’s scowl stopped him from walking around the desk to Jane’s side. Not that he knew what to do in these situations. Give him a cracked roof brace, a broken water main, anything but a woman in full meltdown.
On her knees at Jane’s feet, Rachel murmured something in a low voice. “Could you give us a few minutes, maybe fix a cup of green tea for Jane?”
At first, the words didn’t register with Patrick. Then, he started. He could do tea! He bolted from the room. Standing in his kitchen minutes later, he listened to the microwave hum and analyzed Jane’s emotional collapse. In all the years she’d worked for him he’d never seen her fall apart like this, not even straight out of rehab. What the hell was going on? Jane had had two bad cases of the waterworks in the past week and, whatever was going on, Rachel seemed to be in the middle of it.e He He
That became more evident when he walked back toward his office and overheard Rachel. “Are you sure you’re ready to do this, Jane?”
“I can’t take it anymore,” the other woman replied. “I have to tell him.”
Walking into the room, he set Jane’s tea on the desk where she could reach it. Rachel’s expression closed off when their shoulders touched as he rounded his desk where he felt most comfortable. More in control, which was an obvious illusion with Rachel close enough to sabotage his senses.
She’d planted herself against the wall on his left where she blocked his access back around his desk. To provide a buffer between him and Jane?
He studied the older woman’s face. Evidence of her tearful outburst made her appear older than her fifty-two years. “Okay, Jane,” he prompted. “You’ve got my attention. What do you have to tell me?”
“I-I—”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she ignored them and blurted, “You’re losing business because I sold information about Thorne Enterprises!”
The air in his lungs seized. “What are you talking about?”
Shrinking back in her seat, Jane didn’t shield her eyes from his accusatory glare. “I’ll tell you everything, but you have to promise not to let them have Suze when I’m sent to prison. She’ll die in that house. She’s better off with complete strangers than those people!”
The non sequitur threw him so he latched onto the part that made sense. “Suze’s in danger? Where is she?”
“She’s upstairs,” Rachel said, “playing with Amanda.”
Reassured the child was okay, Patrick waited for Jane to clarify her outrageous statement. Another tear started a trail down her cheek. He crushed renewed stirrings of sympathy, slowly accepting that her admission might not be a joke.
“Please promise me,” she said. “No matter what I tell you, you’ll protect Suze.”
Patrick thought of the precocious little girl he’d welcomed into his home the past five years. Suze’s playpen and mobile had a corner in Jane’s office at the front of the house when she was barely two weeks old. Her tricycle had marred an erratic line in the wood finish along the narrow hallway between her grandmother’s front office and his in the back parlor. There was a large playroom upstairs that he and a number of his crew kept littered with toys. Suze’s constant chatter and laughter had filled his huge, empty house six days a week her entire short life.
He’d been unable to save his wife or unborn son. “I won’t let anything happen to Suze,” he said roughly.
Jane nodded. “Thank you, Patrick.”
“I’ll do it for Suze,” he said, unable to get past the woman’s betrayal. “Tell me who I’m protecting her from before we get into why you’re trying to destroy my company.”
“Suze’s uncle is out to destroy you. Not me.”
Uncle? “You said her mother never revealed the biological father’s name.”
“She didn’t,” Jane cried out. “His older brother came to me four months ago with a letter Susan wrote telling him about little Suze. Toward the end before she died, Susan was desperate for money. She must have thought he’d pay her to disappear.”
Ice sank deep into Patrick’s gut. “Who is Suze’s father?”
Jane hesitated too long, as if she didn’t dare speak the name. After a moment, she appealed to Rachel. “Please? I just…can’t!”
Patrick stared at Rachel. “You know?”
She placed a hand flat over her stomach in that protective manner that told him to back off, but he couldn’t give her the space she needed. “Well?”
“Suze’s father is Donald Standish.”
“Chet Standish’s younger brother?”
As much as he wanted to reject the confirmation of his worst fears, Rachel’s nod wouldn’t allow it. “Chet Standish blackmailed Jane.”
Unable to look at either woman as he came to grips with what their revelations meant he swiveled in his chair and glared out the window at the lowering Colorado sky. Jack had checked out Patrick’s competitors months ago after his first vandalism report. Everything came back clean, even for dear old Chet. It was no secret he’d been tapping into his wife’s trust fund hard lately to keep little brother off the courthouse dockets for all of his DUI and drug charges, but the authorities weren’t able to connect him to Patrick’s recent troubles.
What had they missed?
Jane grimaced when he turned back to face her. “Patrick, I’m sorry. I should have told you—”
“What did Standish pay you to sell me out?”
“Nothing! I swear I’d never take a dime to—”
Somehow, not taking money made his sense of betrayal worse. Not that he believed her. “What did he promise you, Jane?”
She scooted forward in her seat and slapped her hand on the desktop so hard tea splashed out of her cup on one of the file folders she’d dropped there. “He promised to take Suze from me.” Her voice rose with each word. “He promised to turn her into a drug addict and whore like his brother made my Susan. He said he’d take great pleasure in handing her over to a man he knew who specialized in little girls to make sure it was done properly. That’s what he promised me.”
She glared at him. “So fire me. Throw me in jail. Do whatever you feel you have to. Just keep your promise so Suze doesn’t end up living with those animals!”
Rage seared through him under Jane’s attack. He was wrong. If a portion of what she claimed were true, his wrath had nowhere to go. “What,” he forced calm into his voice, “did Standish ask for in return?”
“Your bidding formula.”
Every contractor had his own personal system for figuring manpower, supplies, discounts and schedules. “You handed him the power to destroy me.”
“Yes. But I’ve been fixing it.” She collapsed back into her seat, her blast of defiance exhausted. “I thought I’d fixed it. I’ve been working with your subcontractors to cut costs. I didn’t tell Standish about the two part-time crews and, between Skip and I, you have a list of new suppliers giving you the deeper discounts you’ve been using to calculate your last few bids.”
“Skip’s in on this plot, too?”
“No! All I told him is that you wanted to cut costs, find alternative supply sources.”
Patrick believed her. Considering Skip’s eagerness to please it wouldn’t have taken much for Jane to convince him to cover her tracks. “If you sabotaged the information you gave Standish, how is he still undercutting our bids?”
“I wish I knew!” She reached out a hand to him across the desk in supplication, but drew it back quickly. “I’m sorry, Patrick. I wanted to tell you. This secret’s been killing me for months. I didn’t know what else to do.”
You could have confided in me. You might have trusted me to help you to protect Suze.
For that matter, why hadn’t Rachel told him what was going on? She knew how worried he was about his bottom line, what it meant to his employees if Thorne Enterprises went out of business because of these insidious attacks. He looked into her gorgeous brown eyes, wondering how many more secrets lay hidden there. “How long have you known this and didn’t tell me?”
“Please don’t blame Rachel,” Jane blurted out. “I just told her.”
“Just now,” he looked at Rachel, “when she was questioning your decision to tell me.” He knew he was being unfair but he was done with half-truths and lies. Even lies of omission.
Rachel did nothing to defend herself. Like the unattainable fairy queen she sometimes reminded him of, she simply stood there, pale and silent as she stared back at him. Then, as if he’d proven himself beneath her notice, she looked away and frowned. “Jane? Are you all right?”
Patrick glanced at Jane and saw the distress lining her eyes, the twist of pain around her mouth. No. The woman was not all right. “Where are your pills, Jane?”
“I’m fine.” She shook her head, grimaced again, and then reached into her slacks pocket for her pillbox. “It feels good to have this off my chest.”
His concern grew as he watched her slip a tiny pill under her tongue.
“You know what really hurts? It’s knowing you’ll never forgive me for what I’ve done. You’re family and I-I—”
Tears ran down her cheeks. “Do you think you can have me hauled off to jail before Suze comes down for her snack? I don’t want her to see me in handcuffs.”
What the woman needed most was an escort home to bed before she ended up in the emergency room. “I don’t think—” he began before he noticed they had company.
“Don’t take my Grandma to jail!” wailed Suze from the hall doorway.
“You can’t do this, Patrick,” Rachel argued at the same time.
Amanda, standing next to Suze, said nothing but her big brown eyes shouted her distress louder than words.
“Quiet!” He waited until everyone’s gaze rested on him. Then he crooked an index finger at Suze, drawing her into the room. When she came to a stop in front of him and he saw the devastation shadowing her face, the way her lower lip quivered, his heart squeezed.