by Sandra Brown
“I’m sorry for staring,” she said, recovering her composure. “You look so different. Sit down, please.”
He took the chair she indicated. “I probably should have called first.” Actually he hadn’t dared. He was afraid she would tell him that the position had already been filled. It was going to be a crushing disappointment if it had been. The prospect made his voice husky. “I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”
“Not at all.” She resumed her place behind her desk.
He surveyed her office with interest. Everything in it was sleek and contemporary, yet it was warm, with pots of African violets blooming on the windowsill and framed art renderings, drawn by an amateur hand, decorating the walls. Each crayon picture was signed, “Graham Sperry.”
“My son,” she remarked, following his gaze. “He’s fourteen now. It embarrasses him that I keep his grade-school drawings.”
“Fourteen,” Dillon murmured. Charlie would have been eight his next birthday. He smoothed his hand over his heavy mustache, which he had decided to keep when he shaved off his beard.
“Can I get you a coffee or something cold?”
“No, thanks.”
“When did you leave L.A.?”
“A week ago. I drove.”
“Oh, I see. That must have been quite an experience.”
“It was okay,” he replied laconically. Was she stalling, unwilling to tell him she’d found somebody with a better attitude?
“Is this your first time in New York?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think?”
“It’s all right.”
After a short silence, she said, “I hope you have good news for me.”
“Is the job still open?”
“Yes.”
“Not anymore.”
Her eyes lit up, but she kept her voice calm. “I’m very pleased to hear that, Mr. Burke.”
“Why? You found me in jail. You don’t know how I work. I don’t have my own business.”
“I decided while I was in California that I didn’t want a company. An individual is less intimidating than a large company.”
“I still don’t get it,” Dillon said.
“We want TexTile to belong to the community of Palmetto. Using local construction workers and regionally based subcontractors would be a move in the right direction. I shared this idea with Mr. Seffrin, and he agrees. The fact that you don’t have your own labor force is actually a plus. And,” she added, emphasizing her Southern drawl, “you speak their language. You don’t sound like an interloper, and we’re trying to avoid appearing as such.”
“And this Seffrin fellow—”
“Trusts my instincts, although I must tell you that during this interim, we’ve been looking elsewhere. You’re still my first choice, so I’m very pleased to see you here. Now, tell me how you work.” She clasped her hands on top of her desk and assumed a listening expression.
“Essentially, I’ve done a little bit of everything relating to building, but what I like most is putting the whole thing together.”
“Before I knew he was an outright crook, the first thing that turned me off Matthias was his hands,” she said. “They were soft. He manages from behind a desk. I need someone who supervises every aspect of the construction, who works one to one with the subs and the laborers.”
“No problem there. That’s the way I like to do it.”
“Good. This job also requires someone who is committed to the project. From the time we break ground until completion, you can count on it taking at least two years.”
“I’ve got nothing better to do.”
“Relocating in Palmetto won’t be a problem for you?”
“Absolutely none. As you guessed, I grew up in the South and got my degree from Georgia Tech.”
“Is there anything else you’d like to discuss before I have the contracts department draw up our work agreement?”
“What about the subs?”
“What about them?”
“I’ll get no fewer than three bids for every job,” he said. “Am I obligated to award the job to the lowest bidder?”
“Not if you don’t feel comfortable about it.”
“Sometimes the lowest bid turns out to be the most expensive in the long run—if the work has to be redone.”
“I think we understand each other, Mr. Burke. Now, if I can see your references, we’ll be all set.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He had been dreading this part. “I can’t provide you with references.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“For the last several years, I’ve moved around a lot. Burned bridges. I’d get in a fight, or get drunk, or get fed up with the boss’s incompetence and never go back.” He shrugged. “References weren’t a priority. Anyway, I don’t have any.”
“How do I know that you won’t get in a fight, get drunk, and walk out on me?”
“You don’t. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
Dillon held his breath. Since he had come this far, he wasn’t certain he could bear the disappointment if she rejected him now. He wanted this job. It was essential to him. It meant the difference between starting to live again and merely continuing to exist.
She stood up again and moved around the desk. “You’ll need to be in Palmetto by May first. I’ve scheduled a town meeting during which I will announce our plans, and you should be there.”
“You mean I’m hired?”
“You’re hired. Between now and May first, almost every minute of your workday will revolve around meetings with Seffrin, the architect, the designer, and me. You’ve got your work cut out for you, Mr. Burke. I’ll try and scare up an empty office for you to use.”
He was hired! He was too stunned to react.
She extended her hand. “Do we have a deal?”
Dillon stood up and enclosed her hand. There was a vast difference between shaking hands with Jade Sperry and shaking hands with another man. Her hand was small, for one thing, and cool and dry and soft. It didn’t seem to fit into such a masculine gesture, yet the feel of it left an impression long after he had released it.
“Excuse me. I won’t be long.”
She left him alone in her office. He moved to the window and gazed out over the city. It was still hard for him to believe that this was happening. The night she had taken him to dinner, he had thrown up a dozen barriers to her and her proposal. Afterward, however, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Finally he had relented and picked up the prospectus she had left with him. After he’d read it a dozen times, GSS’s TexTile plant became as much an obsession as his grief was.
For seven years he had been outrunning his guilt. The coroner’s report stated that Debra and Charlie had died accidentally, but Dillon knew he was responsible. After the ambulances had taken away their bodies, while he was raging through the house, demented with grief, he had discovered the list of chores he hadn’t got around to the preceding weekend. The last item on the list was, “Check furnace.”
After leaving Tallahassee, he had aimlessly wandered about, with his guilt in tow. He had taken it with him to the frozen frontiers of Alaska and into the teeming jungles of Central America. He had tried to drown it in gallons of whiskey, abuse it with meaningless sex, and kill it by taking unnecessary risks. Yet, he couldn’t shake it off. It was like regenerative living tissue, a part of him as distinguishable as a fingerprint.
After days of contemplating Jade Sperry’s proposal, it occurred to him that perhaps he could merge his two obsessions. If he accepted this job and performed it well enough, it might atone for his failure that had brought about the deaths of his wife and son.
“Everything is set.”
Dillon jumped reflexively when Jade reentered the room, bringing with her a three-page contract. He studied it carefully, filled in the missing details, then signed his name.
She said, “As soon as you have a permanent address in Palmetto, please
call it in for the records.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to live on the premises.”
“At the construction site?”
“I’d like to lease a trailer large enough to serve as an office and living quarters.”
“Suit yourself.” Jade stood and moved toward the door. Dillon followed.
“I’ve notified Mr. Seffrin. His office is in another building, but he’s on his way over.
“Mr. Stein heard that you were in the building and asked to meet you, too. Beforehand, there’s another matter I feel we should clear up.”
She lowered her eyes. From his angle, her black, curly eyelashes looked like they had been painted onto her fair cheeks with a fine brush. “You shouldn’t have kissed me that night in L.A. Nothing like that can happen again. If you have a problem working under a woman’s supervision, I need to know.”
He deliberately waited to respond until she lifted her eyes back to his. “I would have to be a blind eunuch not to notice that you’re a woman. You’re a beautiful woman. But it wouldn’t matter if you had a mustache as thick as mine. I want this job.
“You’ve also left no doubt in my mind that I answer to you. That’s cool. I don’t have any sexist hang-ups. Finally, you’re safe from me. When I want a woman, I’ll find one, but it’ll be for the night only. I don’t want one I have to look at or talk to the morning after.”
Her deep swallow was audible. “I understand.”
“No, you don’t understand, but that’s immaterial. Just rest assured that I haven’t made a practice of romancing the people I work for.”
“Then why did you kiss me?”
He smiled wryly, tilting up one half of his mustache. “Because you pissed me off.”
“How?”
“I wasn’t having a very good day to begin with,” he said sarcastically. “Then you came along, a real cool customer dressed fit to kill and flashing a Gold Card. I’m a grown-up. I don’t appreciate being ordered around any more than you like being condescended to because you wear perfume and pantyhose. I don’t know a man alive who likes being patronized by a woman.”
“And vice versa.”
“Then you should have slapped me when I kissed you.”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
The conversation had lasted ten times longer than the kiss, and he was ready to drop the subject. It made him uncomfortable. He didn’t know what had motivated him to kiss her. The only thing he was sure of was that he didn’t want to know. Nevertheless, he couldn’t let the matter drop without asking one more question of her.
“If that kiss bothered you so much, why’d you hire me?”
“Because I’ve dedicated my life to the success of this project, Mr. Burke. Measured against that, one kiss is hardly important.” Her eyes turned a darker hue and, not for the first time, Dillon wondered what motivated her. “However, it mustn’t happen again.”
“As I explained, it wasn’t sexually motivated.”
“Good.” Her smile indicated that she was as relieved as he that the topic was closed. “Before we go see Mr. Stein, is there anything else on your mind?”
“Yeah. Who is Mr. Stein?”
Chapter Twenty
Palmetto, May 1991
The civic auditorium was packed to capacity that balmy first day of May. Jade was seated in a row of chairs that had been set up on the stage at the front of the room. It was rapidly filling up with a noisy, curious crowd.
Gradually word had gotten around that a large parcel of land had been purchased and rezoned for industrial use. Dillon had been in Palmetto for several weeks, obtaining the necessary building permits and arranging for public utilities to be accessible at the site, but he had kept as low a profile as possible and certainly had made no public announcement.
Gossip was rampant. Rumors circulated that everything from a theme park to a nuclear reactor was being built in Palmetto. Jade had requested that the city council—the members of which weren’t even certain what GSS planned—call this town meeting to allay fears and to enthuse and involve the community.
Her speech had been thoroughly prepared, but there were butterflies in her tummy. To calm them, she thought about the house she had leased for as long as she, Cathy, and Graham would be living in Palmetto. It was an older house that had spacious rooms, hardwood floors, and ceiling fans. The owners had completely refurbished and modernized it before deciding to tackle another renovation project in Charleston. Jade, working through a realtor in New York, had signed a lease as soon as the house became available.
Cathy would love the sunny kitchen and screened back porch, which would undoubtedly remind her of her house in Morgantown. The deep, tree-shaded backyard was encircled with azalea bushes. Jade had designated one of the upstairs bedrooms as Graham’s. He would like the built-in shelves where he could arrange his stereo system.
Enthusiastically, she had described the room to him via long-distance. “It’s got three large windows that overlook the front yard and a walk-in closet with so much more space than you’ve got now. You’re going to love it.”
He was still feeling some uncertainty and reluctance. “It sounds okay, I guess. How far is it from where you’re building the plant?”
“Several miles. Why?”
“Just wondering. Dillon said maybe I could come out there sometime.”
Dillon had been introduced to Graham in New York when he dropped in at the office one afternoon after school. They had met only one other time, but Graham frequently mentioned the man. Hank was the only adult male Graham was close to. Jade reasoned that his idol worship of Dillon was harmless, as long as it went no further. Although Dillon Burke was exactly what she needed to build TexTile, she wasn’t certain that he was a suitable role model for her impressionable son, especially since Dillon might be looking to replace the son he had lost.
She knew more about Dillon than he suspected. Besides herself, the contractor would be the most important individual on the project. During the two-week interval between their meeting in Los Angeles and his appearance in New York, Jade had utilized GSS’s wealth of resources to delve into his background, hoping to prove that her instincts about him were right.
She now knew about his troubled childhood, the time he had spent in a detention center, and his college career. She knew about Pilot Engineering Enterprises and his difficulties with the new management after it was acquired. The tragic deaths of his wife and child explained his cynicism. She had learned from former employers who remembered him that he was an exceptional but wasted talent.
When she had asked him for references, it had been to test his integrity. His truthfulness had convinced her that she had made the right choice. He had personal reasons for wanting to tackle this project. They weren’t as strong as hers, but they were powerful in their own right. If he hadn’t shown up in New York, she would have returned to L.A. and sought him out.
It was decided that Graham and Cathy would stay in New York until Graham completed the school term. If the prospect of seeing Dillon again made him more agreeable to relocating, fine. However, Jade didn’t want him to regard Dillon as a playmate. She was confident that once Graham started school in Palmetto next fall, he would make new friends and adjust quickly.
Although he had grown up with two women, he was a well-adjusted boy, without any ambiguities regarding his sexuality. He was four when he had first asked, “Mom, where’s my dad?” They had just moved from Morgantown to Charlotte, and Jade had enrolled him in a preschool. He was bright and inquisitive, so it wasn’t surprising that, after his first few weeks in the school, he had noticed that his family lacked what all others seemed to have.
“You don’t have a dad,” she had gently explained. “You don’t need one. You’ve got Cathy and me, and before he died, you had Poppy. You’re very lucky to have this many people who love you so much.”
He was temporarily pacified, but the topic came up again after a visit from Hank. “Is Hank my dad?”
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“No, darling. He’s just a dear friend who loves you.”
Graham’s stubborn streak had grown in proportion to the rest of him. The twin bars of his eyebrows drew closer together over the bridge of his nose, and his blue eyes darkened mutinously. “Then who was my dad? I had to have one.”
“You had one, but he isn’t important.”
On the contrary, having a father was extremely important to a seven-year-old. Unlike before, the topic wasn’t so easily dismissed. “Are you divorced from him?” he asked.
“No.”
“Can he come to see me sometime?”
“No.”
“Didn’t he like me when I got borned?”
“He wasn’t there. Just me. And I loved you enough for ten people. A hundred.” By then he had reached an age where hugs were unwelcome, but he had let her hold him in her arms for a long time that night.
There had come a time when he dealt with the problem in his own way, sometimes deviously. It got back to Jade that Graham was spinning tales about a father who died while saving a baby from a burning building.
“Why did you say that, Graham?” She posed the question gently, not as a reprimand.
He shrugged. He was pouty, but his eyes were shimmering with tears he was too manly to shed, having just turned ten
“Do the kids at school tease you about not having a father?”
“Sometimes.”
Her hopes that Graham wouldn’t feel short-changed had been unrealistic. Having only one parent made a difference. Much of her youth had been spent in a single-parent home, but during her formative childhood years her father had been there. After his death, she had photographs and memories of him to sustain her. She had never forgotten their quiet talks together, his warm, encompassing hugs, his goodnight kisses, or his whispering to her, “Don’t ever be afraid, Jade.”
Telling Graham the truth wasn’t an option she considered. If he knew that he was the result of a rape, he would likely blame himself for living. She refused to lay that kind of guilt on her child, recalling the cruel responsibility Velta had placed on her the last time she’d seen her.