Ryan, Debora - Crimes of the Heart (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Debora Ryan

  The women met at the entrance and left together. Leah looked back at Will to find him deep in conversation with the man who had been talking to Anne when Will interrupted. An argument had sprung up between them. She wondered how long it would take them to notice that the object of their disagreement had left.

  “I’m sorry, Lee,” Anne said as they got into her car.

  “You didn’t do anything,” Leah said. “If he was actually interested in me, he wouldn’t have left mid-sentence.”

  Anne slung her arm around her friend. “Come on, I’ll treat us to something decadent.”

  “I really should get home.”

  “After,” Anne insisted. “It’s only nine-thirty.”

  * * * *

  Will loosened the top button on his polo shirt and wondered if steam poured from his ears.

  “If you had let me get the blonde’s phone number, then you wouldn’t have lost your line on the redhead. You know what your problem is?”

  Some friendships weren’t worth the time and effort. Though Trevor was a frat brother, college had come and gone. The time for partying like this was over, especially for Trevor.

  “I’m sure your pregnant wife would appreciate the interference. You’re an asshole, Trev. You can’t go out and pick up women just because you had a fight. Disagreements happen in a marriage.”

  Trevor snorted and tossed his head, moving a strand of longer hair out of his eye. When that didn’t work, he followed it up with the casual sweep of his hand. “Says the guy who’s never been married.”

  “Says the guy who’s never cheated on a girlfriend.” The urge to punch Trevor had Will’s hand curling into a fist. He didn’t normally pick up women in bars.

  He didn’t buy drinks as a way to wrangle an introduction.

  In his world, beautiful women were not in short supply.

  With long red curls falling past her shoulders and all those curves on display, Will hadn’t been able to keep his eyes from her. He’d seen her on the dance floor and watched as she fended off advance after advance.

  She had come to relax, not to pick up men. Will found that infinitely appealing. Needy or forward women were a definite turn-off. Will could appreciate emotional strength, determination, and intelligence. He prized those traits, but he couldn’t deny the caveman aspect of his nature that needed to make the first move.

  Leah had responded to the more refined aspects of his personality. She had liked his manners. He could see her surprise when he guided her to the table and pulled out her chair. Her eyes hadn’t dropped demurely once. She displayed confidence and poise, yet he saw an underlying shyness and vulnerability. He liked that dichotomy.

  “She’s divorcing me,” Trevor said. “It’s not cheating when the relationship is over.”

  “She’s hormonal and mad at you for being a jerk. You might want to consider putting her first for a change.” Even as the reassurance and advice left his lips, Will knew it was pointless. Trevor lacked respect for women. Will had no idea why he’d married this one. Rachel was a good woman, and she could do far better than Trevor.

  Trevor laughed and punched Will in the arm, knocking his hand from the steering wheel. “You’re just pissed because you lost your chance at that firecracker. I know how you are about redheads.”

  Will growled, his only response. He knew he’d be back at that club the next night looking for her. Failure didn’t sit well with him, and he wanted Leah. Will always got what he wanted.

  Chapter 2

  Leah woke the next morning tired but refreshed. Anne had kept her out well past midnight, but it was just the two of them. They’d spent the time talking and joking the way only people who have known each other since middle school could.

  The morning was wet and cold, and Leah’s car protested weakly as she urged it to start. Eventually, it turned over. She suspected it was the spark plugs again. This older model engine nestled them in a place that wasn’t too protected from the elements, and they tended to rust every six months or so. Silently, she thanked her father for making her learn basic automotive repair. Although she hated doing it, it was far cheaper to fix these little things herself than it was to take it to a mechanic and pay through the nose for something simple.

  She double-checked the engine when she arrived at Sunshine Acres before adding spark plugs and wires to her shopping list. Hopefully Cecelia was having a good day. Otherwise, Leah would have to do all of her shopping afterward, which meant she wouldn’t get home until late.

  Cece waited for Leah in the large common room. She jumped up and threw her arms around Leah, enveloping her in a rib-crushing bear hug. “Leah! Leah! Leah!”

  “Cece!” Leah squealed in an equally excited voice as she returned the embrace. “How have you been?”

  “I know something you don’t know.” Cece often began their visits this way. The most memorable one was the first time Cecelia stood up and took three unsteady steps before throwing her arms around Leah, more for balance than for a hug. Cecelia had lost her ability to walk in the accident, but the amazing doctors at Sunshine Acres had helped her regain basic mobility. Cecelia was still sometimes unsteady on her feet, but usually only when she was tired.

  Leah had cried in her happiness. The day hadn’t ended well, but Leah kept the larger picture in mind. She might be paying more than she could afford for Cece’s care, but the doctors in the state-run facility hadn’t even tried therapies that might help Cece walk again. It had been a struggle just to get them to consistently give her the medications she needed each day.

  “What do you know that I don’t know?” Leah said, happy to play the game.

  “I know that you are my little sister,” Cece said triumphantly. “That means I’m older than you, and you have to do what I say.”

  Leah laughed. “What are we going to do today?”

  Cece smiled widely, a gesture that made her face look far younger than thirty-one. “We’re going to prune my plants.”

  “And then?”

  “Lunch.”

  And then?”

  “Then Marian said I should be a good hostess and ask you what you want to do.” Marian was in charge of Cecelia’s care at Sunshine Acres.

  Cecelia didn’t wait for Leah to share her need to run errands. She grabbed her hand and pulled her along to the greenhouse. Leah tied the green apron around her sister’s waist and wondered how much Cecelia was remembering and how much she actually understood. Her question was answered after lunch when she tried to put Cece in the passenger seat.

  “I’m the big sister. I get to drive.”

  “My car, my rules,” Leah said firmly. “You know that.”

  Leah could tell from the set of Cecelia’s jaw that she was gearing up for a temper tantrum. “I’m gonna tell Marian.”

  “Marian won’t let you drive either. You don’t have a license.”

  Cecelia studied Leah through slitted eyes. “I used to have a car. A green car. Where is it?”

  Leah sighed. She had sold it to pay for some of Cecelia’s bills. “It broke down, and I had to sell it.”

  Cece wasn’t buying it. The volume of her voice rose, as did the color in Cece’s cheeks. “You can’t sell a broken car. Marian says it’s not good manners to give somebody something that is broken.”

  “Cars are different,” Leah explained. “Some people like cars that don’t work. They like to see if they can fix them.”

  The redness receded from Cece’s face as she made a connection. “Like Eduardo. He likes to fix the broken things.”

  “Exactly like Eduardo,” Leah said.

  “Then we need to get it back when it’s fixed.” Cecelia nodded solemnly.

  Leah decided to take the easy way out. “It’s going to take a long, long time.” She was banking on Cecelia forgetting or fixating on something else. “Now, if you don’t get in the car, we can’t go anywhere.”

  Cecelia was a good sport about running errands with Leah, mostly because she knew Leah would take her to the
garden department as a reward before they left the store. Leah was well-practiced in the art of throwing a look of warning or contempt at people who stared at Cece while she excitedly hopped from one foot to the other, sharing her finds with Leah. Cecelia returned to Sunshine Acres with a new trowel and green gardening gloves that matched the apron she favored. She bade Leah a tearful goodbye, forgetting to ask about their parents. For this, Leah was exceedingly grateful. Cece couldn’t seem to remember that they were dead. Each time she mourned them anew.

  Before she left, Leah stopped by the front desk to drop off her payment. Jackie, the receptionist, gave her a wary look as she approached. Leah knew she was hoping it wasn’t a partial payment. Sunshine Acres had been good to Cecelia and to Leah, but the last time she had fallen behind, they had made it clear that the next time would be the last. Leah couldn’t let that happen.

  Saturdays with Cece were both rewarding and exhausting. She spent Monday and Wednesday afternoons with Cece, and each day she arrived home worn out. Anne would tell Leah that it was the emotional toll of watching her formerly capable sister reduced to an often-childlike existence. Leah lived for Cecelia’s lucid moments when it seemed her sister was back with her. Whatever the case, an exhausted Leah fell asleep on the sofa.

  She awoke sometime in the middle of the night with a sore muscle in her back she knew would bother her every time she moved her left arm. It was the same muscle she hurt every time she fell asleep on the couch, which was much too frequently. She took a leisurely shower and made sure to fall asleep in the queen-sized, white-painted aluminum canopy bed she had in high school. She tried not to let the fact that she was thirty and couldn’t afford to upgrade her bedroom set from what she had received for her fifteenth birthday bother her too much.

  A shrill ringing jarred her awake. Blindly, she reached for the alarm, cussing under her breath for turning it on in the first place. She hit the off button, but the ringing didn’t stop. Coming fully awake, she realized it was the phone. She opened one eye and fixed it on the clock. Ten-thirty. Okay, she admitted. It wasn’t rude to call at ten-thirty. She didn’t have an answering machine, so it rang until she dragged herself to the kitchen to answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “Leah. Did I wake you?” It took her a moment to place the voice on the other end.

  “Mr. Dannaker?” It was the president of the advertising firm for which she worked. Most people might have been pleased to have the president calling them at home. Leah was not one of them, especially when she had just stolen so much money from him. Did he suspect anything? “Somebody better be dead.”

  “Nobody is dead.” He laughed. Many people who started a company from scratch and molded it into a multi-million dollar operation might have been upset to be treated so rudely by their employee. Thomas Dannaker was not among them. He knew he was lucky to have her.

  “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She was about to hang up on him when she heard him say, “Wait! This is important.”

  “You have exactly one minute.”

  “It might take longer than a minute.”

  “Fifty seconds.” Her bladder was full, and she didn’t have a problem hanging up on him to relieve it. Maybe guilt caused her to be extra surly, but she didn’t want to think about that right then.

  “I need a favor from you.”

  Leah sighed. She used to feel special when he singled her out. It meant she was doing such a good job that she was attracting the notice of her superiors. She eventually realized it mostly meant more work for her and higher expectations to meet. There was a time when she would have appreciated the challenge, but that time had passed. She had too much to worry about in her personal life to care about who noticed her at work and who didn’t.

  “My son is coming to work for the company, and I’d like you to train him.”

  This fell under the category of extra work. “No.”

  “Leah, just let him follow you around for a couple of weeks.”

  “And then you promote him to upper-level management so he can tell us what to do with only a smattering of experience.”

  “His degree isn’t in advertising or marketing. He’s a businessman.”

  She didn’t see the difference. People in this business had all kinds of degrees, many of which were tangentially related to advertising. “Mr. Dannaker, I don’t want to babysit your kid.”

  “He won’t be a problem. Please, Leah. Give him a chance. A week. He’s a good kid. If it doesn’t work out, then you can bow out of it, and I won’t say a word.”

  Leah sighed. It sounded more like a courtesy call than a request. “I wish you wouldn’t frame a command as a request.”

  “I owe you.”

  “Yes, you do. I’ll take a big bonus. I’m thinking ten thousand dollars to start. More if he’s a pain in the ass.”

  Mr. Dannaker chuckled. She could picture his face now. He was a tall man. A good diet and plenty of exercise had kept him from shrinking too much with age. Judging by the pictures on his wall, he had been handsome when he was younger. For some reason, he liked Leah, and he knew she liked him as well. “He won’t be a bother, but you’re right, you deserve additional compensation. How about five thousand?”

  “Make it ten and you have a deal.” Ten thousand would cover the excess of Cecelia’s bill for a year.

  “You drive a hard bargain.”

  “You might have had an easier time of it if you hadn’t woken me up at home on my day off. I don’t see what was so urgent that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow.”

  He chuckled again. “I wanted to give you a day to cool off. I knew you wouldn’t be happy about this.”

  “Then why not bother someone else?” She regretted the question as soon as she asked it. She knew what was coming next.

  “Because you’re the best.”

  She held in the sigh this time. “You do realize that you give me absolutely no incentive to continue doing a good job? Quite the opposite actually.”

  “You don’t have it in you to compromise your integrity.”

  If you only knew, she thought. She had tarnished her integrity years ago and never looked back. Aloud, she said, “Are we reaching our agreement now or tomorrow morning?”

  “Stop by my office first thing,” he said before hanging up.

  Leah struggled to push the intrusion from her mind. If she wasn’t in the habit of skimming money from this man’s company, she wouldn’t feel so bad about liking him and her job. If things were different, she might look forward to mentoring Mr. Dannaker’s son.

  But things weren’t different.

  Chapter 3

  The next time Leah heard a ringing, it was the alarm heralding a new day. She half considered going back to sleep and informing Mr. Dannaker that she counted the previous morning as part of her work week. However, it wouldn’t make things any easier for her. She had the Monday morning staff meeting to consider.

  She compromised by pushing the button for the snooze alarm a few times. When she stumbled to her car later with a travel mug full of coffee, she knew she still had enough time. However, it wasn’t until she tried to start her ancient piece of machinery that she remembered it needed new spark plugs.

  Reluctantly, she climbed out and fished around in the trunk for the plugs and wires she and Cecelia had picked out the day before. She didn’t have anything to protect her clothes. Instead, she relied on the grace she sometimes had and sometimes didn’t. When all was said and done, she came away with a car that started and a smudge on her skirt she didn’t notice until she got to work an hour late. It hadn’t taken her an hour to conquer the engine problem. The accident on M-14 caused the majority of the delay.

  Leah didn’t bother to count the number of people who were waiting anxiously to inform her that Mr. Dannaker was in her office and he had been waiting for some time. She strode through her open door and swung it closed behind her without looking around. Her destination was the top right drawer of her desk where she
had one of those handy little pens known for taking the spots out of clothing.

  As she sat and rifled through her drawer, Mr. Dannaker said, “Leah, it’s good of you to join us.”

  “Don’t mention it,” she muttered without looking up. Her fingers seized upon her prize. She untwisted the cap and rubbed it carefully over the smudge. “Well?”

  “I agree to your terms,” he said.

  “I want you to stay out of it, too,” she said, still scrubbing at her skirt. “I don’t need you poking your nose into my business and messing things up.”

  “I figured as much,” he said. “He’s all yours.”

  The stain disappeared, bringing a satisfied smile to her face. She couldn’t afford to buy another skirt right now.

  Mr. Dannaker mistook the reason for her smile. “I will want him back.”

  Leah looked up at Mr. Dannaker and blinked uncomprehendingly. “What?”

  “And I want regular reports. That’s very important.”

  Leah waved a hand dismissively. “That’s fine. You’ll have something on your desk every Monday. Or Tuesday. Starting next week.”

  She came out from behind her desk, and he took her hands in his larger ones. “This is very important to me,” he said. “I know you won’t let me down.”

  “I know it is, Mr. Dannaker.”

  “When are you going to start calling me ‘Tom’?”

  “Probably never,” she said as she removed her hands from his grasp and gathered her planner and other materials together. “Where’s Junior?”

  “My name is Will.” The voice came from the other side of her office, which was pleasantly large. “But you already knew that.”

  Leah had expected someone fresh from college who would annoy her with inexperienced questions and comments, but who would at least be malleable. Instead she was looking at the handsome jerk she had met at the club on Friday. Of course he would be the spoiled son of her wealthy boss. This was just her luck. She preferred to remember him as the attention-deficit womanizer who’d abandoned her for a pretty face, but that wasn’t to be. Now she would know him as the attention-deficit, over-privileged womanizer son of her boss.