Heat of the Moment

by Lori Herter

  Heat of the Moment

  Lori Herter

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  1

  THE FLOOR VIBRATED and the water in the glasses on the table rippled. Josie Gray paused, alert. “Is that…?”

  “Oh, my God!” Ronnie exclaimed. “Should we duck under the table?”

  Josie looked out the window of Delmonico’s restaurant and saw a huge truck rumbling by. “Relax. It’s only that big semi going by outside.” She laughed. “I could have sworn it was at least a 3.5.”

  “Well, if it fooled you, the expert, I don’t feel so bad,” Ronnie said, still looking shaken as she ran her hand through her multihued blond bangs. “Quakes scare the bejeebers out of me!”

  “Me, too.” Josie smoothed back her own dark brown hair, pushing in stray ends that had fallen out of the twist at the back of her head.

  “Oh, come on. You love them! You went all the way to Turkey—by yourself—to study one!”

  “It was for my dissertation,” Josie replied. “I don’t love them. Who would? You think I’m waiting with bated breath for the Big One?” Josie grew somber. “That’s why I liked my job.” The small company she and Ronnie both worked for researched ways to retrofit old bridges and buildings to make them earthquake-proof.

  Ronnie, who worked in payroll at Earthwaves and had no scientific background, seemed to rethink her statement. “I just meant that you know so much about earthquakes, you take an interest in them. While the rest of us panic and scramble for the nearest table or bed to hide under, you’re running to look at the seismograph. You’re brave!”

  “Nothing wrong with hiding under a heavy piece of furniture. That’s exactly what you should do.”

  As she reassured her longtime friend and co-worker, Josie couldn’t help but feel sheepish at being called brave. Ronnie Pulaski was afraid of earthquakes—a perfectly normal fear. Josie was wary of men…and sex. Earthquakes could be measured, quantified, perhaps one day even predicted. Men, on the other hand, were disastrously unpredictable.

  But that didn’t seem to bother Ronnie. Tall, blue-eyed, twenty-seven and single, she always had a date for the weekend and often juggled more than one man at a time. In her circle of friends, she was affectionately known as Ronnie the Hottie, a name she enjoyed. Her sex life was active, but seldom complicated. When she wasn’t at the office, she dressed in whatever showed off her long legs, her belly button, or her cleavage—or all three attributes at once. She’d taken to the modern dating scene like peanut butter took to jelly.

  In that respect, Ronnie was Josie’s opposite, but the two had formed a fast friendship despite their different lifestyles. They’d felt an instant rapport when they’d met at Earthwaves, and it had come as a surprise that their attitudes toward men were completely opposing. Josie often wished she could be more like Ronnie, but a certain man years ago had forever altered Josie’s old romantic image of the male of the species.

  More recently, she’d held the expectation that her employer would behave in a morally upstanding manner, but she’d been disillusioned on that score, too. It seemed she had a tendency to place too much trust in the goodness of other human beings, especially the male ones. Now that she was pushing thirty, she needed to wise up and learn to be a better judge of people.

  Ronnie looked worried. “Wait, you said that’s why you liked your job at Earthwaves. Past tense? You aren’t following through on your crazy notion of leaving, are you?”

  Josie swallowed. “Yes.”

  “Josie—”

  “Ethically, I have no choice, Ronnie. Promise me you won’t say anything. It’s best for you if Lansdowne doesn’t know I told you.” Martin Lansdowne, their boss, ran Earthwaves like a small-time tyrant. A control freak, he’d recently had his dog put to sleep because he couldn’t train it to stop barking. Josie had heard this from Lansdowne himself, but she’d decided not to tell Ronnie, knowing how much her friend loved animals.

  “But Josie, you shouldn’t make such a big decision on the basis of a rumor. This talk that Lansdowne hacked into our competitor’s computer system—how do you know it’s true?”

  Ronnie’s dismissal of the information as a mere rumor didn’t surprise Josie. An easygoing, trusting person who had never had her illusions shattered as Josie had, Ronnie tended to hear and see no evil.

  “Two days ago I saw the evidence for myself, Ronnie. By accident I found the downloaded files from Frameworks Systems. If Lansdowne is unethical enough to do that, it’s not such a stretch to think he may have been responsible for Peter Brennan’s accident.”

  Peter Brennan was the managing partner and the driving force behind the small but enterprising Frameworks Systems. Martin Lansdowne viewed Brennan’s company as Earthwaves’ main competitor. Both companies were engaged in a frantic race to perfect a new method of retrofitting structures. Whoever got their system on the market first would rake in millions of dollars. California had no shortage of aging freeway overpasses, or earthquakes.

  Ronnie rubbed her forehead. “Even if someone from our company broke in and sabotaged the overpass structure on Frameworks’ back lot, maybe it was just so it would mess up their testing and put them behind schedule. It doesn’t mean it was a murder attempt.”

  Josie knew there was no proof of her suspicion. But under the circumstances she simply could not in good conscience continue working for Martin Lansdowne. In fact, she wondered how she could have worked for him for so long and not have recognized his underhanded character until now. “My mind is made up, Ronnie. I can’t sleep at night. I have no choice but to leave.”

  Shaking her head in dismay, Ronnie seemed at a loss for words. “But…what’ll you do? The people at Earthwaves are your whole life. You don’t socialize much, despite my best efforts to get you out and circulating. You’ll be all alone.”

  “You and I can still be friends. We can meet often for lunch or dinner. With you in payroll and me in Research and Development, we didn’t see each other at the office all that much anyway. And I have my family and some old friends.”

  “Your family is on the East Coast.”

  “I can telephone them anytime.”

  Ronnie sighed. “You practically live like a nun as it is. I worry about you. You turn down attractive men who ask you out. You won’t let me fix you up with guys I know. If I throw a party, I have to plead with you to come. You prefer to sit home and read National Geographic. You have no life! And now you’re going to quit a job that provides your only social outlet.”

  Josie’s chin rose. “Excuse me, but I’m happy with my life. I’m productive, I’m competent, working in a field I love, doing what I can to make the world a safer place. Just because I don’t date much or have wild sex while swinging from chandeliers doesn’t mean I’m…unfulfilled, or…whatever.” Josie’s protests began to sound hollow even to her own ears.

  “Never mind wild sex. You don’t have any sex at all, as far as I can tell.”

  Josie felt edgy, remembering a night seven years ago. When she was twenty-two, a bookish and virginal college senior aspiring to graduate summa cum laude, she began to realize there was more to life than studying for her career in science. All her dorm friends had boyfriends, and she realized that in her social life, she was lagging way behind. Not wanting to be left out of the dorm sex talk any longer, she took a look around.

  She noticed Max Garner, an athletic blond hunk with chiseled features and a regal manner in one of her chemistry classes. He also noticed her, and a subtle flirtation bega
n. She’d been happy when he asked her out, and they dated steadily for a few months. He wasn’t exactly her warm and witty ideal, but she told herself such a man probably didn’t exist anyway. She began to think maybe she was falling in love with Max. When he asked her to spend a night with him, she decided it was high time she discovered what sex was all about.

  But the beautiful first experience she’d anticipated and prepared for had turned into a trauma. If that was what men were like during intercourse, she didn’t want any more of it.

  Maybe she just didn’t know how to choose the right kind of guy, or maybe there was something about her that brought out the worst in men. She still didn’t know. At the time, Josie had confided in a few of her college girlfriends and her mother, and they all had told her the same thing—that she hadn’t done anything wrong. The way Max had treated her was in no way her fault.

  Josie understood that was how she ought to look at it, but she still couldn’t quite believe it in her heart. The horrific experience caused her to suppress whatever tattered sexual desire remained in her, and she chose to marry herself to a career in science.

  Josie shooed away the dark cloud in her soul and assumed a breezy tone. “I’ve told you, Ronnie, I had a really bad experience. I was never a highly sexed person, anyway. I’ve dedicated myself to science and I’m just not interested in a love life. I honestly feel I was meant to be a single person.”

  Ronnie dug her fingers into her tousled hair. “But people need sex. It’s necessary for health and happiness.”

  Josie rolled her eyes. “You read Cosmo too much.”

  “Josie, sex is a normal part of life. A big part of life. And you’re ignoring it, blocking it out.”

  In moments when Josie was brutally truthful with herself, she admitted that her lifestyle was highly unusual for a healthy not-yet-thirty-year-old woman. But she felt she had to maintain a front with Ronnie the Hottie. “For your information, I’m not blocking anything. I have a rich inner life.”

  Ronnie scrunched her blond eyebrows. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I can imagine the perfect man—anytime I want. I don’t have to hang out in singles’ bars looking for him. Fantasy is safer and more beautiful than any real-life relationship could be.”

  “Really?” Ronnie sounded as if she knew better. “What about orgasms?”

  Josie glanced at nearby tables. “Do you have to use the O word in a crowded restaurant? And you know darn well a man doesn’t have to be present to get that to happen.” Actually, Josie didn’t resort to the do-it-yourself method. Her libido seemed to have died a peaceful death years ago. But she didn’t want Ronnie to know that sexually, she felt numb inside. That wasn’t anyone’s business, not even her best friend’s.

  Ronnie heaved a long sigh, as if giving up.

  “I wish you would believe me,” Josie insisted. “I’m happy!”

  “I wish I could believe you, too.” Ronnie pushed away her empty wineglass. “So, when exactly are you leaving Earthwaves?”

  “I already have. I cleaned out my desk and left my resignation letter in Lansdowne’s box before I left the plant today.”

  Ronnie sadly shook her head. “What will you do now? Get another job?”

  “I have some savings. I think I’ll take some time off, then go job hunting. The main thing I want to do right now is see Peter Brennan.”

  “Peter Brennan! Why?”

  “I just feel it’s my moral obligation. He’s in a wheelchair, might be in one the rest of his life. I worked for the company that may have arranged his ‘accident,’ and I need to get that off my chest. Otherwise I’ll always feel guilty that I stood by and kept information about Earthwaves’ underhanded tactics to myself. There are things Peter Brennan has a right to know.”

  Ronnie’s eyes had grown wide. “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”

  “Very sure,” Josie said gravely. “You have to promise not to breathe a word of this to anyone at Earthwaves. I know I can trust you.”

  “Of course,” Ronnie said, nodding. “But be careful.”

  PETER BRENNAN hung up the phone after a jovial ten-minute conversation with Gary Lindsey, an old friend and one of Frameworks Systems’ private investors. Gary had called to ask how Peter’s recovery was progressing. Every now and then some friend called him, which kept Peter from feeling lonely.

  As he sat near the front window on the second floor of his home, he went back to work sorting through some old files brought over from the office. Getting to the office while confined to a wheelchair was time-consuming and difficult. So he mostly worked at home. Thankfully, his home lab was now fully equipped.

  Whoever had loosened the railing on the overpass structure on the company’s back lot hadn’t managed to kill Peter, if that was their aim. But they had managed to completely alter his life and put Frameworks Systems behind schedule. Now his two main concerns were keeping his company on track and protecting himself from a possible second attempt on his life. Whoever was after him might want to finish the job. Industrial espionage was an ugly thing—and in this case, potentially deadly.

  While looking through the pile of old reports, formulas, diagrams and test results, he came across a business magazine that featured a cover article about his competitor, Martin Lansdowne, the owner of Earthwaves. The article was written five years ago and included a cover photo of Lansdowne. Peter studied the balding, middle-aged man with eyes the color of coal who wore a smug smile. Had Lansdowne sent someone in the dark of night to sabotage the test structure? Peter had climbed to the top of it, then fallen thirty feet to the pavement below when the railing gave way. He’d suffered multiple broken bones and couldn’t feel his legs when the ambulance came. Fortunately, his future wasn’t quite as bleak as he’d feared in those numb minutes when the sirens were blaring as they rushed him to the emergency room.

  Still, circumstances now caused him to live like a recluse in his own home, and his life seemed to have been put on hold. Divorced for seven years, Peter had finally begun to think about finding a new wife and starting a family. He was thirty-four and growing increasingly aware that time was passing by. Born in Boston, he came from a big Irish-American family. His parents had moved their branch of the family to Orange County, California when he was twelve. His two sisters already had children and he wanted to continue the clan tradition, with kids of his own to play with his nieces and nephews at family gatherings.

  He’d been hopeful about a new relationship he’d begun with a vivacious redhead he’d met at a party. They’d hit it off, the sex was good, and he’d thought that maybe this time true love was on its way. But after his accident, she’d visited him once during his lengthy stay in the hospital, and then he’d never seen her again. Peter sensed she just couldn’t handle the thought of continuing a relationship with a man who had suddenly become an invalid. He told himself it was a good thing he’d found out that she wouldn’t be there for better or worse. And he had to acknowledge that he didn’t really love her anyway. He’d grown so tired of the bachelor life, every attractive single woman he met began to look like wife material. Sad to admit, but he’d always been a sucker for a pretty face and a luscious body.

  Peter pushed the papers on his desk to one side and leaned toward the window, feeling irritable. Now that he had to live like a prisoner in his own home, he knew he’d better get used to a solitary life. Just as well, he supposed. He didn’t have much of a track record when it came to choosing women—his divorce had taught him nothing, it seemed.

  That thought became all the more dour as his eyes followed the movements of a young woman in the narrow residential street outside his house. She’d gotten out of her green Volkswagen, had a scrap of paper in her hand, and was walking up the street. Looking at addresses, he assumed. Since he’d had the house numbers removed from his premises, a precaution after his accident, he knew she had to walk next door to read the number there.

  She wore a long, bland skirt of a color he couldn’t
even identify, and a loose, long-sleeved white sweater over that. Her dark hair shone in the sunshine, but the length of it was drawn up into a knot at the back of her head. While she certainly didn’t dress like a sex kitten, she nevertheless appeared to be quite slender, and her breasts molded her shapeless sweater into tantalizing hints of lush curves. He couldn’t help but be mesmerized by her graceful way of moving. Her walk had a sweet, smooth sway, almost a floating quality. Ultrafeminine. The subtle undulation of her hips hinted at a sublime sensuality buried beneath the drab clothes. His mouth began to water.

  Peter continued to watch, pleasantly hypnotized, as she tilted her head and stretched her slim, swanlike neck to read the house number next door. Immediately she turned and began to head back the other way. He wished he could run down and offer to help her with directions, but that was out of the question.

  As he observed her, fascinated by her elusive femininity, a phrase from an old song popped into his mind. And fondly I watched her move here and move there. It must have been one of the songs his great-grandfather, an Irish immigrant with a lilting accent and a fine tenor voice, used to sing at family gatherings. Great-Grandpa Patrick Brennan, the family patriarch with his full head of white hair and ruddy face, had died in Boston at a ripe old age when Peter was eleven, the year before Peter’s parents decided to move to California. Peter still remembered some of the songs the old man loved to sing. He couldn’t remember the name of this particular song, or the rest of the words. Just that snatch of lyric, and a vague recollection of the slow and haunting melody. He hadn’t heard it in decades. It was just one of those sentimental old-fashioned ditties—why had he thought of it now?

  The diverting mystery of the song faded as he realized the woman on the sidewalk below was eyeing the new security buzzer and speakerphone installed at the outer gate of his enclosed front yard. She approached it hesitantly, turning to look again at the house. Her eyes rose to the second-story window. As he watched her through the slats of the Venetian blinds, he backed away, though he felt fairly certain she couldn’t see him, not with the sun shining on the window. Caution changed to suspicion now. His fanciful image of her as a strolling, sensual dream girl vanished. She’d raised one small hand, finger pointed, and was about to ring his bell.