Damaged Trust

by Amanda Carpenter

When morning came, she was down fixing herself some coffee in the kitchen when Ralf stumbled in, yawning hugely and rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. “I feel like I died,” he moaned, slumping against the counter as he watched Carrie fix coffee.

  She ran an amused eye over him. “You look like it, too,” was her unsympathetic comment. “What time did things break up last night?”

  He grinned. “I can’t say for sure, but I know it wasn’t last night! I think it was somewhere around five this morning.”

  “Good God!” She glanced at him. “And you’re still moving? Did you go to bed at all?”

  He shook his head, and winced. “Nope. Steven and I have been working since about six.”

  “You two have the constitution of a horse! What about Dad? Did he get to bed at all?” She poured two cups and handed one to Ralf.

  “Oh, he disappeared around one o’clock. Said he wasn’t feeling very good,” he replied, sipping his coffee carefully. “Ouch! This is hot.”

  Carrie stared at Ralf over the rim of her steaming cup. “Did he say what was wrong with him?”

  “He complained about indigestion. Said it was pretty bad. The way he eats barbecued ribs, though, I’m not surprised! He likes his meat with his sauce, not his sauce with his meat!” he exclaimed.

  “And yet he’s never had any problems that I can remember,” she mused, half to herself, but Ralf was finishing his coffee and not paying attention.

  “Hey! Is there any more of this stuff? Enough for me to put in a thermos for Steven? I left him out fixing posts.”

  “Huh?” Brought out of her speculation, she looked at him. “Oh, sure. There’s a full pot here, let me fill a thermos for you.” She busied herself for a few minutes and the subject was forgotten. Carrie handed the full thermos to Ralf and he prepared to go, but turned back at the door.

  “You know, I don’t care what anyone else has said about you, you’re all right!” He chuckled wickedly and ducked out of the door to avoid the towel that she threw at him.

  After a few moments, Carrie was treated to the sight of a very disheveled and exhausted-looking Emma dragging herself into the kitchen and heading for the coffee pot with something like desperation in her eyes. She poured herself the last of the pot, started a new one brewing, and turned to settle her considerable bulk into a kitchen chair. “Lord love us!” She started when she saw Carrie. “And me with, my curlers still in my hair! It’s a good thing it wasn’t one of the boys, I’d scare the livin’ daylights out of them!”

  Carrie sipped at her coffee, chuckling. “And pray tell, when did you get to bed?”

  Emma heaved a gusty sigh. “Three? Or was it four? No matter, it was longer than I should’ve, make no mistake about that!”

  “It never fails to astonish me how a group of seemingly sane individuals can suddenly lose all semblance of normalcy in one crazy night,” Carrie remarked, staring into her cup.

  “Oh, pooh!” was Emma’s only response. She giggled. “That reminds me, Gabe gave me a message for you. He was looking for you last night, right after you’d left for bed, ’cause he was wanting leave himself. He said you were the smart one, for knowing when to ’quit while you were ahead’. Anyway, he asked me to let you know he’d give you a call some time today about visiting the site of the shopping centre tomorrow.” Emma looked at Carrie curiously. “Do you have a date? Erica will be ticked off.”

  “No, I’m not going on a date with Gabe!” Carrie exclaimed, laughing exasperatedly. “He wants me to shoot the site for him. I said I’d have to think about it first, since I’m supposed to be on vacation. He wanted to show me around before I made a definite decision.”

  “Pity,” Emma declared succinctly. “I would have liked to have seen Erica throw a tantrum! Better luck next time.” This was accompanied by an emphatic shake of the grey curls. Carrie snorted.

  She decided to stick close to the house that Sunday morning, just in case Gabe did call her. It was pleasant to watch the various mishaps of the ranch hands as they set about cleaning up the mess left in the yard from last night. She lazed by the pool, soaking up the sun in her brief swimsuit, alternately swimming leisurely laps and reading a book she’d brought with her. As she loitered the day away, she was startled to realise that she had not given Neil a thought for what seemed to her to be a long time. It was quite an encouraging thought, the pain was still there when she thought of him, but it was a more infrequent pain. She passionately hoped that it meant she was recovering, getting over what she once had felt for him.

  She did not mourn for Neil. He had destroyed what high opinion she had once had of him when he’d told her the truth about his marital status. Rather, she mourned for what she had thought that they shared, the mutual trust, the open caring. The phrases made her wince. The blow of the truth had split the very foundation of any real relationship they could have built. Carrie had been shocked by the cruel change in perspective, the awful knowledge that what she once had thought was real and concrete had slipped away into shadowy illusion.

  She shifted in her lounge chair restlessly. Her dreams had crumbled so easily, so quickly into dust. Such a fragile thing is trust! She just hoped she would never have to meet or speak with Neil again. Not now. Not ever. She didn’t think she could take the pain of looking into the once beloved features and seeing the eyes of the stranger who had hidden there all along.

  She didn’t hear the footsteps behind her on the grass, and she jumped when Emma’s good-natured voice spoke in her ear. “Telephone for you. It’s Gabe, and he’s waiting. I told him I wasn’t sure if I could find you, but he said he’d hold on.”

  “Thanks, Em.” Carrie hastily scrambled to her feet as she replied. Slipping on her sandals, she grabbed her towel before hurrying back to the house. Emma walked quickly beside her, plump legs churning to keep up with Carrie’s fast pace.

  “I sure do like that Gabe,” Emma huffed, finding it a strain to hurry and talk at the same time. Carrie didn’t notice. “He’s the most polite man I ever knew.”

  Carrie chuckled softly. “I find him incongruous.”

  The older woman asked, “How do you mean?”

  They entered the house, and Carrie paused at the threshold of the kitchen’s entrance into the hall, throwing over her shoulder, “I've never known such a devilish man with an angel’s name!” Laughing at Emma’s expression, she sped on down the hall to the telephone on the small table. Picking up the receiver, she said quickly, “Carrie here.”

  “Hello, Carrie,” came the deep voice over the wire. He sounded choked. “I was wondering if you’d be interested in looking over the site tomorrow morning. I’d be happy to show you around, if you would.”

  She thought rapidly. “I think tomorrow would be just fine. What time would you like for me to meet you?”

  “I can easily pick you up. It’s on the way,” he informed her. “Is eight o’clock too early for you?”

  “Eight would be fine,” she replied.

  “Good. I’ll see you then.” As Carrie was about, to hang up, Gabe asked, chuckling, “Am I really such a devil?”

  A pause. Carrie looked back down the length of the hall in dismay. She sighed. “You heard.”

  He was indeed laughing, wickedly, mischievously. “Loud and clear, my dear. Loud and clear!”

  Carrie just couldn’t decide what she wanted to wear the next morning. She would be close to choosing a light summer dress, when she’d see another outfit that would be more attractive, and yet a pair of shorts would probably be practical, considering that she would be tramping all over the site as the sun rose high. Carrie consulted her watch; time was slipping away too fast. She would have to dress quickly. Finally she decided on a thin tank top with a cotton Indian print skirt.

  The top was a pale peach colour and the skirt was a vibrant pattern in dark browns. Leaving her hair down for a change, she touched her lips with a peach lipstick and her eyes with mascara. Then she grabbed her handbag and ran down the stairs. There was just enough ti
me for a cup of coffee before Gabe arrived.

  As she drank her coffee in quick sips, she tried to fathom the reason for her keyed-up state. She had been on hundreds of assignments before and had worked with the most difficult of clients. But now her veneer of competent professionalism had apparently deserted her. She felt as nervous as if it had been her first job. She corrected herself. Potential job. She wasn’t even sure that she wanted to do it. Not if she would be reacting to Gabe this way.

  Someone knocked at the front door and she plopped her coffee cup down on the counter to dash down the hall. Janet was just coming down the stairs. “I got it!” Carrie called to her, and pulled the door open.

  Gabe was there, suave and lean in a light pair of slacks and a matching vest in the same tan colour, with a white shirt underneath. Carrie received a slight jar in her perception of him as she took in the business clothes and his air of urbane sophistication. Somehow the smoothness of his attire only managed to enhance his male attraction, giving him the dangerous air of an animal leashed. He was smiling down at her, the full power of his charm concentrated on her alone. She felt odd at this, slightly overpowered, and suddenly experienced a rare sympathy for Erica and the way the other girl pursued Gabe. If he had ever smiled at Erica that way, she thought, then I can’t blame her for chasing him. This thought shocked her terribly, and her face took on a slightly aloof air as the voice of caution whispered a warning in her mind. She didn’t want to feel attracted to Gabe; she couldn’t afford the luxury of indulging in such feelings. She was too busy remembering hurt.

  He saw her expression change, of course, and his eyes narrowed on her for a moment before he looked up and greeted Janet smoothly. Turning back to Carrie, he asked quietly, “Ready to go?” She nodded and he stepped back.

  “Don’t expect me at any certain time,” she called over her shoulder to her mother. “I’ve no idea how long this is going to take.”

  Walking by her side, Gabe led the way to the dark blue Mercedes and opened her door for her. Murmuring a thanks, she slipped in quickly, and he closed the door before moving to the driver’s side.

  “Super car,” she commented, running a hand appreciatively down the seat.

  He grinned swiftly. “Filthy extravagance,” he replied good-naturedly. “But I couldn’t help it. I have a weakness for a good car.” Shooting her a sideways look as he started the engine, he drawled, “That’s really what attracted me to you by the road. I had to make sure that the Porsche was treated right.”

  She shook her head with a silent chuckle at this. “I might have known it was my car and not my helpless feminine charm that did the trick,” she murmured.

  “Charming, my dear, was what you were not,” he told her. There was a pause. Then, “Did I encroach upon your own personal space, just now?” It was a question carelessly spoken.

  Carrie turned to stare at him, not comprehending what he meant. He was watching the road with an inscrutable expression. “What?”

  “At the front door did I in some way make you feel uncomfortable?” he elaborated. At a loss as to how to answer him, since this was exactly how he had made her feel, for reasons that she couldn’t possibly disclose, Carrie stared at him silently. He flicked her a glance from under level brows. “It’s no big deal. I just thought I saw something in your face. Am I prying?”

  She forced a light laugh, reluctantly appreciating his candid and disarmingly simple approach. “A bit,” she admitted honestly. “But, as you say, it’s no big deal. I just don’t make friends very quickly.”

  “And my embarrassingly direct questions are making you uncomfortable,” he concluded dryly. “Fair enough. I’m glad you gave me warning, though. Now I’ll have to make a special effort to get you to lower your reserve, so you can see that I’m really not such an awful person as you first supposed! Now, don’t laugh at me like that, I’m perfectly serious! Although why I should try is beyond me. You can have a distinctly off-putting air about you…”

  “Will you ever let that unfortunate incident rest?” she asked despairingly. “Enough already! I repent sincerely of all former rudeness, real or imagined, that I might have possibly—”

  “Imagined!” he exclaimed. “Now, that’s going far enough—why, you know fully well that you…”

  Talking thus, in a light, teasing, and surprisingly friendly manner, they passed the time it took to drive to the shopping plaza in a very pleasant way. Then Carrie gazed about her with a deep appreciation as Gabe parked the car. The shops were positioned around a large parking area, with a round fountain and several trees in the middle. The buildings were of a dark brown wood shingle motif. The architectural design was starkly simple, making one imagine the rough style of the old West, but there the similarity ended, for the angle and the style of the buildings were wholly modern. She looked entranced.

  “Why,” she exclaimed, getting out of the Mercedes, “this is really marvelous! The buildings are just right for the desert background and the mountains on the horizon. Even as a colour scheme they match! Just look at the reds in the mountain and the tans—the perfect shade!” She whirled to face Gabe, who had left the car and moved up beside her. “Who is the architect?”

  “Roderick Boyer,” he told her as he too looked around. “The man does have a genius for making the building blend well with the environment. It’s just a shame that we had to put in an asphalt parking lot! But you see, by making the asphalt the centre and putting the buildings around, the artistic design of the buildings and the land is intact when viewed from outside the centre. Of course, it also shortens walking distance from the car to the store.” He took her hand. “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

  She followed him around the buildings and through a few of the stores to get an idea of the interior. The floors were of a highly polished, glossy dark wood surface and the walls were rough, unpainted wood. The solid beam rafters lent an air of rusticity to the place. It was all very pleasing on the eye and, she guessed as she looked over the high quality wood, wildly expensive to build.

  “You realise that this is going to be extremely popular,” she commented as they emerged from the building.

  Gabe had one dark and heavy eyebrow cocked. “I like to think so. It’s been a major production just to get the place built.” The next question was casual. “How do you like it?”

  Carrie shook her head, intent on surveying the area, one hand shading her eyes from the bright sun. “I don’t really ’like’ it. ’Like’ isn’t really the word for it. It’s such a lukewarm word, you can like just about anything in the world! The line and the position of the buildings—it’s all very pleasing to me. They’re all so artistically arranged. The whole scene is quite a composition and it all has a deep sense of continuity.” She pointed to her left. “The angles of the tops of the buildings over there, the jutting edge of the corner—following it up will lead the eye to the funny cliff in the background, that will in turn lead the eye over to the right roof, that will in turn lead one to look at the horizon line of that same mountain, and so on and so forth. If you were to change just the angle of that roof, and make it more or less steep, that building wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the landscape. It’s incredible!”

  Gabe stood back, leaning one muscular arm against the side of the building as he listened to her talk. His eyes were on Carrie’s expressions as she talked, and not on her subject, and he watched her thin hands gesture expressively as she attempted to describe what she couldn’t put into words. She caught sight of his dark eyes on her and her hands fell to her sides as she became self-conscious.

  Embarrassed, she said, “I tend to talk a lot with my hands when I get excited.”

  He replied quickly, “And very expressively, too. You communicate well, there’s no need to be ashamed of that.” Straightening up from his lounging position, he turned to look around, squinting into the sun, his head tilted up. The line of his neck was very strong, the column sturdy and yet graceful. “The morning’s just about gone,” he re
marked, “and we haven’t really sat down to discuss business. How does a drink sound to you, or better still, some lunch?”

  She said gratefully, “It sounds terrific!” All the walking around had made her realise just how empty her stomach was.

  He grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that. Come on.” They drove the rest of the way into Grand Junction and he parked in the small lot of a coffee shop that was a great favourite from Carrie’s high school days. The little place served a limited menu, consisting mostly of a variety of sandwiches and soft drinks, but the food was excellently prepared. It was impossible to find a place with better sandwiches.

  “Is this all right?” asked Gabe, before switching off the engine. She nodded quickly, smiling at him. He explained as they left the car and walked to the entrance, “I love their Reuben sandwiches! I discovered this place when I would spend all day at the construction site working, and wouldn’t want to take the time to drive home for lunch. Now I’m hooked.”

  She laughed. “I know what you mean! Gail and I would come here for lunch when we were in high school and were allowed to leave the school grounds in our senior year. Have you met Gail Bordner yet?”

  He thought for a moment. “Does she have dark brown hair, and grey eyes, with an upturned nose?”

  She chuckled. “That’s the one, all right! She would always go into the throes of despair over that tilted nose! And I would always secretly think she was the most beautiful girl in my class!”

  Running an eye down Carrie’s figure appreciatively as she slid gracefully into a booth, Gabe drawled, “Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that, surely.” She looked up in puzzlement; she had not seen his glance. He hastened to add, “Although she’s very attractive.”

  One corner of her mouth tugged upward. Her voice was wry as she spoke. “I suppose that when you get to know a person, you tend to see that person through your own emotions, and you can’t really see objectively what the person is physically like. To me, Gail is really beautiful. I wouldn’t know how other people see her.”