by Karen Tuft
She laughed at his meager attempt at humor, and he hoped the worst of the inquisition was past so they could move on to new subjects.
He’d dated plenty in high school. Then there’d been his mission—two years with the opposite sex at arm’s length. When he’d returned home, he’d decided the girls he met fell into two categories: they were either completely mercenary about marriage or they weren’t interested in marriage at all. The mercenary types spiked interest in him when he mentioned his academic plans—lawyers equaled dollar signs, after all. Others just wanted to be married now, period. Both mercenary variations were annoying.
Ironically, the other category of girls was the one he actually found most interesting. Those girls tended to be smart, attractive, and compelling. They were focused on their education. As a result, they were as interested in their schooling and career plans as he’d been in his own. Marriage wasn’t necessarily on their immediate horizon, and that seemed like only a minor hurdle to him. He was focused enough on his own academic goals and getting into law school that he didn’t pay serious attention to his social life. He went on occasional dates with a variety of girls, generally avoiding the mercenary husband hunters as much as possible and rarely seeing a girl more than a few times.
So far, it had been enough to keep his mother off his back, for the most part.
“Whatever happened to Josie?” His mother bent over to brush some lint from the skirt of her dress.
Josie Davenport, a girl from his senior year at the University of Utah. One of the few real relationships he’d allowed himself time for as an undergrad. A tall, dazzling brunette whose looks had barely overshadowed her formidable brains. For a while that year, he’d been intrigued. Eventually, though, Ross had discovered she’d been more interested in making a name for herself in broadcast journalism than in a family or church, and he’d ultimately decided he was more interested in letting her pursue that independent of him. “Couldn’t tell you, Mom.”
“Nice girl. You might have had a baby or two by now if you’d—”
“Uh-uh. Wouldn’t have happened.” He watched his father stand up in the distance, the sparrows scattering in a flurry of feathers, and amble toward them.
His mother tried another tack. “What’s the ward like, son?”
He had to give her points for tenacity. He knew she wasn’t going to like the fact that since he graduated, he’d decided to attend the regular ward, not the singles ward. He’d given the singles ward three years of his life during law school, and he’d decided it was time to move on. “I’m actually changing wards right now, what with moving to my new digs. I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
“How will you ever find a nice girl to settle down with here in Manhattan? You’ll only meet career girls or one of those wacky New Yorker types like you find in a Woody Allen movie.”
He doubted she’d ever seen a Woody Allen movie in her life—she preferred to spend her evenings reading—but she spoke with convincing authority. She would have made a good trial lawyer.
In New York, it was true, most of the girls he’d met were either students or employees of the university. A lot of them believed school and a career didn’t preclude them from having an intimate relationship with a man and even suggested it on a first date. Since that type of activity was a moral and religious problem from his point of view and he’d met few girls with the same moral and religious beliefs he had, he’d put the study of law firmly in the foreground and, for the most part, had put dating on hold. Then he had ceased worrying about it.
“They’ll probably approach you, handsome as you are, and offer themselves up to you on a platter,” she said.
Girls on a platter, he thought wryly. The girls he’d met at Columbia had frequently offered themselves up like some delicious entrée. It hadn’t happened to him quite that way in the singles ward though. He hadn’t received any girls on a platter, per se, but he had frequently received cookies on a platter from several girls. Good cookies, several passable casseroles, generally nice girls, no sparks, and part of the reason he’d switched to the family ward. He’d also learned that when someone left food at his house on a platter or in a dish, he invariably had to return the platter or dish. He was sure it was calculated thinking on the part of the girls.
And then Liz had approached him, and his life had spun out of orbit, at least for a while. She’d approached him one morning during his third year of law school. She’d smiled her Liz smile at him and had asked if she could join their study group, saying she was fed up with hers and knew Ross’s group, which had also included Bud, was among the class’s academic elite. Ross hadn’t known her but had definitely noticed her around campus. With her golden hair and graceful figure, she was hard to miss. She had joined the study group, and the more Ross had gotten to know her, the more he’d been lost.
That year had been like a dream to him. He’d found perfection. He’d found his soul mate. It had seemed like perfect timing. They would graduate, set up practice together, weave their lives together. There were a few little details to work out, though, even though he’d been confident in the outcome. Aware of how his mother and sisters would react and the pressure that would ensue if they knew he was serious about someone, he had kept their relationship a closely guarded secret. Only Bud knew. And it had been Bud and his bishop who had helped him pick up the pieces when perfection had shattered.
Ross returned his wandering thoughts to his mother. He’d had his fill of these kinds of conversations with her and his two loving and well-intentioned little sisters in phone calls and e-mails, and now that he was finally free of the rigorous demands of law school, had put Liz firmly out of his mind, and time was his ally, it was time to terminate the subject with his mother once and for all.
And then he had a stroke of genius.
“I tell you what, Mom. I’ll make you a promise.” He was on a roll. He was certain his idea would stop this particular type of inquisition for a good while, at least, and assure his mom that he was serious in his pursuit of eternal marital bliss. He’d never had trouble attracting the opposite sex. “I guarantee you I will have no trouble bringing a girl home someday soon to meet her future mother-in-law. But,” he added, “on the off chance I don’t, let’s say by the time I reach forty—”
“Forty!”
“Yes, forty. Just listen for a minute. You have to give me time to look. If I’m still single at age forty, haven’t found that one and only you’re so desperate for me to have, I promise you I’ll move back to Utah.” It was such a no-risk deal—not to mention humorous—that he felt a little heady. “And I will go on every blind date you, Susan, and Jackie choose to throw at me. Willingly! How’s that?” Yeah. He was throwing caution to the wind with that one. Knowing his sisters, they would line him up with three-legged circus performers, just for spite. Not that it would ever reach that point, he was certain. It was nearly fifteen years away.
“But, Ross, forty will be so old if you haven’t married by then. And I’ll be too old to enjoy your little babies.” That comment brought an image of a pregnant and glowing Liz to mind, and Ross winced. “Make it thirty.”
“Forty.”
“Thirty.”
“Forty! I’m not going to budge on that, Mom.”
“How about thirty-five?”
His dad had reached them by then, his eyes sparkling amid the crinkled fans of laugh lines. “This little bit of a girl putting you through the paces, son?” He shoved one hand deep into his pants pocket and casually threw the other arm around his mother’s shoulder. She didn’t make it up to his chin, even standing on tiptoes, but she still seemed to be just the right size for his dad. “It doesn’t look like she took any chunks out of you that won’t heal.”
That comment earned him an elbow in the ribs, hard enough to make a point.
Ross grinned. “The law school held a special forum on dealing with difficult clients. I simply applied the suggested techniques and instantly had this quarrelsome femal
e in the palm of my hand.”
His mom snorted.
His dad grinned and hugged her close. “You’re going to have to share those techniques with me, son. Your mother’s been getting away with murder for way too many years.”
“Oh, no you don’t, either of you. It took me years to get you properly trained, Del McConnell. I refuse to have all my good efforts undone by some disreputable ambulance chaser!”
Ross barked out a huge laugh. “I knew I should have taken that job with Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe.”
Then his mother grew serious. “Ross, I can’t bear the thought of you being out here alone. And forty is too much.” She sighed.
“Mom—”
“I have a counteroffer,” his dad interjected.
He glanced at Ross’s mom, then straight into Ross’s eyes. “I caught the end of your conversation. I think you can live with forty, Dorothy; it’s his life.” His steady eyes still held Ross’s. “But with one little proviso attached. On the off chance that something were to happen to me, I want your assurance that you will return home so you can take care of your mother. At least during that first year.”
Ross watched his mother’s eyes grow wide in alarm, and his dad reassured her he was fine; he was only taking husbandly precautions in her best interest. So Ross, with misgivings he couldn’t quite define, agreed to the terms of the deal. His father was in the best of health. There had been nothing to worry about. It had seemed as much a nonrisk as Ross still being single at age forty.
The flight attendant announced that the pilot was beginning their descent into JFK, so Ross brought his thoughts back to the present and put his tablet away. So much time had passed since that conversation with his parents. So much life had happened, and so much of it hadn’t happened as Ross had expected it would. He now lived in Salt Lake City, commuted frequently to the brownstone he maintained in New York, saw to his mother’s needs, and visited his father’s grave as often as possible.
And he was thirty-seven and single.
Ross grabbed his bag from the overhead bin, slung it over his shoulder, and made his way down the aisle of the plane. The firm was sending a limo for him like it always did. He glanced at his watch. With airport traffic, he’d be cutting it close. The German dignitaries with whom he was meeting would only be in town this afternoon. A lot of money hinged on the outcome of this particular meeting. Ross had gone through the briefs thoroughly because confidence in presentation was a must; Robert Goldman—the Goldman of Rogers, Goldman, Clarke, and Janofsky—had assured him that someone would feed him any last-minute information he needed before he met with the Germans—Engel Tech, to be precise. He felt the beginning surge of adrenaline. In his opinion, matching wits, slicing through details, selling the argument, bringing the client or opposition to his way of thinking was as much a thrill ride as a bungee jump off the George Washington Bridge.
He saw the waiting limo at the curb. George the driver was standing next to it and tipped his hat to Ross in welcome. They’d made many airport commutes together over the last few months, and Ross sensed that today George seemed a little agitated, his eyes glancing quickly from Ross to the window of the passenger seat. “Good to have you back, Mr. McConnell. How was the flight?’
“Routine.” Ross walked to the back of the car and set his bags down on the curb. “What’s the news in the office?”
“Nothing much to speak of, Mr. McConnell.”
Ross had tried for months to get George to call him by his first name and had eventually given up. Now Ross was more interested in the suppressed edginess he sensed from George. “How’s Rita?” She was the cute little receptionist George had been secretly eyeing since summer. “Making any progress there?”
George glanced from Ross to the tinted windows of the limousine and back. “Huh? Oh, not much, Mr. McConnell. I been seeing her a lot lately with one of those guys from Schwab. Accountant or some such.” He glanced again at the back window of the limo. “How was the flight?”
George had asked him that already. He was a consummate driver. He could outmaneuver seasoned cabbies and NASCAR racers, Ross was sure. The guy had nerves of tempered steel. Ross didn’t think he would really feel outclassed by a skinny accountant from Schwab, and he couldn’t fathom what could have him so edgy right now. Unless—
George opened the door for him. Long legs in sheer pearl-gray hosiery stretched from here to China. Ross shut his eyes and grimaced inwardly. He was well acquainted with those legs—not intimately acquainted but well enough. They were attached, probably at the armpits, to Gina Rogers, the only child of LaMonte Rogers, founding partner. Beautiful, brilliant, and ruthless, she was a powerful, effective ally and devastating foe.
Ross slid into the seat, and George settled into the driver’s seat, glancing in the rearview mirror surreptitiously. If they were lucky, Ross mused, they might make it back to the office without any spilt blood. One never knew with Gina.
“Darling Ross! That fresh country air must be doing you some good. You look marvelous.” Gina leaned forward and extended her cheek to Ross for a kiss.
Not responding to her actions, Ross nodded courteously instead. “Gina, as always.”
Chapter 5
Natalie was just finishing her regular Tuesday-morning cleaning job at the Montgomery home when her cell phone rang. It was a number she didn’t recognize. “Hello,” she managed as she crammed the phone under her chin and opened the trunk of her Focus.
“Are you Natalie Forrester?’ The woman’s voice sounded mature but strained somehow.
Natalie managed to lug her tank vacuum up onto the rim of the trunk with one arm. “Uh-huh.” She used her hip to balance the vacuum while she shifted her caddy of cleaning supplies to the corner of the trunk. The hose of the vacuum was coiling dangerously around her legs. “Can you hold just a moment?” She set the phone down on the bumper of the car, settled the vacuum and hose into the trunk, and slammed the lid. Now she could actually think and talk at the same time. “Thanks for waiting. My vacuum hose was attacking me like a hungry elephant.”
No laugh from the other end. Natalie grimaced.
“Mrs. Forrester, my name is Esther Johnson. I got your name from Valerie Lisle. She says you’ve been cleaning for her regularly for the last few years.”
Well, what do you know? Natalie’s eyebrows shot up in amusement. Mrs. Lisle is aware of the serfs and lackeys in her life after all.
“I know she is very particular about the people she allows to work for her, and I’m looking for someone reliable like that. I’m afraid I am in need of help.”
Natalie leaned against the side of her car. The October air was brisk, but the sun made the body of her car warm, and the rays felt good on her face. She’d been sweating after mopping the floor, and the crisp combination was refreshing.
The woman continued. “I have been cleaning a home for the last few months—just the one house. A little bit of extra money on the side, you know, for the fun things. What? Just a minute, Mrs. Forrester.” Natalie could hear murmurs in the background, bells dinging, voices over an intercom. It sounded like a hospital. What was going on? “Thanks for holding—so sorry about that.” Her voice sounded even more strained, even weak. Natalie waited patiently, but she could feel a knot in her stomach begin to form. “As I said, I’ve been cleaning a home for some time now, but an emergency has come up.” Her voice broke.
Natalie, alarmed, waited quietly. She didn’t know this woman and didn’t know what to say, but she didn’t want to abandon her either.
“Sorry. I’m okay now. I have to go in a minute. They’re . . . Anyway. I’ll have to go in just a minute. My husband is ill, and I need someone who can take over this house for me for a while. Do you think you can help me? I’m not sure how long Burt will be . . . I just want to be sure I’m there for him.”
“Tell me about the house, Mrs. Johnson, and I’ll tell you if I think it will work into my schedule.” Natalie hoped it would work into her schedule; it could be t
he answer to her prayers. Best to act professional and not too eager. Still, how could she not try to help this woman? Natalie could almost hear her crumbling over the phone.
Mrs. Johnson told her quickly about the house. Executive-style home, not too large but tastefully decorated. Quality, high-end furnishings on the modern side, with the occasional antique thrown in for balance and a touch of the eclectic. Single, professional man—an attorney—who traveled quite a lot; the job involved a bit more housekeeping than just the quick dust and sweep up. He paid extraordinarily well—Natalie gasped when she heard how much—but that included carting his clothes to and from the cleaners and an occasional personal errand or two. Mrs. Johnson confessed that the pay had staggered her as well, and as a result—and because she liked the nice young man—she brought in or made meals for him on occasion. After she did that, she noticed her paycheck amount increased even more.
“Wow,” Natalie said under her breath. She found herself hoping Mr. Johnson stayed sick for a long time. That led to a stab of guilt. But the money involved—on a long-term basis—would allow her to meet her tuition and possibly allow her to dump the Lisles’, despite Valerie’s generous recommendation. She imagined never having to pick up Megadeth Lisle’s dirty laundry ever again. She shook her head. It was wrong to hope that this poor woman’s husband would become chronically ill just for Natalie’s sake. But even in the short term . . . Natalie mentally rubbed her hands together in glee.
“I’d be happy to help you, Mrs. Johnson. Tell me what days he normally expects you. Even if I have to do a little juggling”—Natalie was in the second month of a couple of college classes—“I’ll make it work and get there this week.”
“Oh, thank you! I usually go in on Tuesdays and drop off his laundry on Fridays. I didn’t get there today, because—”