"Fact is," Roseanne went on, "we women really need men for very few things." The heels of her black pumps popped off her feet. Considering how long she'd been on those feet this morning, the sensation was quite pleasant. She flapped the loose shoes happily against her bare heels.
"So you say," her law clerk grumbled. "But I think you need help with that chair. I'm going to go get somebody."
"Not so fast. I'm not done yet." Roseanne didn't mind the argument with her law clerk. She enjoyed a good debate. That's why she'd chosen the law, after all, among the various professions. That some profession was her goal she'd known from a very early age. At eleven years old, Roseanne had resolved to be a career woman, a woman who could look out for herself in every possible way.
"Now, what do I need a man for?" Roseanne went on, warming nicely to her topic. "Sex, of course. I won't argue with that. Or children, if you're into that sort of thing." She grinned at the chair wheel, thinking of the loathsome insect she'd found in her bathtub that morning. "All right, all right. I'll admit, men come in handy for killing the occasional spider."
"Ahem."
Roseanne ceased her happy shoe-flapping activities. That deep voice was not her law clerk. She glanced under the table. Instead of the sensible pair of feminine loafers that should have been standing there, she saw a pair of very un-feminine, tan leather boots, western in style.
Darn it all! Wasn't he supposed to be back in Texas by now?
But no. Twisting her neck, she found Winthrop Carruthers peering down at her over the desk.
"Why, you're on the floor, Miz Archer," he remarked, surprised. He had a funny way of slurring the distinction of her title, spanning the entire range from Mrs. through Ms. to Miss.
"So I am." She did not even try to disguise her annoyance at his untimely appearance.
"You'd best get off the floor," Winthrop advised. He started around the corner of her desk.
Roseanne pushed herself to a sitting position, her long legs curled to the side. The blasted bob of her dark hair fell into her eyes and she had to blow it out of the way to look up at him.
He obviously couldn't see the glare in her eyes warning him not to do so, for he leaned forward, caught her arm around the elbow and gently raised her to her feet.
They stood there for a moment, looking at each other. It was a strange moment. Roseanne was fully conscious of the sure strength of his arms and the height of him rising above her. As she'd noted the day before, he was quite a bit taller than she was, even when she was standing in her high heels.
Yes, she noticed him, physically, but she still didn't like him. "What are you doing here?" she wanted to know.
Frowning down at her with those terrible blue eyes of his, Carruthers seemed unaware he was having any kind of an effect on her. Yes, he gave the impression of a general remoteness—of being unaware of, or even deliberately ignoring, the social world.
His frown deepened. "Did you mean what you said yesterday, in George's office?"
She'd said quite a few things yesterday in George's office. Roseanne cocked her head. "Wanna give me a hint? What did I say?"
He turned, averting his gaze. "About George, and me firing Covington March four years ago."
"Ah." So he'd put the pieces of the puzzle together. Roseanne was mildly impressed.
"He wasn't even working on my file at the time," Winthrop told her, rationalizing. "How could he get the blame when I canned the law firm?"
"Easily." Roseanne gave him a pitying smile. "In a big law firm like this someone always has to take the blame. It's political and it's ugly, but it's how the game is played. In your case, since George was the initial contact—"
"He helped with a tax problem when Carruthers Engineering was just getting started down in Houston."
"Anyway, as I was saying, he brought you in. You became his responsibility, even if he wasn't working directly on your case." George, transferred from Texas up to Covington March's branch in Seattle, probably hadn't even been aware that the Houston branch had made the classic error of trying to take care of a family law problem for a corporate customer. Carruthers' divorce had been a doomed project from the beginning.
Carruthers took a step back, toward the window. "How do you know so much about this?"
"I read your file, of course."
He froze in place, clearly alarmed. "The whole thing?"
Roseanne raised her eyebrows. "There were several volumes. No. I only read the highlights."
The alarm simmered down to something approximating humor. His stance relaxed. "You saw the letter firing Covington March?"
"Yes."
Winthrop pointed a finger at her. "Now that's what I call a highlight."
"Which is exactly what we were discussing. But it's all water under the bridge now." Roseanne hesitated, considering. "Unless, of course, you're thinking of retaining Covington March again."
He didn't appear to have heard her. "Not that it did any good to fire you s.o.b.'s. I ended up with the same exact divorce settlement from my next lawyer." He gave Roseanne a man-to-man look. "Do you know that I am still paying that woman out of profits made by Carruthers Engineering?"
"Considering she didn't make you sell the company to give her half the value, I'd say you got a very generous deal."
"Hmph." Winthrop grunted and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. "That's what you think. Believe me, Sylvia's been finding plenty of ways to make me pay even more than that. Take this newspaper gossip article, for example."
Roseanne was surprised. "You think Sylvia planted the article?"
His tone was grim. "I know it."
"But why would she do that?"
One corner of his mouth lifted sardonically. "She wants to make it come true."
"By spreading rumors?"
"By creating pressure." He sighed and looked longingly out the window, as though the answers to his problems might lie outside, twelve stories above street level. "There are a lot of parties who'd like to see Sylvia and myself married again."
"Including Sylvia, I would suppose."
Winthrop shrugged. "She has her reasons, too."
From the sound of it, those reasons didn't include love and affection. Not that Roseanne blamed the woman. Why should Winthrop's ex-wife love him now, after the way she'd been treated?
"So," Roseanne asked, curious, "what are you going to do?"
"Do I have a choice? Ride it out somehow." He grimaced. "Jesus. I'd do anything to nip this thing in the bud."
Anything? The word echoed in the cluttered space between Roseanne's ears. There it banged against the crazy idea she'd had the day before, in George's office. "How much longer did you plan to stay in town?" she asked. Suddenly she was not so eager to see him gone.
He gave her an odd look. "Why?"
Roseanne searched quickly for an explanation. Best he not suspect what she was up to. It was crazy and rather wicked. But hadn't George said that Win needed a wife—? "There are...a few phone calls I need to make. Then I may have a proposition that will solve your little problem. Nip it in the bud, just the way you want."
"You don't say?" He was plainly dubious.
"Trust me," Roseanne encouraged him, most falsely. The last person in the world Carruthers should trust was Roseanne. "When is your flight out?"
"Tonight." He looked wary, but also curious. It was just the way she wanted him.
Yes. That miracle Roseanne had been looking for was standing right in front of her. He was a walking ticket to partner. Without realizing it, Roseanne's boss had given her the answer after all. With George's 'good friend,' Roseanne would prove she had what it took to reel in a difficult fish. Disgruntled former clients were the most difficult fish of all—and Carruthers Engineering was a big one.
"Good, good, good," Roseanne murmured in a calculatedly mysterious professional fashion. She looked around, intending to sit down and reach importantly for the telephone, signaling to the unfortunate Mr. Carruthers that he was dismissed. But the
re was, alas, nothing to sit in. Her chair was still lying in a terminal condition on the office carpet.
"What seems to be the trouble with that?" Carruthers asked, following her gaze.
She hesitated and then shrugged. Simply describing the problem didn't mean she was giving up. "One of the wheels buckled. I suppose I'm missing a screw or something."
"Or something," he murmured, squatting down to give the wheel a superficial look. She panicked but couldn't think of a single decent reason to stop him. Then he straightened and she relaxed. He was not going to attempt fixing it.
She was wrong. He put out his hand and took hold of the chair. He held it for a moment as though taking its temperature. Then, light as a feather, he raised the unwieldy creature, gave it a solid little shake and set it on its feet. It landed firmly. It did not fall over. It didn't even list to the side.
"That should do it," he said, but without a trace of triumph. In fact, he sounded rather sour.
"I don't believe it." Roseanne looked over at him and then reached for the chair. She rolled it backwards and forwards. The wheels cooperated smoothly, not even a squeak. Giving the man a deeply suspicious glare, she lowered herself gingerly into the seat. It held. It felt solid.
"You fixed it," she accused him.
He shrugged, plainly unimpressed with his own power. "I guess there are a few things I can do." He paused. "Other than kill spiders."
Roseanne felt her face go uncharacteristically warm. She wondered how much of her little speech on the various uses of men Winthrop had overheard.
Judging by the light tinge of color now visible on his high cheekbones, he'd heard something more of it than the spider part. "Good day, ma'am. Thank you for your time."
"It was nothing." Roseanne felt chatty all of the sudden. "You gave me a great idea—I mean, maybe you'll be hearing from me."
The flicker of alarm that crossed his laconic face right before he walked out the door gave her a moment's pause. It was just possible that the man, abstracted as he was, did not in fact underestimate her. But Roseanne shrugged off this possibility. She meant Carruthers no harm. In fact, she thought there might be a way to solve everybody's problems all at once: George's disgrace, Carruthers' ex-wife, and last, but certainly not least, Roseanne's bid for partnership. She grinned and gave a push to her chair. It spun effortlessly around and around.
I Gotta Feeling Page 30