He still couldn’t come up with an explanation other than stealing for her being in his office those nights or rummaging through his desk and safe. He couldn’t find anything to connect her to Tanner or anyone who worked there either.
Dave Tanner refrained from his usual grandstanding, likely because the deadline for the final university bid was coming up and Dave still thought he held Campbell’s real proposal. But no one was talking or taking credit. Linc knew from experience that keeping a tight lid on stuff like that, especially when novices were involved, proved near impossible.
He closed his eyes and tried to get it all straight in his head. But his mind kept wandering to the more immediate problem. He’d pushed Thea away, and damn if she didn’t walk right out of his life without turning back.
Looked like she also left the city behind.
After a sharp knock, Tim stepped inside Linc’s office. “You wanted to see me.”
“Close the door behind you.” Linc struggled with a big enough morale problem without broadcasting his newest round of Thea trouble to the office.
He hadn’t hired a replacement. Couldn’t. He’d rather suffer through a series of temps, including the one who spent two hours a day in the bathroom. He didn’t want to know what that was about. He’d asked Becky to handle it, but being a friend of Thea’s, Becky wasn’t exactly on Team Lincoln and looking to make his life easier at the moment.
Linc leaned back in his chair. He didn’t have the time or inclination to tiptoe around this. “Where is she?”
“Who?” Tim pushed his glasses up but otherwise didn’t move.
The man could not sound more disinterested. Linc held on to his temper, but just barely. “Thea.”
“You fired her more than a month ago.”
Five weeks three days. Linc could probably call up the minutes if he tried for a second. “I’m aware of that. Where is she?”
Tim shrugged. May have even smiled before he swallowed it back. “Living her new life.”
The words cut through Linc with the force of a sharp blade. If “life” meant “men” Linc’s control would snap. He could foresee broken glass, the contents of his bookcase all over the floor and a lot of crazed yelling. “Tim, I’m running out of patience here.”
The smug expression fell as Tim took a step forward. “You need to leave her alone. Sue someone else.”
Again with the lawsuit bullshit. Becky dropped a comment about court every few days. Not that this imaginary legal complaint existed, but reality didn’t seem to stop the rumors from flying. Most of the office believed he was suing the woman he most recently slept with. So in his employees’ minds he qualified as a gigantic ass.
Linc exhaled. “For the last time, I’m not going to sue Thea. I have never threatened that, seen a lawyer or even contemplated taking that route.”
“Legal counsel came in the day after you fired her.”
So that’s where it started. “To help me figure out if I could do anything to stop Tanner’s firm from using the information he stole. The meeting was not about seeking revenge on Thea.”
Tim’s eyes narrowed and he continued to stare, as if trying to weigh the truth of Linc’s comments. Silence ticked by for a few seconds before Tim piped up. “Then there’s no reason to track her down.”
He tucked his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. The guy was long and lean and looked all of nineteen. Linc had studied his employment file and knew the guy was about a decade older than that, but the boyish face hid his age.
HR had hired Tim right around the time Thea came on. The file talked about his degrees and work on projects for NASA. The general sense was Campbell got lucky in grabbing the guy. Linc had agreed with that assessment until the Thea situation exploded. Now Linc just wanted to punch the guy in the face for knowing where she was when he didn’t.
Instead of fists, Linc tried for diplomacy, which rarely worked as a strategy for him. That’s why Thea turned out to be so vital in the office. She frequently saved them all from his quick-to-trigger temper, and that was only one of many talents.
“Maybe I want to talk with her.” No maybes about it. He had to talk with her. The way they left it ate at him. The hurt in her eyes and how her body curled into itself as if he’d been landing body blows instead of just trying to reason with her.
If it was all a con, she was a great actress. If she wasn’t then he was the biggest dick of all time. Didn’t matter if he had evidence, pushing her out like that would be unforgiveable. He never thought he’d be in a position to hope for her stealing.
“Why now?” Tim asked.
The guy didn’t appear even a little fazed at the idea of sitting across the desk from his boss and spouting off. Linc liked a tighter hold on respect, but he needed Tim and cut him some silent slack.
But that could end at any moment, and when it did Linc would likely lunge across the desk at the guy. “Excuse me?”
“You didn’t talk to her for five weeks. Why on week six do you need to find her so badly?”
Interesting Tim knew all that. Linc hoped that meant Thea talked about him now and then. Though she probably limited the conversation to calling him names. “She rented out her condo.”
“I know.”
Of course he did. Everyone knew more about Thea than Linc did. “Is she still in town?”
“Will I get fired if I don’t answer?”
So damn tempting. “No.”
“Then I’m going to decline and go back to my desk.” Tim didn’t wait for permission or even a dismissal, he turned around and walk away.
Linc bit back his anger as the younger man got to the door. “What if I’d said yes to your question?”
Tim turned and his smile suggested he’d expected the question. “Then I guess I would have been escorted to the street like Thea was.”
“Are the two of you dating?” The question slipped out before Linc could call it back. Probably because the sick possibility played like a never-ending horror movie in his head. The idea of him shutting Thea out only to have her crawl into Tim’s arms… Linc balled his hands into fists and dug his nails into his palms before the thought could go any further.
The investigator’s report didn’t talk about boyfriends. The conclusion had been she dated infrequently, pretty much never, since her parents’ deaths.
Linc held on to that thought because right now it was his only hope.
“Can I be honest?” Tim asked as his frown deepened.
The guy acted as if he’d been professional up until now. Hardly. “This is a personal conversation, not a work one. Nothing you say will impact your position here.”
“Interesting.”
Linc rocked back in his chair. “Meaning?”
“The way you separate personal and work when it comes to me but not Thea.” Tim didn’t laugh but amusement filled his voice.
Linc didn’t find one thing about this damn situation funny, and he already regretted calling the other man in. Still, Linc had a specific fact he needed or the tightness in his chest might not pass. “Answer my question.”
“You’re somewhat clueless about what’s happening around you.”
That amounted to the step too far. Linc put his boss hat back on and lowered his voice to threat level to let Tim know what was coming if he didn’t watch what he said. “You might want to rethink the way you’re talking to me.”
“You said this was personal.”
“I still demand respect.”
Tim didn’t roll his eyes but he looked like he wanted to. “You asked who I’m dating, which is none of your business, but we’re just chatting so I’ll point out that I’d think if you looked around you’d know the answer to that.”
That comment didn’t help one bit. “What’s with all the cryptic bullshit?”
Tim shook his head as he stared at the floor. “I’ll let Thea know you’re looking for her. That’s the best I can offer.”
“You can give me her new phone number.”
It was unlisted but he’d ordered his investigator to get it and locate her.
Watching Tim, Linc came up with an easier way to get the information. A way that would let him see her and make sure she was okay without going directly through this guy.
“No, I can’t,” Tim said.
Linc almost missed the comment because he’d buzzed right past it to another option. “Why?”
This time Tim didn’t bother to hide his smile. “She specifically asked me not to let you have it.”
Chapter Five
Thea hadn’t been to the house at Skaneateles Lake since before her parents died but when the bottom dropped out of her life she’d headed there. So many powerful memories, all of them good.
When she arrived weeks ago, she feared walking through the red front door would somehow suck the good times away, possibly break her, but the opposite happened. As the days passed, being in the cottage they’d cherished gave her strength, and right now she needed as much as she could muster.
For as long as she could remember, they’d spent summers here, hiking and boating. During winter vacations from school, and over her mother’s complaints about tramping through a foot of snow, Dad would drag them up to New York for skiing and cuddling around the fire. He insisted it was a family tradition, and it likely was.
Her father’s father had picked the lot with four hundred feet of lake frontage sitting back from the main road on a private drive. Then he started building. Family lore said he stopped when he ran out of money, but until he died he denied the charge. He declared one bedroom big enough for a house and argued that kids could sleep on the couch. He also argued it didn’t need air conditioning or heat. Thea’s mom put her foot down on the heat part, and that was added at some point.
But no one dared argue with Grandfather. Not even Thea’s dad when his father insisted the house never be expanded. Her dad said adding onto the place would only mess up the view of the sixteen-mile lake and the long dock over the clear water, and kept it small.
Over the years, larger homes had sprouted up around the lake, around most of the Finger Lakes in central New York, actually. But locals and the old-timers preferred the small summer cottages. Sitting on the front porch now with her feet propped up on the railing, she understood her grandfather’s plea.
Leaves rustled as a cool fall wind blew over her. Not that she felt it. She’d bundled up in layers and topped them off with a heavy sweater and leggings. Back in DC the outfit probably would be too much for the time of year. Not here.
The snow came early in fall and stayed until spring. It was early November. It had snowed four inches last week and melted already, but she could smell the water on the crisp air. That meant additional inches were on the way. She’d stocked up on supplies and checked the generator just in case.
Between the quaint center of town two miles away and the city of Syracuse within twenty minutes, she didn’t find the location isolated. The two cottages on either side were seasonal rentals and both stood empty, but that was fine. She had access to an emergency generator, all the food she needed and a charged cell phone.
If she could stop throwing up, everything would be fine.
She tipped her head back and rocked on the chair’s spindly legs. Linc had flipped her life upside down when he fired her nine weeks ago. Her little surprise a few weeks later had flipped it again. She’d been choking up her breakfast and every other bit of food she put in her mouth ever since.
The balmy DC summer had given way to a chilly New York fall…and she was pregnant. She had the eight positive tests and prescription vitamins in the bathroom to prove it.
So far the pregnancy had been uneventful except for the constant barfing. That and the prospect of being a single mom, which had anxiety bubbling inside her twenty-four hours a day. She’d lost her family, so building one meant everything to her. Doing it alone had her rearranging priorities and worrying nonstop.
Linc deserved to know he was going to be a dad and she would never hide the important information from him, but there was no reason to give a too-early head’s up to a guy who hated her. Once the critical period of the first twelve weeks was behind her she’d call…or write…or whisper a message on his machine. None of the options sounded great to her because they promised a huge confrontation, and the idea of seeing him, dealing with his fury, made her queasy all over again.
She stood up, off to fire up a new pot of coffee, when she heard the gravel crunch in the driveway. Looked like the clothes she’d ordered had finally arrived. She hadn’t gained any weight thanks to her unwanted diet plan of eat-and-barf, but she hadn’t packed much in her small suitcase either. The decision to leave DC had been spur of the moment. She read the pregnancy test and wanted to bolt, so she did.
Going to the far side of the porch, she glanced around, expecting to see the large grill of a delivery truck come up the lane next to the house. Her smile faded as she recognized the car. Tim, the same North Carolina guy who called DC’s relatively mild winters apocalyptic. After spinning out in four inches of snow last year, he’d started a job search in Hawaii.
And now he was on her doorstep, without warning. That couldn’t be good.
He slammed the car door and came around the side at a run. “Thea.”
“What are you…oompf.” The bear hug had her gulping in air. “Wow.”
“I’m so happy to see you.”
Between the frantic jog up the porch steps and the serious tone, she knew trouble was close by. “What’s wrong?”
For a second she wondered if he’d found out about the baby. Everything inside her slammed to a halt. She’d barely processed the pregnancy news and still woke up some mornings thinking it was some weird dream. She sure wasn’t ready for questions and announcements from Linc or anyone else.
She gave herself a mental shake. Tim couldn’t know. She hadn’t told Becky though her stomach grew firmer and eventually would give her away. Not really being clear on the protocol of how to tell your boss he knocked you up before he emotionally knocked you out, she still knew Linc should be the first person she told after her doctor.
Tim pulled back with his hands on her shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“Of course.” She tried to maneuver him toward the door because it looked as if he needed to go inside and sit down. That green around his mouth had to be a bad sign.
“Okay then.”
“You drove here?”
“Yes.”
He acted like getting in a car and riding for six hours for no reason made sense. Which made her think there definitely was a bad reason behind the impromptu visit. Tim didn’t skip work. The in-person check had something clenching tight in her chest.
“You want to tell me what’s happening.” A horrible thought popped into Thea’s mind. “Is Becky hurt? Did Linc fire her, because I will drive back right now and kick his ass.”
Tim grumbled something that sounded like motherfucker before abandoning the mumbling. “Ah, yes. Lincoln Campbell.”
Just the sound of his full name had Thea stopping. She froze right in place. For the first time since she’d stepped outside, she felt the wind whip through her clothes and kiss her skin. “What about him?”
“Did he call you?”
The cold turned downright icy. “He doesn’t have the number.”
She’d switched phone numbers and rented out the condo on a short-term lease to a friend from her old job at the law firm. Hell, she’d even left the metro area. When she thought about her recent life changes and the possibility she’d given a controlling businessman permission to run her out of town, a strange sadness threatened to overwhelm her. She wasn’t that person. She didn’t duck and hide. But deep down she knew she could have stayed and fought. She just hadn’t wanted to.
Linc had believed the worst about her. Without talking to her or running through it all in private and out of earshot of the office audience. After all they’d shared in the office and their night outside of it, he took an accusation
against her and spun it into a full-fledged crime, then acted like she needed to defend herself.
The whole scene replayed in her head every day, slowly pushing out the sexy memories of the night before. Pretty soon, all she would remember was the numbing pain of not being trusted. Never in her life had someone turned on her so fast and so hard.
She wanted to write him off. Forget about him. But the baby growing inside her made that tough…so did the fact she still loved him. She’d loved the idiot from the beginning and through his entire jackass tirade.
That’s why she really needed time away. Perspective. She didn’t have any and was desperate to find some.
“He has everything.” Tim swore again as he leaned against the porch post.
The comment didn’t make any sense. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw a file on his desk about you. He has the address here and your number.”
Leave it to Linc to track her down like a rabid dog. Thea almost pitied the new assistant, whoever she was, for getting stuck with these odd jobs. Becky refused to talk about the office or Linc, so Thea could only guess what was happening at Campbell and if Linc had saved the university bid.
Then a horrible thought hit her. Linc with someone else. The idea almost dropped her to her knees.
She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, but she couldn’t ward off the sudden chill. “Is this about the lawsuit?”
“I need to tell you something.” Tim closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He was in full guy-delivering-bad-news mode.
This time when her stomach churned, it had nothing to do with morning sickness. No, this was all about dread. “I’m still recovering from the last bit of news.”
“The boss has been hunting for you.”
Her mind went blank. “What?”
“He’s been all over me and Becky for information on your whereabouts. He’s…” Tim bit his lower lip as he stared out over the water. “Well, he’s a mess.”
Baby, It's Cold Outside: Men at Work, Book 1 Page 5