Fire and Ice

by Carla Fredd

  Fire And Ice

  Carla Fredd

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Thank You!

  Also by Carla Fredd

  About the Author

  Fire and Ice

  Copyright © 1995 by Carla Fredd

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover designer: Yolca Designs

  Author website: carlafredd.com

  This book is dedicated to:

  My mother and father, Cecil and Earnestine Fredd, who always told me, "Little girl, you can do anything that you want to do";

  My cousins, Christy E. Christian and P. Michelle Christian, for being their own crazy selves;

  Daphne Y. Jones, Robyn Ballenger, Sharon D. Jones, Sheryl Armstrong, and Vera G. Glenn, for being great friends and giving me a swift kick in the rear when I really needed it; and my critique group, Angela Benson, Ami Vonesh, and Bridget Anderson for their unfailing support.

  Chapter 1

  Ms. Aimes! Ms. Aimes!" A group of reporters and photographers ran across Holly Aimes's yard to corner her at the front door. Their breath formed puffs of smoke in the cold, February morning air.

  "How do you feel about the marriage of Trey Christian and Maria Johnson?"

  "Did you know he was seeing other women while you were engaged?"

  The questions were fired at her like bullets from an automatic weapon. Holly's heart raced. She knew from experience how coldhearted and single-minded reporters could be when a melodramatic story like hers came along. The interview she and Trey had given a few days ago about their engagement had appeared yesterday in a local Atlanta newspaper. This morning, she'd learned that her fiancé, up-and-coming actor Trey Christian, had married supermodel Maria Johnson last night in Las Vegas.

  Holly took a deep, calming breath before she pulled up the collar of her black wool coat. She walked quickly from her small brick home toward the detached garage, dodging outstretched microphones and bumping into reporters.

  One reporter asked, "Have you heard from Trey Christian?" She recognized the raspy voice. It belonged to the same reporter with whom she and Trey had spoken a few days earlier at Trey's house. The question was like salt in the wound of her broken heart. She blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. Her calm expression, like a fragile mask, hid the hurt and pain of Trey's betrayal. Only pride kept her walking silently to her car.

  The garage seemed a million miles away, and the group of reporters formed a tighter circle around her. She tried to block out the rapid-fire questions and concentrate on reaching her car, but she could feel a cold wave of panic rise up within her.

  "No comment." Her voice was barely audible over the noisy crowd. She kept her head down, focusing on placing one foot in front of the other until she finally reached her car. Her fingers trembled within her black leather gloves when she tried to insert her key into the door of her two-year-old Honda Accord.

  "Miss Aimes, could you tell us . . . ?" The noise of her car's engine blocked out the rest of the question. Holly put her car in gear and backed out of the driveway.

  As she drove away, tears rolled down her cheeks. She remembered the plans she and Trey had made since their engagement a week ago. The happiness she'd felt during last week's interview seemed like a dream to her now. Today, this cold Monday morning, Holly had to face the fact that Trey Christian had never loved her.

  Holly entered the highway and headed north to her parents' home. She knew that another group of reporters might be there, but her father, Senator Robert Aimes, knew how to handle the press. Holly brushed the tears from her cheeks. She had been careful, so careful, to stay away from the media . . . until last week. Her family had always enjoyed the spotlight, but she wanted no part of it. Now, she would have to endure the constant questions, the photographs, and the total lack of privacy—all while her heart was breaking.

  A strong gust of wind shook her car. Her hands tightened around the steering wheel in an effort to keep her car under control. She had to get to her parents' house. They would know what to do.

  Six months later . . .

  * * *

  Why was she still here?

  Holly Aimes dropped the ballpoint pen on top of the neatly stacked papers on her desk. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the leather executive chair. Her mind hadn't been on work all morning. She'd raced from Conyers, her father's hometown, where she and the rest of her family had been featured in his latest political campaign ad.

  When she'd finally arrived in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur, she had dashed from her cool, air-conditioned car into the three-story, smoked-glass office building that housed Security Force. She and her partner, Pamela Moore, had started the company four years ago, when Pam had abruptly left her family's security business in Alabama and Holly had been passed over for a promotion for the third time at the engineering firm for which she'd worked since graduating from college.

  This morning, she had gone directly to Pam's office, eager to learn the outcome of the meeting Pam had attended.

  "Well," Holly said, walking through the doorway of her partner's office. "What did they say?" Pam pointed to one of the chairs opposite her desk and continued with her telephone conversation.

  Holly dropped her briefcase onto one of the two Queen Anne chairs. She took off her navy linen jacket and laid it on top of the briefcase before sitting in the other chair. Holly sat with her shoulders back and chin up. Years of Mrs. Howard's School of Etiquette had taught her to appear cool and controlled under any circumstances. The only sign of impatience was the steady tap of her navy low-heeled leather pumps.

  As she waited for Pam to finish the call, she desperately hoped that Pam had good news. A lot was riding on the bid they had submitted to the Milton Group.

  Originally, Holly was to attend a meeting with Milton Group employees, but at the last minute, the filming of her father's political campaign ad was moved to the same time. No amount of pleading with her father, his campaign manager, or her stepmother would get the date changed. In the end, Pam had gone to the meeting alone.

  Holly listened to Pam's end of the conversation. Pam was in her element, selling. Her straight forward, never-give-up attitude was the reason they'd become friends while taking a calculus class at Georgia Tech. It was also the reason they had so many clients.

  She and Pam were totally different. One of their clients referred to them as the odd couple. Holly had inherited her mother's dark brown skin and coffee-brown eyes. She wore her thick black hair in a simple shoulder-length bob with a part on the right. She was the technical guru of the company. Designing complicated security systems at a reasonable price was her forte. Holly loved the solitary work associated with engineering and testing computer-based models of her security systems. If she didn't have to talk to her clients, that was fine with her.

  Pam, on the other hand, loved working with clients. People were surprised to learn that she had an engineering degree as well as a
n M.B.A. Many of their male clients were distracted by Pam's beauty when they saw her for the first time. Her eyes were tilted up slightly at the corners like the eyes of a cat. Their color was almost the same light golden brown as her skin. She wore her brownish-black curly hair swept up from her perfectly oval face, with fat ringlets of curls lying carelessly down her back.

  Holly would never have worn the bright yellow-green silk dress Pam was wearing today. The navy linen pantsuit was more her style.

  "We're still in," Pam said, when she finished the call. Pam opened a drawer in her cherry wood desk and gave a manila folder to Holly. "There are only ten companies left. The next cut is in two weeks." Pam rose and sat on the edge of the desk. "During the meeting, the bid coordinator and the director of security said that our package looked good. The director said he'd be very surprised if we didn't make it to the next cut."

  Holly opened the folder, scanned the top page, and smiled.

  "Pam, we're going to win this bid. We've beat out eight of the ten companies in previous jobs, and the remaining two don't have the customer-satisfaction rating we have." She looked up from the paper. For the first time since they'd submitted their bid, Holly felt confident that their company would win.

  "I'll admit that it looks like we have a good chance of winning this bid, Holly, but we haven't won it yet." Pam stood up from behind her desk and walked to the window. "We've got to make sure we don't make any mistakes between now and when the bid is awarded."

  "Wait a minute." Holly studied her partner. "I'm the pessimist in the company. Why are you so down?"

  "I found out that three companies were thrown out because they had too many customer complaints. The people at the Milton Group are checking every complaint filed by a customer." Pam frowned and stared out the window. "With us installing security systems in two high-priced subdivisions, I think we stand a good chance of having at least one person who's dissatisfied. I know how much winning this bid means to you, Holly, but I don't want you to be hurt if we don't get it."

  Holly laid the folder on the desk. "We've got to win this bid, Pam." Holly thought of the reporters who were parked in front of her house again this morning. She remembered the whirring of camera motors and the flash of lights as she drove from her house. "I can't take the constant hounding by the press."

  "But this is an election year. With your father ahead in the polls, the press should ease up on you."

  "You know better than that." Holly straightened a nonexistent wisp of hair. "As long as Trey and my father are newsworthy, the press will know who I am and they won't give me any peace." Holly folded her arms across her chest.

  "Thank goodness the election will be over soon," Pam said.

  Holly shook her head. "No! This is it. I can't take it anymore. I'm moving far away from this zoo and starting a new life in Seattle. As long as I'm in Georgia, I'll be a public figure with no privacy at all."

  "But do you have to move so far away?" Pam asked with concern. "You don't know that the press won't bother you if you leave, and Seattle is so far away."

  "I need to put as much distance as I can between Trey and me. It's too easy to get a story with us in the same city. I've tried to stick it out. Now, I just want some peace."

  "Holly, I've never known you to run from anything. Why run now? The press will stop bothering you sooner or later."

  "Pam, when was the last time you had your private life on public display? Have you ever had reporters follow you from your front door to your garage, holding microphones in front of you?" Her tone was filled with frustration. "That happens to me all the time."

  "But- "

  "I don't want to hear it," she said, standing up. "This time next year, I'll be an anonymous citizen of Seattle. I won't have to walk out my door and see reporters, and my picture won't be splashed across the newspapers. I won't be a public figure anymore." Holly went to the chair and picked up her jacket and briefcase. "But we've got to win this bid first."

  "There's not much we can do but wait. We've submitted our best price and warranty. The only open-ended part of the bid is our customer satisfaction report."

  "We'll just have to keep all our customers satisfied," Holly said, heading to the door.

  "Ha." Pam walked back to her desk. "When you figure out how to do that, let me know."

  I will keep the customers happy, Holly thought, putting aside the memory of this morning's conversation. She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was six P.M. She looked at the stacks of reports on her desk. There was no way she could give them the attention they needed now. She gathered the reports and put them in the desk drawer. Tonight, she decided, she was going to take a rest from work. No working on proposals at home for her. Instead, she was going to throw a bag of popcorn in the microwave and finally watch the video she'd rented once before and had had to return without watching.

  She grabbed her briefcase and left. When she walked past the room where technicians manned the customer support telephone lines, she paused briefly to say goodnight.

  "Holly! Wait." Wanda Johnson, the head technician, waved her over to her cubicle. "There's a really irate customer on line two. I tried to get him to tell me the problem, but he said he's called before and he's still having trouble with his system. He said he wants to speak to either the owner or the president."

  "That's okay, Wanda. I'll talk to him."

  "Do you want me to stay on the line?" Wanda asked.

  "Yes. I don't want to irritate him even more by making him repeat what he's told you." Holly went to the empty cubicle next to Wanda's and picked up the line. "This is Holly Aimes, co-owner of Security Force. How can I help you?"

  "Ms. Aimes, I'm Michael Williams . . ." Wanda spun around in her chair and mouthed "Michael Williams." "Your company installed a security system in my house that has given me nothing but trouble."

  "I'm sorry you've had problems with the system." Holly sat and put her briefcase down. This wasn't going to be a quick call. "Tell me what's happened."

  "Your company's been out here twice. If your people can't find what's wrong with the thing, then how am I supposed to know? I've set it off three times already. Do you know what the fine is for setting off the alarms in Fulton County?"

  "Mr. Williams, Security Force will reimburse you for the fine, and I'm sure we can solve the problem without causing you any more aggravation. Why don't I send someone out tomorrow morning— "

  "No, I don't want you to come out tomorrow. You get somebody out here now!"

  "Mr. Williams- "

  "Ms. Aimes, I want this taken care of now. If you can't do that, then I want this system out of my house."

  Holly pinched the bridge of her nose and felt the muscles tighten in her neck as stress began to build within her. With this client, their one-hundred-percent customer-satisfaction rating would go right out the window, and so would their chance of winning the Milton Group bid. "I'll send a crew to your house now." She prayed that not all the vans were out on other jobs.

  "They'd better fix this thing— "

  "Your system will be fixed, Mr. Williams." Even if I have to fix it myself, she thought. "Our crew will arrive within the hour. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you." She put down the phone, removed a notepad from her briefcase, and began writing. "Wanda, I want you and John to go to Mr. Williams's house."

  "You want me," Wanda said, pointing her finger at her chest, "to go to Michael Williams's house?" At Holly's nod yes, Wanda shouted, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

  "You can thank me later. Just make sure that his system is repaired tonight. I don't care how long it takes."

  "Do you know who that was?" she asked in awe. "That was Michael Williams. The Michael Williams."

  "It doesn't matter who he is." Holly searched the room for the other technician. "Where's John?" she asked, when she didn't find him in the room.

  "This is final exam week at Georgia Tech. He won't be in until next week." Wanda gathered her equipment from the cubicle a
nd looked at Holly. "We're short on experienced technicians tonight."

  Holly looked around the room. Wanda was right. That meant she would have to go. "So much for a quiet evening at home," Holly mumbled.

  Holly felt as if she was in a sauna when she went outside to help Wanda load the company van. The navy linen pantsuit she'd worn earlier had been replaced by the standard uniform of Security Force technicians—a short-sleeved khaki shirt with the company logo on the pocket and khaki twill pants. With the high humidity and hot July temperatures, the uniform was more comfortable and practical for the varied situations at customer sites. She'd worked in dark, musty basements of one-hundred-year-old homes as well as the pristine attics of brand-new houses.

  At seven that evening, the sun hung low in the calm summer sky. Wanda drove as they traveled the lonely highway heading south out of Atlanta. Once they had passed the airport, the scenery changed from row after row of industrial office parks to farms and large wooded areas. By the time they arrived at the guard station of the Atlanta Club, Holly felt as if she'd heard every news item written about the life of Michael Williams. Wanda told her how he had moved from Los Angeles four months ago because he had been offered an outrageous salary to produce his late-night talk show here in Atlanta. She'd heard about the family he'd left behind. When Wanda started talking about the different women in his life, Holly felt that she'd heard enough.

  "Wanda! No more, please! He's just a man. You sound like you're in love with him."

  "Holly, we're talking about the man voted the sexiest black man in America for . . ."

  "Two years in a row," Holly singsonged along with her. "I know, you've said it at least three times since we left the office."