Kitabı oku: «Flirting With Disaster», sayfa 2

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The blessed ceiling fan was making so much noise Josh couldn’t even hear himself think. Normally that would be downright terrific, but he was sitting on the edge of his motel-room bed, facing down his boss and his boss’s drop-dead-gorgeous wife, who was trying valiantly to pretend that this sleazy dump was a palace. They all knew better.

Josh raked a hand through his hair and tried not to stare at Dinah Davis’s elegant, long legs. Dinah Davis Beaufort, he reminded himself sternly. He had a hunch if his gaze lingered one second too long, Cord would punch him out and forget all about whatever scheme had brought the two of them over here at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning.

Which might not be a bad thing, Josh realized. He didn’t like that matching gleam in their eyes one damn bit.

“Why exactly are you here?” he asked, wishing like hell he hadn’t had that fourth beer the night before. It had knocked him out so he could sleep, but it was muddying his thought processes now and something told him he was going to need all his wits about him before this conversation was over.

“I need you to do me a favor,” Cord said.

“A huge favor,” Dinah amended.

Josh regarded both of them suspiciously. He turned his gaze on Dinah, since he had this gut-sick feeling she was the one who’d come up with this huge favor. Cord was a businesslike sort who laid things on the line, said what he needed and then left his crew to get the work done. Dinah was sneaky … or clever, depending on your point of view. Her mere presence here was enough to fill Josh with dread.

“I am not going out with one of your friends,” Josh announced, since that was always what women seemed to want from him. They assumed that if he was single, he was lonely. He wasn’t, at least not in the way that made him accept blind dates intended to lead to something serious and permanent. In fact, he’d had enough experience with the female population to last him a lifetime. He was currently dedicating himself to a life of celibacy. Of course, he’d only been at it a week and it was already getting on his nerves, so the odds weren’t great he’d stick with it. Still, permanency was absolutely, positively out of the question, and that was the only thing any friend of Dinah’s was likely to be interested in.

“Of course not,” Dinah said sweetly. “I would never dream of imposing on you like that, Josh. I don’t know you well enough to presume to know your taste in women.”

Even though he’d only encountered Dinah a few times in his life, Josh knew for a fact she only laid on that thick, syrupy accent when she was lying through her teeth. Her mama was the same way. He’d run into Dorothy Davis a few times when he’d helped out with the renovations Beaufort Construction was doing at Covington Plantation, her pet historic preservation project. She’d always poured on enough syrup to send a man into a diabetic coma just before she moved in for the kill. Watching her work on Cord had given Josh all the lessons he needed to know to watch his backside around the Davis women.

“What, then?” he inquired cautiously.

“Actually it’s going to be a real challenge, something downright rewarding,” Cord said in what sounded like an overly optimistic bit of spin. “We’re going to be building a house for a particular family and I need you to oversee the project. I’ll keep you on the company payroll, but everyone else will be volunteer labor.”

“You don’t build houses,” Josh said, trying to get a grasp on what Cord was saying. “You do historic renovation. So do I.”

Cord’s lips twitched. “I’d say we both have enough skill to build a house from the ground up if we put our minds to it. Besides, this is a one-shot deal. I’m not asking you to take on an entire development in the suburbs.”

Josh still couldn’t hide his bemusement. “I don’t get it. Why me? For that matter, how did you get sucked into this?”

Cord cast a glance at his wife, which answered one question, then he leveled a look straight into Josh’s eyes. “I want you on this because the Atlanta renovations are finished and there’s nothing going on over there till we get that new deal finalized. The Covington renovations are almost done. I need to finish up out there if we’re going to keep my mother-in-law happy. She’s got some big gala scheduled in a month to show it off, and if every little detail isn’t just right, she’ll have my hide. You’ve got the time for this right now. I don’t.”

“I do historic renovations,” Josh reminded him again. “I don’t build cute little houses with amateurs.”

“You do if that’s what I need you to do,” Cord reminded him mildly, pulling rank.

“It’s a bad idea,” Josh argued. In fact, it was a lousy idea in ways too numerous to mention. He settled on one. “It’s a waste of my skills. I should be helping you out at Covington. Then you’ll be done that much sooner.”

“Hey, come on, pal,” Cord cajoled. “It’s a few months out of your life for a good cause. What’s the big deal?”

Josh shuddered. He knew more than most about good causes. For most of his life he’d been on the receiving end of other people’s charity. He hadn’t much liked it. It had reminded him that there was nothing normal about his family, that his dad had disappeared before Josh had needed his first diaper change and that his mom had tried to fill that void with one creep after another. They’d run from cheap motel to cheap motel in more cities than he could count, trying to get away from the worst of the creeps. It was the reason he picked rooms like this one. It reminded him of his so-called homes. That kind of history didn’t exactly qualify him to build anybody’s dream house.

“This is like one of those Habitat for Humanity things?” he asked.

“Exactly like that,” Cord said. “But this is just a one-shot deal being put together by a church in Charleston. One of the parishioners has had a run of real bad luck and the church wants to help her out. They’ve got the land. They’ve got people beating the bushes to get building materials donated. I’m putting together the construction crew and I want you in charge.”

“You say it’s for someone who’s had a run of bad luck. What kind of bad luck?” Josh inquired, despite his intention to nip this whole scheme in the bud.

“A woman with three kids,” Cord said. “Her husband was killed in a car accident and left them with nothing but a mountain of debt. They had to sell their house and move into a cramped apartment. They were about to be evicted from that till the church stepped in and took care of the rent, but they need a bigger place, a home that really belongs to them. Building this will give them a new start in life.” He gave Josh a pointed look. “I’m sure you can relate to that.”

Josh cursed the day he’d spilled his guts to Cord about his lousy childhood. He should have known it would come back to bite him in the butt.

Before Josh could stop her, Dinah whipped out a picture of a pretty, but exhausted-looking woman with three solemn-looking kids. Every one of them appeared beaten down. Unfortunately, just as Cord had guessed, Josh could relate to that. His mother, Nadine, had looked exactly like that way too often. He felt his heart twist. How the hell was he supposed to say no now that he’d looked into those sad, vulnerable eyes that reminded him of her? His mother always bounced back quickly, but something told him this family might not have her resiliency.

“I suppose they’re all going to be underfoot?” he asked, resigned. If there was one thing he was more skittish about than women, it was kids. He didn’t know what to make of them. He sometimes wondered if that was what had sent his father fleeing, the jittery sense that he was in way over his head when he found out Josh was on the way.

“That’s part of the deal,” Cord said. “They have to help, right down to the littlest one.”

“I’m not babysitting a bunch of kids,” Josh declared fiercely. “It’s way too dangerous for them to be anywhere near a construction site.”

“You won’t have to worry about them,” Dinah assured him. “I’ll make sure they’re kept busy and out of your way.”

“And the mother?”

“She’ll do whatever you need her to do, the same as the rest of us,” Dinah promised. “And we’ve already rounded up a lot more volunteers. You’ll have plenty of help.”

“I don’t suppose any of these volunteers will actually know what they’re doing,” Josh said, resigned to his fate.

“We’ll bring in professionals for the plumbing and electrical,” Cord promised him.

Josh sighed. “Great. The house might fall down, but at least the toilets and lights will work.”

“It’s up to you to see that the house doesn’t fall down,” Cord chided. “So, is it a deal?”

“Do I have a choice?” Josh retorted wryly.

“You can always go off and look for another renovation project to fill the time till our deal comes through in Atlanta,” Cord said.

Unfortunately, Josh knew that high-end historic renovation projects were few and far between. He also knew that Cord was better at them than anyone else he’d ever met. He didn’t want to work on some half-baked job for an idiot who barely knew one end of a hammer from the other. He owed Cord for making him foreman of the Atlanta project when a lot of contractors would have turned their backs on a man who’d wandered from place to place as much as he had. Cord had trusted him to stick around and see the job through.

Josh had done that, and now would be the perfect opportunity for him to move on, the way he usually did. But he was damn tired of staking out new turf for a few months, then leaving it behind just when he started to feel comfortable. He’d worked in Atlanta and Charleston for Cord, so he knew his way around in both places. It wasn’t as if he was going to be putting down any roots if he stuck around awhile longer. Nobody in his right mind would put down roots if this dump of a motel room was what he came home to at night.

As long as neither Dinah or Cord had any ulterior motives, Josh couldn’t see much of a downside to staying. Maybe one good deed would make up for some of the miserable stunts he’d pulled in his life. Maybe he’d start to feel better about who he was if he gave something back, instead of living in the lonely isolation that had become a habit as far back as he could remember. People who were always on the run had few genuine friends. Maybe that was what had made Nadine latch on so desperately to anyone who showed her the least bit of kindness.

He gave Dinah a hard look, because she was the one he suspected of not being entirely truthful about her motivations. “This is just about the house, right?”

She beamed at him. “Of course. What else could it possibly be about?”

In Josh’s humble opinion, she sounded just a bit too cheerful. “You tell me,” he pushed. “You don’t have any ideas about me and this single mom, do you?”

“Absolutely not,” she said. “I haven’t even met Amanda yet. That’s her name. Amanda O’Leary. We wanted to get everything in place before we told her what was going on. We didn’t want to get her excited and then have to let her down if we couldn’t make it happen. I’m sure she’s still grieving the loss of her husband, so I seriously doubt she’s looking for a new relationship.”

Josh stared Dinah down, but she never so much as blinked. He turned his gaze on Cord. “Is she telling the truth?”

“Dinah’s a journalist,” Cord said. “She always tells the truth.”

“We’ll see about that,” Josh said, still skeptical.

“You’re saying yes?” Dinah asked eagerly.

“Sure,” Josh said without enthusiasm. “Like Cord said, I’ve got time on my hands. I might as well do something productive with it.”

“You’re an angel,” Dinah declared.

Josh chuckled. “Not even close, darlin’. Not even close.”

Now that she was back in Charleston, Maggie knew she had no choice but to drop in to see her mother. If Juliette Forsythe heard from someone else that her daughter had returned, Maggie would never hear the end of it. It would be added to her already lengthy list of sins.

The Forsythe mansion faced Charleston Harbor, its stately elegance protected by a high wrought-iron fence. The front lawn was perfectly manicured, and in spring azaleas spilled a profusion of pink, white and gaudy magenta blossoms over the landscape. But in July, as it was now, everything was unrelentingly green. Juliette didn’t believe in “tawdry” annuals along the walkways or hanging in pots from the porch ceiling. One brave gardener had edged the walkway with cheerful red geraniums and been fired on the spot for his audacity.

Maggie had timed her visit carefully. Juliette had a standing hair and manicure appointment at 10:30 a.m. Thursdays, so that she would be looking her absolute best when she met her friends for lunch and shopping in the historic district. By arriving at nine forty-five, Maggie knew she would only have to endure a twenty-minute grilling before being dismissed. No one kept Madame Monique waiting, not even Juliette. In fact, the hairdresser was the only person in all of Charleston that Maggie had ever seen intimidate her imperious mother.

“It’s about time you came to see me,” Juliette declared when Maggie walked into her upstairs sitting room, where she was drinking her morning coffee and finishing her raspberry croissant. She was already dressed in a stylish knit suit. A pair of one-carat diamond studs winked at her ears. Her makeup was flawless. Every highlighted blond hair on her head was in place, which seemed to mock the need for the impending salon appointment.

Juliette was fifty-seven, but looked ten years younger, the result of obsessive control of her diet and enough skin-care products to stock a spa gift shop. Her self-absorption might annoy Maggie, but it was simply the way Juliette had been raised. Her duty was to be an asset to her wealthy husband and a doting mother to her children. Unfortunately, there had been only Maggie upon whom to lavish all that attention. Maybe if there had been sons or another daughter to distract Juliette, Maggie wouldn’t have been the focus of so many maternal rules and regulations and would never have felt the need to rebel.

Now Juliette did a disapproving survey of Maggie’s simple red dress and sandals, then sighed before adding, “I thought you’d vanished.”

“Obviously you weren’t too concerned or you’d have hired a search party,” Maggie replied, bending down to give her mother a dutiful peck on the cheek. “How are you? You’re looking well.”

“I’m humiliated, that’s how I am,” Juliette declared. “I can barely hold my head up as a result of that debacle with your wedding.”

“You should be in my shoes,” Maggie retorted, though it was clear the sarcasm went right over her mother’s head. Everything was always about Juliette, how events affected her. By the time Maggie had hit her teens, she’d given up expecting a sympathetic ear.

“You still haven’t said why you haven’t been by,” Juliette complained.

“I’ve been away,” Maggie said, regretting that she’d bothered to rush right over, since it was evident her mother hadn’t been especially worried about her absence.

Juliette looked momentarily startled. “Away? Where? You never said anything about going away.”

“I rented a house on Sullivan’s Island. I’ve been out there for nearly a month now.”

“My heavens, why would you do a thing like that? What if your father and I had needed you in an emergency? Do you ever think of anyone other than yourself, Magnolia?”

“If you’d needed me, I would have known about it,” she said. “I checked my phone messages every day. Since there weren’t any from you, obviously there were no emergencies, so don’t make a big to-do about it now, Mother.”

Juliette regarded her with a familiar expression of dismay. “Sometimes I just don’t know what to make of you.”

Maggie bit back a grin. “Now there’s a news flash,” she muttered under her breath.

Her mother frowned. “What did you say?”

“Nothing important,” Maggie said. “I should run along now. I know you need to get to your appointment and I have to go to the gallery and check on things there. I just wanted you to know I was back.”

Her mother glanced at her watch, obviously torn. “I do need to go, but we really must talk soon, Magnolia.”

“About?”

“This fiasco with Warren.”

“The fiasco with Warren is over. It’s not open for discussion.”

“But I’m sure you could mend fences if you put your mind to it,” Juliette persisted. “He’s a reasonable man. I’m sure he’ll forgive you for whatever you did to upset him.”

“He’ll forgive me?” Maggie said incredulously. “Are you kidding, Mother? I didn’t do anything. He’s the one who called off the wedding. If there’s any groveling to be done, let Warren do it.”

“There it is again,” her mother said accusingly. “That stubborn streak of yours. It’s always been your downfall, Magnolia. If you don’t reconcile with Warren, what will you do?”

“I’ll survive, Mother. In fact, I’ve already gotten involved in an exciting new project that will take up a lot of my time for the rest of the summer. I’ll tell you about it next time I see you. Now, we both really need to get moving.” She leaned down for another quick kiss. “Love you.”

Duty done, Maggie was out the door and down the stairs at a clip an Olympic runner would envy. With her visit to Juliette behind her, life already looked brighter.

Maggie’s improved mood lasted only until she walked into Images and took a good look around at the displays that had been created in her absence. They were chaotic. Of course, she had no one to blame but herself. She was the one who’d gone off and left the decision making to her employees. She could hardly expect a twenty-one-year-old who dressed all in black and had pink streaks in her hair, or an art-school dropout whose mind tended to wander when she wasn’t in front of a canvas, to arrange the gallery with the same expertise and attention to detail that Maggie would. She was probably fortunate that they’d even bothered to uncrate the new shipments and price them.

“You’re back!” Victoria exclaimed when she stirred from reading her book. Judging from the cover, it was something dark and depressing, suitable for a woman in black.

“Indeed, I am,” Maggie said. “I see the new shipments came in.”

“Last week,” Victoria acknowledged. “I didn’t want to touch them, but Ellie said we probably should. The gallery was starting to look kinda empty, like we were going out of business or something.”

“Ellie was exactly right,” Maggie said. “Is there coffee made?”

Victoria stared at her blankly. “Coffee?”

“Yes, coffee. We make it every day in case a customer would like a cup.”

“Oh, I thought it was just for you, and since I didn’t know you were coming back today, I didn’t make any.”

“Never mind. I’ll make it, and as soon as I have a cup you can tell me what business has been like while I’ve been gone.”

“Actually, you’ll need to ask Ellie. I have an appointment at eleven, so she’s coming in early. Since you’re here, I’ll go now so I won’t be late.”

Maggie had always given her employees a lot of flexibility in scheduling, but usually she expected them to work longer than an hour before taking off. “When will you be back?”

Victoria shrugged as if the concept of time was of little importance. “How should I know? It depends on how long Drake can get away.”

“Drake?”

“My boyfriend,” Victoria explained impatiently as if Maggie should know that.

Maggie searched her memory. “I thought your boyfriend was named Lyle.”

“He split, like, three weeks ago, so now I’m seeing Drake.”

“In the middle of a workday?” Maggie said, subtly trying to suggest that there was something inappropriate about that. The notion apparently was utterly foreign to Victoria.

“It’s when he’s free,” she said reasonably. “After work, he has to go home to his wife.”

Maggie stared after Victoria as she fled to keep her “appointment” with her new, married boyfriend. And Juliette thought Maggie made bad choices. Her mother should spend an hour or two with Victoria. Maggie would begin to seem downright traditional after that.

A few minutes later, as Maggie was sipping gratefully on her first cup of very strong coffee, Ellie came in. In comparison to Victoria, she looked thoroughly professional in her tan slacks and white blouse. Her hair might be short and carelessly styled, but it was a perfectly normal shade of golden blond.

“Where’s Victoria?” Ellie asked, obviously startled to find Maggie behind her desk. “You didn’t fire her, did you?”

“No, though the thought has crossed my mind. She went to see Drake.”

Ellie grimaced. “Can you believe it? She’s dating a married man. And he must be having some kind of midlife crisis or something. Why else would he pick somebody as flighty as Victoria? He’s old. He must be thirty-five, at least.”

Maggie herself had issues with men that age. Warren was thirty-five. “Maybe you could sit here and tell me what’s been going on. Has business been good?”

Ellie looked vaguely disconcerted by the question. “I guess,” she said eventually. “The deposit slips are all in your desk.”

Maggie sighed. She should have known better than to expect any kind of overview of the gallery’s business the past month from either Victoria or Ellie. She was lucky they’d managed to keep the place from burning to the ground in her absence.

Ironically, the customers loved them. The two young women, with their off-beat quirkiness, seemed to fit the artistic stereotype people anticipated when shopping in a gallery. Her own contribution, she supposed, was class, necessary to assure the customers that the works and antiques on display were genuine and worth every penny of their exorbitant price tags.

“Thanks for looking after things,” Maggie said, meaning it. “I really appreciate the way you pitched in.”

“Sure. No problem. You know me. I can always use the extra cash.” Ellie’s expression brightened. “But I did sell two of my paintings while you were gone.”

Maggie beamed at her. What Ellie lacked in business skills, she more than made up for as an artist. “Congratulations! I told you it was only a matter of time. I think we should talk about having a real show one of these days. You’re ready for it, don’t you think?”

Ellie’s joy faltered. “Maybe you should come by the studio and take a look before you decide,” she suggested worriedly. “Maybe there aren’t enough good paintings yet. I don’t want you to be embarrassed.”

“You could never embarrass me. You’re the most talented artist I’ve discovered yet,” Maggie assured her with total sincerity. “I can’t wait to really give your work a big splashy show. Why don’t I come by one evening after we close and take a look. Then we can decide. I’d love to schedule something for this fall.”

“Really?” Ellie said, her eyes shining.

“Sweetie, you’re going to be showing in the Museum of Modern Art in New York before you know it, and I’m going to be bragging that I knew you when.”

“Don’t even tease about that,” Ellie said, bright spots of color in her cheeks.

“Who’s teasing? Don’t you know how good you are?” She could see by Ellie’s doubtful expression that she did not. “Don’t worry. You’ll see. I promise you.”

In fact, seeing Ellie’s career take off the way a few of Maggie’s other discoveries had before her was exactly the kind of achievement that kept Maggie in business. It was reassuring to know that in one area of her life, her judgment was impeccable.