As soon as she put the car in park in the gym parking lot, Valerie closed her burning eyes and yawned. She rested her head on the steering wheel for just a second before turning the car off and grabbing her bag off the seat.

She should have skipped yoga this morning and gotten that extra hour of sleep instead. She could have done the workouts from her living room, but she tended to want to hide away in her home. Once she started skipping workouts, she’d just never go back. Over the last four years, she’d learned to force herself to come and go from her home, go out more, stay in less, training her brain to accept that as much as she loved the comfort and security of her locked house, she could not make it her default.

Which meant that even though she went to bed at midnight, that five o’clock alarm still rang, and she still got out of bed and prepared for yoga class, packing her makeup bag and clothes for the day so she could go straight to work from there.

She entered the gym and swiped her membership card at the desk. The young girl behind the counter gave her a very bubbly welcome, and Valerie smiled back, more at the girl’s enthusiasm than anything else. She stopped off in the locker room and set her bag on the foot of the locker and hung her garment bag on the hook.

Even though she’d only attended class here a couple times, this gym felt very comfortable to her. She had attended another gym in this chain when she lived in Savannah, and so much of it had the same feel. Most of that had to do with the identical décor and the same music piping through the speakers, but it still made her feel less like a stranger in a new town and more like someone who belonged here.

She found her classroom and went inside, stopping at the back table to initial next to her name on the roster. She slipped her flip-flops off and walked to the front of the room, finding a spot to unroll her yoga mat.

“Good morning, Valerie,” Brooklyn, the instructor greeted. “How is your Tuesday treating you?”

Valerie sat cross-legged on the mat and leaned back on her hands. “Late dinner party. It’s going to be a long day.”

“We’ll set you up for your day,” Brooklyn said with a laugh. She moved to the next person who had just come into the room.

“Valerie Flynn?”

Surprised to hear her name, she looked behind her and saw Sami Jones sitting on a fuchsia-colored mat. If she hadn’t said something to Valerie, she never would have recognized her as Brad’s secretary. Normally, the dark-haired woman wore bright colors and patterns, always with bold makeup and a hat or a head scarf or some other eccentric accessory. Right now, though, she wore a pair of black yoga pants and a gray T-shirt. She’d pulled her blue streaked black hair back into a ponytail and wore no makeup.

“Sami,” Valerie said with a smile, turning around to face her. “I didn’t even recognize you.”

Sami made a sweeping gesture over her face. “Nakedness. I’ve tried dressing up for yoga, but it feels wrong to leave a makeup mark on my mat.” She laughed and jumped up, picking up her mat and moving to the spot next to Valerie. “It’s so good to see you here.”

“Thanks. You, too.”

“I remember you coming for the first time last week. I just didn’t know who you were then.”

Valerie chose this particular location because of its proximity to the office. “Do other Dixon employees come here?”

Sami shrugged. “Probably. Not in this class, though, and this is about all I do. Sometimes I can do the spin class at night. Most days, I work from seven to seven. Brad, bless him, works long, hard hours. This five-thirty class is my mental prep for the day. I’ve never been out in the gym area, and I don’t take any other classes.”

“I have exercises I use for my hip. So, I’ll do yoga three days a week and the gym area for three days.”

“Your hip?”

Surprised, Valerie’s eyes widened. “You don’t know? Haven’t heard the gossip?”

“No time for gossip. Not much patience for it either, really. Just heard a few things.”

Valerie tried not to scowl. “What have you heard?”

Sami pursed her lips. “I know you’re coming from the Savannah office. And I know Buddy is your uncle and that you’re a childhood friend of the Dixon brothers. That’s about it.”

Valerie looked up at the fluorescent lighting and felt some hidden weight of stress suddenly leave. “I guess the gossip isn’t as bad as I thought. Maybe I’ll relax a little more.”

“You keep saying that. What gossip?”

“I, uh, had an ex-boyfriend who wasn’t a nice man. Since we were both architects with Dixon, I just assumed everyone knew what happened four years ago.”

“Hmmm.” She ran a finger over her bottom lip. “Let me think. Yes, I remember. I knew about it, but I didn’t know names.” She reached over and put a hand on Valerie’s forearm. “I’m so sorry you experienced something like that.”

Memories flashed through her mind’s eye. Shaking her head to bring herself into the present, she smiled. “I am way better these days than I was four years ago. This move was the final step in reclaiming myself. I’m happy to be home.”

Sami grinned and settled herself to face the front as Brooklyn called the class to order. “I’m happy you’re here, too,” she whispered.

Despite the lack of sleep, Brad entered the building whistling, ready to start his future with a new attitude. Something about right now signaled the beginning of the beginning. Usually, he got here before seven. This morning, though, he’d left later than usual and hit heavier traffic than normal, so he came into the lobby at the peak of the morning rush. Several people stopped him to briefly say good morning, to ask a question, or to simply confirm this meeting or that telephone call. By the time he made it to his private elevator, it was nearly eight o’clock.

As he stepped into his office, the overhead LED lights automatically came on. He set his backpack on top of his desk and pulled his laptop out of it. Just as he attached it to the docking station, his door opened and Sami walked in, a cup of coffee in one hand, her tablet in the other. She wore a blue and green flowered silk style dress that fell to her knees. She had her hair pulled up and blue chopsticks sticking out of the bun. She could no longer surprise him with her outfits.

“Good morning. I’m so glad to see you here and healthy. I was about to call you. Or, you know, the hospitals.” She set the coffee in front of him and brought her tablet to the ready. The steam rising from the cup caught the morning light shining through the window behind him.

He smiled. “I slept in, if you can believe it. Late night.”

“Your dad called about twenty minutes ago.”

Brad sipped the coffee and nodded. “He caught me on my cell.”

“And you have the meeting with the design team for the Nashville mall in fifteen minutes.”

“Right. Who’s the interior designer on that?”

Using the tablet, she pulled up the meeting information. “Blank. I’m guessing Owen hasn’t assigned one yet.”

Thinking of Owen Wakefield, the lead architect for this project and his personality and character, he nodded. “Okay. What else?”

“Nothing pressing.” She tapped on her screen then shut the cover on her tablet and turned toward the door but paused and turned back around. “Oh, one thing. How many in your reservation for Calla Jones’ restaurant opening? There’s an email requesting confirmation. Your brothers have all responded separately, so this is just you.”

He started just to say one but changed his mind. He had a few weeks to see what the future held. “Two. Thanks.”

“Two?” Sami smiled. “Got it.” She looked up at the clock on the wall. “Don’t forget the design team. Conference room two. This floor.”

“Thanks, Sami.” As the door shut behind her, he slipped out of his suit jacket, inverted it, and draped it over the back of the chair while he used his cell phone to call the architect. When Owen answered, Brad greeted, “Owen, Brad. Good morning.”

“Morning. What’s up, boss?”

“Have you selected a design architect for the Nashville mall yet?”

“I have. I just haven’t updated the meeting notice yet. Your dad asked me to bring on Flynn, Buddy’s niece, the one who came up from the Savannah office. She did some preliminary consultation on it way back when, so I’ve added her to the team. May I ask why you ask?”

“Nothing. I just noticed the hole and wanted to make sure that the team was complete. Thanks.”

“Sure. I’ll update the documents this morning.”

Brad set his phone on his desk and took another sip of hot coffee. He’d watched Valerie’s work from a distance for the last couple years, but he felt a little excited at the thought of getting to see her work up close, to sit in meetings with her and watch her interact on a professional level.

After fielding a couple time-sensitive emails, he grabbed his tablet and made sure he had the right project pulled up. Leaving his jacket off, he walked out of his office and into Sami’s. She took the empty coffee cup from him and refilled it from the carafe behind her desk. “Thanks,” he said, looking at his watch. “I think I have a lunch meeting today.”

Sami tapped the computer screen with the eraser of her pencil. “Chamber of Commerce. Twelve-fifteen.”

“Right. Thanks.” He pushed open her office door and stepped out into the busy office.

Interns, assistants, business analysts, and junior project managers worked in the maze of cubicles in the center of the floor. The offices of the senior project managers lined the walls all around the floor. Right off the bank of elevators were two glass-walled conference rooms that could have the center dividing wall removed to become one very large conference room. Projection screens and smart boards covered the rear wall.

Brad and his father both had corner offices with internal offices for their assistants. The elevators took up another corner, and the restroom area the last.

Cutting through the sea of cubicles, Brad walked from his corner office to the back door of the conference room. “Bro,” he heard. Looking up, he spotted Jon coming from another direction. “Morning.”

“Hey. Glad you got my note.”

“Nashville, huh? Why do I feel like you’re always trying to get rid of me?”

“Not this time. This one goes to a different team. We just haven’t assigned it yet. Don’t worry. You’re stuck here for a little bit at least.”

Jon snorted. “Right. Maybe I should start doing residential houses like Ken. Then I could just keep building Atlanta. I hear it hasn’t sprawled out enough yet.”

“Working on something less than twenty million dollars? You’d be bored out of your mind in a week.” Brad opened the back door of the conference room and they entered to find the rest of the team present.

He walked straight to Owen and held out his hand. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” They shook hands and Brad took a seat in the center of the table. Owen would run this meeting. Along with him and Jon, Brad saw Ian Jones, the mechanical engineer, and Al Carpenter, the electrical engineer. The door opened and Valerie walked in, wearing a lilac-colored pantsuit with a lime green and lilac scarf around her neck. He noticed a very slight limp in her step, but only because he knew to look for it.

He said good morning to her, then turned to Ian. “How’s the restaurant opening going?”

Ian grinned. “Been lots of fun so far. Never seen my wife so stressed. I’ll be glad when the opening night is a smashing success so she can relax a little bit.”

Brad smiled. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks. You gonna make it?”

“Definitely. I’ve had your wife’s cooking.”

Owen stood at the head of the table. “Okay, welcome to everyone. Obviously, if you’re here, you know we won the design-build for this mall. The process for competition for the contract started eighteen months ago, so it’s nice to finally start rolling up our sleeves and getting down to it. Remember. This entire area was flooded and under up to twenty feet of water not too long ago.”

He pressed a button on the table in front of him. The screen behind him lowered and the lights dimmed. To emphasize his point, Owen started his presentation with a few aerial shots of the flood on the overhead.

“What we’re looking at is an eight hundred thousand square feet shopping experience in a suburb of Nashville. This project is worth almost $400 million, so we’re also planning on adding personnel to our Nashville office, which right now is just staffed with a couple project managers and a secretary who works remotely part-time.”

The computer model of the mall appeared on the screen. “Everything we’ve done to this point is a shell of a preliminary concept designed to give us something from which to pull bids and give the owners an idea of what our conception of the project looks like. We’re going to use that as the base to truly design it. Senior Mr. Dixon handpicked this team, so I know what we’re looking at is the best team our company can put forward.”

Ian spoke up. “Is the environmental cleanup on the site complete yet?”

Owen nodded. “Right. For those of you coming in new, this mall is being built on the site of an old steel mill. The mill never recovered after the flood. It has been a massive cleanup for another company on another contract and has taken three years. Their projected completion date is in six months, which gives us time to finalize all of our plans and specifications and solicit bids from subcontractors.”

Valerie raised her hand slightly. “How much input is the owner going to have on the interior design?”

Owen tapped a thin folder in front of him. “They’ve given us some input and asked us to give them three different approaches. They’ll look those over and choose one of the three.” He slid the folder toward her. “I know you did some preliminary stuff a year ago. I also know they really liked what you came up with. I’d definitely stick with that as the base for all three.”

He pushed a button and the image on the screen changed to an overhead view of the site. “I want to talk about access now.”

Nearly two hours later, the meeting broke up. Brad sat at the table for another minute, making notes in his tablet while the thoughts were fresh in his mind. When he shut the cover, he looked up and saw Owen stacking notebooks. “Phenomenal job, Owen. You’ve clearly made this project your own.”

“Thank you, Brad. I will admit that I wanted it.” He laughed. “A lot. I have ideas on top of ideas, and these owners are so open to new and innovative.”

“I know that’s up your alley.” He shook his hand. “I have a thing. I’ll see you next meeting.”

“Sir.”

Brad slowly walked out of the conference room, going through the back door, which brought him out into a cubicle aisle. He tried to concentrate on the information handed out in the two-hour-long meeting, but he could only remember what Valerie had talked about, the questions she asked. He wondered now if he should have given her that promotion. Maybe he needed more distance from her in order to function properly.

“Brad!” He turned and saw Al Carpenter, who’d had to leave the meeting to see to an issue on a jobsite. “Hey. Sorry about that.”

“No problem. Current projects need to take precedence. Everything okay?”

“Oh, yes. It’s resolved.”

“Good.” He looked at his watch. “I have a Chamber meeting in forty-five minutes.”

“Your dad relinquishing the hobnobbing, too?”

“Apparently.” He laughed. “I remember the first time he invited me to go with him. I was so excited. I think I was sixteen.”

“Would be nice if we could find some of that young excitement again occasionally, eh?” He paused outside Jon’s office door. “I’m heading into Jon’s office. See you later.”

“Bye, Al.”

Back in his own office, he pulled up his email program, but paused and said out loud, “I hear you, God. Being thankful, finding excitement, not dragging my feet and wishing I was doing something else. Thanks for the confirmation from last night’s revelation.”

He glanced at the clock in the corner of his laptop screen. He could spend about thirty minutes catching up on emails before he absolutely had to leave to make it to the Chamber lunch on time.