An agreement was never spoken between them, but Char knew as well as Michael did that they were going to stay away from each other from now on.
That was really a shame. As a man, he appealed to her as no other man ever had, even Danny. But she was so much older now, so much wiser, and she knew it took more than love and sex to make a relationship work. Michael had trouble deep in his soul and it got in the way. If he couldn’t wrestle it into submission, she knew she would have to deal with it herself in order to get it out of the way. And since she didn’t have a clue what it might be, there wasn’t much hope of doing that. So there it sat and there it would stay.
“Too bad,” she murmured to herself, fighting a sinking sensation in her midsection as she watched him leave the building with one of the vice presidents for lunch the next day. He was gorgeous to look at, but much too dangerous to touch.
But she had plenty of things to deal with herself and she didn’t have time to moon over him. Her car was repaired, and her house should be ready to move back into soon, as well. Then she would only have to see him at work, and that wouldn’t be so bad. She had to admit, it was hard lying in her cold, lonely bed at night and thinking of him only two walls away.
Still, she would tell herself scornfully, what would you do with him if you had him here? There was no point in dallying with a man who had nothing but a little extracurricular lovemaking in mind. And there was never any use thinking you were going to change a man’s mind by making him fall so deeply in love with you that he would change himself for you. Did that ever happen except in love stories? Hah!
Better that they should keep their distance from each other. There was no doubt they were physically attracted. The electricity that zapped between them whenever they were in the same room almost made her hair stand on end. That was something they would just have to get over. She was going to remain on guard against stray emotions that could get her into trouble.
But if she didn’t see much of the man himself, she certainly heard a lot about him. Rumors were flying around the third floor where she spent most of her time. Much of the gossip concerned young women who were sure a smile from Michael meant he was on the verge of asking them out—and hope was certainly running high.
But there were also whisperings about his prospects of getting the vice presidency everyone seemed to know he wanted. He had some competition, it seemed. Gillette Johnson, the financial manager, thought he was next in line and he hadn’t been shy about spreading that view to others.
Four or five members of the executive board, which sat in Florida, were due in Rio de Oro to take a look at how things were going. The word was that they would be weighing Michael’s performance so far in the balance and reporting back to the full board on his progress. Good old Gillette was going all out, making his people work overtime to make sure their end of the operation shone like a diamond. In contrast, they said that Michael was taking the competition rather casually. Char wasn’t sure if that meant he was just supremely confident—or basically rather arrogant. There was no doubt that he wasn’t working at it as hard as Gillette was. Still, the smart money seemed to be on Michael.
She tried to ignore it all and keep her mind on her job. After all, he was only her temporary boss. She had no claim to him and he obviously had no further interest in her.
She did have to meet with him occasionally. And in one of those meetings, while going over some land titles, she heard some other news that stunned her.
She’d gone into his office reluctantly, knowing her heart would skip a beat when she saw him—and it did. He looked so handsome with his brow furled over some problem on the desk before him, his hair slightly tousled, the knot in his tie tugged to one side. He looked up and their eyes met, and for a moment, the entire room seemed to fade away. There was something in his eyes, something that seemed to see into hers in a way no other man had ever done, and for just a moment, she felt a yearning that was almost pain.
But he shut it down immediately and nodded as though she were someone he barely knew. “Sit down, Chareen,” he said briskly. “We’ve got a problem and I want you to be aware of the ramifications.”
She dropped into a chair beside his desk and noticed, with a tiny, guilty thrill, that he couldn’t resist glancing at her legs as she crossed them. “What’s up, boss?” she asked.
He pushed a typed list across the desk to where she could see it. “We’re going to have to do something about the squatters.”
She leaned forward, studying the addresses on the list. “The holdouts along that strand of beach?”
“Exactly. I’ve met with them three times. They’re a hardheaded bunch.”
“And they’re still holding out?” She flashed him a sympathetic smile. “I’m surprised you haven’t convinced them to give it up.”
He sighed, running his fingers through his hair and grimacing. Watching him, she felt a strong urge to reach out and comb his hair down again with her fingers, just as she would for one of her boys. Her mouth quirked as she thought of what his reaction might be if she did such a thing. It was almost worth the effort to find out.
But he didn’t seem to notice her interest in his hair. “I’ve got the town side cleaned out,” he said, his face set in serious contemplation. “But it’s that last little area by the pier that has me stumped. We’re going to have to get tough, I’m afraid.”
By the pier. A sudden tingle of premonition slid down her spine. “Really?” she said weakly, looking back at the addresses and trying to remember…
“It’s only five houses, but they are crucial. I have no doubt I could convince most of them. But not the leader. He’s a raging idiot and he’s got the rest of them cowed.”
Char swallowed hard. “What’s his name?” she asked, pretty sure she knew. “It wouldn’t be Zachary Palmer, by any chance?”
He frowned at her. “Yes. Do you know him?”
“He’s my uncle.” She laughed uncomfortably. “Oh, my gosh, I had no idea!” But of course, she should have known.
“Oh.” Michael looked interested. He sat up taller in his chair. “Well, this is a stroke of luck. You’re going to have to talk to him. Make him give it up.”
“Me? Talk to Uncle Zach?” She laughed and shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“If Uncle Zach is leading some sort of revolution… I mean, it would be right down his alley to do something like that.”
She laughed again, but Michael didn’t seem to think it was very funny. His brows were coming together in a threatening way and his gaze had definitely hardened.
“This is a real problem, you know,” he told her.
She shrugged and gave him a sunny smile. “Twisting arms is not within my job description.”
“I’m not asking you to twist arms. All I’m asking is that you talk to the man.”
She knew he was getting angry with her. After all, this project was very important to him. From what she understood, his promotion was pretty much riding on how well he handled White Stones.
But that was not something she could really do anything about. Zach Palmer was a real character and he’d never listened to anyone else in his life. She could remember well the arguments her parents had gotten into with him over the years. The moment you told Zach to do one thing, you could be sure he would do just the opposite, just to be ornery. And, much as she knew he loved his niece, he wasn’t about to take advice from any young green-horn who hadn’t lived half as long as he had on this earth.
That was Uncle Zach’s way. Unfortunately, she didn’t think she could do anything to help Michael. And she certainly couldn’t make any promises. She began collecting her things together for a quick getaway.
He rose when she did, stopping her with a hand on her arm. For just a moment, her eyes met his and she felt something slip deep inside. But his fingers tightened on her arm and he said, “Will you talk to him?”
She cleared her throat and said, “No.”
His hand fell away and she turned on her heel and left the office.
She’d said no, and in a way, she meant it. But she knew in her heart that she would be going up to find out what the heck was going on very soon. And what would she actually say to her uncle…who knew?
She got her chance the very next day. She came across some details that could only be verified by a trip to the city hall in Trivolo to go over some old land titles from the eighteenth century. She drove up early, getting her work in the government office done in fifteen minutes, and then headed out to the beach.
The area looked even bleaker than it had the week before. Most of the houses were not only empty, but they looked as though someone had come by and taken just about anything that wasn’t nailed down.
Her uncle’s house was one of the few exceptions. Curtains still fluttered in the windows and she could see furniture through the dirty glass in the door. But no one answered when she knocked.
She made her way around the little house, letting memories dance in her head as she saw things she recognized. It had been so long since she’d seen her uncle. How could she have let so much time go by? When she’d been young, she’d spent her summers here. But once she’d grown up and her parents had moved to Texas, she’d hardly seen him more than once or twice a year. She wondered if he even remembered that she worked for the company that was planning to take his house away.
“Chareen Wolf! Is that you?”
Char whirled, stared at the older woman coming down the sand toward her, then broke into a run and greeted her with a hug. “Annie May!” she cried. “How are you?”
“Just fine, darling.” Annie May smiled, set down the bundles she was carrying and pushed her graying hair back out of her eyes with a work-worn hand. “I haven’t seen you since your babies were just born.”
Char shrugged helplessly. Annie May had known about Danny and had been sympathetic from the beginning. “I’ve been busy trying to keep things together. You know how that is.”
“Don’t I just?”
They smiled at each other, enjoying just being in sight of someone from a well-loved past.
“What are you doing?” Char asked her, looking at the bags and box she’d been carrying.
“Moving out. Getting out of the way for the big resort project they are putting in here.”
Char sighed. “I work for TriTerraCorp,” she said simply.
Annie May frowned. “You know, I had forgotten that.” And then she laughed. “Oh, Lord, don’t remind your uncle.”
Char laughed with her, but ruefully. “I hear he’s quite the community activist these days.”
“Oh, yes he is. He’s got his little gaggle of followers and they are marching around yelling ‘Hell no, we won’t go’ just like it was the sixties all over again. Only this time, they mean they won’t let TriTerraCorp have their property.”
Char glanced toward Annie May’s shell of a house. “But you sold to them, didn’t you?”
“Sure. This old place was falling down around my ears as it was. I was happy to be bought out. I’m living with my daughter and her family up by the old golf course. They’ve got a real nice house. I’m doing okay.”
Char shook her head. “So you’re not one of Uncle Zach’s army, huh?”
“Oh, no. Life is too short to spend it tangling with lawyers.”
Char laughed and picked up one of Annie May’s bundles, helping her carry it to her car. She was sorry she’d missed her uncle, but she would come back again soon.
After saying goodbye to her friend, she drove up and stopped at the cliff-top site, wondering if the men who’d been surveying the week before might be there. She wouldn’t have minded seeing that handsome Judd again. But there was no one there, and as she stood on the windswept lot, she looked out on a dark and gloomy day of fog and mist and cold that was nothing like the sunny day of last week when she and Michael had sat on the ground and had their picnic in this same spot. For a moment, she almost had a lump in her throat. Funny to be nostalgic about something only a few days old—something that would probably never happen again.
But there you go, she thought to herself. The human mind is a strange and wonderful thing.
“Give it up,” she said aloud, and kicked a rock with her soft leather shoe, immediately regretting it. The rock sailed a few feet and clattered down into the dirt. Her shoe showed a scuff that wasn’t going to go away easily. “Oh, why do I do these things?” she moaned. Getting back in her car, she drove back to Rio de Oro as fast as she dared.
Luckily, she made it back in time to keep a lunch date she had with Kyra Symington Redman and Gayle Smith Marin, both good friends who had worked at TriTerraCorp back in the days when Char was making her way up the paralegal ladder. They met at the Myrtle Turtle and clinked their tall fruit drinks cheerfully as they exchanged stories of what was going on in their lives these days. Both Kyra and Gayle had recently married and had little ones to care for. Pictures were passed around and exclaimed over, and laughter served to smooth over some of the disappointments of Char’s recent days. In fact, she hardly thought about Michael until Kyra brought him up.
“Hey,” her friend said, raising one sleek eyebrow. “I hear your new boss is a hunk.”
Char choked on her bite of seared fish and took a drink of water before asking, “What are you talking about?”
“Your Mr. Michael Greco. I hear he is really something. And I saw his picture in a calendar of TriTerraCorp hunks. Looks like rumors are true for once.”
Char stared at Kyra. “You saw his picture in a calendar?”
Kyra nodded.
“No, you couldn’t have. Sherry promised to take his picture out.”
“I saw it just this morning when I dropped by my old office. It was definitely in.”
Char let her breath out in a slow breeze, her mind working. From what she knew of Michael, and from what she’d heard about his ambitions, she had a feeling this was not going to be something he would laugh off. She had a meeting with him later in the afternoon—a meeting he’d called for without letting her know what he wanted to discuss. Should she warn him? Or did he know already?
“Oooh. I don’t think he’s going to like that,” she murmured, leaving the rest of her lunch untouched.
The other two women went on eating and talking about their families, but Char’s mind was full of worry about Michael. And at the same time, she was annoyed at herself for caring. What was he going to do about this once he found out?
She didn’t have long to wait to find out if she was right. Her phone was ringing as she walked into her office about an hour later. It was Lena Harold, Michael’s secretary.
“Hi, Char. I know you’ve got a meeting planned for later, but…can you get down here right away? The boss is in rare form. Maybe you can do something to calm the savage beast.”
“What happened?”
She hesitated. “You’d better come see for yourself.”
Uh-oh. What had she done now? Was this about her uncle? Or was it the calendar situation?
She hurried down to Michael’s office. And sure enough, Lena was thumbing through a calendar with a look of pure amazement on her face. When Char came in, she looked up and grinned. “Take a look at this,” she said, dangling the calendar before her eyes.
Despite knowing exactly what to expect, Char gasped. Sherry had promised to take Michael’s picture out, but there it was, big as life and sexier than ever. Seeing it now, and knowing Michael better, she could see that the picture embodied a lot that was true about the man. His own build wasn’t a whole lot less impressive than the phony one Sherry had attached to Michael’s head. The eye patch gave him a jaunty air that fit his humorous personality, and the pirate costume added flair. All in all, it was quite an exciting picture. She could imagine just about every woman at TriTerraCorp drooling over it at this very moment.
“Copies of this calendar are flying all over the building,” Lena told her, confirming her fears. “Unfortunately, some of the big boys have seen it. There’s going to be a meeting of the board on it tomorrow.”
“The board?” Char cried, dismayed.
Lena nodded. “They arrived this morning. And good old Gillette Johnson made sure they saw this, first thing. Mr. Strand is furious. Rumor is, Michael is going to be raked over the coals for participating.”
“But he didn’t.” Char shook her head, thinking back. “It wasn’t his fault.”
Lena shrugged. “The board wants to know who is behind it.” She gave Char a sideways look. “You know, don’t you?”
Char frowned at her, then began shaking her head. “Oh, no, I can’t…” She let the sentence dangle and gazed helplessly at the older woman.
Lena’s green eyes narrowed. “Be realistic, sweetie,” she said carefully. “And think about Michael. This is someone who thinks he’s going to be a vice president someday. Someone who’s now been passed around in the hands of all the employees in this outlandish pirate outfit…”
“But that’s not his fault!”
“And you could tell the board about that.”
Char thought for a moment, frowning, but she didn’t see a way out. “I don’t see how I can rat on those women,” she said, looking up at Lena.
“Your choice.” Lena shrugged again. “But it’s been my experience that when this many of the top guys are mad, someone has to pay the piper.” She shook her head and gave Char a wise look over her glasses. “You watch out. You don’t want to be the one thrown to the wolves.”
Char winced. “Is he in?” she asked.
Lena nodded. “He’s waiting for you.”
Squaring her shoulders, Char headed for the door to Michael’s office.
Michael put down the psychology text he’d been skimming and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his neck. Closing his eyes, he worked his shoulders, trying to loosen muscles gone tight with uneasiness. He kept thinking things would get easier, but they just got more and more weird.
He was waiting for Char. She ought to be here any minute. He had a few things he needed to talk to her about—mainly this calendar thing—and some more personal business. And he wasn’t looking forward to it.
Char. If he’d known that first day what a problem she was going to be…he’d have done what, exactly? Insisted on a different paralegal? Probably not. But he might have avoided living in the old Victorian that threw them together day after day.
What was it about the woman that stuck to him like a burr and wouldn’t let him be? There was that sultry voice, of course. And the way she walked. And her pretty face. And…
Hell, he had to stop thinking about her like this. Sometimes he felt as though he were possessed. He’d managed to gain a certain amount of distance from her during the day, but at night, she was all he thought about.
The funny thing was, while he had been doing a relatively good job of cooling things with Char, things had only warmed between him and her two kids. Even Ricky had begun to come around from time to time. He liked the little guys. What could he say? It was the first time in his life he’d gotten to know boys of that age. These two were probably a lot better than most.
He’d never thought about kids one way or another until after he’d married Grace. He’d married her knowing how much she wanted a big family, and that had been okay with him. He hadn’t really even considered what that would mean.
Until he’d realized they couldn’t have children of their own. Suddenly, it had become all-important. Just seeing other people with children had hurt. As Grace’s unhappiness had grown, so had his bitterness and resentment. He’d convinced himself that he didn’t like kids at all. But now, as he was getting more honest with himself, he realized that had never really been the problem. He’d cultivated a dislike of kids so that he wouldn’t have to deal with them, because to interact with them had been to remind himself of his own sterility. And that meant failure, in Grace’s eyes, and in his own.
But it was different with Char’s kids. He could be around them and not be reminded of anything but the fact that kids were funny and sometimes even fun to be around.
On Sunday, he’d spent the afternoon doing some odd jobs around the old Victorian for Hannah. He’d changed a couple of light bulbs and fixed the lock on the bathroom door—now that everyone was complaining about it—and adjusted a burner on the old gas stove.
Ronnie had followed him around the entire time, holding tools and saying, “What’s that?” so often, he’d have thought it would have driven him crazy. But for some reason, it didn’t.
On Monday morning, when he’d stopped at the usual magazine stand to get a paper, he’d hesitated as his gaze fell on the magazines for kids, and on impulse, he asked the vendor to recommend a comic book young boys would like.
“Anything bloody and gory,” the old man told him. “Tangleweeds, Platinum Heart, The Badger…”
“I think they’re a little young for those. Anything a little less…violent?” he’d asked quickly, picturing Char’s face if he showed up with comics depicting tattooed angels.
“Uh, sure. Winnie the Pooh. Just got a new series of them in.”
Michael had bought two, one for each boy. But later that day, when he got them back to the house, he wondered what the hell he was doing. Would Char think he was making overtures if he gave the comic books to her kids? Maybe it would be better just to dump them in the trash. Or leave them lying around somewhere.
But he got his chance after dinner when he found the boys playing in the hallway outside his room. Char was nowhere in sight. He watched them for a moment. They were making plenty of noise, but they were as cute as puppies. Without giving himself time to think it through, he reached into his room and grabbed the comics.
“Hey, guys,” he said. “Do you like comic books?”
The boys eyed them, then Ronnie took his and grinned at Michael. Ricky looked out of the corner of his eye, but then turned away as though he wasn’t interested.
“Hey, thank you, mister,” Ronnie said, and plopped down on the floor cross-legged to look at his. Ricky stared at the wall.
“I’ll put yours here, Ricky,” Michael said, and placed it on the floor of the hallway. “You can get it later.”
But watching the boy broke his heart. He could see himself acting very much the same way at just a little older age than Ricky. Don’t ever let them see you cry. That old phrase popped into his head as he went into his room and closed the door. That was what he’d learned as a kid once he’d realized that the man he’d called his father didn’t give a damn about him anymore.
When he went out later, the comic was still lying on the floor, but when he came back just before midnight, it was gone. Perhaps Ricky had picked it up and read it, after all.
As he lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling and thinking about Char, he realized something disturbing. Instead of getting rid of his obsession with the woman, he’d added her kids to his inventory. This was not a good sign. The only way out was to finish the White Stones project and get out of town.
A knock sounded on his office door, jarring him back to the present, and in another minute Char was walking in, looking wary.
“You wanted to see me?” she said, and her chin rose as though she was already defending herself against some sort of unfair accusation.
He nodded. “Sit down.”
She did, but she didn’t smile. There was a blush to her cheeks that made her look as though she’d just come in out of the sun. He liked the way her blond hair caught the light, how it flowed down her back, how stray strands flared around her face. But enough of that. If he let himself get bogged down in appreciation of Char, he would never get anywhere.
“You’ve seen the calendar?” he said, getting right to the point.
She nodded.
He raised his hand, palm up. “What happened?” he demanded. “I thought your friend was going to keep me out of it.”
She opened her mouth to say something, looking very much as though she was going to snap back at him, and then she hesitated, and closed it. Taking a deep breath, she started again.
“I’m sorry. I thought the same thing you did. I guess one of us should have followed up to make sure the picture got deleted.”
He noticed she was carefully spreading blame around. But he also knew that she was friends with the woman who had put together his picture in the first place.
“What’s her name?” he asked shortly.
She looked at him innocently. “Who?”
“You know very well who. The woman who stole my picture from Human Resources and put it in the calendar.”
She looked uncomfortable. “Why do you want her name?”
“I need her name. She’s the one who’s behind all this, and she’s the one who can tell the board that I had nothing to do with it. She and those other two who were with her.”
She wasn’t meeting his gaze any longer and he was beginning to have a bad feeling about that. Not only was she acting much too nervous for comfort, she was also taking much too long to answer him.
“Michael, there’s no point in bringing them into this. Just tell the board you had nothing to do with it, that it’s all a joke, and leave it at that. It’s just a silly calendar.”
He was still giving her that level stare. “The names, Char. All I need is the names.”
Her mouth was dry. She looked down at her hands, then glanced around the office nervously. This wasn’t easy. But she didn’t know what else she could do.
“I’m sorry, Michael,” she said at last, raising her bright blue gaze to meet his. “I’m really very, very sorry. But I’m not going to be able to tell you their names.”