SNATCHING HIS SPORTS coat off the front seat, Morgan tossed the keys to the valet as he slid out from behind the steering wheel. Slipping the coat over his shoulders, he entered what appeared to be some fancy crab house. Doesn’t this woman like barbecue? He just shook his head. She’s so damn formal. Everything’s a show. He couldn’t complain this time, however, since she was the one footing the bill. Tit for Tat.
Morgan walked through the doorway as a slender man, probably in his early twenties, held it open for him. Another young thing stood behind the podium, white shirt, hair pulled back in a tight ponytail making her face look too taut, and slick black slacks. Her smile, however, was genuine and ready to please. Too bad she could have been his daughter, he thought as he approached her. “I’m here to meet Mrs. Karston.”
The young hostess glanced down at her list and nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said as she checked something off. Even her voice sounded too young. “Mrs. Karston is already here.” Naturally. “Allow me to escort you to her table.”
Young people should not sound so formal. It seemed unnatural. “Thank you.”
The crab house was not what he pictured when Neal first told him where to meet her. He pictured a rundown shack with rustic walls, wooden tables and benches, beer signs, and loud music. This place looked more like something he would find in New York City. It had a snobby air to it, and he suddenly wished he had worn a tie. There were white tablecloths on the tables, and chandeliers hung from the ceiling. There were even bronze statues of half-naked mermaids scattered throughout. The place was more to Neal’s style than his. Are we putting on airs, Mrs. Karston? Perhaps she was trying to throw him off a little, proving to herself he wasn’t classy enough to associate in her world. He was just a common construction foreman after all. Why people needed to attempt to impress others was beyond him. Was it to belittle them? Put them in their proper place? It was childish. Morgan was Morgan, whether in a five-star restaurant or a rustic beer joint. While it was more Neal’s world, it didn’t mean Morgan couldn’t visit it on occasion.
Jacqui was already sitting at a table off to the side near a picture window overlooking a small lake. The young hostess led him to the table, standing to the side while he took his seat. “Your waitress will be with you shortly.”
Morgan gave her one of his brightest smiles. “Thank you, sweetie.” He slid into his seat and said hello to Jacqui, who already sipped a water with lemon. She really needs to give her tastebuds some flavor. “No bodyguard tonight?”
Jacqui gave him a puzzled look. “Bodyguard?”
“The gentleman who was with you yesterday.”
Jacqui nodded. “Brent. He is not my bodyguard. He is my financial adviser. He’s the reason you are here.”
Morgan laughed slightly. “I know. I was joking.”
“Oh.” Her face turned slightly red as she realized her mistake, and Morgan felt a little bad for her. Just a little.
The waitress came over, and Morgan ordered a sweet tea. Jacqui’s left eyebrow rose. “No beer?”
He shrugged. “I’ll start with tea and then hit the harder stuff later. Neal isn’t driving tonight.” What Morgan really wanted was a bourbon and a shot of tequila, but figured he needed to start out playing nice. He hated playing nice. “He left earlier for Savannah, so I’m my own chauffeur.”
“Neal left? I was under the impression he would be here for this.”
Great. Did Neal tell her he would personally oversee the project, or was it just her implied impression? “I’m sure he’ll be back. There is quite a bit of groundwork to do before the actual construction. He is using that time to get another office straightened out with some new management. Besides, it gives me time to hire the local people you wanted and get our office set up here.”
Jacqui was about to say something else—probably complain some more—when the waitress returned with his tea. “Are we ready to order?”
“We are,” Jacqui said.
Morgan chuckled to himself, biting his tongue. He hadn’t even opened the menu to know what the place offered, but he could wing something. Jacqui definitely tried her best to throw him off. Did I really make that bad of an impression the other day?
She ordered the baked salmon with crab cakes, steamed vegetables, and brown rice. While she gave her order, he quickly scanned the menu for something he knew he could stomach. He was usually more of a steak and potato person, which they had on the menu for the land lovers, but when in Rome…
The waitress turned and waited. He just smiled. “I’ll have the king crab with scallops. I’ll take the steamed vegetables and brown rice, as well.” He handed her the menu with a thank you and turned back to Jacqui. “Our job posting for crews and other staff will go out in tomorrow’s paper. We also have Neal’s assistant, Barbie Hanover, reaching out to some of the more well-known local talent and trying to sign them on early.”
Her right eyebrow popped up. “You’re stealing people from other companies?”
He shrugged. “We’re offering qualified people better positions and more money. It happens all the time.” He gave her a smile. “Neal always goes after the best. Besides, it’ll put even more money back into your area. The people we ‘steal’, as you say, will be earning more, so they’ll be spending more, and then someone else, who may not even have a job, will be hired to fill the vacant position.” He winked at her, bringing a blush to her cheeks. “Wins all the way around.”
He tried to hide his smile as he watched her shift in her seat, uncomfortable with his wink, but more so about her reaction to it. “I just find the lack of loyalty unsettling,” she said.
“People are loyal to the biggest paycheck,” he said as he picked up his glass of tea. “The economy has made them that way.”
She gave a slight shake of her head. “It’s still sad.” She straightened in her seat, her posture going all business-like again. “Miss Anderson, my personal assistant, is arranging a meeting next week between yourself and the architects, so you can obtain a better grasp of the project.”
“Next week will work out great. The rest of this week I’ll be getting the office staffed and the remodeling underway. This weekend I’ll be flying home to get my truck and some more of what I need to set up house, so I can focus all my attention here.”
She nodded, apparently happy with what she heard. Good. He didn’t need her fighting their schedule or methods. He just needed her to hand him over the blueprints and step away. He highly doubted that would happen, however. “So, what else does The Karston Foundation do?”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
She sipped her water, stirring it first, so the lemon floated around, spreading the bitter flavor. She wasn’t happy that Neal Rutherford had left. Furthermore, she was even less enthused she had not been informed of his departure before it happened. When Morgan said it would only be him working on the project, she assumed he meant the underlings of the company and Neal would be there to keep his people on course. She never expected Morgan to be the one with which she would have to interact. While she agreed to his proposal, she didn’t think he took her project seriously enough.
“We’re an organization aimed at rebuilding the areas of Biloxi that need to be restored. I want to help people who need to rebuild their lives. We help them start businesses, provide housing, and create jobs.”
He nodded, his face an impressed expression. “Worthwhile objectives. Have you been successful at it?”
“I think so. People who had no homes now have a roof over their heads. We’ve helped people create their own businesses by offering courses and providing startup capital. We run a few daycares people can truly afford, so they can continue their education or go to work.” She shook her head. “It’s just too expensive for low-income families to afford some of the tools they need to get out of their predicament. If you’re only bringing in a thousand dollars a month, how can you afford daycare that runs six hundred? It’s ridiculous. I want to give these people a hand up.”
“And are they moving up?”
“Excuse me?”
“Are they moving up? It’s been my experience that sometimes when we try to help people get a hand up, they only want a handout. They learn to milk the system that’s there to help them stand on their own two feet, so they can remain on their asses. I’ve seen a lot of that with some of the day labor people we hire. They want a paycheck, but they don’t want to work. Some people are where they are because they don’t want to be anywhere else. They want someone else footing the bill while they play video games at home.”
She fell back into her chair, a shocked look on her face and a vile knot in her stomach. “That’s pretty cynical, don’t you think? Not everyone has the opportunities we do. Don’t you think it’s our responsibility to help them get ahead?”
He shrugged. “Helping them get ahead is one thing. Helping them remain as they are is quite another. Does your company have a way of seeing who is actually moving up in the world compared to those who are just sitting there with their hand out?”
The waitress returned to refill their glasses. She was in tight, black pants with a white dress shirt unbuttoned enough to reveal the creamy top of her globes. Morgan was quite obvious in his admiration of her endowments as she bent over to refill his glass. His smile at the young waitress earned him a smile in return and—did she wink at him? “Your dinner will be out shortly.”
“Thank you, sweetie,” he said as she nodded and turned to walk away. His eyes remained on the woman’s—girl, really—ass as she walked away. It was obvious the smile on his face held thoughts that made Jacqui want to slap him. He turned back to Jacqui with no remorse for his actions. “Now, what were we saying?”
“Must you gawk at every female who walks by?”
She watched as he stared up at the ceiling a moment as if in deep contemplation of her question. Then, with a smirk, he said, “Yes. Yes, I do. I like to appreciate the finer things in life, and she looked like one of them.”
Jacqui rolled her eyes as she snatched at her napkin and draped it over her lap. “You are disgusting, a typical male.”
He laughed as he leaned back, and she felt as if he mocked her with his mirth. “I, Mrs. Karston, am far from your typical male. However, I am who I am, and I didn’t apologize to my ex-wives for it, and I will not apologize to you. Are you saying you’ve never done a double take on some man’s ass, chest, or arms?”
She had, but she was not about to admit it to him. “I do not view people as pieces of meat through a glass display case. They are people. Human beings. They deserve better than to be sexualized with lewd stares and gestures.”
“I did not make a gesture, and you think my face looked lewd? Hmmm…I thought I smiled nicely. She seemed to like it, because she wiggled her ass as she walked away.”
Jacqui shifted in her chair as her dismay at his behavior tensed her muscles. She had to hold in the bitchy comment she wanted to make. Instead, she said, “Mr. Brewer, I do not wish to sit here and watch you pinch ass and bat eyes with the waitresses. We are here to sign the contracts and discuss business, and I wish you would behave accordingly.”
Morgan nodded as he shifted in his seat, leaning forward and picking up his glass of tea. “You know, you’re right. My apologies. This is not the time or place for such behavior. As Neal said yesterday, I’m simply used to the construction world where things are a little looser and more laid back. I know this project is very special to you. It’s to honor your daughter, right?”
“Yes.” The waitress arrived with their meals and started passing them out, so the conversation paused. Jacqui was glad, too. She didn’t feel like digging into the reasons behind the community center. It was to be built, and that was all Morgan Brewer needed to know. With the way he behaved, he’d probably make some joke about it, anyway. He didn’t seem to have much respect for things or people.
The waitress finished distributing their food and then turned to Morgan and smiled that tantalizing seductive smile many waitresses had for their male patrons. Jacqui wondered if it actually earned them more of a tip and assumed, knowing men the way she did, that it was probably so. Too bad for this waitress Jacqui was the one paying the bill. All of her cute smiles and batted eyelashes were for nothing. “Anything else I can get you?”
Morgan glanced at Jacqui, and at first, she was surprised. “Anything else you need?”
She glanced at him and was sure her face held a shocked expression at his manners. “No, I’m fine. Thank you.”
He glanced back up at the waitress, but this time his smile, while still there, held less of the flirt Jacqui came to expect from him. “I think we have what we need. Thank you.”
The waitress offered a polite, “My pleasure,” and then scooted off.
“Shall we eat?’
Jacqui realized she still stared at him, so she gave herself a mental shake and forced a smile onto her lips. “Yes, please. It smells delicious. Do you like seafood?”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
He could tell he threw her off, and that pleased him to no end. Of course, Morgan was smart enough to not show it. Now was not the time to be cocky. It would only piss her off more. Neal would kill Morgan if he managed to screw up and lose the contract after he was the one who landed the gig in the first place. It wouldn’t hurt anything for him to play nice with Jacqui Karston for a bit. He could always track down that waitress after Miss Uptight left.
“I prefer steaks, to be honest, but seafood is a nice change of pace. I’m very low maintenance when it comes to food. Being a bachelor living alone, I tend to eat on the fly mostly. Fast food joints, sadly, are my chefs. Do you eat out a lot?”
“No. Sophia, my housekeeper, cooks for my father and me. He moved in after becoming paralyzed in an accident. However, I am also forced to attend quite a few functions and business dinners, trapped into eating quite a few things I’d rather skip.”
“I’m sorry to hear that about your father. That has to be rough.”
She gave a slight nod. “Mom passed away from breast cancer a few years back, so it’s just Dad and me. A little over a year ago, he was hit by a drunk driver. The damage to his spinal cord was severe enough to cost him the use of his legs.”
They talked between bites, each using the other’s words as a time to chew and swallow. He was genuinely sorry for what she went through with her father. He couldn’t imagine taking care of a parent. They were the ones who took care of their kids. Parents were too often taken for granted, because they were always there. Most people never thought about the time when their parents wouldn’t be there to talk to or bail them out of their poor choices. Both of his were still alive and extremely active. Yet, although they lived close to him in Orlando, he rarely saw them. He used the excuse that he was just too busy, but the truth was he was just plain lazy. He was so wrapped up in Morgan Brewer that he didn’t really make time for those who weren’t in his direct line of sight. It was a fault of his, he knew, but one he had never managed to change. Tunnel vision was his downfall.
“Still, seeing your parent like that can’t be easy. I’m not sure what I would do. Do you have any siblings to help out?”
She toyed with the rice on her plate, making streams through it and then piling it back up in a heap. “My brother lives out west, but he’s too busy to pitch in. Bryan only has time for Bryan, but when he needs something everyone had better drop and run to his aid.” She shook her head as she put her fork down. “I couldn’t do that. Life is about helping others, especially family.”
Morgan nodded. “Is that the reason behind the community center? Your way of helping the people around it?”
She stared at her plate as she leaned back in her chair. At first, he didn’t think she would answer him, but then she spoke as if from a distance. The passion he came to associate with the project seemed to be doused a little. “It’s about giving people a safe place to come together and get to know those around them. We are strangers who live beside each other. I want to change that. People need to know who they can turn to when tragedy strikes; they need a rallying point. I want the community center to be that for people.” She glanced up, and he saw the pain in her eyes. “People should never feel alone. With over forty-four thousand people in Biloxi, people should always have someone they can turn to in their hour of need.”
Her voice held a dull pain as if she knew what she spoke of, as if it was from personal experience. “Sounds like a very noble cause,” Morgan said. “I’m glad Rutherford is a part of it.”
She gave a weak smile as she reached for her water glass. “Now you know why it’s important to me and why I don’t want anyone working on it who can’t take it as seriously as I do.”
He scooped up some leftover fish. “I would have thought it was because it bore a family member’s name. Named after your daughter, right?”
Her face went pale, and he knew he had stepped into an area she held close to her chest. She gave him a nod as she spoke. “She was my daughter. She died with my husband, Marc, in a plane crash a little over two years ago. Something went wrong with one of the engines, and they crashed north of I-10.”
Morgan stared at her, and everything took on a new understanding. This was personal. Very personal. “I’m sorry. Truly.”
She glanced back at her glass and gave a soft nod. Morgan saw the beginning of tears in her eyes as they glistened right at the corner. There was more to the story, but she wasn’t about to tell him. Not yet, anyway. Whatever it was she wasn’t saying, however, was her motivation for everything she did. It was more than just a sense of loss and wanting to honor her dead daughter. It was something much deeper. He just glanced at Jacqui, offering her his most encouraging smile. “We’ll make it the best community center anyone has seen. I can guarantee it.”