Chapter Two

Deborah stood at the bay window, looking out at the aspen leaves flickering and flashing in the September sunshine. They had always reminded her of a mass meeting of butterflies, even when the tree had been a skimpy sapling eight years ago. That fall all but three of the “butterflies” had flown away. The three that remained had turned a bright red and had hung on through the fall months like nervous survivors of a long battle.

Deborah had watched from the window as finally, one after the other, they had drifted to the ground in the blustery winter days. She had felt a chilled sense of loss. The desiccated leaves had made her think of the three elderly friends who had once drunk champagne together beneath the rosy lights of chandeliers. They, too, in the succeeding winters, their grips on life broken, had followed one another in death.

She tensed when the knock came at the door and left the window to slip several sketches into a portfolio lying on the orderly desk. “Come in,” she called.

The door opened, and Bea Talbert entered. She said after a brief, compassionate silence, “They’re ready for you, Deborah.”

Deborah smiled wryly. “You say that as if I’m being summoned to hear my sentence. So the jury is in place, is it? Any idea of the verdict?”

“Sorry. Can’t help you there. How do you feel?”

“Scared. I don’t want to lose this one, Bea.”

“You won’t, sweetie pie. Now come here and let’s have a look at you.”

Deborah walked around the curved cherry desk and submitted herself to the critical eye of a woman whose maternal regard she had enjoyed throughout the last eight years.

“You look sensational,” Bea pronounced, fluffing at the bow of Deborah’s silk blouse. “That suit becomes you. You don’t have a thing to worry about. Once those men get a look at you, they won’t be able to deny you anything.”

“How I wish you were right, Bea. But I’ve learned that when it comes to businessmen, nothing can compete with the bottom line. What I’m counting on is the strength of those designs winning us this bid.” Deborah tucked the portfolio under her arm and followed Bea out. Together they walked down the corridor to the conference room.

“What’s the weather like in there?” she asked.

“Stormy the couple of times I’ve been in. The men were discussing the fate of your friends’ establishments. They were all talking at once, and Randall had to rap for order.”

“Oh, goodness. Well, were they for keeping them or razing them?”

“Honestly, Deborah, I couldn’t tell. The pros and cons sounded evenly divided to me.”

“What did Daniel Parker have to say?”

“Nothing. Just sat back and listened. He keeps his own counsel, that one. The others seem to treat him deferentially. I’d say that if you can sell that big fellow, you’ve sold the others.”

“That’s what I think, too. What’s he like?”

Bea sighed. “The kind of man who makes me wish I were twenty years younger. You don’t see many of his kind anymore. He’s not a handsome man, just very striking and—dynamic. It should be interesting when you two meet.”

“Bea, you’re an incurable romantic. I was asking about his temperament, not his looks. And you can forget about any fireworks between us. Daniel Parker will have his mind on one thing only in there today—business.”

She was certain of that. Deborah always researched the background of potential clients before designing a building as part of a Hayden bid. Research on Daniel Parker had revealed that the man lived and breathed only for making money. He was both a developer and a builder, having started his own company almost before he had graduated from college. Although she had uncovered little about his origins, he had apparently grown up in poverty. She had learned little else about him except that at thirty-eight he was still a bachelor and an addicted jogger. This last information had inspired her to include an indoor running track on the top floor of the building she had designed for his corporate headquarters when he moved his business from Phoenix to Denver.

The problem today had arisen when the Parker Corporation purchased a block of Cutter Street as the site for its headquarters in a proposed business complex. Learning of the sale, Deborah had gone immediately to Randall to ask if the firm might submit a bid for the project. He had been surprised and asked why, saying that the firm already had more business than it could handle, Deborah in particular.

Because, she had explained, Josie’s Bar and Fred’s Paper Shack sat juxtaposed in the center of the block. The buildings were leased by two colorful downtown characters who had become good friends of hers, and if another firm got the contract, their places of business could be razed right out from under them. Couldn’t she at least sketch a preliminary workup of the area to show how the business complex could be designed around the two structures, thus allowing them to stand?

Well, as Tony Pierson often said, “Whatever Deborah asks, that she shall receive.” Randall had approved her reasons and had praised the sketches. The firm had drawn up a mortgage package and had submitted a bid for the project. She was being summoned now to defend retaining the two little businesses when neither had shown much profit for years.

“Well, here we are,” Bea said cheerfully as they approached the wide double doors of the conference room. “Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Deborah replied, taking a deep breath between the hammer beats of her heart.

“Then let’s go get ’em, tiger!”

  

It was the moment for which Randall Hayden had been waiting all morning. He was not to be disappointed. Bea Talbert, his trusted secretary for twenty-five years, had an appreciation for the dramatic and a sense of timing that seldom erred. All heads turned as the double doors opened. Bea, assuming her haughtiest pose, stood momentarily in the doorway, her large elegant figure blocking from view the young woman behind her. “Gentlemen,” she announced coolly, “Deborah Standridge,” and stepped aside to leave Deborah framed in the doorway.

Perfect! thought Randall, clamping down hard on his pipe to keep from smiling. He never failed to be entertained by the reactions of other men to Deborah’s beauty. She had a marvelous face and figure, her poise and carriage giving an illusion of greater height than she possessed. All but one of the five men were rising quickly to their feet, squaring shoulders and adjusting coats. Dan Parker rose slowly, almost reluctantly.

His reaction—or lack of it—puzzled Randall. The strongly carved features, the level blue eyes, revealed nothing but merely retained the inscrutable reserve with which he had earlier greeted the storm of protest arising over one aspect of the mortgage package. “Let’s wait and hear out the architect,” had been his comment. The others had taken it as an admonition and gone to other matters. Now Randall, observing his stony regard of Deborah, felt a cold apprehension. He went to her quickly and placed a protective arm about her shoulders. With the pride of a father, he made the introductions. He left until last the presentation of his protégé to Dan Parker.

There was a moment of silence as the two extraordinary people shook hands. “Miss Standridge,” the builder acknowledged simply, his deeply modulated voice a proper accompaniment to his impressive size. “You’ve put together quite a package. Mind answering a few questions about it?”

“That is why I am here,” she answered a bit stiffly, at once judging him to be the kind of man who would rebuff an attempt to charm. The gray hair was definitely premature, but somehow it suited him, she decided, noting the contrast with his clear blue eyes and darkly tanned skin. He had the power and presence of a mountain. Mountains were among her favorite things, but this one was discomfiting. She had the impression that she was trespassing on unfriendly territory.

Withdrawing her hand, she looked about for a chair. Clayton Thomas, introduced as a banker from New York, quickly pulled one out, smiling broadly. “Don’t be afraid of us, Miss Standridge,” he said urbanely. “We never eat lovely, auburn-haired young architects before lunch.”

“In that case I’d better hurry to satisfy your questions before then.” Deborah smiled, taking a seat.

Polite laughter, joined by all but Daniel Parker, lightened the atmosphere. At the head of the table, Randall set down his pipe and laced his long, sensitive fingers together. “The gentlemen would like to know, Deborah, why you feel it necessary to preserve Josie’s Bar and Fred’s Paper Shack on Cutter Street.”

“You can understand our concern from a businessman’s point of view, I am sure,” explained Clayton Thomas smoothly. Of the group, he had been the most hotly opposed to allowing a dingy little bar and newspaper stand to remain on the site intended for an important business center. After all, it wasn’t as if either of them were an historical landmark! “Josie’s Bar and Fred’s Paper Shack would detract from the appearance of the other buildings, not to mention the financial liability they would be to the corporation until the deaths or retirements of the tenants. As you have mentioned in your report, neither of these two tenants can afford to pay the lease once the project is completed. The corporation would have to absorb the cost of their rents. And then with the demise or retirement of these two people, we would be left with two white elephants on our hands.” He gave Deborah the flash of his smile to soften any sting his words might have. She was a knockout, and he still had two evenings left in Denver before returning to New York and his third wife. She would probably welcome the opportunity of wooing his vote.

One of the other five spoke up. “Personally, I think your designs are wonderful. Beautiful as well as functional. But it seems absurd to me that you would want to build them around those two straggly businesses.”

“What the consensus here seems to be, Miss Standridge,” interposed the deep voice of Dan Parker, “is that they would be costly eyesores. We’re asking you to explain why they shouldn’t be leveled with all the other original structures on that block.”

Their eyes met. Deborah saw something in his she could not fathom. Dislike? Disdain? Perhaps he was one of those men opposed to women in business. He seemed the type. She glanced quickly at Randall before replying. He gazed back at her benignly, unperturbed. The slender fingers still lay peacefully entwined.

“Gentlemen,” Deborah began quietly, addressing the group as a whole and avoiding the steady eye of Dan Parker. “Have any of you visited either place?” Their expressions affirmed that they had not. “I think you would find that Josie’s Bar would never be a white elephant. It would require some renovation, certainly, when Josie Peabody retires, but the structure itself is in excellent shape. You shouldn’t have any trouble leasing it as a bar. The interior alone would lure prospective tenants.”

“Even with competition from the bar of the hotel we’ll be building on the block?” questioned another of the five, a heavy-set man with a pugnacious manner.

“A different crowd frequents Josie’s,” Deborah answered. “In Denver, most bars cater to occupational groups. The factory workers who have drunk beer for years in Josie’s would never feel at home in a hotel cocktail lounge.”

“What about Fred’s Paper Shack?” asked another member of the investment group. “There we’re not talking about a great deal of floor space. We’d have to knock out walls to accommodate another type of business concern.”

“Not necessarily,” Deborah argued patiently, happening to glance at Dan Parker as she reached for her portfolio. She realized suddenly that the man’s incisive attention was not really focused on her replies but was focused on her personally. Yet there was not a trace of admiration in those clear blue eyes. What was he thinking about?

Discomfited again, she drew out a number of sketches and passed them around the table. “These are preliminary drawings of business possibilities that I feel would prosper in that space,” she said. “It’s an ideal location for a stationery and card stand, craft shop, boutique, or exotic foods shop. Even a small bookstore would probably do very well there.”

While waiting for the men to study the drawings, Deborah cast a brief look at Randall. He gave the head of his urban planning department a quick wink and reached for his pipe.

“All right,” Dan said, “you’ve given us the commercial arguments for retaining them. What are your personal ones?”

Deborah shifted in her seat, vexed by the blunt tone. He was indeed a profit-motivated businessman, and she wasn’t winning him. “Those are harder to sell but just as important. The families of Josie Peabody and Fred Sims have occupied those two establishments since before the second World War. The businesses were legacies handed down to the present tenants. To the people who live and work in that area—I’m talking about the true city dwellers, not the suburban commuters who will be working in your buildings—Josie’s Bar and Fred’s Paper Shack are an integral part of their lives. A morning couldn’t begin without buying a paper from Fred or end without a beer in Josie’s. And those patrons represent more than just a livelihood to Josie and Fred. Since neither of them have any living relatives, they are like family to them.”

Deborah paused a moment. She had been addressing her remarks around the table but now directed them to Dan. “It would be impossible for those two to relocate as the other tenants on the block have done. The bar and Josie, the paper stand and Fred, are inseparable. You might as well try to move a tree without its roots. It wouldn’t survive. Neither would Josie or Fred.”

“You are asking us then,” said the heavyset man, “to consider the two establishments from the viewpoint of charity rather than economics.”

Deborah flashed an irritated look at the speaker. “Josie and Fred would be offended by charity. They’ve paid their dues to Denver, enough to allow them to live out their working lives in peace. Sentiment might be a better viewpoint from which to consider them. Sentiment and profits are not necessarily oil-and-water mixtures. They can occasionally be successfully blended.”

She thought she saw the briefest glint of amusement in the blue eyes across the table before Clayton Thomas drew her attention. “And how do you propose to blend the two, my dear?” he asked, smarting a bit from the little knuckle rap she had given them as businessmen. “The fact is that this corporation would be out a considerable sum on behalf of sentiment, let alone the inconvenience and costs of renovation when these people do retire.”

“Oh, Mr. Thomas.” Deborah could feel her patience giving way. “The favorable publicity the corporation would receive from allowing that pair to remain on Cutter Street would more than offset the sacrifice of the loss in their lease money or any further costs. Tenants would be standing in line to lease space from such a humane corporation.”

“How old are Josie and Fred?” inquired Dan unexpectedly.

“In their seventies.”

Again their gazes locked. The dark brows arched slightly, and Deborah was subjected to a short cryptic scrutiny before Dan diverted his attention to the head of the table. Deborah felt her heart drop. She had lost the case for Fred and Josie. “Randall,” Dan said, “would you care at this time to state the firm’s position on this matter?”

Randall was concentrating on re-lighting his pipe. He did not reply or look at his audience until that was accomplished. Deborah held her breath. She didn’t know if Randall would support her on this. She wasn’t certain she wanted him to. She had come to recognize the fact that architectural offices needed clients, profits, and growth potential for their own health and for that of their clients. If Randall was adamant about Fred and Josie, these men would simply take their business elsewhere. The city block and all its buildings were theirs to raze or preserve. If this corporation selected another firm to design its buildings, Fred and Josie would lose anyway, and so would Randall Hayden.

“Gentlemen,” began Randall, “the Hayden firm for the past eight years has been particularly committed to urban revitalization. Unfortunately that commitment has involved, more often than not, the tearing down of the old to rebuild the new. But in this case, I do not think it is necessary to destroy two viable and beloved business concerns. The uniqueness of a city, an inner city with a heritage like Denver’s, cannot survive when the Josies and the Freds are driven out. Miss Standridge has ingeniously shown you how you can build your complex around them, preserving their livelihoods and the familiar services they provide. And I agree with her. As much as this firm would appreciate your business, gentlemen, if you insist on razing those two buildings, the firm will withdraw the bid.”

A silence followed, broken by the sound of Randall pushing his chair back. He bestowed upon Deborah his mellow smile. “Thank you for coming, Miss Standridge. We’ll not detain you any longer.”

Acknowledging her dismissal, Deborah closed her astonished mouth and rose. Immediately, the men did likewise. She gave the group a strained smile. “Thank you for the courtesy of your attention,” she said politely, nodding to Randall and hurrying out.

Back at her desk, Deborah plopped dispiritedly into the chair and stared into space. Good Lord! She had just cost the firm a commission worth a fortune! If only she had been less abrasive, more charming. If only Randall did not believe in her so much! If only that Daniel Parker with his silver-gray hair and ice-blue eyes had not been so unmoved by her! What was with him anyway?

She bit her lip reflectively. She was unaccustomed to such indifference from men. Although she had never used her looks to win concessions in her field, she had to admit that today she would not have minded if they had influenced the discussion. So much was at stake. This one time she was not above using any advantage to win the contract and to save Josie and Fred from being turned out into the street. Well, so much for her looks!

“How did it go?” Bea demanded, poking her head around the door. Above it another one appeared. It belonged to Tony Pierson, a tall, loosely jointed young man with an engaging grin, a member of the team who had put together the mortgage package.

Deborah regarded the pair dismally. “Not so well, I regret to say. If I were a betting woman, I’d say we lost the ball game.”

“And just why is that, Deborah?” demanded another voice behind Bea and Tony. Its owner, a thin, sallow-faced man in a brown suit, pushed open the door to stare accusingly at the rival occupying the seat that should have gone to him five years before. “Could it be that Randall supported your mawkish regard for Fred and Josie and refused to sell the plans if their buildings are razed?”

“You know the man well, John.” Deborah sighed. “Randall did exactly that.”

“I swear, Deborah—” John raked a hand through his dry, characterless brown hair. “Randall would support you if you wanted to design a skyscraper on an ice floe!”

“Hardly a comparison to Deborah’s proposal,” Bea scolded sternly. “You ought to be proud of her—and of Randall’s stand. The Hayden firm would never be a party to the destruction of those establishments, not for any amount of money.”

Ignoring the rebuke, John continued. “Just what are you trying to prove with this crusade of yours, Deborah? Somehow it doesn’t fit the high society image we know.”

“That you know,” Tony contended. “The rest of us have no trouble at all in understanding Deborah’s regard for Fred and Josie—”

The loud clearing of a throat behind them ended the confrontation abruptly. Deborah stood up. At the door was another visitor, the suave Clayton Thomas. He entered the room, smiling smoothly, and Deborah wondered how much of the exchange he had overheard. “I do hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he said complacently.

“Of course not, Mr. Thomas,” said Deborah, coming from around her desk. “May I present my colleagues, Tony Pierson, who helped to prepare the bid, and John Turner, our chief structural engineer. Mr. Hayden’s secretary, Bea Talbert, I believe you know.”

After an exchange of greetings, Clayton turned to Deborah. “I thought you might like to know that the decision has not been made yet. We’re all to meet tomorrow morning for a final vote after a good night’s sleep on the matter.”

“Very sensible, I am sure,” John agreed readily.

“I’ve a question or two to ask you, Miss Standridge, if you don’t mind.” Clayton said pointedly. Taking the hint, Deborah escorted the others to the door.

“See if you can salvage it, will you, love?” murmured John as he was leaving. “I’m sure you’ll think of a way.” She shut the door on his insinuating smile.

Turning back to Clayton and suspecting what was coming, Deborah asked, “What questions do you have?”

“One, will you have dinner with me—so that we can further discuss this business—and two, will you introduce me to Fred and Josie this evening? I don’t want to cast a vote without having met them. I thought it might be enlightening to have a nightcap in Josie’s Bar. How does that sound?”

“I’d like that,” Deborah said without hesitation. “Except that I’m not free for dinner. I’d be happy, however, to meet you for a nightcap at Josie’s. I can’t promise that Fred will be there, but he usually is.”

Clayton was careful to conceal his disappointment. After all, a half loaf was better than none. “Wonderful!” he exclaimed with false heartiness. “Since I’ll not have the pleasure of your company for dinner, I’ll dine alone at my hotel. I am at the Brown Palace. Do you think you could pick me up in the lobby at nine, and we can go to Josie’s together?”

With as much grace as she could manage, Deborah agreed. “I am delighted.” The financier beamed. He held out a well-manicured hand and clasped hers for a long, warm minute. “I look forward to a lengthy discussion afterward.”

Deborah allowed a brief smile to suffice as a response and led him to the door. When he was gone, she sighed wearily, under no illusion as to why Clayton Thomas wanted her company this evening. Clients had exerted this kind of pressure on her before when the Hayden firm was bidding with others for the same contract. She had learned that the simplest response was to make herself unavailable. But Clayton Thomas had outmaneuvered her by asking to meet Fred and Josie. They were a ploy to have her company for the evening, of course, but there was a slim chance that the irrepressible pair just might sway his judgment in their behalf. It was worth a try.

  

“Oh, my dear—” breathed Clayton reverently as he took her hand in the magnificent rotunda of the Brown Palace Hotel. “Your dinner date probably threw himself on the floor and howled after you left him tonight.”

“He’ll survive.” Deborah smiled, amused at how close Clayton had come in describing Dempsey’s reaction to her desertion. Dempsey shared all of her evenings. He was an immense black Labrador retriever picked up as a stray from the roadside shortly after her arrival in Denver. Flopped rug-like on the floor of her bedroom, he had looked at her woefully as she dressed, his intelligent eyes watching every flick of the makeup brush. “I won’t be gone long, Demps. That I can promise you,” she tried to console him. “Maybe Josie will send you a treat.”

Clayton’s eyes danced over the abundant richness of Deborah’s auburn hair falling loosely to her shoulders. Earlier in the day she had worn it in a chignon at the nape of her neck, very smart and feminine, but he much preferred it this way. She wore a sleeveless, high-necked sequined sheath in autumn gold and carried a complementing shawl. “I must say,” Clayton said, seeming about to pounce, “that you look—well, ravishing is the only word that comes to mind.”

“You are too kind,” Deborah said impersonally. “We must hurry out. My car is parked out front, and the doorman isn’t too thrilled with me for leaving it there.”

“Any man would be thrilled with you for anything.”

Really? thought Deborah cynically. Put that in writing in the form of a signature on a Hayden contract.

For a Thursday night, Josie’s bar was doing good business. A sizeable crowd, including a number of the strapping regulars who worked in a bottling factory one block away, filled the smoky room, keeping the carrot-haired woman behind the bar busy. Clayton’s eyes narrowed against the smoke, assessing the value of the hanging Tiffany lamps, solid brass fittings, mahogany bar and booths, and decided that he could be persuaded to allow Josie’s Bar to stay. His decision would depend on the young woman beside him. He winced as the proprietress spotted them and let out a gravelly bellow of welcome.

“Deborah, lass, what a wonderful surprise! Come on up here to the bar. Make way there, lads. Move down a couple of stools. That’s right. Here’s a pair for ye, Deborah, all nice and warm. Fred!” Josie bellowed toward the end of the bar. “Look who’s here!”

A man of short stature, whose outdated, wide-lapeled suit hung from his spare, arthritic frame, thrust a head out from the group discussing the fate of Cutter Street. A wide smile broke across his face when he saw Deborah. “Lovey!” he cried, disengaging himself to join her and the sleekly handsome fellow whose air of superiority was out of place in the friendly merriment of Josie’s. What was she doing with a fellow like him anyway? He was too old for her. “How goes it with you, my girl?” He hugged her hard, delighting as always in the clean, youthful smell of her. “Who’s this feller?”

“Clayton Thomas, Fred Sims. And this is Josie Peabody. They were the first friends I made in Denver.”

“Really?” said Clayton interestedly. His curiosity was piqued. How did a refined woman like Deborah Standridge come to have such devotion to a pair of seedy characters like these? “And what circumstances led to that? I must say, Deborah, you don’t seem the type to frequent bars.”

“Ye’d be tellin’ the truth there!” averred Josie, rolling her eyes as well as her r’s. Her father had been Irish, a fact that explained her brogue and speech patterns. “Tell him how it happened, Fred.”

Deborah looked on in amusement as Fred straightened his shoulders to tell the story of how they had met during her first week in Denver. “It happened to be a Saturday, and Deborah here, her car was parked down the street a ways. I happened to have strolled out on the sidewalk from my place of business next door, and I see these two roughies on motorcycles pull in on one side of her. The Lord only knows where they come from. We don’t see their likes around here too often. Anyways, I watch as Deborah comes out to get into her car to see if these two fellers who are lollin’ about on the hood are gonna move. Naturally, when they get a look at her, they don’t. They took the keys right outta her hand as she went to unlock the door, and I knew that was the time to call on a few of the boys in Josie’s. Sam and Tim, them two fellers with the big shoulders at the end of the bar, they was two that was in here that day, and I rounded them up and a few others, and we went down to rescue Miss Deborah here. They had her pretty shaken up by the time we got down there, no cop in sight, of course. But I’m here to tell you them fellers didn’t want no part of what I brung out to Deborah’s aid. They took off mighty fast.”

“And what was the fate of the keys?” asked Clayton.

“We made ’em a deal,” said Fred. “A couple of motorcycles for a set of keys.”

“Oh, my. So the three of you have been fast friends ever since.”

Catching the patronizing note in Clayton’s voice, Deborah said unsmilingly, “Since then I have been grateful for the incident. Otherwise, I might not have known Fred and Josie. Neither would the friends I’ve brought here.”

“Which says something nice about you, Mr. Thomas. Are you new to Denver?” Josie asked.

“No, I’ve been here before, a number of times. I’m here on business at present.”

“What kind of business are you in?” asked Fred politely.

“Banking.”

“Oh?” said Fred encouragingly, waiting for Clayton to continue.

On the stool beside him, Deborah stirred uncomfortably, and Clayton smoothly changed the subject by remarking on the mirrors that covered the wall behind the rows of liquor bottles. “They must be expensive to repair when things get out of hand on Saturday nights,” he suggested, folding his hand around Deborah’s. He gave it a conspiratorial squeeze to let her know he wouldn’t let the cat out of the bag.

“Never had one broke yet!” Josie said proudly. “We don’t allow no hooligans in here. There’s enough regulars around most nights big enough to persuade a rowdy customer to take his business elsewhere.”

“About the size of that big feller comin’ in the door.” Fred nodded toward the reflection in the mirror. “Except that he’s never been in here before, has he, Josie?”

“Not to my recollection,” she said, gazing over Fred’s shoulder. “What’ll you have, Mr. Thomas? You look like a scotch and water man to me.”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head, Josie. Deborah?”

“Deborah likes a creme de menthe this time of night,” Josie answered for her.

On the stool, Deborah had stiffened. In the mirror she caught sight of Dan Parker’s silver-streaked head as he made his way toward them, casually dressed in gray sweater and slacks. Clayton had seen him, too, and readied his smile, gripping Deborah’s hand tighter when she tried to draw it away. “Hello, Dan,” he said affably, swiveling around to greet the tall builder. “Fancy meeting you here.”