by Brenda Gayle
Hunter had figured out very quickly after returning to Santa Fe that her desire to have him back in the city was less about controlling him by providing him with the means to open his own restaurant than it was a simple desire to have family nearby. He was all she had left.
“Is your ear sore from being pressed to the floor all evening?” he asked.
She snorted. “That was hardly necessary with all the thumping and crashing and sirens going off.”
He grinned. “Yeah, not one of my better efforts. But really, Nan, you have to consider what I had to work with. The woman is a disaster.”
“Maybe you’ve spent so much time with Buffy or Muffy, or whoever the latest supermodel is, that you’ve lost the ability to deal with a real woman—one whose accomplishments extend beyond the boudoir.”
“Hey, that’s a low blow considering it’s precisely that reputation you relied on to raise money for your charity. It’s being seen with women like Barbie and Miranda that brings the media and the money. Besides, this was hardly my fault. The woman who showed up wasn’t even the one who won this evening at your auction—it was her mother or someone that I was expecting. I was totally unprepared.”
“Well, more fool you.” Libby headed into the great room, carefully stepping around the pieces of the shattered stepladder. “What would you have done differently if it had been ‘the mother or someone’ who had turned up?” She sat down in one of the straight-back chairs and motioned him to take the chair opposite her.
Hunter walked slowly so as to delay his response while he considered how best to answer her. The auction organizers had called it a “private cooking lesson” so the well-to-do wives of the city’s wealthiest would feel comfortable bidding on him, raising his price, and ultimately benefiting the charity. The not-so-subtle subtext called it a “date” and that was how everyone had approached it—everyone except Hunter and, he had presumed, his grandmother.
If the older woman had turned up Hunter would have done everything he could to make sure she had a good time. He would have flirted with her, flattered her, and made her feel like a goddess. Then, after he’d prepared an amazing dinner, he’d have given her a chaste kiss goodnight and sent her back to her husband.
All his plans changed when Nora showed up. Rather than a bored political wife, here was an attractive single woman. As soon as he saw her, a whole evening of possibilities opened up before him.
Hunter didn’t sit. He stood behind the chair, hands on its back, and smiled at his grandmother. “Older women and supermodels are very similar in their demands: they want to feel good about themselves and I’m happy to oblige.”
“Hunter Graham, if I thought for one second you were really that shallow, I’d throw you out of this house in an instant. I think you like what’s easy and Nora Cross is anything but easy.”
“And what do you know about Nora Cross except what you heard this evening?”
“Well, unlike you, I checked into the woman who was coming over for dinner.”
“Still in touch with your FBI cronies, are you? Must be handy.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic!” Her tone was sharp, but he could see humor in her eyes. “I Googled her.”
He was stunned. He could barely imagine his grandmother uttering the word Google, never mind her using the computer search engine to check up on people.
“Surprised?” she asked.
“Impressed.”
“I Googled you, too. And I have to say, Hunter, that I’m not too pleased by what I found. A reputation as a playboy is one thing, but—”
“I believe we were discussing Miss Cross.” Hunter had no intention of entering into a discussion with his grandmother about his social life. He was grateful that she’d helped him achieve his dream of owning his own restaurant, but that didn’t give her license to tell him how to live his life.
“Fine. Nora Cross grew up in Farmington. She never went to college. Instead she spent several years in Washington, as an aid to Congressman Sharpe, after she graduated from high school. You probably don’t remember, but Jordan Sharpe had a strong social agenda, including child advocacy. Miss Cross obviously shared his convictions. She returned to New Mexico about ten years ago to set up the Children’s Action Network.” She gave him a pointed stare, as if to remind him of his own, less noble reason for returning home.
When he didn’t rise to the bait she sighed and continued. “Since then, her group has been successful in improving the curriculum for elementary school children across the state as well as implementing healthy-eating programs within the schools. She’s also convinced the state legislature to tighten daycare licensing requirements and encouraged daycare centers to provide early learning opportunities for pre-school age children.”
Libby paused and looked meaningfully at Hunter. “Nora Cross is dedicated, determined, and serious. And she’s thirty-four years old and never been married.”
Libby made him feel like he’d messed up somehow. Nora had known all about her and his grandfather, and his grandmother had known all about Nora Cross.
He had been aware that his grandparents—particularly Stewart Hunter—were very influential in New Mexico’s political circles, but seeing them through Nora’s eyes made them all that more impressive. And his grandmother’s revelations made the cell phone-addicted woman who had just left seem remarkably accomplished.
“Well you should have come downstairs and introduced yourself,” he said. “You could have started your own mutual admiration society. I’m sure the two of you would have had a lovely evening.”
He didn’t know why he was allowing Libby to get to him. He’d held up his end of the bargain. He had allowed himself to be paraded like a prize steer at auction and his grandmother’s charity had gotten a whole lot of money for his services. Sure, this evening had been a disaster—a little tough on his ego—but he’d never see the woman again. And it wasn’t my fault.
“Well, it certainly couldn’t have been a worse evening, now could it?” Libby chuckled.
She enjoyed baiting him. Normally, he’d be happy to engage in a verbal jousting match with her, but for some reason he wasn’t in the mood tonight.
“I’m going,” he said, slapping the back of the chair. “I’m assuming your staff will clean up the mess? Tell them I’m really sorry and I’ll make it up to them. What do you think? A case of wine? A large tip?”
“Don’t be vulgar. Of course they’ll clean up. And I don’t give a damn about the mess.” Libby was right on his heels as he stalked into the hallway. “I thought you were going to stay here tonight.”
“I’m not good company. I think it would be best if I go home.”
“Home?” Her tone was dismissive. “It’s a room in a hotel, hardly a home.”
“It’s an executive suite in the Roundtree Santa Fe—and it’s a very nice suite at that,” he said.
“It’s still only a hotel.”
“It’s the most exclusive hotel in this area of the country as you well know since you’re the one who arranged for my restaurant, Prime, to be its premier tenant.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” She waved her hand in irritation
“Do you have a problem with the Roundtree?”
Libby stared at him, seeming to wrestle with the question before responding. “That monstrous hotel doesn’t comply with at least a dozen city ordinances. Frank Hart just went ahead and did whatever the hell he wanted to, Santa Fe be damned.”
“The city allowed it.”
“No, by the time they figured out what was going on it was too late, as Frank knew it would be. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.”
Hunter was taken aback by the bitterness in her voice. He had grown up knowing the Hart family. Frank Hart owned a modest ranch next to Rancho Tres Hermanos, the Graham family homestead, but he was mostly known for his development activities and his ruthless pursuit of what he wanted.
“You admire him, don’t you?” Libby continued. “You admire his audacity, his love
of breaking the rules. It appeals to you.”
Hunter remained silent—annoyed by her accusations, but not quite disputing them. It wasn’t the breaking of rules that Hunter admired; it was the determined way Frank Hart went after what he wanted, no apologies, no regrets.
“I’m sorry,” Libby’s voice softened. “It’s not my battle to fight. What’s done is done. And yes, all things considered, it is a very nice hotel. But it’s not a home, Hunter. Someday, you will want to find a home of your own. I know it’s not going to be Casita Hunter or Tres Hermanos, but neither will it be an executive suite in the Roundtree Santa Fe.”
His annoyance dissipated as her tone softened. He knew her concern came from love and not discontent. He bent to kiss her goodbye. “I’m happy where I am, Nan.”
“For now,” he heard her whisper as he closed the door.
****
“I’m not saying we shouldn’t partner up, I’m just not convinced that working with the Texas association is a good fit,” Nora said. “They’re much larger than us and ideologically—”
“Look Nora, I accept your political sensitivities, but child advocacy is child advocacy. It’s not affiliated with any one party.”
Nora could hear the annoyance in Sylvia’s voice through the phone line. She knew she was pushing her luck, but she had to get the woman to understand. Philosophically, the chair of her board of directors was correct: the welfare of children breached party lines. However, there were real dollars and cents involved and Sylvia, as vice president of the publishing house contracted to produce the state’s curriculum textbooks, knew that better than anyone. In fact, Nora couldn’t help wondering if Sylvia wasn’t trying to expand outside of New Mexico. Texas would be a huge coup.
“Why don’t we try another state? Perhaps Arizona?” Nora said. “We could bring it to the board meeting next week—take the pulse of the other directors.”
Nora could hear Sylvia’s long, perfectly manicured, fingernails tapping on her stainless steel desk. She imagined the woman sitting in her professionally designed office, where the filing cabinets and bookshelves matched, and the couches and chairs were artfully arranged and complemented the color of the walls.
When she was bored, Sylvia could look down on the inhabitants of the city of Albuquerque from her twentieth-story window in the Plaza building. Nora didn’t begrudge Sylvia her position—she was sure she had worked hard to get there—but she did wonder if her chair had lost sight of the issues Nora faced every day. How much poverty and neglect could she see from twenty floors up?
Nora gazed down at her own government-surplus wooden monstrosity. The desk took up the majority of her cramped office. The rest was jammed with a row of army-green filing cabinets with sticky or broken drawers, and one spare chair that looked like a reject from an old sixties sitcom.
Just outside her door, her assistant, Becca, shared an only slightly larger space with a part-time accountant and the occasional student intern. The irony of working for a small non-profit association was that your very members were both more financially secure and more powerful than you could ever be. And yet, their expectations of the association were huge.
“It’s already been decided, Nora. I’ve worked it all out with the Texas chair and he’s sending their executive director, a William Bower, to Santa Fe to meet with you on Thursday.”
Nora took a deep breath. That’s it then. Better to give in gracefully than to further provoke the chair of her board. “Okay.”
“And Nora, don’t forget: you are our representative on this. It’s up to you to make us look good. The final report will be presented to the D.C. Senate committee—this is the Children’s Action Network’s chance to shine.”
Sure it was. Nora couldn’t see how her small association was going to shine next to the large Texas one, but she mumbled her agreement and hung up as quickly as possible. She’d figure something out. She had built this association from the ground up and there was no way she was going to allow Sylvia’s career aspirations to tear it down.
She glanced at her closed door. She’d kill for another cup of coffee, and maybe a muffin. She usually arrived at the office before seven, but this morning she’d arrived exceptionally early. Partly, it was because she couldn’t sleep—she’d told herself that her insomnia was the result of her desire to get hold of Sylvia and try to sort out this Texas debacle, but that wasn’t true. She knew Sylvia didn’t arrive at the office until nine o’clock sharp.
Mostly it was him—Hunter Graham. She cringed as she remembered what an ass she’d made of herself the night before. She had done an Internet search on him when she got home—an idle curiosity to kill time before she was tired enough to fall asleep—and had been shocked by what she’d learned. No wonder he’d been surprised that she’d ignored the Graham part of his name. He was one of the Grahams—the wealthiest cattle ranchers in New Mexico. There wasn’t a lot of detail about his family, although she did learn that his mother, Elizabeth, had been killed by a drunk driver, which may explain his policy of not drinking.
Hunter, however, was another matter. The online papers were full of stories about the heir-apparent to all of Rancho Tres Hermanos. Until he took over that role, though, it seemed he was determined to break the Guinness world record for dating. All his woman had two things in common—they were gorgeous and they were young. Heck, at twenty-nine he was young himself, although she conceded that he did carry himself with the maturity of someone older.
Scanning through article after article, she had trouble reconciling the on-the-town playboy with a passion for voluptuous blondes with the man who was at home in the kitchen and became enthusiastic over a hunk of beef.
When she’d finally shut down her computer to go to bed she felt even worse than when she’d left Casita Hunter. It was bad enough that she had almost destroyed his home—well, his grandmother’s home—but she cringed at the thought that he’d been forced to spend the evening with a woman who was so obviously not his type. That she’d even imagined he had tried to kiss her was ludicrous.
She kept replaying the evening over and over in her head, and each time it got worse. What the heck had Karen been thinking when she set this whole thing up? And Karen was another issue Nora didn’t want to deal with.
Her sister’s arrival in Santa Fe last fall had been a bit of a shock for the two of them. It’s not that they didn’t get along—it’s just that they didn’t really know each other nor have anything in common. Karen was seventeen years older, and had long since left home by the time Nora was even aware she had a sister. Now that they had the opportunity to get to know one another the relationship felt forced.
As soon as Nora had arrived at the office this morning she’d closed her door, unwilling to face the inevitable questions from Becca. She’d ignored Karen’s calls, too, allowing those with an incoming caller-ID of “no information available” to go straight to voice mail. Karen was the only person she knew with an unlisted phone number. She hadn’t even bothered retrieving the messages.
Her stomach rumbled. She definitely needed to eat something. She rummaged in her desk and came up with a bruised apple from last week. It wasn’t particularly appetizing, but if it meant she could delay having to leave her office it would have to do. She only had to last until Becca went out for lunch...
Three loud raps on her door broke her train of thought.
“Not now, Becca, I’m in the middle of something,” she called through the door.
The door opened anyway. Her heart sank as Karen marched into the room.
Karen stopped, looked around the tiny cluttered office, and raised an eyebrow. Another time Nora might have laughed at the incongruity of her stylish sister standing in the middle of her dumpy office. Instead, Karen’s sudden appearance irritated her beyond belief.
“Slumming it?” Nora asked.
Karen ignored the jibe. “I’ve never seen where you work before.”
“I don’t imagine you frequent this area of town much.”
Karen’s smile seemed sincere and Nora felt the tiniest bit of remorse for her comments.
“I haven’t spent much time in Santa Fe at all—but no, I haven’t made it to this part of town. Although, Robert and I have been hoping for an invitation to dinner.”
Well, you opened yourself up for that one, didn’t you? “It would be a tight squeeze to fit us all in my apartment. Besides, I’m not really sure my culinary skills are up to your standards,” Nora said.
“What about after last night? Are your, ah, culinary skills improved?”
Crap! I’ve done it again—opened myself right up for it. “I don’t want to talk about last night,” Nora said.
“Why not?” Karen stared at her, concern prominently displayed on her face.
“I just don’t.” Dammit, why do I have to sound like a petulant child?
“What happened, Nora?” Karen’s voice was soothing and she stepped around the desk to take Nora’s hands. She’d have made a great mother, Nora thought. Not like their own.
She had never discussed their parents with Karen. She wondered if Karen had had the same experiences growing up as she’d had. Of course, her parents had been much younger when Karen was a child. Karen had left home around the time Nora was born. Nora always had the impression her parents resented her existence—that her arrival had prevented them from...from what she didn’t know.
Were their parents the reason Karen hadn’t had children? Or was it simply that she was too busy supporting her husband’s political aspirations to have time for them?
“It was a disaster. I’m sorry Karen but I really blew it.”
“Nonsense. How could you blow it? Tell me what happened.”
“Okay, but you’d better sit down.” As she watched Karen round the desk and arrange herself in the white swivel chair with the bright orange flowers, Nora couldn’t believe she was actually going to tell another living soul about last night.
She didn’t leave anything out—well, maybe the bit about thinking Hunter Graham was the most gorgeous man on earth, but the rest was all there: the fall, the shattered antique step-ladder, the fire, the salty dessert, and her disastrous getaway.
