by Jada Ryker
Jacobs looked around in confusion. “Who? Mrs. Armstrong? What are you talking about?”
Marisa patted the trembling pink shoulder. “The lady you just shoved away is Mrs. Armstrong. And the upset woman in the wheelchair is her best friend, Mrs. Ryder.”
As Mrs. Ryder backed up her wheelchair to take another shot at inflicting further damage on her dapper target, Marisa lunged forward and gripped the wheelchair’s armrests.
“These shoes cost me a bundle and now one has a wheelchair tread across it! Not to mention the pain! You’ll pay for this!”
Marisa’s generous mouth curved into a conspiratorial smile as she met Mrs. Ryder’s enraged glare with a slow wink. “The last time I couldn’t hold her back, Mrs. Ryder managed to ram the armrest of her wheelchair into an especially sensitive, masculine area of her target, if you catch my meaning. I heard the poor guy squeaked his apologies to her for months afterward.”
Marisa twisted her head and watched Jacobs’ face turn from red to purple. She thought he was going to lose his temper, complete with fireworks and sound effects, right there in the hospital corridor.
When he managed to bank his rage, Marisa wondered if he had a brief vision of the old harridan emasculating him with her wheelchair. Teeth gritted, he growled, “I’m sorry, ladies. No offense intended.”
Proud of herself for not adding a well-placed stamp to his injured foot, Marisa smoothly continued the tour through the rehabilitation wing and on through the emergency department.
When they ran into Payton Reed, the chief executive officer, Marisa stopped. As she listened to the innocuous remarks between her boss and the auditor, she wondered at the carefully veiled hostility between the two men. Feeling the tension edge over her skin like gritty water, she couldn’t help contrasting them. While Jacobs was twenty years younger, perfectly groomed, preppie handsome, and whip thin, Reed was short and as thickly muscled as a body builder. While the planes of Reed’s face were as attractive as the younger man’s, they were harder and more determined. If the two were ultimate fighters, Jacobs would skulk around the ring with brass knuckles hidden in his hand, while Payton would charge right in for the kill.
Engrossed in her whimsical comparison, Marisa jumped at the gentle touch on her arm, as if she’d been caught in an embarrassing act.
“Marisa!” The hiss was accompanied by an insistent tug on her arm.
Marisa allowed herself to be pulled away out of earshot of the practically growling males.
“I saw you stop to talk to Payton, and I had to run to catch up with you…no small feat on these high heels, no pun intended!” Her curves were accentuated by a tailored jacket and skirt, cut from stretchy material designed to emphasize, not hide. With her long legs flowing from the short skirt to the high-heeled pumps, Tara looked better suited for a classy nightclub catering to young professionals, rather than a trauma hospital. Although Tara had stopped drinking and attended alcoholics anonymous and other support group meetings, she still pushed the envelope with her sexy clothing at work.
“Tara, you buy shoes like other people buy milk or bread! Remember that time I rode in the back when a bunch of us went to lunch? Your entire back seat was filled with shoe boxes! I felt like I was in a shoe store! I think you need a twelve-step group for your shoe addiction!”
As she and Tara laughed together, Marisa noticed Jacobs’ hot gaze raking her friend. It definitely was not the first time Marisa had worried Tara’s low necklines and short skirts, combined with her flirtatious behavior at work, would hurt her friend’s career. She also worried the clothes were the spiraling slippery slope to other, more destructive behaviors. After futile arguments with her friend, Marisa had realized she could do nothing except be there for her as a source of support.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“You’ve been sober forever, Marisa. Let’s have a girl’s night out.” Tara’s scarlet mouth curved up. “I’ll give the party the same time and attention as a full-fledged marketing plan—”
“A marketing plan?” The insinuating tones intertwined between Tara and Marisa like a reptile slyly seeking the best strike point. “Hmmm, let’s see…Is exposing your breasts your plan to increase physicians’ referrals to our hospital? Oh, wait, I forgot, you’ve already done that.” A full-grown rattlesnake would have been less venomous. “Perhaps stage two of your marketing plan is to open up for business south of the border.”
“Linda!” Tara’s grin was fierce. “You do have a way of slithering, I mean slipping up on people.” Her green gaze flicked negligently over the bone-deep lines of discontent pulling the case management director’s mouth and brows down. Her gaze continued over the pear-shaped body wedged into a white uniform dress like ten pounds of potatoes in a five-pound bag. Tara bared her teeth. “Speaking of business south of the border, is that what you’re up to with your online profile posted on various dating websites?”
The round face fell in shock. “And what business is that of yours, missy?”
“Wow, Linda, you’re looking for love online?” Marisa’s mouth dropped open in unladylike shock. Linda Borders was like a chained dog, straining against her bonds to find freedom and excitement. Ironically, the chains which held her seemed to lead to her snapping attitude, which in turn kept wary hands from entering her circle of imprisonment. It was an endless cycle.
“More than just looking, right, Linda?” Tara’s pretty face was a picture of inquiring innocence.
Her face as lumpy as if a child had tried to form her features out of clay and then tired of the task, Linda glared at Tara. “What are you, a freaking detective?”
“I have my sources. So, how was your date last weekend?”
The uneven features flushed red. “How did you know? Did you hack into my email account?”
“Of course not. Your victim, I mean date, posted the details. Since Reginald wrote about a first date with a case management director of a trauma hospital, it had to be you. He has a link to your profile. That picture looks like it was taken twenty years and a hundred pounds ago.”
Linda’s clenched fists dug into her fleshy hips. “He obviously was more into looks than personality.”
“Rule one of online dating is the food must match the picture on the menu. Truthfulness is a personality trait and has nothing to do with appearance.”
Like an incensed snapping turtle, Linda’s mouth furiously opened, and then closed.
Tentatively, Marisa extended a metaphoric hand to Linda. “What if you wore something other than your white uniform, white head band, and white orthopedic shoes? Color could liven up your appearance.”
Tara stared at Marisa as if she’d lost her mind.
Ignoring Tara’s disbelief, Marisa continued. “A trip to the hairdresser and the nail salon would round things out nicely—”
The vicious jaws clamped down, figuratively leaving Marisa with a bloody stump. “You two would take me out and I’d end up looking like Tara. My dress hem would hike up to indecent exposure, and my plunging neckline would reveal my cleavage. God forbid if I had to lean over and pick up something, since my breasts would fall out of my top at the same time my ass came out from under the skirt.”
Tara gasped in outrage as the wicked maw slashed her.
Marisa’s mouth opened to defend her friend.
Linda’s face transformed from her habitually distasteful, I-smell-something-rotten pucker to a gentle and dreamy moon face. Her eyes reflected an agony of miserable hunger and desperate need, and her clenched fists opened as if in supplication.
The sassy retort died in Marisa’s throat. Automatically, she followed the other woman’s gaze.
Linda was staring at Payton Reed.
In the shock of epiphany, Marisa met Tara’s eyes.
Linda Borders was in love with the gruffly attractive administrator.
As if she had been caught in a shameful act, Linda’s face splotched red with embarrassment. She stormed down the hallway.
“Wo
w, what an amazing transformation!” Tara breathed as soon as Linda was out of earshot.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“She’s obviously in love in Payton!” Tara shook Marisa. “And you were ready to help the caustic-tongued bitch. You know she’s always looking for opportunities to shoot us and the other managers down to make herself look better. Why did you even waste your breath trying to help her? I guarantee new clothes and painted nails wouldn’t help her snare Payton. And he’d be the last to thank you for it.”
Towering over her petite blonde friend, Marisa felt like a German shepherd harangued by a cute little Pomeranian pup. “I keep thinking there’s a gentle core under the holier than thou attitude and constant snippiness.”
“Honey, she’s a case of bitch to the bone.” Tara glanced over toward their boss and the auditor. “I should have known she had a crush on Payton. Remember the last Christmas party? Through a mixture of harassment and threats, I managed to get you out of your dowdy women’s wear and into that slinky green dress.”
Marisa rolled her eyes. “How can I forget? Most of my chest was exposed. I thought about using my dinner napkin to hide it.”
“After dinner, you were talking to Payton near the cash bar. He was holding up his end of the conversation with your breasts—” Tara ignored Marisa’s squeak “—when Linda approached you two, pretended to stumble, and tossed the contents of her punch glass directly into your cleavage. You had no choice but to go home, leaving the field with Payton clear for Linda.”
Marisa shook her head. “Tara, you’re incorrigible. Next you’ll say Payton is secretly pining for me, just because he was checking out my chest.”
Tara frowned, her brows meeting in calculation. “No, if I had to say someone was secretly pining for you, I’d guess it was Alex.”
Marisa sputtered, not sure whether to laugh or throw a hissy fit of outraged temper. “Alex Caldwell, our chief financial officer? He’s a major pain in my ass, as I am sure I am in his. He acts as if a miniscule budget variance is of such major importance, the world will end unless it’s immediately resolved.”
“I agree, he’s a pain in the ass. He’s a busybody and his nose is shaped like a pointer. But even pains in the asses have soul mates running around somewhere.”
Marisa was beginning to feel cranky. “Are you saying I must be a pain in the ass, since it would take one to be Alex’s soul mate?”
Tara’s mouth opened in surprise and she squeezed Marisa’s arm. “Payton looks so furious, I think he may stroke out any second. And Jacobs is gleefully keying stuff in his phone with his thumbs.”
As Jacobs headed toward them, his gaze zeroed in on Tara and her bosom, and Reed stalked in the opposite direction like an angry lion, Marisa gave Tara a gentle shove. “Scoot, before I have to introduce you! He’s looking at you like you’re a juicy pork chop and he’s a hungry hound dog!”
Too late. Marisa had to perform the appropriate introductions.
Jacobs managed to pull his gaze from Tara’s breasts to her face. “By the way, Ms. Ross, how do you pronounce the capital of Kentucky? It sounds as if the natives are saying ‘Looville’ or ‘Looieville.’”
Tara’s smile was feral. “I don’t know about you, Mr. Jacobs, but I pronounce the capital of Kentucky as ‘Frankfort!’”
Valiantly resisting the urge to crow, Marisa led Jacobs back through the rehabilitation wing and the lobby to her office. “Next on your list is Alex Caldwell, our chief financial officer.” She waited while he stuffed his thin computer into his bag, and slung the strap over his shoulder. “Don’t forget your umbrella.”
“Marisa!”
At the panicked tone, Marisa jerked around.
“You can’t go in Marisa’s office without being announced!” Brandon’s smooth features twisted in distress, he gripped the intruder’s arm. The customer services director was obviously trying to hold the taller man back, but he was dragged into the office like a grass sack full of turnips.
“Get off me!” The interloper shook his arm, trying to free himself.
While Brandon hung on to the other man with grim determination, the young man grabbed Marisa and shook her. “Marisa, the graveyard…you’ve got to come with me now…the headstones, the mist, the trees made the perfect backdrop…the stories of ghost sightings…”
“Jonah!” Marisa squeaked. She compared the current chaos with the past few months of order. With a flash of insight, she realized she had distanced herself from Jonah and the kaleidoscopic disorder he left in his wake as she found increasing confidence in the comfortable structure of her life over the previous months.
Normally cool to the point of impassivity, Jonah’s thin, pale face was distorted in terror. His dark eyes behind the purple lenses of his silver, square-framed glasses were wide with shock. His thick brown hair was tousled, rather than styled in the usual carefully moussed spikes.
Feeling she would regret getting involved, Marisa nonetheless reached out and grasped his arms. His beanpole-thin body was shaking under her hands.
Marisa met Brandon’s frantic eyes. “It’s okay, Brandon. I’ve got this.”
Reluctantly, the receptionist gave up his brief security guard duty, and released Jonah. With a parting glare at Jonah, Brandon headed back to his post. “You call me if you need me, Marisa.”
Jacobs idly pulled at his flexible watchband. “Instances of wayward children taking up employees’ valuable work time are never favorable on an audit. Especially imaginative children babbling about ghosts and monsters!”
Jeez, I forgot all about him, Marisa thought in chagrin.
The horror faded from Jonah’s face as he focused on the other man.
Jacobs sneered. “Perhaps you should put your son in time out so he doesn’t interrupt the adults in their work.”
Jonah focused on the other man and put one long, slim finger to his full lips. “You know, I saw a guy in a strip club last night who reminded me of you.”
Jacobs laughed in derision. “Wrong guy. I’m new in town.”
Jonah’s eyes narrowed in speculation. “That’s odd. I’ve seen him in the club many times over the past year or so. He had on shades and a baseball cap.”
“That’s a definitive description.” He pulled at the metal watchband.
Jonah smiled, showing even white teeth. “I never saw his face, but he had an annoying habit of plucking at his watch band.”
Jacobs snapped himself with the band.
Marisa had to hide her smile. “Jonah, I’ll call you later.”
With a wary look at Jonah as if he was a skunk armed with a missile of stench, Jacobs held up his hand. “No need for him to leave. I can find my own way to Mr. Caldwell.”
As soon as the auditor hurried out, Jonah collapsed into the chair in front of Marisa’s desk.
“You’ve obviously been at the nursing home this morning. Whenever you visit your grandmother, you always wear your standby gray suit. I suppose it was easier for you to give into her demands for you to look nice, rather than defy her. Although I must say, you look quite spiffy—”
“Marisa, shut up!”
She fell back into her chair in shock.
“I need for you to be quiet and listen. Besides, I don’t even know what ‘spiffy’ means.” Jonah’s half-hearted attempt at humor failed.
Marisa threw her hands up in surrender.
Jonah leaned forward. “You are not going to believe it!” A tiny trickle of perspiration traversed Jonah’s forehead in an irregular slide.
Marisa’s gut clenched. In all the time she had known Jonah, she had never seen him sweat. “Wait. Let me get the door—”
Jonah sputtered in frustration.
Marisa hurriedly negotiated the narrow space around her desk, pushed at the door, and scooted back into her chair. Fleetingly, she felt the warmth of sun on the back of her neck through the open blinds on her window.
Jonah straightened in his chair, and gripped the arms with his hands.
She leaned forward on her desk, the pinched edges of Jonah’s sharply angled face gleaming in the sunshine streaming through the window at her back. “Jonah! What on earth is going on?”
“Marisa, you are not going to fucking believe this.” He sprawled in the chair, his head back on the seat, his hands pressed to his eyes.
A quiet creaking sound sent Marisa’s eyes to her office door. Damn, she didn’t push it closed hard enough. It was ajar, and she knew she and her visitor would be clearly visible through the glass panel. On the other hand, there was no one to see or hear. Janie, the human resources secretary, had been laid off after the last round of Payton’s budget cuts, and the outer office was empty. Marisa shrugged. Since visitors to her office always announced themselves, she decided to leave the door.
Slowly, as if he was an old man rather than barely twenty-one, Jonah rose. He planted his palms on the desk and stared down at Marisa. “I’ve gotten myself in too deep, Marisa. I—”
A tremendous explosion ripped the air. Dimly, Marisa saw Jonah tumbling forward toward her in slow motion, his eye wide with surprise.
His eye?
His thin body fell onto the desk, knocking the phone aside with a clatter, and slid in slow motion to the carpet. Marisa raised her hands to her face and found with a dim, thick-as-molasses astonishment it was wet under her quivering fingers. She brought her hands away from her cheeks and found them shockingly, incongruously red.
Choked and shaking, her voice was the only sound in the strangely silent room: “Dear Lord above.” Her eyes focused beyond her hands to the top of her desk. “My desk is red.”
Marisa’s trembling hand hit the phone, knocking it to the floor. The harsh sound fell on Marisa’s frozen stasis like a pebble tossed into a mirror-still pond. The ripples waved out in her mind, forcing her to think beyond the incomprehensible red and the one astonished brown eye which filled her mind to the exclusion of all else.
