Rick shook his head. He put his pencil down and stood up straight. He pulled Amy toward him and held her head against his chest. She couldn’t help thinking about the fine graying hairs just the thickness of a cloth away from her face.
“Look Amy,” he said. “I need to explain something. There was something I didn’t understand, something that was standing in my way of letting you in. Letting you into my life, but especially letting you become the partner you should be.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “Your father?”
“Yes. I guess my mother told you I had always blamed her for stealing his business, for driving him away. I think I believed you would do that, too.”
Amy nodded, her face rubbing against the buttons of his shirt. “I know,” she said. “But I really don’t think it was that.”
Rick pulled away and frowned into her eyes. Amy figured he either suspected her of mindreading or overreaching. How could she know more about what was going on in his head than he did?
“That might have been what you thought you were afraid of,” Amy continued. “But I believe it was something simpler: you were afraid that you would fall in love with a woman who would leave you like your mother left your father.”
“But Beautiful Betty did leave me, and I hate to tell you, it didn’t break me up much.”
“Maybe that’s because you expected it.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Maybe.”
“And just how much did you love her?” Amy asked. “At the end, I mean. Did it feel like this?” She pointed at herself and at him and back at herself again.
“No, never,” he admitted.
She smiled and laid her cheek back against his chest.
“So will you stay?” he asked. His voice was a whisper.
“I’ll give it a try,” Amy answered quickly. “I’ll give you a chance. But I can’t do it unless you can accept the fact that you love me as much as you love your work.”
“I do.”
“And unless you let me share your work as well as your love. Do you think you can do that?”
“I’m going to try to figure that out,” he said. “In fact, I want very much to figure that out.”
~
By three-thirty in the afternoon, they had a rough sketch, a rough budget, and a plan for dividing the project’s work between them: negotiating the contract with Marlena, hiring an architect, getting permits, arranging financing, and managing construction.
“So you think this is a good plan?” Rick asked Amy, as he sat back and made a neat pile of the documents they’d started.
“I am not sure,” she said, “but it feels good. I’ve never had the chance to work on a project from start to finish like this. It’s pretty exciting, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and a bit frightening,” he said. “You will learn something at every turn, and lots of times, it won’t be something you knew you didn’t know. But as my new COO, I think you’re up to the task.”
Amy blinked. She got up from her chair at the table and walked to the window and looked at the darkening mountain to the west edge. Amy Prentiss, COO. That sounded nice, she thought, but it wasn’t as big of a thrill as she thought it would be. Combined with Rick’s love, however, it packed a pretty powerful punch.
“Oh, damn!” Rick suddenly exclaimed. He jumped up. “Do you suppose we can finish tomorrow morning?”
“Why? What’s the sudden rush?” Amy turned away from the window.
“I have something I have to do before five,” he said.
“What?”
“You’ll see,” Rick said, sitting down at his desk to gather his billfold and sunglasses from a drawer. “Right now, we have to go.”
“I’m going with you?”
“If you want to.”
“But where?”
“We’re going to pick up Busker.”
Amy felt as if her insides were melting and gathering in a pool on the floor at her feet. She had loved Rick since that first day they met—that day he picked up Busker in his Armani suit and rushed off to the emergency vet with him, as if nothing else in the world was more important than saving that mutt. Now that love had grown exponentially, and it seemed almost too big to hold inside.
“Do you have the phone number of the shelter?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said and pointed. “It’s here on the desk pad.”
Amy stepped to the other side of his desk, turned his desk phone around, pushed the speaker button on, and punched in the shelter’s number. While the phone rang, Amy reached up and started to unbutton her blouse leisurely. At first, Rick looked confused, and then he smiled, and sat back in his chair and watched.
“Palm Springs Animal Shelter,” a woman answered over the speaker.
“I’m calling for Rick D’Matrio,” Amy announced officiously into the phone’s microphone holding Rick’s eyes.
“Yes? Oh, no! He didn’t change his mind, did he? Did he decide not to take Busker?”
“Oh, no!” Amy finished unhooking the bottom button on her blouse and slid her arms out of her sleeves slowly. “Absolutely not. He’s just going to be an hour late. He’s trying to figure something out here at work.”
The relief on the other side of the phone was audible. “Well, tell him Busker will be waiting. He can’t wait to go home with him.”
“Well, tell Busker he’s not the only one,” Amy said and hung up. She moseyed across the office toward the door, holding Rick’s eyes over her shoulder.
She threw the lock, turned around, reached across Rick’s desk, and flipped off the intercom.
-END-
One Way to Succeed (Casas de Buen Dia Book 1) Page 20
