That good-looking face was currently blank of all emotion as he studied her. She had a horrible flash of how she must look to him, standing there, hair on end, makeup ineptly applied, coffee staining her blouse. On the upside, at least it's buttoned correctly.
Addie wanted to laugh, but the sound that came out was more like a croak. Another followed and she realized she wasn't laughing at all. Just the opposite. The dam had finally cracked. Since getting the news that her brother and sister-in-law had died, she hadn't been able to fall apart. There had been the kids to think of and her parents to console, funeral arrangements to make, a house to sell, a storage facility to rent…At another time in her life, maybe her lover of three years dumping her might have warranted a good cry, but she'd pushed aside her anger with Christian the same way she'd repressed the grief for her brother. And now it all seemed to be welling up within her at once.
"Ex-excuse me." Not sparing the handsome stranger another glance, Addie did what she'd secretly been wanting to do ever since the call from the Coast Guard. She fled.
* * *
"OH, HONEY." JONNA WILDER'S voice on the other end of the cell phone was two parts sympathy and one part self-flagellation. "I knew you were having a hard time, but I guess I've been so wrapped up in Sean…. You know what it's like in that first blush of love when you can't get enough of each other?"
Not really. Blowing her nose with the toilet paper she'd pulled from the dispenser, Addie tried to remember if it had been like that with Christian in the beginning. Maybe? She dimly recalled that he'd been a good kisser—nice technique—but in the past year they hadn't kissed much. Their sporadic love life had dwindled to bing-bang-boom, more habit than passion.
Even though she still thought it was callous timing to ditch a girlfriend when her life was in the midst of upheaval, she was starting to grasp that he'd probably done her a favor in the long run.
"You're entitled to have a life," Addie assured her friend. "Plus you get full credit for answering your phone this morning and talking me off the ledge." Metaphorically speaking. She wasn't even sure the windows in her seventh-story office opened. Instead, she'd escaped to the ladies' room which had remained mercifully empty for the ten minutes during which she'd cried so hard she thought she might throw up and then dialed Jonna's cell. Her friend worked in the administrative offices of an art museum and was still making her morning commute.
Aside from the fact that Addie could just imagine Pepper smirking her way through the implementation meeting Addie was currently missing, she felt surprisingly better. More centered. Emptier, but in a good way, as though she was no longer carrying around a ticking bomb.
"Glad I could help," Jonna said. "I should probably be doing more, but I have less experience with kids than you do." She was the oldest of three unmarried sisters, none of whom had children.
"Don't worry about it. They're my responsibility and I'll figure out something. I just need a way to…connect with them more." She might not be able to chat with Nicole about current movies and politics—well, she could, it would just be a one-sided conversation—but Tanner was old enough to have established interests. As a kindergartener, he'd played both autumn and spring soccer last year. Was it too late to sign him up for a league this fall?
"Let's all have dinner some time this week," Jonna suggested. "Tomorrow night work for you? My treat. Not one of our usual places."
They tended to meet at Michelangelo's on Westheimer for special occasions like birthdays or promotions and one of the nearby La Madeleine cafés for quicker lunches and dinners.
"What did you have in mind?" Addie asked.
"One of those obnoxious pizza restaurants with kiddie rides and video games and employees costumed as large furry animal characters."
Addie thought about the potential noise level and seizure-inducing flashing lights. Then she thought about the possibility of seeing Tanner laugh. "You'd willingly spend an evening in a place like that?"
"That's how much I love you, babe."
"You are a true friend. Now that you've helped me regroup, I should get back to work." And probably poke her head into the break room to make sure there wasn't a puddle of coffee on the floor. With the way her luck was running, someone would slip and sue her butt.
Would the golden-haired stranger still be there?
She was relieved to discover that no, he was gone.
Thank God. It was not in Addie's nature to self-destruct like she had and knowing he'd witnessed it made her feel uncomfortably vulnerable. She'd prefer never having to face him again.
* * *
BEHIND THE MASSIVE MAHOGANY desk sat a suitably massive man. Bill Daughtrie was over six foot three and so broad-shouldered that his suits were probably custom-made. He'd been working on his MBA while Giff was an undergrad, and his thick, wavy hair had turned prematurely white in the past few years.
"As far as anyone here knows," Bill Daughtrie said, "you're contracted to be with our IT department for a few months, running the network forensics project. But I'd prefer to have this matter settled in the next three to four weeks. If I'm still losing bids three months from now…"
"I understand." Giff's usual creed was to stick with a job until it was completed to the client's satisfaction, but if he hadn't found anything within a month, it was unlikely he was going to find anything at all. And while he had some downtime in his professional schedule right now and flexibility in being self-employed, he couldn't juggle this with his other jobs indefinitely.
Bill had explained that he'd lost four major projects in the past year all to the same rival, even when he'd deliberately altered his bidding formula on the last one, cutting deeper into potential profits than he ever had before. The would-be client had later confessed that, in the current economy, he couldn't afford not to choose the lower bidder, but that he wanted Bill to know it had been a close choice between the two. Suspiciously close.
"I don't mind healthy competition," Bill added with a scowl, "but this is dirty pool and I have no intention of going down without a fight. Since you're the new guy, you can look at employees more closely than I can, under the guise of 'getting to know' them. Once you've compiled any findings for me, the legal team and I will take it from there. Hard evidence is, naturally, my dream scenario, but we'll start with just noting bizarre behavior."
Giff flashed to the redhead he hadn't quite met that morning. Did screaming an expletive and running from the room qualify as bizarre?
It did in his world.
His mother, his only family since his father died, was a woman who possessed a lot of poise and quiet strength. In her fight against cancer, she'd shown amazing courage. Giff's ex-fiancée, Brooke, had been cut from a similarly stoic cloth. Raised in a family of drama queens, Brooke had set herself apart by measured, rational actions. Meeting—and subsequently falling for—Jake McBride, Giff's childhood best friend, had cracked her composure, but it was still difficult for Giff to imagine Brooke in the same state as that poor woman today.
She'd been a mess.
And Giff was so unused to that kind of display, he'd had no idea how to react. For the few seconds they'd been in each other's company, he'd mostly stared, nonplussed. After her startling exit, he'd thrown away her dropped cup and cleaned up the coffee on the tile floor. Then he'd reported to Bill, who'd given him a tour of the offices before this final one-on-one briefing. Bill was catering an early lunch of sandwiches and chips in the large conference room so that Giff could start meeting people, then he was expected to sit down with his "team" at noon.
"I'm more experienced getting information from computers than people," Giff reminded him. He'd already asked Bill for the security clearance to do a network audit of object access. "But I'll try my best on both fronts."
"I know I can count on you," Bill said approvingly. "After all, you know what it's like to be betrayed."
Giff arched an eyebrow. "I'm self-employed. I don't quite follow the comparison."
"I wasn't talking
about business, son."
Giff was mildly amused by the epithet that he knew to be more regional than literal. The other man couldn't be more than five years older.
"Your engagement," Bill elaborated. "Heard about it. Can't believe that gal, to say nothing of your—"
"Don't believe everything you hear," Giff said with a tight smile. "Brooke and I parted ways amicably. I wish her and Jake all the best." It should have occurred to Giff that gossip would run rampant. Houston might be the fourth largest city in the country, but his mother was a socialite and he was active in Houston's business community. People talked—they just did it through text messages instead of over backyard fences.
Not that it was any of "people's" business, but Jake McBride himself had helped Giff see that proposing to Brooke had been as much a knee-jerk reaction to his mother's illness as it had been to affection for Brooke. Oh, Giff was entirely fond of her, but it hadn't been deep and abiding love he'd felt.
Am I even capable of that? As an only child of two devoted parents, he'd had a front row seat to what real-life romance could look like. Of course, he'd also seen it ripped apart when his father died. Giff thought that, in the abstract, he wanted what his parents had shared. But maybe he didn't have the kind of courage required to take that risk because aside from in-the-moment desire, the most he ever seemed to feel for his girlfriends was vague warmth.
Maybe I'm the emotional equivalent of beige. A depressing notion.
Then again…He recalled the red-haired woman with the trembling hands who'd looked to be in the throes of some sort of emotional meltdown. I'll take beige and dignified over that any day.
Chapter Three
Even though the lunch spread was pretty pedestrian, mostly turkey on rye from a nearby deli, Addie grew ravenous at the sight of the food. Apparently, crying your eyes out worked up an appetite. She felt as if she hadn't been hungry in weeks and the sudden rumble in her stomach was a welcome change.
I'm back! After her embarrassingly late arrival to the morning meeting, she'd been able to contribute some good points that had had her coworkers nodding in agreement. Then she'd called to find out that, yes, the local soccer league was still taking applicants through the end of the week. The woman on the phone had said, however, that they'd been having a problem drumming up enough parent volunteers to coach.
"Experience isn't necessary," she'd stipulated. "This isn't a supercompetitive league where we play with referees and scoreboards. The emphasis is on the kids getting exercise, learning the fundamentals of the game and having fun."
On impulse, Addie had agreed to coach. After all, hadn't she been looking for a way to bond with her nephew? This was more doable than Plan B, taking her nephew on an intergalactic trek to find Yoda so they could train as Jedis together.
Only a few hours after her panicked phone call to Jonna, Addie had managed to regroup professionally and personally. Now she planned to chow down and meet the new project manager, dazzling him with her team spirit and helpful input.
Reaching for one of the deli's signature pickle spears, Addie became aware of an increased buzz in the conversation around her. Bill Daughtrie's name was mentioned. As much as he traveled and as busy as he stayed, even when in Houston, he didn't come to every meeting, especially not to introduce a contract worker who'd be gone before the holidays.
Telling herself that it wasn't eavesdropping if people were going to have their private conversations a foot away from her, Addie listened to Robert Jenner express exactly what she'd just been thinking.
"So either Daughtrie thinks there's something important about him or about this particular network project. What do we know about the guy?"
"They're both A&M alumni," Pepper answered. "And 'the guy' is Giff Baker."
Addie recognized the name but was still trying to place it when Jenner asked, "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"
Pepper snorted. "It might if you ever opened the Chronicle to anything but the sports page. Baker's from a wealthy family, has a longstanding relationship with several local charities, was supposed to get married this summer but the wedding was called off, and he's credited as having something of a Midas touch, doing some very successful consult work with dozens of corporations throughout the state."
Although Addie should only be concerned with his business achievements, since he would temporarily be the person she reported to at work, the wedding part snagged her attention. So he, like Addie, had been engaged? It sounded as if he'd been a lot further along in the process and she found herself wondering idly if he'd been jilted or if he'd been the one, as Christian had, to walk away.
"Good morning!" Bill Daughtrie entered the room with a booming greeting. Bill was the type of man who frequently boomed. "I see most of you have already started to dig in—please, keep eating. I just wanted your attention for a moment. To introduce Gifford Baker, who has agreed to temporarily act as a project manager in IT. Some of you are probably already familiar with Giff's record of excellence…"
The rest of Daughtrie's words were drowned out by the buzzing in Addie's ears when she noticed the tall man at the CEO's side. It was the hot guy from this morning.
Oh, hell.
Even though she hadn't said the words aloud, the hot g—her new boss suddenly turned to her, brows raised over his green eyes, as if he'd heard exactly what she was thinking.
* * *
GIFF WASN'T THAT SURPRISED to see the volatile redhead again. After all, he'd deduced from her presence in the break room that she probably worked here. But she certainly looked stunned to see him. After her first wide-eyed reaction, she'd ducked her head immediately to her plate of food. Yet even as Giff was shaking hands with the people Bill introduced, he was aware of the woman's gaze furtively returning to him.
Whenever he entered a company's environment, he went out of his way to put people at ease. Mostly, people were happy to have his expertise, but occasionally they were more territorial. He'd won over plenty of temporary coworkers who hadn't been initially welcoming. Should he go speak to her?
On the other hand, the last time he'd talked to her, she'd bolted from the room, so maybe he should let her finish her sandwich in peace.
As it turned out, he needn't have worried about the right tactical approach to take. She approached him. Giff was in the midst of conversation with Bill and a dark-eyed woman named Pepper when he sensed the redhead close to him. She cleared her throat delicately.
"Ah, Addie Caine," Bill said. "The other invaluable lady on our IT team. Addie, meet Giff Baker."
Automatically, Giff stuck out his hand. Looking reluctant but not having any gracious alternative, she took it. He didn't think the jolt that went through him was from the benign contact of their fingers. Instead, as her gray eyes locked with his, he was jolted by another type of contact altogether. He found himself searching those eyes for any trace of this morning's tears and felt seized by the unlikely urge to wipe them away. Her expression was determined, as was the tilt of her chin. What had made such a determined, and by Bill's accounts, capable woman seem so…broken this morning?
"Mr. Baker." Her voice was rich and husky. "Pleased to meet you. I wondered if—I apologize if this is rude—I might steal a second of your time?"
There was no way he'd deny his curiosity by telling her no. "If you'll excuse me a moment, Bill?"
"Naturally." Bill let loose one of his hearty laughs. "After all, I'm the one paying for the grub and I haven't had a chance to eat any of it yet."
Only half-aware that Pepper was glaring her displeasure at the way this woman had swooped in to monopolize his time, Giff followed Addie to an empty corner on the far side of the room.
He kept his voice low. "So you're Addie."
"You were probably expecting something like 'Sybil.' Or 'Ophelia.' She was pretty loony there at the end," Addie muttered to herself. "Mr. Baker, you caught me at a bad moment this morning. And I want you to know, that never happens. Ever. Which leaves me with no experience in
putting it gracefully behind me. I'm not asking for any kind of preferential treatment, I just…Is it possible for you to evaluate me on the same merits as everyone else on the team, as if you'd never seen me before? I promise I'll prove myself. I'm a consummate professional."
She sounded matter-of-fact and not boastful in her sincerity. Unlike that Pepper woman who'd somehow managed to rattle off her résumé highlights twenty seconds after their introduction.
"Of course," he agreed. "Clean slate going forward. Everyone's entitled to one bad moment, right?"
She exhaled a sigh of relief. "Thank you. You won't regret that decision. I really am—" She broke off, glancing down in surprise. Then she fished a phone out of her trousers' pocket. "Sorry. My phone was on vibrate. I have to take this. Addie Caine speaking."
The gentleman in Giff wanted to fade back into the crowd, giving her privacy for her conversation. But wasn't it Giff Baker, budding corporate spy's, job to snoop? So far, Addie was definitely the most erratic character he'd met. Besides, there was nothing stopping her from moving away if she didn't want him to overhear.
Instead, she stood rooted to the spot, her face paling. "He did what? Are you sure? No, I—Yes, of course. I understand. We—I'll be right there." With a decisive snap, she folded her cell phone in half and turned wide gray eyes on Giff. "I'm sorry, I can't stay for the meeting. I have to go."
She was already striding toward the door before he could ask for an explanation or find out how her ditching their first team meeting fit into the definition of consummate professional.
* * *
ADDIE SWERVED INTO A PARKING space. She'd driven to the elementary school on autopilot, tamping down all her emotions and thoughts in favor of concentrating on traffic and streetlights. Now that she was here, however, she noticed her hands had started to shake. Tanner, in a fight? She was absolutely horror-stricken by the idea.
Back when he'd been more playful, he could be over-exuberant at times. It wasn't unheard of for him to accidentally knock something over or run into someone because he'd been battling imaginary foes instead of watching where he was going. But he'd always been so sweet-natured, extra gentle and patient with the baby. I've only had them three weeks. Surely I haven't screwed them up already?
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