Boss Man

by Diana Palmer

  He put his forefinger over her mouth. “Shannon was pregnant when she died,” he said bluntly. “It was my child.”

  She didn’t look shocked, as he’d expected. He frowned.

  “Small towns,” she explained softly. “Everybody knows everything.”

  “You knew that?”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry it happened that way.”

  He drew in a long breath. “Yes. So am I. It was a blow that I never quite got over. Every time I saw Julie Merrill, it brought it all back. She killed another human being for no more reason than she wanted to be class president. She didn’t even seem to be bothered by it.”

  “There are people who feel nothing at all,” she replied. “I don’t understand it, either. But someday, she’ll pay for the evil she’s done.”

  “The sooner, the better,” he replied.

  She reached up and touched his cheek. “Did you know, about the baby?”

  His face went taut. “No. I’m not sure she was comfortable telling me about it. I was more adamant in those days about families than I am now, and that’s saying something. That made the guilt worse. I wondered if she’d been tormented, thinking I wouldn’t want the child. As it is,” he added heavily, “it’s a moot point. The baby died with her.”

  “Did Julie know?” she wondered.

  “I never asked. It would make no difference now. But I’d still love to see her lining up for payback, for the things she’s done. She shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.”

  “People don’t get away with things, Blake,” she said, sounding much more mature than she was as she looked up at him. “It may take years, even a lifetime. But eventually people who hurt other people get it back, doubled.”

  He traced her mouth softly. She made him feel comforted, safe, secure. He was a tough ex-special forces captain and he really did have the medals to prove it. But she melted him. He wondered if she had any idea what he felt for her. It was like what he’d felt for Shannon, years ago. Shannon. He saw her face, in the casket, white and still, her happy blue eyes closed forever. He felt sick.

  It wasn’t Violet’s fault, and when he saw her uncertain stare, he felt worse. He bent and kissed her tenderly. He was anguished, but he didn’t want her to think she was responsible for it. He was remembering Shannon, as he’d last seen her, when the light had gone out of the world. He had to get out of here, to have time to himself to come to terms with the past. “Get some rest. I’ll phone you tomorrow,” he told her.

  He’d promised lunch, but she could tell that the discussion about Shannon was wounding him. She only smiled. “I’ll look forward to it,” she said. “Drive carefully.”

  He nodded absently, turned, and went to his car. He didn’t look back as he drove away.

  Violet hesitated before she went back into the house. She wasn’t really worried. He wasn’t lying about their physical compatibility, and he did seem to want their child. But he hadn’t completely settled the past. He needed time, and she was going to give it to him. She wanted him desperately. But he had to want her just as much. He had to let go of the memory of Shannon.

  Somehow, she knew, he would manage that.

  She and her mother had an early night. She dreamed about the baby, and awoke feeling flushed and excited about the prospect of bringing a new little life into the world. She didn’t care which sex it was. She only wanted a healthy child.

  She wondered how she was going to manage to work and raise a family, or if Blake really wanted her to. She liked her job, but she loved the idea of being with her children while they were small, taking them places, reading to them, being with them. Her mother had given up work to be a stay-at-home mother, and she’d never regretted it. Violet knew that she would feel the same. If Blake had been a common laborer, and she had to work to help make their living, she knew she’d cope. But they were in different circumstances. She wanted to try it.

  As she walked into Duke Wright’s office the next morning, she noticed that her boss was looking uneasy. He glanced up at her approach, and he didn’t smile.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she asked uneasily.

  He shook his head. “Beka’s on her way.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Beka. My…almost ex-wife. And our son.”

  “Oh.” She put down her purse. “Do you need me to do anything?”

  “There isn’t much to be done,” he replied. He moved away from the desk with his hands in his jeans pockets. “I hope she meant what she said on the phone, that she’s willing to consider leaving Trent with me.”

  “Maybe she did,” Violet said, trying to be reassuring.

  He shrugged. “It’s just that she may change her mind if she finds out I’ve got Delene working here in the lab,” he blurted out.

  “Does she know Delene?” Violet wanted to know.

  He grimaced. “They only met once, at my college reunion. Delene didn’t like her, and it showed. See, Beka had barely graduated high school at the time. It was before she went back to college to get her law degree. Delene was in my graduating class—a science major, at that. She always was brainy.”

  Violet’s eyebrows arched. “Well!”

  “If she thinks I’m involved with Delene, she may take Trent right back to New York,” he said uncomfortably. “What can I do? I can’t very well fire the best biologist I’ve got!”

  “You could have Delene go off on a fact-finding trip to Colorado,” she suggested.

  He looked at her blankly. “Colorado?”

  “Isn’t the National Cattleman’s Association sponsoring some sort of workshop for artificial insemination experts this week?” she wondered.

  He pursed his lips. “Why, so they are! There was a brochure about it in the mail last week, remember?”

  “Yes, I do.” She checked her watch. “You could get her on a plane by noon, if you hurry.”

  He chuckled. “Violet, you’re a wonder!”

  “Just a suggestion, boss.”

  He sighed. “Now, if she’ll just go…!”

  “Ask her. But you’d better hurry,” she pointed out. “You don’t have much time.”

  “I’ll do it right now. Uh, those letters on the desk need answering, but I haven’t got a minute to dictate them right now. Just catch up herd records, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He was gone before she had a chance to even answer him. She sat down, amused, and turned on her computer. It was going to be an interesting day.

  Two hours later, she was deep in a spreadsheet program, listing daily weight gain quotas and measurements from the new bull yearling crop, when the door opened and a tall, blond woman walked in with a small boy in a suit in tow.

  She stopped short when she saw Violet at the desk. She frowned, and peered at the woman. “Do I know you?” she asked slowly.

  “Are you Mrs. Wright?” Violet replied politely, and then grimaced, because she was about to be the ex-Mrs. And that might not be a politically correct way of addressing her. Violet flushed.

  “I’m Beka Wright,” the other woman replied tersely. She moved forward, with the little boy. “Are you new?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Violet agreed. “I’ve been working for Mr. Wright on and off for just a few weeks.”

  “On and off?” Beka queried, while the child at her side fidgeted and leaned against her leg in its elegant black slacks above high heels.

  “Mr. Kemp fires me periodically,” she replied. “Or I quit. But I’ll be going back pretty soon, I guess, because we’re sort of engaged,” she added quickly, before the other woman could get the wrong idea about her presence here. She smiled shyly.

  “Blake Kemp is getting married?” Mrs. Wright asked. She felt her forehead. “I must feel worse than I thought. Or maybe I’m hearing things.”

  “No, it’s true,” Violet assured her. “We’re sort of having a baby.”

  “A baby. Now I know I need to sit down.” Mrs. Wright plopped into the chair in front of the desk and hoisted the l
ittle boy onto her lap. “Where’s my husb…my ex-husband?” she corrected curtly.

  “I think he drove Miss Crane to the airport,” she replied, and then could have bitten her tongue out for mentioning it.

  “Delena Crane?” Her face tightened. “What’s she doing here?” Beka demanded.

  “Uh, she’s going to a conference in Colorado. She’s a biologist.” She didn’t dare add that she worked for Mr. Wright, too.

  Beka relaxed, but just a little. “Does she spend much time here?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Not much, no.” Violet hoped she wouldn’t get in trouble for lying.

  “Good. I mean, I wouldn’t want my son around her,” Beka qualified. “She has an attitude problem. When will Duke be back?” she continued.

  Violet looked past her and grimaced. “Any second,” she murmured uncomfortably.

  Beka turned around. Duke Wright was standing in the doorway, his hat cocked low over one eye, his face as rigid as steel. And he wasn’t smiling.

  Eleven

  Duke moved forward into the room, his expression changing when he saw the blond-headed little boy in his wife’s lap.

  “Hey, Trent!” he called, grinning.

  “Daddy!” Trent struggled away from his mother and made a beeline to the tall man who waited, stooping, with his arms open. The child launched himself into them and hugged the man for all he was worth. “Daddy, I missed you so much!” he wept. “Why didn’t you come to see us in New York?”

  Duke looked tormented. He wouldn’t meet his wife’s eyes. He kissed the little boy. “I’m glad you came to see me,” he replied, smiling at the child. He looked up, meeting Beka’s dark eyes evenly. “Hello, Beka.”

  “Hello, Duke,” she replied, not quite meeting his accusing gaze.

  “I’m sure you have a motel room by now, but I’d love it if you’d let Trent stay here,” he said quietly. “I have a live-in housekeeper, Mrs. Holmes, who loves children. She’s a wonderful cook.”

  Beka seemed uncomfortable. “I…there aren’t…well, there isn’t a motel room vacant in Jacobsville…” She looked up at him.

  “You’re welcome to stay here, too,” he replied. “I just didn’t think you’d want to,” he added bitterly.

  “I can stand it if you can,” she told him. “Our suitcases are in the car. I’ll just go get them,” she said, rising.

  “I’ll have one of the boys bring them in for you,” he returned curtly. “If that’s all right,” he added unexpectedly, and without antagonism.

  Her thin eyebrows arched and she looked shocked. “Yes. That would be fine. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He put Trent down and smiled at him. “Want to come with me? I’m going out to the corral to get one of my cowboys. He’s working a new filly on a leading rein.”

  “What’s a filly, Daddy?” he asked.

  “A filly is a young female horse,” he replied. “She’s an Appaloosa. She has striped hooves and spots on her back,” he added with a grin.

  “I thought you sold all the Appaloosas!” Beka exclaimed.

  “Not all of them,” he replied. His eyes went over her red silk blouse and down the black slacks to her small feet in high heels. “You’re welcome to join us. It’s pretty dusty out there,” he added.

  She moved toward him, a little hesitantly. “Clothes can be cleaned,” she said. She took Trent’s hand. “I’d like to see her.”

  Duke’s eyes softened and he smiled. “She’s a beauty.”

  Beka smiled back, following the man and the boy out the door.

  Violet watched them go with hopeful feelings. She knew it had been a messy divorce, because she’d been working with Blake at the time. Her personal opinion had been that Duke Wright was an overbearing, unreasonable tyrant. She had no sympathy for him at all. A woman who married a man like Duke could expect to be owned like a horse. He never asked anyone else’s opinion; he gave his. He threw out orders like a military commander, and the first day Violet met him, she’d have liked to see him upside down in a barrel of dirty water.

  But he’d mellowed just recently. It was obvious that he was trying to be polite to his ex-wife, even if it was only to help his case with his son. Delene certainly seemed to like him. She grimaced. When Mrs. Wright found out who the new biologist was, she wasn’t going to be smiling. It was going to be an explosion of some magnitude…

  Blake had gone home in a black mood. Mee and Yow curled up beside him in bed that night and purred while he brooded. He couldn’t get that last vision of Shannon out of his mind, lying so still and beautiful in her white coffin. All the long years, he’d wondered if he could have saved her if he’d just agreed to go to the party with her. She’d asked him to, and he’d wanted to go, because even back then he didn’t trust Julie Merrill.

  But he’d had a court case the following Monday and he’d wanted time to work on his defense. While he was writing up gambits for his opening argument, Shannon was drinking a drug that worked like poison. He hadn’t known a thing about it until early the next morning, when her mother had phoned from the hospital to tell him the news.

  He’d gone around in a daze for weeks afterward. He hadn’t been able to think, much less work. His reserve unit, like Cag Hart’s, had been called up in 1991 when Operation Desert Storm sent soldiers to Kuwait to liberate it from invasion. He’d volunteered without a second thought, not at all concerned that he might die.

  He’d waded right in with his company, in the thick of the fighting, a captain in a forward unit. During a memorable firefight, he’d propelled a tank into the thick of an enemy position and used it like a battering ram to shut down a machine gun nest that was killing his men. He’d been awarded a Purple Heart, because he’d been wounded in the ensuing firefight, and a Silver Star for gallantry in action. Few people around here knew about it. He didn’t talk about his military service. Well, except to Cag Hart, who understood. Cash Grier was rumored to have been in Iraq during the same period, but it was a subject Cash didn’t encourage. He was even more reticent than Blake, and that was saying something.

  He tossed and turned all night, finally giving in around daylight. He got up and made coffee and toast and brooded at the table. Shannon, the war, all that was in the past. He couldn’t go back. For all the wonder he’d felt with her, there had never been the spontaneous rush of passion that he felt when he was with Violet. He and Shannon had loved one another, but with a quieter, less tempestuous love. What he felt with Violet was something else again, a whirlpool of delights that left him breathless even in memory.

  He thought about the baby. He wondered if it would look like him or like Violet, if it would be a boy or a girl. He could picture himself with a little girl on his lap, reading her bedtime stories, or with a little boy, showing him the telescope and distant planets, and teaching him about rocks. He loved rocks even more than astronomy. He had samples of crystals and meteorites and fossils and all sorts of minerals. He had a metal detector, and in his spare time he loved wandering around the property with it, looking for metallic meteorites. He’d found several over the years. He’d never told Violet about this odd hobby. He wondered if she liked rocks, too.

  He finished his coffee and stretched. The cats sat watching him, puzzled at his change of routine.

  “I couldn’t sleep. Don’t you have bad nights?” he asked them.

  They blinked. For all the world, they seemed to be listening. Of course, they seemed to watch television, too. Obviously, his lack of sleep was playing tricks on his mind.

  “I’m going to marry Violet,” he told them. “And there’s going to be a little tiny human being here in a few months. You’ll both have to adapt.”

  They blinked again. But this time they looked at each other and then back at him.

  He shook his head. He was doing it again, talking to the cats. Violet and the baby would be good for his mental health. Any day now, he was going to think the cats actually understood him.

  He got up and went to the s
ink. Just as he put his coffee cup and plate under the running water, separate sets of teeth dug into separate ankles.

  “Eyoowch!” he burst out, and started cursing.

  The two cats moved quickly away, in different directions, with their ears back and their tails as rigid as flags. He rubbed the marks, glaring after them.

  “I said, you’ll have to adapt and I meant it!” he yelled after them.

  They walked faster.

  He wasn’t going to tell Violet about this, he decided as he doctored the small incisions. She’d have him locked up before the wedding!

  When Blake went to pick Violet up at Duke’s house for lunch, neither Duke nor his wife and son were around.

  “Has she left?” he asked Violet covertly.

  She shook her head. “They were stiff and polite at first. Now, they’re walking around each other like wrestlers looking for a good hold.”

  He sighed as he tucked her hand into his and they headed toward his car. “I was afraid it might go like that. People don’t really change, you know,” he added thoughtfully. “They hide traits that bother potential mates, but bad habits always show up eventually.”

  She stopped walking and looked up at him with twinkling eyes. “Do tell? And what hideous traits are you hiding from me?”

  His own eyes twinkled. He bent down. “I’m a rock fanatic.”

  Her eyebrows levered up. “You like rock music?”

  He shook his head. “I like rocks. Meteorites. Fossils. Crystals. Right now, I’m keen on iron meteorites. I go out looking for them with a metal detector on weekends.”

  She began to smile. “I’ve got a box of projectile points in my closet,” she said. “I picked them up on my grandfather’s farm when I was a little girl. Some are big and some are little. I don’t even know much about them, but I treasure them just the same. And I’ve got quartz crystals of all sorts, from amethyst to rose quartz…!”

  He hugged her close, laughing. “Of all the coincidences,” he burst out.