by Mary Campisi
“Just answer the damn question.”
Kate flung her purse over her shoulder and scooted out of the booth. “I did answer it, just not to your satisfaction.” Rourke squeezed his eyes shut and massaged his temples as though he were in real pain. She’d gotten to him, no doubt about that. Why then didn’t she feel vindicated? Why did she feel small and petty, and sorry that she’d hurt him with her cruel words? She reached out to touch his shoulder. Why at this moment did she want to press his head against her breasts and comfort him?
She yanked her hand away. Good Lord where had that come from? She stepped back, anxious to put distance between herself and the subject of that horrible thought. Kate pressed her hands together to keep from doing something stupid, like touch him, and said, “Are you okay?”
He opened his eyes and stared at her. “Headache. Tension, I’m sure.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you physical pain.”
His lips twitched. “You’ve been causing me physical pain since the first time I saw you.”
Her insides quivered. That was something the old Rourke would say.
“I’m sorry, that was out of line.” He rubbed his left temple and said, “I never used to have to think about what I said to you. It just came out and you always understood.”
Maybe that was the problem, she understood what he was saying, and wished she didn’t. Kate shrugged and tried to ignore the confusion in his voice. “That was a long time ago.”
“I want to get to know you,” Rourke blurted out. The opaqueness in his eyes cleared and turned silver. “There’s fourteen years of mystery between us. Can’t you just share a little of that with me?”
“Why?” So you’ll leave again?
“I don’t know, call it gut instinct, but right now it’s all I can think about.”
He’d almost destroyed her once with words like those. She couldn’t let it happen again, no matter how tempting. “Don’t do this to me, Rourke. I’m not as sophisticated as your socialite girlfriends. I don’t do well with empty words and emptier promises.”
“They’re not empty words. They’re the truth. And I haven’t made any promises. Yet.”
He sounded sincere. He looked sincere, with his eyes glittering a silver honesty. She thought she knew him once, but he turned out to be someone she hadn’t known at all. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it,” she said. It was the best she could do.
Chapter 7
“Did he call you before he built his house, because this room’s in his house.”—Abbie Flannigan
Miles Gregory left Rourke two messages while he was at Sophie’s Diner with Kate. Rourke punched in Mile’s home number as he drove back to Montpelier Manor and waited for his lawyer to pick up.
“Miles Gregory speaking.”
“Working late?”
“Rourke. Where’ve you been?”
“Out. What’s wrong?”
“Mrs. Maden. Some well-credentialed attorney from New York has contacted her about representation in a wrongful death case. Rourke, we’re talking millions here.”
“I read the insurance and OSHA reports at least five times.” To be certain there was nothing the company could have done to prevent the fall. “They list Maden’s death as an accident.”
“I read the same reports, but there’s always room for a lawsuit, especially when a widow and a child are left behind.”
“I see.”
“How are you coming along with Mrs. Maden?”
Kate. “Actually, it’s a slow go. I’m still laying the groundwork.”
“For what?”
Good question. “I’ve got to build her trust before I can get information from her.”
“Well, do it fast. The meeting is set for next week. You need to get in her head before that.”
“Say she doesn’t budge and they sue. What’s our liability?”
“He’s a big hitter, he’ll go for millions. Then there’s the publicity. And you can forget the deal with Megatron and Logistics. That’s based on your overall safety rate.”
“So we take a hit for a while.” This was Kate they were discussing. “It’s not as though we’d be out of business. Hell, isn’t that why we pay insurance premiums?”
“When they’re warranted, yes. And you can expect the premium to skyrocket or they might even drop us. The man’s death was an accident. Why would we pay on it?”
“I’m not saying we would. I just want the information so I can figure out our options.”
“If they sue, there’s only one option. We do what we always do when somebody tries to take a piece of something that’s not theirs. We eliminate them.”
Rourke hung up and stepped out of his car. Kate had been driving a Toyota Corolla, six or seven years old from the looks of it. He wondered what she’d look like in a Lexus LS. What a mess. She didn’t trust him, which was obvious from the way she’d attacked him when he’d asked about her daughter. And inquiring about her feelings for Clay had been about the most asinine thing he’d ever done. Now he had to go prowling around and try to find out about some lawyer who was trying to convince her to sue him. Only she didn’t know it was him. Yet. She couldn’t find out he was Reese Construction. If she did, she’d never trust him, and right now, it was very important she did.
He fitted his key in the lock and stepped inside. The manor was starting to grow on him, especially Mrs. Gibson who was the niece of the couple who had owned the place when he’d lived in Montpelier. All he needed was a little more time with Kate and maybe—
“Where the hell have you been?”
Abbie leapt at him, arms crossed, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“It’s ten forty-five. Where have you been?”
Rourke didn’t know whether to laugh or brush her aside. What would a father do? He had no idea. He opted for the boardroom approach. Abiga—Abbie, I am the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation, am I not?”
“Yeah.” She started tapping her right foot. “So?”
Three quarters of the other Fortune 500 companies would bow in his presence if he let them, but apparently his thirteen-year-old niece did not understand her role here. Fine, he’d enlighten her. “Well, the CEO makes the rules, like the captain of a football team.”
“Lame.”
“And you are like Maxine.”
“That old gizzard.”
“That old gizzard is very important to me, but she doesn’t boss me around or even suggest I do something.”
“So?”
“So, in this relationship right here,” he pointed to himself and Abbie, “I give the orders, I make the rules, and you follow them. Period.” There.
“That is such bull.”
“Who pays your cell phone bill?”
She shrugged.
“And buys your clothes, and gives you a place to stay, and DVD’s, and—”
“Okay, I get it.”
“Good.” He hid a smile. This parent business wasn’t so bad. All a person had to do was employ reason, and levels of expectation.
“So where were you? ‘Cause I’ve been sitting here for hours, wondering if you got killed and I’d be stuck in this rat hole forever.”
Then again, maybe a person really did have to be certifiably insane to want a child.
“I was just getting ready to walk to Julia’s house,” she said. “She invited me to hang out tonight but you’d already left and I couldn’t remember your cell number and I thought you’d blow a gasket if I just took off.”
“Julia?”
“Yeah, she’s really cool. Her dad died a few months ago. Some kind of accident. She’s an only child, too, just like me, so we’ve got this instant bond thing going. Her mom makes these dollhouses. Kind of weird but Julia says they’re cool. I guess they’re miniatures of people’s houses, like with the same exact furniture and everything. Maybe you should have her make a copy of your house.” She giggled. “I’d like to see her put twelve flat screens in a dollhouse. Rourke
? You didn’t hear a word I said.”
Julia Maden. Kate’s daughter.
“Rourke?”
“I heard you, Abbie. I heard every word.”
***
“And all these little pieces of wood are what my mom uses to make the balconies and the stairs, and all that stuff.”
Rourke’s niece seemed genuinely impressed. She was a short, petite thing with spiky auburn hair and sorrowful, brown eyes set deep in a pale, narrow face. She had Rourke’s nose and his jaw. When she smiled, which wasn’t often, Kate thought she saw a bit of Rourke in that, too. She should have known Julia and Abbie would meet. After all, how often did a new person arrive in Montpelier? Abbie’s uncle was the reason Kate had a headache today. She’d slept a total of two hours last night because memories of him, past and present, bombarded her attempts to sleep.
“This looks like my uncle’s place,” Abbie said, pointing to the Victorian house Kate used as a display.
Julia gave her an odd look. “He has this house?”
“Yeah. Kind of.” Abbie walked around the dollhouse and peered inside. “Five bedrooms. Pond in the back.” She scrunched up her nose and whispered, “But he has this dorky heart tub in his bathroom.”
“Gross.”
Kate gripped the coffee mug in her hands. “A heart tub?”
“Yeah, a Jacuzzi. It’s pretty dumb, but he likes it, I guess.” She lifted a thin shoulder. “I told him he should have you make a miniature of his house because I wanted to see how you’d put all the flat screens in there.”
Kate was still puzzling over the tub. “I’m sure I’d figure out a way to add a few flat screens.”
Abbie looked at her the way Rourke used to when he thought she was in over her head. “He’s got twelve of them. Sixty-one inchers.”
“I see.”
But Abbie was already poking around inside the dollhouse, touching couches, spindles, wallpaper. When she reached the fifth bedroom, she stopped. “You knew Rourke when he lived here, right?”
Kate forced the word out. “Yes.”
“Did he call you before he built his house, because this room is in his house.” She squinted and leaned closer, a frown creasing her pale face.
He’d built the house they talked about? “Lots of Victorian homes have turrets. It’s very common actually.”
“But are they all this purple color? I mean, this exact shade? And this fireplace in the bedroom? He has this.”
Julia leaned over too and peeked inside. “I can’t believe somebody actually built that.” She straightened and eyed Kate. “Is he an architect or something?”
Before Kate could answer, Abbie piped in. “No, he’s like a developer or something.”
“So maybe he and my mom talked about a house like this when he lived here.”
Abbie shrugged. “I guess.”
“I want to meet this guy,” Julia said, her voice pitched with excitement. “He sounds kind of cool.”
Abbie rolled her eyes. “He is so totally clueless.”
“Really? Why?”
“He has no idea what to do with a kid. He lets me stay up as late as I want, doesn’t care what I watch on T.V., and he even told me to go online and get stuff I needed. With his credit card.”
“So, what’d you get?” Julia whispered, her eyes wide with hero worship.
Abbie rattled off a list in a bored voice. “CD’s, an I-Home, an I-Pod, a Louis Vuitton purse, and a pair of BCBG shoes.”
“Wow.”
“It’s not so great though. We have to eat out almost every night because he doesn’t cook and he won’t let me answer the phone. Ever.”
“Why not?”
“He has all these women calling him and he has to screen everything.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, there’s like superstars calling him, too, and he acts like it’s no big deal.”
Julia had forgotten her mother was less than three feet away. “Do any of his girlfriends ever stay over?” she whispered.
“Not since I’ve been there, but I found a bunch of Victoria’s Secret kind of stuff in one of his drawers.”
“Really?”
“I know you’re not supposed to snoop, but you have no idea how boring it is to sit in this monster house all day with nobody to talk to except a German cleaning lady who speaks two words of English and the plant man, who never talks.”
“Your uncle has a plant man?”
“He has everything,” Abbie nodded with a glowing satisfaction. “Maybe your mom will let you come visit sometime. We could have a blast.”
Julia shot a look in Kate’s direction and turned scarlet. “Mom! Were you listening?”
“Of course not.”
Both girls flashed suspicious glances Kate’s way but when she turned to her workbench, they went right back to chattering, only this time their voices didn’t resonate past the perimeter of the model dollhouse.
Kate sank into her chair and reached for the stack of mail. Some envelopes were addressed to Kate Redmond, others to Kate Maden, still others to Kate Redmond Maden. She’d been all of those names at one time or another; she just wished she knew who she was now.
Clay had been gone less than five months and already his voice had started to fade, the loud belly laughter so characteristic of him, growing dim. She’d pulled out several pictures last week and placed them throughout the house. So she wouldn’t forget. Some voices stayed with a person forever, some smiles, some touches, lived just below the surface. She sliced through an envelope with the letter opener. Damn Rourke Flannigan. Why did he have to come back now?
There were three letters from attorneys informing her she could have a multi-million dollar negligence case in front of her. Before the week was out, she’d have six or seven more. Even after all these months, the letters continued. She’d meet with the lawyer from New York, listen to him, consider the options, and then make her decision whether to press forward or let the case rest. The enormity of the task made her head ache. If only she had an objective listener, someone who had nothing to gain from her decision but who would be able to consider the ramifications of her choice in a purely analytical manner. She thought of Rourke. Perhaps he could help.
Chapter 8
“We’re going to have to finish this thing between us, you realize that don’t you?”—Rourke Flannigan
“I need you, Maxine.”
“Sir?”
Rourke scanned the stacks of papers and folders on his desk and wondered how he’d made such a mess in two short days. “I’ve got Higgins calling me from London looking for reports, Evans from Seattle wondering about the Caintrano projects we promised him, and Sedurilli in Boston demanding to know why I didn’t show for their annual meeting. Did you not inform him I wouldn’t be attending?”
“Yes, sir. Three weeks ago.”
“Well, he’s ticked. And I’ve been working on a proposal for the Grendall project which I promised to send in Thursday’s mail but I’ve misplaced it in this mess.”
“I’ll be on the next flight to Montpelier, Mr. Flannigan.”
Rourke closed his eyes and rubbed his right temple. “Thank you.”
“Ms. Prentiss left three messages this morning.”
Probably because he hadn’t answered his cell phone. “What did she want?”
“She’s looking for you, sir. Something about a charity ball at the Ritz.”
“Call her and tell her I can’t make it. Then send her flowers or something. You decide.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And don’t tell her you spoke with me.” Janice was beautiful and witty, with the longest legs he’d ever seen, but damn she required effort. There wasn’t a congenial cell in her genetic makeup. Not like Kate.
“Will there be anything else, Mr. Flannigan?”
Here goes. “Actually, yes. I’m going to need you to do a little babysitting while you’re here.”
“Sir?”
He heard her sipping air. “Relax, it’s no
t as bad as it sounds.” Actually, it was, but Maxine could figure that out once she was here. “I need you to keep an eye on Abbie.”
“But, sir, I know nothing about children.”
“Which is ten times more than I know. I’ve got real business to tend to here and I can’t have her running loose and driving me crazy. No wonder Cresten looks so old. How many daughters does he have?”
“Five, sir.”
“Give the man a raise. He’s earned it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. Dress casual. You don’t need those tweed suits and plaid jackets. Jeans are fine.”
“Jeans, sir?”
“Yes, Maxine. Blue, black, gray. Jeans.”
“Yes, sir.” Pause. “Mr. Flannigan?”
Just once, he’d like her to call him Rourke. “Yes?”
“I really am not familiar with children, though I will endeavor to do my very best.”
