True North

by Amy Knupp

“God no. We’re talking about you. What are you going to do about Mr. Foreman?”

  Sierra grasped the base of her ponytail and slid her hand down the length of her hair, then threw her head back, gazed at the ceiling. “I don’t know. My rule is to not get involved with employees.”

  “Sounds like you’re already involved.”

  “I could stop it.” Sierra’s voice sounded a lot more confident than she felt.

  “So stop it.”

  Sierra narrowed her eyes at Hayden.

  “You don’t want to stop it,” Hayden said insightfully. “What’s the worst thing that could happen if you and Cole started seeing each other?”

  “I lose credibility with the guys. I turn into a female instead of the company owner, their boss, someone they don’t think of as a woman.”

  “I’m pretty sure they think of you as a woman, no matter how much they respect you. You have boobs,” Hayden said.

  “When things go south with Cole, then there’s drama. With him—how do we work together after that? With the rest of the guys—‘ooh, maybe she’ll sleep with me now that North’s out of the way’…”

  Hayden, sitting sideways on her stool, leaned her back against the wall, staring at Sierra expectantly.

  “One of us, at least, would get hurt,” Sierra continued, “and how do you work with someone in that situation?”

  “Could be awkward,” Hayden admitted. “My take on it? Those are good reasons to not get involved with the guys who work for you. Your personal policy is smart.”

  “Thank you.” She’d never doubted the wisdom of it, never had a problem adhering to it before now.

  “But…” Hayden straightened again, her face animated, and Sierra recognized that her BFF was about to tell it like she thought it was. And Sierra welcomed it, because she herself sure as hell couldn’t figure out what was what.

  She waited while Hayden took a sip of wine.

  “But,” Hayden said again, “maybe that policy has outlived its usefulness.”

  Sierra deflated. “Not helpful.”

  “No, hear me out. How long have you worked at Dunn? Since you were a kid.”

  “Grandpa let me start as an apprentice when I was ten.”

  “That’s twenty years. And how many times, Cole not included, have you gotten involved with someone who works there, whether you were the owner or not?”

  “Zero,” Sierra said easily.

  “So it’s worked. For twenty years. You’ve never talked about any of your employees in terms of their looks or their date-ability—”

  “Because I don’t think of them that way,” Sierra insisted.

  “My point exactly. You don’t think of them that way, until Cole. Which tells me that Cole might be special. He broke through.”

  “It’s because he went to the wedding with me.”

  “It doesn’t matter why. Something made you say yes when he offered.”

  “Desperation,” Sierra said with a scoff-laugh.

  Hayden slid down from her stool and walked around the mini-bar, planting herself across from Sierra, peering into her eyes. “All I’m trying to say is, maybe Cole could be important to you on a personal level. All these years, maintaining your anti-involvement rule has worked…until this one guy. So maybe you should see where it goes.”

  “And just throw out twenty years of rules?”

  “Why the hell not? Maybe Mr. Foreman is worth it.”

  “What if he’s not?”

  “You won’t know until you try.”

  Sierra closed her eyes, a hundred thoughts spinning through her head. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “But what if it’s not? This is my company, my livelihood, my way of life, and I don’t want to do anything to screw it up.”

  “You’re being overdramatic.”

  “I’m being smart,” Sierra said. “Or trying to.”

  “Maybe smart and heart don’t go together.”

  “I need to be smart right now. Things are starting to line up for the company. The Eldridge Mansion thing could be life changing.”

  “It could be,” Hayden said, who’d listened to Sierra ramble about the pros and cons of the competition a few days ago. “But so could Cole North.”

  “Now who’s being overdramatic? I’m talking about sleeping with him, not marrying him.”

  Hayden shrugged. “Either way. I’m just saying Cole broke through the barriers you lived by for two decades. Maybe you need to see where it goes. Otherwise, you’ll always wonder.”

  Sierra blew out all the air in her lungs, thinking. “I don’t even know whether he’s interested. The point could be moot.”

  “Maybe so. Maybe not. At the very least, I think you should kiss him again.”

  At those words, the memory of kissing him came flaring back, and Sierra couldn’t lie to herself. She wanted to feel that way again, wanted to explore that sizzling chemistry that had risen between them suddenly. She wanted to know what it would be like to get closer to him, to be naked with him, to have him on top of her, bearing down on her, inside of her…

  Sierra reached for her wineglass, tipped it back, poured more than a delicate sip down her throat.

  Maybe she was getting ahead of herself, making it more complex than it needed to be. Maybe Hayden had some good points. Maybe she would always wonder if she didn’t pursue him now, assuming he was interested.

  Maybe to all of that, but…something told her it wasn’t quite that simple.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tuesday morning, Cole woke up before his alarm. Long before it, thanks to a never-ending shitty night of tossing and turning and trying to get Sierra out of his mind. Tito, his grumpy cat who looked like a black cat that had had a sack of flour explode nearby, had given up on snuggling hours ago and moved to the spare pillow, where he was currently glaring at Cole.

  That kiss yesterday had blown every single fantasy he’d ever had about Sierra to pieces. His fantasies had been enthralling, absorbing, and sexy as hell, but the reality of her was so much more. That kiss, those curves, the sweet taste of her… The memories were visceral, driving him to an ache that was more than physical, that pounded relentlessly through every cell in his body and then some. Nothing would dampen it—not Johnnie Walker Double Black, not an ice-cold shower, not his hand. He’d tried them all.

  Though he sometimes hit the office before heading to the day’s jobsite, today he was planning to go straight to the Draper home. He was going to time his arrival to be as close to eight a.m. as possible and not a minute earlier. Get there and get straight to business, with no time for small talk, no time to check out Sierra as she climbed down from her badass truck, definitely no time to rehash what had happened in her office yesterday morning.

  He didn’t know how to cleanse his mind and his body of her, but he had to do something, and soon. Maybe he’d hit a bar and try to find a woman who was interested in a few dirty, sweaty hours between the sheets and nothing more. He didn’t do it often, because sometimes it was more trouble than it was worth, but if it would get his boss out of his mind for a night—

  His cell phone rang from the nightstand, and Tito darted off the bed, out of the room, probably to lobby near his food bowl. Cole rolled over to see who the hell was looking for him before seven in the morning, and then almost immediately, the thought crashed into him that maybe something was wrong with his mom. Seeing Mason’s name on the screen didn’t help, because Mason didn’t tend to call him unless there was good reason.

  “Yeah,” Cole answered, breaking into a sweat.

  “Hey,” Mason said, “can you be at the hospital this morning between eight and ten? That’s when the doctor is supposed to make rounds, and one of us needs to be there.”

  “She’s okay?”

  “As far as I know,” Mason said, and Cole relaxed a degree.

  “I thought Drake was doing it,” Cole said.

  Their youngest brother was the only one who didn’t have
an eight-to-five. He split his time between being a personal trainer and working part-time shifts at one of the North Brothers Sports stores on the retail floor. He had brains enough, plus the requisite college degree, that he could’ve worked in just about any department at the corporate office, but Drake showed no interest in it. Whereas Cole’s aim was to avoid the family, Drake seemed more against taking responsibility in general.

  Yesterday, Drake had said on the brothers’ group text, which had started up the day after their mom’s heart attack and focused solely on navigating Faye North’s health crisis, that he could be at the hospital today to get the doctor’s full report. Their mom insisted she could handle it herself, but she was medicated, she was weak, and she was tired. She needed her sons, even if she couldn’t admit it, and that’s the one thing they all agreed on—they’d be there for her and with her.

  “He’s not answering his phone,” Mason said. “Calls or texts. Gabe and I have the annual management retreat today, otherwise one of us would do it.”

  There were all kinds of insinuations wrapped up in that one sentence, and Cole resented every single one of them—that their responsibilities with North Brothers Sports were more important than his with Dunn & Lowell, that they were only appealing to him because they had a big management spank-off, that he could just drop everything to pick up the slack for Drake…

  For his mom, he would do it.

  “Yeah. I’ll be there,” Cole said.

  “They might move her out of ICU today,” Mason said unnecessarily.

  “I know,” Cole said. “Hope so,” he added, belatedly remembering his goal of getting along.

  “Fill us in on what the doctor says. Thanks, Cole.”

  “She’s my mom too,” he said, but Mason didn’t hear, as he’d already disconnected. Mr. Important had important things to do.

  Now Cole had a legit reason to avoid Sierra today. In the three years he’d worked for her, he’d never called in sick and had taken very little personal time, maybe a couple of hours here and there when it couldn’t be helped. Sierra had told him, more than once since Saturday night, to do whatever he needed to do for his mom. Guess he was going to take her up on that offer.

  He pulled up her contact info on his phone and shot her a message. As expected, she replied within seconds to take the whole day, more if he needed it, and not to worry about work.

  Anything I can do to help? she texted as he was crawling out of bed.

  Get out of my damn head was what he wanted to say, but instead, he typed, Keep a close eye on Barrett. His skills with this type of insulation are untested. He was still working on trusting Lee Barrett, the new guy, even though he’d been with the company for a couple of months now.

  On it, she replied, adding a smiley emoji at the end.

  Cole shot out of bed and headed for the shower, which was approximately five steps away from his bed in his small but adequate apartment. He opened his music app and set it to a metal station, turned on his Bluetooth speaker, and stepped into the shower without letting the water heat up, forcing his mind to his mom and away from a particular brunette.

  Faye North’s face had more color today, her short platinum hair looked as if it’d been combed recently, and her brown eyes had a hint of her usual sparkle back in them when Cole sauntered into her ICU room. The head of her bed was angled up to about thirty degrees, and the television was on, though she hit mute as soon as he walked in.

  “Hey, Mom. How are you feeling today?” he asked as he hugged her. He slid one of the visitor chairs up next to her and sat down.

  “I’m feeling pretty good,” she said, smiling. “A little tired, but I managed to get some sleep. Kind of a feat in this place.”

  “You look better than you did last night,” Cole said. He’d stopped to see her on his way home from work, sat with her while she ate her bland dinner, and had taken off when Gabe showed up. “Has the doctor been in yet?”

  His mom glanced at the institutional clock on the wall. “It’s not even eight yet.”

  “So no?”

  She shook her head and held her hand out in a silent plea for him to grasp it. He did, then rested their interlocked hands on the narrow mattress.

  “What happened to your forehead?” she asked.

  Another mark of her feeling better, as she hadn’t previously noticed the cut from last week’s altercation with the asshole at Sunshine’s. It was healing well but still impossible to hide, especially from a mom who normally didn’t miss much.

  “Cole, not another fight?”

  “Guy had it coming. It was no big deal.”

  She exhaled, aggravated with him, as she’d done no less than a hundred thousand times in his life. “Violence doesn’t solve anything,” she said, also not for the first time.

  He could argue that he’d stopped some jackass from continuing to harass a woman, but he knew it wouldn’t sway his mom. She hated fighting, always had, and he wasn’t a big fan of disappointing her.

  “You’ve always been my rebel,” she said.

  He let out a quiet, self-deprecating laugh. “If by rebel you mean pain-in-the-ass troublemaker…”

  “You had your moments.” Her smile was closer to a grimace, but there was no mistaking the understanding in her eyes. “You didn’t handle your dad’s death well.”

  Cole pulled his hand away and lodged his elbows on his knees, rubbed his hands over his face. “Let’s not tiptoe around things,” he said. “I didn’t handle much well.”

  His mom was pensive for a few seconds. “Your troubles started early,” she acknowledged. “I’ve always suspected it was a result of your spot in the family. Mason and Gabe are close in age and have each other. Then came you in the middle, but you were too much younger to bond with the older two. Then the twins came along and had each other. You’ve always been the odd guy out, and I hated that for you.”

  He whipped his gaze to hers, surprised at her insight and even more shocked that she’d never mentioned it before. Everything she’d said was spot on. He’d been four when Zane and Drake were born, and he remembered how he’d anticipated being a big brother to someone, instead of the little brother who was too young to do anything with Gabe and Mason. He’d had it in his little-boy mind that the new babies would be his playmates. He hadn’t foreseen how the twins would have an instant best friend, hadn’t understood the twin bond. He could fully admit—now, and only to himself—he’d grown up feeling like he didn’t fit anywhere. Too old for his younger brothers, too young for his older brothers, his own little island in the middle of the family. He’d never fared any better with the kids at school either. He should’ve known his mom recognized the issue.

  “Natural order of things, I guess,” he said, trying to blow off something that had unquestionably played a big part in his screwed-up psyche.

  His mom reached over and rubbed his head. “I never wanted that for you. Your dad used to accuse me of spoiling you a little extra to compensate. He was probably right. Then when he died, I had my hands full with just getting up in the morning and taking care of you and the twins and handling the business.”

  “I didn’t make it easy on you.” And wasn’t that an understatement. “I’m sorry for that,” he said for the first time ever. “For all the crap I caused. You didn’t deserve any of it.”

  She shook her head, as if he didn’t need to apologize, which was bull. He’d caused this woman so much angst and heartache that he would never be able to make it up to her even if they both lived another hundred years.

  “It’s been good to see you more these past few days. I just wish I hadn’t needed the heart attack to get you here.” She grinned, and he knew she was giving him shit, but her words cut at him anyway. His doing, hundred percent.

  He sat up straight, grasped her hand again. “I’m going to do better. Going to make a point of coming to Sunday dinner once you’re well enough. But first we have to get you recovered, and I’ll be here for that too.”

  His mom ne
ver got a response out, because at that moment, his loud-ass youngest brother blew through the doorway.

  “Hey, how’s my favorite lady in the whole world?” Drake said with his full-of-shit factor fully engaged. He wore his usual gym shorts and a wine-colored T-shirt from one of the honky-tonks on Broadway.

  “Morning, Drake.” Their mom held out her other hand toward him and sent him a warm smile.

  “What are you doing here?” Drake said to Cole. “Thought you had to work today.”

  “I had to make sure someone was here when the doctor comes in,” Cole said curtly.

  “I’m here,” Drake said. “Like I said I would be.”

  “Ten minutes late. You could’ve missed him,” Cole said.

  “You boys…” Their mom had dropped both their hands and was raising the head of her bed more. “Would you believe, after sixty-four years on this earth, I can talk to the doctor myself?”

  “You’re medicated,” Drake said.

  “You might not think of all the questions to ask,” Cole added.

  “I have a heart condition, not brain damage,” she said. “But I know you mean well, and I appreciate it.”

  “Good morning.” A tall, thin nurse who looked to be in her fifties entered and glanced from Drake to Cole to Faye. “You’ve got a room full.”

  “My boys take up a lot of space,” their mom said with a note of affection in her voice.

  “You didn’t tell me you breed ’em big and handsome.”

  “We didn’t come out this big,” Drake said, his charm setting on high, and Cole shook his head.

  The nurse laughed, as Drake had been aiming for.

  “I’m Drake.” He held out his hand, glanced at the whiteboard on the wall with all the medical staff’s names, and said, “You must be Nurse Angelica.”

  “I am. Nice to meet you, Drake. Would you two mind giving your mom and me some privacy for a few minutes?”

  “You got it,” Drake said.

  Cole nodded once as he pushed out of his chair and followed his brother out to the hallway.

  “What the hell, Cole?” Drake said once they were in the wide hallway. They wandered past a couple of patient rooms, the wide glass doors keeping patients visible to medical personnel and everyone else. “I said I’d be here.”