Texas Christmas

by Nancy Robards Thompson

  Rob sat back down and pressed the button on the remote, starting another race. “Look out, buddy, I’m going to beat you this time,” he said to Cody, who laughed and laughed. Playing with his son was the only thing that calmed his edgy nerves.

  “Rob, come on. Do you know what time it is?” Kate asked. “You need to get dressed. We don’t want to be late. You need as much time as possible to schmooze Raven Chairez into earmarking a large donation for the hospital.”

  Tonight was the Raven Chair Affair—the annual gala Raven Chairez put on in the name of charity, but in reality it was a thinly veiled ode to herself. The idea was that various businesses purchased black chairs and decorated them in various themes of their choice and paired them with other goods and services to entice gala attendees to bid on the chair “packages” during a silent auction at the party.

  Later, the Raven Chairez Foundation—hence the name the Raven Chair Affair—chose various charitable causes to fund with the proceeds. The event might as well have been subtitled: The Raven Chairez LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME! give to charity, but LOOK BACK AT ME! Affair.

  It was taking every ounce of moral fiber he possessed to put down the Wii remote, get up off the couch and get dressed.

  That was why he continued to play. Well, that and because it was great to hear his son squealing with joy as he twisted and turned the plastic steering wheel. He’d had a physical therapy session yesterday that had left him sore and cranky and unable to form a sentence without stuttering. For a while, Cody had been so out of sorts Rob thought he might have to skip tonight’s gala and stay home with him. But given his animated whoops and hollers over the video game, Rob knew his son was feeling better. For that, he was grateful. Even if it meant he had to go to the party tonight.

  Out of the corner of his eye he could see Kate standing there with her arms crossed, watching them.

  “Why didn’t you offer her a position with the Foundation if that was what she wanted?” she asked.

  “You know I can’t just create Foundation positions. Everything has to be approved by the board because of the 501(c)3 status.”

  “But she could’ve helped both you and me,” Kate said. “Besides, where does that leave the donation from Agnes Sherwood?”

  “It leaves it very up in the air,” he said. “But since I did my part by offering Pepper the job, I can’t see how in good conscience Agnes could withhold the donation.”

  “A great way to solve that would be to find a way to bring Pepper Merriweather on board.”

  Dressed in that tight black skirt and those high heels, she’d looked even sexier today than she had that night. He’d given up denying that he was attracted to her. So it was probably for the best that things hadn’t worked out.

  An employee/boss relationship spelled disaster.

  Acknowledging the thought somehow knocked a little of the wind out of him, but it gave Cody the opportunity to pull ahead in the virtual race.

  “Yeaaah!” the boy squealed.

  “No, seriously, Rob, think about it,” Kate persisted. “She has mad skills when it comes to fund-raising. We could use her.”

  He had to give his sister credit. Or maybe he should call it “nagging points.” It was what made her so good at fund-raising. When she latched on to a cause she believed in, good luck convincing her to let go. Ha! He never thought he’d see the day when she would fly the flag for a displaced heiress, though.

  “Have you been following the news lately?” he asked without looking up from the TV. “The Merriweather name isn’t exactly one you want to link with money these days—especially other people’s money. It might have the opposite effect on what we’re trying to accomplish. Having her work internally, out of the public eye, was one thing, but I wouldn’t send her out knocking on doors in the name of the Macintyre Family Foundation.”

  “Personally, I think she’s getting a bum rap. She didn’t even work for Texas Star. Why should she be held accountable for her father’s sins? All she wants is an honest job.”

  His sister and Agnes Sherwood agreed on that.

  “She turned down the one I offered her.”

  “You obviously didn’t do it right. Maybe I should call her and talk to her.”

  Rob slanted a glance at his sister, causing his car to skid and crash, ending the game with another win for his son. He didn’t always let him win, but on days like this when the boy wasn’t feeling one hundred percent up to snuff, Rob figured it couldn’t hurt to give him a boost. It wasn’t fun being confined to a wheelchair, and they were both still adjusting to the fact that his mother had chosen to cut herself out of his life. It had been hard. It was no personal loss for Rob, except in the way it had affected his son. Any little bit of joy Rob could bring his son’s way, he was going to do it.

  “Maybe you should talk to her.” Rob tossed the ball in Kate’s court.

  “I don’t know,” Kate said. “Maybe you should finish what you started and this time do it right?” She quirked a brow. The look underscored the double meaning in her words, and he had to look away.

  “Daddy, are you going to finish what you started with the nice lady, or is Aunt Katie gonna have to do it for you?”

  Nice, he mouthed to his sister.

  In the nick of time Nadia, Rob’s housekeeper, ushered in the babysitter, Jennifer, a high school girl who lived a couple of miles down the road.

  Cody clapped his hands when he saw her. “M-M-M-Miss J-J-Jen!”

  Rob held his breath, gauging his son’s reaction to the stuttering. But he was too excited to see Jennifer to let it show if it bothered him.

  “Hi, Cody. Are you going to play with me tonight?” She waved at Kate and Rob and sat down on the chair next to Cody’s wheelchair.

  “Yeahhh! L-l-let’s race, ’kay?”

  “You got it,” she said.

  Kate followed Rob to the hallway, where they were out of earshot of the kids and the video games.

  “I don’t understand why you’re dragging your heels over this,” she said. “If we plug her into the right place within Macintyre Enterprises and the Foundation, she could be such an asset.”

  “But if we get all her baggage and bad publicity, she could be a huge liability. She’s never had a job. She’s used to living life on her own terms. And some of the terms have been a little racy. Have you seen those pictures of her in a swimsuit in Cabo?”

  A knowing smile spread over Kate’s face. “No, Rob, I haven’t seen the shots of Pepper Merriweather in a swimsuit, but obviously you have. Get dressed. We’ll talk about this in the car on the way to the gala.”

  Chapter Nine

  “I blew it,” Pepper lamented to her girlfriends. She wanted to bang her head on AJ’s granite island. Maybe that way she’d be able to knock some sense into herself.

  AJ and Sydney looked on sympathetically, as if they were unsure what to say or do.

  “Well, it wasn’t entirely your fault,” AJ consoled. “You have a lot on your mind right now with everything that’s happening with your father. Plus, I could throttle my grandmother for not telling us the entire scope of her plan. If she had, you wouldn’t have wandered in there blindly. She is still going to give him that donation. I am not letting her back out of it.”

  Sydney shrugged. “Honey, maybe it was too soon after getting the bad news about your father to go in for a job interview. You probably weren’t yourself.”

  If she wasn’t herself then, who was she these days? That seemed to be the million-dollar question.

  “I don’t know, AJ,” Sydney continued. “I think you should give your grandmother more credit than that. She’ll pay up.”

  Sydney’s British accent lent her statement more credence than they might have given it if she hadn’t made the ordeal sound so proper.

  AJ harrumphed. “When Agnes doe
sn’t get her way she can get pretty surly.”

  AJ was named after her grandmother—Agnes Jane. Much to her grandmother’s consternation, she had opted to go by AJ for short. They shared not only the same name but also a particular brand of stubbornness. When they disagreed, they were like two goats locking horns. When they were in a deadlock, sometimes it wasn’t pretty.

  Right now, AJ had that certain look in her blue eyes and it was making Pepper nervous.

  “I’m with Sydney,” said Pepper. “I trust that Agnes will make good. I do appreciate that she tried to help me, I just wish she would’ve clued me in so that I hadn’t gone in and made such a fool of myself.”

  “He is dreamy, isn’t he?” Sydney mused over the top of her wineglass.

  Pepper crossed her arms over her middle, as if the gesture would warm and protect her. The truth was she’d been scared. Scared of working for Rob...as his personal assistant? Really? Her mind had a terrible way of wandering into ways she could assist him that had absolutely nothing to do with business, and that wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.

  “There’s no doubt that he’s a good-looking guy—”

  “Honey, he is gorgeous,” Sydney corrected.

  “All hunky gorgeousness aside, I would never get involved with my boss.”

  Now she was scared that she’d blown her chance for viable employment. She needed a job, and she regretted not taking this one.

  “Good!” Sydney clapped her hands like an excited child. “More Rob for me. Honey, if you don’t want him, I’ll take him off your hands.”

  A peculiar jealous weed sprouted inside Pepper. She wanted to tell Sydney, Not on your life, sister. But instead, she changed the subject.

  “All kidding aside,” she said, looking pointedly at Sydney, “I really admire what Macintyre is doing for the hospital. I did more research on the foundation after I got home. That pediatric wing is fabulous. It’s right up my alley, a project I would’ve volunteered for regardless of pay. It’s still relatively new, and I’ve been so distracted by everything that’s happening with my father that I hadn’t heard of their partnering with Celebration Memorial. Now, in retrospect, I wish I would’ve taken the job as Rob Macintyre’s personal assistant just for the proximity to that project.”

  Sydney reached out and put a hand over her friend’s. “Isn’t that just like you, love, always looking for a way to help others, even in the midst of your own turmoil? What will be your next step, Pepper?”

  Pepper loved the way Sydney’s accent turned her name into something that sounded like Peppa. Hearing her name roll off her friend’s tongue killed all territorial traces and put a smile on her face.

  “I wish I knew. I guess I will have to figure out something pretty fast. Because basically, I’m broke and so is my mother. It looks like I may be the one supporting both of us, whenever she decides to come home.” Pepper pulled a face that she and her friends used to use when they were young and imitating Agnes Sherwood. “But, yes, darlings, I do realize it’s in extremely poor taste to discuss one’s financial woes. Do forgive me.”

  They all laughed at the impression.

  “My grandmother should give you some of that money she promised to give away,” AJ said.

  Pepper frowned. She knew her friend meant well, but still... “Okay, there are so many things wrong with that suggestion I don’t even know where to begin. But the first thing that comes to mind is something about pigs flying. If Agnes puts that money anywhere other than back into her bank account, it will go to the Macintyre Family Foundation. And if you all want to help me, help me find a real job—don’t buy me one.”

  She could tell by their expressions that both AJ and Sydney understood, and she could also see the wheels in their minds turning, no doubt searching for a solution to her problem.

  “While we’re on the subject of buying,” Sydney said, “I suppose we could buy you out of your share of Celebrations, Inc....”

  After signing on for the Catering to Dallas television show, Pepper and her three friends had agreed that they would reinvest all profits back into the business. Things were just taking off for Celebrations. If Pepper asked for them to buy her out, it would pose a great hardship. “That’s a sweet thought, Syd, but I don’t want to go that route. My stake in the business feels like the only solid thing I have left in this world. The only thing that’s mine that isn’t tainted by the scandal. If it’s all right with you all, I’d just as soon keep a safe distance from Celebrations, Inc., and let it continue to bloom the way it has been growing.”

  Of course, she wouldn’t be drawing the salary the others were getting from their work on the television show. She’d cut herself out of that when she’d resigned from it. But the girls had agreed that they would each keep the money they earned that was paid to them by the Epicurean Traveler Network. Profits from business generated by the show would be reinvested into the shop, which meant they would have to discuss whether Pepper should get an equal share of that, but that was a discussion for another day. Right now, thinking about it made her head hurt, as if she were trying to solve a math word problem.

  “We could always find a way to have you do supersecret work for us in the shop, and we could pay you on the down low,” AJ said.

  “That sounds supersketchy,” Pepper said. “What exactly would this supersecret work entail?”

  AJ sipped her drink. “I don’t know yet, but I’m completely open to suggestions.”

  Pepper sighed. “What I really want to do is work for the Macintyre Foundation. The more I think about it, the more I realize I really admire what they’re doing. Do you think I’d be crazy if I called Rob back and asked him to keep me in mind if there’s a future opening?”

  It suddenly hit her that even though the thought of Agnes bribing Rob to hire her had prickled—hell, it had done a major number on her self-esteem; she could get her own job and she didn’t have to be bought and sold—right now, pride was the last thing Pepper could afford. Really, she needed to reframe the equation and think of it in the terms of going back in there and getting herself the job she wanted.

  She would have the job she’d choose. Agnes would simply be making a nice donation to a very worthy cause.

  There. That was better. It felt right. She could see it so much clearer now that she’d put some distance between herself and the hunky Rob Macintyre. True, the guy seemed to do crazy things to her thinking, but she would just have to get ahold of herself if she was going to make this work.

  “So, do you think that’s a completely crazy idea?” she asked.

  Sydney smiled. “I’d call you completely crazy if you didn’t go for it.”

  * * *

  By the time Rob and Kate arrived at the Regency Cypress Plantation and Botanical Gardens, the Raven Chair Affair was in full swing.

  The venue for the party was located about twenty miles outside of Dallas at a majestic estate that had once been a working sugar plantation in the early nineteenth century. Since then, it had been refashioned into a much-sought-after venue for parties and special occasions.

  Once they’d checked in, located their table and did a quick sweep through the silent auction to look at and bid on the chair packages, the cocktail hour was over and the guests were beginning to sit down to dinner.

  Rob noticed, much to his relief, that he wasn’t seated at the same table as Raven Chairez.

  He’d half expected, half feared to be at her table, based on the way she’d used the event as a premise to call and email him over the past two weeks. She wanted to double-check on who he was bringing (and sounded thrilled when he’d told her his date would be his sister because she was the one who was actually heading up the Macintyre Foundation); she personally ensured that beef was in fact his choice of entrée; and ran it by him to see if he thought the men would prefer mojitos or the more traditional sidecar
.

  “Legend has it,” she cooed, “that the sidecar was born during World War I at the Ritz in Paris.”

  What the hell was even in a sidecar? He didn’t know. “I think I’m the wrong person to ask. I don’t drink.” He hadn’t mentioned how his father’s struggle with alcoholism had taken its toll. So much so that he’d vowed not to touch the stuff, especially after his father had killed himself driving drunk and nearly taken Cody with him.

  Raven Chairez didn’t want to hear that. She was too preoccupied with her big party. So he’d suggested that she offer both.

  Given all the phone calls she’d made to him, Rob had fully prepared himself to be seated next to her at dinner. Sometimes a guy had to man up and do things he’d rather not do for the greater good.

  So it was a welcome surprise when he saw that he had been placed two tables over from Raven and the chosen ones.

  He thought he would have the dinner hour to shower her with attention. Not meaning to be disingenuous, he decided he would keep it all business, not leading her to believe he was offering anything more than mutual support of their charities through a business relationship.

  Speaking of business relationships...his gaze swept the room looking for Pepper Merriweather. He knew it was unlikely she’d be there, but the woman had enough moxie to do something just like that. If she waltzed in here in spite of everyone, he would be less surprised than he was at not having Raven Chairez glued to his side.

  Okay, now he was just sounding like an ass. Pepper wasn’t interested; thank God in heaven Raven was preoccupied with her hostess duties.

  Maybe he was losing his touch. He chuckled to himself. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it were true.

  During his cursory visual sweep of the room his gaze snared on Raven. He waved, but she looked away and draped herself over the shoulder of man who looked vaguely familiar. What was his name...? Lewis...? Lawrence...? Loomis...? The name escaped him, but he’d remember later.

  Raven glanced back over her shoulder at Rob and took Long—that’s what it was, his name was Dr. Geoffrey Long, and he was a local plastic surgeon—by the hand and led him to the table, settling him right next to her.