Okay, this was definite flirting, and she didn’t like it. For the duration of the class, she kept her distance from him, ignoring the way he moved and the sexy timbre of his voice when he asked questions. She hid behind a mask of professionalism, suppressed her smiles and avoided friendly banter with him.
When the class was over and everyone else had left, Nick and Lauren approached her. “I’m really sorry I was late,” he said. “I had to attend a charity benefit.”
“The Spencer Academic Awards,” Lauren said. “It’s a scholarship program for Colorado students going to Colorado colleges. Since the Spencers made their fortune during the Colorado gold rush, we feel like we should give something back.”
“The Spencers were gold prospectors? That’s so interesting.”
“Is it really?” Nick said drily.
“Family histories fascinate me.” She tried not to look at him. “Especially when they deal with the Old West.”
“It was 1862 when my ancestors hit one of the biggest gold strikes on the front range of the Rockies. Our mine, the Valiant Mine, was bigger than the Glory Hole near Central City.”
Lauren patted her belly. “My baby is going to be born into an impressive family tradition. In this very building, on the ninth floor, we have fifty kilobars of gold from the Valiant Mine.”
“Actual gold?” Kelly couldn’t believe it. That much gold would be worth a small fortune.
“Processed and smelted right here in Colorado. Every bar is stamped with a V for Valiant.” She beamed proudly. “Anyway, Nick has promised he wouldn’t be late, and my real partner will be here for the session on Sunday night.”
Kelly was confused. She was beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland, talking to people who spoke only in riddles. “Excuse me, did you say your real partner?”
“My husband, Jared. He’s out of town, wrapping up some important business in Singapore.”
“So Nick isn’t...”
“My husband?” She laughed. “No way would I marry this big ox. Nick is my brother-in-law.”
He bent down to look directly into her eyes. At six feet four inches, he was probably a foot taller than she was. “Since you’re interested in family history, I’d like to take you upstairs and show you my gold.”
Embarrassed that she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion and regretful that she’d treated him coolly for most of the evening, Kelly dared to gaze directly into those gorgeous blue eyes. “That’s quite a pick-up line.”
“Did it work?”
Indeed, it did.
Chapter Two
Sunday, 7:43 p.m.
Nick had been immediately attracted to Kelly. During the Lamaze class, she’d been barefoot, and he’d noticed that her toenails were painted in alternating shades of pink, yellow and purple. He’d imagined himself kissing those toes, running his hands up her long, slender legs, continuing up her body to her limber waist, onward to her breasts and finally her lips. That would be a trip worth taking.
While she lectured, he could tell that she was smart and had a sense of humor. And he was desperately seeking a diversion—a woman he could relax with and share a couple of laughs. His brain was on overload from dealing with the financial problems that plagued the family business.
“Just to make it clear,” he said as he escorted her onto the elevator, “I’m not currently married.”
“That implies that you once were married.”
“I was,” he admitted. “You?”
“Yes.” She didn’t look at him but faced forward, following elevator protocol. “In class, I might have been a little bit rude to you, but I’m not going to apologize. I thought you were Lauren’s husband, and that you were hitting on me.”
“Was I?”
“You were.” Her voice was certain, but she fidgeted with the knot on the Kelly-green scarf she wore with her plaid jacket. “You stared at me. You whispered to me.”
He ducked his head to put his lips close to her ear. “Maybe I was just being friendly.”
“Friendly like a fox.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t look dangerous until you’re ready to pounce.”
“Scared?” he asked.
“I can handle a pounce.”
“I bet you can.”
Finally, she turned her head and looked at him. When her lips curled into a smile, her green eyes crinkled at the corners. He guessed she was in her early thirties, which was, in his opinion, the perfect age. They wouldn’t have to waste time playing games.
“Tell me about the gold,” she said. “Why do you keep it here instead of in a bank vault?”
“Spencer Enterprises is still family owned and operated, which means our company tolerates more than our share of eccentricity. My uncle, Samuel, is the last of the older generation of Spencers. He’s kind of a genius when it comes to architecture. He designed this office park.”
Forty years ago, the oil business had been booming in Colorado, and Samuel had proposed a ten-story building and three others that were four stories each. There was a definite need for more office space in the Denver/Boulder area, but Valiant wasn’t the most convenient location. Prevailing opinion—including that of Nick’s father, who was the CEO—had been that good old Samuel had taken a swan dive into the crazy pool.
As it turned out, Samuel was right. Valiant was just close enough to Boulder and Fort Collins to be a viable corporate headquarters. They played up the outdoorsy lifestyle and the nearness to the mountains. When the oil and gas companies moved out, the software companies moved in. “Uncle Samuel situated Spencer Enterprises on the ninth and tenth floors. And he wanted the gold to be here.”
“But why?” Kelly asked.
“Part of our corporate identity,” he said with a shrug. “We do a lot of construction business all around the world. The clients who come here want to see the gold. They’re usually impressed.”
“How much is it worth?”
“Fifty kilobars at two pounds each.” The elevator dinged at the ninth floor. “It’s about two and a half million dollars.”
She gave a low whistle. “That’s a lot of money to leave lying around.”
“We’re eccentric, but we’re not stupid. Our security is intense.”
When the elevator door opened, Marian Whitman stood waiting for him. Though it was almost eight o’clock on a Sunday night, her grooming was sleek perfection. Not a single blond hair dared to slip out of place. The only color on her face came from her perfectly painted ruby lips. Her mouth barely moved when she said, “I expected you to be alone, Nick. We have business to discuss.”
He didn’t want to talk about corporate deficits and poor investment decisions. “It can wait.”
“Your uncle is here. He’s in his office. I think this might be a good time to confront him, while there are no other distractions.”
But Nick longed for distraction. He wanted to sling his arm around Kelly’s slender waist and take her outside for a walk along the path outside the office park. He wanted to tease her and make her laugh while they looked up at the half-moon. The March air would be crisp and invigorating.
Kelly shook Marian’s hand as she introduced herself. “I don’t want to interrupt. I’ll be going.”
“Thank you,” Marian said, “for understanding. Nick? Come with me.”
Though she was the Chief Financial Officer and the undisputed queen of the corporate balance sheets, he was still the boss. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “First, I’m going to show Kelly the gold. Then, I’ll escort her downstairs to her car. If I’m lucky, she’ll agree to come for a walk with me along the creek and we’ll see a couple of chipmunks scampering away from the nighthawks. After that, Marian, I’ll come back here. Then, and only then, we can talk.”
Not waiting for a response, he directed Kelly through the glass doors into the reception area for Spencer Enterprises. Behind his back, he heard Marian give an angry snarl. If he looked over his shoulder, he
might see steam shooting out of her ears.
Kelly cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t mind if we did this another time.”
“I would,” he muttered. “I spent the whole day dressed in a monkey suit, shaking hands and representing Spencer Enterprises. The last thing I want to do is spend my night mediating a rant between my uncle and Marian.”
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”
“Shakespeare?”
“Or somebody like that,” she said.
He placed his hand at the small of her back and guided her around the receptionist’s desk and into an open area with several windows on one side and cubicles for the accounting department on the other. “I suspect you’ve been around other people who thought they deserved to wear crowns.”
“My ex was a lawyer. Lots of bigheaded people in that profession want tiaras and crowns.”
As they strolled past the cubicles that were decorated with photos and personalized touches, the overhead lights—which were on motion sensors after the offices closed—came on automatically. Samuel had done an extensive upgrade on the electric and ventilation system in this building about five years ago. Though the decor featured saturated colors and lots of dark wood trim like an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club, the underlying design was state-of-the-art.
The back wall of the ninth floor had a large office in each corner. “We’re in front of Marian’s office,” he said. “On the opposite side, it’s Uncle Samuel.”
In the area between, Kelly paused to admire the gold-mining artifacts in two glass cases, including pans, winches and pickaxes. She studied the large oil painting above the oak wainscoting. The subject was a grizzled prospector leading a mule. She said, “That looks like a Remington.”
“It’s Remington’s style, but my great-grandfather commissioned the painting from one of his contemporaries. The prospector’s face is actually a portrait of Great-Grandpa Spencer himself. At one time, the ass had the face of his number-one competitor.”
“Why was it changed?”
“After my great-grandpa drove the ass out of business, the painting seemed mean.” He pushed open the door to a large conference room with a polished oak table, leather chairs and several other paintings hanging on the walls. “That little one with the bronco rider is a Remington.”
“I like the historical touches. It’s very Old West Colorado.”
“Not really my taste,” he confided as he crossed the room. “I like light and modern with clean lines. The office I usually work from is in the mountains.”
“I thought you lived in Valiant.”
“My brother wanted me to fill in while he was out of town for a week.” His clever brother had also dragged him into the issues with Uncle Samuel. “I’ve got a condo here, but I live in Breckenridge. Most of my work is in the ski resorts.”
At the back of the conference room, he paused beside a door that appeared to be dark oak. His knuckles flicked against the surface. “This entire section of wall and the door is heavy-duty steel.”
“The security you were talking about.” She came closer. “Is the gold in there?”
“This is only the first step.” He flipped open a nearly invisible wall panel to reveal a keypad. After punching in a five-number code, he opened the door to a brightly lit room. The walls were lined with utilitarian shelves and file cabinets. “This is our secure area where we keep confidential paperwork, contracts and mapping information. We call it the vault.”
“I’m surprised,” she said. “I would have thought this information would be computerized.”
“We’re working on it. Some of these documents date back to the 1800s. If they ever got lost, we’d have a hard time replacing them.” He took her by the shoulders and situated her in front of a floor-to-ceiling section of smoky gray glass that was about twelve feet long. “Ready?”
“Amaze me,” she said.
He hit a switch and a light came on behind the glass, turning it transparent. Behind a wall of reinforced steel bars, the Valiant gold shone with a radiance that rivaled the sun. The stacks of fifty kilobars took up about as much space as a medium-size coffee table. Nick had seen the gold hundreds of times. He’d held the kilobars and felt their weight in his hands. Still, being this close always gave him a thrill.
Kelly whispered, “Can I touch it?”
“Afraid not.”
She leaned forward, almost pressing her nose against the glass wall. “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced the real color of gold before. It almost seems alive.”
He heard the excitement in her voice as she continued. “When I look at this, I can understand why gold has been coveted throughout history—from King Midas to the search for El Dorado.”
“And into the present day. Two months ago, an Ethiopian prince offered to purchase the Valiant gold.”
His family’s treasure was more than a showpiece; it was collateral. If Marian was right and the company was on the brink of disaster, they could sell the gold—a worst-case scenario.
She tapped the glass wall. “This doesn’t seem like enough protection.”
“The glass is reinforced and the steel bars are unbreakable. The only way to open these doors is with a code and two simultaneous fingerprints from Spencer heirs. That includes me, my brother, Uncle Samuel and a cousin who’s currently on an expedition to the North Pole.”
“What about your mother?”
“Mom passed away when I was just a kid.”
“I’m sorry.... Do I see a safe in the corner behind the gold?”
He nodded. “There’s family jewelry in there. Ironically, the diamonds are probably worth as much as the gold. It’s too bad those necklaces and rings are almost never worn.”
“A real shame.” She pivoted and looked up at him. “Diamonds are meant to be seen.”
He would have liked nothing more than to retrieve one of the ornate necklaces from the safe, drape it around her throat and make love to her on the Valiant gold. “I wish I could show you.”
“There’s something magical about precious gems. I got to wear a very valuable rented bracelet once.” She gestured gracefully. “Rubies and diamonds.”
“You must have been attending an important event.”
“The Governor’s Inaugural Ball. He’s a friend of my ex.”
Nick was getting curious about the ex’s identity. “I’m surprised I didn’t see you there.”
“I’ve always been good at fading into the wallpaper, even when I’m wearing diamonds.”
“You look plenty sparkling to me.”
He heard a loud pop. A gunshot?
Grabbing Kelly’s wrist, he pulled her out of the vault and shut the door. As he ran toward the exit from the conference room, he shouted to her, “Stay back.”
In the hallway, Marian poked her head out of her office and called to him. “The noise sounded like it came from your uncle’s office.”
“Was it a gun?”
“I think so.”
A moment ago, he’d thought the worst fate that could befall the Spencers was to lose the gold. He hadn’t considered physical harm to his family. At the door to his uncle’s office, Nick grasped the handle. It was locked. “Samuel, open up. Samuel? Are you all right?”
There was no reply. If there was a gunman in the office, Nick should proceed carefully. But if Samuel had been shot, they had to get in there and help him.
Marian grasped his sleeve. “Don’t you have a key in your office?”
“That’s all the way upstairs. It’ll take too long.”
In a few strides, he was at the glass display case beside the prospector painting. Fortunately, the case wasn’t locked. Nick reached inside and wrapped his fingers around a pickax from the 1800s.
At the door to his uncle’s office, he used the tool to break the latch before he kicked the door open. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air. There was no one in the room except for his white-haired Uncle Samuel who sprawled on the floor beside his desk. Blood spread in a
dark stain on the beige carpet. A .45 caliber gun was in his right hand.
Nick knelt beside the old man and felt for a pulse. “He’s still breathing. Call 911.”
Kelly joined him on the floor. “Let me take care of him. I’m a nurse.”
“You deliver babies.”
“I’m also an RN. Step back, Nick.”
He gently removed the gun from his uncle’s limp hand and stood, looking down as Kelly tried to stop the bleeding from a chest wound.
The door had been locked. The windows were closed.
A set of blueprints lay on the desk. Across them, his uncle had written two words: I’m Sorry.
Chapter Three
Monday, 10:25 a.m.
“It’s not your fault that he died.”
“I know,” Kelly said.
Her friend Serena Bellows motioned for her to come out from behind the kitchen counter and join her in the living room. Picking her way through a minefield of toys and stuffed animals, Kelly made her way across the large room with the cathedral-style ceiling. Over the years, Serena and Nigel’s farmhouse on a twenty-acre spread had grown from a small cabin to a sprawling four-bedroom house.
Serena liked to say that the house had grown organically. The original cabin was long, flat and ranch-style. The living room and attached kitchen fit into an A-frame with solar panels on the roof. A Victorian tower housed Nigel’s home office. There were no predominant colors. Instead, the walls varied from room to room in a veritable rainbow.
“Sit,” Serena said. “Talk to me.”
Coffee mug in hand, Kelly sank onto the sofa. “I already told you what happened last night.”
“But you haven’t told me the whole story, and you need to let it out.” Holding her six-day-old daughter, Serena occupied a large oak rocking chair by the fireplace. She unbuttoned her turquoise muslin blouse and prepared to start breast-feeding. “I can feel your grief.”
Kelly couldn’t deny her sadness. Though she’d never met Nick’s uncle while he was alive, she would forever be connected to Samuel Spencer. For a few moments, she’d held his life in her hands. “I wish I could have done more for him.”
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