So why was she dwelling on it the way she was?
Get a grip, Erin, she upbraided herself.
It didn’t help, didn’t change anything.
Her company was in trouble and here she was, fantasizing about the man who was offering to help. What was wrong with her?
“I don’t know what to say,” she told him.
Steve laughed. “Well, the words thank you come to mind.”
She shook her head. “That doesn’t seem nearly good enough.”
He merely smiled at her. “It’ll do for now.”
“And later?” she asked, since that was what his tone indicated, that there’d be more to do down the line.
“Is later,” he told her whimsically, adding a wink that went like an arrow straight into her stomach. She could feel her stomach tightening in anticipation—of what, she wasn’t sure. Nevertheless, anticipation was still there, heightening all her senses and placing them all on red alert.
“Meanwhile,” Steve continued as he finished the last of his turnover, “nothing’s changed, right? We’re still on for Sunday?”
She nodded in response. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she told him.
“That’s good.” He’d said that with more than a little enthusiasm. Realizing that she might think he was pressuring her and thereby making her feel that he was in the same sort of category that Baker was, Steve was quick to add, “Because I would really hate to have to disappoint Jason.”
Her eyes met his. The boy was not the first person who came to her mind when she thought about the possible cancellation of her date. But in order to keep this from progressing too rapidly or going down the wrong road, she murmured, “Same here,” as she quickly lowered her eyes again.
* * *
Steve called A.J. Clarke the moment he returned to his office.
A.J. and his partner, George Matthews, had been his law firm’s private investigators for the past five years. Both were excellent at what they did, but over time he had found A.J. to be the more approachable as well as flexible of the two.
“What’s up?” A.J. asked as he closed the office door behind him and crossed to the chair in front of Steve’s desk.
Steve got right down to it. “I need you to locate a Wade Baker for me. Not just where he lives but what his daily routine is. I want to find out where he works, who he interacts with. Does he have friends, or is he a loner? In short, I want a complete picture of Baker’s current day-to-day life.”
“You want a background check on him, as well?” A.J. asked.
Of average height, build and coloring, A.J. blended into the surrounding scenery better than anyone he had ever seen, which was in part what made the man so good at what he did. A.J. made no impression—except when he wanted to get up close and personal. Then the impression was very distinct. Despite his nondescript appearance, he was not a man to be taken lightly or dismissed.
Steve nodded. “Might not be a bad idea.” Knowing how busy the investigator tended to be, he added, “And I need this done ASAP. It’s for a case that needs to go away as quickly as possible.”
Getting up, A.J. nodded. He began backing out of the office. “Consider it gone already.”
It was well-known that A.J. made no promises he couldn’t keep. “Knew I could count on you,” Steve told the man with a satisfied smile.
* * *
“So should we start thinking about re-forming the company under a different logo?” Mike asked her the moment Erin walked back into their office.
The feeling growing inside her for the past forty minutes had been laced with optimism. She realized that she was putting her money on a positive outcome, but Steve really did make her feel that everything was going to be all right.
“I think we can hold off awhile on that,” she told Mike.
“You ran Baker over with your car?” Neal asked hopefully.
“No. But I did manage to get a lawyer to represent us,” she told the others. She opened the bottom drawer of her desk and dropped her purse into it.
“A lawyer?” Rhonda echoed.
“We can afford a lawyer?” Gypsy asked from the doorway, drawn into the room by the sound of voices.
“I thought you said we couldn’t,” Judith reminded her.
Turning around to face the administrative assistant, Erin corrected the misinformation before it began to escalate. “The lawyer’s taking the case pro bono.”
“Worked your magic on him, did you?” Mike’s laugh made it clear that the question was a rhetorical one.
Gypsy was apparently still trying to untangle the information. “Bono’s a lawyer?” she asked, confused, looking from Mike to Erin.
“Not Bono the singer, bono,” Erin emphasized, enunciating both the Irish singer’s name and the Latin term.
Rhonda stepped up to explain the term to the administrative assistant. “It means that Erin got someone to work for free on our behalf.”
“Just how did you manage that?” Christian asked.
“Remember that Career Day talk I gave at that elementary school the other day?” Erin asked.
“The one you almost didn’t go to?” Mike recalled. “Yeah. What about it?”
“The other speaker that day was a lawyer,” she told them, thinking that would answer any of their questions on the subject.
But clearly not for Mike. “And we want a lawyer who gives speeches to kindergartners?”
“Second graders,” she corrected, then added with feeling, “And we want this one.”
“Oh, so it’s like that, is it?” Mike asked, smirking.
The expression on his face told her that he was clearly interested. His interest sparked the others’, as well.
“It’s not like anything, Mike,” she insisted even though she wasn’t nearly as certain about that as she tried to sound. There was something about Steve that managed to seep through all her self-constructed barriers, barriers that were supposed to keep her safe. “He’s the only lawyer I know, so I called him to see if he had a suggestion or knew anyone who could help us get Wade to drop this stupid lawsuit. Steve wound up volunteering to help us, saying his company could do it pro bono because it needed a write-off.”
“Do we get to meet him?” Neal asked, clearly very interested.
She could just see how that would go. There’d be six people talking at Steve, most likely all at once. He’d be running for the hills within minutes.
“And risk him deciding not to take the case?” she responded. “Not a chance.”
“So when do we find out if it’s okay to go on working here?” Mike asked.
“Steve said that we should just continue working the way we always have. In other words, just act as if everything was all right,” she told them.
“Oh, so it’s ‘Steve’ now, is it?” Neal asked with an extrawide smile. “Good for you, Erin.”
She ignored Neal’s obvious meaning and just zeroed in on his initial comment, answering it as if it had been serious.
“As far as I know, that’s always been his name. Now let’s get back to filling those orders or even if we win the case, we won’t have a company to run, because we will have been forced to close our doors due to a failure to fill back orders. Understood?” she asked, looking from one person on the team to another.
It was Mike who spoke up first. “Understood, mein Kapitän.” He saluted her, then turned toward the others. “You heard the lady, guys. We have dinosaurs to bring to life. Let’s get cracking!”
Erin watched with a surge of emotion as everyone got busy and she silently prayed that Steve had a miracle in his bag of tricks. Otherwise, this would be a thing of the past all too soon.
* * *
The next day, no matter what else she was doing, Erin was aware that she lived for t
he phone. Or, more accurately put, she lived to hear it ring and bring her good news.
Each time it did ring, whether she was at work or at home, she would snatch up the receiver and the first thing out of her mouth was always his name.
By late afternoon, her nerves were frayed but she calculated that eventually, the odds had to be in her favor.
“Steve?”
There was a momentary pause on the other end of the line and then a deep male voice asked her, “How did you know it was me?”
Since she had picked up the landline’s receiver on the first ring, he assumed that the caller ID hadn’t had time to register yet. Was she just anticipating his call, or was there something more to it?
It was ludicrous to believe something like that, he told himself, and yet...
There was no “yet” and he couldn’t allow his imagination to get carried away.
“Lucky guess,” she answered evasively. The next moment, she dropped any attempt at sounding nonchalant. They both knew how very important the correct outcome to this case was to her. “So, any news about my case?”
“It’s progressing,” was all Steve said in response. He would have loved to have told her that things looked as if they were going well on his end. If, for some reason, it all fell apart at the last minute, then she would be even more devastated, in his opinion, than she would be if she kept her expectations in check.
At this point, from the feedback he was getting from A.J., he felt fairly optimistic about the case’s outcome. Apparently Wade Baker, the man suing Erin and her company, was more of a blackmailer than a wronged innovator. A.J. had told him that he was presently running down one very telling piece of information. Once that was verified, he could proceed with bringing about an end to the whole ordeal.
“I’m just calling to make sure that we’re all set for tomorrow.”
“I thought we already verified that.”
“I never take anything for granted until it’s actually happening.”
“Well, you can take this for granted. I, for one, could really use the diversion,” she told him.
He felt for her. She’d put her heart and soul into this company and now she found herself in a position where it could all come to an end through no fault of her own. He knew what it felt like to suddenly have the floor pulled out from under you, except unlike in the cartoons, the free fall came immediately, not when you finally looked down.
“It’s going to be all right, Erin,” he told her quietly, then went on to say in a more audible voice, “I can’t tell you what a transformation there’s been in Jason because of you and that dinosaur.”
And it wasn’t just in Jason’s life but in mine, as well, he added silently.
Out loud, he said, “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at ten if that’s all right with you.”
“That’ll be perfect,” she answered.
* * *
“So no full-time job to speak of?” Steve asked A.J. as he skimmed over the report that the investigator had brought him.
“None that I could find. Not since your client fired him six months ago.” A.J. leaned back in the chair as he faced Steve. “He’s gone from job to job. Three by my count. Currently, Baker’s got this part-time gig as a night watchman at the Newport Beach outdoor mall. Not exactly brain surgery—especially since he’s already been cited for sleeping on the job once.
“During the day, he gets together with a few guys he seems to be friendly with at The Main Space, this bar that’s within walking distance—or stumbling distance—of his apartment,” A.J. told him.
Steve looked at the array of candid shots the firm’s investigator had taken of Baker. He felt as if he was looking at a wasted life.
Frowning, he glanced up at A.J. “He sounds like a real winner.”
“It gets better,” A.J. said. “Baker’s been bragging to some of his so-called friends that he’s going to be coming into big money soon. He’s really counting on this thing and he’s not going to go away easily.”
Steve had to ask, though he really didn’t want to. The more he interacted with Erin, the more he found himself really liking her. He didn’t want to hear anything that would make him change his mind about her.
But as her lawyer, he had to have all the facts first. “Anything to substantiate his claim about her stealing his idea?”
“I did some digging into both their personal lives,” A.J. told him.
Steve suddenly felt as if the floor beneath his feet had turned into a web of pins and needles. “And?”
“Your client’s got a spotless reputation. Couldn’t find anyone who had a bad word to say about her. It was like trying to find someone to bad-mouth Mother Teresa. The guy, however, is another story. Seems he tried to blackmail a woman he was actually having an affair with, threatened to tell her husband after things fell apart between them and she gave him his walking papers.”
“What happened?”
“Interesting story. She came clean to her husband. He forgave her, called the police and had Baker arrested. Charges were eventually dropped in exchange for Baker’s promise never to come near either of them again. This is not his first rodeo,” A.J. concluded. “You want me to have a talk with him, tell him what he’s facing if he goes through with this?” the investigator offered.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll handle it from here,” Steve told him, then smiled when he saw the skeptical expression in the other man’s eyes. “Not my first rodeo, either.” He let the report drop back on his desk as he looked at the investigator sitting opposite him. He knew how busy both he and his partner were. “Thanks for getting to this so quick.”
A.J. shrugged away his words. “You don’t usually put a rush on things. I figured that this had to be important.”
Steve glanced down at the report. He thought of the fear he’d seen in Erin’s eyes when she told him about the suit. “It is.”
A.J. ventured a guess. “Personal?”
Rather than deny it, Steve smiled, wondering what had initially given him away. “What makes you ask that?”
The investigator spread his hands as if the answer was self-evident. “Hey, I’m an investigator.”
Steve smiled. “This client is too much of a lady to know how to fight dirty. She’s one of those people who would never dream of hurting anyone or of lying and isn’t able to understand why anyone else would do that. I was pretty certain that the suit was baseless, but I also felt that it would be hard for her to prove. I just wanted to make absolutely sure that there was nothing to the guy’s claim—or anything that he could effectively twist to support his accusation.”
A.J. took his cue and rose from his seat. “Glad I could help. Oh, and if your ‘client’ could see her way clear to it, my five-year-old loves dinosaurs and would be thrilled to have one of the ones she makes. The one in the cowboy hat,” he specified. When Steve looked at him in surprise, A.J.’s grin widened again. “Like I said, I’m an investigator.”
Steve laughed, nodding at him. “So you are, A.J., so you are. I’ll talk to her,” he promised.
“Good enough for me. And if you change your mind about having that talk with that lowlife, my offer still stands.”
Steve nodded again. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he promised. But this was something he looked forward to doing himself.
* * *
Steve debated getting the confrontation with Baker over with as soon as possible. Erin deserved to know, one way or the other, if she actually had anything to worry about.
But if something unforeseen happened or the confrontation with Baker turned ugly, he would rather not have to tell Erin before they went to the movies tomorrow. He didn’t want to take a chance on ruining the day for his son—or for him, for that matter.
This was the first so-called date he was going on where not only was
his son included, which was unusual in itself, but the woman he was going out with had actually asked to have his son come along. That, to him, was extraordinary.
Each time he had made the suggestion to include his son to any of the other women he had seen previously, the woman either quickly changed the subject or seemed disappointed and the idea of their going out on a date at all died very quickly on the vine.
No one wanted to acknowledge that obvious truth. That he and Jason were a package deal.
That was, no one wanted to acknowledge it until Erin had come along.
He wanted to give their date a fighting chance to flourish before he was forced to factor in any extraneous occurrences.
Steve supposed that made him sound selfish.
On the other hand, that also made him sound like a father.
Chapter Thirteen
“Do you think he’ll be there?” Jason asked.
Steve didn’t have to glance up in his rearview mirror to know that the boy was fidgeting behind him in the car seat. He could tell from the sound of his son’s voice. Nonetheless, he raised his gaze to the mirror to make eye contact.
“Do I think who’ll be there?” he asked the boy.
“Tex,” Jason said impatiently, as if his father should have known that. “Do you think he’ll be at Erin’s house? Does he live with her? And the other dinosaurs, the ones she brought with her to my classroom—do you think they live with her, too? Or do they all have their own house?”
“All good questions,” Steve told his son. “None of which I know the answer to.” Those were all questions he felt Erin was best equipped to field.
He made a right turn at the next corner. He’d programmed his GPS before leaving the house, but he’d gone over the route several times the old-fashioned way—on a road map he kept in his car in case of emergencies. Even the most sophisticated of electronics had been known to malfunction on occasion. Paper, however, never did. Whenever possible, he liked having a sure thing in his corner.
“But we’ll be there very soon,” he told Jason, “so you can ask her yourself.”
Dating for Two (Matchmaking Mamas) Page 14
