Think About Love

by Vanessa Grant

  He certainly wasn't going to accept her resignation. From what she said, it wouldn't be more than a couple of weeks before she could return to Seattle. Meanwhile, he'd show his face in the admin offices more than usual, and she'd delegate and organize via phone and web conference—Sam was, after all, an expert at organizing, at hiring the kind of people one could delegate to. One way or another, they'd get through the next fourteen days until Sam returned.

  Then, if the grandmother went into a nursing home, Sam would come back to Seattle with the kid, who would go into day care. He'd put the chopper and a pilot at her disposal for weekend visits to the grandmother. Then Sam's world—and Cal's—would go back to normal.

  Which didn't explain why Cal was prowling a cement pathway through manicured grass on the edge of Nanaimo's harbor, staring at the lights across the water, worried instead of wondering what the hell those lights were. Not Gabriola Island, which lay at the other end of Nanaimo Harbor. Maybe Newcastle Island, which the museum exhibit labeled a historic coal mining site.

  If that was Newcastle, there would be an old tunnel running under the harbor, joining it to Nanaimo. Built to carry coal from Newcastle.

  Which, at the moment, he couldn't care less about.

  The trouble was, Sam had turned into a woman with a baby and a potentially complicated private life, either of which could be relied on to cause future problems. Being a single parent had to be a massive task at the best of times. When he thought of the chaos he and his sister had created in their parents' lives as children, he didn't figure Sam was in for much fun with this solitary baby-tending business. Even with day care, she'd be exhausted in a matter of weeks if she tried to keep up her previous pace.

  Did she have a man in her life? A woman who hadn't mentioned losing her sister over the Christmas vacation certainly wasn't going to fill her boss in on her love life.

  If she did have a love life, it stood to reason that now she was a family woman, she'd be thinking about marriage, a father for the baby. She wouldn't want the child growing up fatherless.

  A girl like Sam—smart, sensible, and sexy—all she'd have to do to obtain a husband was to let some suitable guy know she was in the market.

  And if looking after Kippy weren't enough to wear her out and make her decide she wanted a job that was less demanding, then having a husband—and, soon, a baby of her own—would do it. That tiny, sleeping infant was the first step toward disaster for Cal. In the end, she'd leave him.

  Cal wasn't going to wait for Sam to get to the point of leaving him. He would come up with an offer she couldn't refuse, one that would keep her exactly where he wanted her—at Tremaine's.

  By three o'clock Friday afternoon, the lineup outside Tremaine's extended east along the block as far as the television camera could see. Then the doors opened and candidates began pouring off the elevators into the reception area.

  Three hours later, Samantha returned to the television monitor in the reception area and found candidates still lined up beyond the camera's view. She collared Jason, the human resources manager.

  "We're not going to be able to process all these people."

  "I know, but we can't go any faster. I've told Wendy to start taking them coffee."

  "Good idea. And, Jason, have one of the volunteers survey the line for developers. If we don't get to everyone, we don't want to miss any developers."

  "With all this publicity, we've got about twenty good developer candidates already lined up for interviews next week in addition to those we screened today."

  Samantha jumped when she heard Cal's voice behind her.

  "Good," he said to Jason, "but check the lineup for developers."

  All day she'd been jumpy around Cal. Nerves, not knowing what was going to happen with her job. This morning she'd talked to Dorothy's doctor, who spoke about congestive heart failure and Dorothy's symptoms—chest pain, palpitations, erratic pulse, shortness of breath, weakness, and fatigue.

  The idea of Dorothy living in a nursing home upset her horribly. Although Dorothy still insisted she wasn't seriously ill, this morning she'd agreed that Dexter should file for a custody transfer to ensure Kippy's safety.

  Her grandmother would hate leaving the house she'd lived in ever since her husband James brought her to Gabriola as a bride. James had passed away, but Dorothy cherished the memories held by their home.

  Maybe they could avoid a nursing home if Dorothy lived in Seattle with Samantha and Kippy. Samantha wasn't sure her own medical insurance would cover Dorothy's care, but she earned good money.

  This morning, when Cal checked her seat belt in the helicopter, he had announced, "You're not leaving Tremaine's. We'll talk about details later."

  She was afraid that, after last night, Cal now saw her as one of those women who couldn't be relied on, whose home life perpetually interfered with work. Face it, if Cal thought she couldn't give one hundred percent to her job, he wouldn't want her in charge. He might want to appoint someone over her, but if she had to work under someone who'd been appointed to her old position, she'd rather leave.

  She was a single parent now—or would be, officially, once the judge agreed. All day she'd been trying to make herself believe that she could handle both her job at Tremaine's and a young baby. And Dorothy, who would need specialists, second opinions, treatment. It was all going to take time, too much time.

  Now, with the muted roar of dozens of voices in conversation filling Tremaine's reception area, she acknowledged the truth. She worked long hours, exciting hours doing a job she loved. But how much time would that leave for Kippy?

  Samantha's mother had sacrificed her daughters' welfare to her own obsessive needs for romantic love more than once. The lure of love and romance didn't tempt Samantha, but wasn't she doing almost the same thing, trying to keep her exciting job, her position, prestige, and power—all at Kippy's expense, and Dorothy's?

  Until yesterday, she'd been a businesswoman with her future clearly mapped out. That future hadn't included children or a family, because she wasn't going to take on anything she couldn't make a success of and she'd never neglect a child. She'd known that her passion for her work meant she might not make an adequate wife and mother, might not be able to give enough.

  The obvious answer was to avoid motherhood and marriage, but that decision had been taken out of her hands. Now she was a mother, and she wanted to be a good one.

  Brenda Simonson was right, she should have been with Kippy today. The baby needed stability, needed to know Samantha was going to be there for her.

  It would have been irresponsible of Samantha to duck the open house today, but the fact was, today she'd chosen Tremaine's needs over Kippy's. It mustn't happen again. Dorothy had never let Samantha or her sister down, and Samantha wasn't going to let Kippy down either.

  She had to choose—Tremaine's or Kippy—and when she put it that way, there was no choice at all. She loved the smooth chaos of the open house, felt proud to see the team she'd assembled greeting applicants, steering them through the process that was working pretty damned smoothly. But Kippy and Dorothy came first.

  Cal touched her shoulder and said, "Chopper's refueled and on the roof. We'll leave in forty minutes."

  "Okay," she said in the most businesslike tone she could manage. "I've got a few things to see to first."

  She loved working for Cal, loved the constant challenge, the excitement, loved knowing she made a big difference to the company. But she couldn't sacrifice Kippy's welfare to her own selfish desires. She'd go back to consulting, where she had more control of her hours. She'd take only a few clients, work part-time.

  Later she'd tell Cal; then she'd work with him—mostly from Gabriola—to find her own replacement. Monday, she'd phone Tim Mirimar and tell him she needed a month to get her life organized, but then she'd be available for a half-time load of consulting jobs.

  Meanwhile, she had responsibilities at Tremaine's, and she'd find a way to fulfill them without sacrificing Kippy.
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  Forty minutes after Cal spoke to her in the reception area, she'd talked to Jason to arrange a telephone meeting Monday morning and talked to Marcy to tell her she'd be out of the office for a while. She managed five minutes with the head of development, two with the technical pre-sales director to arrange for his monthly report to be delivered in a conference call Tuesday. She'd also managed a brief conversation with Cal's assistant, Dee, to arrange daily web conferencing meetings.

  She would have liked time to go to her apartment and pack a few things as well, but she had casual clothes on Gabriola Island, and with her computer and cell phone she'd get by.

  She had to be back on Gabriola tonight, for Kippy.

  In the helicopter, Cal handed her a set of headphones, but she waited until he was airborne and flying over open water before she spoke.

  "We need to talk about my job."

  "When we get to the island."

  "I have to pick up Kippy as soon as we get back. She's likely to be cranky. Now's the best time to talk."

  "I can wait."

  She didn't want to have a business conversation with him with Kippy liable to start crying at any minute. On the other hand, she could see from the set look on Cal's face that he wasn't going to discuss business here in the helicopter. Looking at his face made her want to put the whole thing off for a week or two, because she'd never seen him quite so grim.

  It didn't matter. She had no choice but to leave, and although she'd naturally wanted a glowing reference, she had enough consulting credits that she didn't need it.

  She would miss him. She'd become accustomed to their frequent conversations about Tremaine's, to the way an idea would set fire to his eyes and her own pulse would quicken with his excitement.

  She studied the mass of Vancouver Island looming ahead, evergreen mountains and low hills. The smaller islands were indistinguishable from this angle. The whole thing looked like one massive land mass filling the horizon. She couldn't pick out Gabriola Island from the others.

  When they landed, she'd tell him.

  A few minutes later, the helicopter settled gently onto the grass in front of Dorothy's house, Samantha saw Cal's hands move on the controls. Then the blur of the chopper's rotor resolved into a single blade, sweeping circles ever more slowly.

  Samantha unclipped her seat belt and Cal turned his head, his hands still on the controls.

  "I'm leaving Tremaine's."

  His eyes narrowed. Irritation? Impatience? Anger? She told herself not to read him, that he wasn't going to like her announcement, but he had no choice but to accept it. Better to get it over quickly, while he still had daylight to fly to Nanaimo.

  "We'll talk later," he said grimly.

  "It has to be now." Her heart pounded hard, as if she were at the wheel of her car in a skid on black ice. "I've done a good job for you, Cal, but everything's changed. I can't give Tremaine's the same commitment, the same amount of time I have been until now. Kippy has to come first. I'll help you find a replacement, sit in on the interviews, advise you. I'm going back to Mirimar Consulting, part-time."

  Cal glowered at the line of cedar trees that edged up against the back of the house. Tight lips, rigid jaw.

  "Think of it as my finishing my original consulting job for Tremaine's," she said, telling her pulse to quiet. Employees quit all the time. Leaving might make an unpleasant scene, but it wasn't fatal for either the employee or the boss. "Originally, you hired me to organize Tremaine's administration. The end of the contract should have been my finding an administrative manager for you. I'll do that now."

  "No."

  She swallowed. "All right. I—then I'll get someone in, another consultant. Tim Mirimar or—"

  "Samantha, shut up." He threw the door open on his side of the helicopter, swung out of his seat, and slammed the door behind him, jerking her body as if he'd slapped her.

  She grabbed her computer case and scrambled out. She ran, caught up with him five paces from Dorothy's veranda.

  "Cal, listen to me!"

  He stopped and swung to face her. "What?"

  "You don't have time for this! It's going to be dark soon!" She was shouting at him, screaming. She gulped and swallowed panic, forced her voice to calmness. "If you don't take off soon, you'll be stuck here overnight."

  The fury in his eyes drained so fast it left her disoriented.

  "I can handle that," he said quietly, in the sort of voice one probably used to calm hysterical babies. "Where do you want to talk?"

  "I needed to tell you I'm leaving, and I've done that. Now I have to go next door and get Kippy. I don't have time for business tonight. I have a child to look after."

  He studied her with those gray eyes.

  "Cal, I appreciate how helpful you've been with the helicopter, how understanding." Had he been understanding? She wasn't sure. "Let's have a phone conference tomorrow morning? Let's say about ten-thirty?"

  "No."

  "But—"

  "Sam, you're a fantastic manager. None better. But you're not managing me." He took her arm and she jerked, but he held on. "Go into the house, put away your computer case; then we'll go over and pick up the baby."

  He was moving her toward the house. She resisted, pulling against his grip, finally pulling her arm free.

  "Cal, I want to be alone. I need you to leave." She was proud of the reasonable tone of her own voice, especially considering the ragged state of her breathing, as if she'd been running uphill.

  "I'm not leaving."

  "I'll call the police."

  "No, you won't. You've said your bit, Sam. Now it's my turn, but it's crazy to discuss anything as serious as this when you've got a baby waiting for you, when you haven't had supper. I'm starving. Aren't you?"

  "No."

  "Of course you are. Why don't you give me the computer and your keys? I'll go in the house and start cooking something for us to eat. You go get the baby—unless you want me to come with you? If she's heavy, I can carry her. How far is it?"

  "Just next door." He wasn't going to give up. She knew that light in his eye, and he wasn't going to leave her alone, not until he'd had his say.

  He held out his hand.

  "Damn you," she muttered as she gave him her computer case. "The house key's in my wallet, front pocket of the case."

  She didn't want him making himself at home in Dorothy's kitchen, making it more difficult for her to keep the distance appropriate between employee and boss—ex-employee and ex-boss. But if he didn't cook, he'd have nothing to do. He'd probably pace, watching her tend to Kippy. Observing, making her nervous.

  "There's chicken in the fridge," she said. "And fish in the freezer." Then she turned and walked away, along the path joining Dorothy's property to Diane's.

  Cal put Sam's computer case on the old oak desk beside the front door, rubbed his shoes on the welcome mat, and headed for the kitchen.

  He needed to handle her very carefully, he decided as he stared at the contents of the refrigerator. Sam was a woman who planned everything, and she'd already made her plan, one that didn't include Tremaine's.

  White wine, an almost full bottle in the door. Would she sit with him after they ate, a glass of wine in her hand? Unlikely, he decided as he pulled a package of chicken breasts out of the fridge, then turned on the electric grill beside the coffeepot.

  Potatoes in the pantry. He scrubbed them, pricked holes in through the skins with a fork, set the microwave for six minutes to give them a head start. Then he pulled some spices out of the rack on the windowsill and shook a variety of herbs onto the chicken before he put two breasts on the grill. Both Cal and his sister had learned to cook by the time they were ten, and he went about making dinner without much thought.

  For years, his sister had been laying traps for him, invitations to dinners where he'd find himself sitting across from a variety of her friends and acquaintances. Adrienne had been persistent, tossing a variety of women in his path. He'd dated a few, but there'd never been enou
gh spark, enough fire to stop him canceling a date and saying goodbye when the latest project heated up.

  And despite Adrienne's matchmaking urges—strange in a woman who declared she'd probably never marry—and his mother's campaign for a grandchild, he'd never considered marriage with any of those women.

  He found a can of asparagus tips in the pantry, slipped them into a bowl ready for the microwave when the potatoes finished. A week ago, he would have said that he couldn't imagine proposing to any woman. But neither had he imagined Sam would announce she was leaving.

  Whatever it took, he needed to keep her at Tremaine's.

  It was ninety percent business. If any one of those women he'd dated had been as talented as Sam, he might have thought about marriage.

  Pull the other one, Calin Tremaine. You've been fighting fantasies of tangling up the sheets with her for eighteen months. Now she's leaving, and if it were just business, you'd give her the consulting contract, get her to find her own replacement, and get on with business.

  He didn't want a replacement. He trusted her, and damn it, he wanted to know that when he felt discouraged or worried, he could walk into her office, interrupt her with some unnecessary question, and soak up whatever it was about her that always made him feel no mountain was too high, no challenge too great.

  With Sam at his side, he could do anything.

  The microwave dinged and he pulled the potatoes out, slipped them into the oven. He heard a footstep outside on the veranda and hurried to open the door for her. Samantha Jones might not know it yet, but she wasn't going anywhere.

  "Come in," he said softly, and for just a second he saw awareness flash in her eyes, and he fought the urge to yank her into his arms. Then, suddenly, she was the cool, contained Sam he'd come to expect.

  He closed the door behind her, kept his voice low so as not to disturb the baby whose head was nestled against her breast. "She's sleeping. Where's her bed?"

  "In the back." She pointed with a gesture of her head, avoiding his eyes. "I can—"