by Carol Ross
“I see what you mean. Like a calm before the storm kind of thing?”
Laurel nodded. “Exactly, and maybe it’s the reporter in me—seeing conspiracy everywhere. But I just want you to be careful, Emily. I don’t want you to get blindsided or...”
Heartbroken. Emily finished the sentence silently as a cold feeling of dread spread through her. And Bering, she realized suddenly, had definitely acquired the ability to break her heart.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JEREMY WAS READY to blow his top. He could feel the veins bulging and pounding in his neck as he scanned the model in front of him. He picked up a tiny stick of fake debris and then set it back down on top of the tiny pile. He’d asked the graphics department for a mock-up of the building that Cam-Field was proposing to have built for the new Argot & Co. headquarters.
Argot had become a veritable cash cow of oil and gas deposits located off the coast of Louisiana before the last hurricane hit. The petroleum deposits were all offshore and thus still in perfect shape, but the platforms had suffered extensive damage and the onshore infrastructure had been blown to bits. The company was hugely in debt and in danger of going under if someone didn’t invest in its recovery. Cam-Field intended to be that someone and had made an offer to invest a substantial amount of money in exchange for a share of the company.
It was a simple request, he’d thought, of the graphics department. But what he was looking at now was apparently a replica of the post-hurricane destruction along the coastline of Louisiana.
“Doug? It is Doug, right?” Jeremy asked as calmly as he could manage.
“Uh, yes, sir,” Doug said with a wide grin. He stood at attention in front of Jeremy’s desk with two other members of his team.
“Fine, yes.” Jeremy went on, “Doug, what is this?”
Doug bobbed his head up and down, and answered proudly, “It’s Louisiana, sir. And this—” he pointed at a miniature little funnel blob of fake crystals and sequins “—is Hurricane Lula before she hit the coast. We thought it would be a nice touch to show her path across the ocean, too.” He trailed his index finger over the bright blue faux ocean.
“Mmm-hmm.” Jeremy nodded. “But why?”
“Well...I’m not a meteorologist or anything, but it’s my understanding that when a tropical storm hits an already moist weather disturbance, a hurricane is often the result,” Doug explained soberly. “And the winds and stuff are a serious bummer.”
“I know that,” Jeremy managed to utter through his stiffened jaw. “But why is it sitting on my desk?”
Doug furrowed his brow and looked down at the model. “Did you want it in the conference room, sir?”
“No!” Jeremy nearly shouted. It took all of his effort to lower his voice. “No. What I meant was, why did you make it? And where is the mock-up of the new Argot & Co. headquarters?”
“Whoa,” Doug said with wide eyes.
“What do you mean, ‘whoa’?” Jeremy barked.
“I’m sorry, dude, er, I mean, sir, but I’m pretty sure that you asked for a muck-up.”
“A muck-up?” Jeremy repeated incredulously.
“Yes, sir, you asked for a muck-up of the coastline where the Argot headquarters is located. So I thought you meant you wanted to see the post-hurricane destruction. You know,” he said and added finger quotes, “‘the wrath of Lula’—that’s what we’ve been calling it. I think that’s dope, don’t you? And here it is.” Doug beamed proudly and gestured at their work. “Boy, that storm really did a number on that building. See?” He pointed at a pile of painted toothpicks. “That’s it right there.”
Silence gave way to tension as Jeremy stared into the faces of the morons made up Cam-Field’s graphics staff and wondered how they could possibly be so stupid. He’d seen their work before and it had always been brilliant. Emily was always bragging about how they had the best graphics staff in the industry. She’d also warned him to tread carefully around the quirky, eccentric, but extremely talented bunch.
You needed to be patient, she had explained, and you had to communicate exactly what you needed, she’d advised, and if you could do that, they’d do anything for you. They could make gold out of yellow construction paper, she’d added proudly. Of course, he hadn’t really taken her words to heart. Like the rest of the advice she’d given him, he’d pretty much blown it off. Well, he was paying for that now.
He’d had all he could take. He banged his fist on the desk. “Out! I want you all out of here. Now!” he screamed and pointed at the door. He so badly wanted to fire them all, but knew that he’d not only be looking at a wrongful-termination lawsuit, he’d also have no graphics staff. “And when you come back it had better be with a mock-up! Do you hear me, you imbeciles? I want a mock-up! A mock-UP of the new Argot & Co. headquarters building that we are proposing to build for them. Do you understand? A model—a mock-up.”
They scampered out of the room and Jeremy slumped back into his chair. He needed a new game plan and he needed it quickly. Emily.
* * *
BERING BROWSED THROUGH his notes in preparation for the impending conference call that would give him the latest update on the halting of Cam-Field’s business here in Rankins. He looked at his watch impatiently; just a few more hours and he would be meeting Emily at her house.
Bering was trying not to let his feelings of guilt spoil his time with Emily. It was important, he kept telling himself, to continue to show her what an amazing place Rankins really was. The fact that their relationship had escalated to something beyond friendship was irrelevant. The fact that he felt confident that he would prevail in preventing Cam-Field from taking over the town was also beside the point.
And to all appearances, he and the Save Rankins Coalition were still fighting hard. The two sides had had a busy few days of back-and-forth. First there was Bering’s rescheduled rally. And although Evan Cobb had been unable to attend, one of Bering’s former environmental-sciences professors had come instead. He’d given a very compelling speech and an even better Q and A. Bering had been pleased with the turnout, although, as expected, Emily had responded with a successful venture of her own.
She had arranged a book giveaway and signing by Robert Galleon—a scientist who had written a bestseller on the importance of American oil independence. He was the perfect advocate for Cam-Field’s cause because he appealed to the energy-independence crowd as well as to the business-minded.
Bering had gone to both events and had counted more town-council members at Emily’s event than had been at his. But when he’d learned that neither one of them had anything planned for this evening, he’d suggested they spend it together. Emily had agreed without hesitation. She hadn’t even seemed to give work a thought....
His phone rang; he looked at the number and noted with surprise that it was two hours early. He picked up the receiver.
“Bering, glad I reached you. It’s Jack.”
“Hello, Senator,” Bering said and they exchanged a few pleasantries.
“Look, Bering, I’ve got some news for you that I think you’ll be happy to hear. The conference call is off.”
“That’s good news?”
He explained, “I think you’ll find it so in this case. Not only are we going to be able to shut this thing down, we are now headed in a whole new direction. And we have started an investigation. We’ve been looking closely at some of the other projects that Cam-Field has been involved with over the last few years. Some shady things appear to be going on. It seems Cam-Field has always been very meticulous with environmental reviews—until the last year or so.”
The senator quickly filled Bering in and they said goodbye, but Bering sat gripping the phone for several minutes as he allowed the ramifications of the senator’s words to sink in. “Probable fraud...” He should have been thrilled by what he’d heard, but instead the news filled him with unease. A month ago he would have been ecstatic to hear that Cam-Field might be embroiled in legal trouble. But that was all before E
mily. Emily.
As he gently replaced the phone into the cradle, he worried about how this investigation would affect her. Would she lose her job? Would she blame him? He tried to tell himself that she was a big girl, that she could handle it. She’d been working for Cam-Field forever, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a roadblock, or even a bomb, had been thrown in her path. He knew it wasn’t even the first time that Cam-Field had been investigated for one thing or another. Why didn’t that make him feel better? And if she did lose her job, was there any way that she would ever stay with him?
Obviously she wouldn’t stay with him—she would probably never speak to him again. And even if, through some kind of miracle, she didn’t hold it against him, she was still leaving. She worked for Cam-Field, and she was going to be heading for the next job soon, the next little town like Rankins to come into Cam-Field’s crosshairs. But that offered no comfort, because what he really wanted was impossible—he wanted to save Rankins, but he wanted Emily, too.
* * *
EMILY TOOK A QUICK SHOWER, dried her hair and then dressed in a pair of yoga pants, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a fleece hoodie. She slipped her feet into a pair of fuzzy slippers and padded into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and began removing ingredients. Cooking seemed so overwhelming to her, although much less so than it had a couple weeks ago, as Bering had succeeded in teaching her how to make omelets, pancakes and grilled cheese.
Certainly she could do dinner, she told herself as she scowled down at the plastic-wrapped chicken lying on the counter. Couldn’t she? She had called Janie and asked for some advice on what to fix—something she knew Bering liked, but that wouldn’t be too complicated. Janie had been full of ideas and had even offered to come over and help, but Emily had declined, wanting to do this on her own. Now, as she studied the recipe Janie had given her for one of Bering’s favorite dishes, she wondered if she should have taken her up on that offer. She glanced over at the clock and hoped the few hours she had would be enough to complete the task.
She had thought about Laurel’s warning and decided that it didn’t matter. Bering and his Save Rankins Coalition had been fighting hard, and if he had something up his sleeve, then so be it. She reminded herself that it wouldn’t be anything different than she had encountered before. She would answer in kind and that would be it. This sort of sparring went with the territory. She smiled to herself. She knew that it really was becoming just a job for her. She was still committed to it; it was only her relationship with Bering that made things feel different.
Besides, she had her own long-term plans now, but she wasn’t going to think about the repercussions of those, either. Tonight, she would do her utmost to enjoy an evening with Bering in exactly the manner he’d taught her—putting business aside.
After an exhausting wrestling match with a stubborn naked chicken, Emily felt like the victor. The disagreeable bird was now skinless and drowning in a buttermilk concoction as the recipe outlined and Janie had instructed.
Almost two hours later, she was rethinking her plan to include dessert in her menu. She’d also asked Janie for a dessert to bake. She’d never baked a cake before and now she stared down at the gooey mass she’d removed from the oven. She’d flipped it over onto a platter as per the instructions, but she doubted that was how it was supposed to look. She blew out a breath and wiped the sweat from her brow. The hoodie was long gone, her sleeves were pushed up and her hair was piled messily on top of her head.
Bering—and his sister and his mother and his aunts—made it look so easy, but cooking was difficult. And messy—she was glad she’d started early so she could clean up before Bering saw this catastrophe. He’d never let her hear the end of it. She reached over and poked at the cakelike substance. Maybe she could shape it back together somehow, because it didn’t resemble any kind of cake she’d ever seen, and there were chunks still stuck in the bottom of the pan. Probably that wasn’t supposed to happen. She chewed on her lip and perused the recipe once more. She flipped the little card over. Oh, dear, there was more on the back? Grease the pan? She’d missed that important detail. And apparently she was supposed to let the cake cool before she inverted it?
“Ugh!” She let out a groan of frustration.
“What are we doing here?”
Emily jumped and turned. Bering was leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe. Her heart thumped heavily in her chest, partially from being startled but mostly because of him. And she definitely didn’t want him to see her like this.
“Bering, what are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here for at least another hour.”
“I finished early,” he said. Something flashed across his face but was gone so quickly she didn’t have time to identify it. A look of amusement transformed his features as his eyes darted around the kitchen, taking in the mess of pans, measuring cups, bowls and the pile of flour she’d spilled on the floor but decided to clean up after she got the cake into the oven. But then she’d started making the frosting and she hadn’t had time to get the broom. Now as she looked around, too, she wondered how it had managed to travel and spread across nearly every surface of the kitchen.
He sauntered toward her and Emily felt her pulse begin to flutter. He looked on the verge of laughter.
Emily, feeling slightly embarrassed, tried to smile up at him. “I am cooking dinner for you, which includes dessert. I wanted to do something to repay you for everything you’ve done for me—and with me. But...”
He reached out a finger and trailed it across her cheek, which caused her blood to spike warmly and words to fail her. He withdrew his finger and held it aloft. The tip was white with flour. He blew it off and then draped his arm over her shoulder.
“I see,” he drawled slowly and then gestured toward the steaming pile on the counter. “What’s that?”
“Cake!”
“Really?” he asked doubtfully.
“Yes,” she squeaked.
“That explains the flour, then.”
“Yep.” Emily could see the humor of the situation. “Does it not look familiar? Janie said it was one of your favorites.”
“She did, huh?” He peered at it more closely. “I’m getting old and forgetful, clearly, because I do not recognize it. What kind is it?”
She picked up the recipe card and handed it to him. “Chocolate-cherry something-or-other,” she said. She pointed at the plate. “See that? Your sister even gave me the cherries. But I’ve only recently discovered that there are two sides to this card.”
Bering’s lips twitched. He flipped it over and then looked back down at the cake. He made a sniffing sound. “It smells delicious, though. I can’t wait to try it.”
“Bering, look at it.”
“I’m sure it will look better after it’s frosted.”
“I highly doubt it. Why aren’t you giving me a hard time about this?”
His brows traveled up onto his forehead. “Are you kidding me? Emily, I’m thrilled. You’re cooking for me. I don’t care what it looks like. At the risk of sounding like a perfect chauvinist, I’ll admit to liking this attempt at domesticity.”
“Bering, this is a disaster. I don’t think, uh, domesticity is my thing.”
“Maybe not.” He chuckled. “But maybe you just need a bit of practice. But either way, I don’t care....” He picked up a chunk of the cake and put it in his mouth. “Mmm,” he said and added an appreciative moan. “I do recognize it now. It’s Aunt Margaret’s recipe.”
“Yes!” Emily cried triumphantly. “That’s what Janie said.”
He picked up another piece and offered it to her. “Taste,” he said softly.
She opened her mouth and he slid the cake inside. She nodded. “It is pretty good.”
“What else have you got?”
“There’s chicken soaking over there, but is there any chance you would settle for just cake for dinner?”
Bering looked down at her and grinned. “You would like that, wouldn’t yo
u?”
“Yes, I would. I really, really would.”
“Not a chance.” He walked over to the chicken and lifted off the plastic wrap. “Now, this I recognize. It’s one of my favorites.”
“Janie said it was.” She popped another piece of cake into her mouth.
He stared at her.
“Whafft?” she asked, her mouth now stuffed full of cake. “I’m frilly hungrfy.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Stop eating the cake, Emily. It’s dessert. And as I’ve been trying to tell you for the last few weeks, dessert comes after the meal.”
She stole another quick nibble. “Okay, okay. Man, you are so bossy. Has anyone ever told you that before?”
“I may have heard that a time or two from this junk-food-addicted blonde I know.” He shook his head. “You’d think she’d be grateful for all my help and advice, but all she does is complain and sneak unhealthy snacks behind my back. Sometimes she even trashes portions of the healthy meals I prepare for her. Can you believe that?”
“Maybe you should quit trying to feed her toast that’s full of dried bugs and wheat germ on the sly. Have you thought of that?”
“If you don’t start eating what I feed you, I really am going to sneak some bugs in, and trust me—you’ll never even know they’re there.”
“I don’t really think you’d do that,” she said, but couldn’t keep the doubt from creeping into her voice. “Would you?”
“Probably not, if you are willing to make a deal here.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “What kind of deal?”
“I’ll help you cook this meal if you call off the rally on Saturday.”
“The rally? Bering, I can’t do that.” She had two speakers coming, including a lady who was one of Alaska’s most popular and well-known businesswomen, and the other, a charismatic state senator. This was to be her last big push before the town-hall meeting on Sunday and the town-council vote was Tuesday. There was no way she could call it off.
