Second Chance Christmas

by Casey Dawes

  “I didn’t have problems with Frank. He stole from me. From us.” His dad struggled to his feet. “You should be on my side in this.”

  “It was never proven.”

  “He took the settlement. That was proof enough.”

  “Stop!” His mother strode into the room. “Stop it. Both of you. That was all over a long time ago.” She put her hand on his father’s shoulder. “Sit down, Brian. No need for another heart attack.”

  “But this idiot . . . ” His father gestured at Reese but allowed himself to be resettled on the couch. “He hired Frank’s daughter.”

  “And she’s a lovely young woman going through a rough patch. I’m sure she’ll do fine.”

  “But . . . ”

  “Her mother is very worried about her. After all that family’s been through. You owe Findlay a chance,” his mother said.

  “You talk to Frank’s wife?”

  “Widow. Always have.” She went to the cupboard, poured herself a scotch, and sat down in an armchair next to her husband. “How about a game show?” she asked as she clicked on the television. When she looked pointedly at Reese, he retrieved his own glass, filled it with soda water, and sat in his designated chair.

  Past time to move out and on with his life. The only way his father was going to view him as an adult was if he lived under his own roof.

  • • •

  At the first opportunity the next morning, Reese stalked into Sam’s office and closed the door.

  “What can I do for you?” Sam asked, standing up from his desk chair.

  “You can stop going around my back and telling my father everything that’s going on here.”

  “Well, that’s direct.”

  “Meant to be.”

  Sam steepled his fingers and stared at him for a few minutes. Putting his palms flat on the desk, he leaned forward.

  “I own part of this company, remember?” he said. “I have loyalty to your father and to you. You’ve been trained as a diplomat, and based on the way you handle difficulties between employees, I’d say you’re damn good at it. But it’s not business.”

  “Regardless, I’m in charge now.”

  “Temporarily. As soon as your father’s health is improved, you can bet your last dollar he’ll be back here and sticking his nose in everything.”

  Reese fought down an urge to smile. He cleared his throat.

  “I’m not going back to Paris. I intend to learn the business and take it over one day.”

  Sam cocked an eyebrow. “Thought you wanted nothing to do with the business, especially after the fiasco with that girl’s father.” He waved in the direction of the financial programming group.

  “She’s not ‘that girl.’ She’s got a name. Use it.”

  The eyebrow inched a little higher.

  “Still got feelings?” Sam asked. His eyebrows tilted up an eighth of an inch—just enough to show his interest.

  “No, but that’s not the topic under discussion.”

  Sam studied him for a moment, as if trying to slide this new version of Reese into the appropriate slot.

  “Look,” Sam said and leaned back in his chair. “Your father was devastated when he discovered Frank had been embezzling. They’d been best friends since grade school. I was lucky they became my friends when I moved here for my junior year in college.”

  Reese fought down the urge to interrupt. Maybe he’d finally get an insight as to what had actually happened.

  “I was upset, too, but nothing like your dad,” Sam continued. “It took him a long time to confront Frank. He just couldn’t believe it. But the evidence piled up, and he had no choice.”

  “Did Frank confess?”

  “Not in so many words. But when your father laid out the facts and offered him a severance package, Frank took it. If that doesn’t say he was guilty, I don’t know what does.”

  The air seemed too thin, and Reese took a deep breath. If he’d been in Frank’s shoes and innocent, would he have done the same thing to avoid a scandal?

  Nope. He would have fought for the truth. Maybe Sam and his father were right. At best Frank had been weak, at worst—guilty.

  But what about Findlay? As his mother said, she deserved a chance.

  Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.

  “What was the evidence?” Reese asked.

  Sam’s eyes shifted back and forth, as if he was thinking hard.

  “What?” Reese repeated.

  “We had a pact.” Sam stared at the ceiling. “When Frank took the offer, we swore we’d never tell anyone what the evidence had been.”

  Reese gripped the edge of Sam’s desk.

  “I need to know.”

  Sam looked at him.

  “Then ask your father.”

  • • •

  Reese pounded the trail Saturday morning before anyone in the house woke up. The August morning sun rose later as summer edged to fall, but the day could still be too hot to do much of anything by mid-afternoon.

  Wayne’s team had fixed the reimbursement problem and installed the tracking software. Of course, Findlay had been the one to find the bad code in the application after the team lead had asked for her assistance, on Wayne’s instructions.

  Was her boss intentionally trying to bring her to management’s attention?

  His legs throbbed with the extra burst of speed.

  Findlay. Had his memories about her clouded his judgment? Had she only joined the company to exact revenge?

  If she had, she was being pretty sloppy about it. And she’d never been sloppy about anything. He was always the one screwing up arithmetic in algebra. Her answers were always correct to the last decimal point.

  God, his head hurt. In spite of terrorists, imagined insults, and his lack of progress, Paris had been a lot easier than this mess.

  Of course it had been. No future possibilities meant no one was demanding everything he could give.

  He pulled out an extra burst of speed, running until his lungs hurt with exertion.

  The needled fir trees lined the river trail on one side, fading cottonwoods on the other. A rabbit scurried across the trail in front of him, so close Reese almost tripped over his own feet.

  He wiped his forehead with his arm and slowed down, basking in what little shade there was at this end of the trail. Around him, birds gave half-hearted twitters in the early morning heat. By midday, it was going to be scorching. Even the woodpecker’s rhythm was off.

  He could almost smell the perfume Findlay’d worn when they used to run together, training for cross-country. After their break-up, she’d quit the team.

  Maybe if he got her to run with him again, she’d believe he wanted to apologize for the past. Set it right, and maybe he’d become tougher about getting what he wanted for himself. Besides, learning who she was now would also give him the opportunity to keep an eye on her—just in case Sam was right.

  God, he hoped not.

  He walked the last quarter mile to let the sweat and memories cool.

  His father was waiting for him in the living room when he walked into the house.

  “I need to see you in the office.” He looked Reese over. “Once you become more presentable.”

  Showered, with a clean change of clothes, Reese grabbed a cup of coffee and a breakfast bar and took them to his father’s office. His father sat at his desk, staring at a financial report on his screen.

  “Numbers could be better,” he said as Reese settled himself in his customary dressing down chair.

  Nothing he would do would ever please his father.

  The older man’s down-turned lips were permanently carved into the fleshy face.

  Had there been happier times in their family, or was that merely a figment of his imagination?

  “Sam said there was another problem.”

  “It’s fixed.” Reese told him the steps he’d taken to ensure they’d be able to track any other incidents.

  “I told you to get rid of t
hat girl.” His father’s glare pinned him to the chair. “It’s obvious she’s just like her father—a thief.”

  Reese wrapped his fists around the hard wood of the armrests.

  “She’s a woman, not a girl, and she’s not a thief,” he said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do. You were wrong about her ten years ago, and you’re wrong now. She’s a hard worker. Ask Wayne.”

  “I asked Sam.”

  “And?”

  “He didn’t have anything one way or the other, but he said the situation bears watching.”

  “Findlay is only part of the situation.” Temper tensed his shoulders.

  “But she’s the only one with a history.”

  “She doesn’t have a history.” He pushed himself from the chair and paced. “Her father had a history—at least in your mind. You never proved anything, so who knows? There’s something going on, but give me a chance to figure it out.”

  “Don’t argue with me about my company.” His father stood and leaned his fists on the desk.

  “You put me in charge of it. When are you going to let me run it?”

  “When you figure out how to be a businessman and stop mooning after some girl you dumped in high school.”

  “At your command. And I should have stood up to you then.” Raising his voice with his father wasn’t helping things, but Reese couldn’t seem to stop it.

  “I did what was right. I protected this family so you could go to that fancy school on the East Coast and go la-di-dahing around in Paris.”

  “I was working.” Reese matched his father’s stance.

  They were almost touching as they faced each other across the desk.

  “Brian. Reese.” His mother’s voice was so quiet, he almost missed it.

  He took a step back, and his father settled back in the chair.

  “What is it with you two?” she asked as she leaned against the bookcase.

  “I want him to run the company the right way,” his father said.

  “Which means your way,” she said.

  “Of course.”

  She shook her head, a small smile softening her lips.

  “Reese came back to help you, Brian. You have to let him. He’s twenty-eight years old—the same age you were when we started this venture. And it is we, not just you. I vote to let Reese do what he thinks best.”

  “He’ll fail.”

  “Maybe.” She shrugged and looked at Reese. “But I don’t think so.”

  “So you agree with Sam.” Brian stared at his wife.

  “Yes. And that’s two out of three votes.”

  “What do you mean?” Reese asked.

  “I own a third of the firm,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It didn’t seem important. I don’t participate much anymore . . . since Frank . . . well, I didn’t have the heart for it.”

  So many secrets. What else didn’t he know? Was this what adult life was all about—hoarding information to dole out at the right moment to win? Maybe that’s what he’d missed in his diplomatic efforts.

  The instinct to kill.

  “All right. I’ll give him three months to figure out what’s going on,” his father said. “The doctor thinks I should be ready to go back to work after the new year.”

  “If you attend to your diet and exercise,” Reese’s mother pointed out.

  “Yes, dear.”

  They smiled and a spark passed between them, something he hadn’t seen in a very long time.

  “If she’s involved in any way, I want that girl fired.” Dad pointed a finger at Reese. “I don’t care what excuse you need to make up. I want her gone.”

  He looked at his mother.

  She nodded.

  Three months to protect Findlay’s job. Nice Christmas present if he had to fire her.

  “One more thing,” Reese said. “I’ve found a place of my own. I’m moving out.”

  Chapter 6

  Findlay stared at the piles around her. What had prompted her mother to keep all of this? Spelling tests with bright red A’s. Her Brownie badges. Even two blonde braids from when she’d dramatically cut her hair in junior high school.

  She trashed all of it.

  After a few weeks, she’d managed to get through seven of ten boxes of her old things. Her high school mementos had been quickly repacked. An old but well-kept doll lay on the desk. Her dad had given it to her one Christmas. She’d carted it around for a full year—taking it back and forth to school—where a frustrated teacher had her stash it in her cubby every day so she’d be less distracted.

  The trauma of being separated from her doll had been a mere taste of the future.

  She glanced at her watch. Another half hour then she’d relax with her mother before it was time to call it a night. September’s darkness started earlier, but there was still a taste of summer in the air. Fresh vegetables dominated the farmers’ market, and her mother had been busy preserving tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, and making jam from the last remaining huckleberries.

  Kelly Anne was delighted with the process, especially the sampling part.

  Findlay smiled. Her daughter was thriving. Rosebriar School was a godsend.

  Opening the box that contained her father’s journal for the first years of her life, she read the finely penned lines. Her father had been no author, but he included artistic cartoons and detailed engineering drawings.

  What did they represent? The accompanying notes were cryptic, at least to her. Computer science had ill-prepared her for the rigors of mechanical engineering. Still, there was enough here to get a hint of what he was attempting to create.

  “Balance is still off on the line,” he’d written. “Copper blend sheeting is too thin for the strength we need.”

  Missoula Metal, the company Brian Moore now co-owned, produced finely calibrated metal parts for the aerospace industry in Seattle. This drawing must represent one of the first production lines of the future company.

  “Sally’s new insight produced the result we want,” he’d written a few weeks later.

  “Show’s on.” Her mother stood in the doorway. “Are you coming in?”

  “Was Reese’s mom involved in the company?”

  “Why are you asking?” Her mother’s face drooped a bit.

  “Dad mentions her in here.” She held up the leather-bound book.

  “She was one of the original partners—Frank, Sally, and your dad.” She gestured at the books. “I should have burned those. It was all a long time ago, and it’s over. We have to move on. There’s Kelly Anne to think about.” She turned back toward the living room. “I’ll see you in there.”

  Findlay leaned against the door jam. Reese’s mother had provided the solution to an engineering problem? All she’d even known was a woman who stayed home and kept house. There was more to Sally Moore than she’d realized.

  She turned out the closet light and shut the door. Her mother must know the details of what had really happened. Her father never would have embezzled money from his partners.

  Never.

  Then why was everyone so convinced he did? Had she been wrong about him, like she’d been with Reese and Chris? Were all men liars and thieves, destined to repeatedly break her heart?

  The truth was really the only thing that was going to set her free. Somehow, deep in her soul, she knew that. Prove her father’s innocence and Brian Moore would have no excuse to fire her.

  But how was she going to discover what had really happened a decade ago?

  Her dreams were a muddled thread of men that night. Sitting on her father’s lap led to sweet kisses with Reese and ended with a nightmare where Chris turned into Brian Moore. All of them leaving her scared and exhausted.

  Giving up her dreams at five, she picked up her father’s journal and read again.

  An hour later, she’d learned nothing more of significance. The bulk of the entries following the revelation about Sally’s in
volvement consisted of the family’s search for a house. Her grandfather’s bequest had supplied the down payment.

  An exciting time—full of hope and promise, with no hint of the future.

  Findlay took her shower then woke up Kelly Anne. Fortunately, there’d been room in the fall enrollment of Rosebriar School, and her daughter was in a preschool class with fifteen other children.

  Of course, the first person she saw when she walked into the office building was Reese Moore.

  Dammit. First her dreams, now physical reality.

  “Good morning,” she said as she walked by, a smile plastered on her face.

  “Findlay.” He nodded.

  Polite but frigid.

  Good. She’d told him to leave her alone. It was about time he listened.

  Meetings about installing software updates from the payroll vendor kept her busy most of the day. As the head of this department and that droned on, she doodled. Lines became tree-lined paths and hidden nooks. Just like the ones she and Reese had used so many years ago.

  The first time he’d kissed her, she’d been over the moon. She’d wanted it for months, imagined his lips on hers every night when she went to bed. During the day, she’d study every line of the back of his head from her seat behind him in Ms. Luce’s algebra class, carefully taking notes so she could go over the concepts with him at the end of every day.

  His head hadn’t been wired for algebra. Was he any better at it now?

  “Ms. Callahan, are you with us?” Wayne asked.

  Crap. What were they talking about?

  “Of course,” she lied. A quick glance at the agenda on her screen gave her the clue. “I can have that installed and tested by the deadline.”

  “Good.” Wayne’s wrinkled forehead smoothed out.

  “As long as that remains my top priority,” she added.

  Wayne’s look was sharp.

  She smiled. Working for the conglomerate in Seattle had taught her the value of the statement. She’d had one too many situations where a boss piled on work projects that all had the same deadline. When she was single, it didn’t matter.

  Now she was a single mother.

  The work kept her head down for the rest of the week. No time for lunch with Li and barely enough time to grab a cup of coffee.