Fighting Fate

by Louise Clark

  FIGHTING FATE

  by

  LOUISE CLARK

  www.lachesispublishing.com

  Published Internationally by Lachesis Publishing

  Rockland, Ontario

  Canada K4K 0E3

  Copyright © 2012 Louise Clark

  Exclusive cover © 2012 Louise Clark

  Inside artwork © 2012 Louise Clark

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher, Lachesis Publishing, is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Published in E-and print editions

  by Lachesis Publishing, Dunrobin, Canada.

  A catalogue record for the print format of this title is available from the National Library of Canada

  ISBN 13: 978-1-897562-53-6

  A catalogue record for the Ebook is available

  from the National Library of Canada

  Ebooks are available for purchase from

  www.lachesispublishing.com

  ISBN 13: 978-1-897562-52-9

  Editor: Joanna D’Angelo

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my husband, Dave:

  Thank you for always being supportive of my writing.

  And to my kids, Forrest and Alex, who think it’s pretty cool their mom’s a writer.

  FIGHTING FATE

  Chapter 1

  “I’ve gone wrong somewhere,” Chloe Hamilton said. The three women crowded around the circular oak table that filled the central portion of the big country kitchen stared dubiously at a freshly baked loaf of bread. The crust was a beautiful golden brown, the shape a perfect rectangle with a smoothly arched dome.

  A young looking forty-eight, Chloe poked at the loaf with her fingertip. Nothing happened. The bread was rock solid. “This will not do! I don’t have the option of producing dud loaves of bread. I’m going into a war zone—”

  “Mom!” said her eldest daughter, Faith. “Come on! A bit much!”

  “Let someone else do the baking,” suggested her other daughter, Elizabeth, before she headed over to the counter. Like the other women, Liz boasted strong cheekbones and blond hair, but she lacked the long legs of her mother and sister.

  “The problem with these old cookbooks is that they aren’t precise. The recipes say things like ‘a pinch of salt,’ but how much is a pinch? Is it an eighth of a teaspoon? A sixteenth? Then there’s ‘a handful of nuts.’ What’s a handful? Your father’s handful? My handful? A child’s handful?”

  Faith made her hand into a fist and tapped on the loaf of bread with her knuckles. The solid ‘thunk’ could have come from a two-by-four. She flipped her long, golden hair behind one ear as she grinned at her mother. “I think it’s a process of trial and error, Mom. Anyway, you’ll be a visitor. No one will expect you to do the chores.”

  “Who knows what hardships Mary Byrne has had to endure? And since I must be with her always during my visit, I will have to endure them too.”

  Liz returned to the table, cutlery in her hand. “Faith, we’re using the good silver tonight, aren’t we?”

  Faith nodded. “We’ll use the bone china dishes too. You know Uncle Andrew, Liz. He loves to visit, but he’s not quite ready to accept twenty-first century manners.”

  “Not surprising,” said Chloe, a trifle tartly, still staring balefully at the loaf of bread, the symbol of her failure.

  “I think Uncle Andrew puts on all that old world charm.” Liz said. “Give him a t-shirt and jeans and he’d be just another good-looking guy.”

  “Not quite.” Resignation bound together with resentment sounded beneath Faith’s words.

  “Yeah, well—” Uncomfortable, Liz turned away. She began to lay the cutlery onto woven placemats. Opposite her, Chloe was hefting the loaf of bread up and down as if she was lifting weights. “You’re obsessing, Mom.”

  Chloe’s green eyes sparkled with annoyance. “I am an educated woman. I teach history at Harvard University. I am renowned in my field. Why is it impossible for me to successfully bake a loaf of bread?”

  “That’s why bread machines were invented, Mom,” Faith said as she rummaged in the fridge. “Let’s forget the homemade bread with dinner idea and concentrate on steak and salad instead. With winter over, but summer not yet begun, Andrew always appreciates fresh meat and veggies. Bread is something he has aplenty.”

  “Why can’t I master a simple process, one my ancestors did without thinking? I’m an intelligent woman. I’m a good cook—”

  “That’s why you can be the one to barbecue the steaks, Mom,” Faith said, handing her mother a large packet of beautifully marbled beef.

  “Faith, didn’t you say you had a can of artichoke hearts?” Liz asked. “I thought I’d combine them with the last of your spinach and make a dip for the corn chips.”

  “Check the pantry.” Faith drew spinach, butter lettuce, tomatoes, sweet peppers, and a cucumber out of the fridge.

  “Corn chips have transfats,” Chloe said gloomily as she pulled the plastic wrap off the disposable tray holding the prime rib steaks. “Andrew’s body is used to heavy doses of saturated fats in the meat he eats.” She plopped the well-marbled beef onto a plate. “We’re altering the man’s normal diet. We’re probably ensuring that he’ll die before his time.” She rubbed seasoning salt into the meat.

  Faith looked pointedly at the steak on which Chloe was now shaking a light coating of cayenne pepper. “You think heavy doses of spices are part of Uncle Andrew’s normal diet?”

  “He uses spices when he can get hold of them,” Chloe protested, wiping her hands on the bib apron she wore to protect her brightly patterned dress.

  “These are organic corn chips,” Liz said, busy with her dip. “They aren’t fried with hydrogenated oils. They’re baked. Uncle Andrew will be fine.”

  Chloe looked at her watch. “It’s six-thirty. When do you think he’s going to want dinner?”

  Faith cocked her head, listening. “I don’t hear the shower. He’s probably primping in the bathroom by now. He told me he wants to be home by eight o’clock, so why not aim for seven, Mom.”

  Liz shot her a questioning look. “That’s pretty early for Uncle Andrew to leave—usually when he has dinner with us he stays for a longer visit. What’s up?”

  “There’s a dance or something tonight and he thinks his new neighbors will be going.” Faith paused for effect, then added, “He wants to check out the daughter.”

  “Oh,” said Chloe, sounding intrigued and wise at once.

  Liz laughed. “Do you think —”

  Faith nodded. The three Hamilton women stared at each other, eyes bright with amusement and anticipation.

  Liz said, “Oh, wow.”

  They were all laughing when a good-looking young man sauntered into the room. His long dark hair was damp, tied at the nape with a black velvet ribbon. The style should have looked effete, but with his muscular build he was able to carry off the fashion. Besides, it went with the black velvet breeches and fine linen shirt with the lace ruffles at the wrists.

  “Well met, Miss Elizabeth,” he said, kissing her cheek. She hadn’t yet arrived when he’d shown up earlier.

  “Hey there, Andrew.” Liz returned the kiss, then stood back to gave him a visual once over. “I hear you’re going to a party tonight.”

  He nodded, smiling a wolf-grin of anticipation. “All the landowning families in Lexington plan to attend. I wil
l be the best dressed there. Thanks,” he added, “to Faith’s bathing accommodations and cleaning facilities.”

  Chloe stiffened. She shot her daughter an accusatory look. “You took Andrew’s suit to the dry cleaners?”

  “He dropped it off last week.” Faith met her mother’s gaze with defiantly raised eyebrows.

  “I have been planning this evening for some time,” Andrew said. There was a gleam in his eyes that suggested he wasn’t about to be stopped.

  Chloe rinsed her hands in the sink and dried them in an agitated way. “You know we cannot interfere!”

  Faith put her hands up, palm forward. “Look, Mom, I didn’t think it would hurt. I mean, I feed Uncle Andrew most Fridays and he washes with my cranberry soap when he showers. Where do I draw the line?”

  Chloe stared at her eldest daughter from beneath her brows, a look she’d perfected when the girls were small and needed to be disciplined. Then she relented. Shrugging, she said, “It’s an art, not a science. You must do what you think is right.”

  Uncle Andrew smiled broadly. “I am much relieved to hear you say that, Madam.”

  Chloe shot him a fierce look. “You,” she said, wagging her finger at him, “are not to lead my daughter into mischief.”

  Andrew inspected the fall of lace at his wrist the way a man wearing French cuffs might check the set of his cufflink. “You may depend upon me, Madam.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Liz.

  Uncle Andrew laughed.

  Chloe said stiffly, “I certainly hope so, Andrew.”

  Faith sighed. “This is all way too complicated.”

  By the middle of the next week Faith had decided she was one of those people who attracted complications. They hung about her, following her from her old, nineteenth century farmhouse to the modern low-rise building near MIT that housed the company where she worked.

  The cause of this gloomy reflection was a whey-faced young woman with limp, pale blond hair and sharp, intelligent brown eyes. “Okay, Angela, update me on what you’ve done so far.”

  “I’ve called Sue Green,” Angela said. Her expression was bland, her eyes bored.

  “Good start,” Faith said. Sue Green was the company’s computer troubleshooter. If an employee had a problem that couldn’t be fixed by a simple restart, Sue emerged from her second floor office to do a house call. Sue was a wonder with computers. She’d coax and caress, talking to them in husky, silken tones while her fingers played the keyboard. There was hardly a machine she couldn’t fix and Faith was convinced it was because she seduced each and every one of them.

  Angela’s face twisted into what might have been called a pout on a woman with a more emphatic personality. “But she isn’t here yet and it’s nearly coffee break. Can I take off now?”

  “Have you tried fixing the problem yourself?”

  Angela’s expression turned to horror. “No! Are you kidding? Ms. Taylor said not to. She said that the computers are the responsibility of the Computing Services Manager and we should not lose productivity by trying to fix software problems on our own.”

  Faith stared at Angela, trying to decide how to handle this delicate issue.

  Angela was absolutely right. Ava Taylor, the new Chief Operating Officer of Networking Innovative Technologies, or NIT for those into acronyms—which seemed to be just about everybody in the high tech world—was a great believer in structure and systems. Faith, who had been with NIT for three years, preferred a more flexible approach. Perhaps their conflicting styles were a reflection of the differences between a successful start-up where everyone pitched in to ensure the work got done and a small company on its way to being mid-sized where structure was established and employees were expected to fit into the roles they’d been hired to fulfill.

  Whatever the reason, six months ago, before Ava arrived, Faith would have told Angela to figure the problem out and call Sue Green only if she couldn’t handle it herself. Now Faith could merely nod and say, “Okay, Angela. If your terminal isn’t working take a break. We’ll figure out what you can do to keep busy when you get back. If we need to.”

  A delighted smile broke over Angela’s face, turning pale into radiant. The difference was startling. When Angela wasn’t bored or annoyed she was close to unforgettable.

  A half an hour later Sue Green poked her head into Faith’s cubbyhole office. “All done,” she said.

  Sue was a chubby woman with a cheerful expression. She regularly complained about her short legs, stocky parents and a gene pool that doomed her to weight gain. She was quite willing to admit that an addiction to sugar, in the form of all kinds of baked goods, might be an added cause, but hastened to point out that there were tall, slim people like Faith who could eat cheesecake with impunity. For Sue that proved that genes must have something to do with it and she refused to allow self-blame to burden her.

  Faith sat back in her chair and scrutinized Sue’s round face for clues. “Was it major? Could she have fixed it herself?”

  Sue darted a look over her shoulder. “Angela’s just back, and I missed my break working on her computer. Let’s take fifteen and go over to the Sandwich Hut for a coffee.”

  Faith narrowed her eyes. Sue had something she wanted to say, outside of the office, away from listening ears. She logged off the computer, then stood up. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  The Sandwich Hut was a busy place. Open for coffee in the morning, pastries mid-morning and soup and sandwiches at lunch, it was always crowded during the core hours. Tables were scarce and the take-out counter was in high demand. At other times it was an oasis of quiet.

  Since it was now eleven-fifteen, coffee breaks were mostly over and the lunch crowd hadn’t yet arrived. Faith and Sue had no problem finding seats. In fact, they were the only people in the spare, white-on-white room. After obtaining two coffees and a cinnamon bun for Sue, they settled down to chat.

  “So Angela’s problem wasn’t major?”

  Sue shook her head. “She could have sorted it out by herself, if she’d been given the time, responsibility, and a bit of tech training.” She took a bite of cinnamon bun and chewed, licking the cream cheese icing from her lips with a lazy, sensual pleasure. Sue Green didn’t rush anything—she relaxed, savored and enjoyed. There were moments when Faith wished she could absorb at least a little of Sue’s intense enjoyment of life.

  “I talked to Ava about this,” Sue said, having swallowed. “Oh, not about Angela in particular. Just about empowering people. Allowing them to control their working world.” She shook her head, her expression disappointed. “She would have none of it. She told me my job was to fix the computers and then,” Sue leaned forward, her chest dangerously close to the icing on the cinnamon bun, “then she threatened me!”

  Faith frowned. “How?”

  Sue’s brown eyes opened wide. “She said, like she was joking or something, ‘didn’t I want a job anymore?’ I stared at her. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I’ve been with this company for five years. Since it started! Of course I want my job. So I said that. And she said, ‘well, why do you want to train people to do your job then?’” Sue sat back. She yanked a chunk of cinnamon bun off and bit hard. Faith had the unpleasant feeling that if she could, it would have been Ava Taylor Sue was tearing apart, not the pastry.

  Not that Faith didn’t have sympathy for her feelings. Just under a year ago NIT had won two substantial contracts and obtained a government grant to support its innovative research. It soon became evident that the original staff didn’t have the time or experience to deal with all the work the contracts brought in. New employees were hired, including Angela, the computer-killing clerk, and Ava Taylor, the anal COO. Now reporting to Ava instead of Ralph Warren, the company’s founder and president, Faith found herself busier than ever, but without the independence she had once taken for granted.

  “I think,” Sue was saying on a growl, “that Ava is trying to tick me off because she can’t get at Cody.”

  If Faith had lost f
reedom as a result of the restructuring, Sue had gained it. Her former boss, a man whose suspicious nature bordered on paranoid, had left the company when Cody Simpson was hired to be the Director of Network Services. Cody had soon made it clear that he was there to research and innovate. He didn’t want to go to meetings or fix computers. That was Sue’s job and he left her to it. Sue loved it.

  “I don’t think it’s you, Sue. Or even Cody Simpson. It’s Ava. She won’t be happy until she controls everything that moves.”

  Sue grinned. “She’s got a hard task ahead of her then. She’ll never dominate Cody.”

  “No?”

  Munching on the last of the cinnamon bun, Sue nodded. She swallowed, then licked her fingers clean with an appreciation that was almost feline. “Cody may seem like a science geek because he hides in his office for days at a time, but I’m here to tell you that he’s on to Ava’s tricks and he’s not about to cave into them.”

  Faith smiled at Sue’s enthusiasm, but she wasn’t able to mirror it. Cody Simpson was pretty much a mystery man to most of the company. The Network Services department had offices on the upper floor of the building. Rented recently, they were not part of the NIT suite, so the only interaction that occurred was when one of the second floor people descended to the main offices below. Sue did it regularly, Cody almost never.

  Having licked the last of the icing from her fingers, Sue sighed and picked up her coffee, which was now practically cold—just the way she liked it. She looked at Faith over the top of the paper cup. “Cody is not only wonderful to look at, but he’s a great guy.”

  Faith had a brief mental image of blue eyes, black hair and a long, lean body with muscles in all the right places. “I’m sure he is,” she said diplomatically.

  “He isn’t married,” Sue added helpfully.

  “Probably too interested in math equations to care about a social life,” Faith said. The company employed any number of engineers and mathematicians to service the needs of their growing client base. They talked a language Faith couldn’t understand and saw patterns everywhere. They made the word ‘focus’ sound wimpy. Cody Simpson was apparently the Alpha Mathematician in the company. She could only imagine what interacting with him would be like. The mental image wasn’t pretty.