The Silken Web

by Sandra Brown

  “When can you start?”

  The question was so abrupt that Kathleen jumped in surprise and riveted her wide, glowing eyes on Seth. “Wh-What? You mean… I…?”

  “Yes, you have the job. If you want it. The salary is forty thousand dollars a year, excluding sales bonuses and employee discounts. Is that satisfactory?”

  Satisfactory? She didn’t know what to say. “Mr. Kirchoff, are you sure? I mean, yes, I want the job, but aren’t you interviewing others? Maybe you should wait—”

  “No, Ms. Haley. I knew you were what I wanted the moment you walked through the door. I despise women who barnstorm their way in here, spouting all their grandiose ideas and not listening to what I’m saying. You’re a good listener. You have style and experience. I can tell that by the way you dress and by your résumé. Your taste is impeccable. Yet, and this is very important to me, you’re extremely feminine. I want my customers to want to look like you—assured but soft, independent but entirely female.”

  She blushed under his close scrutiny.

  “I gladly accept your offer, Mr. Kirchoff. And in answer to your question, I’m available immediately. Or as soon as I can find a place to live and move my things from Atlanta.”

  “Very good. Shall we say,” he consulted a calendar on his desk, “Monday the sixteenth? That will give you ten days. If you need more time, let me know.”

  “Thank you. That should be more than sufficient. I’m anxious to begin.”

  His smile was warm. “Good.”

  She extended her hand, which he shook heartily. His grip was strong and comfortable. “Thank you, Mr. Kirchoff. I won’t let you down.”

  “I’m not afraid of that. I only ask that you drop the Mr. Kirchoff stuff and call me Seth.”

  “Then I’m Kathleen.”

  “Kathleen,” he said softly, as if savoring the sound of her name on his lips.

  She stood up self-consciously, aware of the fact that he must remain seated. But as she walked toward the door, she heard the soft whirring sound of the wheelchair’s motor as he followed her.

  “I’d break my back again if I could have the privilege of opening the door for you, Kathleen, but would you mind too much doing the honors?”

  She laughed with him. “Not at all.” She held the door while he wheeled through it and then followed him. A man in a dark gray suit was standing beside the secretary’s desk.

  “Ah, George,” Seth said. “Is it time to go already?”

  “Yes, Seth. You have a lunch appointment with your sister.”

  “George, I want you to meet Kirchoff’s newest employee, Ms. Kathleen Haley.”

  “So you hired her!” exclaimed Claire Larchmont from behind her desk. “Oh, I’m so glad.”

  “Why?” Seth teased. “I may have hired her to replace you.”

  “Never,” she said, unperturbed. Then she smiled graciously at Kathleen. “Welcome aboard, Ms. Haley.”

  “Kathleen,” Kathleen said. Claire smiled at her and nodded, then turned back to her computer terminal.

  “Kathleen, George goes with the territory. He’s my valet, chauffeur, therapist, drinking buddy and best friend. George Martin.”

  “Mr. Martin,” Kathleen said, smiling.

  “Please call me George, or I might not hear you,” he said. He was a tall, thin, middle-aged man who radiated a strong moral character and dependability. His smile was welcoming.

  “Now everyone is on a first-name basis except you, Mrs. Larchmont,” Seth said. Claire turned around to face him, as usual, unscathed by his taunt. “Please see to all the bureaucratic red tape of putting another employee on the payroll—insurance, things like that. Also, issue Kathleen a check for five thousand dollars to cover her moving expenses.”

  Kathleen started to object, but Seth stopped her. “I won’t have it any other way. If we were a large corporation transferring an executive, you would receive that kind of consideration. And I look upon you as an executive.”

  “Thank you,” she said, flabbergasted at all that was happening. After she put the check in her purse, she shook hands again with Seth. “I’ll see you on the sixteenth,” she said.

  “We all look forward to it.” He smiled that sincere-sad smile as he clasped her hand tightly.

  She nodded her goodbyes to Claire and George. While waiting for an elevator, she looked at her wristwatch. She congratulated herself. A full half-hour had transpired since she had thought of Erik.

  * * *

  Her move to San Francisco was accomplished with relative ease, considering that she moved from one side of the country to the other.

  After her interview with Seth, Kathleen went directly to a downtown lunchroom and purchased a newspaper. Over a tuna-salad sandwich, she began perusing the classified ads for a suitable apartment.

  Some listings she was able to eliminate after a telephone conversation. Others required expensive cab rides, only to prove that they weren’t what she was looking for. Finally, at sunset, she checked into a hotel and spent a dreamless night, exhausted and exhilarated after the day’s events.

  The next morning, she found a place that was more what she had in mind. It was one of four apartments carved out of an old house. The furnishings were outmoded, but clean and quaint, as was the exterior of the house. Only the occupants had keys to the main door, and Kathleen’s apartment was on the ground floor. It was small, having only a combination bedroom-living room, a tiny kitchen alcove and a small bathroom, but that was all she would require for a while. She put down the requested deposit and first month’s rent with the landlord and then made flight arrangements back to Atlanta.

  In the southern city, she sold her car to a used-car dealer, sacrificing it, she knew, but saving the time and trouble of selling it herself. She didn’t want to drive it to San Francisco. Since her former apartment had been furnished, she had little in the way of household items to discard. Most of these she donated to charitable organizations. What few personal items she had she packed in boxes to be shipped by air on her return flight. Within a matter of days, she was ensconced in her new apartment in the Bay City.

  She reveled in this jewel of a city, gloried in the climate that, with the fall season, was brisk and invigorating. She jogged in Golden Gate Park, went sightseeing on Fisherman’s Wharf.

  She bought a used compact car, making a small down payment with some of the money Seth had given her for “moving expenses,” and signing a note of credit for the balance. With a map in one hand, she set out, by trial and error, to learn her way around the hilly streets of her new home. She enjoyed the time off, the freedom to be lazy, but by the Sunday evening before she would start her new job, she was ready to get down to work.

  “Tomorrow I start over,” Kathleen averred to the darkness as she lay on the convertible sofa bed that came with the apartment. “In a few months, I won’t even remember him.”

  She pulled the pillow from under her head and hugged it to her. “I won’t remember. I won’t.” She pressed her face into the softness, and even as she vowed she would forget, she saw his face vividly. Tears managed to eke out of the squeezed lids as she saw him wave to her as he disappeared into the fuselage of the airplane.

  “Erik, Erik,” she sobbed. “Why did you do that to me? Why?”

  Did he ever think of her? What was he doing this very moment? Was he sleeping? Making love to his pretty wife? Was he stroking her with those treacherous hands and lying to her with his persuasive lips?

  Did he make love to his wife as ardently as he had to Kathleen? Was she perhaps cool to his fervor? Was that why he sought lovers? Obliging ones. Like herself. Kathleen buried her shame-scalded face in the pillow.

  As jealous as Kathleen was of that blonde woman who rightfully claimed Erik’s love and name, she felt a great wave of pity for her. Did she know of his unfaithfulness? Was Kathleen his first extramarital dalliance? No, of course not. He couldn’t have seduced her so smoothly, without the least shred of guilt, had he not been adept at it.
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br />   She wanted to hate him. She did hate him! But as she turned to her side and raised her knees to her chest in a position of self-protection, she ached to feel his hard, lean body next to her. She was chilled without the warmth of his embrace. One night in his bed had spoiled her to needing his strength during the night, to awakening periodically in the security of his arms, to hearing the rich, steady cadence of his breathing.

  And this night, like all the others, she felt a pain, more cruel than death, eating at her, squeezing her heart, destroying her spirit.

  * * *

  The next morning, she got up early, ate a piece of dry toast and drank two cups of coffee as she put on her makeup. Determinedly, she shed the shroud of despair that blanketed her each night, and looked forward to her new job with renewed enthusiasm. This would save her. It must.

  She chose her dress carefully. It was essential to create a good first impression with both her new employers and her subordinates. The tailored navy dress had a designer label, but she had bought it as a sample on a buying trip to New York and had paid barely a fourth of the retail cost.

  It had a round, collarless neck and buttoned down the left side, over her bosom to her knee. The long sleeves were slim. It hung as a chemise, but she belted it with a copper leather belt that matched her shoes and bag. It wasn’t a coincidence that the leather was almost the exact color of her hair. A gold pin held a paisley scarf around her neck. It was a rainbow of navy, copper and green. Small gold loops were in her ears, and her hair was pulled back into a functional, professional-looking bun.

  In the full-length mirror on the back of the door, she critically surveyed the results of her half-hour in the bathroom and decided that she was the best that she could be.

  Having familiarized herself with the streets of San Francisco, she negotiated rush-hour traffic with only a modicum of trepidation. If she could survive Atlanta’s famous traffic jams, she could survive anything.

  Arriving at the skyscraper building where the corporate headquarters was located, she identified herself to the garage attendant. He smiled at her and said, “Yes, ma’am. Mr. Kirchoff said to give you this. Stick it on the fender of your car and you can park here anytime.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she drove into the dim cave of the garage.

  She arrived at the twentieth floor and went into Seth’s office. As she expected, Claire Larchmont was already busy at her desk. She waved merrily, though she was speaking into the telephone cradled between her shoulder and chin.

  “Right. Mr. Kirchoff said those proposals must be ready by the end of the day and subject to his approval.” She hung up. “Kathleen! This is your big day. Are you excited? Did you get moved in all right? Is there anything you need?”

  Kathleen grinned. “ ‘Yes’ to the first question. ‘Yes’ to the second. And ‘I’ll let you know’ to the last.”

  “I’m sorry.” Claire laughed good-naturedly. “Seth tells me all the time that I’m a motor mouth.”

  “Seth? I thought it was strictly Mr. Kirchoff.”

  Claire winked. “I only do that to irritate him.”

  Kathleen laughed. “Is he in?”

  “Not yet. This is his morning for physical therapy. He and George exercise in his pool on Mondays and Thursdays, so they’re always an hour later. Ms. Kirchoff is in there. His sister. You might as well meet her now, I suppose.”

  Kathleen looked closely at Claire’s face, which had lost some of its animation.

  “Oh?” Kathleen asked leadingly.

  “Find out for yourself,” Claire said guardedly, and Kathleen had to respect the secretary’s reticence in talking about her employers.

  “I’ll bring in some coffee,” Claire said as Kathleen’s hand closed around the doorknob.

  She pushed the door open and went into the room, seeing immediately the straight back of the woman standing at the window. Kathleen closed the door behind her so that the latch clicked audibly to alert Ms. Kirchoff that she wasn’t alone.

  “Claire?” she asked, and turned around on the heels of her pumps. “Oh,” was her only comment when she saw that she had made a mistake.

  “Hello, Ms. Kirchoff, I’m Kathleen Haley.” Kathleen closed the distance between them, but for some reason unknown to her, didn’t extend her hand to be shaken. The other woman’s rigid posture and arms folded defensively across her chest spoke a very eloquent body language.

  “Ms. Haley, I’m Hazel Kirchoff,” she said, nodding her head like a feudal lord greeting a serf. “My brother told me that he had hired you.”

  How did one respond to a comment like that? There was nothing to say, so Kathleen merely inclined her head, much in the same way Hazel Kirchoff had only moments before. There was an uncomfortable silence while the two women squared off and assessed each other.

  Hazel Kirchoff was a short woman with a matronly, though well-proportioned, figure. Her tussah silk suit was impeccable in cut as well as fit, and her blonde hair was worn in a short, soft style. If anything was a trifle overdone, it was her jewelry. She wore two diamond-encrusted rings on each of her third fingers, a diamond watch and three bangle bracelets. At her ears were small diamond studs. Her makeup was attractively applied but couldn’t completely camouflage faint, weblike lines around her eyes and mouth. She was considerably older than Seth, Kathleen thought, and well established in middle age.

  Her eyes, like her brother’s, held one’s attention. Though unlike his, which shone with compassion and tolerance, hers were cold and haughty. They weren’t the same rich chocolate-brown of Seth’s but a colorless gray that reflected no life, no spontaneity, and were chilling in their blank, piercing stare that revealed nothing, yet saw everything.

  “I trust you have found our city to your liking,” she commented at last.

  “Yes,” Kathleen said. Then she smiled and laughed under her breath. “It’s certainly different.”

  “Indeed.”

  There was another one—a sentence for which there was no easy response. Undaunted, Kathleen tried again. “I’m looking forward to working at Kirchoff’s. Seth has outlined some very attractive prospects.”

  “My brother often does and says things impulsively.”

  Had Hazel Kirchoff been better acquainted with Kathleen, she would have realized that the glimmer of green fire that suddenly flashed in her eyes was a warning of the temper now lying close to the surface.

  Kathleen pushed her caution aside even if she was facing a new employer. “And you think hiring me was one of these impulsive gestures?”

  Hazel smiled, though there was no humor in the expression. “Many young women would love to work for Kirchoff’s, but Seth was quite taken with you. He came home with a glowing report of your physical attributes. He described you perfectly.” The gray eyes raked down Kathleen’s body as if they were looking at something distasteful. “You are not the first opportunist to take advantage of my brother.”

  Kathleen was aghast at the blatant insult. “I did no such thing! I am qualified for this job and I’ll work hard for Kirchoff’s. Seth is a very intelligent, visionary man—”

  “He is a cripple,” the woman snapped. “I must constantly protect him from women preying on that fact. He depends on me for everything.” She had almost impassioned herself to anger, and just in time saved herself that indignity. She pulled herself up to her full height and turned away from Kathleen in a gesture of dismissal. “However, nothing we say matters. I’ll see to it that you’re not with us for long. Your type never is.”

  Before Kathleen could issue the furious retort on the tip of her tongue, George swung the door open and Seth wheeled into the office. “So! My two favorite ladies! I see that you’ve met.”

  Chapter Ten

  Yes, they had met, but to Kathleen it seemed more of a confrontation. That first morning set the tone of each subsequent encounter she had with Hazel Kirchoff. Since Hazel was general manager of the store, her path crossed Kathleen’s often. Whenever they were alone together, she was
aloof and snide, but within Seth’s hearing, she was charming and gracious.

  Kathleen had never seen a temperament more deadly than Hazel’s and kept her dealings with the woman at a minimum. It didn’t take long to observe that Hazel was disliked by most of the employees at Kirchoff’s. She was critical, capable of reducing even the staunchest personality to tears with her vicious tongue. But that same tongue dripped honey when Seth was around. For her brother, she smiled and praised his ideas, which she scorned outside his hearing.

  She was fiercely possessive of him. Even George took a backseat when Hazel was around to see to Seth’s needs. Often, the handicapped man seemed embarrassed by her constant coddling, but he never berated her for it. He accepted her unwanted help with the kindness that characterized all his dealings with other people.

  As his sister was disliked, Seth was adored by his employees. It was difficult to pity a man who didn’t pity himself. He joked constantly about his wheelchair, referring to it as his chariot. He flirted with the women employees, shared a camaraderie with the men, and made even the newest clerk feel important to the company. He paid his people well, and they knew it. In return, he expected diligence from them, and they gave it. For this reason, patrons of Kirchoff’s were faithful and were treated with a deference that other department stores could learn from.

  Those first hectic days, Kathleen and Seth spent mostly in his office going over the books, checking orders that the former buyer had placed, seeing what goods had been received and which were still forthcoming for the holiday season. Some were not too bad, others were atrocious, and Kathleen and Seth groaned in despair.

  “We’ll make do the best we can. In October, I want you to make a trip to New York and buy to your heart’s content for spring. That’s when we’ll make our first big breakthrough.”

  “In the meantime,” Kathleen said, “I’ll call some of the houses I’ve bought from and ask if they can send me a few of their better pieces. I hope it’s not too late.”

  He agreed and Kathleen set about to learn the “personality” of the store. She and Seth visited it together, riding there in his specialized van. George escorted them out the front of the office building to the van, parked in a reserved space only a few feet from the doors. The converted van was painted silver and had a black interior. A hydraulic lift raised Seth’s wheelchair into it. The van was luxurious, and Kathleen commented on it as she sank into the rich leather upholstery while George locked down Seth’s chair.