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“Addy? Is that really you?”
Addy winced at his incredulous tone. “Did I look that bad that you don’t believe the improvement?”
“Improvement?”
She stated the obvious. “I’m not fat anymore.”
He took her comment as an invitation to look at her, and Addy felt her skin tighten as his hot, blue gaze slowly wandered over her. She could feel her breasts tightening as his gaze lingered on them.
“No,” he agreed, “you’re not fat anymore.” His eyes narrowed. “In fact, you look downright skinny. What have you been doing to yourself?”
Addy blinked at his description. No one had ever called her skinny in her life. It wasn’t an idea she could relate to, so she ignored it.
“I’ve spent the last four years with a bunch of nuns trying to save the world,” she said self-mockingly.
“From what I’ve seen of the world, you’re lucky to still be in one piece. The world generally takes exception to being saved.”
“Not my part of it. I work with children, and they’re darlings no matter where you find them.” Her voice unconsciously softened.
“Teacher?” he guessed.
Addy felt a stab of disappointment that he didn’t know. A feeling that she told herself was ridiculous. She was nothing more than an old school friend. There was no reason why he should have kept up with her life. She hadn’t kept up with his.
“I’m a pediatric nurse-practitioner.”
“As well as the owner of a parcel of land that we need.”
His reference to her land brought Addy back to reality with a thump.
“We really need that land, Addy.”
“You really need that land,” she corrected. “I already have it, and I intend to keep it.”
Addy watched as his eyes narrowed, showing a line of fine wrinkles at the corners. As if he laughed a lot. Her gaze dropped to the firm set of his jaw, and she mentally rejected the idea. He probably just spent a lot of time outside in the sunlight.
“Addy, be reasonable.” His plaintive words echoed through her mind, dislodging old memories. He must have said those exact same words to her hundreds of times when they were children. The familiar sound of them served to dispel the strangeness of her reaction to him. Suddenly, he was simply Joe. Her childhood friend.
She grinned at him, inexplicably feeling carefree. “If memory serves me right, your idea of being reasonable means that I do exactly what you want.”
Joe shrugged, and Addy watched in fascination as his powerful shoulders moved beneath the perfection of his custom-tailored suit In some strange way, his highly civilized clothes didn’t make him seem civilized. They actually seemed to make him more ruggedly masculine, as if their purpose was to highlight the difference between the way he really was and the way he wanted people to perceive him.
“I really need that land Addy,” he said. “Our present plant has reached capacity, and we need to expand to meet the increasing demand.”
“Demand for what?” Addy asked, curious about what he did.
“Computer chips.”
“Oh,” Addy said, “You’re one of them.”
“One of who?”
“One of those fanatics who want to put computers everywhere. Do you know they’re even putting the blasted things in libraries?” she said in remembered outrage. “They’re getting rid of card catalogues and making you use computers, and half the time they don’t even work.”
Joe grinned at her, giving her a glimpse of his gleaming, white teeth. “You may look a lot different, but you haven’t really changed. You can still divert a conversation quicker than anyone I know.”
Addy felt her spirits rise at the warmth of his smile. A smile that was echoed by the sparkle of humor in his eyes.
“But the fact remains that I need your land.”
“I know you want it, but I want it, too. It’s...” Addy struggled to explain her feelings. “That house is all I have left of my folks. I grew up there. All my memories are there. If I sell it and you raze it, they’ll all be goue.”
“Your memories aren’t in the house, they’re in your mind. And nothing I or anyone else can ever do will destroy them. Be grateful you’ve got happy memories. to cherish.”
His voice took on a bitter tinge, and Addy suddenly remembered overhearing her mother and her friends whispering about the disgraceful way Joe’s mother drank.
“Why don’t you simply build your plant somewhere else?” Addy ventured. “I can’t own the only vacant tract in town.”
“Yours is the best,” he insisted. “The location is perfect. Every other site that’s available had big problems. Our engineers—”
Joe paused as his assistant stuck his head in the door and said, “You asked me to tell you when Hodkins over at the bank called. He’s on the line now.”
“Addy, would you mind waiting a minute while I take this call?” Joe asked as he reached for his phone. “It’s important.”
Deciding to take advantage of the interruption, Addy got to her feet. She needed to think about what Joe had said and she found it hard to do it when he was just a few feet from her. Somehow, the sight of him did strange things to her thought processes.
“Of course not, Joe. I promised a friend I’d drop by this morning, and it’s almost noon now.”
“But we haven’t reached an agreement.”
“I’ll give you a call this afternoon,” Addy said and then escaped. She had the feeling that people didn’t reach an agreement with Joe. They gave in to him. The very forcefulness of his personality would tend to wear down the opposition.
She gave the surprised-looking Bill a quick smile as she hurried down the hall, breathing a sigh of relief when she was out of the building. Kathy should be able to tell her all about Joe. Addy unconsciously sped up at the thought. Kathy had always known all the gossip when they were in school together.
“Addy!” Joe stuck his head out of his office and glanced around the deserted reception area.
“She went that-a-way.” Bill gestured toward the exit. “Would you like me to see if I can catch her?”
“Fat chance you’d have of getting her to do anything she didn’t want to. She was always the most aggravating, stubborn kid....”
Bill stared thoughtfully in the direction Addy had gone. “I don’t know about that, but she sure turned out spectacularly.”
A shaft of anger lanced through Joe at Bill’s bemused expression.
“Leave her alone!” Joe’s harsh command surprised them both. He hadn’t meant to say it. He’d thought it, but he hadn’t meant to say it.
“I’m trying to negotiate with her for her land,” Joe added, to rationalize his order. “I don’t need any complications from you chasing her.”
“It’s only a complication if I catch her.” Bill chuckled and then hastily sobered at Joe’s scowl.
Bill held up his hand in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry. I won’t make one move until after you’ve finished the negotiations. What about your phone call?”
“Dammit! I left him hanging when she bolted.” Joe hurried over to the phone. Addy was still the most aggravating woman he’d ever met.
“Barrington here,” he said.
“Good morning, Mr. Barrington. This is Sean Hodkins. You asked me to let you know when the bank reached a decision on the loan David Edwards applied for?”
You mean I bribed you to let me know, Joe thought cynically. “I take it you have news?”
“Yes, the bank turned him down. The loan committee felt that his company was already badly overextended, and that young Mr. Edwards didn’t have a viable plan for turning his family’s company around.”
Joe bit down on the sense of exultation that filled him. At long last, after years of waiting and planning, he was finally going to be able to exact revenge on the Edwards family for what they had done.
“You did as I asked?” Joe kept his voice level with an effort.
“Yes, sir. Exactly as you said. When Mr. Edwards came out, I offered him your business card and told him that your company was looking to invest excess profits and preferred to do it locally. I suggested he contact you.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he was glad someone was able to make a profit in business because he sure didn’t seem to have the knack.”
“Did he take the card?” Joe demanded.
“Yes, although he didn’t look at it. He just stuffed it into his pocket. Poor man, I’m afraid the committee’s rejection was a real blow to him.”
If so, it was one of the few blows that had ever landed in David Edwards’s charmed life, Joe thought grimly. But that was about to change. He was about to experience how the rest of the world lived.
“Wait until tomorrow and then give him a call and remind him of what you said,” Joe ordered. “By then he should be more receptive to the idea.”
“Oh, I will,” Hodkins said earnestly. “It would be a shame if the Edwards Corporation were to fold. Why, that plant’s been here since my great-grandfather’s time. And young Mr. Edwards seems like such a nice man.”
“Give me a call if you hear anything else.” Joe cut him off. He didn’t want to hear David Edwards’s praises sung. He knew better.
Joe hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair as a sense of satisfaction filled him. It had taken him his entire life to reach this point, but he was finally here. Within months, sooner if he were lucky, the Edwards Corporation would belong to him. His mouth tightened. As it should have all along.
And with Addy’s land... An unconscious smile curved his lips as he thought of her. Who would have ever thought that she would turn out as she had? Once in a while over the years he’d caught sight of a redhead in a crowd and he’d thought of her, wondering where she was and what she was doing. But never in his wildest flights of imagination had he ever thought that she’d look so infinitely alluring.
What would it be like to take her in his arms? he wondered. To kiss the soft lusciousness of her full mouth. To nuzzle her neck and to cup the weight of her breast in his hand. To...
No! With a monumental effort, he clamped down on the erotic images his mind insisted on playing. Addy was strictly out of bounds, he told himself. Anyone who had spent the last four years of her life helping out a group of nuns was not the type of woman who would be interested in an affair.
Addy was the type who would expect a declaration of undying love, followed by a marriage proposal. Something he had no intention of offering, because no matter how wild the sex was in the beginning, it invariably cooled, leaving a man trapped in a stale, boring relationship.
Far better to keep Addy as a friend. And she was his friend. The thought brought a feeling of pleasure in its wake. They might not have seen each other in years, but they shared a history that went back to grade school. Not only was she his friend, but he trusted her. In fact, she was one of the few people in the world that he did trust.
No, he repeated, Addy was his friend and sex would screw that up. Sex was easy to come by if that was all a man wanted. Friends were a lot more precious. He reached for the pile of papers he’d been working on with a feeling of anticipation that hadn’t been there before Addy’s reentry into his life.
“Addy?” A short woman in her early thirties peered out through her screen door. “Is that really you?”
Addy chuckled at Kathy’s incredulous tone. “Yes, so open the door and let me in.”
Kathy hurriedly shoved open the screen. “Sorry, I was kind of... How on earth did you lose all that weight?” she blurted out.
“It just kind of happened,” Addy said, as disconcerted by the sight of Kathy as her friend apparently was by her. Kathy had always been impeccably turned out in an appropriate outfit, whatever the occasion. Yet now she was wearing a pair of jeans that were frayed around the legs and a sweatshirt that looked as if it had been caught in the middle of a food fight.
Curious, Addy followed Kathy through the littered hallway into a bright, sunny kitchen. The source of the food splotches on Kathy’s clothes was immediately apparent. A toddler was sitting in a high chair, happily smearing what looked like applesauce into his brown hair.
Addy chuckled at his beatific expression. “That, I take it, is Jimmy?”
“The one and only, and don’t encourage him. His father already spoils him rotten. Have a seat.” Kathy shoved a pile of dirty laundry off a chair onto the floor.
Addy sat down.
“When did you get back?” Kathy demanded.
“Last night. Hi, Jimmy.” Addy smiled at the little boy. To her delight, he smiled back and tossed her a spoonful of applesauce. Fortunately, his aim wasn’t very good and it hit the table instead.
“You always did have a way with kids,” Kathy said. “Remember when our mothers would volunteer us to baby-sit in the church nursery? You could always get the screamers to shut up. Want some coffee?”
“No, I want some information.”
Kathy ducked as Jimmy again flung applesauce in her direction. “How about motherhood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?”
Addy laughed. “Few things are.”
“Marriage is.” Kathy’s face took on a dreamy cast. “Jim is a fantastic husband. Now that you’re home, we’ve got to find you one.”
“I’m willing to consider any and all offers.”
Kathy blinked. “What?”
“I said that I would like to get married, and I’m willing to consider all options.”
Kathy stared at Addy in suspicion. “Are you making fun of my match-making tendencies?”
“No, I’m hoping to use them. I’d like to have some kids of my own.”
Kathy glanced around the disheveled kitchen and shuddered. “On your head be it. How can I help?”
“Do you know any eligible bachelors?”
Kathy pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Let’s see. There’s Bart Dandridge, but I think we’d best stay away from him.”
“Why?” Addy asked curiously.
“One of the partners in Jim’s law firm handled his divorce and, according to him, Bart’s wife claimed he beat her up a couple of times. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but...”
“I’ll pass on Bart,” Addy agreed.
