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“What are you talking about? It’s after ten o’clock. I can’t call her.”
“Call her. She won’t mind.”
His dark eyebrows rose. “Do you know her?”
She gave him a tight smile. “I know sisters.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and then something changed in his face.
“All right.”
He picked up his cell and punched in a code, then put it to his ear. “Hi, Gena. It’s Grant. Sorry to call so late, hon. No, nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to say ‘hi’ and…”
It must have been because he didn’t see the move coming that she was able to get the phone away from him so easily. It obviously hadn’t occurred to him that anyone would do such a thing. But she could tell his conversation with his sister was going nowhere, so she turned, zeroed in on her target and snatched the receiver right out of his unsuspecting hand, then quickly moved out of his reach while she pressed it to her ear.
“Hi, Gena. This is Callie Stevens.”
“What the…?” he growled.
She waved away his rude expletive.
“You don’t know me. I work…er, I used to work for your brother. I just wanted to let you know that he’s just had an accident….”
Grant swore again, but she ignored it.
“No, no, he’s fine. But he is…damaged, so to speak.” She made a face at him. “He’s got a cut lip and it looks like it needs stitches to me. It keeps bleeding, and…Oh, great. Yes, we’re at the office. Thanks.”
She handed him back his telephone and gave him a superior smile. “She’s coming right over.”
“What?”
“She said she’s only minutes away.”
“Wait one dang-burned second here,” he said, his blue eyes frosty. “I’m getting confused. Who got fired today, you or me?”
The superior smile was working, so she kept it up. “You’ll be taken care of. So I figure we’re even now. And I’m leaving.”
His expression hardened. “Not yet. The key, please.” He held out his hand.
She bit her lip and tried to look innocent. “What key?”
“The one you must have used to get into the building tonight.”
Oh, that key.
It was one she’d had for opening the office early a few months before and she’d found it with her things when she’d gone through the boxes of stuff from her desk. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled it out and handed it to him.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”
She turned toward the door. “Write me a letter.”
He rose and followed her. “I’m quite serious. I’ve got something I need to discuss with you. I’ve got some ideas on ways we could use you here at ACW. How would you like your job back?”
There was a certain sense of satisfaction in hearing his words. This was almost an apology, wasn’t it? At any rate, it was an admission that she shouldn’t have been fired.
Yeah. That and a quarter will get you a ride on a pony. Big deal.
She turned back and studied his eyes. “You could do that?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have let my uncle fire you in the first place if I’d known his plans. I’ve been out of the office all week, as you know, and I only found out that he’d scuttled the entire research department when I got back this afternoon.”
She hesitated, considering. “What makes you think I would want to come back to a place that’s treated me so shabbily?”
He looked pained. “Please, no more self-righteous speeches. I thought you desperately needed this job. What happened to all your tales of woe?”
She started to speak, then thought better of it and shook her head. But she turned back, because she’d forgotten her orchid again. It would be completely ridiculous to leave it behind after all the trouble she’d taken to get it.
“You weren’t really lobbying to get your job back, were you?” he said, eyes narrowing. “You were just trying to make me feel bad. Is that it?”
She looked up at him and didn’t answer. What could she say? He was only partly right.
For some reason, this seemed to anger him. His hand gripped her arm, fingers curling around it.
“Just between you and me, Ms. Stevens,” he said coolly, staring down into her eyes in a way that made her heart pound, “I don’t feel bad. I never do.”
Her breath caught in her throat. She prepared to yank her arm away from his grip, but he released her before she had the chance.
“Just be here first thing in the morning,” he said. He glanced at the open calendar on his desk. “Oh, wait. Damn. I’ve got a couple of important meetings in the morning. It’ll have to be after lunch.” He looked up at her. “How about two o’clock? Right here in my office.”
She couldn’t muster any more of the superior smile shtick. Her lips were beginning to ache. So she made do with a superior shrug. “I’ll think about it.”
He saw right through her facade. “I’m sure you will,” he said, his voice tinged with just a touch of sarcasm. “And while you’re at it, think about this.” He gathered her pot shards and the still-perky orchid plant and stuffed them into a drawer in his desk. “You don’t get your orchid unless you show up.”
She sprang toward him, as though to rescue her plant, but he was ready for her this time and she stopped herself at the last second to avoid another close contact with his large, hard body.
“You can’t do that,” she cried in outrage. “That’s my property!”
It was his turn to try the superior smile.
“And you are here after breaking into my property. So I guess we’re even again.”
She felt like pouting. Jaw rigid, she held out her hand. “May I have my orchid, please?” she said.
“You know, I don’t think I’m going to let you take it.”
She glared at him. “That’s despicable.”
A half smile was curving his full lips. “I think I’m going to hang on to it to make sure you come back tomorrow.”
“That’s…that’s like blackmail.”
He considered her charge. “No, more like bribery.”
“Whatever. It’s illegal.”
He smiled. “So sue me.”
“I just might do that,” she said, though they both knew there wasn’t a chance in the world of that happening. “And you know what? If I’d had the chance, I’m sure I would have fired you.”
And with that nonsensical statement of defiance, she turned and stormed off, taking the stairs again because she needed to work out her anger on something physical in order to keep from killing the man.
It was long past midnight. Grant still sat behind his desk, staring moodily at the dark window. His sister, Gena, had come and gone, working her medical magic, and now half of his face felt numb. But that wasn’t what had him brooding. His encounter with Callie was nagging at him like a burr under a saddle. He’d mulled it over and he’d come to a decision.
Callie Stevens was the perfect woman to have his baby.
He remembered when he’d brought it up to her before. Her reaction had been extreme in his opinion. She was so calm and logical about most things. Why wasn’t she logical about this? The entire plan the way he’d presented it to her would be to her benefit—that was just so obvious. And yet he knew if he came at her from that perspective again, she would react just as irrationally as she had before.
There was only one thing for it: he had to figure out how to appeal to her better nature and get her to see things his way. What was he going to do if she didn’t show up tomorrow at two o’clock? What if she decided that she didn’t really want to work for him and her orchid wasn’t worth another run-in?
He couldn’t wait for that. He would have to go to her before she had a chance to develop a real program of opposition. He didn’t know where she lived but there must be a record of that in the files.
That was what he would do. He looked at his couch and grimaced. He would catch a few hours’ sleep, take a shower in the washroom and take her orchid plant to her. That would make a good excuse. He shouldn’t have kept it anyway. That was a foolish thing to do and he regretted it. He would stop off and pick up some doughnuts to take along as a peace offering. Just a friendly visit. That way he could get the lay of the land, see how things were with her where she lived. Maybe get an idea from her situation. Become friends with the woman.
He shrugged. It was worth a try.
“So, is he incredibly sexy?”
Tina Ramos was keeping a straight face, but the mischievous light in her dark eyes gave her away. She sat on the well-worn couch, her legs folded in around her, a cup of steaming coffee in her hands.
Callie stared at the friend who shared her apartment with her. They were sitting in the living room, watching Tina’s thirteen-month-old daughter play with a round plastic toy on the floor in front of them. Callie had just finished telling Tina about what had happened the night before when she’d gone in search of her abandoned plant.
“Sexy? What? Who?” Despite her words, she knew she sounded artificially dismissive. She wasn’t fooling anyone.
“Grant Carver, of course,” Tina said with affected nonchalance. “We already know he’s incredibly handsome.”
Callie was astonished. “Oh, really? And just how do ‘we’ know that? I’ve never said a thing about his looks.”
“And never noticed either, I suppose.”
“Well…”
“Oh, come on, Callie.” Tina was laughing. “You should see the way you look when you talk about him.”
“That’s crazy!” Blood was rushing to her cheeks. She could feel it. It had to be because this line of conversation was so darn annoying. Had to be. “I’ve never thought twice about the man.”
Tina’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, is that it? I guess I mistook the look.”
“I guess you did.” She threw up her hands and wailed, “Tina…!”
“Oh, I’m just teasing.” Tina raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to the meeting?”
“Of course not.”
“Why not?”
Callie hesitated, unwilling to admit aloud that it was exactly because he was sexy and he was handsome that she didn’t relish going. There was something strangely compelling about the man and that made her uncomfortable. She’d built herself a little island and she fended men off with a virtual firehose. But he was the sort of man who might walk right through the blast, damp but undaunted. And mostly, she was afraid that she might let him.
“I have other things to do,” she said, knowing it sounded lame, but that it had the advantage of actually being true. “I have to go out to Shady Meadows Rest Home and see my mother-in-law. I’m hoping I can talk them into keeping her where she is for just one more month while I try to scrape up enough money to transfer her to full nursing care.”
“Scraping together money isn’t going to be easy now that you’ve lost both jobs,” Tina said, her eyes losing their sparkle quickly.
Callie sighed. “I will go out and see him later,” she said, knowing it was childish to go late, just because he wanted her to come at two. But when you came right down to it, she did need the job. She had to go.
Tina hesitated, then reached out and took her friend’s hand. “Callie, I called the agency last night and told them to double my assignments. If I can make a bit more…”
Callie winced. Tina was trained as an elementary teacher, but after a cancer scare, she’d taken up cleaning houses for a living, working for an agency part-time and making just enough to get by on.
“No, Tina. You need to be home with your baby while you can be.”
Tina pressed a finger to her lips. “I’m taking her with me,” she whispered.
Callie groaned. “You’re not allowed to do that and you know it.”
Tina shrugged. “No one’s turned me in yet. Everyone loves having Molly around.”
Callie glanced down at the beautiful child. Of course everyone loved Molly. What was there not to love? With her head of shining chocolate-colored curls and her huge dark eyes, so alive and so interested in everything, she was as fresh and pure as a snowflake.
The little darling had certainly turned Callie’s life around. Tina and Molly had come to live with her just before Christmas and nothing had been the same since. There was joy in her life now. Joy, and a beautiful baby.
It wasn’t her baby, and it was only temporary—like everything else in her life. But that didn’t really matter right now. A life that had been cold and lonely for years had become warm again. She’d been searching for something to live for. She’d even looked into having a baby on her own. The hunger for a child was deep and raw inside her. But no matter which way she turned, she couldn’t seem to manage to find a way to do it that made sense. Now, with her own little rag-tag family, she had something. At least for the moment.
Rising, she started toward the kitchen but the sound of the doorbell startled them all.
“I’ll get it,” Tina said, heading for the door.
Callie frowned, wondering who it could be and smoothing back her hair. She’d thrown on a big purple sweatshirt and an old pair of baggy jeans when she’d rolled out of bed. She thought she remembered brushing her thick hair, but it felt a little wild at the moment. She wasn’t really ready for company, especially not…
Grant Carver.
“I hope I’m not intruding,” he was saying as Tina let him in.
And then there he was, handsome and sexy, just as Tina had surmised—if a bit wounded. His lip was swollen and that side of his face was slightly discolored. Callie winced, looking at him. And then she wondered once again why the injury made him look so much more appealing. Did she feel a natural attraction to damaged men?
Carrying a large Stetson, he was dressed for the office, very sharp and very elegant—while she knew she must look like a refugee from the hill country.
Was he intruding? Oh, yes, very definitely.
“Oh, no, not at all,” Tina said quickly when Callie didn’t answer him right away. She threw him a bright smile that spoke volumes as to her opinion of the way he presented himself. “I’m Tina, the roommate. We’ve been up for hours. Just talking, you know. About…” She stopped and bit her lip, looking guilty as sin.
