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“Three broken engagements in four years,” he murmured. “A third wedding gown put in storage. I don’t know what you’d call it, but I’d say this is becoming a full-time job cleaning up the fallout, a real father-child thing, I guess.”
“I’m twenty-seven years old, and hardly a child,” she muttered.
“You could have fooled me.”
It had been just him and her for years, ever since she was nine and her mother had “gone away for the weekend.” The story of the small plane crashing in upstate New York, had made the news for days. He’d always been so supportive, so steadfast in being there for her no matter what she did. But this very real tone of disapproval shook her and she wasn’t all that steady to begin with at the moment. She turned, and he was sitting on the corner of the desk, his arms folded on his chest, his dark eyes studying her intently. “What did you want me to do, Dad, marry Sean and be miserable? To look at him in five years and wonder how I could have ever thought I loved him? I’m just thankful that I came to my senses before that happened.”
“What did you want to do?” he asked, answering her question with another question.
She bit her lip. “I wanted what you and Mom had, to be really in love, to know it and to have it forever.”
His expression tightened and, even after all these years, she could see a touch of pain in his eyes. “We were lucky, very lucky,” he said in a low voice. “The thing is, what are you going to do now? Another repeat of what just happened?”
“No, I’m no good at finding love. I know when to admit defeat.”
“Maybe that’s your problem. You’re looking for it. Maybe it has to find you.”
“Semantics,” she muttered.
“So what direction is your life going to take now that you’ve sworn off love?”
“Direction?” She had never thought about directions for life, just living it. “What do you mean?”
He raked his fingers through his thick hair. “Well, as you pointed out, you’re twenty-seven years old. Sane, at least in most things. Intelligent, or you should be after all your forays into higher education. Talented, if you applied yourself, and you’re my daughter. The genes have to be there somewhere.”
“Dad, I—”
“Shhh, just listen to me for a minute.” He stood and came closer to her. “I’ve made a decision. You either have to get direction for your life or I’m out of it. I probably should have done this before, but…” He sighed. “Better late than never, I guess.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Being an indulgent father, as if I could make up for your mother not being here for you. Giving you what you wanted, when you wanted it. Going along with everything you did or wanted. That’s over. I knew this thing with Sean wasn’t going to work. I could tell. So, I made some plans. You can take them or leave them. But know if you leave them, you’re going to have to make it on your own.”
“This is crazy. I’m just breaking an engagement, not doing drugs or embezzling from the company.”
“No, you’re just drifting. You’ve got a smattering of knowledge about a lot of things, but you don’t have any knowledge about accomplishment or challenges.”
She pulled out the high-backed leather chair at the desk and dropped down into it. She tugged her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, then rested her chin on her knees and looked up at her father. “Where’s this all going? You want me to get a degree in something? How about art? I could get a degree in that if you want. I can go to the university in the city, get into D’Angelo’s classes, take private lessons. I’ve got all the time in the world. How about three or four years? Is that what you want?”
“No.” He pressed his hands flat on the desk and leaned toward her. “Just six months, Brittany, six months to try it my way, and if it doesn’t work, you can take classes in art for years if you want.”
“Six months, to do what?”
“I’ve had a few phone conversations with Matthew Terrel at LynTech in Houston.”
They’d both accepted the fact ages ago that she was hopeless at business and wouldn’t step in to take over when he retired from the company he’d founded. That had been a great disappointment for him, but a truth. She didn’t have a business head. She didn’t care about business at all, but she cared about him, and LynTech had been very important to him ever since she’d been old enough to remember. “Terrel’s the guy that’s working with the other one, the one who was going to split up LynTech, then decided to stay on and develop the company?”
“Zane Holden and Matthew Terrel. Terrel is operating it at the moment, so he’s the one I contacted.”
“Why were you talking to him? Is there trouble at the company?”
“No, it’s transitional, but it’s doing fairly well,” he said. “I was talking to him about clearing it for you to go back to Houston.”
“What does this Terrel person have to do with me going back to Houston?”
“He’s going to set you up at LynTech to work. You are going to show up at nine and go home at five for six months. You’re going to make a difference. You are going to finally have more of a challenge than trying to figure out which art discipline is superior.”
She lowered her feet to the stone floor and looked right at her father. “Me, at LynTech?”
“Yes. You’re not going to run away this time. You’re going to work.”
“Dad, I know you’re upset, and I don’t blame you, but that’s crazy. I’ll destroy the company in a week.”
“You’re not that good,” he said with the shadow of a smile as he stood back. “And I’ve got a feeling that Mr. Terrel won’t let that happen.”
“So, you want me to head to Houston, and let this man, Terrel, babysit me?”
The smile was getting a bit larger. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“Dad, you’re in shock. I am, too. I mean, I know I’ve upset things. But to think that I should go and work at LynTech, well…” She almost shuddered. “That is not a good idea.”
“All I’m asking from you is six months of work and no engagements.”
She had always felt so independent, but she knew that she would never be independent of this man, of his good opinion of her, or the fact that she felt as if she’d failed him in so many ways. She knew she owed him so much. “Just go to LynTech?”
“And give yourself a break. Stay away from men, from situations. Give yourself a breather so you can really think about things. If you find out there isn’t a place for you there, then we’ll call it even, and you can go to any university you want and study anything you want to study.”
A break? Time to breathe and think? Even if this Terrel person was looking over her shoulder she could do six months. And for some reason she wanted to see Houston again. To see the house there. She hadn’t been back for over two years. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
She didn’t know what she expected. Him to smile, hug her, say he was happy? No matter what she thought, she didn’t expect him to hold out his hand to her. “We’ve got an agreement. Work, no complications. Agreed?”
She took his hand, and felt as if she was sealing her fate. “Agreed,” she whispered.
“Terrel is expecting you at two in the afternoon, Houston time, day after tomorrow.” He tapped her chin. “Don’t look so bothered. Just do your best. That’s all I ask.” He hugged her, and, as he stood back, he said, “We’ll talk in the morning and get things straight,” then he was gone.
Brittany slowly sank back in the chair again. Evening was coming, shadows creeping into the room, and in that moment, she felt very, very alone.
Houston, Texas, December 11
MATTHEW TERREL trusted very few people in his world. And he wasn’t going to start by trusting the man he had hung up on in his offices at LynTech. Welsh thought he was going to buy into the company on borrowed money, but that wasn’t going to happen. “Trust me,” the man had said three minutes ago. “I can make this work.” Matt had told him to rethink his offer, hung up and walked out of the office.
He went down the empty corridor on the executive level, went through his partner Zane Holden’s darkened office and right to the executive elevator. He relished the silence all around him, thankful for the lack of voices and no ringing of the telephone. Since Zane had taken off on his honeymoon right in the middle of the transition with the company, there had been no peace at LynTech, not for him, that was for sure.
Matt hit the button, stepped into the small elevator car, then pressed the button for the parking garage and leaned back against the wall. He closed his eyes, shutting out his own image in the reflective doors in front of him. He shut out a large man dressed all in black, from the collarless shirt to the trim slacks, leather boots and black briefcase in one hand. He knew that his sandy-blond hair needed a trim, that the beginning of a new beard was starting to shadow his strong jaw, and that by all rights, his dark-blue eyes should be bloodshot from lack of sleep.
He exhaled, felt the car slide downwards and didn’t open his eyes until the soft chime announced the doors were going to open. He stood straight, raked his fingers through his hair, then as the doors opened, he stepped out into the cavernous parking garage. The heels of his boots struck the cement, the sound echoing off the low ceiling and thick walls as he started over to his car, one of very few left in the structure.
Peace. God, he craved it sometimes.
As a kid he’d been alone a lot, and most people thought that was why he’d gotten in such trouble back then, because he was a loner. That was only partially true. The fact was, he stayed away from his father, avoided his mother and had no brothers or sisters. He made his own way and didn’t want to change that. He didn’t have much that was permanent in his life. He neared the car he’d finally bought when he’d agreed to stay in Houston for a while to help Zane get the business grounded. The large black Jeep gleamed in the low light, riding high on heavy tires and with tinted windows. He’d sell it when he left.
He got within ten feet of the car, but stopped when he glanced ahead to the left. A security door in the back wall was ajar. The door shouldn’t have been open at all. There had been renovations going on, changing the original conference complex into an expanded day-care center, but that door was always locked. He reached in his pocket for his cell phone, punched in the number for security, and it was answered right away. No one was supposed to be in that area after five, and they’d send someone to check it out within ten minutes.
He told them to hurry, then shoved the phone back in his pocket, and started for the door himself. He knew what damage could be done in ten minutes, heaven knew he’d done enough damage in ten minutes when he was a kid. He approached the door, never a fan of confrontation, but more than able to take care of himself. He’d never developed a love for fighting, the way a lot of his old friends had, the friends who had ended up dead or in prison. But he could take care of himself.
He reached the door, pulled it farther back, hesitated as he looked into the broad hallway that lead to the center of the complex and saw nothing but shadows. He listened, then stepped inside. He knew the area by heart, a hallway with rooms off it, leading to a large central space with more private rooms off it, another hallway that led to the front of the building and the reception area. It was all being redone for the day-care center, with painting and restructuring. Right now it was in shadows. He felt for the wall switch, flicked it, but nothing happened.
He waited, then continued through the hallway, a faint glow coming from somewhere ahead. He went toward it. The smell of paint was heavy in the still air. He went farther, strange shapes materializing before him, something that looked for all the world like a tree of dark shadows. He was about to step into the large central area, nearing the tree-looking thing, when he sensed movement to his left. He spun around, and the next thing he knew someone was running into him, hands striking his middle and he was being pitched backwards.
Things he’d never forgotten from his misspent youth came back in a rush, and he grabbed at his attacker, catching at flailing hands, jerking the person back with him. He twisted and as they hit the floor together, he was on top with his body weight pinning his attacker under him.
“Fire, fire!” someone was screaming at the same time he realized that the hands he’d captured were fine-boned, and the body under his was slight, although tall, and the scent of flowers and something else were infinitely female. Soft, warm, breathing as rapid as his, and a woman’s voice still screaming over and over again, “Fire!”
The woman was twisting without stopping, and as his hold grew slack from shock, her hands were free and striking out at him. He let go completely, scrambling back to get out of reach of the stinging slaps on his face, arms and chest.
With a man it would have been different. He would have decked him. But a woman? He might have been a hoodlum when he was younger, but he’d never hit a woman and never would. So his only recourse was to try to grab at her hands again, to capture them to stop the blows. Despite the fact that he was battling a blurred shadow, he got the suggestion of wild curls, slenderness and real strength.
He grabbed for her hands, but before he could make contact, he was blindsided by someone on his left, the impact sending him reeling to his right, his head and shoulder striking an ungiving wall. He ignored the jarring impact, spun around, scrambling to his feet and took a punch to his middle.
As he lurched backward, he heard what sounded like a kid’s voice screaming at him. “Hey, you jerk, you let her go!” And the owner of the voice was running at him again. “You stop hurting her!”
Kids and women, Matt thought at the same time he managed to catch the kid by his shoulders and hold on for dear life while he managed to evade most of the punches and kicks coming at him. Then the woman was there too, grabbing at him, jerking hard on his arm, still yelling, and the madness of the moment seemed to be suffocating him.
The screams echoed all around him until his own screams were mixed with them. “Stop it!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, then pushed the kid away from him. He felt the wall behind him, relieved that he wouldn’t be attacked from the rear. “That’s enough,” he yelled, “That’s enough! Stop. I give up.”
There was a sudden silence as Matt managed to make out the shape of the child to his right, then the woman, not more than three feet in front of him. Even in the shadows, he could see her standing with both hands up, but not in surrender. She looked ready to deliver a karate chop as she spoke at a thankfully reasonable level in a husky, very female voice, “You’d better not move. Not one move.”
“I’m not planning on it,” Matt muttered.
The kid moved and Matt turned to protect himself, but instead of another blow being delivered, the kid turned on the overhead lights. The flash of brightness blinded Matt for a moment. Then he finally saw his attackers.
Chapter Two
Matt saw the kid first, maybe eight or nine years old wearing baggy jeans, a hooded sweatshirt and grabbing a faded Yankees baseball cap from the floor. He put it on backwards over thick black hair that curled at the ends, and he watched Matt carefully with dark-brown eyes in a tanned face. Both hands came up in front of him, and both were balled into fists.
Then Matt saw the woman.
His first impression was a tangle of wild auburn curls around a stunningly beautiful face dominated by eyes that he could have sworn were a deep green. She was tall and slender with improbably long legs defined by tight jeans worn with suede boots and topped by a loose navy sweater. If she hadn’t looked so earnest and so unsettlingly beautiful, he would have laughed at her “karate” attack stance.
“Don’t…don’t you move at all,” she said, both hands up, long fingers pressed tightly together, no doubt ready to “chop” if they had to. She never looked away from Matt as she spoke to the boy. “Go and get help. Get security at the front desk.”
But the kid didn’t go anywhere. Instead, he came a bit closer, his dark-brown eyes narrowed on Matt and his hands still in tight fists. “What you up to, mister?” he asked. “You’re ripping the people off or what? You stealing stuff from this place, or you gonna hurt the lady?”
He had to be from the day care upstairs, but he didn’t look like the kids that had been coming in and out since Matt had been here. “No, I’m not ripping people off,” he said as he realized there was a tree in the room, right in the middle, an almost cartoon-like thing, with holes in it and branches that were chained to the ceiling with what looked like platforms on them. A real tree house, he thought as he looked back at the boy, then down at the floor and saw his briefcase.
“Sure,” the kid said with heavy sarcasm.
His briefcase had landed upside down against the wall by his feet. “Well, I’m not, and I’m not stealing and I’m not going to hurt—” He reached for the briefcase as he talked, but the kid moved faster than he did, kicking at the case, and sending it flying ten feet across the floor. It ended up near the strange-looking tree. “No, you don’t, mister!”
“Oh, come on. That’s my briefcase…what’s left of it,” he said, eyeing the heavy scuff mark on the side of the case.
“Can you prove it?” the kid asked.
He looked at the boy, then the woman. They hardly looked like a gang, but they were ganging up on him. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m supposed to be here. The question is,” he said as the woman moved a bit closer and he could see that her eyes really were a deep, almost emerald green, “why are you two here?”
EVEN AS BRITTANY braced herself to do whatever it took to fend off this mountain of a man in front of her, she knew it wasn’t right. With the bright lights on, there was no furtive criminal in front of her, but a large man, dressed all in black, wearing clothes that weren’t cheap, and frowning at her and the kid as if they were aliens.
“We…we should get Security.” She glanced at the boy she hadn’t even known was in the complex until he joined in the attack. “Go and get help, please.”
“Yes, get Security,” the man said quickly in a deep voice.
“We don’t need no police in here,” the boy said as he glared at the man. “I can take care of him.” He moved a bit closer, his fists raised. “No problem.”
She would have laughed if the kid hadn’t seemed so serious and the man hadn’t seemed so angry. “No, you go and get help. I…I’ll…” She stumbled over her bravado as she looked back at the man. He was huge.
Dark eyes were on her, angry eyes in a sharply chiseled face. Sandy-blond hair, worn longer than was fashionable, was mussed, only adding to a strangely edgy feeling that the man seemed to radiate. Big? Shoot, he was a mountain and probably outweighed her by eighty or a hundred pounds. She remembered the feel of him against her, over her, controlling her and she inched back a bit, aware of how impossible it would be to control him.
All she’d seen was a flash, someone there, then there was impact, her body tangling with his, strength everywhere, and she’d had a flash of terror that she was being attacked, or even kidnapped. Her father had told her often enough when she was growing up that she had to take precautions against some nutcase thinking he could make money by kidnapping her. And she’d been told when you are attacked never to stop fighting. But it all seemed foolish now.
If the man hadn’t been off balance in the first place, she never would have been able to upset him, let alone keep him from doing whatever he wanted to do. But the longer she looked at him, she knew that nothing made sense. He was obviously color-challenged, but his clothes were expensive, as expensive as the black boots he wore with them. And the briefcase on the floor wouldn’t be carried by a thug.
“Security can figure this out,” she said, her voice lower now.
“No,” the kid said immediately.
But the man just shrugged his massive shoulders, leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms on his chest. After one glance at his watch, another less-than-cheap thing about him, the dark eyes were on her. “That’s fine by me.”
She wished she was controlling this, but knew she wasn’t. She knew she’d never controlled anything about this encounter. “Okay,” she said, and turned to the boy, but he wasn’t there. She looked back at the front doors, but there was no one in sight. He had gone to get help, and she hadn’t even heard him move.
She exhaled with relief that help was coming, that the kid had done as she’d originally asked, but that was short-lived when the stranger murmured, “He took off.”
“He’s getting Security.”
“Not in this lifetime,” the man said in a deep voice as he narrowed his eyes on her.
“Where did he go?”
“I didn’t see him go, but trust me, he’s long gone.”
“No,” she said quickly, looking back over her shoulder at the empty area around them. “He’s gone for help.”
“He’s your kid?”
“No. I don’t even know him,” she admitted as she looked back at the stranger. “But he’ll get help.”
“You trust that kid?”
She hadn’t thought of it in those terms, but she’d never been cynical, either. “I think he’ll come back.”
