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“Well, you look totally stressed,” Mary murmured softly, then her eyes widened. “That husband of yours, he didn’t show up here, did he?”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing to do with Paul, and he’s not my husband. We’ve been divorced for three months now, and as far as I know, he’s off somewhere on the East Coast making musical history.” She shook her head. “He’s doing his own thing, and he won’t think about us…not unless he needs money.”
Mary sighed. “Then what’s going on?”
“Just a bad morning,” she said.
Mary tapped the table. “Can you sit for a minute?”
Sara was tired and the idea of sitting down for a bit was very appealing, but she couldn’t take a chance of making Hughes angry again. “I’d better not.”
Mary looked past her, then lifted her hand. “Sir?”
Sara turned and realized that Mary was motioning to Mr. Hughes. She literally held her breath as he approached them. “Mrs. Garner? What a pleasure to see you here again,” he said pleasantly in his clipped British accent. “I was just saying to our chef that you can set your watch by Mrs. Garner. Eleven o’clock, right on the mark.” He glanced at Sara, then back at Mary with concern. “Is there a problem?”
“Oh, my goodness, no, sir. I just wanted to ask you if Sara could keep me company for a few minutes? I thought a few minutes of adult conversation before heading back to the children would be a treat for me.”
She could tell by the way his jaw worked that he wanted to say no, to push Sara back into the kitchen to help with the prep work. But he nodded obsequiously. “For you, dear lady, anything.” He looked at Sara. “Ten minutes?”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked back at Mary. “Have a lovely day, Mrs. Garner.”
“Thanks so much, Mr. Hughes,” Mary said with a smile. “You are a prince among men.”
He smiled at that. “And you are a true lady.”
As he walked away, Mary patted the table across from her and said, “Sit down, dear.”
“I’ll get your tea first,” Sara said, then hurried off and was back in a few minutes with a tray with two cups of tea and the plate of biscuits. She put them down in front of Mary, then slipped into the opposite seat.
She couldn’t help glancing at Hughes over by the bar, and was shocked to hear Mary mutter, “Don’t worry about that officious twit.”
Sara looked at Mary. “He’s my boss.”
“A twit,” Mary said, then took her time sipping tea, before she sat back in her seat. “Now, what’s been happening?”
Sara fingered her teacup. “Well, to begin with, I dumped a whole tray of food on one of the most important people in this building, according to Mr. Hughes.”
Mary stared at her, then started to chuckle. “Oh, my.”
“Exactly,” Sara murmured, starting to smile in spite of herself. “He’s a lawyer or something in this building, a Mr. Wise. You know the kind, a three-piece suit with polished fingernails.”
Mary nodded. “Oh, yes, I do know that type.”
“Then Hughes went ballistic,” she said, picking up her cup. “He was livid, worried about me driving off customers. Then one of the customers stepped in, but I wish he hadn’t.” She had a sudden memory of those hazel eyes, and she clasped her hands around the teacup to steady them. “I was afraid Hughes was going to fire me on the spot.”
“Well, he didn’t, obviously.”
“For now.” She exhaled. “And my baby-sitter…” She shook her head. “Never mind. I hate people who have a laundry list of complaints if someone just says, ‘How are you?’”
“I asked. But speaking of baby-sitters, I have an idea that I wanted to run past you if I could?”
Sara looked at her watch. “I’ve got a few more minutes.”
“Okay, you know all about Just for Kids?”
“Sure, of course. It’s a great idea for a day-care center, and I’m a bit surprised that a huge corporation like LynTech would let them set up over there.”
“It started with LynTech,” Mary said. “It was the brainchild of the CEO’s wife, Lindsey Holden. But that’s beside the point. Right now they’re expanding, opening up to the public, bit by bit. That’s where you come in.”
“Oh, sure,” Sara said with a wry smile. “I’m a whiz at business. I could give them financial advice.”
Mary grinned. “You probably could, the way you manage to be a single parent to Hayley and work here and survive.”
Sara laughed a bit ruefully. “That’s about all I do. Survive.” She looked at the teacup and put it down. “By the way, I think we’ll take you up on that movie offer this weekend.”
“Wonderful! There’s a little girl at the center, Victoria, she’s four. I think I’ll try to bring her with us.” Mary had been widowed a couple of years ago and she’d never had children, according to the conversations they’d had. She’d said that was one of very few real regrets she had in life.
“I think a movie is a good idea,” Sara murmured. It would be the first fun thing she’d done for Hayley since coming to Houston. Hayley needed some fun. And so did she.
“We’ll plan on it for Sunday, and it’s my treat.” Before Sara could object, Mary said, “I have more than enough money, and I know you don’t make a bundle working here. Let me treat, okay?”
Sara hesitated, then finally nodded. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Mary said. “And speaking of money. Your sitter doesn’t come cheap, does she?”
Marg had been more than she could afford, but not as bad as some she’d checked into. “She’s reasonable,” she said. “At least for now. She’s closing business as of next week.”
She didn’t want Mary’s sympathy, but she wasn’t prepared for the woman to actually clap her hands and smile. “Perfect!”
“Excuse me?”
Mary’s smile just grew. “You know, I truly believe in fate. That we meet others when we need to and things work out.”
Sara didn’t understand where that came from. “I don’t see what—”
“It just so happens that they need someone to help out on a part-time basis at Just for Kids, someone good with children, and someone they can trust. You fill the bill. I think we could work out something where you could leave Hayley there while you work your shift here, then when you’re done here, after lunch, you can come over there and spend the afternoon with her.” Mary looked as pleased with herself as if she’d just figured out a way to bring about world peace. “It’s perfect,” she pronounced.
“It would be, but I can’t afford something like that,” she said.
Mary’s smile didn’t falter. “There’s nothing to afford. That’s the best thing about this plan. If you help us out for the afternoon, Hayley can be there all day for nothing. Now, you can’t refuse an offer like that, can you? Still being able to work here while she’s being looked after…and…you don’t have to pay child care costs?”
She stared at the woman. “I’d work there?”
“You know how hard it is to get someone you can trust with children. And they’re very particular about whom they hire over there. You’ve told me you worry about Hayley and who’s with her. Well, you’d know who was with her and she’d be right next door.”
Her tea was forgotten. “You think that I could do that?” she asked, not quite believing that she could be the recipient of this kind of good luck.
“Yes, I do. I talked to Mrs. Holden and she thought it sounded like a great plan.”
“Oh, Mary, that…would be…it would be great,” she managed to say around a lump in her throat.
“Sara!” Hughes came barreling out of the kitchen, striding in her direction like a man on a mission.
She stood quickly, picking up her teacup. “I need to get back to work.”
“Tell you what, come in tomorrow right after you finish here, and we can all sit down and iron out the details and get you familiarized with the work involved.”
“Thank you,” she breathed just before Hughes got to them.
“Mrs. Garner, forgive me for the interruption,” he said, then looked at Sara. “We just received a reservation for twenty in half an hour. We need to get things set up.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and gathering her teacup, smiled at Mary. “Thanks, and I’ll come by tomorrow,” she said, then headed back to the kitchen.
“Sara?” Leo called to her.
She stopped by the bar. “What?”
“That guy, the one who left the huge tip?”
“What about him?”
“He left this, too,” he said, and held up a single key.
She went closer and looked at the key, about three inches long, gold, with what looked like leather molded to the top of it and a monogrammed E on both sides. “What is it, a house key or a car key?”
“I don’t know, but the guy is either locked out of his house, or his car’s not going anywhere.” He dropped the key in his tip glass, and said, “If he comes in again, and I’m not here, let him know?”
Apologize and get his key back to him if she ever saw him again. “Sure thing.” But hopefully her mysterious defender wouldn’t return. Otherwise she might lose this very necessary job for good.
Chapter Three
One week later
In the master suite of his ranch house just south of Dallas, E. J. threw clothes into a leather overnight case lying open on his massive poster bed. The house, a sprawling adobe structure that had once belonged to the biggest oil baron in the area, was surrounded by rolling acres of grazing land. He’d bought it because it let him be alone whenever he wanted. He had the money to do it, so why not. Although security was breached from time to time, in general he felt safe here.
At the moment, safety wasn’t on his mind. His father was. As he tossed in the last of his clothes, he said, “Run that by me again, Dad?”
He glanced over his shoulder at Ray Dan Sommers, who stood, arms folded, feet braced, without a bit of apology in his expression. Ray was sixty-five years old and looked every day of it, with weathered skin and a sinewy body that came from years of working the oil fields. And he’d just dropped a bomb on E. J. “You heard me, Sonny,” his father said.
His father was sure he knew what was best for his only child, a thirty-nine-year-old whom he persisted in calling “Sonny” when he was trying to get something past him. E. J., dressed only in his jeans and boots, his dark brown hair still damp from the shower and slicked back from his now clean-shaven face, snapped his case shut. As he reached for a white T-shirt, he said, “Don’t call me Sonny, and you heard me, too.”
He tugged the shirt over his head, then pulled it down as he looked at Ray again. “Explain,” he said tightly as he tucked the shirt into the waistband of his Levi’s.
Ray backed up a bit as they met gazes, but he didn’t back down. “It seemed like a real good idea. You know, it’s PR, it’s image-shaping, like the big boys say.” Ray was in his usual jeans, plaid shirt and worn boots. He frowned, drawing his gray eyebrows together over hazel eyes, and stroked the beard stubble on his chin. “With you back in negotiations with LynTech, it couldn’t hurt for you to show your magnanimous side. Charity’s good and it shows there’s no hard feelings about that mess last week. Besides, it’ll give you a big tax write-off to use your place in Houston for LynTech’s charity ball.” He shrugged. “It all works out.”
“Why didn’t you check with me first?” E. J. asked, his exasperation showing in his tone.
The son faced the father, each the echo of the other, but with twenty-six years of aging separating them. Ray almost matched his son’s six-foot height, and they were both lean. Both had brown hair, with Ray’s laced with a good dose of gray.
“You’re right, E. J., dead right,” Ray conceded, catching E. J. a bit by surprise. His dad seldom backed down on anything. “You were busy with…” He shrugged. “Well, you were with Heather, and you seemed busy.” A sly smile touched his lips. “I’d never interrupt that.”
“When was this?”
“A few days back. I came out, saw the two of you at the pool and figured you didn’t need to talk business then.”
Ray made it sound as if they’d been having an orgy. Heather McCain had come out to see him before she left for New York. What Ray didn’t know, and what was none of his business, was that they’d decided it was time to move on, that their relationship had run its course. He had a feeling she’d been waiting for some declaration of love, but it never came, so she’d cut her losses. “So you just agreed for me?”
“They were asking, and I didn’t want to interrupt you about something like that, so I said it would be okay.”
“Just let LynTech use my place in Houston for a charity ball for some day-care-center thing?” he asked, still annoyed but starting to think that it might not be a totally rotten idea. He didn’t have much to do with kids, and probably never would, but it couldn’t hurt to help out that way. He just hated being volunteered.
“They’re doing stuff for a pediatric wing at the hospital, sort of sharing the donations or something, and the only place they had to hold it in was an old auditorium. That wasn’t right.”
“They use the place, and that’s it?”
“Sure, mostly.”
“Mostly?” E. J. shook his head with a sigh. “What else?”
“Nothing big. They just asked if you could be there for the ball. I said, sure you would.”
“Dad, why in the hell—”
“Why not? You can be there in a blink of an eye on that fancy helicopter you got waiting for you now. And you’re going to be heading to Houston off and on during the year, now that the deal with LynTech is going through, and you agreed to stay involved for the first year. I just didn’t know you’d be going up there before the ball and staying at the house.”
“You were wrong,” he muttered.
“Yeah, sure, I know. I thought you’d fly in, just zip there and zip back. Even so, the place in Houston is the size of a small country. You can have all the privacy you need, and you can do whatever you want. Have Heather there if you want, and no one’s the wiser.”
He was right about the size of the sprawling estate in Houston. “Heather’s in New York.”
“Well, women always seem to find you irresistible,” Ray said with a sly smile.
“They find my money irresistible,” he muttered.
“Hey, you’re my son, and the women find the Sommers men irresistible.”
“Sure, Dad, sure,” he said. But he knew one woman who didn’t. The blond waitress with those aquamarine eyes. He remembered all too well her anger at him for trying to help, a memory that had sneaked back into his mind at the strangest times this past week. “I’m going for business,” he said firmly as he turned and reached for his suitcase.
“And if Heather shows up there?”
“She’s in New York and we aren’t seeing each other anymore.” He wished he hadn’t said that last part when Ray came closer.
“Sonny? What did you do now? She was nice, real pretty, and you would have had great kids.”
“Oh, Dad, I’ve told you, we just had fun. No marriage, no kids, nothing. And it’s over.”
