She led the way into a small kitchen, then watched as he poured himself a mug of the steaming coffee.
“Help yourself,” he said when he was finished.
“Mrs. Buchanan prefers that the staff doesn’t use her personal equipment. I’ll go down to the lunchroom later. We have a machine there.”
He’d known Gloria was a real bitch, but even he was surprised by how she treated her people.
“I’m not going to say anything,” he told Vicki. “Just help yourself.”
Then, while she watched in obvious amazement, he poured a second mug and handed it to her.
“I, ah, thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome.” He kept his smile easy, while on the inside, all he could think about was getting the hell out of here. Right now snipers didn’t sound all that bad.
“T
HE MANAGERS FROM
the various restaurants meet here twice a week,” Vicki said an hour later as she walked him through Gloria’s calendar. “Except for The Downtown Sports Bar. Reid is supposed to be in charge, but he doesn’t come to the meetings.”
“Not a surprise,” Walker said with a grin. “My brother isn’t into following the rules.”
Vicki nodded without smiling back. “Mrs. Buchanan sees the chefs once a week, except for the chef at The Waterfront. It’s in Chef Jackson’s contract that she doesn’t have to attend those meetings. That doesn’t make Mrs. Buchanan very happy.”
Walker wasn’t surprised. Lucky Penny, missing out on meetings with his grandmother.
“There are mini staff meetings every afternoon at four and major ones once a week. Then each department meets with Mrs. Buchanan individually once a week.”
“That’s a lot of meetings,” he said. “When do these people get their work done?”
“A lot of them stay nights,” she said earnestly. “Mrs. Buchanan has very high standards.”
“I knew she was difficult,” he muttered. “I didn’t know she was insane.”
But he wasn’t surprised Gloria had to micromanage every aspect of the company. She would never trust anyone to get the job done correctly.
He looked at the printout. “We’re going to make some changes here.”
“Of course,” Vicki said as she stood on the other side of the desk.
Walker hated being in the large white-on-white room, but the other woman’s hovering only made him more uncomfortable.
“You gonna settle somewhere?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Sit down.”
Vicki’s eyes widened. “Mrs. Buchanan prefers us to stand while we—”
“Mrs. Buchanan isn’t here. Sit.”
Vicki perched on the very edge of the chair across from his. A muscle twitched in her jaw. He glanced at the clock on the desk and saw it was barely after eight in the morning—too early to start drinking, but damn, was he tempted.
He looked at the jam-packed schedule, including a standing appointment with a Mr. J from a private investigation agency—no doubt how she knew so much about everyone’s personal life—and decided it all had to stop.
“Cancel everything,” he said.
Vicki’s mouth opened, then closed. “Excuse me, sir?”
“Cancel everything. Every meeting, every appointment. I want to start over. Can you send an e-mail to everyone telling them to wait to find out the new schedule?” He would take care of the mysterious Mr. J himself.
She paled. “Of course. I’m happy to do that.”
“Good. I’ll meet with the different managers and department heads, but later in the week when I’ve had time to review the quarterly statements. Then go ahead and set up meetings for me at each of the four restaurants. Do them on different days. The Waterfront can be last—I know they’re in good shape.”
Vicki seemed to fold in on herself. “I’m sorry to have to ask, but are you saying you’ll go
there?
”
“Sure. It’ll be easier to coordinate a time if I work around their schedules.”
She wrote frantically.
When she paused, he said, “Would it be possible to get the recent quarterlies this morning?”
“Of course. They’re on my computer.”
“Good. When it’s convenient.”
She wrote some more.
“Does Kit like working nights?” he asked.
Vicki blanched. “I don’t know. Is there a problem? Would you like me to—”
He raised his hand to stop her. “Breathe,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Breathe. Take a deep breath and let it out.”
She did as he requested, but didn’t look any more relaxed.
“No one is getting fired,” he said. “No one is even getting beaten. It is more than possible that I will violate the executive assistant code by asking you to bring me lunch because I don’t want to go to a restaurant and despite the fact that we own four, our corporate headquarters has nothing better than a few vending machines.”
“I’m happy to get you lunch,” she said. “Every day.”
“Good. But on company time. Not your own. As for Kit’s hours, I won’t be working until midnight. So if she would prefer the day shift, that’s fine with me. I’m sure there’s plenty to keep the two of you busy.”
She wrote frantically.
“Vicki,” he said, then waited until she looked at him. “You don’t have to write everything down.”
“I want to get it right the first time. That’s very important.”
“What happens if you make a mistake?”
Her expression of panic made him feel as if he’d kicked her. “Never mind,” he said. “For what it’s worth, you don’t have to get it right the first time.”
She nodded, but he doubted she believed him.
Was the entire staff like this? No wonder the company had run through three presidents a year for the past decade.
How much cleanup would he have to deal with? People working while afraid wasn’t efficient. As he’d learned in his previous line of work, some fear allowed a soldier to keep the edge, but too much got him dead.
He thought about how his grandmother had tried to control her grandchildren. When that had failed, had she turned to her employees?
“Things are going to be different while I’m here,” he told Vicki. “Feel free to spread the word.”
E
LISSA DID HER BEST
to concentrate on the dozen or so blue topaz stones sitting on her kitchen table. Her budget didn’t usually allow for anything this nice, but one of her regulars at the diner knew someone in the jewelry business, so she’d been able to get the cut stones at a great price. In return Elissa was going to transform a bolt of fabric into bedroom drapes. All in all, a great trade.
She had an idea for six pairs of earrings, assuming she could match up the stones. If not, she would use the leftovers in a coordinating necklace, or maybe a pendant-pin combination. So many ideas.
Normally she would have been lost in her work for hours, but this particular Saturday there was the added distraction of Walker sitting not two feet away on the other side of her kitchen table.
She still wasn’t sure how he’d come to be there. One minute she’d been getting out of her car after dropping Zoe off on a play date and the next, they’d been talking and she’d invited him inside.
“Your grandmother has two assistants?” she said, as Walker talked about his first couple of days running the company. “Who needs two?”
“Apparently she does. I won’t meet Kit until next week, but Vicki spends her day trembling in fear. She seems convinced if she doesn’t do whatever I say perfectly the first time, I’ll have her shot at dawn.”
“That would almost be funny if it weren’t so sad.”
“Everyone is like that,” he said. “I walked into a few offices yesterday to introduce myself and the people were all terrified. I couldn’t get anyone to say anything but how much they love my grandmother and their jobs and how thrilled they are to be working there.”
Elissa wrinkled her nose. “No offense, but I find it really hard to believe they’re that fond of your grandmother.”
“I keep expecting to find a closet full of bamboo canes, or a medieval torture rack behind a closed door. She had meetings scheduled all day. Every department reported to her daily. The restaurant personnel were expected to come to her.”
“You’ll get it sorted out,” she told him, confident it was true. The man had handled troops while under fire—how hard could it be to whip an office staff into shape?
“There’s so much to learn,” he said. “I never paid attention to the restaurant business before. They don’t even call it a restaurant. It’s a store.”
She grinned. “I know.”
He shook his head. “Sorry—you work in a restaurant. Then you know what I’m talking about. Cal, one of my brothers, is giving me a crash course in restaurant management. There are fixed costs, like the building. Food costs and labor costs are broken down by the meal. Penny, Cal’s wife, is a chef. I’m meeting with her next week to learn about the back of the store. I don’t know anything about how a kitchen works.”
“Not even in real life,” she murmured.
He narrowed his gaze. “Is that a crack about my cooking?”
“To the best of my knowledge, you
don’t
cook.”
“What’s your point?”
“That it’s all information you can learn. If you have good people in place, then the restaurants will take care of themselves.”
“They’d better.” He leaned back in his chair and grabbed the iced tea she’d made. “I never much thought about the family business as anything real. It was just something I wanted to avoid. Now I feel like I’m rescuing people from the bowels of hell.”
“You are. I know she’s your grandmother and you probably love her very much—”
“Not really.”
She didn’t believe that. Family was impossible to ignore forever. Look how long she’d tried, and there were still days she thought about her parents and wondered if she ever crossed their minds.
“I’m just saying,” she continued, “she couldn’t have been someone easy to work for. You’re doing a good thing.”
He shrugged uncomfortably.
“Speaking of being foolish…” she said.
“Were we?”
“Sort of. I talked to my boss. He knows your grandmother, but they’re not close and there’s no way she could have convinced him to fire me. I can’t believe I let her intimidate me that way. I just collapsed like a wet tissue. I should have been stronger than that.”
“Elissa, I have grown men with MBAs cowering behind their desks. It’s not you. Gloria would terrify anyone.”
“She doesn’t scare you.”
“I know her. Don’t take it personally. You’re plenty tough.”
“I’m not, but thank you for saying so.”
Even though she wasn’t getting any work done, she liked having him around. He was easy to talk to, and easy to look at. A nice combination. While intellectually she knew it was best that he wasn’t interested in starting anything with her, the stubborn, emotional side of her brain regretted that they would never get more involved. He would have been a great guy to get to know.
Yeah, right until she found out his pesky, awful flaw. Because if she liked him, he had one. She should be—
Walker stood up and walked toward the living room.
“Am I boring you?” she asked.
“What? No. I thought I saw someone outside.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know. He looked suspicious.”
Her first thought was that Neil had made good on his threat and found her. Then she dismissed the idea. Neil wouldn’t lurk. He would simply pound on the door and demand money.
Walker turned back to her. “I want to ask you something. My sister-in-law is pregnant and there’s going to be—”
He turned suddenly and raced out of the apartment. Elissa went after him and was stunned to see him following a guy she’d never seen before.
Her first thought was relief that the man wasn’t Neil. He was too short and his hair was too dark. Her second was to wonder who was hanging out in her front yard, looking through her windows.
She caught up with them as Walker tackled the guy and they fell onto a neighbor’s lawn. Before she knew it, Walker had the guy’s right arm bent behind his back.
“Mr. J, I presume,” Walker said.
“Who?” she asked.
“This guy works for my grandmother. I don’t know his real name. He’s in her calendar as Mr. J.” Walker shook the man. “I called your company yesterday and fired your ass.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t work for your grandmother.”
“Right.” Walker tightened his grip on the man’s arm. “Then who hired you?”
“I can’t—” The man gave a little scream as Walker pushed his wrist higher toward his shoulder.
Elissa winced but didn’t stop him. She didn’t like the idea of strange guys hovering around her apartment. She asked the next obvious question.
“Was it Neil?”
Both Walker and the man looked at her.
“No. His name is Bobby,” the stranger told her. “He says he’s your brother.”
E
LISSA STUDIED THE MAN
in the baseball cap. He was so ordinary looking. “I wouldn’t have guessed you were a private detective,” she said, as the man, who’d introduced himself as Derek, drank a glass of iced tea.
“We’re supposed to blend in,” Derek told her. He held the glass in his left hand and rotated his right shoulder. “You’ve got some grip, buddy,” he said to Walker.
Walker leaned against the counter, legs braced, arms folded. He looked ready to attack and kill, if necessary. Elissa was glad he was on her side.
She was still having trouble getting her mind around Derek’s confession of his client. “Bobby’s still a kid,” she said, not sure she believed her brother was trying to get in touch with her.
“He turned eighteen on his last birthday. He starts at UW next week.”
Her brother going to the University of Washington? The last time she’d seen him, he’d just gotten braces. Of course that had been eight years ago.
Thinking about her brother made her want to ask about her parents, but she knew better. They’d made their position clear.
“He wants to talk to you,” Derek said as he reached in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Here’s his cell number. He’d really like you to give him a call.”
She supposed it meant something that her brother had spent his money to find her. She took the paper and stuffed it in her own pocket.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt,” she said, not sure how she felt about contact with him after all these years. “Tell him I’ll give him a call in the next few days.”
“And nothing else,” Walker added.
Derek looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“You will not give out any personal information on Elissa. Not her address, or phone number, not the name or location of her place of employment. I don’t care what your contract with the kid says. If you put her in any danger, you will answer to me.”
It was like watching a rabbit try to face down a tiger. Derek folded instantly. “I won’t tell him anything.”
“If I find out you have, I will hunt you down. Are we clear?”
Derek put down the iced tea and nodded vigorously. “I, ah, should probably go.”
“Excellent idea,” Walker said. “I’ll see you out.”
Elissa stayed in the kitchen and sank into one of the chairs. When Walker returned, he sat next to her.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. This is so weird. I haven’t talked to Bobby since I found out I was pregnant.” She drew in a breath. “I ran away when I was seventeen and I never called my parents to say I was okay. I felt bad about that later. It was selfish and stupid, but that pretty much defined my existence. Then I let myself forget about them. I was busy holding down an exciting job. When I got pregnant and Zoe’s father turned out to be an asshole, I left him. I also called home.”
His dark eyes hid his thoughts, but she wasn’t worried about him judging her. Walker wasn’t the type.
“What happened?” he asked quietly.
“I got Bobby. He said the folks were still pretty pissed off, but he’d check with them to see if they were willing to talk to me.”
“Did you tell him about Zoe?”
She shook her head. “I figured calling after all this time was enough of a shock. Besides, I still had enough pride not to want their pity. That came later.”
“They weren’t interested,” he said, not asking a question.
“Apparently not. He said they didn’t want anything to do with me. That I’d made my decision and now I had to live with it. So I did.”
“Are you sure he was telling the truth?”
Elissa nodded. “I thought about that, too, but only for a minute. Bobby was always a great kid and we got along really well. My mom had trouble getting pregnant the second time, which is why there’s such a big age gap between us. I could have hated him for being the favorite after he was born, but I loved him too much. We had fun together. I couldn’t imagine him lying to me about that.”
“You gonna call?”
“Probably. I need a couple of days to get used to the idea of having contact with him again, but then I will. I’d like Zoe to know her uncle.”
“Want to come with me to my sister-in-law’s baby shower?”
The question wasn’t quite as shocking as finding out her brother was trying to get in touch with her, but it was very close.
“What?”
“Penny’s shower is tomorrow. I thought about asking you before, but then I wasn’t sure you’d want to come. It’s just family. You’d like Dani and Penny. The food will be good.”
His voice trailed off. For the first time since meeting him, Elissa had the idea that Walker was nervous.
“You’re asking me to go with you to your sister-in-law’s baby shower?”
“Zoe, too,” he said. “It’s not a date.”
“Good to know.”
“I bought a car seat. She registered at a baby store, so that’s what I got. They wrapped it. I can put your names on the card.”
They weren’t dating but he was willing to share the gift?
Elissa didn’t know what to think. She believed him when he said he didn’t want to get involved, and if he was strong enough to ignore the sexual attraction between them, then she could, too.
She knew they would both face a lot of questions, yet she couldn’t resist finding out more about Walker’s private world. What was he like with his family and who were the people who knew him best?
“What time?” she asked.
“Four. Penny’s cooking. It’s her party and she shouldn’t, but she’s a chef and who else would she trust with the food?”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Sure. We’ll go. Oh, and I’ll bring my own present.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind adding you and Zoe.”
“We’re good.”
“Then I’ll pick you up at three-thirty.”
“Sure.”
She walked him to the door, where they stood awkwardly for several seconds. Then he turned and headed up the stairs.
Not a date, huh?
If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, what else could it be?
W
ALKER
’
S CAR
still smelled new. Elissa inhaled the rich scent of expensive leather and eyed the complicated-looking console. In the car world, money could really buy happiness.
“So you’re one of four,” she said, knowing it was more important to learn about his family than wallow in car-envy.
“Right. Cal, Reid, me and Dani. Cal’s married to Penny. Reid may or may not bring a date. He tends to go through women quickly. Dani is in the middle of a divorce.”
“When’s Cal and Penny’s baby due?”
Walker hesitated. “Cal’s not the father.”
“Oh. That’s interesting. Will the biological father be there, too?”
“No. Penny used an anonymous sperm donor. She had always wanted a family and the traditional route didn’t seem to be working for her.”
“I admire a woman with initiative.” And one who volunteered to be a single parent. Elissa loved Zoe, but sometimes it was tough being the only grownup around.
She glanced back at her daughter, who bounced along with the music from Walker’s portable CD player.
“I’m guessing your high-tech CD player has never heard a Disney sing-along CD before,” she said as she faced front again.
“Not my style.”
“Some of the tunes are catchy. We put that kind of music on when we’re cleaning house.”
He smiled. “Interesting choice.”
Not that she could imagine him singing along as he dusted. Of course she couldn’t imagine him dusting. Or doing anything mundane. She could picture him with a rifle or even a hunting knife. Better yet, bare chested with a hunting knife. Yum.