“Mama, guess what?”
Brianna brushed a stray curl from Emma’s forehead. “What, baby?”
“Gretchen says the picture I drew is the best one in the whole center. She says I gots ’tistic talent. What’s that?”
Brianna smiled. “Artistic talent,” she corrected. “It means you can draw.”
“Oh, yeah. Anyway, she’s going to hang my picture on the wall right up front in the reception area. She’ll put it in a real frame and everything, so everybody will see it when they come in.”
“Really? That’s wonderful. Have you shown that one to me?” Most of Emma’s drawings were on the walls in her room right here at the center. Most were of brightly colored flowers and rainbows. She rarely parted with any of them.
Emma hesitated, then shook her head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I was afraid you’d be mad.”
“Why on earth would I be mad?”
“Because this one is of my family, just you and me. I left out Daddy,” Emma said with a belligerent thrust of her chin. She looked as if she expected to be chastized and didn’t care.
“Oh,” Brianna said neutrally. “Why did you leave out your dad?”
“He never comes to see me. Why should I put him in a picture?” she asked, then added despondently, “I might as well not even have a daddy.”
Personally, Brianna agreed with her daughter, but she had tried hard not to say negative things about her ex. She hadn’t wanted to influence Emma’s feelings. After all, Larry was her father even if he happened to be a lousy one.
“You know, it still might hurt his feelings to know that you left him out. He loves you, sweetie. He just feels really, really bad about causing you to be hurt like this.”
Emma shook her head stubbornly. “He never comes because he’s ashamed to see me like this.”
The hurt in Emma’s eyes was hard to take. For what had to be the hundredth time Brianna tried her best to explain away Larry’s insensitivity. “Only because he caused it,” Brianna swore, cupping Emma’s chin so she could gaze directly into her eyes. “Not because he’s ashamed of you. Never that.”
“Well, I don’t believe you.” Emma’s eyes filled with tears. “I hate him. I hate him!”
Not half as much as Brianna did at that moment. She gathered Emma close and rocked her. “You don’t really hate him. You miss him. I don’t blame you. One of these days he’ll come back and the two of you will remember all the wonderful times you shared.”
“I don’t want him to come,” Emma insisted with a sniff. “Not ever. I want a new daddy.”
She didn’t want to set herself up for disappointment with the old one who’d failed her, Brianna concluded, and who could blame her? There were times like this when she wanted to track her ex-husband down and strangle him for adding to Emma’s insecurities.
Maybe she should, too. She hadn’t before, because she’d been too glad to have him out of her own life. She knew he had accepted a transfer from his company, that he’d moved out of the area. It would be a simple matter to locate him, as long as he hadn’t quit since then. For Emma’s sake, maybe she had to make the effort. She would ask the counselors about that the next time she spoke with them.
For now, though, she needed to console her daughter, to reassure her that she was as lovable—as beautiful—as always. She might not be able to do much about the accident’s physical scars, but she had to deal with the emotional ones. That meant taking extra time, time she didn’t have, to distract Emma. When she thought of the work piled up at home, she almost moaned, but it would get done eventually. This was more important.
“Why don’t we go back inside and play a game?” she suggested.
Emma regarded her tentatively. “You can stay?”
“Absolutely.”
“Will you play Go Fish with me?”
“Whatever you want.” She tweaked her daughter’s nose. “I know why you want to play that, though. You always beat me.”
Emma grinned. “I know. You don’t pay attention, Mama. You have to concentrate.”
That impish smile, almost as perfect as it had been before the accident, was what gave Brianna strength. One day it would be back full force. One day she would have her daughter whole and her life on track. Until then, she would just have to do the best she could.
And steer very far away from the one man who could lead her off course and quite likely straight into her own emotional disaster.
Since his secretary wasn’t at her desk, Brianna tapped on the door, then stepped inside.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
Bryce was on the phone, but he beckoned to her distractedly. She went in and took a seat across from him. Surreptitiously she tried to see what was on his desk to learn if that would give her any clue about why he had called her in at such an early hour. Unfortunately, the papers were totally innocuous, mostly business correspondence she couldn’t really read upside down.
A few moments later, Bryce hung up and beamed at her. The smile caught her off guard. Maybe this wasn’t about some calamity, after all. There had been some in recent months, two land deals that had fallen through when competitors had stepped in and topped their bids at the last second. Bryce had taken those in stride, but he might not if there was a third. He was a man who didn’t like losing.
“Coffee?” he asked. “It’s strong, but I can’t vouch for how good it is. I never really got the knack for making it, but my secretary won’t be in for another hour and I needed something to jump-start my day.”
“No, thanks. I have some back in my office.”
“Wise woman.”
“What is this about, sir? Is there a problem?”
He seemed startled by her assumption. “A problem? No, indeed. You’re doing a fine job, Brianna.”
He fiddled with the papers on his desk as if he were uncomfortable. If he was, it was totally out of character. Bryce Delacourt was the most self-confident man she’d ever met, even more so than his son, and Jeb had proved over the weekend that he was no slouch in that department.
“I hear you went out with my son on Friday night,” Bryce said finally.
Was he objecting to the two of them being seen together? She tried to gauge his reaction but couldn’t. She phrased her response cautiously. “He took me to a charity function he had to attend, yes,” she said, curious about where this was heading.
“Did you have a good time?”
“It was a lovely party.”
“And Jeb? How did the two of you get along?”
“We enjoyed ourselves.”
He gave a little nod of satisfaction. “Good,” he said, sounding relieved for some reason. “I was just wondering. That’s all, Brianna.”
She stared at him, thoroughly confused by the whole encounter. “That’s all you wanted to ask me about?”
“That was it,” he confirmed.
Still bemused, she got to her feet and started for the door, then decided she shouldn’t mince words. If he had a problem with her seeing Jeb, he needed to know it wasn’t likely to happen again.
“Sir, do you object to me seeing Jeb? It’s nothing to worry about, I assure you. This was a one-time thing,” she said, ignoring the fact that it had been repeated on Saturday. Apparently Bryce didn’t know about that. She stuck to explaining away Friday night. “He just offered me a chance to get a little revenge.”
He chuckled knowingly at that. “Against Max Coleman, I imagine.”
Brianna nodded.
“Did it work?”
She grinned. “Like a charm.”
“Good. Can’t say I’m sorry about the way things turned out with Coleman, because it brought you here, but he deserved to have his nose rubbed in it.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” she said fervently.
“Then I’m glad my son was able to help you accomplish it. Was the revenge as sweet as you’d hoped?”
She thought about Max’s reaction and her own satisfaction at seeing him lose his cool facade. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m glad.” He hesitated. “Just one thing, Brianna.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Maybe I have no business saying this, but I like you. Jeb is my son. He’s a good man, but he has something of a reputation with women.”
“It doesn’t matter. Like I said, this was a one-time thing.”
He waved off the explanation. “Actually, what I wanted to say was that you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
“I shouldn’t?”
“Jeb’s got staying power. He just hasn’t met the right woman yet.” Then, as if he sensed he’d said too much, he gestured toward the door. “That’s all. You can get back to work now.”
Brianna nodded and left. As she walked into the outer office, she all but ran straight into Jeb. He stared at her in amazement, then began to chuckle.
“So he got to you first, I see.”
“What?”
“Asking about our date, I imagine.”
“Yes.” She began to get the picture. This hadn’t been anything more than fatherly nosiness and, maybe at the end, a subtle pitch. “And now it’s your turn?”
“That’s my guess.” He leaned down and whispered, “Is there anything I should know? Did you reveal any of our deep, dark secrets?”
“Not a one,” she assured him. “I did my best to downplay the whole thing.”
“That wouldn’t stop Dad. He’s an independent thinker. He draws whatever conclusions suit his purposes. Two dates in one weekend would really get his attention.”
“He only knows about one, I think, and I never mentioned Saturday.”
“I guess all his spies haven’t checked in, then.” His expression sobered. “I’m sorry if he made you uncomfortable.”
“Actually, I thought it was rather sweet.”
“Don’t mistake meddling for sweet,” Jeb warned.
“Since we have nothing to hide, I’m not worried about it.”
“It won’t always be that way,” he said with an irrepressible wink that made Brianna’s pulse ricochet wildly, just when she was about to conclude that she could handle these occasional chance meetings without losing her composure.
Promise or threat? The man had a way of delivering these unexpected little gibes so that she couldn’t tell. If he did it just to keep her off balance, he was doing a darn fine job of it.
“Actually, I was checking to make sure you weren’t going against my wishes and putting that woman on the spot.”
“Even if I were, do you think she’d realize what I was up do? Believe it or not, I have learned a few things on those occasions when I’ve worked with Dylan. I don’t run roughshod over a suspect. In fact, I am capable of great subtlety and discretion when the situation calls for it.”
“What the hell does that mean? Did you spend the whole evening pumping her for information that was none of your business?”
“I spent the evening getting to know her. It’s not the same thing.” He hesitated, then conceded, “Not exactly, anyway.”
“Blast it, son, I thought I told you to back off with those ridiculous suspicions of yours. Do I have to fire you to get the message across?”
At any other time, Jeb might have welcomed exactly that. If his father fired him, he’d be free to pursue his own interests. Unfortunately, if his father fired him now, there would be no one to follow up on these insider leaks.
“You’re not going to fire me,” Jeb said, sprawling in the chair opposite his father as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Don’t test me.”
“Dad, you just talked to Brianna. Did she seem the least bit upset?”
“No,” his father conceded grudgingly. “She told me not to make too much of the whole evening.” His expression turned sly. “That must mean you’re losing your touch. Most women are falling all over themselves trying to trap you into marriage.”
“Generally speaking, Brianna wants nothing from me. Friday night just gave her a chance to show Max Coleman how well she’s doing after he stupidly fired her.”
“That makes me curious,” his father said. “How did you happen to know that Max was going to be at this event and that the promise of seeing him would guarantee that Brianna would go with you? I know she’s not in the habit of dating the men around here.”
“Whether it’s a woman or my job, I do my homework,” Jeb said. He studied his father. Maybe this would be a good time to see just how subtle he could be. “Any idea why Max let her go? He’s not generally that dumb when it comes to business.”
“As far as I know, it was something that just came up out of the blue.”
Now there was an evasive answer if ever he’d heard one. Bryce Delacourt would have checked out every little detail before hiring someone who’d been fired from their last job. “Just a whim?” Jeb asked, not bothering to hide his skepticism even though the response pretty much confirmed Brianna’s explanation.
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
“And you didn’t dig any deeper?”
“I saw no need. She was right for the job we had here.”
Any pretense of subtlety vanished. “Dad, that’s not like you. Maybe she was fired for leaking information to Max’s competitors.”
“Okay, that’s it,” Bryce said, his complexion turning dangerously red. ‘You
are
fired.”
To Jeb’s astonishment, his father sounded not only angry but totally serious. It was time to do some fast fence-mending. “Dad, I’m sorry.”
“Not half as sorry as I am.”
“You don’t really want to fire me,” Jeb protested.
“No, I don’t, but you’re leaving me with no recourse. I won’t have you harassing one of our best employees.”
It was time to cut his losses. “Okay, I’ll stay away from Brianna, at least when it comes to work.”
His father eyed him suspiciously. “Meaning what, exactly?”
“If she’s willing, I have every intention of continuing to see her socially. You may be able to dictate what I do when it comes to the company, but you have nothing to say about my social life.”
“You think she’s a spy, but you want to date her anyway? I’m not buying it.”
“Maybe you’ve convinced me she’s not a spy,” he hedged.
“Bull.”
“Okay, how about this? She’s a fascinating woman. Why wouldn’t I want to date her?”
His father continued to regard him skeptically. “And that’s all it is? Your hormones have kicked in?”
“Exactly.”
His father sat silently, evidently weighing Jeb’s truthfulness. “Okay,” he said at last. “You’re not fired. Date Brianna, if she’s willing, but if you hurt her, son, you’ll answer to me.”
Jeb’s gaze narrowed. “You’re awfully protective of her.”
“Because she’s one of ours. Everybody in this company is like family to me, not just you boys. Now, I meant what I said. She’s not the kind of woman who deserves to have you playing fast and loose with her heart.”
“Okay, okay, I get the message.”
He headed for the door before his father could change his mind. That meant he missed the satisfied smile that crossed Bryce Delacourt’s face.