Windswept (10 page)

“Would you like some wine with the meal?” Davis offered as Eva served them stuffed pork chops with candied sweet potatoes.

“Better not. I’m going back to work after dinner. I’m trying to complete several more cartons before I allow myself to think of my own research. A promising box of family letters by Mary Maude, her mother and sisters did catch my eye for later, though.”

“You’re working nights, too?”

“Yes, sir. And I plan on working this weekend, except for Saturday night. You were right. Staying here allows me all the time I want to get at the records. Not having to commute is great. Not to mention the fringe benefits of the Gonzaleses and Ricardo.”

She decided to change the subject. She was tired of thinking about the records. Besides, she knew he could talk; he’d proven it when they were negotiating the deal. She wasn’t going to sit there and let him ask questions while she rattled on. “How was your trip?”

“Tiring. Do you know why I was in D.C.?”

“No, sir.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “We need to get a couple of things straight. First, my name is Davis. If we are going to live under the same roof, call me Davis, Barrett. Second, why do you keep saying ‘sir?’”

“I am a well brought-up person. I was taught to say sir and ma’am to my, uh--.” She was about to say superiors, but the word didn’t sound right.

“If you say ‘elders,’ I am going to be most upset.” Davis chided.

“To everyone.” She hoped she hadn’t insulted him. He wasn’t much older than she. Great, Barrett. Open mouth, insert foot.

“Good save. Now please cease,” he said with mock severity. “To answer your question, I was there to do some lobbying for the latest trade bill, especially with reference to overseas investments. I found the process more than a little frustrating. While some of our Senators and Representatives know their stuff, some of them can’t find their butts with both hands and a mirror.” He proceeded to tell her several anecdotes about his meetings.

“How much traveling do you do?” she asked, curious about when he would be at home, in the same house with her.

“It’s very erratic and unpredictable and depends on the deal I’m doing. It looks like I’m home for a while. Why aren’t you working Saturday night?”

“My three brothers live here. Since I moved to the DFW area, we don’t get to see each other much, so we take every chance we can. We’re having dinner at Greg’s house. I grew up here in Houston, over in the Heights.”

“What about your parents?”

“They’re retired and in their RV in . . . Colorado right now, I think. They laugh about spending our inheritance seeing the country. They’ll call at least one of us every Tuesday to check up.” If he could ask about her family, she could reciprocate about his, she thought, so she asked, “What about you? Family, siblings? You mentioned a brother and a sister.”

He nodded. “A brother and a sister, both younger. Mother passed away two years last February, but Dad died twelve years ago.” His face took on a drawn look.

“Do you see your brother and sister much?”

“Not much. Martha’s a successful realtor. And I don’t see Bill unless he needs money.” His lips flattened into a grim line for a moment before he concentrated on buttering a roll and said, “Tell me what you’ve found in the records so far.”

Well, his warning was certainly clear enough. Stay away from family matters. His dad had been gone a long time; Davis must have been in his early twenties. Losing his father while he was a young man couldn’t have been easy on him. She couldn’t imagine how she would have handled a parent’s death so young. She pushed the morbid thoughts out of her head and focused on answering his order. “So far, it’s been mostly business correspondence, but there were some interesting letters and bills of lading and invoices for furniture. If the pieces are still at Windswept, the historical society will probably want copies for provenance and to show visitors.”

“I should be seeing an inventory of the house’s contents before too long,” Davis said. “My Aunt Cecilia is the family representative working with the state people and the lawyers.”

“Cecilia’s your father’s sister, if I have your family straight? Cecilia Walker?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

Barrett thought he looked almost as if he didn’t want her to have the information, but she answered calmly, “One of the first things your grandfather and I did was put together a family tree. He had one, of course, on paper. I bought some genealogical software and we computerized the process. I can look up any family member I find in the correspondence whom I don’t recognize. I can also add relevant information to each person’s biography.”

“Ah.” Davis nodded. “I’m glad you put the chart into a computer. I remember the huge roll of paper Granddaddy had. Some of the ink was so faded, I never knew how he read it. How long is it taking you to finish a box?”

They spent the rest of the dinner discussing the records and then moved on to more general topics like city and state politics. He was clearly a Republican, she decided and hoped she could keep her Democratic temper under control. It wouldn’t do to argue too much with the owner of the papers.

After dinner, she hit the records again. When she stopped at ten and went upstairs, Davis was still at work in his office. With the door again shut. She didn’t interrupt him to say good night.

***

Friday morning, Davis came down for breakfast and found his usual place set in the dining room. It was a single setting. He walked into the kitchen to find out where his house guest was.

Barrett was sitting at the kitchen table, finishing a cup of coffee and arguing volubly in Spanish with Gonzales about the merits of one Astro over another for the upcoming baseball game with the Chicago Cubs. A wager was clearly going down. “How do I get a piece of this action?” Davis asked in the same language.

Gonzales leaped to his feet with a thoroughly embarrassed expression. “Pardon me, sir. I didn’t know you were downstairs already. I’ll be right in with your juice.”

“Two will get you three if our centerfielder goes hitless tonight,” Barrett proclaimed.

“You’re on,” Davis took the bet and held out his hand.

“Sucker,” Barrett muttered, put down her coffee cup and shook the offered hand.

Davis held onto her just a little longer than needful and grinned at her. “Corrupting my staff?” he asked.

“Hardly,” Barrett said, retrieving her hand from his grasp. “Don Jesus needs no help from me. I’ve already lost two dollars to this man. Besides, he knows the Astros too well. I’ll be in the office if anybody needs me.” She rose quickly and disappeared out the door.

Davis looked at Eva, who winked at him. “I’ll have your breakfast right away, sir,” the cook said.

***

When Davis came home Friday evening about five, he went straight to the office. No Barrett, although the computer was still on and several stacks of documents sat on the desk, waiting to be processed. “Where is she?” he mumbled as he passed her desk.

As he put his briefcase on his own desk, he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of a movement by the swimming pool. Barrett was climbing out of the pool, breathing vigorously. She picked up a towel and began to dry her wet hair, which looked even curlier than usual.

The navy tank suit left little to the imagination, Davis observed, noting the water’s effect on her nipples. He could feel his body responding, and he suffered a mild regret when she wrapped herself in the towel.

Just as Barrett put her sandals on, Ricardo came around the corner and shyly presented her with a yellow rose bud. Davis couldn’t hear their words, but their body language was eloquent. Barrett thanked Ricardo with a warm smile, and Ricardo, in turn, practically keeled over in youthful ecstasy. The young man and the professor spoke briefly before she turned and went inside. Davis watched Ricardo watch Barrett and felt his mouth twist with mild irritation.

“What is this woman doing to my staff?” he groused out loud. First Gonzales made bets on the Astros, then Eva cooked brownies for her and winked at him, and now the gardener was bringing her roses--out of Davis’s own garden, no less. She had them wrapped around her little finger and it hadn’t even been a week. He walked back to his desk in a lightly annoyed state. The thought went through his mind again: she was going to be--hell, she had become--a distraction.

“How was your swim?” he asked at dinner.

“Wonderful,” she replied. “Dealing with old papers makes me feel so dirty. And I needed the exercise badly after
doña
Eva’s little snacks.”

“You speak Spanish very well. Where did you learn it?”

“Partly school, partly the neighborhood. A couple of close friends are Hispanic and I spent a great deal of time with them growing up. One of my summer jobs in high school was clerking at a hardware store catering to Hispanic as well as Anglo customers. When I took Spanish in school, I had a lot of bad habits to overcome, thanks to my informal education. What about you?”

“Partly school, partly necessity when you’re trying to make investments in Latin America or with Latinos in this country. It’s good business to know the language and the culture.”

“Do you like doing what you do?”

He was surprised at the question. Nobody had ever asked him it before. “Yes, I do. I enjoy the complexities of making a deal, helping a new company get its feet on the ground or an existing one to revitalize itself.”

Warming to his subject, he told her most of his joys and some of his sorrows about his business activities. He talked about the psychology of deal making, the personalities involved on both sides, the satisfaction he felt when one came off perfectly, the frustration when a new company’s management team could not get itself together. Each of her questions led him to another aspect of the business.

“What about the money?” she asked at one point. “How does it figure in with your satisfaction?”

“Money’s just a way to keep score,” Davis said.

“To some people, it’s everything,” she reminded him.

The saying brought to his mind a story of a man to whom money was everything. Before Davis knew it, Gonzales was taking away the dessert plates, dinner was over and they were returning to their respective offices. As a test for himself--he
would
work without letting her distract him--he did not close the connecting door.

***

 “What in the hell is this?” he said about an hour later as he looked at the document attached to a piece of e-mail. “Barrett?”

At first he didn’t think she heard him over her machine-gun typing, but she stopped and answered, “Yes?”

“You understand this damned word processing program, don’t you? Would you come here a minute?”

She walked into his office and over to stand behind his chair as he scowled at the screen of his laptop.

“Murchison sent me this file for review. Look at this mess. How do I read this?” The document was full of lines of text in different colors, some with a line through them and some not. Some lines repeated those in black, some made no sense at all.

“This has been set up to track changes. It looks like several people passed the document back and forth between them and made revisions as they went. See, here’s one and there’s another. Somebody forgot to turn it off. It’s not hard to fix.” She leaned over his arm as she spoke, pointing out with her index finger the various authors by colors.

Her nearness had a distinct effect on his lower body. She smelled so good, like sunshine and flowers. If he raised his arm at all, he’d be touching her breast. It was almost a relief when she stood up straight. At least he could start breathing again. “Would you please fix this?” He started to push his chair back and rise so she could get to the keyboard. She put her hand on his shoulder to keep him in the chair and he felt the jolt all the way to his toenails.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I wouldn’t be fulfilling my duty as a teacher if I did it for you. I’ll show you what to do. You drive the mouse.”

She must have noticed where her hand was because she removed it quickly when he sat down. “Yes, ma’am. What do I do?” He managed to keep his tone matter of fact despite the small zap jolting through his body when her hand had settled on him. He also noted her sudden nervousness.

Barrett stood above him, cleared her dry throat, and tried to remain blasé as she showed him how to manipulate the screen display. She was careful not to lean over him again and to keep her hands on the chair’s high back. As soon as he had a document without all the colors and strange symbols in front of him and she suggested he tell Murchison to clean up documents before sending them, she escaped to her own desk.

What happened when she got close enough to this man to touch or smell him? She didn’t have such a reaction when she sat next to him at the dinner table. Of course, there was more distance there. But this morning at breakfast when they’d made that silly bet? Her hand had tingled from his touch all the way into the office. She’d immediately booted the computer, plugged herself into her earbuds, and started typing so she could pretend she didn’t see him when he came through for his briefcase. But she was very aware of his presence then. And now.

Don’t be an idiot
.
Your reactions to him are way out of line. Be professional.
She shook her head at her thoughts and turned back to the stack of papers. Although she managed to make a few more entries in the catalog table, it became quickly obvious her concentration was shot when she entered the same information twice.

Damn. She didn’t have time for this sort of confusion. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the computer screen. She needed to figure this out. Analyzing a problem had always worked to clear her mind in the past. What could she conclude now from the existing data?

One: She was attracted to him. He was a good-looking, intelligent man and had turned out to be a surprisingly interesting conversationalist--witty, observant, skilled. Her first impression of him has a hard, cold negotiator was not wrong--she could still see the underlying steel in him--but he was more. She was looking forward to discovering other facets of his personality. Furthermore, his deep drawl caused her insides to shiver, and his touch make her hand tingle. And he smelled good.