Boyfriend for Hire (35 page)

“Have you ever known me to stay silent?” Brody asked.

Yeah, he should have known the two of them wouldn’t keep their noses out of his and Tawny’s relationship. Then again, he’d do and had done the same with both of them.

“Is this the part where you both tell me I’m an idiot?”

“Don’t we do that every day?” Jason stood guard at the doorway, hands tucked into his back pockets.

Brody sat in one of the uncomfortable period chairs, legs crossed out in front of him, giving Dave his patient stare that had witnesses on the stand squirming and juries enthralled.

“Guys, appreciate the intervention. Don’t need it. I’m fine,” he said.

“What happened with Tawny?” Brody ignored him and pushed.

He’d effed up everything beyond saving, as always. “Nothing. It’s over. Job’s done and it’s time to move on.”

“Then why have she and Cherry been on the phone daily, whispering, and when Cherry gets off the phone she curses and looks up to your apartment?”

Great, he was causing Jason and Cherry problems. “Don’t know. She’s your fiancée, ask her.”

“I have and she won’t tell me, which tells me it’s not about the wedding. I saw Daniel Ryan last night and both he and Kitty are fine. That leaves Tawny.”

“So Tawny’s your problem now?” Dave asked, pushing off the mantel to stand in front of Jason. “And she says I have a White Knight problem.”

Jason stepped up into his face. “She’s a friend, so yes, I’m concerned. But she’s not my main concern. You are. You’re never despondent after a breakup.”

“May as well spill your guts,” Brody said softly. He’d closed his eyes, and to the unknown he probably looked like he was about to take a nap. Dave knew better. The counselor was about to strike. “Then we can finish up the inspection and go drown your sorrows in beer.”

Screw it. If he didn’t cave now, they’d nag him to death. Friends. Yeah, he was damn lucky to have them. So he told them about the incident at the bank with the manager and young teller, with Tawny’s mom to witness it all, including his slip with her secret.

“I knew that guy was scum.” Brody sat up in his chair, his hands laced behind his neck. If Dave had White Knight syndrome, then Brody’s problem stemmed from an Avenging Angel complex. After watching his dad beat his mom for years, Brody couldn’t stand by and let any woman be bullied.

“She’s pissed because you helped her friend and in the process her mom learned that she’d really quit her job after being physically accosted by her boss. Is that right?” Jason asked, fingers drumming on his thigh. Dave knew from experience the action meant he was trying to find the missing piece to make sense of what happened.

“That and she got some idea in her head that I messed around with Jody on her.”

Brody shook his head. “Doesn’t add up. You’d never cheat.”

“I didn’t, but she thinks I did because Jody and I slipped away during the open house to talk, and she thinks we were doing more.”

Jason looked to Brody and back to Dave. “Did you explain what you were doing with Jody?”

“No.”

“Fubar—”

“Why is there smoke coming from the garage?” Brody had moved to the side window, facing the detached one-car garage.

Dave and Jase double-timed it across the room.

“There’s nothing in there that should be smoking,” Dave said.

“Power?” Jason asked.

“Yeah. Breaker’s in the basement.”

“On it.” Jason took off down the hall to the basement stairs.

“Extinguisher?” Brody looked around the room.

“Down the hall, in the kitchen next to the back door. Grab it and I’ll grab the one from my truck, just in case.” Dave ran out the front door, jumped down the steps, and raced to his truck. As soon as he opened the front door, the smell of smoke hit his nose. He wrenched open his truck door, grabbed the extinguisher he always kept for emergencies and the bandana lying on the seat.

He met Brody a few feet from the outbuilding. Together they felt the door. Warm, but the heat could be from the sun. Dave continued around the corner to where there was a side door and more importantly, a window. “We need Jase to cut the power.”

“Clear,” Jason yelled as he exited the main house.

“Opposite corner. Give me a couple of minutes to put it out, then open the doors and the window to clear out the smoke. I might need you to hit any hot spots with yours.” Dave pulled the bandana up and pushed open the small door. The smoke stung his eyes, and even with the cloth barrier smoke streaked down his throat. The inside of his nose burned from the heat.

He hit the flames with the extinguisher, and after a few minutes they died out. The guys cautiously moved to the entranceways to get air while the smoke cleared out. It didn’t take long with both doors and the window open before they could reenter. Dave and Brody kept their extinguishers ready in case any hot spots flared up. Dave pulled his flashlight out of his pocket with his other hand and shined the light along the burn path.

The path ran from where the electricity entered the garage and ended at an outlet.

He didn’t need to look any further. The charred wires, the burn marks around the outlet told him what he needed to know. He’d fucked up. As he ran lists and tasks through his mind, he knew without a doubt the fire was his fault. He’d forgotten all about the garage. It was on his job list for last Thursday. The same job list Tawny had created for him and he’d refused to use after she dumped him.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“For what?” Jason and Brody asked in unison.

He couldn’t face them. He kept staring at the burn marks. “You put me in charge here. Gave me your faith and trust, and I let you down.”

“Dave—” Jason reached out a hand to him.

“No, don’t say it. No excuses. This is on me.”

“I wasn’t going to give an excuse. You’re right. This job was on you. Something goes wrong, whether you caused the problem or one of the crew did, it’s on you. I was going to ask how this happened. You told me you rewired the entire property.”

“No, I rewired the house. This was scheduled for two days ago and I forgot.” He turned to meet his friends’ gazes. Brody rubbed the back of his neck and Jason drummed out a beat on his thigh. Signs both of his friends were thinking before they spoke. “Say it. Whatever you two are thinking, say it.”

“Okay, I will.” Brody looked up before continuing. “Yeah, this is your fault. As Jase said, you were the project manager, but it’s also our fault. We pushed you to step up, even when we both know you had a valid reason not to want to be in charge.”

“What reason is that? I’m a fuckup?”

“He’s talking about your ADD, Dave,” Jason said, his voice filled with impatience. Nothing new there.

Dave’s head whipped back and forth between the two. “My ADD? You know?”

“Now you’re insulting my intelligence.” Brody punched him in the upper chest. Wouldn’t have done more than stun a fly, but it got his point across.

“I’ve never said anything. Did my mom?”

“Little signs over the years. We thought you’d outgrown it or had it under control because you seem to be on top of things. You haven’t missed a beat on any other projects and, well, I’ve stopped by here a few times to check on the progress, and I didn’t see anything amiss,” Jason said.

Dave’s head jerked back. “You’ve been checking up on me?” He let out a sigh and held up his hand, stopping either from saying anything else. “It’s okay. Obviously, you had reason to, and I did have it under control until last week. Everything was better when she was with me. Not that she was some miracle worker and made the problem disappear. She centered me. She knew about the ADD and didn’t look down on me for it. Actually, she helped, gave me some coping tools. Since she told me to leave, it’s been purgatory.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Jason said.

He did too, Dave knew that. Jason and Cherry fought and broke up and he had to wait eight weeks to apologize. Dave had his moments, but he didn’t plan to be that much of an epic screwup.

“I can’t eat, can’t sleep because every time I close my eyes, I see Ivan kissing her, and I want to go pound his face in.”

“She’s not with Ivan.” Jason grinned. “Hey, I didn’t get much out of Cherry, but she did admit that much. Guess he bowed out of the running. So what are you going to do?”

“I’ve got a plan, but I’ll need Cherry’s help.” He’d actually thought of it that morning, before coming to work. He’d have to wait a day or so, until he cleaned up his mess here on the job first.

“If it makes her friend happy, you can count Cherry in.”

“Whatever you need from us, say the word.” Brody held out his hand and Dave grabbed it, followed by Jason’s on top in true Musketeer fashion.

“Now that you mention it. Time to get those hands of yours dirty, councilor, and make you a full fledge partner in Valentine Rehab.” He loved the suspicious look on his friend’s face. “You said it yourself, this little problem is as much yours and Jason’s fault as mine. With the three of us working together we can repair the damage before the inspector comes on Monday.”

“Me and my big mouth,” Brody good-naturedly groused.

“Yeah, thanks pal. I had plans with my soon-to-be-bride this weekend,” Jason teased back.

“Stop your whining. I had plans to win my girl back today. Business first, then we can get down to the pleasure portion of our lives or you can.” It’d take more than an apology to win her back, but he didn’t care. She was worth everything.

Chapter Twenty-One

S
aturday after leaving her parents’ house, Tawny didn’t go home and cry. She refused the luxury of drowning her sorrows in Ben & Jerry’s. Instead, she sat down and updated her résumé (leaving off crazypants as a life skill), took a long shower, and started scouring job postings. Pickings were slim to none, but she’d found a couple of potential listings to call on Monday. Then she climbed into bed and allowed herself a few sniffles before drying her eyes and falling into a dead sleep.

Sunday she awoke late or early (afternoon), depending on how you looked at it, decided she’d allow herself one day of rest, and curled up on the couch and lost herself in old movies on AMC. The phone rang halfway through the first movie and she let it go to voice mail. If it was urgent, they’d call back. Thankfully, no one did. Before she knew it, the day had disappeared and night had arrived. She ate a banana, not because she was hungry, but because she’d realized she hadn’t eaten since the day before at breakfast, and then crawled back into bed.

Monday she awoke with a renewed sense of purpose, a strategy to get her life back to where she’d been a few of months ago. She drafted a new action plan, composed a couple of e-mails to companies who requested applicants apply via the web, and then walked into her closet and selected her favorite red pencil skirt and her yellow silk blouse. The outfit screamed “look at me, I’m fabulous and I know it.”

She got in her car and headed to her last day at NE Event Solutions. “You can do this. It’s not quitting if they’re going to fire you anyway. It’s being proactive,” she said out loud to herself. Her inner voice replied, “yeah, right.” If she had a role of duct tape, she’d slap a strip over her inner thoughts.

A few minutes out from her destination the phone rang. Instinctively she hit the answer button without looking at the screen to see who was calling.

“Tawny, it’s Jane Flannery from the bank. Got a couple of minutes to talk?” Her old supervisor’s voice came over the car speaker system loud and clear and cheerful.

“Sure. How’s Boston?” Tawny asked. Maybe they had an opening? Then she could get away from Leduc’s influence and her parents and have an excuse not to see David all the time.

“Great, but I’m back in Providence for a bit. Not sure if you’ve heard through the grapevine, but Leduc got fired last week. I’m down filling in as temporary bank manager until a replacement can be hired.”

Tawny turned into NEES’s parking lot and parked the car. “That’s great. Think they’ll name you?”

“No, but that’s okay. When I heard you quit, I was shocked. It didn’t make sense, and then when NE Event Solutions called for a reference, I figured you’d just had enough of the banking world. That wasn’t it, was it?”

Tawny’s stomach revolted with the memory of Leduc’s hands on her. “No, nor was it sour grapes for being passed over for your old position.”

“Tawny, I don’t know how tuned in you are on the events that have been going on lately here.”

“I heard about the incident with Emma. Is there more?” She dreaded hearing the answer. Her gut told her the truth, and that it was her fault for running.

“We’ve had several female employees come forward with both verbal and physical sexual harassment complaints. We’ve also had one from a male employee.”

Tawny banged her head against the backrest. Should have reported him.

“After talking to the entire staff, we’ve got a good picture of what went on around here, including why you were passed up. Mark confessed that Leduc told him he got the job because women didn’t belong in management.”

“That’s what he told me, as well as what women are good for. Do you need a statement from me as to what happened?” She checked her watch. She was late, but did it really matter?

“If you don’t mind, we would appreciate it, but that isn’t why I’m calling. I’d like, with the full board’s approval, to correct one of his mistakes. We want you back, Tawny, as the head loan off icer.”

Tawny felt her eyes pop open. She licked her lips as she searched for a response. “Really?” Could this be fate’s way of putting her life to rights? “I don’t know what to say.”

Jane laughed. “Well, I’m hoping you’ll say yes. You were one of the best employees I’ve ever worked with. I realize there’s the new job to think of, and if you do accept, you’ll need to give notice.”

“Thanks—”

“Don’t say no, not yet anyway. Why don’t you meet me for lunch and I can give you the details and then you can answer me?”

“Yes, definitely, to lunch. Meet you at Paddy’s at one?”

Her former and possible future boss agreed and signed off. Could it really be this easy? Did she lose it Saturday so that she’d be primed and ready to accept this new offer?