Millionaire's Christmas Miracle (6 page)

Jenn dropped down by them again, jingling as she settled. “Don’t look so scared. He’s not coming back tonight.”

“I’m not scared,” she said, but knew that was a lie. “So, what were you agreeing to?”

“He wanted to know if you could drop it off with the concierge at the hotel tomorrow sometime? I told him okay.”

“Oh, Jenn, it’s Christmas.”

“So, between the turkey that I’m going to make, and the pumpkin pie that I’ve bought from that little bakery down the street, either you or I can run it over to the hotel and leave it. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

She shifted Taylor, trying to get the lid off the medicine and pour a dose in the little cup. “It would make more sense if I knew what hotel he was staying at.”

Jenn took the bottle from her, undid the lid and asked, “How much?”

“The second line,” she said, holding up the little cup for Jenn to pour the medication into it. “That’s it,” she said, then spoke to Taylor. “Come on, baby, a little nummies to make you feel better.”

Taylor turned her head away, burying her face in her mommy’s chest. “No want,” she mumbled.

“Tay-bug, please, take the meddies, it’ll help you feel a whole lot better.”

“Tay?” Jenn said, getting close and speaking
softly. “If you take your meddies, Santa will bring you something extra-special wonderful in the morning.”

Taylor twisted, looked at Jenn. “Santa? Get Bonkies?”

Jenn looked at Amy. “Bonkies?”

“It’s this little dog that jumps and barks by itself.”

Jenn brushed at Taylor’s fine hair. “Sure, Santa will get Bonkies for you.”

“Jenn, they cost eighty dollars.”

Jenn shrugged. “She’s worth it. Tay-bug gets Bonkies.”

That did the trick and Taylor took the medicine, then twisted to bury her face in Amy’s chest again. “Thanks,” Amy whispered to Jenn as the other woman took the medicine dispenser. “Now, how in the heck are we supposed to get that wallet to a hotel in the city when we don’t know what hotel to take it to?”

“No problem. He said he’s staying at the Towers, downtown, near that restaurant-row thing. Do you know it?”

The Towers. Hundreds of dollars a night for a room, and the suite went for a lot more, but it seemed like the place for a man to wear a five-thousand-dollar suit. “I know it, but what if Taylor’s still sick tomorrow?”

“I’ll stay with her while you go. I’ve got that turkey to do, but heaven knows, it’s a little off-putting to read the recipe and see the phrase ‘insert your hand in the body cavity of the bird.”’ She gave a mock shudder. “Maybe I’ll let you invade the bird and I’ll
see the concierge. Whatever works out.” She sat back. “Now, let’s get going. I’ve got to find a B–O–N–K–I–E somewhere and do the S–T–O–C–K– I–N–G–S.” Jenn reached for Taylor. “I’ll hold her, and you get what you need for tonight.”

Amy transferred Taylor to Jenn, then stood and went to put a bag together for the two of them. When she came back into the room, Jenn was in the rocking chair with Taylor sleeping in her arms. “Got everything?” Jenn asked in a whisper.

“Almost.” She crossed to the TV and reached for Rob’s T-shirt, stuffing it in the bag before Jenn could see her doing it. Then she went back and touched Jenn on the arm. “I’ll take the things out to your car, then come back and get you and Taylor. Okay?”

“Perfect.” Jenn glanced over at the floor where they’d been sitting. “You might want to pick that wallet up on the way.”

Amy spotted the wallet and stooped to get it. “I’ll be up in a minute,” she said, carrying the overnight bag out with her. As she went down the hallway, she opened the top zipper of the bag and pushed the wallet inside.

Three days after Christmas

S
HADOWS
were gathering in the corners of the office on the twentieth floor when Quint sat back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head in an effort to ease the tension in his shoulders and neck. There was a lot more work to be done at LynTech than he’d thought, but he had been warned. When Matt Terrel
had talked to him the night before he’d flown back to Houston, he’d admitted that this wasn’t going to be easy. Robert Lewis had run the company for years with an open heart and an open wallet.

Quint knew that was true. The figures and prospectus were in trouble. Nothing fatal, but it was going to take a lot of figuring to pull this out. He wanted to talk directly to Zane Holden, because they’d only talked on the phone before. But the man was off on a honeymoon in Aspen. Now Matt Terrel was talking about leaving for a week after his own marriage, a private affair on New Year’s Eve. “Talk about rats deserting a sinking ship,” he muttered as he stood.

He turned to the windows, to the city below with Christmas decorations still up, but there was something almost forlorn about them, as if they were a bit out of place. The way he’d felt many times before. Maybe that was why he was a bit annoyed at the two top men of LynTech taking off at the worst of times for the company. Maybe the company was in more trouble than even he could see if the executive level put so much ahead of the welfare of the corporation.

He rolled down the sleeves of the dove-gray shirt he was wearing, then reached for the dark, double-breasted business jacket. As he shrugged it on, he automatically felt for his wallet in the inside breast pocket. It was a habit he’d developed since Amy had dropped the wallet off with the concierge on Christmas Day. That habit had been born after meeting Amy, and so had the habit of checking the sign-in book at the front desk when he came to work each day.

With the company basically shut down between Christmas and New Year, anyone coming into the building to work had to sign in. Quint checked every morning for the names above his own signature, and every morning he saw A. Blake. She was there, but he didn’t go and check for himself. The only thing he gave in to was to call down to the new center yesterday and ask how Taylor was doing.

No one had answered the phone.

He reached for his briefcase and crossed the room, his mind filled with thoughts of Amy and Taylor. The daughter splashed juice all over and the mother threw rats. He flipped off the lights and left the office, heading for the elevators. Quite a pair. He took the car down, stepped out and found himself facing the same doors he’d faced every day since he’d been here—the doors to Just for Kids, bright colors and the logo imprinted in his mind.

He’d done what he’d done every day since Christmas, called down to let security know he was leaving, then gone directly to the back and into the security parking area without seeing Amy.

He headed toward the car he’d leased, a midnight-blue Mercedes SUV. A flash of movement caught his eye and he turned to see Walt, the security guard, coming out the back door. “Sir?” he called when he spotted Quint. “There you are. Just a minute.”

The guard crossed to him and held out an envelope. “I forgot when you called down, but Mrs. Blake asked me to give you this when you left.”

He took the envelope bearing the company logo on the top left corner. “Thanks,” he murmured, and as
the guard turned with a, “Have a good evening,” Quint opened the envelope and took out a piece of folded paper. When he opened it, more paper fell out of it and fluttered to the concrete floor.

He stooped and picked it up, a check made out to him by Amy Blake for fifty dollars. He looked at the paper that had come with it:

That was it.

He looked up, but the guard was gone and the door was closed. Fifty dollars? Damn it, he’d told her not to worry about it. She couldn’t afford fifty dollars. He knew that. He went back inside and spotted Walt near the front lobby.

“Walt?”

The guard stopped and turned. “Yes, sir? A problem?”

“When did Mrs. Blake give you this for me?”

“Oh, around noon, I guess. She just said to give it to you when you left.”

“Has she left?”

“I don’t think so. At least, she hasn’t signed out.”

“Okay, thanks,” he said.

“Yes, sir. Have a good evening.” The guard touched the peak of his cap before turning and going back toward his station in the lobby.

Quint stood there, the check in one hand, his briefcase in the other. He wasn’t going to let her do this.
He turned to the doors for the center, hesitated for just a moment, then crossed and pushed them back to go and find Amy.

Instead of the scent of gingerbread greeting Quint this time, the odor of paint hung in the air and music was playing softly, lullabies of some sort. As he let the door close after him, he saw that the twinkle lights were still highlighting the tree, but there was no woman climbing out of the opening. Instead, Taylor was there, lying on a blanket on the floor, sleeping, cuddled up with a teddy bear and a doll with hair as blond as the child’s was dark.

He moved closer and saw Amy off to the right, dressed in jeans and a loose blue sweater. She was on her hands and knees, the way she’d been the first time he’d found her here. But this time there was no rat, only what looked like a white stain on the carpet. She was using a brush, scrubbing at the stain.

He braced himself as he went closer. Her hair was tied back in a low ponytail and her feet were bare. She rubbed the brush over the stain, and he could vaguely hear her humming to the music. She looked so tiny, so…He stopped. He had a reason to be here and it wasn’t to admire her.

He didn’t want to talk too loudly and wake Taylor, so he stopped by Amy and said in a half whisper, “Excuse me?”

Amy had thought Quint might stop by, but she’d hoped she’d be wrong about it. She wasn’t. She heard his voice at the same time she saw his polished wing-tipped black shoes by her right side. Closing her eyes for a brief moment, she stopped scrubbing and twisted to look up at Quint.

She hated the way he towered over her, but she couldn’t do a thing about it, no more than she could control the way he looked in a dark-gray suit that defined strong shoulders and muscular thighs. It had probably cost him over five thousand dollars. She looked back down at the white paint that Taylor had spilled on the carpet and started scrubbing at it again. “You got the check I take it?” she asked, not about to play games about this.

“I got it,” he said, and she could see him come a bit closer as he spoke. “I don’t want it.”

She stopped scrubbing, but she didn’t look up. “Then give it to charity. I don’t care. But you’ll get one every week until I pay off that jacket.”

“I don’t want it,” he repeated in a low voice as
he dropped to his haunches beside her. “Here. Take it,” he said as he handed her the check.

She kept scrubbing, ignoring the check as anger surged in her, and the carpet was taking the brunt of that anger. Then he dropped the check, right on the stain, forcing her to stop. Before she could do anything, he stood and walked away.

That did it. She scrambled to her feet, grabbing the check and hurrying after him. She got between him and the door before he could get out of the center. Damn it, she hated being so short. She hated having to tip her head up to look him in the face, and she hated the way her heart was racing. “Don’t you dare,” she barked, tossing the scrub brush across to where she’d been, then held the check out to him.

“Don’t I dare what?” he asked, matching her tone of voice.

“Don’t you patronize me. Take this.”

“No.”

She hated the unsteadiness of her hand, but she kept the check held out to him. “Just take it.” Her voice rose slightly, and she heard Taylor stir. She looked at her daughter, watched her as she settled back to sleep, then she turned back to Quint. “Take it,” she repeated, dropping her voice to a tense whisper again.

“I’ll just tear it up,” he said.

“Then I’ll send cash up to your office, and you can tear it up, or you can light a hundred-dollar cigar with it, for all I care.”

He stared at her, his gaze intent. “I don’t get this,” he whispered. “I told you not to bother with the
jacket, and now you look as mad as…” He shrugged. “I don’t get it.”

“You lied to me.” She drew the check back, folding it in half and closing her hand over it in the hopes of stopping the trembling.

“I’m not a liar,” he muttered.

“Oh, that was a two-hundred-dollar suit Taylor tossed juice on?” she whispered.

He had the decency to look taken aback, at least a bit. “I don’t know exactly what it’s worth.”

“Try five thousand dollars.”

He exhaled with a shake of his head. “Lady, who cares?”

“It’s a Marno, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t check labels before I put my clothes on.”

“Of course you don’t. What’s five thousand dollars to you?”

He looked past her at Taylor, then leaned toward her, erasing the illusion she had of any distance between herself and Quint. “Can we go someplace so we can talk in a normal voice?” he whispered.

Without saying a thing, she moved back, crossed to the entry area and locked the doors. Then she motioned him to follow her. She led the way to the hall in the rear without looking back, turned right and took a quick turn into her office. She knew he was there, just as she had the first night. She literally felt his presence and was thankful when she got into the office, turned and found out he’d stopped just inside the door.

“Okay, normal voice.” She opened her hand, saw
the ruined check and tossed it on the desk. “I’ll send the cash up to you tomorrow. I’ll have Walt run it up.”

He stared at her hard, then came closer. “Let me explain that I don’t want your money. I’ll send Walt back down with it.” That wry smile was almost there, and it made her ache slightly in her middle. “The guy might need the exercise, but why put him through that?”

She didn’t want humor. She wanted this settled. She wanted him to leave and let her keep going with her own life. “Then don’t send him back down.”

He exhaled in a sigh. “Lady, listen to me. I know where you are. I’ve been there. I was a single father with a little boy and with more ability than money. Every penny counted.”

Oh, no, she didn’t want this, not his empathy. Sympathy, pity, empathy. She didn’t want any of that with this man. “You don’t know anything about me, but I do know that my daughter ruined your expensive suit. And it’s up to me to make good on that.”

“I’m not a liar. I just thought…” He shrugged. “Oh, sue me, I honestly didn’t care much for that suit and I probably would have tossed it sooner or later, so why would I want you to buy me another one?”

“You’re that rich?”

“What?”

“A five-thousand-dollar suit and you probably would have tossed it sooner or later without batting an eye?”

“I’m not rich, I’m…” He shrugged again. “My net worth has nothing to do with this.”

“What are you worth? One…two million?”

“I don’t know, exactly.”

“You’re a millionaire?”

His exasperation was evident by the rush of released air before he said, “Technically.”

She laughed, but there wasn’t humor in the sound. “Oh,
technically?
As in, you have millions, but you only keep about a thousand of it in your wallet at one time?”

He cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes on her, and that teasing was there, even without the smile. “So, you peeked, huh?”

“Excuse me?”

“My wallet. You peeked?”

She turned from him before the smile could come, and looked down at Charlie in his cage. The lucky rat only had to nibble on the seeds in his dish. He didn’t have to deal with a thoroughly infuriating man. “If you didn’t keep losing it, I never would have had to look in it to try and find you to get it back to you, would I?”

“You’ve got a point, now tell me one thing. How did you know what that suit cost?”

She stared at the rat, methodically nibbling on a compact pellet of food. “Jenn. She’s a buyer for one of the top specialty stores in the state. She knows fabric and she knows tailoring. And she said that it’s a Marno, and she showed me the thingy on the lining.” She took a breath. “And she said that they took six months to make and that they cost anywhere from five thousand dollars up.”

“They start around two and go up. And that suit,
if you have to know, was probably around three or so. It’s a business suit, not an evening suit.”

She turned and he was there, so close. She stayed very still as she met his hazel gaze. “Were you really going to throw away that suit?”

He was silent for what seemed a long time, then he said bluntly, “No.”

She sagged back, sitting on the edge of the desk. “Why couldn’t you just say that at the first? Why couldn’t you have just said, ‘That’s a very expensive suit that I’m not about to throw away,’ instead of, ‘oh, it’s off the rack and cost about two hundred dollars’?”

“Do you want the truth?” he asked in a low voice.

“I thought that was the point of all of this discussion?”

“Okay, what I said before was the truth. I’ve been there, juggling a job, a kid, worrying about money. We were never poor, but we weren’t flush, either. I figured that telling the truth at that point in time would be counterproductive, and I was right.”

“That’s your opinion,” she muttered.

“Lady, you’d try the patience of a saint!”

“Oh, and you’re a saint?” she asked without thinking.

There was dead silence, as if she’d hit a nerve, then a soft, almost rueful chuckle. “Not even close,” he murmured.

“So, you’ll take the money for the suit?”

“I don’t want your damned money. Don’t you understand that?”

“And I don’t care what you want,” she countered
in a voice that sounded tight in her own ears. She touched her tongue to her lips and turned away from him, back to the rat on the desk as she asked, “Don’t you understand
that?
”

She was startled when he touched her, catching her by her upper arm and literally spinning her around to face him. She felt as if the world centered on the place he touched her, that and the fact that she could feel each breath he exhaled, brushing her face with heat.

His hold on her tightened slightly, hovering just this side of real pressure. But she didn’t move. She didn’t dare move. “
This
is what I want,” he murmured in a low, rough voice, and before she could think or move, he was kissing her.

She felt the brush of his mustache, then his lips found hers and any thoughts she might have had of pushing him away scattered and were lost to her. All she knew was the feel of his mouth on hers, the touch of his tongue, the way her lips opened as if of their own volition, and surrender was there without any warning.

She tried not to move, not to put her arms around his neck, not to arch her body toward his, not to absorb that heat that seemed to be seeping into her soul. But there was a raw hunger in her for his taste, for his touch, for closeness, for a sense of not being alone. She ached to stop feeling singular, to stop feeling as if she was drifting, and Quint was making that all change. Just being there, touching her, kissing her.

“Mama?”

Taylor’s voice came down the hallway, jerking Amy back to her senses and to the realization that she
was desperate. Painfully desperate at that moment. She pushed away from Quint, breaking the contact that was threatening to drown her. Twisting to one side, she gripped the edge of the desk, then pushed around him and hurried out of the office.

Quint stood very still, letting his body settle and his mind start to function again. Impulsively kissing Amy under the mistletoe had been one thing. But this kiss was impulsiveness risen to a new height. She’d been so close, the scent of her filling his being, that all logic had disappeared. It was a shame that logic had come back, he thought ruefully. But it was there, cold and glaring. And he couldn’t avoid it.

He ignored the ache in his body and the lingering scent she wore that hung in the air around him. He’d forgotten about the way it felt to have a woman so close when he felt her start to melt against him. Now, he turned and went after her. In the main room, he saw her right away, hugging Taylor to herself, rocking back and forth, whispering softly to her child.

It hit him in the gut right then how much Mike had missed growing up without a mother, and how much he had missed, spending the past twenty years without a wife. Amy was everything those roles embodied—and he was twenty years too late to do a thing about it.

She turned, as if she knew he was there, and she looked directly at him. At the same time, Taylor turned, saw him and wiggled to get free of her mother’s hold. Amy put her down, and the little girl in pink overalls and a yellow T-shirt, hesitated, then slowly came toward him.

“I’ll write you a new check,” Amy said as Taylor came to stand in front of Quint.

He stopped himself before he said, don’t bother, and instead said, “Whatever you want to do.”

Without a word she passed both him and Taylor, going back toward her office. He didn’t turn to watch her go. He watched her little girl instead. A two-year-old. He remembered Mike at two, and wished he hadn’t had to work, that he could have been there for every event, every advance that he’d made. Working mostly from home and occasionally using a nanny had kept him close physically, but that didn’t mean he’d had the time to really enjoy things, to relish them. That was another way both he and Mike had been shortchanged by his stupidity in marrying the wrong woman.

Taylor was right in front of him, and he automatically dropped to his haunches in front of her. “So, how’re you doing?”

She cocked her head to one side, and long, silky lashes fluttered slightly. “Got baby,” she said, and he realized she had a doll in one hand. “Yike it?” she asked, holding it up to him.

He took the doll and fingered its slightly damp dress. “Yeah, I like it,” he said, “but she’s not as pretty as you are.”

Taylor studied him with huge brown eyes, then grabbed the doll back from him, hugging it to her. “Tay’s baby.”

“Yep, it’s yours.”

He didn’t hear Amy come back, but he felt her by him and he slowly stood. She was within a few feet
of him, holding out another check. “Here you go. I’ll try to get one to you every week or so.”

He hated this. He didn’t want her money. He wanted her. That stopped him dead. He took the check, folded it in half and pushed it into his pocket, but he never looked away from Amy as she crouched by Taylor, brushing at her hair.

“Sweetie, go and get your coat and we’ll go home, okay?”

“Huh,” Taylor said with an emphatic nod, then toddled off toward Amy’s office.

Amy stood and faced him. “It’s late,” she said.

“Yes, it is.” He exhaled. “You know when I told you before that I don’t play games?”

She shook her head. “It’s late. I’m leaving. And you’ve probably got a…an appointment.”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t. But I do have to say something.”

He could quite literally see her bracing herself, stiffening slightly, one hand reaching out to touch the wall close to her right side. “I don’t suppose I can get you not to say anything, can I?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll say it for you. That was a horrible mistake in there, and it won’t happen again.”

He watched her closely. “Lady, what are you, a mind reader?”

She shrugged, but it ended with a slight shudder. “No, just telling the truth.”

He’d meant to say he was too old, and she was too young, and she had a little child, and he was past that.
But instead he found himself saying, “It wasn’t horrible.”

She waved her hands as if to ward off his words. “Okay, but it was wrong.”

“Absolutely. It was wrong. I don’t date, you don’t date. I’m way past being around kids. You’re just starting out with them.”