Running the Numbers (2 page)

Women—Kennedy and Pearl Harris, the payroll clerk, in particular—found him terribly attractive. To Sadie, he was plain terrible. Unlike them, she had the benefit of experience to form a proper opinion.

She went back to the fax machine to retrieve the sheet from the paper tray and sat in her wheeled chair at the same time her interoffice call light lit up orange.

She snatched up the receiver and double-checked the line number on the digital display. “Hi, Nina. I’m hoping you learned something new about golden boy. Duncan won’t tell me anything.”

At least not anything Nina hadn’t already told her.

“Well,” Nina drawled in her theatrical manner, “I just might. You tend to get quite an education speaking one-on-one with a man.”

This was why Nina was her “long-time” friend. Not her
best
friend. Her flair for the dramatic was exhausting, but damn if she wasn’t a useful ally. Sadie attempted to sit back and cross her legs before the tight fabric of her skirt reminded her of her restrictions. She settled for crossing her ankles. “What d’you got? You think he’s after Duncan’s job?”

“I don’t know, but if he is, you can step right on down, honey. This guy has chops. You know he audited a senator last year? I can’t fathom why else he’d take Henry’s job unless it’s to bide his time before he can snag Duncan’s. Could be that’s their end game. I get the sense Duncan knows more than he’s saying on the matter.”

Sadie pressed her lips together. Duncan probably had a good idea of how mouthy of a secretary he had. He’d be cautious of giving Nina fuel to feed the gossip mill.

Nina sighed disappointedly. “Obviously, asking would be a tricky thing.”

Sadie grunted in frustration. “I wouldn’t normally care. I have my five-year plan, and a promotion would put me a few years ahead of schedule. But something about Wes’s face makes me want to take a mallet to it. I can’t work for him.” Plus, he’d adore the chance to rub it in for the rest of eternity. “If Blake’s gunning for Duncan’s job, I’d rather he get it than Wes.”

“Oh, come on, now. Don’t give up! You deserve the promotion, and not a single person in this office would say otherwise. Except Wes, but don’t mind him.” Nina had big, round cheeks framed by a halo of frizzy chestnut hair, and plump little lips perpetually puckered. Sadie imagined them pursed sympathetically. “I’m as unhappy as you are, you know. You think I want to take calls and run errands for Severus Snape?”

Sadie snorted. The nickname did Wes justice. “I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t happen, Nina. Now, back to Blake. Learn anything juicy during your conversation with him?”

“Did I? Who’re you talking to, girl?” Nina tutted. “It may not be anything as profound as his personal reasons for moving to Jackson, but I picked up a few details it couldn’t hurt to have. For starters, he had to fax over a copy of his driver’s license for me to book his airline flight from Los Angeles. I’m not sure it matters, since he might be the competition, but you ought to prepare yourself. Blake Cobb is a
looker,
honey.”

Sadie rubbed her forehead. Perfect. Another Wes strutting around the office.

As if reading her mind, Nina sniffed. “Not like Wes. You know how some of the girls downstairs are about
him,
though, Lord help me, I can’t figure out why.”

“Me, neither.” Sadie had long since let Wes’s personality overrule his physical appeal. Kennedy thought Wes was the hottest thing to hit Earth since the sun. It didn’t say much, of course. Kennedy could develop a crush on a stock photo.

Nina rambled on. “This Blake fella has sandy blond hair cut nice and neat the way a professional man ought to wear it”—a not-so-subtle dig at Wes—“and the most striking eyes. The kind of hazel that really stands out, you know? Deep green mixed with gold. Real stunning. And that’s just his DMV photo! Now him, I wouldn’t mind running around for. If you take my meaning.”

Sadie huffed. “Great. We haven’t even met the guy, and you’ve turned traitor.”

“Oh, come now. I’m one of your best friends.” Nina slipped into grandma mode, which Sadie begrudgingly admitted she found oddly consoling. It was like a superpower women earned the minute they hit sixty. “I’m merely
saying
, he’s not a bad runner-up.”

If Nina thought Blake was good-looking, Kennedy would probably have fits over him and declare herself madly in love at first sight.

Sadie tapped her fingernails across her desk. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow if he’s apt to sweep me off my feet.”

“Not likely with your history, sweetie.”

Ouch.
Sadie couldn’t deny she had a hell of a track record. Not necessarily her fault, though. The ski bum had managed to keep his drug problem well-hidden the three months they’d dated. And how was she supposed to know the trust-funder had faked his job as a chef, slaving over another woman instead of a hot stove? Before those two, there’d been the guy who’d lived in his van and the deli owner with the alcohol-monitoring anklet.

Yep, she had a talent for attracting real losers. They were always good-looking, smooth as a glass surface, and hiding drastic, unmanageable flaws. Despite her embarrassing relationship rap sheet, she still believed she’d meet a man one day who wouldn’t be anything more or less than what he advertised. She’d at least wait to hit forty before she gave up hope entirely.

She pursed her lips. “Given my history—thanks for that, by the way—if I do like him, we can pretty much take it on faith he’s got skeletons doing a jig in a closet somewhere.”

“Oh, hon.” More sympathy. “It’s not you, you know. It’s where we are. The gender ratio is all out of whack. There are a dozen men for every female. You attract them like flies with your Snow White appeal.”

Sadie despised the nickname. Her short black bob ended at her jawline. She kept it perpetually tucked behind her ears so the ends flipped out like little raven wings on the side of her head. She didn’t particularly care for that, but the ear-tucking habit wasn’t going anywhere, and she didn’t have time to wrestle with long hair.

“Besides,” Nina continued, “I have to admit. Blake sounded awfully formal on the phone. He’s probably a boob. Not your type. In fact, we ought to do Amanda a favor and send
her
to the airport. They’d probably hit it off.”

Amanda Avery was the daughter of Iris, the Avery half of Avery & Thorp. The boss’s daughter. She was the head of the bookkeeping team and the most boring, sedate, mundane, unruffled human being Sadie had ever met in her life, the woman’s wacky wardrobe notwithstanding.

Sadie slumped in her chair. “Just what we need—another humdrum accountant to make us all look bad.”

* * * *

Blake scanned the sidewalk for his name on a sign or someone waving from one of the three vehicles parked curbside. A topless Jeep, a red Ford pickup, and a minivan were his options so far. In his mind’s eye, he was waiting for a newer model black sedan with tinted windows to pull up—a vehicle suited to a well-to-do accountant in one of the country’s wealthiest counties.

The Jackson airport defied his expectations. The sidewalk out front for loading and picking up passengers was no larger than an L.A. bus stop, and the parking lot for the whole airport hardly competed with a Kmart’s. Small and a little rundown, it had one major redeeming quality—the mighty, massive Tetons rising up in the distance, jagged peaks thrusting into thin wispy clouds as if they were too intimidated to hold their fluffy shape in such grand company.

Blake peered at the imposing summit of the Grand Teton—ten thousand feet in the air, a swift four thousand foot rise from the valley—and shook his head slightly in awe. Pictures hadn’t prepared him for seeing the stunning, commanding mountains in real life, up close. In hollows between the razor sharp pinnacles sat white masses. Snow. In early September. Supposedly, a glacier lived up there somewhere, but he’d have to see it to believe it.

He swallowed and gave Seth his full attention. Difficult, between fumbling with his rolling suitcase, his cell phone, and the impossible view of the mountains. He turned his back on them, eyes toward the loading zone. “Look, bud, I think your mom will understand if you decide to go to Purdue in the spring.”

Of course Quinn would mind, but she wouldn’t tell Seth that.

Seth sighed wearily into the phone. “I know she will, but—Maddie, no! Sorry, Dad, she’s trying to take the phone.”

Blake grinned to himself as his eighteen-year-old son explained to his two-year-old half sister why she couldn’t play with his
pone
right now.

Quinn’s child with her new husband, Jack Decker, little Maddie had plowed into her terrible twos with gleeful impishness. A charming troublemaker, she’d give a winsome smile while putting JELL-O in your loafers, which made getting angry an impossibility. Annoyed, at times. Exasperated, definitely. Mostly amused.

She had her uncle Blake, and just about everyone else in the family, wrapped around her tiny, sticky fingers. “Sounds like Maddie’s keeping you on your toes.”

“Yeah, well, you were here two weeks ago when she learned to walk.” Seth’s wry tone held a hint of amusement. “Since then, she’s discovered her range has expanded. She grabs
everything
. Last night, she went for Jack’s glass of wine, and it spilled inside his guitar. I thought he would freak out, but he laughed and said his guitar would probably only play Irish pub songs from now on.”

Against his will, Blake cracked a smile.

As much as he wanted to hate the guy for being his ex-wife’s new love, Jack had a certain quality that made him impossible to dislike—women adored him, children loved him, and men envied him. The British accent thing probably didn’t hurt.

Blake rubbed his forehead and refused to think too hard about Jack, Quinn, and Maddie. They defined a whole world of regret. Instead, he focused on his son, the one thing he’d gotten right. “Seth, if your heart says go to Purdue, then go. Your mom will be happy as long as you are. You know that.”

Maddie’s happy squawk echoed in the background.

Seth shushed her, almost politely. “That’s exactly what Jack said.”

A wrench to the gut. Well, why wouldn’t Seth go to his stepdad for advice? A few short years ago, the kid hadn’t wanted anything to do with Blake. That he’d asked Blake’s advice at all was a testament to how far Blake had come as a father. Not far enough, however, when he stopped to consider the years he’d wasted being too busy for his son.

And it’s not like it wasn’t my own fault.

Unhappy thoughts of an unhappy time. It seemed like in the last decade, all Blake had were unhappy times. Which was exactly what had landed him in remote Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Fewer than ten thousand full-time residents, but elitist enough for him to have no trouble finding work suited to his résumé. His job was the one thing in his life he hadn’t managed to completely screw up.

An arm shot out of the driver’s side window of the Ford pickup. A few dents and dings, but waxed to a perfect shine, the truck gleamed in the September sunlight. The hand waved.

A second later, the door opened and a woman stepped out. She looked right at him and waved again. She had on a dirty navy blue baseball cap. Short black hair tufted out on the sides. Her eyes were wide-set and almond-shaped, like a cat’s. Hard not to notice the way she gazed at him as she came around the bed of the truck, openly curious.

Attractive.

Blake’s stomach curled into itself instinctively, and a bone-deep desire to run back the way he’d come struck him like a blow.

Why is this happening to me? What have I done this time?
Blake stared at the woman, a ghost from his past. One he’d long considered vanquished. The resemblance made the short hairs on his neck dance.

“Dad?” Seth’s inquisitive voice brought Blake back around.

Blake swallowed and gave the woman a hollow smile and perfunctory nod of greeting. “Hey, kid, I’m going to let you go. I think my ride is here.”

“Wait.” A pause while Seth shuffled with something in the background. “Maddie wants to say good-bye.”

Blake gave the woman another half-assed smile and a what-can-you-do shrug and turned so she couldn’t watch his face. “Okay, put her on the
pone
. I mean, phone.”

Seth snorted. “Yeah, don’t let Mom catch you encouraging the baby talk.” Another scrabble that sounded like someone scratching their nails over the phone’s tiny microphone.

“Uckle Bake!”

The garbled shriek made Blake jerk back from his cell phone with a wince. “
Heeey
, Maddie. Are you gonna tell me bye?”

“Bye, Uckle Bake!”

“Bye, sweetie. I love you—” A loud crack told him the phone had been dropped on Maddie’s end. He waited patiently for Seth to rescue the call. He was in no hurry to confront the woman behind him.

Seth came back to the line, sounding harassed. “Sorry, Dad. I better go. She’s headed for the coffee table at full speed.”

A sudden sensation of loss hit Blake like a quick pellet shot to the chest. He didn’t want to say good-bye. When would they see each other again if Seth went to college in Indiana? It was like a hole opening up inside him that loneliness rushed in to fill.

Blake cleared his throat to dislodge the emotion growing thick in his esophagus. “No problem, Seth. Just, uh…you know. Keep in touch. Whatever you decide to do.” They signed off.

Reluctantly, Blake turned back to the woman. He wracked his brain for the right thing to say. She was a stranger, and he shouldn’t let his first impression become a permanent mark against her. After all, it wasn’t her fault she was a dead ringer for his old mistress, the one responsible for his split from Quinn years ago.

She saved him the trouble by speaking first. “Uckle Bake, huh? Your niece sounds cute.” A wide grin split her face. Her eyes, a striking shade of pale gray, like pools of clear water, seemed to tease him from beneath the bill of her cap.

It would’ve been better if she hadn’t said anything. Blake kept a straight face and his gaze trained on the generic symbol stitched onto her ball cap. He determined to cling to the one thing about this woman that didn’t remind him of Kira, who wouldn’t have worn a baseball cap if he’d paid her in solid gold bars engraved with her name. “Blake Cobb.”