The Right Kind of Trouble (19 page)

“Jenny. What seems to be the trouble?” Moira stared at the wall in front of her.

“Nothing I can't—”

As a male voice rose in the background, Moira pushed a button on her phone. Baxter appeared a moment later. “Baxter, Jenny Green seems to be having some trouble over in her area. Can you send security?”

Jenny's voice hesitated, then firmed. In the background, the man's voice grew louder, a decidedly aggressive note to it.

As Baxter's jaw squared and he nodded, Moira turned her attention back to the woman on the phone. “Jenny, why don't you pass the phone over to your … guest?”

There was a moment of silence.

“You might want to take it, sir. Perhaps she can connect you with Mr. Towers.”

A brusque, hard voice came on the phone a moment later. “Who the fuck is this?”

“Would you mind looking down at the desk in front of you?” Moira closed her eyes, brought a mental image of Jenny Green to the fore of her mind. Neat woman, tidy. Kept her desk pristine. There was a blotter on her desk, never smudged, never out of place. And the embossed
M
was hard to miss. “Do you see the blotter … in case you're wondering, the blotter is the big square pad—square, four sides, you know?”

“Bitch, if you don't—”

Moira continued to talk, keeping her voice low and steady. She'd learned a long time ago that the way to deal with the sort of men who
tried
to put her in her place was to just carry on about her business. More often than not, they had questions or just things they wanted to hear themselves say. Early on, there had been several men in the company who'd thought they could pull the penis card. They hadn't lasted long. Now, though, the asses she dealt were either looking to get money from her or steal business away from her, and their favorite method was laying down the testosterone.

Most of them learned pretty quickly, though. They all wanted something and they'd be quicker to figure out how to get it if they listened to what she was saying.

This idiot was no different.

After a few seconds, he realized she hadn't shut up and he lapsed into silence. She shifted the call to her Bluetooth seamlessly and started to walk. She thought she'd timed it right.

“So you see the blotter? There's an
M
on it. That's short for
McKay
. As in
McKay Enterprises
. That name sound familiar?”

“Seeing as how that's the damn building I'm in, it should.”

“Good. Then let me introduce myself.” She rounded the corner and pushed through a pair of frosted glass doors—the doors that led from
her
executive offices to the rest of them.

A big, bulky man with a shaved head stood holding a phone to his ear. Jenny sat at her desk. Two security guards came through the door only seconds after Moira.

“The
bitch
you're talking to would be Moira McKay.” She turned off her Bluetooth and waited for him to notice that he could still hear her. “As in …
the CEO
of McKay Enterprises.”

He turned slowly and stared at her.

She gave him a polite smile. “Now, sir, let me ask …
who the fuck are you
?”

*   *   *

Moira rubbed her temple as the head of security updated her.

He'd been the one to take the thug down.

Grizzled and graying, Hank Sheffield didn't look like much at first, but under that professional veneer, the man was like a rattlesnake. It wasn't wise to cross him.

“His name, according the city cops, is Landon Hayes. Got a record. A local leg-breaker for a small-time bookie.”

Pressing her fingers to her eyes, she said softly, “Please don't tell me that Kevin had a gambling problem.”

When Hank said nothing, she looked up at him.

He shrugged. “You asked me not to tell you.” He leaned forward and peered through the window. “They're loading the big moron now. Stupid as he is, he might not make it through the first night in the joint. What was he thinking, coming in here like that?”

“Well, he does work for a small-time bookie,” Moira said, going for a little levity. “If he was any good, he'd have moved up to the big leagues.”

Hank shot her a grin that made the creases in his face deepen. “Good point, Ms. McKay.”

She rubbed at her neck and fought the urge to slump in her chair. Too many people were manufacturing excuses to come by her office. She wasn't about to be seen looking like she wanted to collapse.

Of course, Hank was there, but Hank was … different. He was a friend.

He'd come on board a few years before her father died, and he'd been one of the people who'd guided her through when she was fumbling to find her way.

“Maybe that's why he pulled this shit with the house.”

“Ma'am?”

She looked over at Hank and shook her head. “Nothing. I've just got a mess on my hands and Towers was involved. I'll have to talk to him.” She didn't know if she wanted to wait until Monday, either.

Especially not if he had some leg-breaker—she shuddered at the image—trying to hunt him down here at his place of employment.

“Why don't you go on home, Miss Moira?” Hank said, falling back on the name he'd used for her when they first started working together. “You're not going to fix anything right now.”

She should argue.

She knew she should.

But he was right.

She needed to step back and think, get her head cleared so she could look at all of this with a fresh outlook.

So she nodded. Maybe Hank looked a little surprised and that made her smile.

Impulsively, she moved over and hugged him. “Thank you,” she said. “For always being there.”

The older man was blushing when she pulled away. He awkwardly patted her shoulder and jerked a thumb to the door. “Go on now.”

*   *   *

The drive back home was too damn long.

Moira could think of only one thing that would make anything about this day remotely salvageable. That would be to just
undo
it. If she could figure out a way to rewind and just erase it all, that might work.

She didn't even want a
re
do, because how could she make any of it turn out any better?

That being the case, she thought maybe the next best solution would be to find a bottle of Macallan down in the basement. On rare occasions, sitting down with a bottle of fine scotch was really just the only answer. It was only for
rare
occasions, but she didn't often have a day like this.

If she didn't have any down in the basement, then damn it, she was going over to Brannon's to raid his supply. He stockpiled liquor the way a miser hoarded gold.

She'd bring a bottle to Ferry and get good and wasted. It wouldn't change anything that had happened, but it would buy her some oblivion and when she sat down to think about this again—after her hangover cleared up—she would have a new perspective on everything.

Granted, she didn't know how a new perspective would help.

The IRS agents were giving her and her family the benefit of the doubt, it seemed, although they did want to come over and take a look at her property, inspect what they had at the family vault and all that jazz. They wouldn't find anything.

Somebody was trying to cause grief for them on that front, claiming treasure was buried on their land.

Uneasy, she rubbed her throat.

Then there was the weird deal with that house that Neve had told her about.

A house they didn't
need
.

One they'd overpaid for and was somehow connected to a man who had a bookie out looking for him. Yeah, this was all kinds of bad news.

She'd tried to call Towers several times on the drive back home with no luck. She would get in touch with him somehow. The man's job was history. Her executives were expected to uphold a high moral standard, and he'd gotten himself in enough trouble that he had a bookie coming to
her
company. Jenny could have gotten hurt. Anybody in the building could have gotten hurt.

And it wasn't even the first time that scumbucket had come around. A few of the others had recognized him. One of the junior execs had even sheepishly admitting to lending Kevin a few thousand dollars to “buy some breathing room.”

As she swung the car up the drive and waited for the gates to open, she told herself to stop thinking. She needed to get inside Ferry, get her some damn scotch and just shut her brain down. Completely.

The late winter sun shone down, the rays hitting the multitude of windows and shattering into a thousand dazzling beams. Normally the sight brought at least a small smile to her face, but not today.

She was so twisted with anger and confusion, she didn't think anything could make her smile.

A few moments later, though, after parking her car in the garage, she had to admit, she was wrong.

Even after more than twenty years, Gideon Marshall could still make her smile and he could still surprise her.

Of course, she had always known he could make her smile. But she wouldn't have thought he could manage it today.

Not even Gideon should have been able to pierce her gloom.

But how could she possibly resist the sight of a beautiful man stroking his hands down the lush, gleaming coat of a beautiful dog?

Moira stopped, gazing at the tableau in front of her.

The shepherd turned his head and stared at her.

He didn't have the typical coloring.

No, he was
white
.

She'd seen white shepherds before, but never this close.

“Wow.” She blinked and shifted her attention to Gideon. He continued to rub his hand up and down the dog's back. “You've got a new friend. He's gorgeous.”

“
She's
gorgeous. Frost is a lady, Mac,” he said easily. “And technically, I brought her out here thinking she'd be
your
new friend, but I think I'm in love with her, Moira. She likes me, too. You don't mind, do you?”

Moira cocked a brow and stared at the dog. “I think I can take her.”

To her surprise, the dog gave a slow wag of her tail. Like she'd understood.

Abruptly, Gideon's meaning penetrated. “What did you mean you brought her here to be
my
dog?”

“You said you wanted a dog. I got you a dog. Like I said, her name is Frost.” He slanted a look at her from under his lashes before he went back to stroking the dog. “Well, you have to pay for her. Zeke isn't letting them go cheap.”

“Zeke…” She said the name slowly and then looked over as Neve came running around the house.

With a dog.

Another one.

Again, a shepherd, although she had more traditional coloring.

The dog stopped when she saw Moira and sat on her heels, waiting.

“Family, Torch. That's Moira,” Neve said. She had a wide grin on her face when she looked at her sister. “Moira, this is Torch. Torch, Moira.”

“Am I supposed to shake?”

Both dogs lifted their paws.

It was a wonderful thing to realize after an absolutely
shitty
day that she could laugh.

*   *   *

A glass of wine was placed in front of her.

Moira leaned back, studying the wine with pursed lips for a moment before looking up to see Gideon as he settled down in the seat next to hers.

Frost politely nosed at his thigh and he scooted over obligingly. The big dog stretched out, pausing only to look up at Moira as if to say,
Is this okay?
Moira reached out and stroked a hand down Frost's silky coat. “She's so pretty.”

The dog rolled her eyes up to look at Moira, and damned if the thing didn't look smugly pleased.

“I think she's also vain,” Gideon said. He nudged the wine closer to Moira.

“I've been working up the energy to go raid the cellar.” She sighed and reached out, picking up the glass. “You foiled my plans.”

“If you want to do that…?” He shrugged and made to reach for the glass.

“No.” Protectively, she turned away, using her body as a shield.

He canted a grin at her. “Greedy.”

“Damn straight. Also, lazy.” She took a sip and let her eyes drift closed. “It's been a hell of a day.”

“Shut your brain off a while, Mac. Relax.”

“I can't.” She took another sip of wine before putting the glass down and leaning forward, staring at the notes she'd made. She'd had a heavy class load in college, but it had served well, majoring in business along with accounting and finance. She was a McKay to the core and had never thought about anything else but following right along in her father's footsteps.

That accounting degree was what made it easier—
easier
but not precisely
easy
—to notice the irregularities in Kevin Tower's expenditures. Gideon leaned over and eyed her notes. He came in so close, she caught the heady smell of him and it distracted her. Slipping a look, she said, “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” His gaze slid to her mouth, then back up to meet hers. “Do you?”

Heat started to twist through her. “This is … kinda important.”

“So important it can't wait until Monday?” He went to tug the pencil out of her hand.

Moira sighed. “I don't know.” She relinquished her hold on the pencil and was rewarded when he curved a hand over the back of her neck, setting strong fingers to work on the knots he found there. “I just … hell, Gideon. I feel like I'm being punked—business edition, hosted by some sleazeball business icon. Donald Trump, maybe.”

“Why don't you tell me what's going on? I won't follow half of it, but you'll feel better.”

She snorted. “I don't know about that.” But it couldn't hurt.