A Promise to Cherish (14 page)

She considered for a moment and realized she wanted very badly to tell him. But it was hard to explain. It had been so long.

“I . . . I don’t know where to begin.”

“Begin with your husband. Was he white?”

“Yes.” She dropped her eyes.

“And?”

“And . . .”

When she didn’t go on, he urged softly, “Look at me, Cherokee. And what?”

His eyes were pools of shadow as he leaned across the dark confines of the car, and at the concern in his voice she suddenly found herself wanting to tell him things she’d promised herself never to reveal. But she needed to put some distance between herself and Sam Brown while she told him, so she opened her door and got out, leaving him to follow. As they ambled slowly toward her car, she began haltingly.

“Joel married me in one of those . . . those idiotic rebounds from the woman he should have married in the first place. A very white woman of whom his mother heartily approved. He’d . . . he’d had a fight with her, so when he met me it was . . .” She sighed and looked up at the stars. “Oh, I don’t know what it was. A chemical mix-up, maybe. A stupid impulse. But we didn’t think it out at all. We just did it. Too fast, too . . .” She shrugged and hugged her arms as they moved across damp grass. “Nothing about it was right, not from the very first, except maybe the sex.

But that’s not enough to sustain a marriage. After a while his mother’s disapproval of me began to wear on Joel, and he began blaming me for alienating him from his family. Within a year after our divorce, he married the girl his mother had been telling him all along he should have married.” They stopped at her car. “So now you know why I’m not too good with mothers.”

The lights from the house spilled in long white splashes across the dark lawn behind them. Sam stood with a hand in his trouser pocket. Lee waited for his response. When it came, she was pleasantly surprised. The hand came out of his pocket and captured her elbow and he spoke in a soft, cajoling voice.

“Now that that’s out of the way, come here.” His gentle grip swung her around to face him, then he looped his arms around her waist till their hips rested lightly against each other. And suddenly she forgot about mothers and personal histories, for Sam Brown’s face was smiling down at her through the warm, flower-scented night. It seemed as if the beguiling fountains of Kansas City itself danced within Lee’s heart as she waited for one thing she needed to make this day end in total perfection. Then he lowered soft, warm open lips over hers, and she lifted her own, slightly parted, readily accepting the brush of his tongue upon hers . . . but softly, gently.

He held her lightly, only the tips of her breasts brushing his shirt while she rested her hands on his biceps. Sam’s tongue stroked and coaxed, and Lee’s answered, her fingertips slipped up beneath the ribbing of his short knit sleeves in an unconscious invasion of his firm, hidden skin. The kiss was unhurried, almost lazy, a sweet lingual blandishment while they leaned a little apart and began to rock indolently from side to side. It was an aperitif of a kiss, designed to whet the appetite for more. But when it ended—slowly, lingeringly—they refrained from partaking further.

Sam lifted his head to tease softly, “That’s better than Swenson’s ice cream.”

Lee smiled and leaned back against the circle of his hands. “Mmm . . . and it won’t give you a stomachache, either.”

He smiled impishly and settled his hips more firmly against hers. “Oh no?”

But she knew it wasn’t his stomach that ached. She could feel what ached, pressed hard and inviting against her pedal pushers.

So she was surprised when a moment later she found herself pushed gently away and turned toward her car by the Honorable Sam Brown, who was proving increasingly honorable indeed.

E
ARLY Monday morning, plans got under way for bidding the Little Blue River job. Again Lee noted the difference between the way things were done at Brown & Brown and at Thorpe Construction. Not only was there an ongoing sense of cooperation where she worked now, but there was also a thoroughness that surprised her.

Accurate records of soil workability were kept for all major jobs. Lee met the drill truck on site Monday afternoon to take soil samples directly from the steel auger. These were weighed, dried, and run through a series of nested copper sieves. The amounts of material retained on each of the variously gauged screens were weighed carefully and recorded on a gradation chart. Lee and Sam worked side by side sieving and recording the data. They compared their findings with those of former jobs under similar soil conditions and used the results to estimate the cost of such variables as dewatering and sheeting to prevent cave-ins.

They sat in the coffee room, Frank perched on the edge of a counter, Sam seated with his legs crossed and heels propped up on an empty chair. The sense of belonging Lee felt in her new job encouraged her to take full part in the decision making. To her surprise her personal relationship with Sam hardly entered into their business dealings.

“Do you mind using Tri-State Drilling for dewatering ?” Sam asked. His elbows were pointed at the ceiling and his fingers were clasped behind his neck as he leaned back comfortably.

“I was thinking of asking Griffin Wellpoint for a quote,” Lee replied. “I’ve had good luck in dealing with them in the past.” She held her breath. It was the first time she’d directly opposed the wishes of either Sam or Frank.

Sam only shrugged. “Great. We’ve had good luck with Tri-State, too, so either one is fine.”

Lee ordered quotes from Griffin for dewatering, along with those from another subcontractor for installing pilings through the swampy area, which had proved to be mostly peat. She asked landscape contractors for quotes on sodding, seeding, mulching, and fertilizing. As the days passed and she waited for these quotes, the calculator on her desk whirred constantly.

She computed labor costs for pipe installation per foot, according to depth and soil conditions. Material costs were broken down into unit prices—and in the case of pipe, per-foot prices—and these extended out into lump sums.

As the week wore on and the day of the bid letting drew nearer, suppliers sent quotes on pipes, valves, manhole castings, and hydrants. Throughout the week the tension seemed to grow as bid day—Friday—approached. As usual, quotes from subcontractors came in late, holding up progress to some degree and lending a sense of uncertainty to the work on the bid.

Late Thursday, Sam stopped by Lee’s desk and asked, “Have all those quotes come in from the subs yet?”

“Still waiting on one from Greenway. You know how it is.”

He chuckled, but the sound seemed tense for Sam, who was usually relaxed and easygoing. “Yeah, I know how it is.”

“You want this job badly, don’t you?”

His eyes met Lee’s and for the first time that week seemed to convey thoughts beyond soil evaluations and price per linear foot. “I’ve got a rather personal stake in this one. Don’t you?”

Thoughts of the orchard in all its seductive glory came back. “Yes, I do.”

He gazed down at her for a moment longer, then seemed to drag himself from his reverie to scratch the side of his neck and glance at the pale green job sheets draped across her desk. “Anyway, we could use this job since the Denver one doesn’t get rolling till spring. There’d be time enough to get this one finished before winter.”

Friday morning brought the usual eleventh-hour craziness Lee had come to expect in estimating. Somehow the spirit of competition never seemed to surface in suppliers until just before bid time. Within two hours of the deadline Lee received a call from the pipe supplier who was lowering his quote by twelve thousand dollars. Immediately subtotals and totals had to be changed on the official proposal form. Since the call came at 11:30 with bid time set for 2:00, Lee skipped lunch to change the figures, then run another calculator check of the math.

Sam came in at 12:45 to find her at her desk, her fingers flying over the machine, her bare feet curled up on the caster guards of her desk chair. “How’s it going?” he asked.

She scarcely looked up. “What time is it?”

“Quarter to one.”

“Will you double-check the addition on these sheets?”

“Sure.” She extended the sheets without even turning her eyes his way. “Didn’t you have lunch?”

She did glance up then, for about a half second. “No. American Pipe called and lowered their bid by twelve thousand dollars.”

Sam sat down hastily at a nearby desk and his fingers, too, started flying over a calculator. “Why didn’t you say something?”

She paused, looked up, and smiled at his dark head. “I’m too tense to eat anyway.”

He pushed the total button, the machine clicked into silence, and Sam smiled across at Lee. “Relax, Cherokee, it’s just a damn job.”

But it wasn’t, and they both knew it. It was
their
job. Their first joint effort, and something inside of Lee said they just had to win it! Still, she appreciated Sam’s effort to put her at ease, and her smile said as much before they both set to work again.

Fifteen minutes later the changes were all entered in ink on the official bid proposal, and Sam leaned over Lee’s desk to initial each one and put his signature beside the company seal impressed on the final sheet. His shoulder was almost touching her jaw as he bent to scratch his name on the paper. During the week, she’d had little trouble controlling personal feelings that intruded during business hours, but now, as he stood close and she watched his dark hands moving on the white paper, she was drawn to him by their singularity of purpose. He dropped the pen, straightened, and smiled down at her feet.

“You can put your shoes back on now. It’s done.”

She grinned sheepishly. “Takes the pressure off the head.”

“Maybe off yours, but not off mine.” He gave her feet an appreciative grin just as a group of draftsmen returned from lunch. “Well, I’m holding you up, huh?” It was one o’clock, and she still had to drive clear across the city to the Independence City Hall.

She drew in a deep breath, raked a hand through her hair, and gave Sam a shaky smile. “Well, here goes.”

Brown & Brown’s new estimator gathered up her papers, slipped the bid into a large gold envelope, licked it, pressed it shut, and lifted her eyes to find that her boss had been watching her every move.

“Good luck, Cherokee,” he said softly.

“Thanks, Your Honor,” she returned. Then she slipped on her shoes, picked up her purse, and left the office.

 

 

B
ROWN & Brown took the Little Blue River job for $750,000, only $7,900 below the next highest bidder. When the last bid was read and the announcement made, Lee felt adrenaline swoop into her bloodstream in a giddy swoosh. She rose to her feet to accept handshakes, and her knees felt wobbly and weak. Her palms had been sweating throughout the opening of the envelopes, but now they itched to get to a telephone and call the office.

She suffered through what seemed like hours of felicitations before finally escaping to the pay phone in the hall.

Rachael’s perky voice answered, “Brown & Brown.”

“Rachael, we got it!” Lee announced without prelude.

“Lee! That’s wonderful!”

“Isn’t it, though?” Lee bubbled. “I’m ecstatic . . . and a little shaky.”

Rachael laughed. “That part never changes, honey.”

A little chuckle released the last of her nervousness, then Lee requested, “Put Sam on, will you, Rachael?”

She listened to the silence on the line for a brief moment, basking in a deep sense of satisfaction as she waited for his voice. When it came, it sounded full of smiles.

“Nice going, Cherokee.”

“Hallelujah, we did it, Brown!”

He laughed. “Feels good, huh?”

“Does it ever.”

“Just how good?”

Understanding his cryptic question, she replied, “Only seventy-nine hundred dollars good . . . that’s how good.”

“You mean that’s all you left!”

“Yes!”

At his laugh of satisfaction, Lee pictured the smile carving grooves into his cheeks and the pale laugh lines disappearing about his eyes.

“Who came in second?”

“Just a minute, I’ll read you the list.”

She relayed the remainder of the bids, then Sam asked, “You’re coming back to the office, aren’t you? We’ve got to celebrate your first victory.”

“I’ll be there in an hour or so.”

“Good, see you then.”

In the business of estimating, the days of defeat far outnumbered those of victory. On winning days, a special elation seeped into everyone, creating a spirit of camaraderie and good humor. Coming back into the office to find that everyone in the house had already heard the good news, Lee stopped to accept congratulations and share lighthearted jokes with her coworkers. But one was foremost in her mind.

Sam was beaming as he strode across the blue carpet dressed in casual gray slacks and a pale blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Lord, she’d never been as proud as she was then, facing Sam Brown. Her smile was infectious as he extended his wide hand and clasped hers, squeezing hard, shaking it just once, and holding it only a fraction of a second longer than necessary.

“Congratulations, Lee.”

“Thank you, Sam.” She wished she could lay her other hand over his and tell him how much she’d appreciated his faith in her during the past week, and what a true pleasure it had been preparing the bid in the congenial atmosphere of his office, among his cooperative employees and—of course—with him. But his hand slipped away, and the group of men continued chattering. Rachael, Nelda, and Ron Chen joined the group, and to Lee it felt like Christmas Eve.

Some people were already clearing off their tables, others still standing around shooting the breeze, when Rachael pulled herself away from a drafting table and turned toward the front. “Well, hi, Mary, how are you?”