Betrayal of the Dove (Men of Action) (9 page)

She smiled to herself. Those lunch hours with Shane had been some of the best lunch hours of her life. The thought scared her, but it was true. Normally she just ate a sandwich, did a little work on one of her pieces and found her way back into the store within a half hour. But with Shane there, she ate, had great conversations about his travels around the world, her life growing up, and family—her family because he seemed to shy away from talking about his. She had deduced that he was the only child, no brothers or sisters to go home to. They had spent an hour each day up there. She never closed for that long and she wasn’t sure it was good that she was closing for that long now, but the more she talked to him, the less she wanted the moment to end. God, she really liked this guy. They weren’t dating, not technically. That night at the restaurant wasn’t a technical date either since it was just two people who worked together going out for a meal. She nearly laughed at her own reasoning. It was a date—mostly, whether either of them called it as much or not. But since neither had labeled it a date she was free to keep denying what it was and covering it for something it really wasn’t. There was nothing platonic about their feelings. There was nothing business as usual about what they felt for each other, yet she kept trying to pretend that was all it was, and for some reason he seemed content to let her do so.

Before he had changed the lock, or more like installed a lock, on the security room door she had accidently walked in on him while he was changing his shirt. Craig had brought her coffee once again and she was just getting ready to tell him she didn’t like coffee when she realized that she might hurt his feelings. So instead of going straight for the, “please stop because I hate coffee,” statement she decided that it was only his second time and that she would try a different tactic. “Wow,” she had said. “This is a really big cup of coffee. Being a one woman shop here I don’t tend to drink anything while I’m down here.” That was code for stop bringing me coffee, but he didn’t hear it that way.

“Now you can have coffee,” he said. She turned around swiftly, knowing she was rolling her eyes, but not realizing she was going to walk dab smack into Shane. She spilled coffee all over his navy blue button down shirt. She had apologized profusely because now he was covered in hot coffee.

“It’s okay,” he assured her. “You hate coffee anyway.”

She smiled, even though she really was trying not to, because he had, in one breath, just told Craig what she had been trying to subtly tell him moments earlier.

After Craig left she grabbed a towel that she kept behind the counter. She usually kept two, one that she could put on the glass while showing a piece, and one that she would have as a just in case the air condition went out on one of those triple digit Arizona days. She had walked into the security room without knocking and there he stood, bare chest and completely uninhibited. She had just looked at him, letting her eyes drink in his delectable form. Angles and plains of hard muscle stretched across his chest and up his arms and shoulders like a beautiful rock formation. Solid, beautiful, completely male and she liked it—a lot.

“Yes,” he had finally said when she hadn’t bothered to say anything.

“Oh, sorry. Towel,” she handed it to him. She took one last long, hard look before exiting the room and closing the door behind her. She couldn’t resist looking just once more, even though looking was causing too many lustful thoughts to race through her mind. The next day he had the lock on the door which assured her he was very much unhappy with her perusal of his body. She didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. She didn’t want to create a hostile working environment, and so she took the hint and kept her distance. That didn’t mean her mind hadn’t kept its distance from the fantasy realm. She was sitting there, contemplating that maybe she should give some other guy a chance—maybe Craig, even though she didn’t find him romantically attractive maybe she was just too picky. Maybe she should take a chance.

She didn’t have time to dwell on that thought because in walked trouble—literally. A nice older woman wearing a badge served her papers and in those papers she found out she was being sued. She couldn’t believe it. One of her applicants was suing her for discrimination. He, and she couldn’t believe this, said he wasn’t hired because he was black. Was he kidding?

She was knee deep in private rants when her phone rang. She was so angry that she forgot where she was. “What?” She said instead of hello, instead of thank you for calling. “I’m sorry…um…
Snowflakes in the Desert
, how may I assist you.” She tried to bring in her emotions, to control the rage that was threatening to burst free. How dare he sue her over something like that? She would never use the color of somebody’s skin as a reason not to hire them. Plus, did he actually pay attention when he walked in the store? Last she checked she wasn’t exactly pale in complexion herself.

“Alyssa?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Eve. I know we haven’t talked on the phone for a month of Sundays, but my voice hasn’t changed that much.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. I just…bad news.”

“What’s going on? Maybe I can help.”

“I’m being sued. Gregory Alexander Dumas is suing me because I didn’t hire him. I’m required to attend a pre-trail moderation in the judge’s chambers next week. I’m reading this and I can’t believe it. Dumas says I didn’t hire him because he’s black. Seriously!? I’m darker than he is. Now I have to call my lawyer, so there’s an added expense that I can’t afford right now. And I have to close up shop while I attend to this frivolous crap.” She nearly yelled in the phone before settling her temper. “Oh Eve,” she sighed. “Now is just not a good time. Now is just really not a good time,” she shook her head. “But enough about my troubles; how are you?”

“Don’t do that, Alyssa. Don’t play big sister and try to treat me as if I’m on unstable ground. You have a problem and I’m here for you. You know that.”

“I know. But there’s nothing you can do about this. I have to just suck it up and go to this moderation thing,” she waved her hand in the air as if her sister could actually see her frustration through the phone. “If that doesn’t work I guess we’ll be in court. I’m not sure how that works. I don’t know if after speaking with the judge we’ll be going to trial by jury, or if we’ll just be in his court room with him. I should have been a lawyer,” she sighed.

“You would have hated it. You liked some aspects of law, but if memory serves me correctly, and I believe it does,” she said with conviction. “You hated the idea of spending four years post undergraduate work doing your Juris Doctorate in it. I believe when Dad suggested it you told him, in rather colorful language, that you’d rather have your brain ripped out through your nostrils.”

Alyssa laughed. She remembered that conversation. Her father wanted her to go to college. She had no desire to do it. He wanted a lawyer or a doctor in the family. His boys seemed determined to just go into the military; he wanted his girls to be the geniuses in the family. Eve was close. But even she hadn’t gone for the career their father wanted. He wanted a prestigious doctor, lawyer, professional he could brag about. Eve’s work now was worth bragging about for him, and he never let her forget it whenever they talked. Maybe that’s why they hadn’t talked much. Even at Thomas’ wedding he had taken the time to assure her that she could have done so much better. It didn’t matter that she had her own business, that she designed her own jewelry and made every piece herself on top of that. Nothing mattered to him except the fact that she wasn’t famous, or wealthy, or worth bragging about.

She sobered quickly. She was in a world of mess right now and she couldn’t add thinking about her father to the pile. “I have to do this. What other options do I have here? I swear I am so never hiring anybody ever again. Once the Row is robbery free and Shane decides to leave I’m going back to my just me shop and being done with it.”

She spent a few more minutes listening to her sister. Eve, the new voice of reason in her life, assured her that things would work out and she shouldn’t stress herself out about it. Right, things were going to work out all right. She turned around and used the phone-fax machine to fax the papers to her attorney. She was going to need his help—boy, was she going to need it.

Shane had seen the female officer enter the premises. He saw the papers being served, and while he wanted to go out there and find out what was going on he didn’t overstep his position. Besides, he could easily find out because he had installed a state of the art security system that allowed him to zoom in on specific areas of the store. He had used it quite often to zoom in on that beautiful face of hers. There was a definite advantage to being at the helm; he could watch her whenever he wanted. Maybe that was unfair, but he couldn’t help it. She was the most beautiful woman he had seen in a long time, and it wasn’t just physically, she was sweeter than sugar, smart, determined—she was all woman and he liked her. He liked her a lot.

He was doing his job too. He could multi task, but he also knew how to focus. When somebody was in the store he stayed vigilant. He had set up cameras in her store that covered every angle, and still managed to get clear images of the people passing by on the street. He set one up outside the back parameter as well. One could never be too careful in his opinion. When she was alone in the store, tinkering with a clasp on a piece of jewelry or working on something, even if she was just flipping through a catalog, he found himself watching her. Yesterday she had on a pair of black pants and a fitted red top. Today she had on white pants with a corset like spring green top. Her bare shoulders looked smooth like brown velvet and he wanted to reach out and touch them. Now wasn’t the time, but soon, he hoped; soon he would make his move.

He zoomed in on the papers enough to know she was headed for trouble. Then, when she was having the conversation with her sister he heard every word, or at least her words. The walls weren’t thick and he could hear everything she said. Some people just couldn’t take rejection, but that wasn’t a reason for a lawsuit. He hoped the presiding judge would feel the same way and quickly dismiss the case otherwise Alyssa was in for a long battle with the man. She didn’t need this. She didn’t deserve it, but it was happening to her nonetheless.

He watched her brush her hand through her hair, pushing the long wavy locks off her shoulder. Her hair was so soft that it just fell right back into place. She pushed it back again, this time looking more exasperated than she did just a few seconds earlier. He wanted to go out there and take her in his arms, settle her down with one smooth loving kiss, but he couldn’t—not yet. She wasn’t ready for that yet.

When she took a rubber band from the drawer and pushed her hair back in a ponytail he knew it was time to get out there. She had left the store open and ran upstairs just two days ago for what she called an ouch less scrunchie because she didn’t want to use a rubber band in her hair, but here she was doing it today. He stepped outside of the room, letting the door close behind him. “Hey,” he said calmly. She looked up at him and he could see unshed tears in her eyes. She wouldn’t cry, at least not with him there because she was too stubborn to let any man know he’d hurt her. He gathered it had something to do with a previous heartbreak, but he wouldn’t know for sure because they hadn’t talked about it.

“I’m being sued,” she said softly. “Can you believe that? It’s like, oh she didn’t hire me maybe I should sue her.” She shook her head.

“Why didn’t you hire him?”

“He had three months of experience. He was cheap and I thought about it, but then you walked into my store. You had so much experience, you were offering to help me get this place together and you came highly recommended—that is I know my brother had something to do with it and you wouldn’t have come in here if you weren’t qualified. I might be stubborn, but I’m not stupid. When help this good comes along for a price I can marginally afford I’m going to take it.”

He nodded. “So when you go before the judge you tell him that. You had a more qualified candidate come along who was willing to take the pay you could afford and you hired him. It had nothing to do with the color of my skin, nor did your not hiring the other guy have anything to do with the color of his skin.”

She nodded and smiled a weak smile. “Yeah, but I’m going to have to close the store and I just really can’t afford more closed days. I closed for Thomas’ wedding. Then my mom got sick not long after that. She had just gotten back to California from the wedding and she ended up in the hospital. She called me because she didn’t want to bother Thomas on his honeymoon, or Eve because she was already somewhere in Ireland, or Gavin because…well, none of us really like to have to call Gavin. Overkill,” she nodded. “I think my mom was probably afraid he would shoot one of the doctors for not taking better care of her,” she shook her head. “He just might have.” She chuckled lightly. “Anyway, she called me and I closed the store to go be with her.”