Blue Mist of Morning (10 page)

In less than two minutes, she was connected with Francois
Boulet in Paris, and after switching the call to Ty's office, she
replaced the receiver in its cradle. Her hand was trembling slightly,
and she berated herself for feeling so apprehensive. Ty, after all, was
no ogre. In the weeks she had worked directly with him, he had proven
himself to be a fair man where his employees were concerned. She had no
reason to fear he would be unfair to her. Or did she?

With that unanswerable question buzzing around in her
head, she wandered about her office for the next twenty minutes, trying
to occupy her mind by doing mundane tasks. The effort was useless. Her
eyes were drawn innumerable times to her phone, but the button for Ty's
line was still alight, and she began to wish his call to Paris would
end so the two of them could just go ahead and get the confrontation
over and done with.

At last she forced herself to go back to her desk. It was
when she was making a list of Ty's afternoon appointments that Jenny
Manning strolled into the office.

"I have to see my brother," she announced loftily,
strolling toward the double doors as if she meant to walk right in.

"Would you mind waiting out here, Miss Manning?" Anne
suggested politely. "Mr. Manning's on the phone to Paris, but he should
be finished soon. If you'll just wait…"

"Oh, all right," Jenny acquiesced, though not very
graciously. Walking across the room, she stood staring out the tinted
window.

Once again, Anne was aware of the girl's unhappiness,
though Jenny tried to disguise it beneath that hard veneer of
rebellious hostility. Try as she might to appear cold and unfeeling by
making caustic remarks, she couldn't completely hide the pain and
confusion that darkened her eyes and etched shallow lines of
dissatisfaction in her young face. Anne pitied her and, ignoring her
deliberate unfriendliness, decided to try to strike up a conversation.

"Mr. Manning told me you're in college in Washington," she
began. "So is my sister, although she doesn't go to the same university
you do. She lives on campus, but you commute from here everyday, don't
you?"

The girl's only answer was a short affirmative noise from
her throat, but Anne wasn't one to let surliness deter her.
"Sue—that's my sister—is really happy in college.
How about you? Do you enjoy going?"

"Not especially," Jenny mumbled, then spun around on one
heel to glower at Anne. "Look, I don't have a lot of time to chitchat.
Is Ty still on the phone, or can I go in to see him now? He's got to
give me some extra spending money."

The deliberate rebuff didn't bother Anne unduly. She
glanced down at her phone just as the light beneath the panel button
went out, indicating that Ty's line was now open. She smiled up at
Jenny. "He's just finished his call. Let me buzz him and tell him
you're here."

"Never mind," Jenny said, with an imperious toss of her
head. "I'll just go in. I don't think I have to be announced to my own
brother."

As Jenny walked into Ty's office without first knocking,
Anne shook her head regretfully. She was a lovely girl and it was such
a shame she was too unhappy to allow her personality to match her
physical attractiveness. Sullen teenagers had few friends, so Jenny was
hurting herself more than anyone else by behaving so antagonistically.
Wishing there was some way to help the girl, Anne went back to her list
of Ty's appointments. It was only a few seconds later that the
shouting started.

Jenny's voice, stridently angry, carried through the
double doors. Though her words were incomprehensible, Anne shifted
restlessly in her chair, feeling almost as if she were eavesdropping on
a family spat that was none of her. business. It was as though Jenny
was having a shouting match with herself. Anne never heard Ty's voice
at all, though she assumed he was speaking during the frequent lulls in
Jenny's tirade. But, of course, Ty never raised his voice, even in
moments of extreme provocation. Anne didn't really expect him to start
yelling now.

He didn't disappoint her. When the battle in his office
ended a short time later, and Jenny slammed open the doors on her way
out, he still hadn't once raised his voice. At her desk Anne watched
Jenny march swiftly across the room, her face an angry red. Then she
jerked open the outer office door and banged it shut behind her.

As the girl's loud footsteps receded along the corridor,
Ty buzzed Anne, startling her. Now it was her turn to face him, and she
was quite sure Jenny's visit hadn't left him in a very good mood.
Taking a deep, calming breath, she unnecessarily smoothed the skirt of
her green jersey dress and walked through the open doorway into Ty's
office.

Ty was standing by the window, looking out over the city,
his hands in his pockets. He didn't turn around. "Well, you were right,
Anne," he said abruptly. "I should have talked to Jenny about Kirt
Callen. He didn't just forget about her, as I thought he would. He's
been calling her, and I just discovered that she's very flattered by
all his attention."

Anne grimaced. "She certainly doesn't need a man like him
in her life right now. But I'm sure you just told her that, didn't you,
and that's why she left here in such a huff?"

Nodding, Ty moved away from the window. Shedding his
jacket, he tossed it onto a chair. "That was one reason she was upset,
yes. She didn't appreciate my assessment of Kirt. She thinks he's, in
her words, 'a super guy'."

"If only she knew what a skirt chaser he is."

"But she doesn't know," Ty said grimly, loosening his tie.
"In fact, she thinks he's so super she had lunch with him yesterday. Of
course, she didn't tell me that. Mike Bennett saw her with Kirt and
mentioned it to me this morning."

"Oh dear, I really hate to hear she's actually gone out
with him," Anne murmured, genuinely concerned. "I guess it would be
useless for you to forbid her to see him again?"

"Undoubtedly, but I have to admit I lost my temper and
told her not to go out with him again anyway." Ty replied, a
threatening glint appearing in his eyes. "Now I suppose my next step is
to tell Kirt to leave her alone."

"I'm not sure he can leave any young girl alone. Maybe
your best bet would be to get Jenny out of Alexandria and away from him
altogether. Couldn't you take her on a small vacation, someplace where
she can relax and have fun, get to know you a little better?"

Ty shook his head. "Unfortunately I'm too busy just now. I
am going on a business trip to St. Croix, though, in a few weeks. The
client, Bob Peterson, is an old friend of the family. Maybe Jenny could
come along."

"That might help a lot. She needs to spend time with you.
Doesn't she have anyone else she can talk to?"

"Not that I know of. Even before Mother went to Europe,
she and Jenny weren't communicating at all. And I'm not sure that Jenny
wants
to spend time with me. She seems to have
this particular resentment toward me."

"Probably because you took over here at Manning
Consultants after your father died. She could resent you because she
thinks you're trying to take his place," Anne conjectured gently. "And
you do resemble him. That might upset her."

"That's a very real possibility, but I think she'll
eventually get over feeling that way. She just needs time. So my
immediate concern is keeping her away from Kirt, and I'm not sure how
to accomplish that. Lecturing her won't help, and I can't watch her
every minute. There are too many evenings when I have business
meetings, and sometimes I have to be away overnight. That means she'll
have opportunities to see Kirt, if she really wants to. I wish I could
believe she'd recognize him for what he is, but as you said, she's very
vulnerable right now."

As Ty wearily rubbed his hand over the back of his neck,
Anne felt an unreasonable need to comfort him. Impulsively, she went to
him and actually reached out as if to touch his arm before she realized
she shouldn't and let her hand drop. "I know how upsetting this must be
to you," she said softly. "I really wish I could do something to help."

Almost instantaneously, Ty's expression altered. Something
akin to triumph gleamed in his eyes, and a half smile tugged at the
corners of his firm, sensuously carved lips as he removed his hands
from his pockets and folded his arms across his chest. "Of course," he
murmured cryptically. "The answer's obvious."

"Answer?" Anne questioned bewilderedly. "I don't
understand what you mean."

"It's very simple, Anne. You'll quit your job at the
restaurant and move into my house, where you can keep an eye on Jenny
in the evenings when I'm gone. And as you said, she needs a friend. I think you could get
close to her."

Anne could hardly believe she had heard him correctly. For
several seconds she stared blankly at him, then shook her head slowly,
as if reassembling her thoughts. "I… couldn't just move into
your house, Mr. Manning. I…"

"Of course, I'd pay you more than you're making at the
restaurant."

"But my apartment—I couldn't just give it up."

"I wouldn't expect you to," he replied flatly. "You'll
keep your apartment, but you just won't live there until Jenny's lost
interest in Kirt Callen. After she comes to her senses about him, you
can go back."

Anne gestured helplessly, searching her brain for some
convincing way to decline his offer without telling him the truth: that
she would feel extremely uneasy living in the same house with him,
considering the strong physical attraction that sometimes flared
between them. Unwilling to embarrass herself by admitting that, she
tried frantically to think of another plausible excuse and finally came
up with one that was very sensible. "It wouldn't work, Mr. Manning.
Jenny would know I was there to keep an eye on her, and she would
resent me too much to ever want to be close to me."

"I trust your ability to get through to her," Ty
countered, undaunted even by that argument. "You're young enough to
relate to her, and since your father died when you were seventeen, too,
you can understand some of what she's feeling right now. Can't you?"

"Well, yes, but…"

"Besides, I'll pay you enough to enable you to send more
money to Sue," he said softly, his lean brown hands coming out to curve
around her upper arms. "It would be a good arrangement for everybody,
Anne, especially you. You can't go on working here all day and at the
restaurant half the night. That's no kind of life."

Gazing up at him, Anne hesitated, necessity making her
consider the fact that he was offering her a chance to send more money
to Sue. Yet, with the added income of her second job, she was earning
enough to keep her sister in college. She wasn't desperately in need of
the extra money Ty was offering. And since the mere touch of his hands
on her arms sent a shiver of sensual awareness along her spine, she
knew it would be the height of folly to even contemplate living in the
same house with him. Deciding it would be wiser to be safe than sorry,
she finally shook her head. "I'd like to help Jenny, but I know she'd
resent me. I don't think moving into your house would be a good idea.
I'm sorry, but I can't do it."

"Anne, you're forgetting a very important detail," he
said, his voice lowering. "You can't go on working here and at the
restaurant, too."

"But it's not so bad, really," she protested, stretching
the truth a bit. "I don't mind working in the evenings."

His narrowed gaze captured and held hers. "Maybe I didn't
make myself clear," he said, his tone taking on that hard, ominous
edge. "When I say you can't continue to work both here and at the
restaurant, I mean I won't allow it. I don't tolerate moonlighting,
Anne, except when dire circumstances warrant it. Your circumstances
aren't dire. I offered you a raise, but you refused it. Now I'm
offering to pay you to help me with Jenny, but you've refused that too.
One way or the other, you'll have to quit your job as a waitress.
You're my secretary, Anne, and I have to be able to depend on you. I
can't if you're always tired. To put it bluntly, either you quit the
job at the restaurant or I'll have to fire you."

"You don't mean that!" Anne gasped softly, her cheeks
turning pale. "You wouldn't… couldn't be that unfair! How
could you justify firing me when you have no reason to complain about
my work? I do everything I'm supposed to do and I do it very well!"

"Do you, Anne?" he asked lazily, his fingers tightening
their grip on her arms, his expression enigmatic. "Then tell me about
those very important contracts you sent air express to Denver on
Tuesday."

"
Oh no
," she breathed, chagrin
putting some color back into her cheeks. "I forgot to send them!"

"Yes, you did. And you didn't even realize you hadn't sent
them until I reminded you just now. That's not like you, Anne."

She hardly heard him. "I don't even know where the
contracts are, unless I filed them by mistake. But I'll find them right
now, I promise you, and send them out immediately."

As she tried to pull away, Ty held her fast. "Never mind.
They've been sent. After you left Tuesday evening, I found them on your
desk and had Betsy send them air express."

"Why didn't you tell me that Wednesday morning?" Anne
asked weakly. "You never said a word about it."

"There was no reason to. Everybody makes mistakes, and
even though you make fewer than any secretary I've ever had, I didn't
think much about your forgetting the contracts, until last night."
Pausing, he surveyed her delicate features with solemn intensity. "But
when I saw you slaving in that restaurant, I knew why you'd forgotten
them. If you're exhausted, you can't expect to be efficient here."

Anne was mortified. Focusing her gaze on the pulse that
beat with fascinating regularity in his throat, she breathed a soft
sigh. Never once in five years had anyone chastised her for not doing
her work well, and it was a humiliating experience to have to admit to
herself that Ty had just cause to chastise her now. She swallowed with
difficulty. "I'm sorry about the contracts. Nothing like that will
happen again. But…" The edge of her small white teeth
pressed down on her lower lip. "But it was only one mistake. And I have
to keep that job as a waitress so I can send Sue money. Couldn't you
please reconsider?"