Cover to Covers (12 page)

“You make me sound like a control freak.”

“You are,” she maintained.

He gave her a disparaging glance. “Maybe I need to change things up a bit.” He
focused on the folders on his desk. “Call Love Field and tell them to get the jet ready to fly tonight.”

“To where?” Lynn
probed.  

He never looked up
at her. “New Orleans.”

She put her hands on his desk and stared him down. “All right. What’s up with you?”

“Up? Nothing is up.”

“You’re not the impulsive type, Mr. Moore. If you don’t mind my asking, is there a woman involved?”

He scowled at her. “Okay, I do mind your asking.” 

She shrugged, then
cut across the fine, beige European rug to his office doors. “Do you want me to call the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans to get you a suite?” she queried over her shoulder.

“No, I have somewhere else I can stay.”

She stopped at the office doors and spun around. “Somewhere else? But you always stay at the Ritz-Carlton.”

“Don’t worry about it, Lynn. I’ll be fine. Just arrange for a car to pick me up at the airport and take me into the city.”

“Are you sure about this, Mr. Moore? You’re not really into roughing it on the road.”

Tyler raised his eyes to her. “First, I’m a control freak, and now you’re implying that I’m spoiled?”

Lynn snickered, sounding thoroughly amused. “You are spoiled.” She turned for the doors. “You like order, and for everything to run smoothly. I’m not sure how you’re going to adapt to just being spontaneous.”

“I might surprise you, Lynn.”

“I look forward to it, Mr. Moore. I’ve never met anyone who could use a swift change of pace more than you.” She quietly shut the doors to his office.

Alone at his desk, Tyler
speculated about how Monique would react when he showed up on her doorstep. “She’ll probably hate it.” He slowly grinned. “But I’m sure I can find a way to win her over, eventually.”

Chapter
9

The sticky, hot air clung to Tyler’s exposed skin as he walked through the open door of his Embraer Phenom 100 business jet at Lakefront Airport in New Orleans. He wiped the humidity from his bare arms, ran his hands over his blue jeans, and then adjusted his overnight bag on his shoulder before he climbed down the steps to the tarmac.

“You sure you don’t want us to wait around in New Orleans for you, Mr. Moore?” a handsome young man with thick, curly brown hair
spoke out from the top of the ladder.

Tyler
waved his hand down his pilot’s casual polo shirt and khaki pants. “I know you would love a few days in the city with me on the company tab, but not this time, Marty. You can head back to Dallas tonight. I’ll make arrangements to fly commercial when I’m ready to return.”

“You never said how long you were staying?” Marty carri
ed Tyler’s black suitcase down the steps.

Tyler pulled at the strap of his overnight bag. “Not sure how long I’ll be here. It depends on a few things.”

A dismayed grin broached Marty’s rugged features. “You, not sure? Wow, that’s a first.”

Tyler frowned
up at his very tall pilot. “Am I that much of a stickler? First, my secretary and now you; does everyone think I am controlling?”

Marty shrugged his wide shoulders. “Not controlling, you just always seem to be on a tight schedule. I never see you relax.” He handed the black suitcase to Tyler. “I hope you try and enjoy yourself, Mr. Moore. It’s a great town.”

“You’ve spent time in New Orleans?”

Marty nodded. “When I flew for Southwest Airlines, we had quite a few layovers here. It’s where I met my wife.”

Tyler pulled out the metal handle on his suitcase. “Never understood why you didn’t want to stay with Southwest, Marty. It’s a good company, and I’m sure you were making more than you do with Propel.”

“Yeah, but I was never home. With your company, I get to spend more time with my wife and little girl. There are some things more important than money, Mr. Moore.”

“So I’ve been told.” Tyler became distracted by a black Town Car pulling up to the side of the hangar a short distance from the plane. “I’ll see you back in Dallas, Marty.”

“Have a good time, Mr. Moore.” Marty turned to the sleek white jet beside him and walked under the belly of the plane.

Tyler strolled to his waiting car parked next to the white hangar with “New Orleans Aviation” printed in red on the side.

“Mr. Moore?” A gangly young man wearing a black s
uit jumped to Tyler’s side and took the suitcase from his hand. “I was sent to bring you into the city. I’m Clark, sir.” He raced to the rear of the car and popped the trunk.

“Good to meet you, Clark.” Tyler went around to the open
rear passenger side door and pushed his overnight bag along the black leather seat.

“Where are you
staying, Mr. Moore?” Clark asked, slamming the trunk closed.

Tyler removed the
slip of paper Missy had given him from the pocket of his blue jeans. “2918 Prytania Street,” he read from the paper.

Clark scratched his thick, bushy head of blond hair. “2918 Prytania? I don’t recall a bed and breakfast bein’ there, Mr. Moore. You sure you got the address right?”

“I’m staying at a friend’s house,” Tyler explained as he slid into the backseat.

“
Sounds good to me,” the young man drawled and then shut the passenger side door.

While
Clark got comfortable behind the wheel, his small green eyes glimpsed Tyler through the rearview mirror. “I guess you plan on seein’ some of the city while you’re here, eh, Mr. Moore?”

Tyler nodded as
his driver put the car into gear. “I hope to.”

“You’ll be stayin’ at a real central location. You got Lafayette Cemetery right down the street from you, along with Commander’s Palace, and then there’s all them nice old houses in the Garden District you could visit. When you want to go to the Quarter, you could hop on a streetcar
goin’ down St. Charles Avenue. Great way to see N’awlins.”

“You sound like a real proponent for city tourism, Clark.”

“Just trying to get you psyched up ‘bout stayin’ here, sir. And, yeah, I’m always pluggin’ my hometown.”

“Tell me, Clark, are all New Orleanians like you? Everyone I’ve met from here loves it.”

“Hell yeah! N’awlins is like no other place on earth, Mr. Moore. I should know. I did two tours in Iraq before I came back.”

“You were in Iraq?” Tyler
angled forward in his seat. “Well, I am impressed, Clark. Thank you for your service.”

Clark
drove the car up to a security gate located at the edge of the airfield. “Hey, the Army did me a favor.” He waved to the guard in the security booth as he drove by. “I was a real screwed up kid in high school. Bad grades, bad attitude, bad reputation…you name it. After I barely graduated, I got into some trouble with the law and an uncle suggested the military. So, I joined up. Best thing I ever did. They got me in shape, cleaned me up, and gave me direction. I would have stayed in but my Humvee got hit with a roadside bomb in Tikrit. Lost the hearin’ in my right ear, but I was lucky. A lot of guys I knew never came back.”

“How did you end up doing this?” Tyler
asked, intrigued by the exuberant young man.

“My uncle
—the one who talked me into the military—he owns a car service and gave me a job as soon as I got home. It’s good, you know? In a few years, he’s gonna let me take over some of the management stuff for him, and who knows, in a while I could be runnin’ the whole thing.” The car careened off the airport road and merged into the street traffic. “One thing Iraq taught me was that life’s good, no matter where it takes you. If you’re breathin’, then everthin’s gonna be just fine.”

“That’s a great philosophy, Clark
,” Tyler pronounced.

“Not a philosophy, Mr. Moore. Just the truth; nothin’ is as bad as it seems.”

Tyler sat back in his seat as the streetlights zoomed by. He took in the dark shadows covering the shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain to his right as a sliver of the new moon reflected on the still, black water. His thoughts eventually turned to Monique and a flurry of anticipation stirred in his belly. As he tried to plan exactly what he was going to say when he stood on her doorstep, the cell phone in his overnight bag began ringing.

“Yes, Lynn,” he said into the phone after recognizing his office number. 

“You got in all right?”

Tyler chuckled at his secretary’s propensity to always check to see if he
had arrived in one piece. “Fine. Why do you always call and ask me that whenever I travel?”

“Just making sure you’re still alive, so I know I have a job in the morning.”

“That’s very comforting, Lynn, thank you.”

“Curtis Norman called from the gas line project in Oklahoma
,” she related, getting straight to business. “He says they have run into a problem with the zoning commission controlled by the state legislature there. They want to rescind the permits on construction.”

Tyler r
an his hand over his forehead, remembering that this was the reason he could never take vacations. “Did you call Mitch Douglass with this? The Oklahoma project is his baby.”

“
I did. He told me you would know some people in the legislature up there that might be able to smooth things over for us.”

Tyler’s gut tightened. “I don’t know anyone, but….” He let a long sigh escape his lips. “There is someone I can call.”

“I’ll let Mr. Douglass know you’re on it.”

Tyler had another thought before he hung up. “Lynn, do me a favor.”

“Yes, Mr. Moore?”

“Any other emergencies, funnel them to Mitch. He’s the COO and should be handling things while I’m out of to
wn.”

Lynn took a moment.
“So I am to tell everyone I can’t get in touch with you from now on, is that it?”

T
yler relaxed against his seat, grateful for his secretary’s ability to read between the lines. “You got it, Lynn. I’ll check in with you in the morning after I get settled.”

“I’m impressed. She must be something really special
.”

Tyler
knitted his brow. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been juggling your messages, ordering flowers, and shopping for your wives and girlfriends for over ten years, Mr. Moore. But I’ve never known you to chase anyone.”

He pictured her sitting at her desk with a whimsical smirk on her pretty face. “Lynn, I’m simply taking a break and getting away from the office for a while.”

“If you say so.”
A reserved snicker came over the speaker. “Happy hunting, Mr. Moore.” Lynn rang off.

S
crolling through his contact numbers, he found the one he was looking for. With a great deal of reservation, he hit the number and waited as the line rang on the other end.

“Hello, darling,” a woman’s velvety voice
purred from the speaker.

Tyler
slumped into his soft leather seat. “Hello, Mother, how are you?”

“Fine, just fine. Gary and I just got back from dinner at the club. Helen was there with the grandkids. They are getting so big. You should come down to Austin soon and see everyone.”

“I can’t right now, Mother.”

“Are you still at work?” Her always carefully measured voice only rose slightly higher with feigned concern. “It’s after eight, Tyler, you should go home. You can’t keep pulling these late nights at the office.”

“I’m not at the office, I’m in New Orleans.”

Tyler counted off the seconds until her
constantly composed voice returned on the line. “New Orleans? Are you at a conference?”

“No, I’m here to see an old friend. You remember Monique Delome.” He grinned, knowing that should upend his mother’s
continuously controlled demeanor.

“Ah, when did this happen?”

The lights of the city’s skyscrapers were growing brighter in the distance as the Town Car motored along I-10. “We ran into each other over the weekend when I was staying at the Ritz-Carlton for business. Monique was there for a convention.”

“Yes, she’s become a very good author.”

“I’m surprised you knew about that.”

“I’ve read two of her books. All my friends at the club have read her books. That’s how I found out she was a writer.” She paused and he could almost see her perfectly smooth white brow straining against the Botox holding it into place. “Is it serious?” she
pressed, trying to sound indifferent.

“It’s beginning, that’s all.”

“It will be serious between you two, soon enough, just like it was before.” Her voice became uncharacteristically tense, making Tyler’s grin grow even wider. “You were absolutely besotted with that New Orleans girl,” she added. 

“Her name’s Monique, Mother.”