SNOWFIRES (12 page)

Maybe he cared a little about her. “Thanks.
I’ve known some of those people since I was a child. I guess it
would seem odd to everyone and to me when I faced them.”

He flopped onto a kitchen chair and rested
his elbows on the table. He sank his forehead onto his hands.

“
Cheer up, Trent. The storm’s over and
the sun’s out. Soon we’ll be able to leave and you can reschedule
your meeting. You look as if the world’s about to end.”

He didn’t move. “It is, at least for me. You
don’t realize how important this contract is for the company.
Without it, Marvel won’t last more than another year.”

“
Why do you say that? Dad always said
we shouldn’t diversify, that we should stick to the jobs we’ve
always done. Fiberoptics is all people talk about, but we make the
best wire and cable available.” She sat across from him.

He raised his head. “For how long? You’re
great dealing with people, Holly, but do you read the sales
reports?”

Caught. “They don’t come to me routinely,
since that’s not a part of my job, but in the past I’d sometimes go
by and read them in Dad’s office.” She shook her head. “Since
Veronica left and we haven’t replaced her, I have such a heavy
workload with three hundred employees at work and my family at
home. Lately I’d just let Dad summarize it for me.”

When she heard herself she was embarrassed.
How careless she’d been. If her father had been mismanaging, she
played right into his hands by letting him interpret the company
statistics for her.

Trent clenched his jaw and inhaled. “Why
didn’t you replace this Veronica?”

“
Dad said we should hold off for now.
It was just until spring when the daughter of a friend would be
graduating and he wanted her to work for us.” Her father had
manipulated her again. She closed her eyes. “You must think I’m the
stupidest woman alive.”

“
No, but you have a real blind spot
where your father was concerned. Princess, sales have been going
down for two years. Probably more. Most of the Marvel customers
have switched to fiberoptics. You still have some heavy industry
cables, electrical wiring for builders, and other markets. The big
sales are gone, though.”

She took a deep breath. “I see. Dad was
wrong.”

“
Damn straight. He was taking the
company down the toilet.”

She cringed at his harsh terms. “So, you’re
going to save the company with Amberfield Industries and their fat
contract?”

“
Was.” He closed his eyes and massaged
his forehead then lowered his hands. When he met her gaze, no
sparkle lit his eyes. “Now I may have lost everything, all because
of this damn stupid, stinking, blizzard.”

“
But, you can salvage the deal. You’re
a good businessman.” She hoped.

“
If not, everything’s lost.”

“
There must be something you can do,
Trent. You’re a good enough manager to accrue enough to buy Dad’s
shares.”

“
Holly, I don’t live in Highland Park.
I live in a crummy one-bedroom furnished apartment. I have no more
money to invest. Hell, I can’t even afford a decent car. Why do you
think I didn’t drive to your grandfather’s place?”

Shock riveted her to her chair. “Do you mean
that you gambled every cent you have on the outcome of this
meeting?”

Anger sparked his eyes and he thrust his jaw
forward. “Yeah, just like your precious Dad, I gambled.”

“
How could you risk your life’s savings
on securing this one contract. There have to be others out there
just as lucrative.”

“
Of course there are, and I’ve set up
talks with a couple, but I may not have time to romance them. If we
don’t get a firm contract by May 1st, we won’t have enough work to
keep production staff busy. If we don’t have one by July 1st, we
won’t be able to make our payroll.”

“
No! Our employees, their families.”
Nausea hit her at the thought of the people she cared about without
a job. “Some have never worked anywhere else, some are too old to
be marketable at starting over.”

“
Yeah, and your family, too, Princess.
Remember, you count on your salary to help your family as well as
the profit from your shares.

“
Trent, you should have let someone
with more capital buy the shares, someone who could pump money in
if it were needed.”

“
That kind of investor would have fired
most of the people and brought in cheaper help. Maybe even moved
everything to Mexico or Asia. Is that what you want?”

“
You know it isn’t.” She heard her
voice rise, but couldn’t control herself. “But you should never
have gambled every cent you had if it wasn’t enough to carry
through on the deal. You’ve risked your welfare, which is your
right, but you’ve also risked the lives of a lot of other people.
You had no right to do that.”

“
I had as much right as your father did
to drain every last cent of reserves from the company. That’s why
there’s a problem, and I’m the one who has to fix it.”

She shook. “You’re just like Dad. You think
you’re not, but you are. You’d risk everything for the rush of a
win. But not every roll of the dice is a win, Trent. You’ve done a
terrible thing.”

The whir of the refrigerator and the overhead
light signaled a return of electricity.

Trent didn’t appear to notice. “Life is a
gamble, Holly. You could fall in the shower, but you don’t skip
taking them. A drunk driver might crash into you, but you don’t
stay out of your car. Everything carries risk.”

She shook her head. “You could end up
penniless. You could lose everything.”

“
But here’s the difference. I don’t
have a wife and three kids. Marvel Wire and Cable wasn’t founded by
my father and father-in-law. I started with nothing and could start
over the same way.” He came around to her his hand
outstretched.

She saw her father, once again heard his
excuses and promises. She rose and stepped back. “Don’t, Trent.
You’re a gambler. I can see it’s in your blood. I lived with one
gambler, I won’t go through that again.”

He dropped his hand but stood watching her,
as if looking for any sign of weakening. At last he turned. “Aw
hell, I’m going to the barn and check on the animals. Come on,
Blue.”

She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t come in
for lunch, but she worried when he stayed away at supper. But not
enough to go get him. If he wanted to stay out there and sulk, then
let him. She left a plate of food warming in the oven.

He still hadn’t come in at ten when she
watched the news. Maybe he’d been injured. No, she heard him call
to Blue. She went to bed but left the light on for him. A few
minutes later he came in and she heard him talk to Blue and the
scrape of the kitchen chair as Trent sat down. Maybe he’d eaten his
dinner.

She heard him bump into the coffee table and
curse before he the sound of his boots scraped on the floor furnace
grate. He stood there until she smelled the warmed leather of his
boot soles heating as he stood on the furnace.

A few minutes later he slipped in and
undressed then slid into bed. She pretended sleep, but he spooned
himself to her and pulled her against him. “Holly, I’m not like
your dad. Please try to see that.”

“
Why take such a gamble, Trent? Why
risk everything. That’s exactly like my father.”

“
It’s my one chance. Can’t you see
that? Haven’t you ever wanted anything so much you’d do anything to
get it?”

She thought of how much she had wanted her
mother to get well, how she prayed and hoped, but her mom had still
died. She thought of how much she had wanted her father’s love and
approval, how sometimes she thought she’d almost captured it and
then he’d withdraw. She thought of how much she wanted her
grandfather to recognize that she was an intelligent woman with
valuable skills and abilities, and instead he treated her career as
something to do until she married and repeatedly called her “little
Holly.” She thought of how much she wanted the intimacy and
perfection of last night to last forever, but it had already
disappeared.

“
Yes, I have.”

He pulled her around to face him and slid her
legs over his. His hand caressed her face. “All my life I wanted to
belong, to be a part of something big, to fit in somewhere. This
was—is—my chance. If I can make this work, I’ll have achieved my
dream.”

“
But you had your boat or ship,
whichever it was. Surely you belonged there?”

“
Sort of. But it wasn’t what I wanted
so much as where I drifted.”

She moved to her back and slid her legs away
from his. “Then what do you want?”

“
I want to choose my life. I want
roots, to stay in one place for the rest of my life. Princess, I
want a home and a family, to be a part of the community. Years from
now, I want my children’s children to be active in the same
community. I want what your father had and threw away.”

Me, she thought. My father threw me away and
now you’ve done the same. “Please, I can’t stand anymore of this. I
just want to sleep so it’ll be tomorrow and I can go home.”

“
Exactly. You have a home you can go
to. That’s what I want, what I intend to have.”

But not with me, she thought. Someday it
might be his house on the auction block, his kid’s education fund
that disappeared. No, thank you very much. Been there, done that,
didn’t even get a tee shirt.

No matter that she thought herself halfway in
love with him. He could call it what he wanted, but he’d risked
everything with nothing in reserve. She’d never live with another
gambler.

***

“
Thanks.” Trent leaned in the open car
door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“
Sure, tomorrow.”

He closed the door and trotted to his
ramshackle apartment. Holly drove away, forcing herself not to look
in the rear view mirror.

So, that was that. Her first—and only—affair
was officially over. She wondered if he’d act differently at work
tomorrow, if he’d call her at home or invite her alone to his
office. Whatever happened, she’d survive. Other women went through
this sort of thing and lived over it.

The drive back had been torturous. Not just
the roads, but the stilted silence that shrouded the car’s
interior. Trent drove, and the treacherous conditions of the first
part of the trip required his concentration. They’d stopped for gas
in Childress and for food in Wichita Falls. A few miles later all
signs of snow ended. Dallas had been dry and clear while she and
Trent had been freezing in a blizzard.

Holly pulled into her garage and killed the
engine. She sat in a trance, mulling over the past few days until a
knock on the car window startled her.

Marnie peered at her. “Holly, open up.”

With a sigh, Holly did and climbed out. “What
are you doing out here?”

“
I’ve been watching for you.” Marnie
looked around covertly. “I erased your phone message before anyone
else heard it.”

Holly shrugged. “As long as someone knew
where I was, it didn’t matter who heard the message.”

“
You see, that’s why I’ve been watching
for you. Your grandfather had also left a message telling us that
you were staying with him and Mrs. Ila Mae until you could safely
drive. So, I erased your message and left his.”

“
But...oh, I see.” Leave it to Grandpa
to protect her reputation. “Thank you, Marnie, that’s probably
best. I wonder if Trent, um, Mr. Macleod knows?” Holly opened the
trunk and hauled out her luggage.

“
Yes, the message said he’d leave one
for Mr. Macleod also.”

“
How was your time with your
daughter?”

Marnie picked up the makeup bag. “Wonderful.”
She paused mid-stride. “What are you wearing on your feet?”

“
My new suede boots weren’t compatible
with snow and a barnyard. I’d better get inside and hide these
before anyone sees them.”

Marnie humphed. “And you’d better let me
brush the hay and feathers off that coat right away.”

Holly hurried to her room and kicked off her
boots as she slid out of her coat. She buried the boots in a box at
the back of her closet and folded her coat inside out over a chair.
Just in time.

Angie burst into the room like a dervish.
“Hey, Holly, you’re home. How are you after being snowed in at the
center of nowhere?”

“
I’m tired, that’s all. How did your
weekend with Geneva’s mom go?”

Angie rolled her eyes. “Boring. But I guess
yours was too, stuck with Joe Bob and Ila Mae and their endless gin
rummy and nothing but wide open spaces. How can people live like
that?” She looked at Holly’s feet. “Ohmygod. Why are you wearing
those horrid socks? They look like something you picked up at a
thrift store.”

Holly wondered what her half-sister knew
about thrift stores. “My feet were cold.”

“
How could you wear your boots over
them? Hey, where are your new boots?”

“
The snow didn’t agree with them. I’m
sorry, but they sort of disintegrated.”

Angie plopped on Holly’s bed. “I’ll bet you
were plenty pissed at being caught in a storm out there.”

“
Yeah, it was kind of surreal.” It
seemed a dream now, but in retrospect the experience took on the
rosy glow which pulled to the foreground the closeness that united
her with Trent.

Angie watched as she unpacked, catching her
up on all the latest gossip. Holly left her trash bag of dirty
clothes inside her suitcase and closed the lid. No way to explain
that smell if she opened the bag. She’d have to remember later.