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“She’s not happy I’m going.” Gently, I squeezed her fingers. “We should leave before Grandma Carter raises all kinds of hell.”
Chapter Five
Mulaney
I surveyed the condo.My stuff from the office was piled on the living room floor in the spot where the Christmas tree should’ve been. I hadn’t had time to put one up this year. Too late now.
The fire truck my older brother Mitch had given me when we were kids caught my attention. It had pride of place on the mantel. I took a step toward it, tempted to take it with me. If this New York thing ended up being longer than I anticipated, I’d come get it.
This wasn’t the time to be getting sentimental, so I swiped the set of keys off the kitchen counter and grabbed my things. Last night Easton had dropped me off, because true to his word, he wouldn’t let me drink and drive. We’d swapped keys, though I had no idea how he’d gotten back to Carter Energy to get my SUV.
In the parking garage, I loaded my belongings in the back seat of Easton’s black Ford F-350 Super Duty Platinum. The truck was immaculate inside: no scattered papers, dirt on the floor mats, or coffee spilled in the cup holder. Only his ball cap on the dash and a small Yeti cooler packed with Dr Pepper and bottled water on ice. Damn him for being so considerate.
Gestures like that made it hard for me to reconcile that Easton with the one who’d pulled some inexplicable stunts over the years. We’d lost numerous deals because he hadn’t approved the funding I’d needed quickly enough. While I usually operated on two speeds—bull in a china shop and pissed-off bull in a china shop—I’d never confronted him when things fell through. It felt personal, like he was out to get me in the way it would hurt me most. Yet he never behaved that way to my face. We clashed and sometimes it got ugly, but he never disrespected me . . . except by causing me to lose projects I wanted.
My pride wouldn’t let me give him the satisfaction of knowing what he’d done bothered me, and just when I began to trust him again or think maybe it hadn’t been intentional, it would happen again. Easton had that way about him. He was a master at keeping me off balance.
I climbed into the beast and cranked it up. The diesel engine roared to life. “Just to See You Smile” by Tim McGraw filled the cab. A glance at the touchscreen showed me this was a custom playlist. I imagined this being the last song Easton had listened to, but I quickly shoved away any thoughts of him driving this truck. Something about him behind the wheel turned me on, and I had too much to do today for that distraction. As it was, I’d be lucky to make it to Burdett by supper.
I droveabout twenty minutes west on I-10 from downtown Houston, following the GPS directions to a modest neighborhood off Barker-Cypress Road with small brick houses, a few of them decorated for the holidays. The one I pulled up to had an evergreen wreath on the door, Santa’s smiling face in the center. I parked on the street and sat in the truck for a minute, keeping my hands on the wheel and letting my chin drop to my chest. It was seven thirty in the morning on Christmas Eve, and I was somewhere I didn’t want to be.
Reluctantly, I got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk to the front door, ringing the bell. Guilt swamped me when I heard the patter of little feet running inside. The door was flung open, and innocent blue eyes looked up at me.
“Miss Jacobs.”
“Hey there, Firecracker,” I said, ruffling the silky locks of the honey-headed little boy beaming at me. “You ready for Santa?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I was proud to see the manners of a five-year-old gentleman in the making.
“Miss Jacobs? What are you doing here?” Holly, my assistant, hurried up behind her son breathlessly, still in her flannel pajamas. “Gabriel, what have I told you about answering the door without me?” she scolded, worry morphing into relief it was only me on the stoop instead of a stranger.
His expression was contrite. “Not to do it. Sorry, Mama.”
She brushed the hair out of his face. “We have to be careful, baby. That’s all.” Holly turned her attention to me. “Come on in. It’s freezing out there.”
The two of them moved out of the doorway to let me inside. “I’m sorry to drop in so early, especially on Christmas Eve.”
“It’s all right. Want some coffee?” Holly led me to the sofa in the living room. There was a small tree in the corner, with only a few presents under it.
“No, thanks.” I took a seat. She sat on the opposite end of the couch, Gabriel inserting himself between us.Shit. I can’t do this in front of him.
“Baby, why don’t you give me and Miss Jacobs a few minutes?” Either Holly had that intuition thing all mothers did, or my body language was more telling than I thought.
“I want to show her the birdhouse I made,” he protested.
“And I want to see it.” I smiled, and he raced from the room.
Her pretty face darkened, as she wrung her hands together in her lap. “What’s going on?”
For a moment I considered beating around the bush, but that wasn’t my style, and I’d already made her nervous by showing up here unannounced. Holly had been with me for many years. She deserved to hear this in person.
“A deal was finalized yesterday to sell Carter Energy to Starlight Petroleum Energy.”
“What? There were rumblings something was happening but not this.” She straightened and twined her fingers together on her lap.
“The company will be headquartered in New York.”
The moment what I’d said was understood, she deflated. “CE won’t need me anymore,” she whispered.
