Staying at Joe's. Kathy Altman
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her spine straight.
“I’m glad you find this amusing.” She marched to the doorway. “And I’m glad you can afford to...to humor your inner Bob the Builder fantasies up here in Mayberry-by-the-lake.” She swiveled back to face him, as graceful as a model at the end of a runway. “By the way, T&P authorized me to offer you a bonus. Ten thousand dollars. Considering you’ve already been here a year and the sidewalk has more cracks than the San Andreas Fault, I’m thinking you could use the money.”
That did it. Fury kicked at his temples and he tried for a calming inhale, but the air had turned dense. Disappointment, he realized. His throat was thick with it.
It always came down to money.
“Tackett would be proud of you, Kincaid.”
“How about you, Gallahan? Anyone proud of you?”
It hadn’t taken her long to zero in on that soft spot. In another life he would have admired her. Praised her. Pointed her out as an example to new-hires. Now he pitied her. Almost as much as he wanted to find out if she still tasted the same.
She must have seen something in his face she didn’t like because her chin went back up in the air. “So you won’t consider coming back.”
“The moment you consider picking up a drywall taping knife.”
She stared at him for a couple of beats. “Afraid you lost your edge? That you can’t do the job?”
He grunted. “Your job security depends on two weeks of kissing up to the guy who screwed you out of a promotion. Literally. Maybe you’d better stick to worrying about yourself.”
“I had to try.” She hesitated. The already rigid line of her shoulders tensed. “You’re looking good, Joe,” she said quietly. Her gaze locked on to his. “I’m glad.” She turned and walked out, her posture suddenly soft.
He reclaimed the paint roller, dipped it and faced the wall. Struggled to find the strength to raise his arms.
She still talked a good fight, but sometime during the past year her confidence level had taken a massive hit. How much of that was his fault? He looked over his shoulder, at the empty doorway.
He needed a whiskey.
Make that a double.
* * *
ALLISON SEETHED AS she guided her Camry around the pits in the motel parking lot, then slowed for a pair of squirrels that tumbled across the pavement toward a scraggly pine.
Damn Joe Gallahan and his miserable excuse for a motel, anyway. She was the injured party here. She was the one with the grievance. Yet there he had stood, acting all smug and superior, like the advertising hotshot he used to be. Though to be fair, despite the unruly, sun-streaked hair and construction worker getup, the hot part still applied. Or maybe it applied because of those things.
Good grief. Could she be any more pathetic?
She pulled out onto the highway, shaking her head over Hazel Catlett swooning over Joe’s bare chest and Audrey Tweedy knitting her brow over his protein consumption.
Joe Gallahan, still a sensation with the ladies. Her giggle turned into a groan and her fingers clamped tighter around the steering wheel. Sudden tears blurred her vision and she blinked, panic overtaking frustration. Time to pull over before she wrecked her car. Or worse.
Two minutes after passing a sign indicating a picnic area ahead, she parked in a small gravel lot and made her way along a path that led through a grove of shaggy pine trees down to the lake. Arms wrapped around her waist, shoulders hunched, she lingered above the beach, squinting across the choppy, platinum waters toward Canada.
He knew what he’d done. That confused look on his face? Had to be an act. He knew.
Mist-laden air swirled around her, flashing rainbows whenever the spray caught the waning sun. She dragged in a deep breath, smelled fresh water, decaying fish and seaweed. Over the hissing rush of the surf she heard a series of echoing thuds—oars, maybe, banging against the rim of a rowboat? Another breath, and gradually her panic began to recede. Despite the occasional drone of a car traveling the road behind her, she felt more alone than she had in a very long while.
Which was ridiculous. She was on edge only because she was used to having half a dozen people demanding half a dozen things from her, all at the same time—usually during her lunch hour. This “being alone” thing...she never did handle that well. She needed to get back to work. Back to her old self.
Though if she went back without Joe her old self would be out pounding the pavement, looking for a job in a bleak economy. Her stomach gave an unpleasant wriggle.
Maybe that’s why seeing Joe upset her so much. At Tackett & Pike, she was doing what she wanted to do. What she’d struggled to learn the skills to do. She reached out to the nearest tree and snagged a pinch of pine needles. Rolled them idly between her thumb and forefinger, releasing a sharp, sweet scent. Yeah, that was why she’d dreaded this visit.
She steered her mind away from Joe Gallahan, sprinkled the needles into the wind and stepped out of her pumps. Cautiously, she ventured out onto the beach, the sun-warmed stones grinding and clattering beneath her. A glint of green caught her eye and she bent over to get a closer look. Her cell rang, and a glance at the incoming number roused a sigh from the deepest, darkest pit of her belly.
She thought of the produce stand she’d passed on her way into town, pictured the heaping quarts of strawberries lined up for sale. She pasted a bottle of rum, a tray of ice and a blender into the picture, bit back a whimper and answered her phone.
“Mr. Tackett.”
He grunted. “See, the way you just said my name right there, that tells me you don’t have good news. And I need good news, Kincaid. The company needs good news.”
The man was doomed to disappointment. Unfortunately, so was she.
“He’s not interested, Mr. Tackett.”
“Make him interested.”
She’d get right on that. As soon as she solved the energy crisis and invented a toilet seat that put itself down.
“Why don’t you arrange for the client to contact Joe directly?” She bent over, left palm braced on her knee, and scoured the beach for another glimpse of that green. “Mr. Mahoney would have more success talking him around, seeing that Joe’s—” a chauvinist pig “—more likely to respond to a man.”
Tackett’s laugh was sly. “You and I know better.”
Her eyes fluttered shut and her chin sank to her chest. What had she been thinking, all those months ago? She’d compromised her professional image by getting involved with a coworker. A coworker with a reputation for being a player.
Tackett’s disapproving hum dragged her back to the here and now. “Did you offer him the bonus?”
“It made things worse.”
“Because you didn’t do it right.”
She held the phone away from her ear and hefted it in her hand. She looked at the lake, and back at her phone. If she threw it just right she could probably get four, maybe five good skips out of it. But it wasn’t worth losing her job over. Losing the promotion sucked enough.
“Mr. Tackett, I know how to negotiate a deal. The thing is, both parties need to be interested.”
“Well, what did he say?”
“That he wouldn’t consider it.”
“Bastard’s holding out for more money.”
She had no trouble recalling Joe’s contempt at the mention of a bonus. “I don’t think so.”
“Then what? The cliché about everyone having a price is only a cliché because it’s true. So figure out Gallahan’s price.”
Trouble