Dancing in the Dark (18 page)

Such destruction would never happen again, though, she silently vowed. Never.

The strikers remained.

Jake stayed out of the way, but all day he watched the people straighten the offices and their desks. The temps, when they arrived, were a big help in clearing out the vandalized equipment, and by the time the
day was over, Jake felt there was a ray of hope for Wayans’s survival.

Charity’s desk had looked like it had survived a cyclone, but Jake doubted it was all the vandal’s work. Somehow, the debris had a “Dave couldn’t find it even when it was in front of his nose” look to it. He just hoped the bid materials were still safely stored in her computer. Lord knows what Dave might have done to them if he managed to access them. Accidentally offer them to their biggest competitor, probably. With the women gone, Dave’s incompetence had become embarrassingly apparent, to the point that Jake realized Charity ran Dave’s department. Dave clearly didn’t know how. Hell, the man couldn’t find a file if his life depended on it. And Dave knew Jake knew it. The man’s days were numbered at Wayans.

As everyone left that evening, he thanked the women for helping clean up the wreckage. They were making a gesture of peace, and he would make sure the board of directors made one to match it.

He didn’t know how, but he would.

And then he and Charity could get on with their lives.

He had a proposal for a brand-new project, and he couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when he offered it to her.

The parking lot at Charity’s apartment complex seemed overly dark as she pulled into her slot later that night, after putting in a few hours of studying at the university library. She knew the lot was lit normally, but she had the oddest feeling in the pit of
her stomach—like a premonition of danger. Pushing down her fear, she got out of her car, locked it, and walked toward her building. She realized she was holding her books against her chest, ready to fling them at a moment’s notice, while gripping her keys with the sharp points between the fingers of her hand, like a set of knuckle claws ready to strike.

The walk to her door seemed endless. The light bulb was out above the door. She berated herself for not replacing it and quickly inserted her key in the lock, the urgency to be inside and safe overwhelming.

Come on
, she thought, annoyed with her unreasoning panic. She was a fully mature grown woman who had lived on her own for years—

“Charity.”

She shrieked and whipped around. She spotted a large shape from emerging behind a nearby evergreen at the same moment she realized her keys were in the door, not sticking through her fingers. She pivoted again, trying to yank her makeshift weapons free, while babbling, “Get back, get back, get back!”

“Charity, it’s me! Jake.”

She slumped against the door, the terror sucked out of her. Her body shook with relief, sweat ran down her temples, and bile soured her mouth. “You scared me!”

“I’m sorry.” He loomed up in the darkness. “But you should have this bulb replaced—”

“Can we go inside and you can yell at me there?”

Her fingers trembled as she tried to grasp the key and turn it in the lock. Jake took over and smoothly
opened the door. Charity stepped inside and slumped into the first chair.

He shut the door. “I talked with the board tonight. They’re really angry about the vandalism.…”

“Are they blaming us?” she demanded. “Those people went back to work on their own today, cleaned up those offices—”

“I know. I told them so. And they are listening, except for Mitchelson. He’s the one ranting about catching the vandal—”

“Then let’s catch him or her,” Charity said, angry that some nut might hold up negotiations.

“No, you will
not
catch him or her,” Jake said.

She scowled up at him. “Chauvinist.”

“Charity!” He put his hands on his hips. “This is not a man/woman thing. I’m not capable of handling this kind of unbalanced person, and neither are you. Or, rather, you
are
as capable as I am to deal with a possibly dangerous lunatic, which means you aren’t. All I’m saying is I don’t want you hurt because I love you.”

“Oh, Jake,” she murmured, touched to know he cared that much.

“Now do you get it?” he asked, crouching down next to her chair.

She nodded.

“Good.” He kissed her mouth. Then again and again until she was pliant in his arms.

The knock on the door a short time later startled both of them.

Charity frowned even as she tried to catch her breath and calm her racing heart. Jake’s breath was whistling in and out of his lungs. With his body
pressed to hers, she could tell his heart was beating just as rapidly from their escalating passion.

“Who could that be at this hour?” she muttered.

“Charity?” a familiar voice called through the door. “It’s me. Dave.”

She made a face to Jake. “It’s just Dave.”

Jake frowned in return. “It’s very late, isn’t it?”

“Well … yes, I suppose,” she said, then she shrugged. Louder, she said, “Just a minute!”

Jake snorted. “Too late now. I’ll go in the bedroom. He’s got a big mouth.”

“The bedroom’s not the place for you to be if you want him to keep it shut,” Charity whispered, but Jake just grinned and vanished into the other room. She and Jake had been talking in low voices, so she knew Dave couldn’t have heard them. She adjusted her bra and shirt, then smoothed down her hair before answering the door.

Dave walked inside without his usual swagger, but he didn’t looked subdued, either. “I know I’m calling very late, Charity. But I needed to talk with you.”

“What’s up?”

“It’s about you and the women. You wanted too much, you know. More than you deserved from the company. It wasn’t right for you to try to bleed it dry.”

Charity squinted at him, holding back an automatic jolt of temper. “We’re entitled to our health benefits, Dave. We had to fight to keep them.”

He shook his head. “No. You messed up the office—”

“No, I didn’t,” she broke in.

“Yes, you did!” he shouted. “I couldn’t find anything!
I searched and searched. You made me look stupid, Charity. All the women did.”

“We didn’t mean to,” she said, a warning shiver crawling up her spine.

“Yes, you did!” He took a step toward her. “You don’t deserve your jobs back! Jake fired you, so you couldn’t come back. But you did anyway.”

Charity backed away. “He didn’t fire us—”

“He did so.” His eyes glinted strangely. “Everyone heard him. You shouldn’t have come back. Now you’ll make it look like I can’t do the job again—”

“Yes, you can, Dave,” she said soothingly. “You’re a good boss.”

“I am, but you women are always trying to make the men look stupid.”

“Did you vandalize the office?” she asked, trying to get a chair between him and her.

Dave easily stepped around it. “I did what I had to do to teach you women a lesson. We’re tired of you trying to make us men look bad and we don’t want you back. But you came back anyway. You brought everyone back to work. They listen to you. They do what you say.” He walked toward her. “I can’t allow that, Charity. It’s time you learned your proper place in a man’s world.”

“Dave.” Jake’s voice was soft behind her. Charity let out a breath of relief.

“Jake!” Dave’s mouth dropped open. Then he snapped it shut. “I knew it! I knew you were sleeping with the bitch—”

Jake leapt past her and punched Dave squarely in the jaw. The man’s head snapped back. He stood motionless for a long moment, then collapsed in a heap on the rug.

“When you wake up, you can apologize to the lady,” Jake said, shaking his fingers. “Ouch!”

“I suppose that’s a prime example of the kinder, gentler men’s movement answer to solving problems,” Charity said in a shaky voice. She plopped down in the chair, her legs unsteady.

“It’s a prime example of a jerk who needs a punch in the mouth,” Jake said. “Good thing he’s got a glass jaw. I guess we have our vandal after all. I’ll call the police.”

She nodded.

Later, after the police had taken Dave away, Jake took Charity’s hands and gazed ruefully at her. “This was my fault.”

She gasped. “Yours?”

“I thought I knew what I was doing with the men’s movement. Obviously, I created Dave—”

She stopped him. “Dave created himself. He’s always been all nerves, but none of us saw this breakdown coming. It was a breakdown, I think. There’s no other explanation for what he did.”

A very innocent expression came over Jake’s face. “Well, at least he has the insurance to pay for it.”

Charity’s eyes widened, then she burst into laughter at the irony of it. “Stinker.”

“I’ll assume you mean Dave,” Jake said, grinning.

She eventually sobered. “He … he took the men’s movement too far.”

“Well, I’m giving it up,” Jake said. “I needed it, but now it’s time to let it go, and to let men and women find their own way.”

She gazed at him. “Can we?”

“Together.”

“You think too much like a man.”

He laughed. “What the hell am I supposed to think like?”

“I don’t know. But we’ll always be on opposite sides.”

He pulled her to him. “We’ll work to compromise. Unless you don’t want to try.”

“I want to try,” she said, knowing that if she didn’t she
would
be settling. He would be man and she would be woman, and they wouldn’t always mesh. But she couldn’t live without him, either.

He kissed her soundly. “I love you, Charity.”

“I love you.”

She knew she wouldn’t settle for anything less.

“Stop that, Jake! The kids!”

Jake nodded, but didn’t pull his hands from inside the bodice of Charity’s gown. Her breasts were slightly fuller from her having had three children, but he was hardly complaining. In fact, he found the phenomenon fascinating. Her taut nipples scored his palms in the way he loved so much.

Piping voices were heard in the hall, and Charity finally slapped his hands away.

Their two eldest, Jeremy and Alison, scampered into the bedroom, then stopped dead when they saw their parents.

“Nice dress,” Alison said. She was eleven and a continual study in blasé.

“Wow!” ten-year-old Jeremy exclaimed with absolutely no blasé. “A real babe, Mom.”

Jeremy was all boy and at the machismo stage, much to his mother’s chagrin.

“Better than great,” Jake said, grinning as he eyed the strapless gown of fuchsia chiffon. The tight bodice outlined her breasts, and the skirt skimmed over
her long legs. She was subtly different after fifteen years, fuller and richer and at times completely mystifying to him. But there was more than a touch of gray in his hair and his waist was an inch or two thicker. He knew he drove her insane upon occasion—and not necessarily in the bedroom. But they always compromised in a true partnership.

Charity looked at the two kids. “Where’s your brother?”

“Steven is with Jasmine,” Alison answered, “waiting for Dad.”

“Tell them I’ll be down in a moment,” he said, then shooed the two out of the room. They were good kids, and he sometimes couldn’t believe they were his own. “Sure you don’t want to stay home tonight?” he asked Charity. “We could lock the door and fool around.”

“Yes, I’m sure.” She smiled and kissed him. “It’s not every day you get Corporate Man of the Year award.”

He grinned. “There are some people who are still wondering if I paid off the judges.”

“You settled that old strike brilliantly, got that government contract for Wayans—”

“You got the contract with all your hard work.”

Her eyes twinkled with amusement. “We got the government contract, and you got the health benefits back for
all
the employees. And you negotiated for all those who had health care from another source to voluntarily give up Wayans’s plan.”

“You,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck, “were the negotiator of that.”

“Great minds think alike.” She put her arms around his neck. “And now you’re chief executive
officer and chairman of the board of Wayans, a rock-solid Fortune 1000 company.”

“You’re forgetting I’m married to a woman with her master’s in accounting and her own consulting business. And you were worried I’d hold you back. Who pushed you to get your master’s?”

“You,” she murmured, kissing his ear.

He drank in her marvelous scent, thinking he would never tire of the feel of her in his embrace. It was as natural as breathing and wonderfully exciting.

“I’m still worried …” she began, then pulled back. “Get your hands out of my dress!” But she was laughing. “Steven is waiting. And you can’t miss your award, either.”

“Right.”

Downstairs, his youngest, six years of angelic expression and charm when he wasn’t getting into trouble, already had on his coat. The boy was practically hopping up and down with impatience. So was the black cocker spaniel beside the child. Jake didn’t know which one enjoyed this more, Steven or Jasmine.

“Dad, come on!” Steven said, grabbing his hand and dragging him along toward the patio doors. The dog bounded ahead.

“The last vestige of Iron John,” Charity said, descending the stairs with serene dignity. “How the mighty have fallen.”

“It’s all you’ll let me do,” he complained. “You insisted on retiring Dances with No Clothes On.”

“Have you seen yourself naked lately, dear? It’s not a pretty sight.”

“Very funny.”

“Don’t mind Mom, Dad,” Steven said once they were out in the crisp autumn air. “She’s just a woman. They don’t understand.”

“Truer words were never spoken, son. Just don’t ever let your mother hear you say it.”

Steven grinned.

A large moon, the color of orange marigolds, hung low in the November sky. Frost already shimmered on the grass. Jake bent down and rubbed Jasmine on the head, then gave the dog a couple of firm pats on the chest, just the way she liked it.

“Ready, son?” he asked.

Steven nodded.

Jake looked up at the moon, pursed his lips, and howled low in his throat. Steven’s higher-pitched howl joined his. Jasmine danced around, whimpering at first, then lifted her head and bayed like a siren on a fire truck.