Escalation Clause (14 page)

“Maureen, you are all right, no? This is a difficult day for you. For all of you,” he turned to watch the younger girls play. Ella ran up and down the sidelines, doing her refereeing job with enthusiasm. Mo ripped her eyes away from the way his shorts hugged his ass, gulped, and was mortified to feel tears press the back of her eyes and gather force in her throat. On this day, all those years ago, she had lost the love of her life, had watched him die while she held his hand. His last words were etched into her psyche.

“Be happy, my sweet Maureen. Promise me that?”

Blinded by tears that were more complex than anything she’d shed in years, she stood up and ran in the opposite direction away from her brother and Rafe. She’d thought Brandis’ love would always sustain her. She had held onto it like a talisman for so long, worrying in between her fingers late at night when loneliness and despair had her in their insomniac clutches. But he was fading. And while that flat out terrified her, it also convinced her that she owed it to herself to move on. Now here she was, perched on the verge of doing just that, rendered speechless, clumsy, and horny by a fucking soccer coach? Jesus. She put her hands on the hood of her SUV, let the heat singe her, distracting her from the pity party.

Jack’s voice made her jump. “I’m sorry Mo, I almost forgot.” He put his arm around her, kissed her hair. She slumped into his side, grateful but aggravated by him at the same time. Reminding herself she owed him a serious discussion about his bullshit behavior with his wife, she sniffled, pulled away.

“It’s okay. I can’t go around expecting the world to stop every year on this day. Just because I do.” She sucked in a ragged breath.

Jack stuck his hands in his pockets and stared at her. “He’s nice, that guy. Thanks for introducing me. He has the exact connections I need. A little young to be a coach, but he could be a….”

Maureen held up her hand. “Spare me the soccer project, Jack. I’m sick of hearing about it.”

He leaned back on her car door, his eyes distant. She’d never seen him like this before, but he’d been through a lot, had held the fort down for her when Brandis was killed and she went off the deep end for the better part of a year. “I need your help.” He kept looking out towards the fields as he spoke to her.

“With what?” She matched his stance.

“Keystone,” he said, naming their father’s construction company. The company had fed, clothed, and sent them to college, all with very little scrimping or saving by the time she had come along. “Can you?” He looked at her, and this time his gaze was earnest, worried, even a little vulnerable.

She frowned. “Save the puppy dog eyes, Jack. What is it exactly you need? Spit it out.”

He chuckled, for a minute looking like the man she knew, the man who’d been so deliriously happy that day on Lake Michigan when he and Sara married. “Sorry. I just caught the general manager trying to cook the books and write himself a big check. The accountant gal there is, um, well, she caught him and told me.” He frowned, ran a hand down his face.

“The accountant ‘gal?’” Mo hooked her fingers around the word. “Is what exactly, Jack?”

He frowned at her. “Sorry, Gloria Steinem. The ‘woman’ who handles bookkeeping for our father’s company is an old girlfriend. She has some loyalty to me which is becoming harder and harder to find. She caught him. He’s out, and lucky I’m not pressing charges.”

“So, promote the old girlfriend. What do you need me for?” She glared at him. “You had better be behaving Jack Gordon. I will kill you otherwise, do you understand?”

He rolled his eyes, anger lighting their sapphire depths. “Jesus, does everyone honestly think I’m such a shithead that I’d be cheating on my wife?”

“No, but I think that you are under a ton of stress; so is Sara. And women like this ‘ex-girlfriend’ may sense it and try to move in on you, ya handsome bastard.”

He shrugged, not rising to her bait like he normally would. She bit her lip, worry lighting the edges of her current shitty mood. “So, what can I do? I’m no contractor.”

“No, but I’ll send you to the class, you take the test. God knows you were around the business enough and you’re smart. You’ll pass it. But that’s just a formality. I need you in charge of the place Mo. You’re organized, bossy. You’ll have it running smoothly for me again in no time.”

She blinked. “You want me to be the General Manager of Keystone Construction. Are you out of your mind or just drunk?”

“Neither.” He turned to her, grabbed her arm, that worried look back in his eyes. Her heart started to pound, her mouth dried out. “I need you to do this. I’ve run through five managers in seven years. I can’t trust anybody. But, you I trust. The kids are old enough to manage. And you….”

She held up a hand. “I am a “poor me” widow who needs to get out of the house more often, I get it.”

Jack chuckled. “Hardly,” he put an arm around her, soothing as he always could. “You are my sister; you are as much a part of the damn company as I am. Think of it as ‘time you earned your shares?’”

“What’s up with you and your wife, Jack?”

He jumped away from her as if she’d poked him with a hot stick. “Can we stay with the original conversation please?” His face closed off again.

“Fine. Okay. I’ll do it. On one condition.”

“What’s that,” he crossed his arms, in full negotiation mode she recognized from years of experience with him as an older sibling. “You and Sara go away somewhere, soon. I’ll take the kids. I know how to handle a baby and Lila can help, too. You guys need some time alone.”

“We’re fine Mo. Sara is…” he brushed his fingers through his hair, making it stand up, in a familiar nervous tick gesture he’d had since boyhood. “Sara is handling this thing amazingly well. I’m helping, like you told me. And considering the guy who was her rock for so many years is…” he gulped, “gone, I think she’s doing great. Her mother on the other hand,” he let his voice trail off.

Mo stayed silent, contemplating how he had not answered her question but had assured her that Sara was “just fine.”

“Besides, I think she’s planning to take the kids with her to Florida, spend a couple of weeks there. I need to be out of town next week for the soccer thing and…well, sorry,” he held up a hand. “Besides, Stewart is swamped these days. I need to hire two new sales managers and….”

“Okay, all right, I get it. You’re busy as shit. Whatever. But you had better listen to me. Things are not good with you two. Deny it at your peril. You’ve worked awfully hard to get to this place with her. Don’t assume it’s all good just because she’s not a quivering puddle of agony over losing her brother and relying on you to do everything just so she can mourn.”

“Point taken,” he said still not looking at her. “So, when can I sign you up for the class and test? Sooner the better.”

They worked out some logistics and walked back to the pitch to watch Katie’s team win before greeting her and Ella on the sidelines. Katie was hanging on to her cousin’s hand. “Daddy, can we make cupcakes when we get home?”

“Uh, sure. But I have to pack. I’m leaving in the morning for a week. Why don’t we get Uncle Rob to—”

“No!” the girl yelled so loud everyone around her looked over. Jack frowned, stuck his hands in his pockets.

Maureen knelt down and met Katie’s bright green eyes. “Honey, you know Uncle Rob loves you. He misses you.”

“I don’t care.” The girl ran towards the car, her soccer bag bouncing on her back.

“What a cluster fuck this is,” Jack groaned under his breath. Mo elbowed him in the ribs. “No seriously, the girl is a basket case. Won’t let Rob get within a mile of her or she screams and cries. I don’t get it.”

“Well, from what I understand he has his own issues.”

“Yeah,” Jack left it at that, so she did, too. A sudden tingling on the back of her neck told her one thing. Rafe was near. How she knew this was beyond her and more than a little scary to admit, even to herself. But sure enough she turned, and he was a few feet away, chatting with some of the parents on Katie’s team.

He was relatively new to the club, worked days at the university hospital as a sports medicine physical therapist. But he’d been there done that with the big leagues, soccer-wise. Their conversations had wandered all over the place lately, and she’d gotten to where she anticipated his calls with an almost teenager-like glee. She shook her head at herself but when he looked over at her, as if knowing she were staring, he winked and she nearly melted into a puddle of lust. It felt so odd, this strange, phone-based relationship they had. But she held on to it, nurtured it, let it sustain her.

“Let’s go. Stop ogling the man-candy.” Her brother said, following where his daughter had just run.

She smacked him. “Fuck you. I can ogle what I want.” But, her throat was tight, and embarrassment flooded her every pore. She put an arm around Ella’s waist, kissed her temple.

“Cut it out, Mom,” the girl squirmed away, dashed after her uncle. Adam caught up with her, and they walked together in silence to the car. He put an arm around her at one point. She leaned into him, already nearly six feet tall at just fifteen years old.

“Is it bad that I sometimes can’t remember him as much?” her son’s voice broke and pitched lower. Suddenly all she wanted to do was cry. “Mom?”

A tear slipped down her face. She was such a tangle of emotion. “No honey, it’s okay.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s the shitty part.” He opened the back of her SUV and tossed his soccer bag inside. “Can I drive?” His dark face became a heart-breaking mirror image of his father’s when he smiled and raised an eyebrow. She sucked in a breath.

“Sure,” she tossed him the keys. Ella climbed in the back and they headed towards Ann Arbor, the satellite radio blaring some ungodly combination of screaming and swearing that Adam and Ella both yelled along with. Mo caught Ella’s eye in the mirror. But the girl’s face was blank and she didn’t speak to either of them once they got home, just ran upstairs and jumped in the shower. Mo sank into a chair with some ice water, then gave up and switched to wine.

Her phone rang. She glanced at the display, knowing it would be Rafe. When she saw his name, she swallowed hard, and turned the phone off.

Chapter Ten

The room was pitch dark, but she heard him, sensed his soothing voice before she felt his lips against hers. “Maureen,” he crooned, running a hand up her arm to her neck, pulling her close. The odors of leather, grass, sweat overwhelmed her. She gulped, terrified and needy all at once. Her arms slipped around his waist. His kiss started slow, as if testing her, seeing how she felt about it. But a primal hunger shot through her, made her part her lips and give in to it.

He held her closer, and swept into her mouth, his body pressed hers back onto some surface, she couldn’t figure out what and no longer cared. His hand trailed down her neck, cupped her breast, brushed across her nipple making her arch into him. All the while, he kissed with an intense ferocity that matched her need. She threaded her fingers in his long hair, held on for dear life as he pitched her over a sheer cliff of desire with his lips, tongue, his long fingers that continued to dance over her flesh. She shifted, needing him to … “Oh, God,” she moaned into his lips, holding on his arm as he slid a hand down the front of her panties. In one touch she came, crying out and shivering, terrified, mortified and needing more.

She sat up, clutching the sheet to her neck, hoping to god she did not actually call out Rafe’s name in the middle of her overheated, cougar-ish wet dream. She wiped her hand down her neck, retracing his tongue’s imaginary track. Then she flopped back on the pillows, resigned to rubbing one out for herself, again. Alone.

Afterward, she lay breathing heavy and wishing for nothing more than to hear Rafe’s voice. But she had avoided him for the better part of a month now, using the excuse of her class, then the test for her contractor’s license. She’d buried herself in the Keystone books and records, trying to get a handle on what was indeed revealing itself to be a disorganized mess. Staying up late for nights, poring over the information, was making her feel more human with every passing day, but she missed his voice more than she cared to admit.

The morning of the intense Rafe-fantasy fueled dream she was headed into her new office for the first time, officially the general manager of a five-million-dollar construction company. She showered off in a daze, gulped some coffee and let Ella fiddle with her jewelry and hair before brushing the girl away. “Go on, go clean the pool or something.” She looked out in the yard. Learning to get through days like this, when it was as if Brandis were literally just in the next room and not years gone from her life were the hardest. The desire to share this moment with him was so keen her chest ached. The bright blue water of the pool pierced her between the eyes, reminding her as always of the summer she spent falling for the first and only man she’d ever loved.

She squared her shoulders, and picked up the phone when it rang, busy pep talking herself out of a funk before she read the screen. Too late, she realized it was Rafe.