Rivals (20 page)

“I regret but one thing in my life—that I told them to stop after they had given him a good beating. I should have had him killed.” She bowed her head. “The fault was mine. It was never Elizabeth's. She didn't know what she was doing, but I did. I should have put an end to it then.”

13

T
he
morning sun peered through the smoked glass windows of the Stuart Building's top floor, spreading its refracted rays over the small group gathered around the circular burl conference table in the executive office. A slight man with cherubic features and soft spaniel eyes held the floor, his usual reticence forgotten as he spoke about the one field in which he was an acknowledged expert; he was considered by many to be one of the best, if not
the
best, civil engineer in the country.

“When I passed these preliminary drawings for the dam by Zorinsky at the Corps, he saw a problem in only one area.” Fred Garver riffled through the pages of blueprints on the tall easel until he found the one he wanted, then flipped back the ones in front of it to reveal a cross section of the proposed dam. “He felt the concrete keys should be another three feet deep to eliminate any possible undermining of the dam itself. If we do that, we're probably talking about the additional cost of another half million dollars—depending.” He paused to shoot both Chance and Sam Weber a quick look. “Without test borings of the site, I can't be sure what we'll run into once we start excavating. I don't know if we'll hit rock, sand, clay, or what. All the construction figures I've given you are just rough estimates. And I mean rough.”

Sam expected Chance to acknowledge that comment. When he didn't, Sam darted a quick glance in his direction and frowned slightly at Chance's obvious absorption with the scribblings he was making on the notepad resting on his knee. He had been preoccupied through much of the meeting—a meeting he had called to get an update on Garver's progress. Yet he hadn't asked one question or shown any interest in the engineer's drawings. That wasn't like him. That wasn't like him at all.

“Yes, we understand that, Fred,” Sam inserted to fill the void.

“As long as you do.” The engineer shrugged his acceptance and turned his attention back to the cross section. “Personally, I don't think it's necessary to increase the depth of the keys. Although if we do incorporate Zorinsky's recommendation, then we would probably be assuring ourselves of a quick approval from the Corps. The way I see it we have two choices: we can either make this change now or wait until we get to do some test borings to know what we're dealing with. How soon will you be taking title to the property so we can get on it and do our preliminary site work?”

Sam looked again at Chance, wishing he would field that question, but there was no indication that he'd even heard it. “We can't give you a date yet.” He didn't think it was his place to admit that Chance might not get title to it at all, not the way things were going.

“Do you want us to just sit tight for a while or go ahead with the change?”

Damn, but he wished Chance would speak up. This wasn't the kind of decision he normally made when a project was in its preliminary stage. Looking at Molly, her chair positioned at an unobtrusive distance from the table, Sam wondered what he should do. She grimaced faintly and shrugged her shoulders, unable to offer any suggestion to him. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and nervously cleared his throat. The sound seemed to rouse Chance, his attention lifting somewhat abstractedly from the notepad before him.

Still, Sam doubted that Chance knew the question. “Why don't you give us a couple of days to think it over, Fred, and we'll get back to you with our decision?” he suggested, trying to cover for Chance's inattention to the entire discussion.

“That won't be necessary.” Chance contradicted him. “Make the changes in the design. When the time comes, I'll want to move on this project fast. I don't want anything holding us up.” He shoved his notepad onto the table and rolled to his feet. “Leave a set of the drawings so I can study them later, and send us a copy of any changes. We'll stay in touch.”

As if pushed by some inner restlessness, he left the conference table and walked to the window. His back remained to them, abruptly but effectively bringing a quick end to the meeting.

Sam exchanged another troubled look with Molly, then helped Fred Garver and his young associate gather their materials together, and made certain a full set of the preliminary drawings remained behind. With Fred reverting to his reticent ways, there was little conversation as Sam walked him to the door. No mention had been made of Chance's inattention during much of the meeting, but Sam felt obligated to offer some sort of explanation in his defense.

“Don't mind Chance,” he said at the door. “He's had a lot on his mind lately.”

“I guessed as much.” Fred nodded, throwing a brief glance over his shoulder in Chance's direction, his mouth curving into a smile of understanding when he looked back at Sam.

After they'd left, Sam hesitated a moment at the door, then turned and walked back to the conference table. Chance was still at the window, staring out, his hands idly shoved in the side pockets of his trousers. Molly quietly gathered up the dirty coffee cups and set them on the serving tray.

Sam picked up the rolled set of blueprints and turned it in his hands. “Do you want me to leave these here for you or put them on the drafting table in my office with the others?” But his question drew only more silence, and his concern and bewilderment at Chance's behavior gave way to exasperation. “Dammit, Chance, you haven't heard one word anybody's said in the last hour, have you?”

“No, he hasn't,” Molly stated quite emphatically as Chance half-turned to give them both a blank, preoccupied look. “He's been doodling on that pad of his. Whenever he starts doing that, you can be sure he isn't listening to anyone.”

“Sorry.” Chance frowned. “I guess my mind is elsewhere.”

“My God, that's an understatement,” Sam muttered shaking his head. “Your mind has been
elsewhere
ever since you got back from San Francisco. Exactly what happened out there?”

“It's that Bennett woman, isn't it?” Molly guessed, eyeing him with wondering interest. “The one you sent all those orchids to.”

Chance held her gaze for several seconds, his look distantly thoughtful and his silence seeming to confirm her statement. Then he turned back to the window. “It just may be that you're going to get your wish after all, Molly.”

For a stunned instant, she couldn't say anything, then she asked, somewhat tentatively, “Are you saying that you're thinking about marrying her?”

Like Molly, Sam stared at Chance, not entirely convinced that he really meant to imply that. Chance swung away from the window, his glance briefly touching each of them as a wry smile tugged at his mouth.

“The thought has crossed my mind,” he admitted, as if amazed by it, too. “Is there any coffee left in that pot?”

“I—I don't think so.”

It was obvious to Sam that she was practically bursting with questions about this woman who had managed to capture the heart of the man she loved like a son. For that matter, he was, too. In all the years he'd known Chance, he couldn't remember him ever seriously contemplating marriage to anyone. He always said he was married to his work, that the company was the only mistress he needed. Sam always thought that if anyone got Chance to the altar, it would be Lucianna. His relationship with her went back a good fifteen years. Nothing lasted that long unless there was some strong feeling on both sides. So who was this Bennett woman?

“Get a fresh pot for us, Molly. I have some things I want to go over with Sam. And bring me the notes of the meeting with Garver as soon as you have them typed.” The decisive tone sounded more like the old Chance, the one who placed business first and everything else a distant second.

Molly heard it, too, and reluctantly smothered her curiosity. “Right away.”

As she left the office, carrying the tray and her stenopad, Chance turned to him and gestured at the roll of blueprints in his hands. “Is that the set Garver left with us?”

“Yes.” Sam nodded, unable to make the lightning switch in conversation. “Chance, were you serious a minute ago about this girl in San Francisco?”

“Woman,” he corrected. “Woman, Sam. Intelligent, sensitive, warm…” He paused, his expression taking on a faintly rueful look. “I can't seem to stop thinking about her. And no woman has ever intruded on business before.”

“Are you going to marry her?”

“I don't know.” He seemed reluctant to go that far. “I only know I keep remembering what it was like being with her. Not just being in bed with her, but being with her.” This time the shake of his head was more definite as if trying to rid his mind of the memory of her, at least temporarily. “This isn't getting us anywhere. Unroll the site map. I want to see where Garver thinks the shoreline will be once the lake forms behind the dam.”

Sam spread the sheet with the site drawn to scale on the table, anchoring two of the ends down with the sugar bowl and creamer Molly had left. “It hasn't changed much from his original drawing, except maybe over here on the north side where the water-line doesn't come up as high on the bluff as he first estimated. Otherwise, it's the same as before—with virtually all of Morgan's Walk under water.” Including the house, but Sam didn't say that.

“That bluff area shouldn't have much effect on Delaney's master plan of the project,” Chance remarked, barely looking up from his study of the site drawing as Molly reentered his office with an insulated pot of fresh coffee. “All the same, you'd better make a copy of this and send it over to his office,” he said, referring to the architect and land planner on the proposed resort complex. Then he tapped a finger on the northwest corner of the manmade lake. “We're definitely going to need the Ferguson property. What's the status on it? Have they agreed to an option yet?”

“They insist they won't sell—at any price. Their son's farming the land for them now and they plan on turning all of it over to him and moving into town this next year. It's the same story with the MacAndrews place.”

“Who holds the mortgages on their farms?”

“One of the savings and loan companies, I can't remember which one right now. I'd have to check the reports.”

“Buy the mortgages.”

“Chance, we're probably talking somewhere in the neighborhood of a half a million dollars to do that,” Sam protested.

“We need those parcels. We'd pay more than that if we could buy them outright.”

“That's not the point,” Sam hesitated. “Chance, you have to be realistic. Right now—the way things stand—we can't even be sure you're going to get Morgan's Walk. And without it, we can't build the dam—and without the dam, we don't have a lake—and without the lake…Let's face it, without Morgan's Walk, we don't have a project. We've spent all this money on adjoining land, site plans, and designs for nothing.”

“We'll get Morgan's Walk. One way or another.”

“I know you keep saying that—and you're probably right. But don't you think it would be wise if we waited at least until Matt tracks down this new heir of Hattie's before we invest any more cash in the project? We've got a ton of money tied up in it now.”

“You're getting conservative on me again, Sam,” Chance chided.

“Dammit, somebody has to around here.”

“Buy the mortgages, Sam, and stop worrying about Morgan's Walk.”

“Stop worrying, he says,” he muttered, catching Molly's eye and shaking his head.

“If Chance says not to worry, then you shouldn't.” Molly was prepared to expand on that thought, but she was interrupted by the long beep of the telephone. Automatically she turned to the extension sitting on the rosewood credenza next to the conference table. “Mr. Stuart's office,” she said, once again assuming that crisp, professional air. Then her glance flashed to Chance, a sudden high alertness entering her expression. “Yes, he's here. Just a moment.” She pushed the hold button and extended the receiver toward Chance. “It's Maxine. She says she needs to talk to you.”

His head came up sharply at the mention of the housekeeper from Morgan's Walk. In two quick strides, he was at Molly's side, taking the phone from her.

“Hello, Max. How are you?”

“Truthfully? There are times I'd like to strangle her. She's been impossible to live with lately.”

“What happened?” He knew something had or she wouldn't risk a call.

“I overheard a telephone conversation she had with some woman she called Margaret Rose. It has to be the one, because she was talking about sending copies of documents that prove they're related.”

“Just Margaret Rose. That's all?”

“Yes.” A sigh of regret came over the line. “If she used a last name, I didn't hear it.”

“When was this?”

“Last Sunday. I would have called sooner, but she's been watching me like a hawk. Every time I came up with a reason to come into town, she sent somebody else. Finally I had to break my reading glasses. That's where I am now—at the optical company getting them fixed.”

“When the time comes that I can, I'll make all this right, Max,” he promised.

“Whether you do or don't doesn't matter. I'm not doing this for any reward, Chance. I'm doing it because Morgan's Walk should rightfully go to you when she passes on—not to some stranger in California. It's what your mother would have wanted—God rest her soul. Hattie's just doing this to be mean and spiteful. Of course, she always was that, but it's gotten worse lately.”

“How is she?”