Dating for Two (Matchmaking Mamas) (11 page)

Once the tea was brewed, she poured it into a cup that had Dorothy’s famous words about not being in Kansas anymore written on the side.

As Erin took her first sip of chai tea, a thought struck her. Her mouth curved even as she lowered the large cup.

She had a date.

A real live date. Her mother was going to be thrilled.

But as she reached for the phone to call her mother, a little voice inside her head warned,
No! Don’t do it. Not yet.

Erin paused, debating. The little voice was probably right. As much as she loved sharing things with her mother and as happy as she knew her mother would be over this news after spending the past several years lamenting about her single status and the fact that she wasn’t doing anything at all to even attempt to change that status, Erin also knew that her mother had the ability to get utterly carried away with the least amount of provocation. And in her mother’s eyes, this would be more than just a little.

If she said
anything
at all about going out on a date, she felt certain that her mother would be out there like a shot, searching nonstop for the perfect wedding dress as well as interviewing different pastry chefs in an attempt to zero in on what would be the perfect wedding cake.

Erin blew out a long breath, making up her mind. It was far better to let her mother know about this
after
the fact rather than before.

Because the phone had been ringing when she first walked in, Erin realized that she’d completely forgotten about picking up her mail.

Not that it mattered all that much. There were probably just bills and miscellaneous catalogs she had no interest in stuffed into her mailbox.

It certainly wasn’t anything that wouldn’t keep until the morning.

Still, because the mailbox was small, she knew that if she
didn’t
empty it now and left tomorrow without getting the mail—something she was more than likely to do because she had done it once or twice before—there wouldn’t be much room for the mail carrier to leave whatever mail would arrive that day.

She didn’t like creating problems.

So with a sigh, Erin got her mail key out. Reluctantly, she stepped back into her shoes, then walked out of her house and made her way down the driveway to her mailbox.

The moment the sun had gone down, it had grown chilly outside, a subtle hint from Mother Nature that summer wasn’t meant to hang around indefinitely and that cooler days were just around the corner.

Opening her front door, she heard what sounded like the howl of a coyote off in the distance. She’d spotted one or two in the area since she’d moved here. For the most part, she knew they lived somewhere around the greenbelt but except for those two sightings, she had been coyote-free.

Hearing one howl now sent a chill down her spine. Was that some sort of an omen?

You’re not superstitious, remember?

Erin darted to the curb and her mailbox.

She opened the slender rectangular door, grabbed the handful of envelopes she found there, pushed the door back into place and hurried back to the house. She tossed the mail as well as the key on the coffee table, thinking she’d look at it in the morning.

But something caught her eye.

It was an envelope, off-white in color, whose shape—square and small—stood out. It didn’t resemble the rest of the envelopes. The others came from companies—those providing a service and others looking to make a connection. This one came from an individual.

For one thing, it was handwritten.

There was no return address.

Curious, Erin debated just leaving it where it was, but in the end, she opened it.

The next moment, she really wished that she hadn’t.

There was only one line written in the middle of the page. The sender had used all capital block letters.

YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO ME WHEN YOU HAD THE CHANCE.

Chapter Ten

T
here was nothing else tucked inside the envelope or written on the outside of it. Neither was there anything written on the single sheet of paper besides the one ominous sentence, all in capitals.

Erin blew out a breath, doing her best not to panic. “Okay, not a fan letter,” she said, refolding the paper and slipping it carefully back into the envelope. She made sure to hold on to only a corner of the letter so as not to get any more of her fingerprints on it than she already had.

It was probably nothing, she silently insisted. But if her life were being lived out in an episodic police procedural, this letter might be the only clue that would help the investigative detectives track down her killer—after the fact.

“Way to go to make yourself crazy, Erin. This is probably just Wade’s stupid idea of making me feel paranoid and nervous,” she said out loud. For once she hadn’t fallen back on using Tex’s voice.

Even so, she put the envelope away in the top drawer of her bureau in plain sight—just in case.

Closing the drawer, she blew out another long, steadying breath. She was
not
going to think about what was in the note and allow it to ruin what had turned out to be one of the best
personal
days she’d had in a long time.

* * *

She couldn’t help herself.

Try as she might not to let it, the contents of the envelope—and the intent behind it—preyed on her mind for most of the night.

The darker the night grew, the darker the thoughts that assailed her became.

What if it wasn’t Wade? What if the note was sent by some random crazy person? Stranger things had happened. There were people out there whose twisted thinking processes were way beyond her comprehension. She belonged in a world where people responded to grinning dinosaurs wearing cowboy hats, to kindness rather than cruelty.

But since the envelope
was
actually addressed to her, the possibility that it was all a big mistake seemed slim and she also rather doubted that this had been done by a complete stranger. These days strangers were far more likely to hack into a computer, planting some sort of a virus or unleashing a scam, than rely on something evolving via snail mail.

So who would be threatening her like this?

She couldn’t get herself to believe that it was actually Wade, yet right now, that seemed to be the only logical answer.

* * *

“Not going to think about it,” Erin told the bleary-eyed reflection that stared back at her in her bathroom mirror the following morning. “Yeah, right,” she murmured as she put away her toothbrush and forced herself to get ready for work.

Work was her saving grace. Work was what she turned to whenever anything else was bothering her. Because when she was working, she forgot about everything else except for the joy that the toys she was creating would bring.

She hardly remembered locking her front door and getting into her car, let alone making the trip to the ground-floor office Imagine That occupied.

“Wow, you look like hell, Fearless Leader. Did you get
any
sleep last night?” Mike asked her when she walked into the office.

Accustomed to coming into an empty office, Erin swallowed a gasp of surprise when she suddenly realized that she wasn’t alone.

Getting hold of her bearings, she took a long look at Mike. He looked rumpled—and then it dawned on her that it was his shirt that was rumpled, as if it had been slept in.

“You should talk,” she countered. “At least I went home. Isn’t that the same shirt you were wearing yesterday?”

“Maybe I have more than one shirt this same color,” he answered defensively.

That was a nonanswer—which meant only one thing. “Not answering my question
is
answering my question,” she told Mike.

Mike shook his head, turning his attention back to what he’d been doing when she walked in. “Gotta get you to stop watching those cop shows,” he muttered. Since she was obviously waiting for some sort of an explanation, he gave her the bare bones of one. “I was trying to work out something and maybe time got away from me. I suppose I kind of fell asleep at my desk,” he admitted.

Having crossed to his desk, she got a better look at him. “That would explain the paper-clip imprint on your cheek,” she decided, then asked, “Exactly
what
is it that you were trying to work out?”

“He didn’t want to tell you,” Rhonda’s voice said directly behind her.

Erin turned to find the woman standing in the doorway, taking everything in. This was quite early for Rhonda, too, she couldn’t help thinking. What the hell was going on?

“Tell me what?” she asked the other woman. Her tone left no room for evasiveness.

So Rhonda told her the truth. “Someone is suing us. The company,” she emphasized.

“Suing us?” Erin echoed, stunned and utterly bewildered. “Suing us for what?” she asked. “For making overly cute stuffed dinosaurs? There’s absolutely nothing even remotely hazardous about Tex and his friends,” she declared, her mind instantly jumping to the conclusion that the suit involved some consumer agency. “Other than perhaps their being terminally adorable. Last time I checked, that wasn’t a reason for either recall or shutting down the factory.”

By now Christian, looking as world-weary as the rest of them, had joined the group and fielded the question. “We’re not being sued by a parent or some EPA-type group,” he told Erin.

“Then what’s going on?” she asked. “Just who is suing us?”

She got no further with her questions. Looking as if he was bracing himself, Christian gave her an answer. One she wouldn’t have begun to guess and found repugnant once she knew it.

“Wade Baker is behind the suit,” he said.

Erin was aware of her mouth dropping open. Closing it, she stared at Christian. That just didn’t make
any
sense whatsoever.

“You’re kidding.” But even as she said it, she had a sinking feeling that it was true. Still, she crossed her fingers mentally.

It didn’t help.

“Wish I were,” Christian told her with sincerity.

“What could Wade possibly be suing about? That I fired him because he was not only lazy and disrespectful to the rest of you but because his idea of hands-on experience meant having his hands on me?” she cried. “If anything, we should be suing
him,
not the other way around.”

Christian shook his head. He sat down next to Mike and Rhonda. “Apparently, according to the suit, Baker claims that Tex the T. rex was actually originally
his
idea.”

“His idea?” she repeated incredulously. The man hadn’t had a single original idea the entire time he’d worked for her. “If Wade had an idea of any kind, it would have died of loneliness in his head,” she said angrily.

It was obvious that Mike was wrestling with something and just as obvious that he came to the conclusion that she might as well know the worst of it sooner rather than later.

He avoided her eyes as he told her, “Well, it seems that Baker claims that you stole it from him after the two of you...made love,” he mumbled after hesitating a moment. “He said he told you his idea while the two of you were having pillow talk.”

Utterly speechless, Erin couldn’t even find the words to describe her disgust for several seconds. Finally she managed to croak out a stunned “What?”

“You want me to repeat it?” Mike asked her uncertainly.

“No, I want you to shoot him.” Numbed, Erin shook her head. This was insane. “Unless that man owns a talking pillow, there was never any so-called pillow talk between us. There was never even a
pillow
between us.” She shivered as she tried to rid herself of the very
thought
of what the suit suggested.

“Hey, you don’t have to prove anything to us,” Christian assured her.

“We
know
you have better taste than that,” Rhonda said, adding her voice to the chorus.

Erin sighed, still shaken—and swiftly working her way to livid. “I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m stating it flatly. Wade is just doing this because I fired him after he tried to get more up close and personal with me than I ever wanted to. It’s his way of getting even.”

But even as she uttered the words, the underlying result of all this deeply concerned her. The reason this was happening didn’t change things. Baker could still ruin her and cause everyone who worked with her to lose their jobs, all because the man’s ego had been hurt.

She looked at the three people in the room with her and thought of the three others who were out of sight for the moment. They
depended
on her, believed in her in the lean times, had gone without pay at times so the company could get off the ground. She just
couldn’t
allow that egotistical maniac to win.

“When did you find out about this?” she asked Mike, since he’d obviously been the first one to know.

“Yesterday, after you left the office,” Mike told her. He looked at the others before continuing. “Baker’s lawyer showed up to serve us with papers. According to him, we’re supposed to shut down the company until this is settled.”

Her eyes widened with anger. That was
not
about to happen. “We can’t shut down production,” Erin cried. “We’ve got a ton of orders to fill.”

“I know that,” Mike said, producing the papers that Wade’s lawyer had left with him. He got up from behind his desk, crossed to Erin and gave them to her. “But I’ve got to admit, this looks pretty intimidating, as did his lawyer.”

Erin skimmed the first page. The words all swam in front of her eyes. Nothing was going to make sense right now. She was too upset for the words to sink in and register.

“The guy’s probably just some ambulance chaser,” she commented dismissively.

“If he is, then he’s capable of catching those ambulances with his bare hands,” Christian told her. “The guy looked like some kind of hulking giant. About six-four and close to three hundred pounds. Not somebody you want to mess with.”

Erin was growing progressively angrier. This lawyer, whoever he was, was threatening something she held dear, not to mention intimidating people she cared about by threatening their livelihood.

She looked at Mike. “You should have called me,” she told him.

“We hoped that maybe we could get this to go away. You’ve got enough to think about,” Mike said, “trying to get those chain toy stores to partner up with us.”

“Do the others know?” she asked, referring to Judith, Neal and Gypsy.

Mike nodded. “Everybody but you.”

“Erin, do we have enough money set aside in the kitty to hire a top-notch lawyer to fight this?” Rhonda asked.

“Forget top-notch—do we have enough money to hire
any
lawyer to fight this?” Christian asked.

Other than taking out enough to cover their salaries and pay for her mortgage as well as buy food, she had been plowing all their profits back into the company with an eye out to expand Imagine That enough to impress Toyland Toys, the other toy-store chain she’d set her sights on.

Erin’s eyes swept over the three people in the room. She’d started this company with a dream and three friends who were willing to help her make that dream flourish. It couldn’t end like this.

And yet...

It killed her to admit this, but she wasn’t about to start lying to people she cared about. “Right now we have enough money to buy a round of lattes for all of us—as long as we’re satisfied with the medium size.”

“Great,” Christian mumbled, sinking farther down on his chair.

“What are we going to do?” Rhonda asked.

Christian raised his hand as if they were back in elementary school. When she looked at him, he said, “I’ve got this cousin who knows this guy who could send Baker off on a one-way cruise as long as we pay for the steamer trunk.”

Erin frowned. That was a nonstarter. “Much as I’d like to, we’re not sticking him into a trunk. That would only make things worse,” she told Christian.

“Then what are we going to do?” Christian challenged.

Erin blew out a frustrated breath. What she would have liked to do was pummel Wade into the ground. “I could try reasoning with Wade.”

“That’s presupposing that the jerk has reason,” Mike pointed out. “Remember, this is the guy who doesn’t work well or play well with others.” His dark brown eyes met hers. “The guy I would have kicked to the curb on day one if you hadn’t been as softhearted as you were,” Mike reminded her.

Erin was keenly aware that at bottom, this was her fault. She was not the type to buck pass. “I know and I’m sorry. I just thought all he needed was a little time,” she told Mike.

“Twenty to life comes to mind,” Rhonda quipped.

“You sure you don’t want me to call my cousin?” Christian asked her hopefully.

It was a tempting idea but not the kind, ultimately, she could live with. “I’m sure.” Desperate, she cast about for a solution—

And then she thought of Steve. The man was a lawyer. At the very least, maybe he would have a suggestion on how she could extricate herself and her company from what was beginning to sound as if it could turn into an abysmal legal mess and call a halt to production—something she had a feeling was ultimately Wade’s goal in all this. He wanted to hurt her where she “lived.”

“I’m going to make a call,” she announced.

“
You
know a hit man?” Mike asked with renewed hope in his voice.

“No,” she said patiently, “I know a lawyer.”

“Hit men are more reliable,” Mike said.

“As much as I do relish the idea of strangling Wade with my bare hands,” she admitted, “I don’t think they’ll let us manufacture Tex and his friends from prison.”

“Hey, who’s to say? After all, they make license plates in prison, don’t they?” Rhonda pointed out.

Erin looked at the trio. God, but she loved these people. There was no way she was going to see all their efforts get swept away like sand castles before a tidal wave.

“You know,” she told them, “as a cheering section, you guys really leave something to be desired.”

Mike was hardly listening as he shook his head. “I knew I should have beaten Baker to a pulp when I found out what he was trying to get you to do.”