Desert Devil (2 page)

Juli heard the door open and she turned expectantly. But the tall man whose broad shoulders filled the doorway was not the silvery-haired gentleman she had expected to see. This man appeared to be in his early thirties. His thick brown hair had a glint of bronze, and his lean, handsome face was deeply tanned. He wore a well-cut gray suit and gave a general impression of rugged elegance. One tanned hand carried a manila file folder. As he closed the door and strode toward her, Juli had the uneasy impression his remote gray-green eyes held a hint of contemptuous mockery. There was nothing but expressionless cool courtesy in his voice when he spoke, however.

"Miss Townsend?"

Juli's momentary feeling of reassurance evaporated like a drop of water sizzling under desert sun. This man's manner was one of steely reserve, and Juli knew instantly that an appeal to his sympathies would be useless. She had the unnerving feeling that his appraising look boldly traveling over her classified her as attractive and then dismissed that fact as immaterial to the business at hand. He sat lightly on the arm of an easy chair and flicked open the file folder with a well-shaped hand.

"I have your letter here—" he began.

His voice held a hint of the same contempt his eyes had revealed, and Juli's nervousness suddenly changed to anger. She had made an appointment with the president of the company, and she did not intend to discuss this matter with anyone but the president himself. Certainly not with this man, whose coolly superior manner she found both infuriating and intimidating. She set her coffee cup down and straightened her shoulders.

"I'd rather wait and talk to Mr. Taylor personally," she said, matching his coolness as her blue eyes lifted to meet his gray-green ones defiantly.

He lifted a dark eyebrow. "I
am
Mr. Taylor."

"You are? But I thought—" The dismayed words popped out before Juli could stop them, and her glance flew to the portrait of the silvery-haired gentleman.

His glance followed hers. "My father," he said briefly, "founder of the company. He died of a heart attack about six years ago, just after we moved the plant out here from Phoenix. I am Thorne Taylor, president of Taylor Electronics."

Thorne Taylor. The T. J. Taylor of her letter, who was definitely not the stern but kindly looking gentleman in the photograph. "I'm sorry," Juli began, flustered. "I didn't know—"

"Sorry about my father's death? Or sorry to find that
I
am company president?"

His mocking voice taunted her, flustering her even further. She twisted the strap of her purse nervously and looked away from those disturbing gray-green eyes as she struggled to regain her composure. Why was he doing this? she wondered angrily. Somehow he had managed to put her on the defensive with that unexpected and totally uncalled-for remark. Which was probably exactly what he intended to do, she realized. No wonder David had been so suspicious of him.

Juli took a deep breath. "I'm sorry about your father, of course." Struggling to reverse their positions and put him on the defensive, she added, "It must have been very difficult for you taking over the responsibilities and management of the company when you were so young." She managed to inject a slightly condescending note into her voice, as if she could forgive his behavior because of his youth. A moment later she regretted her remark.

"I don't think you are in any position to make disparaging remarks about
youth
," he said softly as he leaned toward her slightly, his eyes taking in her fair skin and shoulder length, wavy brown hair, which she had long since despaired of ever looking sleek and sophisticated.

"I'm twenty-two!" Juli flared. Then she bit her lip, angry that she was on the defensive again, shouting out her age like some pouting child. She took another deep, shaky breath. This wasn't going the way she had planned at all. She started again. "I made this appointment with you because I am representing my aunt, Katherine Flynn. Her son, David Flynn, was employed by Taylor Electronics until his death a little over two months ago."

Thorne Taylor just sat there eyeing her reflectively, waiting for her to go on. He obviously did not intend to say or do anything to make this interview any easier for her.

"David had been working for you for several years, I believe—"

"Two," he cut in.

Juli ignored the interruption. "David, as head of your research department—"

"David Flynn was not head of the research department at Taylor Electronics," Thorne Taylor said flatly. "That position belongs to Dr. Richard Johnson, who has held it for almost five years."

Juli looked at him with a mixture of doubt and dismay. She was sure Aunt Kate had said David was head of the department. But she must have been mistaken. She tried to keep the discrepancy from disrupting what she wanted to say.

"I'm sure you'll recall that David had a brilliant university record. He also held patents on some improvements he had made in the electronics field." Under Thorne Taylor's steady gaze, Juli's voice wavered lamely. "Some… some tubes or something, I think it was."

Thorne Taylor flipped the file open again. Looking at the top page upside down, Juli recognized the last letter she had written requesting this appointment. His head was down as he studied the letter. His eyelashes, she noted irrelevantly, were the same color as his hair, rich brown glinted with bronze.

"Just what is it you are getting at, Miss Townsend?" Thorne Taylor asked abruptly, his voice almost dangerously polite. He glanced up sharply, catching Juli studying him, and she felt a tinge of pink warm her cheeks.

For a moment the impact of those gray-green eyes sent her carefully planned speech spinning. She clutched at it wildly. "I just wanted—what I mean is—"

She swallowed convulsively and concentrated her gaze on the safety of the walnut paneling on the opposite wall. "My aunt and I happen to know that shortly before his death, David had just discovered or… or invented something of considerable value to the company. He seemed to think—" Juli hesitated, disliking the tentative sound of that. More firmly, she added, "He was certain his invention would be worth a great deal of money. In fact, he was already planning to bring his mother out here to live. Since he is now dead, it would seem only fair that his mother be awarded whatever monetary considerations were involved."

"I see."

Out of the corner of her eyes she saw his head tilt to study the file, and she dared to look at him again. His build, though powerful, was lean and trim, without an ounce of excess fat. He had fine lines radiating from the corners of his eyes like his father, but his had the look of the outdoorsman accustomed to gazing over wide expanses of desert space. This would have been much easier, she thought unhappily, if she really could have talked to the stern but kindly looking elder Mr. Taylor.

"Miss Townsend," Thorne Taylor began, closing the file again, "you should be aware that anything David 'discovered or invented' on company time belongs to the company. I'm sure we have a signed agreement to that effect."

Juli bit her lip. She had wondered about that, too, of course, but David's final letter had been so emphatic in saying that Taylor wouldn't be able to cheat him this time. "I believe David had done something to protect his interests," she finally said hesitantly. "And his mother's," she added.

Thorne Taylor leaned over and pressed a button on the wall. A moment later a tawny-haired young woman about Juli's age appeared carrying a steno notebook.

"Would you get David Flynn's personnel folder for me, please?" he requested. "It is probably in the inactive file by now."

The young woman nodded, her eyes darting curiously to Juli, then returning to Thorne. There was something oddly melting about the way she looked at him, and with sudden intuition Juli suspected the young woman's feelings for her boss were not strictly secretarial. Which wasn't surprising, Juli thought grudgingly. He was attractive. More than attractive, she thought even more reluctantly. He had a certain raw masculinity, a primitive virility that seemed only thinly veiled by the business suit and well-groomed hands and hair. There was a strength and litheness to his movements that suggested power held under taut control, an intensity in those gray-green eyes that hinted at fiery depths of passion under different circumstances.

And that was certainly a strange turn for her thoughts to be taking, Juli thought shakily, suddenly horrified with herself. She had come here to see that justice was done to her Aunt Kate, not to react like some star-struck adolescent to the first attractive man she met, particularly a man whose attraction was so purely and blatantly physical.

"This may take a few minutes," Thorne Taylor said. Dryly, he added, "We keep most of our records on computer, of course. But I presume you'll want to see our agreement with your cousin in his own handwriting."

Juli nodded stiffly.

While they waited for the young woman to return with the personnel file, Thorne Taylor regarded her reflectively. Finally, he asked, "Are you planning to be in Cholla long?"

"Just long enough to pack up David's personal things to take back to his mother, plus arrange to sell his trailer and property here. And get this matter with your company straightened out," she added firmly.

He failed to show any reaction to that comment. "What do you do back in—" He paused, checked the file again. "Back in Ohio?"

"I'm a secretary in the national offices of an insurance company located in our town," she replied.

"On vacation?" he inquired politely.

"My boss was kind enough to give me a leave of absence to take care of these matters for David's mother. She had a stroke a while back and is partially paralyzed on one side."

"How unfortunate." His voice, though unemotional, did sound faintly regretful, and Juli gave him a hopeful sidelong glance.

"You're alone, then?" he added casually.

For a moment Juli wondered if he could have some personal reason for asking that question. Then she scoffed at herself. She was reading too much into a polite inquiry. Thorne Taylor certainly had no
personal
interest in whether or not she was alone.

"Yes, I'm alone. David's mother is unable to travel at present. She has been taking physical therapy treatments and I believe she's improving. Everyone thought she should go to a nursing home, but she's always refused, and somehow she's managed on her own." Juli hesitated. "David was providing most of her financial support. That's why I think she's entitled to whatever David had coming to him."

He nodded, sending Juli's hopes spiraling upward. "I'm sure that's true," he agreed. Then his voice hardened and the gray-green eyes turned steely. "However, so far as I know, David had nothing coming above and beyond his regular salary."

"But his letter said—" Juli broke off, trying to remember David's exact wording. The letter was in her purse and she longed to snatch it out, but she restrained herself. She had decided before coming here that if Taylor Electronics proved balky that the letter might best be saved for showing to an attorney. "David wrote that he definitely had made an important scientific discovery—a 'breakthrough,' I believe he called it."

Just then the young woman returned with the personnel folder. She waited a moment, looking hopeful, but Thorne Taylor dismissed her with a brief nod. He extracted a page from the folder and handed it to Juli. It was, as he had indicated, what appeared to be a completely legal agreement signifying that anything David produced while employed in the research department of Taylor Electronics belonged to the company.

"It's standard procedure," he said briefly. "The company can hardly afford to run a research department for the private benefit of its researchers, although we do have a fairly generous incentive and bonus program for outstanding achievements."

Juli handed the sheet back, feeling slightly bewildered, her eyes not meeting his. Then she remembered another of the arguments she had mustered in case something like this came up. "But I believe there was a well-publicized court case not long ago in which a man was awarded a substantial amount of money from a company which had earlier paid him only a very small sum for an invention he produced while he was working for them."

Thorne Taylor gave her a long, thoughtful look, as if perhaps reassessing her. "You're considering a court case?" he inquired.

Juli lifted her head defiantly. "If necessary," she stated.

But if she thought she had won any victory or pressured him into any concessions, she was wrong.

"Your information about a previous court case may very well be accurate," he agreed coolly. "But a specific invention of proven worth was involved. Just what did David produce that you are trying to tell me is so valuable?"

Juli looked at him in dismay, then glanced away quickly before those gray-green eyes could entrap her. She had been so sure that once she confronted the company with her "knowledge" of David's valuable invention or discovery, they could hardly deny its existence. And yet that appeared to be exactly what Thorne Taylor was doing. He was challenging her to prove David had made some important contribution, to identify his invention—a challenge she was afraid he knew she was unprepared to meet.

Damn David and his secretiveness! she suddenly thought with irrational anger. Why hadn't he explained to his mother what he had invented so they wouldn't be in this awkward position? Why had he been so slyly mysterious? And then she sighed inwardly, guiltily. David probably wasn't being intentionally mysterious or secretive. He had undoubtedly thought that even if he did explain, neither his mother nor Juli had sufficient scientific knowledge or training to understand. And, of course, he certainly hadn't expected to meet his death in a car accident so soon afterward.

Finally, Juli said aloofly, "I imagine, if the case should go to court, that your own company records would reveal David's accomplishments—providing the records are not tampered with, of course."

That statement brought Thorne Taylor to his feet, his face dark with anger, and for one panicky moment Juli thought she had gone too far. His chiseled lips compressed into a thin line, and a muscle jerked along his lean jaw. Juli drew back, blue eyes wide, again aware of that raw, almost primitive masculinity about him that seemed intensified by the surge of anger. She suddenly reached for the coffee cup and took a shaky sip of the now-cold liquid, her eyes meeting his warily over the rim, as if the cup were somehow a protective barrier between them.